South Pasadena

At the end of October Jon's company sent him to a conference in LA and encouraged him to make a vacation out of it with me and the girls.  As we started making plans we were thrilled to find out that the hotel we'd be staying in was a mere eight miles from the Israelsen's apartment in South Pasadena. We'd finally get to meet Milo and spend some quality time with their family!

Driving from LA to the Israelsen's was quite an adventure.  I'm so glad that I wasn't the one behind the wheel!  Jon quickly realized that if there was another option to heading back into LA with the company car after dropping his girls off at Sarah and Paul's he'd find it!  And so Paul kindly showed him where to catch the train that would be his best friend for a couple of days.  It worked out splendidly and alleviated our stress levels.

The week went by much too quickly, and after all was said and done I definitely did not get enough Sarah time.  But let's not focus on that!  We got to spend all day together and frequented Garfield Park where Milo and Sophie proved to be almost the same size, and cooperated (for the most part) during one of many lovely photo shoots courtesy of Sarah.  The girls also enjoyed swinging in swings and watching the Bubble Man; who apparently can be found blowing bubbles at the park for the children quite often.  The weather was beautiful.  The walk to the Park was pleasant.  South Pasadena is lovely, and I enjoyed checking g out the little shops on the way there. 

One morning we got to check out the beautiful homes not far from Sarah and Paul's.  They were all so different and fancy and I loved seeing the "National Treasure" house and "The Father of the Bride" house.  It was a great morning, although much chillier than I anticipated and my girls were not dressed appropriately for the weather.  Lydia had a blanket, but Sophie was suffering.  Milo was a perfect gentleman and lent Sophie his jacket.  What a champ!  We kept going and enjoyed the changing leaves and the feeling that Fall might actually arrive in Southern California after all!

Our hotel was super fancy and Sarah and Milo made it over to visit us our last day there.  We checked out the pool and road in the elevator a few times (one of Lydia's favorite pastimes) and then on the black stairs (escalator) too.  There was this really neat fountain of two fish shooting water over each other on the main floor.  Everyone was really sweet to our girls and Lydia wanted everyone she met to meet and hold her dog, pig, horse or whatever she was holding and then tell them the name of her beloved animal.  Martha Speaks, Pork Chop and Bulls Eye.  Their responses always seemed to satisfy her.

After Jon's conference ended we got to spend our nights with the Israelsen's and enjoy some great adventures.  Both our family's piled into the company's Ford Explorer and we headed to the beach!  Manhattan Beach, to be exact.  It was beautiful.  Colder than I anticipated.  Yes, even California gets chilly.  (An observation I may have noted once or twice already...) We ran around in the sand, Jon took Lydia into the water and they'd race the waves further up the beach to avoid getting wet.  It was a great system until I took over.  Not five minutes later, Lyds was wet up to her waist.  Oops.  So Lydia wanted to be held.  Sophie had had a blow-out on our arrival at the beach and once again Milo was a gentleman and lent her some clean clothes.  But that didn't make her happy.  She wanted to be held too.  Sadly our girls were not loving our adventure, but Sarah snapped some fantastic photos before we thought it best to hop back in the car and return to our home away from home.

The Saturday we were there Utah was playing USC so Aunt Mary Anne generously invited us to tailgate with their whole family before the game.  USC campus is beautiful, and it was great to catch up with family.  The game was nothing to brag about, but being in the Coliseum was exciting and memorable.  Sophie slept through the entire first half of the game and Lydia the second half.  So sweet of them.  The rides to and from the game were interesting to say the least.  Jon said that nobody even so much as looked his direction during his journey on the train, but as soon as our girls entered on the scene they became instant celebrities.  Suddenly everyone wanted to talk to us.  And tell us how adorable our girls were.  And that our next two babies would be boys.  Wait.  What?!

And later that night we crashed the Israelsen's ward Halloween Party.  The trunk or treat was awesome until we realized that our family walking around without Sarah or Paul was not the best idea.  Nobody there knew us.  What were we thinking?  Despite that, everyone was very kind and Lydia enjoyed saying trick or treat and participating in a few of the carnival games.  The Israelsen's looked awesome in their costumes, and we enjoyed dressing up!

