Big Boy Bed

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to put away the crib and put Josh in a big boy bed. While Gary was home in September we found this bed at a garage sale and figured it would save us from having to buy another dresser since there's drawers built in. Josh is clutching his Snoopy and his bear that he sleeps with every night. He has to have one stuffed animal for each arm.

This is what happens after climbing in and out of bed for half an hour. It is a little blurry since the room was dark. I think all big boy beds should come equipped with a supply of duct tape to ensure the kid stays put. The first night I fought him for over an hour before I was too exhausted to do it anymore and stuck him back in the crib. Then I took the crib down the next day so that I would be forced to make him sleep in the bed. This was after only 15 minutes of chasing him back to bed. I honestly don't understand where a small child finds the energy to climb in and out of bed so many times. The other morning, around 3:30 I heard a big thud come from his room, so I jumped out of bed and ran in to see what happened. I found him laying on the floor at the foot of his bed, so I picked him up and put him back in his bed. He was really annoyed that I had disturbed him as he was sleeping peacefully on the floor.

Josh likes to be in the tub and it doesn't matter if there is water in it or not, nor does it matter if he is wearing clothes or not. One day he climbed in his baby sitter's tub with his clothes on while she was getting her girl dressed. He even tried to shampoo his hair.

Josh has become quite the little helper. He frequently says, "help you" and then tries to help me with whatever I am doing. He really likes tools, and any chance he gets he will try to run off with my tools and use them. So I had to give him his very own plastic tools, which he uses where ever he has seen grandpa fixing things around my house.

This is Josh winding down for bed by watching one of his favorite movies "llella" otherwise known as Cinderella. He asks for it a lot. I love the mischievous grin in this picture, and he is modeling one of his favorite hats.

More Iraq Pictures

I started this blog mostly to keep everyone updated on Gary during the deployment because I knew he wouldn't keep in contact much while he was gone. But he is limited in what he can tell me, so it is kind of hard to give updates. I'm sure he'll have lots of stories to tell when he gets back, so until then here are a few more pictures from Iraq.

Gary carries a hand gun on his thigh and a rifle over his shoulder.

This is Gary with Micah Sampson. His wife hates facial hair on Micah as much as I hate facial hair on Gary, so they decided to grow mustaches.

Gary riding in his 7 ton, still with the ridiculous mustache.

This is the back of the 7 ton where he usually sleeps when they're out in the field.

A .50 cal and Cheez-Its, what more do you need when you're on watch? This is a picture of the only "mountains" Gary has seen over there. This is Gary and Richard Knudsen with the blow pops I sent in their mouths. Richard's wife Ashley moved in with her parents for the deployment. Her parents happen to be in my ward and don't live far from me, so Ashley and I have become good friends.

This is Gary's living space. He uses the plastic drawers as a desk. Not a lot of closet space or privacy!

Happy Anniversary to us!

