It's December 15th

and time for another update.

Thanksgiving

We'll start at Thanksgiving.  We spent Thanksgiving with Rob's family up in Toledo, and it was fantastic.  Rare for a family get-together:  there was almost no fighting amongst kids!  All the kids were old enough to just go off and play, so we didn't see them all day.  I suppose I should be lamenting that my kids aren't constantly attached to my hip any more, and I should be singing a sad song about days gone by.  ...  Whatever.  It's GREAT!  Hurray to have the baby stage behind us!

Rob also was able to spend some one-on-one time with his sister, Chiara, and I don't think that's happened in a long time.  Good times.

While we were up there, Rob's mom asked Teancom if he was her baby.  He said, "No.  I'm my mommy's baby."  It just made me smile, cause I'm always asking him if he's my baby.  Sometimes he'll say that he's big instead, but usually he's happy to be my baby and sit on my lap and suck his fingers.  He's still a cuddle bug.  He's also possessive about the term "baby cakes," which is one of the pet names I use for all my children.  The other day I called Elijah my baby cakes and Teancom said, "I'M your baby cakes!"   He's actually really possessive about just about everything that involves me.  We were watching old home videos of Teancom as a baby, and I realized that he's been possessive of me from the very beginning!  What a stinker.

Nativities and a Migraine, a story

The weekend after Thanksgiving Rob went back up to Toledo to sing in his mom's stake's Nativity with his sisters.  Miciah went with him, so it was just me and the boys at home from Friday night to Sunday morning.  They had a great time and it went well.  Plus, me and the boys sounded like a treat.  Having only 2 kids around is not a problem, right?

All except on Friday night my vision started dimming.  It was really bizarre and sort of scary, since it's never happened to me before.  I was having trouble reading because spots of light kept getting in the way of the text, and the whole left side of my peripheral vision was black, like static.  It's not like I was up late, either; I was in bed, lights off, by 10 p.m.

I didn't have time to wonder about what was going on, though, because when I woke up at 9 the next morning I had a MASSIVE migraine.  The worst of my life.  So I called Corene and she took the boys for a few hours.  Then I called the Browns and they took the boys for a few more hours.  I was finally able to get out of bed at 1 p.m., the boys were back home at 3, and we survived the rest of the day.  We didn't go to a party that evening, which was a bummer, but what do you do.  Rob came home before church to get the kids because I still wasn't feeling good, but we did go as a family to our stake's Nativity display later in the day, and it was fun, even though it completely drained me.

No more migraines like that.  It was NO GOOD at all.  And it just figures that it happened on the day when Rob was out of town, right?  I guess that's the way it goes.  How else can we be deeply grateful and in debt to our friends? 

A Working Furnace is NOT a Luxury!

Yesterday morning our furnace wouldn't start.  Luckily, it wasn't very cold outside, so the house stayed at 65°.  Rob came home to take care of stuff, and he went downstairs and randomly started tapping things with a hammer until the furnace started again.  So we have heat now, but who knows how permanent that situation really is.  So we decided it was finally time to bite the bullet and purchase a new furnace.  We've had problems with the furnace nearly every year we've lived here, and some of the problems have been large problems.

Thankfully, this year we have more money in the bank to cover this, the tax incentives are better this year than they were last year, and we'd already been through the hassle of interviewing companies.  So we just called up the 2 companies that we liked best from last year and asked for an updated quote (we still have all the paperwork.  We saved it because we figured we'd be using it this year).  The prices didn't change, and so we easily picked a company.  Zimmer Heating and Cooling will be calling us on Friday to set up a date to install our new 95% efficiency furnace (our old furnace is a nearly 30-year-old 70% efficiency model).  So either next week or the week after we won't have to wonder any more if our furnace will turn on after a cold night.  Merry Christmas to us!

Rob's News

A lot of people have asked me about the news surrounding Rob and possible jobs for the Fall.  Well, there isn't any news to share, and that's why I haven't shared it.  Rob didn't get the Xavier job he wanted, but that wasn't unanticipated.  He has applied for several more, a few of those in Cincinnati.  He's still making connections with people and institutions and generally doing a good job of putting his name out there.

Some of the job-related things he'll be up to in 2010:
- In the Spring he'll be teaching a 10-week introductory genetics course for the University of Cincinnati.
- He's made contacts with Raymond Walters (a 2-year open enrollment college), and they asked him if he wanted to teach an on-line course at some point.  They tried to make it work for January, but it's not going to happen. 
- Raymond Walters has a position opening for the Fall, and he'll be applying for it.  His contact told him they expect about 30 applicants, and she gave him pointers on how to prepare for an interview.
- He's teaching the same NKU Bio 120 lecture and lab that he's teaching right now, from January - May.  He'll probably have 2 lab sections instead of the 1 he has now, which will mean a few more hours for him, but also a little more pay.
- In July he committed to teaching a 5-week Bio 120 course for NKU.  It'll possibly be as much as a lecture and 3 labs (but probably not less than 2 lab sections).  This means he will be ending his post-doc at the end of June so that he can teach this class.  He's happy that they'll pay him enough that he can spend a month doing teaching exclusively.
- Most likely he will be unemployed for the month of August.  Nearly every job starts in Sept. 2010.  So it's a good thing there's still money in that savings account after the furnace purchase, since we'll be living off savings for a month or two.

