To Go Forward or Back?

Blogging, like scrap booking (which I long ago gave up on) presents quite a dilemma. Catch up before you move on? Or just start where you are and keep moving forward? I am feeling a little tired of having a huge list of posts hanging over my head. But I DO want to eventually get to them. This is my only source of family history, after all.


But sometimes I also want to live in the now. And sometimes I need to ramble on about my own thoughts and feelings to remember that this is my blog, and not just a record of everything my darling children do and say.


So I will say that Nate has again returned from one of his two week "business" trips to Santa Maria. Have I mentioned how old these trips are getting? He has taken an exorbitant amount of them this year, all of which have been at least 2 weeks long!


This one was especially distressing because I am pregnant, and tired, we were all sick when he left, and I had a lot of things to do that required me to leave the kids with various friends and babysitters more often than I wanted to.


The morning Nate left, Harrison get really choked up when saying goodbye and then ran up to his room and buried his head in his pillow, crying. Now if that's not heartbreaking, I don't know what is. We all missed him very much.


Nate got back Saturday and I went on a girl's night out with my friend Libby and her friend Jenny. I felt kind of bad ditching Nate, but 1) we had been planning it since July and the date was picked out before his trip was scheduled and 2)he just wanted to watch the BYU game anyway (which I'm actually a little sad I missed, but I watched the highlights on ESPN with Nate's commentary) and 3)I deserved a break, goshdangit!. So we went to see Julie & Julia which I really loved. Especially the part when Julia Child's SWEETEST husband was trying to help her figure out her passion in life and she said, "I love to eat." Now that is a girl I can relate with! Speaking of eating, I was STARVED by the end of two hours of watching people cook and eat amazing food. So when we went to a yummy Italian restaurant after, I ate to my heart's content.


Today, I also took advantage of having a husband again and went shopping for some maternity clothes. Namely a dress to wear to a black tie wedding in 2 weeks. Let me say that for a person who wants to dress modestly and who is in the not-really-pregnant-just-fat-looking stage of pregnancy, this is not a very fun thing to shop for. Oh well, it will be fun to go to the wedding and see lots of family. And my sister-in-law and cousin are pregnant too, so we'll all be in the same boat (figuratively and literally, it's a dinner cruise).


Anyway, my point in all of this is that parenting is really a job meant for two people. At least two. I am a firm believer in the thought that "It takes a village to raise a child." I like to frequently remind my family of that when we are together and my children need attention. I am in awe of people who do it alone. If I had to do it alone, I think Social Services would eventually have to intervene. Or a nut house. Probably both.


So, we're very happy to have hubby/daddy back and we will enjoy him as much as possible before he goes back to school next week. 4 nights a week this semester. Heaven help me.


Whenever Nate travels he brings us back "omiyage" (little presents). Since he almost always goes to Santa Maria, mine always include:


A pound of peanut butter chip cookies from Cookie Cookery (the only eating establishment in Santa Maria that I actually miss, which has these amazing cookies that I sadly wasn't introduced to until the last year we lived there.)



And one of these.


For those of you who don't know, I HATE, I mean DETEST and am TERRIFIED OF rats. So Nate and the kids think it is hilarious every time he brings home one of these little treasures. The first time he brought a white one, which I could hardly even bring myself to let the kids eat, let alone me. The red ones are slightly less offensive, since there really aren't any red rats. So if I cut it into small pieces and try to forget that it was once shaped like a rat, I can somewhat enjoy the gummy treat. I still let the kids eat most of it, because really, that's just gross.

Alright. Back to living in the past, until I catch up or get sick of it again.

Lots of Cousins!

About a week before we left for Virginia, Nate's sister, Rachael made a last-minute decision to come to the mainland from Hawaii for a month long tour of visiting family. Her trip started and ended in Denver, so we had the great pleasure of seeing her and her 4 kids at the beginning and end of their trip. They arrived Friday night. Saturday morning around 5:30 we got a phone call from another sister, Emi, that they were driving from Ohio to Utah and had the chance to turn off for Denver right then. . .could they come see us? Of course! The more the merrier! So that weekend we had 5 adults and 10 kids staying at our house. I must say I was actually grateful for the last minute nature of all of these visits. I was much less stressed than I would have been had I known they were all coming. Instead, I had the great excuse of having little time to prepare!


Here all the 10 cousins who had a great time getting reacquainted with each other. (Sadly, we don't see either of these families as much as we see our Utah cousins!)

