Rawlings plus Grossarth clan

We enjoyed one last dinner with Corrye and Dustin plus kids on Sunday before we moved. 

We took some pictures of all the kids, except for Catherine, our kids just matched up perfectly with ages. And most of the time, their personalities and playing together matched well. Plus the fact that Dustin and Troy work at Rincon made practical thing such as carpooling so nice. 

Corrye and I had a very honest friendship where we both had a safe place to talk and be ourselves. It was and is such a blessing.

Aleksi is 10 months!

In the past month, Aleksi learned to crawl faster than before. He learned to crawl up the stairs. He learned to walk along furniture. He has even let go off furniture few times and stood on his own for few seconds. He loves to hold your hand and walk around. 

He continues to have such a happy disposition. Troy made a comment that "if we could all be like Aleksi, life would be good" referring to his happy and easy going mood.

He is sleeping well except for the past week when we have gone through some rough crying periods before bedtime and waking up after only two hours of nighttime sleep. We do two solid naps each day.

We have started to read a bit more and he prefers books with real animal pictures. He has started to point at them as I read the animal names. Not because he can tell me which one is a dog but I think he just enjoys pointing at things.

He is a champion eater. He will eat anything. I love it. I am still nursing him. He also gets a bottle whenever I feel it is convenient.

Aleksi enjoyed the sand at White Sands National Park, but it was a bit bright.

The sitting in the sand business backfired on us as the sand got inside his diaper and he cried bloody murder as the sand was rubbing against his man parts.

I got these shoes from Goodwill and I think they are adorable.

 

Happy playing at the library.

Ranch Creek Elementary School

Registering for school was the most stressful thing about moving to Colorado Springs.

District 20's Central Registry was the first stop on Thursday afternoon at 3:50 to get Saku registered before it closed at 4:30 and before the "Meet the Teacher" night from 4-6 pm. Saku got a spot at our neighborhood school!! It was such a relief. Saku got to pick his spot, at least for the first week, and meet his teacher Ms. Parker. She seems very nice. 

I was impressed by the staff's friendliness. The library is big. They have a separate cafeteria and gym. 

We also found out that Saku has James, a primary class kid, in his class room. It is awesome.

I feel this will be a wonderful school year. 

Bye Tucson

Our final moment in our home.

Rincon was generous and paid for movers to pack and load us. It was such a blessing. Even the professional packers spent four hours packing our home and the loaders worked close to 12 hours to get everything loaded. I can't even imagine how hard that would have been if Troy and I did it on our own. 

After everything was loaded, I cleaned the house. It was actually a very easy clean up. Allie brought over her vacuum and mop and she helped me to do the last few rooms. Then she let Eerika, Aleksi and I hang out at their place until Troy and Saku returned from the storage unit and we finally left Tucson at 9 pm. I had hoped to be on the road by 6 pm, but I should have known that everything takes way longer than you think.

On Monday while the packers were at our house, we spent the afternoon at the Jacobs' house. It was such a blessing. Aleksi took a short nap in a pack-n-play and the kids played happily while Brittny and I chatted. That night the Locey's had us over for dinner. They were the first family to invite us over for dinner and they were the last one to feed us. It shows what a remarkably generous family they are. 

On Tuesday, we hung out at the Rawling's for few hours and then we hung out around our house as I would clean a room after the loaders had moved all the furniture away.

Our final days in Tucson were a perfect summary of the love and friendship that people in our ward showed to us throughout the three and half years that we lived in Corona. 

We arrived exhausted but happy to Las Cruces New Mexico at 2 am.

Eerika's First Hospitalization

Eerika fell asleep right after church on Sunday after she started to complain of stomach ache. When she woke up, she had a fever. After some tylenol, she perked up a bit. Later in the evening, she would cry out in pain and the thought of "appendicitis" came to my mind. She kept complaining of her pain throughout the evening and I felt a bit uneasy as we went to bed.