Some of the high lights of the trip that have not yet been mentioned are Lydia finding the Kevin bird (from Up) right outside Paul and Sarah"s apartment, playing Skip Bo and talking late into the night, cooking super delicious meals with Sarah (my personal favorite being the chicken pillows.  Yum Yum!) Milo eating his first bites of solids. The boy is a natural.  Sleeping (or not sleeping) at the hotel.  It was a real challenge trying to get Lyds to sleep.  We counted and said the ABCs and that worked one night, but for some reason it wasn't effective every night.  Milo's elephant was a favorite with all of the little ones.  We loved just spending time with family and appreciate the Israelsen's inviting us into their home!  I hope you enjoyed the pictures!  I had a hard time narrowing it down to just the ones shown here... Thanks Sarah!  For capturing so many memories!

Happy Halloween!

 These girls have been excited to wear their costumes for days and days!!  Lydia has, at least.  She did get the chance to wear her Little Red Riding Hood costume in California (more about the trip soon) in addition to Thursday.  She's been asking on and off each day if it was the day she got to wear her Red Riding Hood clothes and Sophie her ladybug outfit.  So sweet!  Sophie was just happy to sit by her big sister!

 You'd never guess it to look at her, but Sophie had quite a fright not long before this photo was taken.  Just before we left home to visit the grandparents, our little neighbor boy rang the doorbell to trick-or-treat.  Immediately after I opened the door Sophie burst into tears and squeezed me tight!  I'm pretty sure she was trying to disappear into my shoulder.  The adorable little five year old was dressed up as a werewolf!  Can you blame her?

Lydia had been having a wonderful day until "I freaked out at Granny" (her words, not mine) and raced into Jon's arms.  We were at Grandma and Grandpa Fraziers when Grandma put on a mask to show Lyds there was nothing to be afraid of.  Two days later and she's still talking about it!  Give her a few more days and she'll be laughing.  Or at least smiling.  I'm pretty sure that's how this little one conquers her fears.  The more she talks, the less frightening the "freaky" things become.  Not real sure where she picked that phrase up!

Meters anyone??

For the past two and a half years I have been working with an irrigation company in Farson, WY, called the Eden Valley Irrigation and Drainage District (EVIDD).  I took over for another engineer who had been working with them since 2008, but was quitting JUB to seek better opportunities.  Little did I know how it would dominate our lives!

Downtown Farson

Could, but most likely Wouldn't

EVIDD has a reservoir called the Big Sandy Reservoir.  The reservoir retains water from the Big Sandy River, the headwaters of which are in the Wind River Mountains.  The reservoir discharges into a 30 mile long main canal.  The main canal has several offshoots or laterals, and each lateral has 5 to 30 turnouts.  My job has been to design and oversee construction of projects where we pipe the existing earth lined laterals. 

Pre-construction lateral and turnout

Post-construction turnout

This is what the area looks like when it is not irrigated

This is what it looks like in May :-(

 One of the first challenges that I faced were flow meters.  At each of the individual turnouts we have to measure the instantaneous amount of water being used, and the total amount of water used during the year.  There are several technologies that one could use to do this.  Unfortunately, the engineer that preceded me chose a technology that didn't work for our application.  He then left the company before he had to fix the issue.  We had over 30 meters installed that didn't work, and a client that was not happy.  I researched meters, met with sales representative, tried several types in the field, and finally settled on a meter that I felt would be an acceptable replacement for the bunk meters.  Since JUB was paying for this little debacle, we tried to keep our costs down by doing most of the work ourselves...which meant I did most of the work.

Step 1:  Excavate around the turnout pipe.  The bunk meters inserted into the top of the pipe to take their readings, so the top of the pipe was the only area that needed to be exposed.  The new meters clamp to the side of the pipe on the outside of the pipe.  This meant that each pipe had to be excavated to allow access around the entire pipe.

Excavating the pipe...it is as cold as it looks

 Step 2: Install new meters.  Nate worked with me for a few days.  We installed the sensors on the pipe, pulled cables to the remote telemetry units (RTU) and wired the displays into place.  He decided that engineering was not for him, and least my kind of engineering.  He also decided that it was important to stay in school.

Day 1 - still smiling

Pulling Wire

Sometimes there was concrete...

Sometimes there was water...

This is where I became an electrician...fortunately I didn't cut the green wire, which is Hollywood has taught me anything causes explosions.

 Step 3:  Sell the old meters.  My boss asked me the other day what we were doing to sell the bunk meters.  There isn't much of a market for used flow meters, but I gave it my best attempt.
 

 We didn't have any takers.

