Ben and I got to take this awesome trip to Kansas City for the AAFP recruiting fair. We both thought it would be fun, but we never anticipated how fun it would be to spend time with a few of the residents and faculty and spouses from Ben's residency program. My family was nice enough to watch the kids for 3 days while we were gone, and luckily I don't think they drove my mother to start drinking, so that is a plus. :)
We started off the trip with a 7:20 am flight, just me and my new long-lost twin sister Marci. The residents had their tickets paid for, so it was up to the spouses to buy our own and we opted for a cheaper flight that luckily arrived within 20 minutes of theirs.
We went to lunch, checked into our hotel, and then spent our time being mostly support staff and getting the booth set up. We had a few eventful trips to CVS Pharmacy with Michelle (the residency coordinator) to get ice and drinks for the booth where an albino black woman told me I would indeed be giving birth within the next week, and that I was huge. She then proceeded to seek confirmation from other customers about how hugely pregnant I am. Thanks.
At the conference I got roped into an ultrasound at another residency's booth because they could see I was obviously pregnant. I obliged because it was a 3D ultrasound and it was free. Plus I figured I would never see those people again. I didn't anticipate that hundreds of people would gather when they saw there was a live person on the table. I tried to not feel self-conscious about my stretch-marked disgusting tummy, but it is what it is.
After Day 1 of the conference, we headed to a baseball game with a few medical students who were interested in the Utah Valley Family Medicine Residency, and Ben proceeded to begin passing a kidney stone. FUN! I actually felt really bad for him because he was terribly ill and we had to leave the baseball game pretty much 5 minutes after we got there because he could hardly stand. Plus the food catered from Hooters didn't really help much. (If people ever tell you they go there for the food, they are lying. It is terrible food.) Michelle drove us back to the hotel and insisted she would be fine driving back to the game, but I would have been nervous to do it in a strange city with no directions. Luckily she made it back, and only went the wrong way down a one-way street once. (Much better than I would've done.) Ben loaded up on some good medicine and slept for awhile and I tried to be supportive as he wallowed in pain.
The next morning we went to breakfast with everyone and Ben was feeling much better. Then Marci and Neal and I partied it up after stopping by the booth to drop off ice and candy. We headed to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Art and had a blast.
These were little cricket-fighting cages and gear. It was a real sport in China at one point...
This is Marci and her boyfriend. He is made of wax, but we couldn't tell if he was real for the longest time. It was super creepy.
Me and a giant shuttlecock. They had these all over the lawn of the museum. We never found the badminton racquet though that would've matched.
After the museum, we were all game for shopping, so we went to the County Club Plaza where Marci and I enjoyed some lunch and magically found our way to a chocolate shop. Just one of the many moments where we were eerily identical in what we ordered. Neal did some shopping on his own and met up with us later to head to the Lego Store and Crayola Store.
We were thinking we would have just a leisurely day perhaps with time for a nap before dinner, but we were hard core. We made it back just in time to freshen up and meet everyone for a lovely dinner at McCormick and Schmick, where the food was delicious and we topped it off with this beauty of a dessert. I give you the chocolate bag:
The word "bag" doesn't really scream elegance, but the dessert was divine. I can still taste the white chocolate mousse inside. It almost made me weep, it was so enticing. After that, we headed to a movie...at like 10:00 PM! I told you we were hard core. It was so weird to not have time constraints with kids and to not have to rush home to send the babysitter on their way. There were many discoveries made during our dinner and many inside jokes about monogamy, having kids together, crying over dessert, and catty-corner. I just can't help feeling that we are so lucky to be working with such awesome people.
We headed back to the hotel, and Ben was up in the night again with kidney pain, so he slept in while I went to breakfast with everyone, and then was luckily feeling well enough to help with the booth for the last day.
Neal and Marci and I headed to the Kansas City Temple to look around, and then went back to help clean up the booth and get things packed to ship home. Then we headed back to the shopping center with everyone to kill some time before our flights left.
Everything appeared to be in order with our flights, until mine and Marci's got delayed and almost cancelled. It was very long and horrible ordeal which involved us having to run through the concourse to catch our connecting flight (picture a 33 week pregnant woman doing that and try not to laugh...or cry...) and me trying to not give birth on the plane once that little jaunt brought the contractions on pretty intensely. Pair that with the horrible realization that there was no way my bags made it onto the plane unless the luggage men were magicians (they were not) and we were pretty ready to be home. Overall, I was just so glad I wasn't traveling alone and that I had a good friend to pass the time with. I finally got my bags the next day at about 4 pm and luckily everything was there and undamaged. Plus the kids were pretty excited to see us, so that made everything much better. We sure missed them too.
