The Lovely Month of May

As always, May was filled with birthdays, our anniversary, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day. It was quite the month!

For my birthday Paul made me this awesome watermelon cake so as I wouldn't break my diet. It was a great birthday. I got my hair cut, got a cute new purse, and was taken out to dinner at Johnny Carino's (Lobster ravioli...mmmm).

We kept Mother's day low-key because it's just too much to deal with in one month! James made me a picture in primary, which was more than enough to make me happy. Paul cooked dinner and did dishes. What more can you really ask for?

For Paul's birthday/Memorial Day we headed out to Bandera because we heard that there was a big rodeo out there. When we got there we saw an outdoor little festival of sorts and the town was so cute that we decided to just walk around instead. I loved the drive out there. San Antonio is a really big city and I miss the country! It was nice to get out of the city for a bit and enjoy some beautiful hill country.

As soon as we got out of the car we saw this sign and thought it was funny. Lyman Wight was technically NOT a mormon anymore since he was one of the people that broke away to form his own church after Joseph Smith died, but I suppose it's all the same to some people.

 After that we went to dinner at Rudy's BBQ. It's amazing. If you ever come to San Antonio, this is where you want to eat! James and I got Paul a bunch of stuff to the wash the car with for his birthday. He'd been eyeing a super-awesome brush from Costco for a couple months. He's obsessed with keeping the car clean. I think he was happy.

For our anniversary we went to see Oz in the dollar theater with James. I sort of forgot to get a sitter, but we made the best of it and he loved the movie. Six years, baby!

What I've Learned from Infertility

As some of you may know, I have struggled with infertility for years.
As I sit here I'm 6 weeks pregnant with a miracle. I won't post this for another several weeks when I enter into my second trimester, but I'm in a good place right now and have been feeling like I should share what my struggle with infertility has taught me over the years.

Infertility Shouldn't be Taboo
I felt incredibly alone until some close friends revealed their struggles. Their courage to share with the world led me to a whole bunch of women who have dealt with similar, or worse, circumstances and somehow found a way to be happy fulfilled people. Don't be afraid to share!

You Aren't Alone
You really aren't. I know it feels that way a lot of the time, but the reality is that

Trust in the Lord's Timing
This one's tricky.  It has been so hard for me to accept.  I think of having children as a very basic and central part of my faith. The whole purpose of this life is family. So for me, having children is a commandment. Well, why on earth should it be so difficult to get pregnant then? I mean, I'm only trying to do what the Lord wants me to do, right? Coming to terms with infertility and

Allow Yourself to Grieve
I went through every step of grief during my multiple struggles with infertility. When you finally reach acceptance, you can move on. Whether that be moving on to treatment, adoption, or contentment is up to you.

Don't Stop Moving Forward
For the longest time while I was trying to get pregnant I lived each month as if I would get pregnant. I restricted medications, made sure to not over-exhert myself during certain times of the month and spent my time planning for something that came with no guarantee. This didn't bring me happiness. I was finally able to find happiness when I accepted that a child might not be in the cards for me and that I needed to make a plan for my life that didn't include another child.

Don't Lose Faith
This one was really hard for me as my husband firmly believed and had faith that we would have more children, just as our p. blessings and other blessings had promised. He did not doubt for one second that through some form or another, we would be blessed with children.  I, on the other hand, was full of doubt for a long time. I rationalized that the blessings promised sometimes may not be of temporal but of spiritual nature. Which, I might add, is sometimes true!

I don't know why the Lord has given me this trial, but I am very grateful for the miracles he's blessed me with. I don't know if I'll be able to have more children after this. I'm going into it with complete understanding that perhaps I will only have two children, and that's ok. I will do my very best with what the Lord has entrusted me with.

Spring Happenings

We sure have had some fun in Texas so far (despite the fact that I'm highly allergic to tree pollen...which I must confess I didn't even know you could be allergic to trees). 

In March, James started soccer. He's really gotten so much better as time has progressed! Watching 3 year olds play soccer might be the funniest thing I've ever seen. It's certainly entertaining. The kids just follow the ball and the coaches spend their time trying to corral the children back to the field. They don't keep score since the kids tend to just kick the ball into the closest goal, but they all have a lot of fun in the first half of the game. After that, they all start having meltdowns from hunger pains and being tired and it's sort of a pain trying to get four of them out on the field. In any case, it's been fun. We have three more weeks of soccer and then we get to sleep in on Saturdays (which we are really excited for).

