Carnivals

So I've never been attracted to carnivals. I think of them as dirty cheap attractions with scary workers, ultra-fried foods, smoky environments and expensive gimmicks. Perhaps this is the result of my parents never really taking us to them as kids. I guess I don't understand why you would go to one of these forelorn places when you could go some place like Disneyland, where you have higher quality rides, friendly employees, your choice of food, a clean environment, and... expensive gimmicks. Perhaps this is the result of my parents taking us there a lot as kids.

Anyhow, my mom was out this past week, and left Wednesday. I had seen posters for the upcoming carnival for the past few weeks, and conveniently "forgot" to mention it to Joel that this was coming in town. Unfortunately my choice of our last meal pick with my mom (the non-confrontational Greene's Hamburgers- I recommend it) had a poster, and my husband saw it. So guess what we did for our date night (along with the Friday night concert at Riley Park and dinner at the Bangkok kitchen, where the owners and I reminisced about Thailand together)...

The one good point about this carnival was that it was free admission and free parking. Joel and I both decided though that this was the perfect year to take Liam... in other words, while he is entertained by the colors, people and sounds, versus when he will want to participate. We wanted to take him to the petting zoo, which was conveniently located at the END of the carnival- past all the various booths, food stands and other random things that kids are dragging their parents towards. It was humorous that even at the "free" petting zoo, there were puppies for sale.

I think he enjoyed it and was fascinated with the animals... from a distance.

He was just as captivated with the sirens and rollercoasters as well. 

The person that enjoyed it the most though in our family was my husband. It is an excuse for him to have elephant ears (I offered to make it for him sometime, and he said that would take away the fun of getting the greased, fried dough at the fair). 

Apparently it is also an excuse for him to ride mechanical bulls (he said it was practice for Toby Keith's later with Katie). He was debating if he should do it and asked if it was a waste of money. I told him he didn't want me to answer that question.

 Joel said it was the best well spent $5 in his life. I think Dave Ramsey would beg to differ.

Mr. Independent

So I was about to feed my son dinner last night when he reached for the spoon and decided to do it himself.

At the beginning of dinner:

At the end of dinner:

The video would have lasted a bit longer so you could see the transformation of his face from clean to messy, but Joel came home, and I thought I'd spare you the details of our days that were rehashed while he ate. Maybe next time. ;)

Biased-Mommy aside, I thought he did fairly well for his first time of feeding himself with a spoon. I had to wipe his fingers a couple of times (after he tried to reach in the jar to get that last hard to reach food), but at least the food mostly stayed on the bib and high chair table.

A Battle Cry Call for Fasting and Prayer

A little while back, I mentioned, asking for prayers for a couple that lives out in Illinois, Jordan and Katelyn Schroeder. Joel knows them (I don't recall ever meeting either of them, but he's introduced me to so many people, who knows!). Anyways, since then, I have been following their battle with cancer, and praying for them constantly, as I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to experience this so close to home (it came even closer with the diagnosis of Zach's cancer- he could use your prayer too!).

After being in remission for a short while, Jordan's battle with cancer has taken a turn for the worse, and they are beseeching Christians everywhere to pray to the Great Physician to heal him. If you have the moment, please take a minute to read their request and if you feel led, take a part in the prayers of the saints that will be lifted up.

West Lafayette

What a delightful weekend we just had! :)
We have come to appreciate every day that Joel has off, especially those full weekends, which are few and far between! It seems that we always try to make the most of them however, and this one was no different.

Originally we had planned to go to his grandparents cottage on Lake Michigan as a lil mini getaway for Friday night, and come back in time for our church duties at Woodhaven's retirement center. But we were reminded that two of his cousins were getting baptized in West Lafayette, and we figured if we could trade (again) then we would go. The Gasser's were kind enough to take these responsibilities, and so we figured it was God opening up the door for us to head down there to be able to spend time with Joel's extended family (since he'll be working Thanksgiving this year), experience his old stomping grounds, see the new (and very lovely!) West Lafayette church, catch-up with old friends... and most importantly, listen to the testimonies and witness the baptisms of his cousins! :) It ended up being all that and more! We were able to surprise his family, stayed at Ed and Annette's (though they are gone picking up Mia from China!),ate pickles, bread and granola bars,  were able to spend some time with Clint and Alesa, and spend the afternoon after baptisms with all the family at Greentree :)

Uncle Tim and Liam sharing a late afternoon snack at Greentree

 Wheelchair rides were the popular attraction of the afternoon

The only bummer of the weekend is that while we were down in Indiana, my uncle and aunt came up here for a mini family vacation! So we were able to spend Friday night with them, but then left them to a host-less B&B home!

