St. Louis Highlights!

This not working stuff is keeping me very busy!


The past weeks in the Lou have been full of every cliche St. Louis 'must-do'. ie; the zoo, the muny, central west end, fritz's, fitz's, the arch, cards games, shaw's botanical gardens, the brewery, downtown clayton, weddings, and panera galore!

This is my little god-daughter Sophia; you've met her before on this blog. She is almost 3 years old, and it is so much fun to watch her with the animals. She talks so well, and she called me 'godmother' all day. Hilarious!

Yummy ice-cream on a very hot day!

Last weekend we had a baby shower for Nicki Roam; formerly Nicki Wright. She and her husband, Mason, are expecting their first baby on Halloween!
It will be a baby girl, and her name will be Abigail Rose! Do you love this picture of the baby buggy I created out of a watermelon? This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands! It was super fun, nonetheless!

These are the little baby pettifores also at the shower. They have cute baby booties and bottles and pacifiers! Not that my clock is ticking, but this just makes me want a baby! Not to worry... that will not be any time soon- but just look at all of this cute stuff!!!

Nicki; mommy-to-be!

Ryan Cooper has also been to town! He stayed a whole week and told us about his new puppy Marilyn Monroe- she's a little pit bull!! He calls her 'Roe'. His plan of late is to graduate in December and look in to culinary school. Start lining up girls, he's a hottie. Just look at him!

Cooper boys supporting that good-ol beer.

The Med Shed

Hello again! I do believe this will be the last post about my time abroad. I fully intend to put all of my pictures in a snapfish setting, but I have been too busy eating! The last few weeks have been wonderful, as I have had 'eating' appointments all across the midwest. I'll let you know when I figure out how to do that snapfish thin! In the mean time, the majority of our London/Paris pictures are at http://mdwade.myphotoalbum.com/. Now, back to B-town!
These two very lovely ladies are the physicians I worked with in Session #1. On the left in Tamara; she is a Pediatric Hematologist in the Republic of Georgia, and she's fluent in many languages! She most recently studied in Italy, which she highly recommends to all! I will have to listen to that recommendation! The doctor on the right is Atefah. She is from the UK, and she's just positively lovely, and brilliant! We went walking everyday, and then we filled our empty stomachs with Cadburry Chocolate. This is my kind of friend! She's a pediatrician in London, and she gave Mike and me lots of suggestions about 'must-do's'.
Here we have (from L to R); Tamara, Eimear, Atefah, myself. Eimear is the full-time clinical coordinator/ head nurse/ keeps everything rolling type of gal. She has worked at Barretstown for the last 7 years, and she has perfected her job. She runs everything extremely well, and she's just a joy to be around. I was so impressed by how well the Med Shed was run., and I certainly intend on returning to visit Eimear (pronounced ee-mer) again!
Pictured here are two little boys from Wales and Ireland with our lovely doctor from session #2. Maria from Alicante Spain. She has a large beach house, and she says she has tons of room for visitors. Any takers? I think I will just quit working permanently! She, too, was another delight to be around. Multi-cultural connections are my new most favorite thing! We had many discussions about the differences in our cultures... it's amazing what I didn't realize was my culture! (The woman taking her husbands name for instance!!)

Pictured here in the Med Shed is myself, Peter Barber, and Helen. Peter Barber was the second physician in Session 2. He's just a hilariously quintessential British grandpa! He doesn't hear well, and he can't remember names, so he just calls everyone 'Duckie'. Once he got 'Heather' down, he quickly moved in to Heatherkins.. which I must say is a totally new nickname for me. (and I have had a lot!). Helen is the senior nurse who comes to help Eimear out in the summer. She's from Dublin and has children my age, and she is a riot as well. She let me stay with her my last night in Ireland and took me to the airport to go meet Mike and everything. I am so touched by the people that I was able to work with in Ireland. I promise this first time over there will not be the last. Thanks so much for sharing in the journey with me!

Reach for the Stars

Ireland Rocks and these kiddos were amazing! I wanted to give you some highlights of the 'everyday life' at camp.

