The Fenwicks

Part Two: Cami's accomplishments

2011-12-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

Here's the other part I promised.

I'm absolutely THRILLED to announced that Cami is 100% potty trained!!! It's wonderful! We put her in 'big girl' panties last week on Wednesday and she had one accident that day, one over night, and one the next day where she pooped in her panties, but since then she's had none!! She'll tell us when she has to go and usually doesn't need to be prompted. Today she successfully pooped in the potty, so I can safely say that it's 100%!

Every other parent that I've talked to that has gone through the potty training experience has told me that it's all up to the kid. You have to wait until they're ready. And when they are ready, then it will happen. I've been trying to encourage her for a long time, but it's never worked. She just would not do it. And now, finally, she's ready! It's so nice to have only one child in diapers again! Austin hasn't show any inclination towards even wanting to sit on the toilet, so I'm not pushing it.

Cami's other accomplishment this week is one that I'm not at all thrilled about, but it makes me laugh nonetheless. Cami discovered the art of cutting Austin's hair. :) I left my crafting scissors on a table where she could reach them and got them up in the morning. I was getting them breakfast and Cami comes in, holding something out for me. I take it and quickly realize that it's a large chunk of Austin's hair. Fantastic. When I looked closer at his poor head, I discovered this.

Sterling cut Austin's hair just about a week before and was very proud of his 'Marine haircut masterpiece'. We haven't yet fixed Austin's hair, just too lazy, though I'm sure we'll have to soon. I'm just grateful that Cami hasn't yet cut her own hair, though that will surely come. I remember pictures of my childhood attempts to trim my own bangs. Quite the disaster.

I'll end with a few other pictures I've taken since we've been here in New York.

Can you spot Cami?

How about here?

Showing off mom's accessories. So cute!

Things happening in New York

2011-12-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

Part One: Our new apartment

I know some of you have been waiting for awhile to see what our new place is like. We are (mostly) settled in now. We still have several pictures to hang and I'd still like to get some additional rugs, but that will come with time, I suppose. We're in the upper floor of a building with two apartments in it. There's an unfinished attic above us, and an unfinished basement below the apartment below us. It's all space used for storage. The day we moved in, Sterling was out front unloading the trailer and two guys walked by. A little while later, they came back with a 6 pack of beer and said 'welcome to the neighborhood!' Sterling told them we don't drink and they said 'more for us'. :) Nice gesture though. They invited Sterling over anytime he wants to watch football or anything. Our neighborhood is nice. Pretty safe over all. One of the reasons we chose the apartment is because it's so close to our church and Sterling's school. Both are about two blocks away in opposite directions. We're also about two blocks away from a huge park, complete with tennis courts, a lake, a big play ground, and an area where you can have your dog off leash. It's huge!

As for our apartment, it's decent sized. The bedrooms are a little small, but they fit everything well enough. The landlord stripped all the carpet and had the wood floors varnished. I feel bad for the people below us because with the kids running back and forth I'm sure we are loud! We bought a big rug for the kids room so they can throw their toys around and not be as noisy, but haven't bought any others. I took several pictures of our place before we got furniture in, just to show the size of the rooms. It was so dirty! When they were doing work here (varnishing the floors, painting the walls, etc), they didn't clean it at all just so we could get in earlier. Thankfully they recompensed us by not charging us for the month of November at all. It took quite a bit of work though.

Here's the before and afters of the rooms. Hope that gives some idea of what it's like here. We like it so far. We've got nothing but radiant heat, but I actually like it. We also got a brand new gas stove because there was a problem with the oven of the last one. And there's a dishwasher! We haven't had one in the 5 and 1/2 years that we've been married, so I'm thrilled to finally have one.

Here's the living room - taken from the dining room

This angle is from by the door out to the sun room, seen on the right of the first picture

This is the dining room from the living room. The front door to our place is around the corner on the left of the first picture opening up to the dining room.

This is the entry way out of the dining room. There's a coat closet and space for shoes, then the stairs go down and down again to the left to our real front door and then through the door to the outside of the building.

The kitchen as seen from the office door

The kitchen as seen from the hallway

Our bedroom, the biggest of the three. This room is actually fairly large. Other places I've seen fit a queen bed, maybe one side table and that's it. No dressers at all. Ours fits our queen, two dressers and two side tables.

The kids room. It's big enough for them and their toys. They seem to enjoy the space. We plan to get bunk beds for them after Christmas.

This is the office. Much smaller than our bedroom, but still fits everything in.

Part of the bathroom. The sink with the mirror over it is off to the left and the shower is behind the door off to the right. The shower head is so high that I can barely reach it if I'm standing on the side of the tub. This place was built in approximately 1904, so I'm wondering, were they just taller back then? Or am I just really short? Never mind. Don't answer that.

There's a hallway that connects the dining room to the kitchen and in that hallway are the doors for our bedroom and the kids bedroom on one side, and two storage closets, the bathroom, and a built in china hutch on the other side. The room to the office is off the kitchen, as well as the door to the back stairs and porch. That door is seen by the fridge in one of the pictures.

That's pretty much our place. I think we'll like it here for the next two and a half years. We bought a piano for $100, which I'm just thrilled about. As a whole, it's out of tune, but the notes are all still mostly in tune with each other, so I might just deal with it. I don't mind playing on a piano that's a little off. I just got called as the Primary chorister in church, so I'm going to need the practice.

We also had to buy a new couch because, sadly, our big black leather couch would not fit through the doorway. The problem is that there's a wall several feet in front of our front door (at the bottom of the stairs) and we couldn't maneuver the couch around that area to get it through the door. The love seat fit because we could turn it on it's end, but the couch was too big. We tried everything, even took the padding out of the back and armrests. So I think we're just going to store it somewhere for the next couple years. We haven't had any luck selling it for anything near that it's worth, so we'll wait and use it later. We like our sectional though. It has the built in footrests on either end. It's definitely seen better days though, but it will do for us.

Here's all the stuffing from the armrests and the couch backs. Five bags and two blue bucket-fulls. Also the cushions.

The window you see over Sterling's shoulder here is the wall that I was talking about. Not so easy to get around.

Our poor deflated couch.

Well, that's all! Hope you enjoyed the tour! Stayed tuned for tomorrow's post of 'Cami's accomplishments.'

Albany, New York

2011-11-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

I had planned on finishing recapping the summer before we moved and then start a new chapter, but, as usual, all my good intentions went right out of the window.

So, we'll completely blow off the rest of the events of the summer. Fortunately, my sister covered most of those events pretty well, so I'll reference you to her blog here. And here. And here. And to this one I have to quickly add some pictures, then I'll get on to my real purpose.

This is Austin after he fell head first into the pond. He didn't cry and he didn't drown, he was just very stunned.

Travis' two brothers, Tim and Eric, valiantly leaped in after him. Eric grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him back into my lap. Here you can see that they're a little wet, especially Tim. I got wet too because of Austin sitting on my lap.

The next two times we went swimming at Joyce's, Austin was having none of the pool. If you tried to take him in, he'd cling to Aunt Ruth's leg like it was his only salvation. It took just twice to get him re-accustomed to the water. No child of mine is going to be hydrophobic.

Oh, and here's Tim, picking leeches off his legs. Gross.

Now, on to the main event. Our trip out to Albany, New York. Point of interest. The city is pronounced All-bany as in 'ALL the king's horses' not Al-bany as in 'Albert' or 'Alfred'. Did any of you westerners know that? Neither did we. Weird. We found that out when a trucker in Indiana corrected us. And now that we're here, if we mispronounce it people give us a weird look. Old habits, but we'll get it.

On to our trip. I have pictures on my phone of the piano being moved out of our little apartment. (We sold it. No way was that monstrosity making it into our little trailer.) That was an interesting experience. We recruited several of our neighbors to help us. They were champs for doing it since that piano weighs at least a half ton. My brothers came over to help us pack up our trailer, but again, those pictures are on my phone. Or I deleted them accidentally. Oops. The last few days I was getting really worried that everything wasn't going to fit. But it did! We did end up sacrificing several things that I would really have rather held on to, but it was just one less thing to pack.

We went to church to say goodbye to our Sunday School class, then took off to stay with Joyce for the night up in Salt Lake. The next morning we started out. It was a much later start than we'd hoped for but miraculously the kids slept late. We had hoped to make it all the way to Ogalala, Nebraska, but a strong head wind all across Wyoming really hurt us. We spent the night in Kimball, Nebraska. It was one of those small towns where every one know everyone else. Lots of truckers. We loved it.

Sterling looking ecstatic to finally be on the road.

Rolling hills of Iowa. None of Nebraska. I forgot I had just gotten a new camera until after we were out of there.

The next day we pushed our way through Nebraska and half of Iowa and stayed the night in Newton, Iowa. Another small town, though not quite as small as Kimball. Apart from the Rockies, I think Iowa was my favorite. There were rolling hills all over and beautiful, picturesque farm houses dotting the land. Just gorgeous. Nebraska, Illinois, and Indiana were mostly flat farm land. I don't particularly care for flatness. Around Ohio is where we entered tree country which almost made up for the lack of real mountains. New York has 'mountains', but it's merely a consolation prize compared to the Rockies.

Farmhouse in Iowa.

The following day we sped through the rest of Iowa and a relatively short stretch of Illinois. We wanted to drive down to Nauvoo, but figured it was a little too far out of the way and by then we were getting tired. Next we hit Indiana and the beginning of the toll roads. Toll roads stink! We had contemplated taking Highway 20 the whole way through Indiana, but got mildly lost trying to find where it went, so we stayed on the Interstate. Ended up paying $19.00 in toll fees to get most of the way across the state. We stayed the night in Elkhart, where we met the trucker who corrected our pronunciation of Albany and then decided that across Ohio, we would find Highway 20 if it killed us. No more tolls. Thank you very much.

Flatness of Illinois.

Sunset in Indiana.

We had planned to stop early and stay on the west side of Cleveland and find a hotel with a pool and take the kids swimming, but alas, it was not to be. We didn't feel very safe in the town that we'd chosen and there was nothing else between us and the big city, where we did not want to stay. We locked up the trailer pretty well, but we had lots of stuff in the back of truck, sort of seen in this picture, that we didn't want stolen. Yes, those are our bikes tied down on top of the trailer. You do what you gotta do, right?

More flat farmland in Ohio.

So we pressed on and drove through Cleveland where we were able to get back on I-90 because it was no longer a toll road. We searched all over the Ohio map in our atlas trying to find Kirtland. Strange, but it's not on there. Then, as we're driving through the last stretch of Ohio, we saw a sign. 'Kirtland 1 mile'. Fantastic! We took the road and found ourselves immediately in a very, very small tourist town. The highlight of which is, of course, the Kirtland Temple. The Visitor's Center was closed (about ten minutes previously) but we did get to walk around the building. It was cool to know that it was in that very building where Jesus appeared, and Moses and Elijah and Elias and restored the keys for the gathering of Israel, among other things. All of it happened in that building. Wow.

We contemplated staying the night in Kirtland and going on the tour the next morning, but instead pressed on to Geneva where Sterling shamelessly flirted with the hotel clerk and got us a great deal on the room. Never underestimate the power of flirting to get what you want. We still arrived early enough to relax a little, but there was no pool. Shame. The kids seemed to have fun anyways.

The last day we pressed forward and arrived at about 6 pm in Summit, New York, which is roughly 56 miles away from Albany. We're staying with a couple that's a friend of a friend of a friend. Never met them before, only talked to them on the phone, but they're graciously letting us stay here for the next little while until our apartment is ready. The couple wasn't home at the time we arrived, but they live so far out in the sticks that they don't have to lock their doors. There's seriously NO ONE around for at least a half mile. It's wonderful. Always quiet, lots of privacy. It'll be a bit of a change when we finally move into the city.

Colorful New York.

As for our apartment. The internet out in the sticks is extremely slow, but I am grateful to have it, so I can't complain too much. However, it takes a very long time to upload pictures, so I'm going to stop here for now and I will share pictures of our tiny new apartment at some future date.

Out of the ashes

2011-10-09T15:13:00.000-06:00

This post is a week late, but I got to it. I'm sure there are many of you as excited about this as I am. The Provo Tabernacle, which burned down last December is going to be rebuilt and turned into a second Provo Temple!

I'm ecstatic about the news!! I'm sure many people are. Sterling and I have had Stake Conference in the Provo Tabernacle twice a year, every year since we've been married. Sterling also sang several Men's Chorus concerts in there. That building held special meaning for us. As it did for many.

And now to have it turned into a Temple just thrills me! This is a picture of what the church projects it to look like when it's done.

My favorite thing about it is how similar it looks to the building when it was first built.

There used to be a bell in the tower on top of the tabernacle, but it was removed in 1917 and I think the bell was put somewhere on BYU campus, but I don't remember.

Now, instead of a bell in the tower, there will be an angel on top.

Surprise!

2011-09-28T21:26:00.000-06:00

When Sterling got home from work today, he set his lunch cooler down on the counter and told me to look inside. It seemed innocent enough, so I decided to do as he asked.

Now, I was imaging that the two blue ice packs he uses every day had burst and that the inside of the cooler would just be a mess of blue.

If only.

I leaned in close to the cooler, popped open the lid and was met by this:

I'm proud to say that at least I didn't scream. But I yelped. Just a little. And jumped back. It was definitely not what I was expecting. Frankly, it freaked me out.

Once I'd recovered from the initial shock, I opened the lid again and peeked in. Only to see that the fish was still breathing.

That got me again. IT WAS STILL ALIVE!

I yelped again and jumped back. Thanks for the warning. Sterling laughed pretty hard both times. He says he wishes he had gotten that on video. 'Priceless' he called it. I see nothing funny here.

It was the first catfish that Sterling has ever caught. He was so proud. He let it live for a little longer (while I tried to finished eating dinner.) Then he took it outside, along with Cami and our niece, Beca, and taught them a little about anatomy. Nice, huh? At least it wasn't hands on - for the girls, that is.

I've heard that catfish is good eating, so we'll cook it up in a few days and see. Oh the joys of having a husband who likes to fish.

And terrorize his wife.

Third birthday

2011-09-23T09:55:00.000-06:00

Yes, I know I said I was going to post yesterday, but things got busy. I don't need excuses, I'm a mother.

In June, Cami and I were able to go to Lagoon's Family Day with my brother-in-law and his wife and their little girl, Beca. We went mainly for the kids, so we didn't go on many adult rides, but we had a good time anyways.

When we first arrived, we went to Lagoon-a-Beach, but it was so cold that neither of the little girls lasted very long. So we dried off and went on rides instead.

We took Cami and Beca on a dinosaur ride that drops you (like the Rocket, only miniature) and to a Haunted House ride, as well as on Puff the Magic Dragon roller coaster. Through every single ride, Cami maintained a very bored look on her face. On Puff she even cried because she was just so tired. Tired! Not afraid. Tired! I'm hoping she'll enjoy roller coasters when she gets bigger because Sterling and I love them.

My sister-in-law, Alisha's, sister Jamie was working there at Lagoon, so we stopped by her ride (in Kiddie Land) and rode it several times. It was this one.

I think the girls both had fun, but it was so hard to tell. I think they're still a little young to really appreciate all this. But it was fun just to watch them.

In July, Cami turned three!! I echo the comments of every parent that I can't believe it's already been three years. We traveled up to Midway where my family was staying for her party and when we got there, were greeted by this.

It says 'Happy Birthday Cami'. So sweet.

My sister and her two girls had undertaken to decorate the sidewalk for her.I didn't do any sort of theme for her, apart from the princess cupcakes I bought. We also had a cake for those who don't like chocolate (shocking, I know, but there are people - weird people, I might add - in Sterling's family who just don't like chocolate).

It was fun to have both sides of the family there. The kids made a mess with their cupcakes and Cami got to open all her presents. We got some great gifts from everyone.

Happy Birthday Cami!

Hiatus

2011-09-21T09:29:00.002-06:00

Now that a third of the year has passed without a single post from me, I feel it's finally time to start catching up on what has happened in our lives this past, eventful summer. If all goes according to plan, I should be doing one post a day for the next week or so. That's if my kids will let me be on the computer for that long.

First things first, we have some big news in our family that most of you likely already know about.

WE'RE MOVING TO NEW YORK!

Sterling applied and was accepted to Albany Medical College's Physician Assistant Program. Classes start in January, so we plan to move out there within the next few months (second week of November or so). For any of you who don't know what a Physician Assistant is, go here. This particular program goes for 28 months, so Sterling will graduate in April 2014. When he's finished, we are (tentatively) planning on moving back out west to be closer to family, unless we happen to love New York.