Harrison and Grant are almost exactly a year apart.

We bust out Rockband for any and all visitors.

Elizabeth adored "Mayna" aka Maya.

Saturday we went to Civic Green Park and had a picnic. Here's Uncle Nay Nay with Nathaniel and Faith.

The kids had a blast playing in the pop up fountains.

And on the playground.

Cute Gabe!

Isaac was born right after we found out we were having a baby boy, and we spent all of Christmas vacation that year holding him, adoring him, and anxiously awaiting the chance to hold our own sweet baby boy. He's almost 6 now! He, Harrison and Grant got along great!

The girls: Elizabeth, Faithy, Maya, and Maile!

We didn't get pictures a day at Southridge Rec Center Pool. Or a trip to the library for all the other kids while Harrison went to the Dr. for his 5 yr. check up and lots of shots that he did NOT like!

The last night, Nate took the boys to a Colorado Rockies game.

These three little ladies went to dinner with the mommies (at Hacienda, of course. The only place we take out out of town visitors!)

Then we tried to put them to bed together.

We hope that the Colman's and England's (and anyone else who wants to) will come visit again soon!

Sports Camp

I realized I missed a few things even farther back than the 4th of July. The last week of June, Harrison and his two best buddies, Andrew and Logan did a sports camp. It was basketball, soccer, and baseball. It was a REALLY hot, sunny week, three hours a day with no shade, but he loved it nonetheless.

The highlight of it all for me had to be when I was saying goodbye to him one day and he gave my arm a squeeze and a kiss and said,

"I'll miss your flat (his way of saying fat) arms."

Maybe the fact that yours truly would have absolutely hated the whole sports camp experience as a child or as an adult explains the "flat" arms situation. If you've never seen me in an athletic situation let's just say my brother was right in high school when he said I have about as much coordination as a Jewish Rabbi. And exerting any physical effort in that heat, forget it. I could hardly stand waiting in line for the drop off and pick up.

Let's just hope that my kids inherit their athletic genes from their father and every single one of my siblings. How it bypassed me will forever be a mystery.

4th of July in Pagosa Springs

Okay, I'm starting on the long process of catching up from the summer! Expect a lot of outdated posts for the next little while!

I lived in Louisiana from 4th - 7th grade and my best friend there was Kim Peart. For years her Dad, Dave, talked about building their dream home in Pagosa Springs, Colorado when he retired. Well, Dave is a man who knows how to set a goal and reach it, and he made his dream come true. He and his wife Becky spent a few years building a BEAUTIFUL mountain home. And I mean, they built it themselves. It's pretty impressive. Anyway, whenever he was working on the plans, I'd tell him to be sure to build a room for me. I was told numerous times that they had indeed built me a room (it's really a guest room with a New Orleans theme, but it's sweet of them to indulge me) and that I needed to come visit. So a few months prior, Kim and I planned a rendezvous in Pagosa Springs for the 4th of July. She and her husband drove in from Utah and we drove down. Her sister, Kelley also came down with her two kids who are the same ages and genders of my kids and her brother, Rodney and his family live there, so it was basically a Peart Family Reunion (minus their oldest son) plus the Watabes. They were so sweet to make us feel right at home and like we were part of the family. And let me tell you, these people are FUN! We had a great time!

Pagosa Springs is a small town, so it had all the great aspects of a small town 4th of July.

A carnival.






Complete with crazy people who get in the ride with four innocent little children and make it spin as fast as possible, scaring children and parents half to death.

A parade. Complete with a fly over, including none other than Mr. Dave himself.

It was so cool to see them flying in formation and knowing that Dave was up there. He's not even my dad, but I was so proud of him. And in my pregnant state, I got a little choked up when they successfully did the peel off. Something about the patriotism, and the concentration, team-work, and courage it takes to do things like that really got to me. (Dave's the one in the black-bottomed plane.)

Here we are at the parade with Kim, Me, Miss Becky (She's just as hip and skinny as her daughters! I love that woman like a mother.), and Kelley.

Elizabeth just sat there and clapped through that whole parade. It was so hot and sunny, but that didn't stop her from clapping away. I think the candy helped.

A little rock band in the afternoon to pass the time!

Then we had a fabulous BBQ, and Kim and I had to take a picture of us eating corn for old time's sake. We were a couple of goofy girls growing up and we loved to get really silly when eating certain foods and take lots of pictures in the process. Corn was at the top of the list!

