The Olson Family

 

We played every day in the snow. Eagle Valley is great for that. There is a perfect sledding hill next to Kevin’s parent’s house, a big empty field across the street to pull the inner tube behind a 4-wheeler, and hardly anyone drives in the street so we can play there too. Dylan was a brave little man and loved to sled. He would go face first even and never held on to the sides. He thought every time it was “his” turn but let others try it out too. Kevin’s parents bought a power-wheels but it didn’t work very well in the snow. Dylan can’t wait to try it out when all the snow is gone. You can click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want.

We all had a lot of fun this Christmas. Monday night we opened presents with the Kanet side of the family since we were going to be in Eagle Valley for Christmas.


Christmas morning was great!! Dylan was so excited that Santa ate the treat and drank the milk that he left for him. He loved opening the presents and helped just about everyone else open some of their presents too. Drew thought the wrapping paper tasted great. Our kids are so spoiled!!




We got to stay a few days in Eagle Valley too and play. Drew sure did like his cousin Lucas and they shared their toys with each other all week. Dylan got some cool Batman and Superman pajamas and he thought it was fun to wear both at the same time so he could be super-batman. Dylan also made his 1st gingerbread house.(mom thought it was fun too)







We are so blessed and had a great Christmas. Thank you so much to everyone. We are all spoiled more than we deserve!

Here are Drew’s 7 month old pictures. He was in such a good mood when we took them!! He sits so well and wants to do it pretty much all day long. He loves to eat finger foods and is surprisingly good at using his little fingers. Feeding him baby food is a little more challenging but we get the job done. I have to put a cracker in his hands so he will leave the spoon alone. He is such a good baby and we just love having him around.

Kevin is done with his interviews for his pediatric residency program and we are waiting until January 26th to find out where he will match to and where we wll move to in June. He ranks the programs from 1-7 in order of where he would like to go as each school ranks their favorite applicants. Then the “magic computer” (Kevin thinks it was developed by e-harmony.com) will match us to a program. Some things we had to consider in ranking the programs were pay, weather, cost of living, amount of on-call time, and the quality of the program. Make sure look into your crystal ball and then take our poll to pick where you think Kevin will get matched to. And the nominees in alphabetical order are:
Cincinnati, Ohio
Dallas, Texas
Kansas City, Missouri
Omaha, Nebraska
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Rochester, New York
Washington D.C.

It only took the 3rd time seeing Santa to get Dylan to sit on his lap. We practiced what he was going to tell Santa all week and Dylan was pretty excited. Once Santa came arrived Dylan was acting shy but he did sit on Santa’s lap. He wouldn’t say anything, just smile. We were pretty proud of him. Drew thought Santa’s beard was neat but he didn’t tell Santa what he wanted either. Hopefully, Santa will bring them a present. 🙂

Hey, some of my friends and I have started a recipe blog so check it out if you like!!

http://www.goodlookincooks.blogspot.com

So I was watching the news and they showed how much it was snowing over on the West side of Las Vegas. Dylan was so excited so we jumped in the car and started driving. Luckily we just bought one of those car gps navigators so I picked a park and it ended up being a great one. I was surprised at how much snow there was and fondly remembered living in Reno and the snow we would play in up there. Dylan loved to make footsteps in the snow and of course throwing “snowballs” at me. If we are lucky there will be lots of snow in Eagle Valley to play with next week for Christmas.

Kevin wrote our Christmas Letter again this year, which I am grateful for. And we thought we would share it with everyone as we could not send out cards to everyone. We do love you all though!!

Ten things we have discovered are not true

10. Bed-rest is like a vacation.
Teah was placed on bed-rest in the early part of the year because of some complications with her pregnancy of Drew. Kevin had to do all the chores at home, and still do well in school. Teah went stir-crazy, and longed for a Grab-O-Matic 6000 to help her reach stuff.

