Happy Memorial Day 2010

This year Memorial Day means something just a little different.  I've always thanked the veterans and thought about the sacrifices they make for me, my family and my country...but this year I'm so close to sending my own husband off to Afghanistan that the sacrifices these soldiers make suddenly feels so much more poignant than it ever has before.

We're having people over today and I'll be snapping pictures all day long, but just to start off our Memorial Day I hope you enjoy this oldie and goodie from Miss Madmad. (She was 5)

The slowest slide ever...

In our recent weekend trip to Garmisch we found a park near the place we were staying that had some wonderful fun play structures for the girls.  One in particular had John and I doubled over laughing.  And thus we present...

The slowest slide ever...

We had a great time at this park...

or the video version...

And my personal favorite photos...

18 months ago she was so teensy...

Well, the month of May marked Isabella's 18 month birthday.  I can hardly believe it...I look at her and try and remember what it was like to hold her in one arm while vacuuming with the other...she was sooo tiny.  I remember her being swallowed up in those 3 month clothes in her tiny little body...those pitiful sad little wails in her tiny baby voice...those little hands and feet that were so uncoordinated...and her little face practicing new looks and smiles. 

She's so adventurous now.  Her first steps were so magnificent, but now she RUNS!  She climbs and is almost to the point of jumping.  She's a little daredevil and makes John and I jump and run to her when we see her teetering on the edge of what could be a terrible fall, but boy does she get MAD when we try and save her.  She's all about doing it herself.

She loves to go on the swings and the slide...she's almost go the knack of climbing ladders.  She loves bathtubs, but has decided getting her hair wet is NOT fun.  She also loves a shower and likes to stand in it and play in the water. 

She's finally got some molars in and is now exploring the world of harder food...carrots, celery, chips, apples.  They don't have to be close to mush anymore and she has turned into a world class grazer.  Her nickname Munchie suits her very well.

She says quite a few words now - book, nighty night, all done, please, thank you, I love you, etc.  She practices new words, but is still a little belligerent if you ask her to say something - forget it...boy does she have her mama's stubborn side.  Aiya!

Her hair is getting so long and its retained that beautiful curl.  She's wearing size 12-18 month clothes and a size 5/6 shoe.  She loves to brush her teeth - we've totally weaned her off a bottle of milk at bedtime and now she goes to bed with warm water to drink so that her teeth stay healthy.

Her 18 month doctor's appointment gave us these stats:

She is now 23 pounds 9 ounces.(about the 25th percentile)
She is 32.25 inches tall. (about the 50th percentile)
Her head is 47 cm around. (about the 50th percentile)

Little munchie is getting sooo big...

Why are we standing on the sidewalk at 6AM?

Vilseck, Germany's 2SCR Regimental Run...kind of a pre-sendoff show of support for our soldiers leaving soon for Afghanistan. 

Good morning!

May 13th found us on the sidewalk in front of our library waving flags and cheering on about 3000 running soldiers as they yelled their cadence and ran past. 

It was pretty dang cool to see so many soldiers and to see so many people cheering them on...

Maddie even got shown on AFN Europe's news broadcast...she's just waving a flag, but she thinks she's famous now that she's been on TV.  (The story starts about 8 minutes in...)
American Forces Network Europe Home Article Display (DD)

Our own soldier was out there cheering them on with us...poor guy was sad he missed out on those 5 miles of sweating with 3000 other guys.  HA!

Eat your heart out Dave Ramsey!

The Larson Family as of this month has become DEBT FREE!  Woooooooooohhoooooooooo!  I paid off the last of the big spender bills we had accumulated jointly and separately and now we are just staring at that checkbook in shock at how far we've come...  So yeah...debt free...Well, other than that particularly large mortgage on our house in Oregon, but that one's acceptable.  I wasn't sure I would ever say it and I must tell you that I am so proud of John and yes...so proud of me for working so hard to make this goal. 

The final few days of vacation....

...also known as isn't it time to be done with this travel log already?  Phew...life is so crazy right now I am just trying to keep my head above water.  Thats why at 12:30PM when I SHOULD be sleeping I am up with energy and needing to finish this post.

So...

From Mesa back to Sierra Vista.

While you wouldn't think there was much to say, our 3 hour trip turned into a 5.5 hour trip when we spent 2.5 hours on 1-10 in a lineup of stopped traffic that must have been miles long.  Bella napped through part of it then woke up.  She and I ended up taking a walk up 1-10...(Now how many people can say that?) and she was the hit of the day.  We were offered so many cookie/candy/drink treats from people who just oohed and aahed over her.  We turned around after about 3/4 mile when Bella found a "puppy..."  (Actually a dead coyote on the side of the road that she nearly petted before I caught her...aiya!)

