Many Hours of Torture

It seems like the theme of this trip was travelling. We took two days to get up to my parents. We stopped in Klamath Falls, Or. on the way up. There was snow there. The boys were especially enthralled with the piles of dirty plowed snow in the parking lot. Travis was hardly in the hotel room at all. Fletcher did not care much for the snow.

Andrew and I left my parents at 1pm Friday to drive to Seattle and catch our flights to Puerto Rico. When we got to the airport we found out that our 11pm flight had been delayed a few hours and we would not be able to make our connecting flight to PR. This happened to be on the day that Chicago had earlier cancelled over 450 flights due to bad weather, it was spring break, and the Friday before Easter. Needless to say all flights on all airlines were already overbooked and things were looking pretty hopeless. After many phone calls, lots of prayers by Andrew's family, and a smattering of patience, some incredible person managed to find us

(Looking so good waiting for a red eye)

a way to Puerto Rico by routing us through Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and changing our airline along the way. We had some fun adventures in this little country (really read some problems caused by being sent to another country and having to deal with immigration and customs). Eventually we made it the ship before it sailed, only 4 1/2 hours later than originally planned and 25 hours after we first set out.

(So happy to have made it to our cabin)

On the way home to pass the time, I decided to try to get pictures of all the dormant volcanoes we passed ( I failed to get them all, but I'm sure I'll have more opportunities). I'm always enthralled by these whenever we drive up to Washington. They are so beautiful rising over the rest of the landscape.

The quiz of the day is: Name That Peak!





(Actually I can't name them all, someday I will have them all memorized)



I think Andrew started to get a bit annoyed with my quest. I almost took more pictures on the way home, then I did the rest of the trip. It did help to break up the monotony of the long drive. If you look carefully here, you can see an upside rainbow around the sun, over Lake Klamath. The ice beginning to melt and break up was also very pretty.



So Andrew and I had 8 days of torture, the kids only 4. We all survived it, including Fletcher.

Happy Birthday Kyle

Today is Kyle's 12th Birthday. He was born when Andrew was in his last year of graduate school and just finishing up his PhD. Shortly after he was born we moved to New Mexico.

Kyle was one of those challenging babies. It is amazing we were brave enough to have any more after him. As an infant he needed to be in constant contact with his mom or he cried, and cried, and cried, (really, screamed, and screamed, and screamed). We had much sympathy for our neighbors. He would not nap for more than 3 minutes if he was not being held. He stopped napping totally at 18 mos. He didn't believe in binkies, bottles or being fed solid foods.

Kyle is a very determined individual. This is both good and bad, depending on the situation and the mood of those around him. For the most part he pushes himself to be the best. Currently he is the most advanced math student his teacher has ever had.

He is a very creative writer, and I am truly amazed by his abilities. He always goes way beyond on school writing assignments, when assigned a paragraph, it becomes a whole essay, a short story is several pages long. In first grade he was very proud of himself for writing the longest story in his class. It actually had a plot and made sense. In middle school his stories rival the books that he reads. (ok, maybe I am a little biased here)

In our family he is known for his incredible insights. Once while travelling we asked the kids why they just couldn't be good. Kyle's response was "We are being perfectly good, just not from your perspective."

And Cammie says that sometimes he is good and nice.

(meditating before opening presents)

We're Home

After two weeks, we have finally made it home. Home is a nice place to be.

Some thoughts I have had during this time:

Is a seven day cruise really worth it if it requires 8 days of travelling, 4 of those with 5 kids and a dog?

After having to drive through it, and feel the cold of it, I am so glad I don't live in a part of the country that has snow.

Which is worse, 16 hours driving in one day, with everyone getting super grouchy, or an expensive night in a hotel, with all the kids going crazy in one little room, and spreading the driving out over two days.

Why do money limitations go out the window when you are on vacation?

After a bad sunburn, how many layers of super itchy skin can you scratch off before causing permanent damage?

Stay tuned in the next couple of days for pictures of the good parts of our trip

Misc. Happenings

Sandra had a field trip to the bowling alley. I got to be driver/chaperone. They picked me because I have a large car. It was fun to watch her with the other kids. She had the third highest score of her class.

Cammie recently registered for Kindergarten. It was a happy and sad day. Happy because she is excited and ready to be taking this huge step in life. Sad because she is my baby and she is growing up. It is almost enough to make we want another baby, but not quite.

Mindy had her friends birthday party. She went to Libby Lu to have makeovers done with her two best friends and her sisters.

Travis has been providing us with expensive slave labor for the last few weeks. This has been for the purpose of buying an Ipod. Kyle also bought himself one. Now they are motivated by the desire to be able to buy music. Travis is also working to buy Brawl.

We have been going through appliance melt down the last few months. It started with our dishwasher, which we thought we had fixed with the help of a great friend. A few months later our vacuum decided to finally gather its last piece of dust. The dishwasher then decided to develop another problem and not heat, so its gone. The pilot light on the water heater decided not to stay lit, so we forked out money to have it repaired. Three days later as we were getting ready to leave for church, we discovered that it had decided to start leaking water through the wall and all over the garage floor. Thanks once again to our great friend we were able to replace it for no labor cost (except for a pizza dinner for his whole family). We then discovered that our dryer had broken. After working with our friend several times to fix appliances, he has gained the skills needed to start tackling some on his own. He was able to fix the dryer all by himself.

