Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa.

The trip out west:

We were sad leaving Milwaukee and all our good friends but we were excited and nervous about starting over in California. The roadtrip was a challenge to say the least, luckily my dad volunteered to drive the truck to St. George for us so that Patrick could drive with me and the girls. The trip started out awful it took us almost 3 hours to get to Madison, which generally takes us less than an hour to get to, but after that...things went more smoothly.

Patrick really wanted to visit the field of dreams, so we took a little detour to see it. It was a great stop because the kids were able to run around for a while.

 Becca, was by far the hardest one of the trip. She needed constant entertaining. She would watch a show with Natalie for about 10 minutes and then she would get bored. So we decided to kick her to the very back with Natalie, so she could bug her instead of us. Oh, and did she ever bug Natalie. She would to anything and everything she could to make Natalie scream.

 Kelsie was great, she would wake up every 3-4 hours to eat and then she was good to go...by far the easiest of the trip.

We stopped in Parker, CO to visit and stay with Patrick's Grandma for a night. It was my birthday and she took us to a mexican restaurant that was really good. However, with 3 kids who had just been in the car all day, it was a little insane.

 Patrick's Grandma meeting Kelsie for the first time.

Natalie loves grandma Mimi, and is always a big helper

We stopped off in Vail to let the kids run around a little.

 A really cool pirate park in Vail.

 The best part of the drive when they were asleep, of course it was always when I was driving so Patrick also got to sleep.

 We stopped off in St. George for a couple days to hang with my family and go boating, before making the last leg of our journey.

We finally made it to California. We have loved living here and the weather has been awesome. More updates to come on California.

Dr. Leiter

Back in May Patrick graduated from Medical College of Wisconsin!  We are so proud of him and his accomplishments.  Honestly, I can't believe how fast medical school went by.  It was a crazy week of fun, graduation festivities, packing, and moving. We were so sad to say goodbye to our good friends who had become like family to us.

Natalie attended a K4 program in Milwaukee last year and loved her teacher Ms. Jones.  Natalie was so sad to say goodbye to her teacher. She was so excited though because her last day of school she got to go on a field trip and ride a school bus, she had been wanting to all year long.

Later that afternoon, was Patrick's hooding ceremony in preparation for graduation the next day.  

That night was senior dinner and both mine and Patrick's parents were able to attend with us to celebrate his graduation.  My sweet sister Jessica stayed home with the kids so we could all go.

Some of our friends after the dinner, we sure miss FFN (Family Fun Night).  We would get together and play games while the kids all ran around together, some great late nights of Hand and Foot (which I'm pretty sure Patrick and I are the ultimate champions of :) ).

The morning of graduation we went down to the medical school to take pictures before the festivities.

This is what happens to kids after they survive a long graduation ceremony.

After graduation we went out to a late dinner, which was delicious, but the kids were definitely tired as evidenced by the next picture of Natalie asleep, if you look closely you can tell she is curled up in Kelsie's car seat.

This is for you Jessica!

My sister has been bugging me to update my blog forever, so this is for her!  We are getting settled here is California and have been loving it, but still miss Wisconsin, especially on the 4th of July!

This is the girls reading this morning, I love moments like this, too bad they are not always this cute!


Fourth of July parade the girls and I went to, Patrick was on call, Becca was so funny, she kept asking me to take a smile.  It took me a minute to realize she meant a picture, and that when we take pictures we always say smile.

Dr. Leiter's first day of residency!

We went to St. George midJune to celebrate my mom's birthday, we planned a surprise party for her and actually pulled off a surprise.  We also got to go boating that weekend and had lots of fun with the whole family together.

Becca and Kelsie enjoyed naps of the boat and Natalie got fearless and loved tubing and swimming and cliff jumping, but I can't find the pictures of Natalie.

My brother Adam is an awesome wakeboarder!

I have a lot more updates to do, graduation, moving, our new house etc.  Patrick is working a lot now, so hopefully more updates!

Kelsie Sue Leiter

Here are some pictures of our new arrival. Kelsie Sue Leiter was born on March 30 at 2:12 pm. She weighed 8 lb 12 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. The labor was fast and uneventful, which is how we like it. Kelsie is a very good, calm baby who is a much loved addition to our family.

California Here We Come!

That song has been sung a lot around our house the last couple of days. Last Friday we found out that we matched in Loma Linda, California for our Anesthesia residency. We are so excited to be moving to sunny California and for the opportunity to be closer to family. On a side note, we will be about an hour from the beach and Disneyland and love visitors!

Our life has been a little crazy this past week, with matching and finding out where we are going to live. We will also be adding a 3rd girl to our family in the next few weeks, or days, depending on what she wants to do--any name suggestions are definitely welcome!

Hopefully I will be better about keeping up the blog and you will see pictures of our new little girls soon.

Nauvoo

Here is a quick picture update of our trip to Nauvoo. Aside from our near death experience where we almost hit a deer on our way into town we had an amazing trip and the girls were amazing the whole time and really had fun. Natalie asked if we could come again and stay for 5 days next time.