Don't you love her nap hair?

The never ending traffic lineup...

We feasted on a chinese buffet that night...not the Number 1 Chinese Buffet (in honor of grandpa Butler who loved that restaurant and lauded it as the best in Ontario Oregon...well, I think it was a tie between that and Kentucky Fried Chicken for him...)  Regardless...Bella was a total camera HAM.

And she had her first soft-serve icecream.

And thats about all I'll say about that...

Now, from Tucson back to Oregon.

(I'll bypass the story of the nightmare plane trip that was delayed a total of 9 hours getting us into Salt Lake at 2AM and back to the airport at 6AM.)

And last, but not least...to keep this short and sweet I created a slideshow of all the pictures from those last few days...featuring almost everyone from the Larson side of this family.  We sure do love and miss them...

But first - a short video of Bella on the slide...

And now...the photo slideshow...



And finally - our trip home...and this is the part where I said it "ended with barf..."

We are in the Portland airport and Bella was running ahead of the stroller when she suddenly stopped and turned and we just didn't catch her in time. BASH...she cracked her eyebrow into the stroller causing a little split and immediate swelling and bruising.  She was such a sad little thing.  That was the beginning...

When we got on the plane I was carrying on two bags and walking Bella in front of me.  A very large man saw us trying to get past and leaned from the center aisle into the seats, but didn't actually get out of our way...as we stepped past him, he stepped backward and landed his big foot right on Bella's barefoot toes.  She hollered and I had to actually push his leg off of her foot before he knew he was standing on her.

With those two major ouchies...poor Bella was in bad shape...  I got her set up in her seat with some warm milk and she calmed down...until an hour into the flight when she proceeded to vomit all over everything.

That was when I also noticed she had a fever.

I got her all calmed down and went to the restroom.  When I returned I sat down in my seat and heard a RIIIIIIIIIIP.  The earphones that someone before me had used while sitting in the seat had broken off and they had left the metal prong sticking out.  I hadn't noticed it before, but when sitting down this time it managed to snag my pants and ripped a huge hole which essentially showed the world my bum cheek...

We finally land the plane in Amsterdam and as we are getting ready to deboard, Bella gets knocked in the eyebrow again and she let out a howl that I immediately knew was going to end in vomit.  Sure enough...she cried herself sick and this time it was EVERYWHERE.  All the people in the plane were moving out of the way...it was in the aisle, on the seats, on our bags, on her, on me, on the seat in front of us...  It was amazing that her little belly had so much in it to regurgitate into this last and final farewell...

And the grand finale of this nightmare trip home was when we finally got off the plane and I buckled her into her stroller and promptly pinched her little leg in the buckle and caused a blood blister. 

That was it for me.  It was all I could do to not just break down and lay on the floor and cry my eyes out. 

Lets just say that 4 hours later when we walked into our house there was never in the history of the universe someone so glad to be home as I was that day.

I'M DONE!!!!!!!

PS...I'm making a mid-year resolution to blog more frequently instead of these massive travel logs.  Phew!

The Mesa Arizona Johnson Clan

The one weekend we spent in Arizona we drove 3 hours north to Mesa to stay with my brother Ray and his family.

We decided to leave Friday night so Bella would sleep on the 3 hour drive.  Arriving at around 10:30PM...I had just finished saying to John that I was certain we'd find Ray asleep in the kids room (since he always falls asleep putting them to bed, and Stephanie would be up and doing laundry and working on her church stuff. 

I should have bet a million dollars because Ray was snoozing, Stephanie was up doing laundry and working on her church lesson.  Do I know my family or what? 

John, on the other hand had just finished commenting on how hot it was at 10:30PM when Stephanie opened the door in a long sleeved jacket.  She was cold.  Crazy Arizonians.

The last time we saw the Johnson family was when we left Arizona to move to Germany.  Isabella was about 5 months old.  So, when the kids saw a walking, jabbering Bella they were amazed!

We started the weekend out a little rough.  John went outside to grab something and Bella followed him.  I called out that Bella followed him - he responded with OK...but hadn't heard what I said - he thought I was talking about something in the car. 

Bella ended up in the middle of the street intersection with our little 6 year old Lizzy calling to her to come back because a car was coming.  As Bella ran back toward the sidewalk she fell down - scraped her chin and forehead, bruised up her nose and cut a chunk out of her tongue that was about the size around of a pencil eraser.  It was awful. 

