It has been a busy couple of weeks since I last wrote. Christmas has come and gone as well as the New Year. We have had some awful weather since Christmas with fog mixed with smog. It is not quite as bad here as it is in Salt Lake, but there’s an awful smell when you walk outside.
We left on December 24th for Portland to spend Christmas with Chris’ family. We were fortunate enough to have an extra seat for you on the plane, and you were quite well behaved. The weather in Portland was quite a bit nicer than here with a fair amount of sunshine. You loved the dog at Grandma’s house, but she, Ketchy, is an old dog with a lot of health problems and really didn’t care all that much for you. You would go crawling after her, laughing and excited. The sad thing is that on Wednesday night, before we left on Thursday, Ketchy snapped at you. I was sitting close by and snatched you right up and quickly looked for any blood. Fortunately no damage was done except to your poor little feelings. The experience hasn’t deterred your interest in dogs.
On the 24th, we went to visit a friend of Chris’, Gary Englund, and he took us flying in his four-seater Cherokee plane. We seatbelted you in to the seat so you weren’t able to see much out the window unless the plane banked to the right or left. But you were very good the entire time. This is the same man who took Chris and I flying on our wedding day.
We all received fun presents from Grandma and Grandpa Ball. You got musical toys and some clothes, I got a food dehydrator and Chris got some computer software, a briefcase and a sweater. We opened most of the presents on Christmas Eve and then a few more “Santa” gives on Christmas morning. The Ball family has a tradition of caroling at nursing homes on Christmas morning so we were able to participate in part of that. We only got to go to one place because we were trying to get you to sleep before we left the house, which you wouldn’t cooperate with. You fell asleep in the car just after we left one nursing home, and we decided that it was more important for you to sleep for awhile so we drove around Vancouver for about an hour. You and I were both exhausted.
You had a difficult time sleeping the entire time we were in Vancouver. I would try to rock you to sleep, but you would cry as soon as I put you down in the pack n' play. Sometimes you would fall asleep next to me in bed, but for the most part you had a hard time sleeping. When we got you home, you had picked up some bad habits, and expected that I would continue to rock you to sleep or let you sleep in bed with me. You had to cry yourself to sleep for a few days until you got back into better sleep patterns.
You were very attached to me the entire time we were there. I think you thought that we were going to leave you at some point. We took you for a belated birthday treat at Farrell's in Portland and then rode the Max around.
We did a little shopping and a lot of driving around when in Vancouver. We were kind of looking for a new car, and Chris wanted to see what was available there. We test drove a Subaru Outback, but neither of us were too impressed by it.
We left for home on Thursday afternoon. The flight was so packed. We unfortunately had to hold you the entire way. The wonderful bonus is that you fell asleep and slept almost the entire flight home. The weather was probably 20 degrees colder in Salt Lake, but I think we were all glad to be back home.
Chris had to work on Friday but had Saturday off. We spent Saturday morning cleaning and then started out to look for cars in the afternoon. The first car we looked at was a Nissan Maxima in Highland that both Chris and I were very impressed with. It was the first car we looked at that day, and though we continued looking for the rest of the day, the Nissan is the car that we bought. It is pearl white, a V6, has a cd player, alarm, leather seats, keyless entry and trunk, lots of leg room, Bose stereo, temperature control, and a very nice price tag. Chris was able to take care of the transaction on Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week, and we now have a new car.
We also saw Grandpa Kline on Saturday at the SLC airport. He was only there for a short while but we dropped off his Christmas presents. We also saw him on Christmas day. He came for a couple of hours to visit in Vancouver which was great. It is not always easy to spend the holiday with your exwife and her family, but he said that he missed us and wanted to be with us.
We have told most of our family about our new baby. They are as excited for us as we are. I went to the doctor yesterday (January 8th) for my check up and everything is going well, though I lost some weight which is always a concern to the doctor. I thought for sure that I would gain weight over Christmas. Who knows why I lost it, except that you aren’t eating well right now and so my mealtimes aren’t that peaceful. I don’t feel nauseated too often unless I don’t eat and then I can feel the energy drain from me, and I have to eat something right away. I still get tired, but that’s because I don’t always get the sleep I need.
You were sick with the flu or something last week. You woke up on January 1st with a croupy cough and a froggy throat. You threw up a couple of times, had diarrhea, wouldn’t eat, and slept more than usual. I got tired of changing all your dirty diapers and finally brought some diapers downstairs so that I didn’t have to climb the stairs so many times. It completely winds me and gets my heart pumping to carry you up the stairs now. I can imagine it is only going to be more difficult as this pregnancy progresses. Such is life.
