Joseph's First Blog Post

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He's a pretty eloquent guy, don't you think?

Let's Talk About Michigan

First off, let's stop all this talk of "Michigan is so far north." It's not, at least, not Ann Arbor. I checked and the latitude of Ann Arbor is 42.2708° N. The latitude of Providence, Utah is 41.7064° N. Given that a degree of latitude is about 69 miles, that means that it's about 35 miles north of Providence. So, not really that far north.

Anyway, here we are! We took a long time to get from Provo to Ann Arbor, but we finally made it! Joseph was a champ, except for when he would get hungry 15 minutes after he would act like he was done eating. And one of us had to play chauffeur while the other sat in the back entertaining him. But overall he was pretty good (with the exception of him having his largest blowout ever in the Kansas City Temple Parking Lot [complete with flinging his mess all over the car and getting it all over my skirt] right before we were about to hand him to my aunt and go in), and he's even starting to sleep through the night again.

Sometimes he didn't like the car

I can't tell if he's enthralled by something or tired of me taking pictures.

So far, we like it here. It took me about a day to warm up to our new apartment, not because it's not great, but just because it's different. As I took my initial tour of the house, stuff like the stained toilet, the hardwood floors (I prefer vacuuming to sweeping), and the lack of light fixtures in the bedroom and living room filled me with dread. Were we really going to live here for the next 4 years? But then as I've compared the apartment to our apartment in Inca Villa, I've decided that it's definitely a step up. Another bedroom, a bathtub, more kitchen space, really fast upload and download speeds, a large master bedroom . . . I have since warmed up to it. It reminds me a lot of the house we lived in in New Jersey when I was 11. It took me a while to warm up to that house, too (it had the same kind of hardwood floors), but I grew to love it.

Kitchen

Dining room + living room

Joseph's room. Ours is the same, only bigger

A tub! Smaller than our old bathroom, but we'll adjust

Incidentally, I've been forming a lot of connections the last little while, trying to find similar elements to New Jersey, Kansas (where my mom grew up), and my home in Utah. Overall, Ann Arbor reminds me the most of New Jersey, with a bit of Lawrence, Kansas mixed in.

So, what does Michigan have?
1. Trees. It doesn't look like our part of Michigan has as many as the part of Indiana we drove through, but then again we had to go on a detour through a windy forest in Indiana, so maybe I'm just biased. But there still are lots! And they are tall and green and leafy.
As we drove, I tried to see if anything reminded me of Utah. I realized that all the rolling hills and trees showed up in Utah, but they just showed up in pockets here and there. You can find forests if you look in the canyons, but there aren't really any in residential areas. In the Midwest, basically everything is surrounded by trees.

2. Decent water. Better than Indiana water. Not quite as good as Utah water, but it's pretty close.

3. Decent traffic. Fewer cars than Provo.

4. In fact, the cars I've seen the most of have been of this variety:

via

There are a ton of them in our complex. I think I counted 9.

5. A church that is closer to our apartment than the church we met at in Provo. Really.

6. Good Mexican food. We found an authentic place the second day we were here. The only downside is that the salsa was so spicy that it may have made Joseph upset the next day. (I'm finally conceding that what you eat may sort of affect your milk.)

7. Mormons. At least there are a lot where we are. Then again, it's graduate family housing. Also a lot of international students. I'm excited.


What does Michigan not have?
1. Mountains. I figured something out while we were driving through states such as Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. These all have fairly large populations, but I didn't really see any houses. Where were all the people hiding? Then I realized that in Utah, thanks to the mountains and lack of trees, you can basically see 3/4 of the population stacked up as you drive on I-15.
Sometimes I expect to see the mountains and they're not there, but I'm doing okay without them so far.

2. Humidity. Okay, it does have some, but it's not nearly as humid as I was expecting. Then again, Kansas was not humid at all, and it's always humid in the summer! I blame the drought.

We drove past a lot of dead corn in Kansas.

3. Cheap potatoes. Or maybe it was just the grocery store we were at. At any rate, Idaho potatoes have a lot farther to travel.

