Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

I am finally getting caught up with the photos on my camera. We had a small party for Judah's birthday with a few friends from church at our favorite park . Here are some highlights: Rock Climbing. Swinging. Food. Presents!! Cupcakes! More rock climbing. Playing with friends!

I know I've mentioned the Observatory before, but this is a great LA sight that is free, educational, and beautiful. It's located in Griffith Park, a huge park with tons of hiking trails, a golf course, the zoo, and various other fun things, which all probably deserve their own post. The Observatory is a great destination all by itself, even if you don't have time for any of the other park activities.Firstly, you get great views both of the Hollywood Sign and downtown LA:   The inside has tons of cool astronomy exhibits about eclipses, tides, planets, and this very cool Tesla Coil , which they fire up every few minutes.  Judah's favorite part is this huge pendulum that knocks over these little sticks to tell the time. Although it's not open all the time, frequently they have huge telescope set up to look at something cool. When we went last summer, we got to see Venus.   Check it out!

1. We have a tradition of all saying what we are thankful for before we pray for our dinner. A few days ago, Jeff told Judah he was thankful for his dinner. Judah's response: "Dad, you have to be thankful for something real . No one's thankful for dinnner." I'm guessing he is not impressed with my cooking. 2. Although Naomi is nearly weaned, we still nurse about once a day, just before bed, although I can tell my supply is nearly gone. The word Naomi uses for "milk" sounds exactly like the word she uses for "moo." So when she wants to nurse, she will tug at my shirt and moo. As if I needed to feel more like a cow. 3. We leave in less than a week to head back to SC for my little brother's graduation. I'm so excited about seeing my family and hanging out at the beach I can hardly wait. 4. I have a ton of photos I need to take off the camera. Maybe when I do I can post a few here. 5. Last week I got to do another delivery (Yay!)...

The biggest news at the Tell House lately is that we finally closed on our SC house. This is a huge answer to prayer, obviously, since paying both the mortgage on our house and our rent here in CA is no fun, and has made for some added stress. And yet, I found myself a little sad. I loved that house. Our first house - the house where we brought home our babies, and lived through 6 years of the joys and sorrows of residency and married life. I think, too, that part of me had this thought that if things didn't work out here, we had this safety net of a home to go back to. And now that's gone. And even though I know God has called us here, the thought of not really having something to fall back on is a little terrifying. Goodbye, Oak Ridge Drive. We'll miss you. I guess now I really need to make a new blog title.

I have been working as a doctor for almost 7 years now. I have been present during lots of beautiful moments and lots of tough ones. I have delivered babies, pronounced death, and given lots and lots of difficult news. I'm not sure I ever was closer to crying while seeing a patient than during rounds on Friday. I have spent most of my time since graduation practicing as a hospital physician. I rarely feel like I have a lot in common with my patients since most hospitalized patients are fairly old. In some of them, I might see my grandparents, or my parents, or even what I might be like in another 30 years, but I cannot always see my present self. But she was different. My patient was a beautiful woman, almost my same age, with an adorable 10-month old daughter. I knew her daughter was beautiful because she proudly showed me pictures on her phone as we were discussing how she felt and when she might get to go home. She asked that I speak with her husband, who clearly adored ...

I decided I'm going to do a little ongoing series about fun and free LA activities. LA is an expensive place to live but there are some great things to do that don't cost anything. I've already mentioned a few of them. (Mostly I'm looking at you, Science Center .) I'm not sure how frequently I'll do these, but we'll see how it goes. One of our recent free finds is the Santa Susanna Train Museum and adjacent park. It's not technically in LA, I guess, but right next door in Simi Valley. Since we live about 3 freeway exits away, it's definitely close enough for us. It's an old railroad station that was moved and turned into a small train museum and model train display. The museum only has a couple of rooms but you can blow a train whistle, play with a telegraph and teletype machine and see old train-related paraphernalia. And get a sticker, which is a big hit with the 4 year old crowd. The highlight for us is definitely the very large model rail...

