A New Year and A Look Back At The Old One

What a year! Our baby boy turned one, I became pregnant and gave birth to our beautiful daughter, we started the year in a new ward that we love, Dave was called to be the Elder's Quorum secretary (are we really growing up?), I taught Valiant 11 (thanks Dave for all your help while I was pregnant), our niece Heidi was born, and after over a year of trying, Dave was finally able to start his pharmacy experience. Life has been good to us. A year ago we moved into our new apartment, which has been such a blessing. It's roomier and rent was considerably less than our old apartment (not to mention way nicer...love central heating and air conditioning). Heavenly Father has blessed us greatly. We could never be thankful enough for the blessings that have been poured upon us.

This next year is going to be exciting. We get to watch our little girl grow and develop. By the end of this next year I'm sure we'll be looking back and saying, "I can't believe how much she has grown." Our son will be growing as well, and we look forward to seeing what he does this next year. This next year we will have our first experience with the dreaded terrible two's. I hope it's no worse than the tantrums Jaron throws already =) Dave will be applying for pharmacy school this summer. We're getting closer to moving on to the next season in our life. Neither of us are transitioners...so it's really scary and exciting all at the same time. This next year we will be adding two new nieces to our family. Dave's brother Will and his wife Nancy are expecting their daughter Eva in March and my brother David is expecting his daughter in February. I can't wait to see what else the new year brings!

excerpts from "The Manual for Beginning Sith Apprentices"

Lesson 21: The Lightsaber

At this point in your training, you should already have received your new Sith lightsaber. "What is the difference between a Sith lightsaber and the Jedi version of the same?" you ask? Nothing really. They both work the same, just the blde is red instead of blue, green, white, etc. You will receive hands on training from your Sith Lord, but one word of caution must be given: Be careful where you swing that thing. You wouldn't want to lose an arm or an eye or anything. But you might protest that they can be replaced. Rightfully so; however, under strict decree of a synod of Sith Lords that took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, any apprentice removing their own limb, accidentally or otherwise, will lose lightsaber privileges for 6 Coruscant months. One final note for those apprentices anxious for a promotion: just remember, the only way to be promoted is if your master gets killed (wink,wink)

Happy Birthday To Me!

Today is my birthday. Yeah! I'm a whopping 28, only 2 years away from 30. I guess that makes me a grown up, but I still feel like I'm about 20. I'm not doing anything special today. I'm getting sick, my husband is sick and comatose on the sofa, my son is getting over being sick and is currently wiping his runny nose in my hair, and I'm hoping my daughter's cough and stuffiness does not get worse. We were planning on going to Sacramento for Christmas, but if Dave does not get better or I get worse, we'll be staying home this year. I guess it's a tradition for me to be sick on my birthday, I can't really remember a time that I wasn't. So I'm going to do a little reminiscing and put down some other thoughts.

4 years ago I got married to my wonderful hubby, feels like I've always been married to him (in a good way) and like it has not been that long all at the same time.

10 years ago I was a senior in high school. Wow! I can't believe it's been that long.

I thought I would be done with school by now. I was 2 years away from getting my bachelor's degree when we found out I was expecting our son. I planned on still finishing on time, until I realized that math (my major) and pregnancy brain do not go well together. It will be a while before I will be able to return to school. Dave is 3 semester away from Pharmacy school, which he needs to be completely focused on once he gets there, so finishing will need to wait. I need retake my lower division math classes again to refresh my memory before I can continue on, and I can't do that and finish before he moves on to grad school. I don't mind waiting, I just worry that if something happens to Dave, I won't be prepared. I know what I'm doing now is what Heavenly Father wants me to do, I just need to have faith that everything will work out.

Jaron is 21 months today. I can't believe he is 3 months away from turning 2. I looked at some pictures of him from a year ago last night. I can't believe how much he has grown. Just a year ago he was not walking without holding on to objects and now he is running everywhere. His hair is longer and he looks so grown up. Where did my baby go?

Lara is 6 weeks old today. Wow, how time has flown by. She is growing so much and I just want to hold on to the memory of where she was just a few weeks ago. Where did my little (sort of) baby go?

Stressing Week, etc.