After the BBQ, Dave was so nice to take Nate, Harrison and me up for a little flight over Pagosa Springs.

For a little boy who has always LOVED airplanes (used to have to sleep with one in each hand), this was quite thrilling!

I think it was pretty thrilling for a big boy to get to sit in the cockpit and be co-pilot too!

Here's one I took from the runway, showing how close their house it to the little airport.

Here we are right after we took off, looking at the house down below. It's hard to see, but everyone was out on the back porch, watching us take off and waving to us as we flew over.

Here's one Kim took of us from there.

And here's the happy, little passenger loving being up in the sky!

That night we went to watch fireworks. Kim and I are still great friends despite being rival alums!


Here are Kim and Mr. Dave. They are so cute!

At first Harrison wasn't sure what to think of the sparklers, but then he loved them.

Elizabeth loved them too!

The next morning we went to church.

And it wouldn't be a Michelle and Kim get together without some good old "modeling pictures." Let me just say, if we'd had digital cameras and Facebook back then, there would have been no stopping us with our modeling endeavors. We used up many a roll of film back in the day, with no way to display them for the world to see! :)

Thanks so much to Kim and her amazing family for a wonderful weekend! We really had such a blast!

A Great Cause

I have added my first button to my blog and wanted to explain the story behind it. The Skinner family is in our ward at church. They are the sweetest family with two children. Shortly after we moved to Colorado we were invited to join playgroup and our first one was on Halloween at the Skinner's house. The kids all wore costumes and Natalie had made sugar cookies for them to decorate. Claire was still a new born and just as tiny and cute as can be. Within the next few weeks was Claire's baby blessing at church and I remember her father, Jared, giving her a very tender and emotional blessing. Looking back now, it seems like it was foreshadowing for the difficult life that she would lead.


Very soon after that Natalie took Claire in for her routine 2 month check up. That was the day their world got turned upside down. The Dr. was concerned that Claire was not growing and sent them straight to the hospital for tests. By the end of the day they discovered that Claire's kidneys were only functioning at 10% and she was in kidney failure. Natalie, who is my visiting teacher once told me that that day is their family's 9/11. Everything changed that day and everything is in terms of before and after that day.


They eventually figured out that she and her brother BOTH have a rare disease that causes their liver and kidneys to be overworked and eventually wear out. Claire's are already worn out, so she is on dialysis for 3 hours a day. They were doing it at night too and it was 15 hours a day, but there were recent complications with that, so for now it's 3 hours a day. Natalie gets up before the sun to get the kids ready, drop Benson off at various friend's houses, and then she and Claire head up to the hospital. During the dialysis, Claire is connected with tubes to the machine, so she has to just sit there. There's a video on their blog of Natalie entertaining her so she'll stay put and stay happy. She has to be the most patient mother on earth. It would be like taking a 3 hour plane flight with your two year old everyday. Stuck in one place and trying to make the most of it! They don't get back to pick up Benson until afternoon and then Natalie told me she tries to spend a lot of quality time with him to make up for being away from him all day. I guess one silver lining is that her kids get more one on one attention from their mother than most kids I know.


Thankfully, Benson's condition is slower progressing and they caught it before it had gotten too bad, so they are hoping with medicine his organs will last longer. The bottom line is they will both eventually need liver and kidney transplants. Their family is in the process of packing up and moving to Minnesota to be near the Mayo clinic where Claire will hopefully get her transplant this winter. They are trying to raise $100,000 toward medical expenses.


When I think about this family and the physical, emotional and financial toll this must take on them, it breaks my heart. They are so positive, patient, and faithful. They set such an example to our ward of how to have grace and humility in the face of adversity.


So, please, click on their button, read more about their story and do what you can to support them.

Back From the Beach

We got back from our big, much anticipated, much enjoyed, Annual Harrison Family Beach Week last night. Like last year, my sister-in-law Kat(e), has beat me to the punch on blogging about it. Hopefully, unlike last year, I really will do my own post about it soon. But in the mean time, click on this link and check it out. http://familyharrison.blogspot.com/2009/08/harrison-family-vacation.html

I have so much catching up to do on this blasted blog. But first I have to catch up on my life. Being gone for 18 days can do that to you. I'm not complaining though, we had a great time in Virginia and an especially fabulous time at the beach. Thanks, Mom and Dad for making it all happen!