I see you

Jamie chastised me the other day for not being a part of the blog. So I thought I'd post something kind of creepy. More for my own peace of mind, to know we aren't getting people in China and Russia trawling our blog for potential identity theft info, I started tracking all our visitors a few weeks ago. So here you are:


So far nobody from China and Russia though. Just some South Americans. We'll keep an eye on them.

Jamie seems to be keeping you up to date on my project, though nothing was done yesterday, or today, because my back is done. Not sure where it went, but I think a combo of trenching, and basketball did me in yesterday. Who knows how long I will be out of commission. We'll see if large amounts of OTC pain killers, anti-inflammatories, and a heating pad will do the trick.

couple more photos

Here are a few follow up pictures to the whole trenching day:

This was the scene about 20 minutes into the trenching project.  This machine didn't work too well.  After the chain came off twice, Scott took it back to the rental place and got another one.  The second one was much better.

Here is Scott loosening up the dirt in the 'mow strip'.  This is in there mostly for those of you that think he only works while riding the tractor.  Can you tell what time of day it is with the long shadow?

Stephen finally seems to be over his fear of the tractor.  He was really enjoying this ride.  He kept looking over at his dad with that excited look on his face.  So fun!

So there you go, just a couple pictures.  Maybe some day I'll put up a post about something other than the yard progress...  

hey! I can see our house from here!

So, this past Friday, my parent's-in-law got to take a little helicopter ride above our little valley.  Once, they finished, I got some nice aerial photos of our house.  So... I'm sharing them with you.  This is two fold, really.  I think it is neat that we now have aerial shots of our house and the area (even though Google maps still doesn't recognize our street as existing) and to show you the recent progress on our yard!  (Sorry if that makes you groan...  for those of you that aren't interested, I tricked you, I know!)  Scott and his dad were able to do some trenching on Friday.  Yes, Scott took the day off of work to play in the dirt.  Good thing he also has Monday off to recover!  So, below are pictures of our house from the sky and the neat lines that will hold pipe to water the grass once we get it.

Don't those trenches look great?

Lookin' good!  If you look real close, you can see the boxes that are holding our garden by the back deck (which will also be upgraded, but not until next summer, most likely)

Since these pictures were taken, Scott has installed the main pressurize water line and it works!  We tested it tonight.  It is so exciting - for us.  

Stephen has thoroughly enjoyed filling in the holes that Scott has worked so hard to put there.  He is filthy every night and loves getting that way.  We are making progress and love how close we are to having grass!

Piano time

Stephen and I hung out at my sister's house yesterday.  My dad is still in town, but he was golfing yesterday, so I didn't see him too much, but Beth and Kathy were there.  While we were at her house, the boys started to play the piano.  This picture was taken at about the last possible second that it could have been taken.  They had been playing, but as you might be able to see here, the cover to the keys is being closed.  Seconds after I got this picture, screaming happened.  I don't know if fingers were caught or what, but the fun was just about to end.  This is a cute picture anyway... don't you think?

More yard updates!

We had lots of help on Saturday and we are both very happy with all that got done!  Scott has been up in the canyon three times to get rocks and once we figured there was enough, we had my family up for a pancake brunch and got working!

Here is my dad, my brother-in-law and Scott (can you see him behind John?) wondering where to start.  Those are the rocks we have to work with.

There they are working some more.  Scott was on the tractor while dad and John worked on getting the rock in it.  Then Scott would take the rock over to the front of the house and dad and John would help him get it into place.  Here you can see that the wall is just beginning.

Meanwhile, I was chasing Stephen around and talking to my step-mom and two sisters.  One of which was chasing her 2 year old around and keeping an eye on her newborn.  Stephen did take a little nap in the afternoon, so I planted our tomatoes in our Earth Boxes.  I'm glad that is done!

Here is Stephen with his rock.  He found that last week when his dad brought one of the loads of rock home.  It fell off of one of the big rocks.  He has been carrying it around for a while now, and always seems to remember where he left it in the yard, which is pretty good since it is all rock and dirt!