I love how kids are automatically friends.

James has a tendency to go a little crazy out on the field. He was so cooped in Utah and whenever he got out he would just run like a horse that's been penned up for a long time. Whenever he sees a field like this he just runs and says "I'm free as a bird" over and over. It makes for interesting soccer practice... I can't help but think of Forest Gump in those moments (Run, Forest, run!)

James and I have been on a quest to find the perfect library. It's been difficult not comparing all libraries to the Provo library where they had excellent programs and a huge children's wing. San Antonio has 27 libraries! So far we've been to Igo, Maverick, Central, Landa, Parman & Great Northwest. Only three of those actually have a children's wing, and none really compare to the clean and bright Provo, but I think that's something I'm just going to have to learn to deal with. Who knows though, there are still 21 libraries that we haven't been to.

This is the Landa library. It doesn't have a children's wing, but it is by far the most unique library I've ever been to. The Landa family wanted their home to be turned into a library. It sits on a beautifully maintained estate with the best playground I've seen. It's really incredibly beautiful. The home has all the original floors and details that you'd expect in an old rich house. It's a fun place to explore and we like visiting here.

Our backyard was really out of hand when we moved in. It looked like it hadn't been really cleaned up for years. We bagged 15 yard bags full of leaves alone, and this pile of tree branches is only about 1/3 of what Paul ended up trimming from the trees. It was quite the project. This is how I learned of tree pollen and developed pretty nasty allergies. My left eye has had nothing but trouble since we moved here. It's been undergoing an allergic reaction for months and is puffy and baggy and red and itchy all the time. At one point it got so bad that there was blood coming from my tear duct! It hasn't been the fun part of living here. I'm so glad to have all that brush out of the yard. Now if only we had grass or a deck or something out there besides dirt.

Ok, this picture just makes me smile every time I see it. James is such a studly little kid. 

So, I know I will probably not think this once it gets hot, but I have really loved the Winter and Spring weather in Texas. We get rain at least once a week, sometimes more (which we love and it's great for the garden!) and on most days I've been able to open all the windows and let the sunshine and fresh air in. Just looking at this picture makes me want to throw open the windows and take a nap (but it's raining today). I've adapted to the weather quickly and while I would have been wearing flip flops and shorts at 50 degrees in Utah, that is chilly weather here! 

Another fun place we visited is Buc-ee's. The first time we passed Buc-ee's gas station I was really confused as to what could possibly be in such a HUGE store. It's one of those places that you sort of have to visit to get the real idea of how big it is. This is just one half of the store! Everything's bigger in Texas, I guess.

I made these for our garden. I really love them and am so pleased with how they turned out! The garden is growing well and it's time to thin out the millions of plants that my little helper James dumped into the soil as seeds not so long ago.  Next time I will pay a bit more attention to him when he's grabbing seeds.

So, on Easter Sunday Paul had the stomach flu (which he graciously passed on to James and I the next day), so we didn't make it to church. We had acquired a couple of new outfits for James, including an easter outfit (see the studly photo above), but he wanted to show off his orange shoes, so this is the picture we got for Easter.

We finally decided that James is indeed left-handed and have been working on his writing skills. He's doing pretty well! He can copy down what we write so we had him make an Easter card for Grandma and Grandpa (peepaw) Willardson.  I'm having him write his name every day in hopes that one day he won't need to copy it down and will just be able to spell it on his own. I am doing preschool with him every day, but he is not really the contemplative, quiet type. I see so many children who have all their alphabet and sounds memorized EARLY, and James can hardly concentrate long enough to tell me what the letters he does know are (although he's very close to having them all memorized). I wonder if there is a book out there on how to help kids concentrate on things... In any case, he is very bright and even though he doesn't know all the names of all the letters, he can read a lot of three letter words. I love the BOB books! He's been able to read several of them on his own. I guess every kid learns differently and I should stop comparing him to other kids and focus on his accomplishments.