9. Spray guns are only good for disciplining naughty kittens.
While on bed-rest Teah was frustrated because Dylan ran amuck all day long. She then discovered that she could bend him to her will with the threat of, and occasional use of a spray or two from a water bottle.

8. The fourth year of dental school is the easiest.
While there may be less (not no) studying, it is far and away the most stressful year of dental school. Most of Kevin’s time is spent preparing for Boards part II (a 12 hour over two days written test), the written portion of the licensing boards (a 4-6 hour written test), the typodont portion of the licensing boards (a 7 hour clinical test on plastic teeth in a manikin), and the patient portion of the licensing boards (a 9 hour clinical test on live patients to be done in February). There is also the matter of graduating from school.

7. The Dental School wants to help you graduate.
While there may be individuals at the school who seem to think that is a good idea, the institution itself is at best indifferent to the plight of its students. If some conspiracy theories are true, then the school’s plan to alleviate the budget shortfall is to prevent as many students as possible from graduating, thereby ensuring more income from tuition, as well as more production from the competency-bound in-dentured  servants they have maintained. (Competencies are the clinical tests that must be passed in order to graduate, and each year since the school was founded they have increased the number, as well as the difficulty of the competencies.)

6. Having two boys means constant fighting.
They are both still little, so the fight potential is still there, but both the boys love each other and they get along great. Dylan thinks it is great fun to talk to Drew and
likes to get him toys. Drew just loves to watch Dylan as he plays. They also sometimes strategically coordinate screaming sessions to see if they can get under momma’s skin. (They can.)

5. Doing a post-grad residency is a good idea.
Early in dental school Kevin decided he wanted to specialize in pediatric dentistry. While that may still be a good idea, the way to get there, a residency, seems less like a good idea and more like a Nigerian investment opportunity. After sinking approximately $37million into application fees and airline tickets and hotels, missing a ton of clinic time (thus being behind in competencies – see #7), and spending countless hours in airports Kevin is now finally done with interviews and we are waiting for the match day, January 26, to find out where we are going to spend the next 2 years.

4. Cutting back on work hours will make you miss working.
Teah is now working one day per week, and she feels that that is far too much, even though before she went on bed-rest she worked two days per week. Somehow the cutback has caused her to look forward to retiring soon. If her retirement strategy comes to fruition this will be us in about 5 years.

3. Five years is a long time.
Kevin and Teah have been married for five years now, and while at times it seems more like 5 years in Guantanamo, for the most part it has flown by. It doesn’t seem like that long ago we got married, and now we have two great boys and couldn’t be happier. Hopefully the next five years are as blessed.

2. We could never love anyone as much as we love Dylan.
Having Drew has brought even more love into our home. He is a great baby and we are so happy to have him, as well as Dylan. We love them both so much, screaming and all.

1. It’s a hard knocks life.
It’s a wonderful life is a better way to put it. We are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. Even when life gets hectic we have so many things to be grateful for. Life is great and we look forward to the many adventures that 2009 will bring.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas!!
Kevin, Teah, Dylan & Drew Olson

Dylan peed his pants when I took the boys to my work Christmas party. Of course I wasn’t prepared and didn’t have a change of clothes for Dylan. Luckily Drew’s pants fit Dylan. They looked a little funny but he has such a skinny bum that it worked.

Drew is loving to eat real food especially melon. He slurps it down like there is no tomorrow. His first tooth has broke through so soon we’ll be able to start giving him more food. Kevin thinks it’s lots of fun to watch him mash pieces of cracker and such.




At Thanksgiving time when all of the Kanet were together we took family pictures. Now we just need to take some with the Olson family.

We went to Boulder City with lots of my family to ride the Santa Train. Dylan thinks trains are the coolest thing right now so we thought he would really enjoy it. He is so funny because he was scared to get close to the trains. Just now he got really excited as I showed him all the pictures we took and he said how fun it was to go. Santa was on the train but of course Dylan was too shy to get close to him either. He is such a silly boy!!