20 weeks and counting

So, after a year of trying, losing and failing, I'm finally pregnant (again). This time it appears as though the baby is healthy and without issues and may actually make it full term. This excites me to no end. It's been a long and agonizing 20 weeks.
In the past, we were so anxious to tell family and then waited only through the first trimester to tell friends when we got pregnant. Then a little over a year ago I got pregnant and something just felt wrong. I told the Dr but he blew it off. They couldn't get a strong heartbeat but blamed it on the instruments, never saw things quite right and, again, blamed it on the machines. Then a couple days short of 20 weeks I started to spot and bleed and went to the ER to discover that our baby no longer had any heartbeat and my body was passing it out. After 3 ultrasounds by 3 different Dr's, we opted to speed things up with medication and I gave birth to a tiny, perfect but still born baby boy early in the morning on August 23, 2009. It was devistating-something I never thought I would ever have to go through. We grieved and cried but knew at the same time that it was the way things were supposed to be. We weren't meant to raise Kyle on this earth.
We moved on and decided to try again. By 6 weeks later when I went back for my follow up check (yes, they do those even when your baby wasn't born living) I was pregnant again. After a couple more ultrasounds where we saw our baby and a strong heartbeat, we decided to tell family-we were excited to be able to move on so quickly. Then, in mid-December, I started to bleed again. 11 weeks is pretty normal for miscarriage so this time nobody was concerned, except us. We wanted more answers and were concerned, knowing that we had one more little spirit that has been overly anxious to join our family for years and hoping it wouldn't take more of this loss to get her here.
We moved in January from Australia to the US and transitioned from military to civilian shortly after so we deceded to wait a little before trying again. April seemed like a good time for that but my cycle came and went with no luck. We moved again in mid-April from Arizona to Colorado and were in a hotel while we looked for a house. By early May we had a positive pregnancy test but didn't dare celebrate too soon. We moved into our new house the end of May and started getting settled. The first trimester came and went and our new insurance became effective. Insurance cards finally arrived in July and I decided maybe I should make an appointment. Josh took a couple more weeks to get me the info on Dr's we were allowed to use but I wasn't in a hurry.
See, in the military, they paid for everything without the need for a co-pay, as long as you used the military Dr's, and it was wonderful. Now we have insurance where co-pays are required and there are yearly deductables to be met and I wasn't anxious to start paying those things only to lose another baby. At 15 weeks I got the Dr info and at 16 weeks I finally made an appointment. At 18 weeks I met my new Dr and got to see my baby on ultrasound for the first time to date the pregnancy. I almost expected to see nothing in there when they started up the ultrasound but lo and behold, there was a baby. Beautifull and perfect. It had all it's fingers and toes and a strong beating heart and it was active and moving all the time. It's a little miracle!
We finally told my Mom and Dad we were expecting at a little over 17 weeks and then my in-laws at about 18-19 weeks (my mom would have had to wait too but she's a spoiler). Three days ago we had the anatomy ultrasound-the baby was still there, still wiggling (which I knew, cause I feel it all the time) and still with a strong heartbeat. And now we know that IT"S A GIRL!!!
She has all of her organs and they are where they should be, there's no sign of down's syndrom or any other defects, all blood tests have come back fine-including the genetic ones (cause I'm 35 now and they want to test everything), and, most importantly, she's growing and developing right on track. And now we're here and telling the world how excited we are to be having one more baby and our last (both a happy and sad thing all at once). My persistent little spirit, who wanted so badly not to be forgotten, can now have her physical body and join our family and I'm ever so greatful to be able to have her.

See, she's waving hello to all of you!

Do You Remember??

There are some things that, as we look back or talk about, we never forget where we were or what we were doing when you heard or saw it. Being September 11 today, the first thing we're all thinking about is the terrorist attacks that took place 9 years ago. To me, it's all so fresh in my mind and my memory that to say it happened 9 years ago seems unreal.