Here is the finished product.  We have quite a bit of fill dirt in there now, so we just need some topsoil and a few plants and it will look great!  My mothers Day present of bulbs arrived today so we'll get those planted this week and decide what else we want in our raised planter.

We would never have been able to get any of this done without all the help we got on Saturday.  At about 2:00 or 3:00, my in-laws came to help, and then my family took off since the second shift had arrived.  I'm sure there are a lot of sore backs and sunburned necks and faces courtesy of all this work and we appreciate it!  Thanks everyone!

Date day

Yesterday Stephen and I went to the zoo with my sister and her two kids.  We had a good day.  I'm not sure if Stephen really saw all the animals very well, but he did notice some of them.  All animals are dogs to him anyway.  The orangutan, I think it was that ape, took an interest in Stephen and he just sank deeper and deeper in his stroller as the monkey stared at him from the other side of the glass.   His favorite part was the train, we rode it once and watched it go by quite a few times.  We rode the carousel, but that wasn't as fun as the train.  He really liked watching it go around while we were in line, but then when we were on it, he wasn't so sure, it was fun in the middle for about a minute, but not at the beginning or at the end.  Weird.  He was so tired at that point, way past nap time!

He slept all the way home and for another hour or so when we got home.  It gave me time to get ready for my second date of the day with Scott!  We so rarely go out just the two of us, I was pretty excited.  Even if we were going to see Star Trek.  We use to see a movie just about every weekend.  Before last night, I can't remember the last time we went to a theatre.  Scott was so excited to see this new Star Trek movie, and I have never seen hardly a scene of Star Trek, but it was alright.  I had a good time going out and eating popcorn!  I love popcorn.  Now, we are back to business on the yard work this weekend!

Our weekend

My dad and step-mother are in town, they got here on Friday.  They are staying with my sister, or at least they did this weekend.  So, we spent Saturday at my sister's house (much to Scott's chagrin, no yard work happened, but it rained, so it was ok - or at least it wouldn't have happened anyway...).  We let the kids play and we got ready for Sunday.  After all, Saturday is a special day.  It is the day we get ready for Sunday.  

Sunday was Sarah Ann's blessing day (my niece, if you didn't catch on to that).  So, we spent Sunday at my sister's too.  It was a great day.  We had lots of family there and it was great!  I love it when there is an excuse to all get together!  My sister did a great job getting food together, and we had more cookies than we could see over.  That is alright, we did a good job on getting them eaten.  The only one scare of the day was Stephen picking a fight with a crock put full of meatballs.  He lost, but not too badly.  Those meatballs were trouble from the start anyway.  (They weren't quite warm when it was time to eat, so everyone had cold meatballs.  Maybe that is what got Stephen all riled up about them, I don't know)  :)

Anyway - I now know how you make an entire house full of people stop and stare.  A loud crash,  a crying child, and then a frantic cold water hose down in the kitchen sink.  My Aunt is a nurse, she was right there with me and checking him out.  She saw the bruise before I did.  And that is all that there was.  No burns (that is good, because the burns on his fingers from him checking out a heat lamp earlier this week have not yet healed), just a bruise on his nose, and a little under his eye.  These pictures were taken this morning.  Once he calmed down, he was back to normal and playing around with all the other kids.  

I know I'm really in for a lot more adventures like this.  One curious boy and another one on the way.  I'm sure I'll know the quickest way to the emergency room here soon.  

All smiles this morning, but you can see the bruises.

 

Here is the happy boy again.  This is a good shot of the eye and of that new molar.  (If I had waited a few more minutes to take this pictures, you would see his new bump above that eyebrow...  sigh, adventures...)

Continuing

We are all still alive here at our house.  Scott is feeling much better and sleeping better.  His Doctor gave him some cough syrup with codeine in it.  He takes it at night and slowly, but surely, his eyes get droopy, and I have to tell him to go to bed.  In his drug induced state, he kind of grunts and nods, and hops - uh falls - into bed.  I am glad he is feeling better.  

Stephen got a little burn on his finger today.  One of the ladies I visit teach had some chicks that had recently hatched in her kitchen.  Stephen was checking it out, but then seemed more interested in the heat lamp.  It took a while to calm him down from that.  But I think he is fine.   He is sleeping now but still doing the gasping that happens after heavy crying.  

