January 31, 2010

January 31, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

We have had a great week here. Monday was a quiet day. For FHE we talked about our life before Earth and how we chose to come to Earth. Tuesday we played basketball at the church before going to Young Women’s.

Wednesday I took J to the doctor. It was officially his six month check-up (late of course) but it was also just a check of him since he still has his pesky cold/cough. His lungs and ears were clear, and he tested negative for RSV. So we left hoping he would be better soon. The one complication was that it took much longer than it normally did at the doctors just to be seen, and I realized that I would not be at the bus stop to pick up B-man. For kindergarteners, if you are not at the bus stop they take the child back to school and try and find the parent or guardian. I called M, but the reception was terrible in the office, and through a very disjointed conversation we were able to get the message across for him to call our next door neighbor to get him. Technically we were supposed to call the school too, but the bus driver was very nice (and trusting) and let him get off. When I got home about twenty minutes later he was happily playing at their house. I stayed and chatted with my neighbor for a while before heading home. We really love our neighbors, they are great people. That same day M went to the doctor to get his leg checked again. The doctor took the stitches out. That is the good news, that bad news is that now poor M has developed an ulcer on his leg. So he is still a long way away from a healed leg. There’s nothing to be done about the ulcer. It just needs time to heal.

B-man doing his thing at the hotel. He was watching t.v.

Thursday was a quiet day at the house. I was supposed to go visiting teaching, but it got cancelled at the last minute. That night I went to book club. We read Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. It was such an interesting book, and I really admired the woman in the book. It is very similar to a modern version of The Hiding Place.

B-man in the pool, the lens fogged up so we had to do some artsy stuff.

Friday morning I went to play basketball at the church with the women. It was a small group, and I didn’t get much playing in since I was holding J most of the time. It was still fun though. The rest of the day went pretty quickly. After lunch we did head over to a friend’s house. B-man played while she and I visited. It’s a good way to pass the time. M got home and then we did a small little party with B-man. That night M went to get-together with a bunch of guys. They had a great time. I spent the time finishing packing and getting ready for our weekend trip the next day.

B-man swimming, and J putting his toes in.

Saturday morning we were up and going early. I went with B-man and played in our ward basketball game. Then we headed home. M had the car all packed and ready to go. I fed J, changed, and we started off. The only problem was that there was a big snow storm hitting right as we left. For a few hours we were just fine, but just when we thought “these roads are starting to look bad…” we were about half way there, and didn’t quite know what to do. We decided to keep going. The drive was only supposed to take about six and a half hours, (to Charlotte, NC) but it ended up taking closer to nine hours. The plan was that we would get to our hotel, play, (I could shower…) and then we would head back to the wedding reception. Instead we went straight to the reception that was already half over. We changed into better clothes and then went and said hello. My cousin had gotten married two weeks earlier in Idaho, and it was great to see her and meet her new husband. The people that had braved the snow storm to go the reception could not believe that we had driven from Virginia in the storm. North Carolina only gets storms like this about once every five years. We were crazy, but we were thankful that we made it safely. After the reception, M dropped me off to get some things at Wal-Mart while he got some dinner. It’s a trip to Wal-Mart I would like to forget. No workers to check out the people, and the customers were trying to buy the craziest things in the self-checkout line. We finally made it to our hotel. We were all wasted, but happy for a nice comfy place to stay.

Sunday morning we had a very leisurely morning. Church was cancelled in Charlotte so we didn’t have any real agenda. We started off eventually and headed to do some exploring. We wanted to drive and see downtown Charlotte. We first started with the Lowe’s Motor Speedway. It was huge and we wished we could have been able to actually see the track. We had planned on seeing the UNC campus, but then we found out that it was not the main campus. We drove through and around the downtown exploring the area. Eventually B-man insisted that we go visit “the girl” from the reception. So we drove and visited with my cousin and her husband in their home. They were so cute with B-man and really made him feel comfortable. They gave him a little Asian parasol, that he has carried around with him ever since. After leaving their house we walked through a big outdoors store that had stuffed (real) animals that we could look at. B-man liked all the different animal footprints in the cement too. We then headed back to the hotel for some dinner and then bed. We had B-man on the pull-out couch, and then we put J in the bathroom in his pack-n-play. It meant we had to do a little planning since we didn’t have access to the bathroom from seven on.

We love you all!

R, M, B-man, and J