Today is our anniversary. We have now been married four years. This massive arrangement of flowers was delivered to me at work on Monday. I was supposed to leave them at work, so Gary sent them to me early so I could look at them all week. I haven't counted, but there's supposed to be a dozen roses for each year we've been married (12 times 4 = 48 roses). That is a lot of roses. They are sitting on my kitchen table and I can smell them when I am sitting in the front room. My house smells wonderful right now. It isn't often I get such an enormous arrangement, so I had to post pictures. In case the first picture doesn't give a good enough perspective on how big of an arrangement this is, I put Josh up next to it. It is as tall as he is, and much wider. I couldn't get him to look at the camera because he kept smelling them and saying, "It's good!" There's kind of a funny story behind these flowers. Just before Christmas Gary sent my sisters an email saying he wanted to do this for me for our anniversary and he asked for their help. Since Gary doesn't have internet access on a regular basis, I've been checking his email for him and getting him messages from it like he asked me to. Thus when my sisters replied to his e-mail, I got their replies. Just about every time Gary tries to surprise me, I always end up finding out or figuring it out before he has the chance. He was so excited to surprise me, and I felt really bad that I had ruined it again. I didn't have the heart to tell him I found out, and decided I'd go along with it and wait to tell him when he gets home that I knew about it. When he logged into his email and saw that my sisters had replied to his e-mails, he knew he'd been caught. But he didn't tell me that he knew that I knew. So we both pretended for a month. He called me on Monday while I was at work and we had a whole conversation about how I always find out about his surprises. This left no doubt in my mind that he knew that I found out about the flowers. I didn't admit to him that I knew he knew that I knew. He didn't admit to me that he knew I knew, so it was a funny conversation. After the flowers were delivered I sent him a motomail telling him I knew that he knew that I knew. At the same time (before he got my message) he e-mailed me and told me that he knew that I knew. We've decided that it is a fun game we play with me figuring out his surprises, and now a new element has been added with me trying to figure out when he's figured out I know, and for him trying to figure out when I've got it figured out. While I was on the phone with him the flowers were delivered to the main receptionist on the first floor of the building I work in. She couldn't call me since I was on the phone, so I didn't find out they had been delivered until I was off the phone with Gary. I work on the 8th floor, so I had to carry this massive arrangement through the whole building to get them to my desk. By the time I got to my desk my arms were tired because they are so heavy. When it was time to go home, I had to carry them through the whole building again to get them to my car. I didn't have enough room at my desk to keep them at work, and I wanted them at home anyway. The only way I could get them home was to put the driver's seat as far forward it would go (it's a good thing I'm so short), then put them on the floor behind me. Josh's car seat is on the other side. I didn't want them to tip over, so I took my coat off and packed it around the vase. Then I got our spare jackets out of the trunk and packed them around the vase. I nearly froze to death scraping my car windows without a coat, but at least my roses were safe! Monday we got hit with a really bad storm. It was extremely windy, and roads were really bad. There was a bad pile up on the freeway in Payson. One news station said there were 60 vehicles involved, 20 of them were semi's. I didn't get close enough to see it, but Melissa did and she said she couldn't even count how many semi's there were. They were jack knifed all over the place in different directions and other vehicles slammed into them. On the south bound lane an oil tanker had tipped over and spilled oil on the road, so both sides were closed. I got off the freeway a couple exits before I usually get off and took back roads home. From where I got on the freeway in Provo to where I got off before Payson, I saw six vehicles had slid off the road (one of them was a semi) and I passed an accident. This isn't even including the mess that closed both sides of the freeway in Payson. Through all this I managed to get home safely, and only damaged one rose in the process!!

Christmas

I'm a little slow posting Christmas pictures. My camera was left in some one's car and it ended up in Salt lake for a few weeks. But here are a couple of my favorite pictures of Josh by our tree. I think this was one of the first few days we put it up so it still looked half way decent.

Josh got a dancing Elmo from Grammy Debbie. He sat in a box and played with Elmo.

Grandma Karen gave Josh a new blankie. Now he doesn't steal mine or Melissa's as often!

Josh was exhausted after opening all his presents. He is figuring out how to undress himself. He pulls his arms out of the sleeves, then through the neck of the shirt. Then he tries to get the shirt off by pushing it down around his waist, but it gets stuck. Sometimes when he's supposed to be taking a nap this is how I find him. One day he was wearing nothing but a diaper. At least he left that on!

This is me taking advantage of one of the greatest gifts I got for Christmas. Nu Skin gave me this portable DVD player, and Josh has decided he likes watching movies on it. It is more fun to watch a movie on the portable DVD player than the TV. He got this little table and chairs for Christmas, and will sit in his room and watch a movie. It keeps his attention for about 30 min at a time, which gives me a chance to get things done around the house. I can do stuff on the computer while he sits next to me and watches something and I can manage to accomplish something without him re-booting the computer several times. It has been a huge help. I thought I was being smart to buy blocks that are soft so that when he throws them at me it won't hurt. He's been banned from playing with some wooden blocks after throwing them at me close range and giving me a visible lump on my forehead and a split lip. Now I realize it may not have been the greatest idea because there are over 100 pieces and his favorite thing to do with them is dump them out of their container, spread them all over every where, and then put the container on his head. I find blocks all over the house.