We were atationed in Bad Aibling, Germany at that time and we had Josiah, who was 10 1/2 months old. I had been out walking around base with him in the stroller while Josh was at work, we had gone shopping for a few things at the commissary and then come back home. I turned on the TV and thought I was watching a movie. It looked interesting so I watched for a few minutes until I realised that it was the news, not a movie. Just then the 2nd plane hit the towers. We sat glued to the TV for awhile watching and wondering just what it meant for us, being overseas and all.

As we walked around base later that day, the hummers, armed guards and guns all started coming out. The base was locked down-nobody could drive on base for a week or two. If you drove off base then you had to park off base and walk back on. They finally opened up the gates with massive inspections once a week to let cars back on (which we needed to do our big shopping trips once a week). After a month or so they set up a big tent and did inspections of every car driving on base for many more months-it may have even been a year or more. It was crazy and even a bit scary for awhile. We had just been home to see family in May that year and had no plans of another trip for another year and a half.

So that's where I was. I was in shock and awe and the world changed as we knew it.
As I ponder these events though, I think of another time and event when I can never forget where I was and what I was doing. On January 28, 1986 I was in elementary school. It was a big day and they were launching a new space shuttle-the Challenger. This time everybody was watching becuse there was a teacher on board and it was a big deal. They had it playing on the big screen in the library of the school. I was the lucky one that got to take our attendance to the office and, as I walked past the TV, I watched a replay of the explosion. All 7 astronauts died that day. It was devistating and so sad

They all had families and I'm sure that those families also remember that day and all that it had in store every year as well. It may not have been a terrorist attack or something that somebody planned as sabotage, but it put the space program back 2 1/2 years while they figured it out and regrouped and then planned and built a new shuttle to be launched.


So today, while my thoughts are on 9/11/2001, I also remember many others who have lost their lives, whether fighting for our country or furthering our knowledge. They are all disasters either way. My thoughts and prayers go out to all who have lost their lives and to their families who grieve for and miss them every day. And, especially, to all our troops who are deployed or will be deploying to go and fight for our freedoms and rights and the families who worry and miss them every day while they're gone.

Random thoughts

I don't have anything too exciting this week but thought I'd share a few random thoughts anyway. So here goes.

1. We're potty training Caleb this week. With my first 4 kids, if we took off their diapers and let them run around naked, there were constant messes everywhere. With Caleb, letting him run without a diaper=potty training. He is constantly running to the toilet and, other than some partial starts in the diaper, he hasn't really had a dirty diaper in the last 4 or 5 days. If I had known earlier, I would have been letting him run naked for months now. I'm so tired of dirty diapers and so ready for him to be potty trained.

2. In order to save myself trips to the store and the possibility (or should I say inevitability) of finding many more things I can't live without, I've started making bread. The kids usually devour white bread so I decided to try whole wheat bread this time. Not only do they eat it nearly as good, but it's also better for them and fills them up faster. So there is less bread consumed, their healthier and it's not that hard to make one loaf every day.

3. My good friend Kathy is on her way to my house right now. This part is so exciting! We haven't seen each other since she and her husband dropped us off at the airport to fly to Australia 3 1/2 years ago. We've talked on the phone, but that just isn't the same. I'm so anxious to see her kids, her newest little one and especially to spend some time hanging out with her again. I really miss living across the street from her and will miss her even more when they leave again and shortly head to Africa. Africa is so far away, I kind of wish she was sticking with her original plan of living stateside while her hubby went alone, but I also understand her need to be with him. Husbands win every time and that's completely understandable. Hopefully we'll get her blog and FB set up while she's here so that we can keep up with each other better.

4. Teaching the sunbeams at church is such a challenge. 4 year olds are rowdy and irreverent and it's so hard to teach them to be better when you hardly know them. I'd like to think that we're making some progress, but honestly I'm just finally learning all of their names. Reverent progress will come eventually, I hope.

Ok, I think that's it for today. If I remember something else then I guess it'll leave something for another post another day.