This week has been a little stressful, to say the least. It started out with it being finals week. All of last weekend I spent working on my take home final for Abnormal Psych. 4 case studies needing full reports of history, assessment, differential dignosis, multi-axial diagnosis using DSM-IV format, and discussion of theoretical perspectives. That ended up being over 12 pages and didn't get finished til Monday night. Fortunately it wasn't due til wednesday. Unfortunately I had a final on Tuesday that needed some serious study time with. Fortunatley I didn't have any finas on Monday. Unfortunately we wasted a lot of time at the Picture People getting Lara's 1month portraits done because the staff there was incompetent (explained more later). Tuesday was my Perception final, I felt comfortable with it, and got a decent grade. Tuesday night I needed to put some serious study time in for O Chem, the final was Wednesday. Fortunately, he provided a review session Monday evening that helped a lot. Also, the American Chemical Society makes a final exam available if teachers wish to use it that is entirey multiple choice but covers both semesters of O Chem, not just the second semester. My teacher gave us the test he wrote on wednesday and on thursday when he graded them, emailed us our scores so we could decide if we wanted to take the ACS final on Friday to try to improve our grade, no penalty if we do worse. Fortunately, I passed the class so I didn't need to retake it on Friday. Thursday I had a final for my Marriage and Family class that I wasn't too worried about, and someitme during this this I had to take a final for my online Econ class.
Monday was stressful because Corrina had a dr appt, then we went to the mall to have Lara's picture taken. It was gonna be a one hour wait so we went to the food court to get some lunch. They take the pictures and say its gonna be a haf hour wait to see the photos. It had been 45 minutes and no one had even acknowledged our existence. We needed to leave so I could go to the review session. Just as we were leaving, someone stopped us and asked if we had seen our photos yet. We said no but we have to go and they tried to tell us they could do it right now, ut we REALLY had to go. (we were so upset at them) While I'm at my review session, they post the photos online, but Corrina sees they only posted a couple poses and none of what we wanted so after I got home we rushed back to see if they had deleted the rest already. They had. It was ridiculous. They said they could snap some more for us right then, we told them exaclty what we wanted. (full body shots so we could see her whole blessing dress) As they were showing the new round, there was a shot where her face was really cute...but it was just a portrait no full body. We asked if they had cropped it from a full body (they do that sometimes, its digital). They said no, they took it like that. What the Freak?!?!?!?!?! we said full body only! The inefficiency and incompetence was overwhelming. So they took one more round, but by that time, Lara was tired of being molested, it was late.
Friday we took the 2 hour drive to Sacramento because Corrina was having a baby shower on Saturday. We were also dropping her mom off at her grandmas. So our car was packed to the brim. We had our air matress, Jaron's portacrib, her moms suitcases, our overnight bag, this that and the other, etc. If you remember my thanksgiving post, we had the same sleeping arrangements, the four of us sharing the small bedroom. But that wasn't the worst part. Jaron had his first trip to the ER.
Corrina's aunt had come over with her 2 kids, so there were 9 people in a small, three bed, 1 bath house. It was very crazy and very chaotic but Corrina's cousin was kind of playing with Jaron. As I was holding Lara, C's cousin says, "uh, I just found Jaron with this open bottle of medicine." I hand Lara to C and say "let me see that bottle right now." it was a half empty bottle of cherry flavor liquid adult benadryl and no one had any idea how full it was before J got it. I grab J and smell his breath, and sure enough it smells like cherry flavored medicine. I call poison control and tell them 4 oz are missing. Based on his weight and the concentration of the med, 1.5 oz would be toxic. They told us to take him to the ER immediately. While I'm trying to talk to poison control, C's mom says "I thought that closet had a lock on it" She siad the same thing earlier that afternoon when Jaron got into it and we already tod her it didn't (frustration) C's aunt was trying to tell me to taste the med b/c then I'd know if he drank it or not (if it tastes good, he drank it, if it doesn't, he would have spit it out - her logic) So I forcefuly tell her that its cherry flavor and I smell it on his breath I know he drank it. I so wanted to just yell at everyone to shut up. I also wanted to break something, that's how upset I was.
We take him to the ER, they tell us he will have to consume charcoal and be monitored there for 4-6 hours. I call my dad to ask if he would come and help give a blessing. I love my parents, they came right away and helped so much. Dad and I administered the blessing, then they went to get us some food because we hadn't had dinner. Then they went home to find clothes for Jaron to wear because on the way to the ER he leaked thru his diaper and his clothes were wet. My parents stayed with us the whole time, helping us keep Jaron entertained. C's and my nerves were fried, we got to the ER at about 7:30 and were gonna be there til midnight at the earliest. I'm so grateful for a father who is a worthy Melchizadek priesthood holder and who is willing to exercise his priesthood at a moments notice. I'm aso grateful that he carries a vial on his key chain. I've been needing to get new one and when I talked to him on the ohone, I forgot to mention we needed oil. Fortunately, everything turned out ok, but jaron's eyes were a little dilated when we left and we could feel tht he had a temperature, but the charcoal did its job. (getting it down him was an ordeal in itself, we wished we had the camera to take pictures of the mess). After the baby shower on Saturday, we were gonna drive back to Chico, but we didn't get on the road til it was already getting dark. Traffic getting out of Sacramento was horrendous and L was not a happy camper. J fell asleep quickly but woke up before we got home so most of the way we had 1 or 2 unhappy babies crying.
So that was our stressing week. On a plus note, my blog has gone international. If you've noticed the feddjit tracker, I have a reader in India (thanks, Shankar, you're the man). I knew Shankar when he was going to Texas A&M, Corpus Christi when I was on my mission and he cooked for us the best Indian food I had ever tasted. His conversion story was in the church news. I hope you don't mind, Shankar. I've always had the greatest respect for you.

excerpts from "The Manual for Beginning Sith Apprentices"

Introduction:

Welcome to the Dark Side and Congratulations on becoming an apprentice. This is your first step on a path that will lead to glory and Galactic Domination. This manual provides lessons that are essential in perfecting your skill as a Sith Apprentice. Let us begin:

Lesson 1, Using the Jedi Mind Trick for Purposes of Evil, not Good (level basic):

It is assumed that you have joined the Dark Side after already receiving some training in the ways of the Jedi. This lesson attempts to master a most basic skill in a manner more acceptable for a Sith. It is assumed that you already know how to use the Jedi Mind Trick, so this manual won't cover that portion. The setting for this lesson is the local Cantina. Enter and initiate a conversation with the bartender similar as follows:

"Give me a cold one."