And there you go.  That's Rob's crazy life, and therefore our family's crazy life.  Rob gives his final tonight, and I'm looking forward to our family's 2 weeks of together time.  We're in need of it.  Some days it's super easy to do everything I need to do, and some days it's just not so easy.  With the Holiday season upon us, I've had more days of Not Easy, and poor Rob is taking it personally.

June will be our "off" month, even though he'll probably be scrambling to finish up with his post-doc stuff.  I'm thinking about trying to do an extended weekend camping trip to a local-ish National Park or something.  No 6-week cross-country venture for us this year.

Christmas

On Saturday we finally did our Christmas shopping, which has made me much less tense.  2 weeks before Christmas is cutting it too close for me, but we just hadn't had the time.    I HATE that phrase now:  "Don't have the time."  Grrr.  Anyways, it's mostly done, and our Christmas time is pretty much planned, so I've got my calm again.  

Next week, Tuesday, this gift from my parents will arrive:

Hurray for a new stove!!!  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mom and Dad.

Our Anniversary

Next Monday is our 9 year mark for marriage.  To celebrate, we're going to hang out at the museum on Saturday.  Super lame, right?  But I love it.  Next year, for #10, Rob's been informed that the date can NOT be lame (even though I really do like lame dates).  He's already thinking about it, and it may or may not require reservations for a cabin.  I'm excited in anticipation.

A Miciah Story

To end this super-long update, I'll tell a really good Miciah story.  This is from Sunday.

I walked by Miciah's teacher in the church hallway and he said that he yelled at Miciah.  I was shocked because usually Miciah is very well behaved for teachers.  He looked at me and said, "I yell at her every week, but today was an exception."  I should mention that this is the teacher who does fun things like tease Miciah by calling her Queen of Yellow when she's wearing a yellow dress.  Stuff like that.  Perfect for Miciah.

Anyways, I asked what happened and he said that he asked her to stop touching his paper.  She touched it again.  He told her to stop or she would have to leave class.  She touched it again.  (At this point in the story I rolled my eyes.  That's just SO Miciah.)  He said, forcefully, "That's it!  Get out of class!"  Miciah looked like she was about to cry so he backed down and told her she didn't have to leave so long as she didn't cry.  Then he felt bad (this is the difference between me and him.  Miciah has taught me that I can't feel bad about it.  I would have kicked her out of class and not had even an ounce of guilt) and so he said, "Am I the meanest person in the world?"

Miciah looked right at him and matter-of-factly said, "No.  My Mom says that she's the meanest, most awful person in the world, so it can't be you."

Rock.  On.

Home and everything that means

So the Great Trip of 2009 ended on August 8th. I'll be doing a few more sum-up posts on it (like you care at this point. I know. I write this stuff for me, though). More stories and some numbers. The numbers should be a fun post. I'm excited about that one.

Home

Anyways. Surprising Rob was really fun. He was happy to see us, of course, and I was happy to hand him the kids and walk away.

My mom and dad and Dea stayed with us for another week and a half (my Dad didn't stay as long, actually, but you don't really care that much about the details anyway). It was great to have an excuse to see all our Cincinnati relatives, and there are quite a few. It was also nice to have my mom around to help unpack and make meals and do all the mountainous loads of laundry. My mother is very helpful. She is also nice to talk to.

I'll miss Dea. She is delightful and mellow, and she plays so well with Miciah. By the end, though, they were both ready to be apart again. It took them more than a month to want to spend time apart from each other.The Kitchen
The kitchen is done!!! It was nice to walk in my door and see our kitchen done, just like we wanted it. I think it's awesome, and Rob did a great job. Thank you to Dustin and Mom and Dad Thacker who helped Rob get it all done during the time I was gone.Teancom's Haircut

Everyone got a haircut when we got home (during which no one noticed lice. Go figure), but no one's cut was as dramatic as Teancom's. He doesn't like to get his hair washed, which isn't such a big deal until his hair is long and sweaty. Rob had to wash Teancom's hair in the sink on Sunday morning, and that's really when you know it's time to cut his hair.Soccer

Soccer practices have started, and Miciah played in a pre-season tournament last weekend. They didn't win any games, but we didn't have any subs and it was HOT (oh, soccer in August). It was fun to watch the girls play and see how much they improved just from one day to the next. They're really obedient at this age, even if they can't always remember which direction we're going.

