I Can Be So Selfish

Ok, so, all I have to say is, do you think I'll ever learn? As we were in the process of moving and all, I'm wondering what the Lord has in store for me in Maryland. Hello, did I ever stop to think that perhaps moving to Maryland could be for reasons other than me? I met a lady on Sunday who works at the Maryland School for the Deaf, specifically with the 0-5 year olds. She's assigned as my visiting teacher. Today two ladies from the Infant and Toddler program come to asses Seth and I realize what a wonderful program they have here and how many resources are available. We fed the missionaries last Thursday, and one of the elder's has a cochlear implant. Do you know who I am alluding to? It just occured to me that perhaps Heavenly Father sent us here to get the best help for Seth? I can be so selfish, I tell you. I'm sure there are other reasons as well, but I just had this light bulb moment today. I need to stop worrying about what I'm suppose to get out of this experience and take a look around me. I'm so excited for Seth. For his physical therapy, we have a goal set that in six months we will have him walking! I was like, really? Crazy, but he's been a baby for so long that it's hard to imagine him not being a baby! Seth is moments away from crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees. He can also drag himself to things he wants. Of course he's protesting all the while he's doing this because he wants to know why he has to work so hard to get something when you could obviously just hand it to him. I don't know. He's very determined. That's how the therapists described him today.

Odd and Ends

Today was just another ordinary day. I talked to Tonnia on the phone and we were talking about our blogs. I mentioned to her that I love reading what's going on in everyone's lives, and then I realized that perhaps I should blog more so everyone can keep up with us as well. So this blog isn't about anything special or exciting, but just a glimpse into our everyday lives.

Seth's ear has been draining so I am attributing his fussiness these past few days to an ear infection. He has turned into a mama's boy. He has decided that I am the only one who can make him happy, even if it means just holding a bottle for him. I fed him bits of homemade bread at dinner tonight. He loved it! He kept smiling at me. I wonder about his hearing. Sometimes I feel like, fine, he can't hear, I can handle this, perhaps we'll learn sign language. Then at other times I feel like I know he hears better than what he's testing at. Dagnabit. I wish I could just know the answers to things right now.

I went to the church last night to practice the organ. I take my turn as being organist on the 2nd of August. There are six organists in our ward now, so every one just rotates. This ward is definately not in need of musical talent. The pedals are intriguing to me. I remember my piano teacher teaching me how to play the organ and how to use a toe heel method. So I spent last night google-ing pedel techniques. Yeah, someday maybe, but not today.

We have a free membership to a private pool here in Silver Spring thanks to the last tenants of this home. Thankyou! I took the kids there today and we were like the only ones there! The high cost of membership could be worth it. There's never really a crowd and the older children love jumping off the diving boards. Although I am a bit miffed about the children not being able to wear their life jackets in the pool. Ok, I won't get fired up about that one. I dip Seth's feet in the water and he's beginning to like the feel of the cool water. At least he doesn't cry any more. Now it's more of a startle and then a little kicking and smiling.

I am excited for our first visitors who will be coming to visit this weekend! Dennis and Sandra and family and also Sarah and Ed and family! It will be a housefull, but the house is big enough to fill! Ok, going to bed now. It's two hours later than I'm use to. Yes, still wishing I was living in Mountain Time.

Come visit us and see some of the fun stuff too!

So I just wanted to post these pics real quick because I think they are so cool. Perhaps the novelty of it all will wear off and I won't think it's so cool in the future, especially after the deer try to eat all my plants. Anyways, this picture is taken looking out to the back yard! At one time we had six deer grazing behing our house. They stay mainly in the wooded area behind our house. The edge of the grass is our property line and then it's undeveloped park land for quite a while. There's even a stream back there where the kids have caught toads!

And this is a picture of the Pentagon! We went there on the fourth of July to watch the fireworks that are shot off at the National Mall. My brother in law works here, well, for now anyways, until they go to Japan. We will be sad not to have had a whole lot of time here with them. But there are going to stay with us for a few weeks in August! Yeah! Anyways, Ed took us on a brief tour inside as he has special priveleges of getting in. I guess it goes with the territory of working there. We have been to the Museum of Natural History and we have plans to go to the zoo. We also hope to visit Ocean City, Maryland as well sometime here in the near future! I hear it's a really nice beach!

Happy Birthday Seth! (We're a bit behind on the blogging!)

Well, as you can tell, I'm very behind in keeping everyone who cares to read my blog up to date with things that are going on around here. But I had to pay tribute to my little guy! On June 15th Seth turned one year old! He was born 15 weeks too soon. He was due on September 26th, but due to my water breaking at 18 weeks and bleeding, labor came too early. We were able to keep him inside until I was 25 weeks and 2 days along, and then he made his debut into the world. Honestly, I didn't expect him to survive and was bracing for the time when we would be told to say goodbye. But not Seth. He is a fighter. He chose to stay and fight. I love you, Seth! He weighs a little over 15 lbs now! He loves to pick up snacks from his tray and eat them! He doesnt' like fruits, though. He pushes up all the way with his arms now when he's on his tummy and he doesn't get mad anymore because he knows how to get off his tummy! He could sit up on his own if he would quit arching his back. He grabs for everything! He tolerates his hearing aids ok, but after a while he gets mad, so we give him a break.