I love his mischievous face in this picture. He likes to wear his Daddy's hat. We were able to see Gary on the webcam on Christmas Eve. That's the first time we've been able to use the webcam since he's been in Iraq so it was really nice. He had to get up really early in the morning to get on the internet when there weren't many people on the internet. As more and more people got on the internet, it started slowing down and the webcam didn't work as well. Gary was supposed to spend his Christmas Eve day on the shooting range and then was supposed to go on a mission Christmas Day morning, but both those things ended up getting cancelled. Holidays don't mean much over there, but it was nice he had a little down time anyway.

Gary's Iraq Update

We are now a little more than half way through this deployment. Gary's time in Iraq is almost half way over. I expect him to be back in the states by the beginning of May. He'll go back to North Carolina for a while, but I'm still not sure if it will be for a week or two or it could be for a month or two. They haven't told us for sure, and even if they had, I've learned that with the Marine Corps nothing is for sure until it actually happens. They constantly tell you one thing and then do another, so whatever they say I don't believe until it happens. For now the story is that he's only supposed to be in North Carolina a couple weeks and then will finish the last part of it at Camp Williams where he can stay at home and commute back and forth. If he's going to be in North Carolina for a while I'll probably go out there again to see him, but since I had to change his flights four times when he came home on his leave in Sept. I'm definitely not making any solid plans until the last minute. This first picture is of Gary's whole company (Charlie Company).

Since Gary won't be able to post anything on the blog, I took some of the things he's told me through letters or over the phone and typed up something to post using his descriptions and the pictures he sent to illustrate. Then I had him read through it and add details, so this posting is a joint effort.

Gary has been keeping pretty busy. He says he tries to go to church on Sunday when he can, but other than that days are all the same to him. It's hard for him to keep track what day of the week it is because it is all the same and he doesn't have a lot of spare time. There are computers on base he can use to get on the internet, but he rarely gets on the internet, and if he does it isn't for long. If he wants to use the internet with his laptop (so we can use the web cams and instant messaging) he has to pay $5 per hour. Since he doesn't have time for that we haven't used the web cams since he left North Carolina. I've been checking his e-mail for him and usually send it to him through motomail or read it to him. Letters and packages have been taking two weeks to get back and forth, so I've relied on motomail and phone calls. The motomail has been really nice to get messages to him quickly, I just can't get messages back very fast. Gary is only supposed to call once a week and has a 30 minute time limit per call. Lately it's been more like twice a week, and I usually keep him longer than 30 minutes. Our communication is so limited, it has been frustrating, but we make it work for us.

Gary has learned a lot about the Iraqi people. They are not soldiers or very militant. It isn't in their character as a people. He's spent some time around their interpreter and has had a chance to talk to him and learn more about the area and the difference between the Sunni & Shiites & Muslims in general. Here are a couple pictures of them on their convoys.

He says when the sun goes down it gets really dark. When he's at the vehicle check points working with the Iraqi Police they are out in the middle of nowhere and it gets so dark that his night vision goggles don't work very well. He's noticed there aren't usually any clouds in the sky, so at night he can see the stars really well and he says it's really pretty. During the day the clear blue sky is pretty as well, but he says when you look back down to the horizon you see ugly brown, dirty, dingy gray color.

With no clouds it makes the nights colder and days hotter. When Gary first got to Iraq the temperatures averaged 90-100 and would cool down to the 80's at night. It was hot and it was already past the summer months. Now the high is around 50 if he's lucky and the low's dip down to the high 20's and low 30's. Mornings are very cold now. Gary says the gunners bundle up like the kid in "A Christmas Story" because they have to ride up in the turrets of the truck. They've had a few missions that have required them to move at night and he says it can be miserably cold. Most of the pictures he's sent me the scenery looks all the same, just like in this picture.

This is one of the few pictures I've seen with greenery and palm trees.

