Up to Washington…

Just to finish up the Nielson U.S. tour in June, we ended our trip in Washington state to visit Tanner’s family. We had a lot of fun seeing all the family, and the reunion up in Mossyrock was particularly awesome! This is how we found Andrew and Audrey the first night back in Vancouver.

(It’s been a year since we took Andrew’s hacie away, and yet…there it is)

We spent some time at our favorite park in the neighborhood. Playing outside at clean parks is really such a treat.

There were motorcycle rides with Grandpa around the neighborhood.

We went for a day into Portland and went to a toy store, and stopped at Voodoo Donut for some yummy donuts!!!

The kids had a blast playing on Grandma and Grandpa’s bouncy castle.

Once some family started to arrive, we went one day to the children’s museum. It was a pretty good museum. Truth be told the kids would have been happy to play in that tire pit all day long.

We also got to visit with Great Grandma Nielson one evening. She is so spunky and fun to talk to.

At the reunion, we took family pictures, which went surprisingly well considering the sheer number of kids that were involved in that project. Grandma Nielson had fun activities planned for the grandkids. There was a talent show, hosted by Tanner and myself, a great child nature hike planned by Vonae and Shane:

and a great FHE, complete with old home movies provided by Heath and Steph. The food was great, and the family time was even greater. After we returned from the reunion, we were able to get our last bit of fun in with some movies and shopping. I was probably not too much fun to be around the last day as I was trying to mentally prepare myself for a 28 hour return flight to Indonesia by myself with the kids. Tanner had a last minute trip scheduled back to D.C., so while he was busy flying first class back to the east coast, I was in survival mode. We all made it back in one piece just in time for Andrew and Audrey to get the barfies all while being jet lagged. You should try it some time, it’s good fun. Tanner returned home just in time for everyone to be over the barfies and their jet lag, and barely in time for my 30th birthday. All in all, it was a fantastic trip back to the U.S. of A, and we have all of our family to thank for that. We love you and miss you all!

Off to the Sunshine State

After our great visit with Mel, we hopped on another plane (because we hadn’t had enough of that), and flew to Florida to visit my parents before they left for their mission in Argentina. Tricia and Dan came for the last few days we were there and we had so much fun with Nana and Papa at the birdhouse. I was thinking about how my mom was right (as usual) when they bought the birdhouse that it really was going to be a place for her grandkids to come and make memories. Even though it had been a full year since we had been there, Clark AND Andrew remembered with perfect clarity details about the birdhouse when we talked about going before we left Indonesia. There was a lot of lake time,

a trip to Aquatica,

some park time (we don’t get a lot of that in Jakarta),

For the record, I am not quite sure why Andrew is in the baby swing…he looks way to big for it!

Cute pic of Clark, but also check out Andrew in the background in time out!

a kitchen sink bath for Audrey (a must-do),

some sick time for Andrew (because apparently we can’t go more than 6 weeks without him getting a sore throat), some time at the urgent care and podiatrist office for Tanner since before we left Indonesia, even before the appendectomy, a non-think guard ran over his foot with a steel gate. No joke….and then he, the guard that is, laughed…that’s no joke either. The good thing was, Andrew eventually felt better, Tanner didn’t have a broken foot, and we had a great time with family.

Papa and Clark definitely had a great time with the water guns.

My parents had already packed out for Argentina, and at the time and even looking back now, I am pretty amazed at my mom’s ability to be so fun and care free despite the huge adventure they were about to embark upon. I appreciate the fact that they and Tricia’s family had fun with us and went to work only after we had left. I am sure it was a sacrifice by everyone but us trying to tie up all the loose ends in such a short period of time, and we appreciate all the fun we had together while we were there.

The U.S. Never Smelled So Good

The flight back to the U.S. didn't seem very long, probably due to our excitement at returning to see all of our family and friends. We arrived at LAX in the evening, and I got teary when we turned to go down the escalator and I saw the huge sign that says "Welcome to the United States of America." Then, as we went through customs, the officer said after looking through our passports "welcome home, family." It was so great. What was not so great was a little family incident that took place at immigration. Just know that it involved urine. But that got cleaned up and we retrieved our baggage, and we walked outside and quickly saw Melanie in her car. It was so wonderful to see her. I have pretty much been desperate to see her for the last six months so I was so excited to finally have some good sister time with her! She was awesome and had chocolate shakes ready and waiting for us in the car. She knows me so well!