Our current yard project is to fill in our ditch.  Evidently, when this property was a field, that was the secondary water ditch.  We are taking the fill dirt from the empty lot that all of our neighbors have put their junk dirt in and filling in our ditch.  We think it will take quite a few more loads in the trailer.  Should be fun!

I'm still not really feeling pregnant.  Should happen any time now, right?  I am wearing stretchy pants, but I feel normal.  That is good.  We are excited that we are having a boy.  I'm just excited that I don't have to worry about a whole new wardrobe.  Just a few things here and there.  I hope.

That is our update.  I just wanted a shorter post to prove that I'm not really all that long winded all the time!

What a week

It has been an interesting week. Last weekend, none of us made it to church. We were able to get some yard work done of Saturday, that is what the last post is about, but Stephen was sick in the middle of the night, and Scott was feverish all night. Yes, it was great. By Sunday afternoon, all fevers had broken and we thought things were fine. Stephen took a few days to get back to normal, but things were all that bad. Scott's cold wasn't going away, but it did settle in his throat and chest so he didn't really have much of a voice. We didn't think much of it.

Thursday was our Ultrasound. Scott took Thursday and Friday off of work for Alissa's (his sister's) Graduation. But the Ultrasound kind of had to happen on Thursday, so we did that instead. We felt fine about it, missing one ceremony, but going to the other. It was nice that Scott was able to take the day off. My Dr. is great about the fact that I drive a long way to see him, so I had my ultrasound and 20-week check-up the same day. It was a family affair, Scott and Stephen and I all loaded up in the car and spend the day in Salt Lake. On the way to the first appointment, Scott was kind of quiet. He said his throat hurt, and was just resting it. After the Ultrasound, we had lunch, and he was really starting to drag. He mentioned that he thought he had a fever again, and started to look up InstaCare clinics in the area. I then began to worry. We couldn't find anything, so we ran an errand or two, then went to my second appointment. Scott was feeling worse, and Stephen was just barely putting up with being held and strapped in. When we left, we found a few clinics that couldn't see Scott or that wouldn't take our insurance.

At about 3:30, we finally found a clinic to go to. Stephen had just fallen asleep in the car, so Scott went in and I drove around and waited for him to return. He was in there for 2 hours! I was beginning to worry. After an hour, I knew that he was in the exam room, so I didn't think it would be too much longer. He did indeed have a fever - 103! Yikes! The Dr. then took a few x-rays of his chest and found nothing, so it wasn't pneumonia, that's good. But the x-ray was a little high, and the doctor noticed that Scott's throat was narrower than it should be. He told Scott of some unpronounceable -itis thing that could cause death. So Scott got some heavy antibiotics shot into his arm so that "He would wake up alive in the morning." That is really good - thank you. We stopped and picked up more antibiotics on the way home and met some of Scott's family at a restaurant to eat, since they were just finished with Commencement. All the while Scott practically had his head on the table.

I got him home and he went to bed immediately. Poor thing. Once Stephen was asleep and I got a few things done (since I was planning on being home by 3:30 or so to get things done at home, I was a little behind), I went to bed on the couch. I have been waking up at night and just being awake for a few hours before being able to go back to sleep. I figured with the fitful night Scott might have, that I would be better off on the couch. It didn't work, I still was awake for an hour, but it was only one, so I am improving. Scott's fever broke sometime in the night and he was feeling much better in the morning. We did end up going to the graduation ceremony on Friday. Then we went to dinner with the whole family and had a great time.

We had hoped to get some yard work done on Saturday, with the help of family, but it was rainy, so we didn't get much done. We did get a few things done though, and there are pictures below!

Scott is loading the awful trees into a trailer Friday night

here we are at the dump. "Yea!" is what Scott is saying. They are going away!

We lifted the trailer and they didn't move, we needed a little help.

There they go! away! away! Hip hip hooray!

(we are so happy they are no longer on our property, or distressing the owners of the property next to us)

So, not much else happened for the weekend. We did have a nice sourdough pancake dinner with the family Saturday night, then a fun game night. We were going to feed pancakes to everyone on Friday morning, but with the timing and illness in our house, no one wanted to come over. So we did them for everyone Saturday night. It was a great breakfast for dinner meal. And game night was really fun. We decided to stay home after church on Sunday, too. It is so nice to rest!