4. Light fixtures. Apparently light fixtures are a Utah thing. But we got $9.00 lamps which are plenty bright, so life is good again.

Anyway, those are just some things I've noticed in our short time here. Once I actually meet people, I'll make more observations (though maybe not blog posts about them). At any rate, we are all so excited to be starting our adventure here!

. . . Especially Joseph. More on him coming soon . . .

How I'm feeling these days

Michigan is not nearly as cold or dreadful as Siberia, but I still feel like this a lot. (Come to think of it, I'm the second of five girls, too, so this applies even better than I thought.)

President Faust's Funeral

I used to tell this story a lot more than I do nowadays. It was recent, it was crazy, it was exciting. But then time passed and I had other stories to tell.

But since today is the 5 year anniversary of the adventure, I figured I ought to reminisce a bit and retell the story. It's kind of long, but I think it's worth your time.

§

The first thing you have to understand is that this was not a first date. Far from it. Jeff* and I had gone on several dates over the summer and would have considered ourselves as "going out" had I not been headed to BYU at the end of the summer and had it not been taboo at my school to admit such a thing. So when he asked me to accompany him to President Faust's funeral, it was because he knew that I knew that he had known and cared for President Faust and that he wanted someone to mourn with.

So off we went to Salt Lake that bright Tuesday morning in Jeff's recently-purchased car which vibrated at stoplights. We made our way to Temple Square, and then after an hour waiting outside, into the tabernacle. We sat in the balcony, him in his suit and me in dark clothes. It was quite warm.

And honestly, there's not much I remember from the funeral. I remember that they told stories about his life and that the choir sang "This is the Christ." But mostly I remember Jeff putting his arm around my shoulder for the first time. Which, looking back, is not the most romantic location for such an event, and the other funeral-goers probably didn't appreciate our mild PDA.

At the close of the funeral, we stood up as President Faust's family left, and then as other General Authorities left. It was then that I heard a thud. I looked to my left and there was Jeff passed out on the bench, with his eyes rolled back and his hands convulsing. My date just had a heart attack, I thought. This is what we get for PDA during a funeral. Instinctively I reached down and pulled him up. Out of nowhere, a normally-dressed man showed up and turned out to be a security guard. He escorted us off of the balcony in front of everyone. Everyone was still standing as the General Authorities were leaving, and it was dead silent except for the "clack, clack, clack" of my shoes. I was mortified and hoped that the funeral wasn't being broadcast anymore.

§

Once we were outside, a swarm of senior missionaries and other old men surrounded us. They hoisted Jeff into a wheelchair and began to ask him questions. In his slightly dazed state, he answered them and then they asked me questions to confirm his answers.

"Has he ever done this before?" one of the old men asked after asking Jeff the exact same question.

"No, I don't think so," I responded.

"The witness said he has never done this before," the old man said into his radio.

We then went over to one of the visitors centers for them to assess the situation more. We went inside a first aid office where a nurse started asking me questions about him. I knew his birthday and phone number, but then I struggled when they asked his address.

"I'm not his sister or anything. We were just here on a . . . date," I explained.

"Oh," she said, her inflection rising then falling. I couldn't read her expression. Probably confused why we went to a funeral for a date.

They then called his dad. They didn't let Jeff talk to him but instead had me explain the situation. "Uh, hi, um, Jeff passed out and we're here in the visitor's center." Kind of an awkward phone call. He then talked to the nurses and then they handed the phone back to me.

"Kyra, they're going to take Jeff up to the hospital. Can you go get the car and drive up to the hospital to meet them there?" I said yes, and then off I went. As I left, Jeff apologized profusely for the third or fourth time. "It's okay," I mouthed back.

§

I got back to the car and turned it on. Put it in reverse. It rolled forward instead of backward. Great. I turned it off and tried again. This time it didn't turn on at all. I tried again. And again. And again. When I realized I had a blister on my thumb from trying so many times, I gave up and called Jeff's dad.

