White Christmas

Christmas Eve Shin and Heather came over and stayed the night with us.  We built a fire in the fireplace and relaxed in front of the fire.  It was snowing outside, perfect for Christmas, or so we thought...


Note:  J's aunt Peggy decorated our fireplace mantle (minus the stockings).  She surprised us the second day she came to paint by having it all decorated when we arrived (I know the picture is a bit dark, so it is hard to see).  How sweet!

Heather and Zuri

I was woken up early Christmas morning by a knock on our door.  A man introduced himself and said that he is sorry, but he slid and hit our mailbox.  He said that he and his wife are stationed in Japan, just home for Christmas, and he gave us his insurance information.  We thanked him, just grateful that he was honest enough to tell us, and took a look at the damage.

 

You can see what it is supposed to look like; our neighbors mailbox is on the top right of the picture above.  There must have been some force because it is solid brick

 We didn't think much more about it--determined to enjoy our Christmas morning, when another knock came at the door several hours later.  It was a young couple who said that they weren't sure if anyone had come by, but they saw the accident happen.  They said it was a young girl in a white Kia, and that she took the corner too fast, spun out of control and hit the mailbox, then kept going.  They hunted down her car and took pictures of the license plate and the damage to the car to give to us if she hadn't fessed up.  How nice is it that we have neighbors who look out for us!

Now we have two different stories...what we think happened is that the girl either doesn't have insurance or has too many points on her driving record, so the guy (brother, uncle, whatever) is taking ownership of the accident.  Not that we really care (as long as everyone is okay), because someone is taking responsibility for it and we will be able to get it fixed.

Later that day, I was talking to my next door neighbor, and apparently, it is not uncommon for people to spin out and lose control around that corner.  Our house and the house to either side of us are in the "skid zone."  People take the corner too quickly in the ice and because the road also slopes downward, they lose control.  Great.  We had been aware that someone had taken out a portion of the fence before, but we didn't know about the "skid zone."

Our original plan had been to go down south to spend Christmas day with J's family, but with the weather, our heading out to California the next day and still needing to pack, we decided against it.  We spent the remainder of the day opening up presents, going sledding, packing, and spending time with Shin and Heather.  We had some other family stop in, and it ended up being a really nice Christmas day at home.



She was so excited for her presents!


 The best present was from "Santa."  A toy that Kai mostly just looks at, but has been caught interacting with (on his own--see below)! 




Sledding.  This picture wasn't taken Christmas day, but that is what they were doing!  Shin and Heather are at the top, Zuri sledding down, and Joshua at the bottom.  Zuri had so much fun sledding, and she does it all by herself.  She doesn't want help or anyone to ride with her.  That's my girl!  The picture was taken from our kitchen window, overlooking the park and the sled hill!

It is fun to watch all the kids go sledding and play in the snow, but it also makes Zuri want to go sledding all the time!  It is hard because I can't bring Kai outside in the cold so that she can go.  I am excited for the summer, though, when she can play and I can take Kai out. 

While they were sledding, I stayed inside with Kai and packed for our trip.  It took me most of the afternoon and evening to get everything put together!  It was our first adventure out with Kai, so I needed to make sure I had all the supplies for him (holy cow, that kid has a lot that we needed to bring), plus the basics like clothes and diapers.  We were leaving early in the morning and needed to have everything put together for our trip, which is the next post, so stay tuned!

One Last Move--For a While, Anyway

Whew, what a crazy couple of months it has been!  I have tons to write about, so keep tuned, there will be a lot of posts coming!  To start off with, we are officially in our new house!  It still feels surreal.  We have our own house!  We moved in the middle of December, we were here about a week, then we took off to California for a week.  We decided to wait until we got back from California to get internet, and then it took a week for it to get hooked up....so, we have been without internet (other than when we were in California, we connected to my grandparents wi-fi, but we didn't bring the laptop) for almost a month.

Torture, I tell you, torture.

