Rachel's Walking!!!!! (and January)

Okay, so I was going to write about what happened in January since I haven't yet, but most important things first: Rachel is officially WALKING! Over the last week or so she's been making the transition, but today she pretty much refused to crawl anywhere and so it's official. I don't know how my baby can old enough to walk, but it's true. I have pictures, but they're still on the camera; I'll try to get them up by the end of the week (how's that for a goal?).

Another development, much more annoying but also important, is that Karen started asking "why" this week. Now everything she sees, she asks why. "Why are we stopped, mommy, I want to go" "why is it raining still" "why does daddy have to go on campouts" and on and on... Of course each question is followed up by another why question, until it feels like all I'm doing is answering questions while following Rachel around trying to keep her out of all the things she can now reach! And it seems like half of her questions always come back to "Because Heavenly Father wants us to do that" or some other version of the same. At least she accepts that without question for now, but I know it won't last too long. I think I keep falling back on that because it's easier than getting into a discussion with a 2 year old on photosynthesis, aerobic v. anaerobic, or other difficult science question. Yesterday I got away with telling her that it was raining because heavy clouds came from somewhere else with rain, and the rain was too heavy so it had to fall down (technically true, but still a bit fuzzy).

Now to January, but just the most important features of the month. Of course Rachel's birthday was on the 18th, which I already put up the picts for. The other big event was Joe's qualifying exam. For those who don't know what that is (which is totally understandable...), think Comps. or Comprehensive Exam. If that doesn't help, it's a really big test over 2 days (8 hours long) that was devised especially for Joe by the professors that know him best, testing whether he had enough knowledge on certain specific subjects to start his dissertation process. Scary? Yes! However, he took it just before the semester started in January and he passed!!!!!!! YEAH!!!! What does it mean? Just that now he can continue in the program, work on his dissertation, and that someday (maybe just over a year????) he will actually be done with school and we can have a real job that pays real money (okay, so he makes real money now teaching, just not that much of it)! I was so excited for him that I threw a huge party at our apartment clubhouse the night after the test. We didn't even know if he'd passed it yet, but it was such a relief that it was over! And our turnout was amazing, too! Almost all of our friends here in the Charlotte area came, over 50 people! We had lots of yummy food and visited while Ratatouille (sp?) was on, then (when in Rome, right) watched the Carolina Panthers get creamed in the playoffs. Thanks to all of you who came to hang with us that night, it was really great. And to all of you who didn't, that's okay. I'd put up pictures for you, but I was so worried about everything else that I forgot my camera that night. Sigh. So, if any of you who came took any pictures I'd love a copy...

Really for me in January it was all about Twilight. I borrowed the books in December and read them all in 5 days, no mean feat for a mom with 2 little girls. Joe bought the box set for me for Christmas (love Amazon.com) and in January I read them all again, and then again. (yes, I got a little obsessed, and I did in fact read the entire series 3 times in 6 weeks. I'm better now, I think). We also saw the movie for the first time the week before Valentine's day and it got Joe interested enough that he read them too! Sad, I know, but I can't wait until the movie comes out on Saturday!!!! (even though it wasn't very good; the next one will be awesome though!)

That's more than enough information in one post I think; I'll try and break it up with some picutes later this week. As a last note, it's been so long since I did a lot of typing that my skills are not as good as they used to be. This really took me too long to type.

Flashback Friday: Auto Theft

Okay, so I know it's not actually Friday anymore, but I started this on Friday and didn't have time to finish so I'm doing it now. For those of you not familiar with my friend Nancy's blog, every Friday she posts some funny story about something that happened to her. Last week it was eating pizza in Russia, other times it's about living in Jordan, living in Canada, or anything else she feels like writing about (like her grandma's food storage). As I was reading her Flashback last week I remembered something we did together once in High School, and I thought some of you might enjoy it. If it's not your cup of tea, sorry but it's still true.

I think it was my senior year of HS in Orem, but it could have been my junior year. It was in the fall during the time we had pit orchestra rehersals late into the evening several times a week and they were also having sophomores on the driving range-late October, probably. By the time we got out of practice it was dark outside. My friend Andy at the time drove a big old 10-passenger van. It was so old that the locks didn't work right, and the ignition would start even without the key. He drove to school one morning and then realized he'd forgotten his keys or something like that (a VERY Andy thing).

That's what gave me the idea in the first place. I remember that day he'd gone out right after the bell to move his van off the driving range so it wouldn't get towed or hit by the sophs. I told Nancy that I was going to 'steal' his car, and for some reason I couldn't understand she was very much against it. She knew I wasn't really going to steal it, but she was also way more anxious about the plan than I had thought she would be. (Now I realize it's because she liked him, since they're married and all, but at the time it was a mystery to me. It was around that same time that I told her I felt sorry for whoever Andy ended up marrying because he's so accident prone.)

