Johnson Family News

My Kids: Darian

2012-02-11T16:46:00.001-05:00

My brand new baby is now 7 weeks old. We have passed that magical 6 weeks where supposedly life is supposed to get back to normal. It is getting easier to get out of the house and we are all forgetting what life was like two months ago.

When I step on the bathroom scale holding Darian, it says he is about 11 lbs, but that can’t be all that accurate. In any case, he is outgrowing the hats and one-sies that fit when he first came.

Darian is becoming a champion smiler, though sometimes it’s hard to catch it in a picture. He can get his fist to his mouth at almost every attempt. He does not seem to like the car seat and does not fall asleep there often. But, at night he sleeps pretty well. He normally goes to sleep about 10pm, wakes at 3am and again at 7am. There are a handful of nights where he wakes 2-3 times, but normally it is just once.

His sisters seems a bit indifferent to him, almost like a toy they don’t have much interest in. They both want to help hold his pacifier in while we drive, but other than that they don’t bother with him much.

We are loving having new baby and loving watching him grow.

My Kids: Eliora

2012-02-11T16:45:00.001-05:00

Eliora is our jewel, our precious little girl. She is starting into the stage of 2 and the most common phrase we hear in our house is, “I do dat”. She washes her own hands, wipes her own nose and puts her own seatbelt on.

The next most common phrase we hear is, “Read it to me”. She will bring books for hours. I normally get tired after 5 or 6, but she would keep going till she had read every book we own twice. It was great when grandparents came to visit because then there were that many more adults to read to her.

Eliora finally has enough hair to hold a hair clip and she insists on having me put them in 12 times a day (they don’t stay in for very long ). She is getting very good at getting dressed and undressed. I got her out of naptime yesterday – her pants were pulled half-way up and backwards and her shirt on inside-out.

Eliora loves to sing. She sings in the car seat, in the highchair, in bed. She sings herself to sleep most nights. She is a good sleeper, normally taking a nap from 1:00-4:00pm (which is a great reset time for all of us). Bedtime is about 7:30 and she stays in bed till 7:30 the next morning.

My Kids: Kaela

2012-02-11T16:39:00.001-05:00

The family is growing and changing so much, so I thought I would post what each of my little munchkins are up to.

Kaela is 3 1/2, loves to giggle and be silly. She is getting very talkative and tells everyone everything that comes into her mind.

She has entered the phase of, “Why?” I find myself explaining everything before she can ask. Instead of saying, “We are going to Daddy’s work”, I say “We are going to Daddy’s work to bring him lunch since he forgot it this morning.” Without fail, she will still ask “Why?” I think she does it more because she gets a response rather than actual curiosity. She also asks metaphysical questions, “Why do birds have wings? Why do germs make me sick?” and I am sometimes hard pressed to come up with a suitable answer (though yesterday that the reason birds fly is so that they can get food up to the baby birds in the trees- of course!). But it she is growing, learning and changing.

Kaela’s favorite game is “I’m an acrobat” – which consists of her grabbing the bars on the underside of the top bunk bed and swinging around. To harness this, we gave her a gymnastics class for Christmas. It meets twice a week for three hours at a time, and while it does some gymnastics along with games, snacks, free play etc, it is also nice in that it gives Kaela an opportunity to interact with people other than Mom. She is enjoying it and comes home tired.

Her imagination is growing. The dress-up she got for Christmas gets used a lot. She loves to make houses under the table, or bed and take all her toys in there.

My Birth Story

2012-01-08T10:43:00.003-05:00

So I wanted to write a brief post about my birth experience with Darian. This is something that I didn't do with either Kaela and Eliora, but I feel that I've been blessed to have some of the experiences that I have, and I that many small things could have changed to make things turn out very differently. I also would hope that my experiences might serve someone else who is trying to learn about childbirth, possibly for the first time - especially natural childbirth.
Darian was born at 6:22am on Wednesday, December 21st. To give a little background, I think I had better start at the end. After Darian was born and weighed and was being wrapped up, my midwife sat down and asked, “So what do you mean that there is no pain in birth?” She is a midwife and deals with natural childbirth frequently, so I was surprised. I replied that it doesn’t hurt and don’t know how to clarify further. She said, “So, does that mean you don’t feel pain, or mentally you don’t believe it or that there is really no pain.” Oh, I am not someone that can’t feel pain, “This IV hurt going in and still hurts hour later, I definitely feel pain.” But in Hypnobirthing, we learn to work with our body. Yes, my uterus is contracting and I don’t use these muscles often, so yes there is strain of working very hard, but it doesn’t hurt. Just picture running really hard and long – you are tired, your legs demand that you stop but if you push past that point you feel great and have an extra wind for longer. Does it hurt? Well, sort of, but not pain.
So, we went to bed about 11:00 pm. Lee’s parents had driven in the day before and all through the day I felt great. I had been contracting pretty regularly for 2-3 weeks and that day was like no other day. On Friday my midwife had announced me 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced and ready to go, but here it was Tuesday night and nothing was really happening. But come bedtime, I said “Hmmmm, these feel like pretty real contractions.” I went to bed, knowing that if I could sleep through them then it wasn’t real. Well, at midnight I got up and really started timing them: 5 min apart + lasting a minute + over an hour = go to the hospital. So, at 1:00am I asked Lee, “Do you want to go to the hospital and have a baby?” He smiled at me and said, “Really? Yeah.” And fell back asleep. Five minutes later he jumped out of bed when he heard me on the phone saying I thought it was time to go to the hospital, and was dressed in 15 seconds flat. We left Lee’s parents and our girls sleeping and drove off.
At the hospital I was admitted and found to be 4 cm dilated, not much more than 70% effaced. I was disappointed that almost nothing had happened since Friday, and we walked over to my labor room. The nurse started out with asking me how much pain I was in and strapping me to the monitors to watch the baby. The second time she asked, I told her, “I don't believe there is pain in childbirth.” I was glad when she said, “Ok, I won’t ask that again.” It was also nice that she only came to monitor the baby every other hour, instead of the 20 out of every 60 minutes that was hospital protocol.
We were left pretty well alone all through labor. My midwife went and took a nap after she checked me and I didn’t ask again till about 5 am, and which time I was 8 cm, and fully effaced. During those hours I was doing a variety of things, from trying to sleep, sitting on the exercise ball, walking around, holding onto Lee, sitting on the toilet with my feet propped up to open my pelvis. Most things we tried were suggestions that my midwife with Eliora had given us and which had helped that labor progress. This time when we were left to ourselves, it was Lee who had to be both support and labor coach. Meaning that by 5:30 am I was so exhausted from being up all night in labor and frustrated at Lee that I lost my focus. That half hour was the hardest part because I just wanted to give up. I stopped concentrating on relaxing my uterine muscles and it became much harder. I don’t say that to blame my wonderful husband who was there helping labor go more quickly, but I now know that his support was more important.
At 6:10 I knew that something had to change and asked my midwife to rupture my membranes. I was afraid that the intensity of contractions would skyrocket, and it was definitely did increase, but it allowed the baby to come down fully. I had been reclining in the bed at that moment and was very suddenly very uncomfortable. Lee said that when Eliora came, I was lying on my side with him holding my leg up. I laid like that and Darian Oliver Johnson was born at 6:22, a mere 12 minutes after my membranes were released, and 4 hours of labor in the hospital.
As a disclaimer, I do not believe in natural childbirth because I feel that I'm supposed to, or to earn some sort of badge of honor for suffering, or even accomplishment as if I had run a marathon. I do natural because I believe I was not created broken - I think I am likely to do less damage to myself and my baby when I am working with my body, and the relatively quick and easy of recoveries I've had have strengthened my belief in that fact. I think that medical intervention usually unnecessary, which can make it more dangerous, and can not only lead to longer recovery times but may even lead to unpleasant complications during childbirth. Non-medicated childbirth is possible and even wonderful, and I hope that any other mothers out there who may be apprehensive about childbirth will consider my experiences when choosing how to birth their babies.

Christmas Morning

2011-12-25T11:54:00.001-05:00

So Christmas is here! We’ve woken up – believe it or not, Mom and Dad were up an hour and a half before the girls (ok, so having a 3-day-old infant might have served as an effective alarm clock – no snooze button). We got to sit together and read scriptures and talk. It was a wonderful way to start the holiday.

We’d left some dough rising overnight, and we had a Christmas breakfast of hot chocolate, pecan rolls, and oranges. Yum!

Kristin and I have decided to rebel against materialism this Christmas and not open presents at all Christmas morning. Mostly just because we wanted to find a way to make it more about the Savior. Not surprisingly, we met with little resistance, since at this age we’re just starting our family traditions. As a result, our Christmas tree is still waiting the arrival of gifts. We thought we’d all gather our gifts and put them under the tree tonight, after we act out the nativity and have a devotional where we share our favorite stories of Christ’s life.

We actually adopted the idea a little from our time in Madrid, where they celebrate King’s day on January 6th. This is when the three wise men supposedly arrive, and they’re the ones who bring the gifts. Since then we have found quite a few traditions that wait those 12 days between Christmas and Kings Day for gift giving.We’ll see if we make it all the way to the 6th once the presents are out under the tree. But either way, we liked the idea of just putting the gifts out on Christmas, since it kind of focuses more on the giving.

So now the girls are all dressed and we’re off to an hour of church! We’ll post more later.

Darian Oliver Johnson

2011-12-23T13:20:00.001-05:00

Sea World

2011-11-14T14:11:00.001-05:00

Once a year Sea World allows active duty military and their family a chance to go to one of their parks for free, so we took advantage of Veteran’s Day off work and went to the park here in San Antonio. It was a very fun day.

Sea World has a strange combination of amusement park rides and large sea creatures to see perform. I was expecting to see larger exhibits where you could go see the animals, but what we saw in the performances was amazing enough.

Shamu Show at Sea World San Antonio

Kaela loved the roller coaster and giggled the whole way through. She really wanted to go on one of the big ones, but we had to send Daddy alone (I am sure they would not have allowed me on the ride, supposing I could fit with those harnesses – baby shouldn’t come for another 6 weeks).

Eliora probably never would have gotten off the Merry Go Round. She kept asking to go back.

The only way we got Kaela to crawl through these tunnel nets was to assure he r that she would be very, very brave if she did it. They were very high and I am proud to say she did well.

Though Kaela has no idea who Burt and Ernie are, she does make a cut smiling picture.

We ended up staying the whole day and we were all exhausted by 6:00pm when the park closed and grateful to go home to an early bedtime.

Halloween

2011-10-31T23:11:00.001-04:00

Halloween this year consisted of a variety of activities over several days that involved wearing our costumes. It was Lee’s idea to dress up as the Wizard of Oz characters. Kaela was Dorothy, Eliora the cowardly lion, Lee the tin man and I was the scarecrow. We made all the costumes ourselves and think they turned out well.

At Playgroup where we made various Halloween crafts and frosted sugar cookies.

Friday we wen to the ward chili cook-off and trunk-or-treat. It was a crazy night because we had combined with another ward. Our chili got dropped off 10 minutes too late to be put into the contest, but I think it was darn good chili regardless. I think there were over 300 people there, though there was only seating for 150. The announcer was a woman from the other ward who forgot her witch costume. The line still stretched the entire way around the gym and she started threatening if everyone didn’t get outside right then then their children would miss the trunk-or-treat. I had made 7 dozen cookies and they were gone in 15 minutes, so there was definitely more than 80 participants in the trunk-or-treat.

Sunday we carved our pumpkins. Kaela helped scoop the seeds out of hers, so long as mom took the seeds out of the pumpkin and put them on her spoon to put in the bowl.

The video is a bit dark, but we had lots of fun walking as a family.

Halloween we went trick-or-treating down the street. I was amazed that most people tried to give Kaela a whole handful of candy for her and another for Eliora. It made sense a bit when we got home and we had not a single trick-or treater at our house the whole evening.

Visiting Boston

2011-10-30T22:05:00.001-04:00

Week before last Lee had a conference to attend in Boston. He had gotten a scholarship from it last year to attend and the ARMY was sending him for work, meaning that two outside parties would foot the bill. Because of that, we used the spare change to book the whole family tickets and fly back to see all the things and people we have been missing.

The weather was gorgeous. Maybe because I was so excited to leave our never changing blue skies and 95 degree weather. Boston was cool with a bit of rain and the leaves were all just starting to change.

We were able to spend time with friends and say good-bye for real this time. We don’t know if or when we will ever be going back and it was nice to have one last farewell. It was great for Kaela to see Elliott, Andrew, and Colby again.

The first day Lee put me on the train, took one bag and I the other to go check into the hotel while he checked into the conference. I got lost in the T parking garage with all that. I am begging you to laugh. Which one is the hardest for me to lift over the wall? (It was only about 3’.) The 35 lb child, the 30 lb stroller, the 50 lb suitcase, or the 140 lb pregnant woman? It wasn’t the suitcase.

We did lots of stuff with nothing but our public transportation pass and our stroller – we didn’t take naps, stayed out till 11:00 at night, and played and played etc. We visited the children’s museum, libraries, parks, Lee’s school (stairs! 4 flight up!), lots of friends. It was a wonderful vacation because there was no one to please but ourselves, no uncertainty of where we were, just familiar yet different places.

We even got to go with Todd, Danielle, and Colby to the circus downtown. I had never been to a real 3 Ring Circus and it was quite impressive. We had great seats and I have so many pictures and amazing videos, that I’ll have to post again.

Do I look 7 months pregnant?

Oh, and did I mention that we were there for a conference? Here is my handsome husband all dressed up in uniform by his poster.