She woke up with the fever and stomach pains on Monday morning so I decided to take her to the doctor. She was examined and tested for strep, UTI and appendicitis. The doctor ruled out appendicitis as she wasn't in acute pain at that time and the "wiggling and stretching" of the appendix area didn't seem to bother her.

Tuesday was no fever and no pain.

On Wednesday she woke up with pain and fever again. She whimpered as she watched a movie. This was a sign of true pain as she has high pain tolerance and she was distracted by the movie. We went to the pediatrician. She decided that we should get admitted to rule out appendicitis.

We got directly admitted to the pediatric unit. Each doctor who examined her, three of them, concluded that she probably had appendicitis.

She survived through the five pokes for an IV. She received antibiotics overnight. She had a CT scan done.

Thursday morning, she looked great. No pain. The surgical attending said he would send her home IF he hadn't talked to all the other doctors who described her history and symptoms. He said that he would still recommend a surgery and even if it wasn't an appendicitis, they would take it out.

So we decided to go with the surgery. We felt good about the way the surgical had done "his homework".

I went to pre-op with her. She was a bit scared but overall handled it very well. She got distracted by iPad and TV shows and then she received some drugs and they wheeled her off. About an hour later, I went to the PACU where she was sort of awake. Most likely, it wasn't really appendicitis.

The day of surgery was filled with lots of TV. Few trips to the bathroom and some pain meds.

Friday morning was a tough as she had to get out of bed and her abdomen was obviously hurting from the surgery. It took a lot of patience as I tried to convince her that she should get out of bed. She was angry about it, but she did it on her terms. She was able to eat and drink well enough and she walked enough that they discharged us. Thank goodness.

Those 48 plus hours at the hospital were hard because Aleksi is so mobile. Eerika did well except for few moments of pain. Saku was happy to watch TV or play with the iPhone. Troy stayed for one night and I stayed for the second one.

April and Corrye brought dinners for us the first two days at home, so we were well taken care of.

She was fully recovered by the following Wednesday.

We did find out about the play room on our third day there. It would have helped during the first two.

Aleksi all over the place.

Desperate for some entertainment that didn't include a screen.

First week in Colorado Springs

Saku got a spot in our neighborhood school, which is 0.8 miles from our rental house. This was a huge blessing as the school placement system is messed up for lack of better words. He wants to bike to school; so far, we have driven from our hotel into the neighborhood and he bikes for a bit. He has a bike lock. This is a big deal for a six year old!

Eerika is very bitter that she doesn't get to go to Kindergarten. Today she informed me "It is not fair that I wasn't born at the same time as Saku. I want to be at school all day". We are looking into preschool options for her.

Aleksi has been sick. He is his happy, very snotty self during the day. He crawls and cruises along furniture everywhere. Evenings are a bit rough. Maybe he is boycotting the fact that he has to sleep in the bathroom...

We will be in our extended stay hotel until September 1st. After four days, Saku declared that he was a bit tired of just the two rooms. We have two doubles beds; Saku and Eerika share one and Troy and I share one. We haven't done such cozy little bed since our first year of marriage. 

There are so many parks, trails everywhere. We see people biking and running. 

We also found a great library, which has toys in addition to just books, so we have been there three times in seven days. We need somewhere to go to escape the walls of the hotel room.

We have met many friendly new people. It will take a while to build friendships, but for now, I am grateful for friendly and thoughtful people around us.

We had some excitement with a Tornado Warning, but nothing happened. It has rained every evening and night, and we are learning that Colorado weather can be quite unpredictable. The day time temperatures have been in the 70s-80s, which we love

More like A Sister than A Friend

Heather has been my constant friend for the past 9 years in Tucson. Yes, she did leave twice while Paul was looking for jobs, but she returned and our friendship forged on stronger each time. I love her. She was my free therapy when I needed it. She was my supporter.  She is irreplaceable but I do hope that I will find a similar friendship in Colorado.