Memory Lane

We have been getting all geared up for Christmas and I have already gotten so excited for this coming holiday. But somehow I feel like I can't talk about any of that, til I get our thanksgiving trip on here. I still don't have the other pictures yet, but I have some!

We took a trip down to Provo and memory lane. It made me a little melancholy. It's so weird to think how much things have changed since we were newlyweds living in our 400 sq. foot basement apartment. In fact, we drove by to check on the place...


It was definitely still there. We lived right around the left side, in the back. This is were it all began. Right up the street from Cougar stadium, you know Dan was in heaven cause we could walk to the games. We even thought about parking our cars elsewhere on game days and charging a few bucks for our spot. But we never did. And I'll never forget when my family flew in from all over for my sister's wedding and one of my nephews came in and said, "where's the rest of your house?" It was pretty tiny.

We drove by Alta Apartments, were we first met and lived.

They were still there too. A little ghetto but a lot cheap. Dan proposed to me in Apt. # 301. We thought about knocking to ask for a picture but were too scared.

And then on to the "Y".


We just wanted to walk around campus, visit the bookstore, and see some of the new buildings. I thought it was funny because a young couple with two little kids might stick out on many college campuses across America, but we just blended right in!


We didn't get to enjoy this beautiful building during our time at BYU because it wasn't finished yet but Ava enjoyed the fountain.



Here is me and Luke waiting at the "history spot". When Dan and I would pick each other up from school we would say pick me up at the history spot at 2:00 or whatever time. Cause this is where Dan always dropped me for my history class.

Whoever is reading this, I'm sure you are just enthralled with all of my interesting tidbits.

Luke had fun

And our trip would not have been complete without a stop in the Twilight Zone for a pizza bagel. I seriously ate one of these every single day for 2 semesters.

I''m sure they had nothing to do with the gaining of my "sophomore 15". We also stopped to watch a ballroom dance class. Dan reminded me that he got an "A" in his square dance class. I told him he must have been a square to take that class. Just kidding!


We loved our time at BYU and as I've mentioned before Dan is kind of a fan. But really and truly I loved having my temporal education intertwined with my spiritual education. It was a great place for us and it holds alot of memories.

In the parking lot I tried to take a picture of our faces with the Y in the background.


It didn't work. So I tried again.


This one didn't work either AND I look like I chopped my hair.


Dan said, "Give me that camera, I can do it!"





And what do you know, he kind of did! Thanks for the trip, the memories, and the picture, Dan!

Sunday Sermon, Christmas Dress, and 5 Months Old

I realized that I left a bunch of the pictures I had taken on the computer in Utah, so my Thanksgiving stories will have to wait!

Today at church we got the excellent news that our new meeting time (starting next week and going through 2008) will be 8:00 am. Yowza! The spanish ward in our area split and one of the new units needs to meet in our building. It's too small to overlap so the meetings will be 8:00, 11:30, and 3:00.

In Relief Society, our lesson was on Visiting Teaching. This is a sketchy subject for me. My feelings have really run the gamut on the issue. There was certainly a point in time where I would rather they just leave me alone, and I guess I assumed my teachees must feel the same way, and I didn't do a great job. It was a turning point when on one of our few and far between visits, we asked "Is there anything we can do for you?" And this lady, who lived in a tiny married housing apartment with her husband and 6, count 'em, 6 kids, replied, "Just come. It would help me a lot if you would just come."

Boy did I feel terrible. And we moved the next week. I wanted so badly to repair the damage I had done. But we were moving to Ogden and it would be impossible. I decided then that I would really try my best to make my visits. I would let them personally tell me, "Hey, don't come." Instead of just assuming that's how they felt, just because that's how I felt.

Then I heard in a lesson sometime, that it was our responsibility as teachees to let our sisters visit us and serve us, so they could be blessed for their efforts and service. And maybe along the way, we would be blessed too. I finally figured that it was not my place to deny them their blessings.

I have enjoyed visiting teaching so much more since I've had these realizations and experiences. I try really hard to make contact each month. But there is this lady on my list who is inactive, and we have yet to contact. It seems it is really easy for me to fall back on my assumptions that she is probably a person who would rather us not come. Cause if she wanted to see people, church members, wouldn't she just come to church? This is all just my thoughts, because I truly have no idea about her or her situation. It just scares me to call her, honestly.

So today, the woman teaching the lesson, said she had some sisters who were going to share their experiences about VT. A sister I had never seen got up and explained that she was inactive, and that Sister Cotter (who was teaching the lesson) was her visiting teacher. She related some of her very sad circumstances and how she appreciated the visits. She comes to church only once in a while, she had a lot of things to work out with Heavenly Father, and that the reasons she did come to church ever were because of Sister Cotter. She said she knew that Heavenly Father still loved her because of this sister and her visits.