A few soccer comments:
1- Miciah played excellently at keeper. She isn't afraid of the ball and her positioning is great (though the coach kept getting annoyed that she wouldn't stay on the line. I'll have to tell her that I've taught Miciah to not stay on the line. Strategically, it's usually a bad move). She's actually braver in goal than at defense. I asked her why that is and she said, "It's easier when you're goalie." ... She is improving quickly and she's excited to play.

2- Elijah got on the field for his first practice and who knew that the kid can dribble (while running, no less) and shield the ball excellently. I don't think he learned that from anywhere, and I was impressed.

3- I want to kill a kid on Elijah's team who has figured out that if he falls on the ball and pushes the person trying to get the ball, the other person can't get the ball. If he was my kid, or if I was the coach, I would NOT be kind about his behavior.

I am assisting for Miciah's team, and loosely assisting for Eljiah's team. I think Miciah really appreciates me being more involved. I don't know why that's important to her, but I can oblige.

I'll make sure to get some soccer pictures this year.

More Teancom News

Look at this picture and tell me what's different about it:That's UNDERWEAR!! We kept telling Teancom that as soon as we got home from the trip he was going to get potty trained. So Monday morning we put him in underwear. I kept saying, "You want to go potty on the potty, Teancom?" and he'd respond, "No. On the Potty Train."

Anyways, it's been entirely successful. He hasn't had an accident since, umm, Monday I think. And he hasn't had a peeing accident since last Thursday or so. I knew Teancom was ready, and I thought it would go smoothly and quickly, and that has proven to be the case. Most of the time Teancom is going potty all by himself, too. It's fanTAStic.

We haven't really done nighttime stuff, just cause I don't really care, but he's dry in the mornings about half the time. This has inspired Elijah to want to be dry during the night, too. So we bought plastic sheets (not a bad idea for Cincinnati anyways) and put them on both boys' beds. So far it's gone decently.

Firefox

I took a few more programs off our C drive, and that helped our dying computer a little. But most importantly I installed and am using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. And my computer hasn't frozen since. Hurray! ... I am still thinking about re-formating. And a new computer is still on the horizon, so thank you for everyone who gave their input. But hopefully we can stall a little while longer.

This Fall

Rob is teaching another class at NKU this fall. It's the same class he taught over the summer, but now he's teaching the lecture as well as the lab (he only did the lab before). He's really excited about it, even though it means that he's pretty stressed about everyone that's on his plate. He's preparing two lectures a week. He still has to get stuff done at work and publish a paper by November (that's his shoot-for date). He's applying for jobs all across the country. He's in the bishopric and because of the class he will be missing Tuesday night meetings. He's a father and husband, and he has to find a way to show us that we're still his priority, even though he'll be gone more. It'll make weekends more crucial. And more precious.

I'm already used to the idea of not seeing Rob as much. Not saying I LIKE the idea, but I like that he's getting to do something he loves. That it'll help his career. And the idea of a little more money in our pockets is a plus, too (paying down that debt Dave Ramsey style). All-in-all, it'll be worth it in the long run.

Back to School

School starts on August 31st for Miciah and Sept. 3rd for Elijah. ... Buying school supplies for 2 kids makes me feel very very very sorry for my parents, who had to do it for 8 kids. I spent around $100 on new supplies and hated every minute (and penny) of it! Ugh.

Anyways, Elijah has the same Kindergarten teacher as Miciah did. She was wonderful for Miciah and I think she'll be great for Elijah, too. I already warned her that Elijah and Miciah are VERY different children, so hopefully she remembers that.

Elijah is ready for school. He has just started counting almost as high as he wants. I've heard him count to 70. He also knows all his letters and their sounds, though he's not that great at putting their sounds together to make a word. I have full confidence that he'll learn how to read, and I imagine that one day it'll just CLICK, but I don't think it'll come as effortlessly as it did for Miciah. Which means that he'll actually have something to do in Kindergarten.

Not My Favorite

I have been chastised by more than one person about my obsession with Teancom, and specifically my use of the word "favorite." I will not seek to justify my actions, as much as I'd like to. All I can say is that after a few days I realized that they were right, and I should probably cut it out. Fortunately, Teancom is acquiring attributes that help out my new cause. Namely, he's getting an attitude, he's demanding to do things all by himself (and hence isn't always merely an extra appendage), he's throwing fits, and he can be clingy and grumpy and demanding.

With my mom around, I have also realized that Teancom is often only delightful FOR ME. He refused to let my mother be a part of his life, even after 6 weeks of being together. During the last few days he was beginning to warm up to her. ... Let me say that again:
During THE LAST FEW DAYS he was BEGINNING to warm up to her. ... That's simply ridiculous that it took so long. My mother is adorable and wonderful, and Teancom was nasty to her. What's up with that?

