Car Problems and Fun with Friends

I feel like we got a lot accomplished this week – I almost feel like we are getting back up to date with all the little every-day things we need to get done since returning home. This week I was able to cross a lot of little things off of my ‘to do’ list including updating our food storage inventory, organizing the baby’s room, printing and sending some photos to Grandma Bev that she asked for, e-mailing a bunch of old German family documents to my mom so they could prepare for their trip to the Czech Republic, – I am so envious that they have the chance to go to some of the towns our ancestors are from and they might even find the places where they lived – and I also ground enough wheat for a month’s worth of whole wheat bread – I’m determined to make a batch (6 loaves) each Sunday, and am very glad that the batch I’m making right now looks like it is turning out well after last week’s batch tasted good but didn’t rise very well (wow, can you say, ‘run on sentence?’). Anyways, it always feels good to cross things off of my list as I accomplish each task.

So, this week was a fun one. A nice thing about our trips is that we got out of the habit of watching very much television, and since we’ve returned to Milwaukee we’ve tried to continue that. We’ve had more time for getting together with friends and playing with the boys.

On Monday I dropped the boys off at preschool and then my visiting teachers came by before I had to go pick them up again. It’s been really nice this month because Michael hasn’t had to be in until 9am, so he waits with Camden and Isaac while I drop off Kolby and Eli at school, and then I don’t have to lug all four of them in and out of the car.

On Tuesday it was Kolby’s night. We decided to start having one night a week be an individual night for one of the kids to go out with a parent. Kolby went with Michael to run a few errands, and then they went and read books at the library. While they were running errands they got some pretty flowers and a fun new board game, Carcassonne, for me for an early Valentine’s Day surprise. I was very pleasantly surprised, and it was fun that Kolby picked out the flowers. Michael seemed to enjoy it a lot too, because he says that I am so hard to surprise, but I didn’t expect it at all.

On Wednesday morning the boys had preschool again, and they did great. Eli has done well with preschool, he especially enjoys having Kolby there with him. Most days this week they haven’t even made a big deal of me leaving when I drop them off – they just say goodbye and that’s enough for them. Then Wednesday evening Michael had an AOA meeting and he took Isaac with him while I took the other boys to the YMCA. Camden went and played at their kid care while I watched Kolby and Eli’s swim lessons. It is the first time that Eli is in a class with us in the water with him, and he did great. The teacher seemed surprised when Eli willingly dunked his head under the water right when she asked the kids to do ‘bobs’ and she asked me if he had taken lessons before. Kolby did great too. And the nice thing this session is that they are in lessons at the same time, and their classes are right next to each other, so I can pull up a stool and sit right in the middle of the two to watch them both. After their lessons were over they wanted to stay and play in the water and they played for about 15 minutes more before we left. Eli loves to play on the steps and go under the water with his eyes open the whole time and Kolby was excited that he is tall enough to walk on the bottom even deeper into the pool than he used to be, so I kept having to remind him he couldn’t walk all the way to the middle of the pool. They had a lot of fun with that.

Thursday morning we took Michael’s car into the shop because it had failed the emissions test earlier in the week. We paid them $30 to tell us that we would need to pay $1000 to fix the entire emissions system, $450 to replace a rotted out radiator, and $400 for a major tune up – all for the little car that we paid $1500 for a year ago. So now we are really trying to figure out what to do. Do we get a different car that is a little newer and might not have so many major problems for a while (although we couldn’t afford the payments on anything much newer than the one we’ve got), or do we put money in and fix the car up because people say Toyotas are good little cars and we could get a lot more miles out of it if we put some money into it (or it could continue to have major problems that would cost us even more), or do we just fix the minimum to try to get it to pass emissions for one more year and then face those problems later on, or is there any possible way to make one car work at least until we move in the summer (but getting the kids up early each morning and late each night to go pick up Michael from his Surgery Sub-I rotation next month just seems like it would be awful). So, we don’t know what we’re going to do yet. Yuck! We don’t have very good luck with cars.

