The Bex

the {fifth} birth

2017-07-14T21:09:00.001-07:00

5:00am, Providence Hospital Emergency Room admissions desk

Hospital employee: What brings you here this morning

Me: We need to get over to Labor and Delivery

Hospital employee: Are you in labor?

Me: Yes

Hospital employee: How far along are you?

Me: [staring blankly at employee]…um….I…uh….I’m…[desperate glance to Matt] I’m…uh…I’m [desperate glance back at employee then back at Matt]

Matt: Her due date was…um..

Me: Oh wait, you mean how far along I am in my pregnancy?

Hospital employee: Yes

Matt: What did you think she meant?

Me: I thought she wanted to know how far along in labor I was. [Turning to employee] I’m 40 & 2. 3. 40 & 3.

Clearly, I did not have my wits about me.

I remember watching a show with Matt before bed about 10 hours earlier, and Elsie was moving around so much—making my belly look like a water bed—that we stopped the show so that Matt could take a video. Lots of movement, but no labor. And of course ‘they say’ that there is less movement as labor draws near, so of course I imagined that I was still a few days out from baby girl’s arrival. And then just as we were going to bed around 11:30pm, I felt this really sharp pain at the top of my leg, so sharp that I actually screamed out loud, “OUCH!” No idea what that was, but contractions started soon afterward.

Contractions were very regular from the get-go—3-5 minutes apart—but not very intense. Knowing how fast my last few labors have been, though, I didn’t want to wait too long to go to the hospital. But I also didn’t want to go too soon. So I hemmed and hawed and timed my contractions and finally decided around 1:00am to take a shower and ‘get ready to go’, praying that I wasn’t going to end up having to call my awesome neighbor Amy to deliver the baby int he shower (even if it would have been a dream come true for her). Contractions continued with great consistency and a few were strong. Well, strong compared to the other ones that I was feeling, but not actually strong. At 2:00am I woke up Matt to tell him that we should probably head to the hospital. Although I didn’t really wake him up; I only half woke him up, so mostly I just got a “Mm hmm okay” from dreamland. Then I went downstairs to tell mom that I was in labor and going to head to the hospital soon.

Me from the doorway: Mom

Mom: [no answer]

Me from the doorway: MOM

Mom: [no answer]

Me: MOM!!

Mom: Huh? What? What is it?

Me: I’m in labor and I’m going to the hospital.

Mom: What?

Me: I’m in labor and I’m going to the hospital.

Mom: What?

Me: I’m in labor, I’m having regular contractions, we’re going to the hospital.

Mom: Huh?

Me: Mom, it’s Martina. You’re at my house in Alaska. I’m in labor. I’m having regular contractions. We are going to the hospital.

Mom: [Awake at last!] Oh that’s exciting! How far apart? …

Do you see how tired and out of it everyone else in my house was? That’s because in the middle of the night when you haven’t slept for very long, you feel really tired and get confused very easily. Remember that.

I came back upstairs and decided that I didn’t actually want to go to the hospital just yet. Maybe I wasn’t quite ready. I would hate to be turned away at triage, and I didn’t want to have to labor forever at the hospital. So I laid down in bed to get some rest and wait. Things continued as they had—regular contractions, not very strong, and finally at 4:00am I woke up Matt for real so that we could head out. He got ready, I finished packing my hospital bag, and we were on the road at around 4:45am.

Enter Emergency Room Admissions scene. Remember how I said that people that haven’t slept much or at all feel really tired and get confused very easily in the middle of the night? Story of my labor.

After my inexplicable befuddlement by the very standard pregnancy question, “How far along are you?”, a gentleman escorted us over to Labor and Delivery (the L&D entrance was closed for the night, so we had to enter through the ER). And as he did, he asked me, “Is this your first child?” and I responded, “Yes, I’m very tired”. You see, I thought he asked me, “Are you tired?”, and I thought that was a silly question. Matt later informed me that my answer did not match his question :-p

Well as always, I waddled into L&D and was quickly assigned to a triage room and asked to do the usual rigamarole: get a clean catch and change into a hospital gown (blecht). All of this is of course very uncomfortable when you are trying to squeeze actions in between contractions! Tasks complete, I waited in triage for someone to come check me. The nurse (a resident) hooked up the monitors, and so we were able to watch the contractions—every 5 minutes or so, but apparently not that intense. She collected all of my information and notified my doctor that I had arrived. After quite some time answering questions, I finally asked, “Is anyone going to check me?” The nurse responded that she would after she was done with all of the check-in information.

Shortly thereafter, it was time for the big moment! I always feel like repeating “Big money big money big money!” when my cervix gets checked during labor. Usually I am very happy to hear how far along I am. This time…not so much.

“3.5 centimeters, I can probably stretch it to a 4. I’m not really sure though so I am going to have someone else come and check you if that’s okay.”

(Whose idea was it to put the resident on duty when I went into labor?!)

So another nurse came in and agreed that I could be stretched to a 4. She asked me a handful of questions that seemed condescending but in hindsight were completely reasonable questions to ask. The original nurse called my doctor and then presented me with a game plan: even though this was my fifth child and I have a history of fast labors, I was in early labor and therefore not ready to be checked into the hospital yet. However, since it was my fifth child and I have a history of fast labors, they told me to walk around the hospital for an hour to see if I could intensify my contractions. If I came back in an hour and had progressed at least 1.5, they would let me stay!

I pulled on those sexy tan hospital socks with the white non-stick grippies on the bottom, slid on an equally sexy hospital bathrobe, grabbed my husband’s hand, and off we went for a stroll through the hospital. (I got to do this with Warner, too, but that time I even got to wheel around an IV stand.) We walked and walked and waited for the cafeteria to open, since we were warned that *if* on the off chance that I was admitted after our walk, I would likely not be allowed to eat anything. While walking around, we ran into my doctor (Dr. Cayko), who was leaving at the end of her shift. We chatted for a minute and she asked me where I lived. “At least it’s not the Valley if you’re heading back home now!”, she said. Apparently she wasn’t very confident that labor was progressing.

6:45 hit and with it came the opening of the cafeteria! We started to walk toward the stairs, and I paused. Matt asked me, “Do you NOT want to get breakfast anymore?” I responded that I did, but I was just having a really strong contraction. In hindsight, that moment was definitely when I switched into active labor. We headed down the stairs into the cafeteria, and I remember walking on my tiptoes through contractions as I grabbed orange juice and waited for my bagel to toast. Matt paid for our food, and we headed for a little table. I started to sit down and realized instantly that that was not going to happen. So I walked back and forth from the bathroom, taking like one bite of my bagel each time we got back to the table, before finally giving up and telling Matt that we needed to head back to triage. I didn’t even get to finish one half of my dang bagel!

Back in triage, the nurse resident kindly acknowledged that I looked more in labor than I had before. Then she disappeared FOREVER (for like five minutes!). I finally asked Matt to pop his head out of the room and ask for someone to come check me. So back came our nurse resident, and she checked me…and kept checking me…and kept checking me some more, and then finally said, “well you have definitely made progress, but I don’t want to get your hopes up and tell you the wrong thing, so if it’s okay with you, I’m going to have someone else come in and check you too”. Oh great, yes, please do! Sheesh. So a few minutes later, the second nurse showed up (again) to check me (again), and at 7:10am they announced that I was 6-7cm and could be admitted.

I should have been excited but what I actually felt was disappointment. At this point, the contractions REALLY freaking hurt. Like way worse than anything I felt with Millie or Ellis; probably similar to the contractions I had for Leland. Except when I was feeling those contractions with Leland, I was already 8-9cm! I felt scared that I was going to have to feel those contractions for another few hours.

They said that my doctor (Dr. Ward, who was the next doctor on shift) was on her way to the hospital and should be there any minute. They brought over a wheelchair to wheel me down the hall to the delivery room awaiting me, and I asked if I could please walk. They agreed, and so I walked on over to the delivery room. At this point, I felt so, so tired. I felt like how I feel when I have traveled all night on multiple airplanes with four toddlers and finally plunk into the car to be driven to my parents’ house for a nap. My brain was foggy from not having slept for 24 hours. Our nurse was really nice, but she was really, really quiet and I couldn’t hear anything the dear lady said. I kept looking at Matt to repeat what she was saying, but most of the time he couldn’t hear her either! I think she was making some funny remarks to cheer me up because she kept saying something and then giggling like we had just shared a joke. Except I couldn’t hear what she had said so I just looked really confused.

One nice thing about having so many kids is by this point I know what I need during labor. I explained to the nurse that even though everyone says that you will know that it’s time to start pushing when you have the uncontrollable urge to push, but I have never once felt that uncontrollable urge to push and I am terrified of pushing because I think that I’m bad at it and so please just check me and tell me when I am ready to push and then tell me exactly how to push because I always do the exact opposite of what I am supposed to do. Nice nurse smiled and said something in response, but of course I couldn’t hear her. She left the room and Matt asked if we were on Candid Camera and she was moving her mouth but not making any sound and someone would pop out in a few minutes and say “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!” As it turns out, we weren’t; she was just really, really quiet.

I asked if I could be checked again because I was feeling a lot of pressure, and I asked how far out Dr. Ward was. They were having trouble locating Dr. Ward, so they called in the hospital doctor to check me and to be there in case I was ready to deliver. The hospital doctor checked me and said that I still had a bit of a lip but the baby was still high, but if I felt like I needed to push, I could. So then I explained to HER the same thing, that I never know if I need to push or not, so can YOU please just tell ME if I am ready to push? She said that she thought I should wait, and besides Dr. Ward should be there any minute.

A few more contractions came and went, and I asked where Dr. Ward was because I was really feeling a lot of pressure, and if she was close then I would wait to have her check me again. Well, they called around a little and found out that she was in another delivery room. “Are you catching a baby or can you come to this room now?”, one of the nurses asked. (At some point, another nurse joined nice quiet nurse, but I also had my glasses off at this point so I couldn’t see a friggin’ thing. Nice quiet nurse kept showing me bracelets and different papers and asking me to confirm information on them and I was like “I CAN’T SEE THEM BRING THEM TO MY FACE”). So I couldn’t hear or see anything but who needs to during labor anyway, right?

Dr. Ward finally flew into the room, popped on some gloves (not latex! she is allergic!), and checked me. She said that I was fully dilated but baby was a little high and asked if I felt like I needed to push. So once again I repeated that I never feel like I need to push so could she just please tell me if I am ready to push or not. She said that we could give it a try and see what happens. So we did!

In a whirlwind, everyone got ready: they pulled out the plastic, Dr. Ward put on whatever doctors put on when they are about to deliver, the nurses did whatever they do. Of course I didn’t see or hear any of it, but I am assuming that’s what happened because Dr. Ward was wearing more things after the delivery than she was when she came in, and the plastic got underneath me somehow because it was there after delivery.

I repeated to Dr. Ward that I don’t think I am very good at pushing and so I need constant coaching. Tell me what to do with my hands and my chin and my legs and remind me over and over and over again! And tell me when to push!!

I got into position and waited for a contraction. When the first one hit, I pushed. Then, I relaxed and put my legs down. Then I thought, “Wait a second, I they always tell me to do 2-3 pushes with each contraction! Dang it!” so then I put my legs back up and pushed again. And of course nothing happened because it was the lamest set of two pushes ever! I immediately felt discouraged, thinking that I was going to be pushing for hours. I HATE pushing!!

On the next contraction, I gave a good push, and then I relaxed again. “MARTINA YOU DUMMY!”, I thought, “YOU HAVE TO PUSH AGAIN!” How had I forgotten so quickly?? And why wasn’t nurse nicey telling me to push??? Usually the nurse and the doctor really act as coaches and say, “1-2-3 breathe in…and PUSH! and hold it! Hold it! Hold it! Okay now 1-2-3 breathe in….and PUSH! and hold it!”, but if they were doing that, I didn’t hear them.

So after the second push during that contraction, Dr. Ward said, “You’re almost there, the head is out!”….and I was like……….WHAT?! The head is out?! HOW COME NO ONE TOLD ME THAT SHE WAS CROWNING!!! So then of course I pulled together another push and, plop! There was Elsie, laying on my chest. I felt very tired and confused; mostly tired. It was 7:56am.

I remember Nurse Nicey whisper-talking, “Wow, she looks like a big girl!” “Wow, how much do you think she weighs?” “Wow, she is a good sized baby!”, and I remember thinking, “Why are you asking me how much I think she weighs? Why don’t you just weigh her and find out?” But she didn’t weigh her immediately because apparently Providence has made a lot of changes in standard procedure in response to patient feedback, which is great! There were quite a few things that they did differently between this birth and my other three at Providence—and they were all good things (delayed cord clamping, extended skin to skin time, not making moms shower before going up to Mother & Baby, etc.)—I just wasn’t expecting them and so those changes contributed to the confusion I was already feeling due to pure exhaustion. It was the first time that I delivered in the morning; without a full night’s sleep; and it was definitely my least favorite time of the day to deliver. Having a good night’s sleep before delivery—even if it’s followed by a partial or full day of wakefulness—definitely makes the experience brighter; much less foggy.

As for the baby laying on my chest…well, we finally got to meet our Elsie Louise. We chose her name before I was pregnant with Ellis; even before my first pregnancy that I miscarried. We had always wanted to use family names, and we had talked about the possibility of Ellis (one of his great-uncles) for a boy or Elsie (his grandmother) for a girl, and we eventually added the middle names; Ellis Henry (after my grandfather) and Elsie Louise (my mom’s middle name). One day, I was showering and thought, “I think I am pregnant”. And then I thought, “When I am pregnant someday, I just want to know right away if I am going to have twins.” Then I prayed, “God, can you just tell me right now if I am going to have twins?” (I have no idea why I was thinking so much about twins.) Five minutes later, I was making my eggs, and….DOUBLE YOLK! I now refer to that as the double yolk prophecy. Which—was it turns out—was a false prophecy because I didn’t end up having twins. But I did tell Matt about the prophecy, and I kept talking about how we were going to have twins. One day while we were sitting in St. Elias Brewing Company in Soldotna, we read the meaning of the name Elias on the back of the menu. It occurred to us that it was similar to Ellis, so then we looked up the meaning of Ellis and realized that they did, indeed, have the same meaning. Sitting at that table, wee continued looking up the meanings of Ellis Henry and Elsie Louise. When we read the meanings of their names, we both knew that Ellis Henry and Elsie Louise were going to be our children. Of course, I thought that they were going to be twins; not the end caps to our progeny.

And so, sweet Elsie Louise, just as your Father knew you before He knitted you in my womb; so did your dad and I know you. We have waited for you to join our family since the first time that we found out that we were pregnant, and we are so glad that you are finally here. We can’t wait to watch you grow into the woman that you were named to be; the woman that we have known since that day that we dreamt of you in Soldotna <3 span="">

~ Elsie Louise, “My God is a vow, and I will fight for Him” ~

the {fourth} birth

2016-02-08T16:48:00.003-08:00

Waiting for labor is such a crazy thing. When you are full term, you are 100 percent aware at all times that you are very, very pregnant. Every move you make, every gurgle you feel, every twitch of your muscle ends with the thought, “Maybe this means that I’m about to go into labor!” But it doesn’t. Until, one time, it does.

My first two babes were a week early, and when Warner’s due date came and went I was just angry. This time around, I realized that going late was within the realm of possibility and so it was okay. Mentally and physically I was fine; I just felt crazy because the possibility of labor was always on my mind. So when Thursday morning rolled around and I had a significant “sign” that typically means that labor will start within the next 24 hours, I was relieved. Labor was about to begin, and so all the crazy could leave my head.

But then, it didn’t. Throughout Thursday and Friday, I was flooded with more and more signs that I was on the brink of active labor. But active labor eluded me. I had occasional contractions, but nothing painful and nothing regular. Matt got more than a few texts saying, “[x] just happened, keep your phone handy!”. By Saturday morning, I was a little concerned that I wasn’t progressing. Had my water broken on Thursday and it was now 48 hours later and I was at risk of infection? Were my overworked baby muscles no longer doing their job? Should I head to triage just to make sure that everything was okay? I decided to text my friendly neighborhood former-L&D-nurse Amy for a consult. She said to trust my mama instincts and head in. Then she made a wager that I would be 5-6cm dilated and 80 percent effaced when they would check me. This was at about 9:00am.

I told Matt of my plan, and we lesiurely ate breakfast, got dressed, made coffee, and headed out the door. Somewhere in there, I started having more regular contractions, but still nothing painful, and no closer than 5-10 minutes apart. We arrived at the hospital at 11:00am and settled into triage. I was happy to see a few familiar faces from previous deliveries—I love the nursing staff at Providence! I explained why I had come in and that I was now having mild contractions about 5 minutes apart. Nurse Bonnie checked me and—lo and behold—6.5cm dilated, 90 percent effaced, and baby at -1 position. Amy would have been spot on if we had gotten out the door faster! I asked, “So does that mean that I can stay?” Bonnie laughed and said, “You are not going anywhere! You’re going to have a baby today!” I was so relieved. She popped the monitors on my belly and said that she had to step out to call my doctor, but to let her know if my contractions weren’t registering on the monitor because she didn’t think that she had it in the right position yet. When she came back, I told her that the contractions weren’t registering, and after a quick look at the screen, she said, “Oh yes they are! And they are 2 minutes apart, not 5! We need to get you out of triage!”

