Sami's World

I have, on several occasions, extolled the virtues of Jane’s famous Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies. All the Thompson kids (and grandkids) can testify to their awesome goodness. All bakers everywhere are forced to acknowledge the superiority of this particular delight. Joy spring eternal in all those who consume them.

So today I took the recipe and did what any self respecting person ought not to do. I altered it.

First off, I used whole wheat flour. Also, I substituted raisins for chocolate chips. Oh, and I added some cinnamon and a little extra vanilla.

Don’t worry, the world did not end. The strumming of angels harps did not cease. In fact, there was much joy and rejoicing. In fact, there isn’t much left. Of course, considering the base recipe I had to start with, is it any wonder they came out so good? Hmmm. I think I’ll go have another….

Once again I’ve waited too long to give an update so this may take a while, sit back and enjoy.

Friday, October 21 was an at home day. In the morning one of my friends called me and asked me if I was doing park day. I told her I was carless. She said her boys really wanted to get together with Milo and Niah so I told her to bring them over here. They could entertain my little ones while I did school with Jaime and Alix. It worked like a charm. They got picked up about 3:30 and we started our normal chores and dinner fixing routine. Scott got home early and we had an early family dinner. I dressed and left for the cannery. I picked up a sister who needed a ride (her name is Sister Thompson) and then dropped Jaime off for her first offical Activities Day activity since she turned 8. The cannery went well. Usually I sort out the cannery items at the cannery according to who ordered so if I come up short I know why. But we had three no shows so I had to help can. I didn’t mind though. It’s fun to can. After we loaded the 50 boxes into my van Sister Thompson invited me out to dinner, her treat. Can’t pass up that kind of offer. We enjoyed a very nice, very quiet dinner. I got to know her much better and am even more amazed at her abilities after that. I got home about 10pm.

Saturday was a “lazy” day. Well, sort of. We decided to do a major clean. Good thing too, because it rained. After cleaning in the house for a few hours, we emptied the food storage from the back of the van, sorted out the orders and emailed every to let them know that they could come pick it up anytime. Because it was a rainy day we promised the kids a movie and popcorn night. Also, we had commited to babysitting three kids for a couple in the ward so they could go to a wedding. We had a delightful time with the three little ones and enjoyed having them at our “popcorn and movie” party. Our kids were in bed asleep by 8:30 and the parents came about 10 to get their kids.

Sunday was “normal”. Chruch, family time, dinner and then bed time.

Monday morning was the start of my week with the daycare kids. It was also my car care day. Our car put on so many miles this summer it was already ready for it’s “check up”. That took two hours, but there was a park close, so we walked to the park, played and then came back. Since we sold the red car we decided to use the money to put new tires on our van. So then I took the van to the tire place and had them put on a new set of tires. Again we went for a walk but this time to McDonalds. The kids were very excited. They were so well behaved we got 3 compliments while we were eating. We walked back to the car and drove home for about 10 minutes while I checked messages and returned phone calls. Then we went to P.E. We left a little early so I could pick up the kiddo’s from school. We got home to a mess of more messages, chores needing to be done and hungry kids. We somehow managed to relieve all those stresses and do family home evening before putting all the kids to bed.

Tuesday started out “fun”. Scott had an early morning appointment and had to take the car, so the children and I walked a mile to school and then home again. We got home in enough time to take daddy to the late shuttle and then have a normal rest of the day.

Wednesday September 26 was a busy day. All the kids were dressed and ready to go by 7:45. We all left the house, I dropped off Scott, dropped off the Millick kids at school and then headed to Afton’s doctor’s appointment. It was her one year check up. She did great. She weighs 18 lbs 14 oz and is 30 1/2 inches long. This puts her in the 10% for weight and 80% for height. Wouldn’t we all love stats like that? Anyway, we got done with that and headed over to a friends house to pick up her son. We all do P.E. together and her other son had surgery on Tuesday. We got to P.E. in just enough time and enjoyed watching the kids play some soccer. After that we all loaded in the car and I did three errands that were on the way home to the little boy’s house. I made two other stops before going home to our house. As soon as we got home I realized it was time to pick up the other kids from school. By the time we did a little bit of school work, chores and dinner I picked up Scott and then left. There was a wedding shower I was scheduled to attend. It was very fun and I enjoyed the company of the sisters I was with.

