Busy Brian

So, life at "The Firm" has been pretty brutal lately, poor Brian. We haven't seen much of him. And sadly, he hasn't seen much of his bed. Each night seems to stretch longer than the last, which seems impossible. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel... this deal is just about over, and then it looks like he'll be able to breathe again. and sleep.

Lots of friends ask, so do you just never see Brian except when you're on vacation together? Well, it's not really like that. On days like today, it does seem like that. But I have to remind myself (and often Brian has to remind me when I forget to remind myself) that this work does have its lulls and its less-busy times, too. It just seems like it's hard to strike a balance -- when a deal's on, it's GO time, and there ain't no rest for the weary. Then, as soon as the deal closes, it's time to wait for the next big crunch. The unpredictability is probably the most annoying part, but once you can cope with that, it is more bearable -- I think? One friend, who is also married to a lawyer, once said it feels like the work comes in waves. A good description, if you can add that a lot of times they are great big tidal waves... but there is an ebb and flow, I suppose, even then.

Tonight a quick list of pros for this busy time of our little life together:

• I think we try really hard to value the time we DO get to spend together, even if it's just a few minutes here and there. I know anyone can say that, and everyone should do that. But I'm glad to count our time as precious; it helps us keep a proper perspective on what's most important.
• Three years down, less than one to go. And those pay checks keep rolling in, helping us get ready for our next steps. Can you believe it was three years ago tomorrow that we flew to London to start our married life together here?! So, we really do plan to leave this job and London by next summer.
• Morning time together is REALLY a beautiful thing! With this job, Brian doesn't leave the house till 9 a.m. or a little later. That means, we generally have a nice relaxing morning with him at home, even if the nights are long and dreary at times. It's great that he gets to be with Sam when she's her most pleasant, happy self!
• It has been really good for us to live here, with so many amazing travel opportunities. Though the work is brutal at times, the memories we've made and the places we've seen are definitely great highlights for us.
• I have really come to appreciate what a wonderful, loving, patient man I married! Brian amazes me, the way he handles everything. When things are really rough at work, he never takes it out on me -- or anyone else, as far as I know. Even when he's exhausted, he always stays positive, and always has time to listen to my "one more story." He puts on an optimistic face, and gets things done in a way that inspires me. I'm so grateful to see his best during the hard times.

That's my little list for now, and I'm off to bed. May Brian join me at some point, for some much needed rest tonight!

Cheesy Grin

Samantha has started "smiling" whenever we ask her to. We think it's hilarious, because her smiles are so big and cheesy. Thought you might enjoy seeing some of her cute smiles...
This one below is after she got into my very expensive organic cocoa butter lotion and rubbed it all over herself, her clothes, our bed, the rug, etc. How do you punish such a cute little smiler?!



I expect we'll be seeing more of this smile, as she seems to do it when we pull out the camera these days.

Treasures from Grandmas

Yesterday morning in the mail, we got a package for Samantha from her Grandma Hone (my mom). She was soooo excited to help open it and find out what was inside!! ... A new Ariel phone, a matching furry hat and hand bag, some foamy ABCs for the bath, and a cute shirt for this winter! Wow!! She LOVES her new gifts, thank you Grandma and Grandpa Hone. The phone is especially a favorite ... Ariel says "maybe we can find some treasure" every time she opens it. Great stuff.

Another "treasure" -- a little different from the care package. My Grandma -- known to Samantha as Grandma Eva -- gave me this beautiful locket as a keepsake. It used to be hers, and has pictures of her and Grandpa Lynn, who passed away when I was young. I wear it to church all the time, and every time I do, Samantha wants to look at it soooo bad. She points at it, saying "Bomba, Bomba" (Grandma). This means she wants to see the pictures of Grandma and Grandpa inside.
It's so cute to see her get so excited as she points at the pictures, saying "Bomba and Bompa." So cute. Sometimes when I wear another necklace with a big pendant, she wants me to open it, but then realizes it doesn't open -- "Bomba all gone." :) I love that she knows it's important to me.

Story behind the escape

So, the quick story behind Samantha's escape from the crib... As I've mentioned before, Sam has a dreaded fear of the vacuum cleaner. She used to stand on the edge of the rug and shout through tears for me to please, please stop. To help her cope, I started putting her in her crib with her pacifier every time I vacuum. This arrangement works well, I think.

So, this past Friday, I pulled out the vacuum and popped Sam in the crib while I proceeded to do a "deep" clean job for nearly half an hour. I was still getting behind couches and end tables in the living room, when I heard this little voice behind me: "ahh done??"