Off we walked past the check-in desk, with all of the nurses laughing when they heard just how in labor I actually was without knowing it. In L&D, nurse Sarah got me hooked to new monitors and started trying to put in my IV port. And kept trying. And kept trying. I had mostly had coffee that morning, and maybe a half bottle of water on the way in, so I was quite dehydrated. She tried several times on my left arm, she tried floating the IV (whatever that is), she called in someone else for assistance, she tried my right arm, she had me run warm water over my arm and then tried again, she had me do some weird breathing stuff, and finally she decided that she’d have to go for the vein in my hand. (She was trying to avoid it since it’s not terribly convenient to have an IV in your hand when you’re having a baby.) Despite all of the pokes, it wasn’t painful, and I was distracted by my contractions, which had increased in intensity by now. And since I had to be sitting down while she worked to get the IV in, I was pretty uncomfortable—walking through contractions makes them much more tolerable to me. On the handy dandy hospital pain management scale, I’d say that my pain level was at a “5”: somewhere beyond “nagging” but less than “distressing” or “miserable”. Well, dear nurse Sarah finally got the IV in my hand at 12:25pm and said, “Well, I’ll leave you alone now, and you can move around and just call us if you need anything or start feeling more pressure, like you’d want to be checked or start pushing”. And for curiosity’s sake, I asked her if she wouldn’t mind to check me once more before she left us alone so that I could know if I had progressed at all. And so she did. Her response?

“Uh…..your cervix is gone. I’m going to go call Dr. Wang.”

Immediately, tears flooded my eyes. Gone? My cervix was gone? It was time to bring in the doctor? Time to deliver? I don’t mind labor, but I have such an anxiety about pushing! With Ellis and Warner’s deliveries, I felt so discouraged and exhausted, both mentally and physically, when even “good” pushes didn’t get the baby out. (Leland was out in two pushes—that was easy!) I had not expected to be fully dilated, and two hours earlier I was still planning to be induced on Monday! I wasn’t mentally prepared to try to push a baby out! Dr. Wang arrived and confirmed that yes, indeed, it was time to deliver. Matt prayed for me, the doctor broke my water, and we waited for a contraction.

Through the first contraction, I pushed three times in classic Martina pushing style: doing everything wrong. Blowing out my breath when I was supposed to be holding it, pushing my legs out when I was supposed to be pulling them in, lifting my chin up when I was supposed to be crunching it down. Typical. Through the second contraction, I did a little better, but still nothing that was going to get a baby out. I looked at Matt after the second set of pushes and said, “I am so bad at this! I hate pushing!”. He responded with wisdom from all of his Keller Wiliams trainings: “Martina! What kind of an affirmation is that? Tell yourself that you can do this!” And so I laughed and said, “You’re right. ‘I’m SO good at pushing! I am going to push this baby out in the next contraction’!”. He admits thinking that I went a bit overboard on my affirmation, but as it turns out, it couldn’t have been all that bad. The next contraction came, and baby girl crowned on push 3! I squeezed in a fourth push, and all of a sudden there was a baby on my chest.

Four hours old!

I was in shock. So many people talk about the instant love that they feel when their babies are laid on their chests. I have never experienced this: I always feel relief that delivery is over, and the love comes later. This time, I didn’t even feel relief. I was seriously in shock. Confusion—that’s what I felt. Um, how am I holding a baby right now? What just happened? How could that possibly be over? What about labor? What about pushing? I just delivered a baby and she’s here and it’s done? It was 12:47pm and I had arrived at the hospital less than two hours earlier not even sure that I was really in labor. And now I’m holding my baby? And it’s a GIRL? What planet am I on?!

I had to stay downstairs for a little longer than expected because my overworked uterus is getting lazy and my bleeding didn’t taper off quite as quickly as they’d like. I nursed Millie and called family members, all the while still trying to comprehend the idea that I was no longer pregnant and that I was, in fact, holding my very own daughter that I had just delivered. By the time that they moved us up to Mother and Baby for recovery, I was only just beginning to adjust to the idea that I was not dreaming and that really had just happened!

Now, two days later, I’m still a little surprised each time that I hear her soft cries as she wakes up from her sleep or her little gurgles from across the room when someone else is holding her. But mostly, I am overwhelmed once again at the scandalous miracle of a new life—of her new life—and I just can’t wait to know her.

On sacrifice

2015-01-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

It would be impossible to spend more than five minutes with Grandpa and then try to argue that he didn’t absolutely love his life. Chief among Grandpa’s many wonderful personal qualities was joy: he loved to laugh, he loved to talk, he loved to play…he loved to play tricks...he loved to learn, he loved to sing, and he loved to love. He loved being alive.

Grandpa’s boundless joy was bought at a price. He worked hard for everything that he had; including his relationships. This is most true of his relationship with Grandma. I remember being at Steve and Cindy’s house for Christmas 2010 and seeing Grandpa sitting down, kitty-corner from Grandma at a table. It was loud; a lively game of charades, no doubt led by The Three Musketeers a.k.a. Jessica and Theresa and Maria, was going on across the room, and laughter bounced off all the walls. And yet Grandpa was not aware of any of it. He was leaning forward, gazing lovingly into Grandma’s eyes as he talked to her quietly about who-knows-what as she sat slightly hunched over with a blank, downward stare. And somehow, he didn’t care that she wasn’t responding. Given the opportunity to take a break from his role as care-taker and just enjoy himself for a few hours while others cared for Grandma, he chose to stay by her side.

You see, the secret to everything that Grandpa had; the secret even to his joy was self-sacrifice.

There is no higher calling for each of us than to lay down our lives for others: in our friendships, in our marriages, and in the one relationship that matters above all others: our relationship with God the Father, made possible through the sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ and evidenced by the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. We are called to sacrifice our joy for the joy of others; our will for the will of the Father. When we do, we find that even though it defies all logic, our joy is restored and then increased.

I am so sad that Grandpa is gone, and I know that I am not alone in thinking that if one person were ever going to defy death, it would have been Grandpa. And as I have spent these past few days in tears, eating sandwiches with excessive amounts of iceberg lettuce and considering how I might honor his legacy, I am left with this:

"He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal". - John 12:25

Grandpa, I love you so much, and what can I say? I miss you.

Henricus Josefus vanLieshout, 2 April 1921 - 31 December 2014 ~ My amazing Grandpa

The {Third} Birth

2014-09-30T22:43:00.001-07:00

It’s 6:03am on Wednesday, September 10. I am 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant. Too pregnant. I wake up, and I have to pee. At this stage in the game, I always have to pee.

I waddle to the bathroom. Waddling has been my primary form of movement for about a month now.

I make an observation that makes me wonder if my water has perhaps broken. (No need to go into details here.) I didn’t feel my water break as I had with Leland, but I wonder.

I call Sheri and tell her that I’m thinking about heading to the hospital, so please send over her daughter, our beloved Aubrey, to watch the big boys. They are still fast asleep. I eat some cereal and think that maybe, perhaps, possibly, hopefully, I feel a contraction. I think. But maybe I'm imagining it.

Aubrey arrives, and Matt helps me waddle through the rain to our car. Once on our way, the contractions become more noticeable, and I start to time them. They are 7-10 minutes apart and nothing to write home about, but they are there!

That is the beginning of Warner’s birth story. Well, perhaps not the beginning; but where things began to get interesting. I think that his story began days before that--weeks, even, as I expected him to come early just as his older brothers had. Mom had flown in five days before his due date, but plans changed unexpectedly when my Grandma (my mom’s mom) passed away. The Grandma that I had known as a child and teenager had all but disappeared over the last 10 years as Alzheimer's claimed her mind and her body. She had developed a Kennedy Terminal Ulcer a few weeks prior to her death, and so we knew that her time with us on earth was coming to an end. After a few days of uncertainty and trying to determine what to do with me in Alaska and the funeral in NY, Mom flew back to be with her family for the funeral, and I remained tearfully in Alaska. I was devastated that I was adding stress to such a sad time in my mom’s life, was unable to attend my Grandma’s funeral, was without my mom, and was now past my due date. At my 40 week appointment, we scheduled an induction for September 11; the day of my Grandma’s funeral. I wasn’t looking forward to the induction because I had had such wonderful deliveries by just letting my body do what it needed to do, but I was oh-so-ready to be done being pregnant. For this reason, my eyes were filled with tears of joy as we headed to the hospital that morning!

The ‘guard station’ for Labor and Delivery was vacant, so we followed the instructions to call someone in Triage to come and get us. Before our escort arrived, however, a random hospital employee arrived for her day’s work and let us in through a back door. She said, “I’ll take you through the shortcut. You’re not supposed to go through here, so don’t get used to it!” Funny--when we came in a few months ago, on the day that Warner flipped to head-down, a different employee told us the same thing.

In triage, the neighborhood grouchy-pants was my nurse once again. Good thing Matt and I have a good sense of humor, even early in the morning! We waited as they monitored my contractions and the baby and tried to determine whether or not my water had broken. Apparently, I’m not very good at breaking water, because the same thing happened with Leland. All tests were inconclusive. The doctor finally determined that my water was still intact when she checked me and announced that I was 4cm dilated. Contractions were about 5 minutes apart at this point, but still quite mild. The doc did an ultrasound to confirm that Warner was still head down (he was), and then we talked strategy. Since my contractions were regular and I had a history of fast labor, they decided to admit me and get in a round of antibiotics for Group B. If things hadn’t picked up by early afternoon, they’d break my water to get things rolling. I had a birth plan for the first time ever!!

I waddled the 20 feet or so from my triage room over to my Labor and Delivery room. A traveling nurse named Chris and a delightful German nurse named Elsbeth settled me in. As Chris wrote my check-in time on the whiteboard, she said, “Check that out! You’re being admitted at 9:10 on 9/10! Just watch--your baby’s going to be 9.10!”

The doctor came in to check on me once the IV with my antiobiotics was set up, and she said that I was free to roam the halls of the hospital. “You mean, like...walk around Labor and Delivery?”, I asked. “No”, she said, “You can go anywhere in the hospital”. Okaaaaay....so Matt and I headed out for a walk. Matt looked great like he always does, of course. Me, on the other hand...I was wearing a hospital gown. (With broken ties so that it didn’t close all the way, I might add.) And a hospital robe. And non-slip hospital socks. And wheeling around an IV stand. Also, I hadn’t showered in at least 36 hours.

The hospital was full of normal looking people wearing normal-people clothing. People tell me that it’s normal to see robed hospital patients walking around the lobby at Providence, but I was the only one on that morning. The contractions picked up a bit as we walked--Matt actually noticed it more than I did. He said that we began to walk slower and slower and slower as our stroll through the lobby continued. I guess I can’t say for certain whether this was truly due to the contractions or due to the fact that I kept stubbing my shoe-less toes on the wheelie stand of the IV. Ouchie, mama! Now THAT hurt!!

An hour passed, and we headed back to L&D for the mandatory 20 minutes of monitoring...not that I minded. At this point, I was mostly just ready for a nap. Doctor Nurse-Midwife Townsend came in and asked how I was doing. I told her that the contractions were getting stronger. “I could tell as soon as I walked in”, she said, “Your countenance has changed a lot since I last saw you!”. A quick check at 10:30am revealed that I was 8cm dilated. “What happens now?”, I asked. “We’re not going anywhere at this point!”, she said. She said that one of the nurses would stay with me, and that she would be within earshot. “Just give a holler when you want to start pushing!”

Oh, great. This again. The great thing about Leland’s birth was that there was no “wanting to start” pushing. My water broke, we rushed to the hospital, the doctor arrived, I pushed, Leland arrived. There was no time to think about whether or not I was ready to push. With Ellis, I had had to think about it, and I hated it! I can’t make decisions in my normal state of being; much less when I’m deep into labor!

I waited about a little while and felt Warner move enough so that it felt like his legs were straightening and pushing against my rib cage with every contraction. I thought that maybe I felt like pushing, but maybe it was just the pressure of him pushing himself with each contraction. I figured that we’d give it a shot.

Doctor Nurse-Midwife Townsend checked me. 9.5cm. At that moment, my water broke. It was just before noon, and there was no turning back now!

I assumed the push position and gave it a shot. From the first push, I knew that nothing was going to happen anytime soon. It was exactly as it was with Ellis. [Bad] memories of my 1.5 hours of pushing with him flooded my mind, and I began to get discouraged very quickly. A few pushes into it, CNM Townsend suggested that perhaps I wasn’t really, really ready to push. I agreed. She settled into the comfy armchair in the corner of the room, and we joked about how nice and relaxed and comfortable we all were. Still plagued with indecision, it took me all of five minutes to announce that I thought that I was maybe probably ready to try pushing again, I thought. Maybe.

I assumed the position once again, and once again I knew that all of the energy that I was exerting was for naught. CNM Townsend told me that Warner’s head was tilted slightly to the side, and so we needed to get him to un-tilt it before he was going to make his grand appearance. She had me try pushing from different positions (right side, left side, pulling forward on a sheet “rope”, etc.), but nothing seemed to work. “You’re making progress!” she encouraged me, but I knew that any progress being made was not the kind of progress that was going to result in the birth of a baby. “I don’t mean to be rude”, I said, “but I know that you’re lying to me. I can feel that nothing is happening.” “Things are happening!”, she said, and the nurses nodded heartily in agreement. “No, they’re not”, I said, and started crying. “Can you all just pray with me, please?” Mostly out of pity, they obliged. We all held hands and I prayed that God would give me mental, physical, and emotional strength to deliver my precious son because I was started to feel incredibly discouraged.

CNM Townsend walked over to my head, where Matt was standing and holding my hand, and she said, “You get your strength from wherever you need to get your strength from. If you get your strength from Jesus, you get your strength from Jesus. If you get your strength from positive thoughts, then think positive thoughts. You just get your strength!”

Well, all I have to say about that is GOOD THING I GET MY STRENGTH FROM JESUS! She left the room to get me some ice, and I had another contraction. WHAM! Just like that, Warner was on his way out. CNM Townsend came back into the room and Elsbeth said, “Wait until you see how close she is now!” CNM Townsend made reference to an earlier comment about how babies always come as soon as she leaves the room, and I exclaimed, “Well geez why didn’t you leave sooner?!”

One more set of pushes was all it took. A beautiful, perfectly healthy son was placed on my chest at 12:54pm. He was perfect. 9.9/10 Apgar. “Only the doctor’s family score higher than that!” 9lbs 10oz, just as Chris had predicted. 21 inches and a 38cm noggin. Just like that, our family of four became a family of five. Matt cut the cord, and the nurses took Warner to weigh and assess him while the doctor finished up with me.

Every birth is a miracle. It’s a wonder that any of us survive it at all! I am so thankful to Jesus Christ, my Intercessor that sits at the right hand of the Creator of all life and Sustainer of the Universe, carrying me and my children through the process. Our time at Providence could not have been better, and we absolutely loved all of the women that assisted with Warner's delivery. They were so kind to each other and encouraging to me, and they brought my son safely into the world!

Warner was born while my family in NY was at my Grandma’s calling hours. His ways are not our ways! Warner came later than I had wanted, but he came at just the right time to bring joy to my mom and her family at a very sad time. We rejoice knowing that we will be reunited with her in the presence of our Savior. I am in awe of His goodness, His compassion, and His mercy, both in death and in LIFE!!

Have faith.

2014-07-12T18:08:00.003-07:00

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval".

"Just believe." "Trust God." "Have faith." These are all standard responses that we Christian types use to encourage and comfort our friends when they pour out their hearts to us.

But do we really know what we are saying? Really?

Faith led Noah to build an ark when there were no signs of a coming rain.
Faith gave Sarah the ability to conceive when she was post-menopausal.
Faith led people to attack Jericho by blowing trumpets and walking in circles.
Faith led Abraham to take steps to kill his own son. (Faith saved his son, too.)

Think about that for a minute. I mean really think about it. Noah built an ark in the middle of a desert when there was no rain because God told him to. Um...where I'm from, we call that crazy--not faithful. That would be like a friend's husband taking out a loan to install central air conditioning in the middle of an Alaskan winter because God told him that it was going to be 200 degrees for the next three months. It's crazy.

Noah's faith wasn't wishful thinking. It wasn't positive thoughts. It wasn't hoping for the best. Neither was the faith of anyone else described in Hebrews 11. The faith that brought them approval by God is what we would call clinical insanity. Think about Sarah--she believed that she was going to have a baby even after her body was no longer physically able to have a baby. People go to mental institutions because they believe that they are what they are not--we call that psychosis.

Thinking positive thoughts and crossing your fingers really tightly and squinting your face so hard when you pray that it hurts because you want something so badly is not biblical faith. In all of the examples in Hebrews 11, faith is (1) hearing from God--a command, information, etc., (2) believing that you heard from God, (3) being convinced that what God said (says) is true, and (4) acting.

In the Bible, God tells us to do some pretty crazy (read: illogical) stuff--and I'm talking just general commands; forget the specific things that He calls us, as individuals, to do. Like always being the first person to say "I'm sorry", even when you are always the first person to say "I'm sorry". Like not making a big deal when you loan something to someone and they don't return it for the umpteenth time. Like not joining in the conversation about the most recent way your giant b-word co-worker has offended you and the rest of the human race. Like submitting to your husband even when he's making the wrong decision. Like not being worried when your life is falling apart before your eyes.

Having faith isn't hoping for the best and trying your hardest and praying about it and sharing your struggle with your friends so that they can pray too.

Having faith is being so convinced that what God says is true that you would do anything--anything--to obey what He tells you to do. It's not belief--it's conviction.

God has been telling me a lot of things over the last six months or so since I started doing my daily devotions again. Most of the time, the things that He tells me to do are really small, but really hard. Like confessing something to someone that I know will make them upset with me and it wouldn't matter if they never knew anyway but actually it does matter because God told me to. Or actually trying to stop feeling angry about something that I should really be angry about even if I would never do anything because of the anger so why can't I just sit here and think about what a jerk that person is for a few minutes! Or not eating the last cookie in that pan even though I know that it's not healthy but there's no need to waste it and besides I'm pregnant after all and the kids are screaming so who even cares I deserve it!