Thursday was piano. Then we came home and knuckled down on school and got a ton done. After the Millick kids were picked up we rushed to dance class. Right after dance we rushed to pick up Scott. After a quick dinner, Jaime got picked up and taken to roadshow practice. Alix had fallen asleep during the day and slept for 3 hours. She was not ready for sleep. Instead we did her school work that she missed while sleeping and cut her hair. Ever since she saw my hair cut she has wanted hers cut too. So we did it, took some “glamour” shots and sent her to bed. Jaime got home pretty late, went to bed and so did we.

Friday was temple day. Scott took the day off and got a ride to the temple. He spent about 5 hours doing temple work and then came home in the early afternoon. We spent some time enjoying eachothers company and doing chores so that we could do some other planned things on Saturday. Then I ran out to do some errands. It was suppose to be a quick trip to the bank and Wal Mart but I made quite a few stops in between and didn’t manage to get home till 9. I had a great time though. We tried watching a movie but ended up just falling asleep.

Saturday September 29 started out early. I got up early and did some computer work. Then I went to a friends garage sale. I had a ton of stuff I was going to give away but she said she was having a sale and so I told her she could have my stuff to sell. So I went over early and helped her set up and get things going. I then ran to Wal Mart (I never did make it the night before) got a few things and was home making breakfast by 7:45 am. After a yummy breakfast we finished the few chores that we had left and then showered everyone and left by 11am. It was Gayle’s birthday and Joey had invited a few guests to a resturant to help her celebrate. It was a surprise and we volunteered to go early and decorate. It was fun. The kids enjoyed decorating, the resturant was very accomodating and we had fun. We got home about 3. I vegged for a minute and then got dressed and went to a friends house. We rode together to the R.S. broadcast. It was an amazing, uplifting meeting and I was very glad I could attend. We had a dinner afterwards and just enjoyed the company of so many wonderful sisters from the stake. I got home about 8.

Sunday was a normal day. Jaime had her debue in Sacrament meeting singing “Reverently, Quietly”. She did a beautiful job and we were all very proud of her. After church we rested, had home teachers come and then rested some more. Too much resting I think. We served the kids cookies and squash for dinner. Now I can justify the cookies because they were home made, 100% whole wheat, oats and raisins. And who doesn’t love a fresh butternut squash from someone else’s garden? Oh ya, did I mention we served milk too? It was fun and I think the kids enjoyed the “unnormal” dinner.

Today, Monday October 1, has been routine. It is the first day of October which means it is the first day of three months of non stop partying for one reason or another! Today was also the day I put the order in for 55 gallon water barrels. In an attempt to help ward members store water, I volunteered to do an order. I put the word out to the stake. I was able to place an order for 37 barrels. It will be quite the order to pick up when the time comes. Other than that we did our school work, chores, P.E., dinner and FHE. It was a fun day.

I feel great. I was talking with another mom who has a child slightly older than Afton and we were talking about how we are just barely feeling like we have our bodies back! It feels great to have lots of energy. To want to play on the floor with my kids. To want to cook and clean and have enthusiasm for life. It’s amazing what a hit your body takes for children, and yet it is all worth it. To see my five children smiling at me, laughing and enjoying life is amazing. To get hugs and kisses and am told how much they love me and are glad that I am thier mommy. What a joy parenthood is and I wouldn’t change it for a thing. Not one thing!!

I continue to heal, and get better day after day. My right arm is getting stronger, and I’m happy about that. I’m also still making very small gains in movement and dexterity, though they are hard to notice on a day-by-day basis, but it’s the aggregate that matters.

My right side still hurts a TON as does my lower back. With those areas it’s just a waiting game. I can pretty much manage my pain with Motrin or Tylenol, so that’s good. I have been going to physical therapy for my back. I haven’t really noticed very many gains since starting physical therapy, but that’s mostly because I haven’t been diligent in my home exercises. I have finally disciplined myself to do my exercises everyday this week, and we’ll see what the therapist has to say Tomorrow (9/25) when I go in for what may be my last PT appointment.

I also visited with my Doctor of Occupational Medicine this last week. He was very encourage by my progress and suggests that now might be a good time to begin a regular exercise routine. Those who know me, know how much I love to hate exercise, so we’ll see if I can actually discipline myself in that regard. I did go out for a 5 minute bike ride on Saturday. What can I say, each little step is a victory.

