We're still alive and ticking... random tidbits

So since we've moved here life has been VERY hectic...

My sister has been to the ER about 5 times, in the hospital for 4 days, my little brother has had pneumonia twice and my grandmother died. Can you believe we've only been here for 2.5 months with all that happening?

Daniel has had some more trouble with his thesis, and has recently sent a very detailed email to his thesis committee so hopefully they will be able to help him with some more of the issues he's been having.

We went to Thanksgiving at Daniel's parents house and while there Eric took a nose dive from a high chair which ended up in a trip the ER for us. He's doing fine and is pretty well healed by now, but we were just worried about how much his mouth was bleeding. He really enjoyed the popsicle the nurse gave him to take down swelling. However since it was a grape popsicle it made his mouth look terribly bruised!

Beware of a rant: While visiting Daniel's parents we were finally able to resolve the issue we had with his ring... after almost 2 years (due to not being close to the store or any branch location.) We finally have the same type of ring that I bought him (ie. comfort fit) then the one we got back after they treated the white gold (we had it done on a visit for Christmas from grad school but didn't realize it until we were on the road back - in Nebraska).
Of course it was with a snotty attitude that they exchanged the rings (almost exact phrases were: "I'm losing money on this" {apparently their rings are a heavier weight now then when I bought Daniels} and "We don't know what happened but I'm doing this because we don't want you to tell people 'we screwed you over'"). We weren't exactly impressed with the customer service we received (we had the insurance plan through their store so they should have been nicer... although at the location I bought it where we tried first they all but accused us of buying a less expensive ring and trying to get a better one out of it. NOT HAPPY there either, especially after we waited 30 minutes to finally see the manager (we were on our way out of town after going to my mission reunion and visiting Daniel's sister). So just to let you know if you want jewerly, don't go to Samuels/Shubachs. At least we did get the same type of ring back.

I was lucky enough to win a $25 gift certificate to a webiste that had aretesian chocolates. Basically I can tell you that mint chocolates are good, lavendar are not (at least in my opinion.)

Daniel's sleep is doing a lot better. We got him a light box so he can continue his light therapy in the mornings without having to brave the cold.

That is just about everything that's happened. Life's been crazy. Below is a family picture that I posted on my food blog (thus the very faint watermark in the background - I forgot to save the cropped version and don't have time to redo it right now.)

8 Months

Here are pictures of Eric at 8 months:

He's mobile and likes to army crawl towards the camera...

Eric also likes standing.

Look at how much he has grown!

He has the cutest smiles!

Trying to get the camera!

Just moving away from where I wanted him.

Woohoo, I'm getting away from the picture area!

Okay, I'll give you a good shot, then maybe we'll get over this sooner than later.

And I'll play with the monkey.

So the above shots were from the second time we tried to take pictures, the first time all we got was:

A VERY unhappy baby!

Eric at 7 months

I have not been so good about uploading Eric's monthly pictures, but this past month has been out of the ordinary, so I'm sure you will understand. I started taking pictures and the first one turned out great, none of the rest turned out as cute, but we did get a few more good ones. The main problem was that Eric wanted to come get the camera:

One moment he'd be back against the couch and the next, he was up in the camera. Look at those beautiful blue eyes!

This was not the best picture, but it was close behind!
I love the shots of Eric playing with his green monkey!
Hugging the monkey, he's just so cute!
My little contortionist!

Oh, you're taking pictures?

And finally, this is the picture I LOVE the most, I think it turned out so great! Just look at that cute smile!

One Reason

In the post I let you all know that we were moving in with my parents for a while, I said this: I know there is a reason we're going back to live with my parents for a bit, and when I learn what that reason is, I'll let you know.

Tonight I know one reason that this move was suppose to happen. My grandmother (mom's mother) died this evening. Since we moved here, she was able to see Eric before she died (unfortunately due to an infection she had, she couldn't hold him.) I am grateful for that.

Eric at 6 months...

So I know this post is later than I wanted it to be... what can I say life is crazy! I may post on that in the future, we'll see... Here's the pictures, I'm skipping captioning them this time... I want to hear yours!

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Yes we are still alive

Apologies to anybody that is offended that we haven't posted recently, especially those of you who we haven't contacted otherwise to update you.

Thanks to some help from Steve and Johnny, we got the truck mostly loaded in about an hour. Margaret helped us organize a lot of the remaining stuff and took care of handing in our paperwork. Thanks again to her for letting us sublet her apartment and being so generous with us.

We didn't get started on the road until late Thursday afternoon. Eric was fine for the first few hours, but we ended up stopping pretty early in Cedar Rapids, IA. We had to get directions from Crystal's sister since I had managed to bury our road atlas somewhere. In case you didn't catch how ridiculous that is, I'll remind you that I make maps for a living...you'd think I would remember how useful they can be when traveling.

