Happy Birthday to Me!

What a terrible- turned wonderful birthday!

It was strange, way out here in the wilderness. My husband treated me to lunch in town (thank you Mama Z for the yummy food!), a hot shower (also in town, $7 and worth every penny), and he even picked up ice cream ($12 for a small box) to go with the cobbler he made for that night.

When we got home from town, I went right to work making chili. It was such a cold day and earlier while getting in the boat I had done my best NOT to step in the water quickly seeping in through the hold in the boat. To no avail, we turned a corner and my foot slipped (sadly I was wearing my comfy tent slippers and not water friendly shoes). That meant for the rest of the cold, rainy day my one foot was completely wet and terribly cold.

That one little incident about threw me over the edge. I was cold, tired and now wet. I wanted to cry. I had almost forgotten that this dreaded day was also my birthday until I looked over at my husband (trying hard to make me laugh) now standing in our little fishing boat, with an oar in one hand and singing at the top of his lungs in his best Italian accent using our boat like a gondola and waking up the neighbors (or at least scaring the fish away) singing.

I enjoyed the trip in town, enjoyed making (and especially eating) the chili and to top it all off, Chase had invited the Swenson family and our friend Bill over to our tent that evening for cobbler and ice cream.

He made a large pan of strawberry, peach cobbler. It was all the fruit we had in the pantry and we ended up with not enough topping, but boy was it yummy when paired with cold ice cream!
The Swenson family (minus our Zina girl) came over to share in the festivities. How I love them! The entire family just lights up the room and are clever, bright and amusing.

The girls presented me with an award that I will not soon forget:
I laughed as I read the reference in the scriptures later that night and the reference to Sariah (Lehi's wife) while they were living in tents (sound familiar) and tarrying in the wilderness. When I came to the part where she complained to her husband (in my own words) saying, "You brought us here. You made us leave our home to live in a tent. This is your fault." I just laughed to myself.

Just as Sariah was, I too have been rebuked at times for my sour attitude about living in these unfavorable conditions and every once in a while it's good to be reminded of that.

They also drew a beautiful card (their family is creative and crafty) and gave me a superb jar of rhubarb and orange jam. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Swenson family!
Along with those goodies I also got a jar of pickles and olives from Jillian. Some of you may wonder about her intentions, but I'll tell you right now, that girl knows me well! Many times during the last three months Jillian and I have been stuck in the waiting game waiting for all sorts of things. It's funny that during many of those times we were starving and to our rescue came green olives. Plus, I haven't been feeling too good lately and sometimes the weirdest things sound good to me. Case in point- I once ate an entire jar of pickles (the good, cold, crunchy kind) in one sitting. Thank you Sis for the thoughtful gift. Trust me when I say, it will not go to waste!

What was also so great on my birthday was that while in town we dropped by one of the local gift shoppes to use the internet. What great fun it was to see so many people (many from Facebook) leaving birthday wishes. It almost made me cry! I was feeling so far from home and missing friends and family terribly when I saw over 100 messages in my inbox. People I haven't talked to in years taking the time to say happy birthday. I'm not very good at that. I don't get on facebook sometimes as much as I like and I admire those people who keep up with that stuff and send greetings and simple hellos. You will never know how much that meant to me!

Also while in town that day, I got to call my mom. How great it was to hear her voice! We've always been close and with the exception of my mission have talked on the phone many times a week. These last three months have been torture not to call her and tell her the funny thing the baby started doing or to bring him over and hang out. How grateful I am to live close to my mom and sister. Again, something I am so lucky to get to do.

I had a short conversation on my birthday with the baby. Since we returned from Calgary, his dad and I have been working tirelessly on crawling with him, now that we had (somewhat makeshift) floors. I told him I didn't need much on my birthday but that if he could start to crawl (at least before we head home) that would be a great gift to me!

Well, ta-duh! Guess what he decided to do the day after? It was really thanks to Chase. I was in the cook tent tending to dishes for the umpteenth time and I could hear the baby kind of grumping off and on. I guess Chase was not taking any rolling from him and every time he'd go to roll instead of crawl, Chase would place him back on his hands and knees. The good news is his persistence paid off!

Click here for the video of the baby crawling the day after my birthday.

He has also decided that with crawling, he should be standing too. He pulls himself up on everything he can find. Some things stable, and some not so stable (he's had a few minor falls but nothing serious). Once he finds a good, steady set of hands, he's up! I can't even put him in his kennel (pack and play) without him immediately standing up and wanting back out again.
Oh boy. Here we go.