Monday, 22 November, 2004

I am looking forward to Chris having the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving.  He worked today and hopefully he won’t get paged or have to do anything until he goes back to work next Monday.

A couple of weeks ago, Larry and Linda Ball came to visit.  They flew in on a Thursday afternoon and stayed until Sunday evening.  The girls certainly enjoyed their visit.  Course they benefited quite a bit since we spent nearly three hours at the Denver Children’s Museum on Friday morning and Chris and Linda took them swimming on Saturday morning.  I attended a baby shower for Kristina Miller while they were swimming and Grandpa Ball went along to watch.

The girls absolutely loved the museum.  They started playing on a retired fire engine and donned cute firemen jackets and hats.  Misha was so hungry that we had to stop and get stuff to eat in the cafeteria before she had the energy to continue playing.  They played with cute little kitchens, they painted, played on drums and with puppets, Amy got to use a saw, Misha played with blocks and they both pretended to be worms and eagles in a climbing and tunnel area.  It was great fun for them.

We had hoped to take the girls to see the new movie, “The Incredibles” with Grandma and Grandpa, but as we were standing in line to get tickets, the show was sold out.  They were so upset and had a hard time understanding why they couldn’t see the movie.  Since Amy needed new shoes, we headed over to Target and found both the girls some tennis shoes that lit up when they walked.  They were delighted and thrilled to show off their new acquisitions to grandma and grandpa.

Sunday was Stake Conference for us with our session being in the afternoon.  We were excited because the newly called apostle, Elder Bednar, attended our meetings.  The girls were as good as could be expected sitting through a two-hour meeting on hard chairs.

After church, we went home to have dinner and family home evening before Larry and Linda had to be at the airport.  The girls bore their testimonies, sang songs and had fun sharing the time with their grandparents.  Before they left, Amy got to open her birthday present from them.  It was a pop-up, cloth Disney princess castle that both girls immediately loved.

Sunday, 7 November, 2004

Last week, I was driving home with the girls from story time at the library.  I had said something that Misha had agreed with by saying, “yepperoonie”.  Amy asked, “Did you call me a roonie?” and Misha quickly responded by saying, “No, I called you yep the roonie.”

The girls really got into Halloween this year.  Misha was a cat and loved having whiskers and a nose drawn on her with my eye brow pencil.  Amy was a princess and was thrilled to wear blush and lipstick.  She would walk around the house saying, “I’m gorgeous.”  And anytime we went out she would ask, “Is my lipstick still on?”  Can you imagine what she will be like as a teenager?

Becky had an ultrasound on the 26th of October for her pregnancy.  She had been adamant that she and Kyle weren’t going to find out the gender since they already had one of each, it didn’t really matter.  She caved and they are having another boy.  Exciting for them.

Last Sunday evening, which was also Halloween, the girls were both in bed though Amy was still awake.  We only had three separate bunches of kids come to our door, and with the last one, I noticed that the rain had finally turned to snow.  I tiptoed into the girls’ room, not wanting to wake Amy if she was already asleep.  I noticed that her eyes were open and then pulled back the curtains so she could see the first snowfall of the season.  She whispered in a very awed voice, “It’s my birthday weather.”  Hmmmm, wonder what is on her mind lately.

We aren’t sure what we are going to do for her birthday.  She would like to go to a “Build-a Bear” store with some friends, but her friend Audrey did that for her birthday, and that’s where Amy got the idea.  I’d like to find something fun and new.  Chris thought that maybe she could take one friend to “Disney on Ice” and then have ice cream and cake later.

Chris brought a laptop home from work that we have let the girls play on lately.  They were getting too obnoxious on mine, always on, leaving their programs running, and changing the screen saver to French Barbie poodles.  The only challenge now is getting them to take turns.  We have a larger computer that will be a Christmas present for them which they obviously will enjoy.  (Me too.)

The “morning sickness”/nausea with this pregnancy continues on.  Not all day and not every day either.  Usually I feel my worst though around dinner time after a long day.  I feel extremely tired as well, though oddly enough, I rest for a couple of hours in the afternoon and usually sleep 1 to 1 ½ hours.  By 9:30 or 10 pm though, I am more than ready for bed and fall asleep without many problems.  What is really frustrating is when I am watching a show at 9:00 pm and fall asleep about 9:45 and suddenly wake up after 10 and realize that I have missed the ending of my show again.

Misha is taking time to change over to the new time change.  We moved our clocks back last Saturday night and Sunday morning, Misha was awake at 5:30.  I got up and started a movie for her and then never really went back to sleep myself.  She had had enough by 6:15 and was up and wandering around downstairs, so I got up and got her some breakfast.  This past week, she has been getting up between 6 and 6:30 most mornings.  It is rather frustrating for me, because that is when I am trying to pray and read scriptures, and she really doesn’t understand my desire for quiet and solitude.

My ultrasound is scheduled for Monday, November 29th.  I do hope to find out if this little one is a boy or girl if they will cooperate.  Because of my age, my pregnancy is considered high risk, and I will have to go to specialized doctors in Boulder for the ultrasound.  I hope and pray that everything will be okay. 

We are sad that IBM has made such backward steps with regards to health care benefits.  We will have to switch to an HMO called Kaiser Permanente, which is not my favorite.  They have OB’s only in Boulder and you don’t get one doctor, you get to see one of many and rarely the same one twice.  The hospital I will deliver at is also in Boulder, although they recently completed a brand new state-of-the-art hospital.  It is just further away.  They do have pediatricians and family doctors in Longmont, but I was actually looking forward to switching to the new medical center less than three miles from our house.  Not much we can do though, since staying on any other health plan with a c-section would end up costing us thousands.