I have been getting lots of requests for pictures of the house.  I am here to deliver.  Keep in mind that we are still in move-in mode and things aren't really put together yet, but you will get the general idea.  Additionally, I didn't take pictures of the whole house, just a few areas.


The formal living room--well, mostly just the fireplace and one of the windows.  Our first fire in our new home--we didn't burn down the house ;-) --and J drinking some hot chocolate to go with it (I have a better picture of the fire which will be in the next post).

Kitchen

The view from the kitchen.  Beautiful.  So tranquil.

Thankfully, weather held out for us while we moved, but the next day we woke up to snow! 

Master bedroom

Zuri's room

Zuri's playroom, and a shot of Kai's area/room (I had it organized once, for about ten seconds before she discovered it)


Part of the family room and a view of Kai's area/room

Our backyard, with mature fruit trees!

My dad drove out to help us move, so we were able to visit with him for almost a week, which was really nice.  J's parents and his aunt Peggy were also instrumental in helping us move, and we had help from a few others as well.  Peggy spent two days painting before and while we were moving.  The first day Shin helped Peggy paint while I was at trach/vent clinic at Primary Childrens with Kai.

Zuri loves our new house.  She is all over the place, and will even spend time in rooms/area's without us.  For some reason she loves her closet, and we have caught her sleeping in it several times.  In fact, our first night in our house she went into her closet twice before she finally slept in her bed.  Funny kid.


Kai has adjusted to the move well.  Our original plan had been to put him in a bedroom, but we decided against it for several reasons.  The biggest is that we want to make sure that Kai is included as part of the family.  By having him in his own bedroom, he is blocked off from the rest of us.  It is not a simple thing to move him around.  If we had an extra set of equipment (ie humidifier, food pump--which is semi-portable, concentrator, etc), then it wouldn't be as difficult.  He can be off humidification for short periods of time (which is how we are able to take him places)--we just use an artificial nose--but he does need the extra oxygen, and we would run through tanks like crazy without the concentrator (which takes room air and converts it to pure oxygen).

So for now we have Kai in an area next to the family room.  It works out really well because we have our space in the family room, but Kai is also right there as a part of the family.  :-)

Happy New Year

 Merry Christmas and a happy new year!  To all those waiting (patiently or impatiently) waiting for a new post, I have lots to post about. However, you will have to wait until after the first of the year for a true post.  I will get back on track with posting and you will see lots of posts for the new year!

Our Thanksgivings

This year we ended up having three Thanksgiving dinners.  I was a total slacker on taking pictures throughout the whole holiday weekend.

On Wednesday, Shin and Heather came over and we had pizza and games.  They were spending Thanksgiving day running a 5k and having dinner with their neighbors.  We hadn't seen them for several weeks (our normal Sunday dinner routine had been shaken up a bit) and we had fun catching up.

Thursday, we went to J's parents and had an early dinner with his siblings and parents.  We perused the Black Friday ads, watched the game, and relaxed.  More family came over later and spent some time with us and Kai, who had a special place set up for him in the formal living room so he could be a part of everything.

Kai did really well.  He fell asleep not long after we got there, and slept until we woke him several hours later when the other family members came over.  He was very content--I think he enjoyed being out and somewhere new. 


Friday, I dropped Zuri off with my mom, so Kai and I could brave the crowds for Black Friday.  Emily had something she wanted me to get for her (since she cannot go herself being out of the country), and it took me four different stores before I found the item for her.  Whew!  That is a lot of work with Kai--hauling him and all his stuff in and out of the car.  I went to Costco first, they didn't have the item (but it wasn't a total waste because I found my Christmas present!), so I went to Best Buy next.  They had already brought the price back up (I guess it was just a doorbuster item good for the short time window only), so I went to Shopko, but they were all out.  Finally, I went to Target, and if they didn't have it, I was just going to get it online.  Target did have it--lots of the item!  Hooray!

