Germany

My sister, Meg had a free plane ticket she had to use promptly before it would expire. She tried talking me into a trip, but with only a month or two notice, I wasn’t sure I could put a big trip together. Then, when I mentioned it to Adam, he said he would want to go too.

However, Adam’s company told him shortly after in December that they wanted him to go to Germany in January. I have told Adam before that on one of his trips to Germany I would go with him. With Adam’s flight being free, we spontaneously decided to take a vacation to Germany.

We decided to leave Ryan with Aunt Shannon, Uncle Trent and cousin Olivia.  We thought very long flights, freezing temperatures and a six hour time change would be a little too much for Ryan to enjoy the vacation.

Adam was in Germany working hard for a week and a half before I got there. In his spare time, he visited the temple and the top of one of the Frankfurt skyscrapers. He also did a walking tour of Frankfurt and wrote me an email about it. Adam said, “The best parts were St. Paul’s church and St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral.  St. Paul’s is where they formed a unified Germany (after Napoleon had decimated it) back in the 1800’s and established the parliament and such.  St. Bartholomew’s was where the Holy Roman Emperors had their coronation ceremonies for a while.  It had some neat things in it and was big and grand, but the building inside just didn’t feel old and it wasn’t quite as cool as I’d hoped because of it.  It would have been cool to be in the same building they were crowned in.  I guess it was the same spot…  There were some Roman ruins right next to it that were kind of cool but not spectacular.  Old Frankfurt is just a plaza with “old” German style buildings.  It looks kind of cool, but the buildings aren’t old and it is very touristy.  I had been through there during the Christmas market 2 years ago, but I hardly recognized it during the day without all the Christmas stuff everywhere. “

My flight to Germany was overnight. Adam said he maybe got an hour of sleep on his flight and so I was expecting the worst. However, when I got on the plane, I realized that there were many open seats including the 3 center seats adjacent to me. So yes, I took those seats and slept the whole flight; it was fantastic. Since I arrived in the morning on Adam’s last day of work in Germany, I decided to spend my day at the temple while he was occupied. It is so much fun to get to see so many temples from all around the world. After the temple, we went out for kebabs. These kebabs were so good I wanted to eat them for every meal afterwards.

The next morning was a slight mess, but it ended up happily, however delayed, with us driving in our rental car to Wurzburg. Along with falling in love with kebabs on this trip, our rental car taught me to really love seat warmers, and I would really like to have them in a future car that I have. Adam and I rarely agree on a temperature, but seat warmers afforded the perfect solution.

When we got to Wurzburg, we went to the Residenz of the Prince-Bishops. This grandiose palace was a great start to our trip. While the place was amazing, my favorite part turned out to be the before and after shots of the Residenz. The Residenz had been damaged during WWII bombing raids, so they had pictures of this and then pictures once the restoration work was complete.

After Wurzburg, we headed to the well-preserved, medieval town of Rothenburg. This is the coolest city I have ever seen; it is surrounded by a city wall, the streets are narrow with cobblestones and the shops are full of fun things to look at. It just feels so old. While there, we went to the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum, and I had my first real German food. Before leaving, we walked a portion of the city wall and looked out over the tiny streets and small houses.

We then took the Romantic Road to Munich. After driving on this road, I wouldn’t have used the word “romantic” to describe it, but we did have fun driving through some small towns in the countryside.

We finally arrived in Munich- and got an amazing parking spot- and pretty exhausted, we just ate at a little Thai place near where we were staying. We walked around too and saw the marienplatz- the old town hall that has a glockenspiel .

The next day, we went to pick Meg up at the airport. Meg had given me no information about her flight except what time she arrived. I didn’t really think this was a big deal since the Frankfurt airport is so easy to navigate and there is only one place to pick someone up. This is not the case, however, for the Munich airport. We spent at least an hour looking for her and with two terminals and 20 different exits that she could be, it was very frustrating. Adam finally found her, and we headed off to Dachau Concentration Camp. We spent all day looking through information about the camp and events that lead up to WWII. We saw the living quarters, the crematoriums and the gas chambers. It was a very sobering experience.