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

I went for my first doctor’s appointment last week.  Everything looks good and right on schedule.  My OB is Dr. Nelson at the Longmont Clinic in Longmont.  Both he and his nurse were nice, and I felt comfortable with them.  Dr. Nelson did an internal ultrasound of the baby and he or she is developing right on schedule.  Because of my age, I am considered more high risk, so at 18 weeks they will have me go to Boulder for more in depth ultrasounds to make sure that everything is ok health wise.  The baby’s due date is April 26, but with a c-section we are looking at the 18th or 19th.

Amy, Misha and I got sick shortly after arriving home.  I think mine was a sinus infection because it has been hanging on for over a week now.  Chris was able to avoid getting sick and slept about five nights in the guest room to stay away from my germs.  He is so busy right now that he can’t really afford to be sick.

Chris has a conference that he leaves for on Sunday that he is presenting at.  It is in New York and will keep him away until the following Wednesday.  He has had to spend countless hours working on his Tools for work, since that is what he is presenting on.  He rewrote them in another language to make them better.  He also finished a 15-page paper yesterday that was due today for the conference.  On top of that, he started another University of Phoenix class last night.

Monday, 27 September, 2004

We left for Utah Wednesday the 15th to spend some time with family and to have some time away.  Mostly the time away was for Chris’ benefit.  He is getting pretty burned out with so many things going on right now.  He begins teaching another University of Phoenix class October 4 and the following week flies to New York to present at an IBM conference.  He has been putting in many late hours trying to update his TOOLS program-actually rewriting it in another programming language.  He has a lot to accomplish in the next two weeks and is feeling mightily overwhelmed.

Back to our vacation though.  Chris decided he wanted to take a longer more scenic route through Steamboat Springs in Colorado toward Vernal, Utah.  Sadly it took an extra 4 hours, and an eight-hour trip ended up taking twelve hours.  The girls were pretty good and watched movies a good part of the way.  We stopped for our regular potty stops and food breaks.  We finally arrived at Brad’s house around 9:30 pm and quickly got the girls into bed and off to sleep.

Thursday we planned to spend in Provo visiting friends and Chris’ sisters and Mitch.  My mom and dad had planned that we would spend the day with them.  Oh well, they should have mentioned it to us.  We drove to BYU campus to have lunch with Julie, the summer IBM intern.  The girls were excited to see her since she was their favorite babysitter.  This was also a trip for announcing my pregnancy.  I thought by now, after keeping the secret for so many weeks, Amy would be just popping with the news.  We had to drag it our of her and finally gave up on that.  After walking Julie over to her class, we headed back toward the law school where Mitch, Jenni, and Lori work hoping to catch them there.  We happened to be trying to move across campus during a class break and decided to sit it out and wait for the masses to get to where they were going.

All three of them were working as we walked into the computer lab area.  We saw Mitch first and stopped to talk for a bit.  Then Chris wanted to go surprise his sisters.  It was his first time seeing Lori since before her mission.  They were surprised, but not necessarily overly excited to see us.  They stood around talking for a couple minutes and then went back to work.  Chris talked to some of his old employers and I went back out to talk with Mitch in between his helping people.

The girls were pretty tired by this time, so I called Susan to see if we could come visit.  She said sure, but that she was having a birthday party for Kaden and then had piano lessons from three to six.  Not much time really.  So we hung out there for awhile and then headed back to campus to pick up Chris and Mitch.  The girls and I hung out at Mitch’s apartment for the next couple of hours watching “The Little Mermaid” (lucky him) and Chris went to see some friends at Novell.

After returning, we headed off to Spanish Fork to have dinner with those same friends and their families.  The girls were exhausted and finally fell asleep five minutes before we got to the restaurant.  Amy wasn’t very happy to be woken up.  We had dinner at Mexican fast food place but it was quite delicious.  So that the kids wouldn’t be so bored, we moved next to a park to let them play while the adults talked.

The girls fell asleep on the way back to Brad’s and we happily plopped them in bed without a fuss.  Rather nice.

Our original plan was to spend part of Friday with my mom and dad at Temple Square, but they had already planned to spend the day with Susan and her family.  Chris had told the girls on Thursday that we were going to take Fasttracks to downtown and they were quite excited by the prospects of riding the train.  It was actually quite fun and a nice way to avoid a lot of traffic.  We headed first to Temple Square and up to the Christus.  The girls were somewhat impressed, but both really just wanted to be outside running around.  We made them suffer through more of the Visitor Center and then watched the newest video presentation of “The First Vision”.  It was a nice updated version. 

Growling stomachs seemed to take over, so we headed over to the food court at the mall across the street to eat.  As we were on our way out, we happened to walk by Jeff and Jo Isom eating there as well.  What a surprise!  Jeff is an old mission buddy of Chris’.  They were married a year before us and up til now have not been able to have children.  They had a stroller next to their table with an adorable little baby girl.  They had adopted her a week previous and were thrilled to be parents finally.  Their daughter is a cute little black baby with curly black hair-her name is Ella Kiara.  AND...they are six weeks pregnant.  Amazing how that all works out.  Their lives will certainly be busy within the next year, but they are thrilled and we were so happy for them.

The girls had eye appointments with Brad, so we needed to get back on the train.  As we were trying to do so, the conductor closed the doors and I was left behind.  I was pretty frustrated because I had pushed the “open door” button at least a dozen times to no avail.  I hoped that Chris would get off at the next stop and it was a good thing that he did, because they train I got on would have taken me up to the University of Utah.  By now we had missed our 2:30 appointments and had called Brad to tell him that we would be late.