Anyways. The comments have helped me not just change my words but change my attitude. I still cuddle with Teancom the most (because he's the most cuddly), but after 3 weeks of being a single mom I was just as ready to sell him to the gypsies as I was my other children. And that's True (equal) Mother Love.

And there you go. Life is back to normal and posts should be back to the same old boring stuff. Miciah said, "Mom, next summer I don't want to go on a vacation." I told her that would be just fine. Then she added, "But the year after that, we have to go back to Yellowstone."

Announcements and an update

Rob's Class

Rob just called me after teaching his first class at NKU. So it's official. ... The class is a Basics of Biology lab for non-biology majors. Plus, they're taking this in an accelerated, 5-week format, so probably most of the students wouldn't be there if they didn't have to be (it's a required course). But Rob's excited about teaching it, nonetheless. It's a 2-hour class, 3 times a week, and Rob gets the first 10 minutes or so to introduce material for the day. So it's not lecture-heavy, which is probably good, since he has little time to prep.

We're gearing up for 12 hour days, and lots of weekends worked. ... At least we only have the next 5 weeks to worry about.

Vacation Plans

And then we're going on vacation!! For those of you who don't know and who are interested (which might be a whole 3 of you), this is our rough outline for the trip (note that these days are NOT set in stone, but it should go down pretty close to like this):

July 3rd - leave for Yellowstone

July 5th - 11th - Family Reunion in Yellowstone

July 11th - July 20th (or so) - Time in Utah

July 20th - mid-August some time - Rob leaves us. Time in California

mid-August some time - leave CA for a long, leisurely trip back to Cinci, including a longer stay in St. Louis, where I grew up. Hopefully Rob will re-join us for that part.

August 16th or so - arrive back in Cinci

Yes, we are driving.

Rob will leave us after Utah and fly back home. Then me and the kids will head to CA for some time at the beach, etc. After that my mother will drive back across the country with me and the kids (plus cousin D). This was my MOTHER'S idea, I will have everyone know. She's the crazy one. But it'll be fun. Definitely a summer to remember and never repeat.

I'm excited to show my kids Yellowstone. It's one of my favorite places in the world. Not that I've been a ton of places in the world, but of the places I've been, it's one of my favorites. There's just nowhere else like it. We will be camping in Yellowstone that whole week, so it'll be an adventure.

Graduation - Ceremony and Party

Rob graduates next Friday, June 12th. For those of you who are sad to miss the ceremony (yeah, right), Rob has informed me that you can watch it live on the internet. So here's the link:

http://www.uc.edu/ucvision/event.aspx?eventid=223

The doctorates are awarded in a ceremony that starts at 10:30 am.

For those of you who are happy to skip the ceremony but who would like to help Rob celebrate his achievement, there will be a party that evening at our house. 5:00 pm - midnight (or whenever you'd like to leave). It's a potluck. We'll be providing meat: hamburgers, hotdogs, and brats and mets. And all the fixings for hamburgers. Everything else is potluck. So bring stuff you like to eat. :)

Our Spontaneuos Weekend

We had a fabulous weekend. Rob was pre-feeling the crunch of a busy June, so we did lots of fun stuff this weekend to pre-make up for it. For the second weekend in a row, we camped out in our backyard on Friday night. Had a tin foil dinner. Stayed up late talking by the fire. It was great. We had invited people to join us for a spontaneous camp out in our backyard. No one ended up showing, which is totally fine. It was just fun to be spontaneous.

The next day we took a drive to test the car top carrier that we'll use for our vacation. We borrowed the carrier from someone who hasn't used it for years, so we checked it for water-proof-ness, and then took a drive on the highway to check the straps and stuff. Took the kids with us. Driving to nowhere in particular. We decided to turn around at an exit near Indiana that just happens to be the same place you'd exit to go to a fun park.

So we took the kids to the park. Ended up staying for a few hours. Rob got all spontaneous on us (I LOVE when he's spontaneous, so he tries hard to be spontaneous at least once a year) and we rented a paddle boat. Paddled around this cute little pond. Saw lots of ducks, including about 20 baby ducks, and baby ducks are adorable. All 20 baby ducks were with one female duck. We wondered if she was babysitting.

We ended the weekend by attending a spontaneous pot luck picnic dinner. Met some new friends and hung out with old friends, too.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, full of fun and spontaneity. The spontaneity wasn't on purpose. It just happened that way.

(Yes, I was trying to be funny with the last comments.)

Pictures

Now that that's all out of the way, I'll post some random pictures from May.

We babysat a baby, and Teancom thought the portacrib looked inviting. So for a few nights he went to sleep in it. I thought it was cute, and I had to take a picture:

My lilacs in full bloom, early May:

Rob's little brother got the lead in a play. He'll be portraying Nephi. So, in a late-night moment, Rob made these Nephi faces: (You're welcome, Garrett.)