Before Grandma and Grandpa left to return to Utah, we threw Seth an early birthday party, just a few days early. So we got to celebrate his birthday twice! Seth liked the ice cream somewhat, although he spit it all up afterwards. He's funny like that. If he doesn't like something, you can guarantee he will throw it up!

From our trip to New Mexico

Ok, so I finally have all the millions of pictures that we've taken the last several weeks. The following are from our trip to New Mexico. It takes me forever to do anything on this computer as our fiber optic cable connection is a little screwy. Or maybe it's just this computer and it's user!

Here we are at the Space Museum. As kids we called it the Space Hall of Fame. Then it's name changed to the Space Center. Alas, it has found the name of Space Museum. And yes, it still has the dummy dressed in a space uniform from when we were kids.

The kids taking advantage of the "build your own robot" exhibit, one of the few exhibits that really interested them. This place is still a little over their heads.

Kate and her robot.

Alex's elaborate robot.

Karsten's, don't make me look, robot!

Dane's robot.

For the first several days of our visit we stayed at Matt and Denise's home. The kids loved playing with their two cats. This is a pic of Karacum, I believe, and the other cat's name is Sahara. I miss my Moses.

On cinco de Mayo we bought a pinata for the kids to beat to death.

Hit it Dane!

Kate taking a wack!

Our beautiful Aunt Denise!

Enjoying the candy!

Karsten and his beloved Super Silky. We lost it at Grandma Christensen's house, I wonder if she ever found it?

Our visit to the zoo, which is the perfect size zoo because you can walk through the whole thing in like twenty minutes, about the length of the youngest's attention span. FYI, the Alamogordo Zoo is the oldest zoo in the southwest (and the smallest).

The kids thought it was so funny that Seth could sit in the doll stroller! This stroller makes him look big!

Emily at White Sands National Monument! It's like a beach without the water!

Kate and Dane

Always a hike to get back to the top!

Alex kicking back and talking to Grandma Christensen!

Alex ready to attack someone with a sand clod!

Emily again, how'd she get her picture here twice?

Enjoying some good food while visiting the Dunes!

Taking a train ride at the Toy Train Depot!

Woot! Woo! Engine of love, take me with you baby! (Ok, anyone remember marching to this song?)

Alex had to sit right behind the driver!

We placed pin wheels and flowers on our three angel cousins' burial site~ Kimberlee and Charlene who were twins, and their sister Lynette who was buried in this same spot a couple of years later. In the future the twin's head stone will be flipped over to add Lynette's name as well. They are the sweet babies of my brother Dennis and his wonderful wife Sandra.

Moving Across Country

We are currently in Nauvoo, Illinois. We arrived this afternoon around five. It is so green here. Crossing the Mississippi was fun. It is quite wide. And clear, unlike the Colorado River. As we drove along the river on our way to Nauvoo, I pictured in my mind what it might have been like living here back when our country still hadn't expanded into the west. What is really neat is to walk where our pioneer ancestors had walked. Tomorrow we will tour more of Nauvoo, as we spent the evening preparing dinner and went to a show called "Randevouz in Nauvoo". The kids seem pretty contempt with swimming in the hotel swimming pools each night. In fact, that's all they really care about! I can't wait to to reach Washington, DC. It will be nice to have my own home again. I've been homeless for over a month now, and I'm ready to have my own place again. The car is a mess. I think we plan on running it off a cliff when we finally get to DC. It's that bad. Anyways, here we go!

Still Vacationing

Today I realized that this is probably the longest I have been on vacation in my life. Well, if you can call it a vacation with six kids! No, they really haven't been that bad. We'll return to Utah in a week, spend a week there, and then spend a week traveling to Washington, DC. Eating home cooked meals is a treat now. It use to be that eating out was a treat, but we've been doing that a lot lately and will continue to do so for some time until we find a permanent home, perhaps in Maryland or maybe in Virginia. I have a new set of pots pans waiting to be opened when we find a home. Todd doesn't know this, but I bought some at Costco when he left. At first I was going to open up the box and use them, and then I thought, why unpack when you're going to have to repack them anyways. So, they just got added to the growing pile of boxes that was in the garage.

