A quick update

Well, it has been a while, so I thought I'd post an update. Last week, Aaron, Isaac, and I went to Salt Lake for a bunch of appointments. Isaac saw Pulminology, Urology, and the wheelchair clinic. Aaron also had a consult and a procedure to take care of an AVM in his lung. It was a very busy trip! Isaac did well for Pulminology and Urology. Everything came back looking good! These are areas where we will continue to need follow up for him, but for now, things look good. He also got to drive around a motorized wheelchair. He had tried one out when he was in the hospital, and did pretty good with it, so we are starting the process of getting him one of his own. He will get a loaner chair in August that he should be able to keep for a month or so. He will have a checklist of things he needs to be able to do before Medicaid will pay for such an expensive piece of equipment, so he will be able to practice all those things and we can get documentation before we actually ask them to pay for it. Apparently, they don't believe toddlers can control a power chair or that they have a need for them, so it often takes a long time to actually get a chair. The ladies that I talked to said it would be a minimum of six months before they could get one for him. Still, we are optimistic. Isaac already passed off most of the requirements while he zipped around the blocked off parking lot! He had so much fun and pouted when we said it was time to stop. The ladies jokingly said we should send in a video of him pouting. It is hard to say no to a face like his! Anyway, it will take some time, but we are excited to be working toward getting a power chair for him.
The rest of the trip was tiring, and Isaac had some issues breathing a couple times, but mostly it went well. Aaron's procedure was uncomfortable, but uneventful and successful. It is nice to have that out of the way.
Since we have been home, Isaac has been doing great! He has been sleeping better at night, working hard in therapy, and he has wanted to get out of bed more and actually eating more too! He still has a long way to go, but we are happy with his progress.

This Is Hard

Just in case you were wondering.

I am home right now. I drove 4 1/2 hours today so I could see Leonora perform in her first dance recital. Aaron is still in SLC with Isaac. Tomorrow, I will be looking into housing in St George, doing a little food shopping, picking up some Tupperware flyers, and driving back to Salt Lake. I am tired. I feel like I should be saying good night to Isaac. I miss having my husband with me. I was unexpectedly overwhelmed by all the people and noise at the dance recital. I was wondering before it started if I would make it through the whole thing.

But I know that if I had stayed with Isaac and Aaron, I would feel terrible for missing Leonora's recital. I would be missing her and William. I would still be exhausted.

I am glad I got to see Leonora dance.

I feel so torn between here and there. I am really looking forward to having us all together again. I'm sure that will bring it's own challenges, but we should be together. Things are better when we are together.

Our story part 5

The date

Saskia asked for pictures, so I dug out this one! Aaron looks so different here. Well, I guess we both look different. A lot can happen in 10 years! Sorry the quality may not be the best. I was in a hurry when I scanned it at my mom's house. It ended up a bit crooked. I tried to fix it, but don't have a very good program. Anyway, here it is: Our first date!

We had rehersal that day. After rehersal, my friend Diana and I blindfolded our dates and my mom picked us up and drove in a round-about way to my parent's house. We were served a spaghetti dinner by my dad, and took a few pictures before we left for the dance. The funny thing is, Aaron and I spent very little time in the dance! Well, I think we went in for the slow songs and to socialize a little, but we spent a lot of the time sitting outside the gym talking-and yes, that really is all we did! We never even held hands until the next summer!

At the risk of sounding a bit silly, I'm going to tell you this next part.

I had previously gotten the feeling that we would get married. It's funny, because that really was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. In fact, it was a bit overwhelming to think about! I mean, yeah, I liked him. I'd just chased him down to go on a date! But I wasn't looking for a serious relationship. So this had been bugging me, and I decided that maybe I should tell him, since it involved him! We spent a good deal of time during the dance discussing this topic. Thankfully, we were both smart enough to realize that knowing we may get married someday, didn't mean we needed to elope that night! In the meantime, we could just enjoy our friendship and get to know each other better. And that is what we did for the next month and a half until he went back to Seattle!

Oops

In my last "our story" post, I said that today was the anniversary of our first date. Well, it turns out, I was wrong! I really should check these things before I post! It is this month, but it's the 13th. Don't ask where I got the 5th from. I don't know. Anyway, I have a post all ready to be published, and it will be showing up on the 13th!

Our Story Part 4

So, it's been a long time since I posted about Aaron's and my story! November 5th will be the 10th anniversary of our first date, so I thought I would try and get more of this story posted!

So when I left off, Tess and I were rushing back to her mom's car and her mom was telling us what had happened. Aaron had gotten a ride home from the play practice with Zane, who was another drama person and by strange coincedence, was also the person I'd taken to Sadie's the previous year. Aaron's foster dad had informed him that there were some girls waiting for him inside, and he promptly took off after Zane's departing vehicle! Tess's mom has seen all of this and got us caught up on the whole story while we were in pursuit of Zane and his cargo.

