Follow up on "Change is in the air"

Just to catch you up:

My mom's surgery went great! She is in pain, of course, but doing actually quite well! My sister came out from MN this week and we had a blast cooking up some food for Mom and Dad's freezer! She also had the master plan to plant my mom's fall mum pots for her and all sort's of other wonderful things to help out! Mom will have weeks of recovery (if not month's), but we are so excited to see how well she is doing!

Everything is set for fall for school for both Mark and I. Mark will be substitute teaching at a number of area school districts (and networking because people immediately love him!) He will also be taking 3 classes this fall and then student teaching in the spring. He will be certified to teach next fall and very soon after that have his Master's complete!

I will be going to school full-time for Elem. Ed/Early Childhood. I am taking 18 credits, which I am nervous about, but I'd like to go for it! I have 2.5 to 3 years left depending on how I do as a student/mom :) It's handy that Maya will be demonstrating the very subject I"m studying for me!

Maya did not make the cut for the University daycare. The Montana Health Dept. would not allow Maya to attend daycare with her vaccine schedule the way we have set it. They provided a compromise (that was actually, in fact, a dance around way of NOT compromising...loveliness). We decided that we would not bend on our convictions. I have found a wonderful woman who has her Education degree and stays home currently with her own 3 children. She will take Maya for me while I am in class! She will give her breakfast, snacks and lunch. She does preschool activities with the children and takes them to the park! Maya will be with Joni on Monday and Wednesday. I will have her Tuesdays and Thursdays and she will have Daddy day on Fridays! I am actually much more excited about this option and glad it seems to be working out for the best! I am sorry that Montana is not more open, but we have found a wonderful solution and I am so glad to have it figured out!

Foodie baby

Maya has always had a love for food (especially fruit). She could care less about french fries (I know, she is so super cool)! She also hesitates at green beans and broccoli. Otherwise, you can throw pretty much anything at this kid and she'll chow down.

I also noticed the other day that she has no idea what that very identifiable sound of an opening candy wrapper is all about. Most kids hear that crinkle and come running, but not Maya! She has had candy, but very little and SO rarely, that she doesn't respond to that familiar sound! I wish I didn't!

She has been a sponge lately! I have been working on my own sign language skills and then showing her. She knows the signs for : more, all done, thank you, please, help, bear, dog, cat, flower, Aunt, and water. She may be attempting others, it is sometimes hard to say! She also recognizes her name spelled in sign.

I can tell keeping up with this kid will only get more fun and become a greater challenge!

Ruth and Don's Wedding

We headed to Vermont last Thursday for Ruth (Mark's sister) and Don's wedding! They were married on Saturday and it was beautiful!

Maya did much better than I expected on the flights. We had three flights to get out there. We handled it with a Kelty carrier given to us from a friend, cookies, and a portable DVD player with Curious George! We had to run to catch our plane in Salt Lake, Maya cheered the entire time we ran through the airport!

In Vermont we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast, relaxed with family and enjoyed the small and beautiful wedding! Maya ran around barefoot in the grass and had a blast.

I had never been to New England. The towns were very cute with hills full of trees and old buildings. I really enjoyed the fact that Vermont doesn't allow billboards and also has very few big box stores and chains. There is something very peaceful about the whole thing. We went to Burlington on Sunday and hung out on Church St. where there are many very talented street performers (and a Ben and Jerry's scoop shop!)

Our return home was the hard part as we got to NYC and had to run to another terminal for our next flight. This involved going outside, crossing a parking lot packed with taxis, and going through security all over again. Then, we loaded the plane only to end up sitting on the runway for over 4 hours. We did end up in Minneapolis Monday night. We slept at my sister's place for a few hours (thank God they live there!!) and went back to the airport Tuesday morning to catch an early flight (through Denver) home. I would be lying if I told you Maya fell apart (she rocked), but I almost did! We got our luggage finally today and all is finally good!

The trip home was insane, but we had so much fun with Mark's family and especially enjoyed the chance to get to know Ruth's husband, Don, a bit more as we had only met him for a few days last summer. Maya adores him! Congrats to Ruth and Don!!!

p.s. We are thinking next time we take 2 weeks and drive out pulling a camper! We would have no one to blame but ourselves if we got stranded!!!