Amy had her appointment first.  She did really well though hardly enjoyed the dialation of her eyes.  Chris had driven around with Misha to let her sleep a little longer as she had fallen asleep on the way.  While we waited for Misha, Amy got to try on glasses and was thrilled.  Sadly she wasn’t getting any.

Misha arrived but wasn’t quite as cooperative in her exam, especially since we had to wake her up.  I was rather disheartened to learn that she has vision problems somewhat similar to Chris’, though not near as bad.  She is farsighted and Brad recommended that we get her glasses for when she has close up work to do on the computer, with reading, coloring, or even watching tv.  The glasses look pretty cute on her, and she is getting better about wearing them and forgetting that they are there.

Amy was pretty mad that she didn’t get glasses too.  Since her eyes were dialated, she wasn’t seeing wonderfully, and stomped around saying she needed them too.  One set of glasses is enough for me to worry about and to keep track of.  I felt badly that Misha had to wear them at all, but Chris came from a different perspective.  He’s had to wear them since he was younger than Misha and they make a huge difference in his life and his ability to see.

We spent the evening at Brad’s house.  With both girls having their eyes dialated, we figured it would be a lot easier on them.  I left the practice early with the girls and Chris stayed and helped to work on computers.  He and Brad came later with pizzas and cookies and ice cream.

Saturday we planned to spend most of the day with Chris’ Mom and sisters.  They are not early risers, so we weren’t in any rush to get down to Provo.  I think we got there sometime between 10:30 and 11, and Lori still wasn’t out of bed.  Oh well.  So we just hung around and talked for awhile waiting for her highness to rise and shine and grace us with her presence.  She’s not a morning person or lunch-time person for that matter when she wakes up.

We gave Chris’ Mom an anniversary gift that also doubled as an announcement for our baby.  She almost skipped over the “announcement” part but Chris told her she would want to read it all.  She was excited.  We didn’t leave until after lunch, so Linda made sandwiches for us and then took the girls down to the park where we would then meet them.  Chris helped Jenni move back into the apartment from an apartment around back, so that took some extra time.

Finally we were on our way to play miniature golf at Trafalga.  The girls had a great time and Grandma even bought them tokens to play some of the games after ward.  Linda wanted to buy Jenni a computer desk, so that was our next stop–Staples--and from there we had an early dinner at Sizzler.

Chris was going to the football game with his mom (as well as my dad, Dallin, and Shane) so we dropped them back at Jenni and Lori’s apartment and said goodbye for the evening.  From there I drove with the girls to Thanksgiving Point to spend some time at Donna’s.  Mom was there as well, but it gave the girls a chance to play with their cousins.  By about 9 pm I was getting more and more tired and still had to drive to Brad’s house.  I had the girls get into their jammies and loaded them into the van.  Thankfully they were both asleep by the time I arrived, but I had to carry both of them in myself.  I took Amy first, locked the van doors and then came back for Misha.  After getting them settled I watched tv for awhile and fell asleep on the couch.  Brad came home from a date around 11:30 and got me going to bed.  (The date wasn’t all that much fun sadly).

Chris didn’t get home til after midnight if I remember correctly.  We had decided that we would go to Dallin’s church so Chris  wouldn’t have to get up quite so early for Brad’s 9 am church.  Now that Dallin is the bishop of his ward, it was interesting to be in his ward and watch him on the stand.  His emotions are so close to the surface that I imagine it is difficult for him to make it through a meeting without wiping tears away.

We drove to back their house after church to change and get a snack, but our girls were tired and I could tell that Donna was getting frazzled, so we decided to drive around with the girls and let them sleep awhile before going to dinner at Susan’s at 5:00.  Our plan worked even though Amy was adamant that she wasn’t going to sleep.  She was the first to fall asleep, as usual.  We headed down to Provo so that Chris could say goodbye to his mom before her flight.  The girls slept most of that time in the car, but they just put Chris to work moving stuff and hooking up computers anyway.  After a teary farewell from his mom, we headed over to Susan’s for dinner.

My whole family was there plus Maureen and Gayle.  It was a bit of a scrunch to fit us all in, but Susan had the kids start eating first to free up some table space.  We had invited Julie Stringer to come for dinner so that she could meet my “three single brothers”.  Chris and I were amazed that she would come-certainly wouldn’t be the most comfortable experience-but she fit in very well.  Both Shane and Mitch were completely impressed–and Mom too!

We finally left around bed time.  I can’t remember if the girls fell asleep or not, since they had had late naps.  We were planning on leaving in the morning and were watching the weather reports since there was snow in the forecast.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad.  There was a skiff of snow in Park City, but the rest of the way was smooth sailing.  When I watched the weather reports the next morning, they showed pictures of at least 6 inches of snow in Park City.  I am glad that we missed it.

We stopped at Sam’s in Loveland to get milk and yogurt and then decided to stop for dinner at IHOP.  I wasn’t in the mood to start making dinner as soon as we got home and Amy was requesting pancakes and eggs.  It was a short and sweet trip, but nice to see everybody.

Tuesday, 14 September, 2004

I was talking with Amy the other day about why we are having another baby, explaining that we felt that Heavenly Father wanted us to have more children in our family.  She began to understand and said, “You know, I think I still have room left in my heart to love another baby.”  What a sweetheart.  I am sure that both she and Misha will be great helpers and great big sisters.

We are leaving tomorrow to spend the rest of the week in Utah.  Chris’ Mom will be visiting Jenni and Lori, and my parents will be coming down as well.  It will be the first time that my entire family has been together in years.  We are going to stay at Brad’s and the girls are excited to see their cousins.

