More of Ireland.

St. Patricks Cathedral



The place where they swear in their President.
Willie couldn't take pictures inside but he got one of the sign.







One of the many playgrounds that reminded Willie of his wonderful family while he was gone.

Heading to the country side.






More flowers for his beautiful wife.





A very old weaving mill. Older than our country. Willie brought back a scarf for me from this place. Wow, it sure is soft.

Some of the tasty treats Willie had while in Ireland.

While the cat is away.

Two days before Willie came home I sent this email to him. I made a few appropriate changes.

It's now 1:40 in Atlanta. Let me tell you of our adventures this morning. I woke up to Parker crying at 6:40. I had watched a movie last night and didn't fall asleep until after midnight. He complained of a tummy ache. So I thought I would hurry to get him out of the room before Lincoln woke up. No go. Lincoln was awake. I took Lincoln to the living room and then went back for Parker. I thought I would just get him some cereal while I tried to relax a little more and wake up. As I was getting some food for the boys Parker began throwing up. It ended up on the couch. So I cleaned him up and gave Lincoln his cereal. Joy School was today and I wrote to Emily to tell her we wouldn't be there.
Parker had thrown up twice by 8:00 and another time around 8:30. Lindy called and asked how we were. I just kind of laughed. She mentioned a message I had left with her last night about registering our car. I never received the plates in the mail. After talking to her for a little bit I realized that I had to go to the tax office TODAY to get the license plates for our car. So by 9:00 I was searching for all the documents I would need. I put on Letter Factory for the boys and hopped in the shower to get ready. By 10:30 we were out the door with hopefully the right information and only one check left in our check book. As I was driving down to the tax office the boys fell asleep; it was a 15-20 minute drive. So I pulled them out, both boys being sick (Parker the worse of the two). I put Parker in the stroller, held on to Lincoln and carried in the documents and diaper bag. I thought I would have a long wait. I walked right up to the desk. Not bad. The lady said I had all the right information, that was good. Then she said that it was only under your name. Bad, but she saw that we had both done the loan so that was okay and I could get the plates. Until...yes the records were showing that you still lived at our old address which makes it so that we have to drive to our previous County office and register the car. I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what was wrong. The loan had gone through but must have put your address from your drivers license on the registration paperwork. At least that's what I got out of it. The lady said go to the other office and don't mention that we live in this county. She said you would need to come back to the office and change your address with them.
I put the boys back in the van and drove to the tax office by our old place. They don't do vehicle registration there. (now I remember Lindy's back and forth registration adventure) So I packed the boys up yet again and drove North 20ish minutes. I didn't want to give Parker too much to eat or drink because he had thrown up three times in the morning but he was hungry so I gave him some cereal that I packed. He scarfed it down. It was about noon at this point and both boys were pretty hungry but I only had snacks. Lincoln wouldn't really eat anything that I gave him and Parker wanted just about anything I would give him. While we were waiting in the line at this office the boys would run around the pole holding the rope. Lincoln became dizzy and ran into Parker. Parker cried, then it was our turn. I went up and said I needed to register our new car. I gave her the folder of information and she gave us a license plate. I wasn't going to complain and I didn't want to have to pay a late fee and try to get everything in the civic for our road trip.
I figured since we spent the whole morning running errands why not get the car in for it's recall issue. I drove around trying to remember where a Honda dealer was. I couldn't remember where it was and the boys had been so good. I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts and bought some donuts for them. Parker was appreciative but Lincoln didn't really care for his. Now it's nearly 2:30 and I am beat and I need to pack for our trip because I am planning to leave in the morning.
I think that you could come home and take me on a date one evening. The trick is I don't want to find a sitter or pick the place or anything, I just want you to take me away for a nice relaxing evening. I love you. We'll talk to you later.

Love,
Krista

Hey Love,

Here's the best (sarcastic) news of all. As I went to pack for the trip tonight I found that our closet is being flooded!! YEAH! So I won't get to leave until after 10:00 because our office doesn't open until then and we just get to let the water seep on in. Our microwave box, crockpot box, ensign box and my school box are all wet and will need replaced. Your class notes have somehow survived. I will let the workers move the tote boxes tomorrow unless Lindy or John can help me tonight. What a day! Do you think I'm being tested to see how much I really want to move back to Utah?

I hope that you enjoy the country side tomorrow/today. I would like to see pictures definitely. I'm not being sarcastic about that. I do love you and I will be happy when you come home, even if you have to work a lot next week.

Love,

Krista

Ireland.

Willie had a great opportunity to travel to Ireland at the end of August. He attended the IEEE conference where his paper was accepted. He invited me to go but I declined. Perhaps I shouldn't have. It looks like he had a lot of fun. I don't have his commentary for these pictures but maybe he will log on in the next few weeks and tell about his Irish tales.






An expensive fish and chips, but was a really good meal.The dorms that he stayed in.Willie brought some flowers home for me. Aren't they beautiful?So big it had to be eaten with a fork!!

Adoption.