Our other stays were in Grand Island, NE and Rawlins, WY. We had originally planned on making the trip in three days, but it stretched into four. Eric was pretty sick of the whole thing by the end of the trip. He doesn't like getting into his car seat anymore. I can't blame the poor kid. His second tooth broke through on the last day of the trip and he also got a round of immunizations the day before we set out. On top of Eric, we dealt with the wondrous joy of driving a 14 foot truck. The air pressure was low on all of the tires and we couldn't find an air station that would let us fill the outside rear tires so I got to wrestle with the truck swaying around quite a bit.

Arriving in 'Roosevelt' we hoped would be the beginning of a sort of vacation. We did go on a date to watch a movie, but things haven't been as smooth as we could have hoped. Crystal's grandmother was life-flighted to Salt Lake while we were en route. Most likely, she was smoking with her oxygen running, causing the small fire. After a day or two in the hospital, she was sent to a rehab-center where she was not well taken care of. She ended up back in the hospital again. There is definitely more to the story, but suffice it to say that I would avoid the Arlington Heights center in Salt Lake. Meanwhile, Dennis, Crystal's brother came down with pnuemonia and had to go to the emergency room yesterday. He's back home and doing much better now.

Some other random bits:

Eric is as cute as ever. We really have to keep an eye on him as we haven't really had time to baby-proof the house yet. A few times, as I set him down, he manages to stay up on his feet and hands, but he hasn't gotten there on his own just yet.

I'm now on a mostly regular sleep schedule. I go to sleep at 10:30 and wake up at 7:30. Yay!!! In a day or two, I'll cut back light exposure to 30 minutes instead of an hour. In the mornings, I watch the family of California Quail wake up and start their day in the back yard. I also watch some White Crowned Sparrows and Magpies as well as a pair of Northern Flicker's.

Crystal says we'll post pictures of Eric at six-months sometime next week.

Our lives currently

So as it is September and back in June/July we were hopeful that we'd know what was happening in our lives at this point, I thought I should let you all know that we don't.
Daniel didn't get an appointment on campus this fall so we decided not to register for classes (tuition expenses are not something we're willing to pay out of pocket right now.) Due to that decision, Daniel is not able to work as a student (which he has been doing for the summer.) So we decided that the best course of action currently is to move where we have free rent and more support from family. We're in the selection phase of a few government jobs, but they could be selecting until November and waiting around in Madison is just not going to work out.
So we're moving to Utah to be with my family until employment is found, which will hopefully be in a month or two. We're moving the day after Eric's 6 month check up, which is on the day he turns 6 months.

We're going to miss a few things about the area (I'm going to be positive here so I'm not going to list all the things we won't miss). We're going to miss our favorite inexpensive places to eat - Qdoba, Noodles & Company. We're going to miss the fall here, with the colorful leaves. We're going to miss some of the great birds we've seen here: Northern Cardinals, Eastern Bluebirds, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Baltimore Orioles, and the rare finds - Horned Grebe, Indigo Bunting as well as all those that I can't remember right now. We're going to miss the walks to picnic point, in the arboretum, and the conservancy. We're going to miss going to the Women's Hockey games and getting free frozen custard because they are so good (the team - every time they scored 5 points we got free custard). Most of all we're going to miss all the friends we've made here. We appreciate all the support and friendship shown to us!

We'll be packing the stuff we didn't unpack since we moved during the next week and a half. It all seems surreal. I was really hoping that this time we packed that we'd be off to a job (and they'd be paying for the move). I know there is a reason we're going back to live with my parents for a bit, and when I learn what that reason is, I'll let you know.

Eric Videos

So here are some promised videos of Eric...
Eric eating Bananas - his first food...

Eric Falling asleep...

This next one is a classic Eric - he waves his arm like that when he is hungry. When he falls asleep eating and is still only halfway coherent but wants to eat he does that with his eyes closed and opens his mouth expecting something to be put in it. It is so adorable!

Eric post

So I decided I needed to post and share what's been going on in Eric's life lately. On my birthday (not for my birthday), our congregation had a barbecue. It was by this beautiful lake (one of the lakes in this city). Eric was a trooper and didn't complain in the wind all day.
The other day at church Eric leaked and so we had to change his outfit. After we got home we took some pictures because we really liked how he looked.
It is still a tad bit too warm for him to wear this for a long time though. Isn't he adorable?
Eric enjoyed his first solid food of mashed bananas this month. He really enjoyed them!
Eric likes to suck his thumb as he falls asleep.
One of Eric's need is for attention. He likes to know that my whole world revolves around him, and when I forget this fact for more than 5-10 minutes, he reminds me.
To end, here is a video of Eric moving around. I have a few more videos of him (laughing, falling asleep), but I am sick of waiting for the one below to load, so I will have to wait to post them.