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Gentleness. Faithfulness. Self-Control.

Um, those things are really, really hard to practice 24/7. Especially when that cookie is staring you in the face. Especially when that chick that subscribes to your blog posts your idea once again as if she came up with it and the entire universe thinks that she is the best thing since sliced bread. Argh.

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Gentleness. Faithfulness. Self-Control.

Are you really convinced that God's way is always the best way? That His way is the best way even when you have a better idea? Even when it doesn't seem like not doing what He says to do would even make a difference?

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I'm doing that could get my name put in the Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11). From time to time, God tells me--or me and Matt--to do something "big" and non-sensical--like the ark or the Battle of Jericho (okay, still waiting on something as big as those...but we've done some things that were 'big' for us). But even harder sometimes is the day to day stuff: the ongoing personal struggles that no one knows about and that don't seem to affect anything, yet God knows and cares. Like how God says to not gossip, ever. Or to not be anxious, ever, about anything. Or to not be a glutton. Or to say kind words to someone that treats you with cruelty...and oh yeah to think kind thoughts about them, too.

The more I act in faith, the more faith I have: the more I obey God, the more convinced I become that God's ways are the best ways. The more convinced I become, the easier it is to obey the next time. Faith (conviction) builds faith (conviction).

In faith, I obey.

Coupon Ethics

2013-10-13T15:30:00.005-07:00

A wonderful, Christian woman visited our MOPS group two weeks ago to speak about couponing. She was a wealth of great information and I am so glad that we brought her! Coupons are a great way to use the resources that we have been given wisely and to bless others.

That being said, one thing that she shared with us caused my spidey senses to tingle, and I've spent some time doing research. She shared that one of the best ways to get really good coupons is through eBay, but you can never say that you bought or sold a coupon because most coupons say on them that buying or selling them makes them invalid, so what you have to say is that you bought or sold the service of clipping coupons.

Perhaps it is because I am in the print industry (I write and sell lesson plans and work for a publisher) that this single line of hers stood out as a red flag to me: once I create my lesson plans and send them out to the world, I have no control over what happens to them. Teachers could be using copies of my plans that they found in the copyroom or that were given to them by a teacher that obtained my plans through legal, legitimate means, and no one would ever know whether that individual has the legal right to use them or not. The fact that you have to be careful how you phrase the way that you say something because saying it the wrong way would invalidate the coupons seemed a little sketchy to me.

So I have arrived at a decision about the 'ethics' of using coupons obtained through clipping services, and here I just want to post the resources that I used to arrive at my decision so that you can look through the information out there and decide for yourself.

Kingdom First Mom "Honest Couponing" provides some verses to consider when deciding whether any couponing practice is ethical. Please visit this link as the first stop in your couponing journey!

The Coupon Information Corporation states that disclaimers by third-party coupon services stating that they are selling the service of coupon clipping and not the actual product are invalid and do not provide legal protection to either the buyer or the seller. If caught, the buyer and/or the seller can be prosecuted for fraud. Furthermore, it states that there is no legal way to buy or sell coupons (obtain coupons through a sale, regardless of 'what' is being sold (how the product/service for sale is phrased)).

About.com explains that eBay's policies are such that any sale of a coupon on their site is a violation of said policies. It is not legal to sell services on eBay, and they have specifically asked that coupons not be put up for auction, because these coupons will be considered invalid. (Of course, no one will know from where you obtained your coupons, so stores do not whether or not any given coupon is technically invalid.)

For more information about the ethics of this and other couponing practices, please visit these links:

The Coupon Project:

Coupon Integrity

ThinkChristian This post talks more about the idea of storing up massive stashes of items; kindof like how our speaker said "It's not a deal if you wouldn't normally buy it"

Something's Gotta Give

2013-10-10T23:29:00.003-07:00

I've spent the last six weeks in Priscilla Shirer's newest Bible study, Gideon, and while it has been a really incredible study and God has spoken to me consistently through it, it hasn't been quite on par with other studies that I've done. Why?

I haven't been doing my homework.

I am usually such a stickler for homework! I am a teacher, after all, and a natural-born rule-follower on top of that! I always do my homework! But for this study, at this time in my life, it has just been impossible. Between washing diapers, "cleaning the house", preparing meals, comforting crying babies, changing diapers, playing with my kids, working for a publisher, planning lessons, grading papers, teaching in the middle of the day, Bible study, doing MOPS, (not) exercising, and oh yeah every once in awhile it would be nice to spend a few hours with my husband...there's just no time for homework.

At least, I thought that there was no time for homework.

See, I have this habit. It is not a good habit and I am ashamed to admit it. Almost every night before I go to bed, I spend almost an hour watching old episodes of Breaking Bad. It's a really good show, but it's a really, really bad show. The basic premise is that a suburban dad is diagnosed with cancer and starts cooking meth in order to pay for his treatment. All sorts of horrible things happen along the way, but they happen in such a perfectly suspenseful and dramatic sort of way that it's all just kind of wonderful! And me, innocent me, is scarred by the plot and the things that happen to the characters because I just can't believe that things like that really happen out there in this crazy world of ours, and sometimes I even find myself tearing up while I drive to work thinking about the poor character in the show to whom this terrible thing happened--in the show. Which is not real life. I know! I am crazy! All that to say that it affects me, and not in a positive way.

So when today Priscilla spoke about how the people of Israel gave their earrings to Gideon after winning the battle against the Mideonites and the earrings should have been a red flag because of the whole Calf Caper back in Moses' day, I knew that meditating on a show's contents should have been a red flag for me because it only leads to bad things. Two recent examples were reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and watching The Shield. Both consumed my mind and gave me nightmares! "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things! (Colossians 3:2) These things have a way of setting my mind on earthly things, things that have no business taking up residence in the temple of the Holy Spirit!

And then Priscilla spoke about how we are to give the first fruits of our everything to God: the first and the best. But she wasn't just talking about money. She was talking about time, too. And this is where my little homework ha-ha turning into a homework ah-ha.

How can I possibly say that Jesus is Lord of my life when I spend an hour of my day watching a show that, paramount to being filled with horrifying content, uses His name in vain at least ten times per episode! Probably more like 50 or 100! It's Jesse's favorite exclamation! And I am doing that in the house that God has provided for me? After every miraculous business opportunity that He has given to Matt and to me, allowing there to be a roof over my head and food in my fridge and clothes on my body and cars in my driveway while I stay at home in that house with my children? With the time that I have only because He created time and gave me breath to experience it?? And then I dare say that I have no time to do my Bible study homework?

It's not about the homework. I doubt that He cares whether I do it or not. But what He does care about is that I am obedient to His calling. That if I pledge allegiance to Him, that I am allegiant! I am sorry, oh, so very sorry!! And so thankful that He is gracious enough to find ways to speak into my life even when I am so busy finding ways to block out His voice.

Beyond

2013-09-24T09:54:00.004-07:00

Matt and I started attending a new Bible study this fall. We joined in the middle of a series, so the first week back from summer break was spent reviewing what the group had studied in the spring. But the second week, oh...the second week!

The study is called Beyond: Higher Dimensions of Worship. It is a sermon series by Robert Moore of Gateway Church, and you can purchase it here.

We came in at Week 7, which is titled "What is Satan's Plan?" I am not exaggerating when I say that it was one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard. Ever. My spine tingled, my heart palpitated, and my mind raced throughout the entire video. That night, my mind couldn't calm down enough to let me sleep, and it has been on my mind every waking hour since Wednesday. It completely changed the way that I worshipped on Friday night at the youth event at church and on Sunday morning. Matt feels the same way. I realize that the series is $60.00, but even after just one week, I would say that it is worth it. And that was after learning about Satan's plan; this week, we are learning about GOD'S plan!

In a nutshell, Robert Moore summarizes everything that we know about Lucipher from the Bible, both fact and assumption. He is very careful to separate what is written from what can be assumed based on what is written, and to provide Scriptural evidence for both. He talks about who Lucipher was, why he fell, and how that affects his current mission.

I don't want summarize his sermon here because there is no way that I can do it justice. Just put it on your Christmas list!!

Perspective

2013-08-03T22:13:00.002-07:00

About a month ago, my husband and I flew to NY with our two kids for my sister’s wedding. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal except for the fact that we live in Alaska--which is about as far from NY as you can get and still be in the United States--and our two children were 18 months and 6 weeks old at the time. Usually, when you tell people about some miserable event or situation in your near future that you are dreading, most of them will say, “Well, look on the bright side. At least...” That doesn’t happen when you tell people that you are about to fly across the country with two lap children under the age of two. There is no bright side.

My family--minus the kids--at Sam's wedding

So we asked for people to pray for us--that Ellis (the older of the two) would sleep and not be too crazy, that we could be moved to a row with an empty seat, that Leland wouldn’t blow out his diaper all over me, that the kids wouldn’t scream and cry, that we would be surrounded by nice people and helpful flight attendants, that our flights would be on time, that we would be patient, and--if God was feeling particularly merciful--that we might even sleep a little bit ourselves.

And you know what? All of those prayers were answered. Every single one. On three of our four long flights, we were given a row with an empty seat. On our two longest flights, the row was the first one in its section with a wall in front of it that has extra leg room. We were even given an ‘infant bed’, which I had never seen before, to attach to the wall so that Leland could sleep in his own bed and we would be hands-free. Ellis, who has always been a good sleeper, slept on the floor in front of and under our seats for several hours on each of the flights. No one cried more than they do in normal, every day life, all of our seat mates were nice, we had no diaper accidents, on-time flights, and even Matt and I were able to sleep at least a little bit on each of our flights.

But you know what? It was still miserable. Flying with two under two is not fun, even when everything goes right. It’s the pits. You are stressed and tired and sweaty and in a constant state of panic. We don’t recommend it to anyone.

While we were in NY, my brother Ben was diagnosed with Lyme disease after waking up with Bels Palsy, unable to move his lips. Ben is hilarious, and even more so when he is cracking jokes without moving his lips. Matt asked him, “So, Ben, how are you holding up?” and Ben responded, “Well, they say you just have to grin and bear it, but I can’t grin so I guess I’ll just have to bear it.” (He would have smirked at that point, but he couldn’t.)

And you know what? Sometimes that’s how life is. There is nothing to grin about. You find yourself in a completely miserable situation that has no bright side. The doctor tells you that your illness will not be cured. Your spouse cheats on you, again. You have another miscarriage. You lose your job and foreclose on your home.

Maybe it could be worse, but maybe it couldn’t.

So then how can God talk about joy so much in the Bible? We are told to “Rejoice in the Lord” (Philippians 4:4), to “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), and to “Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2).

In Genesis 16, we read about Hagar. She was one of Abraham’s slaves, and Sarah asked him to sleep with Hagar so that he could have children. Then, Sarah got jealous and turned on Hagar, and she asked Abraham to send her away. He didn’t, but he let Sarah mistreat Hagar, and so she ran away, pregnant, into the desert. And the Bible says that God spoke to her there, in the midst of her suffering, and He revealed himself to her as El Roi, the God who sees me. And then he sent her back to Sarah. Well, as we all know, Sarah finally became pregnant, as God had promised, and she gave birth to Isaac. And then Hagar comes back into the picture in Genesis 21. She gets jealous of Hagar, again, and has Abraham send her away with her young son, Ishmael. So they wander off into the desert, and they run out of water and food, and she places her son under a bush and walks away so that she doesn’t have to watch him die. Then, an angel appears to her and God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. Talk about a life of misery!

So how are we supposed to respond when confronted with a Hagar situation of our own? How can we possibly give glory to God when there is nothing glorious to be found?

Many times, the solution is to compare. We look outside of our situations for comfort by saying things like, “Well, it could always be worse, you know...it could be (x)”. So what happens when (x) happens to you? “Well, at least it isn’t (y)!” So what happens when (y) comes along? What then?

We see God’s glory not by shifting our perspective so that we are gazing outside of our hardships, but by shifting our perspective within them. Instead of focusing on the unanswered prayers and the apparent absence of God’s mercy, we must focus on the prayers that are answered and the mercy that we are given. God didn’t remove Hagar from her suffering in either her two Biblical appearances, but He gave her what she needed to keep on keeping on. If her eyes had been trained on what He didn’t do, she would have been hopeless. But Hagar knew El Roi, and she focused on the fact that He saw her and He was with her in her suffering.

Last year, as many of you know, I wanted to stay home with Ellis so badly. I prayed for it, I had everyone that I know pray for it, I prayed with Matt for it, we even went all Gideon and laid out a fleece trying to figure out what I should do. I was convinced that we just had to take a leap of faith and that God would honor that and we would be fine. Matt was not so convinced, and he (rightly) decided that I needed to go back to work. And so I did.

At least we had great insurance. At least I had a job. But you know what? I didn’t want the insurance or the job. I wanted to be at home with my son, just barely scraping by. Most days were fine, of course, but I never really wanted to be there. But God got me through by answering small prayers. Ellis slept through the night, so I got enough sleep. My seventh period class was my best class, so I left every day feeling pretty good about my job. I had several opportunities to present to and train other teachers. I had excellent childcare. God gave me opportunities to minister to my students and other staff members. I knew that I was not forsaken nor abandoned.

I had a miscarriage before Ellis’ pregnancy, and it was of course awful. Having a miscarriage is terrible because you are completely aware of what is happening, but there is nothing you can do. I remember Matt and I sitting on our couch, just praying and pleading for the life of our unborn child. But God did not answer our big prayer. Our baby died. However, God sustained me through it. He brought me joy in the midst of my suffering, through a Bible verse that a friend shared with me: "Psalm 34: 4-5: I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered in shame." That was a promise from God that I would be okay, and I was! Unexplicably so!

My mom has an embroidered hanging on her wall that says, “Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.” And for most of my life, I thought about what I had in material terms. In Hebrews 13:5, however, the Bible says, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” I now realize that the most important thing that I have is a Savior that will never leave me nor forsake me. I have a Savior that will not rescue me from every circumstance, but that will walk with me through them, and will give me subtle and not-so-subtle reminders that I am not forgotten.

One of my favorite Bible passages is Lamentations 3:22-23. It says, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is His faithfulness”.

And what I love about this verse is the word “consumed”. We are not consumed. When I think of consumed, I think of totally devoured, completely eaten up, nothing left, plate licked clean. I think of myself with a dozen of my dad’s sweet corn. Gone in 60 seconds. God says that we are not consumed, but he doesn’t say that we aren’t eaten up, or snacked on a little bit. He doesn’t say that His great love prevents us from feeling down in the dumps, it says that because of His love there will be a little bit of us left to carry on.

You may never know why God didn’t answer your big prayer, but you can take comfort knowing that you were never forsaken nor abandoned. As you turn your eyes from the blackness of your suffering and look to the Glorious One who loves you beyond belief, your face will be radiant, too.

Oh. My. BOB.

2013-06-24T19:03:00.003-07:00

I ran with the double BOB for the first time today. It.was.amazing.

I should clarify: the running was not amazing. The running was miserable. The BOB was amazing.

Matt and I upgraded to the BOB Revolution SE Duallie a few months ago when REI's most recent 20 percent off coupon and annual membership dividends came out. (We will always buy our major outdoor/adventure gear from REI because their return policy is second to none--and there are many things that could go wrong with a stroller!!) Mom and Dad gave us the single version as their baby gift to us when Ellis was born, and we have loved it. To say that it is "hardy" is quite the understatement, and it is so easy to pack and unpack from a vehicle. It moves incredibly easily on pavement, so jogging is as easy as it can be considering that you are pushing something. I've been using the single BOB Revolution since Leland was born; pushing Ellis in the stroller and wearing Leland in my Ergo (an Ellis gift from my Durfee aunts and grandma, and another product I couldn't live without!). However, Leland and I have gotten awfully sweaty these last few weeks with temperatures in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s (unheard of in Alaska)!! So even though Leland is still quite small to go in a stroller without a carseat attachment--our carseat, which we absolutely love, doesn't fit the BOB--I decided that it was time.

This morning, I dragged the box from the garage into the living room. I was pretty impressed with myself, because I managed to do this while wearing Leland in his Moby wrap (an Ellis gift from Steph) and with Ellis and Jemma running back and forth in the doorway, up and down the steps, between the garage and kitchen.

Hmm...I wonder how many more product placements I can squeeze into this post?

The Stroller

Ellis in his new wheels!

Anyway, I dragged the box into the house, pulled the stroller and three wheels from it, and had it completely assembled on the living room floor just a few minutes later. It is so easy to assemble, a girl with mommy brain can do it!! Just slide the wheel shafts into the holes and push the levers to tighten them in. Ellis immediately climbed into one of the seats and was rarin' to go.

The Revolution SE Duallie comes with a snack tray for the kids and a handlebar console for the adult. However, a flyer inside the box informed us that due to low inventory on the handlebar console, we would have to wait and have one mailed to us when they became available. I didn't have a problem with this because, as compensation, the company offered us the choice of the weather shield or sun shade for FREE! Wahoo! I have no problem waiting for the handlebar console if it means a free weather shield, which normally costs $69.00! I love it when a company has anticipatory customer service.

Since Leland is still very young and technically not recommended to be riding in the stroller sans car seat, I did a little rigging to give him additional head support and comfort. I simply placed the Boppy Noggin, which was a hand-me-down from Thianny, between the two shoulder straps and then loosened the straps so that they fit around the outside of the

Asleep after the run

pillow. They were still tight enough to pull the pillow up around Leland's head a little bit; just not squish it. Leland always sleeps on his Boppy Noggin to help prevent him from developing a flat spot, but I was excited to find this additional use for it. It's another great product!! With the Noggin, he was snug as a bug in his seat.