These are the little Spanish boys of cottage 9. The adults in the picture would be their interpreters and 'caras'. (Cara is the Irish word for friend!). This picture was taken in their cottage, which is very cozy! You can see the fireplace in the background... and with Ireland being only 50-60 degrees and rainy even in June, a fire is the perfect way to turn in for the night!

Scandinavians canoeing. I was highly impressed by this group of kids even more than the others for some reason. They were just beautifully humble, and they took care of the other kids before themselves. It's awesome to watch warm fuzzy moments unfold.

The boys love archery!

Some of the Greek boys. They danced all week! Look at the hair on the one in the black.

Girls aren't the only ones who like to play dress up!

Dancing, Dancing, and more Dancing. Reach for the Stars was a song the we danced to after every meal in the dining hall. It was my favorite dance because it has the 'airplane' move and you get to jump! I love the dancing.

This is Tamara, the doctor from Georgia. These are some of her gorgeous girls!

Russian boys in their red hats. All of the Russians wore these hats... easy to distinguish.

It's hard to pinpoint one thing that makes Barretstown magical. I think that it's more of the little moments everyday. The children are exposed to activities they've never done before, and they are able to experience these things with people they can truly identify with. As a nurse, I am so grateful for this opportunity of perspective. While I am treating people, often times I only see them as sick and hurting and/or on their way out of our world. These children are beautiful, despite the effects of their treatment, and their bodies have healed amazingly. They have so much energy, and they are so functional. Way to go Barretstown!

My Castle

Here she is, the infamous Barretstown Castle. I don't know the whole history, but I do know that at one point it was owned by Elizabeth Arden who named her Red Door perfume after the Red Door of this castle. She then sold it to someone else who couldn't keep of with the taxes. He, then, sold it back to the Irish government who contacted Paul Newman. (In case I haven't mentioned before, Barretstown Camp is a part of a larger group of camps started by Paul Newman. They are called Hole in The Wall Gang Camps). Anyway, the Irish government rents the castle to the camp for something like 1 euro a year. Only the medical staff are housed in the Castle. (what a perk!). The Georgian doctor from Session 1 called it her castle. She would say, 'I am off to my castle' in her eastern European accent. I thought it was hilarious- hence the title of this post. My room is on this side; the far left upper windows.

The Red Door. I love the ivy!

Just another side of the castle. I wanted you to have a 3D concept.

This was my room.. the 'Pink Room'. I didn't realize the headboard was so funky. Haha.

This is the 'White Room' where Elizabeth Arden actually passed away. I don't think she still hangs around though. Seemingly, however, there is a ghost in the 'Red Room'. Luckily nurses can't stay there because there's no phone access and we have to be on call. I am clear forever. Stay tuned for pictures of the kiddos!

Lovely London

We came in to London with a bang, literally. We arrived the same the terrorists did! But were it not for emails and voice mails from friends and family we would have never known! We were so excited to see each other I don't think we had a clue what was going on around us! We only had 2.5 days in London (not enough, I know), but we maximized our time as is per my usual while traveling. Mike, bless his wonderful heart, was recovering from jet lag and stress! There were issues with his flight out of Seattle so he had to rebook with British Airways out of Vancouver. They flew over the North Pole overnight, and he said the sun didn't go down at all! Isn't that awesome! He made it safely on British Airways, but his bags did not. They are still missing to this day! (We can all lift that up in our prayers tonight!) All this to say that he did not complain once. Mr. Nice guy for sure. I had to begin with this picture as it was a pose I assumed the whole weekend in London. Thanks Laura Neff for that umbrella- I have used the heck out of it! This is Buckingham palace! The changing of the guard ceremony was rained out for the day, but we still saw it. It must have just been with a little less pizazz or something.

This is what we saw. Thanks Mike for being tall and taking pictures over the heads of the crowd. This looks so quintessentially British. Or something like that. So neat!

The Tower Bridge outside of the Tower of London. It's an old prison/fort where they also keep the crown jewels. They had a 100 karat diamond in some scepter!