Neglected Blog

Wow, I didn't realise just how long it had been since I posted anything here until a friend of mine linked to my blog in a post on hers. So I guess it's time for a big update. Let's see if I can't make a long story semi-short here.
We left Australia and all of our friends there in mid-January. Housing was a pain in the butt but we were finally able to get out of there with minimal cost on our parts (thank goodness). We were able to sell everything with Aussie power that needed to go and even sold our truck for the price we were asking and without any issues. Everything we did leading up to our move was guided by the Lord and we knew that leaving then was what we were supposed to do. Then, 4 days before we were to fly, the Army decided that we were to change itineraries. Instead of all of us going to Denver to outprocess with Josh for two weeks, we were to change our tickets so that we all flew to California together and then the family to Phoenix with my family while Josh went on to outprocess alone. This way they could get out of paying for hotels and instead put him in barracks. And then they didn't have to pay for a rental car either and could, instead, give him a government vehicle. All of this so that the command could save a few dollars and be able to make another trip to Australia and see and do a few more things while they are there. So we changed everything and I flew from Cali with 5 kids while we said goodbye to Josh for 2 weeks.
We stayed with my parents in their camper just outside the house with my brother's camper set up next to it for the luggage. It worked out pretty well and gave us some space of our own to get away if needed, even if it was a small space. It was nice to see and stay with family again after so long.
Once Josh came back we started in on the job hunt again. The company in Tucson we wanted to work for kept getting their contract moved back until we just couldn't wait for them anymore. Then we had a solid offer from a company in Ohio. The price was decent and they would pay to move our things and us, put us up in housing for a month while we looked for a house and even give us a rental car if we needed it. We prayed about it, made a couple trips to the temple and decided to sign a contract with them, even though Ohio was far away, we knew nobody and I just plain didn't want to go. But even with all this, we felt it would be alright. We got the contract on a Friday, signed it, faxed it back over the weekend and then called Monday to make sure they got it. There was no answer all the times Josh tried to call on Monday so he sent an email too. On Tuesday we got a reply. The lady said she had received the paperwork and it was good and that as soon as their proposal was approved she would let us know a start date. Then in the next sentence she said that another company had won the bid on the other contract they were hoping for and that he should put in an application with them too. STOP, wait a minute. Didn't we just sign a contract with you? Doesn't that mean that we have a job with you? Why would we apply elsewhere? That was the last time we heard from her. Never another email, never another phone call, nothing. Start over again.
Josh put his resume out to several more companies and within about 2 weeks he had 2 more offers. One fell through but the other one did 2 interviews with him, gave him an offer, signed a contract with us (for more than the Ohio company had offered) and called him every day to update him on where the process was (this is more like it). So, off to Colorado we went. It's closer to family than Ohio, by a long shot, and the spirit told us this was a good thing for us to do. With family in Oklahoma, Arizona, California and Oregon, it puts us pretty central.
We stayed in an extended stay hotel and started house hunting. We looked at about 100 houses online and narrowed it down to around 15 we wanted to see in person. We walked through 13 houses and had already seen 3 we were interested in and could see ourselves living in. Back to prayer we went, started a pros and cons list and a discussion between us. 2 of the 3 homes were short sales. This means that the bank has agreed to take less than is owed on the house in order to get something back out of it. It also means that you're looking at 2-4 months of paperwork and waiting in order to get in. The other house was a regular sale and we could be in it in as little as 1 month. So we walked back through all 3 again, just to make sure we made the right choice. The regular sale just felt like home so we made an offer of a bit less than they wanted. The next day they accepted our offer with nearly no changes to it and we were under contract. All inspections went smoothly with the results better than anybody expected and almost no repairs necessary and 28 days later we closed, got our keys and moved into our new, and first, house. Our very own house, not the army's house, not the government's house, our house.
It's now been 2 months since we moved in, we've received all our belongings from both storage and Australia and are nearly done unpacking (400+ boxes can take a long time to unpack). This is home and we're so happy to be here, the kids started school 6 weeks ago and it's a year round curriculum. We're all starting to make friends here and it's starting to feel like we belong here, again, guided by the spirit the entire way.
So that's my catch up, I hope it wasn't too long or boring. I'm going to aim to post on here at least a couple times a week, there is so much I think to write but never get to it. I will not be a blog deserter.