The horror

Hearing Sophie cry tonight has never been more sweet nor more welcome.  Let me explain.  This afternoon I took the girls for a run.  The plan was to run two and a half miles to a playground where Lydia could run to her hearts desire and then run the same route back when she'd had her fill.  Lyds has struggled to fall asleep at nap time for weeks now and going for a run/playing at the park has become a good compromise.  However, five minutes into our run she was out.  By the time I reached the playground I thought it better to let her get more sleep and worry about her disappointment at not playing on the swings or sliding down the slides rather than wake her up and suffer the consequences.  Especially when I know how much good a nap can do.  So we raced home with the plan to shower (after a quick visit from Grandma) and then feed Sophie before heading off to a meeting down the street.

Grandma came and everything was fine and well.  And then suddenly it wasn't.  Lydia had a meltdown.  An epic meltdown.  Really, I kid you not.  This outburst was new and downright unpleasant.  Period.  Apparently that nap did not do what I'd hoped.  Grandma's visit was cut short, and I tried to understand what had so upset Lydia, all the while delaying my shower and pushing back Sophie's dinner.  Sophie was a sweetheart and patient while Lyds and I sorted things out.  Then I handed Sophie a little girl shoe and hopped in the shower.  She cried a little.  Then a bit more.  I sped up and then she was quiet.  I thought she might have fallen asleep, but then I heard another cry and hopped out of the shower.  She started choking.  And then struggled for breath.  I tore her out of her bouncer and started pounding her back frantically trying to remember how to perform the Heimlich maneuver on an infant while racking my brain trying to conjure up what on earth she could possibly be choking on.  And trying really hard not to burst into tears.  Why do things like this always happen when Jon's in Farson??  (Like Lydia swallowing a ball of aluminum foil at Grandma and Grandpa Blackhursts.  She was only eight months, and yes, Jon was in Farson then too.  There have been other emergencies, but suffice it to say that that thought was not welcome.)  the back pounding helped Sophie's breathing.  I checked her mouth again and again.  Nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing.  I set her down for a second and knew that was not helpful.  But she was breathing.  Yes.  She was breathing.  And crying.  So many tears!  So upset!  I knew she was hungry and so I tried to feed her.  She liked the idea for oh... five seconds, if that, and then she'd pull away and let me have it.  I tried again with the same results.  It was then, while Sophie's head was tipped back and her mouth was wide open that I saw it.  A black number five planted on the roof of her mouth.  And then some other words.  A clear plastic sticker was stuck inside her mouth threatening to go down her throat.  Something I have no doubt was happening when I pulled her from her bouncer.  I stuck my finger in and tried to pull it out.  Sophie cried harder and the sticker moved away from me.  I paused for what felt like an eternity and then attempted to pull it out again.  Same awful results.  I tried again, this time sliding the sticker towards her cheek.  Out came the hateful sticker with a great deal of foamy saliva.  And Sophie was fine!!  Not really, but sort of.  She was traumatized and so was I.  I held her so close and couldn't stop kissing her.  Earlier this morning she and Lydia had been fighting over this pair of shoes.  I had no idea the terror they would later bring.  Why did I think that letting her hold one of them was a good idea?  Actually, I know why.  Sophie's usual toys have not been cutting it lately, and Lydia is really particular about which of her toys Sophie can play with.  It was a quick and easy solution and I only needed it to keep her happy for a few minutes. What I didn't know was that it would lead to that.

Sophie is fine.  She's sleeping and breathing right now.  Both girls are.  But I'll admit that I didn't let Sophie out of my sight for a minute tonight.  I just wanted to hold her.  I needed to hold her.  That reassurance that she was okay meant everything to me.  And still does.  And that is why hearing her cry was so welcome.  Like music.

And did I mention that she has teeth?  One and a half at the moment.  Isn't she adorable?

Stories come to life

We got a good run in the other day and while running at a Nature Park by our house we saw a SNORT.  You know the story, right?  Are you My Mother by P.D. Eastman?  It’s one of Lydia’s favorites and a few weeks ago our neighbors started work in their backyard in preparation for an addition to their house.  They had one of those diggers digging dirt back there and Lydia saw it and told Jon and me that the Snort was taking the baby bird back to the tree so it could be with it’s mother.  Just like in the story.  Because if you ever see a big machine like that you know it’s returning baby birds to their nests.  Anyway, back to our run and the Nature Park.  We saw two Snorts and Lydia was thrilled!  I was wishing that I’d brought our camera so I could capture her standing in front of one of them and then write about it!  Of course I was not prepared that way, so later in the afternoon we stopped by and walked along the trail so that we could get a good picture before we went grocery shopping.  Lydia insisted on bringing her Mrs. Potato Head.  She may be turning up frequently in these pictures... Sophie rode in the Bjorn like a champ and we got the picture before it started raining on us. 