When Sterling first started applying, he talked to a PA who told him that on average, if you apply to 10 schools, you'll get interviews to 5 and you'll get accepted into 2 or 3. Sterling applied to 8 schools and so far has gotten interviews to 7. (We still haven't heard from Duke.) I guess that PA didn't realize how smart Sterling is. He only went to the interview in Albany and because he was accepted, that's where we're going. I wanted to go to a school in Arizona, but it doesn't start until next June, and the interview wasn't until January anyways.

C'est la vie.

It's very strange to be in this situation. For the past two years we've constantly thought we'd be moving. First for the Marines, then to a house, then down to Price, then Marines again. Now it's not just a 'if' we move, it's finally a 'when'. We're going to start packing up in the next month or so and my parents bought us a trailer that we're going to pack our whole life away in and drive across country to New York. It's roughly 2000 miles. We plan to make a few tourist stops on the way, so if any of you have any recommendations of where we should go, please pass it along. We're excited.

So that's it for today, but since this post is nothing but talk, I'll add a few pictures on here of, who else, my kids.

And That's All Folks!

Tune in tomorrow for 'Lagoon and Cami's Third Birthday'!

5 Years

2011-05-13T19:26:00.001-06:00

I was talking to my mom awhile ago and she noted that I hadn't updated my blog recently and I told her that was because nothing was happening. She said that was the best time to update the blog. Just post anything. So, I thought I would update weeks ago with the 'anything' she talked about, but then holidays came along. So, now I actually have something to post about, right? Well, sorta.

First, holidays.

1) Birthday. My other brother that is at BYU had his birthday and we had a party for him on my other brother's birthday (the one who is on his mission). Cami had fun playing with her uncles while they were over.

If you can't hear in this one, Cami is saying 'wake up' and 'ni-night'. We play this game with her frequently.

2) Easter. We didn't do anything for Easter. I mean nothing. Nada. Zip. We didn't even take Cami to a park to hunt for Easter eggs. We will next year, I promise, she's still just a little young. Oh wait, we had my brother over for dinner. That's right. We did do something. Sorta. We're kind of a boring family when it comes to holidays.

3) Mother's Day. I got flowers for Mother's Day and a hug from Cami (that I had to ask for). Sterling told her repeatedly all day long to go give me a hug and kiss and she would just stare blankly at me and him. Guess she either just doesn't understand or just doesn't like to give hugs. Sad.

4) Anniversary. Yesterday was our fifth anniversary. We've been married Five Whole Years! Wow. We're so blessed to have family close by (grandma and Uncle Ryan) who are willing to watch our kids for us while we spend time together kid-free. It was nice not to worry for a little while. At dinner, Sterling asked me what my favorite part was about the last five years. I have to say it was spending time with him and getting to fall in love with him over and over again each year. Sterling, I love you so much.

Our wedding day. Five years ago yesterday.

Our first anniversary. At Chef's Table.

Our second anniversary. I think we were at Red Lobster.

About the time of our third anniversary. I apologize to those who don't like beards (mom and Gigi), this was the only picture I had from around that time.

Near our fourth anniversary. Yes, I know you've seen this picture before.

Looking through pictures just now of trying to find ones of us together for this year, our fabulous fifth anniversary, I realized that we have NONE of us together at all this year. So I took my phone camera outside and got a few. This is what we both look like at this very moment.

This was the first try. I took it and then asked why Sterling was scowling. Also, my self portrait skills with a camera could be better.

The next time, Sterling made this face. Isn't he helpful.

Finally, we got a winner, more or less. I don't think I look great with no make-up on, but c'est la vie.

As for the 'nothing' news. I really enjoy taking pictures of my children when they're sleeping. Mainly because they fall asleep in some of the strangest positions. You'd think that it would be uncomfortable. Maybe it's just that they're so tired because they stay up and play in their room until 10 at night. (We put them to bed at 7:30.)

The other day I let Austin play in his and Cami's room alone. Awhile later I went in there to discover this. He'd climbed up on Cami's bed and fallen asleep on her pillow. Guess he was tired.

Later he moved himself to this position.

I had a movie on for Cami awhile back and when I went downstairs to check on her, she'd fallen asleep folded in half. Doesn't look comfortable to me.

This last one, I took just today. Again, Austin playing in their room. He's very much a tummy sleeper and likes having something balled up underneath him. Usually it's his blanket in his bed. Today, it was a giant teddy bear.

The rest are pictures of them just being them.

Cami in Daddy's boots.

Cami and her cousin Beca.

Cami's blanket-pirate look.

Yum. Lunch.

Just relaxing.

Here's a video of Austin playing fetch with Sterling. He was doing it with Cami earlier today and played with me last Sunday. So much fun.

This is Cami and Austin dancing. Whenever we turn music on, they both just go crazy.

This one is long, but I LOVED Cami's hip action during the first couple seconds. Worth looking at.

My hubby's birthday

2011-04-10T15:40:00.000-06:00

If you couldn't guess by the title, Sterling had a birthday this last week. I'm a little slow blogging about it, but here we go. We've been trying to eat healthy(-ish) recently. (It's only kinda working). And Sterling said about a month ago that he didn't want a cake because it didn't match our definition of 'healthy'. So, I figured I'd find an alternative that was a little healthier than chocolate cake. Here's what I came up with.

Fruit pizza!! I know, right! Isn't it pretty? And boy was it good. It's super easy to make too. The only thing about it is if you want a variety of fruits, you need to shell out a little money if things aren't in season (like they're not in April). But that's okay. He's worth it.

We figured it qualifies as 'healthy' because it's a high anti-oxidant dessert. The amount of fruit at least counteracts the sugar cookie base, however, I think the cream cheese under the fruit might make it a little un-healthy. Oops.

I didn't want to have to go out and buy 27 candles, so I just put two candles on one side and seven on the other. I thought it worked pretty well. However it will only work one more year if I keep buying a box of 10. I also got trick candles. I have a video of it. It was hilarious to watch. When I bought them I had Cami in mind since she enjoys blowing out candles (she helped Austin with his cake), but Sterling seemed to have more fun with it. Go figure.

Don't feel obligated to watch the movie. It was more enjoyable for me than I think it will be for you.

This was the kids after his party. Cami's shirt was dirty and Austin climbed out of his pants. Between the two of them though, they have a full outfit on.

After cake Sterling got his presents and we watched one of the movies that I bought him. I think he had a good birthday. He's never told me otherwise.

Happy Birthday Sterling! I love you!

Other birthdays and other stuff

2011-04-10T15:32:00.000-06:00

Alright, now that Sterling has gotten his own post, I'll catch up on the rest of the news going on. This is the season of birthday's in my family. From March 12th to April 30th, there are 12 birthdays. (That I know of). All three of my brothers, my sister-in-law, my son, my niece, both of my brother-in-laws, my dad, my aunt, my cousin, and of course, my husband's, which I already covered. Whew! What a month! I, however, only intend to recap the ones with parties that I got to go to. Selfish, I know. Happy Birthday to all of you though!!

My brother Ryan turned 19 the day after Austin's birthday and got his mission call!! Not on the same day, but in the same month. He and my other brother David came over for dinner and I made a cake. It looks good in this picture, courtesy of my fuzzy camera. Ok, let's be honest, it looked awful, but it tasted great!

He opened his mission call at his dorm on the 30th of last month. We video conferenced mom and dad in on it, so they got see/hear it, even though they weren't there. I took a video of it, hope you can hear it okay.

That's right! He'll be spending the next two years in the Chile Santiago East Mission. I was really annoyed because right after I stopped the video Ryan continued to read "You have been called to teach in the Mandarin language" to which everybody started yelling again saying "What?!". Then Ryan went on to say "Just kidding, I'll be speaking Spanish." It made everyone laugh really hard. So mad that I missed it. Hope one of his friends got it all on video.

Sterling also served his mission in Chile, though he was in the Concepcion mission. He says that Ryan has been called to serve in one of the richest neighborhoods in all of Chile. Sterling says there are parts of the town there in Santiago that make Beverly Hills look like a slum. Oh, what I wouldn't give to see that. Someday we'll go back down there to Sterling's mission.

My other brother David also had a birthday recently. He's 23 now. Wow. I just realized how old he is. We still have yet to have a party for him. We might do it on Tuesday this week, which happens to be my last brother's birthday. He's currently in Taiwan finishing his own LDS mission. He gets home June 20th (or so) and Ryan leaves July 21st (I think). So they'll get to see each other for a month.

The last little birthday party that I went to, we didn't even have cake. What kind of a party is that? Wait, I'm suppose to be eating healthy. Right. Blast. Anyways, it was for my brother-in-law and his wife who have birthdays in consecutive months. It was also for Sterling whose birthday falls right in between theirs. Fun fun. I love birthdays! Happy Birthday to everyone!

Apart from birthdays galor we haven't really been up to much. So I'll just post a bunch of pictures.

I baby sat Cami and Austin's cousin Beca a few weeks ago. The weather was nice, so we went to the park. This is how I got them there.

Playing on Uncle Preston. Hee-Ya!

Cami and I got haircuts recently. Her's has been such a rats nest. She wouldn't ever let us put it up in pony-tails or anything, so I took her somewhere and they did this. So cute! Now, I just curl it a little and she actually looks like a little girl. Amazing! Though she still insists on wearing a baseball cap everytime she goes outside. (As seen in the first picture.)

My husband gave me a miniature rose bush for Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, it died the next day. But now, almost two months later, it looks like this! Courtesy of Sterling's green thumb. (Notice how my camera put the table in focus instead of the flower. Brilliant. I need a new camera.)

Cousins sitting together on the couch. I have a picture of Krista and me like this when we were little. Good times.

I think they used to make couches a little bigger back then.

Also, here's some other videos. The first is of Austin walking. I think he looks like a monkey. I love the way he holds his arms above his head. I guess it helps his balance. Or something.

This was Austin playing with his Uncle Preston. I don't know what was funnier, Austin dancing, or Preston. Austin loves music and whenever a good song comes on, he'll stand, just like Cami used to, and bounce up and down and wave his hands. Working on a video of that.

He also plays fetch with Sterling. Tried to get a video, but he decided to just run away with the ball rather than bring it back to Sterling for him to throw it again. Who needs a dog when you have a son, right?

This last is of Cami and Beca. Aunt Ruth took them out to get the mail and didn't want to be bothered with putting on their shoes and socks, so she loaned out a few pairs of her shoes. We got a good laugh of the two of them walking around like this.

One last thing, I'd like to give a quick eulogy to our fish Harry. A year ago on April 8th, we bought Harry and Lloyd, who were orange and white goldfish, and brought them home with us. They lived on the counter together for quite awhile. Some only believed that they'd live for a month, but both fish persevered. Then, tragically, four days before his first anniversary with our family, Harry went belly-up in his bowl. The cause of death is unknown as he had clean water and had been fed. Perhaps he was just old (for a goldfish). That afternoon he took a ride on the porcelain express where he will rest in peace forever more. Harry was preceded in death by his comrade-in-bowl and friend Lloyd who passed away last September. We will miss our little friends who were always so patient and never died on us even though I forgot to feed them time and time again. Their little bodies are gone, but their bowl remains and will someday be filled again. This time with a beta. RIP Harry and Lloyd. (Not pictured: Harry, Lloyd).

1 year old

2011-03-14T18:04:00.000-06:00

My baby boy turned one on Friday! Hard to believe it's already been a year. We hosted a little family party at our place and got pizza and cake and other unhealthy foods. I found out from a friend of mine that Macey's grocery store gives you a free cake on your child's first birthday. They even write on it too. (That's how they keep you honest).

It was the typical little birthday party that you have for a one year old. Nothing big, since they won't remember it, but enough of a to-do for the extended family to be happy.

Austin, like all on year olds, made a mess of his cake, but seemed to have fun. (In truth, he was crying - also, like all one year olds).

He's changed so much in the last year. He's been walking for two months now and can almost run, he 'talks' a bit. So many milestones in such a short amount of time.

Austin, we love you and are so glad you're part of our family.

Videos

2011-02-15T16:38:00.001-07:00

It's been a few weeks since I've put a post here about my kids, so I figure it's about time again. Austin started walking last month. He's been walking with help (fingers, furniture) for some time, but the other day he just stood up and took off. Usually when he walks, he sticks his arms straight up in the air over his head to help him balance. This time we was too busy chewing on his fingers. He can go quite a ways at a time now. I'm so proud.

Cami has been about the same. We had yet another powder incident, with not one, but two bottles of powder. My fault for leaving them in the room with her while they were playing. She also used up a full box of wipes to clean up the mess. You can't tell in the picture, but she has her diaper off and is in the process of trying to powder and re-diaper herself. So helpful. She and Austin were covered in powder, the picture gives a fair idea of what it was like. Also, regular vacuums don't pick up powder very well. Lesson I learned the hard way. Our vacuum was spouting powder after I tried to vacuum it all up. Every time I'd pick up the vacuum and set it down again, there's be a nice little collection of powder on the floor. Sterling had to take it outside and hose it out. So, advice for you future/current mom's out there: invest in a shop vac or else just don't leave your two-year old alone in a room with the baby powder.

While Sterling was at OCS he wrote me and told me that he missed Cami and that all he could think about was her fake laugh, so I thought I'd post it. It makes us laugh when she does it. I'm not sure who she's imitating, but it's funny. Her hair really adds to the impression of a crazy child too.

One last video, this is one Sterling took and thought I should post. Her idea of 'jumping' is simply 'falling'. She's hurt herself a few times doing this, but somehow it doesn't discourage her at all.

Changes. What else is new?

2011-02-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

I think from now on I'm no longer going to write posts about what's happening career wise with our family, because our plans change so frequently that it just gets confusing for the reader.

As you've probably guessed, there have been some changes again. Sterling is back from the Marines. On Monday the 17th he came down with a cough that, on Wednesday, was joined by a fever. He pushed through it for as long as he could, then on Wednesday, when the fever made it's appearance, he reported to medical. They did x-rays of his chest and other such tests and found out that he had bronchitis.

Fantastic.

At least it wasn't pneumonia.

They put him on a whole bunch of meds and told him to just sleep it off. So he went back to his bunk and slept the rest of the day. The next day he's worse, so he goes back to medical and they put him on a whole new set of meds because obviously the old set wasn't working.

He was stuck in his bunk for the rest of the weekend. I got a call from a senior sister missionary out there the following Sunday who told me that he wasn't at church that day because he was sick in bed with bronchitis. A fellow LDS marine from his platoon relayed the information. You can bet that had me stressed out. I made several phone calls to family and cried to my best friend and after that I felt a whole lot better.

Sterling wasn't cleared by medical to go back out and train, so he missed quite a few days of training. I don't know what would have happened if he'd gone against medical and trained anyways. Probably something bad, like getting more sick (sicker?) and, oh, I don't know, dying? Okay, that's a little dramatic. Honestly I don't know what would have happened.

The following Monday (24th) the captain of the platoon came to Sterling and told him that he'd almost missed too many days of training and that if he didn't get back out there tomorrow, they were going to have to send him home. That's what happens if you're sick. Sterling was unhappy about it, but medical hadn't cleared him, so he couldn't do much about it. On Wednesday they told him to pack up his gear, he was headed home. So far they had sent home perhaps a dozen guys in just the first two weeks. I wonder what their attrition rate is. The day that Sterling left, eight other guys reported to medical for similar symptoms as Sterling had. Not much of a morale booster there to see him being sent home.

He was suppose to fly in Wednesday night, but a snow storm in DC shut down the airport, so he stayed with my sister that night and flew in at midnight on Thursday. I'm happy to have him back. It was lonely with out him.

As for our future. Well, I don't think either of us is up for doing the Marines again. Third time's the charm? Yeah right. Guess I'm eating those words, huh? As per my beginning statement, I'm not yet going to disclose what is in store for our future, because with the way things change with us I'll be updating in a week to correct myself. Just know that we're okay with it. We both had enough time to think it over and figure out what other options we have and that it's not the end of the world. Life goes on.

Angel?

2011-01-22T16:37:00.003-07:00

Someone told me the other day that they thought Cami was this sweet little angel.

Now don't get me wrong. I love my little girl, but she can be so naughty at times that I just laughed in my friend's face when she told me that.