It was the first time I'd seen blood actually "pouring" from my daughter and to have it coming from out of her mouth put me in a bit of a panic.

Bella healed quickly, Mama and Daddy weren't too grumpy with each other about it and little Lizzy was the hero of the day...but let me please remind you to make double sure that your child is being watched appropriately.  I just shudder to think of the possibilities of what could have happened that day.

All the Johnson clan looked great.  Johnnie was soooo tall.  At 12 he is now towering over his Auntie Anna.  He had to spend most of the weekend working on a book report that he had procrastinated doing.  It was on Black Holes.  Uncle John gave him a great opening sentence - Black Holes suck.  ha ha ha.  My other favorite part of his report was where he talked about if you get sucked into a black hole - just forget it cuz you're dead.  ha ha ha.  Very creative report writer.  I loved it.

Katie is still absolutely beautiful.  At 10 she's definitely showing signs of preteen behavior with dangly earrings, 4 outfits in one day, fancy shoes, being bored ALL THE TIME and eye rolling.  It was fun watching her...she likes being with the adults now more than the kids.  And did I mention how beautiful she is?

Little Lizzie isn't so little anymore!  Her 6th birthday had just passed and she is growing up so fast.  She was the best playmate for Bella and was just amazed at all the "tricks" Bella could do now.  She also loves stories and both uncle John and I read story after story after story.  I'm still envious of her beautiful hair.  She's just such a pretty litle girl!

Bella, was absolutely smitten with their dog, Rocky.  I think every other word out of her mouth was PUPPY!  Only, it sounds more like this - puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy...  I think you get the idea.  She followed Rocky around the backyard and when she wasn't following him around she was peering out the windows looking for him.  When she found out where his food bowl was she decided to feed him as well.  So Rocky laid around all day long while Bella fetched food for him...

Soon, Bella was intrigued by that dog's food....and she started to lick it before giving it to Rocky.  And then eventually it turned into, "one for Rocky...one for Bella.  I even found her taking a break on the slide with a little snack of dog food.  :)

It was such a beautiful day on Saturday that we spent it playing outside.  Reminiscent of my childhood years, Lizzie turned on the sprinkler and jumped on the trampoline in the water...She's quite the little acrobat...

Bella stood just at the edge of the sprinkler spray watching for awhile...

...then got brave enough to join Lizzie in the fun...

We had to get video of our favorite two moves though - This being her first time on a trampoline when she could actually walk, it was hilarious to watch her run...



And try and jump...



Of course our main source of entertainment was John.  He juggles. 



The next morning we left the Johnson's right at their church hour and just in time for Bella to nap on the way home again - but not before we snapped a few photos...

We love you Johnson clan!  Can't wait to see you again SOOOON!

Part II - The land of high desert and hot sun...

AKA...Sierra Vista, Arizona!

Perhaps you remember that just a short year ago we moved from Sierra Vista to Germany.  We really enjoyed our time in AZ and John had to return to complete some additional training.  After we arrived in Portland - Bella and I flew to Arizona to be able to spend some 1-1 time with John.  We figured we'd get to see family again in July, but Daddy was leaving shortly for a whole year so we wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.

Bobbi and Bop insisted on hanging out with us at the airport until we had to go through security - Now I know how Bop keeps his youthful figure - he chases his grandkids around...




While waiting for our plane Bella monopolized this toy...she wouldn't let any other child touch it.  Again...time for a lesson in sharing, I think.

Our days in Arizona were so nice and relaxing for us. 

The hotel we stayed in was wonderful.  The staff was like extended family - they doted on Bella and pretty much let her have the run of the lobby.  We spent a lot of time playing in the common areas and riding the elevators.  All you have to say to Bella is "Do you want to push the button" and she's frantically looking for an elevator...

Bella had her first experience in a pool and LOVED it...

We also spent time at one of the local parks that had the very best play structure for toddlers. 

She also practiced her throwing arm quite a bit...

One day, my friend Laura came for a visit with her son and daughter.  We had so much fun just hanging out and playing...

Bella is still a little shy about touching and physical interaction with other children...this series of photos is one of my favorites...

Arizona symbolizes my pregnancy...its where I was on bedrest...where I only knew about 10 people total and where I spent most of my time working or in the pool or in bed because of the pregnancy.  This time around...with Bella as a toddler it was a whole different experience for me. I enjoyed those few days we spent just lounging around Sierra Vista until we left on Friday night and drove to Mesa to visit the Johnson Family...(oh yes..you won't want to miss this next series...)