We said goodbye to Drew the night of November 21st for his first ever sea voyage. The Stennis went to Hawaii to participate in the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. They were gone for a month and did training there and back. Here's a picture of his ship on the way home.
He had a little less than a week in Hawaii, spent mostly working. With the free time he did have, he went SCUBA diving in Hanauma Bay (Rafe calls it "scoop-a diving"), attended the Laie temple, climbed Diamond Head, and hung out at some beaches with the crazy winter waves. Here is a picture from the exchange's extensive Hawaiian shirt department:
We were able to email pretty much daily. He said life got monotonous quickly, but he joined a board game club, found a small group of other LDS guys, and attended a yoga class to break things up a bit. They came and took pictures for the last class of the voyage on the one day that there were fewer than 15 people in the class, so Drew is front and center! He's so pleased. Especially since they've been rotating a bunch of the images on the entire carrier's homepage that everyone sees.
The day after he left I had my 24 week anatomy scan. A wonderful woman in my ward and her daughters agreed to watch all my babies for me, as children are not allowed in the ultrasound suite at Bremerton Hospital. The ultrasound tech had a great time looking at my older baby, since they usually do the scans a bit earlier when things aren't as far along. The baby is perfectly average in every way--50th percentile in all the measurements they take, and all organs present and accounted for. It's a boy! Our family will be so symmetrical.
We left straight from the ultrasound to start our trek to Utah. I had my iPhone well stocked with musicals for the drive (I think we listened to Seussical about 12 times all the way through) and snacks that a) were in individual portions, b) could be easily and safely thrown to the back seat while driving, and c) the kids could open/eat without assistance. They did really well. I only had to pull over twice for reasons unrelated to fuel; once to buckle Vivien's seat belt that had gotten snarled and once to change a poopy diaper. We made it to Baker City the first day, stayed the night at a hotel, and drove through storms the rest of the way to Utah. There was a scary section through Rattlesnake Pass I think at the top of the state where it was snowing so hard I could hardly see and the snow was building up heavily on the road. I kept finding my shoulders in my ears and knuckles white on the steering wheel, but we just drove slowly and carefully and made it through. We were all very happy to arrive at Nana's house.
Our stay was a good combination of holiday events and visiting with friends and family. For Thanksgiving we spent the whole day with the Brunsdales since Mark and Paula were visiting Heather in New Mexico. In the morning we headed down the street for Dennis Larsen's annual Turkey Trot. Vivi and Rafe competed in the kids division for a lap around the block, accompanied by Papi. They were thrilled with their medals. Colette joined me for an unofficial waddle halfway along the 5K track and a shortcut back to the finish line, Rex and Haley and very newly postpartum Kaitlyn ran the whole thing, and Isaac and Jacob admirably displayed the running genes they're bringing to the family.
We were lucky to be there for the Friends in Harmony FHE to hear some songs from Nana's program and sample Kelly Bonham's amazing curry. My kids were in heaven.
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| She is not eating curry in this picture, but she is very excited about bread. |
My mom moved Second Sunday up a week so we could have the Mary and Joseph Dinner with everyone plus Sheffields this year. Papi stacked folding tables on food storage boxes and we got out every candle Nana owns. We had our dinner (Caesar salad, flat bread, lentils, chicken, a tomato/cucumber/feta cheese salad, a tasty jello salad, and honey cake) and then we watched the nativity video and had a little devotional.
And then we got to play quartets, which pretty much made my Christmas. Lydia filmed us. Dancing by Forbes children.
Which is exciting for us, because Nana had a bunch of cedar waxwings in her yard this winter.
We had a lot of time to hang out with cousins, especially since Tia Kate was on maternity leave. Aunty Sarah and Elena and Myra came over to play a couple times at Nana's and we met them at the wooden park in PG one day, but I didn't take any pictures. I shall have to do better next visit! Tia Kate does better at taking pictures than me, so I have a bunch from the Alworths. Megan was very nice to share her wondrous playroom with all the kids.
And I got to play with my sisters (like going to Alex and Aubrey's concert with the Utah Valley Symphony one night with Haley while the kids had a sleepover at Grandma Paula's, which they LOVED!). I had lots of time to work on Christmas projects too, like Nana's hippopotamus...
...and Melanie's forest green Christmas sweater.
All too soon, it was time to go home. My mom didn't want me to drive back on my own, so we waited until she finished up her Friends in Harmony performances and she came with us. We stopped in Baker City again, which we would have had to do anyway because the freeway beyond was closed for the night due to ice. It took us the ENTIRE day to get from Baker City back to Bremerton through some very snowy passes and the usual Puget Sound traffic. It was nice to have company though! The next day Mom stayed with the kids while I went to do my 1-hour glucose test at the hospital, then we took her to the Airporter Shuttle stop in Bremerton. And the next day, our household goods shipment arrived.
We have been swimming in boxes ever since. I tucked the kids into their play tent with the iPad while the movers were there. I'm pretty sure Annie had picked up RSV while we were in Utah, so she was needing to be snuggled and loved with a handkerchief always handy during the excitement.