A couple of weeks ago, the girls were misbehaving and really not being obedient.  We had told them that we would take them swimming, but Chris became so exasperated with them, that he finally said that he wasn’t going to take them.  The next morning, Chris was still sleeping, and I was up with Amy and Misha.  Misha did something that I told her not to do, and Amy piped in, “You are going to make Daddy mad if you do that.  In fact, he’s probably still mad from last night!”

Amy loves to have friends over to play.  Most days, she begs to have a friend come and play with her.  Audrey is in kindergarten now so she isn’t available as often, and Amy goes through her list of friends to see who can come over.  As I was driving home with the girls last week, Amy lamented, “But, who can play with me?”  Misha quietly said, “You can play with me.”  They do have their moments together when they are fighting and unkind, but I really love that they have each other to play with.

We bought and planted five trees and two evergreens this last weekend.  Actually, the missionaries came over to help Chris on Saturday morning for their weekly service.  Nice for Chris since I don’t have the energy to be working out in the yard now.

Misha has picked up “deal” from tv.  She asks a questions or makes a request then asks “Deal?”

Tuesday, September 7, 2004

We are enjoying some wonderful weather this week.  Amy started preschool today and is already loving it.  She brings home her “binder” everyday filled with what they worked on, and she has been carrying it around all afternoon, pretending she is a teacher, and showing off what she did.  I think that she will do really well.

While Amy was at school, Misha and I had “school” together.  We started by working on her letters.  She isn’t much for structure though–instead of starting with the letter “A” as I had planned, she wanted to do “H”.  We then talked about things that are big and small, about emotions, and went through the alphabet.  She wasn’t able to recognize many letters a month or so ago, and now knows probably 2/3rds of them.  After the alphabet, we had a snack together and then came back to sing songs.  She knew all of them and must be learning them in Primary.  She knows “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, “Old McDonald Had a Farm”, and “I Am a Child of God.”  She lost interest about then so we headed off to the library.  Next week a new story time session will start.  Amy won’t be able to attend anymore; she and Misha both have classes at the Recreation Center on Mondays.  Amy continues with dance and Misha is going to try gymnastics.  I hope that it will be something that she likes.

I have been feeling pretty crummy for about a week and a half now--morning sickness that usually lasts all day long.  Some days it is worse than others, but I usually feel a bit better around dinner time.  My morning workouts have taken a beating because I really have to fight to work through the nausea.  I have even started keeping “fig newtons” in my bedroom to snack on in the early morning or middle of the night because I get so nauseous and hungry through the night now.  Not so much fun.  We have eaten out more in the past week than usual, but I don’t have much energy or desire to be cooking.  I am hoping that this won’t last too long.  It seemed to go on for seven or so weeks with Amy and about four with Misha, so I am hoping that the decline will continue.  Certainly doesn’t make me want to do this again.

Thursday, 19 August, 2004

I am pregnant!  I knew that I was supposed to wait until the 16th to take a home pregnancy test, but after feeling so awful on Friday the 13th, I finally gave in and took a test.  A very faint line showed up indicating that I was pregnant.  Before telling Chris, I decided to wait until the 16th and do the test again, just to be sure.  The 16th was also our 7th anniversary, so I enclosed the positive test in an anniversary card for him and waited for him to open it.  Much to my surprise (and disappointment) Amy came running down to the office asking if I was pregnant.  The dipstick had opened the card when Amy was in his office and when she asked Chris what the stick was, he told her.  She thought it was something for measuring temperatures.  Oh well.  I had wanted to wait a couple of months before telling her or anyone.  Even Chris had said that he wanted to wait until we were three months pregnant.

We don’t talk about it much but have strongly cautioned Amy that she is not to tell anyone.  I really don’t think she will on purpose, but more than likely the happy news will just slip out one day.  I had hoped to introduce the news to the girls in a positive happy way and now Amy must think that being pregnant is no fun, because you can’t tell anyone.

Becky announced on Monday that she and Kyle are expecting their third child in March.  I think our families are wondering and waiting for us to make such an announcement because they have started asking if and when we plan to have more children.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Amy had her first trip to the dentist.  She did great and was more than willing to open up for the hygienist and dentist.

Thursday, 12 August, 2004

I have made up a lullaby that the girls love for me to sing to them each night as they go to bed.  It is adapted from the song “My Someone” from "The Music Man".  It is actually “our song” for Chris and I as we attended a performance of "The Music Man" at Sundance when we were engaged and loved the song.  We both have “My Someone” engraved on our wedding bands.  Anyway, the song for the girls always seems to have a calming effect on them as I prepare to leave their room for the night.

Goodnight my someones
Goodnight my loves
Goodnight sweet angels
From up above
Sleep tight sweet Misha
Sleep tight sweet Amy
Goodnight, Goodnight, Goodnight

The second verse (as there always has to be two) is a slight variation with Amy’s name coming first.  A couple nights ago, Amy said to me, “You are the bestest singer in all of the world!”  They have memorized the words now and often sing along with me.  Last night as I came home from a meeting, I went into the girls’ room to check on them, and Misha was still awake.  I sat on the edge of the bed to sing to her and she started to sing with me.  I had Chris come listen to the second verse because it was so precious.  There are moments when my heart warms with the realization that I am raising and caring for “angels from up above”.