The next day we headed out to see the Bavarian castles. We toured Hohenschwangau first. The castle was cold, but had beautifully painted wall scenes. We then got a horse carriage ride up to Schloss Neuschwanstein, the model for the Disney castle, and did the tour there. Again the castle was very cold, but it was very creative. Everything was very ornate- especially the wood carvings in the bedroom, but I think my favorite part was the “cave” he had in the middle of the house. It was just a corridor in his house that with wood and plaster looked like a cave. Completely nonfunctional, but how many people can say, “Go though the cave, turn right and the bathroom is on the right.”

We ate lunch at a little German restaurant halfway down the mountain. As good as Adam was at ordering tasty food, Meg turned out to be just as good at ordering really bad food. Adam and I had a yummy meal of bratwurst and sauerkraut, while Meg ordered a frankfurter that turned out to be a giant hot dog. After lunch, we finished our walk down the mountain. We were in a bit of a hurry since we weren’t sure when the famous Rococo Wieskirche would close. Meg was very disappointed when I wouldn’t let her take a picture of a stream by the road and said that she would rather have a picture of a German stream then a silly church.  From that point on, any stream we saw, we made sure to ask Meg if she wanted to stop and take pictures.

The Rococo Wieskirche was fun to see. It was so pastel and ornate. I felt like I had been eaten by a very fancy marshmallow. We also stopped at the Ettal Monastery, which was another Rococo-style church. This one was very fancy too, but there wasn’t as much marshmallow feel. The monastery has monks that still live there, and on the way out, Meg was talking about causing a scene so that she would get to see and take a picture of a monk. As we turned the corner to our car, we practically ran into a monk shoveling snow, but before Meg could get a good picture he was off helping someone in the monastery.

We decided to stay the night in Oberammergau. We found a little hotel and ate dinner there. Adam got the spaztle- which was delectable and reminiscent of macaroni and cheese. The next morning we went window shopping  and saw many of the amazing wood carvings in Oberammergau. When driving out of the town, Meg could hardly get enough pictures of all the houses that had painted-on shutters, columns and other accents.

From Oberammergau, we went to the Linderhof castle. This castle was extremely ornate also and was modeled after the palace of Versailles. The highlight of this castle was the table that was lowered through the floor so that servants could put the food on without being seen and then the table would be raised back up.

We then headed back to Munich and saw the Nymphenburg palace. It was very fun to see the opulent rooms, but the most interesting part was the Gallery of Beauties. King Ludwig I had pictures painted of the most beautiful women he met. It was just funny to see what elements of beauty have changed since that time. While there, we also went to the Marstallmuseum- or a museum of carriages and sleighs. Some of them were so extravagant, it seems unbelievable that they were very useful.

After the palace, we hurried to the Alte Pinakothek. This art museum is one of the oldest galleries in the world and has a substantial collection of famous art. We saw art by Da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli, Ruben, van Dyck, Rembrandt, and El Greco. The best though was their large collection of  Albrecht Dürer’s work. While I loved admiring his work from only a few inches away,  Meg and Adam did not know or seem to care that Albrecht Dürer was the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. We stayed till closing, but while I had to be ripped from the scenes of silent dialogue, Meg and Adam needed little prompting before they were down the stairs and discussing how you can spend to much time in an art museum.

For dinner that night we went to a German restaurant. Adam ordered wiener schnitzel and Meg ordered the “homemade” meatloaf. As you can guess, Adam’s breaded and fried pork was much tastier then Meg’s meatloaf spam. This “meatloaf” tasted like bologna, but it had the texture of a cheap hot dog.

Due to Meg’s busy work schedule, she couldn’t afford to take any more time away from work, so the next morning, we dropped Meg off at the airport. We  went back to the marienplatz at noon to see the glockenspiel in action, and then we headed to the Residenz Museum, which was the former palace of the Bavarian Kings. It was amazing. They had over a hundred rooms open to see and they were all so extravagant. I was really amazed with the gallery of rooms – which included a fabulously large Antiquarium and creepy room of relics which had various saint’s bones preserved in ornate containers. But when we finished with that, there was still more to see! We went on to see a dazzling display of very shiny and sparkly items from the treasury. Also in the treasury was a handful of really odd things including an array of  bezoars with gold embellishments. I remember reading about these in Harry Potter, but I didn’t know that people actually tried using an indigestible mass from  a goat’s stomach to protect themselves from poisoning.

After a meal of curry-wurst, we headed to Salzburg, Austria, and after checking in to our hotel, we got some authentic Austrian dumplings.

