4th of July Celebrations

This 4th of July was so much fun. Its always been one of my favorite days of the year. There is something about it, the same kind of magic Christmas brings. That feel good feeling you get when someone sings that National Anthem or a parade of soldiers marches down the city street presenting the American flag.  Thank you to the armed forces and the many who have given their lives and freedoms to protect this land. 

We started the morning with our Church's Pancake Breakfast and flag raising. Beautiful morning! 

We then escaped to Ensign Ranch with good friends and hit up the giant slip n' slide, horseback riding, canoeing, camp food, and fireworks.  All and all a perfect day! 

We are proud to be American! 

Nicaragua Trip with the Glabal Medical Brigades and the Universit of Washington's School of Pharacy

Early in the school year, Cameron filled one of the leadership positions for the School of Pharmacy's Global Medical Brigade; a group of 40 or so students who would fund raise and collect drugs to take to a country that could benefit from the supplies and volunteers. Nicaragua was set as this year's trip. I begged him to try and keep a foot in the door for me. And it all worked out. They were thrilled to have someone come help in the clinic with a little more clinical experience then themselves as pharmacy students, and to help teach the education classes, and interpret.... well at least they pretended to be! ;-)

So Cam and I got to tackle this adventure together! It was an incredible experience to do side by side. I was really surprised how well I was able to use my Spanish, and it felt so good to immerse myself again in another culture and just absorb as much as I possible could. Cameron and the pharmacy students did an outstanding job running the pharmacy portion of our little clinic. We had three pharmacists accompany us who worked the pharmacy as well, along with native interpreters and a local Nicaraguan pharmacists.  Cameron's professor also spear headed the group, along with his wife, a physical therapist and two physicians from the Seattle area. I worked mostly triage and wound care and helped out in the children's health education "classes".

Each of us traveled with one personal suitcase and a second LARGE suitcase full of medications and medical supplies. It was INCREDIBLE what was all donated and purchased with donated funds. Thousands and thousands of dollars of medications. We were able to see almost 1,000 patients in our 3 days of clinic work. And I was really impressed with the addition of a physical therapist to our group. She was able to show so many people different stretches and exercises to help them reduce chronic pain due to repetitive work in the fields, over floor fire places, ext.... That and the addition of some of the health education classes were a nice addition to the "simple" diagnose and prescribe side of the clinic. It was a very humble area and people and they were so grateful for the medication. So many were affected with parasites and other health burdens that made life difficult and at times unbearable. I learned a great deal from just one of their simple smiles. The village put together a little fiesta our last day of clinic that I will always remember.  And the best part too, is that Cameron and I share that memory.

Summer's round the courner.. I can practically smell it!

5 K, Cinco de mayo, Harry Potter, Phi Lambda Sigma (National's Honor Society),  Zoo,  Rho CHi, Sick baby, Mud Run, Beach trip and Harp lessons .... Our way of keeping busy.

Pictures from our 5K Cinco de Mayo run...

Followed up by giant "baby" burritos...mmm.. yummy! 

Cameron has done an outstanding job in his classes. He works so hard to get excellent grades and tries hard to involve himself in his school community and the pharmacy community. I can't believe we are half way done with grad school ! Woo hoo! 

 I am so proud of him. We got to celebrate his initiation into two different societies this spring for both his good grades and his leadership involvement at U of W's School of Pharmacy program.  Both with delicious dinners! Congrats Cam! 

Parks and beaches - we love living in Seattle ! 

Singing in the rain :) 

Laila had her first really good cold this year, followed by a pretty intense double ear infection. Couple weeks of antibiotics and lots of Elmo and snuggle time and we are a new person! This picture captured it all. She looks just miserable! :( 

Mud Run! I have always wanted to do one of these, so Ash and I went for it together.  Now I can check it off the list, with hopefully more to come. Any reason to crawl in the mud! Reminds me of soccer practice! We used to look for the muddiest puddles to dive into. 

For one of your Young Women activities we had a night of music. Learning to lead music and play the harp, even Laila got to participate. 

We finished off the spring with a crazy weekend trip to Utah to make it to Alissa's Harry Potter party - we didn't want to miss it! There's always too much time between our Utah trips, so any excuse we can make up to go , we go! Laila made a perfect Dobby !