Living in Florida

"It's like a vacation every day here mom!"

That's what Henry said to me the other day. And, so far, for Henry, Amelia and I that has been the truth. Our days are spent at the ocean, pool or splash park. We have annual passes to Disney (all the parks), NASA, and the Alligator Zoo. Tonight we are going to a medical dinner at the Daytona speedway and Henry can't wait to drive on the track, something we apparently get to do.

Moving to Florida is probably not everyone's dream come true. But, we're not those people. We have loved it here so far.

Our ward is fabulous. There are lots of old people but there is also vibrant group of young families who all spend a lot of time together. In Utah wards have the obligatory play date once a week or once a month, events rarely attended in wards I've been in. Here it's like torture for the moms if they don't hang out three times a week. I have loved spending time with these women. In addition Family Home Evening here is like a Utah singles ward, everyone congregates at someone's house for a group FHE.

Joe's co-residents are, thus far, fabulous. There are eight of them. Several of them have children, some Henry's ago. And, regardless, we have very much enjoyed getting to know them all. They all seem to be very social, happy people. Both qualities we adore in our friends.

Our neighborhood is great. I think we live on the senior citizen street. That said, people still come over to say hello and make sure we are adapting well. And, every time we go to the pool (we have a community pool) we make new friends. Henry has a buddies named Garret, Cody and Libby and several still who I couldn't name. The neighborhood here feels different from any neighborhood I've ever been in. It's not okay to be private, you are expected to make friends and be friends with the people around you... people here are ridiculously friendly.

Our banker, grocer, real estate agent and others have offered their hands in friendship and their knowledge of the area.

I still think Daytona is ghetto. It's smaller, more spread out and less clean looking. But, the people here are fabulous which is making it feel a lot more like home.

Road Trip!

I dreaded the road trip. Thought it would be torturous. It wasn't. It was a lot of driving (nearly four days) and not a lot of anything else but thanks to Grandpa, Joe, Grandma, Callie and the BIG yellow Penske truck the road trip was a piece of cake! Hallelujah!

What a fat baby you have!

Amelia 6.5 weeks

Henry 6 weeks

Amelia's existence has thus far been marked by two things - crying to let us know that she wants something and eating to make it all better. Don't get me wrong Amelia doesn't cry more frequently than she should, but she does let us know when something is amiss in her little world; something foreign to me because Henry never cared much about anything. Henry didn't cry once his first two weeks home from the hospital. Henry rarely ate anything and rarely slept without a serious amount of insistence from me. Amelia on the other hand cries when something is wrong, eats voraciously and sleeps in abnormally long stretches (I assume this is because she knows I love to sleep). She's also loves to suck on a binki, something that never even remotely interested Henry.

Amelia's eating habits have become banter among strangers who I meet when we are out and about. People love babies and when you walk around with a baby everyone stops you to coo at the baby. Then the conversation goes something like this:

Them: "How old is your baby?"

Me: "Six weeks."

Them: "Six weeks?!! She is so fat!"

I don't know for certain how much Amelia weighs today, but at her 4 week checkup she was 9.5 lbs, or 2 lbs over birth weight. Henry was born smaller than Amelia, but  he was more than three months old before he weighed 9.5 lbs.

We love our chubby baby Amelia! She's beautiful and perfect in every way. I  am excited to see how her personality today correlates with her childhood personality, if it carries through I imagine I will have a lot of adjusting to figure out how to raise an independent little child with an obvious desire to have her needs known. Though I expect mealtimes should be easier.

Labor and Delivery of Amelia Ruth

AMELIA RUTH
born May 10, 2010 at 5:13pm
7lbs 5oz 19" long

Amelia was scheduled to be delivered due to my diabetes. She was induced at 38 weeks and 5 days.

Joe likes to tell people that labor was easy; what does he know!! I prefer to say that it was relatively  uneventful. I went into the hospital at about 10:30 in the morning on Monday. Went through about an hour and a half of paper work then a bit of time fighting with the nurse over the birthing plan (she insisted that it was important to break my water prior to an epidural and I refused, again, what does she know?). Finally around noon-ish I got an epidural which created some trouble because it dropped my blood pressure to sickening levels several times. While going through the ups and downs caused by my epidural I remember thinking several times, I think I'm going to die and if I have another baby I will NOT get another epidural. After the problem was finally fixed the resident broke my water and contractions began. About 45 minutes later I was having lots of contractions but they weren't consistent - some were 2 minutes apart some were 8 minutes apart. So, the nurse administered enough Pitocin to normalize my contractions. Just before I was going to start pushing my bolus dose of my epidural wore off and the real pain of delivering a baby began to set in - this is when I realized that I will get another epidural if I have another baby. Thank goodness I could push the button to deliver a bit more pain medicine before I began pushing. At about 5pm my doctor arrived and I pushed several times. Amelia's head poked through and my contraction ended at which point everyone except me was ready to take a break - her head was half out for goodness sakes. So, I pushed her head the rest of the way out to ease the pressure sans a contraction. After the head the body and placenta basically birthed themselves. I walked away with only a small tear - one which I attribute to the beautiful round shape of Amelia's head.