Since I was there, I decided not to brave another store with Kai, so I picked up some grocery items that I needed for dinner with my mom and aunt that night.  I started out with a basket; pushing Kai's stroller and the basket handle resting in the crook of my arm.  It soon became apparent that I needed too much stuff for the basket, so I got a cart.  I pushed Kai's stroller with one hand and pulled the cart along behind me with the other.  It was awkward, but I did it.  I went grocery shopping by myself with Kai!  I am proud of myself.  It may seem like such a simple thing, but it is one more step toward independence and not being locked away in the house.  Last year it was unthinkable to drag him around as I did Friday because of his condition.  Amazing what a difference a year makes; Kai loved getting out.  He was cooing and blowing raspberries the whole time.

Friday evening we had dinner with my mom, stepdad, sister, aunt, and my cousin.  We celebrated my sister's birthday--she is turning eight, and just enjoyed spending time together.  Even though we all live within the same neighborhood, we really don't see each other very often.


On Saturday, we got a call from J's "Uncle" Lucy, who was in town from Las Vegas, and she wanted to stop by to visit.  It was her first time meeting Kai and she took to him right away.  We spent a couple hours catching up and trading stories, and before we knew it, they had to leave. 


Saturday afternoon we had respite hours, so J and I went out shopping for Christmas gifts.  We really didn't get very much because we are in the final stages of closing on our house and we don't want to upset the status quo, but we did get a start on it.  :-)

Snowy Day

Early in November we got a big snowstorm.  It dumped a decent couple of feet in a relatively short amount of time.  Zuri was so excited to go out and play in the snow, and she kept saying "Mom look!  Snowy day! Snowy day!"  Since I cannot bring Kai outside to play (the cold goes straight to his lungs, so it is dangerous to have him out in colder weather), I told Zuri that she had to wait for J to get home to play in the snow.  She eagerly waited and was rewarded with some fun in the snow!

Since then, the snow has melted and we have had relatively mild weather.  Zuri keeps asking when winter is coming so she can play in the snow again! :-)

Trick-or-Treat 2012

Zuri got a large candy haul this year for Halloween.  She filled her bucket!  We started out in our neighborhood, only intending to be out for about 45 minutes or so, but as we got started, we noticed no kids, and only a few homes had anyone actually there.  So, we decided to canvas our *new* neighborhood.

--That's right, we are "under contract!"  Our soon-to-be new home is in a really great neighborhood.  In fact, the house next door has a little girl close to Zuri's age.  It is located really close to major access roads and is very centrally placed.  It is in an established neighborhood and has been really well taken care of--so much so that it is move-in ready!  It is a little bit older and smaller than the homes that we have been looking at, but it is in an area where the value of homes is pretty high.  We have almost a third of an acre of land (that has been our biggest issue with some of the newer homes--no land!) and apple, plum and cherry trees.  Our backyard borders a neighborhood "park" and the current owners tell us that they see deer and elk all the time near the little creek that runs through the park.  It has a walk-out basement so Jeremy has easy access to all areas of the house.  Everything has fallen into place with this home, and it will be a great little starter place for us!  If all continues to go well, we should be able to move in before Christmas--so exciting!

We ended up trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood for a couple of hours.  Zuri kept saying that she wanted to go to more houses, but I think by the end, even she was tired.  Until we got home, then she wanted to go back out and didn't want to take her costume off.  Kai was a trooper through the whole thing and just enjoyed getting out.  He stared wide-eyed as we went from house to house, just sucking on his fingers.  He didn't get fussy at all, but he fell right asleep when we got into the car.  He stayed asleep even when we brought him into the house!

First Snow

We had our first bit of snow on October 25th.  Since then it has melted and we have returned to almost 70 degree weather.  That is Utah in the fall for you.  Zuri was so excited to see the snow.  She ran outside in her pajamas and socks wanting to make snowmen, and snow angels and throw snowballs.  It was all she talked about all morning before school.