We were surprised at how chilly it felt in Cali, but it felt so good. The air in San Diego felt so clean and just smelled so good. Every time we went outside, I told the boys to "breathe it in!!!" There was a trip to Target the next day and I went pretty nuts. It was so clean, so organized...so American. There were also stops at In-N-Out...uniquely American and Californian. We went to the beach where all the boys had a blast. We went to San Diego to the Mormon Battalion site and it was so well done. We shopped and went to Tru's baseball where he had a great game! We went swimming and had a BBQ at my aunt Rachel's house which was awesome, minus Andrew thinking he could swim without floaties! (Thanks Mel for saving him!) It was the best start to our vacation back to the U.S.! Thanks Mel and Spencer for hosting us. It was so wonderful. Tanner summed it up when he said "the U.S. really is a prime piece of real estate."

Indeed.

After we left Melanie's, we drove up to Orange County to visit my dad's parents. They are both in an Alzheimers facility and we were so happy we got to see them. Our kids were cute with them, although Audrey seems to be a little freaked out by older people in general. It warmed my heart when after we had said our goodbyes and they were waving to us from the room as we were walking away down the hall, my grandpa yelled to us "Stay strong in the gospel!" So much of what is good in me and my life has been passed down through them and I am so grateful.

Afterward, we drove to see our friends from law school, the Paulsons, in Torrance. They life about 15 mins from LAX so it is super convenient but we love to stay with them whenever we have the chance. We always have fun and we always play games. We see them about once a year and it is amazing to see each others kids growing up so fast.

What a week...

What began as a regular Monday morning last week quickly turned into one of the craziest weeks of our lives. No joke.

Tanner went into work on Monday and noticed that he was having what he described as 'chest pain'. By the afternoon, his co-workers had convinced him to go to the embassy med unit to get it checked out. The embassy thought it was either his gall bladder or appendix and sent him to get a CT scan at one of the local hospitals. The CT scan came back inconclusive, and the embassy doctors told Tanner he needed to go to ANOTHER hospital to see a specialist. Tanner picked me up at home on the way and it was a good 1 1/2 hour drive out there. We met with a great doctor who works in a not great facility. We are still in Indonesia after all. Tanner was in quite a lot of pain at this point, and the doctor said he wanted to do another CT scan in the morning, and wanted him to stay overnight. When they admitted him to the hospital for the night, we thought we were getting a private room, but unfortunately they were all taken, so we ended up sharing a room with who we now affectionately know as "vomit-man", and we had to listen to it ALL NIGHT LONG. It was not pleasant and we couldn't wait to get out of the hospital. They ran the CT scan and they were able to confirm that it was in fact appendicitis, but it was not critically dangerous at that point. After talking to three embassy doctors (2 in Jakarta, 1 in Singapore), they decided Tanner could just get on a commercial plane and fly up to Singapore for the surgery. That was at 12pm on Tuesday, and by 4:30pm he was on a plane to Singapore. I went home to be with the kids who had been with our friends most of the day. Tanner had a laproscopic appendectomy the following day, and they gave him the go ahead to either fly home on Friday afternoon or he could hole up in a hotel in Singapore for the weekend and rest and recuperate. Tanner chose the former, mostly due to the fact that if you recall from my previous post, Elder Bednar was going to be here to form the 1st Stake in Indonesia that weekend, and Tanner wanted to be here for all of that. Tanner was home by Friday evening but was still pretty sore from surgery.

