New Blog

No, keeping up with this one is enough for me. I'm posting because one of my favorite people has finally started a blog. I'm not sure how she has the time, but I'm grateful for it.

Kolette Hall and her husband Jason live a hard life. Jason has been a quadriplegic since he was a teenager. Kolette wasn't deterred when they met at the Y and they married. Several years later Jason's specially equipped van malfunctioned, causing the brakes to fail, and he spent more than a year in the hospital followed by many more years of surgeries. Their day to day life is more difficult than I can even imagine, but they somehow manage to be some of the happiest people I have ever met.

I've been privileged enough to see some of how they maintain perspective and choose to be joyful through their struggles. Go here to read their story and here to read Kolette's blog. Her first post is about "Thriving vs. Surviving".

And if you ever have the chance to hear Jason speak, GO! He is hilarious and truly inspiring.

National Cheesecake Day

Did you know that today is National Cheesecake Day? At least at the Cheesecake Factory. It's their 30th anniversary. To celebrate, you can buy slices for $1.50 instead of $6-$8. The catch is that you have to dine in and you can only buy one per customer. So our plan is to go in with some friends (and our kids), share an appetizer, and buy cheesecake all around to take home. Do you think they'll let me count Edward as a customer?

I hope you see this early enough to enjoy it!

Grateful

Today I am grateful for

-Both boys having early bedtimes, so that even when they have a hard time going down, there's still time for me to relax.

-New motivation to be a home-maker. (It still confuses me too. But we're all liking it.)

-John working from home, at least for a while.

-New friends who already feel like old friends.

-The strength to step out of my comfort zone. And to let others into it.

-Not being pregnant again. (Yea. That was scary. Maybe I'll post about it tomorrow. Maybe.)

-The knowledge that John and I are where we're supposed to be in every way. Married to each other, two kids, self-employed, in this town, in this ward, in this particular house, even arriving when we did. We completely felt led here and already know some of the reasons why. (I have to admit that it's a comforting feeling. It took us several years to see just a little of why we were in Boston. Here, it only took a few days. The Lord really does know what he's doing.)

Lesson #3

"Tile floors throughout!" is not a plus.

The Kitchen
The Living Room
The Playroom (from the loft)

They seem like they should be wonderful. They look great. They feel cool in this hot climate. But they have some huge downsides.

Even after I'd cleaned them, our feet were turning black. So I used some trial and error to find a mop that captured the dirt in all the crevices and in the deep grout lines. The mop works really well, but needing to use it nearly everyday is frustrating. Sweeping is nearly useless, although I do it to get the bigger messes. That means I mop or let Edward scoot around on filthy floors. Yuck. Maybe if I get Edward a microfiber outfit...

Then there is the problem of the pain. Yes, both boys have fallen and cried already. They'll learn to be a little more careful. But I'm talking about the pain in our feet, knees, and hips from walking on such a hard surface all day. In the playroom we decided to put down foam pads to help the kids be more comfortable (and to decrease the echoing.)

Ethan's first tower on the new floor
We do have carpet upstairs, so we at least have a soft place for our feet to get a break.

Lesson #2

Wrap your furniture.

Heres why
Luckily enough, this was an old slipcover that I already had a replacement for. Other items needed some cleaning though.

The wood furniture did not survive unscathed either. Most of it was only partially wrapped, as teasing was making some of the guys self-conscious about doing it. You can clearly see where the wrapping ended in the scrapes and dings. And of course the drawer that fell out of the unwrapped tv cabinet is completely broken. Someone make sure that the teaser's wife sees this so that their furniture survives! (We really should have asked him to deal with it or go home. It was NOT helping.)

Sorry about the rant. I'm determined to be more pushy about wrapping the furniture next time.

More Lessons to Come...

...when we can find the cord for our camera. Luckily we have a HUGE memory card in it, so we're still snapping away. But any photo we've taken since we left Boston is stuck on the card for the moment. If I don't find the cord soon, I'll pick up a card reader so that I can share with you.

A quick overview is that we're loving life right now. We have a great house, John is working from home (so he pops in to help us out a few times a day), I'm finding a new desire to be domestic (I know. Bizarre.), and we've jumped right into the ward. Except for missing our friends and dealing with the heat, life is good.

Ethan is enjoying that he has two rooms just for him! For now, at least. The boys have their own bedrooms and we've turned the formal dining area into a playroom. Ethan just loves that there is a large area for him to set up his trains where he can leave them out. His only really sad times are when we're going to a playgroup or to church and he asks if his friends will be there. I say yes, b/c he's already made new friends. So when he says "Yes! Benjamin and Julia and Aliya will be there" I have to clarify and he pouts for a few minutes.

Edward is developing by leaps and bounds now that we're on a more regular schedule. He's finally sitting up and has developed a strange little method to move forward. He has the crawling leg motion down, but just can't figure out moving his hands. So he gets up on his hands and knees, scoots his legs forward, pushes up into a better downward facing dog pose than I can do, then pushes his hands backward like he's doing a swimming start and flops forward. It's slow, and he'll only do it if things are just out of reach, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Edward is also really into eating solids. Before we left, his dr said that he could have three meals a day if he wants it. And that he was clearly showing enough interest to try some finger foods. At six months! As soon as we introduced them, he got it. He doesn't have the pincer grasp, but he immediately figured out how to open his hand and push things into his mouth. For a while he didn't even want to be spoon fed, but a few new foods (pureed chicken and rice in particular) changed that. He gets so excited that he shakes his head back and forth the entire time. It's a messy process.

That's us for now. Once we have the pictures I'll post more.

Lesson #1

Don't forget to turn on the utilities BEFORE you move in.

Yup. We're in a hotel less than a mile from our house because we didn't know the utilities would be turned off. ALL of them. We might have toughed it out with no electricity and definitely could go without gas for a few days. It was the lack of water that did us in. No toilets with a three year old? No way. The basics will be turned on tomorrow. We'll deal with the others, like garbage pickup, sewage fees, and internet, later this week.

Ah. New house, new lessons to be learned.

Travel Updates

John has been posting audio snippets of our trip on his blog. Go take a listen!