The next morning we got up early to see the sights. We started off by walking through the Mirabell Gardens on our way to the Salzburg Museum and the Panorama Museum. We weren’t really sure what to expect at the Panorama Museum, except that I knew they had an exhibit on the Sound of Music. The SOM exhibit was interesting, but the panorama part turned out to be a small room with little telescopes set up for you to get an even closer look at a panoramic drawing of Salzburg. Adam was very disappointed.

Since the tram to the fortress was temporally closed, Adam and I hiked up the large hill to see Nonnberg Abby (a SOM filming location) and the Hohensalzburg fortress. The fortress had a marionette museum where we practiced our puppet skills. We also took the tour of the fortress which ended on the high tower with excellent views of the snow-covered city.

We then crossed Mozart’s bridge (also in the SOM) and headed to Mozart’s house. We got there just in time to watch someone tune one of Mozart’s pianos. We finished there, and stopped by Mozart’s birthplace before heading to dinner.

The next day we drove to Berchtesgaden, Germany. We visited a salt mine there which turned out to be so much fun. While the process of extracting salt from a mountain is insanely interesting in and of itself, the tour also consisted of a cart ride into the mountain, slides into deeper sections of the the mine and light shows to illustrate various aspects during the mining process. We even got free salt after the tour.

From there we headed to the Documentation Center which is built on one of Hitler’s bunkers. The area is also referred to sometimes as the Eagle’s Nest. The museum had lots of information about Hitler’s life and the rise of the Nazi party. The information was well organized and thought-provoking. We toured the bunker below which was really interesting, but cold, wet, and dismal. There were multiple foreboding doors on the way down to the bunker and while down there, I just thought how terrible it would be to get stuck down there. This made for a humorous event at the documentation center’s closing time because Adam wanted to go back down near the door of the bunker once more to see more exhibits, but I wouldn’t do it just in case they didn’t know we were down there (we hardly saw anyone else in the museum all day) and they decided to lock the doors a few minutes before closing time.

Coming out from the museum, we were met by fantastic views of the Alps. It is a really gorgeous area.

We then drove back up to Frankfurt so that we could catch an early, forgettable flight back to the U.S. However, Germany was definitely an amazing experience.

The Holidays

The past couples months have been so much fun, but it has kept us a bit busy. Adam, Ryan and I went down to my dad’s house for Thanksgiving. My brother Blaine and his family were there and since Trent’s work schedule was a little tight, he had to forgo a wedding and be with us too. Sierra, my sister-in-law, made sure that there was so much pie! We played games, and since I am putting together a book about my mom, we were frequently discussing family trips, past holidays and other fun memories in between refills on turkey.

Just before Christmas, Ryan went to the doctor for his 15-month appointment.  He was 31 inches long (42 percentile), 22 pounds and 10 ounces (11 percentile) and his head circumference was 18.5 inches (42 percentile). I was pretty amazed that he had grown 3 inches in the last three months. The doctor also said his molars might be coming in. Ryan had 6 teeth forever (4 on top and 2 on the bottom). He just recently got 2 more on the bottom, so I thought that it might be a while before his molars actually came in. But much to my surprise, it was about a week later when I notice 4 molars breaking through. Adam and I are still enjoying Ryan more then words can express. He isn’t really saying much, but he does babble frequently. Every once in a while he does say something very clear and in context and then Adam and I stare at each other and wonder if it was just coincidence or if he really knows what he is talking about. He loves to be quizzed by Adam on his body parts and animal noises. Adam and Ryan are getting to be the best of friends, and when Adam is at work, Ryan will frequently roam the house calling for “Dada”.

Christmas vacation was especially fun since my whole family was there. Meg came out a little early, so that we had some relaxing time together. When she wasn’t working, we were going to the museum and hanging out with Trent and Shannon. It wasn’t long before we all were congregating down at Dad’s house for the festivities. Since Christmas was on Sunday, we decided to move the present opening till after church. We did get to read Luke, sing some Christmas carols, and drink egg nog that morning which made it feel more like Christmas. Present opening was quite an event since it was many people in a small area. Despite the chaos that ensued, we sure enjoyed spending time with each other. The day after Christmas, Adam caught a very early flight to Texas for his brother’s wedding. He had a great time and enjoyed getting to see his family. Just after dropping Adam off at the airport, I went on a girl’s day out. Sierra, Shannon, Meg, Heather and I got pedicures and went out to lunch. I know for me that this was especially relaxing since the pedicure included a back massage that was just what I needed. I sure like my sister and sister-in-laws; they are so much fun to be with.

