A True Hero

My sister in law's dad, Mark Rampton, who is a family practice doctor in Corvallis, OR, flew down to Haiti last week to provide emergency medical care to the victims of the earthquake. You can read more about it here and on Lisa's blog.

I wanted to post about it here because I am so moved by his willingness to volunteer to be a "first responder"; to put his life/practice/comfortable existence on hold and to use his skills to help alleviate unimaginable suffering. He is part of a small team of LDS doctors and nurses who are literally camping out in Port-au-Prince, administering emergency medical care from the 50 or so dufflebags of supplies that they brought with them. Their own safety is far from assured as aftershocks continue to threaten and lawlessness is bound to increase as people get more desperate. The horror of the scale of the calamity is something that I'm sure we cannot grasp here watching it on TV from our living rooms. It is a really brave thing to go into a situation like that. He and the other emergency responders have my utmost respect.

Mele Kalikimaka

Ok, I have really been a bum about updating this blog. It is because I have fallen victim to my latest Internet obsession--combing through real estate options in Nashville. Craigslist, Trulia, HotPads, RealTracs--I've logged more time on those sites than I care to admit. It's honestly what I do with every minute of my spare time (when I'm not obsessively cleaning and tidying the house in the event that it needs to be shown at a moments notice.)

So, in an effort to curb my addiction, I am going to post an update (or two) about whatsahappenin' chez nous.

When Ryan was just a wee lad his mother painted a Matchbox car town for him and his brothers to play cars. This town was painted on canvas and was based on their Kansas City neighborhood. It had their house, the elementary school, the church, some of their neighborhood friends houses, etc. Ryan has great memories of countless hours playing with Matchbox cars on this play mat.

Given our boys' interest in all things automotive, he asked if we could have the play mat. No dice. You see, Ryan's sister, Kim, married a guy from Kansas City; a boy whose childhood home is ALSO on the Matchbox car play mat. How cool is that! Since they, too, have boys who are obsessed with cars, they get to keep the original Matchbox car play mat.

Not to be deterred, Ryan decided to paint his own Matchbox car town and give it to the boys for Christmas. But instead of basing it on our actual neighborhood, he chose his IDEAL neighborhood--specifically the sweet little surf town of Hanalei, Hawaii.  

How freaking cool is that?!?!?!

This is the town where we rented a house with a bunch of his best friends from college last August (a trip that is often referred to simply as The Best Vacation Ever (TM). 

Oh, yeah, that's the golf course in Princeville. That's Ryan teeing up.

 

He painted the Hanalei River where we went kayaking.

The Kilauea Lighthouse.

 

The one lane bridge that spans the divide between Hanalei and the rest of the world.

It wouldn't be Hawaii without shave ice.

Bubba Burgers are the BOMB! [Not to be confused with Bubba Burger (singular) which are pre-made frozen patties...quite a different thing altogether.]

The Hanalei Farmer's Market was two blocks from our house...did I mention that this was also MY ideal town?

 

Tunnels Dive Shop...ok, this place doesn't really exist, but the dive site was called Tunnels reef, so Ryan took some creative liberties.

Tahiti Nui...this place does exist and Ryan and his buddies apparently made quite a spectacle of themselves at karaoke night. I went to bed early. Seems I missed out.

Our beach house, complete with hot tub and grill.

 

The church in Hanalei. There actually was an LDS meeting house around the corner from our house but it was a pretty simple structure so Ryan chose to paint this beauty instead. Didn't he do an awesome job?!?! Check out those stained glass windows, folks!

   

And finally, the Waimea Canyon. Ryan is really proud of this one because he didn't have a picture of the canyon to use as a guide while he was painting and so he just drew and painted from his memory of the place. He did a pretty incredible job, in my completely unbiased opinion.

The boys loved it and were thrilled with all the new Matchbox cars that they got, too. 

Mr. Potato Heads

Are these kids hilarious or what!? Tonight they made me laugh so hard. I don't know what was funnier, Elliot's surprising me with Mr. Potato Head's glasses smooshed on his fat cheeks or Oliver's anatomically correct placement of  Mr. Potato Head's "bottom".  