(And, yes, that's Rob's belt around his head.)
Teancom, all ready to play outside in the rain:

I just loved that it was warm enough out that he could go outside without pants. Him in no pants, a jacket with hood on, and bright green crocs. What's cuter than that? And you can be jealous of my outfit-picking abilities. It's okay.

The kids have been playing outside a lot. We brought out the kiddie pool and by the end of the first day, a week ago, they were both lobsters. Teancom was a red and brown lobster, and Elijah was a red and white monster. The boys have been taking turns wearing the floaty stuff, too:

And wearing it backwards. Totally funny.

Update-ish

I feel like I haven't written a normal update for a while. Probably because I've posted a lot about Miciah's broken arm, and that's overshadowed everything else. Well, here's a normal update.

Teancom

Teancom has cut out nap times a lot of days, but it makes him intolerably grumpy and spastic for a few hours midday. It's, umm, fun. ... It's the first time in his short life that he's caused us any trouble at all. Still, he's his normal cute, squishy, addicting self except for those 2 hours of whininess and attitude.

Elijah

Elijah is addicted to video games. I let him play for a few days, as long as I can stand it, and then I take away privileges for a week or so, because he doesn't do the transition from video games to normal life very well. ... And I'm not sure it's an accomplishment, but Elijah's getting pretty good. He mostly plays on our old school Nintendo system. So he's playing the classic Legend of Zelda and Mega Man III and Mario 3.

Elijah has decided that he's a big boy and can do things like crossing the street by himself. Of course this isn't okay with us. He'll also run off when we're in public. Not that he's running off, he'll just run ahead and then I can't see him any more and he doesn't understand why that's not okay. He'll say, "I know where the car is," and stuff like that. Same with crossing the street: "I looked both ways." Ugh.

He's starting to write things on his own, which is fantastic. It'll look like gibberish until you look close and see that he's written his name or copied "Cheez It" from the box.

Which reminds me about a fun story from a few months ago. We were in the library parking lot, getting ready to leave. I was organizing the books and movies on the passenger seat when I heard Elijah say, "Mom, what does a-d-n-o-h spell?" I thought about it for a second. It doesn't spell anything, of course. But I started looking around, wondering where he saw that. Then I looked over and saw it on the tire cover of the car beside us. It's honda backwards! I don't know why, but Elijah will read and write many things backwards. It's not that he doesn't know which way to read it. He knows. He'll also write some of his letters upside down. And write from the bottom of the page up. ... It all seems very backwards to me, but I'm assuming that it's normal. Or at least normal enough.

Life

The Weekend

Rob's little brother got sealed to his beautiful wife in the Columbus, OH temple this weekend. It was low key and wonderful. I'm all about low key. The kids stayed with the W's, our good friends and the kids' surrogate grandparents.

Rob and I drove straight from Columbus to M's place in Middle of Nowhere, OH. Stayed overnight. Were there Sunday morning to participate in our nephew, P's teacher ordination. It was neat, cause all the siblings were there. It was also nice to see Rob during church hours.

We drove home right after the ordination because my Dad flew into Cincinnati at 1:30. We beat him home by an hour or so, which just gave us time to clean up our travelling stuff.

We chilled with Dad for the evening and part of the next day, and he left in the afternoon for the next leg of his business trip. While he was here we ran the HS track, looked through a spectacular "picture book" of Yellowstone and talked about our trip, had a lovely dinner with R&C. And also, he bought us:

A New Lawn mower

Our old lawn mower died. I wrote about that a while back. We've been using it, half-dead, resistent to spending the money on a new one. We debated what to buy and where and for what price. We finally had decided on buying a refurbished lawnmower for about $100 at a local lawn mower fix it place. We were going to go buy it on Monday. The day before my father took me to Home Depot and helped me pick out a much nicer mower that what we would have purchased.
It's a Honda. I didn't even know Honda MADE lawn mowers.

And on Monday I mowed the grass with our new mower. My favorite parts:
- I can start it myself, which means I can mow the grass during the day and Rob doesn't have to do it all the time. Rob has so little time anyways.
- It's a power mower. Our old one was a manual. I like a lot of the aspects of a manual mower, but it's nice to not have to push with everything I have to get up our steep short hills.
-It's a bagger/mulcher. Our old one was a side shoot. So no more raking for us!! That'll save us a good hour.

Thank you, Dad.

Rob's Big News

Rob has been praying and hoping for someone to give him a teaching opportunity. Well, it's happened! Rob was contacted by NKU (Northern Kentucky University) about teaching a 5-week summer class. Of course Rob said yes. The time is kinda crummy (12 - 2pm, 3 days a week), which means his schedule will be horrible for the month of June. And they don't pay him much, but Rob would have done it for free. He just needs the teaching experience.

He went down to NKU yesterday and got an official badge. I'll have to scan it in, cause he looks just like a middle-aged professor. Balding. A little extra weight. Cute glasses. Aw, the adorable Dr. Thacker.

So, hurray for Rob! And pray for us to survive June!