Meg soon left to go on a short business trip in the middle of her vacation, so the rest of us meanwhile braved the aquarium. Adam had returned from the wedding, and with Trent and Blaine back at work and Chad being sick, he was the only guy in the group. When we got back from the aquarium, us girls headed to the Gap outlet for some shopping. Adam was gracious enough to watch the kids. It was our last day to have Heather around, and she will be missed; she is such a fun addition to the family.

Meg got back from her business trip in time to drive with us to Blaine and Sierra’s house for a New Year’s Eve party. Sierra expertly planned a night of games, food, movies and more. We celebrated the new year before promptly going to bed.

On Meg’s last day, we decided to hang out with Trent and Shannon one more time and play some games. Meg soundly beat all of us in the card game of monopoly more then once. For dinner we ordered pizza, and Trent offered to pick it up. He left, but it had started to snow and he wasn’t back with the pizza before we had to leave. As we got on the road, we could see the traffic in the opposite direction was completely stopped. Poor Trent. We kept driving and all of a sudden Trent pulled up next to us with a pizza. We rolled down our window to accept the pizza and ate the pizza on the way to the airport. Yum!

We feel so blessed that we were able to celebrate the holidays with people that we love and enjoy so much.

Happy Birthday Adam!

We recently celebrated Adam’s 28th birthday. Our schedules were pretty busy this year, so he ended up getting a week full of small birthday celebrations. Adam got to eat multiple birthday cakes and celebrate his birthday with lots of people in various locations. The highlight for me was getting him all to myself and trying out a little Vietnamese restaurant that ended up being excellent. It turns out that we have gotten a little rusty using chopsticks, but it sure was fun and tasty.

Adam mentioned he would like some one-on-one time with Ryan, so I headed to the Louisville temple while Ryan and Adam went to the Cincinnati museum. Adam hadn’t been to the museum for a while, so it was new and exciting for both of them. My couple hours at the temple were amazing, and I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to go. It was definitely great experience and can’t wait to get back.

Ryan turned 13 months a few days after Adam’s birthday. The updates on Ryan are that he is constantly eating more then we  think is physically possible. He is full of smiles and curiosity.  He can now say “hi” while waving and is almost too much fun to have around. We love him so much.

Spontaneous Vacation

My brother Chad announced a few months ago that he would be getting married in the Sacramento temple. Adam and I booked flights for the late August wedding, but we figured since we were already out there we might as well see some sights. We procrastinated the planning of this trip until the week before, but it turned out to be pretty amazing.

On Ryan’s birthday, we flew in to Sacramento. My aunt was gracious enough to let us stay at her place for the wedding. Before the festivities started on Friday, we went to Sutter’s fort and Old Sacramento. My favorite part of the fort was the blacksmith shop since we were able to watch a blacksmith at work. It was absolutely amazing to see the metal being shaped into something useful. We got a quick bite to eat at Old Sacramento before heading to the reception.
The reception was really nice and the food delicious. Heather is a gem, and we are so happy to have her in our family.

The next day was the groom’s luncheon and the wedding ceremony. Lunch was fantastic (especially since we practically got the bride all to ourselves), and the wedding ceremony was really tender and beautiful.
That evening, my wonderful Aunt Lorene pulled out the cookies and made us hot chocolate from scratch. Did I mention how much I like her?

The next day we went to church and headed out to start our adventure. We spent the night a couple hours from Humboldt Redwoods State Park and spent the whole next day hiking through the redwoods; they are spectacular! We hiked 3 trails along the Avenue of the Giants and it was beyond anything that I can even describe. The trees are so tall and there are so many of them you can hardly see very far at all. We got to see some famous redwoods like the Dyerville Giant which fell in 1991, but was 370 feet tall and 52 feet in circumference. We also got to drive through the Shrine Tree, and Ryan played in a house carved from a redwood. We definitely plan on visiting the redwoods again in a future vacation.

