Finally, Wedding Pictures

So it only took me 2 months, but here are a few photos from Kristin & David's wedding. It was a beautiful day, beautiful bride, and we wouldn't have missed it for anything!

Here's Kristin after the ceremony, in the gorgeous dress her friend Emily designed and made. Not the best lighting, I know; we were both standing in the shade because it was so hot.

Here she is with John & Carlos, and David is in the back somewhere.

And finally, one with the whole family.

I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted to, because Ethan & Avery were desperate for some shade and some lunch, so I can't wait to see all of hers. Lansing kept the kids outside during the ceremony, and from what I could tell Avery managed to pick most of the flowers on the grounds and trample the rest. Here they are in a rare cooperative moment:

We were lucky enough to be able to stick around for the 4th of July too; our first one in the US in 5 years. We took the kids to a parade, which kind of mystified them. We had to skip the fireworks though, since our flight was early the next morning.

Avery celebrates Independence Day in the traditional manner, with a tantrum.

What Passes for Milestones Around Here

We spent a few days at one of the CenterParcs in May; for reasons I can't explain (because I don't know, not because they are too horrifying to explain) I didn't get many pictures. But on our final day I managed to snap this one of Ethan calmly coloring while we awaited our food at the Pancake House. This is a milestone for 2 reasons: 1) I never believed I'd live to see the day when Ethan would sit quietly in a restaurant like an actual human being and 2) nor did I think he would ever voluntarily choose to color, and furthermore to color inside the lines, filling all the white space, rather than inscribing each page with a single cursory scrawl and calling it a day.

His lack of coloring aptitude was problematic only in that it so concerned his kindergarten teacher that he was referred to physical therapy, where he spent many hours resentfully tracing patterns while grinding his teeth into powder, and many additional hours complaining about how much he hated the therapy sessions. (His therapist also drove me insane, insisting that he was right-handed and we must encourage him to use his right hand...see photo above, notice which hand he's using? The child does not so much as pick his nose with his right hand - sorry for the tmi- and he never has.) Fortunately the next year his teacher was herself the mother of 3 boys, and confined herself to observing, "He really hates coloring, doesn't he" with no mention of therapeutic remedies.

And here we have Avery with her first pig-tails (cute bows are courtesy of my friend Heather, check the link if you have a child in need of adorable hair decor!)


Next up we have a lesser-known milestone: Avery trying to produce her first urine sample. What, you don't have a page for that in your baby book? She was running a fever for a few days and when we couldn't find any other explanation the doctor suggested I try to bring in a clean-catch sample to check for a u.t.i. Oookaaay... so I put her on the mixing bowl in front of the tv for half an hour, nothing- then foolishly turned my back for 2 seconds to grab the remote control and she sprinted over to the couch and left her sample there. That's when I decided she was probably fine and we'd give the fever another day or two before making a second attempt. Fortunately she was back to normal the next day.


This last one is not a milestone per se, but it was cute. Ethan & his friend Dylan created these Iron Man costumes out of the contents of the recycling bin, plus a Super-Soaker and a defunct light-saber.



Coming soon- pictures from my sister's wedding! Assuming I remember the camera.

Bad Parenting

I'm a little concerned about Avery's maternal instincts, or maybe it's my own parenting skills I should be worrying about. This morning I was folding laundry when she came in with a couple of dolls and tossed them into the washing machine.

She had trouble getting the door to close, because the baby's toes were in the seal. After a few tries, she gave a disgusted sort of sigh and took off, pausing at the door to reassure them with "Bye! Yuv yu!"

"Whatevs. I'll be back later. You'll be fine."

"No need to call CPS, they like it in there."

Eventually she retrieved them, and shoved a sippy cup in each of their faces in turn, so she wasn't completely negligent.

Caught by the paparazzi. Makes Britney look like Mother of the Year!

In all fairness, she likes to climb in there herself, so she probably thought they'd enjoy it too. She's forever putting things into the washer or dryer-- food, coins, PlayMobils. Very important to do a quick sweep before you turn on any appliances in this house.

Day Trip

We finally got lucky and had a rain-free Saturday, so we headed down to Brighton for the day. It was perfect- 70's and sunny. Ethan & Avery collected shells and threw rocks into the ocean, only occasionally dropping them on one another's toes.


We found a playground by the water and let them do their thing for a while. Ethan immediately recruited every child of his approximate height for a soccer match, and Avery kept busy climbing and then falling off of various structures.

I don't know who she's waving at here, possibly the gulls. The tide was coming in and she was curious about the water, so I eventually took off her shoes and socks; she headed straight into the waves but immediately became alarmed, lost her head, sat down in the surf, and needed a full change of clothes.