Last weekend we took a three hour drive down to Sugar Land to go to a work conference for Paul's company. They put us up in a hotel for the night and fed us delicious food and made Paul go to boring meetings while I got a hot bath and a nap. James stayed with my cousins who live in Sugar Land and had a blast! I hadn't seen them for years and it was so good to be around family again. I forgot how much I missed that until we drove away and I was sad to go back to San Antonio where we don't really have anyone.

This is the view from our hotel room. There was some sort of very strange snake festival going on down there. Weird.

Watching the sun rise on our way to Sugar Land. 

We live close to a Wal-Mart and Home Depot and a bunch of other shopping. James and I often go for a walk to get out of the house. Every time we pass these little trees he insists that I take his picture by them. I have no idea why.

I'm going to try and be better about blogging. I'm so sick of all the drama on facebook and I don't get to share as much through status updates as I can through blogging.

Anyway, that's what we've been up to lately. We are looking forward to August when Rosi and Roy come for visit! We miss our family!

Weekend Adventures: San Antonio Zoo & Garden Prep

The winter weather is so great here that we decided to take a trip to the zoo. We started off going to a farmer's market (year-round farmer's markets in Texas!) and then headed to the zoo.

James loved the crocodiles...

and the kangaroos...

and the elephants.  

After the zoo we checked out a nursery and ultimately ended up at Lowe's where we picked up supplies for our garden! It took Paul all of 5 minutes to put the box together. He's so handy.

James had so much fun with his little rake.  I've bathed him twice but he still smells like dirt.  I suppose he probably will all summer long.

There is still a bit of yard work to be done. It looks like it hasn't been raked in years and the trees are completely out of control. I wish there was grass in the yard, but I'll take a garden over grass any day. I'm really excited to start our garden! I've wanted one for years and we will finally have one this year!

Valentine's Day

James picked out some cute little Valentine's day crafts from JoAnn's.  We still haven't mailed them (oops), but they do exist!  He had so much fun making these!  I promise I'm mailing them soon...

 For Valentine's Day we bought Peter Pan, had chocolate fondue and stuffed ourselves full of candy.

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's day!

The Big Move

In October, Paul flew out to San Antonio, Texas to interview with a company for a Project Engineer position. The interview went well (although very rushed) and they told him that they would be in contact by Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving came and went and we didn't hear anything from the company so we started looking for part-time jobs that we could supplement Paul's income with to get by until we found a full-time position.  Paul was getting ready for finals when he finally heard back from them on December 2nd.  He negotiated an offer with them and it was full steam ahead.

Our apartment complex required that we give at least 30 days notice so we gave it right away as his starting date in San Antonio was slated for January 7th.  I started packing furiously, but the HR department took a long time to get the paperwork Paul for the physical and background check (because we were approaching Christmas vacation I assume).  Paul completed the physical and paperwork and sent it back but we didn't hear anything back.

I found a place to live on the 21st, which was a huge stress-relief right before Christmas.

At this point I had to reserve the moving truck in order to get our things delivered by January 7th. We waited and waited. We were completely moved out of our apartment and were occupying my parent's basement before we found anything out. On December 28th he finally received an email that the paperwork looked good and that they would overnight a check on Monday the 31st and that it should arrive on the 2nd due to the holiday.

On December 31st our truck was picked up and began transit.  Then we got a call from HR saying that even though the Dr. at the clinic had cleared Paul for work, there was protein in his urine and that he would need to have tests done to get to the bottom of the problem before officially hiring him on.

Enter major freak-out. enough said.

After talking to the safety division of the company, they decided to have compassion on us and just clear him anyway...seeing how our stuff was already gone and we had paid a deposit on another place and had been told previously that everything looked fine.  At some point we will have to figure out what was up with his test though.

Paul went to work at the school for the last time on the 2nd, came home and slept, and the check arrived.  After some very tearful (I mean, wailing and gnashing of teeth...it was quite dramatic) good-byes to my family, we got into the car at around 8:30 pm.  James fell asleep within 5 minutes.  I fell asleep after a few hours and apparently missed a few blizzards and boring towns.  