I'm thinking I didn't mention something... hmmm.... what could it be? Oh, the Ultrasound... do we know what we are having? Yes, yes we do. Do you want to know? It is another boy! We are very excited. Two boys will be fun. We are still due 09-09-09 (ish).

That is our week, and another long post.

Finally! Nice weather!

We have finally had some nice weather, and Scott is taking every chance he can get to work in the yard.  We have tried to chip up the nasty bush/trees in the back, but that wasn't really working.  We even tried to burn then, but they wouldn't light.  These things are trouble!  We have heard through the grapevine that the people that own the empty lot next to us don't like that something has been dumped there, so we have decided to take them to the dump.  We have a free dump pass that we can use once in the month of April, May and June so we are going to load them up on a trailer this Saturday and take them away.  Yea!  Below is a picture of the nasty thorns.  The one in the middle is a big thorn with 5 coming off of it.  Yuck!

Thorns!

Stephen likes to watch his dad on the tractor.  He is still a little afraid of it, but not when it is outside and he is in.  He can't figure out if it is a bus or a train.  (He is learning signs and he does both of those when he sees it)

Scott has been out on the tractor leveling out the yard.  It looks great!  He and my brother-in-law did a lot of work on Saturday to get the side yard ready.  The rest of the yard won't be that much work, Scott got the front and other side done Monday evening after work.  From here, we just need to fill in the ditch in the back and the side by the empty lot.  I'm excited - we might have grass soon!  I know the picture doesn't show John working, but he did - a lot.  Thanks John!  Zach - the little one - also helped.  He had on his little guy gloves and moved rocks around!

This is the beginning of one of the rock walls that we will have.  Can you see the two trees staked up behind?  Those are the cherry trees!  Yea!  They are in the ground and not in the house!  Doesn't the grass next door look nice?

That is our yard update for the day.  I hope you aren't bored to tears!

**grumble, grumble**

That is really all I have to say. Yes, this picture was taken today... Arg! Where is spring?

Easter

So, I'm a little late in posting a bit about Easter, but we did just finish our third and final Easter Egg hunt today.  On Saturday, we had a nice cool Easter Egg Hunt at Thanksgiving Point.  My Sister an her family joined us.  It was fun.  Stephen was happy with one or two eggs in his hands.  I had to keep taking them out of his hand so he would pick up another egg.  This hunt just had eggs in a field.  Stephen was in the 0-3 age group.  We were over taken by kids near the end of the hunt and at that point, Stephen wanted to hold his yellow spring bucket.  I didn't give it to him, because I knew that if he dumped it, that we would lose all the eggs because we were surrounded by thousands of little hands!  Thanksgiving Point said that they had 40,000 eggs out there.  I'm sure that was a total for the 4 different age groups, I sure hope so.  

Sunday was a great day.  I created a game for our Sunday School class where they got a lot of candy and really got into to.  And it was actually the lesson!  I think it went well, it was chaotic, but what did I expect?  Scripture chases, candy flying, competition..  that just spells chaos!

After Church, we went to my in-law's house and got ready for dinner and the Easter Egg hunt.  There were 3 other families there besides the normal group, so we had a good number of kids.  The little ones got a head start, and Stephen really had a good time.  He found a couple eggs that I didn't even see!  Being able to be around everyone and chatting was the best part of the day, though.

Today was the 'Mommy and Me' Easter party.  That is the group that I attend with my church.  We had a little egg hunt there, too.  Stephen was really just not fast enough there.  He got a couple eggs.  That is fine, we currently have more candy at our house than we did before Easter!  Anyway - we had a great weekend and it wore me out.  I had to take a nice long nap yesterday afternoon.

This was taken Sunday.  He was fascinated with the metallic eggs.  (What you see in the background is someone - Leland - putting eggs in Stephen's bucket, not taking them out.  No one was stealing candy from a baby - don't worry!)

This is the actual hiding place of this one.  And he found it all on his own, I didn't even need to point it out.

