Life as seen through my cell phone camera...

10 Months!

My little girl is growing up so fast - can I really be planning her 1st birthday party already?! And look at those little shoes - watch our world here comes Zoey! : )

Yo Gaba Gabba!

So we discovered yesterday that Zoey LOVES Yo Gabba Gabba! It's a silly children's show that I've been fascinated by recently - the silly songs set to a dance beat, colorful furry creatures dancing around teaching kids lessons, and just the absolute silliness of it all cracks me up! So yesterday afternoon Zoey was a bit fussy so we put on the show for her to watch and she was laughing, kicking her legs, screaming and bouncing all around in delight - too funny! Now for the record, I'm not a fan of letting babies watch TV....but every now and then us parents have to pull out all stops to prevent tantrums and meltdowns.....and a little silly TV here and there won't hurt anyone. "Whatever works", right?

HAHA...."There's a party in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy!" Enjoy : )

Go Giants!

I've been a Giants fan for as long as I can remember. It all started when I was just a young girl when I used to listen to the games with my dad on the radio during long, hot summer days in our backyard. I was always mesmerized by the way the announcers called the games, and by the enthusiasm that shone in my dad's eyes when the Giants did well. And once I visited Candlestick Park for the first time, I was hooked for life! I remember playing catch with Dad while we tail-gated in the parking lot, being treated to hot dogs, peanuts and crackerjacks, and even getting an orange foam finger as a souvenir. And I will never forget the very first time I walked out from inside the concrete corridors of Candlestick to see the field for the first time....my jaw dropped and I was just in awe of the colors, the energy, the fans, and the magic that is live baseball.

And even though I've been a fan for about 23+ years, I don't think I've ever had this much fun rooting for my team - what a year we're having! Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend the Giants day game versus the Chicago Cubs with several of my co-workers from the Career Center, as well as with colleagues from other Bay Area Career Centers. Enterprise Rental Car sponsors the event every year as a way to promote their company and thank Career Center staff for their support with recruitment during the year. We had yummy BBQ food at a tailgate party before heading into the park, and then enjoyed an exciting, nail-bitter type of game. We ended up winning, something the Giants have been doing a lot of lately -surprise..ha! For my fellow Giants fans out there, I know it can often be painful to be a fan of the orange and black, but not this year! I have a feeling we are headed for a title.... : )

Zoey's Weekend

Pool time with my daddy and Grandpa Backes

Chewing on a new ball in the pool

Learning to eat yogurt by myself for the first time=messy!

Becoming a big girl - eating refried beans and bread for lunch...yummy! Cause I'm growing up fast and I wanna do it all on my own!

Incoming Stanford Med Students get Free Ipads

iPads to be distributed to incoming class by Stanford medical school

BY TRACIE WHITE
Stanford EdTech

The Stanford University School of Medicine will be distributing iPads to its incoming class of 91 first-year medical school and master’s of medicine students during orientation later in August as part of a trial program to integrate the mobile device into academics.

The core goal of the iPad initiative is to improve the student learning experience. The decision to provide the devices was prompted by a desire to give students flexible access to the content that they need whether it is a virtual cadaver in dissection lab, annotated lecture slides and videos in the classroom, or journal articles for evidence-based practice in clinic.

“We want to explore the use of iPads and other technologies to help students access the enormous amount of medical knowledge that is being produced constantly,” said Charles Prober, MD, the school’s senior associate dean for medical education. “Part of the challenge facing medical students, and all doctors, is the overwhelming amount of information. Devices like the iPad may be able to help users access that pool of knowledge.”
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The use of the iPads also fits into the School of Medicine’s plans to make significant changes to the current model of medical school education, featuring the official opening in September of the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge, the school’s first new education building in 50 years.

The five-level, 120,000-square-foot structure is expected to dramatically change the way that students and doctors are trained through the use of new interactive, experiential and team-based learning technologies.

“We’re at a major crossroads in medical education reform,” Prober said. “The tech part of that begins with this new incredible building allowing us to provide education in the most current format.”

Because the population of new students is extremely tech-savvy, it makes sense to teach them through the use of the electronic devices they’re familiar with, Prober said, adding, “We can either say, ‘That’s silly. They have to learn the old-fashioned way.’ Or we embrace where they are.”

The school will monitor the use of the iPads through regular surveys to help determine how helpful they are to students, pointing out that past experiments with similar electronic devices, such as the Kindle, in academic settings haven’t been successful.

“We really don’t know yet how the incoming medical students will use them,” said Henry Lowe, MD, senior associate dean for information resources and technology. But, as a physician using an iPad himself, he’s found the device to be extremely helpful and believes it is growing in popularity among doctors.

“Physicians are a mobile group,” Lowe said. “They’re moving around from clinic to clinic, from patient to patient. … I’ve seen a variety of reports from across the country saying that physicians have seized on the iPad as a helpful device.”

For at least one current student, there’s no question that an iPad is helpful with her medical education.

“Pretty much this is a perfect tool for what I need to do,” said Stesha Doku, a 23-year-old, second-year Stanford medical student from North Carolina who recently bought an iPad. “I use it for reviewing slides from last year, for saving everything in one place. I probably won’t use my laptop in class anymore.

“Especially in medicine, we’re using so many different resources, including all the syllabuses and slides. I’m able to pull them up and search them whenever I need to.

My bagel - yum!

Zoey's adventures with eating more solid table food has been rocky so far - she literally started to gag when we've given her bits of cheese and egg yolk, and spit out pasta the first few times she tried it. But she is warming up to the textures of "real food", and we've discovered that she now loves bagels and macaroni and cheese. We give her frozen mini bagels for her to gnaw on and chew - works as both a yummy snack and a teething ring!