In addition to the fantastic, super-easy set-up of the stroller, another feature that I love is the separation between the two seats. Ellis can't steal binkies from Leland, and I can adjust the recline on the seats to match each boy's needs--Leland was at a full recline, and Ellis was fully upright. Each seat's sunshade is also individually adjustable, so I was able to have Ellis' up halfway so that he could see, and Leland's was completely down so that he didn't get any sun or bugs flying into his sweet little face. The shades go down farther on the Duallie than on the single, which is nice for those days that you are out when the sun is at just the right spot on the horizon to blind the kiddos. I don't foresee that being a problem with this stroller! From the back-end, I have tons of visibility of the boys; both through the sun-shade roof flaps and through another opening that is just underneath the handlebars. Both are able to be covered in case of sun or precipitation.

The Running
Since Leland was born, I've gone on four runs: 2 miles, 2.5 miles, 3 miles, and 3.5 miles. The route is mostly flat, and I run away from the house for about a mile and then start weaving back and forth between streets, working my way back. It's great post-partum because I can choose to add on back-and-forths or run straight home depending on how I'm feeling!

My goal for today was to run out for the mile, and then run down each street but walk on the short 100-yard-or-less stretches between them. Even with the biggest hill on the mile out, I was feeling great when I reached the turn-around point and considered continuing to run. "No, Martina", I told myself, "You'll regret it later!". Smart move, me! I walked the first in-between stretch, then picked up running when I reached the next street. With this strategy, I was able to do the full 3.5 miles that I had done without the stroller last week. I pretty much wanted to die, but I did it! From here, I'm going to work on eliminating the walking before I start adding on more distance...one of you real runners out there can tell me whether or not you think that's a good strategy ;-).

More about the stroller...

So yeah. The stroller is amazing. As I was running up my first hill, I felt like the kids were on a jet ski. The shocks on that sucker are insane. I'm huffing and puffing and pushing and the thing should have been jolting back and forth and up and down, but instead it was just going swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. I could see the kids' heads, and they were not bouncing around in the least! The gentle up-and-down motion was like going over waves, and it lulled Leland right to sleep. I realized toward the end of the run that the stroller moves so easily that I don't even need to push it, per say--I can bop it in front of me every few strides and therefore retain full use of both of my arms! Wish I had thought of that at the beginning of the run, because it is so tiring to have even one arm stuck to the stroller at any given time!

Comfy as can be!

I finished out the run with a trip to Walmart, which involved hopping a few curbs (ain't no thang with the BOB!), and I loaded up the tray below the seats with my purchases. There is a ton of storage, which will be super handy for the many outings that are surely in our future! I can't wait to use this thing in the airports on our way to NY next week!!

A BOB is definitely an investment, but you can save significantly by waiting for the REI coupons that come out a few times a year or by finding a used one on Craigslist (but you have to be vigilant--they go fast once they are posted!). Between the coupon and our annual REI member dividend, we paid about as much as we would have on a used one from Craigslist, and we have the safety net of the REI return policy. Even if we had paid full price, though, it would have been worth it! It will allow me to stay active and get back in shape, even with two little ones. Running will not be any more of a chore than it normally is, which is important because I need to eliminate excuses if I am going to get back into the habit of running! I'll also be able to use the stroller on hikes with trails that are wide enough, which is awesome because I love me some hiking!! I think I'll have to keep the single stroller/kid carrier combo going for South Fork, but the Nature Center, Eklutna...maybe even Rabbit Lake would all be doable with the Duallie.

I looooooove me some BOB!! Great product.

Leland Joseph, Month One

2013-06-12T15:44:00.004-07:00

One month and forty-five minutes ago, a big little boy was placed on my chest. Since then, life has been pretty crazy. Bringing home your second child from the hospital is a lot different than bringing home your first! With our first son, Ellis, we were able to spend every waking moment getting him on the perfect Babywise schedule, snapping photos of every cute facial expression, burping him until there was no gas left in his belly, and silencing every whimper with sweet snuggles. By the time that I'm done nursing Leland, I'm not always able to keep him awake (or wake him back up) because Ellis is into something he shouldn't be...again. I still haven't caught a smile on camera, and I only have one or two pictures of him with his eyes open! Sometimes, it feels like there is just not enough of me to go around. I'd be concerned that Leland might be feeling neglected were it not for the thousand and two kisses with which his big brother smothers him each day!

*****

Sweet Leland,

Cliché though it may be to say it, I truly cannot believe that a month has passed since our first embrace. This month has been a whirlwind!! You attended your first graduation party, your first bridal shower, your first church service, your first dinner at Moose's Tooth, experienced your first snowfall (on May 17--crazy!), saw your first mama moose and set of babies, and had your first road trip to Soldotna (twice, actually!). You have seen three doctors and a cardiologist (everything is fine), and you had your first minor "surgery", if you can even call it that, to tie off the skin tag that was on your left ear. Now, all that remains of it is a little scab, and that will soon disappear as well. You spent two weeks with Oma Durfee and Aunt Sam and two weeks with Grandma Bex. You've gone on walks nearly every day and been a passive attendee at playdates with a handful of friends.

You love loud noises like the sound of the shower, the vacuum cleaner, or the blender. You don't so much love the sound of your big brother screeching in your ear, but you don't seem to hate it, either. You love being held, lifting your head to see the world, wearing a clean diaper (go figure), and swinging. At your two-week appointment, you were not quite back to your birth weight; just two weeks later, though, you were up to 13 pounds! Oh my! When you grip my finger, it feels like a grown-up is shaking my hand. You are going to be big and strong like your Uncle Ben! You fill up your carseat and you've already outgrown your newborn clothes. You are our gentle giant. Your scheming brother Ellis is already your best friend, and we know that he is going to love and protect you...and boss you around. We already see how the name that we chose for you is the perfect reflection of who you are, just as Ellis continues to prove that the same is true for his name.

You are the perfect addition to our family, and we love you!

Mom

The (Second) Birth

2013-06-06T11:34:00.003-07:00

Over the last few months, I had been telling Matt that I was so excited to give birth again. He, of course, would roll his eyes and call me crazy, but I think he just didn't understand that the feeling you have after you have endured hours of painful contractions and ruptured every blood vessel in your body and pushed a large object out of a not-so-large space is really quite incredible.

Okay, I guess I see what he was thinking.

But seriously, I felt so TOUGH after Ellis was born. I felt like I could do anything! I imagine it must be similar to the feeling a runner has after winning a marathon or that a climber feels while standing atop Denali. Except not only do you have that feeling, but you have a baby as well--and not just any baby, but a baby that didn't exist and then somehow appeared inside of you and grew and is now sitting in your arms--are you kidding me?! Giving birth is the coolest.

So I had been looking forward not just to no longer being pregnant, but also improving on my previous birthing experience (looking for a new PR, if you will). I was in labor with Ellis for about 18 hours, but I never had what I would have considered to be an intolerable contraction, so it really wasn't bad. Pushing, however--that was miserable. I pushed for an hour and a half, and it was exhausting, and I was really bad at it. My goal with delivery #2 was to be a better pusher!

I assumed that labor would go about the same: wake up in the early morning to slight crampy contractions, spend the day cleaning the house and baking as the contractions got a little stronger, and eventually head to the hospital when I felt like the baby was getting down low and ready to 'head out'.

You know what they say about assuming? Yeah, they're right.

May 11, 12:15pm: Discouraged that yet another day was passing by without the onset of labor, I laid down on our bed to snag a quick nap while Ellis napped.

May 11, 12:15:01pm: POP! My water broke. Or, at least, I thought that it did. My water never broke with Ellis, so I didn't have anything to compare it to, and the water didn't gush out when I stood up and leave a trail of bodily fluids down the hall to the bathroom like it does in all the movies, so obviously I was confused because everything else about giving birth in the movies is so much like reality (ha, ha). So of course I called my dear friend Nurse Kirsten for a nurse consult, and she concluded that it probably was my water breaking. Since I still wasn't having any contractions, she advised going for a walk to get things going before heading to the hospital so that I wouldn't be stuck laboring away in a small room for many hours.

Matt, meanwhile, had several showings lined up for that afternoon. "What should I do? Should I cancel?", he asked. "No, I don't think so", I replied (not sounding too sure). I still hadn't had a contraction, after all, and the showings would be over within the next four hours. I couldn't imagine that we would need to head to the hospital within that short period of time. So we decided that he would keep his afternoon appointments.

And then I had a contraction and changed my mind.

May 11, 1:00pm: "Well, maybe I'll take a shower and get ready and we can just head to the hospital, just to be safe", I said. "Can you call Nate or Kylie to cover for you?"

So Matt hopped on the phone to find someone to show properties for him, and I jumped in the shower. By the time I got out of the shower, my contractions were starting to hurt. I peered out of the bathroom. "Um, do you think that you could start getting ready to go to the hospital?" I asked Matt. "Yup just let me finish sending these emails".

I dried my hair. The contractions were REALLY starting to hurt. I peered out again. "Um, do you think that you could start getting ready?" "Yup just ten more minutes and then I'll be done". "I don't think that we have 10 more minutes...can you finish up in the car?" "Okaaaaay..."

I don't know how husbands do it. As if we aren't crazy and indecisive enough during pregnancy, labor is enough to make any man lose his mind! In the span of an hour I went from telling Matt to keep his afternoon appointments to rushing him out the door, concerned that we wouldn't make it to the hospital in time!

So off to the hospital we went. This time, I would deliver at Providence since we are no longer military. The car ride was less excruciating than last time, even though it was longer, since I wasn't 9cm dilated. The contractions, however, were more painful than anything that I had experienced during my first labor. Ouch! I was beginning to understand why a person would want to get an epidural!!

May 11, 2:30pm: We arrived at the hospital and drove around for.ev.er. to find a parking spot. My husband, being the parking ninja that he is, eventually found "princess parking" for us (the second closest spot to the door--boo ya!), and I grabbed the hospital bag and rushed toward the door. "Slow down!", said Matt, "Take it easy!" I guess I was anxious to get inside.

The labor and delivery wing of the hospital has been under construction for quite some time, and of course the hallway that I had used to access the check-in desk two days before was now blocked off. So we followed the detour and checked in. I guess I wasn't acting as though I was in enough pain to justify an expedited check-in, because it felt like we were there for.ev.er. The girls were making small talk and asking about my first son and commenting on the weather...hello!! Get me to a doctor! When it finally came time to walk over to triage, we were of course assigned to an injured nurse that was as slow as a tortoise. She waddled through the detour and over to the L&D entrance, and I bounced up and down in place behind her. It took for.ev.er. Notice a pattern emerging?

May 11, 3:00pm: One weigh-in, urine-sample, gown-change later, a nurse strapped the monitors onto my impossibly large belly and I felt momentary relief as I heard the baby's heartbeat. It's always a relief to hear that sound! Of course my relief was interrupted by a contraction. Yowsa!

"Sooooo, you think your water broke?" asked the nurse. "I think so...I don't know for sure...I don't know what else it would have been!", I responded. She then went through a series of questions, and none of my answers were right. Hesitantly, she said, "Well, it sounds like it probably was your water, I think. I'll just check to make sure. So what I'm going to have you do is cough really hard and I'll look and see if water pools up". So we did the cough test and the results were inconclusive. "Okay well yeah I think it pooled up a little, so yeah I think that your water broke. I'll just take a sample and look at it under the microscope to be sure". A few minutes later she came back. "I'm just going to grab another sample because I couldn't really tell from the first slide..." And finally she came back a third time and said, "Okay good news! Your water broke!". Phew. Apparently I need to improve my water-breaking next time around!!

She checked my cervix (this probably happened sometime during the water-break-checking, but my memory is blurred by contractions from H-E-Double Hockey Sticks) and smiled. Excitedly, she said, "You're 4cm dilated! That's great!" "Not great", I thought, since I was already 2cm dilated on Thursday. All this pain and only 2cm improvement? She asked if I took any pain meds for my first delivery. Nope. Did I want to take any this time? Hmm...I actually considered it for a minute. "I guess not". "So your acceptable level of pain is a 10/10?" I looked at the chart on the wall. A 10/10 is described as "Unbearable Worst Possible Pain". Gulp. "I guess so".

And off she went.

Now, most of you know that I have a slight fainting problem. And because of this fainting problem, I didn't go on a hospital tour because I knew that I might have one of my "episodes". But because I didn't go on a hospital tour, I didn't understand what it was that we were waiting for to move from triage to labor and delivery. So Matt and I were just kindof hanging out in the triage room, waiting for...who knows what...and I was starting to feel nauseous and like I wanted to die and all of those good things that you hear women talk about when they describe labor. So when the nurse popped back in to check on us, I asked, "So, I'm just wondering...when do we go up to labor and delivery? Because I'm starting to feel kindof like I have to push...I think...I mean I never really felt that with my first delivery, so I don't really know, but...I think that's what I am feeling...?" "Do you want me to check you?", she asked. "I guess, if you don't mind".

May 11, 3:30pm: "Oh wow you are 7cm! We need to get you over to labor and delivery! I hope Doctor Kim gets here soon...someone should have called him!" (Um, can we confirm that please?) "Can you walk or do you want me to wheel you over?" Wheelchair please, thanks. Roll out.

I was the only patient in labor and delivery when I arrived, so I was rolled into one of the brand-new (within the last two months) rooms! Not that I was there long enough to enjoy it. Nurse Carl tried quite unsuccessfully to hook up an IV (I hadn't been drinking my water that day!) while Nurse Liz took my vitals. As they buzzed around me to get everything ready, in strolled Dr. Kim. He stood calmly in front of me and slightly to the right with his hands folded in front of him while the nurses did their thing. Dr. Kim was the doctor on call from Anchorage Women's Clinic, and he was the only doctor from the clinic that I had never met--not that I cared, I just thought that it was funny. After a few moments, he asked me if I thought that I was ready to push. "Yes!" I said.

May 11, 3:45pm: Doctor Kim checked my cervix as Carl and Liz continued to set me up. "Break down the bed now!", he said, "we need to start pushing!" He looked at me and asked if I thought that it was a big baby. I didn't understand him (I didn't really understand anything that he said without at least two or three repetitions), but after looking to Matt for 'translation', I responded, "I don't know!" He felt my belly and said, "8 pound baby", which was the same estimate that my midwives had given over the last few weeks.

He gave me instructions for how to push: "Chin down, hold breath, grab legs behind knees, pull back". Sounds easy enough, right? "One push. One push and you have baby". That sounded good to me!

Well, remember how I had that goal of being a better pusher this time around? It was not to be. Every single one of my natural instincts is wrong. Dr. Kim shouted "CHIN DOWN CHIN DOWN!" and I pulled my chin back. "HOLD BREATH HOLD BREATH!" he shouted as I blew it out. "LEGS IN LEGS IN" he screamed as I pushed my legs away from me with all of my strength. Man, I stink at this.

Nurse Carl got in my face to remind me of what I was supposed to be doing, since I was clearly having a hard time understanding Doctor Kim (understanding and executing, actually). With each push, I looked to Matt for help (as if he could do anything to help me at this point), and then to Nurse Carl to be reminded of what I was supposed to be doing.

May 11, 4:02pm: Four contractions later, it was all over. A 9lb 5.9oz slimy baby boy was placed on my chest. A slimy, beautiful, miraculous, perfect baby boy. A screaming, breathing, living human baby boy that didn't exist at all just nine months ago, and somehow formed and grew inside of another human and is now outside and ready to begin life on his own.

Wow. Giving birth is the coolest.

Leland Joseph

2013-05-20T12:48:00.003-07:00

I'm sitting here trying to think of how to begin this post. Saying that "Leland Joseph joined our family..." or "Our family has grown...!" or "We welcomed our second son..." all seem to minimize the miracle that happened last Saturday. A baby's transition from life in the womb to life in his parents' arms is too grand, too wonderful, too mind-boggling to put into words--even if merely to announce that it happened! Six days before his due date but long after I was ready to meet him, our second son made that mystifying transition from life within to independent breath.

Leland Joseph Bex was born on Saturday, May 11 at 4:02pm AKST. The doctor placed his hefty 9 lb 5.9oz, 20in body on my chest, and I became a mother of two. Leland Joseph is named after his great-grandfathers: Leland was my Grandpa Durfee's middle name, and Joseph was both the first name of Matt's Grandpa Mancroni and the middle name of my Grandpa vanLieshout's (well, that one is technically Josefus--close enough).

I was fortunate to grow up next door to my Durfee grandparents. Grandma and Grandpa were ever-present in my life, and I spent many summer days working alongside (or more likely taking orders from) my Grandpa Durfee and many cool winter evenings sitting on their brown plaid couch, listening to Grandpa recount stories from his childhood from his recliner. (I'd then spend the rest of the night trying to decide whether the stories were true or not.) Always a prankster, always a talker, and always in his garden, life on the farm was never the same after Grandpa died in 2006. When Matt and I were mulling over options for our second son's name, we were drawn to his middle name, Leland: it's old-timey and it's manly: our two boy-name criteria. However, Matt and I believe very strongly that our children will be what we name them to be. In the Bible, a person's name is incredibly significant: children were named prophetically and others received new names after experiencing major life change. Leland means "Land lying fallow", and it seemed to us that giving our son that name would speak unproductiveness, laziness, and failure over his life: not exactly the future that we wanted for our child.

The beautiful thing about a child's first name is that it is the beginning of who they are, not the end.