Girl Stuff

2011-10-07T11:26:00.001-04:00

On Saturday Lee attended the priesthood session of general conference and I was left with the two girls to do girly stuff. Shoes have been the big dress-up thing this week. Since I’m not wearing my 3” heels, I guess someone ought to. The other shoe of the week is Kaela’s light up tennis shoes.

I missed the very best part of this video that started with: “Eliora, I am going to read you this book.” I know it is kinda long, so you probably get the picture after the first few pages.

She even held the book so that Eliora could see all the pictures.

During conference we were so lucky that both girls took naps, which meant that Kaela was not at all tired at bedtime. So she and Mom stayed up, popped popcorn on the stove (a first for me) and had a fun girls night.

The Greatest Healthcare System in the Western World. . .

2011-09-28T22:57:00.001-04:00

Ok, it’s my turn to write this one, cause I don’t know if Kristin will have the stomach to do so. I have a co-worker who often sagely remarks that I am serving in the only truly socialist healthcare system in the western world – in the sense that people come to get care, without paying anything, and I am paid a salary regardless of the number of patients I see or the procedures which I perform. It’s kind of an interesting perspective to keep when thinking about ARMY healthcare, which many state is the best healthcare system in the country right now. And no, I don’t understand why exactly people say that – let me explain some of the source of my confusion on the matter.

Kristin and I began “ARMY life” on June 17th, when I officially took my oath of office. Kristin was excited to have Tricare coverage, which everyone had said was great, especially since we’d floated without any insurance for the last few months of Optometry school with no insurance. So we were a little disappointed when we found out that Kristin and the girls by default were put onto the lower-tiered “Tricare Standard”, which is basically a preferred provider network where you have about a 20% cost share in all doctor fees, rather than “Tricare Prime” which is the free system where you just go into the ARMY hospital and get a doctor visit at no charge whatsoever, regardless of what they do. So we were a little disappointed, especially when we asked how to get them swapped over and we were told that because it was after the 20th of June they could no longer be enrolled in that month, and the soonest that they could be enrolled was the 20th of July, wherein coverage would begin August 1st – a whole month and a half after I start working for the ARMY before she can even CALL to schedule an appointment. Bad news when Kristin was already 14 weeks pregnant, and really hoping to get to know the doctors that would deliver our third child. 14 weeks is already kind of late to start prenatal care, but finding out that we couldn’t even schedule an appointment until 20 weeks was a big let-down.

So Kristin called OBGyn to see if they could work something out so she could at least have an appointment scheduled right when she came onto “Prime” coverage, and not have to wait several weeks afterwards before she got an appointment. She was told by a receptionist that they absolutely did NOT accept Tricare “Standard” and that she would have to go and find a civilian doctor. After two more failed attempts to elicit pity, she finally got an appointment and had her first prenatal visit at 18 weeks. Everybody she saw at that visit asked her why on earth she had waited so long to start her care.

Since starting healthcare in the ARMY we have learned that like everything else in the ARMY, bigger installations mean bigger bureaucracy. As BAMC is one of the main medical hubs of the entire armed forces, we can’t be too surprised by 2-hour-long waiting room sessions before being called back into see the doctor for 15 minutes, or by having long lists of lab tests ordered with little or no explanation as to what they are for, or why it is “standard practice” to order them when Kristin never had so much labwork run in both of her other previous pregnancies COMBINED. It’s of course discouraging when the chief of the OB department requires that all patients receive a mandatory 3 hour genetics counseling seminar (which he teaches personally), regardless if a patient has a degree in genetics and could probably teach the course. And of course it’s more disappointing, when the clinic chief is an hour late for that lecture because he “forgot” about it, or when during the entire seminar he doesn’t mention any of the screening tests that it was so important that they learn about. I do tell Kristin to be understanding, and to try not to be too critical of ARMY healthcare in general. All of my co-workers say that at smaller installations the care is a million times better, which I wouldn’t surprise me, but all in all it is a disappointment to receive poor care from the “mothership”.

Unfortunately, things changed a little when Kristin failed the 1 hour glucose diabetes screening test by a few points. The 3-hour glucose test was then ordered, which Kristin failed as well by a few points, and then her folder was labeled “Gestational Diabetes”, which changed a lot of things. First off, she could no longer see the nurse midwife, since she was now a “high risk” pregnancy. Second of all, she could only be seen on the “Complicated OB” days (scheduled only two mornings out of the week). At the time, this clinic was run only at their alternate hospital at the Air Force Base 45 minutes away. Getting childcare for two-hour appointments is bad enough, but add on an hour of travel time there and back and Kristin had little choice but to put the kids in the carseats and hope for the best. Luckily the OB clinic moved everything over here to BAMC about a month later. Unfortunately that was about the extent of our good fortune.

Kristin has now spent the last month and a half in the “specialty” clinic, which basically means that she usually only sees residents, who do little listening, and even less explaining. I should give some credit – there was one visit where Kristin actually had with the Doctor, which was a “group session” with two other gestational diabetic patients where the doctor read and discussed the details of each case with everyone, including her personal concerns for each patient. The lack of privacy was quite disturbing, and neither Kristin nor I have ever heard of a similar practice in any other medical setting.

The diabetes diagnosis was a bit of a wake-up call at first, and we really considered what we could do to minimize any risks to Kristin or to the baby. We hit the ground running with self-monitoring of blood sugars and attempts to eliminate bad stuff from our diets and exercise more. However our concern slowly started to decrease when her self-monitoring showed that her blood sugar was almost never outside of normal limits, even when she ate things that we ALL know aren’t good for us. When she had appointments the residents barely glanced at her food log and her blood sugar records, which also didn’t help to make us feel the importance of the test. After a month of self-monitoring with only 3 or 4 measurements outside of normal range, Kristin no longer worries about what she eats, since her blood sugars are normal. We are of course still trying to exercise better, but if the doctors don’t even look at the logs and her blood sugar isn’t suffering, then what’s the point in it?

The real hit-home was at the last visit 2 weeks ago when, after 2 hours in the waiting room with two bored toddlers, Kristin is brought into the exam room for a 15 minute checkup, following which the resident told Kristin that because Kaela had a shoulder dystocia (baby’s shoulder gets stuck coming out and a bone sometimes has to be broken to get her out) that Kristin should “choose” to schedule an “elective” cesarean to avoid the 10-15% risk of a recurrence with a 1-2% risk of actual complication (chance of actually needing a cesarean). Regardless of the fact that Eliora came without any problems, Kristin and I both view c-section as a rather invasive procedure that is wholly acceptable when necessary (i.e. life of mother or baby is in jeopardy). But since it can be done even when the baby is in the birth canal, stuck, the idea of choosing a cesarean to avoid a remote possibility of complication which could easily be confronted if it arose didn’t make much sense to Kristin. The idea of scheduling a cesarean for patient (or doctor) convenience really doesn’t carry well with either Kristin or myself, due to the long and difficult recovery (imagine with a newborn AND two toddlers to watch!) as well as the serious limitations which it can put to future family options. Kristin was so taken back by the “suggestion” from the resident that she told her that she would actually “choose” to please not have that mentioned to her again, and to have that request put in her record.

The resident was actually a bit flustered by the response, and responded that “that goes against medical counsel”, since the risk to the baby was obviously extremely apparent at 5 1/2 months (before even entering the 3rd trimester). Of course, if the resident had actually been attentive to the history and thought over Kristin’s food log and blood sugar record, she might have re-thought the risk she’d assigned, but I doubt it. Kristin and I both feel like “GESTATIONAL DIABETIC” has been stamped onto her folder, and that the doctors only see that and only think about it when gathering data. The resident said that she would speak with the doctor, and a few minutes later she returned stating (much to our surprise) that the Doctor agreed with her assessment. She then brought an un-named uniformed “witness” into the room to listen as the resident “informed” Kristin with numerous scary statistics as to why the course of action was necessary and why “going against medical counsel” could have “severe repercussions”.

At about this point we felt things had progressed beyond bureaucratic annoyances, and I actually started discussing the situation with coworkers. Since as far as we understood the only other option was to “disenroll” Kristin back into Tricare Standard and pay 20% of the cost of all healthcare (which can quickly add up to a lot of money in a hospital), it was a surprising comfort to learn that we could ask for a referral to seek a “second opinion” to a civilian doctor for assessment of the situation, and that in some instances a referral could even be granted for care at an outside provider.

We called the “Patient Advocate” at BAMC OBGyn to request such a referral, and were told that absolutely under no conditions do they ever grant referrals, since they have enough space at BAMC to accommodate patients themselves. It was a disappointing response from the person who was apparently supposed to be in our court. We called primary care to see if they could refer us, and they told us that unfortunately since Kristin is under the care of OBGyn the referral would have to be routed through them, and they would likely veto it. We called the Tricare office itself, and were informed that our only option was probably to dis-enroll and pay out of pocket.

So, after all of this, this morning we had another appointment, and I cancelled half of my patients to be able to go with Kristin and meet some of these people myself. Overall we came away with an ok impression – Kristin said it was the first “not awful” experience she’s had there. We were taken in quickly because the appointment was early and the waiting room was empty. I got to see the ultrasound of the baby, and shortly thereafter the Doctor (not a resident) came in with a 4th year medical student who was shadowing. The doctor ran the ultrasound a bit, and despite the frequent comments about how “huge” this 5 1/2 month baby was and how easy it was to appreciate the “rolls of fat” on the grainy ultrasound screen, in the end we actually managed to keep her from leaving the room to schedule the follow-up by asking if we could talk to her. She stayed, and much to her credit, actually listened to us.

After several minutes and repeated requests, she stated that she would “allow” Kristin to re-take the 3 hour test, but that the results wouldn’t change anything since the diagnosis had already been made and the baby was clearly huge. Still, Kristin and I had been concerned, mostly because we worried that the reason she might have failed in the first place was that no-one really explained to her how to prepare for the tests, and we were concerned that she might have failed because she went in during the wrong time of day (afternoon rather than morning) and because she’d been fasting WAY too long (in which case her blood sugar might have spiked simply because she had no insulin in her system and her blood sugar was really low, not because she was insulin resistant). Regardless, it was a small victory. When we asked if we could have a referral to get a second opinion from another doctor, we were told that she could not grant it but that it would depend on the clinic chief (see above paragraph about the genetics course). She said that after the glucose test they could discuss it, but that he would likely say no, since both of them specialize in “complicated births” and he would likely state that a second opinion was not necessary.

All right, so if you’ve stuck with me this long, way-to go – get ready for the punch-line. Much discouraged, I spoke again with my colleagues about the whole situation and they advised me to try to go around OBGyn by discussing the situation with the Director of the Hospital. All in all, the idea that any serviceman would have to un-enroll his family from military healthcare and pay large out-of-pocket expenses in order to get decent care just seems wrong and sad, to me and to most of the people I’ve discussed this with. First they told me to go and speak with a counselor in the Tricare office, which happened to be in the building next-door to my clinic. Since it was lunch, and I had no patients afterwards, I walked over and learned in 5 minutes that I had been misinformed – apparently Tricare “Standard” offers 100% coverage of maternity with no cost sharing and no deductables. This is only for maternity, but essentially they pay everything except a $25 copay at the hospital at the time of delivery. They also told me that this didn’t even have to be in the network of providers – it would be covered at almost ANY facility.

So now Kristin and I are forced to ask, is there any reason at all to keep going to BAMC? Moreover, we have been humbled to reflect upon the great truth that in some instances, including in this case poor medical care, “anything” isn’t always better than “nothing at all”. And of course, we have to laugh a little when we reflect that had we known at the beginning, Kristin could have started pre-natal care at any doctor she chose right after I signed my oath in June, but instead we waited several weeks to get the “better” option.

Favorite Toddler Quotes

2011-09-06T23:34:00.001-04:00

I love that at 3 1/2 Kaela has full ability to talk and explain, yet still has those moments of complete missing logic. These are the winning quotes of the day from her.

“She says it’s awesome” “Kaela, what does awesome mean?” “Um, I think it means peaches.”

“Eliora’s tummy is getting bigger like Mommy’s.” “Kaela, why is mommy’s tummy getting bigger?” I think because she eats too much food.”

“The apple sauce really helps my bug bites. They are getting better because I’m eating applesauce.”

“I want to be ugly!!!”

“After we have a new little baby who wears teeny tiny diapers,um, can we have Eliora back?”

Ward Playgroup

2011-08-30T14:31:00.001-04:00

When we moved into our ward 6 months ago my first question to the RS president was, “When does playgroup meet?” But they didn’t have a playgroup and I was very sad. So, with the support of the Relief Society and my husband’s keys to the building, I am starting the playgroup. We have had a pretty good turn out, now that we have met three times.

Our first time was a Water Festival and we had many things to do. I froze water balloons with colored water (The favorite), had many dumping toys, a sprinkler going, water balloons, boats…. The kids were soaked, and we had a great time.

Last week we did paint. I have some powdered tempera paint and mixed the primary colors and let the kids go to town. Lots of different ways to paint – brushes, partly filled balloons, roller, stencils. We did thick finger paint too, but it turned out chunky and not as much fun. The tables had tons of paint on them, as did all the kids.

This week we did bubbles. Something they liked, but I would not do again – add paint to the solution and let them blow through straws. You can make a print from the bubbles that looks very cool, but it was WAY more mess than I thought it would be. But we had different kinds of wands, shaving cream, sudsy bubbles from dish detergent. They were all fun. Look closely and you can see red paint all over Kaela’s face.

And every week has ended up with us needing a major cleanup job.

It’s a Boy!

