Bye Bye Intensivists

The stupid hospital where I work did not renew the contract of the intensivists that I have worked with for 12 years. The group has worked at the hospital for 35 years total and just like that, they are done. I am so devastated by it because not only have we worked together side by side through many happy, sad, and heartbreaking moments throughout the years (COVID anyone?), but they have genuinely become my friends. So many inside jokes, laughs, and deep conversations over the years. Forgive me while I am grieving for the next little while. A job I really can't stand just became that much worse.

We had a little fun with each of them for their last week, except Ivester, which I feel bad about. I am the least close to him but we should still have done something. Anyway, here are some pictures. 

Andrews:

Probably gonna miss this guy the most. Actual friends and he is the nicest human being and so, so smart. He made his ICU weeks a dream. I loved after rounds when he would come to my side of the ICU and plop down and talk to me about life and kids and travel and whatever else. His daughter and Hallie are friends so we had some commonalities. He was so easy to talk to and a ton of fun to tease. I will miss his smirk and his eye rolls in rounds. An absolute gem of a human being.

We hung pictures of him all around the unit and then made him sign autographs for each of us. We had several versions and all of them extra flattering. :) 

Anderson:

If anyone has ever talked to me about the ICU ever, you have heard some Anderson stories. He is such a riot and the most eclectic human I may have ever met. I will miss his weeks; we have joked for years that we need a reality TV show on his weeks, and like The Office, have the cameras pan to our faces cause you just never know what is going to happen with him. Regardless, he has a heart of gold and is brilliant. I will miss everything about him, including his outfits and hair-dos! 

We just did cookies and snacks one day for Anderson. Nothing too special, but he was one of the earlier weeks and we got better as time went on.

Syed:

Ugh, this is getting worse and worse as I go. Look at this man and his personality. He was one of the easiest to talk to and loved to share life stories, jokes, and advice. When I left the hospital last year, he gave me some of the best advice that really helped me on my journey. We have joked about jumpers for years, so we finally got him one of his own. He did put it on for a bit and for the token picture. He is a fantastic human and I will miss him so much. We also hung this picture below all over the unit, because isn't it the best??

Dagar: 

Dagar is one of the harder ones to crack, but over the years I feel like I did a pretty good job. We became friends and he would even joke from time to time during rounds. Ha. He is really such a pleasant and even-keeled human; his weeks were always easy. He is super kind and fun to tease just a bit. Dagar week was the last one before the entire group was done, so we had a cake made for him to celebrate him and really the whole crew and the ending of an era.

Janowski: 

Ah, Janowski- another one I was really close with. He has the best one liners and if you ask anyone in the unit their favorite "Janowski-ism", everyone had something different because he had so many of them. His top one is probably "sub-optimal"- said at the most inappropriate times, but he has so many more. We made t-shirts and wore some of the favorites one day with him. In his words, we looked like Teletubbies (Hahah!!) but it was fun. He is such an incredible human being as well, a super smart physician, and a great friend. We had good chats about hiking and did the Grand Canyon at the same tiem one year. Good times. 

Terry: "Are we done yet?" 
Janowski: "Shall we?"
me: "Make them presentable to themselves"
Kristy: "Get them a cookie tray" 

Grover:

The chief of the group, the king of kings. There is no one like Grover. He is incredibly funny and witty and has the banter down. He has always teased me about being from Idaho and says that my brain is inherently smaller due to being from Idaho and every time I cross the border to go to Idaho, I lose brain cells, but luckily when I come back, they regain. He goes to Idaho for work too and will say the same, that he lost some brain cells. He has always joked about his 20 gram brain and my 2 gram brain and everyone else is in the middle, so Terry and I got him some t-shirts to reflect our brain sizes. We also made him a cake with a picture of some of his classic socks. I am unsure how I am gonna live without a good Grover week every 7 weeks. Another man that is a genuine friend.

Losing one of these friends would be a huge loss, but losing all 7 at once is almost unbearable. I am so glad I had them in my life for 12 years and for all the things I have learned from them; about medicine, about humanity, about kindness, about loss, and about friendship. 

Happy 22nd Birthday Mishell!

Mishell turned 22 on the 17th! TWENTY TWO!!! Wild. She has been a Perry as long as she was not a Perry, since she also left the orphanage on her 11th birthday. There is so much to celebrate about Mishell. She is the best helper and is patient and kind with her siblings. She is probably Lizzie's favorite person. Mishell works hard with the kids in her class at school where she is a paraprofessional and has found a great community within the local YSA ward. She goes to church there and a lot of fun activities. Mishell is my right hand woman and does so much around the house. She loves to read and has become a big Braves fan. She loves to travel and is always up for an adventure. She claims to be picky, but I often remind her that she used to eat nothing but a sloshy meal made up of ground up whatever they could find at the orphanage, so she should enjoy the food that is given to her. She does love Panda Express. You wanna get on her good side? Give her some Panda or a gift card for some Panda. 

