2011 has started off well for the Hood family, as we work on bouncing back into a routine after enjoying wonderful Christmas celebrations with each side of our family. Ryan started the new year at the hospital, including being a part of the delivery of the first baby in Chicago in 2011 (delivered at 12:00:01!) while Megan celebrated with a group of fun girl friends (including Katie, Rachel, Angie, and Louise). New Years day involved watching a lot of football in our neighborhood with friends from Loyola, who happen to be the same group of people we will be traveling with to Cozumel in April for an Anesthesia conference (travel plans have officially been booked!). Other trips we are looking forward to include Megan's trip to Hoboken, NJ to see Katelyn at the end of January and a Markey family trip somewhere exotic (possibly Hawaii) in June. We can already tell it's going to be a rough year for us!Speaking of Markeys, we've been lucky enough to get to spend 2 weekends in January with Jeff as he makes stops in Chicago on the ENT residency interview trail. He interviewed at 3 sites in Chicago, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that he may be joining us in the windy city this summer. Of course that will be after he travels to Africa to deliver babies in February (he has a very boring life).
Probably the most exciting news of the month is that Ryan found out that he will be the co-chief of his anesthesia residency program next year! This is a big honor, and we are excited for his reign to start in the late Spring. One of the main roles of this position will involve creating the schedules for anesthesia residents, so while we would never encourage him to abuse his power, we are crossing our fingers that maybe he'll get some time off around the holidays this year... :)
Everyday things continue to go smoothly as well. Megan is teaching medical students interviewing skills (how to take a sexual history was the theme this term, always a little tricky) and preparing to begin leading a research-based group stress reduction intervention in February, in addition to seeing her usual patients. The dogs are healthy and doing well, if not a little bored due to the frigid weather outside. Though some recent heavy snows did lead to fun times running around in the park, including Callie learning "agility skills" on the jungle gym with Ryan.
Random notes from the month and requests for tips:
-We received Inception for Christmas, which reminded us what a great movie it is. Highly recommended.
-Megan is working on catching up on classic novel reading this year (Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22 done so far, with some Jane Austen waiting in the wings). She's thinking of working through this list, but if you have any favorite classics that you recommend, she'd love to hear about them!
-Megan and Ryan have both begun our "Mexico diet" in preparation for our trip to Cozumel in April, which primarily consists of boosting our fruits and veggies and eating in more often (we apologize if we are a little cranky, probably means we haven't been getting enough carbs). If you have any favorite healthy/low-cal recipes, we'd love to know about them. We'll keep track of the ones we try at the bottom of the page.
Hope your year is going well so far!