In her defense, she hadn't seen Cami since my girl was 9 months old. And she's changed a bit since then. It was really rather ironic, because that very night I went home and my babysitter told me that Cami had gotten hold of the baby powder and it was EVERYWHERE. It was all over the floor, the changing table, her clothes, her face, Austin's bed. You get the picture.

I decided to leave it until morning when I could vacuum it all up. The next morning I go in there and this is what I find.Cami had climbed in Austin's crib, unzipped Austin's pajamas and taken his diaper off. Yes, that's my little angel all right.

Thankfully my REAL angel child didn't poop or pee while he was diaperless.

Conclusion: Cami is certainly no angel. In fact, I've found the perfect theme song for her. I realize it's a car commercial, but if you put Cami in there, it's just too perfect to say any way else. Enjoy.

Holiday recap

2011-01-18T14:44:00.004-07:00

I've had several people tell me recently that they follow my blog. I never knew about any of them. But thank you! to all of you who do read this blog. It gives me an incentive to actually make time and post once again.

As I sit down to recap the holidays, I'm experiencing a peculiar sense of deja vu. I seem to remember about this same time last year, when I finally blogged about the holidays after they were all over. Just like right now. Well, at least I'm consistent.

For Halloween, Sterling had a party at work and they invited the families of the employees. Each department had decorations up. Sterling's was Sleepy Hollow. One guy was the headless horseman and just walked around with a pumpkin on his head staring at people. Weird. Sterling went as a cowboy. The kids both went as pirates. (I was trying to get Cami to smile by making faces, but she copied me instead.)

I didn't know what to go as, so at the last minute I dressed up as a pregnant lady. Sterling's face when we walked in was priceless. He did a double take at me, then said "You weren't pregnant when I left this morning". Several of his co-workers asked what we were having. Guess I made it look real enough. Some who were a little wiser saw the 7 month old on my hip and figured out that it was a costume. That night we went to a Halloween party that my friends from Price set up. (I have the fake pregnant belly. My friend Caitlin has a real one.) Thanks Mindy for letting me steal this picture.

Just before Halloween, we carved pumpkins. Mine was a bit of an embarrassment, so I won't post it, but here's Sterling's. Isn't he amazing.

Thanksgiving we went to Colorado with my brother Ryan to visit my Grandma Peggy. I brought my camera, but didn't take any pictures. Gigi did, but I haven't gotten them from her yet. Nothing special, so I don't think you'll mind no pictures.

On Christmas Eve we went to Sterling's mom's place for dinner. It's a family tradition we do every year. Have meat and shrimp cooked in a fondue pot and cheese and crackers and veggies. Love this tradition! I plan on buying a fondue pot for us so we can do it next year, wherever we are.

We went home that night and opened up presents with the kids the next morning. It was Austin's first Christmas, though he's still too young to care much. I thought about taking Cami to go see Santa, but she's also still a little young to appreciate it much. Next year though. The kids, like most kids, seemed to have more fun ripping the wrapping paper off their presents than they did actually playing with them.

It just supports what I've always thought. Why buy them presents at all, just get them a box. They seem to have more fun with that anyways.

For New Years Eve, we had a couple from our ward come over. Sterling and I usually just go to bed, or watch a movie and don't even watch the ball drop. This year we decided to do something. The Thompsons came over and hooked up their play station? nintendo? I don't know. Anyway, they hooked it up to our TV and we sat down and played Mario Cart and Mario Party and a shooting game that I was really bad at. Okay, let's face it. I was bad at all of them. Sterling used to play Mario Cart all the time, so he did awesome at that, but me, well, I came in last every time. But somebody's got to lose, right?

We ended up playing straight through the ball dropping, which was okay, since I always thought it was anti-climactic anyways. If they call it a 'drop' then it should actually drop, not just slowly slink down the pole.

So, now that the holidays are out of the way, here's what else has been going on.

Austin started crawling several months ago (like September). At first it was just the army crawl, but now it's a full-fledged, very fast crawl. He's such a sweet little boy. He's also walking with support (furniture, fingers, whatever) and he'll stand on his own, but can't yet take a step. Soon though.

He's got quite a few teeth in and unlike his sister, Austin's came in normally. The two bottom first, then the two top, one right after the other and now the two side top. He won't let me get a picture of them, though I have tried. But I guess nobody really wants to see the inside of a baby's mouth anyway.

He also got his first haircut. Cami didn't get hers until she was two, but she's a girl. It's okay for her to have a mullet for a little while. Austin, not so much. It was a relief to get it off. Sterling had been threatening to give him a Marine haircut if I didn't do it soon.Sterling also complain about the hair just over his ears that sticks out. He said Austin looks like an old man with the little tags there.

Before:

After:

As for Cami, she got moved into a big girl bed on New Years Eve. She actually hasn't had much trouble adjusting. I've heard horror stories from other parents, but she's done okay. We've had to further Cami-proof that room, but it hasn't been too bad. The only problem is that every night she climbs into Austin's crib and keeps him awake for hours. I'll have to figure out a way to keep her from doing that. No ideas yet. But some of my readers have kids. Little help?

The rest are just some random pictures.

Now, what kind of parent would I be if I didn't get pictures of my children together in the bathtub?

And then torture them just a little. You know these will end up in their wedding videos.

Last of all, I got a letter from Sterling so I now have his address. He's doing well so far. He made weight at 173 lbs, but it didn't matter because they measured him at 5'9". Go figure. We kinda knew it was going to happen, so not a huge shocker. Just further proof that he was suppose to go in January. If any of you are interested in writing to him, which I would recommend doing, I will post his address. He's pretty much a missionary out there. He can't call or email or anything until the end of January. All he can send or receive is snail mail. The only thing they ask is that you don't write 2nd or 1st Lieutenant on the outside of the envelope (he's still just a candidate until he gets commissioned) and also, don't write, put stickers, or anything on the outside of the envelope. Just keep it bare.

Also, if you go to the OCS website (I posted the link on my last post, see below) and click on the "Images" tab on the right side of the screen, they have posted some pictures of the candidates at OCS. I've checked very thoroughly and Sterling is not in any of them, which is disappointing, but at least we get to see what he's been up to.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers on Sterling's behalf. I'm sure he appreciates them and so do I.

Candidate Fenwick, Sterling T

C Company, 4th Platoon

Officer Candidate School

2189 Elrod Ave.

Quantico, VA 22134-5033

Day 1

2011-01-07T20:22:00.001-07:00

Well, Sterling is off and gone to OCS. His flight left this morning and he reported to Quantico, VA at 1800 (6:00pm) Eastern time. I'll be updating periodically with how he's doing, so keep checking back. For those of you who actually want to know more about OCS, go to www.ocs.usmc.mil and click on the red tab at the top 'Candidates Family Info'. What will pop up is a detailed description of everything they're going through. Also, on the right side of that website, there will be pictures of the candidates. None have been posted yet, the first we'll see of Sterling's class will be on Tuesday. I'll be stealing some of them periodically to post here.

Sterling was really excited this morning to go to OCS. Of course, not excited to leave me and the kids, but excited nonetheless. He says he was looking forward to jumping in a freezing cold river up to his waist and crawling on his belly through streams with ice floating in it. Yeah, that's exactly what he'll be going through. Fun, right? They'll be wet and cold, but as we've talked about many times, it's all worth it. Ooo-rah!

Third time's the charm

2010-12-05T15:25:00.001-07:00

We've been undergoing some major life changes recently. The last we told people, Sterling was going to start a Master's program here at BYU and we were planning on buying a house. Yay! Then we told people that that was not in the plans and that Sterling was looking for a full time job in his major. Which, it turns out, is very, very tricky since he only has a Bachelors.

So we reverted to what was Plan A right after he graduated from BYU. For those of you who don't know what Plan A is, please look here.

That's right! We're doing Marines again! To recap, for those who haven't been reading our blog for very long, or for those who have, but don't check too often because I never update it, Sterling got kicked out of the Marines back in Jun 2009 after just a week.

He worked random jobs for awhile, then this last October, we decided to try again. And were almost guaranteed a spot, but then didn't get it after all for reasons that will never make sense to me. Despite the disappointment, we decided to give it one more try. This is actually the last time Sterling could easily get into the Marines because once he turns 27, he has to get a waiver to apply again, and as we know because of the October selection, if you have a waiver, it reduces your chances of getting selected.

So, Sterling's selection officer put in Sterling's application one more time. About a month before the selection board met, his selection officer, Captain Davis, gave us a call and said that members of the selection board had asked for Sterling by name to see if he would want to be considered for a NFO (Naval Flight Officer - the one who navigates and fires the weapons in a plane) as well as a ground position at OCS. The reason being that they had a few spots open up for this season and Sterling was the only one in the entire region (from here to Hawaii) that is qualified to be an NFO. Of course Sterling said yes. Then, the week before the selection board met, we got another call from Captain Davis who told us that several pilot spots had opened up and that, once again, they asked for Sterling by name and wanted him to compete for a pilots spot as well. So, now Sterling was in the running for not only a ground spot, like everyone else, but also a NFO spot, and a pilots spot. We were told that it was almost guaranteed that he would be accepted, but after what happened in October, I wasn't getting too excited just yet.

The selection board met in November and Sterling got a pilot's spot! Yay! So we really are doing it all over again. He'll be leaving for Quantico, VA on Jan 7th and then will graduate from OCS on March 18 and receive his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps the same day. We're so excited.

Alaska

2010-10-10T18:42:00.000-06:00

This has been a long time coming. Shows how on top of posting I am. It's also a long, comprehensive one of our trip, so be prepared. On July 26th, my mom and dad, my brothers David and Ryan, and Sterling, Austin, and I all flew out to Anchorage. (Cami stayed in Utah with Sterling's mom since we would have had to buy her a ticket now that she's two.) We rented a motor home...

... and drove down to Moose Pass where my dad planned on doing float plane flying lessons. They took us up for a 45 min flight up over the mountains and the glaciers.

So beautiful.

After that we drove down to Seward where all the boys (except Austin of course) were scheduled to go out on a boat the next day to go halibut fishing. They seemed to have a good time. Each of them caught at least one fish. Over all, they caught about 90 lbs of halibut. That's a lot of fish.

Ryan was wearing 'lucky shoes' and ended up catching six or seven total, including a cod (the big one) and a red rock fish (the small, red one).

While they were out there, they saw a pod of orcas. None of them breached much farther than this, but it was still pretty neat.

Initially they were trying for something around this size, but nothing was biting, so after about a half hour they went to a different spot. This one weighs in at about 150 lbs. Imagine pulling that thing up from 300-400 feet down. For those who don't know, halibut are bottom dwellers, they're flat fish with eyes on one side of their head. In order to catch them, you bait your hook with salmon and drop the line to the ocean floor, somewhere between 300-400 feet down. In one of the videos they took, my dad spent over a minute and a half of the video just trying to reel his halibut in.

Meanwhile, my mom, Austin, and I spent the entire day playing every game that we'd brought with us. When that got old we decided to go see the town. It was roughly 45-50 degrees outside and the sun was constantly behind cloud cover. The locals all said that last summer would have been better to visit because it was around 70 degrees every day and was sunny. This summer was cold.

If you look at the sign in this picture, you'll see it's the starting mark for the 1910 Iditarod Sled dog race. It outlines were the race went along to coast from Seward to Nome. 900 miles. In the middle of winter. Across frozen, snow covered ground. With nothing but a team of dogs. More power to ya.

The next day we drove to Whittier. There is only one road leading into the town and it's a one lane tunnel that accommodates cars going both ways and a train. So, for 15 minutes traffic went one direction, then the other direction for another 15, then all traffic was stopped for 30 minutes as the train goes through. If you time it wrong, you could be waiting for 45 minutes before it's your turn to drive through the tunnel. It's also the longest tunnel in North America, spanning 2.5 miles. Mom and Ryan stated that it was still nothing compared to one of the tunnels in Hong Kong.

When we got there, we decided to try our hand at fishing on our own. So we rented a boat for the day and set sail across Prince William Sound to try to find some halibut and/or silver salmon.

Unfortunately we only caught one fish. One salmon which my mom got to reel in. We also put down some shrimp pots and caught a grand total of...... 18 shrimp.

Despite the disappointments, we had a great time and saw some interesting wildlife. At one point during our fishing we saw lots of fish jumping but could never catch any. Turns out they were being hunted by a seal, hence the jumping. Rotten luck for us.

This is the Bird Waterfalls. They're all a type of seagull, though we didn't care to determine exactly what type.

Over all we had a good time, we ate the salmon and shrimp, as well as Ryan's rock fish that night. All very, very tasty, though the eyes on the shrimp kinda freaked me out. Yuck.

After that we packed up and headed back to Anchorage to drop David off at the airport. He had to head back for EFY, his job that he had over the summer. Then we made the long drive to Soldotna. Along the way we stopped and admired the views and the wildlife.

Once in Soldotna, we spend a few days there while dad, Ryan, and Sterling fished the Kenai (pronounced key-nigh) River. The red salmon make their run around this time of year, unfortunately we missed it by just a few days. They say it's really crowded when the salmon are running, you're standing shoulder to shoulder with the others out there. And I thought it was crowded now. See how there's a person every three or so feet? And this is before the run starts.

They had to take the ferry across the river. It was neat to watch. I wish I'd gotten a video of it going across, but didn't think of it till it was too late. Very ingenious, I thought, the way they use the water to push them across. Once again, they only caught one fish. It was dad's. That what happens when you miss the run. Otherwise you can get your bag limit of six per person in about an hour.

Mom and I stayed at the camper and tried to keep busy by playing games and finding other ways to amuse ourselves.

That night we camped at the lake and ate dinner, then cooked smores, having some fun while we were at it.

The next morning they went fishing again. Again, only one fish. Well, you can't get lucky all the time. Or any of the time in our case.

After that we started heading back towards Anchorage to catch our flight home. We went back to Seward to pick up all our halibut, and ate dinner at a local restaurant. It was actually a great place to eat.

Just outside of Seward we stopped by Exit Glacier. It's connected to the Harding Ice Field which is a full day hike to the top of it. I would have loved to do it if we'd had the time.

They had a sign out front that gave you some tips about the local wildlife. We got a kick out of what it said about "If a bear attacks".

If the alternative is to continue to play dead while it eats you, what else would you do? Hmmm....

It was a nice, easy hike. The closer you got to the glacier though, the colder it was.

We also went to the Anchorage Temple. It's a very small temple, but beautiful just the same.

Our flight home was delayed because the plane that we would take home was delayed in Chicago because of weather. The Alaskan natives scoffed at what others considered 'a bad snow storm'. We toured the airport a little while we waited and found the world's largest (at least that had been killed) grizzly bear. Very cool. Scary though to think of one of those things coming after you. Or eating you. While you continue to play dead.

So, that was our trip. We had a great time and maybe someday we can do it again. Whew! Glad that post is over.

Big Sister

2010-09-24T21:46:00.000-06:00

The other day I left Cami in charge of watching Austin while I ran upstairs to do something real quick. When I came back down I saw that Cami had taken it upon herself to change Austin's diaper. She had pulled off his pants and unvelcroed his diaper, at which point he'd gotten bored and rolled over onto his stomach. I walked in and Cami walked up to me, pointed at Austin and said 'poop.' Great.

I went over to Austin and thankfully he hadn't pooped. Also fortunately, or not so fortunately, for me, I had just changed Austin's diaper myself, so there was no mess on the carpet, just a lot of baby powder. Cami loves being a big sister, but sometimes I just wish she wouldn't be quite so helpful.

Cami's birthday

2010-09-05T15:01:00.001-06:00

We actually celebrated Cami's birthday a week before she turned two, so her actual birthday was rather anti-climactic, thankfully, she's still young enough not to know or care yet. The reason we celebrated early was because Sterling's dad was in town for Austin's baby blessing (which I never posted about), and we thought it would be fun to have all four grandparents around. Unfortunately, with it being such short notice, that meant that Preston and Alisha (Sterling's brother and his wife) weren't able to get work off on time. Sorry. Their daughter, Cami's cousin, was able to come though.

Her party was pretty much a repeat of last years, except that this year I made her cake, which is why it looks so horrible. Just like last year, we had her party up at Zermatt, in Midway. Quite a bit of family was able to be there, so we had a great time. We had balloons, which Sterling and Ryan seemed to enjoy more than anyone.

We all had a great day. Cami probably won't remember much about her birthday this year, so I'm off the hook for not planning something super fun. Next year maybe.

Two years old!!