Anyway, back to the story. After Andy had moved his van I snuck out of rehersal and met Nancy, who insisted on coming with me to make sure I didn't do anything too bad. We went out to the van which was now parked near the band room and climbed in. It started just fine without the keys, and I drove it over to the far end of the parking lot. Then we turned it off, got out, 'locked' the doors, and went back in. When we got out later (not sure what time) it was dark, and hard to see the far end of the parking lot. The van was a dark blue color with lots of rust, making it really hard to see clear down there. Of course Andy flipped out. He thought at first that he hadn't moved it and it was towed by the driver's ed people. Then Mike reminded him that he'd moved it. Then he was sure it was stolen, though none of us could think of why someone would steal such a nasty vehicle. Finally someone (I don't remember who) pointed it out, so far away in the dark. It didn't take long for everyone to figure out it was me, in fact I might have boasted about it, but I don't remember that now. Andy was mad of course, but more relieved that it wasn't stolen or anything (so were the other 5 kids who needed rides home that night). After that Andy drove the truck for a couple weeks while his parents got the locks and things fixed so it couldn't get stolen for real. Andy was never one to hold a grudge, thank goodnes, and a couple weeks later I even bummed a ride from him.

So, that's my flashback. I don't know if I'm thinking of these random things more now because my sister's a junior this year or because Joe's the YM pres and we do lots of stuff with his boys right now (BB tournament and Prom both this weekend). I know I have a lot more things I should post about, but hopefully someone will get a good laugh out of it and then forgive me. And Andrew, once again, I'm sorry I stole your van! (though it wouldn't do you a lot of good in Cairo anyway!)

RETURN!!!!

These first few are from Rachel's First Birthday! I can't believe she's already 13 months old! Where did the time go? (I know, you're thinking 'not by her blogging!') Anyway, it was a great time for our family and a few neighbors who came to help us eat cake and ice cream. Rachel got lots of Little People stuff; we walked through Toys R Us to find something she would like, and when we walked down that aisle she got SOOOO excited we knew just what to get her. She plays with these toys every day still (which is great).

Notice that the cake is the same colors and such as the toy castle? That was really on purpose, and Joe didn't even notice until after we'd eaten half the cake, when he said something like, "hey, isn't the cake almost like the castle?

This was our Thanksgiving that we did the day after Thanksgiving. On 'real' Thanksgiving, we went to the Tufts', Karen's best friend Hailey's house, and had a big ole' party then made our own the next day (mostly for the leftovers, I think). This year, I think we'll just stay home and do our own Thanksgiving instead of doing 2.
Setting up the Christmas Decorations after our Thanksgiving.

The rest of these pics are from our trip to Indiana for Christmas. It was a great week with Grandma and Grandpa Allen! The only problem we have now is that we have so much fun doing our fun stuff that we don't remember to get our camera out! It was fun to visit family and celebrate the holidays, as well as see the cousins, eat the yummy food, get presents, and everything else that goes along with that time of year.

Well, if a picture's really worth a thousand words, this entry is already WAYYYYY to long, so I'll be done for now and work on getting more caught up another time (tomorrow maybe? we'll see)

So...About that Return...

Well, it's been a trying process to get our computer back to where it needs to be to do ANYTHING! A week or two ago we had our friend reformat it and sadly, that didn't really help. But, we got our tax return last week, and the first thing we did was order a new desktop computer (okay, it was the second thing, we paid off our van first!!!) Anyway, HP should be shipping it by tomorrow and that means in the next week or so I will no longer have a valid IT problem for not blogging. It's sad, I have like a million pictures to put up of the girls from thanksgiving until now. They say a picture's worth a thousand words, so think how long it would take me to write all that if I can't upload the pictures. (I can't now; my Explorer would freeze up and I'd have to restart the computer at least once to get it going again...) Maybe my pennance for Lent this year will be to blog every day...That's actually not a bad idea, I might get caught up then... Hmmm, I'll have to think about that some more. Untl then, I'll keep my growing files of pics to myself and wait for the day I have enough juice in my computer to actually show them to someone.

I Will Return!!

Okay, so it's been so long since I posted that I really don't know where to start, but I'm really going to try. The last couple months have been really truly crazy and after next week it'll (hopefully) calm down enough that I can do a bit of catching up (0r at least start from where I'm at now and consider the last months a lost cause). Also our computer has issues with typing- there's a several second delay from when I type to when it shows up on the screen-so sorry about any really wierd spelling errors. I have no more time right now, but I promise I will return!!

Halloween and beyond!

First off I'm going to put up a bunch of pictures (I hope) from Halloween and everything. We'll see where we get from there. Karen was Cinderella for Halloween, while Rachel reprised Karen's role of 2 years ago (can it really be that long?) as a sunflower. They got lots of candy for mom and dad, and had fun showing off their cute clothes. Karen even got kissed on the cheek by AJ, a 3-year-old in the ward at the trunk-or-treat.
The pumpkin patch where we got our pumpkin (we bought the one Joe's touching). If someone else would have taken the picture so I could be in this would be the perfect family picture for us and we wouldn't have to get them taken still... oh well!

Karen was trying to 'sneak' a few cheerios, but ended up dumping most of the box. The day after this she did dump the entire box of Kix, but since it was right after I'd cleaned the floors I put them all back in the box. Was that bad of me? The one with the trash can is from the week after general conference. Karen liked watching the old guys (who she kept calling John McCain) talking so much that she had to do her own talks. She put a book on the can that she has memorized and then 'reads' it to me. She even does this cute little fake cough like she's clearing her throat.Future pianists? I definitely think so! I have to practice my choir music almost every day, and after I have my turn the girls each have to have their own turns too. It doesn't even sound that bad sometimes, but maybe I'm just going deaf or something.

Now that I'm officially the last person on the planet to put up their Halloween pics, I can maybe write about some other things that have been going on.

