Videos

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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.