Who needs blocks when we can stack books?!

My son is such a mooch when it comes to food... and usually everyone thinks he's cute enough they give in- in this case, he was able to eat some cherries! Although their time was short, he definitely loved my Uncle Glen, who must have reminded him of his Papa!

We are so blessed to have such an awesome traveler! I couldn't help but think that as I drove home (while Joel slept). He was either sleeping or contentedly sitting and talking in his car seat the whole 5 hour trip. And I was reminded that I'm really going to have to teach him about strangers, as he probably went up to everybody in that church this weekend to be held for a few seconds. He even escaped my mother-in-law's eye in the nursery and the usher brought him into us during the afternoon service after he had been found wandering around to various people (for 20 minutes!!) back in the kitchen... embarrassing! This also made me sooo very thankful to attend a church, where I know that no matter which congregation we are in, he is in good hands! :)

4th of July Festivities

So this past weekend began Joel's official experience as a 2nd year resident, and the beginning of our experience of what it's like to be "on call". I must say, it was rather bittersweet. He worked on Friday, and was on call until Saturday morning. We ended up being able to go downtown though and listen to a local band play (as we reminisced of Supertones and Five Iron Frenzy, since their music was kind of a ska-punk style), while watching Liam dance and play with another little boy in the square. Joel had received a few floor calls, but nothing major until we were about to go to bed, and then voila- an ER case came in! All in all though, he was gone for a few hours, but slept in on Saturday with no further calls, and was still able to get a decent night's sleep. I thought I could get used to this...

Saturday, Tom and Cindy were gracious enough to ask us to hang out with the rest of their family at their lake house in Lake Columbia. We had a wonderful day of kayaking, jet-skiing, wakeboarding and just having fellowship with the Hitz family and the Plattners. People shot off fireworks, but it doesn't get dark til way late, so most of them that we saw were as we were driving home that night (it would have been too late to stay for the fireworks over the lake).

Sunday, reality set in in terms of "call". I didn't see my husband all day, and we were invited to Scott and Jamie's for dinner along with some other families for the 4th. Joel was able to get off, and meet us there at 6:30pm... he had been working over 12 hours straight, with not even enough time to grab a bite to eat! I am so thankful he was at least able to spend almost two hours there with us though, before he was called back in for another 3 hours. When he got home, he was so wiped, but right when he was about to go to bed... guess what?! Yup, another ER call, and off he was again! At least after this last three hour stint, he didn't get any more calls! I am so impressed with him though... I admire him so much for all that he does for us, and he never complained once!

VBS Snapshots

Liam and I were able to experience our first year in Detroit's VBS together a couple weeks ago. He "enjoyed" the nursery (aka church foyer with tons of toys in it), while I helped Bev teach 14 four and five year olds. Unlike Phoenix, Detroit's VBS is directed purely at the children (there are no adult speakers) and it is in the morning. This years theme was a variation on the Romans Road, but since every time we travel we usually a destination, our VBS "trip" took us to see Dan & Tami down in Magdalena. Lucas did a great job picking out what places we would stop at each day, and incorporating them with our Bible verse; each morning we also were able to see a video of a different portion of the orphanage at Magdalena, to help acquaint us with "where we would be going". So cutely done! The last day, they were given shirts (Liam's is more like a dress), and sang for the residents at Woodhaven. By the end of the week, my son also pretty much had most the hand motions down for "I'm in the Lord's Army" (he has problems with the salute)! ... Who says they can't learn at age 1?  :)

Raspberries, Blueberries, Strawberries... and fried eggs

So I figured I'd quick throw up a video, since my son is in bed and my husband is on call fixing somebody up at the hospital.

Anyways, people probably think we are crazy, but we had so many various perennial plants and flowers throughout our yard, and my husband/father-in-law probably eliminated half of them when they mulched our landscape. There were a few bare patches, and I was so disappointed to learn that she hadn't planted anything edible (besides a few herbs), and I saw some fruit plants for relatively cheap (is $7 cheap?!) I figure if they survive the next few years, I will have gotten my moneys worth in fruit...