Boring But Important

So some of my devoted readers (hi Mom and Abby!) have noticed that I have taken a little hiatus from blogging. It's not because there's nothing going on around here. Actually we have had some really noteworthy events in the last month and a half: we spent a long weekend on the Outer Banks with seven other couples and our combined 16 kids, Ryan ran the OBX half-marathon; we got a visit from Scott and Jennie, two of our favorite people from Cornell; a few hours after Scott and Jennie left we welcomed Saydi and Jeff, who stopped by our house on their way from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore (we were honored that they took the small detour to hit Raleigh on their Thanksgiving break East Coast tour); soon after the Shumways left Ryan's parents and Blake arrived for Thanksgiving. All of this and more I hope to blog about soon, complete with captivating photography and vivid prose...it'll make you feel like you were right there. 

But in the meantime, I'll let you all in on why we have been a bit preoccupied. 

We are moving. To Nashville, Tennessee. We don't know when. 

At the beginning of November Ryan was offered a promotion to a new position in his company's Nashville office. It caught us totally off-guard. We didn't really want to relocate. The company sent us out to Nashville to check things out. We came home from that trip feeling like we REALLY didn't want to relocate (Nashville, despite its awesome reputation, is not THAT different from Raleigh, with the glaringly obvious distinction that none of our friends lives in Nashville). The company figured out that we didn't really want to move so they made us "an offer we couldn't refuse." Not in The Godfather sense (no horse heads in our bed) but they made it pretty clear that they really wanted Ryan to fill this position and so they made him a generous offer. So, that's nice. I really am proud of Ryan that he has done such a good job at work and that he is being recognized. We think this move is probably a good step for Ryan's career. Yep. And we are committed to not look back once we move. We will really dive in and make the most of our time in Nashville. Once we get there. 

But until then we are feeling really in limbo. We are trying to figure out what we are going to do with our house here (sell or rent it out), what we are going to do about housing there, whether I will live here with the boys until the house sells or move out there and hope something magical happens so we won't have two house payments. The company will buy us out if the house doesn't sell in 5 months, so it's not like there's no end in sight. But we could be here until May, since we aren't even going to list the house until January. 

Ryan started working in Nashville last week. He is staying in a hotel during the week and coming home on Friday evening. We are trying to maximize our time on the weekends, reconnecting with each other and spending time with the many dear and AMAZING friends we have here. So far (a week and a half into what may be a many-month ordeal) it is actually quite nice. We are both amazed at how productive we are with our free time, and how connected we feel when we read the scriptures together on the phone in the mornings and discuss the day's events in the evenings. One of the reasons I have been able to hold it together as a single mother is that I am getting to bed earlier that I usually do when Ryan's at home. Tonight is an exception so I better sign off because tomorrow evening, when I am feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, there will be no reinforcements arriving to help with the bedtime battle. 

Backyard Mudbox

These are some pictures from early November of the boys in what used to be my garden. I pulled out all the overgrown tomatoes and basil and now almost every afternoon they go to town digging for worms, building volcanoes and generally making a big muddy mess.

Halloween Pics

 

This year the boys went as characters from the Disney movie Toy Story. Oliver was space ranger Buzz Lightyear and Elliot was his tiny cowboy sidekick, Woody. Oliver is REALLY into Toy Story (thanks again Adam...that DVD is still a big hit!) so he was just ecstatic to get dressed up as Buzz Lightyear. I got both costumes secondhand on Ebay in early September which I thought was pretty clever/frugal of me until I realized (the day before Halloween) that Oliver's was missing some critical components (his wings and the helmet!) Dang it!! Fortunately Oliver didn't seem to notice that his costume was anything short of glorious. 

We went to a Halloween party at Ryan's office, then to a very cute "Halloween Cupcake Spooktacular" party on Friday night. Our church had a Halloween party on Saturday morning and then we had a neighborhood parade to kick off trick or treating on Saturday. Whew! We are all Halloweened out!

    

I also dyed my hair brown on Thursday. It's not as dark as I had wanted but I like it. It sort of looks natural (especially when I don't brush it after I get out of the shower like in these pictures.) I know, I'm SO high maintenance!

 

I love this picture because all the other kids were really focused on trick or treating and Oliver was completely in his own world, freaking out because he noticed the full moon. He was saying "Look, guys, the MOON!!!" and the other kids were like "So what? Dude, stay on task here... we're about to get candy!"

Bad Guys

Oliver is really interested in "bad guys" these days. He talks a lot about what bad guys do (they say "dumb" and "stupid" and they "not listen" among other abominations.) Sweet Oliver is so charmingly far from being a bad guy "in real life" that it is funny when he tries on the bad guy role "just for pee-tend." Now I'm all for creative role playing but look who he had in his sights...