Gary says the food there is pretty good for the most part. For Thanksgiving he ended up not going on a convoy that most everyone else went on because someone was using his vehicle. That left him on base with four other guys for a few days. It was his idea for them to go to the big, main chow hall and eat Thanksgiving dinner together. He said there was a ton of food--turkey, ham, prime rib, stuffing, and all the other usual Thanksgiving food. He said the prime rib there is really good. They feed him steak quite often and he says it isn't very good so when he gets back he's not eating steak anymore. I'll be lucky if that lasts a day. He'll be back to sneaking steak in the shopping cart again while I'm not looking the first time he goes grocery shopping with me.

The truck he drives has mine rollers attached to the front of the truck. They meet frequently with the military and civilian contractors who perform maintenance and upgrades to the rollers. He says they run them pretty hard so they take them in every couple weeks to get something fixed or upgraded. Sometimes the upgrades and repairs only get halfway done because parts are on order. He thinks it is pretty funny when the truck comes back with duct tape wrapped around one of the main pins to hold it together.

They have a couple dogs that patrol with them sometimes. One of the dogs and the dog handler ride in the back of Gary's truck when they go out. Gary becomes security for the dog and the handler when they get out to search or investigate something. It is fun for him to work with the dogs and it broadens the things they can do. All the guys love having the dog with them too. The dog never wants for attention. There is always a Marine willing to sit and pet the dog. The dogs seem to really like going out too. Sometimes a game of Frisbee gets started and it drives the dogs nuts to see the Frisbee flying around. Now Gary wants to get Josh a German Sheppard when he gets home since he's been working with one out there.

To fortify and add extra security to the compound he is staying at there are big bins lined with burlap and heavy cardboard then filled with dirt and encased in chain link to keep the shape. These are the walls you see in the pictures of them playing a little baseball.

He really misses home, and is looking forward to coming home soon. Time seems to go by quicker for him out there, than it does for me at home. He is in a constant routine of finding out when the next mission is, preparing for and working up to it, then debrief, fix the trucks up, and prep for the next mission.

It's been a while!

The past couple months have been insanely busy for me. I started this posting a week ago. Holidays are nice, but stressful. I set a new record this year for having five Christmas parties scheduled within one week. It has been crazy. My time on the computer is very limited thanks to my little helper. He discovered the switch on the power strip, so if he's in the computer room with me I usually end up rebooting a few times while trying to do stuff on the computer. My computer time has mostly been devoted to making a DVD to send to Gary. When we bought our camcorder a year ago we were told that the video would transfer from the hard drive of the camcorder to the hard drive of the computer and then you could burn it to a DVD. I was told all I'd have to do is plug the camcorder into the computer and push the button. For technologically handicapped people like me it isn't that simple. I spent a ridiculously enormous amount of time figuring how to get it to work, the whole time wanting to cuss and swear and smash the stupid thing to pieces then throw it out the window. Luckily I figured it out before it came to that and I even got it mailed in time for Gary to get it for Christmas. So in the past month and a half besides getting ready for Christmas and making Gary a DVD here's what we've been doing. I picked out new carpet and got it laid in our downstairs living room. This was to replace what was damaged when my fridge broke and leaked into the basement. I thought picking out new carpet would be fun, but it really wasn't. I've never picked out carpet before so I had no idea what to look for, and I am very indecisive. The samples all look so different when you look at them in different light or turn them different ways. Josh isn't much of a shopper either, but he enjoyed running all over the carpet stores and climbing on top of all the rolls of carpet. I liked how it turned out, so hopefully Gary will too. I also got a new kitchen floor put in to replace what was damaged because of the water mess. This was really easy to pick out because I liked what we had before. Gary liked it too so I got something pretty close to what we had before. So far I like this better than what we had before. The water damage warped some shelves in the food storage area, so they built me new ones. They have replaced the drywall that was damaged, and fixed a light fixture that shorted out because of the water. I just have to have them adjust that a little and I think they'll be done with the repairs. I've almost got everything put back together now the way it was before the water mess happened. Josh likes to do everything Mom does. He's seen me use the eye lash curler, so he decided to try it too. I took the makeup away before he put it on so I wouldn't get into trouble with his Dad. Josh sees me cuddle up under a blanket all the time, so now he does it too. The other day I was sitting on the floor and he put a pillow behind me, got the blanket and his books and brought them to me because he loves to read stories with the blanket and pillow. Melissa was doing a little studying for finals, so Josh decided he'd better do some reading too. He loves to climb on Melissa. In case I haven't mentioned it before, Melissa (my younger sister) moved in with me at the beginning of the semester. She's finishing up her teaching degree at UVSC. This semester she had a pretty heavy load, so she wasn't home much, but still it was nice to have her around. Next semester she's student teaching at Payson High and probably won't be as busy as she's been this semester. One night Melissa and I had a little fun tearing out the divider in my front room entry way. I wanted to replace the ugly vinyl in my entry way, and thought I may as well make it match the new kitchen floor. Gary and I had talked about pulling that divider thing down, so Melissa and I were trying to figure out how to do it. She picked up a hammer and experimented a little. Then I took the hammer and started banging away. Before we knew it we'd ripped it out. I had never actually used a skill saw before, but power tools are always fun to use. So I borrowed it from my cousin who lives a block away and Melissa kept the camera handy since working with power tools always makes things more interesting. I managed to get by without losing any fingers or toes or anything else. Now we've just got some patching to do.