I have been teaching the Gospel Doctrine class now for about 6 weeks. I’m starting to finally get a feel for the calling. It’s amazing how you can spend all week preparing for a lesson, make a nice outline and everything, and then, when you get up to teach, it goes in a completely different direction from what was planned. I’m confident that the Spirit of the Lord leads our discussions. I’m not sure about the class attendees, but I feel enlightened when I leave.

Things at work are going well. I am on a team that is developing a product in house to help with acquisitions as well as provide remote access to some of Google’s services. That products launched last Friday, and pretty much went off as expected. We even had the bugs in the system that we expected. Over all though, it was a success and should be a nice feather in my cap during my tenure at Google.

I don’t drive to work. Google has a shuttle that makes regular pick-ups around the bay, and I take that to work. Recently, a homeless person has started using the shuttle stop as her bedroom. I suppose because it has benches and a canopy. When I get there in the mornings she is usually still asleep. It’s a scene that breaks my heart really. I finally left her a note with instructions on how to get to the nearest homeless shelter, but she still sleeps at the shuttle stop. One of the things I realized while waiting for the shuttle one morning, is that really, there isn’t much difference between me and her. We are all beggars before God, and in a very real sense, the line between affluence and poverty is very thin. I think sometimes we forget that.

A couple of weeks ago Jaime and I went on a Daddy-daughter date. Jaime is eight and now attends Achievement Days. For the non-LDS readers, it’s kinda’ like cub scouts, but for girls, but it’s not girl scouts. Anyway, they had a western themed dance for the Dad’s and Daughters to go to. It was fun. They had a potato bar and nachos for dinner and they taught us how to country line dance. Jaime, of course, was born to dance and she picked up on it immediately. Her poor old dad was more like an embarrassment, but we persisted and had lots of fun. On the way there and back, I let her control the radio in the car. Jaime is a better channel surfer than me! She finally found the song she was looking for and sang along at the top of her lungs all the way home from the dance. It was great!

October 5th and 6th should be fun. Joey and I are arranging an all night fishing trip for those two days. We’re going to the San Luis reservoir, which isn’t too far from here and is supposed to be famous for bass, cat and sturgeon fishing. We have several other men from our ward signed up and it promises to be a good time. It’s close enough that we can fish all night, leave by 7:00am and still make the first session of general conference. I’ll let you all know how that goes.

You all have seen pictures of Sami’s new do. I have to say, I like it. I wasn’t so sure because I like long hair, but I have to admit, it is very cute. Of course, I’m married to the best looking woman around, so I shouldn’t have been too surprised that she looks so cute with shorter hair.

We sold our red car. (Pause for a moment of silence…) We loved that car. We had it for most of our marriage. But it finally broke down and I didn’t have the umph to fix it. It was (I assumed) an electrical problem because I couldn’t get spark on any of the plugs. I swapped out the distributor and still couldn’t get it to work. We finally put it up on craigslist. A couple of guys came and looked at the car, paid us and drove away. They came back in a couple of hours with a new timing belt. They swapped it out, and the car started right up. We’re sad to see the red car go, but we are genuinely glad it went to people who obviously know how to take care of it, and we hope they get as much joy and enjoyment from the car as we did.

OK. That’s it. I promise no more. For now… If you’ve read this far you deserve a cookie. Go ahead. Go get one.

~Scott

It’s been such a great week that I must report on the happenings now.

Monday is usually my stay at home day and do as much school as I can. Then we do our chores and anticiapte dad coming home. But I decided to go check out another home schooling P.E. group that meets on Monday’s at 1:30. We had such a good time. The kids are older and there are more of them. Probably the most amazing part of this group, is the size of the families. My family almost looked small compared to these families. There were four, count them four, full size extended vans in the parking lot! Over half of the families there had 6+ kids. It was very fun. Jaime found a new friend already and some of the older boys migrated to Milo right away and were pitching balls to him so he could hit them. It was a lot of fun and we will be going every Monday now. We got home in enough time to finish our chores, make dinner and go get Scott.