"Oh yeah, the previous owner said something like this might happen. He said that when this happens you should get out and rock the car back and forth a few times and that that will fix it." I hung up and got outside to rock the car (in my heels and skirt no less). As I rocked it, I saw an ambulance drive by. Probably with Jeff inside. I got back inside and tried to turn it on again. And again. And again. Then I gave up for good and decided to walk the mile uphill to the hospital. In the heat of the day. In my heels. I wasn't too happy about it.

As I walked, I called and canceled Jeff's later engagements. "Hey Brandon*, Jeff probably won't make it to the Martin Harris Pageant tonight. He . . . passed out and is at the hospital." Saying it so many times made it more real. It was about this point where the events of the day really started to wear on me. I realized that I just wanted there to be a familiar grownup in Salt Lake that I could talk to. I then remembered that when I had gone to Salt Lake two months earlier for some AP Gov demonstration, I had met my friend Jason's* grandma and that she lived just off of Temple Square. So I decided to call up Jason to get her number. He asked how I was doing. I laughed maniacally and said fine, and he didn't believe me for some odd reason. "I'm fine. My date's in the hospital and the car is broken." He offered his sympathies, gave me his grandma's phone number, and told me that he would call her to forewarn her. I thanked him, hung up, and cried most of the way to the hospital. 

§

When I arrived at the hospital, I was thirsty, sweaty, and tearstained. Once I had fixed all of those problems, I found Jeff. He was in some emergency room area, sitting on a gurney in a hospital gown, looking completely normal and quite bored. I sat down next to him on the gurney.

"So . . . this is our 13th date," I said. We counted them together starting from my 16th birthday and he came to the same conclusion.

"So it is," he responded. "Lucky number 13." Then silence. The easy conversation we had enjoyed in the car was now replaced with awkward silence, punctuated by occasional remarks about his ride in the ambulance, the broken car, and what might have caused him to pass out. We concluded it was heat exhaustion. The lack of water, the heat, the dark clothes . . . all of it probably contributed.

About an hour or so after his IV finished dripping, they finally let him go, encouraging him to go see a doctor to check out a single "blip" in his heart rate. He changed back into his suit and we left.

"Jeff, I know you were just in the hospital, but you're going to have to walk a mile back to the car," I reminded him. He had a good attitude about it and we joked the whole way back down. After debating between grabbing something to eat or looking at the car, we decided to look at the car first, figuring that if we got it to work we'd be able to drive somewhere to eat rather than on Temple Square. He got in the car and had the same lack of success I did. Just then, some sister missionaries walked by.

"Excuse me," Jeff called, "do you have a car or something to help us jump ours?" They said they would do what they could, and after a few minutes they returned with a van. We managed to get the cables set up right, and after a few minutes, it looked like the car was working. They unhooked the cables and drove off. And then the car didn't turn on.

§

We looked at each other in defeat. The only thing to do now was to get some food, especially since it was about 5 by this point and we hadn't eaten anything since 8:30 that morning. So we went down to the Nauvoo Cafe and got some sandwiches. When the cashier said, "Have a nice day," I laughed maniacally again.

"How about we say a blessing on the food?" Jeff asked. I agreed. "I'll say it," he said. As he prayed, I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing. "Thank thee that the nurses and security guards have been so professional . . . thank thee that the sister missionaries were willing to help us jump the car . . ." There are some days when it's just kind of hard to count your blessings.

After we had food in our stomachs, we were ready to tackle the car problem again. I called Jason's grandma and asked if she would help us jump the car. She agreed, and we walked over to her apartment. She then drove us all back over to our parking spot. After a few attempts to jumpstart the car, it finally stayed alive (I think the trick was revving the engine while the cables were connected, but I don't remember). Once we realized the car was on and running, we decided that we would hightail it back to Logan as fast as we could and not turn the thing off til we were both safely at our homes.

Since Jeff had had a "possible seizure" earlier that day, I drove. We decided not to turn the radio on because   we thought it may have contributed to the car running out of battery earlier that day. So instead, as I drove, Jeff decided to read from a book he happened to have in the car.

