In the Garden

I've made mention of my garden before. It's a community garden, so I have to travel a few blocks to it. But we have our own plot, which is PLENTY big, and they have a water spigot thing, and we have a hose and a sprinkler, so everything works out. A couple months ago Morgan and I planted our garden. We only planted a row of green beans, two hills each of cucumbers and squash, and left room for more. See, I had planted some squash, cucumbers and watermelons in cups at home before and planned on transplanting them when they started sprouting. That didn't work too well, but I may have a watermelon plant growing too. Later we added three Eggplant plants, which my aunt gave me. The tomatoes are in our backyard in planters, and are doing horribly! Which makes me very sad.
Anyway, here is the garden the day we planted it.

Here are some of the neighboring gardens from yesterday. Beautiful, no?
Such nicely tended rows, no weeds, lots of successful produce.

Here is mine. Embarrassingly sparse. My poor row of pilfered green beans there in the back...

But as embarrassing as it is, look! I actually got some fruit from my labors!

Beauties. So last night I decided to experiment. I found a recipe online for a squash casserole. I used two of my prized produce and mixed them with the other ingredients. When I put it in the oven I was very worried. The concoction was a goopy mess. I didn't see how the soupy mix would harden into anything worth eating.

But it turned out okay looking.

My first bite was bland. I added salt. My second bite was delicious! Seriously, I liked it so much and was ready to noise abroad how excellent this recipe was. But somewhere around the 5th bite, it became rather repulsive. I think it's regurgitated-like consistency spoiled it for me and threatened my gag reflex. The taste wasn't bad, just the mushiness. I finished my plate though. Later, if I thought about dinner, it made me sick. We still have half a casserole left. Any takers??

Small Victories

I've always said that I would never have a three year old that wasn't potty trained. But Morgan will be three in three months, and he isn't potty trained and seems to have little interest in being so. However, the last few days I have upped the ante with the whole potty training issue. We bought him some Cars underpants, which he was very excited about, and I started having him wear them. Last week, on Wednesday, he went through 4 pairs of underpants and and shorts before nap time, so I gave up. Until a couple days ago.
On Monday Morgan's diaper was dry when he got up, which is rare, so I convinced him to sit on the toilet. He did. For a LONG time. I brought him books to read, and after awhile he had a few dribbles that I counted as a success. (Though I still think he was holding it in as best he could.)

Tuesday morning Morgan woke up dry again. So back to the toilet. Out came the books. This time Morgan really had a serious stream. :) And it seemed to delight and mystify him. I think he might have made some important connections though. So we had crazy mommy celebrations and Morgan got a sucker.
Yesterday I put him on the toilet in the morning and there he sat for WAY too long without success. But this time I put him in underwear rather than a diaper. It was probably only 10 minutes after he got off the potty that he peed his pants. It went like this. We were in my bedroom, I was cleaning it and Morgan was doing his best to counteract that. Morgan started to make some very distressed noises, which at first led me to believe he had his fingers caught in the closet door, by which he was standing. Then I noticed the funny way he stood. Then he said, "the toilet!" So I rushed him to it, but it was too late at this point. I cleaned up the puddle in our bedroom, (luckily we have no carpet in this house) and then put a different pair of underwear on Morgan. I was a little encouraged because he was finally upset about peeing his pants. The week before he didn't seem to mind one bit.
So, I'd been asking Morgan all morning if he needed to go potty. Usually I got a very decisive, "NO!" I asked again, and got the same, "No!" but then he walked to the bathroom and said that he DID want to use it after all. And folks, he did! It worked! He barely even cracked a book this time.
A bit later that day I suggested Morgan sit on the toilet for awhile so I could take him to the garden without him having to go to the bathroom while we were out. I really didn't expect success from Morgan this time, but pee he did! Suckers all around.
At nap time I put him in a diaper again, but the morning preceding the nap, he only had one accident and two successes. Oh yes, and the world was our burrito.

Cousin Fun

This past weekend my sister Stephanie and her kids Anna and Mattie visited. Yay! They arrived late Friday night after Morgan was in bed. I hadn't told Morgan that his cousins were coming because I wanted it to be a surprise, and because Morgan has no sense of time. If I said that Anna and Mattie were coming tomorrow he would run to the window and look out of it for hours just waiting for them.
So, when our visitors arrived we chatted and such, and either we woke up Morgan or he hadn't actually slept yet. But I heard excited screams and chirps coming from his bedroom and made the decision to let him come out to greet his cousins. When I went into his room he said in an excited, high-pitched squeal, "I wanna see Mattie!" I don't know how he knew Mattie was here rather than some other child. Then he jumped around the house in complete happiness and took far too long to settle down to sleep.

The next day we walked/rode to the commissary, went swimming, had a barbecue with my cousins, played Rockband and board games and had a grand ol' time.
Thanks for the visit Stephanie!

The Green Bean Lament

When I planted my garden, I planted a row of green beans. Those little charmers were the first plants to pop out of the ground, giving me many warm fuzzies. My happiness increased with each new baby green been plant. At our peak, I counted 20 plants.
Now, folks, we are down to ten. And at least two of those haven't got any leaves on them anymore and are on their way to death. After much sadness and worried contemplation and a battle with the red ant hills nearby, I've concluded that the perpetrator is a gopher. It goes underneath my hill and pulls out the plants from down there! He pulls them into his underground burrow leaving nothing for me to bury up top. I feel pretty helpless to stop it too.

In happier news, my yellow squash plants, (which haven't been stolen by ugly, bucktoothed, vermin) have fruit growing! The big yellow flowers have turned into little yellow squashes. Ooooh, I'm so excited. Now I just need to figure out how to know when to pull them.

The End

Strange things are happening to me

Time for a boring post just about me. Friday morning I woke up to Morgan trying to open his door and get out of his room. With the swamp cooler on these days the wooden doors expand, which, in turn, makes it hard to open them. For a little two year old it is mostly impossible. So I stood up with the intention of freeing my child, but immediately learned that that was a mistake. I was so dizzy! So I braced myself on the bed and waited for the wave of dizziness to pass, but it didn't. In fact, I was so dizzy that I started getting nauseous. So I fell back into bed and informed my husband that he won the Get Up With The Child prize that morning.
And that was the beginning of a very strange day. I pretty much was stuck in bed all day long. Any attempt to get up, (or even lift my head) resulted in nauseating dizziness. It was insane! But I still had to use the bathroom occasionally. So I'd wobble unsteadily with my arms outstretched for balance and ready to catch myself if I fell.
Around midday I tried to get up and feed my child and be a normal human being, but I over did it and retreated to bed with my throw-up bowl just in case.
It must have been vertigo. After a nap that afternoon, (what else are you supposed to do while in bed all day??) I was feeling a little better and was able to stumble around a bit without getting sick. As long as I took it really easy I could remain out of bed too.
The next morning the symptoms were completely gone.

Also, I have been experiencing other symptoms regularly that lead me to believe that I may have Celiacs disease. It just seems that eating brings me pain. Not the sick-to-the-stomach that we are all familiar with though, it's much different. And I have a few relatives that have it, and it is genetic. Pretty much the only cure is to never eat anything with gluten in it. What has gluten? Pretty much everything yummy. Breads, pastas, lunch meats, cakes, cookies, candy, etc. I could eat veggies and fruit and rice.

I have felt this yucky feeling before, but never so consistantly. However, it can rear it's ugly head more when you are stressed, so says my experienced cousin. This past week has been very stressful. I had to speak in sacrament meeting AND sub in Relief Society last Sunday, among other very stressful things. Anyway, I hope I don't have it. But I would still like to know why I never feel good.

A puppy!

Not too long ago our little family went to Springville to visit with Aaron's grandparents and cousins and parents and aunt and uncle and sister. Whew! Anyway, Aaron's cousin Brian was getting ready to enter the MTC for his mission to Boise Idaho. Yep, you read that right. :) Anyway, his family is from California and so when they all came over to Utah they brought their tiny chihuahua. I think she was somewhere around 9 weeks old.
Now, Aaron and I both share the opinion that small dogs are pretty useless, but this little pup was pretty stinkin' cute. Morgan loved her immediately and scared the poor thing every time he got too close.

Aaron kept making comments about what how dumb chihuahuas are and how someone should take it outside and wait for a hawk to come and find it, and yet he held it as often as the infatuated teenage girls, and was even seen making kissy faces at the dog. Hehe. :)I don't think we will ever be dog owners, but if we were, we would get a real dog, as opposed to toy dogs. But this little puppy was pretty cute anyway.

I think we need to break it off

Journals.

June 25, 2004
On Saturday the ward went boating and tubing. I went too. It was tons of fun. My arms were exceedingly sore though. Aaron gave me a really cute tee-shirt that day. It's a girls face with a polar bear head on her head. Rather different, but I really like it.
On Sunday Aaron came over. We finally got by ourselves and we had another marriage talk. We both expressed desires to marry the other. I was happy.
Monday we talked about our dreams. It is amazing how identical they are. We both want to travel, write a book, paint a picture worth painting, sky-dive, have a family.

Then I write several pages about how on Wednesday Aaron broke up with me. A few more pages about an awful week, then more pages yet of how he came back a week later and UN-broke up with me.

Then...
August 8, 2004
Now it has been 1 1/2 months since we broke up, and things are going great. Our relationship has seriously improved a ton from this. We communicate a bunch better, and we are a lot closer. I am no longer going to go back to school. Instead I am going to stay home and work, and most likely get married in November. I'm not engaged, but we talk seriously about marriage and that is kind of the plan. I hope it happens. I love Aaron so much! He is so good to me.

Tricycle

A couple weekends ago while we visited friends in Ogden, Morgan got to ride a tricycle. He loved it, even though he didn't really know how to use it. But his little friend did.
A couple days later I saw a little boy Morgans age ride past the house on a tiny bike with training wheels. These events made Aaron and I realize that Morgan needed something to ride around like that. So we got him a trike last weekend. He must have thought it was Christmas, he was so excited.
Still, when he sees the new toy for the first time each day, he gets excited. He's getting better about using the pedals correctly.

Morgan was very involved as Aaron put his tricycle together. He was a good helper.

Since it was raining the day we got it, Morgan tried it out in the living room.

The Dugway 4th Celebration

Last Wednesday the Dugway community had a big Independence Day bash. They let all the employees off early, (4:00) and had fun stuff going on. Since the majority of employees out here have 4 day weeks, they got Thursday off for the holiday.
Anyway, we basically just went across the street to the celebration. Morgan had seen the jump house things go up earlier in the day and was very anxious to check them out. He loved this obstacle course thing and did it many times.

He also enjoyed the jump house.
Just before 5:00 we headed back to across the street to our house and got out our camping chairs and set them up at the end of the driveway. The parade came through right past our house. Remember all the candy Morgan got from the parade in Ogden? Well, he got just as much from this little Dugway parade! We are set for a LONG time on the candy front. Look, there was so much that Aaron had to help Morgan gather it. Serious.

One thing that was thrown to Morgan was an inflatable crown. He tried it on.

After the parade we headed back for more fun. When it got dark we headed to a grassy field by the gym and waited for fireworks. Then it started raining. :( Well, sprinkling, anyway. But the firework show still happened. We were really close to where they were launching them. We could see the men lighting the fireworks and everything. We were surprised at how good a show little Dugway puts on. It lasted for at least a half hour and the fireworks were great.
I was laying on a blanket with Morgan. Halfway through the show I noticed that Morgan was sleeping! It was pretty late, and he didn't have a nap that day, but the fireworks were loud! I don' t know how he managed it. And it's not the first time Morgan's fallen asleep during noisy fireworks either.

Aaron is handy

Here are more journals. All boring like.

June 11, 2004
Well, I'm back. I think I will go to college. I'm still in love with Aaron. Of course. He is my life. I think he is a lot like Dad in some ways. They are both very smart, kind of geeky type, both funny, both like installing things and that sort of thing. Both willing to spend big bucks on cool electronic toys, but both frugal in other ways. Aaron is handy. I don't know him well enough.

I think I must have written this after Aaron bought an XM radio, the price of which seemed outrageous to me. Haha.
And... another entry because that was short.

June 16, 2004
Aaron and I had a real discussion about marriage...with each other. He said he knows that I'll make a good wife and mother, and he does love me. He also said that he doesn't know me well enough. Which is true. But he said that that was only a matter of time. He told me many flattering things,things about why he knows I'll be a good wife and mother, and what he liked about me. I wish I could have had everything tape recorded or something. I would have liked to hear it more than once. But anyway, I do want to marry him. He is practically perfect in every way. Smart, funny, has a testimony, gentleman-like, polite, kind, dedicated, responsible, good with kids, handsome, strong, wonderful smile, beautiful eyes, and everything good. He is going to treat his wife right. I can tell already. Well, maybe someday I will be Mrs. Nelson! Hmm, what a grand thought.

Indeed, why can't those sorts of things be recorded and available for replaying?? I was right though, he does treat his wife pretty darn good.

Oh! Here is a little poem that I found in my journal. Aaron composed and texted it to me and I wrote it down on the back of singles ward activity announcement and stuck it in the journal.

Though fish love you,
and full moons abound,

Though sheep sleep through
your dreams of sound.

Still, I'll hear you;
My love I've found.

I read it now and it's complete nonsense, (or I don't have the poetic eye) but back then, new love colored it profound.

Mrs. Nelson signing off!

Ogden Parade

Last weekend we went to a parade in Ogden with our friends Mark and Anna and their two little girls Elizabeth and Elaina. Morgan and Elizabeth are two months apart and get along great. We stayed at their home the night before and Morgan had a blast playing with Elizabeth.

Here they are a year and some change ago. They liked each other then too.

Waiting for the parade. It was a hot morning.

The candy was thrown and the two kids were great at collecting it. However, sometimes there was SO MUCH candy that a couple of us adults needed to help. Seriously. Fistfuls of tootsie rolls were thrown in our direction and there were only two little kids around. There were a couple of ladies seated somewhat near us, but they didn't want the candy that was thrown at them, so Morgan and Elizabeth cleaned up. And boy did they.

Check out this loot!

It came just as I started a weight loss competition. *Groan*

I've never done so well as a kid at a parade. Morgan's going to think this is normal.