Starting with the church scene, it's as busy as always. We had a great ward party in October with 6 different jump/bounce house things, cotton candy, karaoke, and all kinds of fun stuff. Then we had Trunk or Treat for Halloween, which is always fun. Last week was the Scout Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser that Joe was in charge of (can he go back to teaching Primary, please?...) and so I got to help with some. I baked a pumpkin pie from some of my pumpkin that we got at the patch in October (I got enough pumpkin from it to make 9 pies...crazy) and it sold for $20 at the baked goods auction. They also had a sauce contest and had the 6 missionaries serving in our ward and the next one to us judge them. Crazy as it sounds, I actually won the prize for best sauce overall! I always knew the spaghetti sauce my mom made (and now I make) was really good, but there were some accomplished chefs, Italians, and good southern cooking experts in our ward. Everyone says I won because Joe was in charge of it, but he says it really wasn't that. It felt really good to actually win something, even if it was only a certificate that got wet in my diaper bag on the way home. This weekend Joe's on a scout campout, which is why I have enough computer time to not only look at other people's blogs but actually do my own post.

On the school front, it's more of the same. Joe was planning on taking his qualifying exam for his dissertation yesterday and today, but it's been pushed back to January 8-9. So much for a non-studying holiday! At this point we're looking forward to the test being done, just like we've been for the past 6 months. On the bright side Joe's doing a great job teaching his class on campus, and they've signed him to teach 2 sections of the class in the winter and 3 more in the spring/summer, which will be really good for our bank account.

On the home front things just keep plugging along. Rachel is now 10 months old and crawling like crazy. She's started to pull up on things (mostly the piano and the couch) and today she REALLY decided that anyone besides mommy and daddy is scary (at piano lesson time she screamed because the mom of my students tried to hold/play with her like she always does). She also insists on feeding herself. I'm not allowed to come anywhere near her with a spoon. So much for baby food! She eats lots of canned fruits and veggies, bread, cereal, and pasta, but nothing that's been creamed/ground up for her. She'll also take a bottle, but only if she's sitting on the floor while someone holds it up for her. Karen is 2 1/2 and that's about all I can say. She is very independant when she wants to be, but also can be really whiney and a pain too. She's pretty much potty trained (we'll take her night-time pull-up away next week when the package is empty) She loves princess movies and sings the songs from Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. We watched Peter Pan tonight and she thought it was fun except the 'funny scary crocodile/dragon' (her words, not mine). I'm about the same too, except that now I read books during naptime instead of blog/surf the internet. In the last month I've read 4 of the Anne of Green Gables books, Of Mice and Men, The Secret Garden, Robinson Crusoe, and started 1984 (but it's wierd, I might not finish that one).

Now that this terribly long blog is so long no one will ever read it all, I'm going to feed my baby and go to bed. Hope everyone has a really terrific Thanksgiving!

I figured it out!

The reason I've been having so much trouble doing regular posts lately is that I'm busy. At this moment you're thinking, okay so am I but I still get in at least a blog a week (or maybe not). I realized today that most of the time when I used to blog was during Karen's naptime. Not that Karen no longer takes a nap, but now I also have Rachel. She's a cute little bundle of screaming (mostly happy) and until recently was never sleeping at the same time as Karen. That makes it hard to blog since she's always crying or pulling on my leg and crying, or trying to eat the computer cords when I try to get online. This week has been better in one way, however. I finally got my girls to take naps at the same time!!! I think it's a miracle! Here's the catch: they can't be in the same room. I don't know what it is; they have no trouble sharing a room at night or any other time except for naptime. Putting them in the same room and telling them to take a nap is like dropping your pen and telling it not to fall. It just doesn't work in the known universe. So now the pack-n-play has become a permanent fixture in our bedroom (at least there's room for it in this apartment!) and they are taking good almost-2-hour naps. Now the only problem is that the computer (actually, the internet connection since the computer is a laptop) is in the bedroom with Rachel during naptime. So, I've won (at least temporarily) one battle, but the war to have a little of my own life continues. One of these days I'll even have enough time to myself with a computer to justify having an account on a social networking site... in my dreams....

Anyway, we've been doing pretty good here. The leaves are finally starting to change, we may have a frost tonight, and it's wonderful that I now have a justification for drinking hot chocolate! In other news, I stubbed my pinky toe on my left foot on Tuesday and it's pretty well jammed though it's not as painful and swollen as it was. Karen got a big blister running around the church last Thursday while I was helping set up for Enrichment (which was a great event...maybe I'll write about it sometime...). Anyway, her blister popped and scabbed over, she picked it a couple of times, and it was so gross I didn't want her to even try putting on shoes. As a result we've been kinda cooped up in our apartment and were about ready to kill each other this afternoon. This is why I have a brilliant and wonderful husband who came home and helped take care of the girls this evening, then kicked me out the door and told me to come back after bedtime! I didn't know what to do with myself!!! I went to the mall (without my money so I couldn't be really tempted) for over an hour without stopping at the kiddie slides, and walked in and looked at stuff in 4 consecutive stores. I can't ever do that with the girls; either they start screaming b/c we're not moving fast enough or they pull stuff off the shelves. It was nice (and wierd) to be able to go into any store I wanted to.

