Let’s not acknowledge the fact that it’s been months since I updated this blog. Let’s just move on like nothing happened. Alright? Ok!

The feel of this blog is going to change, due to the fact that I’m a stay at home mom now and suddenly the wife of a “pastor.” My husband didn’t change, but his job did. Technically he’s not a pastor in the truest sense of the word. He didn’t go to seminary so he’s not allowed the title. His official title is “Mid High Director;” Mid High being 6th, 7th and 8th graders.

I’m a stay at home mom now. I love it! It’s really fun, most of the time and it’s really awesome to be able to be at home. I get to see all the funny, ridiculous stuff my son does. Like just now. He woke up from his nap (a mere forty minutes) and cried until I went to his room. I changed him and brought him out to the living room where I have music going and of course the tappity tap of my typing. Except now it looks as if he’s falling asleep again. I’m sure if I tried to move him though, he’d start crying again. He hates to miss out on things, so he naps in the living room on occasion.

A new responsibility I’ve been feeling lately is dinner. You may be thinking, wait a moment, wasn’t that your responsibility before? Why yes it was. The difference is before I wasn’t home all day. I worked outside the home so I could use the excuse of work when I didn’t have any ideas for dinner. Now I’m home all day so if I don’t have anything cooking or even in mind it just seems lazy. Jordan doesn’t really care but I do. I feel like it’s really my job now to make sure my family is eating well, so when I don’t do dinner I feel guilty.

Today is not a guilty feeling day, however! I’ve already started. I’m aware of the time, I realize it’s only lunchtime. But today I’m trying something new. I’m making Irish Soda Bread to go with the hearty potato soup that will be tonight’s dinner. I’m a 1/4 Irish so I’m embracing that quarter today.

The recipe was really simple. For me that means it will be either spectacular or terrible. It’s hit and miss with simple recipes. At least for me. Hopefully it will turn out delicious, but I just glanced at it and I’m not so sure…

A great many things in life change when you have a baby. You say things and do things you never thought you would do. For example, I find myself talking in “parentese” a lot, which is something I never thought I would do. “Parentese” is that baby talk thing where your voice goes all high pitched and you say things like “Oh, did we spit up?! Yes we did! Oh yes!” I always thought I would talk normally but Jack responds much better I think when I use my irritating high pitched voice.

That’s the other thing. I’m always saying we. We are getting into our carseat. We are getting our diaper changed. We just spit up all over mommy. Suddenly I am not  a single person anymore, I am a we. Me and baby, all the time.

Getting ready for an outing takes anywhere between 15 and 40 minutes, depending on what time of day it is and where we’re going. Going to Auntie’s house, not a big deal, throw a couple diapers in the bag and get going. Going for a walk, to any other public place takes a little time. I’m not even sure what takes so long. Really we only have to do for Jack the same basic things adults do. We change him, get him dressed, strap him in his seat and go, but that seems to take a while. And if his diaper bag isn’t ready to go then we’re in for an even longer preparation time.

Sundays have become a bit challenging. Mostly because dear husband works those days, so it’s just Jack and me. I must get him fed by a time that will guarantee he won’t become hungry again during church, get myself fed, get the kid dressed and changed, get myself dressed and get everyone in the car by 10am to make it to the 10:15 service. Once in the service I have to make sure my full but grunty little one doesn’t get too loud and bother those around me. All in all Sunday mornings feel a bit hectic and rushed to me.

And the biggest change that I must get used to is the amount of time spent caring for the little bugger. Don’t misunderstand. I love being a mom, I adore my son, but there are so many things that fall through the cracks. Especially since this is my first shot at motherhood, I don’t really have the whole balance thing down yet. Housework is neglected, my writing suffers, laundry just sits on the washer and the dishes pile up in the sink while my son cries for no apparent reason other than he feels he should.

Anytime I want to play with him and entertain him with songs, and stories and toys, he falls asleep. And when he should be sleeping he’s wide awake screaming in my face. It sometimes makes me wonder what made me want to have a baby.

Then he does something cute like look me in the eye and smile. Not just a little crooked smile, but one of those huge toothless grins, and suddenly the dishes aren’t so pressing and it doesn’t matter that I haven’t written anything all week. I just got a smile.

Air travel has never been my favorite way to go. I admit I like the speed in which you arrive at your destination, but air travel normally stresses me out. Especially since all those extra safety precautions have been put into practice.

I don’t know where this stress comes from. It could come from the terrible experience I had flying with my family from Southern California to Central Oregon. It was Christmas Eve. Our first flight was delayed, so we “missed” our connecting flight, even though they hadn’t closed the doors or started the engines yet. What I think happened is our seats got given to stand by passengers. Instead of just telling us this the woman at the counter said we were too late and that we couldn’t get on the flight. After pleading and arguing with her for ten minutes they finally closed the doors and started the engine. We spent the night at the Portland Airport and caught a flight the next day.

Or it could be that I have to find a way to cram all the shampoo I’ll need for any given trip into a 3 oz. container but whatever.

All that to say flying stresses me out. So this weekend started out on the stressful side for me. I was going to be flying with my month old son in tow. Yes I was going to be the woman with the baby on the plane. Not only that, but I’ve been conditioned by my husband to not check bags. So this was our goal for this trip as well, even though we’d have a baby.

I didn’t realize how much stuff a baby uses on a daily basis until I was trying to fit everything into one bag and one “personal item.”  Luckily for this trip we’d be staying in a nice resort (thanks to my mom) so I didn’t have to worry about the whole 3 oz. container thing for my hair products. But Jack had to have a whole array of things. He also brought twice as many clothes as I did, along with two blankets and a Baby Bjorn.

My sister graciously came with me to help out with the little tyke and honestly the flight there was not too bad. He slept most of the time and only grumbled once or twice which was quickly fixed with a pacifier.

The next challenge came when we told our friend Hannah we would meet her for breakfast, which turned into brunch, which turned into lunch. It took us all that long to figure out what to do, get ready and go. Jack rode along and sweated in his Baby Bjorn as Elise and I walked the strip to meet Hannah.

A Baby Bjorn is a wonderful thing. I’d never used it until that day, but I adore it. It’s great to have your baby so close yet have your arms free.

As you may have guessed bringing a month old baby on a trip like this is not common, so we got lots of comments; most of which were along the lines of ‘what a cute baby!’ And ‘how old is he?’ There was one man who said something completly different.

Elise and I were waiting for the free shuttle that would take us to the strip from our hotel. He was standing in front of us with his family. He turned to his wife after eyeing Jack for a moment and said something like, ‘I wouldn’t bring him here. He’s way too young for Vegas.’ Like we couldn’t hear him as he stood directly in front of us about a foot away.

I didn’t hear him say that, but Elise said she wanted to turn to him and tell him he didn’t know what we were here for so maybe he should shut the hell up. We were there for a wedding by the way, not to drink and gamble and check out male strippers. Although I am planning on going back to do those things as soon as I can leave Jack for a few days.

And the last challenge getting Jack back to Seattle after his schedule had been royally screwed up, not to mention being a grumpy, tired baby. He was fine as we strolled through the Vegas airport, had breakfast and boarded, but for the rest of the flight he was fussy, and even let out a few screams as we made our descent into Seattle. Surprisingly though I just took the child in my arms, stuck a pacifier in his mouth and talked quietly to him in reassuring tones and I didn’t feel stressed at all. I just felt like a mom.

There is still no real routine when it comes to Jack. Sometimes we have really great weeks sometime we have really crappy weeks. Right now we are in the midst of crap.
Jack is not wanting to sleep at night no matter how much he’s awake during the day. Last night in fact he woke up every hour and a half. He didn’t want to eat, or be swaddled. He just wanted Jordan or me in the room, holding him. Sometimes even when we did that he whimpered and cried. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have colic, because he doesn’t cry constantly. But whatever it is that’s bugging him at night is also bugging me.
I’d really like to get some sleep.

I know I’ve missed the last two weeks. I’m sorry. I’m still trying to adjust to the little guy. It’s tricky getting things balanced out. I’ll try to do a real post next week.

I’ll be honest. I’m not sure what to write about today. I’ve been thinking about it since Jack came home and I’ve got a couple ideas but nothing worth expanding on. I thought about writing my birth story, but I’m not sure I want that floating around on the internet. I’ll say this though, it was really fast, really intense and really un-medicated. My entire birth plan went out the window after my water broke. I guess Jack had his own birth plan. Come out and come fast.

I’ll say a word about the adjustment of having a baby in the house. Half the time it’s totally great and I love it! The other half is frustrating, weird and scary. I always thought that people exaggerated how often a baby woke up during the night. They don’t. Even as I write this I’m tired, because of the wakeful sleep I got last night.

I discovered that if I was given the option to sit around the house all day watching movies and having people wait on me hand and foot I would most likely not choose that. I’m still in recovery technically but am sort of ignoring that fact. After Jordan went to work today I tidied up the house and actually ate lunch at the table instead of the couch. I didn’t get a ton done, but I feel better about today than almost any other day.

As complainy as this post sounds, I love my baby and love having him in the house. I don’t know what I was expecting when I first brought him home, but he’s really a lot of fun and the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

So I gave birth on Monday to my lovely son Jack. In light of that I’m going to take this week off.

See you next week!

Two quick stops left on our epic road trip to report on. The first stop was in Chicago.

We left Kalamazoo under three inches of snow. Luckily the storm was moving East and we were heading West. We arrived in Chicago around 9:30am and went to the Field Museum. They had two special exhibits going; Real Pirates and The Aztec World. I really wanted to see the Real Pirates exhibit which would cost a little extra. As we walked in to pay our admission a museum employee came up to us and asked us if were interested in seeing the special exhibits. We said yes and he said if we became museum members we’d get a discount on the tickets and could go in to the exhibits right away. We’d also get a sweet tote bag. I’m a sucker for tote bags so we signed up to be members. It was $10 cheaper to get into the exhibits, we got our tote bag, free coat checking and a discount at the gift shop, which would come in handy when we went to buy our magnet.

We went to see the Real Pirates exhibit first. It was really interesting to learn about the emergence of pirates and see that a lot of what we think of as “pirates” is not correct. Pirates of the Caribbean have it all wrong! Being a pirate was more a political stance than one of rum and whores. There was a lot more freedom on a pirate ship no matter the color of your skin or your origins and the getting rich part was nice too. The exhibit focused a lot on one pirate called Sam Bellamy and his ship the Whydah. It actually starts out as sort of a sweet story. Sam falls in love with this girl, but her father thinks he’s not rich enough for her to marry him, so he goes off to get rich and ends up a pirate. He never ends up with that girl though so it gets sad along the way.

The exhibit was awesome for adults. But I don’t think there was enough there to keep the kids occupied.  There was a lot of reading and less hands on things.

After we were done with the pirates exhibit we went and browsed through the Evolving World exhibit and saw some fossils. After that we went to The Aztec World. That exhibit was crowded with high school kids with questionnaire worksheets, so we went through that one a little quickly. After the Aztec exhibit we went and looked at the lions from the movie Ghost in the Darkness. They were neat but not as big as the living lions had been.  You had to know that part of the lion skins had been made into rugs and there was still enough left over to make stuffed lions then that made it a little more impressive.

We looked at a few birds, bugs and mammals on our way to pick up our coats. We bought our magnet and had some lunch before we left Chicago. A word of warning if you’re going to be driving through Illinois on I-90; have a lot of cash and change with you.  There are tolls everywhere, even on some of the exit ramps. We were fine for awhile, but eventually we had to stop at a truck stop to get cash out of the ATM so we could pay the tolls.

That day we drove all the way to South Dakota and stopped in Sioux Falls. The next day we drove to the Badlands National Park. South Dakota was by far the most boring place to drive through. It’s mostly I-90 that’s boring. There’s nothing out there, just flatness. Once you get off I-90 though the scenery picks up a bit and once we got into the Badlands it was beautiful! The Badlands works just like Joshua Tree, there’s a little booth you pay at to get in and there’s lots of places to stop along the way. There are also camping areas and nature walks, so we stopped a couple of times to stretch our legs and take some pictures. We drove through the rest of the park admiring the rocks and scenery. We had some lunch at Subway before stopping at the legendary Wall Drug. It was basically a drug store with lots of souvenirs and a backyard play area which was closed for the season.

After browsing around and buying some magnets we headed off to Mount Rushmore.

So there you have it! Our whole trip told out of order, but in it’s entirity. Next week, I’m not sure what I’ll write about…

After leaving DC and before heading to Niagara Falls, Jordan and I made a small stop at Gettysburg. He really wanted to see the battlegrounds and was on a huge history kick, especially after spending so much time in DC. From the time we’d left Texas to then I’d never felt so steeped in history, it was really amazing. I love Seattle and know the rich and dynamic history it has. But this city is so technological, it has a very looking toward the future feeling that the history gets gravely overlooked, except by tourists who go on the Underground Tour.

So we left for Gettysburg around 8:30am. We stopped at the visitors center to get a map, and a magnet of course. Have I mentioned yet that we are collectors of magnets? Every time we go on a trip we always try to come back with a magnet from that place. We got quite a few on this trip.

After paying for our magnet and looking over a few displays at the packed visitors center we got back in the car to follow the route for the auto tour. We only did part of the auto tour. The full tour can take between two to three hours depending on how often you stop to read plaques. We drove through several battlefields and stopped at a few landmarks.

We drove into the little town of Gettysburg and had lunch at a restaurant called The Avenue.  This place was delicious! I would highly recommend it to anyone in the Gettysburg area. There are tons of food choices, it’s a little small, but that adds to the ambiance. The staff is really nice and very helpful. I had some yummy sweet potato fries, for the first time ever, and Jordan tried corn fritters.

After lunch we climbed back into the car and drove to Niagara Falls. This is when our trip became international! We arrived on the Canadian side of the falls around 7pm. After checking in to our hotel and resting for a bit we got back in the car and drove down to see the falls lit up at night.  It was pretty, but difficult to see from the car. We would have parked and walked, but parking was really hard to come by and we weren’t willing to pay for parking for a quick glance at the falls.

The next day was going to be our big falls day. We had breakfast at The Continental Pancake House. The pancakes were delicious and we were two of the first people there, so the service was awesome.

After breakfast we headed to the falls.  They were really breathtaking. I had no idea what to expect. I’d never really seen them before, except once in a movie, but it was only the briefest of glimpses.  They’re huge and beautiful! It was such an amazing feat of nature. Our plan was to ride the Maid of the Mist tour, but once we got there we saw all the boats out of the water, which had huge chunks of ice floating in it. It seemed they were closed for the season, as were many of the walkways. So we didn’t get to see the falls up close and personal. But we still had a really nice day.

We walked for a long while admiring the falls and did some souvenir shopping. Jordan had learned about ice wine which we’d never heard of before. That part of Canada specializes in ice wines, so we went in search of that as well.

We found it at Pillitteri Estates Winery. It was cute place with wine everywhere! Seriously, there were huge floor to ceiling shelves full of wine. I’d love to go back and do a whole wine tour through that area; we passed at least five other wineries before arriving at Pillitteri Estates. We purchased a couple bottles of ice wine and then started to make our way back into the states.

Our goal for the day was to make it to Kalamazoo, mostly because we liked the name and wanted to stay there. We went to bed that night with the news warning us of snow coming our way.

So our trip is nearing an end. There are two more places I have to tell you all about. They will probably be combined into one blog post, since they are more like stops along the way rather than big time destinations like New Orleans, or Washington DC. After that I’ll probably have a son, which should open the door for a whole new set of topics.

Before this trip I had been to one city in Texas and that is Houston and I hated it. So when I realized we’d have to drive through and stop in Texas, since it’s so freaking huge, I wasn’t terribly excited.  Jordan has family in Texas so I thought it would be fun to see them, but other than that, I wasn’t too excited about this stop.

We left for Texas right after exploring the Carlsbad Caverns.  I was a bit tired from walking so long, so I’ll admit, I slept through most of West Texas.  Jordan kept himself entertained by listening to talk radio and attempting to take photos while he drove.  Apparently West Texas is the worst part of Texas to drive through. I woke up and began to prepare myself for the dull scenery of nothingness. I took over driving and Jordan promptly fell asleep. I looked around and while some of the scenery did leave something to be desired, there were parts of Texas that were quite woody and beautiful.  It was sort of fun to sit there and try to imagine what was coming around the corner, more flat nothing or a random wooded area, full of green.

I meant to trade driving duties with Jordan before we hit San Antonio so I wouldn’t have to drive in city traffic, but I got in a groove and suddenly we were in the city. We went through San Antonio to San Marcos where Jordan’s family lived.  We arrived at about 8pm so it wasn’t too bad of a drive.

