Chasing Life

Let the fun begin! Yesterday was Paul's first official shift of his Emergency Medicine residency here in MN and we're off to a wonderful start. He had a busy night in the ER, got home around midnight, slept for a few hours before having to go back to work for morning conference, came home and saw the kids and I for 30 minutes, and is now sleeping again until he has to go back to work for his second shift in the ER. THIS is why we have not been looking forward to residency! But, it is my residency resolution to try to look at the bright side of things...we are now down to 2 years and 364 days until residency is over! :) Seriously, besides the long work hours, we don't really have much to complain about. We are happily married (most of the time), have three wonderful children (most of the time), are living in a great house with family nearby, and pretty much all of our needs are met. I am working on finding a church and establishing a social network here, but that is obviousl...

Just wanted to report to those who don't already know that we bought a house! I went back to MN on 4/3 and had a signed purchase agreement three days later!!! Although I can't even stand the thought of having to leave San Diego, knowing we have a great house to move into helps me cope. Paul was home with the two older kids (yes, he survived on his own for 10 days), so he hasn't even seen it yet. I was able to take a video of the house for him though so he has at least gotten a virtual tour. It's so hard to believe we only have 42 days left before we move. I swear we just unpacked our boxes (oh wait, we did just unpack our boxes!). We're headed up to LA this weekend. Paul is going to the CrossFit games qualifier (surprise surprise) and I am going to Mamma Mia with a girlfriend. Then on Sunday we are going to check out Saddleback Church (home of Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life). The following week we have two different sets of friends coming into...

I will start this update by telling those of you who don’t already know that we will be moving back to Minnesota after Memorial Day. Paul got matched to his number one choice of programs, Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), in Minneapolis. Needless to say he is quite excited and I am just happy to finally know where we will be living for the next three years! We will most definitely miss San Diego, but we have been waiting a long time to be back close to family (4 years, actually) and so it will certainly be nice to go back ‘home’. Paul starts his orientation on June 15th, so we don’t have very long to get situated once we arrive. Paul is taking some time off from work to stay home with Kade and Jacey while I fly back to MN for 9 days with Kye to look for a house. Hopefully we will find one before we move. If not, my parents have a house near St. Cloud that we can stay at while we continue house hunting, but it would be quite a drive for Paul to go to work everyday (almost 90 minute...

Happy 2009, everyone! As I write this update we are awaiting news as to where Paul’s career will be leading us next (again), raising a newborn baby (again), and living in a new house (again)! Back in December, Paul finished his 10 days of interviewing for residency programs back in the Midwest. He felt very good about how they went so we are hoping he will get selected by one of his top two programs (HCMC in Minneapolis or Regions in St. Paul). We find out what residency program he will be joining in mid-March. Hopefully the time will pass quickly. As I wrote in my very brief update about a month ago, our third child Kye Aaron was born on 12/20. It took him a couple of weeks to catch on to the whole nursing thing, but he is apparently doing just fine now as he has already gained 3 pounds in one month. We’ve already got him onto the Nystrom sleep schedule of going to bed at 6pm. Now if he would just stay sleeping all night that would really be something. Kade and Jacey have adjusted to ...

We are happy to announce the birth of our son, Kye Aaron Nystrom. He came quite fast (5 hours total of laboring and pushing), making his first appearance at 4:39pm on Saturday, December 20th. Despite my previous c-section, it was a normal vaginal delivery with no epidural (not by choice this time...he just came before they were able to get it put in). He weighed 7 pounds and was 20 inches long. We are home already and are very excited to be able to sleep in our own bed tonight. Kye has spent most of his first 28 hours of life sleeping, which we really hope he plans to continue!

Hello again. I’m less than a month away from my due date now so I thought I’d better get another update out before the baby comes. In October we went camping with our small group at Lake Henshaw, CA. It’s only the second time we’ve been camping since Paul and I met, so despite being 7 months pregnant I thought it would be a fun adventure. Well, it surely was an adventure, but I’m not sure I would describe it as fun. It got down to 37 degrees at night and we definitely were not prepared for that, especially now that we have adapted to San Diego weather. I can’t remember EVER being that cold. We did enjoy hanging out with our small group friends, however, and were also able to take a nice hike on a mountain above the lake and treat ourselves to the infamous caramel apple pie and fresh apple cider in Julian afterwards so it wasn’t a total loss. After camping we headed up to Joshua Tree National park for one night since it was a long weekend for us. We did a couple of short hikes that Kade...

It’s that time again, to let you all know how we’ve been the last few months and share with you which exotic places our travels have taken us to most recently! First of all, Jacey turned one on June 21st. First birthdays aren’t too eventful in our house, but we did still get some good pictures of her eating her sugar-free, whole wheat corn bread cake and opening her very exciting gifts of a whistle, a bracelet, and a pair of shoes! Then Paul and I went to our first Padres game the following weekend. They were commemorating a military operation during the pre-game activities, which is why Paul wanted to go. We’re not big baseball people, but it’s always good people watching and it was interesting to see the new Petco stadium from the inside. Our friends from Phoenix came to visit us again for July 4th weekend, and we were able to watch fireworks from our bedroom porch (which was very convenient since our kids had already been sleeping for almost 4 hours by the time the fireworks started...

Since the last time I wrote, we haven't had too much going on (which is a change for us). We did hand out hygiene kits to the homeless people in Balboa Park and downtown San Diego with our small group. We included McDonalds gift cards and also gave them some punch to drink and they were all so grateful. Before we were even out of sight we saw many of them already washing up with the wet wipes from the kits. Such a simple thing to do that was so appreciated! We also had several visitors in May. First some friends from VA stayed with us for 5 nights while they did some house hunting. They will be moving out here in July, so it will be nice to have a couple of familiar faces from the past living close by. It was in the 90s the whole time they were here so of course that was the time that our portable air conditioners decided to stop working! We were able to get them working enough to keep us cool but not without a lot of headaches! A friend of mine from IA also came into town for a wo...

