We Lived!

The trip wasn't bad at all. The worst part was driving through Salt Lake City on the freeway going about 40 mph at about 2pm Friday afternoon through falling snow and bad visiblility. The Oregon blues and even Snoqualmie Pass barely required us to reduce speed and there was no falling snow anywhere else along the way until we entered Kent and little flurries started falling. We arrived at my parent's house just as the snow picked up. Thank you all for the prayers for the weather. Cam arrived in the moving truck an hour or so after us, he still had a fine drive until he got down from the pass and into the valley where the snow was falling. It took him a little longer the tranverse the road after he got off the freeway, but he too arrived without incident. I am sure I will post more later, but I am pretty tired and my bum hurts (tmi? I took the whole trip in the back seat between the two car seats).

Anyway, thanks again and we did all arrive safe.

The Big Move

So I really should be finishing up packing right now. We have to pick up the moving truck RIGHT when Cam gets home today, then he has to go off to the airport (and I will be doing any last minute packing at that time) to pick up his brother and *maybe* my dad (depending on the weather). Once they get home it is packing time while I take Dallas and Chelane to Provo to get Karma's luggage, drop some things off at DI, do last minute Christmas shopping, get chains for the car and a prescription filled... such a fun night ahead of us.

My big issue right now is Dallas deciding that digging through boxes is fun. Evey time we move I have a bad habit of taping up the boxes early then needing to cut the tape open to add/remove something from the box. So this year I haven't taped much up yet and Dallas is loving it. I am not loving it as much since I am the one that has to go and repack every box about seven times...

I really should get back to packing. I need to have most things done so when the laundry and dishwasher are finished I can focus on packing up those... I don't know when the next post will be, probably after the Christmas holiday since I have no idea what sort of internet access I will have before then. Please pray for good weather in Oregon and Washington while we drive through. I love you all and Merry Christmas!

Dallas Loves Being a Big Brother

Well, I guess I can't say that for sure because I haven't asked him.

Dallas loves to say "hi" to Chelane (and he actually says "hi" with the wave now) and cuddle by her when she is on the floor.

Chelane loves having people around, she is very social. She cries if you leave her in a room by herself when she is awake, but once you walk back in eye-shot, the crying stops and smiles ensue. Since she loves to have someone nearby and Dallas likes to sit close to her and look at her it works out nicely.

The other night Dallas was sitting next to Chelane. Without warning he grabbed her around the middle and *tried* to roll her over onto his tummy. She is getting a little too big for Dallas to move around easily. Cam and I got the hint though and let Dallas have some supervized holding time.

He kept trying to hold her steady by putting his hands on her face and across her head. We quickly corrected that and showed him how to hold her at a less fragile part, the torso.

All right, I think I have delayed long enough... back to packing!

Little Quirks

Cam put a new door on our pantry Saturday. He had to use a power drill (to screw things in) and a hand screwdriver. We kept Dallas in his booster seat the entire time to keep him out of the way and out of mischief while I held the door as Cam screwed it in. This also gave him a perfect view of what Cam and I were doing.

When we were finished, Cam removed the removable head from the screw driver and got Dallas out of his seat. Dallas immediately picked up the screwdriver and started "fixing" anything he could see... the bar stools, the door handle... Interestingly enough he would only put the headless screwdriver in places that had a screw, apparently he knows what a screwdriver is for.

There are four total screws that hold the plastic cover on the back of those stools and, although you can't see it, he had the screwdriver covering one of them.

Dallas also has an affinity towards tape, stickers, and bandaids. If one of us leave our bathroom door open, many times he will come out with bandaids and ask for helping opening them and putting them on. He will take them off and put them off many times; his arm, the wall, and apparently his mouth...

When he came to me with this on his mouth it was actually holding his mouth shut, he thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Hot Zone

It is one of my favorite books. For those of you that don't know much about it here is the jist. It talks about the Ebola virus, a disease related loosely to HIV that attacks blood cells and turns your insides to mush through massive hemorrhaging. The "Hot Zone" refers to the area in Africa it is thought to originate (I think).

Well our house is a pretty bad Hot Zone right now. We had my mom, dad, little brother, little sister, and one of my older sisters at our house for Thanksgiving (we more than doubled our "family" size that week, it was so fun!). Sunday after Thanksgiving (right before everyone was going home) my little sister woke up feeling very weak and sick. Monday morning Dallas woke up at 5am throwing up. Monday afternoon Cam came home from work early with a sore throat.

I was thinking Chelane and I were going to skip out on the sickness altogether until Thursday afternoon when I started on a sore throat. Friday I woke up with a fever, body aches, absolutely zero energy, a HUGE headache, and the inability to keep myself warm. When Cam got home I went to bed for a little bit and apparently broke my fever. When I woke up I felt like I had much more energy, but still a massive headache. My body was also quite weak from not feeding myself that day. I took some ibprophen that night (without consulting a physician, bad me) to try to stem the headache and lower backache I had so that I could sleep easier (and sit or lay down without my back protesting). I am happy to say that today I am feeling much better (although the sore throat is still around, but I can deal with that).

Cam has pretty much had an off-and-on mild sore throat all week. Dallas didn't throw up after Monday morning (he really only threw up once) but started on a runny nose Tuesday and now that that has eased up he has a pretty nasty cough. Chlane has still stayed all but immune. She sounds like she has a little of it (her nose is a little cloggy and she coughs once and a while) but, other than those mild symptoms, she seems great. I would happily take another day of the fever from h-e-double-hockey-sticks if it meant Chelane didn't get sick.

I started a few packing projects on Friday and Thursday that I obviously didn't finish on Friday so the house is also a complete mess. So maybe "Hot Zone" isn't the correct term to use... maybe something more like "War zone where biological weapons were used"...