After the redwoods, we drove down the coast into Mendocino County. We got there just in time to eat dinner on a bluff overlooking the ocean as the sun set. The next morning we got up early while the tide was low to explore the many tide pools at pudding creek beach. We got to see and touch tons of little animals including starfish and anemones. After breakfast, we went to glass beach and a lookout point in Mendocino. The fog had set in and so we decided to wait for it to burn off so we could see the views. We toured the town of Mendocino, but it turned out to be a really pricey town with a large community of dirty hippies (clothing optional). We took our pictures on the bluffs and headed down the coast for equally good views without the undesirable company. We pulled off on the Navarro Trail, which was remote and had breathtaking views. After an hour or two, we reluctantly left the gorgeous views and headed for Calistoga.
Calistoga is in the Napa Valley area. We started off the day in the petrified forest, which was actually pretty cool to see. The forest was petrified when a volcano erupted and the silica from the ash replaced the cells of the trees over hundreds of years. The trail didn’t take as long as we thought it would, so we improvised. What do Mormons do in wine country?We go grape tasting. We took a tour of a winery and got to taste a bunch of different grapes that go into the various wines they make there.  We tasted Cab Franc grapes, Merlot grapes, Malbec grapes, Chardonnay grapes and a few others. I was partial to the Merlot and Chardonnay grapes. After the grape tasting, we stopped to see the Old Faithful Geyser of California. It wasn’t the coolest thing ever, but they did have a four horned sheep and fainting goats to feed.

The next leg of our trip was San Francisco. We stayed on the east side of the bay and took the ferry over to the city. We checked out Pier 39 with the sea lions before heading to Alcatraz. It was really interesting to see the cells and hear the stories of what had happened there. After a late lunch we headed to Fisherman’s Warf and went through the Maritime Museum. After that it was time to catch the ferry back to the hotel.

For the next two days we had a “hop-on, hop-off” tour bus that took us to all the famous sites of San Francisco. We could get off at any site and catch any later bus to continue on. We started the day going to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a beautiful day and we had amazing views of the city as we walked the bridge. We rode the rest of the tour bus route through Golden Gate Park, Haight-Ashbury, Alamo square, and other sites. Afterwards we went to Chinatown and had a great lunch at House of Nanking. We toured the fortune cookie factory and went to the Kong Chow temple, but after living in China, the temple was not impressive. It was fun to see the shops with dried everything (shark fin, sea urchin, sea cucumber, sea horse, abalone, etc.) and barter.

The following morning, we decided to take the subway under the bay and took the bus to North Beach/Little Italy. We toured the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral before hiking up the hill to the twisty section of Lombard street. We then walked through Ghirardelli Square to Hyde Street Pier and saw the old ships docked there. After lunch we went to Golden Gate Park. We walked through the prehistoric plant area where they filmed part of the ewok scenes in Star Wars and went to the Conservatory of Flowers. We weren’t really planning on going, but it was a cold, windy day and Ryan was done with being outside. The conservatory was having a special exhibit on “wicked” plants with poisonous and dangerous plants on display. The signs said it was a fragile environment in the conservatory so we needed to not touch the plants and even be quiet while in there. Ryan apparently didn’t read the sign because he either wanted to tear the leaves off of everything or scream when we wouldn’t let him. We took turns having one of us walk him around while the other stopped to read. Our subway trip back to the hotel ended our stay in San Francisco. We stayed the night at my Aunt’s house before heading back to the airport the next day. Ryan, exhausted from lack of naps during the trip, slept amazingly well on the flights home.
It was a great trip and we saw some amazing things, but it is nice to be back home again.

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Ryan is now a year old. He is 28 inches still (10th percentile in height) and 21 pounds (25th percentile). Since we would be traveling on his birthday, we celebrated a few days early. He stuffed himself at his birthday dinner (he loves squash and zucchini), but he still managed to find the room to eat a whole strawberry muffin that I had made.
Ryan walks everywhere now and eats everything. He is still a great sleeper and gets about 12 hours of sleep at night and takes two 1.5-2 hour naps during the day. He loves playing peekaboo and he can show you where his ears are if you ask him. He calls us mama and dada now, and he is constantly waving at strangers. We are so lucky to have him!