I think I need to buy a house

So you may remember that we moved on June 30. Since then here is a list of things that have/currently annoy(ed) me in our new place (I need to get this out of my system, so if you don't want to listen to me complain, ignore this post):

*The hallway smells like a cheap motel (mainly because most of the tenants near us smoke and/or have pets).

*After we finally got internet access, we learned that the phone jack in the living room didn't work. A week and 2 days after we let them know they called to let us know that in order to fix it they would have to rip out walls, etc., so we have to have out computer in the bedroom (even if we wanted to have cables running through our apartment, we couldn't because the internet/phone company only gave us a cord that was 2 feet long - they are the only company that we could get service through here, I feel like I'm in rural Utah again!)

*They redid the carpet upstairs starting before Eric or I wanted to wake up (can't we get away from this?).

*There was a hole in the parking lot (right outside our apartment), caused by the pavement collapsing because there was no dirt under it. They fixed it, starting at 7 AM on a day when Eric stayed up until 1 AM. I finally resigned myself to getting up, and was not dressed yet when a knock came on our door and quickly throwing on a robe was told I needed to move my car (this was still before 8 AM). They filled in the hole that day and then about 3 days later they paved over it, also before 8 AM.

*They did not tell us that the pesticide man was coming (luckily the previous tenant, our friend, had warned us by email that they would be coming because she had been smart enough to put a reminder in her phone 6 months before when they gave out the notices) on Wednesday. That it totally NOT legal - according to the lease we signed they need to give 24 hours notice (and not to the previous tenant to US!)

*They painted the upstairs apartment (this was bad because our apartment had paint fumes for about 24 hours) I told the office, they said to air it out. Which would have worked but our Bedroom window didn't have a screen, so I called them back and told them to which they replied, "The maintenance crew has left for the day and I don't know where the screens are, I can't do anything for you." (At this point I was close to tears and unable to say anything, so I hung up. I should have said many things like having them find me a more hospitable place to stay, but I didn't.)

*They gave us a window screen the day after the above incident - it is bent, enough to let insects into our apartment. Like the wasp that was crawling on my arm when I woke up (It has been nice and cool at night so we've been keeping the window open). The arm that was holding Eric. NOT HAPPY! I flicked it off my arm and it flew back to my pillow within a minute. I bolted out of bed, stubbing my toe in the process and removing a chunk of my toenail (the same toenail that just healed from having a chunk of my toenail on the other side taken off - I fell down stairs with flip flops on). I woke Daniel up, and he trapped it but not well enough. The wasp stung him... We then managed to kill it.

So that has been the last almost 2 months for us living in this apartment. I think we've just been incredibly unlucky! I am EXTREMELY disenchanted with apartment living.

5 Months!!

Eric turned 5 months last Sunday. I can't believe it has been 5 months! Then I think about all that has happened and it seems like it's been longer. We got pictures of him in his church outfit. He is so stinking cute!

Currently Eric is rolling over (front to back and back to front) like a pro. He's started becoming mobile. He has started moving to things that he wants (usually things that mom or dad just pulled him away from.) He loves to eat his toes; really Eric loves to put anything he has in his mouth. Eric is grasping items very well (which helps facilitate putting everything in his mouth). He is starting to sit for small stretches unassisted (less than a minute). If he has something to hold onto he can sit for longer. Just in the past week he has started to sleep in longer stretches. He has slept from 9-11 hours. It is WONDERFUL!! There have been one or two nights where he's woken up (and the one night he only slept for 7 hours total.) He has been laughing a lot and smiling. He still loves to jump in his jumper and to take baths. He also tried his first solid food - mashed bananas. He loves it. He also tries to eat any food he may get his hands on and loves to watch us eat. There are a lot of pictures/videos I need to sort through and post, but here are the cutest of his 5 month photos.

I was so luck to get this shot before he moved!

He was waving his arms and this one wasn't blurry like the 10 others I took at the same time... Eric loves to move.

If you want a typical Eric - this is it, holding onto one foot, or both, but most of the time he's just got ahold of one.

Sometimes the flash catches him by surprise!

Caption anyone?!?

Playing with the green monkey... it was so much easier to take these pictures BEFORE he started playing with his toys...

BUT I love that he can play with them, it makes life so much more interesting.

Here I come!

Oh, hi!

That was funny.

*Laugh*

Can you do it again?

For your smiles, sure...

Oh, I have a tongue, you should get a picture of it!

Here's a better view of my tongue, the last one was too soon.

Eric's little turtle face... I love it! He's started playing with his lips and tongue a lot lately, which produces some of the most adorable faces ever!