Here are the big kids checking out their loot in the eggs.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend.  

Teething

So, I don't like teething.  I especially don't like teething when teeth come through, then go back, then come through again.  Yuck! Stephen hasn't been napping, he has a runny nose and he is crying all the time.  I know that his mouth hurts.  It seems to really hurt - but I am running out of patience with the crying!  I gave him a cup of crushed ice this morning to see how he liked that. He put quite a bit of it in his mouth before he dumped it on the carpet.  That is ok, it seemed to numb him long enough so he actually smiled and giggled.  

In better news it was a nice day yesterday!  Yahoo!  We actually spent most of the afternoon outside.  Stephen loves being out and I think it distracted him from his painful mouth.  There are only little girls on our street, but he does fine finding the pink bikes and wanting to play with them.  Scott got the tractor out of our garage last night (before the game) and started to chip up the awful tree/bush things that we haven't done anything with yet.  Stephen has been fascinated with the tractor, but once Scott was on it and it was running - it was the scariest thing he has seen.  Scott drove it over to the gas station and when he came back around the corner with it, he started to cry again, and he was about 4 houses away!  Poor thing - life is hard.   Scott did take him on the tractor and he was ok when they were going slow, but when he had to rev it up a little (in other words, make it louder) it was scary again.  

I didn't get a picture of the tractor and the chipper last night, but we hardly made a dent in what we need to do, so there are still picture opportunities (I know you are all on the edge of your seat for that one!)   

Thwarted

I have tried now a couple of times to load in some pictures and for some reason it just keeps 'working on it', so I am going to post this with no pictures (thwarted).  We have been excited to work on our yard, but the weather has not cooperated.  When we tore out the trees from the back as was mentioned in a previous post, it was pretty nice outside.  Warm, sunny, etc.  Since then, it has not been warm by any stretch of the imagination.  It has been sunny a few days, but not warm.  So, we have not been able to work on any part of our yard.  

We bought a couple cherry trees on March 21st thinking that it would warm up again soon.  A few days after having the trees in the garage, they had blooms that had opened.  Yea!  Then they froze, even in the garage.  So, now those trees are in our bedroom by the window.  They would be somewhere else, but Stephen likes to shake them.  So, they are now by a window behind a closed door (Thwarted).  I hope they make it into the ground!  There is new growth on them, so we are excited about that.

We have also started our seeds for our garden.  Everything is happy, happy!  But we can't put anything outside.  We are trying green beans this year, and they are huge now, at least in those little pots where you start seeds, they look huge.  We are excited.   Again, it needs to warm up!  We also currently have a tractor in our garage (in there to protect it from the snow), that we have borrowed thinking that we will be able to use it.  Maybe someday...

So here it is, April 3, and we are still in what seems like, winter.  Scott went skiing today with a buddy that was in town, and they had 12 inches of new snow!  12!!  That is crazy for April, usually by this time you are skiing on slush and ice.  Yuck.  

Scott also left town this afternoon for Baltimore.  It was confirmed yesterday at about 3:00 while he was at work that he needed to go to Baltimore to a Convention.  So, he had to catch a 5:00 pm flight this evening.  He was really bummed because we were planning on going to his Jerusalem Center Reunion tonight.  He will be back on Sunday evening.  I guess as least he took today off of work so he got a little break before having to go back on Monday!  This has really changed our weekend plans!

So, there you have it.  We have been thwarted over and over again...  But life is still great here, we just have no yard and it will be just Stephen and I for the weekend.  Should be exhausting!  

In other news

I can finally tell the world!  We are expecting!  We have been waiting for all (or most all - sorry Cori!) of Scott's family to be in the same place at the same time to tell them.  So now that our families know, we can shout it from the rooftops!  We are going to have another baby and we are excited about it.  I am about 15 weeks along now, and the current due date is 09/09/09.  Would that be cool or what?  I'm pretty sure that is going to change, but we'll see in about 5 weeks when we have the big ultrasound.  We'll keep everyone posted on this as well.  Yippee!