The movers hadn't brought any tools with them, so after they left we had a few hours of searching for toolboxes and FaceBook messaging Drew (who was still a few days out) with questions trying to get the beds set up so we didn't all have to sleep on the air mattress again.
It was kind of a stressful day. And that night as I was tucking the kids in bed, I looked out the window and there was a firetruck pulled up in front of our house. I had a few moments of panic trying to figure out why they would be there. They rolled down the window and poked their heads out, looking around, and then they came over the speaker and I heard, "HO, HO, HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS!" Right after that a second truck pulled around the corner covered in Christmas lights with Santa inside, flanked by volunteers handing out candy canes. I was very relieved.
The day before Drew got home was the Stennis Children's Christmas party. They rented out a movie theater downtown. We walked in and were greeted by Santa and the Grinch, then we hopped in line to pick up free popcorn and slushies and were ushered to one of the theaters where they showed Moana (which was awesome! We had visited a museum in Okinawa full of ancient canoes and drums and traditional dress of Oceanic cultures, so we were really excited to see all those things in action in the movie. And then it was Lin-Manuel Miranda, so . . . of course we loved it). They were playing Rogue One in another theater for the older kids. On the way out after the movie there were caramel apples for everyone and a huge stack of children's Christmas books to take home. The kids had a great time, and it was funny to listen to them talking to the other kids there. "My daddy's out on a ship on the ocean." "Mine too!" "Mine too!"
The next day was Sunday. I dragged all the kids with me to choir practice, since our Christmas program was the next week and I had a solo. We stayed for sacrament, but a family with a brand new baby sat down next to us after the passing was over, and since Annie was still cranky and feverish with suspicious secretions, I was overcome with guilt and decided to take our germs home. Probably too late. I hope the baby doesn't get sick. Drew got home that afternoon while I was putting Annie down for a nap. From upstairs, I heard Vivien suddenly launch into a heated explanation of some random upset and then dissolve into tears. I think she was just emotionally overloaded seeing her Daddy again after a month and that was how it manifested. Such a crazy time for little people! Traveling, moving, separation, holidays . . . I think she's entitled to a few breakdowns. On Monday we went to a Christmas tree farm for FHE. The weather obliged us with a very Christmas-y blanket of snow to make the trip especially magical.
It was very exciting! I haven't had a live tree since I was little.
The kids had spent quite a bit of time the previous few days making ornaments out of pipe cleaners for the closest thing to a Christmas tree they could find while I unpacked boxes. This was a completely independent project; I was rather impressed. We transferred the ornaments to the actual Christmas tree . . .
The rest of the week we spent unpacking more, getting ready for Christmas, and just living normal life with tiny people.
Vivien left quite a challenge for Santa this year. A week before Christmas, she finally decided on asking for a Saoirse doll (pronounced "seer-sha"). Saoirse is one of the main characters from one of our favorite animated movies "Song of the Sea," made by an Irish studio called Cartoon Saloon.
She is a selkie, a mythical creature that can turn into a seal if she has her selkie coat:
The show is not terribly well known, and therefore there are no Saoirse dolls to be purchased. Let's say Santa's elves were stretched to their creative capacity trying to recreate this character in doll form. Her face is embroidered, her head was improvised using a somewhat flat mini soccer ball with cardboard "hair" taped to it as a model, and her clothes were made from altering this pattern: http://imaginegnats.com/sewing-free-18-inch-doll-shirt-pattern/. She's got two bamboo skewers in her body to hold up her ENORMOUS head. If they break, I'm going to open her up and replace half of the stuffing in her body with rice to balance out the weight a little bit.
Totally worth it. She has hardly put it down since she opened it.
Vivi's had a hard time with injuries this week. The day after she split her chin open, Annie dropped a heavy toy car on her face and split her skin open right under her eye.
So, usually Drew's watch group has duty every 8 days, but over the holidays they doubled up watch groups to cover everyone's leave, so now they're standing watch every 4 days instead. He didn't realize if he didn't actually take leave he wouldn't get the holidays off, so he's had to work a lot more than he was expecting to. But, he had Tuesday off, so we went for a hike. He got me a book of day hikes in the Olympic Penninsula for Christmas and I was itching to try out some of them. We decided to do the Guillemot Cove trail.
It was rather colder than I anticipated, so we layered the kids in all the extra clothes I had brought in case of emergency and hurried back to the car after lunch.
Other random things:
Rafe's been calling a lawn mower a "long knower."
He told Colette, "When the boogers itch me, I pick them out."
Vivi and Rafe are in love with "egg no."
Vivi calls M&M's "MNMO's."
We have a track of demo songs our electronic piano plays and Vivien has made up words to one of the jazzy songs. The chorus is, "Doo doo doooo doooo doooooooooo! Testified our limiters! Someday soon . . ." Here's the accompanying dance:
Vivi was watching me sew Annie's silky. I messed up one of the corners and said, "Dang." She said, "Did you bring your unmistaker?"
Annie has always been really sensitive to being scolded, but when she had RSV, she would make the SADDEST face if I said so much as, "Sit down at the table, Annie!" to her. I kept forgetting to get it on video, then when Drew got home I did it on purpose to show him and she was so sad for so long, I felt like such a rotten person I couldn't do it again for the camera.