Joseph is one of my favorite Bible figures. He was an incredible man of God that experienced persecution and hardship despite living an honorable life. Time and again, he was given the short end of the stick--hated and sold by his brothers, falsely accused of rape, imprisoned--and yet his response to each situation was always to trust God and live uprightly. In response, God delivered him from each situation and blessed him abundantly. What a beautiful story! And his story all began when his mother, Rachel, begged God for years on end to bless her barren womb with a child: the Lord did, and Rachel named him "Joseph", which means "The Lord will add".

You see, God can take even the most fallow land--land in which nothing grows or flourishes--and add life to it. Matt's Grandpa Joe accepted Christ at the very end of his life, allowing his children to experience a healed relationship with their father and leaving them with beautiful memories to cherish. It is never too late and you are never too far gone for the Lord to add life to a dead soul!

Joseph is Leland's middle name because we pray and trust that the Lord will add to his life as our sweet son trusts in his Creator. In and of himself--precious though he may be--Leland is nothing but what the Lord will add to him. None of us are. We would not even be alive if God did not give us breath. If there is one thing that Matt and I have learned over our last five years of marriage, it is that we are completely and utterly helpless and without control of our lives. Day to day, we make choices and decisions, but our prayer has always been that as we make our plans, the Lord would guide our steps (Proverbs 16:9). He has done just that. He added strengths (and weaknesses) to each of us and chose when we would be born and when we will die, all so that we could fulfill whatever mysterious purpose He has planned for us. We trust that He will do the same for Leland, and we wait with excited anticipation to see what God will add to his life.

We pray that Leland will be a humble servant of the King of Kings; recognizing that he lives, breathes, and has his being only by God's grace; trusting in God through each moment of his life; and always striving to be obedient to the One that gave him life.

Leland Joseph, we love you already and are so excited for the man that you will become!

Month Seven

2012-07-28T17:56:00.002-07:00

We weren’t home for very much of month seven of your life--just a few days on either end of visit to New York and epic journey home. It was, therefore, probably the most interesting month so far. Not only do you become more alert and able to interact with your surroundings with each passing day, but you were confronted with many new things, people, and environments. You met many of your extended family members and were held by our oldest and dearest friends. You lept forward with excitement to touch the drool falling from calves’ mouths on the farm, grasped fistfuls of kitten hair as they played on your lap, and stared wide-eyed with confusion at the bizarre, noisy chicken that lives behind my grandma’s house. You flew on an airplane, swam in a lake, people-watched in nine breweries, slept in ten hotels, and watched twelve states and three provinces whiz by your window.

You have become a complete heartbreaker. Hearts melted every time you came out of your carseat. Whether you were in your stroller, on my hip, in your daddy’s arms, or in a highchair, you were twisting and turning and leaning in every direction so that you could make eyes at everyone in the room. Every night at dinner, the customers at the surrounding tables would be distracted from their food and conversation to admire your smiles and giggles. One of our waitresses started crying when she picked you up and you touched her face as you smiled at her! You were a joy to us and brought great joy to everyone with whom you interacted over this last month. What a blessing you are to us! I pray that your personality remains joyful forever, that you will “Rejoice in the LORD always!”, because it is so wonderful to know that you were able to brighten the days of so many people with that little sparkle in your eye. Oh, do we love you!

You have truly found your voice, and you spend just about all day, every day making joyful noises unto the Lord. Well, I think that at this point you are just making joyful noises unto your own ears, but someday it will be unto the Lord. You shriek, you “talk” (by moving your lips by shrieking), you laugh, you waffle your shrieks by sticking your fist in and out of your mouth, you blow loud raspberries for hours on end, and a few times it has even been theorized that you said the word “cat”. I pray that this is not true, because I really hate cats, and so I think that you can come up with a better first word. Ew.

You have also discovered your tongue, and it now sticks outside of your mouth more than it remains in. In line with the rest of your body, it never stops moving--you lick everything. When there isn’t anything within a tongue’s reach, you just lick the air or attempt to grab it with your fingers.

You love standing, too! Perhaps it is because you were forced into a seated position for so many hours as we drove across the country, so you are trying to make up for lost time. When I prop up your arms on any piece of furniture--the couch, your pack and play, etc.--you will stay standing there until your giggles get the best of you and you can’t hold your laughter-weakened limbs tight any longer. You think that standing is hilarious! Ill prop you up and walk away, and I can come back five minutes later and you’ll still be there, licking whatever your arms are holding and laughing like there’s no tomorrow! Once again, it is joy that marks your existence...

...well, joy always has, but there have been some not-so-joyful moments that have cast a shadow on your life this last week. You have begun teething, that stage of life dreaded by mothers everywhere and hated by those poor innocent children that must endure it. We had a few very rough nights, but now I’ve discovered that a swab of Orajel and two teething tablets are enough for you to allow me to pop the pacifier in your mouth, and once you have that you can fall peacefully back to sleep. The big upside to teething, however, is that you have become a snuggler for the first time in your life. Before teething, you would never rest your head upon my chest because you were too busy checking out everything that was going on around you. Now, however, the pain and frustration of your surfacing teeth have helped you to discover the comfort of snuggling up with your parents. It is so precious, and so for that I am thankful even for teething.

We love you, and we are so glad to be back at home with you!!

North to Alaska Day 6: Wall to Billings

2012-07-20T23:14:00.006-07:00

As we neared Mount Rushmore, my eyes were trained on the mountains ahead of us, eagerly searching for my first glimpse of the legendary monument. The anticipation was killing me! It was the same feeling that I had seven years ago as my train pulled into the station in Venice. Rushmore, like the sights in Venice, is one of those destinations of which every schoolchild is aware from quite a young age. To be able to see it in person is truly a treat!

We followed the highway uphill from the town of Keystone, South Dakota in a long line of cars, winding slowly through the Blackhills National Forest. The tight curves and uphill grade made it impossible to see much more than the blend of green, spiny conifers and browned, dried-out desiduous trees that enveloped the road.

And then, taking a cue from Harry Houdini, there he was! President George Washington appeared in front of us, perched high above the trees on a rocky cliff. A few more seconds passed, and he was joined by his friends: Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

--Note: In case you are confused, I am speaking of the carved faces of the Presidents, not the actual Presidents. They are dead and unable to appear in person.--

Instead of being filled with excitement and awe as I would have imagined, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. In my mind, I had pictured the faces to be enormous. Huge! Ginormous even! And it’s not that they aren’t--Washington’s nose is 21 feet long and the noses of the other three presidents are 20 feet long each--but that you can’t get close to it at all. I expected to see an entire mountainside carved away, so that you could stand on the ground in the shadow of the faces with your feet at their collars and crane your neck skyward to look up into their massive noses looming above you. Instead, the faces were carved into the very top left corner of the ridge in which they reside, and it was way off in the distance and very high up.

We stayed long enough to take a few pictures, but were eager to move on in order to escape the ever-growing crowd and soaring temperatures. Although I remain a bit disappointed, I am so glad that we made the trip because it gave us a reason to research its history. It is an inspiring story of the imagination and determination of a trio of men--a historian, a Senator, and a sculptor--that worked tirelessly toward the realization of a vision to create an eternal reminder of the historical and ideological pillars of our nation, represented by four men that were integral to their development and preservation. Their selfish desire was to put South Dakota on the map, but hey, doesn't every town? The only controversial inclusion was President Roosevelt, since he had died a mere eight years before the creation of the monument, raising concerns that not enough time had passed for him to be tested and proved worthy by history. If you have a few spare moments, I would highly recommend reading this incredible essay that is posted on a plaque at the memorial.

Our next stop was quite a different experience. A few miles down the road, we arrived at Crazy Horse, in Custer, South Dakota. Crazy Horse is a mountain carving that was begun almost seventy years ago with the goal of honoring the Lakota leader of the same name and thereby honoring Native American culture and history. Since the Blackhills are a sacred location for the Lakota, it was important to them that the region contain a memorial to one of their leaders as well as the four Presidents. And unlike the Presidential memorial, the size of Crazy Horse did not disappoint! The carving is massive, and despite the decades of work that have brought it to this point, many generations will pass before it is finished.

We pulled up to the toll booth to pay our entrance fee, and our jaws dropped when the ticket man asked us to fork over $27.00 for two adults and a child. Matt literally choked when he heard the cost, and said something about how he couldn’t believe that they would charge such an exhorbitant rate when we had just paid $11.00 for an annual pass to Mount Rushmore! The kind man had mercy on us and told us that if pictures were all that we were seeking, we could drive to the bottom of the hill, snap a few shots, and then pull a u-turn and leave. All he asked was for a donation, which we gladly made in order to avoid highway robbery; much like you give a burglar your wallet so that he doesn’t take your life! It was neat to see Crazy Horse, but I must admit that my experience was more than slightly marred by aggravation at the racketeering that funds it. I understand that sculptors must be paid if the memorial is ever to be completed, but come on! It was a bit ridiculous.

After our visits to the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse monuments, we returned to Rapid City for lunch at the Firehouse Brewing Company. Rapid City was surprisingly nice for being in the middle of nowhere; perhaps as a result of being such a highly visited tourist destination. The downtown area was very well manicured and boasted several cute boutiques and interesting restaurants. The Firehouse Brewing Company was no exception. Housed in the original Rapid City Firehouse, the exterior was true to its roots and beautifully restored. The interior was filled iwth firehouse memorabilia, and despite its classification as a brewery, was incredibly family-friendly. We ordered the sampler of the six beers that they had on tap, all of which were fairly unremarkable, and two different versions of a corned beef sandwich. Mine was a Reuben with a side of Gorgonzola-Ale soup (both scrumptious) and Matt’s was an interesting concoction with sautéed onions and wasabi mayonnaise (what’s with the wasabi mayo in this area of the country?!). We were both very satisfied with our meals, except for the fact that they didn’t serve it with a pickle spear! I mean, come on--who serves a sandwich without a pickle spear?!

Our GPS routed us through Rapid City’s Historic District, and we were amazed by the magnificence and beauty of the old homes that lined its streets. Our curiosity was piqued: in the middle of this barren badlands in this most harsh of climates--scorching heat in the summer and frigid cold in the winter, and ferocious winds year-round--men and women had lived, worked, and thrived. What had brought them west, and after traveling so very far, why stop here? What was it about this place that whispered to them, “stop here!”? (It was gold.)

Wyoming

South Dakota faded into Wyoming, and the highway stretched out in front of us, no end in sight. A word of advice to anyone traveling through Wyoming: empty your bladder before you enter the state. Not only are there no bathrooms before you reach Douglas, but there is nowhere for you to squat away from the sight of passing vehicles. Highway exits are simply dirt roads that drift off into the distance. But whenever I was able to crush the discomfort of my bursting bladder in my mental vice, I was able to see the beauty of God’s majestic creation all around me: acres of dry, patchy grasslands interspersed with dots of pale green sagebrush, horses twitching their tails beneath shady trees atop low ridgelines overlooking the highway, and pointy moguls of red clay dotting the otherwise uninterrupted terrain.

Past Douglas, the Rockies become visible in the distance and you descend into a valley of sorts, although I was unaware that we had been traveing at an increased elevation. In the valley, irrigation lines spray water over luscious fields of hay, and trails of leafy green trees grow along the banks of tiny creeks that meander through the land. Cattle rest in the tall grasses and pronghorn deer graze nearby. Instead of horses, combines and other farm equipment dot the horizon, everyone busy at work. We crossed the state border into Montana, and a wall of grey clouds filled the western sky. We watched lightning crack through the sky for almost an hour before the first raindrops hit our windshield.

When it rains, it pours! Ellis woke up and we rolled down his sunshade, and he was mesmerized by the rain pelting his window. His eyes were trained on the droplets forced across the glass by the wind, and his little mouth formed a perfect “O”. The rain continued to pour down as we entered Billings, which made unloading the car at the hotel a bit challenging, and it rained on as we drove to dinner at the Montana Brewing Company, when it finally let up.

Ah, dinner. Now THAT is something to blog about! If you ever find yourself in Billings, Montana, make sure you stop at the Montana Brewing Company. I enjoyed their beer very much (they brew eight ales and no lagers, so it was right up my alley), but their food was even more amazing! Our appetizer was a heaping plate of Enchilada bites with dipping sauces, and the leaf lettuce in their garden salad had that earthy taste that testifies to its freshness. They offer a wide selection of specialty mac and cheese dishes, and my Red Rooster mac and cheese was second to none--even better than Dinosaur BBQ mac and cheese, if you can believe that. It was topped with buffalo chicken and crisp bacon, and it was heavenly. Matt ordered the burger version of my mac and cheese, and the hot-sauce drizzled, bacon-stacked carnivore’s delight was served on a pretzel bun. We were fat and happy when we left, especially since the food was the least expensive of all of the eateries that we had viisted to date.

num num num

That night, we slipped easily into a food-induced coma. Good night, Billings.

North to Alaska Day 5: Omaha to Wall

2012-07-16T22:36:00.002-07:00

At almost every stop that we have made on the trip, the fact that we are traveling across the country has come up in conversation. No matter to whom we are talking--the cashier at Starbucks, the waiter at the restaurant, the park ranger, etc.--the reaction is almost always the same: a look of shock and horror, and a censored comment like, “Wow! That’s...far!” Sometimes, their auto-censor fails and something else will slip out, like “You are insane!” or “Why would you ever want to do something like that?”. Regardless of their reaction, it is pretty obvious that most people think that we are crazy.

Matt and Ellis at the very short and smelly Sioux Falls

Maybe they are right. Perhaps we are a little wacky in the head for hauling a seven-month old across the continent without being forced into it. But you know what? What’s even more crazy is having the opportunity to drive across the country and not taking it.

Do you know what a beautiful, inspiring, diverse country you live in? Do you have any idea at all?! As I am typing this, we are driving across eastern South Dakota. We just left Sioux Falls, which is an entirely lame city and quite smelly to boot, but we are now back on the open road and surrounded by farm fields in every direction. A strong, hot wind is rippling through the corn fields and transforming the grassy, rolling hills into a sea of a thousand shades of green. A field of golden oats has been recently mowed and baled, creating a seemingly never-ending sculpture park of perfect round bales. This is beauty.

Our favorite part of Sioux Falls...the sign at the Falls Café!

A billboard awhile back read, “South Dakota farmers help feed seven billion people”. As Matt and I reflected on that assertion, we were full of appreciation for our nation, because you truly are free to live whatever kind of life that you want! If you want a big city with fast cars, fine dining, and every kind of entertainment available, you can have that in Chicago. If you prefer rolling hills and open roads, you can have that in South Dakota.

We just passed the Laura Ingalls Wilder house; the homestead on which the “Little House on the Prairie” books took place. Her family came west seeking a place to call their own and to live, farm, and raise a family. The people that live here today are not so different. Farm families, like the one in which I grew up, farm not just to make a living, but also for a love of the land and the animals that they raise. I’m reminded of this every time I read Facebook updates from an old 4H friend who is now married and, together with her husband, owns and operates a small dairy farm in Oneida County. Her pictures and status updates all demonstrate her love for the farming life. My three brothers are brilliant and could find success in any career field that they would choose to pursue, yet all three find satisfaction in dairy farming. Without people like Brianne, my brothers, and the many families that work the land through which we are driving, the people that chosen to live in big cities like Chicago would not have affordable, fresh food to eat. Thank God for the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness promised to us in our Declaration of Independence!

Cabela's: everything you need to thrive in SD

Our cross-country drive grows our belief in the importance of a small federal government with each new region that we enter. Each state is (or should be) free to make laws that meet the needs and fulfill the specific desires of the people that populate it; something that only makes sense when you experience the diversity of our nation first-hand.

And now we find ourselves in Wall, South Dakota, a small town about an hour and a half from Mount Rushmore. Wall is a dot that appears on the map only through the efforts of the Hustead family to advertise the drug store that they purchased in 1931 and advertise not only with hundreds of billboards spread across more than 300 miles in both directions on Route 90, but across the nation and even overseas. The store is unremarkable at best, which doesn’t really matter since there is little else in this part of the state. The entire town is built around this enormous, multi-block long drug store, and cars with license plates from 38 states fill the parking spots along the ridiculously overdone, tacky storefront. But the Husteads have made a living off of it for several generations now, and each year thousands of tourists take advantage of the services in the town that it has built.

On a sweltering day like today, most tourists are thankful for the hotel’s swimming pool. I am thankful for the air conditioning in our room that cools me down without soaking me in the urine of the thirty children still swimming in the pool.

Goodnight, Wall.

North to Alaska Day 4: Davenport to Omaha

2012-07-16T22:22:00.002-07:00

I went to Iowa once before for the National Junior Holstein Convention in Cedar Rapids sometime during my high school years: we visited the Field of Dreams, a John Deere factory, and had a huge field party/picnic at a nearby farm. My image of Iowa was, consequently, that of pure farm country. This time around, our trip across the state--from Davenport to Des Moines and across the border into Omaha, Nebraska--proved that Iowa is pure farm country.

Looking up from the patio at Raccoon River

Des Moines provided the perfect rest-stop at the halfway point of the drive. We ate lunch at Raccoon River Brewing Company, a truly delightful brewpub and pool hall in downtown Des Moines. The restaurant itself was enormous, although almost entirely empty. We requested to be seated in a shady outdoor patio that we had spotted when we pulled up, and we had it to ourselves except for one other couple enjoying a leisurely Saturday afternoon brew. We ordered the sampler and received tastings of the eight beers currently on tap. We were very impressed with the quality and variety of their selection, and (for once) equally impressed with their menu! We ordered a Chips and Dips appetizer that came with red, white, and blue corn tortilla chips and homemade guacamole, queso, and salsa. It was delightful! We split their pub salad and a sesame-crusted tuna burger with wasabi mayonnaise for our entrée, and were wowed by what complex flavors were delivered in such simple dishes. We would definitely return to Raccoon River during any future visits to Des Moines!