11 Months and Family Vacation

Ryan recently turned 11 months! It hardly seems like he can already be that old, but he is! I took him to the doctors at 9 months and they said he is now short and skinny (28 inches-20th percentile in height and 18lbs.7oz.-10th percentile in weight). They told me to feed him as much as he will eat…so he is already looking fat again and I am constantly amazed at how much he can eat. He recently had his first ear infection, which took two medicines, but since Ryan loves the medicines, he was only too happy to take them. Ryan is now able to stand really well (not holding on to anything) and he can take a few steps, but he isn’t really walking yet, but it might be real soon. He started really crawling just before 10 months, so he is very fast and gets into just about everything. He also loves to imitate and copy people-especially Adam. I love this picture.
We are still finding time to hike. Our most recent hiking adventure was to a Shawnee lookout in Ohio. The views and hike were lovely, and it was sure a lot of fun spending time together as a family.
Adam and I took a sushi-making class to broaden our hobbies. We have since continued making sushi and are frequently enjoying pickled ginger, wasabi, and surimi.
We also just got back from visiting Adam’s family. We flew down to California and enjoyed a day at the San Clemente beach and another day at the aquarium in Long Beach. Ryan had so much fun and we did too. At the beach, Ryan loved getting in the water (even though the water was really cold), and he was mesmerized at everything to see at the aquarium. The aquarium gives you opportunities to touch a lot of different animals including sharks, rays, jellyfish, anemones, starfish, sea hares, and sponges. My favorite were the jellyfish:)
The following day we headed with Adam’s family to Lake Mohave. We wake-boarded and tubed all day, and then we headed back to the house in the evenings for good food and games. We spent four days on the lake, and it was a blast. We drove back to San Clemente (which was Ryan’s least favorite part) and saw Harry Potter opening night. We also attended festivities for Adam’s cousin who got married before heading back to Kentucky. We had such a great time together, and we have lots of really great memories. It was a vacation to remember.

Hiking

Adam and I decided to make hiking our new weekend hobby. We bought a backpack to carry Ryan in and set out for Cumberland Falls on Memorial Day weekend. We drove down the night before and stayed at my brother’s house in Danville. We enjoyed a night of games and fun before heading out the next morning. We hiked about 5.5 miles and had a nice picnic by the river. Ryan did great and enjoyed the hike tremendously. He finally fell asleep 5 minutes from the car. He was so tired that he barely stirred as we moved him into his car seat.

The following weekend, we headed to a hiking trail 20 minutes from our house. It actually turned out to be an awesome little hike that only took us about 2 hours to do. There was a pretty stream that ran by the trail (which we let Ryan dip his feet into at the end of the hike) and everything was so pretty and green. The whole hike was just really pleasant, and it was nice to get lost in nature for a couple hours.

Everything Else Since November

This post is all about hitting the highlights of our family for the last 6 months. For this last Christmas, we flew out to California to spend the holidays with Adam’s family. Ryan, Adam, and I all got terribly sick, which wasn’t much fun, but we still enjoyed heading to the beach, visiting with family, and eating great food. Adam’s mom got Ryan a cute pair of pajamas for Christmas, and since Ryan is so bald and chunky, Adam’s brother made him a Charlie Brown shirt. I am pretty biased, but I think Ryan pulled them off nicely.

Ryan has grown up so much recently. He couldn’t do much at all last time I posted, but during Christmas break (four months), he perfected turning in a circle and sitting up, at six months he was “crawling” (meaning he is very mobile, but he only uses his hands and feet; no knees) and at 8 months he can go from “crawling” to sitting position and he can also pull himself to standing position. This kid is just amazing. At around five months we dropped some feedings, so that I only feed him 4 times a day and he goes to sleep at 6:30 pm and wakes up at 7:30 am. He also moved to two one-hour naps around this time. We started him on rice cereal just before 5 months; the first try didn’t go so well and I thought we might have a picky eater, but the second try he scarfed it down and since then he will eat just about everything we put in front of him. Within the last month, we have started giving him cheerios and he loves them. He only has two teeth (which he got at about 7 months), but he sure enjoys gumming food and feeding himself. Even though he has tons of toys, his favorite activity during the day is following me wherever I go. Together, we do laundry, make beds, cook dinner, dust, vacuum- you name it. We also go on walks together, which we both really like. The nicer weather has made it very enjoyable. He likes to babble, and when he is upset it is especially funny because sounds very distressed and heartfelt, but it is still just nonsense words. He still loves blowing raspberries, but his new favorite thing is to scrunch his nose and sniff really loud- it is so funny. He still has gorgeous blue eyes and very little hair. I can hardly believe he is nine months now, and we are so happy to have him around.