2010-08-31T20:30:00.000-06:00

I know I haven't posted in awhile about what we've been up to, and unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time right now, but I just wanted to post a little something about my baby girl. She had a birthday not too long ago and is two years old now!!! (I'll post the full account of her birthday later when I have more time.)

How did my little girl go from this:

To this:

In SUCH a short time. You've grown up SO fast baby girl. I love you so much and have enjoyed every second! Happy Birthday!

To those who knew

2010-08-18T16:02:00.000-06:00

I don't know how many of you have been reading our blog long enough to remember this post, which was later followed by this post. Either way, we have some news regarding all of that.

We decided to do it all over again!!!

Sterling got ready for OCS again in October, thankfully his physical and all his paperwork were still good from last time, so there was no need to redo all of that. He took his physical fitness test again and aced it! He ended up with a 290 out of 300. Pretty impressive, no?

The one big change was that there are no pilot spots open for October, they have too many pilots as it is. Instead, he was going to go for a Navigational Flight Office (NFO) position. When he took his physical, we were told that there were 10 spots for NFOs and only 9 people competing for them. So it was looking like we were nearly completely guaranteed to get in and we're feeling pretty good about the decision and our chances.

But God had different plans for us. I once heard someone say that if you wanted to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. We did.

We waited to get the official word that the selection board had picked Sterling as an officer candidate, but when the call came, it was that he WASN'T selected. We were crushed and confused and depressed and just flat out mad because nobody could tell us why. Come to find out that they did pick two men as NFOs and five women, and the other three spots were filled with extras from the summers class. Still doesn't make complete sense to me, but I can deal with it at least.

So, now we're trying to figure out what to do. We could go back to the Marines and try again in January, but what to do til then? Sterling only has a seasonal summer job right now. Also, I'm getting sick of the military; the only thing reliable about them is that you can always count on things to never go as they say they will. What a relief. Sterling could go back to school, but we already dropped that option once because we'd have to go into too much debt for it. He could get a job as boarder patrol down in AZ or somewhere, but he doesn't like the heat. So many choices and no clear path.

So there's the update for us. Sorry no pics with this one. Lots has been happening since my family is in town. I just need to get on and blog about it. Soon. Very soon.

Tickets

2010-06-28T20:10:00.002-06:00

I'm one of those people (like most of you out there) who feel like they never win anything! Well, I can't say that anymore. One of our local radio stations (The Cowboy 104.3) has been giving away tickets to a midnight showing of Eclipse. And the other day I was driving home down the freeway and I heard their little cue-to-call, so I gave it a shot, like I have many times before, and I got through. I was so surprised. Unfortunately it was just a recording that said: You are caller number 4, please try again. So, I immediately called back and somebody answered. I WON!

I got four tickets to the midnight premier. It's tomorrow night and I'm so excited. We're having our neighbor come over and stay with our kids so we can go. Sterling's brother and his wife are coming with us since I know they're big Twilight fans.

When I talked to Sterling later he told me that the stretch of highway that I was driving on at the time was exactly where he was driving when he won rodeo tickets a year ago on the radio. Hmm.. Must be a lucky stretch of highway. For those of you in Utah, it's on Southbound I-15 between the point of the mountain and Thanksgiving Point. Watch out for it. It's a lucky spot.

I'm super excited to go. It should be great!

Happy Father's Day

2010-06-20T20:17:00.015-06:00

I forgot to call my dad on father's day. Does that make me a bad daughter?

Actually, I called him on father's day, my time. But it was Monday morning his time. It's annoying that they live in Hong Kong. But they'll be here in two weeks!!

Sterling had to work today (yes, on Father's Day), but he was able to come home and spend some time with the family afterward.
Honey, you're wonderful. Thank you for giving me two beautiful, wonderful children. You're a great father to them. I love you.

I also wanted to say Happy Father's Day to my daddy, since I didn't get to talk to him on Father's Day. Daddy, you're the best father a girl could have. I love you so much.

I'm so thankful for the fathers in my life. I hope each of you took the time today to appreciate them and everything they do and how wonderful they are.

Now, for the grandparents, because I know they want to see pictures of Austin, and I haven't been very good about posting any. So, grandparents, here you are. Eat your heart out.
It's getting to the point where you can definitely tell they're siblings. They're really starting to look alike.Krista sent me this shirt. Apparently she couldn't resist. :)
Cami likes to get down on the ground and play with her little brother. He's not always thrilled about it.
I was going to add a few videos as well, but for some reason I can't figure out how to get them to work. I'll try to work it out and post them later. Wish me luck.

Self esteem

2010-06-19T21:16:00.002-06:00

Self esteem: noun, def.: a confidence and satisfaction in oneself

Mine got shattered a few days ago. I was sitting around with some people from my ward, one of which was a 5 (possibly 6) year old boy who used to be in my primary class. I'm leaning back in a chair, just relaxing and he turns to me and says "I can tell you're about to have a baby because you're tummy is big."

.....

Well, actually I just had a baby. But thanks for pointing out how I haven't yet lost the weight Austin gave me.

In his defense, his mom is pregnant right now. But don't kids just say the funniest things?

Funny. Yeah.

Visitor

2010-05-18T23:29:00.003-06:00

The last week of April, my best friend from college Melony came to visit me. Sterling was gone to Vernal that whole week, so it gave me something to look forward to. She arrived on Wednesday and left on Sunday. It was great to see her again.

It was actually pretty funny because when she and her husband booked her plane tickets, they booked it to include May 1st, which was their one year anniversary. When I asked them about it later, Melony sheepishly told me that 'they somehow forgot' what that day was. I guess if it's the first time you're celebrating it it might be easy to forget. I was glad she was there to spend time with me though.

We spent our days sitting around, playing with my kids, shopping, talking the usual girl-talk: clothes, men, shoes, cute jeans, work, more clothes, you get the idea. We went down to the BYU bookstore and shopped there a bit and just had fun being together again. I miss having her live close by, there's just something about having a best girl friend near you.

We realized late Saturday night that we hadn't taken any pictures, so these are the ones that she gave me, and coincidentally are the same ones on her blog. That's what you get when you forget a camera.

Not the most flattering picture of me, but she looks great.
Mel went to see her brother and sister-in-law and their kids while she was here, so, I took advantage of her absence. Since she spent her anniversary with me, I made a cake for her. I had to call her mom and husband to see if they remembered what their wedding cake was like, but neither of them could remember what kind of frosting they had. In their defense, Mel and James didn't get more than the 'feed your new spouse' bite of cake, so I don't blame them for not remembering. Afterward we baked the cake, Sterling and I made another dessert to cover the cake smell. Mel has a nose like a hound dog when it comes to cake. (I learned that while we were roommates and I tried to bake a surprise cake for her birthday once. She knew as soon as she walked into the apartment.)
This was the cake. It's likely the nicest looking cake I've ever made. Sad, right? I'm no pastry chef. Her colors were bright pink and green. I didn't have a green flower, so I made one from construction paper. Tacky, I know. But it's the thought that counts.
It was so much fun to see her again. I have the best friend any girl could ask for. I just wish she didn't live all the way in Arizona so I could see her more often. Mel, I love you girl and couldn't ask for more in a friend. You're the best.

Two months and four years

2010-05-12T11:56:00.005-06:00

Today Sterling and I are celebrating our fourth anniversary. Unfortunately, we're celebrating it separately. He's out in Vernal tracking grouse, while I'm here with the kids. However, he took me out last weekend to dinner and a movie. It was great to get a kid-free date with him again.

Also, today, Austin is two months old. It's amazing how fast time flies. He's already gotten so big and he's smiled and laughed. It's so fun when I get my face down next to his, and he looks at me and breaks into a huge toothless grin. Amazing how such simple things can make you feel so loved.

Austin, you're such a sweet little boy, I'm so grateful for you. Two months has gone by so fast, and I've enjoyed every second of it.

And Sterling, thank you for four wonderful years. I hope the next will be even better. I love you.

Haircut

2010-05-11T21:45:00.003-06:00

So, Cami finally got her first haircut. I've just been letting it grow till now and haven't really cared what it looks like. She won't let me put pigtails or anything in it, so it just kinda does it's own thing.

Now you ask, if you've been fine with her hair until now, what motivated you to finally cut it? Well, I'll tell you. Before I had kids I often looked at other women with their kids at the grocery store and their kids didn't have their hair done, their clothes were covered with food, their faces were dirty, etc. and I always told myself that I would never be one of those moms who just let my kids run wild and free.

Then, I was looking at Cami one day and I realized: that's exactly what I'd become. She was wearing lunch on her face and clothes and her hair had grown out to a mullet. My child looked like a dirty little hillbilly. I was not happy with myself for letting it get like this.

I hope I don't sound critical of other moms out there, because I'm learning how hard it is to handle more than one child and I realize now that it's really just easier to let your kids be kids and be dirty, but I never wanted to be like that.

So, I sat her down a few weeks ago and finally gave her a haircut! She wasn't too enthusiastic about it. She was far more interested in what was in the bathroom drawers, but I managed to at least chop off the mullet.
Here's a picture of the mullet. It's just a few long strands hanging down the middle of her back, and when her hair dried, it clumped together and then it looked like a nasty rat tail. Gross.

Here's the after picture. Her patience was just about exhausted by that point, so it was hard to continue to get her to hold still. But, the rat tail is gone and it's more or less the same length. I'm so proud of her for putting up with it as well as she did.

Sleepless nights

2010-04-23T01:12:00.006-06:00

Remember how I said that if I got one post a month I was doing okay. Well, here's my April post. I'll try to post again, but can't promise anything.

So, I don't know how many people read all the way to the bottom of a post where it has the date and time stamp. If you do, you'll see that this post is being added at about 1:30 am. Now, you may ask, 'what are you doing up so late?' But you must be forgetting that I have a new baby. Ah, now doesn't that just explain it all?

Austin usually eats last at around 10:00 at night. Before that it's a steady feeding every two hours. Sometimes he wants to eat every hour, it gets old real fast. Back to the point. Once he eats at 10, I know that I now have several hours of down time, so I start doing things that I don't like being interrupted to do, like playing on the computer or reading a book or budgeting or other fun stuff like that. Soon I glance down at the clock and realize that it's nearly 1 in the morning. Oops, so much for going to bed early like I planned. Again.

By then I realize that Austin will be up to eat again at any time (he still only gives me four or five hours at a time each night), and that is why I'm up right now blogging. I know he'll be up within a half hour to eat and there's just no point in going to sleep before I have to feed him again.

So, since I'm up, here's some of the pictures I've taken of him recently. My mom has been pestering me to post more pictures of him so she can get to see what he looks like. So many people say that he's the spitting image of Sterling. I still don't see it.

We have a picture of Cami just like this. Sadie makes such a good little doggie mommie.

Cami also had this as her first bed. It only took about two weeks for Austin to grow out of it. He has his own crib now.

Like most moms, this is what I spend half my day doing.

Poor kid is going to be traumatized from having the camera shoved in his face all the time, but he's just so cute.

There's just something about a sleeping baby. So precious.

Relaxin in his chair. I wish I had a seat like this with a vibrator in it.

Oh, I hear a baby cry. That's my cue...

He's here!

2010-03-28T15:18:00.006-06:00

My mom emailed me the other day saying that my little countdown thing for my pregnancy said that I was 40 weeks and 5 days along. Yeah, well, I'm actually not.

Austin Thayne Fenwick was born at 4:20 am on Friday, March 12th. He was 6 lbs 3 oz and 19 inches long. I should have posted sooner, but it's busy being a new mom, again!It was a wonderfully easy birth. Ladies, prepare to be jealous! Gents, feel free to stop reading now. I started having back pains the evening before while I was at my EMT class on campus. Not so much fun. I was in some serious pain. I got home and they kept getting worse, but I still wasn't sure I was in true labor. Some of you may know how that is. You just aren't sure and you don't want to be sent home from the hospital, so you wait and wait until it gets really painful. Well, we ended up leaving for the hospital at 11:00 pm. I don't know what it is about me having babies in the middle of the night. Our neighbor came over and stayed with Cami, who was sound asleep, until my mother-in-law arrived from Salt Lake. It was very nice and convenient.

I was talking to my mom the day before and she mentioned how some women have a lot of energy the day before the go into labor. That must be what happened to me on Thursday, because I vacuumed the house, actually took a shower, did my make-up, shaved my legs, painted my toe nails (how I reached them, I'm still not sure), and went to my EMT class where I walked around taking pictures of our MCI for several hours - that's all another story though. I was pretty proud of myself. I was especially happy that I managed to get my make-up done so I didn't end up doing it at the hospital like my sister did. :)I was admitted shortly after I got there, I was only dilated to a 3 and 40% effaced. They got me hooked up to the IV, which was done by a nursing student, who did very well. Last time I got a huge, painful clot in the vein from the IV needle. Not this time, she did awesome. However, the veteran nurse who drew blood the following day completely missed the vein in my arm so I had a dollar bill sized bruise to show for it. I think I'd rather have totally inexperienced students sticking me from now on, thank you very much.

I had to wait two hours to get my epidural. When the anesthesiologist came in, I actually asked to see what the needle looked like. Morbid, I know. He, very wisely, waited until after it was in to show me. For those of you who are unsure about getting one because it's a huge needle, it's unnecessarily hyped up. And this is me talking, me with the really strange fear of needles (which Sterling talks about here). The needle is no bigger around than a needle that they use when you donate blood. If you can do that, you can do this. No worries. And it's really not painful at all. I don't remember much about it with Cami's birth. I was too busy throwing up at that point. But this time was easy.

Moving on, so, we got to the hospital at 11:00 pm, with Cami it was at midnight. I got the epidural at 1:00 am, the same time that I got it with Cami. And my water broke at 4:00 am, nearly the same time that it broke with Cami. Is this getting a little weird and coincidental? I thought so too. However, that's where the similarities end. After that things went really, really fast. The doctor arrived at about 4:10. I started pushing at 4:16 and two contractions later we had a little boy at 4:20! Whew! So easy!He's very cute. I know every mother thinks that about their child, but really, he is! He doesn't even have a cone head since the delivery was so incredibly fast. Sterling got to deliver him (he would have delivered Cami as well, but she had the cord wrapped around her neck) and since he was holding the baby while they suctioned his nose and everything, I got to cut the cord. It was actually pretty cool. I kinda thought that it would be anti-climatic since everyone builds it up so much, but no, it was actually really neat.He's a very tiny little guy, almost a full pound smaller than Cami was. So far we think he looks like my dad, with his squinty little eyes. So cute! My mother-in-law says he has the Fenwick nose though. He's had a fair bit of jaundice, but it's going down slowly. We, fortunately, haven't had to put him on lights or anything. Already he sleeps about four to five hours at a time at night. I'm still sleep deprived, more so than I ever was with Cami, but it's getting better.The last two weeks have just flown by so quickly. He's already put on over a half pound in weight. It's amazing just how fast they grow. I'm trying my best to enjoy it while it lasts. I feel great. My recovery time with him was a lot faster than it was with Cami. I have tons of energy, despite my lack of sleep, and have been doing great. Cami seems to be adjusting about as normally as any other first child does. :) For those without kids: she's jealous and cries a lot more and whines and does whatever she can to get attention. It's to be expected though. She loves to look at him and pat his head and even gives him kisses. It's actually very sweet. I just count myself lucky that she hasn't tried to smother him with a pillow, yet.Over all, we're doing well. I'm just happy to have him here 10 days earlier than we expected. We had an inducement scheduled for Mon the 15th. The Ides of March. I'm happy he came on his own instead. Sterling hasn't been able to start with his master's project yet because of the snow out in Vernal, but I'm just fine with that because it means he's been around to help control the circus that is now our home. He seems excited to have a boy. Not that he won't take Cami fishing and hunting as well, but it's just nice to have a son. I'll try to be better about posting pictures and giving updates. I'm doing great til now if I get one a month. I'll make more of an effort, but with two kids now, it'll be tough.

Pregnancy woes....

2010-03-05T19:30:00.016-07:00

I just have to say that the last three or so weeks of pregnancy are by far the worst. I know others would disagree and say that the morning sickness is the worst, but when you're prone to hormonal imbalances BEFORE you get pregnant, like I am, when it comes down to the last few weeks before you deliver, you are one of the moodiest people in the world and nobody wants to be around you at all. At least, that's how I feel. I've been very moody recently and yelling at Cami and Sterling all the time. I feel awful. It's just hormones. They suck. Sterling, I just hope you know how much I love you and I'm so glad you put up with me because I know I've been hard to live with lately.