"let me see some ID."

"You don't need to see my ID."

"I don't need to see your ID."

"It was rude to ask for my ID."

"It was rude of me to ask for your ID, you're clearly old enough."

"Apologize for your rudeness."

"You'll have to excuse me for my rudeness. It has been a long week and a lot of minors attempting to get drunk."

"This drink is on you."

"In fact, to make up for it, this drink's on me."

"A round for everyone."

Hey everyone, this round's on me."

You can probably get the picture and carry this whatever direction you choose. If you were successful in obtaining a free drink, Congratulations! You are progressing nicely down the path of the dark side. If you were not successful, are you sure you're cut out for the dark side? Better luck next time.

Code Blue, volume two

"Good evening and welcome to KRIS 6 news, Corpus Christi, I'm Maria Jimenez. Rick Gomez is unable to join us this evening, but a little later, we'll check on Ned Finlay in the field with an investigative piece on the cruel treatment of illegal aliens by the Border Patrol at the mid-valley checkpoints. But first, we're going to shoot it over to Eric Sanchez with the weather."

"Thank you Maria, and good evening Corpus. Today was another scorcher, with record breaking highs for the 15th day in a row. Today's high was a whopping 94. The highest record on value in the almanac is ten degrees less. And on another strange, record breaking note, at the same time of record breaking daily highs, we've been having record breaking nightly lows. This recent phenomenon has dumbfounded experts across the nation and it appears that its not just isolated to here in South Texas. Cities across the nation are reporting similar phenomenon. It appears it all started 15 days ago and meteorologists have no guess as to when the temperatures will stabilize. But if it doesn't happen soon, I doubt anyone will have a white Christmas this year. But for the immediate forecast, expect overnight lows across the valley to reach the upper twenties to low thirties, again, record breaking cold. However, the humidity level is unusually low as well, with a zero percent chance of rain. Tomorrow's high will be in the upper 90's and if things don't change, expect to hit the 100's by the end of the week. I wouldn't put away the summer clothes yet, folks. Maria, back to you."

"Thank you, Eric, now lets shoot it over to Ned in the field with a special report on the cruel treatment of aliens at checkpoints."

"Thank you Maria, but instead of that investigative piece, I have some breaking news that is happening as we speak. It appears that there has been some major seismic activity or other catastrophe in the area. But its been nearly impossible to discover the details due to conflicting eyewitness accounts and the unwillingness of anybody to go on camera. Some witnesses say that it was a major intensity earthquake while others claim to have seen something fall from the sky and that the impact is what caused the tremors. One witness, who refused to go on camera, appeared to be particularly traumatized by the event and could only repeat 'el diablo, el diablo'."

"Sorry to interrupt there Ned, but this is Eric in the weather center and the idea of an earthquake in the area struck me as odd. So I looked it up and I learned that in the entire history of seismic record-taking, there has only ever been 1 earthquake here in South Texas and that was back in 1997 in Alice, not to far from here. So this is a rare occurrence, whatever it is."

"Thank you Eric, I'm going to stay on location and bring you the latest developments in this matter. Hold on, something ... to happen. People ... starting to beco... frenzied..."

"Ned, it appears your audio feed is breaking up."

"...electromagnetic radiation...oh no!...never seen...what is...Run!..."

"Ned? Ned? Are with with us Ned? Ned, we've lost both audio and visual now. Is everything alright? Sorry folks, it appears we are experiencing some technical difficulties. As soon as we get this fixed we'll get back to Ned for an update. And now a word from our sponsor."

Jaron Hits Another Milestone

This morning we discovered Jaron knocking on his bedroom door. Sounds unimportant, right? The thing is he should have been in his crib. That's right, Jaron can climb out of his crib! Good thing we shut his door when he's asleep or I'm sure we would have had a lot more suprises. We thought maybe the pillow we put under his mattress may have given him enough extra height to make this possible, so at nap time I removed it. Sure enough, he escaped his crib as I was watching. Guess it's time for a big boy's bed. The great thing is we hoped he would be ready by the time we're ready to put Lara in the crib...yeah, we don't have to buy another crib. The not so great thing, he's fighting sleep again. When he finally fell asleep at nap time, it was on the floor in front of his door. It was so cute, I had to take a picture.

His foot was blocking the door and the room was dark, so this was the best picture I could get. We also have video footage of our little escape artist. I'm having issues uploading it, but once we work it out, I'll add it on.