This was just the kick I needed to gather my courage and call the girl on my list. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna bring her a treat. Or at least try. I will let her tell me with her own mouth, "Hey don't come." And then again maybe she'll want us to come. But I figure I better let the decision be hers and not mine.


Ava wore her Christmas dress today. I thought she looked beautiful and so did she. She wouldn't stop twirling and "tying her shoes" to give a good pose.

"Tying her shoes"

And twirling...

Ava is just a character. I don't no how else to describe her. In the store yesterday, she was blocking the aisle and a 2 people with a cart were approaching. I asked her to scoot over. She complied for a minute and then all of the sudden jumped right in front of their cart, with hands on her hips and yelled, "No! I won't scoot over!" I had to pick her up and she through a royal fit!

I warn her periodically that we will be doing such and such and that she cannot have a fit or she can't whine and she has become famous for saying "Yes, wants fits! Needs to fit! Want a whine! Need a whine!" I can truly say that she makes me laugh out loud at least once a day.

And my Mr. Luke is now 5 months old. He is so handsome and smiley. He flops like a bean bag but he just rolls and rolls. He has now been diagnosed with reflux. Booo! But he is no longer wheezing. Yeaaa! He loves still to be snuggled, snorted, and kissed on.



Love you, Mr. Man!

Leaving on a jet plane...NOT

We had such a good time in Utah! And tomorrow or perhaps the day after I will post some of our fun and pictures! But first I am going to complain. It's my blog and I can cry if I want to.

We sadly left Dan's parents house with the plan to get on our plane in Salt Lake, stop in Denver, and continue home to Houston. Kind of a long day, leaving at 11:30 am MST and getting home about 8:00 pm CST. Now looking back that timing looks pretty good.

We got to Denver right on time and ate and waited for our 2 hour lay-over. They were running behind and we got seated and settled about a half hour late. Then they told us we'd be sitting there, on the plane, for maybe an hour because they had to fix something that was broken. After a while they told us to get off, run 30 gates down the terminal and get on another plane cause this one wasn't going anywhere! We got to that gate and were told we'd board in "10 minutes-oops- make that 30-wait maybe an hour-there seems to be something wrong with this plane too! "

Dan and Ava, hour 7, Denver Airport

Then they canceled our flight all together. Some lucky souls were booked on a later flight, others made it on standby on a different flight. Then there was us. We got nothin'! We stood in a huge line for a woman to tell us, they 'd be happy to send us on a shuttle to a hotel a half hour away and give us $30 bucks for food! Are you kidding me? And we could leave on a flight tomorrow morning. And I thought her reply to my request for a refund was classic. She told me, "We will refund your money only if you choose not to go to Houston." "Umm, we live there..." "Well then I cannot give you a refund."

We did a lot of this kind of waiting. Ava ran up and down those moving sidewalks about 7, 000 times.

We could not get our luggage either. I was 100% out of wipes. None, nada. I had one diaper. We had no coats (it's Denver!Brrr!) They gave me 4 diapers which were "kind of one size fits all". How generous. And we had no paci's for Ava. I think we missed those the most. She only needs them to sleep, which pretty much meant that nobody slept. Except Luke. He did just fine.

We got to our hotel at a quarter to 10. Wiped Luke's bum with toilet paper and headed out the next morning through the snow back to the airport. And we got home without incident yesterday about 3:45 pm.

This is me striking Dan's pose above, Day 2, Luke's situation speaks for itself. Just remember, no wipes!

I am over United Airlines. I am over standing in line. I am over fast food. I am over having a poopy baby and nothing to wipe his tush. I am over Denver.

"McDonald's again!"

United Airlines: I thought you were awesome when you screwed up on our first flight and sent us straight on through to Salt Lake on Delta. You will be receiving a letter from me shortly. You stink.

I didn't write this for sympathy, only for venting. Thanks for bearing with me!


And I almost forgot, today I am grateful for: my bed

Thanks

I am a firm believer that the more you look for your blessings, the more you see. If I can take the time to be grateful, all of the wonderful things of my life are brought right to the foreground of my mind and I remember all the good things, and worry less about the not so good.

In honor of Thanksgiving, here's an abbreviated list of some things I am grateful for, in no particular order:

My Dan, Ava, and Luke
old friends
new friends
treadmills
pacifiers
the gospel
United Airlines screwing up and rerouting us on a straight-through flight to Utah
our home
family, close and extended
chocolate
naps
photographs
mothers
washing machine
cell phone
my sisters (and sisters-in-law!)
DVR
Dan and my opportunities for education


I could go on, with things both big and small, but I won't. Instead I'd like to try to list something I'm grateful for with each of my posts from here on out.