Random Tidbits

Cammie had an evaluation for speech therapy at Loma Vista last week. She tends to leave off beginning sounds on words and had troubles with her blends. We are not really worried about this as the boys had the same problem and self-corrected in kindergarten. But hey, why not spend some time getting it checked out. It turns out she is pretty much age appropriate, with a few problems, but probably not worth trying to actively correct at this time. They will re-evaluate her in 4 or 5 months and see how she is progressing. One interesting issue did come up. When she tries to make the "c", "k", or "t" sounds at beginning of words, she has a back of the tongue clicking sound that precedes them. Apparently this is a trait of the Khoisan (clicking) languages of South Africa, it is very hard and rare for Caucasians to be able to make this noise. Now we have the dilemma of knowing that she may have a special ability to learn a rare language. Should we pursue this? Maybe she is supposed to serve a mission to South Africa, being able to take the Gospel out into the wilds, and we would be remiss not to help her develop her language skills. But would it make her a freaky girl here in America so speak this weird language? Would it mess up her English to try to teach her this? And where would we find someone to help teach her?

In the last two weeks Sandra has had three teeth fall out, for a total of 5 missing. It makes for a cute smile. And a hard time eating apples and carrots. This morning she informed me that another one is loose. I wonder if it will come out before these other ones start growing in.

Cammie went to a party at a gymnastics studio. She had lots of fun playing in the foam pit. This thing is harder to move in than a ball pit. I jumped in and got stuck. The foam grabs onto you and keeps you from moving. I wonder how they control the kids in classes that are actually supposed to be learning. What would a teacher do when a kid refuses to get out. Kids can move around much easier. The kid has a huge advantage, it would be hard to get a hold of one and pull him out. I want to go have an adult party here. It would be lots of fun, if they just let use all the equipment any way we wanted.

Thursday Andrew and I went to yoga. When we came out of the gym and went to get in the car, we noticed these dents on the top of the car over the door. They were not there when we went in. So much for the peaceful calming effect of yoga. What happened? Why would someone bang up a car in a parking lot? They are hard to see in the picture, but it is weird. There were also some weird marks on the window. Our current theory is that some people got in a fight right next to our car, and it took the damage. It is a mystery we will probably never have answered.

Finally just to annoy Kyle, I have to add a picture of him. He was being a not nice boy, so I threatened him with a picture of him being taken and posted on the blog. This is actually one of the better pictures. Kyle be warned, next time I will make it the most embarrassing weird picture of you I take.

Kyle hates to have his picture on here. He is constantly threatening to sue me for posting about him. I just have to make sure he never figures out the password to the blog.

Mindy

Today was Mindy's 10th birthday. I can always remember how long we have lived in Brentwood because she was born just a little over a month after we moved here.

Mindy was a much easier baby than either of the boys. She loved to sit in her swing and listen to Enya or classical music. As long as the music was playing she would happily rest. She spent a lot of time hiding out in our room, away from the boys.

Mindy is a quiet girl. She does not like to be the center of attention, esp. in school or at church. The first time she had to give a talk in Primary we had to work very hard to bribe her. She is not easy to bribe. Once she makes up her mind she is very resolute and determined. If there is something she does not want to do, she is very good at sweet talking her way out of it. In kindergarten she refused to participate in sharing. Her teacher decided to have a mandatory sharing day, just so she could get Mindy to actually talk in front of the class.

In our family Mindy is like the little mommy. She is very helpful, especially with her younger sisters. She is almost always willing to play with them and help them. She will usually do anything she is asked to do.

Mindy also has a great passion for reading. There have been many times when the biggest mess in her room was from all the books. Mindy actually strives to keep her room clean. She is the only one of the kids who picked up on, and seemed to get, the idea of just 5 mins. a day will keep it clean, (of course, we do need to do a bit of work on the closet and animal pile).

Mindy is the one who started the decorating your own birthday cake a few years ago. After Sandra's crunchy cake, she decided to take it easy on the sprinkles.

There is a reason all the candles are so close. For a few years, she wouldn't let there be candles on her cakes. She didn't want everyone watching her while she tried to blow them out. This year she finally put candles on, all close together hoping that would make it easy. (Notice the huge flame, we didn't even have to light some of them, they just started on their own.) It took her a few tries to get that big fire out, it actually was funny, as she blew, a few would go out, then relight from the rest of the flame.

This is probably her most exciting present. She has been wanting one for a long time. Kyle and Travis got this for her.

Mindy is a great girl. We are so lucky to have her as a part of our family.

Sandra

Seven years ago I gave birth to our beautiful 4th child, Sandra.

She was a very happy and easy baby. She would go to anyone who wanted her and just loved to be with people.

She is one of those people that others are just naturally drawn to. It is fun to watch her grow and develop.

Her birth brought us into a new medical world. After over 5 years of being seen by specialists and learning how to navigate through doctors and the insurance world, she was finally diagnosed as having Isolated Hemihypertrophy caused by Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome. She has a rare case, over 90% of cases are in the lower extremities and of those most are on the right side of the body. Hers is in her upper left side. It is one of those things you wish you never had to learn about, but it is worth if for the blessing of having such a great child.

She is a true girl who believes dresses are the best type of clothes, spends hours in the bathroom fixing her hair, doing her nails, and sneaking make-up.

She has very little fear. As a toddler, she believed she could do anything her older sibings could do, and could often be found climbing on counters and jumping off surfaces higher than she was tall.

These days her biggest passion is reading. She has read every girls chapter book we have, and yearns for more. Her favs are Katie Kazoo and Juni B. I often find her sneaking reading late at night when I think she is asleep.

(Her first day of preschool)

This year for her birthday, she wanted to decorate her own cake. It ended up being a bit crunchy.


For dinner, she chose Chuck E Cheese.

And she got lots of neat presents from her family.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SANDRA