Time to catch up

Aloha everyone! 


We hope you've all had a restful weekend, I know that many of you have just recently been reunited with your old friend electricity and some may still be waiting for all their water issues to be taken care of. Well we just came in from a Sunday walk in beautiful 70 degree weather. I know that we have to enjoy it while it lasts because we won't be able to get out much during the summers. I've missed a few months of weekly updates so this is my attempt to summarize some of the major events that have transpired. 


I moved over to TX early October and started working right away in Lufkin (about 2 hours NE of Houston). My routine consisted of leaving my friends the McCauley's house early Monday morning and being at work for 9am patients. We worked throughout the week including Saturdays, I would stay at the Gundersons on Saturday nights, wake up on Sunday and do some ward shopping and look at rental houses, then eat Sunday dinner with the Gundersons and leave for the McCauleys Sunday night, stay there and get off to the same start Monday morning out to Lufkin. I did that for the first few weeks while Janelle was finishing up packing up the house and taking care of the kids, and being 8 months pregnant. I found a house in a ward that I really liked and it is within walking distance from a great elementary school. We then started planning on Janelle's arrival. She had been packing up the house for a couple months but of course its the most stressful when it comes down to the day before the move. We had our master plan. I would work a half day Friday and drive down to the Houston airport (about 2 hours) get on a plane to ABQ where Janelle would meet me with the kids all packed up in the car at about 8:30pm, we would then drive through the night and arrive at the Gundersons on Saturday morning. The plan was that the movers would have already been to the house in ABQ and have loaded up our things and be on their way to TX before Janelle had to leave for the airport to pick me up. 


Well, the movers never made on Friday and we we're faced with a very difficult decision, we left the house unlocked so that they could come the next day and load everything up. Well that was the start of a nightmare moving experience. I will spare you most of the terrible details but 3 weeks later the movers arrived at our house in Houston with many broken items and some very important items missing, namely our external harddrive with all of our family pictures from when Dayna was born in HI to the present. The sad part is that the clear tub the the hard drive was in was just fine, but the hard drive itself was removed from the tub, they had no idea what they were taking from our family. Most everything else could be repaired or replaced but now we've found ourselves scrambling to find any pictures we can. I better stop writing about that move, it makes my blood boil when I dwell on what we lost and what they did to us. Janelle was a trooper as always, she was extremely pregnant sleeping on an air mattress that the Gundersons let us borrow while taking care of our three kids and doing everything necessary to move into a new house in a new area, getting the water hooked up, electricity on, school registration, pre-school found for Dax, finding a new Dr. to deliver the baby, etc, etc. 


She was awesome, the family came up to Lufkin for a couple of days so we could spend Halloween together, I got to go trick or treating with the kids and Dax and I dressed up as the Green Lantern. They had a lot of fun, it had been a long time since I'd dressed up for Halloween, it hasn't been one of my favorite holidays. I'm sure my parents would say something different but I don't remember ever really liking dressing up. But it was a fun night. The kids love staying in Hotels and playing in the pool. I lived in the Comfort Suites from October till the first week of January, only coming home on Saturday nights and leaving Monday mornings. 

We really like our new ward, the chapel is brand new and is about 8 minutes drive from our house. The ward is a nice mix of families of all stages, there are a lot of transplants to the area like ourselves. Houston has a pretty stable economy and it seems many people have moved to the area for work. The ward has been very welcoming and people stop by during the week unannounced just to say hi and to see if the kids can play for a minute. Our second Sunday at our new ward a family came up out of the blue and invited us to their house for Thanksgiving dinner. 

Dayna loves her new school, she does very well at adapting to new schools and meeting new people. She was excited to meet friends at school and later learn that she goes to the same church. She has turned out to be quite the runner. She has a record for the most laps ran by a first grader at her NM school and she got second in the Turkey Trot at her new school. She left home the day of the race so excited, she said today I am going to get a trophy (for winning the Turkey Trot), Janelle was a little worried and explained that it was OK if she didn't win and didn't get a trophy. I guess the thought hadn't crossed her mind of not winning. She came home and told me all about it, she said that her friend Claire had a plan, Claire said I will get first and you will get second Dayna. Dayna was so excited because Claire's plan worked! I can picture Dayna running right behind Claire the whole race and not passing her because she wanted her friend's plan to work, I told her next time you tell Claire your plan, its called "eat my dust Claire". She laughed. 

Well before long it was December, we knew it was going to be a busy month. I was still up in Lufkin all week and Janelle was holding down the fort in Houston. She found a Dr. that accepted our Cobra insurance coverage and that she really liked. She checked out the hospital, it is about 15 minutes from our house. We set up a day for her to be induced around her due date, that way I wouldn't be in Lufkin when she went into labor and so I could take some time off of work. Judy came down to help out with the kids and I took that Monday off with the intent of taking the whole week off. Janelle was supposed to be induced on Monday, she was on top of the elective induction list but I guess it was a full moon and everybody and their cousin went into labor, the hospital was packed and there was no way that she was going into to be induced that day, so she was pretty high on the list to be induced on Thurs but they told her to try Tuesday just in case, but not to get her hopes up because it was looking pretty busy. Janelle called early Tues morning and they gave us the green light to come in, luckily we went in when we did because it got pretty busy that day as well. Avery Star was born that afternoon around 5pm she was 7 pounds and 13 ounces and 20 and a half inches long. It was a pretty smooth labor except for the nurse that bruised Janelle up when putting in the I.V. and the emergency C-section that Dr. Winkleman was called away to do as soon as Janelle was starting to feel the urge to push. The nurse assured us that this wasn't her first delivery and that we shouldn't worry. Janelle was doing every thing she could to hold that baby in, Dr. Winkleman came rushing in, seriously she was sweating and short of breath, they put on her robe and gloved her up, she smiled and said lets have a baby, (between gasps). Avery arrived a few minutes later, she was perfect. 

