The start of the beginning...

We went up to see Rob's family this last weekend. Rob was on spring break, so we went up Thursday and stayed until Saturday. His sister and her family were moving into a new house less than a mile away, so in many ways it was an easy move. And there were a lot of people helping. We had a little Easter celebration Saturday, which was fun.

We have missed C, my kids' surrogate grandmother. We went to see R one night so he didn't feel left out. :) He was glad that he didn't go to CA cause all it did was rain while C was there! I went to see C when she got back yesterday. She gave me the gifts from her and Mom (thanks, Mom), and we gave each other big hugs. I also brought Elijah so she could play with him.

Rob's little brother got his mission call this week. He leaves in July for Manaus, Brazil, which, interestingly enough, is the same place Rob's other brother went on his mission (he got back Dec 2003).

Rob just found out that he needs knee surgery, if people don't know that. He has a torn ACL and miniscus (however you spell that), and has had these problems for the last 3 years. It's finally gotten bad enough (and our insurance good enough) that we're having it taken care of. His surgery is scheduled for April 19th. It's an outpatient surgery, and we've been told the recovery won't be horrible, but he'll probably be on crutches for like 2 weeks. So that's relatively big news.
The IGERT scholarship Rob has applied to, which would give us a healthy raise starting this next school year. They still haven't made a decision on it, as far as we know, but they have moved up the deadline on making that decision from April 15th to April 1st. So hopefully Friday or Monday we will have some news for people one way or the other. Rob has told Dr. R that he will be working in his lab for the rest of the time he's here doing his doctorate. He's thinking he'll try to do a collaborative project with both labs he's done a rotation with (Dr. R and Dr. N). They're both real positive about that.

Our entire family, minus Rob, is recovering from sicknesses. Elijah had a nasty something or other for about a week, but is back to 100% happy and healthy now. Miciah still had a cough yesterday and was sleepy, but appears to be fine today. I have some congestion, but I feel much better today than I did yesterday. We were thinking about going to see Julie and baby, but with us all getting over being sick, we'll wait another day or so before we go over. I think tomorrow we'll all be well enough, if they want to come to Elijah's b-day party (see next paragraph), but if they're not there, we'll think about Thursday or so going to see them.

This next week, Elijah's birthday is Wednesday. We're having 2 b-day "parties" (parties meaning we're having cake and icecream and hopefully people bring no gifts at all or really cheap ones). One with R & C and hopefully S (J & J, too?) on Tuesday. Then we're heading back up to Rob's sister's place this weekend (he has 2 sisters that live about 10 minutes away from each other (and less than 2 hours away from us). We'll be staying at the house of the sister who didn't just move). We'll watch Conference on their satelite, enjoy family time, and have Elijah's b-day party. It's exciting for us to have a weekend "off" where we don't have to be in town by Sunday morning.

Anyways, so that's us. Probably more than you all wanted to know, but that's how it goes, I guess. :) We love you all!

Tamra