2011-08-23T13:56:00.001-04:00

A big announcement from the Johnson family: we are having a BOY! None of the ultrasound pictures we got turned out very well, so rather than showing you a skeletal baby face, you will just have to imagine it. I had really gotten it into my head that we were doomed to have three teenage daughters together, and pretty well convinced Lee of the same. So when the ultrasound tech asked, “What do you think your having?” I stared at the screen for several seconds before I timidly said, “It looks like a boy”. Lee and I have been in a small state of shock this weekend thinking about it, but we are now starting to get excited. What will I do with all these girl clothes?

The San Juan Islands

2011-08-19T09:50:00.001-04:00

Well, I do want to finish up words about our trip, and it has been a long time since I posted. Our pictures are stored on an external hard drive and the driver fried a few weeks ago and I’ve been waiting for Lee to fix it so I can access everything. So, I believe that right now I have pictures and can continue our long saga.

After our hike with Jon and Danielle, we went and rescued our kids and drove up the the San Juan Islands. There are 4 main islands out in the Puget Sound, directly west of Seattle. They call it a desert rainforest up there because they are left with considerably less rain because it dumps all the rain on the surround areas instead. It was breathtaking.

We camped each night on Lopez Island. We tried the girls in their own tent the first night and it wasn’t very successful. No sleep for mom and dad. In the car they were much warmer and more sheltered from outside noises, so they slept better there.

We took ferries between the islands each day. Each island has it’s own character traits as the locals try to make each place different. I loved the sculpture garden that was full of very expensive pottery and sculptures. There was handmade art everywhere.

We climbed to the top of their highest mountain and could see all around. It was cloudy, but we could see out to the mainland and across to Canada. And we spent a day kayaking in a borrowed sea kayak.

This was Kaela’s first attempt to use chopsticks and I thought the result was memorable.

We all went out on a fun whale watching tour. I was seasick the whole time. But everyone else enjoyed the boat and we followed a pod of orcas around the island.

We ate good food, made fun memories and best of all spent it with friends. It was a memorable vacation, and I’m glad we went. It is probably about time I catch up on more current events, so this is probably the last of our UT/WA tour that ended two months ago.

Hiking the Olympic Peninsula

2011-07-23T22:43:00.001-04:00

We are finally getting to the best part of the trip! (Now that I have been home for a month.) We were able to go backpacking with some good friends through the Olympic Peninsula, the rainiest area of America. Lee was on his mission with Jon and roomed together at BYU after. Jon and Danielle were already married when I came into the picture, but they were one of the couples with us on our first date…. In short, very good friends who we don’t do very much with since we have been on the east coast and them on the west.

Lee’s sister, Nixie, watched our girls and Danielle’s mom watched their three little ones, and we were off for an adventure! We started out by driving through Forks (for all those Twilight fans) and started our hike on the beach.

It was stunning. We were walking through a temperate rainforest that was the home to many rare animals. The beach was lined by tall cliffs that towered 300 feet above us and the ocean on the other side. If the hike were designed to be easy, we would have hiked straight along the beach for all 20 miles. It was not an easy hike. There were many places the cliff went far out into the water and had to be crossed over-land – meaning that we climbed up those 300 feet of cliff to hike a mile over, to drop back down to the beach on the other side. It was really muddy. And very steep. There was definitely a trail, but it was not a nice, well kept, dry day trail. This one was only for those real serious, backpackers who enjoy the thrill. I wish I had a picture

It was steep. That was a trail marker on the tree.

We started out trying to skirt the mud, but by the end we just sloshed through all 6 inches of it.

The first night we camped on the beach right across the water from a Bald eagle nest and could see and hear the pair of eagles.

Speaking of footprints…. We saw a Sasquatch. We knew we were in that country, but it was a very strange sight to see and we tried to skirt around it without noticing us. We found the footprint of another. And cool sea life.

The hike was a total of just shy of 20 miles, over 4 days. The second day was Sunday and we wanted to keep it a day of rest and not hike much. But, because of misinformation, getting lost and wandering the rainforest, and there not being a campsite with water where we thought there was…. we ended up hiking about 10 miles that Sunday. It worked out because then Monday we were only a few miles from the car and finished a day early.

Happy 5th Anniversary!

Time in Washington

2011-07-14T21:49:00.001-04:00

Well, continuing our timeline, we next drove up to La Center Washington to visit Lee’s parents. I think by this time of the trip we were starting to get tired of taking pictures, or maybe we stopped doing something outside everyday and ‘around the house’ pictures aren’t as much fun.

We went to the Portland Rose Garden, thinking that June would be gorgeous and of the thousands of roses there, there was 1 in bloom. Very sad visit. So, right around the corner was the Children’s Museum and we played the afternoon.

I had never before seen Mt. St. Helen’s and want to see the famous volcano. As the crow flies, it’s about 1/2 hour from La Center, but it takes about 2 hours of driving.

Our first views were a bit disappointing:

The fog was so thick you couldn’t see the end of the parking lot, let alone the observatory, and not even close to the mountain.

But we ate some lunch in the car and the clouds blew out and we could see the mountain.

It is actually hugely impressive to see and I recommend it to anyone.

These pictures I didn’t take, but they are good “Before and After” the explosion of 1980. There was no lava, no huge fire destroying disaster, but it set ash flying north easily to cover Canada and east to Idaho in a matter of hours. The mudflows caused more damage than any other natural disaster in the US.

The day before the explosion Two years after

It shot off 1300 ft of elevation from the mountain and left a crater two miles wide. The power in the earth is incredible.

Time in Salt Lake

2011-07-09T15:18:00.001-04:00

So, for some time before, and after Bryce Canyon, we spent it with my family in West Jordan. I must say that we went a lot of places and kept ourselves quite busy.

The Children’s Museum at Gateway

The Hogle Zoo

Wheeler Farm

The Park

Lee took Kaela on their own Daddy-Daughter campout. We were worried they would freeze in the snow, but they were ok and almost warm the next morning.

But mostly we played at my parents house – the telephone pole swings were Eliora’s favorite, and the trampoline was Kaela’s. I liked the hammock best.

We saw all kinds of family, and it was so neat to have all five of us siblings together. I guess the kids were the cutest, because we really don’t have pictures of the adults. We miss green Utah now that we are back in draught-ridden San Antonio, but we miss the people most of all.

Doctor Johnson

2011-07-04T14:52:00.001-04:00

Lee has reached many achievements in the past month, and we are so proud of him.

The greatest news is that he has graduated the New England College of Optometry and is officially an Optometry Doctor (OD) and can claim his new title of Dr. Johnson.

We have reported for Active Duty in the US ARMY, so Lee has been sworn in as Captain Johnson. We will be doing a one year residency program, then we will have a five year active duty service obligation after that. So, a total of six years doing optometry in the military, unless we like it and decide to stay.

We add that to his MS degree last year and he can now be known as Captain Doctor Johnson, Master (who knows what order those should go in). Mostly, he just goes by Lee.

Congratulations!

Bryce Canyon

2011-07-02T17:15:00.001-04:00

I’m going to go a bit out of order here, since we went from Kanab up to Salt Lake and then back down to southern Utah with all my family. We were all there but Kimberly’s new husband Seth who was busy packing up their house to move.

I will warn now, that the folder that holds the Bryce Canyon pictures, has nearly 350 pictures and is almost a Gb in size. I’ve really tried to choose just my favorites….

Lee found some beautiful vistas where he kissed me.

And my mom was so much fun with all her grandkids around: Kaela, Eliora, Kaleb and Joey.

They had lots of fun, each with lots of love and attention.

The scenery was beautiful and fun to hike through

Our longest hike started with long, steep switchbacks, so here are each of us on a level.

and that is Adam making a space for himself in the mountain.

We had lots of good food! Lots and Lots and Lots!

Marci is the first person I know who prefers marshmallows burnt on the outside and still cold on the inside

And a wonderful time with all my family.

Our Trip to Utah and Washington

2011-06-28T09:07:00.001-04:00

I thought I would do a quick outline of our whole month long road trip on our way from San Antonio up to La Center, WA to share some of our pictures of our many adventures.

We left San Antonio the 18th of May and drove about 20 hours to arrive in Kanab, UT. There were many potty break along the way, and it ended up being quite a few more than 20 hours, but we did make it the next morning by driving straight through the night.

We stopped at Lee’s grandparents’ house to enjoy their company.

Eliora loved their Boston bull-terrier named Baxter. She would hold her hand up to his nose and giggle wildly when he licked it.

Grandpa took us out riding in his jeep across mostly untraveled trails of southern Utah. Kaela loved it.

They also took us to Pipe Springs, an old Mormon fort. Supposedly somewhere there is a picture of Lee is this same wagon. That is why we ignored the sign that says, “Keep Off”.

We were grossly under-prepared for the weather. In May and June we were experiencing mostly days in the 90s in TX, and thought we’d be in for some nice 70-80 degree weather. But the gods of Utah nature had decreed it only be on the 50s, so we had to borrow jackets.

Luckily we found a small one for Eliora, and only Kaela had to be drowned in Grandma’s blue jacket.

We had lots of fun at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes, mostly dumping and sifting.

I am sad to say that in the whole trip, I didn’t get a single picture of Lee’s wonderful grandparents, Jay and Mignon Johnson.

My Sisters

2011-06-23T22:42:00.001-04:00

While we were visiting Utah, Shannon was the photographer and captured most of our times together. She got some good pictures of each of my sisters:

Kimberly

Marci

Shannon

Kristin

Karalee

New Phone Numbers

2011-06-19T09:54:00.001-04:00

Ok everybody, so we are now back in San Antonio from our big long vacation, and we’ll be trying to get posts up this week about everything we did. We just wanted to get this up quickly so everyone can change their contact list. We’ve got new phone numbers. Our current numbers:

Lee: 617-237-0348

Kristin: 617-302-7544

These numbers will continue to work normally for calling or texting us. The change is that we now have numbers that will be free to call (they go to our cel phones) if you guys use Verizon. The new numbers are as follows:

Lee: 360-601-2953

Kristin: 360-601-2945

Please don’t text these numbers, though, just continue to use our current numbers for that. And if you don’t use Verizon, you can disregard this. Oh, and our old Boston numbers (the ones that start with 857) will stop working in a week.

Rainy Day!

2011-05-13T15:28:00.001-04:00

Our three months in San Antonio has seen many cloudy days, but not a drop of rain. It has been getting hot (like 95 degrees in April!) and everything getting dry. But today the Lord sent us a thunderstorm. We had hours of downpour and loved every minute of it.

We sang rain songs – I had no idea I could come up with so many.

And we went out into the rain.

Kaela just stuck her hands and feel into the drips, but Eliora couldn’t contain the wonder and go soaked through.

When she started shivering from the cold wet, I decided it was time to come inside

But Eliora did not like that.

Until she got wrapped in a warm towel.

Lee tells me that I am going to get my girls sick, getting them all cold and wet and then not even thinking to put them in a warm bath. We had so much fun enjoying the weather today!

Finishing up our House

2011-04-14T14:05:00.001-04:00

We have been working hard to finish furnishing our house, but really it was Lee who did the finishing. While I was in AZ for Kimberly’s wedding, Lee was so busy. The first thing I saw when I walked into the house was:

The Bookshelf

The wood is pretty inexpensive, so he spent a bunch of time sanding, finishing and coating it to make it look so nice. It is very sturdy and it is wonderful to be able to unpack all the boxes. But the surprises kept coming.

The Pantry

Lee took our coat closet and gave me a space to store food. The kitchen cupboards are filled all the way with dishes, pots, accessories and there is very little space for real food in the kitchen. So he saved us by building me a nice set of shelves. We are still filling it will cans/ boxed goods and that will take us a while. Don’t worry, we have another closet for coats, vacuum and things that normally go in a coat closet.

The Bunkbeds

Kaela gets a real bed, no more cot on the floor! Though the room now doesn’t feel quite so large, she is loving being a big girl and climbing the ladder by herself. Eliora is in her tent on the bed, for containment and custom sake, but she can also climb up into it from the floor.

The Bedroom

This was the biggest surprise, both in size and unexpectedness. We had gone looking at bedroom sets together the week before and amazed at how pricey everything was. We decided that we would stay sleeping on our air mattress for another few months while we thought about that. Well, Lee decided that with a nice tax refund just arrived, we could afford to make the plunge now, rather than loose sleep for months. I am so, so happy. He brought home my favorite bed, though he didn’t know that it was the one I wanted. I have never slept so well.

Kimberly’s Wedding

2011-04-05T20:15:00.001-04:00

On March 17th, my sister Kimberly was married to Seth Allen in the Mesa, AZ temple.

The wedding was a blast with lots of fun and beautiful people. Here are some of the pictures from my camera, though her photographer was incredible and got many better ones. Mine are of the family, not so much the bride and groom, sadly.

What I talked my wife into. . .

2011-03-08T23:00:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I honestly can’t say I feel too much remorse for this one:

So when we left Boston, we sold our piano on Criagslist, and despite having lost it I was still asked to play in our ward in Madrid. I had to go to the Church during the week to practice. I told Kristin I really wanted to replace the piano, and that I wanted to get a nice one that would last a long time and that I would love to play. So after several weeks of browsing and comparing prices online, we finally went down to a local piano dealer. I got to sit down and play on several, and we finally found one that we loved. We went home and thought about it, and then finally took the plunge. This 6’1” shiny black thing is the newest addition to our home, and we are in love with it (especially Eliora, as you can see). It was kept in a church and only used for recitals, so it was practically new even though we got it for a lot less than we would have expected.

On other notes, this week we arrived here in San Antonio! We love it here (now that everyone has recovered from the jetlag). The ward is friendly, our apartment is only 5 minutes from my work – we couldn’t ask for much more. This last weekend I day-rented a U-Haul and spent the afternoon chasing Craigslist ads to replace all the furniture that we got rid of when we moved away from Boston.