Another birthday party

We had another birthday party for Stephen yesterday.  Scott's mom has been out of the country for 2 months, and some of his other family members for a month.  Since they all missed his birthday (with them leaving and me going out of town), we had a family party/dinner at our house yesterday after church.  It was a good time.  Stephen got MORE toys and books and things.  He still doesn't know what to do with wrapping paper.  He did do ok with getting tissue paper out of the bag to see what was inside.  I have just added one picture.  This is mostly to show the cupcakes that we made.  Basketballs, tennis balls, and baseballs.  They actually turned out better than I thought they would.  Stephen got to eat his special cupcake in the footed cupcake holder.  It gave him good handles to hold on to while devouring his cupcake.  

And so it begins...

Yes, it is beginning.  It is hard to believe that we have had some nice spring, almost summer-like days already (since we woke up to snow today).  But since we have, spring fever has hit.  Since our yard currently is nothing but dirt and rocks, that means landscaping time!  The first thing on our agenda was to cut down/tear out these terrible, awful thorny bush/trees things in our yard.  I have posted a few pictures of Scott working on them.  I didn't get a good picture of the thorns, but since they are still out there, I'll try to get one.  I also now realize that I didn't get a 'before' picture of how much there was to cut down!  When Stephen was asleep, I would go out and help.  I mostly just went to the other side of the chain link fence and worked on what had grown through.  Some of the branches had grown around the fence, so some of it is still there and will be until we replace the fence.  There will be no way to getting it out of there.  These were nasty.  We both had/still have scrapes and scratches all over from them, Scott more than me since he was getting down and personal with them.  

Here are some of the first few cuts.  This chainsaw was very dull, so it was tough at first.

Here is a different colder day, in the evening.  Here are some of the last few cuts. 

This is the pile of awfulness that we hauled to the empty lot next to our house.  It will stay there until we decide what to do with it.  Chip, burn, haul away...  Our neighbors want a bonfire.

So, step one of our empty slate is done, next we will move the fill dirt around and go from there.  A few nights ago, we went out and measured the yard and started on a plan.  We don't know how much we are going to be able to do this summer, but we are sure that we want to get our grass in.  Stephen loves being outside, and I feel bad that he will walk down the driveway to the street and to the neighbors yard to play.  They have grass.  We will keep you updated on our progress!

Update

I don't feel that there is all that much going on for me to blog about.  So this post is here to tell you that we are still alive, doing well, and just waiting for spring.  I had a great birthday week last week and survived a weekend with Scott in CA at a trade show.  I spent 2 days with my sister and her family because I knew it would be very boring at my house when Scott wasn't around.  

I should have a new niece right now, but haven't heard yet.  I'm excited to get more info in that!  I'll spend some of the evening in my sister's hospital room with my new niece.  Yippee!  

That is all there is to this post.  Sorry, hope you aren't too let down!

Finally home

I made it back home.  I think in one piece.  One very tired piece.  I had a great time being at my dad's house and spending time with Kathy.  I think she enjoyed it (of course she did, there was a baby there!).  Stephen had a great time because he got to go outside and play!  He hasn't been able to do that here, yet.  Once he was mobile this fall, there was snow on the ground, or it was pretty cold, so he just hadn't had the chance.  I had a great time watching him play in the dirt and leaves.  One day we went to Fit for Fun - a Parks and Rec facility specifically for children under the age of 5.  Why are there no places like this here?  I think I'll open one in my unfinished basement.  

Stephen LOVED the ball pit.  He couldn't move around too well in there, but he liked to be buried and just be surrounded by those plastic balls!

He also had a good time in this little house things.  Mostly because there was a door he could open and close.  He could go in and out and no one stopped him.  That is rare for him these days.

They had a bubble machine.  Yes, it was cool.  This picture was taken after it had been on for a little while.  Most of the other kids there were no longer interested.  The look on his face when he first saw all those bubbles was classic.  He was in awe.  He was never able to catch one, though, he just isn't fast enough yet.

I did enjoy my time in NC, as I always do.  I have already posted some about the wedding and the birthday party we had.  Most everything else was pretty normal stuff.  I did get to spend a little time with a couple of my new step-sisters.  It was fun to get to know them better.  