So, that said, people have been asking for pregnancy pictures, so here's a few. This was taken about a week ago, so say 36 1/2 weeks pregnant. Cami wanted me to pick her up while I was trying to take this picture.

I feel like I'm very small still, but what do you think? Here's from my first pregnancy at about 28 weeks along.

Is it just me or do I look almost the same in these two pictures? Weird.

Truth is that this little guy actually has been measuring on the very small side. For those of you who don't know, they measure from your pubic bone to the fundus (the top) of your uterus once you hit about 30 weeks. You're suppose to be as many centimeters as you are weeks along, give or take two centimeters. Well, at my 36 week appointment, I was only measuring at 33 centimeters, so my doctor had me go in to get an ultrasound at the hospital.

They didn't give us any ultrasound pictures, which I'm a little sad about since our first set weren't very good. But they told us that we are definitely still having a boy. :) No question about that.... They did some measurements on him to make sure he was growing alright and said if it was a problem with the placenta - that it wasn't providing him nutrition like it should - then they would have to take him early. So that's what they were checking. They did several measurements: his head circumference, his abdomen circumference, his femur length, the amount of amniotic fluid in there, etc. Stuff like that. Averaged out, he was about 34 weeks and 6 days in size, whereas I was 36 weeks and 2 days along. So about a week and a half smaller than what they were expecting. They guessed that he weighs about 5 lbs 10 oz. right now. Which is great news for me! I'd love to have another small baby!

What I found funny though was that the measurement for his femur marked him at 33 weeks along, but his head circumference put him at 38 weeks along. Great. I'm going to have another gigantic headed baby.

Over all they weren't worried. What they found doesn't change my due date at all and he seems to be growing alright, just genetically small. Too bad, I was hoping for tall boys, but with my genes in the mix, changes are all our kids will be midgets.

I thought I'd post a picture here of my countdown. Two weeks baby!! It's been enormously satisfying to rip off a ring every evening and seeing it dwindle down so much that it almost can't hang on the fan anymore. Soon it won't be able to at all! That makes me so happy!

One other funny story about pregnancy. Any of you out there who have been pregnant before will sympathize with this. About a month ago or so, Sterling and I were out in the front yard doing a little bit of yard clean up since the weather was nice. I have the Achoo Syndrome, like most of my family does. We think it's a Scandinavian trait. Anyways, I turned and looked up into the sun and sneezed several times. After the third one I turned to Sterling "Crap, I just peed my pants." He started laughing really hard and asked how much. I told him it was enough that I needed to go change. And I took off for the house waddling with my legs spread apart. That just got him laughing harder. Aw, the joys of being pregnant.

Sadly, this was not an isolated event. It gets very difficult as you get farther on to control your bladder. It also doesn't help that you've got a little person inside you kicking at your bladder when they want to stretch. I told this story to one of my friends and she not swears she never wants to get pregnant. Honey, I'm sure there are people out there who could tell you worse stories than mine.

So, to wrap up, since I didn't really say anything about Cami in this post, let's end with some pictures of her.

Master's Project

2010-02-11T12:37:00.005-07:00

This is Sterling giving you an update on our recent news. As most of you know, I recently applied for graduate school at BYU. Well, after a long and tedious process, I was just advised by Dr. Larsen that he would like to recommend me to work on his sage grouse project coming up in March.

(Dr. Larsen)

Now, he cannot accept people into the graduate program as that decision is left up to the graduate committee. However, with a professor willing to sponsor me, I am pretty much guaranteed acceptance. So, hopefully the committee will meet soon and will officially accept me as a master’s student at the university.

What’s that you say? What is a sage grouse, and who gives a flying leap about them? Well, this is a sage grouse, also known as a prairie chicken:

This is a male, and during mating, they puff up these air sacs in their chest and perform a rather elaborate mating dance trying to impress the ladies who watch from the sidelines. They live in large open areas of sagebrush, and during mating season they gather in a more or less bare patch in the sage brush called a lek, and males strut their stuff.

So, who gives a flying leap about these birds? Well, for many years, they have been sought after as a game species for hunters, and they are also enjoyed by many people for the mating rituals that I have described. Recently, however, these birds have seen a dramatic decrease in their population. Several studies were performed to see if they should be considered endangered or not. While the controversy of listing them is still up in the air and in the hands of the politicians, the studies have discovered perhaps the main cause for their decline. As I stated, these birds live in large, open areas of sage brush. Many of these large areas have been reduced to smaller sizes. Additionally, the open areas are being dotted with various types of tall structures. Raptors, such as hawks and falcons, perch on these structures and can easily pick off the grouse.

(Notice the two oil rigs behind the grouse)

Because of the habitat problems, birds have stopped using the limited number of leks (strutting grounds) and overall have just had a hard time surviving.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not an environmentalist tree hugger. My license plate cover says “save a tree, shoot a tree hugger”. I don’t believe in the concept that we should preserve everything and that man is evil and destroying the planet. However, I don’t believe that we are entitled to exploit the world we live in with no regard for the consequences. I believe that we should be responsible stewards of this earth—using the resources we have, but ensuring that they will be well taken care of.

That being said, here is the purpose of my project. The state of Utah has five core populations of sage grouse that they consider to be vital to the survival of the species in the state. In an effort to find out what these populations need to survive, the state is willing to pay thousands of dollars (mostly from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses) to study each population. This way, we can ensure their survival, but also allow other entities to use the land around them without a major affect on future numbers. So far, the project has done wonders, and bird numbers are recovering quite well. However, the state has only conducted this study on 4/5 populations. Guess what, I will be studying the fifth.

Sponsored by BYU and funded by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, and under the direction of Dr. Larsen, I will go out to the diamond Mountains near Vernal Utah to study this last major population.

(More or less the area, Vernal is in the background)

I will trap,

measure and weigh,

and radio collar about 100 grouse.

I will then track them over the next several months to record their migration routes, leks, and other habitat being used.

Over the spring and summer, I will be in Vernal at a bunk house for four days and three nights, and then I will be back with Erika for the rest of the week. I will probably have a crew out there working with me also. Starting in September, I will be taking classes, compiling data, and traveling to Vernal about once a week to collect more data.

So this is what I will be doing for the next couple of years. Things are not for sure until the graduate committee makes their decision, and even then, the project might not be exactly as I described it. But as far as I know, this is what awaits me.

And may I add as a side note, this is the most messed up and non-user friendly program I have used since elementary school when computers were being developed. I can't believe Google would produce a program so bad for posting blogs.

The Holidays

2010-01-11T16:09:00.006-07:00

Ok, so time for the holiday recap. For Thanksgiving we went to Colorado to my Grandma Peggy's house. My brother David came with us and my dad flew out from Hong Kong because one of his best friends unexpectedly passed away a few days before Thanksgiving. So we went to the funeral down in Price, then continued on our way to Colorado. It was a nice weekend. We relaxed and played games and ate a lot. A friend of my grandma's friend taught us all how to play Texas Hold'Em. It's kinda fun to know all the rules and to actually understand the game more or less. I realized after we got back that we didn't take any pictures! Pretty lame, I know.

For Christmas, we spent the holiday with Sterling's family. They have this awesome tradition where they do fondue every Christmas Eve. We get cheese and crackers and veggies, and marinade beef in yummy sauces and then cook it in the hot oil in the fondue pot. By far one of my favorite traditions. I'm dead set on getting our own fondue pot when we finally move out of Utah. Sterling's brother, Preston, his wife Alisha, and their little girl Beca were all there as well. It was a lot of fun. Once again I forgot to bring my camera.

The only pictures I did manage to get were a few of Cami opening presents at our house Christmas morning. This is the only one that wasn't too blurry. Like most little children, she enjoyed the wrapping paper far more than the actual presents.

For New Years, brace yourself for this, we went to bed at nine. Yeah, that's right, we're really boring. But really, Sterling had to work at 6 the next morning, and I'm just always tired since I'm pregnant, so we just decided to go to bed. Our neighbors woke us up at midnight though. They were out on the lawn yelling for a good twenty minutes. At least someone knows how to ring in the new year right, it's just not us.

So, as far as jobs go, I kinda left it hanging there. So, to go backwards, he didn't get the Fountain Green job, but did get offered the animal control officer position at Saratoga Springs. We took it, but once he started working there, we found out it wasn't what they'd told us it would be. He would have had to be on call every single weekend and he was required to work after hours (staying after for police meetings and such, even though he's not a police officer) and he wouldn't get paid overtime for it either. It just wasn't good. So, he quit that job and we looked into Marines again. That's what I meant when I said it's coming full circle. Sadly, that's not going to work out. They don't have any other pilot spots open until October and we certainly don't want to wait that long. So, he's recently taken the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) and is busy applying to BYU's Master's program. He's talked to a professor at BYU who will likely take him on (assuming he's accepted to BYU) and will be able to start in mid-March with any luck. He'll be studying sage grouse (a type of bird) out in Vernal. Then he'll eventually start classes in September and we'll go from there.

Right now, however, he's working as a supervisor of the housekeeping department up at Sundance. It's just a temporary thing until we hear from BYU, which should hopefully be the second week of February. For now though he's supervising a crew of ten hispanic women, few of whom speak English. His spanish language capabilities are really coming in handy right now. We're just happy that he has a job, however temporary it may be. The other day he was talking with one of the guys on his shift, Julio, and found out that he has a wife who works there as well who's name is Erika and they have an 18 mo. old daughter named Camille. Talk about coincidences....

As for me, BYU's new EMT certification class started up again. I was able to be a TA for it last year and get to do it again this year. It's always been fun for me to help teach this class. It's nice to have something to do to keep me busy, plus I get to earn a little money on the side.

Cami is finally going to nursey by herself! It's so nice to have to worry about her anymore. The only difficulty is that our church just moved to 11:00 which is when her nap time is, so by the end of nursey she's really tired and fussy. Last week she sat and cried for about ten minutes. Hopefully that won't become a habit though.

Because it's been awhile since I posted pictures, I'm just going to stick a whole bunch on here of Cami. I still haven't gotten any of me and my belly. Just keep forgetting, plus there's never anyone around to hold the camera for me since Sterling is working all the time. But here's some pictures.

This is at Cami's cousin Beca's birthday party. She had fun playing with the boxes.

This is Cami and Noah. His mom and I were due on the same day. Noah ended up being born 19 hours earlier than Cami. We joke that they're betrothed, but then I found out that Noah has been betrothed to several girls in his ward as well.

Cami playing in the leaves back in October. She didn't really seem to know what to think at first, but she had fun. While I was raking, Cami came over and started scooping the leaves up with her hands trying to help me. It was really cute.

Cami and Sterling just playing on the couch. This is what happens if you leave the two of them alone together too long.

One day I was really bored, so I decided to make a countdown for my pregnancy. It was probably one of the most depressing things ever because the chain just kept going on and on and on! Each of the colored ones represents a Sunday. We hung it on our bedroom ceiling fan like some bizarre chandelier. It's been very satisfying to tear a ring off each evening. As of now it no longer overlaps.

I have to say it's amazing how fast the second pregnancy goes. I can't believe I've only got 8 weeks left. I was talking to my sister about that the other day and she said she found the same thing. I guess it's partly because you're not obsessing over being pregnant like you do with your first. Also, you've already got one child to keep you occupied so you don't have much time to dwell on your growing belly.

Updating

2009-12-27T16:03:00.003-07:00

Every time I get on the computer with the intention of updating my blog, I always spend way too much time checking everyone else's blogs and by the time I'm done with that it's either too late at night, or I'm just no longer in the mood to sit down and type an extensive post for my own blog. Today it's the latter. Maybe if I just started being better about updating more frequently, my updates wouldn't seem so arduous.

Ah well. Since I'm not in the mood for a long post, let me just write on here that, yes, we are still alive. I am still very pregnant and getting more so. We had a great Christmas and Thanksgiving, which, hopefully, I'll blog about before the year is over. I'm sure I've almost completely lost my readership since I never blog anymore. We still don't have a job and things are... well, coming full circle in that area. We'll just leave it at that for now. I'll explain when we know more. Cami is still adorably cute and has been climbing everywhere. Sterling is trying to teach me spanish. Trying being the operative word there. And that's really all that's happening at the Fenwick household. All in all, things are going well here. Thanks for asking. :)

One last random thought, have you ever noticed that in movies, almost nobody shuts the front door when they walk into the house. There will be five feet of snow outside and people just walk in without shutting the door. Ever. Also, did you notice that when people talk on the phone in movies, they never say 'goodbye', they just hang up. I notice both of those things a lot and, frankly, they annoy me. We watched "Julie and Julia" the other night and they did both of those things quite frequently. I think from now on I'll never tell people 'goodbye' on the phone. I'll just hang up randomly and leave them talking to themselves for a good five minutes before they realize that I'm no longer there. After all, that's how it's done in the movies, right?

Good excuse

2009-11-12T19:27:00.005-07:00

So, for once I actually have a good excuse as to why I haven't blogged in almost a month. You ready? Here it is: our laptop is broken. See, our regular computer is upstairs in Cami's room and our laptop is usually downstairs by the couch and that's where I usually blog from. But, since it's broken, and the only time I find to blog is when Cami is napping, I can't do it because I'll wake her up. You see my problem here? But I figured that I should get back to it, since it has been so long, so brace yourself for a few pictures and a bunch of mindless rambling.

So, first things first. My sister mentioned on her blog what we're having (we got our 20 week ultrasound) so I figure it's time for us to make an official announcement:

It's a boy!!

We're super excited. I really wanted a boy and even had a dream the night before the ultrasound that it was a girl and I was SO upset in my dream, which of course made me feel really bad when I woke up. But it's a boy!! We got quite a good look at his 'out-door plumbing' unit (that's what the ultrasound tech called it. Made me laugh pretty hard), but for his sake, I won't post that. What I will post are some of the other pictures we got. He wasn't very cooperative and we never got a good profile picture, or a cute one of his feet or anything.

This first one is the best profile picture we could get. He had his arms up by his head the whole time and we even saw him sucking on his fingers. Too cute!

This second one is a profile with his mouth open. I've always thought that pictures like this make it look like you've got an alien growing inside you, but at least they're always cute when they come out.
So, there's our little man. I'm very, very excited for him to come. I think it'll be a blast to have one of each.

Random question: for those of you who have kids, what was their heart rate? Cami was always really high, about 170, and this little guy is down around 145. They say that's pretty normal, girls are high, boys are low. Did any of you notice that same sort of pattern?

I've been meaning to get a picture of my non-existent baby bump, but just haven't yet. I'll have to post comparison pictures of my pregnancy with Cami to this one, I really have almost no stomach, even halfway along. No, I'm not complaining to be so tiny, but for those of you who have been pregnant, you know that stage you go through where you've got a little bit of a bump but not much and people look at you and wonder "Ok, so is she pregnant or is she just fat?" And you make a point of telling everyone that you're pregnant, just so they'll stop wondering. Yeah, I've been there for the past three months! I'm okay with being tiny, but I guess what it just comes down to, psychologically at least, is that basically, I still just look fat. :(

Anyways, moving on. So, October, let's talk about that and we'll work backwards from there (to September and then maybe I'll be caught up after that). Beginning of October: My birthday!! I am now a quarter of a century old. Wow. For my birthday I got pajamas, new couches (there's a whole story that comes along with that, but we'll save that for September), an hour long relaxing massage, and earrings. I never got a picture of that cake, it was store bought, but it was a great day. Sterling took me out to dinner and then to a movie. Can't remember now what we watched, but we had fun.

Also, in October, Sterling's mom and his Aunt Ruth organized a barbeque up American Fork canyon. It's a tradition to do one every October. Last year I was there with a really bad kidney infection. Not fun. This year was better. We ended up taking a lot of family pictures, Preston, Sterling's brother, was our photographer. He's got a talent. I was prepared for it, so we weren't color coordinated at all, but here's some of the outtakes.

It was so pretty up there with all the fall colors and the river running right by everything. I was just gorgeous and the light was perfect for taking pictures. If only we'd had matching outfits.

Here's two of Cami and her cousin Beca, Preston and Alisha's little girl. She's three months younger than Cami and is the spitting image of her father. It's pretty funny actually.

Cami's 'deer in the headlights' look. It's pretty much her standard look when confronted with a camera.
For the rest of October we've just continued with our job hunt. We went out to Fountain Green, it has a population of about 900 people and you would walk from one end of the town to the other in about 20 minutes. It was small and sad and Sterling and I decided that we didn't want the job there, so the search continues. We have some promising things opening up in January, so we might just have to wait on something permanent until then. We'll see though.