Judah just had his fourth birthday. It's hard to believe that just four years ago, after one of the longest and toughest days we welcomed that little guy into our family. He's not nearly so little now, full of thoughts and ideas and questions (and questions!) and funny and smart and sweet. He challenges me and most days I feel like I'm failing him. Thankfully I serve a God who doesn't. Motherhood is teaching me to pray. The birthday boy requested oatmeal for his birthday breakfast. No lie. I did serve him the tastiest baked oatmeal and put sprinkles on top so it wouldn't be boring.  After I picked him up from school we had a fun trip to the playground in his new four year old t-shirt. With Rockets. (You can see his one year shirt here , his two year shirt here , and I can't find a good link to his three year shirt.But it had a "3" on it in Thomas fabric.)  (She's getting cute. I know this is a post about my 4-year-old, but I couldn...

I finally broke through the post-Christmas sewing burnout in time to make Naomi a little backpack. We have a friend babysit the kids on thursday morning while I'm at work, and now Naomi has a cute little bag we can pack with a few diapers and a water bottle for the trip. I again used the Toddler backpack pattern from Made by Rae . I love everything about how this turned out and especially the fact that everything used was already in my stash. I only had an invisible zipper that was long enough, so that's what I used. I still have some leftover white fabric - maybe enough to make a little skirt. I think it's the piping that really makes this backpack look so nice. It's not hard to add but can turn a sort of ho-hum project into one that looks really sharp. Is that weird to have a skirt that matches your backpack? Either way it would be adorable. The lining came out very cute, too. I love how girly this backpack is without being pink. Not that there is anythin...

1. Naomi's language abilities are really starting to take off. My two favorite things: she has started to say "Hi!" a lot and expect you to say it back to her. And anytime she seems a picture of a duck she says "qua-qua". Adorable. 2. You should all seriously read this post , written by a friend from Greenwood where she talks about having her daughter who she was surprised to discover had Down Syndrome. You will be blessed. 3. I have loved reading Ali's African Adventures for several years. She is a pediatric nurse serving on Mercy Ships. She recently got a devastating diagnosis for her unborn son, Ethan. Please go read and pray for baby Ethan and his Mama and Daddy. 4. I've decided that I've been going through sort of a dry spell lately, especially as it comes to writing. I love writing. I miss writing. But every time I sit down to write, the words just don't come. So as much as I'd like to get back to regular writing about things oth...

We had a great visit with Jeff's mom and drove down to the Long Beach Aquarium while she was here. I always love aquariums, and this one was no exception. One of my favorite parts? The Chambered Nautilus! I have never actually seen one of these swimming around, but it looked like something out of a deep space alien movie. I guess I assumed they moved more like a snail, with the shell on top and so was surprised to see the shell in front. Judah's favorite part was the outdoor play area complete with water spraying animals. There were also penguins and seals, and my other favorite, jelly fish. I think I could watch these guys swim around for a long time. The reef exhibit looked just like the scenery in Finding Nemo. After the aquarium, we came back and played outside for a bit. Naomi is really getting into holding and picking flowers, which is extra cute.

I have been very jealous of all the snow pictures I've been seeing on Facebook. I know that those who have been pounded with snow would be jealous of the beautiful LA weather we've had, but I would have loved to be in SC for the big snow storms they got. Instead, I had to settle for rain. The way the weather people talked about this rain storm reminded me a lot of how snow storms are talked about in the South. It did rain intermittently for 3 days, which is definitely the most rain we've seen since moving here, though in my mind it's still hard to understand why there was so much fuss. We made the most of it by going out and playing.  Obviously, it wasn't that cold - Naomi's flip flops are a testament to the mildness of the weather.  The most fun thing we did was play a game Judah called "River" - a game in which I made tiny boats out of aluminum foil that we then launched down the run-off from the rain. And of course, after p...