Better Late Then Never

This post was suppose to go up on Sunday...but hey I have some good excuses!

We put our garden in this past weekend. In our part of the country gardens go in
in March and April, we are very late. I had given up hope of having one. On Friday after work Mike came home with a rotatiller and dug up a little patch of our yard in one corner. We took it back and bought as many sprouts and plants as we could, but still ended up with lots of seeds. We planted them all on Saturday morning and yesterday already noticed some shoots coming up. The kids are so excited! This garden is at least double last year's in size, but still not big enough for everything we want. We'll see what grows - we planted some of everything I think!

Also, a quick update on our crazy life - I am feeling better, not great, but much better. I'm back into the swing of things, as long as I take time for a rest in the afternoons, I can plug along. I am trying to catch up on everything that didn't get done during almost 3 months of morning sickness and a week of bedrest. It's almost a joke - but hey, we got our garden in - only 3 million more things to do! We did get Calvin registered for Kindergarten (hurray) and Lilah is now attending nursery (she has been for a month now) and she is doing great! This week I have been getting ready for my long awaited girls weekend. A long weekend in CA with all 5 of my sisters, my sister-in-law, and my mom - I can't wait!

It gets worse before it gets better, but it's all OK in the end!

Most of my family knows this story, but I decided I wanted to share it here anyway. About 14 weeks ago I got pregnant - with twins! At about 10 weeks I went in for an early ultrasound and found that one baby hadn't developed and that the second baby had a heart beat, but was measuring only 6 weeks. There were three possibilities, either the baby wasn't growing and developing and wouldn't make it, my dates were off by a whole month, or maybe it wasn't twins and I had two pregnancies - 4 weeks apart. 2 weeks later I had another ultrasound and found that the second baby had not grown and now had no heart beat. We decided to wait and see if I could miscarry on my own - I wanted to avoid a D&C. 2 weeks went by and I thought I had miscarried on my own, everything seemed fine. On Tuesday morning (two days ago) I woke up and started hemorrhaging. It was terrifying. We loaded everyone up in the car and Mike just
dropped me off at the ER. About an hour later they had me prepped for an emergency D&C. It went well and stopped the bleeding, but not before I'd lost about 1/3 of my blood supply. The doctor decided that although I probably should have a transfusion, I would be ok without one.
They sent me home with 5 prescriptions and strict instructions to not do ANYTHING for a week. On Wednesday I felt worse and I had no problem laying in bed all day while Mike took care of everything. Today I am feeling much better and although I know I need to stay in bed, I know I will not be able to not do anything for a week. Yes, I'll try to stay down until Monday, but I'm already bored and already worried about everything that needs to be done! My ward is taking great care of me! We had someone take our kids on Tuesday so Mike could spend some time with me at the hospital and some time working. We have meals for a few days and help with the kids today and tomorrow and I've had several offers from other friends as well. We'll be ok - if I don't go crazy from staying in bed! I'm very grateful to live in the time and place that I do, so I could get the medical help that I needed. I'm very grateful for all the help and support I've received from family and friends. I feel very loved. I'm grateful for a very loving and supportive husband who takes good care of my family.
All the other things we have been struggling with will also, eventually, be ok. Sometimes it takes a while.
Although Mike offered to take a picture of me - lying in bed, my face still a little puffy from all the IV's and fluid they pumped into me, still white and pale, but I declined. So no pictures with this post=)

Baltimore

We decided to play hookie this week. At breakfast Mike asked me if I had anything 'scheduled'. I had a long list, but no appointments. Neither did he. So after breakfast we loaded the kids into our rental mini-van and took off for Baltimore. We've never really been to Baltimore to play since we've had kids. Mike served his mission in Baltimore so he knows his way around, so we went.

We started with Fort McHenry. We all loved it. It was a very cool fort, with ramparts, trenches, underground rooms to hold the gun powder, underground 'safe' rooms, barracks, ect. They had real cannons, cannon balls, and a replica of the American Flag that had flown there at the time of the attack on Fort McHenry. The flag had 15 stars and 15 strips. This attack came a little while after we had won the revolutionary war. While witnessing the aftermath of this attack, Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that later became the Star Spangled Banner. I am about to step onto my soap box now, so if you don't want to hear it then skip down to the next paragraph. One thing that I learned about Fort McHenry is that Baltimore was the largest city in the union at that time. It was prosperous as a sea port and trading town. The civilians wanted to protect their property and prosperity so they hired and paid for an engineer to design the fort. One of the regiments serving at the fort was made up of volunteers from the city, the leaders of that regiment were prosperous and well known civilians that were looking out for their own good (and that of the city). The fact that Fort McHenry withstood the onslaught of cannon fire from English ships was amazing and partly due to it's design. It stopped the British cold in their attack on the United States (after having successfully attacked Washington DC). The whole reason the British attacked us in the first place is because we were so successful with our free trade that we were interfering with the British war with France. We were able to protect our freedom because of capitalism! To try to make the United States fit some mold or pattern of socialism now would destroy everything that our capitalist forefathers worked and died for all those years ago! Ok, I'm done!

After Fort McHenry we headed for the Inner Harbor. What an amazing little place! So fun! We went to the aquarium. It was so cool! We walked in and there was a huge 2-3 story waterfall into a fish tank. It was so loud and caused enough spray that Anna Elise refused to go in, she stood just outside and yelled that she didn't want to go. Sigh. My kids! We made her go in and she eventually got over it. It was a lot of fun. They had all the usual stuff, but bigger! The stingrays were huge, the sharks and other fish just seemed bigger then I've ever seen at other aquariums. The set up was a lot of fun too. Half way through we had to stop and go find the Dolphin Tank, we had tickets to one of the shows. It was really good. They had 5 dolphins that jumped and walked backwards and did tricks, they splashed the audience and just gave a really good show. Then we went back to our tour of the sharks and fish. At the end was a tropical rain forest with all the trees, plants, birds and spiders that you would expect to see in a rain forest. The kids had a blast and so did mom and dad!

The trip home seemed long, but it always does. We are now more behind than ever, but I'm still glad we went!

One of the cannons at Fort McHenry and the '15 State' flag

The kids and the cannon balls

Lilah checking out the cannon

One of the barracks

The entrance to the National Aquarium in Baltimore

There are no strollers allowed, so we checked our stroller and were given this backpack instead, Lilah loved it!

The kids standing inside a prehistoric shark's jaw

One of the dolphins at the dolphin show

Madeline watching the fish upclose

A jellyfish that Mike captured on film. They had a whole room full of jellyfish tanks!

The kids trying so hard to wait patiently while mom bought them a piece of candy from the gift shop. Click on the picture to see Anna Elise's eyes, while she asks if it's ok to move her eyeballs. Calvin has never sat that still for that long. Madeline didn't sit still, but did well enough.