Goodbye, Natalie!

Well, this is only about 2 months late. We brought Natalie to the airport for her return to Germany at the beginning of June.  My morning sicknes kicked in on the ride home from the airport so I haven't had the motivation to write a thorough post on here until now.

We absolutely loved having Natalie as a part of our family and it was hard to let her go.  There were many tears at the airport and afterwards.  Poor Sam doesn't do well with goodbyes and he broke down several times throughout the day, saying "Why did Natalie have to go???" 

When we ask Elena if she wants to get another exchange student someday, she says "No.  I just want to get Natalie again."

Here are a few pictures from her last days here.

We made her a "German" chocolate cake for her birthday - delicious!

All the cousins have been missing Natalie as well. We had a big going away party for her the night before we left for the cities. Most of Seth's family made it so she got to have one last night surrounded by our huge family in a small town before she moved back to her huge city full of small families (she knew very few families in Germany with more than 2 kids :)

We decided to spend our last weekend up in the cities and, unfortunately, the whole family got sick except for Natalie. Doubly unforunate was the fact that we didn't all get sick at once, but took turns so it was drawn out over 3 days.  During one brief period where we were all relatively healthy, we were able to visit the brand new fire station where Seth's brother, John works.  The kids loved getting to see the big firetrucks up close.  They even got their own fire hats.  We were so worried that Natalie would come down with it on her flight home, which would have been miserable.  I guess all that hand sanatizer worked, though, because she managed to escape the bug.

Sam hopped in by Natalie for a cuddle on her last morning in the US.

The Phases of the Moon - by Sam

Sam pointed out the moon to me last week, explaining that it was a half moon.

After a minute, during which time I assume he was pondering how the moon goes through the different phases, he said: "Mom, I think maybe a rocket man flies up to the moon with a knife and cuts it in half."

I tried explaining how it actually happens with the moon reflecting the light of the sun and the Earth blocking the light.  Sam came back with, "But how does the moon get cut in half??"

I think we'll stick with the rocket man theory for now.

Our First Camping Trip of the Summer

We had our annual DeCock camping trip with Seth's mom's side of the family last weekend.  I was fortunate to have 2 days in a row where I felt pretty good and we had air conditioning in the cabins so there were no complaints all weekend.

I failed to take any pictures of the weekend, but Elena brought along our old camera.  The battery only lasts about 20 minutes and it frequently loses the pictures you take, but it keeps her happy.

So here are some highlights of the weekend as documented by Elena:

So Thankful

Sunday night I came home to find Seth lying on the couch with a terrible stomach ache.  After a couple of hours, we called the hospital and the nurse recommended we take him in.  We were lucky that I was having a pretty good night (usually I spend my evenings puking), so Seth's dad came to stay with the kids while I brought Seth into the ER.
By about 12:30, they were pretty sure it was appendicitis.  So I went home to get some sleep, while Seth spent the night doing more testing. At 8:30 in the morning, they took out his appendix, and he was discharged from the hosptial by 6:00 that night.
We were fortunate that we went in right away - his appendix was nowhere near rupturing and his recovery has been pretty quick. Normally we're the type to wait it out before we go into the doctor, and I'm glad we didn't do that this time.
It's a little sobering to know that 150 years ago, I would have been a widow by now. To say we're thankful for modern advancements in medicine would be an understatement.

8 Years!

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful and loving husband.  It's been a great 8 years and I hope we get to enjoy many more decades together. I'm too sick to write much so I'll just put up a video.

One of the things I love most about Seth is seeing how much fun he has with our kids.

  

Elena is very excited to help out when the new baby comes - and I'm hoping that excitement won't wear off too quickly.  Helping during the pregnancy, however, is apparently not as appealing to her.  I've learned that children have very little sympathy for their parents.

As an example, here's a conversation Elena and I had yesterday.

Elena (yelling from the living room): Mom, are you throwing up?

Me: Yes.

Elena: Oh......Can you get me a snack?


Seth has since talked with her about helping me when I'm sick, so this morning when I was heaving into the toilet, Elena was  much more helpful:

Elena: Can I get you a banana?

Me: No, not right now.

Elena: What would you like?

Me: Maybe a glass of water.

Elena: Ok - I'll get it.....would you like a jelly bean with that?

Me: No, thank you.

And I'm happy to say that she promptly brought me a glass of water (without spilling). Hooray!

A Memory Like and Elephant

Elena has a great memory, or "membery" as she calls it.  Like many things in life, this has both advantages and disadvantages.

Elena's lastest interest has been hearing stories from when we were little - she asks us (and any other adult) to "tell stories from when you were little."  I'm getting to a point where I'm running out of stories. 

Anyway, the other day Elena had the opportunity to ask my Uncle Paul for stories when he was little. She lucked out there because Paul is a great storyteller, and his stories are never dull.  So she heard all about how he used to go rat hunting by the garbage dump when it was set on fire each night and how he (accidentally) shot a dead man's rear end when he was 12.  The next day she was telling Seth one of the stories she remembered:

"One time, this guy took a newspaper and lit it on fire, and then he was using the fire to burn the hair off his arms.  And then Grandpa Lawrence came in and said, 'What are you doing?!!?'"

Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief that she didn't remember exactly what Grandpa Lawrence had said, she corrected herself, making sure to get it exactly right: "No, wait - he said 'What the hell are you doing?!!?'" 

We told her that she probably shouldn't repeat that story to her friends...

There's a baby on the way!

A couple of weeks ago we were headed to Marshall, and Sam suddenly piped up from the back seat, "Mom, I think there's probably a baby ready for you to pick up at the hospital.  We should stop by there and check."  I explained to him that it doesn't really work that we and we skipped the unnecessary stop.

I didn't even know it yet, but he was sort of right.  I was just barely pregnant at the time, and am now offically about 5 weeks along.  We don't really bother to wait telling people because in about a week, I'm going to have to explain why I'm puking all the time anyway :)

The kids are very excited, although I think Sam might start doubting that a baby is really on the way.  His first reaction was, "Let's go to the hospital right now to pick it up."  After we explained that the baby is in my belly, he came over, lifted my shirt and looked into my belly button to try to see the baby. He now checks my belly a few times a day to see if the baby has grown. Every time he checks, his conclusion is the same: "No baby yet." Elena wanted to know how big the baby was, etc. so I showed her pictures of what it looked like online.  According to Elena, "it looks like a lizard."  I reminded her that she looked like a lizard at that age, too.

Elena is convinced it's a girl because "she prayed for a baby more than Sam did." She has already started collecting pretty things to give to the baby - a boquet of flowers, shiny rocks, etc. Sam, of course, is rooting for a boy. He told his babysitter today that the baby would be a boy and he was going to wrestle with him. ("Not until he's older!"Elena quickly reminded him.) When their sitter asked Sam, "What if it's a girl?" he replied, "It won't be."

That's my boy!

While we were at Seth's cousin's graduation party last week, Sam went to the bathroom by himself...which would be fine if he didn't need help wiping afterwards.

As there was no one there to help, he walked out among all the party guests with his pants around his ankles and proclaimed for all to hear, "Can somebody wipe me?!!"

Classic

Every once in awhile those great photo opportunities just fall right into your lap.