What?!? How in the?!? Where did you?!! I was VERY surprised to see a happy, proud-looking little Sam behind me. I turned off the vacuum, grabbed the camera, and took her back to her bed. I put her in the bed and said, "show me how you got out of your bed just now." She was a little reluctant, but I offered the pacifier as a reward, so... up and over she went! AMAZING! And, oh what lies ahead?! So far, she hasn't tried it again (there was an extra pillow in there at the time, which gave her just a bit more leverage than normal). But I can see the day is coming, sooner than we planned. sigh.

First escape!

Guess what Sammie can do....SHE CAN GET OUT OF HER CRIB ALL BY HERSELF! Have a look:

A few pictures and words...

Our baby girl is growing up! Hard to believe she's 21 months already. Just three more months and she'll be TWO!! We haven't takend tons of pictures lately, but I thought I'd share just a few of our cutie...

Here she is modelling yet another attempt to strip while sleeping. Ever since that morning we found her "in the buff," she's been quite aggressive about trying to get those jammies off!
A couple shots of her last swim in the pool. Sadly, it was only her THIRD swim of the summer. It's just been too cold here, ALL SUMMER LONG! We put a few inches in the bottom last Saturday and let her play around since it was technically a "warm" day. Then, on Monday, I spent a few hours packing up all her little summer clothes from her dresser -- shorts and t-shirts that she only wore once or twice. Sigh.
In this one, below, she is saying the word "pool," very excitedly! She says it almost every day, and points to the hose for me to fill it up. No way, Jose'! It's tooooo cold.
Below, Sam models the "hair dilemma." I've been trying to figure out what to do with Sammie's hair... for SEVERAL months now, sigh. I cut just a few bangs for the front, but the rest just flops in her eyes anyway, making it very hard for her to see. I use clips, barrets and rubber bands, but her hair just escapes and ends up looking WILD within just a couple of hours.
At breakfast, she has to lift her head up high to see out from under her hair, poor thing. Any suggestions, other mothers??
It's harder to get Sam to pose these days. She'll do something really cute, and then we pull out the camera and she usually stops or gets really distracted. Here, she is dancing to the beat on the piano. We tried and tried to get it on video, but every time the camera was rolling, she immediately stopped.
So, a couple months ago on Alicia's blog, she made a list of all the words Brielle can say. It made me start wondering how many words Sam knows, so I started making a list last weekend. Just thought it would be fun to share our list, for those who don't hear her very often. (Disclaimer: it's true that some of these words are only really clear to me-- and sometimes Brian. But I include them, anyway, and let's hope she gets easier to understand in the future.)

Food and meal time: Cereal, spoon, fork, bib, tray, chair, buckle, bowl, chip, juice, apple, orange, banana (nana), snack, dip, cheese, hotdog (dah dag), all done, all gone, water (wah wah), bottle (bah bah), cup, num num (for candy), cup cup (for cookie or cake)

Toys and books: toy, ball, book, read, boat, stool, plane, moon, sun, sing (la la), bag, baby, elmo, dora, train (choo choo), car, tractor, doodle (for magnadoodle), pen, crayon, color (she says that for colored pencils, as well as when she wants to color)

Animals: cow (usually moo-moo), pig (she makes the funniest little snorting noise), dog, monkey (ee-ee), turtle, bunny (usually hop-hop), sheep, lion (raahrr), bear (also raahrr a lot of times), duck, turkey (gobble), frog (she tries to ribbet sometimes)

People, places, and body parts: Mamma, mommy, Daddy (she still reverts to Dad-ng a lot), grandma (bomba), grandpa (bompa), Abby (she calls Abby at all hours, even when she hasn't seen Abby for days), house, inside, outside, bus, eyes, ears, nose, belly, feet, toes (she knows lots more body parts, but these are the ones she actually says)

Around the house, clothes, etc: hot, cold, coat, pants, shoes, socks, jacket, bye-bye, go, out, door, bed, sleep, night-night, blanket, no, yeah (still doesn't say yes, and rarely says yeah), stuck (she says this because she often gets herself "stuck" in odd places around the house), hi, uh-oh, more, bath, poo-poo, wet, wee-wee (I don't think I taught her that?), stinky, diaper, dirty (sounds like "dooey"), clean, help, movie (sounds like "mooey"), mine (seems to be a favorite when friends are here!)

