3 Ball boys & a soon to be Ball

This is my first time blogging so bare with me ha ha...

Here's whats going on with Brandon, Kaleb, Jaxen & Me (Tasia) this week!

The boys brought home these eggs from school which we cracked open and peeled away the top part so a flower is able to grow out of it. They were so excited, Brandon helped them do it and show them how to water them. They both have awhile to go, but here's some pictures just because :)

Picture of them with their eggs and Doopy of course had to be in the picture with them :)

As far as school goes, the boys are loving it and we do they're homework assignments and read to them every night we have them...currently reading Percy Jackson The Battle of the Labyrinth.

As far as whats going on with Brandon....he's been working on both Maxima's now (sadly his current one did overheat while he was at work today) so trying to fix them both...ugh car problems :( 

And as for myself....just trying to stay on top of the laundry and dishes...living with 5 boys is well...messy lol

Exciting part of my week?? Well my birthday is this Saturday, the 4th....getting older but i only have a ton of things to look forward to!

Prettiest Baby Ever

For more pictures of beautiful Miss Molly, you can go to my blog!

http://hawshousehold.blogspot.com

It starts...

Hey everyone, I know Lindsay has kept most of you up to date about the goings on down here in Miami, but I thought you might like to hear things about medical school and such from me as well! 


So far I have been LOVING the school. Miami seems to have a lot of great things going on here and I am constantly thinking of how this expereince (while rough at times with things like our terrible rent and being away from family) is going to ultimately make me a better physician.

 So during the summer I took three classes, intro to public health, epidemiology, and biostats. Some things I liked about those classes and some I did not but the overall expereince I had was a positive one. The summer courses focused on educating us on where medicine and public health relate and where they diverge. One thing we spent considerable time doing was learning about public health research and how to effectively critique and interpret results of research. The whole medical profession is moving towards "evidence based medicine". Basically the concept of practicing screenings and interventions that have been shown to have the largest health impact. Focusing on theses areas of practice help drive down medical costs and assist healthcare in general run more efficiently. This probably sounds very intuitive but in the real world public health and medicine (i.e. the one on one doctor patient relationship) dont always get along. For example lots of public health research is coming out saying that invasive pelvic exams (not the pap smear just the pelvic exam) are actually not needed in asymptomatic patients because they rarely find anything useful. So a natural step is to say "hey docs stop performing pelvic exams, you are wasting resources (gloves, instuments etc) and taking up time you can be seeing other patients" both of which cost money that the patient ultimately has to cough up. In contrast physicians all have experiences where an asymptomatic patient was given a pelvic exam and something non-benign came up. So naturally the docs say "I am not going to put my patients at risk by not performing something as simple/easy as a pelvic exam". So who's right? Ultimately we need to drive down costs and the numbers are supportive of discontinuing pelvic exams, but a doctor doesnt care about numbers his patients are people to him. Thus comes the interesting dichotomy into which UM's MD/MPH program fits. They openly discuss these problems with us and often times told us we have to learn to "wear two hats". One hat is as a physician where we are focused and responsible for our patient, the other hat we wear is the public health hat where we analyze systems, practices and policies to ensure the greatest benefit comes to our communities. Anyway, enough propoganda about that for now. As you can see though I am already appreciating the unique education I am getting and it's exciting!!


 So I'll give you a walk through of a typical day for me right now. I'll try to get some pictures on here now and again, but I dont have any I have taken right now so I grabbed this one from google.

So everyday I jump on this little puppy and make my way to school. Its called the Miami Metrorail and where we live is about 5 blocks from the southern most station the metrorail stops at. The train ride takes about 30mins so I usually listen to music, an audiobook or go through flashcards (especially when we have an exam coming up).


 Lately I have been going to the gym before class with a first year student in the regular MD track who went to BYU. We just met up after starting school down here, his name is Brent and we have become pretty good friends. Class typically starts at 8am, so this means I usually get up at 5am, bike to the metrorail and ride the train to campus. I usually get there at about 6:30am and we exercise till 7:30. I then shower and go to class which usually goes till about 3pm. Then its study for an hour and go home for dinner at 5pm. After getting the kids down I try to help Lindsay with the dishes and clean-up before heading back out to study on the undergrad campus which is closer to our house than the medical campus. Lindsay has posted some pictures on the blog of the undergrad but I will post this one of the library where I usually spend my time in the evenings.

I usually study till about 10pm, then come home get ready for bed and crash at about 11pm. Thats really about it. Its pretty much the same most days with a little fluctuation here and there depending on my schedule.


