Clinicals and Mom & Dad's visit

October was a very busy month, we can't believe it is already over! School has been very time consuming for Kate (only 5 more weeks in the semester!). The highlight of her month has been clinicals at the hospital. She was working on the mother child floor (postpartum and labor and delivery). She LOVED taking care of the moms and babys, teaching them about how to care for themselves and their baby once they got home, how to breastfeed or bottle feed properly, and doing the assessments of both mom and baby. She also had the opportunity to help with a cesarian and natural labor. It was absolutely amazing!! She was able to first put the foley catheter in the mom and then watched the doctors perform the C-section. Afterwards she was able to help clean the baby, do the newborn shots, do the vitals and help with the weight and height. She stayed with the mom and baby for the first couple hours, helping with first baths and vitals and assessing them. For the natural labor, Kate was there for the couple hours before active labor--so she helped with just assessing mom and doing her vitals and helping her stay comfortable-- and then during active labor she got to get right up close, hold one of the mom's legs, and help her with breathing and pushing. She loved being able to cheer the mom on and encourage her to keep pushing. It was amazing to see and experience this special moment in this young family's life. After the baby was born, Kate again was able to help with the baby shots, vitals, and cleaning of the baby. Kate could definately see herself being an OB nurse if she couldn't get a job as a Pediatric nurse someday. Kate is now starting her primary care rotation this week. So now she will be in a doctor's office for the next four weeks, learning what a nurse does there.

Andrew is doing great too. Work has been busy at the mission the last few weeks since it has started to get cold. He has been enjoying doing a Bible study with the guys in our young married class once a week. We are so glad that God has given us such great, fun, encouraging friends at our church. This past weekend Mom and Dad Dodd came to visit. They came down here for a BBC alumni dinner, which we attended with them. We also celebrated Dad's birthday, which was a few days before they came, with a homemade banana cream pie and a suprise Red Robin lunch. It was a wonderfully fun visit.

Apples Picking and Family Time

This is a bit of a lat update but I could not let time go by without posting a blog about our trip to Detroit a few weeks ago. We headed over to the east side after Andrew got off of work at 11:30 pm and arrived at my parents around 2 am. After a short night's sleep, we got up and spent a great day with my family. We spent the morning hanging out with Dad, Kyle, and Mom. Then we headed over to Kevin and Angela's house. Once there, we got to meet our niece Elizabeth for the first time! She is a beautiful little girl, just a month and half old (when we were there). She has already grown so much in such a short amount of time. Andrew and I loved getting to play with her and spend the morning with Angela and Kevin. Kevin helped us make a DVD about our trip to Bethesda; it turned out really nice.

In the afternoon, Mom, Dad, Kyle, Angela, Kevin, Elizabeth, and the Dodds went apple picking. The Schneider kids grew up going apple picking every year when we were little. And it was the fourth year Andrew and I went together. We are hoping to make it a Dodd family tradition as well :). We picked a whole bushel of apples...which is translated into 6 pies...6 quart size cans of apple sauce...apple crisp...chipmunk pie...and many apples in our lunches....it was A LOT of apples for just the two of us! Afterward, we got some cider and doughnuts and carmel apples...yumm!

In the evening, we celebrated Mom and Dad's anniversary, Kyle's birthday, and Mom's birthday with ice cream cake and pizza and presents and G...its not a party without G! It was a great time for our family to get together and we were so glad to be able to visit!