Tillykke med bryllupsdagen

No - that was not a typo. It's Danish for Happy Anniversary! (Inspired by one of MaryP's library books we are celebrating our anniversary in 17 different languages.)

Happy 2 Years to us!

Part of me can't believe it's already been two years (time sure does fly) and the other part of me can't believe that it has only been two years - we sure packed a lot into that time. Moving across the country - twice. Trips to NYC, Boston, Maine, Palmyra, PA, just to name a few. Crazy snow/ice storms. Fabulous hikes. Busyness with church involvement. Making great friends. A few tears. Laughing so hard that my sides hurt. Our beautiful daughter (almost one year old now!). And the list goes on. Wood is a fantastic husband -I cannot imagine anyone else I'd rather be with! He is always for an adventure and willing to try new things. I have tried a lot of new things as a result and (for the most part) I've been grateful for it! I love that he loves me the same at my best and worst. I love that we can have intellectual conversations, and also be ridiculously silly. Last night we were working on a project together and I thought about how one of the things I love is working as a team. I am so grateful that we were married for time and all eternity in the temple - I cannot imagine being without my best friend.
I love you!

Ginyumilul chuka hamida!!

Everything Else in May

Updates On What We Have Been Up To In May

episode 3 of 3

So I must admit this is pretty late for May. Sorry.

We injured ourselves/got sick a lot in May. I sprained my ankle playing none other than Ultimate Frisbee. Then I dropped a clamp on my foot a few days later that bruised my foot (hurts still . . . but just a little bit ~ 1 month later). Woodine's knee was bothering her. MaryP had an allergic reaction to Peanut Butter (I'm really sad about it. No peanut butter? How can you live? And I know you are not supposed to give babies PB until they are 1 yr, but honestly would everything have been different if we waited 50 more days to find out she was allergic to it?). Woodine burned her palm pretty badly one night when we were making cookies. She leaned on the table, not realizing the pan that just came out of the oven was there. Since she was leaning with her weight, she couldn't pull away especially quickly. Her hand blistered up. We thought about little Piper, and I just can't imagine how much she must have hurt when she burned her hands. Anyway, Woodine slept on the sofa so she could elevate the hand because it hurt so bad. We wrapped it with ice, and I slept on the floor beside the sofa. But she was blessed to heal very quickly, and we have rediscovered our Mayo Clinic Family Health Book that Woodine's grandparents gave us for Christmas (we've spent some quality time looking through it recently - and not just out of necessity, but because it is also interesting).

But enough about our medical woes. I also modified my favorite pair of pants with my intrepid wife's help. I wanted a drawstring on the cuffs of my pant legs so that I could tighten them to keep out bugs and water and such as I am hiking. But my pants have a zipper down there to enable loosening of the cuff. I didn't want to disable the zipper action, so I designed a draw string that could be detached on one side so if I wanted to unzip the cuff, I still could but I could also tighten it using the drawstring.

I found some small hooks (like those found on dresses) and some elastic at Joanne's Fabric. The fabric store regulars made comments about me (a man) looking for dress hooks and elastic bands - but I gave them no heed, intent on my purposes. I anchored the elastic on one side of the zipper, sewed the elastic into a new hem around the bottom of the leg, and attached a drawstring clip on the elastic and ended with an overhand knot pulled super tight which could be inserted into the dress hook sewn to the location where I anchored the elastic. It works great!
At the end of the month, Woodine's parents visited. It was a lot of fun to see them. Not only do I have the best wife in the world, but I have the best in-laws in the world too. We went hiking at the Sol Duc river again, and enjoyed the scenic car ride and good company. They took us out for Mexican food, and we enjoyed going to church together. I love this area a lot, but I wish we lived a little closer to Woodine's parents, and mine. Or maybe I just wish air travel was cheaper and faster. In any case, I love it when people visit us, or when I can get away to visit others. I am really excited for Reunion this July.

Hiking the Olympics

Updates On What We Have Been Up To In May

episode 2 of 3

No, not in China.

We went to the Olympic National Park earlier this week. I felt like I was walking through the forests of Endor in The Return of the Jedi. The trees were impressive, the greenery beautiful, but you don't have to take my word for it.

MaryP is a hiker at heart. We drove about two hours to get to our first hike, passing an incredibly beautiful Lake Crescent with its teal glacial fed waters surrounded by steep mountains entirely covered by pine. Unfortunately we have no pictures of it. We got out of the car and put MaryP in our backpack carrier and hiked to Sol Duc Falls. It was raining (it's a rain forest) so we cut a hole in a garbage bag and used it on MaryP for a poncho. She couldn't run around, but she loved looking around, seeing the sights as we hike. I don't think I've ever heard her complain on a hike. I think that is saying something considering the two hour drive just before.

