Pages from the Philips

Merry Christmas wishes to everyone early since I’m not sure if I’ll get another opportunity to post another message before Christmas because I’m on call the night before.  I’ve been busy at work the last few weeks and thus very little time to devote to working on pictures or posting an update.  I finished another rotation in the ER (my second month there this year) and have started three weeks of internal medicine.

It is surprisingly chilly here in Texas now and at times it is reminiscent of some of the warmer days in our four years of Minnesota winters!  Melissa and the kiddos are doing well…Karuna although seems to be a little under the weather with a bad ear infection.  My last rotation in the ER was a really fun month because I’ve gotten used to how things run in our department and we just went live with a completely electronic documentation and order entry system which I’ve grown to love.  I cannot imagine going back to the days of pen and paper.  I started Internal Medicine last week and I’ve got a good team that I’ve been part of but being on internal medicine has definitely been reaffirming of my career choice…I could never do internal medicine day in and day out for the rest of my career…my mind and and my passions just don’t lean towards the way in which most internal medicine doctors think.

In other news…we have had a quite a bit of animal craziness in our house lately.  Our cat, Cuddles, got spayed last week and she has managed to rip out her stitches twice so far…we are certain that she must have a death wish.  We are planning on taking her to the vet again for a third time to see if there is some way we can prevent her from doing this again.  We have also temporarily/permanently acquired a new dog as well.  Melissa was driving near a busy road and she saw a dog that looked very malnourished trying to cross the road and because she felt bad for this dog she brought him home.  Daisy has loved having this second dog around.  Right now the plan is to take our new found dog to the shelter next week to find out if he has an owner and if not we might gain one more pet into our family.

Just one thing to ask all of you to keep in prayer about.  Melissa went for her regular prenatal checkup last week and we found out that she is not measuring up to dates (meaning that the baby is smaller that he or she should be at this time).  Our doctor has scheduled a repeat ultrasound for December 30th to find out what is going on but please be in prayer for us and the baby as this has definitely been weighing on our hearts.  We are certain of God’s providence and trust this baby into His hands but please keep us in your prayers so that our faith in our great God will remain steadfast.

Finally we wanted to put up some pictures from our recent trip at the end of November to Big Bend National Park.  As always just click the link below to watch the slideshow or you can click on individual pictures below to view them one by one and just use your arrow to key to navigate between the pictures.  Have a wonderful Christmas as we celebrate our Saviors birth!

• Slideshow of Big Bend National Park