Mike outside the London Eye. It cleared up a bit Sunday evening, so we rode this around at dusk. Great views of the whole city! (By the way, there are no skyscrapers- what a cool concept!)

Big Ben, the Parliament Buildings, and the Thames River. Birdseye view from the 'Eye'

Would you like to make a call? We loved the telephone booths. Big Ben in the background. Double Decker

Chim Chiminey Chim Chiminey; Step in Time Step in Time. We took the opportunity to see this fabulous show on a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon. It's the first Broadway caliber show Mike has seen, and it was one that I hadn't seen. He loved the pit; I loved the harmony and the dancing! This is yet another example of how we compliment each other. This also gave me the opportunity to sing 'I'm practically perfect, in every way' to Mike the entire rest of the trip. For some reason it just kept getting stuck in my head!

Desserts, twice daily

This blog post is dedicated 100% to the food that we ate in Paris. Mike is so wonderful because he indulged in desserts twice a day with me. That may or may not include nutella crepes we had for lunch. The French really have cuisine figured out, and as they say, 'French women don't get fat.' Does that apply to American women in Paris? What if you are walking tons during the day? Feast with your eyes..... Nutella and banana crepe with cafe. The bananas are the saving grace in this meal..

Cappuccino. Isn't it beautiful? A work of art in a cup!

I didn't know I could be so happy. If I had 3 hands I would have been triple fisting it. Right hand: baguette. Left hand: tartes from the patisserie that we visited everyday. Raspberries and cream always end in a delicious treat. I believe we spent a total of 2.50 (euros) on that bottle of wine!

My hot boyfriend drinking coffee at the Chateau de Versailles.

Mike with breakfast. A delicious Quiche Lorraine and Almond Croissant. (Mike's favorite!) Note the Tour de Eiffel in the background! This was about 3 blocks from our hotel!

Carb Addict

Our favorite Tartes. Don't worry we tried each of these. My favorite was the one on the very far right. In fact, I am drooling right now thinking about this shop.

Fromage (cheese). Incredible!

Perfectly Paris

I'm in love with this boy and this city!! This will be the first of many (!) blogs of pictures of my 5 weeks in Europe. 7-7-07 was my big travel day home to STL, and now I am rested enough to begin the adventures of re-living it all so I can share it with you all!! This post is dedicated just to the main highlights of the big tourist attractions in Paris. In general, I found the city thrilling and breathtaking. At the end of every street is something massive and decadent. Mike and I took about 600 pictures in this city alone! Everyone spoke English (which I found refreshing but also sort of self righteous... the rest of the world catering to us sort of thing), and actually people were very accommodating. I could see, though, how it would take a bit to assimilate in to the Parisian culture as it is so uniquely their own! (and it's fabulous!) This was our last day in Paris and our first day of sun so we had to capture the sunset! Our hotel was about 3 blocks from the Tour de Eiffel, so we tried to get a pose like this nightly. Isn't he cute?
Yeah, it's awesome.

Musee du Louvre. The pyramid was designed by I.M. Pei, a Chinese Born America architect. He also designed the John Hancock building in Boston. The Louvre is the entire building behind me. It's just as beautiful as the works inside. It is, hands down, the most glorious art museum I've ever set foot in!

Arc de Triomphe; commissioned by Napoleon in 1806. It's a war memorial honoring both victories of the empire and also those who were killed in action.

Notre-Dame de Paris began in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII. It's magical and so holy! We read somewhere that they display a piece of the real cross and the crown of thorns. Sounds incredible to me. Wouldn't it be awesome if that was true!

Notre-Dame again. This vantage point is from our boat cruise down the River Seine.

Our favorite Bridge over the river. It has all of these beautiful gold statues, and the Gold Dome Church (where Napoleon's tomb is housed) is just directly behind.

Sacre Couer (Sacred Heart). Built in the 1870s. Also breathtaking! This is up on a hill in a neighborhood of Paris called Montmarte. It's very artsy and trendy and oh so wonderful.

There will be more to come VERY soon!