This is what the room looked like after we tore that thing down. It makes the room look so much bigger and really opens it up a lot. I like it so much better. Gary really isn't going to recognize the house inside or out by the time he gets back.

I managed to get the Christmas decorations up. I still have a couple things that I intended to hang up but still haven't gotten around to it. I didn't even finish putting away Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations until a couple days ago. This calendar was the first thing I put up though, and each day I let Josh pull something out of one of the pockets and put up. We had a calendar like this when I was a kid and we always fought over who got to put up the baby Jesus on the 24th. We used to rearrange the calendar putting camels in the sky and angels in the stable in an effort to make my youngest sister, Andrea mad. My mom still had the pattern to make one like what we had as kids so she made one for each of us and Josh loves it. It is usually the first thing we do each morning, and during the day he'll stand under it and whine because he wants to put more on it. Each time we put something on it he tells me what each item on the calendar is.

This is my pathetic looking tree. The night it was first decorated it looked nice, but since then has been redecorated on a daily basis. I put all the ornaments I don't really care about near the bottom of the tree. Josh pulls them off until he has accumulated a little collection. Then he tries to put them back on the tree. He can do it, but not very well. In the process he bends the branches every which way. I got tired of picking up ornaments pretty quickly so they slowly made their way out of Josh's reach until the top half is now heavily populated with ornaments and the bottom half is rather bare, and the branches are all out of shape. At least Josh is having fun with it.

Gary sent me a DVD full of pictures and little video clips he's taken with his digital camera. Sometime in the very near future I intend to post some of those pictures and do an update for him. More than likely it will be while I am in Richfield at my parent's for Christmas because more people will be around to entertain Josh while I do it. I haven't even had time to see all the pictures and video clips yet, but I am very much looking forward to a couple days off work so I can hopefully get some things done that I haven't had time for.

Happy Halloween!

I found a cute monkey costume for Josh to wear for Halloween. Then I came home and put it on him and he cried and cried. He was scared of it. So I returned the costume and had to find something that wasn't quite as scary. Plan B was a costume my boss let me borrow that her boy wore when he was Josh's age. He wasn't scared of it and seemed to like wearing the hat, and got good use out of the "feed me" pouch on the stomach. Josh got to come to work with me for a while. Halloween is big at Nu Skin. The top executives of the company wander around each floor of the building and if you are not dressed up they will "boo" you. I wasn't going to dress up, but the day before Halloween I was talking to my aunt (who also works at NuSkin) and she suggested that I wear Gary's cammies to avoid the humiliation of being "boo-ed" in front of my co-workers, so I did. Gary will get a kick out of seeing me wearing his cammies.

Josh went trick-or-treating to a couple houses with all his cousins (minus the newest one). We went trick-or-treating to Grandma and Grandpa Wood's and had fun raking up some of the leaves in her yard. The kids had so much fun.

We went to Grandpa Paul's house and he got his bird out for the kids.