A little of this and a little of that

Just a few random updates from the last week or two.

We finally got our orders last week. For those of you who don't know what that is or what it means, we're military and getting orders means that we can now schedule the packers to come, get our plane tickets, ship our car and just plain start getting ready to get moved. Coming over here we were supposed to leave and arrive here in mid-November and we didn't get orders until the day we were supposed to arrive here. That meant that we couldn't come on time and were postponed a month instead so that we arrived right before Christmas. That's how orders have always gone for us-a maximum of about 2 weeks notice to schedule everything and move. This time we got them about 3 1/2 weeks prior to our fly date, that's actually kind of nice. What would have been even nicer is to have had them in hand a month or two ago so our car could have been on it's way back and be there when we are. Oh well, such is the life of a military family. I'm happy with what we've got for now

I also took down Christmas decorations and all that last week. I think it was only 2 or 3 days after Christmas. We put them up so far before Christmas and really enjoyed them the whole time, but I now understand why some people don't put them up right away. Sometimes they just plain get in the way and clutter up the house. I love Christmas and I love the decorations but I was just plain sick of walking around them and having the living room so cluttered up with the tree and stuff. It was making me a bit claustrophobic. It's so nice to have the living room back again and be able to walk through it without walking around the couch.

Today I've been working on checking things off my to-do list. I finished the flyers to sell our truck, did a bunch of laundry, including all the kids' bedding, made the kids clean their rooms (that's a job that'll wear you out all by itself), vacuumed their rooms and the hallway, and accomplished a bunch of other online stuff i needed to do as well as making lunch and all that too. I still want to finish more laundry and do a couple more small things today so we'll see how I go.

Christmas was nice here. The kids all got heaps of stuff but this year it was mostly usable and things they can use on the plane trip home. Josh got a deep fryer, a frame to put all of his military medals into and a rock tumbler. I got a cotton candy maker, a really nice tea light wall hanging and a 6 1/2 quart slow cooker to replace my 2 quart one. It was nice to have a decent Christmas without a whole heap of expense and most of my shopping was done throughout the year instead of all at once.

Ok, I think that's my random updates for this week. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and that your New Year is better than ever!

I'm feeling humbled

Three years ago we arrived here in Alice Springs and i remember our first Sunday at church and the culture shock involved. There were so many aboriginal saints in church that day and many visitors as well. For those of you who have never been to the outback, let me tell you a little about my first impressions of aboriginal people. They are not known for being sanitary or clean in any way. To put it bluntly, they stink. I don't mean just a little bit, but they really smell, and when you get a good number of them in an enclosed chapel, it can tend to get a little bit overwhelming to say the least. As you walk around town you see them everywhere. They live in the dry river bed, in the alleys and many of them do actually live in houses as well. They walk all around town, so it's hard to miss them. Whenever you see a group walking together there is almost always one or two in the group carrying a very large case of beer and when you see them elsewhere they are very commonly drunk and beligerent. Ok, so that was my first impression.

Now we've been here for 3 years and have got to know so many of them. I've seen so many change their lives, clean themselves up and start to attend church regularly. These people are a great people with strong spirits and many are just trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. Though it's hard to see this as you get around town and live here, they really are out there.