Sunday, 1 August, 2004

We have made tremendous progress on our back yard.  The sod is finally in and yesterday we spent most of the day putting in a play area for the girls.  It is not quite finished yet, but they are certainly excited about the possibilities it holds.  We finished moving all of the rock in last weekend.  What a job!  The muscles in my arm have surely grown an inch.  After getting the rock in, we started working on raking the yard and making sure the final grade of it was smooth.  We spent the rest of the day working on that and by 6 pm we were pooped.  Then Ralph Siler, a friend of Chris’ from our ward, called and asked if we wanted his leftover sod.  Can’t really say that he asked, mind you, he just said he was bringing it over.  Good thing we started the raking early so we were prepared.

We called and had the rest of the sod delivered last Monday.  Chris took a couple of hours off and we went to work again.  Around 7:30 when it was started to get dark, Chris called and had his friend Jamie come help and Ralph showed up about an hour later as I was putting the girls to bed.  But it looks so great now.  The temptation to play on it is great, but we try to limit the amount of time the girls are on it.

Yesterday, we had some squeegie delivered.  It is a small rock that works well in play areas for kids.  Amy got to sit up on the tractor (borrowed from Ralph) and help Chris drive and dump the loads.  It was the best part of her day.  Even though we spent the better part of the day working on things for the kids, it wasn’t really projects that they could help with and by the end of the day, Chris and I both felt that they were feeling rejected.  We decided to go out to dinner and then let them play at the mall for awhile.  It seemed to do the trick and they were happy and loving us again.

Sunday mornings (and most mornings) we have tried to drill into the girls’ heads that they need to sleep–mostly because we want to sleep in.  I don’t get up at 5:15 am to exercise on Sunday, yet I was getting frustrated when Misha was waking up at 6 or 6:30.  This morning after hearing them up around 7:30, I got up to hear Misha saying, “Quick, get on your bed.”  They are getting really good about staying in their rooms.

The girls finished their session of swimming lessons.  They both excelled and are doing so well.  Misha jumped off the diving board for the first time by herself.  The first two times, one of the instructors stood on the board with her and picked her up by her life jacket and dumped her in.  The third time, she made the jump all by herself.  I was so proud of her.  She is also brave enough to go in to the river with Amy.  At the beginning of the session eight weeks ago, she was far too afraid.  Amy is quite brave and even does the floating logs all by herself.  She took about five minutes the first time to get across.  I told her she couldn’t do them anymore if she was going to take so long, because everyone else in line behind her had to wait.  That seemed to motivate her.  Now if she falls off the first or second log, she just swims to the edge, climbs out of the pool and gets back in line.

Both girls will have a session of dance classes this month.  I had originally planned to put Misha into a gymnastics class, but all the sessions were full.  Should be fun to see how they do.

Chris’ sister, Lori, had to leave her mission in Argentina early.  She has a lot of health problems and was in constant pain.  Combine that with a lack of sleep and the potential for permanent bone fusions, and all concerned felt it was best that she should come home now.  She arrived last Saturday and then promptly flew up to her Aunt Lori’s ranch in Northern Alberta where Chris’ parents were vacationing, for some rest and relaxation.

Chris started another teaching session at University of Phoenix.  His class is a lot larger this time so he has spent time reworking the curriculum and assignments so that the load on him wasn’t so great.  He has another session that will begin in October at the Westminster site which will be a lot closer to home.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Misha celebrated her 3rd birthday on the 9th.  Actually since Chris had a University of Phoenix meeting on the 9th, we did our celebrating on Thursday night.  Chris took off a couple of hours early and we headed to Boulder to play miniature golf.  It was pretty hot and by the time we were finished I think we were all wilting a bit.  We decided to go to Olive Garden for dinner.  Speaking of Olive Garden...Amy really likes going to restaurants for dinner.  One night she was asking if we could go for dinner at Kindergarten.  Took me a couple seconds to figure that she really wanted to go to Olive Garden.

If golf and dinner weren’t enough, we then headed down to Pearl Street where they have a street fountain that is cached in Amy’s memory.  She was anxious to go and run through the water and subsequently did so, getting very wet.  Misha was much more cautious and only got a tiny bit wet...but she had a pretty fun day.

We invited friends over for cake on Sunday night; all but Krauses were out of town.  We still had fun.

The girls have continued to enjoy play group throughout the summer.  We changed it a bit from our normal routine.  Instead of having one person in charge of planning it and providing snacks, we have a list of parks that we go to and everybody brings their own snacks.  The kids still get to play together and get a lot of different options for treats.

Both girls have been enrolled in swimming lessons this summer.  They are now in their second session and have two more weeks left.  Amy had progressed enough in her skills that I put her in a more advanced class.  She was actually able to swim a bit on her own.  Misha continued to progress in her class as well, though both girls will likely be at the same level for their next class.  I told Amy that she could take either a dance or a gymnastics class after swimming lessons were over.  I think she’ll opt for dance while Misha will go for gymnastics.

Amy’s best friend, Audrey, has been on vacation with her family for two weeks now and will be gone for another week still.  Amy certainly misses her and their afternoon play dates.  A couple of weeks ago, Audrey invited Amy to her birthday party at the “Build-a-Bear” store in the Flat Irons Mall.  They all got to pick out a bear, name it, stuff it, fluff it, and select some clothes.  Amy thought it was a fantastic idea and now wants to have her birthday there too.

We had concrete poured in our back yard about a month ago.  It is wonderful.  We have a pathway from the back patio around to the side of the house and the entrance to the garage.  We also had them pour a pad next to the garage where Chris parks his trailer. 