Last note befor I have to run: Rachel had her follow-up with the eye doctor on Tuesday morning. I spent an hour driving to south Charlotte for the appointment only to have him say "well, it looks like it might be a little better, but I'm not really sure what/if she needs anything yet. come back in January". It's nice to know that she's not blind and she might be a little better, but I feel like I wasted an entire morning for a doctor that doesn't really care about my baby! Grrr!

I was going to write more, but now the Office is on so I have to go. Hopefully I'll be back sooner than later, but I'm not giving up nap time for it so we'll see...

Football story

This story was the headline on rivals.com today. It's great that we're finally starting to get the recognition that we deserve! I miss Provo!

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news;_ylt=AuAPlMYlDarK.H.wlfzC3DUcvrYF?slug=jn-byu100208&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Where have I been?

Goodness, it looks like I've been away for a while now. I just don't know where the time has gone. We haven't really been doing much of anything big or exciting or scary or bad (unless you watch the economy, but that's not my fault I don't even have a mortgage). I really have no excuse for it having been about 6 weeks since I actually posted. It seems like I've been running crazy, but I don't have much to show for it. Between church, Joe's school, two girls, and trying to keep the house running it's just gotten away. Here's a few interesting things we've been doing:

1. Rachel went to an Eye, Ears, Nose and Throat specialist office about her funny eye-crossing behaviors. She's just nearsighted the Dr said, but she may need glasses around her birthday if her eyes don't continue to improve. They seem to be getting better but it's a really slow process.

2. We got the van serviced and found several things that needed to be fixed totaling over $1000 and it's sad that our student loans had to go mostly to that and not to actually paying off the van.

3. Joe started teaching! He has one class that he's teaching now and he really seems to be enjoying it. Next semester he's teaching 2 sections of the same class. He's also taking his qualifying exam in November and will hopefully be working on his dissertation by Christmas. He also got a bit of a job offer, but we're not done with school yet so it didn't even come to anything. It's nice to know that Joe's got a profitable degree that he can use though.

4. Karen is almost completely potty trained! Last week was kinda bad, but overall she's only using pull-ups at bedtime now and most of the time she goes in the toilet!!! She can even go by herself but then some of the time 'forgets' to put her underwear back on (she'd rather be free...). It's nice to not have 2 kids in diapers anymore.

5. Rachel is almost fully mobile. She can sit herself up and pull herself over. She can roll all over the place and yesterday started to commando crawl. She's really doing better in that department than Karen did. Rachel is now 8 months old; Karen didn't crawl at all until 10 months, I think someone's trying to catch up.

6. As I write, my government is attempting to buy up $700 billion in bad debt to just hold on to it for a few years... not that I have anything to do with that really since I don't currently pay taxes myself, own a home, or have anything in the stock market right now, but it's just a crazy situation. And it means the price of food is probably going to go up again... but it's just more fuel for an already exciting political season. It's crazy, but I don't even know who I'm voting for yet. What a crazy year this is!

Well, this is a long enough post for now. We've been busy and hopefully I'll be back for good now... until something else minor comes up, right? Here are some pics from the last bit...

These two pictures are from a party we had for our friends who were moving back to teach at BYU-I. Since then (July) they have moved to ID, one of our other friends moved to NJ, and another one had her baby!

Moving On

It seems like it's just that time of year. We moved about 2 weeks ago now and seem to be almost settled in our new apartment, just a couple blocks from our old apartment. Also this week I have several friends moving. Nancy and Andrew Heiss (and Rachel) are moving to Egypt to start grad school at AUC for 2 years. Megan Pickard is moving to Penn State for her PhD in Geology, and Shaille and Casey Claypool (and Matthew and Kelsi) are moving once again for their last year of optometry school-this time to Washington state. I'm sure there are more that I don't know about, but those are the ones I've read about online in the past 30 minutes or so and are therefore fresher in my mind. We've also begun the rash of move-ins in our ward, with a couple new couples from BYU and a family from Montana. It seems like this is the time of year to move, right before school starts and you have to get back to 'life'. (although you're still living in the summer, and there are those who claim to live for summer but aren't actually dead during the rest of the year...)

Anyway, our last couple weeks have been mostly spent getting settled and used to our new and oh-so-much bigger and better apartment. Karen has almost stopped asking to go home (meaning our old apartment) and is almost back to where she was with her potty training. (she regressed a LOT last week). Rachel is doing well but now HATES to sleep in her crib, and it's our biggest challenge now. Last week Joe's professors made him take off and not do any work from Monday until Friday. So we got netflix 2 week trials and watched an entire season of the West Wing as well as the olympics. Saturday night we went to the Indianapolis Colts vs. Carolina Panthers preseason game with our friends Justin and Kitara. It was totally cool to be in the stands (almost at the very top) but would have been better if the Colts were actually trying to win (since preseason NFL games don't count on the record the Indy coach doesn't usually play his starting lineup for more than the first few minutes to reduce the risk of injury). The craziest thing at the game besides the way expensive consessions was the fact that the field goal kicker for Carolina missed 2 times and sent the game into overtime. It was pretty fun and got us really excited to watch some BYU football!!!

Well, time to be done. As a note, I think I did something bad and deleted all the blogs I had linked on my blog, so if you could, repost your website so I can check out your blogs again (since I have no memory) and I'll try to get everything worked out. It's been about a year since I worked on updating the layout anyway, so I'll try to get it better but if y'all could help me out that would be wonderful. Thanks!!!!

