Indonesia, thanks for reading my blog

Clearly the immigration people in Indonesia finally fixed their mysterious "computer issue", promptly read my blog, and decided to give Phil his passport and let him leave the country. Yep, that's right...my blog is what finally broke the immigration camels back.

Phil is currently in Singapore on an overnight layover. He leaves there Saturday morning flies to Tokyo, hops on another plane that will take him to Portland and then home to SLC by 2:00 pm on Saturday. Natalie and I are overjoyed! We can't wait to give him a hug.

I'm a celebrity, get me the HELL out of here

Phil is still in Indonesia…

When he entered the country, the immigration people took his passport; I know, a little freaky that he surrendered his passport in a foreign country, but that is a topic for another post. Now he is stuck in his hotel, done with his work, with nothing to do, but wait for the immigration people to give him his passport back.

He has been trying since Monday to get it back. They keep saying something about their “computers being down”, which doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could skip work for days on end with the vague excuse of “my computer doesn’t work”?

Keep your fingers crossed and put some good karma in the air. Hopefully he will get his passport on Thursday morning and make it on the flight Thursday evening, which will put him back in Utah on Friday afternoon. If that doesn't happen, I'm calling the consulate and asking them to release my husband.

I love that this “week, week and a half tops” trip has turned into a three week adventure.

Stand Up

This weekend Natalie and I traveled to the cabin for an overnight with Grandma and Grandpa. We had a blast and Natalie learned a new trick:


She was sitting in her pack and play, playing with toys when she decided it might be fun to grab ahold of the side

Then eat a little

Then pull her self to a kneeling position

Then try and stand up!


It is happening too fast...

On Target

These are two of the photos from our Target Photo Studio visit. I'll try and add the rest later (the scanning process is hard while entertaining Natalie).

I can't wait to go back for another photo shoot.

They both smell nice, but...

I came home from work today to find a lovely surprise. Phil sent Natalie and me flowers to make up for him being away.




The only problem? Flowers aren't the same as him actually being home. So even though the flowers smell nice, I wish I was smelling Phil instead.

I just hope he makes it home before the flowers die...

Handy Woman

Give me an "N"

Give me an "A"

Give me a "T"

Give me an "A"

Give me a "L"

Give me an "I"

Give me an "E"

Give me a wall, a hammer, some nails, and a tape measure.

What does that spell?

Back in (early) March I started a project to get these letters painted, decorated, and hung on Natalie's wall. They sat on her floor for a while, then I painted them and they continued to sit on the floor. Then I bought the flower decals to "dress them up" and then they sat painted and decorated on her floor. Then two days ago, I decided to stop waiting and I got out the hammer and nails. Measured the wall and hung the letters!

I have a list of things I want to get done before Phil gets home. This was on the top of the list...CHECK

2-foot-2 and Eyes of Blue

Looks like Phil will be gone for the remainder of this week, and most of the weekend, but hopefully not much longer (yea!). Here is a recap of what we have been up to over the past few days…

We have been spending (a lot of) time with Grandma and Grandpa. My old home has turned into my second home while Phil has been away. It makes life so easy having my parents close by, they are such a big help with Natalie and are always happy to see us and feed us dinner.

Auntie Laura graduated from the University of Utah (she is so smart!) We cheered and hugged and smiled. We are so proud of her.

Natalie and I celebrated Mother’s day by sleeping in and doing some light shopping with my mom. At night we went to Aunt Linda’s house for dinner, which was super tasty.

We made a quick trip to see my friend Melinda and her new baby boy, Kai. It was fun catching up! Natalie also had a good time:

Last Wednesday, Natalie had her 6 month (!) check-up. She weighed in at 15 pounds 1 ounce, 30th percentile and she is “2 foot 2”, 46th percentile for length. She is a little string bean! She also got two shots…boo hoo. She still has a bruise on her leg from the mean nurse. She also had a dropper of something, which she actually swallowed until the nurse gave her too much right at the end, which made her throw up all over my leg. Thanks Nurse!

After the check-up, Grandma watched Natalie for a little while so I could finish up some work. Grandma had a great time hiding Natalie in with the dolls.

Friday morning, Uncle Philip graduated from Law School. This was an exciting event. Natalie did very well during the ceremony, until the end when Philip came across the stage and I cheered and scared Natalie….she cried and cried. Poor thing, it broke my heart! She recovered nicely and was happy when we left.

We went to a BBQ that night and she loved being the star – everyone commented on how cute she is!

(this is after the BBQ, she is wearing her Newfoundland shirt)

Saturday morning Natalie and I slept in, which we both needed! I went to a Jobie meeting that night and Grandma and Grandpa babysat. Sunday, Natalie, Grandma and I ran a bunch of errands. Natalie slept at some of the stores, but then wouldn’t take a nap once we got back to Grandmas house – which meant that her tired mommy couldn’t take a nap either…I’m still trying to recover. Natalie didn’t mind not having a nap, and in an effort to get her to go to sleep we took her for a walk around the neighborhood.