Chris labored long and hard over the fence and finished installing it about three weeks ago.  He was crunched for time and stayed up with his head lamp on his head to finish the project before he left for Arizona.  Once the posts were in, Amy, Misha, and I were able to assemble the next portion which closed in our yard quite nicely.  We have been waiting on getting some rock.  You wouldn’t think that rock would be back ordered-there should be plenty of it-but we have been waiting for it for at least two weeks now.  We are anxious to get it in because after rocks comes sod.  Then the major back yard projects will be finished and our Saturdays won’t always be dedicated to time in the yard.  I have had to weed the back yard twice, which is no easy nor quick task.

Chris flew back to Arizona at the end of June for a week to work on a project for the American Express account.  While there, his laptop crashed and he had to order a new hard drive.  He wasn’t able to get as much done as he had hoped, but was able to make a good start into the project by the end of the week.

Dallin, my younger brother, was called to serve as a bishop last Sunday.  My parents drove down to Utah again so that my father could ordain Dallin a high priest.  We weren’t able to go though, and I certainly miss those opportunities to spend time with my family.

We went camping this weekend with some friends from the ward.  I think about seven others family joined us.  We were the second family to arrive, and when we did, it was kind of misting and wet.  Once Chris got the tent up, it really started to pour.  We considered pulling the tent down, packing up and heading home.  Chris, Misha, and I hung out in the back of the van while Amy played in the Payne’s huge tent.

Thursday, 10 June, 2004

Our much anticipated journey to Grandpa Kline’s house began Friday morning.  We packed all of our stuff into the van and left around 9 am.  The girls got to sit in the back seat of the van and watched dvd’s for most of the day.  What should have been an eight-hour drive ended up taking about ten hours with stops for lunch and potty breaks.  We finally arrived in Albuquerque around 7 pm, checked into our hotel -the Marriott-and then went to find some dinner.  If the girls had their way, we would have eaten at McDonald’s every meal and had chicken and french fries.  We quickly began vetoing that suggestion and ended up at Village Inn for pancakes and eggs–another favorite.  The girls were excited because the hotel supposedly had a “heated pool”; alas, it was freezing.  Chris and the girls jumped in anyway and swam (if you can call it that) for a bit and then headed to the hot tub.  I figured that would make them drowsy like nothing else and expected they would drop off to sleep without too much difficulty.  Wrong!  They were in bed by about 9 pm but didn’t fall asleep until after 10.  Too much excitement added to the fact that Chris and I weren’t quite ready to go to bed and tried to watch tv in the bed next to them.  Foolish, I know, and they didn’t go to sleep until we finally turned the tv off and went to bed ourselves.  I got up early the next morning to make use of the exercise room.  For most of the time, I was the only one crazy enough to be up so early on a Saturday morning, but I was determined not to gain 5 pounds like I did last summer on our vacation.  Took forever to lose it.

A new word that Amy coined was “licolish” aka licorice.  Another cute word she said the other day was calepittar for the obvious catepillar.  Licolish became the favorite treat of the vacation and was purchased many times.

We were off once again Saturday morning for Phoenix. Another fun day of travel.   We were slowed down a bit trying to find some breakfast; Chris opted for donuts from Smith’s Grocery, and I ended up having yogurt, fruit and fig newtons.  Had to be better for me than the donuts.  We finally left Albuquerque around 8:30 am.  Neither Chris nor I were all that impressed with the city or with any of the state for that matter.  Kind of bleak. 

We stopped in Holbrook, Arizona for lunch at McDonalds.  Yep, we caved, but there weren’t all that many options.  The girls played on the toys for a bit and then we were off again.  We talked to Grandpa Kline while in Holbrook; he suggested we take a scenic route down through Heber and Payson.  It was a little more enjoyable than the desert-like scape we had been in, so while the girls slept, Chris and I listened to our book on tape.  We finally arrived in Phoenix about 4 pm local time (they are one hour behind) and just as we rounded the corner to Grandpa Kline’s house he called us wondering when we might arrive.  I told him we had been lost and were just now back in Payson and would still be about three hours.  He didn’t have to say anything, the tone of his voice suggested that I was a sorry excuse for a navigator.  He started pulling out his map to give us some direction while I knocked on his front door.  He said he would call me back in a couple of minutes and hung up the phone to go answer the door.  Well, we played a good joke on Grandpa who was quite surprised to find me standing on the doorstep.

The first thing the girls wanted to see was the swimming pool and they wasted absolutely no time getting into the pool.  With temperatures around 100 degrees and hotter than we’d seen in a long time, I slathered on the sun screen and they took the plunge.  Misha was a bit more timid and climbed in slowly.  Amy had on a new floatie swim suit like Misha’s and quickly plunged into the wonderfully cool water.  Grandpa had lots of flotation devices to play with too.

We were finally able to pull the girls away from the swimming pool to have dinner a la Grandpa Kline-turkey burgers, rice, kidney beans.  The girls weren’t too thrilled by the selection, but then that is pretty normal around our house too. Misha asked to go to bed during the middle of dinner. It had been a long day for them combined with swimming and both were ready to sleep. Both girls slept in the spare room next to ours on an air mattress.  It was soooooooooo hot in Grandpa’s house.  The temperature upstairs was 81 degrees and 84 on the main level.  Chris had his dad turn the air down to 78 so that we could sleep comfortably! 

Sunday morning we woke up early after a sound sleep.  We went to Grandpa’s ward  at 9 (one hour behind).  Amy loved Primary because they sang to her as the visitor and she was the best singer so she got to pick another song to sing.  Misha gladly went to nursery.  I am grateful that they don’t scream and cry about going to new classes.  When we went to pick up Misha, we couldn’t find her shoes anywhere, though the teachers had remembered seeing them.  We finally found them hidden in one of the toy kitchen ovens.