Bad Balance

This has nothing to do with anything, but I thought I'd report on it. I have experienced vertigo off and on for years now. The worst of it was right after Teancom was born, so 2 years ago. Anyways, we finally have good insurance, so I asked my doctor about it. He sent me to an ENT to check it out, cause it sounded like it could be Meniere's Disease. I don't know much about Meniere's, but I dislike the idea of having something with Disease in the title.

There's nothing wrong with my hearing or function, that the ENT could tell (though I found out that my left ear has slightly better hearing than my right). So he sent me for a balance test (turned out to be a $1,000 balance test--don't worry, I didn't pay a penny for it). It was a random test involving following lights with your eyes and strange goggles and blowing warm and cold air into your ear and making you count backwards by 2's from 100.

At one point in the test the test giver (a nurse? doctor?) seemed like the results I reported were slightly abnormal. They blew the warm air into my right ear for a minute and then I felt a little dizzy. Not bad, but a little. Then they did the same thing with my left ear and I wanted to puke or pass out or just go to sleep. It was really bad. They did the same minute-long exposure, one ear at a time, with the cold air, and I hardly reacted to that at all. The test giver made it seem like I should have roughly the same reaction for each ear.

So the ENT called me back a little over a week later and said that my test results were not normal. He didn't say they were horrible, though. He said that they'll see "these kinds of results" from a viral ear infection and those effects can last from 6 months to a year. I think this is unlikely, since the vertigo was the worst over 2 years ago, it started being noticably bad 3 years ago, and I still experience it every few months. He said, alternately, I could just have bad balance. "Some people are born with bad vision, some bad hearing. You could just have bad balance." I think that's the more likely explanation. He didn't diagnose me with Miniere's or anything, and he said he'd like me to repeat the balance test next year.

But, bad balance? I have GREAT balance! I play sports. I rarely get off balance. I can trip but not fall (and that's pretty impressive, I think). ... So I think there must be some other aspect to balance that he's talking about. ... Anyways, that's my balance assessment. Because you obviously cared.

Other than that, we're getting excited for summer. I wish it was already here (Miciah's in school until June 12th). I'm ready for some lazy long days. Not that we'll get many before we head out to Yellowstone, Utah, California, and then all the way back. But we'll take as many lazy summer days as come our way. I'm excited to spend at least one lazy summer day on the beach, and another in a Yellowstone meadow!!

July Happenings (an update)

Teancom as he normally is: sucking his fingers, holding his ear, and tilting his head.

D's Baby Blessing

Last Sunday we were able to be there when DT was blessed. The T's defected to Kentucky and so are no longer in our ward. So we made the short trip down there. Thankfully we were able to attend the blessing and be back for our own meetings. Not that I'm a glutton for punishment (more church, really?), but Rob was conducting our meeting, and I was teaching Primary.

Which brings up something interesting. I team teach the Primary kids with a friend. She is a much better teacher than I am, no question. I feel like I get absolutely nothing taught to these girls. They're 10 and 11-year-olds and they are squirmy and I'm not sure they hear anything I say. :) But one of the girls said I was her favorite teacher ever. So I'm thinking either that she doesn't remember any other teachers, or there has to be some other criteria for making a good teacher. Because CERTAINLY it's not that she's learning a lot from me. :) I haven't figured it out quite, though.

That same Sunday of D's blessing was the baptism of KC. Rob was able to conduct that meeting, too, which was an honor for him to be able to do. Usually it's the Bishop who does that, but in this case he was filling his role as father, so Rob got to conduct. It was great to be able to participate and be there. The 2 youngest don't really get much out of stuff like this yet, but Miciah did. There was another baptism that was announced for this last Sunday and Miciah arranged to be able to be there for that one, too (I told her I had to take the boys home and wouldn't be able to stay). That was completely unprompted by us. It's nice to have such a thoughtful daughter.

5 Signatures

Rob came home last Tuesday with a piece of paper that has 5 signatures on it. That's the 5 people on his committee that had to approve his earning his doctorate. Rob came home and showed it to me. Then he remarked about how strange it is that after 4 years of hard work, it all came down to 5 signatures on a piece of paper. Rob is now Dr. Thacker, and that feels really nice for him.

The re-write ended up equalling about 5 more pages for his dissertation. We'll get it bound soon. I almost don't want to do it, since it's not cheap. But someone looked at him and said, "When else in your life are you going to write a book?" :) We'll get it bound.

