Our house

So, we're not selling our house . . . we're renting it. This whole process has been one of the biggest challenges we have gone through. It has completely consumed us for the last few months. I remember Chris mentioning the possibility of renting out the house, and I refused to even think about it. I felt like we had done absolutely everything possible in order to get our house (and ourselves) ready to sell, and I honestly didn't think I could handle it if we couldn't.

We chose a wonderful realtor, who worked so hard for us. All of us were flabbergasted as time went on and we were hardly getting any showings. It was hard to not feel like failures as one by one, our friends and neighbors were selling their houses and we weren't. By the beginning of May we had dropped the price $13,000 from our original listing, and it didn't make a bit of difference. We knew it was time to think about renting it out. After praying tons and going to the temple again, we knew that's what we were supposed to do, and suddenly, we felt completely fine about it.

Within a few days we found some wonderful renters who are looking for a long-term agreement. After praying more, we felt so good about them. We started to see some advantages of holding onto our house for awhile: we'll be able to continue to pay down the mortgage, and when it's time to sell again, we'll be finished with fellowship so we'll be in a better position to do it. We've also decided that we're glad to still have a connection to Ohio because we've loved it here so much. It's scary to turn our house over to other people, but we know that this is what we're supposed to be doing, so we also know that everything will be okay.

We're almost there

I can't believe that residency and our time in Cleveland is almost over. I know people say it all the time, but our time here has truly flown by. Last weekend Chris and I went to the annual end-of-the-year residents dinner/dance. The food was not that great, (limp broccoli, dry fish, and not enough dessert :) but the company was great!

It was so fun to hang out with our great friends, Summer and Bryan (without kids this time!), and with the guys in Chris' class.

Amit, Pravin, and Chris. These guys have gotten really close working together for the past 6 years.

Wow - what a day

So, I feel like I have to start this post with, "Noah is okay" but, on Monday afternoon, he was hit by a car. I've told this to so many people, but I'll do it again for the sake of those whom I haven't talked to.

The boys and I were walking home from school (Annie went home with a friend) when they heard the music of the cursed ice cream truck. They ran inside to get their money, then back out to choose their ice cream (I refuse to buy it for them, but if they want to waste their money on it, I let them). The truck was parked across the street. Brigham came over to show me what he bought, while Noah was still choosing his ice cream. This is when my memory gets fuzzy, but I think I was bending down to pull some weeds from the grass in our front yard when I heard yelling. I looked up in time to see Noah flying, then hitting the curb. I was frozen, and I remember thinking, incredulous, "Did he just get hit by a car??" I came to my senses and ran to him. It was a huge relief to see him immediately sit back up, crying like I have never heard him cry before. The ice cream ladies, as well as the two girls in the car that hit him, surrounded us. One called 911. I just cried and held Noah, noticing the blood from the back of his head drip onto my pants and arm. Within a couple of minutes, the police and an ambulence were there. Once they started taking care of Noah, I called my friend Summer, to get Brigham and Hudson (thank you Summer!!). My neighbor, Harriet, gave me her number to call once we needed a ride home, so that I could ride in the ambulence with Noah. Since my cell phone was completely dead (great timing!!), I gave Chris' pager number to Summer so she could get a hold of him. Chris met me at the pediatric ER, and we ended up staying until 8:30 that night. After much poking, prodding, cleaning, and x-raying, it ended up that Noah had some good scrapes and bruises, but that's all. What a miracle. The car that hit him was a small, compact one, and it wasn't going very fast. It may not have been going as slow as it should have past an ice cream truck, and that, combined with Noah running out right in front of it, the driver was not able to stop in time. It was an accident that sometimes happens, and we are just so grateful that everything turned out okay.

Noah stayed home for the next two days, and he went back to school today. He's still hobbling around a bit, since the hip that took most of the impact is still pretty sore, but his scrapes are healing. He's such a trooper - he was so brave the whole time.

I didn't take a picture of the bruise on his hip. I haven't even seen it myself - I'll leave that to Chris.
We've been overwhelmed with the kindness and concern of our neighbors, friends, family, and ward members. Times like these truly bring out the best in people.

Also, yesterday, the girl who hit Noah came by to see how he was doing and to apologize again. And she brought us an ice cream cake. I so admire her; I don't know if I would have enough courage to do that if I were in the same situation. It turns out that she goes to college (she wants to be a pediatrician), but she's home this semester, working as a nanny and helping out at home because her 17 year old sister was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor. I can't imagine the turmoil she's gone through.

Although experiences like this are awful and traumatic (I'm not sure I'll ever get that image of Noah hitting the curb out of my mind), it really puts things back into perspective. We've all been a bit more patient with each other, and the little irritations of daily life with kids have not bothered me. Instead of groaning with annoyance at the pee on the toilet seat or the smears of dirt on every door frame and cupboard, I just smile and shake my head, grateful that my kids are alive to make these messes. I pray that I can continue to feel this way.