"This looks like a great read," he said as he pulled "How to be Totally Miserable" by John Bytheway out. He flipped through and found an appropriate page. "Ah, here's a good section. It's on adventures. Miserable people never have them. They just have bad things happen to them. Happy people consider all trials adventures. When another trial comes, they say, 'oh great! Another adventure!'" I groaned as he read, both because I had been calling the whole day an adventure and because we had hit stop and go traffic north of Salt Lake. Each time we stopped the car vibrated more violently.

"Here's another one. Miserable people complain," he read. We hit another slow spot, and the car vibrated and vibrated and vibrated . . . and then fell silent. It had died. In the middle lane of the freeway. During rush hour.

§

(crickets chirping)

§

"Hey! Turn your hazard lights on!" someone yelled at us as he drove past. They didn't work. We decided that we had to somehow get the car onto the shoulder. I put the car in neutral, and Jeff got out and pushed (and yes, he had been in the hospital earlier that day). Someone jumped out of their car and helped him push, and before too long we were on the shoulder and felt safe again.

Safe, but completely clueless. I called my mom and Jeff called his dad and they both recommended that we go and get some water since it was still pretty warm and lack of water was what had caused our earlier problems. Jeff's dad said he would call a tow truck, and then he would drive down and pick us up.

So, there we were, just abandoning the car and walking along the freeway. I felt very odd about the whole thing, especially about how we were going to get off the exit. We had been walking less than a minute when a car pulled up and offered us a ride since they were getting off at the next exit. They looked like nice, normal people, so we accepted their offer and they dropped us off at a nearby Shopko. We went in and grabbed some bottled water. As we bought the water, we told the cashier the whole tale, and she didn't seem too interested. Cashiers get to hear all sorts of stories, probably.

After waiting for a while on a bench outside, a truck arrived with Jeff's car in tow. We hopped into the cab, and it was pretty clear that it was not occupied by someone who showered much. Luckily, the drive to the car place was short. He left the car in some lot and we waited in a hotel lobby next door for Jeff's dad to pick us up. After another silent and awkward hour, he arrived and took us home. It was dark by the time we got back and I think I fell asleep immediately. At least, I did after rehashing the whole tale 2 or 3 times.

§

I think they fixed the alternator in Jeff's car.


*Names have been changed . . . I mean, who wants to have to relive high school?

Why church is never boring anymore

I had thought the adventures were over by the time we got to church. We were giving talks and had procrastinated writing them down until Sunday morning. So we had a somewhat frantic morning putting our thoughts on paper and printing them out. Luckily, we were able to get them done, and Joseph was even behaving well. He continued behaving up until we sat down on the stand for our talks, so we kept him in the car seat.

"Looks like he's smiling now," our high councilor said a few minutes before 10:30, the time that the meeting started.

"Oh, I hope it lasts," I responded. "You never know. Then again, he just ate at 10 so he ought to be good for at least a little while."

Then Joseph stopped smiling. He opened his mouth and began to throw up. Big time. It just kept on spurting out, getting on his clothes and his car seat and the carpet. We sat there frozen in horror, transfixed by the spectacle unfolding before us (I can only imagine how we looked to the congregation). When we began to reach for him, he went even more. Then finally he stopped and he sat there looking kind of uncomfortable in his vomit.

I did the first thing I could think of. I took a burp rag and tossed it at Joseph, as if that would clean up the mess. "I don't think that's going to work," Kevin said.

So we got him out and Kevin cleaned up the car seat while I carried him out to the mother's room, holding him at a distance to avoid getting all the spit-up on my new dress. I hurried in and took off his sopping wet outfit. Then he started to act hungry . . . so I fed him. I guess there was nothing left in his stomach, but I still felt like I was asking for trouble by putting more into his stomach which had already demonstrated amazing expulsion abilities.

But I was in luck. He fussed and cried and made all the other moms in the room cluck with sympathy for him, but nothing else came out of him. I put him in a new outfit and made my way back to the front of the chapel. He was calm, and all was good.