Willie and I were grateful for the opportunity to gain a few new friends recently. I am grateful for the way the Lord works and allows us to grow spiritually. Jason and Muriel were in the process of adopting a baby from Atlanta. Muriel's sister, Nikki, came to help Jason during the process. Muriel was unable to come. What should have been only a few days turned into nearly two weeks. After two weeks Jason and Nikki took Auriana back home to see her new family. She is so beautiful. I'm not posting pictures of the whole family because I don't have any.
I love adoption stories and to hear the joy the new child is to the family. We are glad we could be a part of this family for a week. Thanks.

Parker's birthday.

I found a few more pictures from Parker's birthday. I really don't have much to say this time, but there are a few fun pictures and videos.



Day 1: "How does this thing move? I put my feet where?"



Day 2: "Watch out, I'm a pro now."

Does Money Really Grow on Trees?

I have found myself wishing today that I had a money tree. A real life tree growing fifty and one hundred dollar bills. I would really take care of that tree the best I could. In fact Willie and I try to take care of our finances the best we know how. We are re-learning how to budget and cut back in areas that we don't need to spend as much. With baby #3 on his way we feel like we need to spend our money on some necessary things. Ever since we were married (5 years) I have really wanted to get our home into a look that matches. Wood color matching, couches matching, etc. In the last few months we have made two really big purchases. The first we found on Craigslist. Along with my outstanding deal for our kitchen table I have found a new living room set. I will not disclose the price, you may guess. We purchased a love seat, couch, 'hot chocolate' (coffee) table, end table and a rug with matching pillows. I love it. For the first time in three years we have been able to lay full length on a couch!! I consider this my birthday present. Another good thing about it is that they are used so when the boys first colored on the table with their crayons I wasn't too terribly mad. The only thing I have right now for a look at the couches is a video.

Our second big purchase was a new ride. Maybe not in the size we could have dealt with but we thought long and hard about it and decided what was necessary (something bigger). We enjoy the Honda brand. We knew that the trusty old civic just wouldn't hold three car seats. Parker will need a booster seat down the road but even then three won't fit. We wanted an upgrade, especially before the due date. We are excited to welcome into the family our new Honda Odyssey complete with CD player! Yes we think the two biggest perks to this new ride is the CD player and mega air conditioning. We have gone on a long time without even a tape deck in our civic and now we get a CD player. Poor Lincoln always looks like he just got out of the pool when he gets out of the car. He sweats so much and the air never gets to him, now the air will blow strong, hard and cool on his little body. In the end I guess we wanted to be like my two sisters and my aunt and everyone in Georgia.The third big purchase is still in the works. We would like to upgrade Parker into a new bed and give Lincoln the crib and the baby will get the pack n play. Kind of sad that we don't use the crib for the baby but that's what we live with. This one we are searching for on craigslist, I always love to find a good deal. If the baby comes before the bed then no worries, we have two pack n plays and Lincoln will probably be a little tight in his by then but he's a good kid and doesn't complain.

Birthday Boy.

Not much was planned for Parker's birthday. Willie was working and many of Parker's friends were out of town. So we kept our day pretty chill. I asked Parker what he wanted for breakfast, he replied "toaster noodles." We prepared the 'toaster noodles' by placing them in the toaster and he pushed the handle down and let them cook. He enjoyed spreading his own little packet of frosting. Then I decorated another for him and put a candle in it. One of the funniest things is that I think this boy has forgotten how to blow out a candle. I suppose we should have practiced before his birthday came. For at least half an hour these two goofs played in the pack n play. They have so much fun jumping and falling and who knows what else. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of when we had two friends join us to play in the morning. I think we would have done something more fun and outside but it was really hot and swimming for some reason didn't become an option. No matter though, the boys had a great time playing with Anya and Austria. Thanks for coming to play girls.
I made sure that we took the birthday pictures with Chester and Freddy. Lincoln is 18 months now so I figured it was time he had his taken as well. Parker was a perfect little model and Lincoln did okay, he wouldn't sit where I wanted him to. I thought Parker would enjoy a train cake this year. It was a small disaster. I baked the cake, that was easy. Then I cut out the rectangles for the train cars, not too bad. Then I realized I didn't have too much frosting, bad idea. I saw that someone had baked a small cake in a bean can for their locomotive, why not just use a cylinder shape to cut one out of the rectangle? Bad Idea. This cake was looking pretty miserable for awhile. I used neon food coloring, which I think Parker didn't mind since he likes pink and purple. I tried to make it boyish though. I used a small layer of frosting for the pond and then added some Swedish fish to the pond. The marshmallow is suppose to be the steam from the train. We had leftover candy from the parade and that helped with the wheels. Something you don't see in the picture is that only half of the cake is frosted. There wasn't enough to do the back side. Willie had come home that night and saw the cake from the back side and said something like "that's an original idea." I just started laughing. Parker did compliment the cake by saying "that's a pretty beautiful cake mommy." So to the three year old eye this was a pretty beautiful cake and it tasted good. Thanks buddy. We are happy to have you in our family. You bring us so much joy.