We got new couches:

And a new kitchen table:

Beds are still on the list. Oh, and for the first time in our married life we have a table where the chairs actually MATCH the table! It truly feels like our student lives are almost over. . .

Anyway, our house is getting set up, Kaela is very excited now that we are in Texas (she says so frequently, though I’m not sure she understands what Texas is), and all in all life is good.

Flamenco

2011-02-24T02:16:00.001-05:00

Last night we went to El Tablao de Moreria, the oldest and most famous Flamenco restaurant in Madrid and it was fantastic.

We arrived for our 8:00 reservation just a few minutes early and waited till the restaurant opened it’s doors. We were seated and given a menu. When we made the reservation we had made it for dinner and the show, and paid for it then. It sounded like dinner and show were included in one price, and for 38 euro a piece, that seemed like a nice dinner and show, it translates to about $104 for the both of us. But when we got there we found that wasn’t the case – we had only paid for the show, and that was the cheaper part.

Dinner was delicious. For starters we had soup: Lee ordered gazpacho and I had cream of mushroom. But picture a small bowl of soup that cost $20 and you will know it was excellent. (We actually traded soups because they were super good – being married is great.) For dinner Lee got salmon, and I steak; both were served with potatoes and I’m sure I’ve never had better steak in all my existence.

Lastly there was a chocolate dessert with ice cream, that tasted just like my grandma’s homemade ice cream. Oh, it was all so good. But really, though it was probably the fanciest restaurant I’ve ever been to, I didn’t take pictures of the food and we were really there to see the dance.

The most amazing part of the dance is the sound. I could not believe the amount of noise that came off that stage. The show had so much “tap-dancing”, but it was so much more than tap dancing since they had no taps and it was so much louder, faster and breath-taking. The hand clapping and the vocal that could overcome all the noise. Amazing.

The stage seems tiny for a dance floor, it is hard to imagine one single dancer there, but they always have at least 7 people on the stage. A flamenco troupe is made up of three guitars, three singers, three chorus dancers, and two main dancers, male and female.

We heard some vocal solos, some guitar solos, some dance solos, and many combinations of all. The dance uses everything it has space to use – the dresses, the shawls, the castanas, the shoes, hands, and body movement – it was all needed to make Flamenco.

Corral de la Moreria: Flamenco Dance Ensemble with Castanas

We almost don’t want to post the video because it does no justice to the dance at all. The music is provided by who you see on stage. Three guitarists doing amazing fingerwork, three vocalists that have powerful voices, hand clapping, feet stamping, shoes clacking, the castanas (clackers in hands) and all in all I can’t believe the audio is so quiet. So, I’m sorry that this shows nothing of the experience, but it does show a bit of the dance.

The Zoo

2011-02-22T06:42:00.001-05:00

Well, today is Tuesday and we are leaving on Thursday. My goodness! But in the meantime, I thought I’d post a few pictures.

Last week we went to the zoo, the girls and me. I wasn’t expecting too much, but I was really quite impressed. The zoo wasn’t that large in area, but it had a lot of animals, quite a number of which I’d never seen before. The part that was the best was that the cages were small with lots of animals and we got to get quite close and see the animals. I know that isn’t very animal friendly, but it was perfect for little kids.

Flamingos and cranes. They had cranes all over the park, building huge nests on top of the elephant house and light poles and everything. They would clatter their beaks together and make a huge racket the whole zoo over.

This bear thing was a show-off and stood and waved at everyone. He had leopard print all over his neck and tummy, but looked mostly like a bear. His name was in Spanish and I can’t remember what he is.

The panda bear cubs are only two months old and the crown jewel of the Madrid zoo, they are the only giant pandas born in Europe in 2010.

The giraffes were close enough that if he reached and I reached, we could have touched. I’ve never been so close before.

They had a huge marine animal section with penguins, seals, sea lions and dolphins on top of a quite impressive aquarium with giant sea turtles, sharks, rays and other fish.

This peacock was showing off for the girl – I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a display before. Quite cool.

The best part of all was that they did a whole dolphin show for us. They had 6 adults and 4 babies and they showed us all sorts of tricks – jumps, flips, spins, dancing, walking on water and more. The girls just loved that part.

I’m told that the San Antonio zoo is quite impressive too, but we had a great time seeing the animals here.

Spanish Recipes, Pt II

2011-02-20T16:08:00.001-05:00

Don’t think that I haven’t been cooking, just not posting enough of what we eat. I promise that I only post recipes that I think are worth eating. So, if you are interested in making something slightly foreign, I’m including the recipes with the photos. This is my garbanzo bean day, because I soaked way too many garbanzos and had to find good things to use them for.

Ropa Vieja – Old Clothes

4 people

1 lb roast or ribs, beef

1/2 lb dry garbanzo beans,

1 large onion

2 large bell peppers, red and green

4 garlic cloves

1/2 c bacon

1/2 c. chorizo*

3 medium potatoes, cubed

2 laurel leaves

thyme, salt, pepper

Though this is not how the recipe says to do it, I would put the meat and the garbanzos in a crockpot 8 hours, or overnight on low until they are both done. If you want to do it the hard way, go ahead and soak the beans then cook them and the meat together 3 hours until they are done.

In a frying pan, cook the cubed potatoes until they are done and golden. Next, cook the onion, peppers and garlic. Then cook the bacon and chorizo.

Put everything but the potatoes together with the meat and beans and cook it 10-15 minutes for the flavors to meld. Just before serving, add the potatoes, heat to temperature and serve! Mmmmmmm

*Note: Spanish chorizo is hugely different from Mexican chorizo. It is hard, seasoned and dried sausage that you cut into circles. Mexican is like ground pork with lots of spices. It may be called Iberian Chorizo, or just leave it out and add 1/2 t. paprika.

Puchero De Verano – Summer Stew

6 people

1/2 lb dry garbanzos

1 lb potatoes

1/2 lb green beans

1/2 lb squash (winter squash, or pumpkin)

2 eggplant (sm –med)

4 pears

1 ripe tomato

1 small onion

1 t. paprika (I’m not kidding)

mint (fresh, I used about 1/4 c. c)

saffron - I used it the first time, and not the second and couldn’t tell the difference

water

Soak the garbanzos over night. Cut all the vegetables – it took me a LONG time, but I promise it is worth it.(Maybe you will be lucky and find it all frozen and not have to cut a thing.) The eggplant is best if you let is soak in salty water for 15 minutes before adding it. Cook the beans 1 1/2 hours and then add the pears, potatoes, pumpkin, green beans and eggplant.

In a separate pan, fry the onion until golden and then add the diced tomato and let it cook 3 minutes to evaporate some of the liquid. Add the spices.

Add the onion mix to the beans and add enough water to cover. Cook 15 minutes and serve with fresh bread!

Garbanzos con espinacas y almendras – Almond Spinach Garbanzos

4 people – this is best as a side dish, though we did add bacon and made it even better.

1/2 lb dry garbanzos, soaked overnight

1/4 c toasted almonds

1 lb spinach, it sounds like a lot but it is really good

1 large ripe tomato

1 laurel leaf

2 garlic cloves

1 onion, diced

1/2 tsp paprika

1 T flour

oil

salt, pepper

1. Cook the soaked garbanzos with the diced onion, garlic, and laurel leaf. Cook till beans are done.

2. Drain the beans, retaining the water.

3. make a light sauce: heat up some oil and add the flour and cook till starts to brown. Add the paprika. Stir in a bit of the cooking liquid until the sauce is right.

4. Wash the spinach and chop it. In a large frying pan with oil, cook the spinach and diced tomato. Cover and cook it another minute.

5. Cover the garbanzos with the sauce, then add the spinach and almonds. Cook together 10 minutes.

Rowing in Retiro

2011-02-17T03:08:00.001-05:00

We are trying to do everything we can possibly do with our remaining time left here in Madrid and Spain. We are coming back to the states on Feb 24th, just 7 days left.

This weekend we went to El Parque de Retiro and rented a boat and rowed out on the lake. It was less than 5 euros, we got to go for 45 minutes, and they let us take the girls (without life jackets – I’m sure that wouldn’t happen in the US). The sun was out, the sky blue and a perfect day to be out together.

Lee did most of the rowing, but he did give Kaela and I a chance. We loved hearing the street musicians while people gathered in the park.

Of course, we can’t go outside without visiting the playground….

Barcelona

2011-02-14T09:48:00.001-05:00

For my birthday, we took the high velocity train over to Barcelona, a place we were told we HAD to see before we left Spain. We were told that Barcelona was redesigned near the turn of the 20th century by several warring architects and the building structures are incredible. And I must say, that the pictures don’t do justice to so much of what we saw.

In Barcelona they don’t speak Spanish, they speak Catalan. I’m told that the whole state has hopes of independence, but that isn’t going anywhere yet. Though most people we talked to spoke Spanish, all the signs and stores, and elevator voice all were Catalan, which is kind of a hybrid between Spanish and French.

The Plaza of Catalunya is filled with pidgeons and Kaela had fun chasing them around. There is also a fountain there that has the story that if you drink from it you are destined to return to Barcelona. I didn’t read that until after, so we will have to go back someday….

We climbed a giant mountain that they called the whole thing a park. On the tip top there was the olympic stadium (from ‘92) ,an incredible art museum and a view of the whole city.

What I will remember most of Barcelona was the stairs. We carried that stroller up stairs and down stairs and up more, especially in the metro. We were so exhausted, only to get to our hotel/apartment and find that we were on the 6th floor – no elevator. Wow. There were bunches of times that Eliora was at the bottom in the stroller and Kaela refusing to walk one more stair.

The next morning we went and saw the crowning jewel of Barcelona, The Sagrada Familia. It is a cathedral that was started sometime in the late 1800s and is still under construction because it is really that much work and detail. The majority of the design was by Gaudi, who does “Modernist”, which translates to me as “Strange”. Strange as it was, it was probably the most impressive building I have ever seen. Far larger than I expected and detailed to the maximum. There is a belief that when the building is finally finished, the world will come to and end. This is the façade where Gaudi spent much of his life work, depicting the birth of Christ. The next building is also by Guadi called the Pedrera, the Stone Quarry.

Then we went to the Parc de Cuidadano where I think that everyone in Barcelona meets on Sunday afternoons to sit on the grass and enjoy themselves. There were hundreds of people there, renting bikes and carriages, lunching, rowing on the lake…. And lots of performers. It wasn’t street performers, but just people out practicing, showing off and enjoying themselves. There were these three guys, motorcycle dudes, up tap dancing. They didn’t have anything out for you to give them money, just up there to dance We saw a tight rope walker, and juggler, and a lot of people just playing around, it was very fun.

This is getting way long, but we even made it to see the sun set over the Mediterranean sea. Eliora ate the sand and Kaela and I put our fingers in the cold water. It was a very cool visit.

Residency in San Antonio

2011-02-08T03:58:00.001-05:00

We just got big news that Lee has been awarded the Residency spot in San Antonio, TX on Brook Army Base! We now know that we will be in San Antonio for a year and a half, and we are so grateful to have a little more stability. (Not knowing where we will be in 3 months has been hard for me, so it is wonderful to know.)

There were three residency openings: one in San Antonio, one in West Point, NY, and one in North Carolina. They told us that this was the most competitive year they have ever had in selecting for their residency programs and we were fortunate to get San Antonio, where we wanted to stay. I am so proud of Lee, he has worked very hard through school and now it has a little payback.

Residency programs are intensive specialty training after you have gotten you OD degree. Lee will mostly be working in the eye clinic, but he will probably be attending seminars and doing a couple projects, probably alongside one of the ophthalmology schools. The program is a year long, and it will double our military obligation to 6 years. One good thing is that Lee will still be getting his entire salary and we are very excited to be graduating and getting money rather than giving it.

We have been told so many good things about San Antonio, so we are excited to go and see it for ourselves.

Segovia

2011-01-31T12:01:00.001-05:00

We took a daytrip to Segovia, a nice little town a couple hours out of Madrid – well, we actually took a high velocity train and got there in 25 minutes. We went when my parents were here, but liked it so much that we went again last weekend to see everything we hadn’t done yet. The pictures are a mix from both trips.

Firstly, the most amazing thing in all of Segovia is their roman aqueduct. It’s this beautiful, huge feature that was meant to bring water to the city 2000 years ago. It was built around 50 A.D. and was still delivering water to the city until 2004, when it started to leak very badly and now they are just trying to preserve it. At its tallest it is 94’ high.

We walked to the end of it, but they have just put up a monument and don’t show where it continued to stretch for miles up to the river. Ah well, it would have been neat to see.

The next most incredible thing we saw the the Cathedral. The main one in Madrid pales against how incredible the cathedral of Segovia is.

The inside was beautiful too. There was the main alter, but it was surrounded all around by different chapels to different saints. There was a lot of blood and it was a bit gory. This is where Queen Isabel (de los Reyes Catolicos) was crowned queen and I think it was also where she was married to Ferdinand.

The last major thing we saw was the Alcazar, which is the castle. It is claimed that Disney used this castle to fashion the castle of Sleeping Beauty. This is the castle fortress where Ferdinand and Isabel, Los Reyes Catolicos, began their reign together. It has been used as a fortress, palace, a military school and a prison for very important guests. It was wonderful to see.

If anyone is visiting Madrid, I would say that the absolutely best place to go on a day trip is Segovia. I hope everyone can see it someday.

Happy Birthday Eliora!

2011-01-28T15:08:00.001-05:00

Eliora just celebrated her 1st birthday! She turned 1 year old on Jan 27th.