The selection

Even their menu was trendy!

We didn’t see much of the city, but what we did see was clean and well-maintained. We drove through a lakeside park that was packed with joggers and cyclists despite the soaring 105 degree temperatures! I was confused as to why there were more people sweating than swimming, but to each his own, right? Judging from its appearance only, it seemed like Des Moines would be a great place to live.

After Des Moines, we had just a few hours on the road in order to reach Omaha, Nebraska by nightfall, so we re-routed the GPS to take us on some county highways so that we could see more of the land. We loved seeing the beautiful old farmhouses in Iowa that sat next to either old, dilapidated barns or brand new, enormous buildings that serve as headquarters for one of the many crop farms in the area. We noticed that quite a few of the large, open fields along the road that we traveled had been divided into small, multi-leveled fields separated by seven to ten foot embankments. We assumed that it was for drainage purposes, and we jumped on the phone to confirm our hypothesis with Nathan and my Dad. They agreed that drainage was a valid reason, but more probably it was a measure taken to prevent erosion of the land. It’s great to have “phone-a-friends” that know agriculture when you spend so much time in farm country!

Tiered fields of Omaha

Upstream Brewing Company in Omaha

We crossed over the state border into Nebraska mid-afternoon and quickly found our hotel. We had planned to visit the Henry Doorly Zoo, recommended to us by several of our Nebraska-native friends in Alaska, but all three of us were ready to just take a break from travel and tourism. I did some laundry, Matt edited photos, and Ellis played in his pack-and-play (by the way, we LOVE our pack and play...it looks great and is so easy to set-up and take down!) for a few hours until dinnertime, when we drove to the Market Square area for dinner at Upstream Brewing Company. We had an excellent waiter who was clearly a beer connoisseur, and we enjoyed talking to him about our travels and the various breweries that we had visited thus far. The food was fine (except for the fried pickle chips, which were awesome--boy oh boy do I love pickles!), and the atmosphere was great. Market Square was lively and full of interesting people and unique restaurants and shops. I would love to return to Omaha and spend some more time there!

Overall, we enjoyed Omaha very much even though we didn’t actually “do” anything, other than go out to eat. The people were very friendly and well-mannered, and the city was very clean and seemed to have a lot to offer. Had we not had another 3,000 or so miles ahead of us, I think that we would have spent another night there. But we did, and so we didn’t.

Good night, Omaha.

North to Alaska Day 3: Chicago to Davenport

2012-07-15T21:20:00.004-07:00

Watching us pack the car in Chicago

Cleveland was amazing...Chicago was not.

I guess that Matt and I are just not big city people. We enjoyed our visit to the Field Museum in 2008, but traffic frustrations marred our overall opinion of the Windy City. This time, we planned to meet my dear friend Carey, her husband Kennedy, and their daughter Ayanna, at the Shedd Aquarium. I had read wonderful reviews of the aquarium and looked forward to spending time with Carey and meeting Ayanna!

We stayed in a hotel about a half hour from downtown Chicago, and had no trouble getting into the city on Friday morning. We arrived a bit early so that we could spend some time walking along the beach while we waited for the Kafatias. The water was a beautiful sea-foam green, and the waters were calm. The bicycle and foot paths were packed with residents and tourists, and gulls' cries filled the air. It would have been so perfect had it not been 94 degrees; instead, Matt and I were miserable. The walk from the parking garage to the water left us dripping sweat from every pore in our bodies and feeling like we were melting into the pavement. It was torture. Alaska has definitely screwed with our core temperature! We gave up with our beach walk and headed to the aquarium, not able to stand another moment in the heat.

Ellis loved these fish from Nicaragua because
they remind him of Aunt Sam

Wow! Was that place packed! You'd think that a Friday--a work day--would make for small-ish crowds at local attractions. Wrong! Perhaps it was the fault of summer vacation, or perhaps all of the locals without air conditioning purchase season passes to air-conditioned aquarium to seek respite from the heat. Whatever the reason, it was a zoo (well, actually, an aquarium). I didn't mind the crowds too terribly much, since I am mostly in my own world and not aware of what is going on around me, but it did make it difficult to navigate a stroller from exhibit to exhibit, and it made it a challenge to catch up with Carey while we worked our way through the crowds.

Carey! That portion of the day did not disappoint. What a wonderful thing it is to meet your friends' children for the first time. I have admired Ayanna from afar since her birth last year, but it was a special moment when I was finally able to hold the precious child that is part of someone that I dearly love. We ordered Chicago-style hot dogs (loaded with mustard, jalapeños, diced onions and tomatoes, and some kind of funky relish) at the museum café to have some time to catch up without having to fight the crowds to hear each other.

Carey and me with our babies! We were looking at Kennedy.

Carey was one of my bridesmaids, but I imagine that most people have no clue how I know her. We met in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2006 when we served together with Global Frontier Missions for several months. Carey is midwestern to the core; the three times that I have traveled with her (to Mexico, to Missouri, and to California), she has always brought Christmas lights with her to make our living space more homey. She taught me that you can apply Preparation H to reduce your double chin before an important photo shoot, a remedy that caused intense trauma to one of the other volunteers when she tried applying it to her eyes to reduce puffiness. My favorite Carey story, however, is the time that she was driving in the winter and ran over a snowdrift that had blown into the road. Unfortunately for her, however, it was not actually a snowdrift, but a mattress. The mattress became lodged underneath her car, and she was unable to drive any farther. At a loss as to how to handle the situation, she opened the driver’s door, stuck out her leg, and attempted to hold down the mattress with her foot while she drove forward slowly. You may be surprised to know that it did not work.

A Chicago-style hot dog...YUM!

Needless to say, Carey had me laughing throughout lunch and the rest of our visit with her crafty solutions to crowd and baby problems. Next time we see each other, we’ll have to plan for a less-crazy environment so that I can talk to her husband a bit more, too! We said goodbye, stopped at the aquarium’s Nursing Room (what an excellent amenity!), ran to the car in pouring rain, and jumped on the highway out of Chicago...

...and once again, we found ourselves stuck in traffic trying to leave the city. After four failed re-route attempts by our GPS, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would just have to wait in traffic, no matter which way we left. It was stressful, and I spent most of it with my eyes squeezed shut and my hands gripping the arm rests, but we survived and were on clear, open roads before too long. We drove straight across Illinois and finally crossed the Mississippi River into Iowa around 8:00pm. We booked a hotel and ate dinner at the Granite City Brewing Company, a brewery chain with good beer and average restaurant-chain food--it was nothing to write home about.

As we prepared to leave, I was nursing the last bit of my IPA and holding Ellis in my lap, facing out, when I noticed that my shirt was covered in poop. He had blown out of his stupid disposable diaper (man! I hate those things!) and was not wearing a onesie. I think that was the only time he has ever worn a t-shirt without a onesie underneath it, too--just my luck. I rushed him to the women’s restroom for a diaper change, but the stall that contained the changing station was occupied and so I got to clean the poop off his shoulders, back, and bottom on the floor of the bathroom--not exactly fun. I did my best to wipe the poop off my shirt and blot away the stains, but as we drove back to our hotel, the smell of sweet carrots and green pea turds filled my nostrils. Oh, the adventures of motherhood! 
Back at the hotel, I hand-washed our clothes with some Charlie’s Soap Powder and hung them to dry. We fell asleep to the ntz-ntz-ntz of the dance club in the bottom floor of the hotel, happy to be out of the big city and back on the open road.

Good night, Davenport.

North to Alaska Day 2: Cleveland to Chicago

2012-07-14T21:27:00.001-07:00

It’s never easy deciding what to do in an unfamiliar city when you have nothing to go on but Google searches. You can expect to have fairly good luck visiting the top-rated attractions--those that seem interesting to you, anyway--but you know that you’ll miss out on the local favorites; those secret sites known only to longtime residents that are not easily stumbled upon.

We’ll never know what hidden gems we missed seeing in Cleveland, but frankly we don’t care! TripAdvisor.com led us to the Great Lakes Brewing Company four years ago, and, this time around, it guided us to one of the most incredible places that I’ve ever been.

(It also led us to the home from “A Christmas Story”, which may have been impressive had we entered, but from the outside was too life-threatening to enjoy.)

Lake View Cemetary is ranked the Number 5 attraction in Cleveland, and we chose to give it a try because it was cheap (free), close to our hotel, and would probably allow Matt to take some neat photos. We knew nothing about the cemetary even as we entered through the Euclid Ave gate and began driving slowly uphill, passing thousands of visible tombstones and trying to wrap our minds around the fact that there were just as many dead bodies laying beneath the browned grass on the surface.

The road wound through the various sections of the graveyard and eventually brought us to a blackened sandstone monument, perched at the highest point in the park. (We later learned that it is also the highest point in Cleveland, at just 1,100 feet.) We parked on the side of the road, climbed a small set of stone steps, and walked the few yards along a paved path to the base of the Garfield Memorial. Looking up the fifteen-or-so steps at the monument, we were surprised initially by its size and curious as to the cause of the blackening of its exterior. Once we passed through the doors, those reactions quickly vanished and were replaced by awe at the splendor that we now beheld. We stood on a floor made of miniature marble tiles of many colors, perfectly placed to form a beautiful pattern. Through a second set of double doors, an enormous statue of our nation’s twentieth president, James Garfield, was illuminated at the center of an octagonal floor, with magnificent arches reaching upward toward a domed ceiling. Sunlight filtered through thirteen stained glass windows on the outer wall of the monument, and voices drifted down from above.

An older gentleman asked if he could answer any questions, and we spent the next hour learning everything that we could about our former President and the magnificent monument that was erected in his honor.

The designer forgot to request an octagonal base
for the statue to match the floor!
The only imperfection in the place.

James Garfield is ranked as the 20th “best” President in our nation’s history, largely due to the fact that he served for just 200 days before he was assassinated en route to give a speech at his alma mater, Williams College, on September 19, 1881. He is our only President that was also an ordained minister (Disciples of Christ), and his parents are credited as bringing the Disciples of Christ church to northeastern Ohio. He served nine consecutive terms in Congress, and his ultimate political aspiration was to become Speaker of the House. At the Republican National Convention of 1880, Ulysses S. Grant was seeking the nomination for a third term as President, but the delegates selected Garfield instead. Although Garfield did not desire to become President, he believed in providence and that one should not avoid a responsibility placed in one’s path by the Lord. He accepted the nomination, and went on to win the election in 1880.

On May 19, 1890, Garfield’s body was moved to the memorial at the Lake View Cemetary, an extravagant monument that took five years to complete. The room on the main floor is nothing like I’ve seen in the United States: with a domed ceiling created by the same artists that restored St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, stained glass windows made by artists of London, and an intricate marble floor completed by French artists, it its extravagance is entirely European. The guide spent a small amount of time pointing out some of the symbolic elements in the architecture and the artwork, but it would take hours to expose everything.

Domed ceiling composed of gold flakes pressed between Venetian glass

Stained glass windows; one for each of the thirteen colonies

We climbed sixty-four steps to the top level, which offers a close-up look of the dome and the murals painted on panels around the center of the octagon. A balcony allows visitors to look over the city of Cleveland; on the day that we visited, we could see three miles into the distance, but legend has it that on one particularly clear day, it was possible to see Canada 53 miles away.

We carefully descended the worn, spiral staircase to the main level, and then continued the descent to the basement of the memorial. The air was damp and musty, and I wondered if it was the result of the washrooms, located off the antechamber, or if all graves feel the same way. A small plaque next to a stone archway instructed “SILENT”. In the small, circular room beyond the archway, Garfield lay entombed with his wife, Lucretia, their daughter, and her husband. An American flag lays wrapped around our former President’s coffin, a reminder to all who visit that our nation was born and lives on through the sacrifice of men and women that are willing to follow God’s call no matter the cost. As I peered at the coffins through the windows of the arches surrounding the tomb, tears of gratitude filled my eyes. The caliber of character of our nation’s forefathers is beyond comprehension. For the majority of our history, our leaders have strived to serve the Lord and to lead our country in such a way that it would bring glory to God and renew the trust of its people in Him. We are a nation that has gone astray, but I pray that God would honor the sacrifice of those men and women that have gone before and hear the cries of the faithful living today.

We left the memorial with a new appreciation not just for President James Garfield, but also for this great nation in which we were so privileged to be born. Excited to see what else the Lake View Cemetary had to teach us, we drove downhill to the Wade Chapel, which was built in memory of the man who purchased the land for the cemetary in hopes of creating a European-type graveyard and served as the first President of the Lake View Cemetary Association. After our experience at the Garfield Memorial, we did not imagine that our time at the Wade Chapel would be as powerful--but wonder of wonders, it was!

Wade Chapel

The interior of the Wade Chapel was designed by Tiffany--as in Louis Comfort Tiffany, the creator of Tiffany glass--around the turn of the century. A stained glass window valued at thirty to fifty million dollars sits behind the altar. Glass murals cover the side walls of the chapel, and two enormous marble chandeliers are suspended from the ceiling. A row of wooden pews with glass inlays sit along each wall, and an intricate green and white marble pattern covers the floor. It is beautiful, but its beauty pales in comparison with the glory of the story that it tells.

The chief artist that worked under Tiffany to design the chapel was a Bible scholar, and every element that it contains is meant to sing of the Good News; of the passing from death to eternal life that is promised in Scripture. The mural on the left-hand wall, when you are facing the front of the chapel, shows a figure meant to depict Death chained to the wall. Two lines of women stand in an egyptian-esque rowboat, with seven slaves at the oars. The women hold various objects and face a white ball of light at the far end of the wall. The guide explained to us that this wall is meant to tell the story of the Old Testament. Each of the seven rowers is labeled with the name of an Old Testament Prophet that told of the coming of the Messiah. Some of the objects in the women’s hands signify the ten commandments (a white wreath is “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, for example), and others depict other Old Testament decrees; like a white lamb to signify the mandate to bring sacrifices to the Lord. The Prophets row the women away from death and toward eternal life as they awaited the birth of Jesus, the little baby represented by the white circle of light. The right-hand mural tells of the Christian life as instructed in the New Testament. The rowers in this mural are labeled with the names of various European Saints, and the figures in the boat carry objects to symbolize the beautitudes and other instruction from the New Testament.

A small portion of the Old Testament mural

The loveliness of the murals combined with the intricate artistic detail that covered every surface of the chapel was enough to take my breath away. Thousands upon thousands of pieces Tiffany glass in hundreds of different shapes and shades were placed together so perfectly that the glass mural looked like a painting. Oh, to be an artist! How differently an artistic mind works than mine. I cannot fathom receiving a task and imagining a product with such thought-through detail, both artistically and symbolically, as this. Although the story that it told is very familiar to me, it was as though I was hearing it for the first time as I viewed it through this new, beautiful medium. How great is our God that He would make a way for us to escape the clutches of death and spend eternity with Him in Glory!

The pizza here was "meh", so we would return to
Gino's East next time (where we ate Chicago-style pizza
on our last trip.)

People say that Cleveland is the armpit of Ohio, much like Buffalo is the armpit of New York and New Jersey the armpit of the nation (or perhaps the world), but we left it feeling like we had just visited a premium destination. We had such an enjoyable time at the Great Lakes Brewing Company, and the visit to Lake View Cemetary was unparalleled in our adventures across the nation. If you have the opportunity to visit Cleveland, take it! I’d recommend planning it for a weekend so that you can attend services at Alistair Begg’s church, Parkside, which we have never had the opportunity to do.

We left Cleveland and played a sweaty, poor round of disc golf in Parma before jumping in the car and driving across Indiana and arriving in the suburbs of Chicago. We ate dinner at Giordano’s Pizza, but realized that Chicago-style pizza just isn’t our thing. We’ll take a greasy slice of thin, crisy New York Pizza any day!!

Exhausted from the drive but thankful for our time in Cleveland, we were in need of a good night’s sleep before navigating the Windy City. And so sleep we did.

Goodnight, Chicago.

Our traveling boy at an Indiana rest stop

North to Alaska Day 1: Chittenango to Cleveland

2012-07-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

Four years ago when we moved to Alaska, we said goodbye to our families in Chittenango/Kirkville and drove to Rochester to say our final goodbye to my sister, Sam. This year, Sam was our final goodbye once again. In the parking lot of her workplace, she snapped a photo of our family in front of our fully loaded vehicle, kissed us goodbye, and watched us drive away. We are now three instead of two, our truck has been traded for a station wagon, and our luggage consists of baby gear instead of kitchen gear; but our anticipation of the adventure has remain unchanged.

Just an hour into our journey, we made a last-minute decision to drive through the campus of Nazareth College, where I completed my undergrad. Pittsford was as charming as ever, and Matt couldn’t believe that this picturesque town, bustling with summer activity along the Erie Canal, exists so close to our childhood homes. A stop at the Pittsford Wegmans left him wondering whether we were the stars of our very own The Truman Show, because every customer or employee that we passed greeted us with a smile and a kind comment about our son. Nazareth was, of course, lovely, and it was neat to see the new buildings that have been erected since my graduation in 2006. As I explained the story of how I arrived at the decision to attend Nazareth to Matt, I realized just how fortunate I was to stumble upon this gem of a school. As with so many circumstances in my life, I bumbled through life without a care or thought toward the future, but God completely guided my steps as I trusted my path to Him in prayer.