Some cute combos: Daddy go bye-bye (she says this every morning, but when Brian was gone to NY, after the second day she started saying "Daddy all gone" instead!), Mamma's book, no no no night-night, read book, Abby house, car go outside (she wants to go in the car somewhere)

Some songs she spontaneously sings by herself: Twinkle Twinkle; ABCs; Row, row, row your boat; Old McDonald; Mary had a little lamb; Are you sleeping; See the little bunnies (it's an English tune); Wheels on the bus; Five little ducks; Once there was a snowman

Okay, so that's all I can think of right now. What a talker, eh?! We love to hear her words.

Thoughts of Home

Hi all. This one is a no-photo post, even though I do have some cute new shots of Sam to share sometime soon. Tonight I'm thinking of home and family and just want to share some thoughts.

First thoughts are happy thoughts... We're going home for Thanksgiving! yay! We pondered long and hard over whether to go home for Christmas or Thanksgiving. After weighing pros and cons (the main con being highway-robbery on the tickets at Christmas and the fact that Sam will be two then and will need a ticket of her own), we finally decided to buy tickets and fly home for the week of Thanksgiving. I'm VERY excited, as it has been many, many years since I've been around to celebrate that holiday with my family (probably 2000 was my last TG at home).

My mom will probably be in charge of most the food, and of course, like every good child, I DREAM of Mom's home-cooked TG dinner! :) I volunteered to make Randi's delicious homemade stuffing with sausage and dried cherries (will need that recipe again, Rand), as well as a fresh pumpkin pie (fresh, meaning not from canned pumpkin material). Good eats ahead! And more important, good times with family! We're spending a few days with Brian's fam in Nampa, then we actually fly from the Boise airport to Idaho Falls -- what luxury! (Honestly, the plane was only $20 more than Greyhound, and 9 hours shorter travel time!) How exciting this will be. I just hope time can slow down so we can enjoy every second we're there!

Some other thoughts, not so quite so happy... Brian is in NY this weekend/week for a work conference. He told me about it months ago, but I kept unintentionally forgetting it, even up until a couple days ago. I just really didn't want him to go this time. Poor guy, probably not sure what to make of his pouty and still-nauseated wife. I just felt strangely clingy and weepy yesterday as he was packing to go. I blame it on the pregnancy hormones, I guess? In a way, I guess it's sort of nice to miss him and reflect on how wonderful he is to me. But it's always nicer for me to have him here with me -- especially on a Sunday afternoon, cuddling up for a nap or studying and talking together. I miss Brian.

And more thoughts, also not happy, but quite pressing lately... My cousin Kimberly passed away this week after battling cancer most of this year. She's 24, a twin, mother of two adorable children, and a very beautiful, loving person. Her battle was a very hard one -- they discovered she had a tumor during her last pregnancy. She chose to continue the pregnancy, knowing it put her at a greater risk. By the time her baby girl was born this March, the cancer had spread into her lungs in several places. Chemo and radiation were brutal on Kim, and watching her suffer had to be so hard for her parents and family. I have felt very close to her family through the years, and deeply feel their loss right now. My sister-in-law wrote and shared details of Kim's funeral, and my mom told me some of the conversations she had with everyone there. My thoughts have been with Kim, her husband and kids, and all her brothers and sisters and parents all week. It's times like these that it feels really hard to be so far away. I really wish I could be home right now.

That's all for tonight. Sorry to leave on a sad note, but I'm sure we're all very aware not all of life's experiences are easy or pleasant. I thought this was important to share.

More Norway Photos

I can't leave the Norway topic until I do one last post, because we have all these great pictures I just want to share. So, with little narrative, here are the shots from our ferry ride up the fjords, our bus ride up the mountains, and our train ride from Bergen back to Oslo. The purpose of all three trips was just to showcase the gorgeous scenary ... We LOVED looking at it all!
Sam didn't like being on the deck of the ferry -- too much wind, until we slowed down a bit.






Below... this is from the overlook of a swanky hotel, after a 15 minute bus ride up the steepest hairpin curves I've EVER seen!


On the train to Oslo, we sat in the "family" section, next to this fun little play area. Sam was in heaven! Inside the house was a wooden fridge, stove and washing machine, along with windows that opened and closed. Up the ladder was a little bed area and a big tube to crawl through.
Sam made friends with a little girl named Una. They wandered around holding hands and saying "hi" to everyone over and over.
Out the train window...
A glacier...

Sleeping Sam -- with no clothes!

Last night we put Samantha in some new sleeper pajamas for bed. I had noticed a few days ago she's getting really good with unzipping her jammies, but they all have a "button" at the top, to protect that zipper from her little fingers until it's time to unzip them. Well, these new pajamas don't have a protective button over the zipper.