My hospital stay was much better than I was expecting. Fortunately, the nursing staff at Salt Lake Regional is far superior now to my previous stay there. After leaving the hospital, however, I was unprepared for the pain of recovery. I never really felt any pain recovering from birthing Henry so I was shocked at the amount of pain I felt for several days. Mind you, I'm sure my pain was certainly not more than any other new mother experiences, I was just unprepared because of my previous experience.

Today Amelia weighs 6lbs 15oz. At 95% of her birth weight she is nearly perfect. She eats like a champion which is a wonderful blessing. She will probably outweigh Henry any day now, since he still never really eats.

To Blog or Not to Blog?

My sister Katie said it's imperative that I start blogging again now that I'm having another baby and moving to Florida. Is there anyone else out there who agrees?

Gainesville our Temporary Home

Before heading out on our journey, Joe and I decided that we don't have enough money to fund our travels and keep our house on a students negative income. So, we decided to see if we could sell our house because we will have little use for it over the next few months and when we do need a place in Salt Lake it won't be for very long since we don't intend to stay for residency which begins in July, 2010. Three days after we put our house on the market we had a buyer! So, in the week before leaving for Gainesville, Joe had to take a national board exam and we had to move out of our house and Henry had a birthday! It was nothing less than exhausting! By the time it was all over we were SOOO excited to get away from it all!

Long road trip ensues.

Joe, Henry and Heidi arrive at their new home in Gainesville, Florida. We are staying in a single student housing complex because it is the only furnished place we could find that would rent to us for only one month. We have two swimming pools in the apartment complex and lots of recreational facilities. We stick out like a sore thumb here because no one else here is married nor do they have children, but what can you do.

Our Apartment for one month.

Turns out there's actually a lot of self segregation in Gainesville. When we first arrived I immediately did not like Gainesville. It's a college town, much like Logan but on a much larger scale. The only people I encountered were approximately 19 years old and had absolutely nothing in common with me! And, if all the residents are 19, what would there be for a family in Gainesville? This is where the self segregation comes in. We assumed that all of the action would be right by the University of Florida. And, it is if you're 19. All of the families, however, live about twenty minutes West of the University in Haile Plantation. An absolutely beautiful development much like Day Break in Utah but way cooler because all of the houses are nearly encased in mature trees. And, it's way more affordable. The giant homes with indoor swimming pools cost $500,000 the three bedroom two bathroom homes cost $180,000!

The view from our car window on our way to Haile Plantation.
"Mommy are we in the jungle," asked Henry.
"Where are the monkeys and the elephants?"

On day four, after learning more about Gainesville, I have changed my mind. I really like Gainesville. I could live here! We are even going to a Gators game on Saturday (because everyone tells us we would be stupid not to).

At the mall down the street from our apartment.
This was one of the first times we encountered children
and where I learned that they do exist in Gainesville!

ROAD TRIP

There's a pretty good chance you will think that we are crazy when you read this post. But before you make any judgments you should know that we had a fabulous time exploring a part of the country that we have never really seen before. I am not a big fan of road trips, or at least I wasn't before our most recent road trip, but this was a seriously good time!!

Joe had an "away rotation" or as I like to call them, extended interview, scheduled in Gainesville, Florida for the month of September. Flying was almost never an option for Joe because he needs a car in order to get to and from work and to rent a car for a whole month is $700+ which might be bearable (gasp!) for one month but he has an away rotation scheduled in Omaha for the month of October and there's no chance that we could afford $1400+ just for a dumpy rental car. So, Joe decided to drive.

Henry and I were on the fence for a while about whether or not it would be smart for us to join Joe on his away rotations because we knew he would be expected to work far more than normal; all this in order to make a good impression. Ultimately, however, we decided that we would rather sleep in the same house than not for two months. When Henry and I decided to join Joe the long road trip became somewhat concerning. What should we do? The solution: take a whole week to drive to Florida and stop frequently. Then somehow this plan morphed into Joe and Heidi wanting to stop in lots of different cities we have never been to and suddenly our semi-straightforward route became something a little more convoluted.


