Dinosaurs, Swimming in the Lake, and Upcoming Ultrasounds

So, this upcoming week will be an exciting one. Tomorrow is the big day: Kolby and Eli start preschool, and then in the afternoon we are going for the ultrasound. The boys’ first day of school isn’t really a normal day, it’s an orientation day for them to go and meet their teacher and see the classroom. So they will then officially start on Tuesday. Kolby will go 4 days a week (Monday through Thursday) and Eli will go on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Their class is at the perfect time of day: 9am to noon (so they will still be able to keep to their schedule of naptime after lunch). And on the days Eli goes he will be in the same class as Kolby. Their teacher is Mrs. Dora, and she has two aids in the classroom too. We were excited when we went to the parent meeting last week to find out that the aids both speak Spanish, and we asked them if they would try to use Spanish with our boys too, so that will be nice. We went the other day and the boys each picked out a new backpack and a folder to keep papers in, and they were excited about that. (One nice thing about this preschool starting a couple weeks later than most of the other schools around here is being able to get backpacks on sale for 30% off). And after naps I have my ultrasound tomorrow at 3pm, so that will be nice to find out if this baby is a boy or a girl so we can finalize a name and I can get a little more prepared (like getting a baby book started and picking up clothes, if needed). So tomorrow is a big day. We also have Camden’s birthday party next week, so that should be exciting too. And then next week we are going to head for San Diego to visit while Michael starts his busy ICU rotation here. Then we’ll get back here just in time to celebrate Isaac’s and Kolby’s birthdays, go to a pumpkin patch, and celebrate Halloween.

So, this week went pretty well, although it was kind of tiring since Michael hadn’t had a day off for almost 2 weeks until Thursday, so it was nice once he did get that break. On Monday it was my mom’s birthday, so we got to call her and the boys enjoyed singing “Happy Birthday” to her on the phone. On Tuesday and Wednesday we ran several errands and on Wednesday I took Eli and Camden in for a doctor’s visit.

We did get to go do something fun earlier this week. Grandma Faun had a dentist’s appointment up in Ogden (where she used to live), and so we drove her up there and then afterwards we went to the Dinosaur Park there in Ogden. It is a fun park where she took us when we were kids too. We got there, and they started us out in their small indoor museum before going out to the park. The only problem was when we got off the elevator for the museum we came out into a dark room with a scene behind a fence with a triceratops and her little babies and a tyrannosaurus. These were the only robotic dinosaurs in the whole park, but the tyrannosaurus moving it’s head and arms and roaring loudly was enough to thoroughly freak Eli out. He started crying and saying he didn’t want to go that way. I tried to explain to him that the dinosaurs weren’t real – that they were robots made by people and that the noises were just recordings, but he told me then that he didn’t want to go by the robots. We convinced him after a little while to continue through the museum, even though he didn’t want to pass the large dinosaur skeletons. Then we went outside, where there were lots of different dinosaur statues as you walked through trails in the park, and there were recordings of dinosaur noises playing from the bushes and trees. Eli went along, but wasn’t to excited about all of it. Kolby thought it was great, as he walked through very slowly and quietly, pretending to be hiding from the dinosaurs. At last I found one of the dinosaurs that was close enough to the edge of the trail that we could reach it, so I had Eli feel the dinosaur and then feel a rock next to it, and see that they felt like they were made out of the same material. I said, “See, I told you they weren’t real.” And he responded, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” (As if he hadn’t been there for the last 20 minutes while I told him repeatedly that the dinosaurs weren’t real and the noises were just recordings). After that he was pretty much ok, although I’m still not sure that he didn’t think that the dinosaur he touched was the only fake one and all the others (especially those robotic ones) were really real. But we walked through the whole park, and the boys enjoyed it. At the end there was a playground with a giant slide and some little dinosaurs they could climb on, so it was a fun afternoon. They all fell asleep in the car within a few minutes of leaving the park, except for Kolby who stayed awake the whole drive back to Salt Lake. Afterwards we stopped at Costco for a few things Grandma needed, and we ended up having dinner at the food court there, and all I can say about that nice little experience is that I look forward to the day somewhere down the road when I can sit down to eat a meal without having to hurry and eat it all before the kids finish their food and start in on why they are still starving and should be ale to share my meal. Who knows when that will be?

