Strange Dream

I was pretty tired this morning, so when Eli went down for his morning nap, I gave in the urge and took a nap as well. I don't usually remember my dreams, but I had a CRAZY one this morning! Here are the things I remember:

1. It was raining pretty hard outside, and water started seeping through the walls. Mice were also seeping through the walls (didn't make sense) and I was freaking out and holding Eli on the couch, not wanting to get down.

2. Then there was a car accident right by our place - I went outside to see if they needed help, but things were just super chaotic. The accident was with a city vehicle and a tour bus... and the kicker was that the bus had Mormons in town from Nauvoo, here to perform something pioneer-ish so they were all in costume (it was so so weird).

3. Later, two scraggly, long-haired paperboys with British accents came pounding on my door to see if I wanted a newspaper subscription (I have one already).

I woke up to Eli alternating sounds of "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba" and yelling from his crib. I felt so disoriented! (but glad none of this really happened)

Any explanations or interpretations??

Lunch with Aimee and Carrie

Today I enjoyed a lunch with Aimee B. and Carrie C. and their kids. I see Carrie on a pretty regular basis since she lives pretty close, but Aimee moved out of our ward a few years ago and we try to get together when things aren't too crazy. Aimee and I moved here at the same time and became friends through church. It was fun to realize we were married on the same day (Dec. 16 2000) in the same temple (Bountiful Utah Temple), just a few hours apart!

Five years ago, Aimee had a little baby named Billy and I was nannying for baby Drew, who was about 6 months younger. We started doing a playgroup with our Australian friend Abbey and her little boy Jacob (she now has three kids and the family is back in Australia), and now years later, it's turned into a thriving (most of the time) ward playgroup with an email list of 40+ moms/nannies. We meet weekly, taking turns at different homes during the cold months and meeting at different parks in the warmer months.

Here is a picture from the playgroup about a year after I first met Aimee and Abbey, when Carrie and a few others had moved into the ward. Aimee was nannying at the time, so she has a little girl on her lap too. Here we are in 2004 at the Chicago Botanic Gardens - Aimee, Carrie, me, Debora G., Meta V., and Abbey:

And here we are today - Aimee now has three kids, Billy, Fiona, and Kortney, and Carrie has two kids, Alex and Sam, and is expecting her third next month!

Christmas with the Stuarts

This is backtracking to the Saturday before we left for California - we celebrated Christmas early with my family. We had delicious tortilla soup for dinner and enjoyed sharing gifts with each other. Eli loved playing with all of the ribbon on the packages!

In the collage below - the funniest moment was when Davey opened a present from "Santa" that was delivered early (probably some organization that gives to places like his group home) - it was a couple of CDs of country singers like John Denver - my dad said, "You got some classic country CDs!" and Davey said, "I don't like classic country!" I thought it was sweet though that Santa was trying to make the gift personal - Davey loves most current country music... sorry Santa!

Eli is sporting his sweater from Italy (we're not sure what the words in Italian mean, but there is some English too). The sweater has this huge hood, it's cute!

Eli's many facial expressions throughout the night

My parents brought back some fun gifts from Italy - Eli loved this huge frog stuffed animal (and anytime I hold it up or play with it, Eli laughs and laughs...)

Thanks Mom, Dad, Davey, and Gram for all of the thoughtful gifts!

A Hole in the Runway and Dropping 60 Degrees

I am so glad to be home after a long day of traveling... we left for the airport this morning at 10 a.m. in San Diego (it was almost 70 degrees there), and arrived home in Chicago at 9 p.m. (currently it's 10 degrees with a wind chill of -7 degrees - BRRR!!!!).

Eli was so so so wonderful on the plane, both going there and coming back - while our flights were pretty full, there was at least one empty seat each time, so we were able to bring his car seat on and this totally saved us - he took long naps on each flight. If he had been in my arms instead, there is no way he would have slept even an hour. The most interesting part of our flights was as we were waiting on the runway to fly home, the pilot announced we would be delayed due to a hole in the runway at Midway!! Now that filled us with great confidence... but we landed safely, despite a snowy, icy, holey runway.

Midway was mayhem, especially in the baggage claim area... after we got our MOUNDS of stuff (3 large suitcases, 3 carry ons, stroller, car seat) and headed over to the doors to watch for our cab, they automatically opened and the freezing cold air took poor Eli's breath away!

Thankfully though, we spent the last 10 days in a much warmer place - San Diego! We stayed at Ben's brother Matt's house (we had 8 adults and 10 kids sleeping there) and the rest of Ben's immediate family stayed at Matt's wife's parents' (following this?) house just a few minutes away (with 8 adults and 4 kids sleeping there). In the group picture below, you'll see that Eli is crying because I set the timer for the picture and then ran over to be in it - which upset him since I ran past him really fast - I think he felt miffed!!

Christmas morning was the craziest of days since we were all at Matt's house, all day long - 30 people in one place! Holy moly it was a tad overwhelming but lots of fun. Eli was so entertained by his zillions of cousins and it was fun to be together with everyone. Ben's youngest sister Danielle (who wasn't with us) even had her baby on Christmas Day!


Here are some highlights from our trip:

• Walking 4.5 miles up and down steep hills in Matt and JoAnne's neighborhood with JoAnn, the drill sargeant :) and other sister-in-laws (and my father-in-law on one of the walks!). My tush was SORE!


• Going to Sea World


• Seeing Eli interact with his cousins


• Basking in the bright sun and going outside without a coat or shoes


• Having our luggage lost on the way to San Diego... but getting it delivered by 11 p.m. that night (thank goodness - I was starting to get grumpy about it!)


• Realizing Eli doesn't do well when he sleeps in the same room as us (most nights he woke up screaming every 3 hours - stressful when there are people sleeping around us... we were exhausted by the end), but the last two nights we were able to sleep in a different room and he slept mostly through the night


• Taking pictures of this cute family, enjoying my new camera lens


• Playing Wii with our nieces and nephews (it was so cute - they even made a player that resembled Eli - blonde, chubby, and short :)


• Going to the beach


• Seeing my old roommate Gwendolyn and meeting her husband Nate (they were married in May)

Here are some pictures from the trip - if you feel the urge to view all of the photos (there are a ton), click here. We had a great time and are happy to be home, even if it's bitter cold!
Happy New Year!





Pictures from Christmas Day:

























Playing at the house and the beach:

Sea World (our niece Amanda was chosen to be in one of the shows, as you can see her on the big screen there!):

Visit from Gwendolyn and Nate:

Crazy Cousins:

More Beach Fun (and Flying Kites):

(Collages were made in Google's free software, Picasa - yes, I'm copying you, Ashley - she has beautiful photographs on her blog!!:)