We had breakfast in Roswell, New Mexico at a very odd McDonald's (but what isn't odd about Roswell?).  Can I just say that New Mexico is the most boring state? Not a very interesting drive other than the snow. The drive was very long and James didn't whine at all, didn't have any toilet accidents, and was pretty much an angel. 

I can't really remember what time we rolled into San Antonio, but we stayed with our friends for a few days and they had hot food waiting for us. We went and signed our lease and got the keys to our new place, but the heat wasn't working and it was 50 degrees inside...which just isn't bearable.  It took us a day to get a repairman out and get it fixed.  Our friends took us to the Alamo and the Riverwalk, which we just loved! We will be going back there soon, I'm sure. We moved in to our townhouse on the 5th and went to our new ward (which is awesome) on the 6th. James went to his first day of primary and LOVED it.

View from our window. You can see Paul's work in the distance. He's working on a major medical center out here.

First day of Primary

Stocking up on some much-needed supplies

Not so sure about this Davy Crockett thing

Frighteningly in his element. No one buy him a sling shot. Seriously.

At the Riverwalk

Our living room. It's so pretty!

Alamo

On the 7th, our stuff arrived (and our mattress!! At this point we'd been on the air mattress for 15 nights). Paul was at work so I didn't even bother opening it up until he came home. Miraculously nothing was broken. We unpacked about 2/3 of it with just one other person.  I stacked a ton of boxes in the dining room.  Around 3am I got a weather alert on my phone warning of flash flooding. I didn't think much of it.  In the morning I was unpacking boxes when I stepped in a huge puddle which had saturated many boxes of canned food and narrowly missed the large box of books right next to the puddle.  

The next day I noticed a leak under the sink in the second bathroom.  I put a bucket under the sink and it was such a slow leak that I didn't think it could do much harm, but I called up maintenance. Apparently maintenance was very busy with roof issues from the crazy rain and they never got around to me.  An email had been sent out to the ward to come help unload the trailer, but we had it all taken care of other than the piano by the time they all arrived.  It was nice to see missionaries again. I honestly haven't seen them other than passing by the MTC since I moved to Utah 7 years ago.

I woke up the next morning to find at least a gallon of water on the floor in the bathroom! I had checked the leak the night before and there was maybe a tablespoon of water in there so this was shocking!  Called maintenance again, and apparently my case was dire enough to show up for this time.  Turns out the entire pipe was cracked on the seam, but how that much water got on the floor is a mystery to me since none of us used that bathroom and water would have to travel down the drain to overflow.  Very odd.

We haven't had any problems since and I'm hoping it stays that way! 

We have a few more obstacles to get through before we can put the move behind us, but that will come with future paychecks.  I will catch up posting about the holidays later.  Our New Year starts in February (since we just couldn't put any of our goals into motion with all the craziness going on this month!). Most importantly, we are safe. Missing family, but grateful to have a job! It's a tough job market out there right now.  Just ask the girl who applied for 175 jobs for her husband and only got one job offer.  It must be where we're supposed to be.

It Came to Pass...

Last night we finished the Book of Mormon. This is our second year in a row successfully getting through a standard work (last year was New Testament).  I can't tell you what an accomplishment this is, although those of you with little kids probably understand.

I almost gave up this year. 

At one point Paul and James were rough housing and laughing (how DARE they, ha ha) and I quit. I thought, maybe when Paul starts acting his age and James is older and can sit still for longer than 3.2 seconds we'll try again.

For a week.

But then I realized that if I quit, I wasn't teaching James anything good. So we resumed with a different attitude and I'm so glad that we did.

Every night for the past month it has been James who has reminded us that it's time to read scriptures. He's been engaged by them! My little 3 year old has been listening and asking millions of questions about the scriptures. It makes our scripture study last at least twice as long, but I don't mind answering his questions like: 

What does 'it came to pass' mean?

Who is so and so?

Those guys were naughty, huh?

Why do they say 'it came to pass' so much?

And his constant repeating of what we read to try to understand the language of the scriptures.

We all would have missed out on so much if I had just quit because it was hard.  I know that there will probably be times when I feel like quitting again, but for right now I'm just grateful that we were able to finish it and we are so excited to start our Christmas advent tomorrow!