Eliora Jean Johnson is a complete joy to our life. We call her our angel, (or Kaela calls her our princess) because she is always so happy. She smiles at everyone, tries to make friends with every person on the street or subway. At home she is a very content little one. We are so blessed to have such a sweet spirit in our home.

We had a fun day. Lee only had to work during the morning, so we took a stroller ride over to his work during the last patients and played with the Doctor Office toys while he finished up. We had lunch in a park and went over to Plaza Mayor (which was not nearly as exciting a plaza as I would have thought). From there we decided to go to the Chocolateria de San Gines. It was a very touristy thing to do – it is a very old café where they have always served primarily hot chocolate. Their walls are covered in photos of famous people who have been there. We ordered cups of chocolate and churros. Mmmmmmmm. Eliora had her fingers in my cup before I could stop her.

We came home and after dinner and we all had cake and ice cream! The cake was supposed to be a butterfly, but I think it looked much more like a white bat. Oh well, I’ve got limited resources in this kitchen. Eliora loved her first taste of ice cream. It was definitely a bigger hit than the cake, which she didn’t want to touch after two tastes of ice cream.

She did need a little help with the candle

Avila

2011-01-27T12:34:00.001-05:00

Another place we have visited is Avila, where they have the largest lit up monument in the world, their complete city walls. Another thing that Avila is famous for that it is Spain highest city, and consequently one of the coldest. It has nothing on New England, but they do get snow here maybe once or twice a year. That was the first train we’ve taken that was not a Maximum Velocity train and it took about 2 hours to get there, even though it was closer than the places that have only taken us 25 minutes.

The walls were built around 1090 and are still complete. They were very neat to see, they look so medieval (which they are). Towers, guard towers, and cars driving up the streets that were made for carts and horses.

We took a cute little train around the outside of the old city to see all the walls and saw some cool views, but didn’t take many pictures.

Every town has an incredible cathedral, and Avila was no exception.

The other thing that Avila is famous for are Yemas. Literally that translates as egg yolks, but it has changed mostly to mean all kinds of sweets that the nuns of Avila make and sell and we got to enjoy some of them. We had a cream, chocolate, and wafer delicious confection, and some chocolate almonds and hedgehogs. Aren’t they cute? To let you know, we have also tried the traditional Yemas. They tasted like they had been make by mixing raw egg yolks and sugar and I hope that no one else ever buys them!

Spanish Food, pt 1

2011-01-24T09:17:00.001-05:00

Our first week here Lee bought me an early Christmas present of two Spanish Cookbooks. So, I have been concocting some delicious and beautiful dishes. I can report on some of the good things I have eaten, including how I made them. Likewise everything is in metric, so since anyone who will read this uses an American system, I will change it the best I can. The recipes take lots of space and quite a bit of work to translate and convert, so I’ll save a couple of my favorites for another day.

Huevos Rellenos Dulces (Sweet Stuffed Eggs)

6 Hard boiled eggs

2 raw eggs, beaten

1 c ground almonds

1 c bread crumbs (or crushed corn flakes or similar)

1/2 c sugar

1/4 c flour

oil

1. Cut the hard boiled eggs in half and remove the yolks. Mash them well with the sugar and almonds.

2. Stuff the filling back into the egg halves to make them look like a complete egg.

3. Pass the egg halves through each of the following: flour, beaten eggs and bread crumbs and fry them in hot oil until they are golden brown.

4. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve!

Huevos Rellenos (Savory Stuffed Eggs)

8 hard boiled eggs

1/2 lb hake, or other white fish

1/2 c tomato sauce

3 T flour

3 T butter

1 c milk

nutmeg, salt, pepper

Boil the fish just a couple minutes with salt. Drain, remove skin and bones and shred.
Mix fish with tomato sauce to make a mixture for stuffing. Stuff the egg whites.
In a sauce pan melt the butter and add the flour. Cook several minutes as a roux, add the warm milk. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Cover the eggs with the sauce and decorate with the whole egg yolks.

Calabacines y Patatas Rellenos de Valdelagorfa (Stuffed Zucchini and Potatoes from Valdelagorfa)

2 medium zucchini

1 1/3 lbs ground pork

2 garlic cloves

3 Tb flour

1/2 med onion

2 ripe tomatoes

2 potatoes

2 eggs

parsley

water

salt, pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare the filling by mixing the meat, diced garlic, 2 T flour, diced parsley, eggs. Season well with salt and pepper. Cook in a frying pan till nearly done.

2. Wash the zucchini and potatoes, cut them lengthwise in half and core out a section of each. Salt and pepper each. Put 1/2 t. of butter in the center of each potato half.

3. Fill the empty center of the vegetables with the filling.

4. Place the zucchinis and potatoes in a baking dish and fill with 1/4” of water. Cook in the oven for 30-40 minutes until tender.

5. Put the extra vegetable pieces, with the diced tomatoes, and diced onion in a pan and sauté them to make a sauce, adding 1 T flour and water if necessary. Put sauce over the vegetable before serving.

*Note: Surprisingly, the zucchinis are MUCH better than that potatoes, so the second time we made it I didn’t both with any potatoes and we enjoyed it with just zucchini.

Conejo Despatarrado (Rabbit)

I think I would have been shocked to find a complete hare in a Boston grocery store, but here it seems to be pretty standard. No skin or ears, don’t worry, it looked mostly like meat and bones.

1 rabbit, ~3 lbs

1/2 c onion

1/2 c. chopped carrots

10 toasted almonds

1/2 c oil

1/2 c water

parsley, salt

1. Prepare the rabbit by removing any entrails etc and lay him chest down in a baking dish. Cover with the oil and water and surround by the chopped onion. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Chop the carrot into tiny pieces, and the almond and parsley. Mix well.

3. Heat the oven to 350 and when it is hot, put in the rabbit and cook it 20-30 minutes.

4. Cover the meat with the carrot mixture and cook an additional 20-30 minutes until the meat is done.

*Note: When I made this the water boiled and sprayed oil all over my oven. I would put a tinfoil tent over to keep the mess contained. The meat was so, SO tender. It had a taste like chicken, but moister.

Many, many recipes call for azafran, or Saffron. Saffron is cultivated here and you can find it in any supermarket, but it is also the world’s most expensive spice. This packet held about 1/4 tsp and cost the same as a jar of any other spice. I’ve only used it once.

Dia De Los Reyes Magos

2011-01-10T11:20:00.001-05:00

This week we had Dia de los Reyes, or King’s Day, the day by custom that they celebrate the three Wisemen arriving at Bethlehem. In Spain, that is when the kings deliver presents to all the children. The kids here write letters to Los Reyes Magos in the same way that in the US we write letters to Santa Claus. In the first picture you can see both Santa climbing into one balcony with the three kings climbing into another. (click for larger view)

Since Kings Day is such a large custom here, they have a lot of traditions surrounding the kings. There were three kings, one from each continent, Europe, Asia and Africa named respectively Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar. The gifts they brought also mean different things: gold because Christ was a king, frankincense because he was divine, myrrh because he would die for us all.

Here in Madrid we had a grand parade that started at 6:30 pm, afterward there had fireworks, but by about 8:00 our girls were falling and we left after the parade. And what a parade it was! There were thousands of people gathered around the route, we were probably 8 rows back but luckily on a hill and could still see. They started with giant globes with people inside. She looked like a Christmas fairy.

They had several HUGE puppets and balloons

All the floats were lit up, since it was night. Yes, those are giant Smurfs. There was tons of candy, bubbles and lights that night. We had so much fun.

The float carrying the Three Kings at the end was huge, and you really can’t appreciate it from here, but it was spectacular. Perhaps you can appreciate the size of the crowd though….

The next morning we opened our eyes to filled stockings and presents. We have had a fun time.

On Kings Day everyone eats King Cake, or Roscon de Reyes, a large circular cake that has cream filling and a hole in the center. Inside there is a tiny figurine of a king. The person who gets that piece gets to be king for the day.

El Escorial

2011-01-06T12:27:00.001-05:00

Well, my parents left yesterday and we hope that they are nearly home. They ended up with a 12 hour layover in Chicago, so they were stuck there still waiting to get home (And as neither took their phones, I will take it on faith that they are alright. Although if they didn’t come back to my house after we left them at the airport metro stop, we’ll assume all is well.) We loved having them here and we will miss them terribly.

We also just found out that Lee doesn’t have work this week! This week is kinda like the week between Christmas and New Year’s in the US, where there is no school, lots less work and all around slow. It is because the big celebration day with gift giving and all is Kings Day, Jan 6th, when the three kings delivered their gifts to the baby Jesus.

So, because he had time off we decided to do some daytrips. We want to see Avila where it has the largest historical monument - their complete city walls - in the world. So, we woke early, rushed to the train station and got there to find it was the wrong station. But the worker still sold us tickets saying it was only a 12 min. metro ride to the next stop. Well, it took us 40 min to cross the city, I don’t know what she was talking about. We missed the train, which was non-refundable and were pretty frustrated. But they we decided to take a closer train to El Escorial, which was very cheap. There were stairs on the train! Eliora had a blast.

El Escorial is the place where the Tomb of the Kings is. There is a monastery where Spain has buried her Kings and royal families for centuries and we wanted to see that. But upon arriving, we found it more expensive than planned and since we’d used all our money on tickets to Avila, we couldn’t get in. But, I’ve got to tell that the whole city was covered in mist and made it very magical.

In wandering around El Escorial, they have set up the entire town to Bethlehem in life-size. It was by far the most incredible Nativity scene I have ever seen. They have filled streets and plazas with manikins of paper-mache. They had the obvious of shepherds, kings and the Christ-child, but they had so much more.

They had the pig sellers, vegetable stands (with real vegetables), birds…. it was HUGE!

There was one man who set up shop selling castañas (roasted chestnuts), dressed up like all the pretend sellers. We got to try chestnuts roasted on an open fire, for the first time. It really felt like Christmas.

They showed numerous scenes from Christ’s life: the flight into Egypt, the trial with Pilate washing his hands and the crowd choosing to free Barabas rather than Christ.

There is no way we would have seen anything like it in the US and I am glad to have seen it.

I’ve got to tell about the hot chocolate. It was nothing I expected. It was exactly what it said - hot chocolate, that is “chocolate that is hot”. It was a cup of melted chocolate that started to firm up as it cooled. It was kindof a thickish pudding. You could not drink it, but rather eat it with a spoon. It was a bit darker than milk chocolate. It was delicious!

We stopped for lunch, played at a park and took the train home. We had such a fun day. It felt like Christmas more that you can believe, surrounded by a magical mist, drinking hot chocolate, eating roasted chestnuts and walking thru Bethlehem.

Madrid, Segovia, Toledo

2011-01-02T02:02:00.001-05:00

Well, my parents arrived on Monday and we have been very busy. We have spent several days in Madrid and have in addition taken day-trips to Segovia and Toledo. Here are a few select photos:

Segovia Alcazar, the castle that supposedly Disney used as a model for Sleeping Beauty’s castle

La Puerta de Alcala, on the the original city gates back when Madrid had walls

The tree of European nations, all the leaves are shaped like the different countries

El Palacio Real, the royal palace of Spain

The roman aqueduct of Segovia, built nearly 2000 years ago and still in functional order!

Segovia’s Cathedral. We weren’t able to go inside because it was closed for the New Year, but it was incredible to see.

The main city gates into Toledo, a truly medieval city where it still has most of the walls intact

Inside Segovia’s Alcazar, the place where Ferdinand and Isabella lived when Columbus left for America.

The cathedral of Toledo, which was more intricately decorated than any other building we’ve seen.

Cosas de la Casa

2010-12-19T16:16:00.001-05:00

After all my words of saying I would post updates often, I look and it has already been a week and a half! Sorry. It’s not that we haven’t been busy. With Kaela not taking a nap anymore, time at the computer is rather valuable. I have to say that most of the things we are doing are ‘things of the house’, that are new for us, but not very exciting to read about. We are in our new apartment, going shopping, scoping out the neighborhood and more grocery shopping.

So, we have now been in our apartment a couple weeks and it is beginning to feel like home. It is beautiful! The person who furnished the apartment did a good job (I think every item here is from IKEA) and we like it a lot, although it is not kid-proof at all. We got a tiny artificial tree and a couple strands of lights to make it feel like Christmas, which I cannot believe is only a week away!

The apartment is two bedrooms, with one as a loft upstairs. The girls are downstairs and we are up. The stairs to the loft are terrifying. They are semi-spiral with no railing and huge spaces in between. At the top there is a railing that ends about a foot above the floor. Eliora easily could crawl under it; as a matter of fact, Lee doesn’t have much difficulty in sliding through. So, all in all, the stairs are barricaded and when the girls are upstairs, they are vigilantly watched.

In the bedroom downstairs there is a glass sliding door with some curtains to diminish the light. But the curtains are in sections and are lots of fun to tug on. I hope and pray that they last these next few months. Kaela knows not to play with them, but there are only so many ideas that a 10 month old can understand.

The kitchen is much bigger than the last, it has an oven and a few more dishes. For an early Christmas gift Lee bought me a couple Cocina Espanola cookbooks so I can become a real Spanish Cook. I’m sure I’ve got some pictures of the beautiful things I am making.

Going grocery shopping is a totally new experience here. There are three kinds of grocery stores: “mercados”, “super mercados”, and “super mercados grandes”. The first are like convenience stores that have the necessities like newly made bread, boxed milk and canned beans. The super mercados are small and have produce, meats and some frozen. Now the last ones, the Super Mercados Grandes are much more what I am looking for because they feel more American and I can usually find the things on my list. Things I have had a hard time finding: baking powder, brown sugar, chocolate chips, yeast. They sell flour and sugar in 1 kg (~2lbs) bags, which does not last long in baking. I guess people here don’t bake much.