On Friday morning I took the boys to preschool and when I came back out of the YMCA the back of our van was all smashed in. I didn’t really know what to do since no cars were near my van at all when I came out and I thought the other driver had left. So I just stood there for a while and the driver of a semi truck parked a few car-lengths away from the van came and told me he had hit it. (I was really glad it wasn’t just a hit and run). He said that he was unloading things from the back of his truck and it started rolling and he ran and got the emergency brake on just as it hit the van. At least it seems like his company will cooperate and take care of everything with the insurance, we just have to wait until after the long weekend to get things rolling on that. But for now we can’t open the back door of the van. Luckily there wasn’t more of a problem than that – I’m glad it didn’t break the back window or anything, because it had been so cold that driving with our kids in the van with a broken window would be unbearable. Anyways, one more bit of our bad luck with cars. Oh well. So, Friday night the Kearls came over and we babysat Nathan and Katie while they went curling and then they stayed for games after they returned and the Wellses came and joined us for games too.

And then yesterday morning Michael went and helped Bishop Park to move some of their stuff into storage so they can sell their house. They are moving to Washington this summer. After lunch we went over and saw the Wells’ home for the first time and we played some games on their Wii. Jana also got out her violin and played some songs for the boys, which was very impressive – she could play any song that we named and each one sounded great. She said she started playing just before she turned 4 years old, so I guess we are behind. We told Kolby he could start taking piano lessons after we move. After that we dropped off our boys at the Kearls and went out to dinner for our Valentine’s Day date. We went to Habaneros, which we would recommend. They had great food, and we were surprised at how nice of a place it was inside – from the outside it looks like a small place in this little strip mall with neon beer signs in the windows, but when you go inside it is a very large room with vaulted ceilings and much more authentic-looking architecture and decorating than other Mexican places we’ve been to out here. It was a fun evening out together. After that we went over to the school for their annual Variety Fest talent show. We have gone to it each year since we’ve been here, and it was a really strange feeling to look around and not recognize many people there and realize that we were some of only a few 4th-years there. It felt really strange to be the “oldest” and realize we are going to be done with all of this soon. Afterwards we returned to the Kearls and played a game of Carcassonne and watched a fun movie called Stardust before taking the kids home to bed.

And today there have been reports of a bad storm that is supposed to come in later on, so church was cancelled. It doesn’t look too bad out now, but there was rain this morning that is supposed to make things very slippery and later on there is supposed to be about 6 inches of new snow. So, this morning we watched on the internet the recording of President Hinckley’s funeral services since we were traveling on the day of his funeral a couple weeks ago. Now Michael is training the person who is taking over his job as the one who schedules all of the events in the church building. And later on the Hedgecocks are coming for dinner and then we are going to play games afterwards and the Kearls may come too. So it should be a nice relaxing day. The boys are napping now, which is always nice to have a little break. Hope you all have a nice week.

Last Week

The past week was our first full week back in Milwaukee, and we had so much fun playing games and spending time with friends. It took a few days to get everything unpacked and back in the right places. We also got the Christmas decorations down and put away. After taking all the Christmas boxes and luggage to our storage unit, we had room to finally move the piano out of our bedroom and back into the front room, which has been so much nicer to play. The boys always want to play with it too.

I started into my new rotation, which is surgical pathology. I am with one other student and we sit in a room and look at pathology slides with the residents and fellows. I am amazed at how fast they can look at a slide under the microscope and know within seconds what they are seeing. This is good for me to start getting used to looking under the microscope, since I will have to do this in my dermatology residency.

Last Wednesday we had a huge snowstorm that swept through the area, dumping about 12 inches of snow. There was also a really gusty wind, so being outside and on the roads was bad. The director of our rotation on Tuesday said to not come in Wednesday if the snow was bad enough, so I ended up having a snow day, which was so nice. Steph and I were able to get a lot of little things done at home that day and that night we had the Kearls over for games. We played out in the snow when they first got here and the boys had so much fun because there was so much.