I'm Going Crazy...

I remember singing this song at girl's camp and in girl scouts many years (or maybe not many...) ago:

I'm going crazy
Why don't you come along
I must be crazy
To sing this song....

And it went on from there. Every time we move it feels like that song fits perfectly (though I'm not going to deliver a whole farm or even a sheep any time soon...). We move on Saturday, and while it's exciting it's also exhausting, crazy and a bit overwhelming this time, even though it's not very far. Tomorrow I have to take our internet modem back to the TimeWarner Cable place and have the internet turned off here. So this is my last opportunity to blog in this apartment. It really makes me happy to be moving but sad at the same time since this is the only home our kids have ever known. Karen cried this morning when she went into our empty master bath; she doesn't understand what moving means even though we've kinda psyched her up for it the last couple weeks/months. I hope you all have a great end of July and I hope to be officially back online in a couple weeks at the latest. (before the Heisses leave for Egypt?) So Happy Pioneer Day to you all, and TTFN!!

Milestones and Milemarkers

That's what we've been working on the last few weeks, reaching milestones and counting mile markers. I'll write about our trip to Indiana first and then go from there, I think. I'm trying to write about everything before I forget it, we turn off our internet, or get so far behind that it's not worth writing about anymore.

On the 30th of June we left for Grandma and Grandpa Allen's at 5:30 in the morning. I know you're all thinking, why in the world would they leave that early? Because we find that our children are easier to deal with in the car early in the morning (they mostly sleep) and the roads are much more empty so you can make better time that way. Our girls are pretty much amazing. We thought we'd have to stop for a play break around lunch time, but we pretty much drove straight through. I drove some, but Joe ended up doing most of it since I would have to go back and nurse Rachel every few hours. We made it in 10 hours including rest stops, which is really good, and Karen got her first taste of country life by playing with the gravel driveway and chasing the very pregnant cat (she had a litter of 6 while we were there).

It was a much more relaxing vacation than we've had so far this year, mostly because with the price of gas it's not worth it to drive all over to see things. We mostly stayed on the farm and played outside, although Joe and I went to the Lane Place, a historic home in Crawfordsville, one afternoon. Joe's brother Matt came down with his family (Shelley, Faith, and Clayton) for the 4th, and Karen's rarely had so much fun. Faith is a year and a half older and Clay a year younger than her. There's lots of room to run and play and no one else to play with besides each other, so they got along really well and had a blast. They played basketball with badminton racquets, splashed in the wading pool, took turns on the 4 wheeler, watched princess movies and veggie tales... it was fun. Faith was the de-facto leader of the group since she was the biggest, but by the end they were mostly doing what Karen wanted since if Faith wanted to do something Karen didn't want to, Karen wouldn't play. It was funny to watch as they tried to manipulate each other... like father like daughter, right? It was a great week and we were both happy and sad to come back home again.

Now to the milestones... Rachel is going to be 6 months old on Friday! I can't believe it! Where did the time go? At her last checkup she was 16 lbs 4 oz, and 26 in. long. that was 2 months ago! She's huge now! She has her first 2 bottom teeth and is working hard on the 2 top ones. She rolled all the way over on Friday, which was so great to see! Karen's passed most of her milestones already, but is now starting on her 2 year molars and seems taller every day. She already asks when she can go to school, and likes to count and sound out really simple words (like cat). Another milestone that we passed last week was our 5th anniversary. I can't believe it's been 5 years since we got married! In some ways it seems like a long time (I finished school, we've moved 7 times, we have 2 kids...) and in other ways it seems like it was just a little while ago. I decided it's a good thing we have eternity to go, because 5 years is definitely not enough even though it may be a good place to start.

The last part I have to mention in this post is the countdown to moving has begun. We move in 12 days from today! I'm so excited for the bigger apartment, awesome amenities, and the good friends we already have at our new location. I just wish we could move this week instead of almost 2 weeks from now since Joe has a conference and scout camp betweev now and then. As a result of our impending move, we'll be temporarily internet-less sometime in the next couple weeks, but don't worry, we'll be back before Nancy and Andrew leave for Egypt. Time to go; typing one-handed takes too long!

pictures, pictures, pictures

Here are the pictures of some things I've posted about the last few months. The bottom has pictures from Calista's wedding, dinner, and reception in Alpine. Then is the one of the dresser we refinished for them at their apartment. After that are a couple from Karen's 2nd birthday (the unfamiliar people are Doren and Steve Cook). Then come our Savannah, GA pictures with Marissa Shuffler's (now Porter, sorry) wedding and Karen as flower girl. The top pics are at Fort Pulaski outside Savannah. Sorry it's taken so long to get anything up. We'll do better in the future (I hope!).

Georgia on my mind

Last weekend we went down to Savannah, GA for a wedding. One of the girls that was in Joe's class at UNCC (she decided to move down to a program in FL now) got married. It was a cool little church in the historic section of the city, with lots of stained glass windows, a big pipe organ, and a balcony. It kind of reminded me of the Provo Tabernacle actually. Karen was the flower girl for the wedding, and she was so cute! They got her this gorgeous little dress and she had flowers in her hair and everything. The only problem with having a 2 year old as the flower girl is that she dumped all the flowers in one spot at the entrance to the church and someone took the empty basket from her instead of letting her just walk down the aisle. This caused her to freak out a bit and she cried (screamed more like it) halfway down the aisle. But otherwise the wedding was really great. It was almost like what you see in the movies! I think this was my first time being at a 'real' wedding except when I was a little kid.