Carter Caves Trip

Bodies: the Exhibit

Wednesday morning we set off on our mini-vacation, just me and Rob. We dropped the kids off and went off to the Museum Center to go see Bodies. We watched the imax movie that went with it. The movie was fantastic!! It showed stuff ultra-close up and in different ways. They showed food going down the esophagus and entering the stomach (seriously gross). Then followed the mush of stuff as it went down the intestines, met with bile (truly, it made me not want to eat for weeks). They showed the inside of the lungs (how do they do that?), and that was really really cool. Then they went inside the heart and it was so amazing that I cried. Wow. At the very end of the movie they showed a birth scene, very tactfully done. You didn't see any woman parts, and when the baby was born the doctor wiped it off a ton before you even saw her, so she looked like a human instead of a purple-grey gross thing. It was so amazing to watch the birthing process that again I cried. The movie was moving and amazing. I suggest everyone go see it.

Bodies: the Exhibit was pretty good, too. My favorite part was the baby room. They showed tiny, tiny 4-week-old fetuses (you could hardly even see them!), up to near-full term babies. It was amazing to see them. Other pretty cool things:

1 They had the digestive tract all laid out on a wall.

2 The blood vessel specimens were dang sweet! Seeing an entire body in just blood vessels. Cool.

3 Looking at the cross section of a non-pregnant woman's female parts. Holy smokes, babies should NOT have to fit down a hole that small!! Amazing.

4 They did an anti-smoking campaign. Showed some nasty smokers' lungs and then said, "Each pack of cigarettes takes 3 minutes 40 seconds off your life. Leave your cigarettes here and never smoke again!" Then they had a big clear box with a slit on the top for people to leave their packs. The box wasn't very full, and I wondered if the box was just a display. At the end of the tour, the lady said they'd emptied the box 3 times already since the show opened.

5 It was neat to go with Rob. For him, this was like a refresher course. I didn't realize he knows all the stuff he does. It was fun to ask him random questions about the human body and have him know the answers.

Carter Caves

After leaving the museum center, we drove down to Carter Caves State Resort Park. We were there around 7:30 p.m. and set up camp. The site we first got was a lousy, lousy site in the middle of everything. Close to the bathrooms, people walking through or right by the site every few minutes. No good. Rob went back and asked if there were any other sites we could have. The lady at the desk said that one of their most popular sites, 102, was open. It was set back into the trees a little and was pretty out of the way. On Thursday our immediate neighbors left, so we felt like we were camping all alone, and that was cool.

Thursday morning we woke up and went caving! I told Rob that caving wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be, but I'm not sure what I was expecting, either. We went first through a cave where you could walk, mostly. The next one we did some crawling and it was a little wet, but then opened up into a cool "waterfall" (meaning, water was falling from the cave ceiling).

Then we walked to the cave called "The Birth Canal" where Rob got stuck during Scout Camp. I told him I wanted to crawl through and take a picture of him at the opening. First off, we were at the mouth of the cave and to the right was a large opening that you could walk into. I started walking towards it and Rob says, "No, that's not the right way." He points to the left and there's an opening barely big enough to crawl through. I looked at him like, "Yeah, right." He was serious. I asked him if it was an tighter than the cave we'd just been through. He said no. He is a liar! It was not only tight in places (Rob was belly-crawling, and I almost was. Probably should have, but come to find out I have mental issues with belly-crawling), but in other places you had to crawl through cold water and/or at least 6 inches of muck. Rob had told me about the water and the muck. But until you experience it, you have no real idea.

I took the pictures of Rob at the opening. We took a throw-away camera with us, and who knows if it survived. It wasn't waterproof (we could choose either waterproof or flash, but not both, and what good would it have done to be waterproof but not flash inside a cave?), and we abused it pretty good. I'm taking it in today to get the pics developed, and if they turned out, I'll post them here.

I also measured the opening that he got stuck in. The hole he was trying to get through was 9.5 inches high! Insane. It was small enough that I didn't even want to go through it. Though the idea of going through the hole was more appealing than crawling back through the water and muck. Water on bare hands is painful.

The last cave we went through ended us up at a waterfall, and that was cool. It was about a 5-foot drop off the ledge to get down, so I'm glad Rob was with me. It would have been scary to do on my own. Dropping almost my entire body-length onto a surface that is not only uneven, it has running water on it? No thank you.

Funny things I found out about myself from caving:

1 I already said this, but I learned that I have mental issues with belly crawling. For any reason at all. During the part where I probably should have belly crawled, I instead stretched out my body a really long ways and sang a song to myself with the lyrics of, "I don't want to belly crawl. I don't want to do it."

2 I had forgotten how fun it is to get dirty! I was a tomboy growing up and I got dirty and wet and gross all the time. I laughed at girls who thought it was awful to do those things. At the first spot where I encountered the muck, I looked at Rob like, "I don't think so." But by the end, we were both covered in water and muck, head-to-toe. And as we were walking back, it all came back to me. The freedom of allowing yourself to get so yucky. It was awesome.

3 I am now a wuss. Flat out. Rob took me through a good progression of caves there. Had he started me out on the cave we ended with, I would have not been happy at all.