Meanwhile, the second vehicle that had arrived while we were waiting for Aaron was close behind us. We both pulled up to Zane's house at the same time and raced to the front door. I don't think I'll ever forget the expresion Zane had when he answered the door and said, "Both of you?!" I think he found it a bit overwhelmingly hillarious... After he got over the initial shock of having two girls on his porch demanding to know where another guy was, he told us that Aaron was at Ryan's house.

Well, I knew where Ryan lived, but me being who I am, I over thought the whole thing and assumed it was some kind of trick. It just so happened that Ryan's family was getting ready to move. Earlier that day, I'd had a conversation with someone else who tried to describe to me where they were moving. I thought for sure this was a trick and Ryan was taking Aaron off to the new house. Well, it turned out that I was wrong. Not only did he not take Aaron to the other house, but the house that I thought Ryan was moving to was occupied by some one else. Oops.
At that point, I didn't see how I could catch him. The other girl had a considerable head start. After I got home, I called Ryan to confirm the bad news. The first thing he said was, "Where are you?" I asked what had happened, and he said that Aaron had escaped out a bedroom window. Zane had picked him up, driven for a little and then dropped Aaron off somewhere in the dark. As far as he knew, Aaron had not been tagged by the other girl. There was still hope!

Somehow, we convinced Tess's mom to take us back out to see if we could find him. We back tracked to Ryan's house and started driving toward Aaron's house. It was not too long before we saw something strange in the dark. At first, I thought it was a dog or some other animal. Then, as we got closer, I realized I was seeing Aaron's white t-shirt bouncing along! And my fellow chaser was no where in site! Poor Aaron was getting a little tired of running at this point, and didn't realize who it was that stopped along side him until Tess and I got out of the car. He started running again, but we caught up to him pretty easily. With a little help from Tess, I got him tagged! I think we gave him a ride home then. :)

The next morning, I found out that Zane had led the other girl and her friend on a wild goose chase. Apparently, they didn't realize that Aaron wasn't in the car anymore. I don't think I ever thanked him for keeping them occupied! So that is how I earned my first date with Aaron!

Update

Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted! So here's a brief update on the last week.
Aaron auditioned for The Pirates of Penzance at the college here. He got the part of a policeman, but we still don't know how this will work with his work schedule. He's always wanted to perform. It's one of his dreams in life, so he'll be sad if he doesn't get to participate. We'll see how it works out.
I've been getting bigger! I keep meaning to have Aaron take a picture... I'm also feeling the baby move a lot more! No one else has been able to feel it yet, but I don't think it will be long!
I injured myself last Thursday. Years ago, I hurt my knee and it occasionally comes back to haunt me. It's been awhile since it last happened, so I guess I was due for a knee injury. I've been trying to stay off it, which means my house is a disaster!

Anyway, I think that's about it!

Our Story: Part 3

Our first Date

This is a fun story to tell! It was the begining of November, which at my high school, meant the Sadie Hawkin's dance. It was girl's choice, but there were a bunch of other rules you had to follow. Boys couldn't just be asked to the dance, they had to be "tagged." And if they were successfully tagged, they couldn't say no, unless they had already been tagged. No one could be tagged on school property, during school hours, or during other school sponsered activities. The girl who wanted to do the asking also had to be the one to do the actual tagging.

Although some like to make it a little more difficult, most guys aren't that difficult to tag. The previous year, I had called up a guy's house and told his dad that I wanted to tag his son. I asked if I could come over after drama (he was in drama too) and tag him at the house. His dad helped me by sending him into the office where I was hiding behind the door. That was pretty easy. Aaron decided before hand that anyone who wanted to tag him was going to have to work for it, and I got no such help from anyone in his household!

So, I had bought my ticket/tag, and worked out a plan with my friend Tess. Neither of us had driver's licenses, so we begged her mom to help us on the appointed night. I'm not sure where my mom was, but she wasn't available. Even if she were, I don't know if she would have done it. Actually, I'm amazed that Tess's mom did! Anyway, the plan was to drive over to Aaron's house after rehersals and wait inside. Sound familiar? I figured it worked once, why not try again? Well, it probably would have, but Aaron's foster dad decided he was on Aaron's side, not mine. After telling Tess and I we could wait in the living room, he went outside. When Aaron came home, he let Aaron know there were a couple of girls sitting inside waiting to tag him. Aaron took off running after his ride, and Tess's mom came running up to the house to tell us what had happened. And just to make things a little more fun, she also told us that there was someone else who seemed to be showing interest in what Aaron was doing...

Okay, sorry to do this to you, but I've got to get going! More coming soon!

