Sometime soon

I know, we have been terrible at posting new blogs. We're going to try to post some pictures from our trip to Hawaii and our new house soon. We don't have internet at our house yet, so we have to do it at Kristi's parent's house. Sorry for the long hiatus.

CarolAnn Florek

It is with both sadness and joy that we announce the death of Matt's mom CarolAnn on May 21, 2009. While we feel a huge sense of loss in our lives without her here, we rejoice that her physical battle with breast cancer is over and that she is celebrating in Heaven with her new and perfect body. It is difficult to focus on our grief when we know she has met her Savior Jesus. We can't even imagine how amazing that is...

We've included her obituary from the Minneapolis Start Tribune and a few pictures below.

CarolAnn (Anderson) Florek, 60, of Delano, passed away May 21, 2009, surrounded by family at N. C. Little Memorial Hospice, Edina, MN. Survived by husband of 35 years, Randy; children, Charles (Olivia) and Matthew (Kristi), granddaughter, Charlotte; brother, Craig Anderson (Sue); nieces, Megan and Chelsie. Also to be missed by half-sister, Beverley Schmidt, the children and families of Julian and Beverley Schmidt, formerly of St. Louis Park, MN.

Sweet Victory in Jesus! CarolAnn's spirit now rests with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! CarolAnn served for many years as the office administrator for the Maple Plain Community Church. It was her ministry to support the pastors and to meet the needs of the church family as best she could. CarolAnn loved to study and to teach the Bible, the Holy Word of God, which she made a life long vocation.

A special thank you for the love and care of her prayer partner Naomi, and also all her dear friends at Maple Plain Community Church. We thank Dr. Amy Spomer and all the health care professionals at Methodist Hospital, the Frauenshuh Cancer Center and Park Nicollet Clinic for the compassionate care administered over these past 4+ years, enabling CarolAnn to experience several significant family milestones.

A verse from the Bible that was used at CarolAnn's funeral really describes how she lived each day: Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12

The moment

The doctors are in!

Yesterday we graduated from medical school! It is hard to believe that this day actually came! In some ways it seems like we just started med school, and in other ways it seems like four years was much, much longer! Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are about 30,000 words.

The graduates, pre-ceremony:

Kristi with a bunch of her Duluth med school friends:

Travis, Kristi's brother-in-law, looking handsome in the graduation cap:

The processional of graduates across campus:Here's us, just before we walk across the stage:

Kristi's brother-in-law Travis was a vital player on the team. He was our go-to guy if Charlotte started fussing during the ceremony. He was responsible for removing her from the auditorium if needed. Luckily she was entertained enough to keep quiet the whole time! Here she is stuffing her face full of cheese during this momentous occasion:

It was really windy. Charlotte was not so happy with the windiness:

Like I said, not excited about the wind:

Then mama's cap flew off, and Charlotte looked at the camera and we got a decent picture:

Here's us with Matt's mom and dad:

And now with Kristi's mom and dad:

Charlotte was intrigued by these little chocolate cups filled with chocolate mousse with a raspberry on top:

She loves to dip things:

I'm not sure if this face is showing her love for the raspberry chocolate dessert, or congratulating her mama on finishing medical school:

Either way, she had a good time with her chocolate:

Kristi's sisters Kate (on the left) and Lisa (on the right) and brother-in-law Travis:

Kristi's Grandparents John and Sharon on the left, and Grandma Lois on the right:

Grandpa John is a retired general practice/family doctor, just like what we want to do! (Meaning the family doctor part, not the retired part....)

From the left: Matt's cousins Chelsie and Megan, Aunt Sue and Uncle Craig, and Grandma Eleanor. Matt's parents are in the front.

Matt's Uncle Craig is an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. A lot of Matt's desire to be a doctor came from being around Craig:

Look at those two disgusting lovebirds:

Matt is irresistible in that hat:

We did it!

Party at our house after the ceremony. Here we are opening a few gifts and cards:

One of our gifts was a Duluth pack briefcase for each of us to haul around our piles of work at residency. Charlotte decides it is "heady" (heavy):

Here it is much more fun to sit in:

Matt's cousins Megan (pink shirt) and Chelsie (blue shirt) playing with Charlotte. She loves them:

Here is Kristi's sister Lisa sneaking some "popcorn bars" before the food is served. Lisa, I know you're very happy I included this picture here. But it just serves as a testimony to how good these bars are. We have already finished all of the leftovers and wished there were more. How about it Mom?

Travis and Kristi's sisters Kate and Lisa are stuffed to the brim after tacos and dessert, not to mention the hit of the party, fruit slush, from Matt's parents!

The party's over, and Charlotte is so sad to see her Grandpa Randy leave!

For those of you who made it to the end of this post--Congratulations to you--you did it!

Favorite words

I know a lot of posts have been about language recently, but she seems to just be picking up words left and right and they are so darn cute! Here are some of my favorites.
noo noo = noodle
ah-pane = airplane
howp = help
Peep = Pete, a friend who visited recently
mommy = melon
cuddle = cuddle (tricky, I know)
sheet = sit (sometimes it actually comes out sounding like a naughty word)
shouler (like shoulder, without the d) = stroller
pah-no = piano
me = mirror

She has also recently taken to talking about who goes to the bathroom. So be forewarned, if you use the bathroom and she sees you go in there, she will have to talk about it for a while afterward. "Momma pee...blah blah blah....momma....blah blah blah....pee." And so on.
She is big into stories right now, talking about things that happened. She has an amazing memory for past events. For example, she was re-enacting her puking illness last week by making weird throw-up noises and pointed to the floor where she did most of her puking. That happened over a month ago! And she talks about her favorite dog "Pabo" (real name: Cabo) who came to visit quite a while ago.

We are trying to get her ready to go to Hawaii in May by shifting her sleeping schedule. Hawaii is 4 hours behind MN time (so when it is noon in MN it is 8am in Hawaii), and we really don't want to be getting up at 2:30am when she thinks it is 6:30am. So we are keeping her up later at night, letting her sleep until 8:30 in the morning, and putting her down for her nap at 3pm instead of 1pm. We'll probably keep gradually shifting later and later until we leave, but do we really want to end up keeping her up until midnight?! Probably not. Anyone have good ideas for traveling long distances with a toddler?

Milestone!

Charlotte put two words together today. She said "Hi Daddy!"

It's a beautiful day to play outside!