4 I am not uber-adventurous when it comes to caving. We would come to a part of the cave that got pretty tight. Rob would say, "Why don't you squeeze through and see if it goes somewhere." I'd look at him like, "And, WHY?" No thank you. I don't have to be the person who amazingly fits through a 3-inch opening. I'll let someone else have those treasured moments.

Camping

We spent the rest of the day relaxing. We ate lunch, which was a mini-adventure because we forgot all 3 of our camping-dedicated can openers. Rob opened a can with his pocket knife, and I'm probably retarded, but I was not even aware that you could open a whole can that way.

We took naps. We read books. We talked and talked and talked. I kept looking at Rob and telling him, "It's nice to know that I like you!" We knew we liked each other, of course. But it was nice to have moments that were just about me and him. No kids. No obligations. We know that we like each other as parents. We know that we like each other in a crunch. But it's nice to know we like each other just for who we are without any of the other stuff that makes up life. We still like being together. We still like talking. It was therapeutic.

Ripley, OH

On our way home Friday we stopped by Ripley, OH, which is a town famous for it's involvement in the Underground Railroad. We parked down by the river in the old section of town, on Front Street. I wouldn't mind retiring in a place like Ripley. It's beautiful. Anyways, the John Parker house wasn't open (due to illness, the sign said). So we read the sign outside the house, then took off from there to find the staircase up the hill to the Rankin house. Holy smokes! The hill was awful. :) We were tired before we'd even reached the start of the staircase. Then the last part of the hill, up at the top, was super-steep. A wooden staircase that kept weaving back on itself. Wow. I kept thinking, "We are healthy, young people. We aren't barefoot. We aren't being chased. We don't have a small child with us. It's mid-day. This isn't life and death." It was hard enough to do without any of those things! Rob kept saying, "They probably were in much better shape than we are, though." Probably true. But still.
We didn't realize that the Rankin house would cost money (we should have, of course), and Rob didn't bring his wallet. So we turned around and walked back down the stairs. We would have had to do that anyways, to get back to our car. But it was a bit disappointing. ... My calves were burning before getting down the wooden part of the staircase. We had to stop a lot. It's a huge hill. We drove back up to the Rankin house, paid our $3 a piece and took a look around the house. It was a pretty small house and the Rankins had like 13 kids in there! Craziness.

The history wasn't new to me, since I've read Beyond the River (everyone should read this book. It's a fascinating history). But it was fun to walk around there with all that history around you.

The funniest part, to me, was this: The staircase was not well marked. In fact, it wasn't marked at all. We walked up the hill to a spot that seemed likely to be where the staircase would start, but couldn't see it and weren't sure which way to go to find it. We asked directions from a man sitting on his front porch. ... So here we are, two white folks trying to get up Rankin's Stairway to Freedom, and we have to stop and ask directions from a black man. Something about that made me want to giggle. It seemed perfect.

I love Rev. John Rankin and his family. If we were ever to have another boy, I would name him Adam Lowry. Adam Lowry was Rankin's eldest son and his "conversion" to the cause of abolitionism is a fabulous story. And his involvement in the movement, wow. ... In fact, had I read the book 3 months earlier than I did (Teancom was just born when I read it), Teancom would probably be named Adam Lowry.

Home

Back to life! The kids loved staying at the W's house. Miciah swam and swam and swam. The kids picked blackberries. Elijah got to finally watch Spider-Man 3. :)

Teancom's Birthday

We had Teancom's 2nd Birthday party on Sunday with R & C and the B family. L and Teancom are bestest buds (L will hug him around the neck from behind and Teancom will look at me, smile, and say, "Hug me." Totally cute). We had cake and ice cream and celebrated the life of a cute little boy. He's growing up!

Here's Teancom checking out his cake, right before we cut into it:


Miciah and Elijah in a pretty good picture of the both of them. Elijah is actually smiling, that's a plus. The red box he's in is the toy box that R & C have at their house specifically for my kids. Elijah got in it and told Teancom that it was a present for him. Teancom came over and "unwrapped" the present. The present was Elijah.


Elijah makes funny faces for pictures usually. This was my favorite of the series for the night.


The fabulous R & C.


Elijah and his best bud, A, watching TV. R turned on "cool cars": drag racing. The boys thought it was awesome. I just kept watching it thinking, "Who is insane enough to do this?"


This is baby N. I watch him for a few hours a few days a week. He's an excellent baby.

Rob's New Job

Rob had his first day as a Children's Hospital employee. Monday and today were orientation days. Tomorrow will be his first day actually in the lab. ... Rob came home and proudly showed me his new work badge. The first thing I noticed is that his picture showed him with facial hair! It was the Monday after Scout Camp. He didn't know they were going to take his picture, and if he did, he probably would have shaved for it. :) But what Rob was trying to get me to notice is that under his name is listed 3 little letters: PhD.

Congrats, Dr. Thacker!

We love you all. Thank you for all your support and love and patience during the last few months. We needed it.

Rob, Tamra, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom