IS IT FOREVER YET?

9 years ago today my college roommate and fiance convinced me to climb up on these rocks in my wedding dress for this picture. What was I thinking? That was CRAZY! I hate peer pressure.

Flash forward and we aren't exactly the "daredevils" we used to be. Here we are in 2010 in a less dramatic location (outside the Los Angeles Temple) -

It doesn't seem like we've been married for 9 years, but then I start looking at all our stuff. This is about the time when the wedding gifts break and I wish I would have kept all of those Mikasa platters I returned. Someone recently told me that her parents threw a party for their 10th anniversary and requested that people bring gifts. I thought it sounded pretty tacky, however, if anyone wants to start that trend, I welcome it. Just hurry up with making "10 year wedding showers" cool in time for me to have one next year. I have a lot of stuff to replace.

Speaking of replacing stuff, to celebrate our 9 year anniversary we are doing something crazy. (No, we're not buying a microwave. That would be nuts!!) We're buying our first fancy vacuum. I ordered it today and can't wait for it to arrive!

The only downside to celebrating with a vacuum is that this means we are officially boring and old. That's okay, I knew it would happen eventually.

Happy Anniversary to us! It's gonna suck! (Ha ha, that was a vacuum pun. Good one, eh?)

JOSHUA

For those of you who didn't know, my nephew, Joshua, passed away last Tuesday. Rather than re-tell the story, here is an excerpt from what was included in his funeral program:

Joshua Lonati Uipi, precious son of Salesi and Kaci Uipi, was born October 10, 2010, in Phoenix, Arizona. He was only able to spend one short week of his life as a happy, healthy baby boy before returning to St. Joseph's Hospital. His family watched helplessly as sweet Joshua grew sicker and sicker each day despite excellent care. After three difficult weeks and much prayer and fasting, Baby Joshua returned home to his Heavenly Father.

Loving family members surrounded his small hospital bed and sang I am a Child of God, then took turns holding him in the rocking chair for many hours. At 2:58 p.m. on November 9, 2010, Joshua passed peacefully in the arms of his mother. The day before he died doctors diagnosed him with Chronic Granulomatous Disease, a rare genetic disorder that hampered his ability to fight the yeast infection that attacked his lungs. CGD occurs once in every one million persons. All who knew Joshua agree that he truly was one in a million.

Kaci and Salesi at the burial

So on Friday, I drove out to Phoenix for the funeral. Erik had to work so he wasn't able to come, but it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise since I was able to leave the kids in California. The entire weekend was so emotionally draining, I can't imagine how hard it would have been to have the kids there.

Not having the kids this weekend, left me with a lot of time to think. I spent a lot of time wondering why this hasn't happened to me yet. Why do I have two healthy children? It felt strange being an obviously pregnant woman at a funeral for a one month old. People kept asking me if I was excited to have a girl and all I could think was, "Well, yeah, if she lives!" I didn't say that, but I wanted to. My sister thought Joshua was healthy and then less than a month later he dies. I thought about how quickly life can change. I don't mean to sound angry, it's just been an emotional few weeks. My heart breaks for my sister and brother-in-law. It's one of those things that I wish so badly that I could fix for them, but I can't. No matter how many times someone says that "he is in a better place," it still doesn't change the shock of suddenly not having a baby here that you were expecting.

Ugh.

November has been crazy. I'm looking forward to the rest of this month being less chaotic. For the first weekend in 3 weeks, I'll actually be home!

GROWING UP IS HARD TO DO

Yesterday, Charlie weaned himself from the pacifier that has been helping put him to sleep for the past year and a half. Ugh.

I know it sounds crazy. I should be happy, but I am angry. I knew it was over the minute I tried to put him down for a nap and he threw the pacifier across the room. I kept picking it up to return it to him and he kept throwing it back across the room. This went on for about 10 minutes until I finally gave up. Charlie wins. No more pacifier.

Most people won't admit that their 2 and a half year old uses a pacifier to go to sleep, but I don't care. I loved that thing. Charlie would crawl into bed during the day just to suck on it. He was an ease to put to sleep. His naps last week were an average of 3 hours long! However, now that Charlie has decided he no longer needs a pacifier, he won't take naps or go to sleep very easily. The day seems twice as long when Charlie doesn't nap.

I'm tired. Next child better wean me slowly from the pacifier. This quick method is really hard.

I BELIEVE I CAN FLY

So, I've pretty much decided that Erik getting his pilot's license is awesome. This weekend we took a very quick and impromptu trip out to Arizona. The longest I had ever flown with him before this was about 15 minutes. Yes, it was a little scary exciting at times, but who cares?! I'd choose a 2 hour 15 minute plane flight to my parent's house in Arizona over a 6 1/2 hour car trip any day. I now understand why Erik wants to buy a plane so badly. I could get really used to flying in little planes.


Traveling with children in a small plane made the flight even more exciting. Imagine a car trip where you can't stop to use the bathroom or let your children out to run around! Yeah, fun! At one point, Luke fell asleep and started snoring into the headset. When I turned around to take it off of him, I noticed that he had drooled all over the microphone. Disgusting.


The impetus for this quick trip was to see my new nephew, Joshua. He was born full-term on 10/10/10. After a short stay in the NICU for what the doctors believed was aspirated meconium, he was sent home. 5 or 6 days passed and my sister, Kaci, noticed that he had a fever and took him to the hospital. The doctors performed several tests and finally determined that he had somehow aspirated candida (yeast), and as a result, his breathing was being severely impaired. In the week and a half that has followed he has progressively grown worse.


This is a picture that my sister sent me on the day he was checked back into the hospital. I have some photos from this weekend, but I couldn't bring myself to post them. He is now hooked up to a ventilator, sedated, and fed through a tube in his nose. It's heartbreaking, but my sister and her husband have such a positive attitude, although I know the last thing Kaci and my brother-in-law, Salesi, expected was to be spending the first months of their son's life in a hospital room. You just never know what life is going to throw at you. I wish that I could flash forward a couple of months to see him healthy and out of the hospital.


Speaking of positive attitude, Kaci insisted that we take pictures in front of the PICU sign on their hospital floor. I found it a little strange to be smiling during something so traumatic, but then I remembered that Kaci was the same one who was upset when we were told we couldn't take pictures at the Holocaust Museum a few summers ago.