The reception was at a cool old hotel in the historic district too. They had some good food (not the best, but I acutally like my steak cooked so that may throw off my opinion a bit) and we met some of Marissa's friends at our table. If Rachel hadn't flipped out halfway through and Karen hadn't fallen asleep we would have stayed for the dancing and everything, but it was almost 10:30 by the time we got finished with everything.

While we were there we stopped to see some things on Saturday morning/afternoon. It was really hot outside (near 100 with lots of humidity) but Savannah is a cool old place where the trees have grown so big that it's shady in most spots (at least where we were). Think Forrest Gump; the parts where he's sitting on the bench telling the story were filmed in Savannah. We saw some cool old houses, went down to the riverfront with cool old buildings and stuff (now they're all resturants), and even met a Haitian artist named Alix Baptiste who gave us one of his postcards for free after Joe spoke Haitian to him for a few minutes. On Sunday before we came home we went to Fort Pulaski, which was built in 1847 and was used in the Civil war. It was cool, but we couldn't let Karen run everywhere she wanted because the moat around the fort has 3 alligators in it who I'm sure would have loved having her for a snack. Luckily we didn't see them. We also tried to go to the beach at Tybee Island, but Karen had just about had it. We ended up going for about 10 minutes, just long enough for everyone to get their feet wet a bit. Rachel loved it; Karen did not. It was a long car ride home with a very tired toddler and an out of sorts infant, but it was a nice weekend trip. It's cool to go see some of the stuff around here; there's so many 'old' things!

welll...

You're all probably wondering what happened to me. I did a really long post about our first few days in Utah and then ended it rather abruptly, only to not post again for over a week. Well, I'm sorry but it's been a bit crazy around here. Let me tell you about it in (hopefully) the short version of it all.

We got back from Ut the night of the 14th (over 2 weeks ago now) and that night I was really sick. I think it was something I ate. Anyway I struggled through laundry the next day, and almost convinced myself I was better on Friday. Saturday was a crazy day for Joe since he had the YM/Scout garage sale in the morning and afternoon and a multi-stake dance at night. He got up at 5am that day and didn't get to bed until after 1am... Sunday was busy with Joe's meetings, my RS Enrichment comittee meeting, and such. Monday we got some rest and then Tuesday was all right, but I didn't really feel right the whole time. I don't really remember much of the early part of last week. It all kind of blends together, you know?

Thursday we went to the park for playgroup and were the only ones there. That evening I made some cupcakes and a cake because Friday was Karen's birthday Yes, Karen is now officially two years old. She acts like she's at least three a lot of the time, but she's 2! Thursday night I was really sick again. I thought it was funny that I was sick exactly one week after I was sick the last time, but figured it was probably from eating a bit of the cake batter left in the bowl...(I know, I really shouldn't do that). Friday morning I still didn't feel good but it was Karen's birthday so I gave it my best shot anyway. We took a walk, played outside, decorated her cake, and dad came home early so we could get things all ready. The Beasleys and Cooks came over for dinner and presents, and I was feeling aweful. My tummy hurt bad, and my right side was killing me. I ate a tiny plate of nachos for dinner and spent most of the party laying on the floor and trying to stay coherent. Karen got 4 new veggie tales movies (let me explain: we got 3 of them when we were planning on driving to Ut and when we bought plane tickets we decided to save them for her birthday), plastic food (fruit and veggies), and a pink and purple tea set. She also got the LeapFrog ABC fridge magnet set which she really loves and a stuffed lion she yesterday named Roger.

Saturday I felt terrible all day, and I couldn't keep anything down. I hurt everywhere and it was completely terrible. I even went so far as to call my angel of a visiting teacher to come watch the girls while Joe took me to the doctor. We ended up not going that far but we did call a guy in the ward who's a PA and he said they probably wouldn't do anything for me anyway. I felt aweful, but I couldn't do anything about it. Sunday Joe took Karen to church and I stayed home with Rachel. I hurt so bad I could hardly move, but it was still a good day since Rachel rolled over for the first time. It was so cute! I actually saw her do it too, in between trips to the rest room.

Monday was Memorial Day and I felt a bit better so we went to the brunch at the church. It was good but Joe was afraid to let me eat anything there. I got mad at him for that and we didn't end up staying very long but it was the first time I'd left the house since Thursday. That afternoon we figured out what I had (we think). I have all the symptoms for Hepatitis A. I probably got it on our last day in Ut somewhere; we ate out several times that day. No I haven't been vaccinated since I haven't been planning any international travel and they didn't routinely give that shot until after I was 'too old'. Joe and Karen both have had the shot, and now Rachel has the antibodies from me so she shouldn't get it either, but let me tell you it is MISERABLE!!! Besides the nasty yellow-orange color I turned the other day it hurts. Luckily it only lasts weeks to months, so by the end of the summer I should be okay. I'm feeling all right now except I'm still really tired and I eat really little meals. The one up side to it all is that I lost 10 pounds last weekend so my clothes all fit a bit better.

So that's why I didn't finish my post from a while back. Hopefully I'll write about my sister's wedding soon because it really was great, but I'll have to do it another time because now I have to go feed a baby.

