Indianapolis Zoo

We took advantage of the Labor Day holiday and went to the Indianapolis Zoo.

Dallin really enjoyed being outside all day. He was startled when we were looking into a tank of sting rays and one swam right up next to the glass, inches from his face. Other than that, he liked looking at the animals, but was just as interested in looking at all the people and kids at the zoo.

There were a bunch of penguins that were just standing there, asleep.

The one in the back with his head flopped over reminds me of how Dallin looks when he falls asleep in his car seat. It looks uncomfortable.

It was a pretty warm day, but Dallin stayed cool by wearing grandpa's hat. And drinking grandpa's water.

We had a really fun time. It is a pretty decent zoo. Although, I think I've been spoiled by the St. Louis Zoo. This zoo was probably 1/4 the size of the St. Louis Zoo and it cost $15 a person. The St. Louis Zoo is free. I guess not everywhere can be as cool as St. Louis.... :)

When we got home from the zoo, we watched a movie called "Extraordinary Measures."

It's based on a true story about a family with 3 kids, 2 of which have something called Pompe Disease, which they will most likely die from before they reach 10 years old. At the time, there was no medication or anything to treat the disease. The father (Brendan Fraser) approaches a scientist (Harrison Ford) who has been studying this disease and has a theory on how to treat it. The movie is about all that they have to go through to turn the theory into a drug that they can test on the children before they get too much worse. It was a good, heartwarming movie. It made us feel lucky to have a "healthy" son. Even though he definitely has his share of medical difficulties and will face many difficulties later in life, at least we know that his syndrome won't prevent him in living a long, full life. He's not confined to a wheelchair. We don't have to spend $40,000 a month on his medical bills. I only have to worry about when he'll start walking, not if he'll ever walk. We have a great son and I'm glad we get to raise him.

Zombies eat plants?

We had a fun little celebration for Mckay's birthday. He got some awesome presents, but I think his favorite one is the one from his parents:

It's a really fun computer game. In order to protect your family from being eaten by Zombies, you grow plants in your yard that defend and fight the zombies. Sounds awesome! Mckay has been playing pretty much non-stop since he opened it, so I think he likes it. He also got some CDs that he's been wanting from his amazing wife.

For his birthday dinner I made short ribs that were recently featured on Julie's and Katie's blogs. The fall-apart tender and flavorful meat was paired nicely with some German potato salad and corn on the cob. Unfortunately, the camera battery was dead and we were too hungry to wait, so there are no pictures of the delicious dinner. You'll just have to try out the short rib recipe to see for yourself.

For his birthday "cake," Mckay requested Cream Puffs filled with Bavarian cream. I think he likes to keep me on my toes and give me a challenge, because I had never made either of those things before in my life. The cream puffs were actually really easy and pretty quick to make. I think I'm going to make them more often. The bavarian cream was definitely an adventure to tackle. It's made by heating milk and adding eggs slowly while stirring so as not to cook the eggs on contact and have scrambled eggs floating in your pudding. Surprisingly, I did really well with that part. I think my down fall was in adding to much unflavored gelatin as a thickening agent. When the cream set up, it was REALLY thick and gooey, almost like a mayonnaise consistency. The cream still tasted pretty good though.

I think there's a reason why instant Jell-o pudding has become so popular. It's so much faster, easier and tastes better.

It was fun to try making a new thing. And If it's to make this man happy,

I'll make bavarian cream any day.

Happy Birthday Mckay. I love you.

Happy Birthday Mckay!

Mckay turned 24 today!

I made him pancakes and bacon for breakfast, with a choice of maple or raspberry syrup.

Last night we went Mini-Golfing with a bunch of his Purdue buddies. We had a really good time. I've realized that engineers are the same anywhere, whether at Purdue or BYU.

Dallin had a few good shots on the green.

He had a good time as well, and he enjoyed being the only baby among a bunch of grad students.

3 Things

*The laundry in our building costs $1.50 for each wash and each dry. That's about $10 a week on laundry for our family. Ridiculous! However, yesterday I discovered something that made me happy. The dryers are really huge. I put 2 loads of wash into 1 dryer and all the clothes came out absolutely dry. Success!

*Now that we've moved to a new state, we have to go through the process of getting Dallin started with a new Early Intervention program so he can receive physical therapy services. A lady from the Indiana program came to meet with me and Dallin today. She needed all kinds of information to get started, like his current pediatrician in Indiana (we don't have a pediatrician here for Dallin yet), his health insurance information (we're waiting to get approved for his Medicaid health insurance), and pay stubs from Mckay's current job (he won't get any pay checks from Purdue until the end of September). I could tell she was a little frustrated with not having everything she needed and our proof of income, but I just didn't have it to give to her. Most of the information she needed was to see if we would qualify for free services. I really just wanted to say, "Look, I promise you, we are poor enough." Luckily, I think she has enough information that we can get Dallin started in the program.

*Tomorrow is Mckay's birthday and his parents are coming out to visit us for the weekend. They came to visit us last year on Mckay's birthday too and they brought him a laptop as a present. I wonder what they'll get him this year? A car? Maybe a vacuum? We could use one of those.