Here are some pictures of our cute Mishell for her birthday and over the last year!

 

Jace and Nora Homecoming 2026

Jace took our darling neighbor Nora to homecoming for their sophomore year at Northridge. It has been fun to watch these cute kids grow up together and be good friends to each other. Hallie's friend Tre took their photos, and didn't he do such a good job?! He is so talented! 

For their day date, they went to the Crush golf place and had a great time. Hallie and Tre came along as chaperones :) and our cute neighbor Elijah was in Jace's group with his date Payton. 

 

Too many of these pictures to choose from, so we get a ton instead!

Hallie and Nora are good buddies, so they had to have a few photos together too

Baseball Trip 2026: Texas!

This year, our traditional Labor Day baseball trip took us to the blazing hot state of Texas. We chose to get TX out of the way because Labor Day was a week later than normal, but it did not seem to make a difference. It was HOT. Despite the heat, we had a great time and saw some really cool things. 

Day One:

We flew in late Thursday night (technically Friday morning) after several delays on our flight, so we had an easy/slow morning and saw a park in Dallas, then did a bus tour that was pretty interesting- it focused alot on JFK and his murder there and we learned a bit. We then went to lunch at a BBQ place cause of course you have to have that in TX! It was pretty darn good. Then our first stadium- Globe Life Field, home of the Rangers. It was huge and super nice and air conditioned with a roof! Yay. The funniest part was that we got ushered into a line to get autographs from some former player none of us had ever heard of. It was super funny, especially when later we saw that only the first 225 fans got his autograph. Haha. We also got a retro pullover jersey for being one of the first 10,000 fans in. We love a good giveaway. We had great seats- 7th row in the outfield, ate amazing nachos and the best ice cream I have ever had, and we watched our first grand slam ever in a baseball game! As far as we can remember anyway. It was a great game, but the Rangers lost to the Rays 7-6. A+ Stadium though.

JFK Memorial-- a little weird, no?

Dallas Temple. Also not the favorite we have ever seen. Hahaha

Day Two: We started at the Dallas Farmer's Market, which was really fun to see. We then drove from Dallas to Waco and had a lovely lunch at Magnolia Table. Then we saw all the famous Magnolia sites-- super interesting that people make this an entire destination for a trip. We were good after about an hour there. But again, it was hotter than the surface of the sun, so we didn't want to be outside. We did go by an indoor market that had all sorts of local goods and boy, did we have a great time at a little antique booth that was in there. We bought a bunch of old school items that were amazing. After Waco, we headed to Houston, with a stop at Buc-cees of course. Famous gas station for good reason! It is always worth a stop when in TX! 

Only two pictures from this day. Ha.

 

Day Three: We had a lazy ish morning and didn't do much before we headed to the afternoon Astros game. I have always been a hater of the Astros, but they had a few things going for them. Their fan base was dedicated and super super nice. They had excellent food-probably the best thing I have had at a ballpark yet in the bloomin' onion with chicken and sauces. Delicious. But....other than that, this stadium was hideous and it is one of my least favorite I have been to. It is old and feels it. It also has a roof but does not even look like a stadium from the outside. The seats were cramped and there were some blind spots in the stadium where you could not see the action below. We moved from our original seats because this was the case. It was another good game though, with the Astros losing to the Diamondbacks 3-2. We saw a super scary incident where a Diamonback player was hit by a line drive in the head by his own teammate while running from first to second base. He was down for a good while but luckily got up and walked out on his own. He was out for the rest of the game. Hoping he is okay. To add insult to injury, because the ball hit him, it was an out. Crazy. After the game, we had some famous fajitas that Jen's coworker recommended to her, which were indeed pretty good, then we spent several hours playing games at the hotel, another thing we love while traveling. All in all, a great day. OH- and can't forget we got another jersey giveaway. Always important to note! We seem to hit games at the right time to get them. 

Day Four: We spent most of the day at the NASA museum outside of Houston. It was super educational and well done. We especially loved the mission control tour. Pretty cool to see where so much history happened and is still occuring! We then went to Kemah, a nearby town on the gulf- it was so so so hot, so we walked around a tiny bit on the boardwalk and called it good. We of course had to stop and get some ice cream after sweating our guts out, so we did that and then headed to the airport.

Another successful baseball weekend in the books! And stadiums number 17 and 18 for me, I think.