Actual fish and chips! Try not to get your monitor greasy....


There was a little train that ran along the shoreline. Ethan was offended that his offer to drive was not accepted.

We left mid-afternoon to get Ethan home in time for a birthday party for one of his school friends. After we dropped him off we lounged around at home for a few more hours, reading and ignoring the lawn, which desperately needed mowing. Below you can see Avery, riveted by the classics.

Perfect weekend! There's a bank holiday next Monday, so I think we're going to try to fit in some more road trips.

Lucky Seven

Ethan's birthday was last weekend. Hard to believe our little guy is seven. It seems like just yesterday we were careening over speed-bumps in the ambulance as he made his dramatic bum-first entrance into the world. I'll never forget the expression on his face when they handed him to me- "dubious" is probably the closest I can come to describing it. He glanced from me to Lance and then over at the EMT as if to say, "Seriously? These two?" We've seen that look a couple of times since then, and I'm guessing we will become even more familiar with it as we approach the teen years. All the more reason to enjoy his little-kid sweetness while it lasts. He is at an age where it's possible to have genuinely interesting conversations with him- he is particularly expansive and chatty at bedtime- and we're enjoying getting deeper glimpses into the inner workings of his mind. During one of these discussions a few weeks ago he was describing to me some aspect or other of his grand plans for the future, and I asked him whether he'd come to visit us after he was all grown up and on his own. "Yes!" he said without hesitation- and then after a moment's reflection: "If you're still alive." Nice.

Here are a few pictures from his party- we had it at an indoor-play place as Ethan had quite an extensive guest-list and I didn't think I was up to hosting 18 7-year-old boys without professional assistance.

He opted for a volcano cake this year. I think he would have preferred fiercer dinosaurs, but these were the only ones they had at the cake shop and his plastic ones were not to scale.
Note their cheerful expressions as they admire their nest, oblivious to the fiery death bearing down on them.

I wanted to use a sparkler to get the full volcanic effect, but they are banned at the party place- apparently the sprinkler system is easily triggered and the smoke is too much. So we took it outside in the parking lot for that part.


It looked okay with just the regular candles, too.


While waiting for lunch to be served, the kids decided to do a little table-dancing, confirming my decision to hold the party off-site.

We had to draw the line when the shirts started coming off.


Here's Avery taking careful notes and filing it all away for future reference.

But for her the true highlight came the next day, when she discovered the off-cuts in the kitchen. (you can also see the remains of the volcano in the background.)

I went to put something away upstairs and returned to find her busily cramming fistfuls of cake into her face.


And now on to Easter! I was relieved to see that Easter will not be this early again until 2228, or something. By then it definitely will not be my problem, barring any major medical advances. (I love Easter, I just need a little time to breathe between celebrations.) But we have a yard full of daffodils and the neighbors' tulip trees are in full bloom just outside the study window, so at least it feels like spring. So far the London weather has been a pleasant surprise...

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Just in time for Valentine's Day, I'm taking Shannon up on her challenge to tell the story of how I met Lansing & got engaged. Let me preface this by saying we never actually got engaged, officially- we skipped right over it and just got married. But I'll get to that later.

I first met Lansing in September 1993, when we both entered the MTC, destined for Bulgaria (Lansing) and the Czech Republic (me). Neither one of us made any lasting impression on the other at first sight; it wasn't until a few days later that I took a good look at his name tag and realized his sister Clorinda had been in my dorm during our freshman year (my freshman year, that is, and Clorinda's- Lansing was but an innocent high-school child at the time.) Aside from that, we probably had a few conversations but the first one I remember was over lunch one day; I was joking around with someone else in his group and said something that made him laugh. I am always flattered when anyone finds me funny- I take it as a sign of a discerning mind- so this immediately bumped him up several notches in my personal esteem.

This is a picture we took for his sister. Notice he's doing the "I'm-not-touching-you" thing, though not entirely in accordance with the arm's-length rule.

There were only a couple of other missionaries in his group, so they were in with us for most of the non-language-based activities and we had lots of opportunities to chat and get to know each other better. I couldn't tell you anything specific we discussed, just that we had an immediate comfort level with each other that was unusual for me. As I look back over the pictures of our whole group together it strikes me that he is always sitting next to me, which he informs me was not at all coincidental, but at the time I just wasn't in the "Meet Your Romantic Destiny" mindset and I didn't pick up on it.

Actually in this one he's not next to me- he's at the top, I'm 2nd from the right, standing.