Finally, Halloween. Um, we didn't do anything, and I mean anything for Halloween. We didn't even carve pumpkins this year. I know what you're thinking 'what a bunch of party-poopers. Yes, that would be us. We had some creative ideas for costumes for our little ward Halloween party, but nothing that could be pulled together quickly. I had big plans, but time flew by and suddenly the ward party was upon us! Sterling wanted to go as a duck hunter, with him in his waders and camo, me as a black lab hunting dog, and Cami as a duck. I thought it would be super cute, but we had very little time, and money with which to throw it together in time for the party.

Halloween evening, we escaped Orem and went up to Sterling's mom's place in Midvale. We never get trick-or-treaters anyways (not in the three years we've lived here), so we partied up there instead. She got a total of two. That's right, just two. We ended up watching some 'scary' movies on tv, namely Final Destination. Yeah, I didn't sleep that night. No it's not really super scary, but it did enough of a number on me that I've filled my thriller quota for the month.

So, that about sums up October, more to come later (hopefully sooner rather than later, but we'll see how it works out.)

News feed

2009-10-13T00:57:00.000-06:00

I’m going to go through a bit of retro-blogging for the next couple posts, since, once again, I’ve failed to keep my goal of blogging more regularly. There’re no pictures with this post, I just wanted to do some quick news catch up. But, first things first, since I haven’t made any updates on my pregnancy situation, I’ll do that now.

I went in for my second ultrasound and everything is looking better. The bleed hasn’t fully absorbed yet, but it’s on its way, also, the ultrasound tech said I might have a minor case of placenta previa. For those of you who might not know: that’s where the placenta attaches over the opening of the cervix. It’s usually very bad because the placenta often detaches from the wall causing a miscarriage. However, in my situation, it’s only a partial and as the baby grows the placenta will move farther and farther away from the cervix. Whew! What a relief to know that everything will most likely be okay. Thanks for all of your prayers on our behalf. We appreciate them all! Still no determination on the gender; that will have to wait for the next ultrasound the first week of November. Getting closer all the time!

To move on, during the last month, Sterling and I have been a little worried about what we were going to do next. Sterling’s seasonal job with the Division of Natural Resources (DNR) was supposed to end on Sept 30. Fortunately his boss has let him extend work until Oct 22^nd. However, we were faced with the dilemma of no current job prospects once it ended. He had applied several places but nothing was happening as fast as we needed or wanted it to; then suddenly, this last week, things exploded!

He went in for a job interview with the Saratoga Springs Police Department as an Animal Control Officer and was told that he’s one of the top two candidates. Then, he got a call from the Idaho State Highway Patrol and they want him to come up for an interview on Oct 19^th. They want to hire him too. And then we get a call from the Division of Wildlife Services (I think that’s what they’re called) saying they want him to come in for an interview for a Fish Hatchery position down in Fountain Green, UT. (It’s just south of Nephi, off a random highway). So now we face the dilemma of which job to accept. Funny how things can flip so quickly on you. I’m not trying to sound ungrateful that so many great opportunities suddenly came our way, especially in this economy, but it’s just frustrating still. We’ve talking it over a million times, but are still not closer to a decision on what we’ll do yet.

So there’s a quick catch up on, pictures will be forth coming in following posts as I enter the retro-blogging stage yet again.

When life throws a curve ball

2009-08-26T19:11:00.002-06:00

It's nice to have a glove and the ability to catch.

Ok, so maybe that's a silly metaphor, but we recently got thrown a curve ball. Fortunately everything turned out fine. Disclaimer right here: this is pregnancy talk, so guys (if there are any guys who read this), if that makes you uncomfortable, stop reading now.

I went running this morning and finished with an intense pain in my lower left stomach. I came home, put Cami down for a nap, and went to bed myself. I tried to do some yoga but didn't feel good at all. Several hours later I started bleeding. Pregnant women aren't suppose to bleed, so of course I got worried. The cramping continued, so when Sterling came home I called my doctor for an appointment.

As we sat waiting to go, I prepared myself for the worst. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, that sort of thing. It could be a miscarriage, that I knew. It could be an ectopic pregnancy, though I didn't feel like I was about to die, so probably not. However, it could be something simple. I mean, some women bleed throughout their pregnancy right? Krista (my sister) mentioned that a friend of hers bled every time she did physical activity. So it could be that, right?

Prepared for bad news, we went to see my doctor. She said she wasn't going to listen to heart tones because it's too early anyways and she didn't want to get us anxious before the inevitable ultrasound. We were told that yes, it could very well be a miscarriage, however, it could also be something else. There are two sacs around the baby, one around the other. It occasionally happens that the outer sac pulls away from the inner and fills with blood, then breaks open, which means bleeding. Simple, right?

The ultrasound tech was really busy, so we waited for quite awhile before we finally got in to see her. She set everything up, spread the cold gel on my stomach and went to work. She searched around for different things and we could see the little baby in there. So small and so sad, because we might have lost it. After a few minutes she pointed out where the bleeding was coming from and paused over the baby where we could hear it's heart beat. It took me several long seconds before it hit me. "So it isn't a miscarriage?" The tech looked at me as though I was really slow, which, let's face it, I am. "No, it's not a miscarriage. There's a heart beat." She was a little patronizing, but I figured I'd have to let it pass with this news. So, I didn't miscarry!! Great news all around, right?

But there's more. The bleeding was indeed from the two sacs separating and filling with blood. She said there was a rather large area, but that she had seen cases where it was this bad and it had resolved on it's own, which is good because there's nothing they can do to fix it. So hopefully it'll resolve on it's own, like she said. My doctor told me not to go running anymore, only light walking, no heavy lifting (anything heavier than Cami), and basically to just go home and keep my feet up. So for now we're in the clear, but things could turn south and we just need to be careful. I'm getting a follow up ultrasound in three weeks to see if it's resolved.

We got a little ultrasound picture of our little baby. The picture is really dark, but I'll try to scan it and post it tomorrow. It was so cute to see the little tiny features. Not that you can make out much when they're that tiny, but it was still fun. For now, we're doing okay. I still hurt, but things are looking up.

Fangs and a new arrival

2009-08-25T17:03:00.004-06:00

So, I figure it's about time that I actually put a post on here that we're expecting again! I already put it on my facebook page, so most everyone knows, but for those of you who don't... well, we're having another baby!! I'm due on March 21st. We'll find out in November-ish what we're having. We're both hoping for a boy, but you never know. So far this pregnancy has been okay. I've had worse morning sickness than I did with the last one, though I haven't been throwing up uncontrollably, so that's a plus.

In other news, Cami has a whole bunch of teeth coming in. It's frustrating and exciting at the same time because of course she doesn't want to eat anything when they come in cuz it hurts. She's got four on the top and three on the bottom, but for the longest time she only had two on the top. But it wasn't the normal front two teeth like you'd expect. No, our child had fangs. Her two incisors (maybe they're the canines, we can't tell yet) came in long before the front ones did. She seriously looked like a little vampire for the longest time. And if you let her get hold of your finger any more, she'll stick in it her mouth and has nearly drawn blood a few times. It hurts. My best friend commented that we have our very own little Renesmee (for those of you who know Twilight), which just made me laugh and roll my eyes. I bet none of you knew that I married a vampire, did you?

I tried for the longest time to get a picture of her fangs. The only way she'll show them smiling is if you flip her upside down or make her laugh. If you try to pry her lips apart to see her teeth, she clamps them closed as tight as possible. But, we finally got it.

It's a little fuzzy, but you get the general idea. My own little vampire child. *sigh* Just what I always wanted.

It's been a busy few weeks

2009-07-30T15:41:00.005-06:00

So it's high time I blog again. I've been busy, my family has been in town! It's been great to have them around. Lots has happened with them being here. We dropped Scott off at the MTC, David is back from his mission to Taiwan and is getting into his new apartment, two of my cousins, who I haven't seen in five years, came to town, we went swimming, on many different occasions, we remodeled one of the apartments we manage but didn't take any pictures of the before and after, my brother Ryan ALMOST finished Driver's Ed, with a few techincal difficulties, so he won't actually have his license until next summer, Sterling and the guys (my brothers, Travis, and his family) went paintballing and came back with some awesome bruises, we celebrated Cami's first birthday and her cousin, Kate's, third birthday and Sterling, Ryan, David, and I went out to Utah Lake on wave runners. There, that about sums it all up. Since I'm too lazy to upload a million pictures, I'm just going to put the ones on here of Cami's birthday. Sorry, this post is kinda crazy, my brain is gone.

Could I look any less enthused about the mess she's making of the cake, her clothes, and my clothes? No, I don't suppose I could. At least she had run, right?

She had more fun with the paper than she did with the actual presents, why am I not surprised?
Here's Cami with all her cousins. Kate and Brooklyn, my sister's kids, and Beca, Sterling's brother's daughter. I just had to post this one because of the look on Brooklyn's face. Too funny!!

Well, so there's the run down of our summer so far. It's been a blast. Nothing too big to report. They're all on their way home, with a few detours along the way. Ryan is still with us, we're taking him to the airport on Saturday where he'll fly to Colorado. All in all, it's been a lot of fun.

Cause for celebration!

2009-06-14T19:33:00.003-06:00

A few things have happened recently that I haven't posted yet and I feel horrible about it. So, I'm going to do it now. Here we go:

April 6th was Sterling's 25th birthday! He's a quarter of a century old! Happy birthday honey! Sorry I didn't post anything for you sooner. We had cupcakes instead of a regular cake cuz they're easier to share. I finally managed to surprise him with a few of his gifts, he usually manages to find out what I'm going to get him well before I give it to him. He can't just let me surprise him, ever! But he's wonderful anyways. I love you honey.

On May 1st, my best friend Melony got married. She and I have known each other since our freshman year at BYU when we lived in DT (Deseret Towers - now torn down) across the hall from one another. She and James got married in the Draper Temple. I haven't gotten pictures of that yet, so this will have to do. Congrats you two and good luck in your new life together!

About a week later, my brother Scott got his mission call! He's going to the Taipei Taiwan Mission, Mandarin speaking. David, one of my other brothers, gets back from Kaohsiung, Taiwan in about a week. Wow, time really flies. Congrats Scott! We're all so excited for you!

And finally, my sister and her husband just (June 11) celebrated their fifth anniversary! Five years of wonderful marriage and two gorgeous little girls to show for it. I wish we were still moving out to Virginia. I was looking forward to living close to you. Maybe someday. I love you both!

It is bad enough when your friends call you fat, but when the government officially says your too fat, that just sucks!

2009-06-11T19:49:00.002-06:00

This is Sterling by the way. I will now relate the story of the USMC OCS that I just experienced. While I might have simplified the details on the phone to save my sanity from telling the whole story over and over, here are the full details.

For the last year, Erika and I have been set on me joining the Marine Corps through their officer candidate program, and then I would go on to be a pilot. The last part of May, I went out to Virginia to start training. Needless to say for anyone who knows how the government works, training didn't start right away. When I got there, the game of 'hurry up and wait' started. We would be rushed around from place to place to get our gear, fill out form after form, go through my 3rd physical, and start marking our gear for the dreaded pick-up day when we would get our sergeant instructors and they would scream their heads off at us.

We arrived Thursday afternoon when this whole process started. Saturday night and into Sunday morning I got sick with chills, a fever, body aches, a cough, runny nose and sinus congestion. I went to the health clinic there on Sunday morning, and while I was tested for Swine flu upon my arrival to the base (my results were negative), they drew blood again to check if I had contracted the virus while I was there (there were already four people in quarantine with the virus). In addition to taking my blood, they gave me a bunch of medicine that made me drowsy and they gave me 1L of fluids with an IV.

Monday morning was the scheduled time for everyone to run the physical fitness test (PFT). To pass, you had to get 8 pull-ups, 70 crunches in 2 min, and run 3 miles in 24 min or less. This seemed to be no problem for me as I had been getting 19 pull-ups (out of a possible 20), 100 crunches (out of 100), and 21:30 (out of an 18 minute maximum score) on the run. These scores that I had been getting in Utah before I left gave me a score of 280 out of 300. However, because I was sick, I had to report back to the doctors during the time the PFT was scheduled. No problem, I could just make up the PFT on Tuesday morning with the rest of the guys that were in sick call with me. However, nothing is that simple in the Marines.

Throughout Monday, I had been told to stop taking my meds because they made me drowsy. My symptoms returned with a vengeance, so I was told to take them again and report back to sick call on Tuesday morning. It looked as though I would not be able to run the PFT, and I would be disqualified.

Now, back on Sunday night came the clincher, but let me back up one week. Before I left, I showed up to work out with the Captain that I had been training with for the last year. He told me that he was very mad at all the bureaucratic BS that had just taken place. Apparently, one of our top candidates who shipped out the week before I did was weighed in at 3 lbs over his weight and was at 20% body fat. If you are overweight in the Marines, you get a tape measure around your waist and then they subtract the circumference of your neck from your waist and that is a males % body fat. If you are more than 18% body fat, you are disqualified. This candidate was obviously over his limit, and even though he got a score of 297/300 on his PFT(almost no one gets that good), he was being sent home! Lucky for him, another kid in his same situation was the son of a senator and that senator told a general in the Marines to call up the colonel at OCS and straighten him out. So where does that leave me? First off, I was 69 inches (according to my military physical here in SLC), and 188 lbs (I needed to be at 186). My body fat was right at 18%. If I failed the weigh-in, I would need a score of at least what I was normally getting on the PFT to be considered to stay at OCS. The reason my captain and I were so upset was because none of this would have been a problem in the past - you could stay, you simply had to drop the weight by graduation. Nobody bothered to tell any of the candidates this new weight requirement early enough to do much about it, all thanks to the new Colonel that is over the candidates. Over the next week I barely ate anything hoping to drop the extra 2 pounds.

Now, back to Sunday night. I was being weighed in, and lo and behold, I was down to 185! I dropped three pounds - I was safe! But wait, what's that you say Mr Marine who does nothing but work out OCS candidates all day every day? I need to get taped? I didn't ask any questions because if anyone talked they were likely to be insulted and yelled at. Then I heard the problem as the guy taping me asked the first guy, "How tall is he?" "68 inches," came the reply, "he needs to be at 180 lbs!" When they taped me, I came in at 19% body fat and all because they measured me at 68 inches instead of 69. Great, so here I was, sick, I hadn't eaten much for the last week, and now I had to get an awesome PFT score to stay in the program.

Now, as I had explained before, I missed the Monday PFT, and now I had to miss the Tuesday PFT! I was sure I was going home. Then, a gunnery sergeant came up to me Tuesday afternoon and said, "Fenwick, go change into PT clothes, you have been cleared by medical, and are going to run your PFT in 40 min." By this time I was feeling ok, and I thought that maybe if I just do what I normally do, I could get my regular score and I could stay. I was, after all, 4500 feet lower in elevation and that fact alone was supposed to help my endurance by a lot.

When I showed up to take my PFT, I was feeling pretty good, but the weather was very hot and very humid. They normally try to do all physical training (PT) in the morning to avoid the hot and muggy Virginia weather, but no such luck for me this day. In fact, there were about 10 medics stationed around the area because they were expecting me (and about 4 other guys running with me) to pass out due to heat exhaustion! I went over to the pull-up bar and started out great, but then they said I couldn't move my legs at all, and I needed to dead-hang. I had not trained for this. I did as many as I could, but they didn't count a bunch because I moved my legs. I only got 9, not 19 like normal - I barely passed! Next, the crunches went fine, and I got 97, not as much as I would like, but pretty good. Next came the run. "This should help me make up on the pull ups, I could do this" were my thoughts as I approached the starting line. We started off, and everyone got out in front of me pretty quick, but I got into a good pace and went on my way. About a half mile into it, I passed everyone as they were starting to feel the effects of their speed in the beginning. This kept up for about 2 miles; I then heard my time, and I realized I wasn't going to make it under the 24 min mark. I kept going, but finished at 24:20. I didn't get a qualifying score.

After the PFT, I had to appear before the colonel and a few more officers that run the place. Despite being measured one inch shorter than normal and running a PFT in sub optimal conditions, I was disqualified from OCS. I later found out that there were too many applicants for the program and not enough money to pay them, so they were cutting applicants left and right for anything they could. Even if a guy had blood pressure of 140 or over, they were cut for high BP. Even the candidates that stayed and graduated would not be put on active duty after graduation. Instead, they would be put on stand-by for a few months, they would not be paid, and their family would not receive any benefits of any kind until they were moved to active duty.