The following day was a four hour priesthood leadership meeting, and Tanner felt well enough to attend. I took the kids to the American Club to swim and eat dinner, so imagine my surprise and panic when I saw a call coming in from Tanner's cell. I was panicking because I thought he was having some post-operative complication during the meeting and needed help. I said hello and he said "Hi, hold on." I was like, what is going ON???!!! The person that came on the line was Elder Pratt of the Seventy and Asia Area President. He said he wanted to ask me some questions about my husband. ooooooookay. It was of course at this precise moment that Andrew decided to squeal about some toy he saw in the pool. Elder Pratt stopped and said "I assume that is one your children screaming and not you." Errrrrrr....yeah, sorry about that, hold on. I managed to get Andrew to run off and play and Elder Pratt then said "Let me clarify, I am a father of eight, so those are normal sounds to me." He proceeded to ask me questions about Tanner and with each passing question, I could feel myself getting more and more nervous but for what I had no idea. He finally said "Would you support your husband in whatever calling he is asked to do?" I responded in the affirmative, and he said "good, because we are thinking we would like to call him as the Bishop of the Jakarta 3rd English Ward. For once I was completely speechless. I couldn't even think of what to say. I did not know it at the time, but that was the first time Tanner had heard the calling as well, when Elder Pratt said it over the phone. Elder Pratt then asked if I would support my husband in this calling and I started bawling and managed to eek out a yes, and he said "good! I want to apologize for not meeting with you in person, but due to time constraints and traffic issues, it was not feasible, but I look forward to meeting you tomorrow."

What followed over the course of the next 24 hours were some wonderful experiences. Even though I joked with Tanner the next morning that "they could still change their minds!", he was called and sustained as a bishop along with 6 other men for 7 newly created wards in the Jakarta, Indonesia stake. Because we were a district, everyone needed to be ordained High Priests: the Stake Presidency, the High Counselors, and all of the Bishops. It was truly amazing what they were able to accomplish in 3 days, in addition to all the meetings that were taking place over the course of the weekend.

While our kids are still so young to truly understand what was happening, we will for the rest of their lives tell our boys that they got to sit next to an apostle of the Lord, and they only embarrassed us a few times! Sister Bednar, sister Pratt, and I hung out in the ladies room afterwards and had a fun chat talking about kids and church. It was so surreal, but more than anything and most importantly, we felt the Spirit and the love of our Savior.

There is a lot of work to do, and we are only here for another 9 days until we leave to return to the states for our R&R for a month. So, it is going to be a crazy 9 days, and Tanner already has his summer reading picked out: Handbook 1 of the Church Handbook of Instructions. He is the first one to tell you, he has a lot to learn!

1st Stake In Indonesia!!!!!!

Today at church they announced that Elder Bednar will be coming on May 22nd to create the first stake in Indonesia! We are all really excited! Currently, we are a district with about 6000 members and 23 branches.

It was also announced that our English branch would become a ward.

Missionary work is difficult here in this overwhelmingly Muslim populated country, but the LDS Indonesian members are faithful and strong in the gospel. President Groberg stated to us that while our example and knowledge will benefit the Indonesian membership as we transition to a stake (since most of us are used to being a part of a stake organization), he then said "But I can't say that the Indonesian members need your leadership, for they are strong and faithful in their own right."

It is so true. I am grateful we get to witness the continued fulfillment of the prophecy that the gospel will go forth among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples.

Audrey’s 1st Birthday

I can’t believe my baby girl is already 1. She is walking now and even more so than the boys, I can see her growing up right before my very eyes. For her birthday, we had a fun family night together, and the boys just loved celebrating with their little sister. She had lost a little weight since her 9 month check up but grew in height a lot, so she is now in the 50% for both height and weight. She has had such a go with the flow attitude…but she also is super curious and especially enjoys the refrigerator, toilet, and anything she can climb on. She says Dada the most, followed by Mama, and Up and Bye-Bye. She also blows kisses and claps, and she started doing the high pitched scream thing (Trish, I know you remember Clark doing that oh so well) when she clearly wanted something, so I taught her my one sign that I teach all the kids in order to say please before they can actually say it, and it cut down on the scream altogether. For her birthday, we got her one of those Fisher Price doors with all the bells and whistles. Her brothers seemed to enjoy it as much as she did, and grandma and grandpa Nielson got her cute pjs! Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

(My own creation via the Betty Crocker cake mix box…those are peanut butter m&ms…sooooo good)

(Andrew, going for the ghetto fabulous look)

(Clark, going for the unicorn look)

YEAH…I think she liked it.

Pigtails

My parents put me in pigtails for a long time when I was young. I liked them, and I think I looked pretty cute back then. Today I did Audrey's hair in pigtails for the first time. She looked so much older! She is bursting into toddlerhood!