Last Thursday I drove over five hundred miles from Alamogordo to San Antonio to visit Todd. It was such a great trip! It was so much fun to see Todd and spend the weekend with him. The drive there wasn't so bad, just long. The speed limit is 80 most of the way. I always pictured Texas as flat, but the road to San Antonio wasn't so. It's not mountainous, by any means, but there are hills, plateaus, and valleys. Outside of El Paso, it's not much to see, but as you travel deeper into Texas, the landscape changes and it becomes greener. More humidity too. I've also got to admit that I have developed a bad habit while driving--I drink Dr. Pepper. It helps me not feel so sleepy and it wards off that dull headache you get when you've been traveling for a long time in a car with six kids, with at least one child screaming at any given moment. I'll have to say that Seth was probably one of the best during the drive. He doesn't mind being in his car seat which is a huge blessing. Kate, Emily, and Dane each took turns sitting in the seat next to him to help care for him. They would feed him bottles or entertain him for short periods of time. I bought a small TV for the van so the children can watch DVD's as we travel. How did we as children ever survive road trips? We never had a television in the car to watch! We did play a few road games, the ABC game and another game we call the Car game. Starting with the oldest in the family, you watch for oncoming cars and the first one that you pass is "your car". For some reason having a diesel pass when it's your turn is a very good thing. The kids always had to start with dad, even though he wasn't with us, because they didn't want to leave him out. And of course Seth had to be included too. It took us roughly ten hours to get to San Antonio. On the way there we made minimal stops. We didn't want to waste a minute of the time we had with Todd. We arrived at Lackland AFB around 6:30 on Thursday evening. Being in the military we are priviledged to stay on base if there is space available in their luxurious hotel suites. Todd is training at Fort Sam, but there was no space available there, so we stayed at Lackland. We went to a mexican restaurant for dinner. During dinner Karsten sees a fly land on our table, so he takes off his shoe and proceeds to try and smash it!

On Friday, Todd had to turn in some equipment and had his graduation ceremony. Since Todd really isn't a huge fan of graduation ceremonies, he told us not to worry about coming and so we just spent time shopping and driving around base to see if there were any open swimming pools. Not! Gonna get some getting use to living out side of Utah. When Todd got back on Friday we took the kids down to the River Walk and took a boat ride tour. Afterwards we ate dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe. The kids thought it was so fun, and that's all that really matters. In my opinion, the restaurant was nice, nothing fabulous. It was all decked out like a rainforest and we were priveleged to sit next to the gorillas who would hoop and hollar every half hour. Overall it really was a lot of fun. I have a few pictures that I'll post sometime when I can download them onto my own computer.

Saturday was the big day! We took the kids to Sea World. It was a very fun and very exciting day. Todd, Kate, and Alex went on every rollar coaster. Emily and Dane went on as many as their heighth would allow. Alex also went on every water slide as well. I held the baby, which I was perfectly fine with. I did go on one ride with the kids and was priveleged to be the one who went under the water fall! At least I wasn't hot anymore! Sea World to me is an amusement/water park with some aquatic animal shows sprinkled in. Nothing like I imagined, but not disappointing by any means. We saw three shows: the sea lions, the dolphins and baluga whales, and of course the orcas, or more commonly known as the killer whales, which, if you ask Emily, will remind you that a killer whale is not a whale at all, it is a dolphin, otherwise called an orca. It was amazing to watch the dolphins jump out of the water. Or watch an orca climb up on the deck. I could have watched them again! We did a lot of walking, and by evening we were exhausted. The kids had had enough and were very grumpy!

Saturday was also Todd's birthday. When we got home from Sea World we were suppose to surprise Todd with his present, but Dane and Karsten had already given it away the night before, I think. Can't keep a secret for nothin'. So, it wasn't too surprising, but still fun. We sang Happy Birthday to him and let him open his gift wrapped in an AAFES bag (wal-mart bag) and decided the cupcakes we had bought could wait until morning since we were all so tired.

Sunday was set aside for rest, as every Sabbath is meant. Todd gave me some nice jewelry for Mother's day. He's getting really good at this! Using Todd's recently acquired GPS on his phone, we set off in search of an LDS meeting house. Our first destination brought us to a Kingdom Hall for Jehovah's Witnesses. Not quite what we were looking for. Off again we go to another destination which did bring us to an LDS chapel. We quickly rush inside as we were just guessing at meeting times and find that a spanish speaking ward is about half way through their sacrament meeting. So we sit in the parking lot for an hour waiting for the next English sacrament meeting to start. By now I don't know what was going through Alex's mind, but he'd decided he'd had enough and turned into super stubborn man. Todd took the kids into the chapel to find a seat and I spent about a half hour trying to coax Alex out of a hot van and at least into the shade of the trees. I did get him out of the van but no further, so he spent all of sacrament meeting standing next to the van. We decided to skip the rest of the meetings and head back to our room and have lunch. Later that evening we went and met a few of the people Todd has been training with. We then returned back to our room and had lasagne for dinner. It was definately not as good as the ones I make, but we made do. Sadly, it was time for bed seeing as how Todd had to be back at Fort Sam at 5:30 in the morning for PT.
The drive back to Alamogordo took us a little longer, eleven hours, as I decided not to rush back. Just drive and enjoy. It was hard to let Todd go again, perhaps because we've been through a lot these past seven weeks. But we'll be together again in less than two weeks, so really no big deal, right? I hate the thought of deployment, but what do you expect when you join the military? It's just part of life. Hopefully his deployments will be no longer than six months. That is what we've been told anyways, but you never know. Things always change. I'm grateful for the memories we make when we are together! We're planning a mini-vacation as travel across country as well. We plan on seeing Mount Rushmore and stopping in Nauvoo. Just planning on more and more fun!