Our Story Part 2

How We Met...
So Aaron had made it to this funny little corner of Utah. When school started, Aaron was looking for some extra curricular activities, I guess. He registered for band, choir, and something he'd never tried before, drama. I had been participating in the high school drama program for years, but for some reason beginning drama had never fit into my schedule before. This year, it did, so I took it. Aaron and I sat on opposite sides of the classroom from each other. I remember when he introduced himself to the class. He had registered for school late because they had had to work out guardianship issues with the family he was staying with. He said he was from Seattle, which I teased him about later because I found out he was not from Seattle proper. His parents actually lived in an area that was trying to become a city, but hadn't quite made it yet.
... And got to know each other
It was easy to learn the basics about him in drama class, but we didn't really start getting to know each other until we both auditioned for the musical, "Hello, Dolly." For me, this was nothing unusual: I auditioned for everything. Aaron was dared into it. He'd never been in a play. We both made it into actual rolls. He played Barnaby, and I was Ermagarde. I got to whine and cry a lot. So, in the beginning of rehersals, we were required to be there a lot, but for some reason, we never did anything. There was this huge opening scene that seemed to take forever to figure out, and Aaron and I were not in it. I think our teacher kept hoping to finish this scene and move on, but everyday, we sat there with nothing to do but get to know each other better. Which is what we did for at least a week's worth of three-hour-a-day rehersals. We learned enough about each other to become pretty good friends.

Our Story: Part 1

I love telling stories. Especially about myself. Does that make me self-centered? I'm not sure. But I think I have a few interesting stories. One that never seems to grow old is how Aaron and I met and ended up getting married. It's a long story from beginning to end, but I've been wanting to put it down for a while. It will probably take several installments, so I thought I should get started!

How he got here

Ten years ago, Aaron was 16 and living in the Seattle area. He had been having some issues with depression. His parents had decided that whatever they were doing wasn't helping him, and were considering sending him to a wilderness program or group home or something-which, I think, would have done more harm than good. It wasn't like he was on drugs or anything, he'd just stay up all night and sleep through school. Anyway, he was visiting an online chat room one day and started talking with a girl there. (No, it wasn't me.) After exchanging a lot of information that they probably shouldn't have (for safty reasons) they discovered that their parents had known each other, but had lost contact over the years. Her parents had taken in struggleing kids from time to time and offered Aaron a home with them. His parents agreed, and arangements were made for Aaron to move to their home in Utah. In the meantime, I was finishing up my junior year of high school and registering for my senior classes-completely unaware that anything more important was happening...

Thanks for reading my really long post! :)

Well, It's been a while since I last posted. Sorry about that... Let's see if I can give a quick-ish update.
The night of Aaron's birthday we went to see My Fair Lady at Tuachan. That was fun. We had invited our friends Stephanie and Toby, but we talked to them around 7:30 and Stephanie made it clear that they weren't going to make it to the show because she was in labor with their 4th baby! So after some scrambling, we found someone to use the tickets. Meanwhile, Stephanie and Toby's baby boy was born during the show. They called to tell us while we were on our way out of Tuachan. Aaron thought that they should name him Aaron since he was born on his birthday, but they decided on Micah instead. :)
The next day, William had an appointment with the foot specialists that come down from Salt Lake every few months. He was born with clubbed feet and had surgury just before he turned one, but in the last year, his feet have been turning in again. He's now scheduled to go in for another surgury on the first of August.
After a very long appointment, we had lunch with Aaron and then the kids and I headed north for Layton for my sister Amber's wedding open house. We stopped to pick up my brother Morgan on the way. I was glad to have another adult in the car. He fed the kids grapes and string cheese all the way there. The next day was spent getting ready for the open house. It was at CJ's parent's house. They have one of the nicest back yards I've been in. Sunday we came home. I was very glad to be back home and see Aaron.
Well, this is getting kind of long, so I think I'll post more later. I may even have a couple of pictures!

Happy Birthday Aaron!

I hope you are enjoying your birthday! Sorry I haven't been able to do more for you. I love you very much! Happy Birthday!

Happy Thursday

I've gotten some complaints about the lack of posts to my site lately, so I'm posting something...
Other than the bad violin playing, I've had a really nice morning. We took our '93 Sable to get the windshield replaced around 8 this morning. Once that's done, it should pass the safety inspection and we can actually get it registered in the state of Utah. After dropping the car off, we went to I-HOP for breakfast. I haven't been there in a really long time! They have really good omelets-one of which I had. William wasn't too happy. He prefers Kix cereal to any other food groups lately. He did finally eat one of his pancakes. While we were there we saw a friend who works there. Hadn't seen her in a while, so that was nice. Once our tummies were full (or perhaps a little over filled) we came home. Aaron's been watching a Dream Theater concert on DVD. Between the bad violins and the effeminate moves of the lead singer, it's kept us pretty entertained. William has been keeping us refreshed with "orange juice" from his new Tupperware kid's beverage set, and Leonora has been trying to steal the remote with moderate success. (Maybe she doesn't like the violins either.)
Oh, and the best part of the morning- Aaron got to change the poopy diaper! I love his days off...