... so I bought them. 2 blueberry plants and a raspberry plant. I know they will grow big, but I figure the people that live here after us can take care of them by trimming them back or get rid of them if they don't want them.

Anyhow, one of my blueberry plants gets far more sun then the other- and thus blueberry season started in the Virkler household 3 weeks ago. I have yet to try them though. My son always discovers them first, and eats them before I can. The final was nice and ripe today, and fearing I might not get produce off the other one this year, I allowed him to have it so I could film him for my family's enjoyment.

I think he first thought I needed help "weeding". When he is outside with me weeding, he likes to pull off leaves and give them to me, or set them in the pile that I've created. I had to move my basil after he pulled them all out. Now he's satisfied pulling the tomato, bell pepper, and sedum leaves. At the end of the video when he runs off, guess where he's headed? Oh, the other berry plant... 

I had to swat him off of the raspberry plant though, as he eyed a nice bright red berry that isn't quite ready yet. I have a feeling that while I'm pulling weeds, it may disappear this next week.

 Do you see him eyeing it? It's like he's scoping out the best way to attack. This is how I found him when I was going to weed today. I knew the way he was intently staring, there had to be something he thought edible on it!

I also through in a couple pictures of my first attempt at freezing strawberries and making strawberry jam. I never realized just how MUCH sugar is in homemade strawberry jam. Even with the low sugar variety, my goodness!  I put up 14 qts of the Michigan ones (which I must say are sweeter then the CA ones, but probably just because they are picked fresh and go bad the next day) and an extra 10lbs of California ones after Meijer had a 50cents/lb sale the following week. Labor intensive, but pretty easy for this new midwestern wife.

The berries that make Michigan-ers proud...

Speaking of easy... I've never been able to fry an egg before. My mom just learned that tonight and laughed at me because I always try out new gourmet recipes, but its true- I've always found it too hard to fry an egg perfectly like my daddy used to, where the yolk would not look fake like at those breakfast places, but be covered in white with the runny center. I would not flip it all the way or pop the yolk or whatever, to the point that I'd end up scrambling it. Well, this morning that all changed...

Ain't it a beaut?!

I'm quite proud of it. Now if I can just get the edges a lil bit crispier, it'll be perfect. :)

We Survived...

...Joel's intern year at Botsford. :)

Which in Joel's language means he's "no longer a HO".
(house officer for all you non-medical folk) 

Which means I survived living out here in Michigan for a year (June 19th was that milestone). And I didn't melt, or more applicably, freeze! I'm not sure what the future has in store for us, but I hope that it fairs better then the succulent (cactus for all you non-southwesterners) in the front yard, and Japanese fern in the back, both of which were gifted to me by the previous home owner. I told Joel that it doesn't bode well for me, as I'm a Japanese southwestern girl. He told me not to take it to heart. ;)

The picture below is of the ortho group (minus three of them) at the hospital. We went to a 4th years house for a wonderful evening of bbq, cornhole, raspberry picking and yucky cigar smoking (one of the students REALLY wants to get selected next year...).

From what other ortho wives have warned me, 2nd year isn't supposed to be any better, time-wise. I'm to still expect a lot of this...

and this...

Hopefully, he will at least have the energy to climb the stairs this year so that he can at least pass out on a comfy bed after a night shift, so we don't discover him on the couch when we head downstairs for breakfast.

And MAYBE he won't fall asleep in the 15 seconds or less that it takes him right now.

And MAYBE I will be able to trust him with babysitting our son at home so that I can run a few quick errands.

And MAYBE he will be able to stay awake during every meal we have together this year.

And MAYBE he won't be as out of it, that when his son is shoving fingers in his ears and twisting his nose and hitting his chest, maybe just maybe he will stir (I feel like hoping for him to wake-up would be too much optimism with not enough realism).

Otherwise, maybe I'll finally have a camera nearby to film this interaction for our future enjoyment.
(As you can see, Liam is quite young in these photos- it became such a daily occurrence, the fascination wore off and I got tired of taking photos of my sleeping husband!)

All in all though, this year has flown by. It's hard to grasp that we have been here already for half the time that we were in Phoenix. Here's to hoping the Lord blesses us with a 2nd year as wonderful as the first- even with its crazy business!

Thank you all for the encouragement and support you have been in our lives thus far :)