Thursday night we went to dinner with Tyce and Faith to celebrate Faith’s birthday, which was Saturday. We went downtown to the Pizza Shuttle and they had really good gourmet pizzas – we got a bbq chicken, alfredo vegetable, and spinach with feta. We thought it would be more than enough food, but the boys ate so much, and there were no leftovers. They have definitely gotten their appetites back since coming home.

Friday was Eli’s first day of preschool. He is in the same classes with Kolby. We got some really cute pictures of him and Kolby dressed up for his first day. He had so much fun and loves school, especially since he is with Kolby – they are such good friends. Steph said that as soon as they got there the boys were off playing and didn’t need her to stick around.

That night the Kearls had asked us to babysit for them so they could go curling. We went to their house to help out, and when they got back some others showed up for cake and ice cream and games. By the time we were done playing Killer Bunnies, it was pretty late, and all the kids were already asleep, so we just decided to spend the night in their front room. It made me feel like I was back in college. Saturday morning Nathan came out around 6:30 with a little flashlight, and when he saw Steph sleeping in the recliner, I guess he thought she was his mom and got really excited that she was out in the front room. He came over and shined the light on her, but when he realized that she wasn’t his mom, he started screaming and ran back to his parents’ bedroom. It was really funny.

Saturday we got to listen to the worldwide leadership training conference over at the church. The topic was on raising a righteous posterity and the focus was on how to better help our kids to learn the gospel in the home and to make sure that we made our homes safe havens from the evils of the world. I thought it was neat how often they spoke about making the sacrifice of faith to have a family while still in school and not making a lot of money, and that if you would obey that commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, then you would be blessed immensely for it. As I look back on our marriage so far, I can definitely see how much we have been blessed and helped as we have tried to follow the counsel of the prophet and keep the commandments. In the conference they also gave advice on things to do to have more love and unity in the home. Steph and I are continually trying to improve on making sure that our children always feel loved and that we are spending good quality time with them. We decided to set up a weekly night out with one of the boys so that we could spend more individual time with them. We will start with Kolby this week. Saturday night we had Peter and Cynthia Hedgecock over for games and had fun catching up on each others lives for the past few months. They brought a new board game that is now our favorite game for the time. It is called Carcassonne and is similar in some respects to Settlers of Katan, but easier to explain and quite a bit faster to play. Basically, you take turn picking up pieces to add to the table as you build up cities with fields and roads and you get points based on what you build.

Sunday was probably the coldest day that we have had so far since being back – the high was only around 10 degrees, and there was a really cold wind blowing all day. Kolby gave a talk in primary on the topic of how the scriptures teach us about Heavenly Father and Jesus. He said that his favorite parts of the scriptures are those about the Lamanites, and his favorite stories are Nephi building the boat, Noah and the Ark, and Ammon and the sheep. He wanted to do the talk without our help and he did a good job with the primary president helping him. I am really looking forward to next month when Camden will be old enough to go to nursery, because one of us ends up spending the hour in the hall with him because he just doesn’t want to be quiet. :) I also got released from my calling as the ward physical facilities representative and my assignment as the stake building coordinator. For now I will just be doing home teaching, which is different, especially since I have had those callings for almost the whole time we’ve been in Milwaukee.

After church we had dinner over at the Hedgecocks. Peter is an excellent cook and we love eating his food. He made us salmon that was so delicious. I had to run for a few hours to do my home teaching with Jason. We had fun catching up on the lives of Steve and Kara and Kyle and Tracy and their kids. When I got back to the Hedgecocks we got the kids in bed and then played another round of Carcassonne. We are so grateful to have such wonderful friends here in Milwaukee and are not looking forward to possibly having to leave them when I graduate.

Grandpa McIntosh also had his back surgery on Wednesday. It sounds like everything went well, although things were a lot worse than the doctors had thought once they got in and started working. He is out of the ICU but had to have a blood transfusion Sunday night. It is good to hear that he is continually improving, if not as fast as he had hoped. You are in our prayers grandpa and we hope that this will help to alleviate some of the pain you have been dealing with for so long.

We hope everyone else is doing well and love hearing from you.