On Thursday Michael fortunately got the day off, so he was able to go with me to the parent’s meeting for the preschool class, and we liked the teacher and are excited for the boys to start this week. Then we decided to take the boys swimming in the afternoon, so we checked the pool schedule on the rec. center’s website, got all the kids into their swim suits, and headed to the pool. We were disappointed when we got there to find that the pool was closed for maintenance for the week. We called several other local rec. centers, and found that they were also all closed too. And we were told that all the outdoor pools in the area closed on Labor Day. So, we walked back out to the car and were trying to think of something else fun to do on Michael’s day off (without having to take everyone back home and change again), and we decided to go to the Great Salt Lake. I had swum there a few times before when I was younger, but Michael never had. We found, after being in the car for quite a while, that the entrance to Antelope Island was a lot further north than we had realized, and we had to drive through bad traffic on the freeway to get there. When we arrived at 4pm, we had to pay $9 to get into the “park” (which I guess wasn’t so bad, since we would have paid about that much for our whole family to swim at the rec. center anyways). We drove across the road, and as soon as we got to the island we saw two big buffalo walking slowly towards us and across the road right behind our van. That was pretty fun for the boys. When we got there, there was nice soft beach sand around the parking lot, so I decided we should leave our sandals in the car rather than end up carrying all of the boys’ sandals for them. That ended up being an unwise decision, because after we got a ways down the beach (too far to run back to the car quickly to get the sandals), the sand became rocky and hurt our feet for the rest of the long walk down to the water (the water was pretty low, and it took us quite a while to walk that far with the boys). We got down to the water, and at least it was pretty warm. Michael was pretty excited that he could float with no effort at all because of the high salt content of the water, especially since he has trouble floating in a pool. He tried to get all the boys to do it with him, but none of them were excited about that idea. Camden did have fun, though, sitting on Michael’s stomach while he was floating on his back, so Michael was like a human inner tube. The boys were not as excited about swimming in the salty water as their daddy was, and we ended up returning to the shore and building castles before too long. We listened to a coyote howl for a while as we sat on the beach. Then we got back to the car and drove around the island for a little bit – the boys got to see several more buffalo and an antelope all pretty close up, so that was fun. Then we had a long drive home before we could eat anything, since we smelled pretty strongly of Salt Lake water, we couldn’t stop at a restaurant to eat and we didn’t want any drive-through food. We got home later than planned, but it was a fun outing. I think that swimming in the Great Salt Lake is something that is good to do once, but probably not a favorite new day trip for each weekend, since the water just smells so strong.

Thursday night was supposed to be my night out with Kolby, but since we took so long getting home from the lake that night we decided to do it Friday instead. I had the idea of taking him to a movie, since we haven’t taken the boys to a movie since Cars was in the dollar theater, which had to have been when Camden was a little baby. I looked online, and there was a kid’s movie playing at the dollar theater nearby that I hadn’t even heard of, but it was rated G and it looked like it would be good. So we went and I didn’t tell Kolby what we were going to do, just that it was a surprise. We got the tickets, went into the theater, and sat down while the previews were playing, and then I asked him if he knew what the surprise was yet, and he said no. (I guess it really has been a long time since we took them to a movie). I told him we were seeing a movie, and he got really excited. I told him that we don’t talk out load during a movie, so he kept asking me throughout the previews when the movie was starting so that he would know when he needed to start whispering. About 5 minutes into the movie Kolby moved to sit on my lap, and we enjoyed the whole thing together. And the movie ended up being pretty good for a kid’s movie that I hadn’t even heard of before – sure, it had it’s corny scenes, but for the most part it was cute and better than I had expected. It was called Kitt Kitteredge, about a little girl and her friends who lived during the depression. Kolby was really excited for our night out, and he is still carrying the stubs of the movie tickets around with him.

Well, yesterday I was sick all afternoon (the morning sickness just randomly comes back every once in a while). I was glad that I was feeling all right by the time Michael got off, because he had had a good day at work and wanted to go out, since he didn’t have to go back into work this morning. We went to the dollar theater and saw Indiana Jones, which I thought was pretty good – it reminded me a lot of the old Indiana Jones movies – until the kid started swinging through the trees with the monkeys and the monkey proceeded to help him attack the evil Russian soldiers – I thought that was pretty unbelievable. And then the whole ending about the aliens just really didn’t fit in with Indiana Jones as an archeologist – they could have come up with a better idea for that part of the movie. Other than that, I thought it was pretty good, having been warned by friends before seeing it that there were some cheesy parts and a few corny jokes.