 But that’s not the only story that’s come to life for Lyds.  I pulled out some of our Halloween/Fall decorations and among them are ten apples.  Plastic apples, I believe, that Jon bought me a few years ago for my classroom.  We counted the apples and when Lydia discovered that there were ten she started putting them on her head, trying to stack as many as she could.  This was something she learned about in Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSieg (aka Dr. Seuss).  She loves that book!  She loves the tiger.  She loves the Lion.  And she definitely loves the dog.  Anyway, we’ve had days of her trying to put apples on her head balancing them as best she could.  Today Lydia wanted to help me sweep the floor.  I guess our broom resembles the mop in Ten Apples Up on Top and Lydia starts talking about “the mop. The mop!  The mop!  The Mop!” Because there’s an angry bear trying to get at the lion, tiger and dog; trying to knock the apples off of their heads.   Lydia and the angry characters; I’m not sure why she loves them so!  But those are some examples we have of Lydia’s books coming to life. 

 I love saying a phrase like, "and then Bear went back to the business of making his breakfast."  Just so I can see her light up and start talking about A Visitor for Bear written by Bonny Becker.  We went to Tracy Aviary and Lyds fell in love with this  peacock.  She tried to feed it a stick. The bad guy from Kung Fu Panda 2 is a peacock...  Maybe she didn't remember that??  Anyway, Lydia really does have an active imagination.  I love it.  Right now Lydia is looking out the window telling me she can see a will of the wisp.  She loves books and movies and says things like “Mordu a coming a soon.  A better to hide.”  I can only guess how long this stage will last or if it will ever end... All I know is that I'm loving it!

Sophie loves books for other reasons.  Don't they look so tasty?

And both girls enjoy hearing from Granny and Grandpa when they come to read and sing.

Not sure what to make of this business!

Six months.  Our little Sophie is six months!  I'm convinced that time is passing much more quickly now than when I was a little girl.  It's hard to believe we've had sweet Sophie in our lives for six whole months.  Almost seven!  On September 24 she had her first taste of solid foods.  That morning while Lydia was eating her granola I put Sophie in her high chair for the first time.  We got her bib ready, handed her a spoon to keep her interest while I mixed her cereal, and then got started!  The first bite led to Sophie gagging quite a bit.  Not used to anything staying on her tongue.  The way she looked at me it was like she was saying "what am I supposed to do with this?  It's not just melting away or sliding down my throat!"  As we progressed to the second and third bites she would work her tongue around a little better and eventually swallow.  Quite a bit of cereal would find it's way out of her mouth as she attempted to figure things out.  I expected her to open her mouth immediately upon seeing the spoonful of rice coming her way, but she didn't.  The fact that everything she can get her hands on goes into her mouth immediately these days meant nothing when it came to that spoonful of food.  Nothing at first anyway.  She really didn't know what to do with it, but before long she knew that she liked it.  It had been at least a month and maybe longer since she started showing interest in eating as evidenced by her attempts to seize her sister's food or food from my plate.  And for about a month prior to Sophie starting cereal I'd been talking to Lydia about her helping to feed Sophie once she started eating solids.  She was so excited!  I got her out of her high chair and she asked to hold the bowl and spoon and then gently held out the spoon to Sophie.  For some reason Sophie wanted to take it from Lyds where she hadn't tried to with me.  I tell myself it's because Sophie wants to do everything she sees her big sis doing, but really I have no idea.  I just know that both girls were happy at that moment.  Sophie ate squash later on in the evening after Jon got off work and I was back from Young Women's.  She is definitely a fan of squash and green beans, loves carrots, detests peas, prefers peaches to pears, and tolerates prunes.   We like to pretend there's a train coming and when we say "choo choo!" Sophie's mouth is wide open!  Ready to devour another mouthful.  So happy and so grateful for this new phase of her life.

On a side note Lydia asked to try some of Sophie's food just the other day.  I fed her a tiny bit of the rice cereal I had just prepared and wasn't horribly surprised when it was immediately rejected.  Lydia then spent a good thirty seconds rubbing remnants of cereal from her tongue and was still disgusted with what I'd given her.  Didn't matter that she used to eat it three times a day for a good six months of her life!  She's moved on to bigger and better things.  No need to try that again!