Thanksgiving in CT

We were so excited to make a trip out to CT for Thanksgiving. The night before I was so nervous/eager to head out at 6 am that I slept only two hours. I couldn't understand what I was so nervous about considering I have flown millions of times on flights even longer, and the boys are pretty good about going places too. When we woke them up at 4 am to go to the airport I noticed Ryker was gagging. I sat with him for a second to make sure he was ok, then he smiled at me and I thought nothing more about it. We were waiting at our gate to board when Ryker walked up to me crying, and I picked him up. Seconds later, he threw up his breakfast all over himself and me. Jared took him to get cleaned up while I scrounged around my bag for a new shirt. We wrote it off as a fluke and got on the plane.

Well, it wasn't a fluke because he was sick two more times on the flight. Once we got to JFK we were desperate to wash our clothes and take a shower. The next day was Thanksgiving, so we made our typical holiday meal, but neither me nor Jared had much of an appetite. That night Jared was sick, the next night my brother was sick, the following night Nicholas was sick, and then the last night to round it out me, my mom and my dad were sick too. All in all, not a bad way to keep off the holiday pounds.

But it wasn't all bad... We had a really fun time spending time with my siblings, watching movies, and we even fit in a little girl's afternoon at the mall. We were disappointed we couldn't do the city one day, but it was very relaxing and enjoyable nonetheless. I appreciated having a washing machine, not to mention tons of people to help entertain my kids or clean up. We saw the movie Tangled and loved it. We even got a tiny bit of snow one afternoon, so we grabbed our snow gear and ran outside.

Disclaimer

I have been hit hard with insomnia the last 3 days, getting 2-4hrs of sleep a night

I am exhausted...

I've tried warm baths, not eating hours before sleeping, reading, watching tv, not watching tv, staying in bed, getting out of bed, and even tylenol pm. No relief so far.

I apologize to anyone I have forgotten to call back, and for my lack of presence this week in all forums.

Hopefully tonight will be a better night!

Don't Stand So Close To Me

Alright, I will admit it here and now. I am a germ-phobe. That's right. When I stand in a crowded room, confined in my pew at church, in direct line of fire of anyone with an ailment it's all I can think about.

If you are sick, I will shun you for the appropriate incubation period. If your kids are sick I might be ticked you invited us for a playdate. "Swine flu", "bird flu", "influenza", and "vomiting" are all intensely horrifying words to me.

This past week the unspeakable happened: I was infected. I don't know who infected me or what, but you are all suspects!!!

On that note, we stumbled on this absolutely hilarious video, and I'm only mad I didn't think of this...

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/comedy/watch/v19326847yFRxaqmx

A Series of Unfortunate Events...

Well here we are, alive and well in LA. I'm even blogging again. Woohoo

It has been an insane couple of weeks, between the baby being born, packing up our stuff, then moving out here, and unpacking our stuff. With the two years we were at Jared's parent's we hardly touched about 50% of our things, so it made for some fun surprises.
(Who would've thought we'd have gotten by with a 6 piece set of silverware and 4 plastic plates for our dinnerware. Apparently we were slumming it in Provo all those years ago).
Anyways, just days before the move I was stricken with mastitis and a UTI. That's right, I was stricken like the pioneers were stricken with their ailments, because let's face it, I was very much like a pioneer recently. Likewise Nicholas, our beloved "Kiki", was hit with a nasty cold/flu rendering him fussy, irritable and flowing with overwhelming amounts of mucus. Well that put us back a few hours of work, but somehow we managed to pack everything on time and get going on our drive south.

A few hours later after (fortunately) little crying from both babies we arrived. The apartment was covered with a layer of dust, ants, and generally nasty things; I guess thats what you get for not seeing the place before you rent it. After freaking out for a few minutes ("I have to live in THIS with my babies?!"), we (Jared, his dad, mom, sister Brittany, and BIL Kelly) got to work unloading our junk into the junkyard, while simultaneously bleaching and vacuuming every square inch. I would have taken pictures, but honestly I do not want to remember what it was like.

By the third day, after dropping $500 at Target and $300 at BB&B, and nearly getting robbed at Walmart in Crenshaw (*shudder* I hate Walmart), we felt like we could breathe again. My ailments finally cleared up, Kiki showed improvement, and the baby only woke up twice at night. Now that we have been around for 11 days we are finally feeling like this is our place. The only significant element we are lacking is our couch, which has proven to be quite essential; it arrives friday.

All things considered I would say we like this place quite a bit. Even though we are still killing ants daily (yuck!), and we seem to have chosen the foreign language housing (more on this later-- at least they're quiet neighbors), we are becoming very comfortable here, and are settling in quite well. Kiki finally stopped asking to go "home", and has the way to the park and laundromat down pat. I think we'll do just fine here.

Wow that was a long entry... and it only took me four tries...