July 22, 2006

Hello Everyone,
I am resolving to get better about writing letters more regularly.
I do have a good excuse, though, I was gone for 3 weeks visiting family, and then basically as soon as we got back home, Joseph got a really bad stomach bug (today was his first day well again), and our internet connection has been spotty.
But, we are back, and I am resuming my (semi) regular updates.
Our trip was fabulous. We spent 2 weeks at the Frandsens' house in La Canada, CA, and then a week at the Turners' house in Salem, UT. We did a ton of really fun things. We went to Travel Town (a train park), Kidspace (a really fun kids park/museum), hiking up at Switzers Falls (twice), camping in Chilao, kayakking at Santa Fe Dam, and lots and lots of swimming while in California. On the way up to Utah we stopped in Joshua Tree National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument, and Grandma Frandsen's house in Centerfield (where my boys got their first taste of her famous chocolate chip cookies). In Utah the boys enjoyed playing in the water and sand at Salem pond, we went horseback riding at Thanksgiving Point, went horseback riding again at a ranch in Genola, hiking up to Timpanogos cave (the twins hiked by themselves and did GREAT, and I carried Mosey in the backpack-- my shoulders ached way more than my legs by the time we got back down), jumping on Grandma Jackee's trampoline, playing with their cousins from Utah and Arizona, and going to their first dentist visit (not scary at all since the dentist was their grandpa-- also, no cavities!), and visited with their triplet second-cousins in Pleasant Grove.
Truly the only down point of the trip was the terrible car accident Grandpa Kent was in the day before we left to go back home. For those who want an update, he is progressing about as well as can be expected, but is still in very serious condition. He has had surgeries on both his legs and on his arm, and will undergo surgery on his crushed heel sometime next week. He has been kept in an induced coma to control pain as well as to prevent further injury to his spleen and liver, both of which so far have not required surgery. Such extended time unconscious and on a respirator is certainly not ideal, but seems to be the safest for him right now. We are praying for good recovery, and particularly for no blood clots (apparently somewhat common in femur-breaks) or infection.
For those who don't know, my father-in-law got in a wreck when entering I-15 in an incredibly dangerous construction zone. There have been 19 accidents in less than 2 weeks on this 2-3 mile stretch of freeway, all of them involving cars merging across 3 blocked lanes into the SINGLE open lane on the freeway. The main problem is that the onramps enter the freeway at a level much higher than the street (the freeway goes over the streets), which prevents good visibility from the on-ramp, so you cannot see if the traffic is backed up until it is pretty much too late. So cars entering the on-ramp at normal rates of speed, don't have time to slow down enough to merge into traffic that has pretty much come to a stand-still. I believe most if not all of the accidents have been due to this problem. This is what happened to Kent, and he rammed into the back of a large dump truck. We are thanking God that his airbag deployed.
Anyway, it is very scary and we are all praying so hard that Kent will be strong and pull through and recover as fully as he possibly can. He is expected to be in the ICU for several more days, and then will probably be spending a few months in a rehab center before he can go home. It certainly put a damper on our home-coming, I can tell you that. I didn't know if I should cancel my flight and stay in Utah to try to help in any way I could, but I figured there probably wasn't a lot I could really do, and it would be best if I just took my little boys home and let Jackee deal with the situation without also worrying about little grandchildren underfoot.
Our flights to California and then back here from Utah were great. I was amazed at how well my boys did. I did have to take MANY trips to the lavatory in the back of the plane, since all 3 boys are now diaper-free (yay!). I know the passengers were laughing at me a little when at one point I took all three boys back there, literally each 2 minutes apart. WHY can't they realize they need to go until they REALLY NEED TO GO! And why can't they all really need to go at the same time?! On the flights home, Brigham and Joseph decided to wear their Spiderman and Batman costumes. I know that all the passengers were reassured to be protected by such outstanding superheroes on their flights. If you ever want to get attention, just dress your twin boys in superhero costumes and take them around the airport. It was really very sweet the number of nice comments and smiles we got from strangers.
Ok, 3 quick stories about my boys and then I'll close. Mosey has learned the phrase, "See you later alligator!" He's also learned "After a while crocodile," but he tends to get the two confused. So mostly he just says, "See you later crocodile," which just makes me smile. He is also my little stripper-boy. It is getting really hard to keep him clothed. I'm tempted to dress him in overalls and other hard-to-remove clothing, except for the whole potty-issue. His clothes need to be easy to remove. The problem is that he is taking too much advantage of it. Is it ok for my 2 year old to be jumping on the trampoline in our backyard in his birthday suit? I wouldnt' question it except that thanks to all the hurricanes out here, our entire backyard is pretty much completely visible to anyone walking out in the greenway. Oh well, he'll grow out of that, right?We took the boys to Pizza Hut last night, mostly to celebrate Joseph going 6 hours without throwing up (he didn't actually eat pizza, but it was good for him to get out of the house). On the way out, Brigham was in a very silly mood and put one of his shoes on his hand. He then proceeded to sort of hop/leap out of the restaurant on one shoe-clad foot and one shoe-clad hand, with the other arm and leg stuck out at various angles into the air. It was really funny to watch. Of course then Mosey wanted to try it too, and he did a pretty good imitation, I must say!
Mister was happy to see us when we got home, but especially Joseph (he is the true animal lover in this house, I think). We were all pretty tired by the time we got home, and we weren't home for long before I found Joseph upstairs laying on my bed, with Mister and Angel both curled up on either side of him. They had a pretty good thing going, with Joseph using one hand to pet Mister and one hand to pet Angel. So long from stormy South Florida.