We wrote to each other during our missions, and traded a few tapes (tapes! can you imagine? it was like the Stone Age of communications) recorded over the audio guide to the missionary study program, and we were both guilty of some incredibly bad poetry. (Yes, this is how nerds go about trying to impress one another. Look away, it's hideous.) Anyway, I came home in February and went back to school. He finished his mission in August and called me on my birthday, the first time we'd talked in almost 2 years. A couple of weeks later he was back in Provo, and we went on our first date- a 3-day camping trip to Zion National Park. We met friends at the canyon but drove down together, and by the time we got there I was completely in love. We both had this incredibly strong sense of recognition and being 100 percent at home with each other, which neither of us had ever experienced before. We spent every possible minute together that fall, and went camping a lot, and if you look at our transcripts there is a corresponding huge dip in both of our GPA's.

Here we are on a mountain-biking trip to Moab.

By Christmas, we had started making wedding plans, but due to errors of strategy on my part we made it all the way to the altar without Lansing ever actually proposing. He wanted it to be perfect, and I seemed to have a knack for derailing things at the critical moment, and one way or another it just never happened. So he owes me one!!

We got married on June 25, 1996. It was the best decision I ever made. We are just alike enough to understand each other perfectly, and just different enough to keep it interesting. And just lucky enough to have found each other.

Christmas, otherwise known as Ancient History

Here's how our Christmas trip to PA began:
(Dark, silent house. Everyone is sound asleep. Lansing's mobile begins to ring from somewhere under the bed.)

"Hi, this is your airport car service...we're out front for your 7 am pick-up but just checking we have the right house since there aren't any lights on..."

There are a couple of morals to this story:

1) Don't let Lansing be in charge of waking you up for your next overseas flight.
2) Don't leave critical items such as, say, THE CAMERA, to be packed in the morning before a 7-a.m. departure for the airport.
3) Don't book yourself and your (adorable but absent-minded) husband and your 2 (adorable but hyper) small children on an early-morning flight from the busiest airport in the city.
4) If you disregard #3, be sure NOT to also disregard #'s 1 & 2, because your children will rapidly drop any pretense of adorability when they discover that you have not packed them any breakfast and that furthermore you will not be able to obtain any breakfast until you are safely through security and within sprinting distance of your departure gate, time permitting.

But despite the shaky start, we had a terrific time catching up with Lansing's family- all 8 siblings were there, with their families, plus grandparents and his mom's sister & her husband. I think the grand total was 33 people, including 13 kids. Lansing's dad came to our rescue, photo-wise, and the pictures below are all courtesy of him.

His parents were fantastic, patient, perfect hosts (no doubt raising 8 children makes you somewhat impervious to chaos.) They let the kids set up a Geo-Trax set in the study:



Ethan was obsessed with these trains, enjoying the role of Omnipotent Railway Controller. A couple of times I had to speak with him about Bossiness Issues, as he really couldn't understand why his fellow train-drivers would not bend to his will like good little puppets. I know, Ethan, it's really the hardest life lesson, that you can't force everyone to do what you'd like them to do (at least not all the time.) I'm still coming to terms with that myself.

One day all the kids made candy trees. I love this picture, it gives you a good sense of what it's like with 30-plus people in the house:


Here's Ethan with his finished product:



On Christmas Eve we went to Hershey Park to take the kids on the Chocolate World ride (quick tour of the chocolate-making process, followed by free samples and lots of whining when you disembark in a huge candy shop and the kids demand to buy everything in sight.) Here's a shot of Ethan at Chocolate World with his cousins Kathryn and Bethany, all 6 years old:



Cuties! Here's another of them, at home by the tree...



And some of all the kids together, on the stairs:



And in their pj's, below. If some of them look at little traumatized in this second one, that's because there was some threatening going on. I'm not sure it's possible to get 13 children 10 and under in a picture together without a little arm-twisting (metaphorical, of course. At least I didn't observe any actual arm-twisting.)

It had been ages since we'd seen everyone and there were at least a couple of babies we'd never met, so it was great to see everyone. Afterwards we headed east to the Poconos and met my sister and her daughter for a couple of days at Great Wolf Lodge. Ethan and Taylor (his cousin) have spent lots of time together over the past several years and he's always thrilled to see her. Naturally I have no pictures of my own from the waterpark either. Kristin? Anything?

Coming soon: my friend Shannon has tagged me to tell the story of Lansing & I Getting Engaged. Which I'm happy to do. Just, you know, bring a bucket, because the tackiness and sappiness of our story is gag-inducing even to me.