Coming home was another adventure.  I hope that I don't have to travel alone with kids again for a long time, maybe not until they are old enough to be able to entertain themselves with coloring or something!  Our day started at 4:30am ET when I got up to get ready to leave.  My flight was at 6am.  I was hoping Stephen would just drift back off to sleep in the car... nope.  Not a chance!  He was grinning and giggling when we got to the airport.  Security was not a problem for me, not in this small of an airport.  Someone even came over to help!  My first flight was full, so Stephen got to sit in my lap.  I am using the word sit very loosely.  He squirmed and fought me the whole time.  The seat belt light was only off for about 10 minutes, so that was a long hour for me.  

Then I had 3 hours in the airport to kill.  We had breakfast that was cut short by a grease fire in the food court.  I saw smoke pouring out of one of the food stalls and got Stephen out of there.  I later found out that it was grease pouring out (I guess greasy smoke, is that what happens?)  So I'm glad we didn't stick around.  But just about every airport employee was hanging around watching the mayhem and firefighters.  I checked it out as we did our laps in the terminal.  

When it was time to board the plane, the gate agents had left one last seat open on the plane next to me so I could take the carrier on and let Stephen sleep.  As I was boarding, though, the agent told me that someone had purchased a ticket at the last minute so that seat was no longer available.  Bummer.  Stephen drifted to sleep as I entered the jet way.  Of course he did.  I got him out of the stroller and had everything folded up and got to my seat, he continued to sleep.  Then I had to get up to let this last minute ticket purchaser to her seat.  Stephen woke up.  I tried to get him to go back to sleep with no luck.  As soon as we were to altitude and we could "move about the cabin", we started to pace the aisles.  This was a large plane, with two aisles, so we had "a lot" of room to move.  At about our 5th trip around the plane, the guy sitting in front of me gave his seat to the lady sitting in the middle of my row and he went to the back and sat in one of the jump seats.  He was a delta pilot that just happened to be on the flight.  I thought that was terribly nice of him.  So, I was able to sit for a little bit with Stephen, since he now had his own seat, but we still had to walk.  

At about hour 3, a Stewardess took Stephen to the back for a few minutes.  I don't think she was gone for more than 5 minutes or so with him, but I dozed off and began to dream!  I was tired.  As we were getting ready for descent she brought him back to me and he fell asleep as did I.  I know I was sitting there with my head back and my mouth wide open.  I always think it is funny when people fall asleep like that... that was me.  When we did land, he stayed asleep and as I was getting off the plane, a couple stewardesses mentioned to me that they saw how we were both out at the end of the flight.  It was a long 4 hour flight, but I made it and wasn't frustrated, just tired.  I am just now beginning to feel rested from that and that was Tuesday!  I was home by noon, though, that was nice.

Stephen slept all the way home, but when I tried to put him in his crib, I think he woke up just enough to realize he was home and he was excited to be there!  He ran around and played with all of the toys he hadn't seen for two weeks.  I just laid on the couch and hoped he would get tired.  He didn't.  Scott was so excited to have us home, but when he got home from work I was too tired to even say much.  I went to bed that night at 8:00.  Then woke up at 4.  Great.

I made this post a lot longer than I intended to.  I have no plans to go anywhere on a plane anytime soon, so this is probably my last "poor me alone with a toddler on a plane" post.  Let's all hope so.

Valentine's Day wedding

Today was the big day. My dad got married today. It was funny to reverse roles in the ceremony. Scott and her son were witnesses, and me and her oldest daughter were sitting in 'the mother's seats'. That was fun. I am so glad that we were able to be here for the wedding. After the ceremony, we all went to lunch. It was yummy, and I am still full from it all! They are headed off to St. Martin early tomorrow morning, I don't envy that early of a flight, but I know they will have a great time. Especially since they don't have to worry about anything at home! We actually didn't get a picture of the entire family. We took them, but we were holding our camera I don't know why we didn't pass it off to someone. Above is the picture of my dad and my step-mother. Don't worry, I don't think she'll be anything like the cartoon step-mothers you hear about. Not that it matters, I live in my own house 2,000 miles away. We are excited we are all in the same family now, though. Welcome Beth!