So, today Michael had another day off, since he hadn’t had a break for a while so he got two days off not very far from each other. He wanted to go back and visit his old ward at the church he grew up going to in South Jordan, so we went down there this morning. We found out, though, that it was their stake conference, which meant we had a longer meeting to sit through with our boys and Michael didn’t get to see as many old friends as he had hoped, but he did get to talk to several families he knew, which he enjoyed. (If only our stake conference wasn’t coming up next Sunday, when Michael doesn’t have the day off – don’t get me wrong, I think stake conference is great, but it’s just too long for babies to sit through for 2 hours of talking without a break. That’s why it’s nice that they always have an adult meeting on the preceding Saturday night, so those of us who have young children can feel like we get something out of at least one of the meetings – but for some reason they don’t have an adult meeting in our ward this year. Who knows why?)

So, we were able to get a hold of Michael’s cousin, Andy, and his wife Michelle, and they are coming up here for dinner tonight. That should be nice to see them. Their daughter is not much younger than Kolby, and our kids have never met each other.

Well, we hope you all have a good week, and we’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on the findings of the ultrasound tomorrow.

Two Weeks of Vacation

I love having this month off for vacation. It has been so nice and relaxing to take time getting up in the morning, eating nice breakfasts with the family, playing with the boys, and just being home with the family. We have gotten a lot done over the past two weeks to get ready for packing and moving while still finding time to have some fun.

As far as moving, we have decided to try and fit most of our stuff into a pod that will be transported to Rochester, New York and then kept in storage for a year. Then we will try and fit the stuff going to Utah with us into another pod and our cars. We are going to try and sell most of our bigger furniture (dressers, bookcases, entertainment center, couches, table) in order to make everything fit, and then slowly purchase them again when we get to Rochester. This will help us to save quite a bit of money if we can use 2 pods rather than 3. We set a date to rent the pods for Tuesday, May 27, which will allow us a few fudge days to get everything packed before we have to be out of the apartment on May 31. Then, we are going to get a towing package installed on the back of our van and rent a car tow dolly from U-haul to tow our smaller blue car behind the van when we drive to Utah. That way, we can take a few extra days getting to Utah, stopping in Nauvoo and at Steph’s grandma’s house in Missouri (plus it will cost less to tow the car than to pay for gas to drive it). Steph also found some people in Milwaukee that had just moved here and were giving away their boxes, so we picked them up and have them ready to start packing soon. We also spent a couple of days cleaning out our storage units and trying to get rid of the junk that has accumulated over the past few years. That felt good.

It is crazy to think that we only have about 7 weeks left in Milwaukee. We are really excited to start this next step in our journey, but we will be very sad to leave all of the friends out here that have become our family while away from family. Thanks to everyone who has been so good to us, helping us out when needed and having fun playing games with us. We hope that we can stay in contact with all of them even though we will not be close by.

Speaking of the next step in our journey, we got all the paperwork this week for my new job as an intern at Intermountain Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. I got my contract that showed how much I will get paid (and let’s just say it will be so nice to finally be getting a paycheck again). I also got the form to pick my schedule preference, as well as all the stuff from human resources for insurance, lab coats, ID badge, etc. It is exciting to think that I will be starting as an intern in just a few months, though it was a little crazy to see the spot that I signed at the end of the contract with a M.D. after my name. I mean, I guess that is what I have been working for the past 4 years, but it will still take some getting used to.

Last weekend we got to enjoy watching the 168th General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the internet on our computer. For those that may not know, this meeting occurs twice a year and it is a meeting of our entire church throughout the world. It is a chance for us to hear from the prophet and his 2 counselors, the 12 apostles, and the other general leaders of our church, to receive counsel and instruction that is applicable to us living in the world today. There are 5 two-hour information-packed meetings, 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. This weekend’s set of meetings was especially neat because a new prophet was sustained, since President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away earlier this year. The new prophet is Thomas S. Monson, and we each got a chance to show our personal willingness to accept this man as the living prophet of our day. A new apostle was also called, Elder D. Todd Christofferson. I love these meetings because I learn so much and feel such a warm feeling inside as the Holy Ghost testifies to me that what I am being taught is true. I really enjoyed Elder Dallin H. Oaks’ talk about testimony, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s about using self-discipline to stay the true course, Elder Jeffery R. Holland’s about the importance of continuing revelation, and Elder M. Russell Ballard’s about the role of young mother’s in raising a righteous generation of children. Our kids did pretty well, considering their ages, but there were still times that I wasn’t able to pay as much attention as I would have liked – I can’t wait for the Ensign to come out so I can reread everything that was taught.