To Post or Not To Post... and other things

How is it that I feel like I never do anything, but I'm always busy and never feel like I get anything done? Does that sentance make sense? We've been back from Utah for almost a week, and every day I think, oh I'll do my blog in a little bit...or after dinner... or before bed... Then it's tomorrow sometime, or after church... So here I am trying desperately to remember all those cute and funny things that I was going to write last week but never did. I guess I'll start at the beginning and hope it turns out okay.

We left for Utah early on Thursday (15th). It was about 5am EDT, or 3am in Utah. Despite the craziness of getting to the airport, checking all our bags, getting through security, and finding our gate with 5 pieces of luggage (including 2 car seats which, btw, don't count as a 'second suitcase' for the new rules), 3 carry-on bags, a stroller, 2 kids and 2 adults it was a good flight. We sat at the very front of the plane, Rachel slept a lot, Karen played most of the time and only had one meltdown. We got to Utah around 10 am local time and by 11 were out of the airport in our rental car. We went with Avis this time because we had a coupon; it ended up costing us more money and we were stuck with a stupid Ford Explorer that got terrible gas mileage and didn't have much room for anything; I don't recommend them to anyone. We stopped at Grandma Zillner's to say hi, but no one was home. Luckily we found a door open (I love UT for that... people always leave their doors open) and went in. Joe got us som McDonald's while I fed Rachel. Grandma got home soon and we visited with her and Grandpa while Karen took a nap, then headed for Happy Valley. I talked to Calista on the way and she invited us to go to the temple with them that evening. We went to my aunt Lisa's and visited with the family, had dinner, then went to my aunt Linda's where we were going to be staying. We got the kids down, changed, and went to the temple with Calista and Brandon. It was SOOO nice to go to the temple! We've only gone a few times since we moved out here, and most of those times are when we go to UT to visit. It's just a ways to the temple and the grounds are tiny, and with little kids it gets interesting. Anyway, after the temple we were really tired since it was around 10pm or so (we just made the 8pm session at Timp) and we went back to Linda's for the night. That's when we noticed the cat AND the dog. Joe's allergies are terrible, mine are not good either, and both girls have some (we're not sure how much yet). It's crazy, but no one (me, Joe, Mom, Linda, Grandma, or anyone else) had even thought about the pet issue, and we weren't there long enough in the evening to realize it much. I didn't even remember her having a dog, even though it's like 12 years old. But it was getting really late for us on east coast time, and we couldn't do anything about it that night.

The next morning all of us felt terrible and even though I didn't want to offend anyone I couldn't make my family stay there any more. We packed up our suitcases after breakfast (which was really wonderful, with chocolate chip pancakes and everything) and went back to Lisa's (where my parents were staying). We didn't know where we would be staying now or what was going on, but it was the day before the wedding and there was a lot to do. We took our kids and Mike and Stacia to the park (discovery park is really close to where they live in PG) and my cousins came too. We had fun, Joe got hurt on the spinners, Karen fell off a few different things, and Rachel was mad about being out in the wind, but it was fun anyway. That evening we had dinner at my aunt Cheryl's in Lehi with the Howes family. There were so many people there! It seems like every time we get together now there are at least a few more people; kids, significant others, friends, pets, and so on. It was fun to see everyone since I hadn't seen many of them since my wedding or before, but there were almost too many people for the house. After that we went to where we were staying the night: Brandon's (Calista's husband) grandma's house in Mapleton. It was a whole string of crazy and somewhat upsetting events that led to us staying there but it worked out okay in the end. It was a nice opportunity to get to know the Perazzos, and they're really great people. We even got a bedroom to ourselves (though all four of us in one room isn't fun we did it the whole trip).

The next morning we were all trying to get ready for the wedding. I was in the shower downstairs when this happened, but during breakfast Karen fell through the back of her chair (a folding chair). She tried to grab something to keep her from falling, but ended up grabbing the cereal bowl instead. She and her cereal fell on the floor, and the cereal got everywhere. Joe gave her an emergency bath, and I didn't even know what happened until after it was all over. After we were all clean and ready I once again packed up all our suitcases and we followed Brandon to their new apartment in Provo where we sayed the rest of the trip. Let me just say that it may be a fairly crappy basement apartment as apartments go, but it is definitely worth it since it's less than 2 blocks south of the Botany pond. Also note how many times I packed up those stupid suitcases and all our junk in the first few days of our trip. Although it's not entirely fair to blame it all on that, the next bit that I write doesn't sound quite as bad if you keep in mind that I had packed everything so many times that I couldn't quite remember where anything was anymore. But... I'll have to write that another time.

A Week!

It's amazing that I'm actually posting again after only one week! I hardly know what to write. I haven't really gone anywhere or done anything exciting since we can't drive much with gas so expensive...

Oh yes, I did get a new cell phone this week. It's really nice too! When we moved out here we got new phones with Cingular/ATT, but they were the free ones that aren't very nice...and that was almost 2 years ago (where has the time gone?). Since then my phone has been dropped probably a thousand times, and nearly been flushed down the toilet once (or maybe twice). Needless to say it was about dead and we had a 'free upgrade' on our plan. So I got a Motorola Razor phone-it's soooo nice compared to my old phone and it has about a hundred more/better features (including voice activated calling and some other fun things). Joe will get a new phone in the next week or so too, but they were out of the one he wanted at the store we went to. It's nice to be able to talk on the phone without it being on speakerphone the whole time, and I'm not afraid that every day may be its last. I gave my old phone to Karen, but now that it doesn't call daddy or grandma or Calista it's not nearly as interesting.

