Taggartopia: Update-O-Rama Part III

Fellows Graduation

Nathan officially graduated from his Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship in June. This year in San Francisco is considered an additional year beyond that of a fellowship (I know you need to be married to a physician to understand all this jargon). Nathan's department has a great tradition of having a fun dinner to celebrate the two fellow who are graduating. Mayo only takes 2 fellows per year. This year it was Nathan and his fellow fellow John who is also staying at Mayo.

This is Dr. Eidem, Nathan's program director who showered both Nathan and John with gifts. The kids kept saying, "Wow, Mom, Dad's getting a lot of presents!"

These next shots are awful because I was the one shooting them and I still don't know how to work our new fancy camera. Dr. Eidem gave Nathan 3 new shirts because he said they always joke about how Nathan wears the same superhero shirt to dinner when they are at outreach clinic.

This one says, "Mr. Miracle" to go along with Nathan's love of superheroes.

This one says "Without Me the Band would Suck" This shirt has a story all it's own. One of the new fellows, Jessica, had a Rockband game and Nathan went to play it several times at her house. They even named their fellow's" band" the "Bare Metal Stents" which is a caridology thing. You'd have to ask Nathan.

The one says, "I want people to be afraid of how much they love me." I guess this one was for Nathan's love of "The Office."

Dr. Eidem also gave Nathan a Michael Scott bobblehead because he thought it fitting that both Michael and Nathan were "retiring" so to speak at the same time.

The remaining fellows gave Nathan and Jon (the other graduating fellow) a few gifts, as well, like the t-shirts above.

Nathan got a special gift to "help him fit in in San Francisco". Unfortunately, it seems as if this gift was accidently left in a box in a Rochester. I'm sure we can go down to the Castro and get another one.

Nathan recewas given the nickname "Dr. Diva" because of his demands in the cath lab--particularly gowns that are long enough and gloves that don't cause his hands to break out. So, fittingly, he was given an extra-long surgical gown with "DIVA" emblazened on the front.

Graduation finished with some rousing music from the Bare Metal Stents with special guests Nate, Haley and Andy.

First Taste of Cereal

Alina had her first taste of baby cereal on June 19th. She seemed to enjoy getting it on her face more than in her mouth. Everytime we'd bring the spoon to her mouth, she thought that both her hand and the spoon should go in. Both of us got pretty messy!

Forget the cereal! I'll just take the yummy baby!

Camp Taggart

The kids wanted to have on last hurrah with their good friends before we left. They decided to do a mock summer camp day. They invited Brett Herbers and Allison Michel who are neighbors and Tessa and Abel Paulsen who are very good friends. The camp started with popsicles and then some slip and slide fun.

Snacktime consisted of roasting mini marshmallows over a construction paper "fire" that Haley just threw together (she's amazing with the arts and crafts).

And what camp day cannot be complete without a craft? The kids spent almost 2 hours doing Shrinky Dinks, thank goodness I had lots of sheets for them to use!

Nate the Great Parties On!

Nate wanted a Pokemon theme for his birthday party. We couldn't find a Pokemon cake, so we had to go with Bakugan, oh well.

While the party guests arrived, the boys made Shrinky Dinks using Pokemon patterns and turning them into key chains. It was quite a hit with the boys! 11 year old boys and Shrinky Dinks? Who knew!

We then played a series of games. I got some ideas off the internet, some I made up, and some I used from "Minute to Win It." The first game the boys had to throw Poker chips colored like Pokemon balls into bowls floating in another bowl of water. It's actually harder than it looks.

Then, using Nerf guns, they shot Pokemon.

The last game, the boys had to shoot rubber bands and try to disconnect the toilet paper from the roll. I had actually seen this done on "Minute to Win It" and thought it looked fun. The boys thought it a totally unfair game because no one could do it. Then Nathan stood up and did it with one shot.

Out With the Old and In With the New

The swingset that we have loved since we moved in 7 years ago was falling apart on us. We were sad to realize that it was no longer safe and didn't want to leave an unsafe play area for the family living in our house while we were away. We found a nice swingset for a great price at Sam's Club. But.....we sure didn't know what we were getting into. It took Nathan 50 plus hours to put the new swingset together. In fact, by the time it was done this is how he felt about it.....

Here is the last picture of our beloved swingset. Our neighbor Brett and Michael are hugging it good-bye. Brett lives across the street and he remembers when the previous owners actually had the swingset built, so he was very sentimental about it's passing. He took a piece of wood from it and had us all sign it. Haley kept a metal link from the swings. Nathan even said, as he was tearing it down, that he was kind of sad to see it go.

I thought we had taken a picture of the playset totally finished, I guess we forgot with all the moving stuff. We'll have to include a finished picture later.