I just realized it's almost July and started hyperventilating. Summer is just so fleeting in Wyoming and I wish the warm weather would stick around for longer than 3 months! At least Jared officially wraps up his intern year as a resident in another week or two. After that he will be a second-year resident and only have to work one 24-hour weekend shift per month!!!!! (for the most part.) We'll have to take full advantage of having weekends more often and get outside. This summer I'd love to visit Devil's Tour, Yellowstone, Sheridan, and maybe the Black Hill Mountains again. Jack's still doing so well on two naps a day. Day trips would be easier if he was down to one nap, but I'm going to hold onto that second nap as looooong as possible. Homeboy is the literal energizer bunny every second he's awake, and I honestly need to have two separate breaks from that during the day.
Over the weekend, Jared's residency program put on their annual campout in the Bighorn Mountains near Buffalo. This is an opportunity for the 8 new interns to get to know the rest of the residents and have some fun bonding experiences. We totally lucked out matching here. The people in Jared's program are wonderful. Jared headed up with some coworkers on Friday evening. Jack and I opted to sleep in our own beds for the night and headed up to meet him on Saturday morning. The temperatures are still freezing at night in the Bighorns this time of year, and there's no way Jack would have slept all night in an open tent.
^^We put in a good fight trying to get him to nap in the tent, but no cigar. This is probably the last picture you'll ever see of this lil' tent of ours. When we lived in Georgia, it accumulated a healthy amount of mold due to the humidity and horrifying thunderstorm we camped in. Then little holes starting popping up in the mesh. And finally, we tried to trap Savvy in here while we ate lunch with everyone over the weekend, but pretty soon the smell of hamburgers was too much for her and she dug her way out of the tent to get to us. Buh-bye tent. It's about time to upgrade to something bigger for our growing family anyway.
Jack and I arrived in the Bighorns just in time to join in on the 2-mile hike to Circle Lake. Jared insisted we bring Savvy since several other resident families brought their dogs. I should've gone with my gut and left her at home. She loved it, but between trying to keep Savvy from eating everyone's food the whole time we were there and trying to keep Jack from jumping into the lake, I wasn't able to get to know any of the new intern families. Next year the doggo will be staying at home.
We did this hike last year too. It's the perfect distance and beautiful. It was hot in Casper when I left, but of course cool up in the mountains when we arrived. Don't know why I didn't think of that. All Jack had to wear was a little short-sleeve romper, so I put him in my jacket and he wore it like a dress all day. Mom of the year over here. When we finished the hike and got back to the campsite, one of the new intern wives took pity on Jack and lent him a little pair of jeans she'd packed for her two-year-old.
The lake may have been freezing, but that didn't stop Savvy from taking a swim. She used to go swimming every week when we lived in Georgia where there were streams and lakes everywhere and it was always warm. In Wyoming, she's lucky if she gets a proper swim twice a year.
I might not have gotten to talk to anyone, but at least Jack and Savvy were in heaven all day. They love nothing more than being outside and having lots of other doggos around to play with.
After the hike, we hung around the campsite for a few more hours, snacking and sitting around the campfire and playing games. Ok, mostly we were just chasing Jack around and trying to keep Savvy from stealing hot dogs from babies. Which she did. Multiple times.
I'm excited to make it to the resident playgroup next week so I can properly get to know the new girls. One of them is a girl whose blog I followed when Jared very first started med school in Grenada 5 years ago. I think her blog was called "student wife" or something like that, and I was stoked to find the blog of another native Utah girl married to a med student, though they were in Washington and we were in the southern Caribbean. It's crazy that it all came full circle and our husbands ended up in the same little family medicine residency program in Wyoming.
And here we are driving home, past Jack's bed time and trying to keep a tantrum at bay by letting him watch cartoons on the way home. Bless you, technology. I will take one zombie baby during long travel days instead of one screaming lunatic. Please and thank you.