Just wanted to tell you about the past couple of months since our last update... We took our trip to Big Sur, CA over Easter weekend and it turned out to be one of our best trips ever. It was more relaxed than many of our trips in the past have been. We spent four days seeing the flower fields in Carlsbad, hiking and touring the old Mission in Santa Barbara, going to the lighthouse and aquarium in Monterey, and hiking in Big Sur where there are redwoods, turquoise beaches, waterfalls, cliffs, and creeks all within a couple miles of each other. If you ever get a chance to come out to California, I would highly recommend Big Sur! I think it's my second favorite place I've ever been to. One interesting thing that happened on that trip was that a bus ran into the side of the Monterey Bay Aquarium shortly before we got there. I think there were more people taking pictures of that than of the animals in the aquarium! Gotta love how us humans can't help but gawk at accidents of an...

It's been so long since I wrote an update that I had to go back and look at our pictures to remember what we've done since October! This may get long so feel free to skim! We got back from Hawaii at the end of October and definitely felt like we needed a vacation from our vacation, especially with all of the drama from the fires out here! Although we don't really celebrate Halloween in our house, we did dress up the kids in safari outfits and go over to a small gathering at our neighbor's house where we ate tortilla soup and raided some of their candy stash. In the beginning of November Paul and I participated in the Muddy Buddy race in Los Angeles and I learned just how out of shape I was after having Jacey! The race consisted of running, biking, and obstacles, along with a big mud pit you have to crawl through at the end. There were so many hills in the course that I was walking my bike probably half of the time on the verge of losing my breakfast! I definitely was no...

The past couple of months have consisted mostly of us traveling. In September, Paul had to go to Washington State to attend a conference, and so my parents came to San Diego and took a road trip with me and the kids. We went to LA (Hollywood and Santa Monica), and then from there we drove along the coast all the way to San Francisco (with a few stops along the way). After San Francisco we headed to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park to see the big trees. They were so amazing and made me feel so small! After almost 6 full days in the car, we headed back to San Diego and my parents left to go back home. The first weekend in October Paul had a three-day weekend so we took a road trip up to Mt. Whitney (the tallest mountain in the continental US), Death Valley National Park (which actually was pretty interesting to visit, despite the name), and also the Mojave Desert National Preserve (which wasn’t all that exciting, but going to “Hole in the Wall” at the south end was worth the drive ...

We definitely have lots to share since the last update I sent out. Most importantly we had our baby girl, Jacey Hannah. For those of you who haven't heard, here's a short version of my labor and delivery experience... I was due to have Jacey on June 6th. Unfortunately my due date came and went and I had no signs whatsoever that Jacey was ready to come out. When I was two weeks overdue both Paul and my OB doctor were both really pressuring me to be induced. I tried everything I could find on the internet (with the exception of castor oil) to try to start labor naturally but it just wouldn't happen. I REALLY didn't want to be induced and so after much debate I finally convinced them to let me wait another 5-6 days (with fetal monitoring every other day) to see if Jacey would come on her own. Well, that very same day at 5pm I got a call from a doctor who had "double-checked" my monitoring strips from earlier that morning saying she saw something that concerned he...

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Thought I would send out a quick update before the baby is born. I am due on June 6th, which is only a week and a half away so I am currently holding my breath wondering when little Jacey will arrive. Overall I'm feeling good. Heartburn is about my only complaint right now, aside from how difficult it is to get up off the couch! Just like with Kade I have been blessed with a very good pregnancy and now we are just praying that the delivery will go just as well. I will be having the baby at the Balboa Navy hospital which is about 30 minutes away in good traffic so it might be an interesting trip if I need to get there during rush hour! Kade took his sweet time coming so if Jacey is anything like he was I shouldn't have a problem getting there in time. Paul is still enjoying his job, but work has gotten significantly busier in the last month or two. The atmosphere at his office is very laid back, but Paul with his OCD and overachiever tendencies has ...

Well, enough of you have asked me for an update that I finally decided I had better get one out! As you all know, Paul and I moved to San Diego in late December. We are absolutely loving it here (except for the gas prices and sometimes the traffic). We are definitely all settled in now and it feels like we've been living here for a year! God has blessed us with a great house, a wonderful church, and very friendly neighbors (many of which have kids close to Kade's age). I have been fortunate enough to meet lots of other moms in the area, and we already seem to have established a nice routine for ourselves. We have church on Sunday mornings and a couples' with toddlers small group that meets at our house on Sunday nights, every other Monday night we meet with a couple neighbors down the street for game night, on Tuesday mornings I lead a mom's bible study at our house, Wednesday mornings I take Kade to the library for story time, Thursday mornings I walk with another grou...

Happy New Year! Just wanted to let you know that Paul and I rang in the New Year in our new home here in San Diego, so we (once again) have new contact info. You will find it below. Paul will start at his new job tomorrow as a doc for the Navy SEALs on Coronado Island. He is definitely looking forward to it and the hours should be good so therefore I am also looking forward to it. Our house here is pretty much completely unpacked (thanks to a ton of help from our friends who were here visiting from Phoenix for New Year's - thanks Dan & Jamie!!!)...all we have left to do is hang all our pictures on the walls (which is Paul's LEAST favorite thing to do)! We have already found a church that we really like and we will be starting a small group bible study later this month. I have also already joined a gym and plan to start using it tomorrow (in addition to being able to do cardio outside EVERY DAY!!!). My pregnancy is going well. I am finally over my nausea and my belly is star...