Must be something about the heat, or maybe just knowing that we were on vacation and our schedule really demanded little of us, but we all had naps after lunch.  The girls were raring to swim after their naps and nothing could keep them out of the pool.  Stan, Pam, and Evan Braun came to visit for dinner. They live in Tucson now but were in the Phoenix area visiting family for the Memorial Day holiday.   We ordered pizza (the first of many that week) and had salad and watermelon.  Grandpa’s friend Eric came over as well with his son Thomas and all of the kids had a great time playing together.  Eric brought a fold out fire engine that captured their attention and imagination for an hour or so. 

While we were outside visiting, the kids were running around and exploring and all of a sudden we had a run on accidents.  All but Thomas fell and scraped something.  Misha got quite a few scrapes on her forehead and legs.  Amy knocked a pointy metal wall hanging off its hook and it cut her heal on the way down.  After that they were ready to go in and settle down, if you can call it that, with the fire engine.

We had planned to spend most of Monday with Stan and Pam.  We had told Grandpa repeatedly that we would be doing stuff with them, but he wasn’t too happy with our schedule and wanted us to make changes so that we could go to a waterpark with Eric, Thomas, and some other friends.  We decided to stick to our original schedule and let come what may.

We met Braun’s at Chuck E. Cheese for fun in the morning.  We were among the first to arrive and had the place mostly to ourselves.  We planned not to have dinner there because your choices are greasy pizza, greasy pizza, and greasy pizza.  It is not so good.  The kids played for well over an hour and had a blast and then we all went to On The Border for lunch.  I love Mexican food and crave it often.

Grandpa Kline had wanted to go to water park in the afternoon, but both girls fell asleep on the way home and we really didn’t want to cut their naps short since they seemed so exhausted from all the heat and the fun they were having. Chris and I read and dozed while they slept and just enjoyed a relaxing afternoon.  Misha woke up to go to the bathroom, and I figured she was up for good.  I told her to climb up on the bed beside Chris and she promptly fell back to sleep.  That has never happened before.

Since we had opted out of the water park in the morning, we all decided to just swim and play in Grandpa’s pool with Eric and Thomas again. One of Grandpa’s current girlfriends, Christine, also joined us for dinner.  Chris’ Dad barbequed a frozen lasagna on the grill; I didn’t know you could cook them that way. Everyone cooled off and played in the pool, though I did get out a bit early to cut up the watermelon and make a salad.  Eric brought “Shrek” to watch and that was just the send off the girls needed to calm them down for bed.

Tuesday morning Grandpa asked us to hang around the house until he left for work at 11:30. He wanted us to spend time with him before he left for a couple of days, but he was so busy doing other things we just sat around waiting.  We ate lunch and drove to some malls to shop.  We picked up a new stroller at Sears which came in handy for the rest of the trip.

While shopping, Quentin Wilcox, an old mission buddy of Chris’, called and we set up a time to get together on Wednesday night for dinner at TGI Fridays with his wife and girls. 

We came to the conclusion that the girls were having too much fun.  Literally.  They were so overloaded on fun activities and were so far off their schedule that they were becoming ornery and whiney and demanding more and more.  We had dinner at a Bakery Company thinking it would be a bit cheaper. Not so.  Following dinner we stopped at Walmart and Sams for a few groceries and then headed home to put the girls to bed.  I think this was the only day of our vacation when the girls didn’t get to swim at all.

Chris headed off to work at the American Express office in Phoenix.  He is a Team Lead on their IBM account and wanted a chance to meet the people that he talks with on the phone and Instant Messenger all of the time.  He also conducted some training.  Before leaving for Arizona, Chris’ boss and the American Express account approved to pay for part of our gas if he were to work a couple of days.  Bonus for us since the price of gas had sky rocketed and the average price in Phoenix was well over $2.00 a gallon. 

The girls and I stayed at Grandpa’s house for the day.  It was a welcome rest from all the comings and goings and super for having a bit of a routine day.  We swam for a couple of hours in the morning.  The one toy that I brought for them that I thought they would enjoy was their tea set, and it was a winner.  They played with it in the house as well as out by the pool.  They would stand on the step of the pool and pour water into their cups and saucers for hours.  Misha especially loved it.  We came in to have lunch and both girls were ready for a nap and slept for a couple of hours in the afternoon.  I took the opportunity to shower then while they slept.   With a more relaxed and quiet day, both girls were much happier and amenable.  Just what we all needed.

Grandpa was working from Tuesday afternoon until late Thursday evening and then had another trip scheduled to fly Friday afternoon through Saturday evening.  We weren’t complaining about being able to simply relax and be on our own schedule.  What more could you want?  A nice house to ourselves and a pool.  Perfect.

Chris arrived home from work about 6 pm Arizona time; we left shortly after that to meet Wilcoxes for dinner at 6:45. We drove around a bit to check out a water park that we kept driving by but couldn’t see the entrance to and then drove around even more trying to find the restaurant.  We had the wrong exit and after exploring all the side streets hoping to find Fridays we drove up one exit and there it was.

Quentin and Bev Wilcox got married about a year after we did if I remember correctly, in the Mount Timpanogos temple.  We were able to attend their ceremony.  Quentin works in the accounting department of Honeywell and they have a 2 ½ yr old girl Quincy and a 10-month old girl Sage.  The kids warmed up to each other after dinner when they started dancing around the tables.  We tried to contain them, but that never happens.

We drove back to the water park that we had just discovered and let the girls play in the sand, on the toys, and Chris even stripped our girls down to their underwear and let them run through a sprinkler.  They had a blast.