Normally I take the stroller and whatever fits into the stroller is what can come home with us. That is not many groceries as you would think. I feel that I’ve been to the grocery store every other day to get a cartful. But we recently discovered that some of the big grocery stores offer free home delivery on certain days of the week. So, you go and choose everything you want, pay for it and they box it up and deliver it about an hour later! How cool is that? They keep frozen stuff in a freezer and bring everything right into the kitchen!

On another shopping note, we have recently been to El Corte Ingles (The English Court) and that is rather a cultural experience. Lee called it, “A modern day bazaar”. It is like a mall, or a department store, or both squished into one. If you have ever been to a real market where tons of vendors are squished together all in one place, people galore and general mayhem, it was like that but the vendors are Chanel, Bvalgari, Salvatore Ferragamo and other big names that I didn’t know before I worked in retail, and everyone working wears suits. The ‘store’ covers about 7 floors and has everything from clothing and shoes, to groceries and restaurants, to mobile phones and books. But it all flows together like a department store, where you can buy anything at any register across the 7 floors. Walking in there with all the people, I felt very small, and bit overwhelmed.

Important note: There are little parks everywhere. I think we have 4 within 3 blocks of our house. We visit them a lot. More later.

The Spanish Language

2010-12-09T04:52:00.001-05:00

You must be wondering how the language is affecting us all, in our first few days here.

Lee has already been able to fit in, give a couple eye exams in Spanish and buy us new cell phones. There are some times where we run into a mode of speaking that is different than Mexico that throws him off, but he is able to move about quite fluently.

As for me, I was very encouraged in church. The first time I went to church in Spanish was when I was 16 and a foreign exchange student in Mexico for a month. After the first hour my head was splitting and I had no idea what was going on. Days later I figured out that the meeting was about the Law of Tithing. Though my first experience at church here was really very encouraging. I not only understood the theme, but also many of the different accents of people. I would say that I am understanding near 80% of what is said. I am still afraid to go out, everyone talks so fast and they use vocabulary that is not my standard church stuff that I know. At least I have been shopping a couple times.

Kaela is learning quickly, though often I am not sure how much she understands, it is probably more than I give her credit. I’m not sure, because she won’t actually speak any Spanish. She will say that she is thirsty and I will ask, “Quieres agua o leche?” (Do you want water or milk) and she will look and me and say, “Milk”. Or yesterday I asked, “Tus manos tienen frios?” (Are your hands cold?) and she responded, “They will warm up by themselves.” She was a real trooper to be in nursery all by herself, all in Spanish.

I have a lot of things to learn. For example, Lee had me go shopping by myself, so I could brace the waters and gain confidence. I was looking for some detergent that was a for sensitive skin (both girls respond badly to strong soap) and I found something that said, “con agentes suavizantes” and I thought it meant with ‘gentle agents’ but found at home that it means ‘softening agents’. Close, but not quite. And I saw some orange juice, but when I got home, Lee told me it was ‘Refresco de naranja’ not ‘Jugo de naranja’, which means it is kind of like Tang or Sunny Delight and not orange juice.

There are some words that are different: bathroom is Aseo, not bano; peach is melocoton, not durazno. I can’t think of many more because I really haven’t been talking with many Spanish yet.

Yesterday we walked by a sign that said, “Prohibido fijar carteles aqui” and I couldn’t figure out what it said. I knew that something was prohibited, but ‘carteles’ sounds like drug cartels and I didn’t think they were saying it was illegal to sell drugs right there. But today we walked by again and I realized that it meant you can’t post advertisements there. So, in two days difference, things are making a little more sense.

Madrid, Spain

2010-12-05T19:09:00.001-05:00

Today is Sunday, Dec 5th and we have been in Madrid now three days. We had lots of ‘adventures’ getting here, but we are happy to be settled now. We are trying very hard with the language and Lee’s is very good and mine is better than I thought (I feel like I’m cheating, since I’m writing and thinking in English for this post, but not many people would understand it if it was Spanish ).

We left our apartment on Tuesday, Nov 30th, stayed a night at a good friend’s house (Thank You Rachel and Jeremy!) who were to take us to the airport the next morning. Wednesday morning we got a call that our flight from Boston the New York had been cancelled and we couldn’t make our connection to Spain. So, frantically Lee called and they decided to have us miss the bad NY weather altogether and sent us instead to Miami, and from there to Madrid. It would add a couple more hours, but at least we were going. It turned out that the flight from NY to Madrid was delayed because of weather, again and again and actually arrived in Spain after we did. So it was definitely for the best that we changed flights.

In Miami we had only 40 minutes between touch-down and take-off, so we ran to the gate and got on board with the last boarding group (whew!). We made it just in time, but our luggage did not. Some how that isn’t surprising, because, according to Murphy’s Law, that if we are moving across the ocean for three months, we could not go without loosing our luggage at least once. But it caught up to us just a day and a half later – luckily I had some essentials like diapers and pjs, but alas, poor Lee didn’t have pajamas or clothes to wear to clinic. So, he went to clinic the next day in jeans for orientation. Our first impressions of Madrid were of only the airport, which was very futuristic looking, with lots of glass, funny lights and I have no idea what those big white structures are for.

We moved into a cute furnished 1 bedroom apartment for this first week. Next week we will be moving somewhere larger that is closer to the clinic and downtown Madrid. But for now, we have 3 rooms: living room/ kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The girls keep the bedroom and we sleep on the futon. The kitchen has a sink, microwave, glass stove burner, teeny fridge and tiny (clothes) washer. All in all, very compact. But, it does have plates, bowls, cups,silverware, 2 pots and 2 pans. On first glance, that seem complete, but then you start wondering about little things like ovens, can openers, and dish cloths.

The bathroom is great. It has a bidet – I had to read about it on Wikipedia – which Kaela thinks is a little sink. At first, we were thought this very strange, and wanted her to use the normal sink, but we have since decided that it is great and let her use it as such, since it’s just her height, and it’s just soap and water either way. Eliora loves to go in and turn on the water and splash. We try and keep that door closed.

So, the first day was alright. I mean, we only had 3 or 4 hours of sleep that night and now we are 6 time zones further ahead, so there is a bunch of adjustment. We got in, took a taxi ride to the apartment, in which Kaela got sick and threw up. So that was quite an expensive taxi ride. We got here, we were all very tired, so Lee went shopping and got some essentials while us girls slept.

That night, it was perfect, almost. Because of the overnight plane ride, and the long nap in the middle of the day, both girls were tired just at their normal bedtime. Oh, how easy to transfer time zones! We put Kaela down at 8 and Eliora at 9:30. And Kaela was up at 11 and Eliora at 12:30. Both perfectly refreshed from long naps and wanting to be up and about. We tried to let Eliora fall back asleep, but our neighbor downstairs came up and said that he needed to get up for work at 5 am and could we PLEASE make them be quiet. So, we had a party on the living room floor until 4 am. And we slept in till 10:30. Lee was supposed to be at work at 10:00, but the doctor was very understanding.

We have been able to explore a little. We live near Cuatro Caminos (Four Roads) which seems to be a big shopping area. But everywhere we have walked there are tiny stores, everywhere. I was able to go to Lee’s clinic and meet Dr. Hidalgo, we have found a couple parks and have looked for cell phones to work here in Spain.

Today we went to church and it was nice to find somewhere where we fit in without much problem. There are even 3 or 4 American families here for one reason or another, so they have Sunday School and Relief Society in both Spanish and English (but we attended the Spanish). Kaela had to be carried out of nursery for the very first time to find Mom and Dad, but after Lee was there for 15 minutes, she was ok and we stayed in our meetings too.

I hope we have enough pictures, and I hope to post something new every few days!

New Phone Numbers

2010-11-27T23:43:00.001-05:00

Hello All! This is an update very similar to the update you saw a couple months ago. We had updated that we had changed phones and our numbers were no longer area code 857 but rather 617. Though the 857 number has still worked, it will cease to work come Wednesday Dec 1st because we are moving to Spain!

The 617 numbers should still work for both voicemail and texting, and maybe even calling, but give us a bit to work on that once we get to Spain.

For a reminder, the new numbers are:

Lee (617) 237-0348

Kristin (617)302-7544

Quick Update: Lee is incredible. He has packed everything we own into our big car. I don’t think I could have fit half of it, but I kept bringing boxes down and he kept putting them in. I think there is a fair amount of stuff wedged into tiny places, and anything soft will need to be ironed after this state of squished for three months. So, we are trying to give away, selling, toss everything else, which happily isn’t too much.

Our flight for Spain is 1:30 on the 1st, so we have only three more days here!

Sleeping Arrangements

2010-11-11T14:50:00.001-05:00

We have been disassembling our home piece by piece so that by December 1st we can drive out of here and leave nothing behind. Everything must fit in our Ford Expedition or be gone. So our Craigslist account has been very useful. The first thing to go was the couch. It was a stained, old, worn couch that I cleaned up a bit and got more $ for than we paid for it (it was free!). The next thing to go was our piano because it was so large and someone just learning piano came and said it was just what she wanted. But the thing that has changed the most is we got rid of our bed, Kaela’s bed and the crib. Then, you ask, what are we all sleeping on? Well, we wanted something small and portable that we could take with us to Spain if need be. So Lee and I are sleeping on a giant airmattress. On Amazon.com, 24” doesn’t sound so tall, but when our bed is made, you would not know it was just an airmattress.

For Kaela we have a cute little cot. It fold up like a camp chair and is tiny. She is so excited about her new bed and loves to sleep on it. You can see a pretty good view of it in our “Wiggles” post.

Eliora’s is my favorite. It is a baby tent that fold on a wire frame into a 12” circle. It has an inflatable mattress that you put inside a pocket to keep her safe and comfortable. We can take this with us anywhere and when we close up the zipper, she falls right asleep.

So, with three weeks till we move, what is left in our house? Well, not much as far as furnishings go – we still have a kitchen table and a computer desk, but the chairs are borrowed as well as a couch and dresser. Hopefully by the time we go, it will all be returned, sold or just gotten rid of. We are excited that our move will only move the more critical things with us. It is nice to be downsizing.

Halloween

2010-11-08T08:35:00.001-05:00

For Halloween we had a grand time dressing up. This year, Kaela got to be Little Red Riding Hood, and Eliora was the Big Bad Wolf! We gave her a ribbon in hair and tail to let you know she was a girl.

Events of Halloween included a ward trunk or treat where we all dressed up and decorated our trunks. Kaela was Little Red, Eliora the Wolf, Lee was the Woodsman and I was Grandma. Our trunk was decorated with the wolf’s den and grandma’s house surrounded by trees to look like it was in the forest.

The next day, Kaela and Mom went trick-or-treating to a couple houses near our apartment with our neighbor Colby and his parents. Colby was a dinosaur. Eliora missed out because she was sleeping.

Kaela and I carved our pumpkins. Meaning, she watched while I did it. I really tried to have her help, but she would not get new the gooey inside. I eventually took the seeds in my spoon, and put them in her spoon so she could put them in the garbage. She was so excited, she talked about it for days.

Hair Cut

2010-10-17T16:40:00.001-04:00

While Kaela has had her bangs cut, this was her first official hair cut. We cut about 2” off the bottom, mostly to even it all up.

We used the hair cutting cape while she stood on the stool. The cape still went down to to the bottom of the stool and was very fun.

Her curls today are as bouncy as ever and it looks much more tidy.

Bedtime Wiggles

2010-10-12T06:50:00.001-04:00

Ok, so I had to share this video I took of Mommy and Kaela. This is our nightly toddler-esque wiggle-ridding ritual. It’s an effective ceremonial dance that must be performed each night before bed to ensure that any and all toddler wiggles remaining from the day are appropriately disposed of. I thought it was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen.

Cranberry Festival – the cranberry sequel

2010-10-10T18:28:00.001-04:00

This weekend was the annual Cranberry Festival down in Waltham. Since we had so much fun last year, we decided that we had to go down again. When we arrived, the first thing we did was board the Cranberry Express to go out and see the Bogs. Our friends, Roger and Nieca, met us down there to enjoy the Cranberry Festivities.

When we got out to the bog, we got to see them wet-harvesting. They flood the field and all the cranberries float to the top, and then gather them in and suck them up using a giant cranberry vacuum pump into a big cranberry truck.

While we were out at the cranberry bog we got to see the owl show that they had last year. We got there just as the show ended, so we didn’t get to hear all the cool stuff about the owls, but we still got to see some friendly familiar faces. What do owls have to do with cranberries, you ask? Well, I’m not sure, actually. Maybe they eat cranberries. . .when they’re really hungry, and they can’t find any mice. . .

So after that we got to walk around in a dry harvest field and pick cranberries. It was really weird, cause we were basically standing on top of a 2 foot tall cranberry bush, walking around, but apparently it doesn’t really hurt the plant. Kaela picked cranberries and ate them, and insisted that they yummy and not yucky.

Roger got to do some cranberry harvesting.

Kaela got to look at the Cran-choppers and ride in a cranberry-barrel train,

we got to see some Cranberry clowns juggling and look at really neat looking cranberry tractors,

and all in all we thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. . .

. . .oh, except for the spiders. Apparently flooding the cranberry fields displaces all the critters that live in there. So the roads next to the water were covered with swarms of spiders. I thought about chasing them into the woods to see if I could find an enchanted Ford Anglia, but I thought better of it.

All in all, we thought it was a good activity as we wind down our stay in New England.