 We have obviously started the regular MD classes now so no more MPH curriculum till next summer but we have plenty to keep us busy! Right now we are covering gross anatomy, histology, biochemistry, embryology, and cell biology. We took our first test on Monday... I passed but it was tough! I am hoping to do better in the future. Many people are saying all you have to do is pass because residencies and board scores dont require anything else but I want to make sure I am learning the material as best I can! So we shall see. Which brings me back to reality, I should really get back to studying!!


 Love you all!!! I miss you TONS!
 -Ster

Hagnt

The random adventures of a kidless life

There is a little race car track out in Tooele that we decided to try out. I think it is Larry H. Miller or something like that.  It was kind of scary! The gocarts can go up to 40 mph. Cade got the fastest time in our category of like 40 seconds to go around. He went around 13 times and I went around 8 in the same amount of time HAHAHA! I was being cautious, I kept feeling like I was going to flip on the corners.  It was fun though, I learned that I am no longer the risk taker I used to be.. Its just not worth it!

There were no medium sized helmets left so i had to wear a small.. notice my squished cheeks haha

 A fews ago we realized we didn't take the boat out at all this year, which was extremely depressing.. dang you nursing school! So we decided to! We took one of Cades best friends and my best friend from Nursing School (I was secretly hoping they would fall deeply in love and get married so we can all hang out together for the rest of our lives:) It was fun, we went to Jordanelle. The only problem was we forgot the plug for the tube! haha oops! So we ended up fishing most of the time.  However it was kind of lucky that we forgot it because the water was FREEZING!

Julie and I. We met while working on pre-reqs for nursing school (in biochem). Luckily we were both accepted to nursing school and now we get to hang out all the time at school! I adore her.

I refused to only fish so I made everyone jump in.. it took my breath away it was so cold!

I know.. we are going to have amazingly gorgeous children:)

 In other news.. I have gotten back into moccasin making a little bit. My sister in law was having family pictures taken and asked if I would make her daughter some for that (she just turned one). These are the ones I made. They are no "freshly picked" (which is the name brand moccs that are everywhere, she sells them for $60!) But I think mine are still pretty cute:) Lindsay, if you would put any of your children in these let me know and I can make some for you guys! I've been wanting to ship a package anyway so I could include some. Other than the pictures I have blue, silver, gold, and black leather.

I made these for the family pictures

Once I got started I couldn't stop:) the mustard doesn't have the fringe cut obviously..

That's it for me! Cade has his first round of exams this week (I do too but I'm not worried, mine is just pathophysiology stuff that I understand pretty well) he has been studying a lot, I hope he does well.  His company is also going live this week and will financing their first loan so lots of exciting things are happening! I love you all and hope everyone is enjoying the most wonderful month of the year!

Sterling is an old man!

We had a birthday at our house, so I thought I'd post some pictures! Thanks SO much for the present, Mom, Sterling LOVED it! (I'm going to steal the Screwtape Letters to read for myself!)

He got his shirt and hat for his birthday!

 I made coffee cake for the very first time and it actually turned out pretty well. I had forgotten to make the coconut cake the day before (oops) so I was trying to think of something that wasn't chocolate. Sterling said it was good, so I guess it worked! He also had enchiladas, so he was happy.

Update on Mar

Hey guys, just giving an update on what's going on with me. I'm in my 4th week of classes at WSU and I've been enjoying them all quite a bit. On MWF I have two philosophy classes: Philosophy of Western Religions, and Aesthetics. Those two are my favorite classes. On Tues/Thurs I have a couple music classes. One is a music theory fundamentals class and it's probably below my level really, it's very easy. The other is an introductory class to the music program where they just give you advice about how to pursue a career in music and they teach you some basic info about the services available on campus. It's also really easy, but pretty cool. On Saturdays I have an introductory piano class where I basically get to choose whatever I want to do to improve my piano skills and we just play around on these nice electronic keyboards that they have. That class is really easy too, and since I love my philosophy classes everything is easy, so it's quite nice. :)

One thing that is quite new to me that I've already mentioned to Sterling, Cindy, and Bridget is my growing belief in God. I did not expect that to happen; I figured that I'd stay agnostic my whole life, but I've had some interesting experiences recently that have compelled me to think God is real. When I say God, I don't really mean the traditional Christian idea of God though. I've been feeling like God manifests himself to people in a way that is unique to each person. I still don't believe in any particular religion either, but I tend to think of religions as devices that were created by men and provide one means of developing a relationship with God. I have heard eastern religious people explain God metaphorically as the summit of a mountain to which many different paths lead, and I like that idea. I've gotten impressions before that God is the sun, God is the cosmos, God is love, God is male or female, or neither, and a bunch of other things, and for now I'm tending to think that "He" is nameless. It seems like God may be everything and presents different aspects of "Himself" to people depending on what that person is capable of believing and what message he is trying to teach you. I feel like I've received a lot of messages from Him which I don't always understand, but there seem to be some common themes that keep coming up. I've gotten the impression that everything can be understood as an energy or a force (kinda like Star Wars haha), and what is perceived as being bad is a resistance occurring in that force. I think that any specific thing that someone might think is good is completely relative and we get to choose what we think is good, but the bad things are the things that we resist and they are the conflicts that arise between forces.