We are enjoying ourselves here in Utah, looking forward to spending time with the whole family. To all who read this, Happy Thanksgiving!

Messy girl

Ava has always liked to get her hands dirty.

fairly typical

And her nose dirty too,

She put the mustard on her nose like sunblock. Evidently a sandwich is more fun to play with than it is to eat.


And this is how you know you've had fun at the park. Dan snapped these pictures after a recent trip, where she was "building sandcastles" in the dirt.

If you don't get dirty then you didn't play hard enough!

And this is how you know you had fun playing with friends.






This tendency is why Ava generally eats most meals without any clothes


and therefore why we generally don't have many pictures of our children with clothes on. We're just trying to keep a little clean around here!

A friendly visit and other stuff

I have been feeling stressed out lately. Having a sick child will do that to you. So will a tantruming 2 year old. And when those two collide it gets ugly. We took Luke back to the doctor this week and he has double ear infections and again his oxygen levels were too low. This explains why he has been so so sad. And while I'm not glad he has ear infections, I am kinda glad because that means there is something to fix and get better. We have a new and improved breathing treatment regime and I am committed to it. Part of the reason he may not be over this stuff was because I wasn't doing it right! Not because I didn't want to, just because I didn't know what I was doing. I have gotten very explicit instructions (I even had her write them down) and we'll move forward hopefully seeing some improvement.


Today, while running errands I was accosted by two men who were politically charged. I hate politics. Hate them. And while I know that my lack of involvement doesn't leave room for me to really complain, that is fine by me. These guys were out to rally to impeach a certain Vice President. I was walking back to my car, carseat in one hand, holding Ava's hand with the other. They told me, "We're looking out for your little one-Do you have a second to talk?" "No", I said. And I really didn't. Then he said, "Yes you do. Listen, it's fun to be a mom, but you need to get the whole picture."

Excuse me? I almost dropped the carseat on the sidewalk and gave him the what for. This angered me so much. Fun? Yeah, it can be super fun. But that's not exactly how I have been feeling about motherhood for the past two weeks. Whatever. The part that got to me was the "whole picture" part. Like I'm some silly moron who eats Bon Bons and watches Dora all day. I wanted to tell him that it was because I had the whole picture that I was even bothering with this mom business. I'm all for people with ideas and convictions to go out and do something about them, even if I don't. And it wasn't about democrat or republican. It was just so patronizing. And it made me mad.

But my trip to College Station to see Tiffany yesterday made me happy. A visit with a friend can do that to you.

Tiffany and Carter

When I woke Ava up and told her we were going to Corbin's house, she was so excited and she followed me all around while I was getting things together saying, "I ready a go a Corman's house!"

We drive on an old back road to get to College Station and I like to take in the scenery. I thought it was the picture of small- town-texas as I noted we passed over Bessies Creek, drove by the Slimy Grimy store, and through the town of Nasty Soda. (It's actually Navasota, Dan just likes to call it that)

We spent the morning and afternoon together and Ava and Corbin had a fun time playing together.

Buddies

And just for old time's sake,

Coloring

Luke thought the exersaucer was awesome. He got so excited!

Our day was wonderful, made me forget some of my stress. And also reminded me how sad I am that we don't get to hang out all the time like we used to. There's somthing about a good friend that just makes you feel...good! Thanks, Tiffany! I miss you!

Puppy

It's really sad that this is the only picture I had on my computer of Puppy. I got Puppy on my 11th birthday when she was just 6 weeks old. She was all hair and no body! Boy, was she cute. She piddled on the floor out of excitement or fear, it was hard to tell which. When anyone came in the door, she would wiggle and waggle her whole hind end.

We named her Muffin but it just didn't stick. "Here, Muffin Muffin!" Just didn't work like "Here Puppy Puppy". So she was a Puppy even when she was old.

We already had a dog, Dolly, but she loved my mom best. I really wanted a puppy. Really, really bad. And my birthday wish was granted. I had visions of her sleeping in my bed and being MY loyal dog forever. But for some reason (probably because my mom fed her along with Dolly) she loved my mom best, too. She followed my mom around and slept in my mom's bed.

I still liked her though. She was the middle child of sorts. Dolly was like the first born perfectionist. And after Puppy, Butch came along and he was the youngest-cute and spoiled rotten! And poor Puppy became the good dog in the middle that nobody paid much attention to and everyone took for granted.

At nearly 15 years old she was getting to be a granny. She was the last remaining of the 3 Musketeers.

She was a sweet good girl and I will miss her. And I imagine that the threesome is back together.

Love you, Puppy!
December 1992-November 10, 2007