The Boston Red Sox vs. The New York Yankees

2010-10-04T21:34:00.001-04:00

Saturday morning opened cold and clear, a real New England Autumn Day. Beautiful, refreshing and making you know why people love New England. We got a phone call from our neighbor down the hall saying that she had tickets to the rivalry Red Sox vs. Yankees game that afternoon and they were stuck with them at the last minute. Lee and I jumped at the chance to go. This was our first major league baseball game. I think it was the first baseball game I had ever attended, to be honest (outside of gym class). And it was the Red Sox against the Yankees, the biggest, oldest rivalry in all of American sports!

Fenway was on our list of things to do in our ever decreasing time here, but we didn’t think we would make it to a baseball game. As we drew near Fenway Park, the excitement was palpable. Everyone was heading the same direction with the same intention. There were people searching for anyone to sell them a ticket. Their was a guy on a Segway selling them. People shouting out to buy programs. I was handed a rose from a tall black man with a huge smile in a giant bee costume. Bagpipes. The atmosphere was carnival with all the food vendors, the shouting, the people and it was so fun.

The park itself is the smallest major league field, but they keep it that way on purpose.

I do wonder how old the seats we sat on were. They were wood and needed a paint job and were built in a day when most peoples hips were smaller. I have no idea how the guy next to me even sat down. But we had a girl on each lap and got to enjoy the ball game.

But wait, who is watching the ball game? I was constantly distracted by the coming and going: the many vendors selling peanuts, cracker jacks, hot dogs, soda, cotton candy and more; people shuffling into seats for most of the game; the obnoxious Yankees fans yelling behind us; the people; the talking; the toddler;…. It was quite an experience. You would see the pitch, but they had no announcer. I was amazed at how many Major League Baseball Players struck out. There’s a man on 1st and 3rd, 2 outs, you’ve had 3 balls and 2 strikes and you only get one more pitch. And you strike out. Innings over, play some music, put someone’s name up the the huge screen.

We loved it. Eliora fell asleep soon after we got there and Kaela was so good. She sat on our laps most the time. I don’t think she saw much of the game, but she loved the atmosphere.

We went home tired and excited, after having had a great outing with the family.

Oh, and the Red Sox won.

The Big E

2010-09-21T13:47:00.001-04:00

For the next few weeks in West Springfield there is a gigantic fair going on. It’s called the Eastern States Exposition, or The Big E and it is the largest country fair in the NorthEast. So, we went with our friends Roger and Nieca and had a lot of fun.

There was so much to see and do. The place was HUGE. A couple things we didn’t do: the amusement park rides, the circus, the elephant rides, or see the largest pig in Guinness world records (enough sausage to feed 1000 people it said), but we did see, touch, smell and eat lots of stuff.

If you enjoy fried food, then a fair is the place for you. They had everything fried: hotdogs, oreos, snickers, broccoli, clams, cheesecake…. to name a few

This corn dog was 18” long. Yep, a foot and a half. It was enough to feed three people, but we ate it anyway, with just 2 & 1/2 .

They had an official Big E Cream Puff that was also good/ messy.

We saw parts of the equestrian show where all the horses had English saddles and teeny tiny riders

And a demonstration on sheep sheering.

We got to watch BMX stunt show too:

View Full Album

And walked through the Avenue of the States where they have built replicas of all the state houses in New England.

Roger and Nieca, who did a really cute pose, but I missed it while fiddling with the camera.

The petting zoo had all kinds of fun things to see and touch. Goats, sheeps, ducks…. Even a zebra.

We were all worn out by the end of the day.

The girls both fell asleep on the way home, so after transferring them upstairs, Lee and I went on a long motorcycle ride.

Dress Up

2010-09-13T13:51:00.001-04:00

In preparing for a huge garage sale, we found all of our hats, tried them on and had a fun time. Which one is the cutest?

Eliora

2010-09-02T16:38:00.001-04:00

Alright! Eliora is 6 months old! – at least she was when I started this post. Though the month has passed and she is 7 months, I can now sum up the month:

Eliora is:

Sitting up unassisted and enjoying it very much. She can’t get down yet without a major face-plant, but it is great to be able to set her anywhere.

Able to hold herself standing for a couple minutes against things. She can’t pull up or anything, but the balance on two legs is pretty cool. She doesn’t like it very much; she will stick out her bottom every time we try it and fold over, but we occasionally get some moments upright.

Eating solid foods. Our repertoire includes rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, carrots, peas, green beans, squash and pears. So far, so good. She LOVES food and shakes excitedly when she sees me pull out the jar of baby food. She is getting so good that she can eat nearly 1/2 a jar.

She has also enjoyed sand, grass and paper, but we don’t include those in our list of foods

Scooting. This is a new one, just this week. She can only make it a little bit at a time, and only when she’s reaching for something, but she is moving inches.

Teeth – She has one on the bottom and the one next to it will break through any day now. Don’t stick your hand in there because it is bound to get hurt.

Her hair is coming in. I know, it doesn’t look like it, but it is darker and no more bald spot. I can brush it and see it move now, where is wasn’t before. I did have someone ask this week why I shaved her head, but I’m pretty sure that she’s got more now than she did a month ago.

Several other firsts: I let her go down the slide (I was holding her arms) and swing in the swing at the park. She had her first ear ache and dose of amoxicillin. First time swimming in the pool.

It is so funny, she is getting so much personality. She is changing fast and we are enjoying these steps as they come rapidly.

Aunt Karalee

2010-08-06T21:42:00.001-04:00

This is a tribute to my little sister. She has been a camp counselor at Camp Walt Whitman this summer in NH and has taken a couple of her days off to come and see me.

It’s kinda weird, but she always acts like it’s some big imposition for her to come stay with me. I don’t think she understands what a relief it is to have another adult to talk to, or to coax a toddler, or hold a baby, or help with the dishes…..She is amazing and I have had a blast with her.

Monday she came and we went into the city. We walked around Harvard campus because neither of us had been there and then went to the Common where Kaela played and got a bit wet.

Before today Karalee had never put her feet in the Atlantic Ocean, so we had to take her to the beach and show her our cold, rocky New England waters. We had lots of fun and she is so good as to take pictures to prove it.

A Morning at the Farm

2010-07-23T21:17:00.001-04:00

So, you are all wondering, “Do they farm in Massachusetts?” Well, a little. They try and keep some small businesses going amid all the urban growth, probably to give all these ‘city kids’ an experience out of the city without taking them out. So today we visited Weir River Farm, just a short 15 min drive from home, and still in our ward boundaries.

On the farm they had three small fields where they planted various plants. The farm was about 10 acres, and about 1/2 of that was tree land; I’m sure that the main income does not come from selling produce. But they had a barnyard, which is really what we went to see. They had horses, sheep, goats, a llama and lots of chickens. Kaela’s favorite were the chickens, she watched them for a long time. The rooster even crowed for her. The goats were good too because they were friendly and we could pat them.

We had a fun time and took some pictures to share. Eliora was in the carrier, so there were no especially cute ones of her since I couldn’t see me taking the picture at all, but I got some great ones of Kaela.

Little Girls

2010-07-05T14:23:00.001-04:00

Ok, so the Spain news in my last post got way fewer comments than I expected. I almost wondered if anyone really reads this blog. That’s when I realized – it didn’t have any cute little girl pictures. So this morning Eliora was lounging around, and Kaela of course had to come and join. Naturally Katie (center, unsure of spelling by the way) couldn’t be left out.

Following this Eliora took some tummy time, and once again she got company.

It seems that Katie never got her face up, poor thing. And finally, here’s one last gratuitous shot of Eliora being extremely happy in her carseat this afternoon.

So anyways, I should tell you that the reason these little girls are so happy is because they’re super excited to go to Madrid. Well, we all are – it’s turned our lives upside down for the last few days as we’ve been frantically changing all of our plans, looking for tickets, etc. But despite the hustle, it’s nice that we can still catch a few cute moments here and there.

Buenas (y malas) noticias

2010-07-01T09:09:00.002-04:00

A couple years ago there was a clinical externship site in Madrid which was placed on hold shortly after I began my studies in Boston. It was a sad day, since the site in Spain and the opportunity to learn to practice Optometry in an immersion Spanish setting had been one of the exciting things that attracted us to NECO. Anyway, we never gave up hope that the site would be re-opened, despite the fact that there never seemed to be progress whenever I asked people at the school about it. Last spring (over a year ago) we submitted our choices for our 4th year rotations, and I harassed the Dean of Academic Affairs weekly for the two months prior to the submission deadline, to see if there was any hope of getting the site restored. Unfortunately, the deadline came and went, with Spain still on hold.

About two weeks ago the school sent out an email inviting faculty and students to attend a seminar - "How to give an Optometric Exam in Spanish." I was naturally interested, even more so when I learned that it was being given by the head of the program in Spain, who was visiting. Shortly thereafter another email was sent out by the college to ask for student volunteers to help set up and serve at a bar-b-que on the cape for "visiting Spanish dignitaries." As it turned out, there were about 25 optometric students visiting from Spain as part of their program in Madrid. They were here to take a few classes and see how optometry is practiced in the U.S.

So I got to spend a day at the bar-b-que making friends with the optometry students from Spain, and I got to meet Dr. Hidalgo, who heads the clinic site. The whole day was a blast, and offered me lots of fun Spanish practice. And naturally, I got to ask about the program, and learn that it could get re-opened in the future. I figured it was way too late for me, but it would be neat if one of the next classes got to do it.

Anyway, after that I figured I'd seen the last of the visiting Spaniards except for the short seminar that Dr. Hidalgo would give two days later. As it turned out, during that time he would be meeting with people at the school to discuss the possibility of re-opening the program sometime in the future. I went to the seminar and enjoyed learning some new eye-vocab, and afterwards chatted with Dr. Hidalgo and asked if anything looked promising for Spain. I was floored when he said it was ok with him if I wanted to go, and that I just needed to talk to the Clinical Education Department at NECO to see if I could swap one of my sites.

So early this morning we found out that this winter (Dec-Feb) we'll be going to Madrid for 3 months. That's the phenomenal, awesome, totally-unexpected, amazingly-good news. The only downside, as many of you may have guessed, is that it will take the place of our Utah rotation. As such, for all of you who were looking forward to seeing us over Christmas, you'll have to come visit us in Spain. :-)

We love you all, and we'll send postcards.

Potty Training

2010-06-28T10:00:00.001-04:00

I am so excited, that I am proclaiming to the world that we have had a successful week potty training! Today is actually day 5, but I am so encouraged that I am not terribly afraid of taking Kaela out again. To start, I ordered a book called, Potty Training in Less Than a Day, which I read and based most of my trials on. We bought the potty, training pants, doll that wets and lots of bribery snacks.

The first day was hard. There is no way you can force a willful 2 year old to sit on the potty for 10 minutes, you cannot make them relax, you cannot make they go, you cannot make they do just about anything. So we used lots of convincing using fruit snacks and banana bread; she got the idea.

She has been running around with a shirt and loose training panties since Tuesday. On Saturday we went to the theme park Six Flags. It was incredible. In going, we had decided that we would try the panties out, but assumed we would be reduced to diapers within a couple hours. No way, Kaela is on her way and has no problem in going in the big public potties. She also did great at church yesterday.

We have had issues that she does not want to have a bowel movement while on the potty. We have been having just that one accident a day and I don’t know really what to do about it. She will go on the potty if I catch her in the act, but I’ve missed the past two days and then we have a mess. :(

But all in all, I think the experience has been great and quite successful. She will go by herself, pull down her panties, go pee-pee, wipe, pull up her panties and empty the pot in the toilet, mostly all without reminders. She loves flushing the toilet but does not enjoy washing her hands. Wish me luck!

Poetry

2010-06-15T14:48:00.001-04:00

Kaela was trying to get herself dressed, when I remembered a poem that I learned in Elementary school that I still have memorized.

As Soon as Fred Gets Out of Bed

As soon as Fred gets out of bed,
his underwear goes on his head.
His mother laughs, "Don't put it there,
a head's no place for underwear!"
But near his ears, above his brains,
is where Fred's underwear remains.
At night when Fred goes back to bed,
he deftly plucks it off his head.
His mother switches off the light
and softly croons, "Good night! Good night!"
And then, for reasons no one knows,

Fred's underwear goes on his toes.

by Jack Prelutsky

A Collage of May

2010-06-07T13:21:00.001-04:00

May was a very, very busy month for us. Looking back on it, we really did fly through. I’ve chosen my favorite moments to share here:

ARVO: We flew to a conference where Lee got to present his research in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Lee was in conference most days, but the girls and I learned the bus system and went all over town. The biggest hit was the beach, but we also liked a cool day in the library and walking downtown.

Camping in Maine: As a congrats to ourselves, as soon as finals ended we took a 4 hour drive up to Lake St. George State Park in Maine. We camped for two nights and had a good time. The 2nd night Kaela screamed for most of the night (How Eliora slept, I don’t know.) and we were very glad to come home the next morning.

There was an old park there that had a really awesome old slide. It had been hugged by so many bottoms, that there were two bum holes worn away at the top of the slide. It’s kinda hard to see, but they’re there. They had also nearby an amazing adult-sized park. Picture a see-saw that is 15’ high, a slide that is 20’ long and a fort nearly 2 stories up. We had a lot of fun there.

Graduation: The first week of clinic ended with the ceremony where Lee got his Masters in Vision Science Degree. It was a very neat ceremony and I’m very glad I got to go. I’m so very proud of Lee!

Here is some footage of his receiving the degree, so you can all feel like you were there with me.

Springfield: Same day as graduation we left for western Mass where we have some friends and we stayed the whole weekend. We went to a park and saw part of a dog competition, their ward held a Luau (sp?) and Memorial day we went to Six Flags. I don’t think we took out the camera once during our whole trip.

That pretty well sums up the month!

What Happened Here….