Tonight we had our branch Christmas party at church and we had a huge turnout. It was truly humbling to see so many people from all over the world there. We have Aussies, New Zealanders, better known as Kiwi's, Americans, many Asians from China, Korea, Philipeans and more and then we had a very large turn out of aboriginal people as well. The smell no longer bothers me ( I actually don't remember even smelling it tonight) and the people bring in such a strong spirit to go with them. As I returned home and got on Facebook (my addiction) I was introduced to a video that was made earlier this year and I felt so strongly that I just want to share it with everybody. It was made by one of the senior missionaries serving here in our branch and so many of the people in it are very dear to us as a family and to our branch as well. To me, this is what living and being in Alice Springs is all about.



Can you see the true joy and light radiating from each and every one of those faces?

National Vacation-part five (Adelaide)

While in Adelaide we were thrown more rain, lots and lots of it. So, once again, all of our outdoor activities had to be postponed or canceled. We stayed with our friends the Watts. We met them the last time we were in Adelaide for our branch temple trip. They had a busy week planned but were gracious enough to allow us to stay anyway. We went to church on Sunday and our friend Lyndy got a flat tire on the way. So they got it changed and we all got back to their house afterwards. We had a nice dinner together that night and that was probably the only night we actually got to see much of each other. During the rainy evenings the kids had to find things to entertain themselves. One of the things they found was Lyndy's basket of laundry pegs. They all had a blast with them as you can see.

We also got to take a trip to Melba's chocolate factory. There they have everything open so that you can see how chocolate is made and, if you go at the right times, you can see the workers making your chocolates for you. There are free samples throughout and then you can buy the candies and chocolates by the bag full as well. We spent way too much money in there but the kids each got something they really wanted and have enjoyed eating it.

Josh and I got to spend an evening at the temple and do a session. I have a special place in my heart for the Adelaide temple as that's actually our home temple and it's the place that I got to do the work for my grandparents and feel the special spirit that was there as we did so. We didn't get any pictures of the temple this time (I don't know why, maybe we forgot the camera?) but that doesn't make it any less special.

We also spent the day as a family at the beach too. We got there at a decent time of the day but it rained the whole drive there. We told the kids to pray for sun so that we could actually enjoy some time at the beach that day (though not swimming-it was winter after all). We parked the car and all of a sudden the sun came out and broke through the clouds. The kids were so excited. We said a prayer of thanks before we got out the stroller and went for a walk up the beach. We walked up to the pier and decided to walk out to the end for some pictures and a good view and as we approached it we saw these clouds-another very large storm moving in. We thought it was a ways off but then it started moving fast. We went quickly to the end of the pier, took some pictures and walked back. As we approached the beach again (and the shops) the storm hit hard and pored down rain.

We quickly ducked into a toy store for a look around and spent about 20 or 30 minutes in there until the rain stopped again. Once it stopped this time it was pretty much done for the say, thank goodness. We got out some Ziploc bags and let each of the kids collect a bag full of shells of their choice, walked along the beach, had dinner at McDonald's and looked through some of the shops for a bit. As our time was expiring for parking we decided to walk back and head home. We arrived back there just as the sun was going down. That night was Lyndy's birthday and we wanted to do something special for her. Nigel and Lyndy had to work most of our trip as well as having their anniversary and her birthday and we wanted to have something special anyway. We grabbed her some flowers, a nice pair of fuzzy, warm socks and I baked her a cake. The decorations aren't the best but I did the best I could with what I had. She loved it!

Finally, our stay in Adelaide was done. We packed up the car, once again, and headed out a little bit later than we had planned to. We decided to try and make it as far as we could that night but to stop someplace and sleep during the night. We ended up driving a little bit longer than we had planned to since the town we wanted to stay in had no room at the inn. We made it into Coober Pede right about 10pm (it's dangerous to drive after dark with all the kangaroos on the road) and found ourselves a room at a decent price. In the morning we went to the Old Timers Mine. Last time we took the inside tour and decided that the kids really only wanted to see and dig in the noodle pits so this time we walked through the outside and then let the kids each fill a small Ziploc with opals from the pit.

We had sandwiches to eat and then headed out on our way home again. We got home at a decent time and, after 30 days of going and going, we let ourselves relax in our own beds once again.