View Larger Map

Our original plan included stopping in Denver but we scratched that because our planned activity was closed. It turned out to be a fabulous idea to scrap Denver because it gave us more time in the South East. Instead we drove straight through (mostly anyway) from Salt Lake to St Louis, MO. Henry did a really good job driving for that long without much stopping to play. It helped that he had a box full of new toys from his birthday celebration the day before.

Stop #1: Kansas City, MO
We were really just driving through but by the time we got to Kansas City we were sick of driving so we stopped at a community pool to play.

Stop #2: St Louis, MO
St. Louis was my favorite stop. We saw the Gateway Arch, took a helicopter ride over the city and went to City Museum. City Museum is the coolest museum I have EVER been to. It's technically a childrens museum but it puts the childrens museum in Salt Lake to serious shame! I used to think that the childrens museum in Salt Lake was cool, now I know that it's just GHETTO!! City Museum is a labyrinth of wire mazes connected to cool structures, slides and climbing structures. It has an indoor train, a ferris wheel on the roof, a giant ball pit, an aquarium and lots of other fabulous activity based areas. I have never been to a place that encourages so much creativity. There are at least three ways to get to every destination within the museum - a wire tube, a windy stair case or through the airplane in the sky. If you have a child and you visit St Louis, do not miss this museum. If you do not have a child and you visit St Louis, do not miss this museum. Joe and I played so hard that we were seriously sweating when the museum staff kicked us out because they were closed. I never play at the childrens museum in Salt Lake because it's not fun for me, this museum was fun for me and more fun for Henry because I was far more interactive.

Gateway Arch
Helicopter Tour

City Museum
City Museum Rooftop slide
Super fun!

Stop #3: Nashville, TN
We went on a riverboat cruise and to Parthenon park. The Riverboat cruise was a good time - it was food and entertainment on a paddle wheel boat. After the boat cruise were kind of at a loss for things to do in Nashville. Joe really resisted the country music hall of fame which we hear is really cool and by the time he agreed to go I didn't want to anymore because Henry was tired and not very pleasant.

Cpt. Henry

Stop #4: Atlanta, GA I have been wanting to go to Atlanta ever since I saw a special on the History Channel about their aquarium. Did you know that the Atlanta Aquarium is the only place in the US you can see a whale shark in captivity? (There are also whale sharks in captivity in Taiwan). The Atlanta aquarium was a serious good time. Again puts Salt Lake to serious shame - but I expected that! We love aquariums!!

Henry, Heidi and a beluga whale.
We lost our camera battery so this is the best we could do!

On a whim, and because I'm a dork, we took a tour of CNN's headquarters. This was more touristy than I had hoped but at least we got to see the studios. I should work for CNN someday I think. :)

CNN HQ

Stop #5: Savannah, GA
If you didn't notice while looking at the map, this is the place where our trip diverged from a logical course and into the - oh we should go there, it's not that far - trip. I'm glad we took this divergence. Joe has wanted to go to Savannah ever since he read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Apparently, he's not the only one, this book is a major part of the tourist industry in Savannah. Anyway, Savannah was established in 1733 and has many fabulous homes and businesses that date that far back that are still in great condition. Savannah is also thought to be one of the most haunted places in the US. We took a haunted Savannah tour the night we arrived and didn't see any ghosts but the tour guide did spend a lot of time pointing out "orbs" in photos people took with their digital cameras. Joe and I appreciated the stories behind the ghost stories and the architectural marvels where the ghosts were housed. The next day we mostly walked around the city checking out the cool, beautiful old places before heading to Tybee Island for a bit of ocean fun (which Henry had been begging for since we got in the car in Salt Lake). I bought Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and will be reading it while in Gainesville!

Cemetery. The large thing on the right is a crypt.

Tybee, Island

Stop #6: Orlando, FL
Disneyworld. Need I say more?

Stop #7: Clearwater, FL
Ocean fun!

Stop #7: Gainesville, FL
Home for one month!

I had so much fun on our journey that I'm doing it again. My sister and my Mom are flying to Atlanta to help me drive to Omaha (Joe will be flying because he only has a few hours to get there before starting his next rotation). We will be stopping in Birmingham, Memphis, St Louis, Little Rock, Nauvoo and Omaha (and maybe Chicago???). You know you're jealous!