The other exciting thing (at least to me) is that Joe has now finished writing all of his papers for classes this semester! It seems like he's been working on school stuff non-stop all semester (probably because he has been) since he had to take an extra class to get his master's this semester instead of waiting until the winter. So he was taking 15 graduate credit hours, plus doing 20 hours of work with a professor (including TAing 2 large labs) and lots of 'extra' research with several other professors and presenting at a couple of conferences. This is all in addition to his YM pres. stuff that takes most of Sunday, Wednesday nights, and sometimes Friday and/or Saturday too. I'm going to be really happy to have my husband back, even if he's still working a full amount of hours over the summer.

And speaking of Summer... our plans for Utah: We get in on Thursday around noon. We don't have plans for anything that day yet, except stopping by Grandma Zillner's and seeing my family wherever they happen to be. Friday I don't know for sure what's happening yet, but I've heard rumors of a Howes' reunion in the evening. Saturday is Calista's wedding and reception in Alpine (it's also the day Jason Flack is getting married-congrats to him, and I hope people who are going to his reception in Lindon will be willing to drive a bit farther to Calista's which is out in Alpine...). Sunday is Mother's Day, and I don't know what's happening for sure; we'll probably go to church with my parents but I don't know if it will be our old ward in Orem or my Grandma's ward in Midvale or what... Monday my family is leaving for the reception in Nevada and we have no plans from that point on until we leave for NC (we should leave for the airport around noon on Thursday 14th). So it looks like our free evenings will be Thursday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for us to get together with Joe's family and any other friends in the area (unless I'm forgetting something which is always possible). I'm so excited! It's only 2 weeks away now! I've also started a list of places where I need to go shopping/out to eat. Here's what I have so far: Arctic Circle, Los Hermanos (wedding!!), Cafe Rio, Deseret Book, Distribution Center, BYU Bookstore, ...okay that's enough for now. TTFN!

Birthday Sharing, Utah update

It seems like everyone I know knows someone who shares the same birthday as them. Not all of us are as cool as our sister-in-law Kathleen Allen who has the amazing ability to remember just about everyone's birthday, but most of us remember when we meet someone who shares our same significant day. For example, Karen shares her exact birthday (5-23-06) with Joshua Sosa, a cute little boy in our ward. Rachel shares her exact birthday (1-18-08) with Bryant Whiting from our ward and Katryn Bockholt, my friend Krystal's little boy.

I also share my birthday, though I don't know anyone born the same year. In my ward in Orem I had a YW leader with my birthday and my friend Becky's sister shares my birthday. It's funny that although I haven't seen either of them for a long time I still remember this near-useless (but interesting nonetheless) fact. This year was a bit exciting for me since I now know another person who shares my birthday. If you've been reading my blog (or want to catch up...), you'll know that last September my friend Jaimie's husband John died a week after a big car accident. It was a horrible and tragic situation, since they had just found out they were expecting. Well, baby Grace Johanna Martinson was born on my birthday last week! I haven't been to see her yet, but I hear she's big and cute and I know she'll be just great because she was born on a good day. ;) So now I have another person to remember every year, which is fun.

Now, for a quick change of subject... I know a couple weeks ago I said we were coming to Utah and would be driving. We were going to arrive on the 9th and leave on the 13th, but our plans have changed somewhat. Due to the rising cost of gas (it's 3.40 here...) we started looking for plane tickets, and yesterday Joe found a steal on Orbitz. We will now be flying in the morning of the 8th (arriving around 11am) and leaving the evening of the 14th (around 5 pm). While we were looking forward to a road trip, we are much more excited that we can save a few hundred dollars and spend a longer amount of time visiting our family and friends. Unfortunately we won't be stopping in Indiana to visit Joe's family, but with the money we save on this trip we might go visit sometime this summer...maybe July 4th, we don't know for sure anything about that yet. So anyway, now I'm really looking forward to seeing Shaille and her family, and hopefully a lot of other people too (like a family who will be shortly moving to Egypt, hint hint ;) ). We're still not sure where we're staying, but it will probably be somewhere in Utah county, maybe with my aunt but we're not sure yet. I just wanted to let y'all out there know what's going on with us.

Last note: congrats to Andy Heiss and anyone else who is graduating from BYU and/or any other schools this semester! It's a great feeling to be done with school!!!

Pictures!

Happy girls
Helping make a cake for RS
Wearing Rachel's carrying pack

Karen likes to help with the Laundry, though how helpful it is I'm still not sure about.
Can you tell which teams we like to watch?
I'm a potato head!

Karen LOVED doing the eggs for Easter, even though she kept dropping them (good thing they were already cooked!).
Look mom, lots of eggs! Listen, they shake! Ooh, yummy candy! Welcome to Easter morning.
Look at the beginning of the chub! (3/25) She's getting big so fast!!

Rachel and I at the Priest/Laurel Prom
Girls with Grandparents!

Rachel always likes to be swaddled and Karen wanted to try it out; she's almost too big for her blanket though!
Karen's Easter/Calista's wedding dress.
Rachel on her blessing day. She's so cute! I love the dress (thanks again Mom).