We then headed back to the Pacific Coast Highway (US 101) and headed through Forks (watching out for Vampires, Volvos, Quillute Werewolves and rusted pick-up trucks) to the Hoh Rainforest. There we saw a forest never touched by lumberjack saw or axe. Trees growing upwards of 300 feet in height.

This tree was a measly 190 ft tall when it lost its battle with gravity.

I was also able to go hiking up the Duckabush River Trail on Memorial Day with my old room mate from when I lived in South Carolina. It’s always fun to get out especially as a family and enjoy the wondrous natural creations around us. There have been neat things to see in Utah, Colorado, South Carolina, New York, Connecticut, and Washington. I hope that as our family grows more we can still get out hiking or camping to see these National Parks and appreciate God’s creations.

Gardening

Updates On What We Have Been Up To In May

episode 1 of 3

Yesterday Woodine, MaryP, and I visited Woodine's grandparents. Her grandma mentioned we hadn't updated our blog and she's right. So here goes:

I haven't had to work for the last few weeks. (Kind of a reward for having to be at sea for a while) So Woodine and I unpacked our last tenaciously lingering boxes from our move. We also started a garden on our deck. We live on the second story, so understandably our garden is in planters. Our friend the Masked Mallard did some things with square foot gardening, so we decided to make a little square foot garden of our own. Our big problem (for gardening) is that there are big trees around our deck, and it faces west. Though not as bad as facing north, we get limited sunlight. Our solution was to put wheels on the bottom of the planter to we can move it around to the sunny spot as the day progresses.

We also determined that hanging plants on the southwest corner would get hours more sunlight than plants sitting on our deck. So we got two tomato plants and planted them upside-down in the hanging pots and put strawberries and chives in the tops of the two pots. We also planted flowers and herbs on planters hanging from our railings. We were anxiously awaiting our seeds to sprout, and a few days ago, most of them did. We are still waiting on the carrots and herb seeds, but our lettuce and spinach are looking good. You can watch our video tour of our garden below.




Other interesting events, I met a man with the same name as my brother, man. He was in the MTC at the same time as B. He remembered seeing her there. I called B up and she confirmed the fact. He is the son of the BYU Linguistics professor with the same last name as us and he lives in a neighboring ward to us.

Hat Hair

Chatty

Here's a cute clip of our chatty little girl. She loves to talk to herself or whoever will listen, which is cute and encouraged, except during sacrament meeting. We're working on that one. :) She and I talk and talk throughout the day. This became evident to me when I went to the grocery store by myself (Wood had the day off) and caught myself talking out loud. "How many tomatoes should we get?" "What kind of cereal should we get?" "Oooh, this looks good." Etc... I tried to catch myself, but the people around me probably thought I was crazy. Oh well.

Happy

We sure love our happy girl!

Vaccinations

When it comes to vaccinations, there are more opinions out there that I can count. My friend recently lent me a new book "The Vaccine Book" by Robert W. Sears , which I have yet to read. Overall I feel vaccinations are very important, though many raise questions about how many a person should get, when they should get them, etc.

And that brings me to the flu shot. This is not a "mandatory" vaccine, though it is often recommended. I had influenza once as a teenager and let me tell you, it was miserable. Since then I have been motivated to get my flu shot annually, though I missed a few years of it in college.

Today I am attending the funeral for 13 year old Katie Haggard. Their family used to live in our ward (before we moved here) and we actually met them when we moved to Connecticut. They are an amazing family. While visiting some friends here in Washington with her mom, Katie started feeling sick. Her mom took her to the doctor and within an hour she had almost passed out from lack of oxygen. Katie had MRSA pneumonia. MRSA is a drug resistant form of staph. The disease hit her lungs hard and she was put on ECMO (life support). ECMO is okay for awhile, but if you are on it for too long, it can create problems of its own.

So how does this relate to the flu shot? Doctors in this area are saying when immunocompromised by something like influenza, people are more susceptible to MRSA (which normal healthy people can be carriers of). They are encouraging people to get their shots.

So would a flu shot have helped Katie? I don't know. I don't think you really can spend too long on questions like that, because you really don't know what the circumstances were that led to the disease.

My heart has broken over and over this week for their family.