Tuesday was slightly busier. Scott had an appointment in the morning so he took the late shuttle. After we got home from doing that we cleaned our chores as fast as we could, got everyone dressed and were gone by 11. We had a park day with Jaime and Alix’s virtual school. We had tons of fun meeting new people again. We left there about 1 and I took Afton and Alix to Laura’s house because Milo had a doctor’s appointment in Oakland at 2:20. We got there right on time and the doctor was running on time. This appointment was with Dr. Toth the plastic surgeon that was in on Milo’s original surgery. He said it was time to do the face surgery and he wants to do it March/April 2008. He said we would get the ball rolling now so we will be ready then. That just means LOTS of doctor appointments. He wants us to come to his San Fransisco office and meet with him and the oral surgeon on the same day (the other doctor involved in this surgery). *This is for Steve’s benefit* Dr. Toth said that when they do the surgery they will cut along the same incision line they made before, peal back the skin from the face, remove the bones, arrange them how they want and then put the bones back where they belong. They said Milo will for sure get a blood transfusion and be in the hospital about 6 days. They will have to stitch his eyes closed again because of all the swelling that will occur. Anyway, no nuerosurgeon will be involved this time because they don’t go anywhere near the brain and his eyes should be more protected and not look so “buggie”. After all that information we said our goodbyes. I went and picked up the kids from Laura’s house, dashed home and did an hour of school with the kids. By then it was time to cook dinner and get Alix ready. She was invited to her very first birthday party. She’s gone to birthday parties before with Jaime, but this was her very first one with a friend that was not a friend of Jaime. She was very excited. I had one of my friends come over and watch the other kids and Scott arranged to get a ride home from the shuttle from someone else. The party was at Pump It Up and the kids all seemed to have a great time. I got to talk with a new mom that I had seen at other activities but never actually had a chance to get to know. It was fun getting to know her better. We made it home by 8 pm and Alix was in bed by 8:30. Jaime however was still gone. They asked Jaime to participate in the Roadshow this year. She was very excited and it was their first practice. She got home a little after nine and was so excited it took us a half hour to calm her down enough to get her to bed! Scott and I were finally able to retire as well.

Wednesday was kinda full too. We spent the morning doing chores and getting ready to leave. We left about 10:15 to get to the girls’ P.E. group. We got home from there about 1:30. Did school for a couple of hours then started the “night” routine. I had Enrichment to go to and I was doing a provident living presentation. After Scott got home I left. I went and picked up another lady from church and we carpooled. It was a very fun evening full of much laughter and friendship building. I got home by 9 and went straight to bed!

Thursday Scott had another doctor appointment and I had agreed to watch a little boy all day. So Scott left and Dalyn showed up about the same time. He is 18 months and about the sweetest little boy. He has tons of personality but is mostly quiet and very well behaved. Most of the time I forgot he was even here. After taking Scott to the shuttle I took Jaime and Alix to piano and the four little ones and I walked to the park to play. That was super fun. After piano, we came home and had lunch. I put the three little kids down for a nap (Niah actually slept) and Jaime, Alix and I got so much school done it was awesome!! Then we did chores and at 4 we got everyone ready and headed to Jaime’s dance class. It was her first one this dance year and there were only 5 girls in the class. There were two absent but that’s it, only 7 girls signed up. The last three years there have been about 14. We aren’t quite sure what happened to the othe girls but the 5 girls that were there got a lot of one on one attention and were able to do more since there were less kids. Jaime seemed to enjoy it. We rushed home and I started cooking dinner while the other kids finished up their chores. Scott got home and so did Dayln’s mom. We said goodbye, had dinner and then started putting kids down one by one. I went to bed pretty early, Scott stayed up till 11 reading. He loves to read.

So here we are, Friday morning. I have cannery tonight and so Scott took the van so he could get home early so I could go. Today will be an at home day. It’s nice to have those every once in a while.

Afton is growing up so fast. She tries to mimic everything we do. Niah was pretending to be a dog the other day and Afton started crawling right behind her with her tounge sticking out and “panting”. It was super cute. She is also really good at independent standing and the other morning, Monday I believe, she walked three steps to Jaime. She hasn’t taken another step since but she did a good job with those first three. The older kids love to run and jump on the big bean bag we have. So last night Afton would stand up and then fall forward into the bean bag and just laugh and laugh. Then stand up and do it again. It was too funny. She “talks” constantly. She’s pretty sure she is communicating with us, but we have not idea what she is saying! Milo and Niah are letting her join thier group sometimes and it’s cute to watch the three of them play. Jaime and Alix still just pretend they are Afton’s moms!

Alix was telling me that she LOVED horses. She said that horses were her favorite animal. Milo piped in and said he loved cows, and that cows were his favorite animal. Alix said she loved horses so much she wanted to marry one. Milo was right behind ‘I’m going to marry a cow’!!

I love kids, I love being a mom and, even though it can be frustrating sometimes, I hope my kids remember and relish all the good times and not remember or dwell on the hard times. Much love to all.