2010-05-14T15:53:00.001-04:00

I cannot adequately explain how crazy our life has been these past few weeks (months, years….). In reverse of how it happened, I’ll try to sum up.

Saturday: Finals start tomorrow morning. Yes, our 4 year anniversary falls right in the middle of them. But this is the last finals week EVER!

Friday: Lee is right now in Florida for a contact lens seminar and I am babysitting the Cathell-Williams twins while their mom graduates. But for Florida: All expenses paid trip to the Vistkon lab in Jacksonville where they have lots of seminars, good food and no babies to distract him from studying for finals. He flew out Wednesday, got stuck in Baltimore with bad storms and got to his destination after midnight. We hope the trip back tonight is better, but the weather is still predicting storms in Baltimore.

Wednesday: Lee defended his Master’s Thesis! This is the culminating point of the degree! He gave a 45 min presentation on the data he had collected and the results he drew from it. They then excused the audience (me and about 3 others) so he could be grilled by his committee. He says it wasn’t so bad – he knew his stuff, the ins out and whys of it all – but they were talking for at least 45 more minutes and when I came back in they said, “He Passed!” So Lee will be graduating with his MS in Vision Science next week, a year before he finishes his OD. He ran from that to catch the plane to FL.

Tuesday: Lee found out late Tuesday that his upcoming clinic assignment needed some paperwork faxed right away. Things like SSN, immunization records, etc. They require a Varicella shot (chickenpox) and will NOT accept history of having it as sufficient. So, Wednesday morning we were off the the health center to get the test to prove he has immunity before he ran off to his Thesis Defense. I chose my favorite flowers and planted them in boxes on our balcony.

Monday: Calm for me. Lee went to clinic, class, group project stuff and got home around 11:00pm. Lee is in a really cool business class this semester. The final project is a group project to design your own Optometric Practice. Out of 30 groups, the top 5 were selected to present to the class and compete for a cash prize. His group was selected in that 5, but he wasn’t there to present. So he wrote the powerpoint, added effects, sounds and his group basically just needed to press the PLAY button to give the presentation. It was really neat to see.

Sunday: Mother’s Day. We sang, “Love at Home” in our ward, which I think is the most AWFUL song you could EVER sing on Mother’s Day. They sung it in my mom’s ward, and grandma’s, but missed Lee’s mom’s ward :) Three of four. Lee had to stay after and count tithing as the assistant ward clerk and total we were at church, including travel time for about 6 hours. Kaela missed her nap. But she played and let Lee and I snuggle on the couch for 45 minutes and it was the greatest Mother’s Day gift she could have given me.

Saturday: We flew back from Florida where we had spent the previous week. But that is a much more interesting post, with more pictures, so I’ll have to leave it to another naptime.

Easter

2010-04-26T13:21:00.001-04:00

“Easter?” you say, “Why, Easter was weeks ago. Why tell us about it now?” Well, because I have pictures that are cute and memories to record, even if it is so very late.

This is actually the first year we’ve done much for Easter. When we were only a married couple with a baby, it is hard to start traditions that are mainly for the kids. But now we’re a family of four with a toddler, so this year we bought baskets, a dozen plastic eggs and some plastic grass.

We began the holiday with an Egg Hunt at a park, organized by some friends. Kristen got some very cute pictures.

Kaela and I dyed Easter eggs (Eliora was sleeping and Daddy was at Priesthood session of conference).

I have found that with messy projects, the best thing to do is to remove her shirt and put on the apron I made her. Then there is no scrubbing out clothes (which is something I have an aversion to). We had a mutiny against smiling. (“No smile, no camra!”)

In the morning, we had hid the plastic eggs around the living room and hid our baskets. There are not many places to hide Easter baskets in one little room lined with furniture, but it did take Lee more than just a glance to find his. Kaela loved finding the eggs – we hid them again and again for days.

We have a couple cute videos to insert here, but I can’t get any of my movie makers to work, so we’ll just have to post them later….

For dinner I made ham, augratin potatoes, deviled eggs, and asparagus. We had cheesecake for dessert.

I made a ham glaze from root beer and it was SO YUMMY! Kaela was asking for ham and ta-os (potatoes) for days afterwards.

The busy life of Eliora Jean

2010-04-01T07:15:00.001-04:00

Eliora is now 2 months old! In those two months, she has been a very busy little girl. Yesterday she had her first major set of shots and we found some of her stats:

She is 23” long and weighs 11.8 lbs.

Two weeks ago we flew to Utah for my sister Shannon’s wedding. Eliora had been congested for a couple weeks, but it escalated while we were there. On Friday Kimberly noticed how hard Eliora was breathing, sucking in at her sides and flaring her nostrils and got worried. I called my pediatrician and their response was, “Either call 911 or go the the emergency room.” That was probably one of the most terrifying things that has ever happened to me. So we left Kimberly’s boys and Kaela in the care of my dad and ran over. They measured her 02 levels and said she needed to be kept on oxygen and we were then sent by ambulance to Primary Children’s Hospital. While in the hospital we were told she had RSV, a virus that affects many people with just a cold, but because she is still so tiny, she had a far worse condition. She doesn’t really know how to cough, blow her nose and other practices adults can use to remove mucus from our lungs. So we had to suck hers out. They called it Nasopharangyl or deep suctioning – they stuck a thin tube down her nose into her throat 6xs a day to get it all out. It was very sad stuff. We were in the hospital from Friday till Monday, missing our flight on Sunday. Lee flew home with Kaela that day and I followed on Tuesday.

Before the wedding, Karalee came to visit. It was a lightning trip of three days mostly so she could help me with the girls in traveling back to Utah. We took Kaela in the umbrella stroller and Eliora in the carrier and toured all of Boston from Bunker Hill down to the Common. We rode the ferry, the train and did lots of walking. Eliora mostly slept the entire day away, but then again, that is what new babies are supposed to do. Karalee was such a good sport to help me drag my two girls around town and she was tons of help in the airports.

Eliora is getting so strong, with such support of her head. I enjoy having a newborn and wish that I had more time to simply enjoy it, but Kaela keeps us running.

Toddler Moments

2010-03-05T13:16:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I had two perfectly toddler moments that I just have to share.

Toddler moment #1 – The Bright Moon

We were at the library for story time, puzzles, and maybe even a book and were just leaving at lunch time. Kaela had had a big morning playing and her diaper was quite wet. But, being a toddler sized diaper, I knew it would last till we got home. We are half way through the library parking lot when Kaela cries out, “Di!”. I pause and look down to see Kaela’s diaper and pants sitting on her shoes. She mooned the whole parking lot. I couldn’t stop laughing. We pulled the diaper back on, pulled the pants up, waved to the car driving past and went home.

Toddler Moment #2 – Too Tired

Well, we got home from the library, changed the diaper and got Kaela up in her chair with lunch so I could go and nurse Eliora. I came back to Kaela in 10 minutes to this sight:

Notice that lunch is half eaten. I’m glad she stopped to chew and didn’t choke in her exhaustion. I picked her up and deposited her in her bed without a sound.

I love my toddler!

Artisan Bread

2010-02-24T15:06:00.001-05:00

In Relief Society I we had a class on how to make bread. Now, I really enjoy making bread and normally make our own bread every week. This was very different and lots of fun. So much fun, I need to tell the world about it. We were taught to make artisan bread – anything beautiful, extraordinary or found in a restaurant. It was all based off this book by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois:

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

It has changed the way I view baking, especially breads and pastries. I like it so much that I bought the book after borrowing it from the library.

The premise of the book is that no one has time for fresh bread any more. But everyone has 5 minutes a day and they have made a bread recipe that can be made in 5 minutes a day and be delicious. The book has tons of recipes to do this, but if you take just their master recipe, you can make just about anything: bread, rolls, pizza dough, naan, pita bread, peasant loves…. You name it, it is probably in the book.

It says that if you have a very wet dough, the yeast will not over-act and will stay good in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. So each time you want to have something tasty, you just pull a hunk out of the fridge, shape it and bake it. That’s it! 5 active minutes of labor a day. I have had so much fun with this and we love the bread!

Sisters

2010-02-12T16:11:00.001-05:00

I am happy to report that Kaela and Eliora seem to get along quite well. I must say that I was petrified that the first month would be so hard as Kaela suddenly had a rival for all of my attention, but it hasn’t been bad at all. For the most part Kaela ignores the baby and Eliora sleeps. But when they do interact, it is positive.

We put Eliora on the floor for tummy time and without fail, Kaela will run and grab her own blanket, put it on the floor and lay down next to her little sister.

She likes to mimic me with her own baby doll. When I am nursing, she will go and get a pillow and put the baby on her lap with a bottle.

.

Today was the very first time that Kaela asked if she could hold her baby sister. It is adorable.

We hope for many years of good sister time.

My Favorite Things

2010-02-08T13:07:00.001-05:00

Our favorite book right now is a cute board book by Sandra Boynton titled, “Moo, Baa, La La La”. Kaela has the whole thing memorized and spouts it across the house during quiet moments. It is so cute, we thought you all might like to see it.

Of course, when the camera is on, she seems a bit shy. I promise she knows the whole thing front to back without any prompts, but here is the closest thing. We think she is so fun!

Pictures of Eliora

2010-02-04T15:31:00.001-05:00

These pictures have come from our baby’s first week at home. We are all doing well and adjusting much better than I had thought we would. It is wonderful to have her part of our lives.

View Full Album

Birth Story:

I had been having contractions for two and a half weeks, but they weren’t very productive. They got strong enough Monday that I actually called my midwife at midnight to tell her I thought that this was it. But the contractions went away and we both went back to sleep. My midwives said I could go 12 days past due date before an induction would be scheduled, but I was done. I even tried castor oil. I was afraid it would taste awful, but really it wasn’t the taste that was bad. Swallowing 2 T of oil is not something my body felt it could do, but I gagged it down with orange julius. It barely gave me diarrhea, let alone ANY contractions. Aye! I was going in every TWO days to have a non-stress test done on the baby. I had to have another ultrasound to check the fluid levels. Everything indicated that this baby was not coming soon. I had them strip my membranes, yet that didn’t do the trick either. My oh my, I really wanted my baby to come and she was so content inside.

So, we scheduled the induction for Wednesday. It must have been fear of that that sent me into labor. Tuesday evening about 5:00pm the contractions began. They weren’t any stronger or regular than before, the just didn’t go away. So I called our babysitters (Thank You Kristen and Landon!) and my midwife and told her I wanted to come in. I got to the hospital, got admitted and sat in the waiting area for 1/2 hour before they took me to triage. The contractions were now every three minutes and I was afraid that I would scare the others in the waiting room. But thanks to my Hypnobirthing training, it was all very calm. I got to triage and they realized that I was not going home and was out into a room in less than 5 minutes. This was about 8:00pm and they soon found I was dilated to 8 cm. But several more hours were required to open my pelvis and let the baby come down. At 12:30 they broke my water and 12:48 I had a new baby.

The birth was amazing and so much better than with Kaela. I was more cognizant, more in control and able to birth my baby myself. It was an incredible thing that I will always remember.

I am grateful to be home, doing quite well and loving being mommy to a baby girl again.

Eliora Jean

2010-01-27T19:32:00.001-05:00

Well, for anyone who hasn’t gotten the announcement and who follows this, Eliora was born at 12:48 am on January 27th, 2010. She weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. and was 21 inches tall.

Kristin is doing very well. After being kept up until 3am, she slept in late the next morning and is now up and about. She’s recovered so much faster than she did when Kaela was born – it’s really impressive how strong she is.

Anyway, our life will be getting back to normal in the next few days. Kristin will be coming home from the hospital Friday morning. I have classes tomorrow, but not again until Monday, so we’ll have a weekend together to welcome the new addition to our family

41 Weeks and Counting….

2010-01-25T16:36:00.001-05:00

Lee and I are receiving lots of phones calls, emails and other contact from everyone wondering, “Has the Baby come yet?!?”. I am writing to let you all know, that NO, the baby has not come yet. No, we have not forgotten you and Yes, I am a week and a few days overdue. If you look at the baby counter on the left of the screen, you will notice that they took the picture of the baby away. I wish we could have our little girl come so easily.

All in all, it was better that the baby didn’t come last week because Kaela and I were both sick and Lee was very busy (though he always is). There is an end in sight because the midwives and I have agreed that I cannot go more than 12 days overdue and so they will induce me come Thursday morning, if it comes to that. Pray that our baby will come to us soon!

40 Weeks and Thanksgiving

2010-01-17T14:46:00.002-05:00

I've been looking through pictures that were never posted and realize that I had some fun ones from Thanksgiving. I know it was forever ago, but some of them are really cute still the same.

For Thanksgiving we went over to a couple in the ward's home. He goes to school with Lee and they had invited some others from school and the ward. I was in charge of dessert and stuffing.

This is part of us enjoying a game and the Onken’s hospitality after dinner. We had a lot of fun!

Here is Kaela helping me in the kitchen with the stuffing. This meant eating as much bread as she could.

And then her helping with rolling out the pies...

She claimed the bucket of flour as her own.

And it was everywhere

It ended, as you can imagine, with a thorough washing of everything.

Here is Kaela at the Onken’s house in the Thanksgiving Dress I made her:

But, I’m sure that most of you are looking for newer, more current news than that. I am still pregnant, my due date was yesterday and the baby isn’t showing many signs of coming. Which in part is good because right now I know that she is happy, warm, well-fed and in complete comfort. It means that I am going to the bathroom 12x’s a day, feeling large, and bending over only with difficulty. But Lee says that I could do very well in the Pregnant Ladies Olympics. :) We are hoping that she comes soon, but we know that it is all in the Lord’s hands.