happiness abounds: november updates

Wow. It's 2012, and we haven't updated in over a month. Sorry! You'd think that life would have calmed down for us (at least that's what we thought) since we haven't really made any friends or gotten involved in anything yet. Turns out we were wrong!

We're going to give our November updates in this post and then tackle all things December later. Hopefully we'll get to talking about 2012 by the time it's 2013.

November was a busy month for us. We got unpacked and as settled as we're going to be until we get a house. We went house hunting and church hunting while meanwhile getting used to the area and adjusting to our new schedules. Overall, we've had some great times together! Here are our long-overdue updates...

Nathan:
Work was still a bit of an intimidation as I tried to learn all the new procedures and software and anatomy while trying to stick to project timelines. But, I am still very happy for the change. So far, I am working on a wire guide that will be used in hip trauma surgeries, a tool for extracting a particular implant from the big toe, and some instrumentation for a new product line that I'd love to talk more about but can't. The change from hips and knees to small bones has been interesting. Many concepts are the same, but the scale is completely different. On the hip and knee side, all instruments were designed robust enough to be used as hammers because we always had surgeons who'd use them as such. On the small bone side, there are threaded holes half a millimeter deep having too little space for even a full revolution of a thread, and there are cannulated drills thin enough to be bent by hand. The scale is completely different, and every tiny bit of material possible must be preserved.

In early December, I attended my first cadaver lab. Before the lab, I got to listen to a surgeon talk through several types of surgeries with other surgeons, and it is a bit mind boggling. After dealing with fractures of just the femur or tibia, now there is rarely a "simple" fracture, and injuries are likely to have compound fractures through several adjacent bones each having it's own set of mobility and stability considerations. After the first couple of minutes, it was actually pretty fun. I was a bit surprised to find out that some of the crazy deformities that I've been seeing in x-rays were not just the worst case surgeries, but they are actually pretty common. Even one of the cadaver feet had a pretty wicked deformity. Then after the lab, we got a lunch catered by On The Border with some of the most massive brownies I've ever had, so it was a good day.

Kristin:
I'm doing good and enjoyed my birthday season!!! (I celebrate my birthday from Thanksgiving until New Year's). This year I turned the Big 3-0. It's crazy to think that I'm that old...I don't feel it!

I've gotten involved in Bible Study Fellowship here, which has been wonderful (it's the only human conversation I get each week besides talking to Nathan and my doctor's office). I'm in my 3rd trimester and finally enjoying cooking again. It's been wonderful to have meals waiting for Nathan when he gets home. See this marbled pumpkin cheesecake I made him?!

I've spent a lot of time working on my dissertation, and made significant progress on chapter 5 (will be finished first week of January). I'm planning to get a running start on chapter 6 (the last one!) before Pebbles gets here.

I've been really fortunate to be able to reconnect with a few college friends living in the area, and I'm really looking forward to the day when we get connected with a new church community. Until then, I couldn't be happier - I chose a great best friend the day I married, and these past few months have given me a wonderful opportunity to grow in my relationship with him.

Pebbles:
Pebbles is growing big and strong (at least judging by how much Kristin's belly moves!). Pebbles enjoys several aerobics hours throughout the day but fortunately lets Kristin get sleep at night. Kristin is finally looking pregnant enough to park in the "expectant mother" parking spots. :)

We're seeing a fantastic midwife at a wonderful clinic here - they are open Christians at the clinic and incredibly supportive of our desires for Pebbles' birth (we'll explain more about this in a later post). Our midwife starts each appointment by asking Kristin what she's been studying in the Bible! So far, we feel very fortunate to have found this clinic and to be working with our midwife. We've finished our birthing classes and are confident as anyone can be about the labor and delivery. We're feeling really overwhelmed at the thought of bringing home a new baby, though. We've got lots of reading and shopping to do before February!

House Hunting:
We enjoyed spending our November weekends going to open houses in the area. This was a good decision on our parts because we really didn't know what we were looking for (or weren't looking for) until we actually started going to visit homes. By our third week of that, we were able to verbalize what we wanted in a home. We found a realtor and narrowed our home search to McKinney and Frisco. Frisco would be awesome because Nathan's commute would be much shorter. You can get more house for your money in McKinney, however, and we're really liked some of the homes we've seen there. We found one home we call "the dream home" simply because it's the first that really captured our attention. It was gorgeous inside, had a lot of architectural interest, and was a place we could see ourselves living in. It's still on the market, but we think we might still be able to find something that would fit a few more of our desires (i.e. den area, bigger yard, etc.). We took December off for holiday travels, but we're excited to resume the house search in January (this time doing private tours with our realtor).

Church Hunting:
Wow. We've been to little bitty churches, mega mega churches, and everything in between! We've realized that we really won't be able to settle on a church home until we settle on a real home, so we've enjoyed just visiting around to different places. Our favorite church experience so far has been Stonebriar Community Church. Nathan picked it out to check out because it was in Frisco and is where Chuck Swindoll preaches (for those who don't know, he's a pretty famous author and has a radio ministry as well). It was absolutely huge - we had to be shuttled in from remote parking! When we got inside, though, we loved it. It was the first big church we've been to where we didn't just feel like spectators. The music was nice, the teaching was awesome, and the church had a nice family feel to it - very multi-generational. We normally wouldn't consider making such a large church our church home, but we've decided to check it out again in January. It's the kind of place that we could see getting involved in.

November Dates:
We took October off for dates since we moved, and we knew we wouldn't be doing dates in December because of all of the holiday travel, so we had to do dates in November! We ended up keeping them pretty low-key since we still weren't all that familiar with the area.

For Kristin's date, she took Nathan to the Olive Garden for dessert. We normally don't get dessert at restaurants, so it was fun to go there and get nothing but plates of sugar. Nathan also tried the wine (something he's been avoiding lately since Kristin can't have it).

The theme of Kristin's date for Nathan was to meet his need for unconditional love and acceptance. We talked about how we could show love to each other, how we recognize that the other loves us, and what we can do to build up safety nets in our marriage now so that we can weather the storms that life will eventually throw us. It was a good and uplifting conversation. And, of course, Nathan loved his desserts.

Nathan's date for Kristin was a trip to a local mall. Kristin loves exploring malls and just window shopping, and this was a mall she had particularly wanted to check out. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it had an ice skating rink!

We've decided that of all of the malls in the area, this one is definitely our favorite (it even tops the Galleria). The mall had a Cheesecake Factory, so we stopped in for a piece of Godiva chocolate cheesecake. It was delicious!

There wasn't a theme to this date - just a night to enjoy each other's company. We briefly drove through a neighborhood known for its Christmas lights on our way home.

Thanksgiving:
It was great to be able to spend Thanksgiving visiting family this year! We headed to Lubbock to visit Kristin's grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Kristin's mom and dad showed up as well, so it was a full house! As usual, we did some Black Friday shopping at the local mall. Although Kristin is normally really excited about going, she wasn't too keen on losing sleep this year. She refused to go to the stores when they opened at midnight and compromised with her mom on a 4am wake-up time.