Katie passed away on Easter with her parents by her side, bitter-sweet in light of the holiday and the hope that comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal families.

undo

Yesterday I dropped some papers and my first thought was

Ctrl Z

Have I been spending too much time on the computer?

8 Months

I feel like there is an explosion of new things MaryP is learning to do. Every day it seems she figures out something new. I was certainly surprised to see her standing in her crib a few days ago!
She is a delight to have around. When I take her places people often comment on what a happy baby she is - she loves flashing her smile. She also loves to jump. And jump. And jump. Maybe she will more jump then walk when the time comes. But I'm not encouraging walking. This crawling business is keeping me busy enough! Exploring has also produced some bumps and bruises, but I guess that's part of the learning curve.




MaryP generally prefers regular household items (such as the pot we were playing with below) to colorful plastic toys, though she enjoys her toys if there is no wooden spoon or such available.

She has been sick the last two days and I believe she is much more pleasant to be around then I am when I'm sick! She gets that from her father. We sure love our sweet girl!!

Geek in Pink

One of the things I really respect about my little brother is that he is a go-getter. It's motivational for me. When he was little he started a face painting business and actually made some money. When he was a little older he decided he wanted to get his black belt so he started in Tae Kwan Do and several years later, black belt. He may be skinny, but you don't want to mess with him! :) He decided to audition for school musicals and was the lead his sophomore year. He's not afraid to try new things, even if it means falling down sometimes. He always gets back up and keeps going. His freshman year of college he joined an a capella group. They were ok. After his mission he and one of the other guys decided to form a new group so they held auditions and got some good responses.

Here's one of the songs, Geek in Pink**, that they performed at the BYU a capella jam in the fall. For a start-up a capella group, I think they are pretty good!! My brother is the whistler and some background singing in this one. I'm so proud of him for always being willing to stretch himself and try new things. He's already accomplished so much, I'm excited to see where he will go in life....

**I'm experiencing technical difficulties - my lack of internet savviness being the difficulty. Until I can fix that you'll have to trust me, it's good!

Mobility accomplished.

For your queue

If you are looking for a good book to read just by yourself or with your kids, here are 2 I'd highly recommend.

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

This is not your typical Dave Barry writing. It is the story of before Peter Pan, and how he became the flying boy he's known to be. The chapters are short and action packed. My book group read it (before I showed up) and it's fun for adults, but is technically a children's book. It stirs the imagination. It is recommended for 10 and up because the bad guys are bad (though with comic relief, of course) and scary things do happen (how could they not with pirates and such). I know I would have loved, loved, loved it as a kid. At the end of each (short, kid friendly) chapter you wonder, what next?!! I give it 2 thumbs up. *As a side note, the next 2 books after this one have a much darker bad guy. If your kids are nightmare prone like I was, I'd say stick with book 1, it's fun and has closure.

The other recomendation is for Alcatraz Verses the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson. Again a kids book, but Wood and I read it together. It's a quick, fun read and while it's definitely aimed at kids, some of the jokes are pretty funny for adults too.

So there you go, if you have no good books on your queue, here are two. But you don't have to take my word for it (bud-duh-dump-dump.)

Ski Colorado

Last week we made our way to Colorado to spend time with my parents and to ski. Things went so, so well!

For starters, it was a miracle (and I really mean a miracle) that we were able to go at all. Wood has to request leave (he can't just announce when he's taking time off, he has to get special permission) and he has been really busy working on his qualifications. Both of us thought he wouldn't get leave, but he put in the request anyway. We were amazed when it cleared.

Vacation planning is in my blood (it's genetic?) and so I'd already compared airline prices. We didn't find out that we definitely had leave until a few weeks before my parents were going skiing. Thankfully Southwest still had their amazing deals going and we were able to purchase very affordable tickets, hooray! We did not purchase a seat for MaryP, but since Southwest does not have assigned seating and there were open seats both ways we were able to take her in her car seat on the plane. One, I feel safer knowing that she is buckled in (though obviously if I had to I would have just held on tight). Two, she's much more likely to entertain herself in her car seat rather then on my lap. She was a good baby on both flights and enjoyed chatting with the people around us. Things just worked out so well.

I've missed skiing. Last year we didn't go at all because of the pregnancy. I'm not a pro at it by any means, but I've been skiing since I was 5 and I enjoy it.