The doctor recommended that we start having her wear sunglasses – which she seems to like. Auntie Ashley also sent her a new “outdoors” hat, which is so cute.

Yesterday our nanny was sick, which meant I got to work from home in the afternoon. Which was nice – I spent some time with Natalie and then when Grandma was done golfing she took Natalie to her house. I was able to sort mail, do three loads of laundry and I actually vacuumed the basement. We had dinner at Grandma and Grandpas house last night, so tasty! Then home for a shower and bed.

Tonight our friend Liz might stop by, I’m hoping to see Loulu soon, and Trina might stop by on Thursday! Another busy week…hopefully it will keep my mind off Phil not being home, maybe. I’m also hoping our nanny will stay late one day this week, which will allow me to finish the vacuuming!

Until next time…

Back to the Future

I love the movie….and the two sequels.

Plus~

With Phil in Indonesia, I know what is going to happen in the future. He is 14 hours ahead of us here in Utah. I know for a fact that on Tuesday at 7:00 am Phil woke up (late, due to the incorrect time on his phone), hopped on a bus, and traveled to the pier so a boat could pick him up and take him to the off-shore drilling location.

Call is ESPhil

Life gave me lemons and I'm making futuristic lemonade

Lonely

I said in my last post that I would "update soon" on the graduation and bbq we were heading to Friday night. Well, about two minutes after that post, Phil called to let me know he was indeed heading to Indonesia and he was leaving Saturday morning!

Well, we went to the bbq and I went to the graduation, and they were great and I will update and post photos on those activities once I can figure out how to get the photos off of my camera and on to the computer. Normally I use Phil's computer, which is now in Indonesia.

Today I took the day off and ran errands with Natalie. We had a good lunch with Liz, picked up the photos from Target, stopped to see Grandpa, went in search of a new nursing bra, filled the tank with gas and washed it all before coming home. I'm beat!

Natalie is playing in her activity center right now, giving me a few minutes to post this. She is clearly tired, but sleeping has been a little difficult with daddy away. She knows he is gone, and keeps looking around for him. It is surprising how smart she is.

Every day it gets easier to give her a bath on my own, to play with her on my own and to be a short-time single parent. I love all this one-on-one time with her, but I'm going to be very happy to see Phil when he comes home...whenever that is.

I always count my blessings that I have such a great guy, who loves me and who loves our baby. He is so helpful and willing to play with Natalie and keep her entertained - and I really notice it with him gone.

There is a 14-hour time difference between us, so conversations happen at odd times. He will be traveling to the off-shore location soon, so I'm hoping he will still be able to keep in contact.

Wish me luck on this adventure.

It has been too long...

...Since I've posted on this blog.

Either the reason is: A. I'm not as interesting as previously thought ~or~ B. I've been so busy with my exciting life that I haven't had time to post.

I'm biased, but I believe it is option B.

Here are a few things that have been going on over the past two weeks:

Last week we celebrated my older brother Johnny’s birthday. We were able to have a great family dinner and some birthday cake – Yum!

Thursday the 30th my mom and I took Natalie to Target for a “photo shoot”. Natalie was a great subject and we got some great photos, which we get to pick up on Monday. This is probably the only downside to getting photos taken at Target; however the low price makes up for it – big time. The night before the photos, my mom and I sorted through some outfits trying to decide what Natalie should wear – here are some of the ‘pre-photo shoot’ photos.

Natalie is wearing the gown I was christened in

This is the yellow dress I wore in my 5 month photo

I think Natalie looks like a doll in this photo

Saturday, after a LONG day of Jobies, we had Kim and Brent over for dinner and a fight, the Pacquiao vs. Hatton fight. I’m not a big fan of boxing; however I’m a fan of Hatton and really wanted to see him win. This was not the case, he lost, big time. At least I was able to spend some quality time with Kim, which was the best part of the evening – by far.

This past Tuesday we had dinner with some friends, two of whom have babies pretty close in age to Natalie. Until this dinner, I thought that Natalie was big. I mean, she has been growing like crazy, her legs are so long and she has doubled her birth weight. These two other babies made me realize that Natalie is a petite girl. I guess each baby grows at their own pace, they are all about the same length – but these babies each outweigh Natalie, by a few pounds! I wonder if this is a predictor of the future….tall and skinny?

Last night Natalie and I traveled to see Frances and help her pack up her life because on Sunday she will be leaving Utah and driving east, to Washington DC to start a new job! Even though we will miss Auntie Fran, we are very excited for her. GOOD LUCK!

Today we have a graduation and graduation bbq to attend. I’ll update more later.