I don’t know what we were thinking by deciding to go to the zoo on Thursday morning with Bev Wilcox and her girls.  It was HOT!  We walked around for a bit trying to find shady spots and finally ended up in a water play area for the kids to cool off.  We stopped for lunch on the way home (more pizza), picked up some groceries and then more naps for the girls.  They, of course, headed to the swimming pool when they woke up.

Chris worked at a co-workers house in the morning until 2 pm. Grandpa Kline was home until 1:30 pm and then left for another trip.  He jumped into the pool before leaving to play with the girls, and we stayed in the pool for a couple of hours after that.  After naps and Chris’ arrival home, we went shopping.  One of the first stops was Deseret Book where Amy bought some Bible coloring books and a small Book of Mormon.  I purchased a DVD called “Charlie”.  Misha had to go to the bathroom while we were waiting to pay, and we just didn’t make it to the bathroom on time before she had a bit of an accident.  I only had an extra pair of panties with me so I had Chris drop me off at Ross to get her some clean clothes.  A great way to get new clothes.  We called Wilcoxes and had them meet us for dinner at Olive Garden instead of making something at Grandpa’s house.  We had about an hour to spare and headed over to a great new mall.  Chris stayed with the girls at the play area and I was able to look around a bit.  We decided to come back the next day since there was so much to see.  We had a yummy dinner and then came back to Grandpa’s to swim.  After that we put all the girls to bed so that we could watch the DVD I had bought earlier in the day.  It was quite a tear jerker and probably would have been for Chris if he wasn’t trying to maintain his manly image among friends.

We had a lot of fun with Wilcoxes and were surprised that we had so many people to do things with on this vacation.  It was good.

Saturday morning we hit a few garage sales, but it was really too hot to enjoy it.  Chris started on a meandering (it seemed that way anyhow) drive to top of the mountain where all the antennas were. Frankly, it was a long, boring drive that was very winding.  We humored him though since it was someplace he had always wanted to explore.  Misha and I got carsick which is unusual for both of us.  After conquering the mountain, we decided to head back to the mall in Glendale and spend a cool afternoon inside. 

It was still so hot outside, most days were well above 110 degrees.  Well, the mall was packed; everyone else seemed to have the same idea as we did about beating the heat.  Oh well.  We had lunch in the food court and then shopped for awhile until we could stand the whining no more.  The too-much-fun-syndrome was threatening to emerge again.  Amy and Misha promptly fell asleep on the way home.  We BBQed hot dogs for dinner and swam in the evening.  The pool was a balmy 90 degrees.  Grandpa pulled in about 7 pm, decided to hop into the pool with us for a short time and then headed to a party down the street at the Country Club.  Without much argument, we put the girls to bed.  What am I saying!?  Without much argument, we finally split the girls up and put Misha to sleep in our bed since they wouldn’t be quiet and go to sleep.  That did the trick and they were asleep in no time.  Chris and I watched tv for awhile, but since I was falling asleep, I decided to go to bed.

Sunday dawned bright and, well, hot.  We packed everything up to go.  Grandpa wished we could stay longer.  I once heard an idea that you should leave when you are having fun.  Better than leaving when you are tired of each other and aren’t speaking.  Plus we had reservations at a Trend West resort in Pine Top, Arizona for the next two nights. 

We met Wilcoxes at their church and then had lunch at their home after.  The girls were sad to leave a new-found friend, but we still had a three-hour trip ahead of us. 

Again the girls slept as we drove (we really like those times).  We moved away from the desert, cactus, and heat of Phoenix and into beautiful, mountainous areas with trees.  Hard to believe we were still in Arizona.  The air was cool and pine-scented and felt a little more like home.

We found the Trend West resort and were highly impressed, as always, by the amenities.  We had a two-bedroom condo complete with kitchen, living room, two bathrooms, laundry machines, and bbq.  The girls were excited to see the heated swimming pool and the play ground, and I was looking forward to the exercise room Monday morning.

I got up early to exercise and watched the continuing coverage of Ronald Reagan’s death-he had died the previous Saturday.  Upon returning to the condo, Misha woke up and shortly thereafter Amy woke up too.  We had breakfast and then decided to go for hike around a nearby lake.  The girls didn’t enjoy that quite so much as the swings and slides that were located conveniently at the end of the hike.  Nice for motivation.  We were getting hungry after that and found a nice Mexican Restaurant (my choice).  Misha wasn’t feeling too well today, she had a runny nose and seemed as though she was getting a cold.  She took a nap while Amy got to go swimming with Chris.

In the afternoon we took the girls to see Shrek 2.  They were fairly excited.  They sat still for this movie mostly.  Amy was just itching to get up and dance to all the fun music.  We finally told her she could dance but had intended that she would just dance beside us in the aisle.  She had different ideas and started for the front of the theater.  We had to call her back and she was definitely NOT happy. She danced beside us though until the movie was over and then we let her go to the front.  This child has no fear.  When we left Grandpa Kline’s she had progressed so much in her swimming that she was doing cannon balls into the pool.

Tuesday was the dreaded long driving day.  We left Pine Top about 8:30 am our time and drove all day until 10:30 pm.  The girls were really quite good for such a long day and watched movies most of the way.  As we drove into Colorado and toward home a huge thunder and lightning storm lit up the sky.  It was pretty cool to watch.  The girls were fast asleep when we pulled into our garage, and reminiscent of Grandpa’s house, ours was at 86 degrees.  We couldn’t open the windows because it was pouring outside so we opted for the air conditioner.  What a great feeling to be home.