So... last night Sam unzipped them, took them off, stripped off her diaper, and slept in the nude! I'm pretty sure she did it early on, because the diaper was completely dry this morning, while her crib was not! We went to get her this morning and found her in one corner of the crib, pointing first at the pajamas, then at her diaper, and finally at the big wet spot in the middle of the bed. She seemed a little embarrassed, but also kind of proud of her accomplishment. Crazy girl! Apparently this is normal??

No nudie picts this time, but here Sam models the cute new pajamas (she wanted us to put them back on her as soon as we cleaned up her mess)...

Sam Interrupts

It looks like Norway's not the hot topic for making comments, so I thought I'd interrupt our travel log with a quick blog about Samantha's latest cute stuff. She has become quite the helper around the house. I know I've already shown pictures of her helping with the silverware, but I thought I'd add these, to show how innovative she is...

The "box" she's standing on is her own little laundry basket, which she first emptied in her room, then put on her head and carried to the kitchen, then turned upside-down in front of the silverware drawer just so she could "help." Brian took this one (below) of our little spaghetti lover. He says his parents have one of him at about the same age, with the same amount of red stuff on his face and in his hair. :)
I just had to include this one, even though it's a little older -- taken on the swing, the last day at Grandpa and Grandma Bishop's this summer. I just thought it was a cute look on her face.
Sam found a new love this summer... CORN ON THE COB! Our friend had it at the park one day, and Sammie couldn't get enough. Now she just LOVES it, can't get enough!

She can pick a cob cleaner than I can, seriously. (Of course, now that I think of it, that's not saying too much, since I have a thing about all those husks getting caught in my teeth. Oh well.)
One more funny one... my mom sent me a cute new maternity shirt in the mail a few weeks ago. Sam and I opened it together with me saying, "what do you think Grandma sent us??" I thought it would probably be something for her, and so did she, apparently. She immediately took it from my hands and started putting it on. I helped her, and tied it up in the back, so she could run around the house in her "new dress" for a few minutes. She still wants it every time she sees it come out of the wash.

More Norway blogging...

As promised, here are some more pictures and details from our trip last weekend. We flew into Oslo Saturday afternoon. Actually, because we were on the "cheap" airline, we landed in the "cheap" airport, about 2 hrs out of Oslo and had to take a "not-so-cheap" bus into the city. The bus was completely full, so they told us we could stand up for free. We agreed, but then Brian asked if I could maybe sit in the isle since I am pregnant (I poked out my belly to full capacity in case there were doubts). The driver promptly found me a seat, and we still didn't have to pay! Not bad!

So, we spent the afternoon walking around Oslo, just taking our own casual tour of the city. Lots of trees and lots of water. Sam wanted to dive into all the fountains.



We walked around the palace grounds (below). Not the grandest palace, and no entry allowed, but the grounds were nice... ducks in the pond for Sam to quack at.

We also went to this park with gorgeous terraced gardens and one of the biggest fountains Brian and I have ever seen. (The park is actually famous for hundreds of naked statues that were pretty weird to see, but we didn't take pictures, even though they were famous. ha!)
Our hotel was pretty nice, mainly because it's a brand new place. Here's the dining room, below (actually looks better in the picture than in real life). We had buffet breakfast in the morning, with a nice spread -- eggs, sausage, meats and cheeses for hard-roll sandwiches, toast and jam, cereal, yogurt, and juices.
The only drawback was a mix-up about the crib... they gave us a room with a rollaway cot, instead of bringing a baby bed for Sammie. By the time we checked in, all their baby beds were in use, so we were left with nothing. Rats. It wasn't a big deal to throw a blanket on the floor for her, but she is such a roller!! I had to get up three times in the night to retrieve her because she had rolled WAY AWAY from her bed and was bonking into furniture, crying. Once I dragged her by her feet out from under my side of the bed!
Sunday morning we flew to Bergen, which was where we stayed most of our time there. At the airport, they had the coolest little airplane for kids to play on, right next to our gate.
Sam was in heaven!! It was actually quite sad to pull her away from her new toy to put her on the REAL airplane.
We dropped our luggage at our hotel (with me being very dramatic because I was about to puke -- but didn't, thankfully!) then caught a bus to church. We made it just in time for the Sacrament Meeting in Norwegian. (Yes, Alicia, that's the language they speak in Norwegia, of course!) Here's Brian's traditional photo of us in front of the church.
Then we grabbed some food and Sam and I took a nap while Brian went walking around Bergen. He took some nice pictures, but I don't know what the places are, so I'll just include one nice shot of the harbor...
I think this is getting long, so I'll sign off here and add more pictures on a new post. Enjoy!