We sat up with Jordan’s Aunt Michelle, and Uncle Mark for awhile talking about the drive and life in general (we hadn’t seen them since our wedding, oh around 4 years ago). A couple hours later we crawled into a nice warm, soft bed, a relief after two days of camping in New Mexico.

I have to say we did a lot of eating in Texas. I can chronicle the day by what we ate. We got up around 10am and headed out to breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. I’d never heard of it before, but after our first encounter in Texas we saw Cracker Barrel’s along the freeway quite a lot. Dolly Parton is their spokesperson and there’s a little gift shop attached to the restaurant. Every choice on the menu is huge.  Most breakfasts came with grits and biscuits in addition to whatever was featured. Jordan and I probably could have shared, but we chose poorly.  We each had our own breakfast meal and I tried grits for the first time in my life. I probably won’t eat them again.

After our huge breakfast we went to the Alamo, which is in the middle of San Antonio.  For some reason I thought the Alamo was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by that nothingness I talked about earlier.  After I got over the fact that this fortress I’d heard so much about was in fact in the middle of the city and fairly small, compared to what I had in my head, we rented a couple audio tours and did the tourist thing for awhile.  The funniest thing about the Alamo is there are signs here and there asking people to be quite and respectful of this sacred place, but it was one of the loudest places we’d been on our trip.  It was like the signs weren’t even there. I’m not talking a dull murmur; there were kids running around, people shouting across the room, it was loud.

But no matter! We walked around listening to our audio tours which were so chock full of information I don’t think I remember a thing I heard on it. But I’m glad I went, learned about the Alamo and attempted to retain something, even if I didn’t.

After we returned our audio tours we walked along the Riverwalk. Riverwalk is basically shops and tons of restaurants lining a natural river.  It was nice and cool in there and I was just starting to relax when Mark announced it was time for lunch.  I knew by the clock it was time for lunch, but I was still stuffed from breakfast.  We picked a BBQ joint and this time Jordan and I shared a meal. We still had a ton of leftovers. After lunch, we walked through the lobby of the Menger Hotel which opened sometime in the 1800’s. It had a few display cases full of little artifacts and pictures.

We walked back to the car and headed back to Michelle and Marks for a couple hours. I swear we were only home for perhaps an hour and a half when it was time to leave again and go get dinner with Mark’s kids. Jordan and I glanced at each other before we left wondering where we were going to put this meal. I thought maybe since we were driving quite a long ways to meet them and were told it was a fairly popular restaurant we’d be a little bit hungry by the time we ordered.  I was wrong. It was perhaps another hour before we ate, but I probably could have gone to bed that night and not eaten again.

For some reason Jordan and I got separate meals again and ate only a little of each. Everything at this place was deep fried. Including all the veggies, everything was deep fried. After dinner everyone insisted we get dessert as well so Jordan and I shared that. We left and took a tour of the water park Schittlerbahn, which is a very popular attraction in the summer, but now was totally deserted. We headed home after that, Jordan and I wondering if we’d ever be hungry again.  That was the first time I’ve ever gone out to eat for every meal.

The next morning we were heading out to New Orleans, but before we left Mark and Michelle made us a big breakfast. Surprise, I was still not very hungry after my day of eating out, but I had some of the breakfast they made. Then we drove to Molton, Texas where Jordan’s great great great grandpa Jackson Crouch is buried.  We found Jackson, his wife Sara, and 7 year old Orin. There was also Lydia Moore – Crouch, and one other daughter. We hung around the cemetery for a good while. Jordan and Mark found a separate cemetery where they think the slaves were buried. The headstones were much simpler and most of the time not made of stone. It was a neat old cemetery in a tiny little town.

All in all, I’m glad I went to Texas again. It’s such a big place to say you don’t like it because of one city is a pretty ignorant thing to say. I’d be interested to go back and visit Austin. Mark and Michelle said Austin is really eccelectic, lots of weird people there, so it might be fun to check out. It’s too bad that Jordan gets asthmatic whenever he goes to Texas. While we were in Texas, for two days, he started to cough a lot and got really wheezy. It’s really strange, once we got to Louisanna, after a day Jordan was fit as fiddle again. My hubby’s allergic to Texas.