Back on the Thruway, we made great progress until Buffalo, where we were stuck in traffic for forty-five minutes as we waited for an accident scene to be cleaned up. As we sat, we watched the estimated time of arrival at our destination for the night, Cleveland, slowly change from 7:30 to 8:15 on the GPS. An hour later, it was pushed back even farther to 9:15 because of another side trip. In Alaska, Matt works with a woman in who is trying to sell her house in Anchorage and move to a suburb of Buffalo, where her husband has been living for several months already. They have found a beautiful property in the area that they would like to purchase, and from the photos, Matt knew that we would love it. When we got the address from his co-worker, we had already passed the correct exit, so we ended up backtracking almost a half hour. I’m not sure that the visit made up for the delay that it caused, but it was certainly beautiful. An old farmhouse with Corinthian columns overlooked a perfectly manicured football-field sized lawn. Behind the house, a sea of low-lying ivy, complete with a fawn and blackberry bushes, lay in front of a forest. Matt and I would love to own an old home on a beautiful property like this one someday, but we will have to wait until we are ready to leave Alaska.

We powered on to Cleveland and arrived at the hotel at 9:17pm; the same hotel in which we stayed four years ago. Also like our first trip to Cleveland, we changed quickly and drove the mile and a half to the Great Lakes Brewing Company. Instead of sitting in the beautiful, mahogany bar as we did last time, we were seated in the Beer Garden, a covered outdoor seating area with a water feature and a cool breeze. It was perfect for the warm summer evening, and we were the only customers there for the majority of our meal (arriving within a half hour of close will do that!). Matt and I had been dreaming of this brewpub since we first discovered it during our last visit. Our IPAs (Rye of the Tiger and Commodore Perry) were the perfect way to relax after a long day of driving, and the food was second to none. We both agree that this is tied with Dinosaur BBQ for our favorite restaurant in the nation!! Everything on the menu is local, be it dairy products, meats, vegetables, or grains. Even their spices come from a local spice company! As an appetizer, we ordered a meat and cheese platter that was composed of three cheeses, two meats, tapenade, hummus, toasted baguettes, and orange slices. It was out of this world! Matt’s Sausage and Pierogies entree was just as good as he remembered it, and my Pretzel-crusted chicken, which I ordered upon recommendation by the waitress, surprised me with its tastiness. I still think that their broccoli is the best I’ve ever had, if that makes any sense, and now I’d add that their butter is, too. It is locally made and is so light that it feels as though it is running away from your taste buds as it melts in your mouth. The Bread Pudding that we ordered for dessert sat in a pool cinnamon-spiced Ohio clover honey butter, too delicious to leave the last few spoonfuls on the plate even after we were full.

Back at the hotel, we had just enough energy to unpack Ellis’ pack and play and crawl into bed, a few pounds heavier, but too happy to care.

Goodnight, Cleveland.

There's no place like home

2012-07-06T21:16:00.003-07:00

Tuesday morning, I left Ellis with his grandparents while I met Megan, Angela, and Jessica for breakfast. We ate at a local diner, which I was so happy about since diner breakfasts are always delicious and inexpensive. And there's just something about the atmosphere of a hometown diner in which everyone seems to know everyone! Since it was Tuesday, the place was hoppin', but I think it was safe to say that we were the only table there whose average age was under 65. I can't really say anything about the time except that I really love those girls--women, I should probably say--and boy do I have some awesome friends! After breakfast, they came to the farm for a tour and picked some raspberries before we had to say our goodbyes and part ways until the next trip.

Ellis and I had some time to spare, and so we strolled over to my Grandma Durfee's house to visit with her for a bit. We found her seated at her sewing machine, hand tacking the binding for a Peter Rabbit quilt that Aunt Beth had quilted on my Aunt Nancy's machine that weekend (did you follow that?). I'd like to write about why that time was so special for me, but that would most certainly require a post of its own. Perhaps I will save that post for our shared birthday, August 21. She is more dear to me than anyone, save my immediate family.

While I was with the Naz girls, Matt was, of course, disc golfing. This time, he went to the Oxbow course in Canastota with his dad. He loved the change of scenery and the different challenges that it presents. At one point, he and his dad saw an unfamiliar, beautiful red bird land on a branch near them. He said that the color was similar to that of a cardinal, but the shape and size was that of a robin. His mom later pulled out her bird book and identified it as a scarlet tanager, which my friend Kim says was a rare and special sight in this area! I must admit that I'm a little jealous!

The sun was intense and the humidity was high, so the afternoon was perfect for Ellis' first swim. We pulled on his swim speedo from Kirsten and filled a small plastic pool with warm water. Ellis, of course, loved the water! He splashed purposefully and ferociously, grinning from ear to ear and shrieking with delight. Whenever the water splashed back onto his face, he grimaced for a brief moment and rubbed his eyes, and then smiled and started splashing again. He was fascinated by the lip of the pool and kept trying to pull himself up and over the edge, although he was never successful. He did manage to reach far enough over the side to pull out grass from the lawn and attempt to stuff fistfuls of it into his mouth several times. Matt snapped plenty of photos to document the momentous occasion, and we finally decided that Ellis' blue, wrinkly toes had had enough and that it was time to retire to the toasty warm house.

About that time, Sam returned home from work, and Matt and I drove to Green Lakes with her so that she and I could run and Matt could play some more disc golf. I think that he was up to 72 holes in two days by the time that we met him back up at the course, which is pretty crazy considering he has been sneezing constantly since we arrived in New York! He insists that he's allergic to the taxes, but I think it's probably the golf courses. Green Lakes is my favorite place in the world. Growing up, my family spent summer mornings at the lake for swimming lessons and summer afternoons on the beach when Dad was able to take a break from field work. Each of our station wagons were plastered with annual New York State Park passes from many years of use. Now at $8.00 per vehicle, per day, I wish that we had a pass!! Throughout college, I spent many weekday afternoons and weekend mornings praying and walking, hiking, or snowshoeing around the lakes, golf course, and campsite with Sherry. There, we shared many powerful conversations and lifted hundreds of concerns to the Lord in prayer. We trained for a 5K, struggled to cross the beach through four feet of fresh snow, and sweated in 95 degree heat. The lakes and surrounding trees are ever-changing, creating a different world to experience with each visit. In the mornings, the lake is covered with mist and the air is thick. You can hear the soft sounds of ducklings learning to swim and fish surfacing for insects. In the summer afternoons, the lakes are a brilliant, glacial blue-green that beckon you to jump in. At the water's edge, submerged branches and rock shelves disappear into the depths, reminding you why swimming is prohibited! The long, cool autumns of Central New York transform the park into a sea of scarlet and orange, and the colorful dried leaves cover the path. The snow changes the landscape so significantly that Sherry and I have become lost as we wandered once-familiar paths. The lake becomes a perfect field of snow, its only blemish the occasional deer track.

Nate eating the famous "Pork-Sket", featured
on Man vs. Food. He finished it in
less than two minutes.

Sweaty and exhausted, we returned home and quickly rotated through the shower. Nate and Marissa arrived in the meantime, and we piled into our car for a trip to the greatest restaurant in the history of the universe, Dinosaur B-B-Q. This place is amazing. The music is loud, the beer is good, the waitresses are tough, and the barbecue is sloppy and second to none. Since Matt and I are only able to visit the restaurant once or maybe twice per year, no holds were barred and we ordered everything our stomachs desired: garlic chipotle wings, fried green tomatoes, catfish strips, pulled pork, mac salad, coleslaw, beans, chili...we ate it all. It was perfect as always, and I wish I could say the same for the music. There was a bizarre one-man band playing that came with about eight different musical instruments and an equal number of goofy hats, one of which was an actual Goofy hat. He played one instrument during each song, wearing its corresponding hat, while he played a previously recorded track in the background in which he sang the background vocals and played the rest of the instruments. It was just weird. Our "favorite" song of the night was an original called "Dream Girl", whose lyrics consisted those two words repeated over and over and over. When the meal was over and the time came to say "yay" or "nay" to their famous peanut butter pie, we opted for ice cream sundaes at Sam's apartment nearby. 'Twas the perfect way to end a perfect day. We returned home plump and happy to our son dozing in his grandma's arms.

I think that L. Frank Baum must have been remembering Chittenango when he wrote that magical line, "There's no place like home".

Back to work

2012-07-05T13:37:00.003-07:00

When you live 4,300 miles away, traveling home can quickly become more like a job than a vacation. We have a to-do list that's four pages long and a text message count that threatens even our "unlimited" messaging plan. A successful trip home would require college courses in communication, psychology, time management, and strategic planning, which explains why Matt and I continue to fare so poorly on our vacation performance reviews. We love the job, but it isn't always an easy one.

The weekend was over, and it was back to work.

Ellis and the kittens

First on the to-do list was time with Grandma, and so we popped Ellis in his stroller to supervise calf chores again. We fed the kittens, bedded the show calves, brought hay to the calf barn using the Kubota, gave bottles to the youngest calves, and supervised the workers in the new parlor. Unfortunately, our son appears to have an affinity for kittens, which Matt and I will work hard to squelch as he grows older. I suppose it's fine for him to like barn kittens, since they are cute and playful and (key point) live outside, but we will not raise a cat-lover, no siree. At least three litters of kittens have been born on our farm in the past three months, so anyone that walks out to the tin shed will be greeted by a swarm of multi-colored fluff. My brother Ben is typically in charge of naming the barn cats, because he has a knack for creative, well suited names. For example, "Fireman Rakey" was an orange cat that he named as a child, and he later ended up dying when he curled up around a car engine to keep warm (get it? fire engine/car engine...). Blackie Chan is an all-black cat that has held a starring role in some of my Mom's photos on Facebook, and another was Eminem because he was part black and part white...you get the idea. At any rate, Ellis loves it when we put the kittens up on his stroller with him so that he can pet them, which he does well for a short time before he starts grabbing their fur in his fists.

Eliza's future husband

After farm chores, the next item on our list was important trip business. Matt and I had some planning and errands to take care of, so Mom and Dad babysat Ellis. When we finished running around town, we picked up our son and rushed out to the city to visit the Rezsnyaks and meet their daughter, Eliza Jean. We will have to remember the date--July 2, 2012--because it will inevitably printed somewhere on the wall of their home: you know, one of those Pinterest deals with the date that Ellis and Eliza met, their first date, their engagement, and their wedding. Although Eliza wasn't too excited to meet her future husband (I can't blame her, she's only a few weeks old, after all), Alexander was very excited to meet his future brother-in-law. It was such a joy to spend time with their family, and we left feeling frustrated anew that we live so very far apart. It is a beautiful thing to find friends with whom you feel totally comfortable and can be completely real. Sigh. We haven't given up hope yet that they will sell everything and move to Alaska.

He can't believe how beautiful his wife is!!

Brother-in-laws getting to know one another

We left in time to visit Sam at her office. She began a new public relations/communication position with her company just after she returned from visiting us in Alaska. It is an awesome position for her, and she gets along very well with her co-workers. From speaking to them, it sounds like she spends most of her time eating, but she must be doing enough real work to keep the boss happy. It's funny; as we passed around Ellis to the various people to whom we were introduced, everyone had the same remarks: Ellis is "well fed", "alert", and "has big eyes". I think that what they are really trying to say is that he is fat and nosy, but I'm not opposed to either of those qualities in a baby.

I dropped off Matt at the farm for Bachelors' Night (my Mom makes dinner for all of the men on the farm on Monday nights) and went to visit some of my college friends. Matt had an awesome time as a witness to what he referred to as "The Perfect Storm", a major farm discussion involving all of the partners and Ben, and then playing disc golf at Green Lakes with Ben and Nate. My husband loves disc golf. For those of you that are not familiar with the sport, it is golf that is played with discs and metal baskets instead of balls and holes. The discs are made of rubbery plastic, and there are different discs for different purposes, much like golf clubs: drivers, mid-rangers, and putters. The shape (of the lip), kind of plastic, and weight of the disc determine how it is supposed to fly, so ideally you have an entire bag full of discs so that you have a disc to fit any shot that you need to make.

Matt started playing disc golf because of his Uncle Wayne, Melanie's brother. Wayne has a private two-mile long, 18-hole course in the woods behind his home in the Adirondacks, and he introduced Matt and his parents to disc golf some years ago. A natural athlete with a penchant for perfection, Matt has spent a lot of time researching discs and throwing technique and is pretty awesome at the sport, in my humble opinion. The only problem is that he is married to me, and I am neither a natural athlete nor do I have a desire to be. We've had some pretty heated arguments on the disc golf course, because I don't care how I do and he cares very much. Ah well. Anyway, Ben and Nate hadn't played before, and Matt was amused to see that you could learn a lot about either one of them by simply observing their playing style. Ben, always the funny man, threw the disc like a discus, spinning and hurling it on each drive. Nate had one throw, no matter the distance. For drives, approaches, and putts, he curls his arm and catapults the disc forward with all of his might. If his aim is good, you hear a satisfying "CHING!" as the disc hits the chains and drops into the basket; if not, everyone waits at the next hole for Nate to hunt down the disc in the shrubs. They had a great time and played until the setting sun no longer permitted it. If only we had the Alaskan sun in New York!

As for me, I had a most fantastic time catching up with my great college friends Megan, Angela, and Jessica, and celebrating the changes that have occurred in our lives over the past few years. All of us are teachers, and we are all married. I spent time looking at photos from Jessica's wedding, which I was unable to attend because she was married on my due date, New Year's Eve. What a special night to be married! The altar at the church was stacked high with white and red Poinsettias, which provided a beautiful backdrop for the ceremony. I'll always be grateful for the time that I spent at Nazareth College and the forever friendships that I built there. I never have been (nor ever will be, I imagine) one for keeping in touch, so the times that I am able to connect and catch up with my friends in person are very special for me. As the night air grew chilly (if you can call it that, which I don't think you can), we said goodbyes and made plans to meet for breakfast before Jess and Ang drove home.

Back at the farm, everything on our list was crossed off and complete. The wonderful thing about the job of traveling is that looking at the task list brings a smile, not a groan. While it's overwhelming to think about how we will see everyone that we want to see and do everything that we want to do, there is nothing like collapsing onto the mattress at the end of the day, closing your eyes, and smiling ear-to-ear because your life is so full of people that love you. We are blessed by the time that we are able to spend with our friends and family, no matter how brief it may be, and can drift to sleep looking forward to another day of reunions tomorrow.

The blessing of family

2012-07-04T06:55:00.001-07:00

Sunday mornings haven’t changed a bit in the ten years since I graduated from high school. Matt and I woke up at 7:00 to an empty house--Mom was out doing calf chores, and Dad was making a P&C (okay, Tops) run for breakfast food, having already finished his morning chores and showered. Church doesn’t start until 9:30 in the summertime, so we had a leisurely morning getting ourselves and Ellis ready in the quiet house, listening to the birds singing, hidden amidst the rustling leaves of the oak tree in our back yard, and the cows mooing and gates clanging in the distance.

Our peaceful morning came to an abrupt halt around 9:10 when mom rushed in from the barn, finally finished feeding and watering the calves and bedding their hutches, and Dad slammed the front door, back from P&C with bagels for Matt and me, yelling, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” Somehow, Mom managed to shower and change in ten minutes, and she and Dad were out the door before our bagels had even popped out of the toaster for the second time. (One round in their toaster barely warms the bagels. Sounds like we found a good Christmas gift!!) They beat us to church, and when Matt and I arrived, the morning announcements had already begun.

Ellis proved to be quite the little stumbling block for all the women of the First Presbyterian Church. As we walked in, the heads began to turn, and a flood of smiles and baby noises rushed toward us. Through the whole service, they tapped our shoulders, whispered in our ears, waved in Ellis’ direction, made googly eyes at him, and mouthed sweet compliments to us. The instant that the service ended, Ellis was surrounded by a sea of mothers and grandmothers. It was a beehive of activity, and my mom--the queen bee--held my sleeping son (he takes after his grandpa, haha!) at its center.

While our friends waited for their turn to gaze upon our sweet son, or after they had their turn, they stopped by to visit with Matt and me. It is so good to be with people that love you! One of the most wonderful things about my parents’ church is their genuineness: its congregants are full of genuine love and concern for others. Even the people that I don’t know very well have held Matt and me in their prayers as we were married, moved to Alaska, served in the Air Force, and welcomed Ellis into our family. It is a blessing for us to be able to see friends and even strangers that continue to lift our family in prayer, and to be able to share with them in person.

After church, we had a short while to prepare for a BBQ at my mom’s parents’ in Verona. Mom was off to the barn again to water the calves (taking care of the calves is a full-time job in the heat, especially!), and Dad made all of the food, packed it up, and left for Verona. I went out to the barn to check on mom’s progress three times to find her bustling around, hauling buckets back and forth between the barn and the hutches as quickly as she could. No wonder she was the seventh grade arm wrestling champion at her school! I bet she would still be able to out-arm-wrestle any of my friends’ moms. We left for vanLieshout’s almost an hour late--which was pretty good, actually--and arrived to a grill sizzling with meat and a buffet of salads of all kinds, perfect for a summer day.

Mom is the only girl of seven children, and she and her six brothers have a total of 32 children between them (correct me if I counted wrong, someone!). Ellis is the fifth great-grandchild. Four of her brothers and their families live on the farm, and the other two are not far away, so it is “easy”, relatively, to see most of them by spending an afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa’s. One of my cousins was preparing to return to college in California in just a few hours, and several of my other cousins arrived from the National Holstein Convention in Missouri while we were there. We saw at least a delegation from all of the families except Uncle John’s, since they have a farm of their own to run and it was a beautiful summer day, which equals a busy day for farmers.