I'm starting to think that everything is literally one thing and the distinctions that we see between things are just an illusion. We are constantly taking in things from our environment: air, food, water, and those things are becoming us. At the same time, we expel waste, sweat out water, hair falls out, skin falls off, etc, and as this happens parts of us are returning to the environment. The only reason why we think that things are distinct from each other is because there is a temporal consistency to them, but everything is constantly changing into everything else. I think that it is important to be grateful for our existence as it is a gift that is completely derived from everything around us. What I am myself is completely dependent upon and caused by everything else around me. Perhaps the idea of individuality is itself an illusion. Anyway, this all might be a bit deep for you guys and I'm still trying to figure out what's going on and what I believe, but this has definitely been the foremost thing on my mind so I wanted to share it with you all. I love you guys. :)

The Haws +3

We're slowly adjusting to having three kids. And having Sterling in med school. It is an adjustment, that's for sure, but we're getting there! Plus, our kids are the most adorable ever so that helps, haha!

Will has on a batman cape, just to clarify.

Seriously, this kid cracks me up and makes me crazy. All the time. Love him.

Five things we've been up to:
1-A playgroup has been started with all the new move-ins (aka wives of students going to U of M) and there are about four new people I've met that are from similar background, speak english, and have kids my age...YAY! I can actually relate to someone here! So that's been my biggest, happiest news. We're all so excited about having friends we've gotten together about four times already, haha. The park, the zoo, the library, you name it!
2-Sterling has started working on his own cadaver. He likes it.
3-Sterling has made an friend with the only other LDS guy in his year (but not his program) and they have started going to the gym together every single morning at 6:30am (so he gets up at 5:30am) and he is loving it.
4-When Will wears his Batman cape Ruthie calls him 'Captain'.
5-It's still torrentially raining here on a regular basis (hurricane season doesn't end until the first part of October) but the temps have dropped from 98 degrees with 80% humidity to about 90 degrees with the same humidity. It feels heavenly. Still incredibly hot, but SO much better.

For those who'd like, I just posted on our blog, find it here: hawshousehold.blogspot.com

Ethan's The Man!

Ethan was the star of his team this weekend. He dribbled the ball all the way down the field and passed it to someone who made the first goal.  Later he  made the second goal.  Final score was 2 to 1.

Haws Family Update

I'm excited about this blog too! I'm excited to be able to see everyone's updates and photos since we are so far away! We have been busy with a new babe, so I'll post a few pictures of what we've been up to and then inundate this blog with Molly---haha! First off, we blessed Molly and she looked absolutely gorgeous in her long, beautiful dress. There was a collective "awwww" that was so loud when Sterling held her up at the end!

Sterling has been around a lot lately (that ends on Tuesday when he officially starts his MD classes), especially this weekend, so we took full advantage and tried to enjoy that to the fullest! We took the kids swimming twice in our pool and Sterling was super impressed with how much they've learned and how great they do in the water.

 Molly is beautiful and we all love her. The kids love her SO much I spend most of my time telling them to be soft and leave the baby alone. Haha. 

I had to post this picture, look at Molly's bug eyes! HAAAHAAAHAA!

With Sterling's free weekend we also went and flew kites at this park on Miami Beach. Ruthie thought it was the greatest thing ever!

The rest are just pictures I took before church yesterday. 

Sisters. 

I can't believe I have three kids!

I have pictures of me and Ruthie in this dress.

Proud papa.

Sterling keeps saying she looks SO much like me. I still think she's a pretty good mix.

Sterling has been in an intro to the medical profession class for the past three weeks and it has been pretty low-stress. Zero homework. Which worked out nicely with having a new baby. But tomorrow he starts all his hard classes and we'll probably start feeling like he really is in medical school, he's excited! I put on our ward website that I'd like to teach piano starting October 1st and have had WAY too many responses (I only wanted four students or so) so we'll so how that goes and hopefully we'll have a little extra spending money. Ruthie is the greatest helper although definitely into 3 yr old tantrums and Will is starting to talk/grunt/communicate like crazy and its the cutest. We have a ward playgroup that meets every Tuesday, I haven't gone yet because Molly is so little but I am excited for the kids to have someone to play with. I also take them to story time at the library every Monday and it's one of the highlights of their week. We have been swimming in our pool like crazy this summer (Miami is HOT!) and we are excited for the weather to cool down so we can go to the zoo and some parks more often (I feel like its too hot to take Molly out in that heat yet). All in all, life is good!