Last Monday we decided to take a trip down to Chicago. We had heard that the zoo was free, so we drove down and found some free parking in a park just across the street from the zoo. We got to see the seals being fed and trained, Kolby and Eli chasing seagulls around while eating lunch, and some other cool displays (though the lion’s were not very exciting like they are at the Milwaukee zoo). My favorite was a pygmy hippo that the kids could get down in front of a glass window. The hippo kept trying to dig at the kids and they would squeal. It was really funny to watch. There was also a really cool jungle gym that was shaped like a giant tree, with leaves and netting for the kids to climb around in. After the zoo, we drove downtown and found a parking garage to leave the car and then spent the night walking around the city. We wanted to get to Navy Pier, and since we had been there before, we knew what direction to go. Well, to make a long story short, we ended up taking a wrong turn (though it wasn’t our fault because there were no signs posted saying that the sidewalk was going to end) and found ourselves on a bridge over the Chicago river, at a freeway entrance with cars whizzing past, and us needing to get to the other side. Luckily, there was some construction being done that slowed the cars down some, and then there were some nice people that stopped to let us by. We ended up safely at the Navy Pier and the boys had fun watching the giant ferris wheel and swings. Then we took a trolley ride back into the city to get us closer to our car. We had a lot of fun, though we were so tired on the drive home that Steph and I had to keep trading off driving.

Steph found a website called MilwaukeeMoms.com that has postings for different community events and there were 2 that we did this weekend. In the morning we went to a Kid Fest at the state fairgrounds in the exhibition center. They had all sorts of booths set up from different organizations all over the community, with candy and activities for the kids and drawings for the parents to enter. There was a kid’s circus where they took volunteers from the audience and dressed them up in animal costumes and then had them perform on the stage. We’ll have to post the video of Kolby and Eli as they danced around as horses on the stage. It was really cute.

We got a call from the Theriot’s, a family in the ward, asking if we could watch their 2-year-old boy over the weekend while they went to St. Louis to do some house hunting. He is a really calm and happy kid and has fit in real well with the other boys. They also left us with their X-box to enjoy over the weekend. We have enjoyed playing Tetris, Star Wars, and Cars together and with friends.

This weekend is our Stake Conference, and the other thing that Steph found on that website was a Methodist church that was doing a free babysitting night as a service to the community. We decided to take them up on the offer. We dropped the kids off at 5 and picked them up at 9:30. They fed the kids dinner and then did several activities with them. Steph and I were able to go to dinner at Uno’s and then attend the adult session of Stake Conference together. It was so good as we were counseled on ways to increase our faith and strengthen our families. We need to get the kids ready now for the meeting today at 2pm. We will have 5 boys under the age of 5 with us – it should be interesting. Hopefully we get something out of it. :)

This Past Week

So, we just got home from skiing in Mammoth Lakes, California over the long weekend. Michael returned to San Diego two days ago with my dad and Aaron because he had to leave for his New York City interview early yesterday morning. Mom, Matthew, the boys, and I stayed an extra day and returned last night. Mom and Matthew went skiing in the morning yesterday and mom came home and watched the boys for me so I could ski in the afternoon. There was nice new powder on the mountain and Matthew and I had a lot of fun skiing through the trees. (For anyone who likes to ski at Mammoth, we found a really fun run yesterday -- if you take lift #5 up and go off the back side of the mountain, after you get past the first part of the run that is a little steep, go through the trees over on the right side of the run and it is a very nice run, especially if there is a foot or two of powder on the ground).

