Sea World

During most (not all!) residencies there is an opportunity for the residents to moonlight. Moonlighting is working as a physician at a facility outside of the residency hospital - typically in an ER. It allows the residents an opportunity to spread their wings a bit and learn to work without their attending physicians watching over them. It's good practice for life after residency. Its good for life during residency too...because moonlighting = $. Plain and simple. It also means more time away from home as it is working hours in addition to normal residency hours. So that's a bit of a balancing act. Money is nice. But family time is even nicer. At Joe's program third year residents are allowed to moonlight.  For our family Joe moonlighting has meant we have a little breathing room this year. All those little extra hidden costs that pop up suddenly - while still annoying - don't stress me out. $5 shirt for this activity? Ok. Another $10 for this school function? Alright. Too tired to cook dinner? Chinese take-out to the rescue. Those kinds of things. Oh and I've also allowed myself to buy baby wipes instead of making them. After an entire decade of making them it's a nice break. 

Aside from buying our much needed new-to-us mini van our biggest splurge thus far has been taking our kids to Sea World for a day during their fall break. None of our kids have been to an amusement park before so this was big stuff for our family! And the best part was we surprised them with it. We told the kids we were going camping. Loaded them all up in the van early in the morning and drove them to Sea World. They were clueless until we pulled into the parking lot! It was the best. (Well except Charlotte having a fever. That was sad.) I even splurged and bought meal passes for our family. So for the first time ever I wasn’t lugging around an entire day’s worth of snacks and meals and beverages in my stroller. I didn’t have to convince my children that squished pb&j sandwhiches and bruised fruit was a great meal while they longingly eyed the multiple concession stands full of pizza and hot dogs and ice cream and soda. It truly was wonderful. Far less healthy. But magical none the less:)

We were in the park from the moment it opened until closing. And then we did take the kids camping! 

Next up on our moonlighting funded adventures...flying to Minnesota for Christmas!!! Me + 4 kids on 2 flights with a 50 minutes layover. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. 

P.S. While the day was really fun. And I delighted in watching the look of pure joy on my kids faces, I’m not sure I’m ready for Disney. I mean in theory I want to take my kids there (eventually). But in reality it sounds exhausting! And like a lot of work. Vacation and work should not be mixed in my opinion. Thankfully they haven’t even asked. But when they do it will take A LOT of convincing.