Catch-Up Time

Entry for June 18, 2008.
Little Eliza is now eight months. Her first tooth poked through on the 17th. It is her bottom right tooth. The bottom left should not far behind. The Movers have come and gone and at our request have left us little to live off of. The packers came at eight am on Monday the 16th and finished packing around three-thirty. Maren went to a friend’s home for the day. The truck pulled up around five pm and they began loading. They did not leave until nine-thirty. The truck that had come was mostly full before it pulled up to our home. The loaders could not quite get everything in the truck. So they told us another truck will arrive the following morning to pick up the rest. One of the things left for the second truck was out book shelves. Tuesday morning before the truck came Eliza was on the floor Army crawling about. She decided to explore the shelving and crawled into the bottom of one book cases. She tried to eat the backing and then layed down in the bottom. Then she rolled right out and fell two to three inches to the floor. She looked shocked and surprised that she had fallen, but not hurt. When Maren was one year old and we had moved from the condo onto base we enjoyed watching Maren play in the empty shelves. I guess it is one of those things all children enjoy doing.

Entry for July 11th. What a Month...

Well everything went pretty much according to plan. The packers came and packed all of out belongings on the 16th of June. Two sets of loaders came. One that came after the packers on the 16th and put all that would fit of our boxes on his truck. The second set came the morning of Tuesday the 17th. They took everything else. Elisa’s first tooth poked through on the 17th also. It was her bottom left. The second tooth poked though on Saturday the 21st. Then on Sunday the 23rd Maren surprised Jon and I when after asking for a piece of candy and receiving a negative response she puts on her sad face, looks up at me, and simply states “please, otherwise I be sad.” It was so funny because I am sure I didn’t learn how to use the word “otherwise” properly until I was close to seven and here my two and a half year old was.

Mom arrived on time on the evening of Wednesday the 25th. Jon drove her down the strip on the way from the airport. We feel bad that was all of Las Vegas she was able to experience. Thursday we cleaned, ran a few errands, and headed north to the Aagard farm. We go into Levan around 10 pm and stayed till the morning of Saturday the 28th. We had fun seeing the animals, visiting, and letting the girls play before bucking down for our trip across the country. We spent Saturday night in a super 8 motel in Fort Morgan, CO. We had planned to attend the nine o’clock ward that met close to the motel Sunday Morning, but Maren got sick. I felt bad to leave that kind of mess for the house keepers, but I guess we got our moneys worth for that motel stay. We let Maren rest a little more then continued on as planned. We made it to Omaha, NE Sunday night and we stayed at a Days Inn there.

Monday the 30th, we went to winter quarters. We walked around the temple grounds and then experienced a tour at the Visitors center where the Sister Missionary helped Maren dress up like a pioneer girl and let her load a mini wagon with blocks labeled as supplies. Next was the zoo. We saw penguins and giraffes, zebras and monkeys, and even elephants and a rhino. I though she enjoyed the train ride, I believe her favorite part was the carousel. After the Zoo we headed out and spent the night at a super 8 in Davenport, IA. Tuesday, July 1st, we drove to Peoria, IL, got added to Mom’s cell phone family plan, and then took Mom to the airport to get her car. Mom helped us out a ton. I’ll be forever grateful to her for being so willing to fly out to Vegas just to drive back to Illinois with two young girls. It was not much of a vacation for mom putting up with all of us. Thanks Mom!

From there we went on home to Macomb. Maren was glad to stay put for a while. Every time we leave the house she asks “We come back to our new house?” Our belongings were delivered on the 3rd of July. We are still trying to get things unpacked and find a spot for everything, but it‘s coming along. We spent the 4th at home and Dad, Sally, and Grandma came up for a BBQ. We had steak and hamburgers from the grill. It was delicious and it was really great to see them. Jon and I spent the weekend kind of under the weather (due to stress - we believe). On the 9th we drove down to Girard to celebrate Trent’s birthday and to welcome home little Spencer from the hospital. It was great to see everyone from the Illinois clan. Yesterday, Jon got to go to Nauvoo. He volunteered to work security for the pageant. He said he enjoyed the pageant.

We look forward to everyone coming in a few weeks.


Entry for July 21st. Man how time flies when you are putting off something.

As you all know our phones only work some of the time for incoming calls. Sorry. We have talked to technical support and they said we needed new SIM cards. We got them replaced and they still don’t work all the time. (Some message plays saying that our number has been disconnected plays when some people call while others can get through with never hearing the message.) Now technical support says that we need to go back to the point of sale and get new phones to fix the problem. When we get up to Peoria, we will do that and hope that it works. We might end up with new numbers and if that is the case I’ll send out and e-mail. Sorry for all the inconvenience.

Eliza began pulling herself up to everything on the 11th and it didn’t take long for her to realize she wants to walk. Yesterday the 20th Eliza started to make a kissing sound with her lips. She loves that when she starts the whole family chimes in. She loves the attention.

Sunny and the girls began attending a ward play group to meet people. We went last week and met some nice young families with kids the girls ages. We are excited to get to know them better to aid in the transition of a new town.

Maren is settling in enough that she is not as emotional and she is more her old self. She has started a new phase of giving presents. She will wrap up anything she can find – from a sippy cup to a block, a book, doll clothes, or herself – and gives them to us. “I have a present for you, mommy” and then she watches intently to see your reaction. You should see her face. It is one of pure joy and pride that she gave you something you enjoy so much.