*As a side note, one of the humbling things about being married to Wood is that he is just so good at everything he does. He's picked up on skiing really quickly which, while wounding my ski ego, makes it a ton of fun to ski together. He's so talented! :)

Anyway, growing up my family used to get up early, drive to the slopes, get dressed in all of our ski gear in the car, ski all day with a brief lunch break in the crowded, stuffy lodge, and fall asleep on the drive home. Skiing for multiple days and staying up in the mountains is a totally different experience. You wake up, have a relaxing breakfast, check out what the weather is like, finally decide to get ready, walk on out to the slopes, ski, come in for lunch, maybe a nap, and decide if you want to go back out in the afternoon or if you'd rather relax inside. Talk about luxurious. It was so fun.

Mom and hubby happened to be reading the same book

- the race was on to see who could get ahead.

Part of the invitation we were given was that my parents would watch MaryP so that we could ski together. It was nice to get a vacation for me, and MaryP loved her grandparents and all of the extra attention. I don't know if it was the altitude or attention, but for the first time in awhile she finally slept through the night. (Unfortunately with the grandparent factor gone, the waking up in the middle of the night has resumed....rats!)

One of the cutest things to me was that when my dad would give her horsie rides on his knee and then would stop and put his hands down, MaryP would reach out for his hands and start bouncing on his lap as if to say "again, again!" I also got a kick out of seeing my mom with MaryP in the elevator (as I was coming in) going to check out the building. Talk about living it up. Around here it's "I need you to play with your toys while I _______" (fill in the blank with some task). We do play together, but she sure had a lot more attention last week!

We skiied Copper Mountain. I wish I would have taken the camera out with me. The weather was perfect (30's-40's) and the views from the top of the lifts were absolutely spectacular. I can't even describe how amazing it was to look out over a snow covered expanse of the Rocky Mountains. Breathtaking. Oh, and since it's not spring break yet there were hardly any lift lines. Were we spoiled or what?!

Here is a picture I found online. It doesn't do the view justice, but you get the idea.
So we're already talking a fabulous ski vacation. But to top it all off as a birthday gift my parents watched MaryP one evening so that the two of us could go out to dinner. It's been awhile since we've really had a date and we haven't seen much of each other recently. So it was a perfect gift.

Sure there were little glitches here and there, but why dwell on those when, as you can see, things went so well.

Thanks Mom and Dad for a great time!

Brains

So after reading the last post, my grandma sent me this clip about men's and women's brains. If you have a few minutes, check it out. I think it's so funny because it is (in part) so true. Enjoy!

Quintessential

Last night laying in bed - I look over

Me: What are you thinking about?
Wood: Oh, not much really.
Me: Oh come on, what are you thinking about.
Wood: Tanks.....
(pause)
Wood: With really cool treads

I couldn't help but laugh - it just seems the quintessential boy/man. Of course, in his defense, I had been thinking about a chick flick ......... :)

6.something

(The lighting is bad, I know, but I love the smile).

I seem to miss the month marks for MaryP, so here is a 6.something month update.

MaryP is a delight. Who knew babies could be so fun? She did well at her 6 month check up, and is average for both weight and height. She is also learning to recognize who her parents are and was all smiles for the doctor until he held her - then it was panic and crying until she was back with mom. Fortunately she doesn't do this with everyone (phew!) but I must admit that it's fun to think that she knows her mom and even wants her (on occasion). Babies can be good for your ego.

MaryP LOVES her daddy. When he comes home from work is smiles and happy noises and making eyes. It's really cute.

Her first 2 teeth are in!

She wasn't too happy when they were coming in (and I really can't blame her) but now that they're here she's back to her cheery self. She "chews" some of her food now and though that may seems like a small thing, I continue to marvel at the things she does without anyone teaching her.

The new teeth also mean increased drool

and she chews on everything that can fit in her mouth....as long as it's not fuzzy.
She sits up well, but still tips over when she gets distracted. Today she was rolling all over the place in her bedroom - I've never seen her do it quite that much - and was pushing herself up on her knees. I have a sneaking suspicion it won't be long before she's really mobile. I guess I'd better evaluate the baby-friendliness level of our home. Unfortunately we have floor heating, meaning hot electric heaters on the walls down low. I think that will be the place we will start in the "no touch" department. Any tips on teaching a baby to "no touch" would be appreciated.

MaryP still loves books (apparently they taste very good) and will turn the pages for me as we read. I have to hold a page up enough so that she can grab only that one page, but she knows just how to turn it. It's a good thing I can talk quickly (as those who have heard me get excited well know) because when she's really into turning the pages we fly through Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and other classics.

Happily, she is finally settling back into a routine (our move really cramped her style for awhile) which means both of us are sleeping more at night. Hooray!

We sure are lucky to have her in our lives.