As the sacrament began, he started to fuss again. I was the first speaker, so I couldn't take him out. So Kevin got up and left with him. And then I spoke, still frazzled by the whole experience and grateful I had written my talk down word for word. When it was Kevin's turn to speak, he handed Joseph to me and I went to the mother's room and fed him again (he ate like he hadn't eaten in days). Came back into the chapel at the end of the meeting and met up with Kevin. Talked about Joseph with our high councilor who happens to be a pediatrician. Handed Joseph back and forth for diaper changes and bathroom breaks and carseat wipedowns (as I write this, Kevin is still discovering more to clean up) and fussy sessions. We missed Sunday School entirely.

Crazy to think that I ever used to get bored at church. I don't think I'll ever be bored again for a loooooooooong time.

Good thing he's so cute.

Joseph in his "graduation robes" with my dad. Oh yeah . . . we got our masters this week.

Birthday Memes

Happy birthday Dad! You might not think 49 is all that interesting of an age, but I maintain that "it's hip to be a square."

Speaking of birthdays, a few weeks ago, I made some memes for my sister Kaylie's birthday. I didn't want to share them on Facebook because I had terrible visions of people sharing them and them going viral and my baby's face being plastered all over the internet. I'm not that funny, so it was probably an unfounded fear. But then again a lot of memes are not funny yet make it big. (Actually, all but about 5 in my opinion, but I'm a tough crowd.)

But, I figured that this blog has a smaller audience, and since I know all 7 of you (give or take a dozen), I didn't mind sharing them here. (If you do like them and want to use them, please ask first, or better yet, just find your own baby and make them yourself.)

Here they are (sorry Dad . . . some of them still apply to Kaylie):

Visitors and Apologies

So, ever since Joseph was born, we've had a ton of visitors, and the apartment has never been messier. This is because when Joseph is crying or eating, I can't clean. When he is playing, I want to play with him. When he is sleeping, I want to sleep.

Doesn't leave much time for scrubbing the shower.

This means that pretty much anytime anyone comes into the house, the first thing I say is, "Sorry about the mess." If I can't find the willpower to mop, at least I can apologize.

I mean, the apartment's never been amazingly, consistently clean. If we knew people were coming over, like for weekly ward choir, we were good about cleaning the living room and even dusting the piano. We would have a clean table and maybe even a shiny sink.

But if you stopped by unannounced? Proceed with caution.

These days, what with a tiny, needy baby and a move across the country in about a week, it's kind of a disaster zone. And since it's a disaster zone already, it's easy to let everything slide.

And all this is just depressing because I know better. I really don't mind cleaning or dejunking. It just takes a little motivation, a strong nesting instinct, or an inordinate amount of free time for me to do anything beyond the basics.

Luckily, most of the time, the basics are good enough. But today my mom came to help me pack (thanks mom) and I knew that I would feel disappointing if things were dirty. But I didn't have time to do them all before she arrived (I tried), so what did I do instead?

I explained. I made as many excuses as I could.

"There are dirty dishes because Kaylie and Jennie came over and then I talked to Kevin (who is in Michigan for a conference) and then Leslie came over and then it was bedtime so I didn't have time to do them."

"The scrubbers are gross because I wasn't the last one who used them. I always clean them."

"I tried getting rid of the hard water deposits but I couldn't get them off." (I didn't try vinegar.)

And even for other things as she helped me pack, I continued to explain.

"I don't have that many clothes, do I? I just sent a bunch to DI! Well, I still wear all of them. I can tell you the  last time I wore each thing. And I don't have many shoes."

I wonder why I feel like I have to apologize and explain so much. Why can't I just say, "Look, it's a little cluttered. But I can live in this. I would probably focus better if the stove were clean, and I probably have way more junk than I need, but I really can live in this. So I'm sure you can survive half an hour."

And really, who's paying that much attention, anyway?

We didn't start the fire (except for target shooters)

So, unless you've been sequestered in Seattle or Santa Barbara, you've probably noticed that this summer has been hot. Really hot, in some places. There have also been a lot of fires. During June, it felt like the whole state of Utah was burning up. It reminded me of 2000, which was the last time I remember that we even came close to having this many fires. In fact, some say that this is the worst drought since 1988, which was the year of the big Yellowstone fires.

So what do the summers of 1988, 2000, and 2012 have in common?

They're all contained within the Year of the Dragon.

Coincidence? I think not!