On the 17th we left for Petersburg. The early afternoon of the 18th was spent in Springfield running errands and then back to Petersburg to go with Papa and Macy to the Menard County fair. The fair was disappointing because the rides were all little kiddy rides and the tickets for the rides were $1 each. Then it took 2-4 tickets per rider per ride. We saw the animals there – cows, a few ponies, and a few pigs. There was two older couples square dancing for a time in the pavilion that the Robbins Store Fashion Show used to be in. There was a tent with tractors from different time periods. Papa got us dinner (hamburger, steak fries, Lemon shake-up, and homemade ice cream), then Sunny and the girls when back to papa’s house for baths. Jon and his dad stayed for most of the truck pull. The fair wasn’t close to what it used to be, but it was fun to do something a little different from the everyday tasks. We headed back home Saturday after lunch at Gilmores with Grandma.

We are pretty much settled into the house. Almost all of the boxes are emptied and everything is finding a home. We are enjoying familiarizing ourselves with Macomb. We are doing well.

Homeless? Not us!

So Turnberry Village Apartments in Macomb, IL is the complex we went to see at Christmas and decided to move into when we move back to the Midwest this summer. Now Turnberry is refusing to take us as tenants. We go from just earning too much for the subsidized housing to earning not enough and they are worried we will not be able to make the rent.

Prayers are answered though. We have called around to many different places and we have had no luck. Out of all that we called there was only one possibility that had a few negative reviews. On Wednesday, June 4th Jon found four more places for me to call. One was an old, 2 bedroom home that is roomy. There is a small laundry area off the kitchen. It has a large enough kitchen that we could eat-in there plus a dinning room we could use as a playroom. There is a living room, Master bedroom, a second bedroom and a bathroom. The tenant who is in it now is using the Living Room for a bedroom and the Dinning room for the Living room. So it is a potentially 3 bedroom home. There is a deck just off the kitchen through the laundry room and an unfinished basement for minimal storage.

We asked Dad & Sally Robbins to make a trip to Macomb to check it out for us. They said it is a good deal. It is the only house on the block, thus has a big yard. There is no fence, but the road is not a busy one and it would take a little while for the girls to make it to the road. It is in a quiet part of town and should be nice. So we decided to take it. It works out well because she is looking for someone to move-in the first part of July, and that is when we will arrive in Macomb. Now we’ll have room for people to come visit and a place for the girls to play that is out of the way. Our future landlord is mailing us the contract and a floor plan.

We are excited to know that we will have a place to call home when we arrive and an address to give to the movers so we don’t have to move it ourselves.

Happenings in May

Last month started off kind of slow, but it didn’t take long for it to pick up. Close to the middle of May, Eliza got steady enough at sitting (or gracefully enough at falling) that I can leave her sitting up on carpet and walk away. Not long after that she became quite good at army crawling to get where she wants to go. She uses her right leg/foot while dragging her body and left leg.

Jon had enough vacation days to take an extra three days off for Memorial Day weekend. So, we left the Friday before and headed up to Utah to see the Aagard grandparents. While we were packing to leave, Eliza got hungry and so I made her some rice cereal with carrots. I sat the cereal down on Eliza’s tray to answer the phone without thinking. When I came back, she had tried to feed herself then grabbed the bowl and threw it on the floor. She then played in the mess and tried to eat any she could get in her mouth.

We had made a few plans for our long weekend, but most fell though. We decided to spend the whole time at the Aagard ranch and probably stayed too long. We were going to go camping up Chicken Creek but it was cold and rainy. We did get in a nice drive up the Nebo loop to 8000 feet where they had the road closed. We also went on a short hike with Maren up Chicken Creek, leaving Eliza with grandma.

Maren has a lot of fun with the animals on grandpa’s farm. She felt confident enough and enjoyed it enough to wander off to feed the animals herself without looking back to see if anyone would go with her. She would go from the dog to the chickens, chickens to the goat, goat to the horse, and then stop and try to catch the cat on the way. Grandpa Aagard had an alfalfa field that has been invaded with dandelions. Helping to spread the dandelion seeds was another favorite part of Maren’s visit. We had a great time at the farm.

Maren is getting so big and uses her words so well that most people can understand her most of the time. One of the phrases she hung on to this month was “can I come?” We would pull into a parking space and she would ask if she could come; as if we were going to leave her in the car. She must think it is a special treat to come inside when running errands. A more recent phrase is “Please! Please now! Please!” This came out of no where that we can find, but each pleading lasts and lasts. We aren’t parents who give in after a firm “no,” so it’s not like she thinks that if she pleads, she’ll get what she wants. Eliza has recently added the “DA” consonant – vowel sounds to her vocal gibberish. It is so much fun to watch them grow.

Since Christmas we have planned on moving into Turnberry Village apartments in Macomb, IL when Jon gets out of the AirForce. We have done everything we can do to get in, but they recently have put us off again on letting us sign a lease. For two full months now they have requested more and more information, hinted at getting everything finalized, but always put us off. Now down to less than a month before arriving in Macomb we are a little nervous. Especially since we have called every apartment rental business listed on the internet all but two are full, don’t rent to families, or are way out of our price range. We know it will work out, but it is a little nerve wracking.