Preview of Rochester

For Spring Break this year we took the kids to Minnesota to find a house to rent. We are so happy to have our friends, Paul and Summer Gunn, there already, so we could stay with them and find out all about Rochester. They have three kids, one of whom is also named Noah. He's six, so it's a perfect age, right between Brigham and our Noah, so all three played REALLY well together. So well, in fact, that we could hardly get them to come inside to eat during the day. Luckily it was nice weather the whole week we were there.

One afternoon the boys were at the top of the hill in the Gunns' backyard, busy for hours. What good boys, we thought, staying away from the TV and using their imaginations. Chris asked Brigham what they were doing up there. Brig told him that they were making things out of dirt that looked like pooh. GREAT. Later Summer saw the boys in the front yard (with Noah looking like the above picture) talking to a lady who was walking by. Summer soon found out they told this lady that it was pooh smeared on Noah's face. EVEN BETTER. Perfect way to use those imaginations, isn't it? Oh well, at least that lady won't be our neighbor. Sorry Summer :)

Also, do you notice Noah's red-rimmed eyes? That's because he's going on about 6 hours of sleep. We let the two Noahs and Brigham sleep in the basement (Annie wanted to sleep with us upstairs. I wonder why). The boys, of course, took a LONG time to get to sleep. Then at 4 the next morning, Summer heard noises from the basment, and when she went down, she saw that they had turned on "Wild Recon." She informed them that it was 4 a.m. Her Noah had the decency to look ashamed, but our Noah jumped up with his arms in the air and yelled, "We know!" Summer went back to bed. Sorry again Summer :)

So we didn't let the kids run wild with pooh smeared on their faces the whole time. Here's when we took them to Rochester's "zoo." Although small, the kids liked it. I'm sure we'll be going there a lot.

We also took them to the nature center, with trails behind it.

With it being early spring, it was pretty mucky. This is what Hudson looked like by the end of our walk.

Okay, I'm so lame - that's pretty much all the pictures I took. I guess I can attribute it to the pregnancy brain. I didn't feel that great while we were there, but we really had so much fun. Late night talks, GREAT food (thanks guys!), meeting some wonderful people that will be in our ward, and yes, we did find a house to rent. Although it won't be any bigger than our house here ( and maybe even a little smaller), it has a great fenced-in backyard, and it's on the end of a dead-end street. It's about 4-5 blocks from the kids' elementary school, and it's near the community pool and a Great Harvest (sooo excited about that!).

Thanks, Paul and Summer, for letting us stay. I know it's not easy to have 6 extra people in your three bedroom house. We are so excited to get back out there!

Chris' birthday

So, some years I'm better at putting something together for Chris' birthday than others. With it falling on a Sunday this year, our house on the market, and with me starting to feel pregnancy-sick, this was not one of those years. We went to the Brimhall's house - they provided the dinner and we brought the dessert, so although I didn't put much effort into the whole thing we had a great time anyway.

This was the present that the boys gave to Chris - a puzzle from the Christmas Story museum (Chris loves puzzles!). He got a new set of scriptures from me, and marshmallow roasters from Annie.

Chris is not much of a cake person, so he asked me to make a cheesecake. This is a mandarin chocolate one. YUMMY!

So, even though this is a really bad picture, I felt like I had to include it because as I looked through the pictures I took that day, I realized that I never took a good one of Chris (like I said, my brain was not on celebrating this year). So, here's Chris on his birthday!

The big 3-4!

I guess the Brimhalls did help provide dessert - their present to Chris was 2 boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts! It reminded us all of our vacation last year to the Outerbanks *sigh* We all wish we were back there.

"Happy birthday, dude." That's Noah, in case you couldn't tell.

Happy birthday Chris - you are the best husband and dad we could ever hope for. I hope you had a great day!

More Birthdays

So, once again Hudson's birthday coincided with Ohio Urological. It was in Columbus again this year, so we hauled Hudson's presents with us to the hotel room.

Hudson got a puzzle from Brigham, a fish bath toy from Noah (which later ended up in the unflushed toilet, so sadly the fish had a short life with us), a book from Annie, some books from Grandma and Grandpa Weight, and some trick tracks from Grandma and Grandpa Marchant.

Chris and I wanted to give Hudson an outdoor sand and water table, but decided to wait until we move before we got it for him. We figured he wouldn't even notice.

For Family Home Evening treat that next Monday we had cupcakes and ice cream cones.

This is an improvement - Hudson just cried when he looked at his cake last year . As you can see, he is enjoying his birthday treats!


Happy 2nd birthday Hudson! We love you so much!