With so many people, Matt has had quite the challenge trying to learn names and keep everyone straight. For the longest time, their names were always accompanied by, “the good looking one”, “the other good looking one”, “the one with the great teeth”, “the really nice one”...you get the point. My mom’s brothers are pretty awesome--and good looking! Milk will do that for ya ;). Anyway, Matt knows everyone well enough now that the taglines aren’t necessary, and we both love talking to my aunts, uncles, and cousins about all of the things that are happening on the farm and in their children’s lives and of course trying to convince them to move to Alaska!

One really special treat was my cousin Tom stopping by with his 21-month old twin sons, Tommy and Bobby. They arrived in style on a four wheeler (wearing helmets, of course), and I just can’t believe how big the boys have grown. We hadn’t seen them since they were just two months old, back in 2010! They had just finished a swim in their new pool, and their blonde hair was curled up in ringlets around their faces. (Grandpa of course gave Tom a hard time about how they look like little girls with their long hair. I can’t imagine ever cutting off those ringlets!) When it came time to leave, Tom instructed Tommy (I think? Maybe Bobby. I don’t remember who was sitting where.) to turn on the four wheeler. He turned the key, started the engine, put it in reverse, and off they went. As I watched them drive away, it made me sad to think that Ellis won’t be growing up on my parents’ farm, like I did, but I am sure that he will spend many summers here and still have the opportunity to do all of those adventurous things that we did as children.

The highlight of the day was, of course, watching Ellis Henry meet my Grandpa Henry, his namesake, for the first time. My grandpa is an incredible man, and I pray that he lives long enough for Ellis to know and remember him. He is infectiously positive, endlessly energetic, and hopelessly devoted to my grandmother, who has Alzheimers and no longer communicates with anyone. He spends his days at her side, overjoyed to be her sole caretaker and to invent solutions to make her more comfortable and solve the problems that arise with the advancement of the disease. While we were there, he spent much of his time inside, waking his beloved bride from her nap, preparing her food, walking her to the table, helping her to the bathroom, and bringing her back to their bed for another nap. He give thanks to the Lord every day that he is able to serve her as she served him for so many years, and counts every day that he spends with her as a blessing and a gift. Matt and I are challenged in our relationship each time that we visit my grandparents, because we have a long way to go before we reach the level of selfless love that he has for his wife.

Grandpa and Ellis’ first encounter was full of jokes about the comparable sizes of their round bellies and all of the things that Ellis had to learn to do so that he could be like his Great Grandpa Henry. He’ll have to do pulll-ups on the bar in his backyard, become a proficient gardener, fix anything that needs fixing, and transform old junk into useful tools that solve everyday problems.

As my extended family drifted away for afternoon chores at the barn or any of their other, many responsibilities, we said our goodbyes and returned to Chittenango. Sam returned from her frisbee tournament out of state and so, with a few hours of daylight left, Melanie met us for some more blackberry picking while Dad watched Ellis. We abandoned our picking prematurely, however, when I received a call from my Grandma Durfee to notify me that my cousin Sarah was over visiting with her two children, two-year-old Sean and one-month-old Aubrey! We drove back to the big house and Melanie and Mom went to the raspberry patch while Sam and I met Dad and Ellis at Grandma’s. I caught up with Sarah while we watched Sean buzz back and forth with his Grandpa, my Uncle Doug, on various pieces of machinery (every little boy’s dream!), and we were able to snap a few pictures of Grandma with three generations of her descendants.

As I think back on our day, I give thanks to God that I was so blessed to have been born into a large family (immediate and extended), to live nearby them, and to have three grandparents that are still alive today. I wish that Ellis could have met my Grandpa Durfee (I’m sure he would have had a few tricks to play on my son!) or my Grandma vanLieshout before she had Alzheimers, but even still I know that he will be blessed by hearing the many wonderful memories that I have of them. Isn’t God good?

In honor of Grandpa Durfee--one
strap and the hat!

A Day on the Lake

2012-07-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Ellis supervising calf chores

While my Alaskan son kept us up until 1:30am, he graciously slept until 9:30 on Saturday morning, giving us a a full eight hours, praise the Lord! And actually, I’m not quite sure if it was his muffled cries that woke me up or my ringing cell phone that awakened him. Kindof like the old chicken and the egg puzzle...we may never know the truth.

Anyway, dad called to say that he would be there in ten minutes to leave for blackberry picking. Having missed blackberry season by just a few weeks last summer, and only returned for Christmas the two years before that, my first berry love and I were long overdue for a tasty reunion. Dad, Ben, and I headed out to the patch while mom took Ellis with her to supervise calf chores and Matt went shopping for swim trunks (how did we forget those?!).

Supervising the morning milking

Blackberry picking was a huge part of my summers as a child. My mom would dress us in long sleeved shirts and jeans in 90 degree heat and slather us up with Avon Skin So Soft, and we would pile into one of our three--yes three--successive wood-paneled Oldsmobile station wagons and head out to the patch. As with anything that involves my dad, however, berry picking was all business. We had our fun before and after, to be certain, but once we entered the patch, it was nothing but pick-pick-pick and constant shouts of, “How much do you have?” or “How full is your bucket?” or “How’s the picking over there?” or “Don’t waste your time on those bushes!” or “The berries over there are too dried up!” or “You’re not eating too many, are you?”...you get the point.

Nothing has changed. Dad allotted an hour of his schedule for picking, and so we tried to make the most of it. He had previously scouted our fields for the highest producing spot, and so we parked the truck and got right to work.

The great thing about spending time on the farm with either of my parents is that I learn so much. This particular berry patch is located in a large stand of black walnut trees. Blackberries need a fair amount of sunlight, so you will most often find them on the edges of forests. Black walnut trees, however, produce toxins that kill much of the undergrowth, and so berries can grow quite well in stands of old black walnut trees because the sun just has to penetrate the leaves on their high branches.

Even in such an open stand of trees, my Alaskan senses were still on high alert for bears and moose. I have become so accustomed to snapping my head around to check out every snapped twig or rustled bush that it is an impossible habit to break even in an area that I know is bear and moose free. It didn’t help, of course, that Ben was part of our berry picking crew, because he might as well be a moose. Every time he moved in the bushes, I jumped.

Steph and Ellis

Our berry picking time ran out and so we headed home to quickly make pies and pack the car for a trip to our dear friend and farm veterinarian’s lake house. Steph stopped by to meet Ellis and give him an...interesting...and wonderful gift and to visit with me of course while I whipped together a couple blackberry pies. Steph and I are always surprised (hm, perhaps that isn’t the right adjective? we always notice?) at the way that life seems to pick up right where it left off when we last saw each other. It will always be comfortable and natural for her to be at my parents’ house or vice versa, in the middle of our families’ respective chaos. Steph said goodbye after a few hours, and we packed up the pies with dinner fixin’s and drove to the reservoir.

Ready and waiting for the rest of us

Perfect day on the lake

Weren’t we surprised to see a horse and buggy parked on the road above the Toole’s camp! We figured that they had to be visiting Bob and Karol since he is, after all, a veterinarian. As it turns out, they had hired a local Amish man to build a shed for their water pump, and he had brought his wife and five young children (7 years to 7 weeks) to spend the day at the lake while he worked. The mother and daughters were in their dresses and bonnets, and the son wore a straw hat and long sleeves and pants with suspenders. What an interesting twist to the day this was! (We later learned that they were supposed to be gone by the time we arrived, but because the Amish don’t observe daylight savings time, the 1:00pm agreed upon time was 2:00pm for them! Oops.)

I approached Lydia, the mother, and introduced myself and Ellis before seeking out Karol to ask what the heck I was supposed to do about swimming. “It is what it is!”, she said, and she was right. They have chosen to live the life that they do in the midst of modern society, and there is no reason for us to stop living our lives because of their decision. I thought that it was somewhat ironic because I was planning to wear my new swim suit, which I was really excited about because it seems very modest to me (for a swim suit, of course) and I felt like I could actually be comfortable in a bathing suit, for once in my life! And then an Amish family shows up. Sigh.

Mom hanging out at the lake with Ellis

I didn’t want to be in just my bathing suit, but I also didn’t come with anything else in which to swim, and so I got into the lake as fast as I could and kept my shoulders down under the water as much as I could. I helped Karol bring the two oldest girls into the lake (wearing their under-dresses and life jackets) for a swim. I was becoming quite frustrated with them for not following my directions or answering my questions (like “grab my neck”, “can you touch the ground?”, etc.) when I realized that they didn’t speak English. Lydia later told me that the children would learn English at their school, but only she and her husband spoke it for the time being. They speak Pennsylvania Dutch at home. When I found that out, I texted my Dutchie friends Sheri and Kirsten from good ol’ Lancaster PA, and Sheri instructed me to ask the children, “Was ees dy noma?”, or “What is your name?” (A much better option than Carey’s phrase, “Was bichen du alle kuh?, which means “What are you doing, you fat cow?”...neither of these phrases is spelled correctly, I’m sure. Where is Eric Eby when you need him?!) The children looked at me like I was insane after I asked for their names, but Lydia assured me that I said it correctly and their responses were due to the fact that they couldn’t imagine how I could possibly say something in Pennsylvania Dutch!

First time in the water!

After their father finished painting the shed and jumped in the lake--with all of his clothes on--they climbed into their buggy and trotted away, and we were left to swim without shame. I was so distracted by the stress of it all that I paid no attention to my son as he “swam” in a lake for the first time with my dad. Matt took pictures of the events, and I was too busy making sure that he didn’t get any Amish children in the shots (Is that a stereotype? Do all Amish people believe that cameras take their souls? Help!) to watch his reaction to the experience. I think he had a nice time, but I guess I’ll never know. We didn’t keep him in for too long because the water was still a bit cold, and so my mom whisked him out and wrapped him in a towel for some grandma snuggles.

We caught up on our lives for the last year and, before long, dad and Bob started the grill while mom and Karol worked in the kitchen. Several hours later and a few pounds heavier, we packed up and headed back to Chittenango.

Matt and I are so grateful for the Toole’s generosity in sharing their lake house with our family year after year. It is so nice to be able to be removed from the farm for a few hours so that my parents and siblings have no distractions (thank the Lord for no cell reception!) and are able to spend time just being with us--a rare and wonderful thing in a farmer’s life! The icing on the cake is the wonderful company of Bob and Karol and their boys, who are just the most lovely people that you could imagine: kind, funny, down-to-earth good people (Well, good except for Karol’s criminal record, thanks to Ticket Tuesdays, Chittenango’s infamous traffic cop!) (She doesn’t actually have a criminal record, as it turns out. Just threats of one. I don’t want to start any rumors!)

Thank you, Toole’s, for blessing us with your camp and, most of all, your company!!

Mom's turn with Ellis in the lake

Yum...pie!

Get me outta here!

2012-07-01T21:05:00.002-07:00

The great thing about opinions is that we are entitled to them. We can have our own opinions about anything that we want, and living in this nation we are free to express them; hopefully, we do it with discretion.

My opinion is that New Jersey is the worst state in the nation.

Discretion aside, obviously...I know some wonderful people that live in New Jersey, and they think wonderful things about that state. I don’t really know why, of course, otherwise I might not hate it quite so much as I do.

(Matt was worried that this post might be filled with exaggerations--it probably will be, but I have not exaggerated anything yet.)

I hate New Jersey for the same reasons that I hate Paris. Whenever I have been there, my time has been like a scene from Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. In my visits to Paris, I was sleep deprived, had an overdrawn bank account, was lost, alone, and surrounded by mean people. In New Jersey, I was sleep deprived, lost, and surrounded by mean people. Also, my bank account was drained by the amount of gas that we burned attempting to navigate the suburbs of Newark. I blame the mean people, gas burning, and being lost on New Jersey but will let the state off the hook for my sleep deprivation.

If you read my last post, you’ll know that we arrived in New Jersey and were escorted to the hotel by a very kind but quite illegitimate taxi driver. We then met a nice hotel clerk who was paired with an irresponsible hotel employee. We ate dinner at a lovely pizza joint with great cooks and a hostile waitress/cashier. Do you see the pattern forming here? Good and evil, good and evil, good and evil...You will also remember that Matt and I were unable to drift off to dreamland (probably because of the heavily polluted air) until 5:00am. Our alarm was set for 7:00am--I think that “ugh” is the proper adjective to describe that scenario.

I called for a taxi, and the driver showed up promptly at 7:45 to whisk Matt away to the Vehicle Processing Center in Edison, NJ, where our car (which we had shipped to NJ from Alaska) was waiting for us. Matt would summarize the trip with this little vignette: as they pulled up to a red light, the driver took a look at the oncoming car to size up the situation, then turned left in front of it as the driver of the other car slammed on his brakes and horn and made a few choice gestures toward Matt’s taxi. Upon seeing the look of horror on Matt’s face, the driver explained that they do favors for the cops in this town, like give them free rides to the airport, so they can drive however they want and the cops will leave them alone. And my poor husband had to endure 12 minutes of the taxi ride from hell on two hours of sleep. Once again, “ugh”.

Thankfully, Matt was able to pick up the car despite my *minor* oversight in forgetting to pack the necessary paperwork, and he drove back to the hotel to pick up Ellis and me and our luggage before we headed out. He arrived back at the hotel around 8:40, and I was confident that we would be on the road by 10:00.

Oh, how young and foolish I was back then.

You see, we had detached our Yakima roof box and shipped it inside the vehicle, so before we did anything else, we needed to reinstall it. It should have been super easy but, since we were in New Jersey, it wasn’t.

Three hours, one broken key, a scratched car, and a sweaty, angry husband later, we finally pulled out onto the road. Our refuel indicator dinged, and so we searched for the nearest gas station.

An hour later, we were still searching for a gas station. We both have iPhones, people!! They have navigation capability!! How is it that we couldn’t find a gas station for over an hour?? Thanks for nothing, New Jersey. We eventually found one without a disgruntled worker that might key our car as we drove away, and it was smelly and charged more money for people paying with cards than cash, but at least we filled the tank before we were stranded in the armpit of hell.

The ironic thing was that the next thing on our to-do list was to buy a new GPS, which we had in mind to buy from Best Buy. A helpful but slightly smelly young man at the Best Buy Mobile store at the mall told us (after we successfully navigated to what we thought was a real Best Buy store...silly us...thanks for nothing, New Jersey) that there was a Best Buy store just two stoplights down on the main street, right by the Bank of America building.

 Well, we found the Bank of America building, and I’ll be the first to admit that my eyesight is less than perfect but I am pretty confident that there was no Best Buy store nearby. You see, Best Buy stores are pretty huge. The Bank of America building was surrounded by parking lots and some somewhat lovely green patches of grass--no giant electronics stores in sight. So we popped Best Buy into our phones and followed the directions that it gave us for about a half hour and ended up in another parking lot. No Best Buy in sight. And so then we popped it back into our phones and new directions popped up and we followed them and...no Best Buy in sight. Thanks for nothing, New Jersey.

By this point, I was having a full-on coniption and Matt was about to throw me out of the car because I wouldn’t stop screaming about how much I hated the dumb state and so we decided to just head out of town and find another Best Buy on the way, which we did. We even had a mostly pleasant experience there, even though we were still in New Jersey.

Did I mention that the temperature had now soared to 104 degrees? Thanks for nothing, New Jersey.

With our new GPS, we opted to avoid toll roads and, before long, found ourselves in lovely farm country, with narrow, winding roads lined with beautiful old farm houses and tall, droopy oak trees. There were cows out to pasture, babbling brooks, charming old bridges, and vegetable stands filling our views. And stars, lots of stars!! We were so grateful to have left behind New Jersey and entered Pennsylvania at last (never thought I’d say that, either!).

And then...what is that? A sign saying New Jersey?? As it turns out, we hadn’t left the state yet after all. So I suppose that New Jersey isn’t all bad, just mostly. Enough that I feel confident arguing that it is the worst state in the nation.

We finally reached the highway and moved at a faster pace toward our final destination, my parents’ house in Chittenango, where a crowd of relatives anxiously awaited our arrival. We gave thanks to God that construction on Route 81 had moved to the southbound lanes earlier in the week, so we had no delays. Our hearts hurt for the four or five miles of almost stand-still traffic that we saw on 81 South! That is the worst. (After New Jersey, of course.)

The women of the welcome crew

We pulled into my parents’ driveway around 7:45pm, more than five hours behind schedule. Thanks for nothing, New Jersey. But all of our traveling woes were quickly left behind as our car was swarmed with grandmas and grandpas, both biological and spiritual, and aunts and uncles. They played “pass the baby”, and Matt quickly unpacked the camera so that he could capture Ellis’ first moments with his grandfathers and his great grandmother. What a wonderful thing it is to be with family!

Dinner ensued quickly--thank the Lord, for we were starving--and my dad’s brother and some of his sisters arrived to meet their great nephew as well. We stuffed ourselves full of Cornell chicken, Melanie’s most delicious potato salad and cheesy cornbread, Ben’s adaptation of Karol Toole’s delectable broccoli salad, Grandma’s famous three bean salad, Dinosaur BBQ baked beans, (not so fresh) cherries from the tree out front, and Gram bars of all kinds. Welcome home, us!!

After a few hours of food and family, Matt and I finally headed to bed for some much needed sleep. Someone forgot to tell Ellis about the time change, however, and he was wide awake until 1:30am.

At long last...good night, New York.

Grandma Bex is all smiles!!

Deer in the headlights after meeting Grandpa Durfee

Not sure what to make of Grandpa Bex...

Playing with Grandma Durfee

...and swatting Aunt Marissa...

Chillin' with Great Aunt Meg

and OVERJOYED to meet his Great Grandma Durfee!!!