I've got a pickle

Well, it's been a while since I posted anything. some new news is that we are finally in our own apartment! Also, Aaron just quit at the dealership he was working at and is starting March 1st at a new one in St. George. We both feel that things will be better with this new dealership. Anyway, since Aaron had a few days off between jobs, and we have tax return money handy, we decided to jump in the car and head to California where a bunch of our stuff has been patiently waiting for us to pick it up. We're staying with Aaron's family, and I think they've enjoyed having their grandkids around for a couple days. Lately, William has been telling me that he's a pickle. I think he got this from me. Whenever he'd get into a little mischief, I'd call him a turkey or a pickle, so he's decided that he is a pickle. He also dislikes being called a little boy and always insists that he is actually a big boy if I call him little. So, last night we were all sitting around and Aaron's sister asked William if he was a little pickle. William said, "No! I'm not a little pickle! I'm a big pickle!" Well, I can hardly disagree with that statement!

Hello again

Well, Aaron sold his first car yesterday. I think I need some more interesting posts. This one probably won't be one of those more interesting ones. William needs to wash his hands... guess I'd better take care of that.

For Real This Time

So, we have officially relocated to Utah. We're staying with my parents for the moment, but hopefully not for too long. The weekend that Aaron got here we had a very full house. Lets see... Mom, Dad, Me, Aaron, William, Leonora, three brothers, and three sisters ranging in ages from 23 to 3, for a grand total of 12-five of which are under the age of 10. Crazy. My sister left Sunday evening so we're down to 11 now. Monday Aaron made some calls to a couple car dealerships that were hiring. He went in on Tuesday and got hired at Newby Buick in St. George. He started Wednesday, and just needs to get his fingerprints and a pasport photo for his sales license and he can start selling. This last week was also the county fair. My mom and I helped out with the Tupperware booth on Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow is the first day of school for the first and third graders in the house, Wednesday morning my mom is leaving for a Tupperware convention in Florida, and next weekend my college age brother brothers are supposed to be moving out-if they can find a place to live. They start school next monday. At that point, we'll have our own bedroom! Yay! Hopefully this won't be changeing too much in the next week or so. Hopefully it will go by quickly. In the meantime, if anyone wants some Tupperware or a car, let me know!

Finally!

Aaron went to a job interview today at a Nissan dealership, and they offered him the job on the spot! This is such a relief, I'm almost giddy! He starts training on Wednesday, and we can't wait for that first check! It's a little scary since he's never done commission based sales, but I think he'll do well, and he is guarenteed income during the training period, so... hurrah for paychecks! :) Whoopee!!! (someone say Yeehaw, please? thank you.) :)

Update...

Leonora is now 8 weeks old! and as soon as I find a chance to get on the correct computer (which isn't this one) I will post some pictures for you all. The other day I left her laying on her back on the floor after a diaper change and came back to see her on her tummy. This was actually the second time she rolled over! She first did it while Aaron and I were finishing up our packing to move to California. Btw, I can't remember what I posted before about our move- that is if I posted anything... anyway, we're living with Aaron's parents (and sister and thier beagle) in Folsom, California (near Sacramento). It's been interesting being here. Aaron's been looking for a job. He's had a couple of interviews, but we don't know about those jobs yet. He's still been applying for more jobs, and hopefully he'll be able to get started in a job soon. Like yesterday. Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to figure out how seven people (and a beagle) function in a three bedroom house. Since William doesn't have his own space, he tries his best to make trouble over the entire house. Leonora doesn't seem to mind too much. Personally, it wouldn't be so bad if I weren't being invaded by William all the time. Poor kid, he's got no place that he can just be an exploritory two year old. At least, no place that he won't get into trouble for it. Well, I could babble on longer, but Leonora is crying, so until next time...

Good Weekend

We had an exciting weekend! Saturday was my baby shower, which you can read about in my earlier posts. Then Sunday, of course, was Easter. We didn't do too much Sunday morning, but got ready for church. After church, Aaron checked his email and found out that he was accepted into an opera young artist program! He had been anxiously awaiting their email and we were both very excited to hear that they accepted him! Then while he was telling his family the good news, his cousin and her family arrived for our Easter dinner. We had a turkey, potatoes with gravy, veggies, cranberry sauce, rolls, and I'm sure something else... Anyway, it all turned out very good, and I think everyone had plenty to eat! After dinner, we sent the husbands and kids into William's room while the "Easter Bunny" hid eggs for everyone to find. It was a lot of fun watching them (including our husbands) finding eggs, candy, and a few little toys around the room. For the rest of the evening, we all consumed more sugar than we should have, but it was a lot of fun! It was a nice end to a good weekend!