I'm off to clean and get the apartment ready for a birthday and visitors!

Our "Lovely" Apartment

Since we were in Utah all summer and didn't get a chance to come out to Indiana to look for an apartment, we did it through the internet and phone. We knew we were taking a risk doing it this way, but we figured that everything would work out just fine and we'd make do with what we got. Well, I don't want to say we were wrong, but we are discovering that the apartment we got is not quite what we hoped or thought it was.

Our new apartment is a little smaller than our last one. It still has 2 bedrooms, but it has less square footage and A LOT less storage space. We're still unpacking and having trouble finding a place for everything.

Here is our closet,...oops... I mean kitchen.

The great thing about cooking and baking in a closet kitchen is that the rest of the house doesn't get hot. The bad part is that the people in the kitchen are burning up.

One thing I do like about it though is that it's hidden from view so when people come over, they can't see your dirty kitchen from the front door or living room.

The person who designed these cabinets clearly has never cooked before or tried to store groceries on the shelves. They are the wrong height for everything! The shelves are too short for typical glass bottles like teriyaki sauce, worchestershire sauce and olive oil. How am I supposed to cook with out those things in my kitchen?

And they're just barely too short to stack 2 cans on top of each other.

Why would you make a shelve that is centimeters too short for the standard 15 oz. cans to be stacked? It boggles the mind! Not only am I seriously lacking in storage space, but I can't even efficiently use the space I have!

Here's our dining area/storage closet.

I just "love" that when the closet door is open, it blocks the narrow entrance into the kitchen.

When we first moved in, we noticed that one of the shelves in the closet was being held up precariously by two tiny nails; nails that failed as soon as something was put on the shelf.

I called a maintenance guy to come fix the shelf. When he saw it he said it would be an easy fix. I heard some drilling for 30 seconds, he said he was done, and then left.

This is how he "fixed" the shelf.

Putting a few screws under it to support it? Really?!?!?

Does any one else notice how the shelf isn't level?

All these things combined with our dissatisfaction with the management make us really glad that we're stuck in an 11-month lease.

One point of comfort we find in all this is that at least we decided to rent without seeing it first. If we had jumped right into buying a house from across the country without seeing it first and had all these problems, we'd be stuck. At least now we can take our time and make sure that we find a house we really are comfortable with. And our dislike of our current apartment will make us more eager to find a house and ensure that we are out of here in 11 months!

30 days hath September

Happy September!

I know that I've been pretty bad about blogging this past summer. Most of it was due to lack of convenient internet access, but now that we're getting settled here in Indiana and I have internet AND a laptop at my fingertips, there is no excuse. So I have made a goal to blog every day for the month of September. That's right, 30 blog posts in 30 days. Since most of you have never lived in Indiana, and our closest family members are more than a 16 hour drive away, hopefully this will give you a taste of what our new life and home is like. And maybe entice you to visit us...?

I can't promise that I'll actually be able to post everyday, but I'll try really hard to. At the very least, it will definitely be an increase from my normal blog posts.

What better way to start off the month than talking about Dallin! He likes to watch the things we do and copy them. Yesterday I was eating some carrots and he grabbed one and started chewing. We all know of Dallin's aversion to food, so I was surprised by this.

(Note: he didn't actually eat any carrot. He just played with it.)

My favorite thing that he's started doing is pretending to talk on the phone.

One day he picked up my phone, put it up to his ear and started talking gibberish.

All by himself.

I love it!

I've noticed he's more likely to "talk" on the phone if there is something talking back to him. In this video, there is music playing on the phone.

Oddly enough, if there is an actual person on the phone and you hold it up to Dallin's ear, he won't talk. He just stares at the phone.

Haircut

I've always thought it would be cool to learn the basics of cutting hair. That way, I could cut my husband and kid's hair and it would save a lot of money. Plus, I used to cut my Barbie dolls hair all the time. How hard could it be, right?

A few months ago, Mckay got his haircut and the barber missed a big patch of hairs in the back. So Mckay had me trim them and fix up his hair, and it turned out pretty well.

Mckay's hair keeps growing and it was time once again for a haircut. Having such great success with the last little bit I cut, Mckay let me cut all of his hairs.

Before:

We bought a hair trimming kit that came with a razor and all the attachments. It even came with little hair cutting scissors. I didn't really know what I was doing, but Mckay has gotten his hair cut quite a few times before and he's watched them do it, so he felt pretty confident in directing me while I cut. I was really nervous the entire time, but it got easier as I got the hang of it.

I think I did a pretty good job.

After:

The hardest part for me was the side burns and trimming the bottom line of the hair around the neck. The rest was pretty easy because the guide on the razor made it hard to cut off too much hair. But getting the shape right at the bottom was all free hand, and I've never been good at symmetry or drawing straight lines. But it looks pretty good.

(And as you can tell from his school picture in the previous post, Mckay trimmed his beard. I don't think he would have trusted me to do that, because I probably would have shaved it all off.)

So watch out, Sarah. You're not the only one learning how to cut hair.