This experience was only one thing in a long line of problems that I have been fighting through to get to OCS. At first, I thought they were just obstacles in front of me to overcome in order to reach a good thing. However, after talking it over with Erika, we feel that this was just something that we would be better off not doing and that we should move on. I am glad I tried, but kind of frustrated now. I have to start at ground zero and look for jobs and aim us in a good direction for our future. It kind of sucks not having something ahead of us in the foreseeable future. I have considered everything from taking the few remaining prerequisites at BYU and applying for medical school or PA school, working at getting a job with one of my professors and turning that work into a masters project and eventually a PhD, and even just applying for jobs in my field now and starting to pound out a career. I will let you know what we end up doing, but don't expect anything too solid right now. Thanks for reading, I know it was long, but there's a lot to the story.

Feeding time

2009-06-10T16:49:00.006-06:00

The other night I was busy working on something on the computer, so I thought I'd let Cami feed herself some mashed up pasta in tomato sauce. Normally I'd just do it myself and use a spoon - something Cami doesn't seem to have mastered quite yet, but I was just feeling far too lazy that night. So, I stripped off her clothes and stuck her in her seat in nothing but her diaper. Here's the end results and my just desserts for my lethargy.

I cleaned her off with a washcloth as best I could, but ended up having to give her a bath anyways. When I took off her diaper, I saw she somehow managed to get food into there. Can any of you mothers out there please explain to me how that is possible? How does a little baby manage to get more food on the floor and in their seat and in their diaper than they get in their mouths? It just baffles me!

After she was done, I enlisted Sadie's help to manage the after effects of the explosion.

Don't worry, I did wash the tray after Sadie was done with it. It's so useful to have a dog around when something like this happens. It makes cleaning up so much easier afterwards. However, I wouldn't recommend getting a dog after you already have kids. We tried that with Buddy. Not a good idea. Get the dog before you have a baby, then you have the time and energy to train it.

So, I know I'm not the only mother out there with stories like this - Cami getting food deep inside her diaper instead of in her mouth - I'd love to hear your stories too. Feel free to share! It might make me feel better. :)

Rearranged

2009-06-10T16:37:00.003-06:00

There's something truly satisfying about rearranging furniture. It just makes a room feel new again. It always makes me happy. Usually when I do this I'm on my own, huffing and puffing as I struggle to move large items (like the TV stand - not fun, or the mattresses - I've broken things trying to manhandle those). Fortunately for me, this time Sterling was around to help. He, somehow, managed to move our two ton piano from the wall where the little couch is now, to the other wall. I was very impressed. It's really heavy! We also had to rehang the pictures because they wouldn't fit where we had them before. We not have about a half dozen new holes in our walls.

I've enjoyed this set up because it makes it feel like we're in a new place - even if the kitchen, bedroom, and office are all exactly the same. The living room at least feels a little different and it's a great feeling!

A 'toothful' update

2009-06-09T18:45:00.006-06:00

Pictures are still forth coming. I planned on doing a comparison between the temporaries and the porcelain veneers. It's quite drastic. However, there's a little problem. I went in today to get the porcelain veneers put on, but one of them didn't fit right. Why does there always having to be one?! I was a little disappointed. So, that one is still a temporary, but the rest are the real deal. I love them! We were initially hoping that I would be able to get in next week to get the last real one in place, but the ceramicist isn't going to have it done by then, and then that week Dr. Hillam (my dentist) is going on tour with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He plays trumpet (?) in the orchestra. So, I won't get the last porcelain veneer on until July 1st and frankly, I don't want to wait that long to show off my new teeth, so here's a picture of the temps. I might post a picture of my almost-all porcelains soon.
Ok, so maybe you won't be able to see a real big different between the temps and permanent ones, at least not on film. But there really is a huge difference if you get up close and personal.

So, the story behind it: When I went in to get my temps done initially, I was in the dentist chair for a straight 8 1/2 hours!! I got one bathroom break and, obviously couldn't eat anything the whole time. They drilled away the top ten teeth, taking off about a millimeter all around them. Thankfully they numbed me up real good for it. My mouth was seriously stretched out and afterwards, with the temps on, it felt like my whole upper jaw was in a vise. It hurt for probably three days straight. Hello pain killers! The upside was that I got happy gas for those 8+ hours. It's wonderful stuff.

I went back in today - just when I'd started getting used to the feel of the temps and managed to get rid of the little lisp I had acquired due to larger, longer teeth than I had before. The lisp was charming, really. Saying 's's, 'v's, and 'f's all made me sound a little serpent-like. I'm glad to be rid of it. The porcelain veneers are not nearly as bulky as the temps were, with the exception of my left canine which is still huge. Again I got numbed up, thankfully, who knew it would hurt to just put a cap on, they didn't even do drilling today like they did last time. They forgot the happy gas though, thankfully I was only there for 5 1/2 hours this time around. Still a long time, yes, but not unbearable.

So, the next time you go to the dentist for a check-up or even just getting a little cavity filled, think of me as you're sitting in that dental chair and STOP COMPLAINING! ;) Just be thankful that you won't be there for 5 hours.

Why Sadie loves Cami

2009-06-09T18:16:00.003-06:00

Nuff said....

Sorry, I know I'm not the best videographer. You make due with the talents you have, I suppose. Other times, when Sadie licked her hand, she started giggling, but you couldn't hear it from where I sat. Sterling made the remark the other day that he didn't know how other people feed their children when they don't have a dog to clean up the messes on the floor. I have to agree, especially with carpet underneath. However, you've just seen the downside to having a dog. They're a distraction.

Rewind...

2009-06-02T15:27:00.011-06:00

Alright, let's rewind a couple of months: it's time for the dreaded recap. I need to be better about posting and then I won't have to do a recap all the time, since I don't like it. Hopefully I'll improve soon. Ok, so starting backwards and working my way forward, here we go:

Sterling finally graduated!! Hooray! He paid his due of four long years and he's finally done! He's really excited to be done with school, he was suffering from senioritis really badly.
Ok, so he didn't actually walk, the picture of him in the cap and gown is actually from back when I graduated, we found an extra one in his size and decided to take some pictures because even back then (two years ago) he still hadn't been planning on going to his graduation at all, so we thought we'd be sneaky and still get pictures for posterity.

While Sterling was in his last semester of school, I was also taking some classes. I took a RAD class (stands for Rape Aggression Defense) that's only for women. SO much fun!! Basically you go there and you learn how to beat the crap out of guys if anyone ever tries to abduct/rape you or anything like that. It's done by the police officers on campus. If any of you who go to BYU have ever seen any of them, you'll know that many of them are big scary guys. It's not very easy going up against them in full body suits. I don't have any pictures from class, but here's a picture of what they look like in their huge suits when we do the final simulation, the other is the measly amount of protection they give you. In the final simulation they actually attack you and you have to get away from them. Because they're so padded up, you're actually kicking, punching, head-butting, and elbowing them as hard as you possible can. It was quite the adrenaline rush, but it was such a blast! They filmed it and we got to watch the tape back right after. I took the basic class and the advanced class. The basic class is just how to get away from them, the advanced class teaches you moves where you could potentially kill your attacker. Rather scary, I know. It also teaches you how to react if they get you on the ground or if they have a gun or a knife. In the final simulation for the advanced class, one officer had a knife to my neck and when I got away from him I actually twisted his shoulder really badly and he had to file a worker's compensation form and had to wear a sling for awhile. I felt bad, but it's nice to know it actually really works.

The other class I did I haven't been able to find pictures for. I was a teacher's assistant for an Emergency Medical Technician class on BYU campus. It was a lot of fun. There were 30 students in the class and we had a great time! I enjoyed being able to help teach, even if I didn't always know all the answers. Sometime I'll try to get pictures and post some of them.

We got a new baby backpack for Cami, so we thought we'd make use of it and hike Squaw Peak the week before our anniversary (May 9). I had no idea how out of shape I was until we did that. I felt like I was going to die. My excuse is that I had a baby awhile ago, it really wears down your body in ways you don't know until you try something like this. We got passed by a whole bunch of little kids and they were just plugging along as though they were walking on flat ground. I really took a blow to my self-esteem there, especially since Sterling looked just as spry as always once we reached the top. In the past when I've hiked the peak, it's been about a three hour round trip. This time, it took us three hours just to get to the top. It was about a five hour round trip total. Pathetic. Cami seemed to enjoy it though, even if she did sleep through most of it.
For mother's day/our anniversary (Sterling gets off easy because they're usually within a few days of each other) we left Cami with her Grandma Joyce for several days and went up to Zermatt Resort and Spa in Midway, UT. It was so pretty up there. My parents own a villa there, so we get to stay for almost free (besides room cleaning fees). On the morning of our anniversary, I woke up to find this: Sterling didn't have time to write anything in the card because I got up too soon. He was cute because he told me that he was going to go to the gym in the morning and probably wouldn't be there when I got up, instead he was out getting flowers. So cute. The flowers were so pretty. We also went horseback riding while up there (I forgot to bring the camera so I don't have any pictures) and went swimming in the pool at the hotel. Between Squaw peak and horseback riding, I couldn't walk (or sit) for about a week. But it was all so much fun!

The second to last week in May, we went down to Lytle (Lie-tle) Ranch in St. George with Sterling's brother Preston, his wife, Alisha, their little girl Rabeca and their German Shepherd Abby. We brought Cami with us this time, as well as Sadie, our dog. The ranch is owned by BYU and is a literal oasis out in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It's gorgeous down there. Mostly we just sat around and enjoyed the 92 degree weather (well, I enjoyed it) Sterling and I went bird watching and we found a nasty, crawdad filled pond to go swimming in. Preston actually got his toes pinched by the crawdads; note to self: don't stand on the bottom of the pond. Because the temperatures were so high, the water felt heavenly!
Phew! Now that that's done and I'm caught up, I can make a greater effort from now on. I've got some cute pictures and videos of Cami I'll post later as well as news about Sterling, but I'll have to wait until I have the whole story before posting that.

The cutest commercial I have EVER seen

2009-06-02T12:09:00.003-06:00

My mom sent me this via email and I absolutely loved it!!! I just wanted to share because I thought it was just so sweet.

Oral Surgery

2009-05-12T22:37:00.003-06:00

Well, it's finally going to happen! I'm getting oral surgery done on Thursday! Yes, I realize that's not normally something to get excited about. But in my case, it'll be great!!! This coming Thursday at 8AM I am going in to get veneers!! I'm so excited!! I thought about posting a before and after picture but vetoed the idea because I really don't like my teeth (hence why I'm getting veneers). For those of you who don't know what they are, veneers are a porcelain cap for your teeth. It simultaneously whitens teeth and straitens them, enlarges or shrinks them all at once. Many people get them who have less than perfect smiles. The dentist will shave off about 1 mm from the front of each tooth and then seal the porcelain cap on top of it. They're doing at least the top 8, maybe 10 teeth. It'll be nice to have a pretty, white smile for once in my life. I'm maybe just a little nervous about them actually shaving off my teeth, something that will be completely irreversible, but I've always been a little self-conscious about my smile, so I think it'll be worth it. This Thursday they'll actually just be putting on a plastic covering while the sculptor is making my porcelain veneers. I'll post pictures once I get it done and later, once I have the porcelain caps, I'll post comparison pictures as well. I'm super excited and will be sure to keep updates on here.

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T21:27:00.004-06:00

Happy Mother's Day to all those mothers out there!!! I've found (and I'm sure everyone who's been a mother longer than I have knows this already) that being a mother is usually a very thankless job. But it's so fun!!! It's nice that there's a day set aside for everyone to stop and really thank their mother. So I wanted to say a huge

THANK YOU MOM!!!

to my own mother. I love you so much and I'm coming to appreciate everything you've done for me more and more; especially now that I'm a mother myself. I wonder, quite often actually, why in the world you ever put up with anything from me!!! Cami is a dear, but there's just sometimes that I want to scream! And she can't even walk or climb yet!! Thank you for putting up with me, demon child that I was. I'll be forever grateful. I love you.

On another note, I've been meaning to update my blog recently, but at first I just wasn't in the mood and now I just don't want to because it means playing catch up and you all know how much you hate it. I've lamented about it before, so I won't go into it again. I'll try to get to it soon. For any of you who care, stay tuned, I'll post something interesting eventually.

I thought this was funny

2009-04-14T23:59:00.003-06:00

So, looking at demotivators tonight with my brother, I found this one and thought that it described our blog incredibly well. I promise I'm not actually a pessimist. I just thought it was a good one.

Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.

On another note, looking at other people's blogs, I've decided that I need to take more pictures. So, hopefully in the near future I'll have more pictures to post and hopefully interesting tales to tell along with them. We'll see how long that lasts.

I'll huff, and I'll puff....

2009-03-22T14:15:00.004-06:00

She's only 8 months old, but Cami already knows what she does and doesn't like. When she gets upset, she makes this face that I've named "her mad face". I know, very original, but just wait til you see it, it's hilarious! I've tried to keep track of things that make her mad. Some of them include:

1) Not getting fed when she wants to
2) Getting fed something other than fruit (I've spoiled her with sweet foods and not enough vegetables)
3) When she doesn't get picked up after having crawled all the way over to us
4) Having her face cleaned after eating
5) Not being allowed to play with the tupperware
6) Going down for naps

Those are just a few to start with. So, when she does get mad, she makes this face that lets you know right out that she's not happy with you. She doesn't always cry or whine, but she gives you her mad face and you just know you're in trouble.

Virginia, here we come!

2009-03-11T13:46:00.002-06:00

It's official! We're moving to Virginia in August. Sterling heard back from the Marines at the end of January that he has been accepted as a pilot candidate in the Marines. He's still super excited. In April they'll fly him out to Florida for his final flight physical and if all goes well there, he'll leave May 30th for Quantico, VA. Officer Candidate School (OCS) is supposedly one of the most difficult things he'll ever do in his entire life. At least that's what we've heard. Personally, I think that would kinda turn me off to wanting to do it, but he still seems excited.

For anyone who's interested, here's a website with some pictures of what it'll be like. I have no idea if he'll be in the Charlie or Delta Company. We think it just depends on when he gets there. Here's the website: http://www.ocs.usmc.mil/CandidateInformation/Fall2008.asp

The first week of August I'll be flying out to Virginia for Sterling's commissioning. I'm excited for that. We'll also spend some time looking around for an apartment and take a detour up to New York to see some plays on Broadway. All in all, it's going to be a great little trip and we're both happy about what's going to happen next.

Frozen vs. canned

2009-03-08T16:29:00.007-06:00

My family grew up with frozen vegetables: peas, green beans, corn, broccoli, etc. Sterling grew up with canned foods: corn and beans and the like. I'm trying my hardest to convert him to the world of frozen veggies and now that Cami is eating solid foods, I'm trying to work on her too. I thought the green beans and the peas she ate smelled and tasted (yes, I tried them) like the canned version. I nearly gagged feeding them to her, but she seemed to do ok after the initial surprise wore off. So I figured I'd cook some frozen peas and mash them up and see if she like them better. Sadly, our daughter seems to take after her father. It's a sad day in history for frozen veggies.

Cami's milestones

2009-03-07T19:26:00.005-07:00

The last time I wrote about Cami I was raving about how she can roll over and push herself up. Hooray! She's come quite a long way since then.

Things she's done:

Roll to get where she wants (she got caught pulling papers off the coffee table, it's her specialty)

Push herself up to her knees and rock back and forth

Eating solid food (her first taste of peas was not pleasant)

Takes baths in the tub (she's still not sure what to think)

Army crawling (she loves chewing on shoes for some reason)

A few others (that I don't have pictures or videos of) are: Move to sitting from her knees. She can crawl for real - as in on her knees. She is just starting to pull herself up to standing. She did it in her crib the other day, scared me because I hadn't lowered her crib at that point and she could have toppled out.

Her most recent achievement is climbing up on furniture, namely under the coffee table to get to books, paper, anything she can chew on.

Recapping the Holidays

2009-02-06T16:20:00.007-07:00

I know what some of you are thinking.. Finally! I thought they dropped off the face of the earth. Yes, we almost did. But we're back! Now to play catch-up. I think this is probably the least favorite part of anyone's blogging experience, trying to recap everything that's happened in the last five months that they've been absent. So, I'll just list one or two things that I thought were the most relevant.

The fun little highlights of the holidays:

Thanksgiving: Cami fell asleep in her bouncy-swing. It was actually pretty funny to all of a sudden walk around the corner and see her completely conked out.

Christmas: My family was in town!!! It was great to see them all. Plus, we went skiing and I didn't fall down!! Quite an accomplishment for me actually.

New Years: Sterling and I didn't even get to watch the ball drop because we were watching a movie. Oops. We've always been rather boring for New Years though.

Valentine's Day: We celebrated on Friday instead of Saturday because Sterling had to work. Cami stayed with grandma. We also went to Divine Comedy. Their main feature was a Twilight spoof. It was hilarious!

I know, we're rather boring that that's the 'highlights' of our holidays. I was excited to have my family in town though.

So, now we're sorta caught up on what's going on. Sorta.

Two videos and a picture

2008-11-14T19:10:00.010-07:00

Ok, so I realize the next four posts are all from today, but I had to catch up. Plus my family has been bugging me to post more stuff on Cami. Here's a short update on her. We have a doctor's appointment on Monday where I'll find out how big she's gotten. At 3 months she was 11 lbs. 4 oz. (I think - I didn't write it down) and about 24 1/2". She's started rolling over (there's a video of it lower down) and she's been pushing herself up on her stomache very well. She's even started doing the inchworm/army crawl. We're on our way to having a mobile baby on our hands. I'm excited because then I won't feel so bad about not entertaining her myself. Here's a picture of her doing tummy time on her mat.

I also wanted to post a few videos of her that I took. It's funny because she rolls from her back to her stomache easily, but I've never seen her roll the opposite way. I'm pretty sure she can do it, I've just never seen it. She'll roll to her stomache, then get tired of it and start to whine and cry, so I'll turn her to her back, and she immediately rolls back to her back. Strange, strange child.

I've told my family about how Cami laughs at us laughing at her all the time. And everytime I tried to get a video of it she alway stops. Result of having a camera shoved in her face. I finally did get a shot though, so here's that. Please ignore my inane giggling in the background, I was trying to get her to laugh.

New addition to our little family

2008-11-14T18:44:00.003-07:00

Meet Buddy. Buddy's a little beagle who came to live with us for all of two and a half days. There was a big adoption fair in Lindon and I'd been pestering Sterling for a playmate for Sadie for a long time, so we got another dog. He was really sweet and didn't bark, but he and Sadie just didn't hit it off like I'd hoped. Also, those of you who've had dogs before will know the whole deal that a new dog goes through, the whole 'getting-used-to-my-knew-owners-so-I-whine,-jump-on-their-furniture,-and-have-an-accident-even-though-I'm-house-broken' thing. We put up with it with Sadie when we first got her, but neither of us wanted to put up with it again. So Sterling took him back to the shelter and, of course, right after that I got a call from someone who saw him on craigslist. They wanted to buy him. He was a sweetheart, but we just can't handle two dogs in such a small apartment right now. Between that and having our first dog and a new baby, I just don't have the energy for it all. Hopefully he'll go to a good home though with someone who does have the time and energy for him. Good luck Buddy, wherever you are!

Bouncy Seat

2008-11-14T18:30:00.004-07:00

I recently got on craigslist and found one of those bouncy seats that you hang from the doorway for Cami. So far she loves it. She's a little small for it, so we have to stuff a blanket in around her so she'll stay sitting up, but she likes being able to kick her legs and look around and see everything.

However, when she does fall over, as she always does because the blanket tends to slid out the leg holes, she starts chewing on the sides. It's about this time that I decide I ought to take her out and feed her.

It's really adorable and funny to look over and see her slouched sidesways sucking on the fabric.

Happy Halloween

2008-11-14T17:43:00.004-07:00

Yes, I realize that November is almost half over and I'm JUST posting our Halloween pictures, but it's been a busy month so far and I haven't had time before now. So, first off is our Halloween costume. We went as hicks/cowboys and girls. Sterling even came up with a redneck joke in honor of the occasion. Anyone who's familiar with Jeff Foxworthy will appreciate this.

"If your waredrobe doubles as your Halloween costume.. you might be a redneck."

Basically, Sterling didn't have to buy a thing for his costume. ALL of it was already in his closet. I had to go out and buy cowgirl boots at DI so I'd fit in. I have to say, they're actually very comfortable. Sterling told me I should wear them to church. I vetoed the idea immediately.

We went to our ward Halloween party initially thinking that our costumes would be kinda cute and unique. Unfortunately for us these people showed up so we didn't win a prize.

The Ghostbuster and Marshmallow Man won first place.

The 'bun in the oven' and baker and Mr. McCain and Sarah Palin tied for second place.

This one I just thought was super cute and creative.

If any of you happen to find my blog, I hope you don't mind that I posted you on here. I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

We were on TV!

2008-10-31T15:43:00.002-06:00

Yes, that's in the past tense, so any of you who may have wanted to watch it, can't. Sorry. It wasn't anything really exciting actually, but we thought it was cool. Sterling's friend Dave, from high school, is a news anchor with BYU TV on campus and was doing a news piece on how switching to a progressive tax here in Utah will affect Utah families. We just happened to be that 'typical' Utah family he interviewed about it. It was kinda fun, but I get self-concious in front of cameras. It was actually very short, only like 3 minutes when it came out, but boy did Cami sure look cute! I'm positive that someone in the commercial business will see her on that news program and I'll get a call any day from them asking me to let her be in baby commercials. Yeah... I wish.

Well, I have nothing better to do...

2008-10-26T19:07:00.003-06:00

So, here's what the rest of my little family does while I stay up late blogging. They're all sensible. As for me, well, I don't feel like I have much else to do during the day, so why do I need to go to bed at night? I'm getting over it though. I just enjoy blogging.

And may I present...
Yes, we have a thumb sucker in our family! I've tried to discourage it, but there's just no helping it. She spits out the pacifier all the time and goes for her thumb instead. At least it puts her to sleep, right?

Answers

2008-10-26T18:51:00.004-06:00

So, for the two of you who actually read my blog - nice to know there's at least two :) - here are the answers to the Halloween trivia I posted. If you haven't yet looked at the questions, skip the answers-no cheating! Looking back over them, I guess I actually got 13 right, with a few hints from Sterling. Enjoy! (I added a few comments in italics)

1. Warts; green skin is acceptable also
2. Archie, Veronica, and Betty at Riverdale High School
3. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
4. Meatloaf
5. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
6. The Monster Mash (Krista, we totally should have known this one from our younger days)
7. Woodsboro High
8. When the moon is full
9. The Bates Motel
10. Dan Akroyd
11. The abominable snowman
12. Collinsport, Maine
13. “Nightmare on Elm Street”
14. Cyclops
15. Jane Eyre – The plot: a second wife living in a house with many secrets regarding the death of the first wife and a deranged governess tossed in.
16. HALLOWEEN
17. The Raven
18. Poltergeist
19. Elvira is Mistress of the Dark and assumed to be a female vampire (still have no idea what she’s from)
20. Frank Sinatra
21. Barry Bostwick - He is the mayor on “SpinCity”
22. Lon Chaney (I’ve actually heard of him before, he plays the phantom, Erik, on the original silent film Phantom of the Opera. I also want to add that he did his own makeup and it wasn’t revealed until the movie’s premier.

Chaney pulled his eyeballs out from their sockets with thin wires, so that his eyes appeared to bulge out and their sockets became very deep. He then kept his eyes in their bulged-out position with wires and painted his eye sockets black, giving a skull-like impression to them. He also pulled the tip of his nose up and pinned that in place with wire, enlarging his nostrils with black paint, and putting a set of jagged false teeth into his mouth to complete the ghastly deformed look of the Phantom)
23. Phantom of the Opera
24. Mummies
25. Boris Karloff
26. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins
27. Michael Landon
28. True. Mary Shelly wrote it because of a bet she had with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelly and another writer friend, Lord George Byron. She had it entered in a writing contest.
29. Mia Farrow (Uh, who is she?)
30. Vincent Price
31. UNICEF

For Halloween

2008-10-23T22:16:00.002-06:00

In honor of the season, I thought I'd post a list of Halloween trivia that I got from my father-in-law. There's 31 questions, one for every day of the month. I only got about 5 of them on my own. Let's see how you do, and no cheating and looking the answers up on the internet. I'll post all the answers later.

1. Witches are commonly known to have this skin problem
2. Sabrina the Teenage Witch debuted in 1962 as a cartoon spin-off of what popular teenage trio?
3. Don Knotts is mostly known for his role as Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show.” However, he made a scary/comedy movie in 1965 in which he played Luther Heggs, a typesetter who was challenged to spend a night in a haunted house. What is the name of this movie?
4. Marvin Lee Aday is the real name of this well-known rock star, who also appeared as Eddie the ex-delivery boy in the “Rocky Horror Picture Show”, singing “Hot Patootie”. Who is he?
5. Robert Lewis Stevenson is famous for writing what novel, which is said to represent both the good and evil sides of humanity?
6. In 1962 Boris Karloff recorded what well known Halloween song?
7. What is the name of the High School where the movie “Scream” takes place?
8. Werewolves are known to come out when?
9. One all-time classic thriller is Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. What is the name of the hotel that stands in front of the owner’s home?
10. Ghostbusters came out in 1984 and still has many fans. Which of it’s main stars co-wrote the movie?
11. This monster is also known as Metch-Kangmi and supposed to walk and haunt the Himalayan peaks.
12. In 1966 TV viewers were introduced to a new form of soap opera called “Dark Shadows”. What city and state did this take place?
13. Freddy Kruger played by Robert Englund terrorized teens in this thriller.
14. What is a monster with one eye called?
15. Charlotte and Emily Bronte are sisters. They also both wrote classic novels; Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Which of the two is considered a thriller?
16. In 1978, Jamie Lee Curtis joined the scream queen club when she starred in this horror movie.
17. Edgar Allen Poe wrote a dark poem about what kind of bird?
18. A ghost that pulls pranks is called a _____?
19. “Elvira” is played by Cassandra Peterson. Is she a witch or a vampire?
20. The classic 50’s song “That Ol’ Black Magic” was originally sung by which blue eyed crooner?
21. The leading male role in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was Brad. The same actor plays a mayor on a television show today. Who is he?
22. What silent screen star is known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces” because he played several different monsters in early horror movies?
23. Gaston Leroux wrote this famous novel about a ghost that resides in a musical theater.
24. Bodies that are wrapped in cloth and stored in tombs are called ______?
25. William Henry Pratt is the real name of this famous actor who is best known for his role as Frankenstein.
26. The movie “Silence of the Lambs” is considered one of the scariest movies ever made. What two movie stars play Clarisse and Hannibal Lechter in this picture?
27. This actor starred in movies and a few popular TV series. One of them was “Highway to Heaven” in 1984. However, the movie that got him noticed was in 1957 when he played a werewolf. (“I was a Teenage Werewolf”). Who is this actor?
28. Frankenstein is based on a novel written in 1818 by a woman. True or false?
29. The early Tarzan movies featured an actress named Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane. Her daughter grew up and starred in the thriller “Rosemary’s Baby”. What is the name of this actress?
30. What classic actor is well known for his roll in many early horror pictures including “The House of Wax” (1953); “The House of Usher” (1960); and “The House on Haunted Hill” (1958)?
31. On Halloween, this charity collects money to help children.

New cousin

2008-10-19T17:36:00.003-06:00

My sister-in-law on the Fenwick side, Alisha, had her baby Friday night, three weeks early. She was having labor pains all day at work, so they went in to the hospital. Her baby has been breach for months, so she got a C-section, but everything is fine. Rabeca Ray was born at 11:38 pm, was 19.5 inches, and weighed 8 lbs, 8 oz. (I know, 3 weeks early and 8 1/2 lbs!) I don't have any pictures of Preston and his two girls because when we got there he and Sterling took off to go get drinks. Rabeca has the chubbiest little cheeks in the world! A trait that the grandparents say she gets from her dad. I'm also a little jealous that she has so much hair, whereas all the babies on the Carlson side are all bald! But Kate gives me hope that someday our little girl will have hair as well, it might just take a year or two. Congratulations Preston and Alisha, we're so happy for you!

3 months old

2008-10-19T16:42:00.006-06:00

I'm posting this partly in response to Krista's post about Brooklyn's 6 month birthday and partly because it's an excuse for me to post more pictures for my family. Cami had her 3 month birthday/anniversary on Thursday. It's hard for me to believe that only 3 months ago I was big and pregnant. Time has gone by just slowly enough for me to appreciate everything, but fast enough that it hasn't dragged. I'm still loving being a mom and Cami is just absolutely adorable. She prefers to be held so she can sit and hold her head up on her own, she drools a lot! and she talks and giggles to herself frequently. She's such a joy for us to have in our lives. Sterling even agrees that she's more fun now that she'll actually interact with us. I want to go in to the doctor tomorrow to weigh her and see how much she's grown in the last month. At her 2 month appointment she weighed 11 lbs, 1 oz and was 21.5 inches long/tall(?). She still has no hair, as you can see from the pictures, but we're hoping someday it'll stop falling out and will start growing in instead. It may be a lost cause, but we'll keep praying.

She likes sticking her tongue out in pictures. We're not sure why...

This one is a favorite of mine because she was looking at her daddy when it was taken.

Photo Shoot

2008-09-23T16:50:00.007-06:00

A friend in my ward offered, for her baby gift, to take pictures of Cami before she got too big. I took her up on it. She photoshopped a few of these, but here's my favorites.

All smiles

2008-09-14T17:28:00.006-06:00

I got a few pictures of Cami smiling recently. It's seriously got to be the cutest smile in the world, but then maybe I'm just biased.

The Few. The Proud.

2008-09-14T16:49:00.005-06:00

So, for those of you who haven't heard yet, Sterling is joining the Marines. He's actually applying for an officers spot through an Officer Selection program. He wants to be a pilot, and they only have 3 pilot spots open for Utah candidates, but despite that his chances are really pretty good of being selected. They look at a whole bunch of things, like academic achievement (you have to have a bachelors degree), leadership experience, extracurricular activities, etc. The application process is basically just like a job application, except that there's a physical fitness test and a written exam, which is similar to the ACT, but includes naval and flight questions as well. He's currently finished everything except for the written test, so once the whole application is complete, we should hear back from them within a month or so. If he doesn't get accepted, there's still time to bring up any scores that disqualified him the first time and try for a pilots spot again.

Once he's been selected as an officer, he's guaranteed a pilot's spot in Pensecola, FL. So next summer he'll go to OCS (Officer Candidates School) for 10 weeks in Quantico, VA. Cami and I won't be able to go to that with him, sadly. Then he'll graduate from there in August and receive his commission at which point he'll start making a 2nd Lieutenant's pay. Then in Oct or Nov of next year, we'll all move out to Quantico for TBS (The Basic School) which is six months long. That's where they learn all the leadership skills they'll need to be an officer. Then we go to flight school down in Pensecola, FL. Flight school is two years long. Sterling is thinking he wants to do fighter jets, hopefully an F-18.

In order for him to be a pilot, he had to get corrective eye surgery. None of the branches of the military will let you get Lasek because of the flap they cut in the cornea for Lasek - they're afraid that the G-forces will pull the flap back, though that's not possible - so Sterling had to get PRK surgery, which is a much more painful recovery process. He was in serious pain for three days, whereas with Lasek, you're good to go the very next day. I got a picture of him, though he probably won't want me to post it. His eyes were really red and swollen for about a week or so. He's better now thankfully and his vision is getting clearer every day. There was a brief period of time there that I wondered if he thought it wasn't worth it. He says that despite the pain, he always felt it was. He's very excited about being in the Marines, since the military is what he's wanted to do since he was young. I'll keep you all posted on whether or not he gets accepted.

Then and Now

2008-08-17T22:27:00.010-06:00

Ok, so Krista (and others) have been asking me for more current photos of my little girl, so here's a few of her when she was just born and what she looks like now. There will be more posted later, but this is just a quick blog for those who have been asking.

The first is one that a 'professional' took of her in the hospital and then wanted to charge me $25 for a copy of it, but I got creative and managed to save it off the internet. She's one day old. The other is one mom took of her today at one month old.

Sterling and I both think that she's gotten much, much cuter as she's gotten older.

As for the next pictures. Mom had the idea to use the blanket as a marker of how much she's grown. You can notice how much she's lengthened out, and how much she's filled out, especially her cubby little legs and arms. But she's still so cute. In the first she's a week old (or so), the second is one month old.

The last two I just thought were cute because she at least has her eyes open in both. Her head has gotten so much bigger and her eyes have lightened to a brighter blue than they were when she was born.