My sister Meg came out to see Les Miserables in Louisville. So we had a girls night out (till 3 am actually) and it was full of adventure. Meg was such fun to see for the weekend, and she really got Ryan to crawl.

We skipped my birthday this year since there was so much going on, and I wasn’t expecting much for Mother’s Day (I knew I was getting breakfast since I saw him bring in some groceries), but Adam really did some amazingly sweet things. He MADE me a breakfast quiche (I love quiche), and it was spectacular. We also had fresh fruit for breakfast, and he had put together an awesome book for me. I am so lucky to have my boys!

Thanks Mom for Everything

This post is a hard one- there are so many thoughts and feelings that I have about this particular post, but I have had trouble organizing my thoughts and I find it difficult to express my feelings. Some things are just too personal to share; however, I really didn’t want to skip anything, so this is my best attempt.

My mom passed away early March 3, 2011. Her passing has been a very bittersweet experience. While the heartache and grief has been paramount at times, I feel that this whole experience has been packed with blessings, which I am very grateful for. These blessings have been both colossal and acute, but if nothing else about her passing, I want to remember these blessings.

I was blessed to see the throngs of people that visited, wrote letters, cooked meals and offered other service as my mom struggled with stomach pain, a stroke, a seizure, and aggressive colon cancer that had spread. So many people shared with me their fondest memories of my mom and all the amazing things she had done for them at one time or another. It was inspiring to see how much of a difference she has made in the lives of others.

I am so grateful that I was able to visit my mom frequently during the last few months. Although I was finishing my MBA, taking care of a new baby, and holding a calling at church, none of this inhibited me from staying at my parent’s house for weeks at a time. I hardly remember having difficult school assignments during this time, my baby was amazing and would fall asleep easily in the middle of the hospital, and my calling at church didn’t require my attendance. In addition, I have a wonderful husband who would come and visit me on weekends. The time I spent with her before she died is full of memories that I will cherish forever. Even as I watched her peacefully pass away and in the days and weeks that followed, I felt immense comfort and calm.

While these are only a handful of the blessings that I saw and felt, all these blessings individually and collectively increased my faith and testimony in Jesus Christ and His gospel. I am so grateful for my eternal family; I know I will get to see my mom again someday. I am grateful for her example, and I am grateful for all the memories we had and for everything she taught me. She was a very special lady, and I am so grateful I got to be her daughter.

A car that’s new, a burger that makes you spew and other stories

So after months of pushing, I finally got Dawn to focus on finding a new car. I’m pretty sure it was my excellent persuasive skills, but it may have had something to do with getting a baby in and out of the backseat of a tiny 2-door car as well. There’s no way to be sure. After looking around for a while we found a Hyundai Tuscon in Louisville we liked that was priced pretty well. She called them up and ended up negotiating a pretty amazing deal, so we went out there last Saturday to check it out. We ended up really liking it and it really was ridiculously well priced (like, the dealer lost money kind of good deal). So yes, we bought it. We’ve been really happy with it.
Since Dawn got 3rd place in our ward’s chili cook-off we had a gift certificate to Chili’s, but there isn’t one around where we live so we decided to go while in Louisville… big mistake. I’m not sure when I will be able to walk into another Chili’s again. We ate; I had a burger, and then we headed back off for home. That night I started feeling a little weird. We went to bed while I was still feeling kind of ok. An hour later I was writhing on the bathroom floor; it was probably one of the most miserable nights of my life, and considering some things I’ve been through, that is saying something. It’s been a week now and I think I am finally feeling mostly normal again.
Other than that things are good. I was hired into a new position within the company I already work for. I will be a “global planner” for one of our business lines, whatever that means… I start training tomorrow and begin next Monday, so, that’s exciting. Dawn finally graduates in a few more weeks, which we are both very much looking forward to.
Ryan’s been lots of fun. He is now starting to enjoy his bumbo, and he is getting “sink baths” in addition to his regular bath time. Sink baths are special because he just gets his lower half washed. You can take a guess at the circumstances under which he gets a sink bath. He is also now letting us get as much sleep as we would like. Yes, he has dropped his night time feeding, and so we get a blissful 9 hours in between feedings.
Umm, the end.