Oh, and on Monday we had a lot of fun because Kolby got to go skiing for the first time. Kids under the age of 6 ski for free at Mammoth, so we took advantage of that. He was so cute in his ski clothes, helmet and goggles and all. And his little skis were so tiny. We rode up the gondola to get to the ski mountain, and that was a major highlight of the trip for him. Once we got on the hill, he had a lot of fun. My dad gave him a little ski lesson and he did well for his first time. He went up the little rope tow lift on the bunny hill a couple of times before he said he didn't want to do that anymore and we went on a chair lift up higher on the bunny hill. He saw some little jumps on the way up and said he wanted to do that. Then we went up Schoolyard lift and had a last good run down that hill. It's a good thing that my dad is such a good skier, because he was able to ski with Kolby and then kind of hold him up on the steeper part of the hill and get him to the parts that he could try skiing on his own. At the very end Kolby got tired and we took off his skis and Dad skied down to the bottom of the hill with Kolby on his shoulders -- I wish we had a video of that part. We did get some clips and photos of Kolby skiing which I will definitely post later on. That sure was a fun experience to see him ski -- Michael commented that he is looking forward to when we can ski with all of our boys.

Anyways, we left the cabin last night around 7pm and got to the house a little after 1am. We got the car unpacked and the kids in to bed, and I went to sleep around 2am. Isaac woke up to eat at 4am, and I woke up holding him on my lap on the couch at 5am and found the empty bottle sitting on the floor at my feet. Then, because Isaac has had a bit of a stuffy nose the last couple of days, he woke up at 6am and I got him to go back to sleep by giving him his pacifier. Then he woke up again at 7am, and since I could hear Camden starting to talk through the baby monitor I gave up on the idea of sleep and just got up. So I'm kind of out of it today, but that extra day of skiing was worth it all.

I wrote our weekly update on Sunday afternoon, so here it is:

Well, I am writing this on Sunday, January 20th, even though I won’t have a chance to post it until we get back to the house in San Diego and have internet access. Right now we are in Mammoth – about 6 hours north of San Diego – at my parents’ cabin. We got up here late Friday night and Michael arrived yesterday evening with my dad – Michael had an interview he was flying in from and Dad had a business meeting yesterday morning, so they came up later. It’s nice being up here. I think the thing I like the most about coming to the cabin is that there is no school or work or other errands to run, so everyone is together hanging out the whole time. There’s about 8 feet of snow on the ground outside, and some of us got a chance to go skiing yesterday. In the morning I went with Mom and Aaron while Matthew watched the boys and then Mom traded in the afternoon and Matthew joined us. I love to ski. We had a lot of fun, especially going off some jumps and doing quite a few black diamond runs. Matthew and Aaron have both passed me up – they are both faster and better skiers than I am now since I’ve been out of practice for a while (and I am more cautious than I used to be). But I think I did a pretty good job of keeping up.

Before we came up to Mammoth, we also had several other fun things happen this week. Last weekend we went to the stake conference meeting at my parents’ church. We really enjoyed the Saturday evening meeting, which focused on parenting. One of the speakers had five boys (so we felt like we could relate to lots of the experiences he shared). One idea that he shared was to not only have one night each week devoted to family time, but to have another night each week devoted to individual time with each child. We liked that idea, especially with all of our boys being so close in age. I think we are going to try doing that once we get back from vacation – one night a week one of us will take one of the boys out and let them pick a fun activity to do. That should be fun.

Since we last wrote, Michael has had several interviews. He has been to Cincinnati Ohio, Dayton Ohio, Spokane Washington, Gainesville Florida, and Rochester New York. He had good experiences at all of these interviews, and it looks like it is going to be difficult to choose how we are going to rank all the programs because there are so many good ones to choose from. And I am glad that Michael only has one interview left to fly to – he is going to New York city this week. Then the only others he has left are a transitional year interview in San Diego a few days before we leave, and one last transitional year one in La Crosse, Wisconsin that we are all planning on driving to as a family the day after we get back to Milwaukee.

On Monday Erin Devenberg, my best friend from high school, came and visited. She and her mom came and stayed for lunch, and the boys had a lot of fun playing with them. It was great to see her again, and she got to come back for another short visit on Friday morning before we left. I can’t believe it had been over four years since I had seen Erin before that – she had never even seen any of the boys before – but she moved to Redding (in northern California) several years ago and we just hadn’t been able to make it to San Diego at the same time since then. It was nice to talk and catch up on each others’ lives.

I have also had fun playing ping pong with Michael, Matthew, and Aaron several times. Mom and I had fun looking at some model homes and going on several fun shopping trips. I’m sure that there are lots of other fun things we did since we last posted, but I’m drawing a blank right now. Hope you are all doing well.