Janelle did a great job, later that night the kids showed up with Grammy. They were introduced to their new baby sister. Earlier that day Judy had gone to pick Dax up from pre-school, she explained that mommy was in the hospital with daddy and that his baby sister would be born that day. Upon hearing the news that I was at the hospital Dax with a concerned face asked "And the iPad?" Yes, it turns out that our son is obsessed with video games particularly daddy's iPad. He would routinely run up to me on Saturday nights after I've been gone all week at work and ask "Daddy can I play with your iPad?" Not daddy I missed you, daddy I love you, daddy I'm glad you're home, nope it was all about the iPad. 

Judy and Milt were here for Christmas and New Years. Janelle spent her birthday in the hospital with baby Avery. Avery was born on the 13th and Janelle's was the 14th. I was able to take a few days off of work the week Avery was born but I ended up getting called in on Thurs to work through Saturday. We had a great Christmas, the kids were so excited during the whole morning. I think that Lani was the cutest, I think this was her first year that she kind of understood what was going on. She would open up any box wrapped in front of her, so we had to make sure that they had her name on them. She was so happy with all of her presents and said thank you and would show off the gift to everyone. I cooked a ham on my new grill the Big Green Egg and we had a good dinner with the family at home. On Christmas eve we went to the Gundersons for dinner and we were able to spend some time with them and Cole before he left on his mission. We did make it to Cole's farewell, the week before Christmas, he gave a great talk and so did his sister Haley. It has been a lot of fun spending time with the Gundersons, the kids love going over there and their kids are so good with the little ones. They all participated in the live nativity on Christmas eve and we enjoyed a good meal as always over there. 

The next weekend we spent up in Dallas, Milt and I went to the BYU vs Tulsa Armed forces bowl game. It was a beautiful day and it was a great game. We met up with our friends the Shepherds who had come down to the game from Farmington NM. Travis went to the game with us. He had a friend in NM that had tickets to the game but didn't end up going so we sat in his seats right on the 50 yard line about 14 rows up. We met up with the Gundersons there as well. Janelle and I had our 9th anniversary on New Years eve, we were still in Dallas, so Grammy and Poppi were able to watch the kids at the hotel and Janelle and I went out for a nice dinner and later for ice cream with the Shepherds. We have already added Houston and Dallas to our Hard Rock Cafe glass collection. 

Milt and Judy left the first week of January and a few days later my parents arrived. I took off a few days to spend with the family. I know Janelle appreciated all the help she had for the first month after Avery was born and I was still working up in Lufkin, it worked out that she was only home alone with all the kids for a couple of days until we opened up the new office closer to our house. We blessed Avery on the 8th of January. It was great to have my dad and uncle Lance in the blessing circle with me. It was a beautiful blessing and Avery didn't make a peep. We had a big Sunday dinner after church, we hadn't anticipated being home so early but the pump went out at our building so we only had Sacrament meeting, it was fast Sunday so nobody had eaten anything and we had the Gundersons come over right after church. I was planning on starting to cook right after our normally scheduled church got over so we would eat around 1:30 or so but now we were home around 10:30 with a bunch of hungry "big kids", this was our first glance into future Fast Sundays. The poor Gunderson kids were starving of course, luckily we had bought a few bags of chips the day before so I put out a couple bags of Doritos and a bag of tortilla chips and a costco size tub of salsa, well after polishing off the two bags of Doritos and two bags of tortilla chips and the majority of the tub of salsa we had satisfied the crew. Now, to be fair, we were all digging into the snacks, but it was our first experience having to feed hungry teenagers on a fast Sunday. I later cooked a mountain of steaks on my new toy the Big Green Egg. Everything was great, we had a wonderful time with my parents and the Gundersons, our friends the McCauleys came over to eat as well.

We had a great time with family over the last month or so, I know the kids love seeing their Grandparents and they love to share their new stories and special experiences with us following their departures. We have been blessed with such a loving and supportive family even though we've lived far away from them for as long as we've had kids they pick up right where they left off from their previous visits. 

I just completed my second full week working at our new office in Conroe, it is about 25 minutes from our house, so it has been nice to be able to come home every night and see the family. We have been very very busy these first couple of weeks, some nights I haven't been able to make it home to help put the kids to bed, in fact I would say the majority of the nights I've missed bedtime. So that has been hard because I am now so close to home and they're still missing me. But hopefully things will settle down and we'll stay steady but I'll make it home for dinner or at least to help out with bedtime. 

We are loving the mild winter but the deathly hot and humid summer is always in the back of our minds. The area is very nice and we've been able to make friends and feel welcome here. We miss and love our family but we feel blessed to be where we are and to be part of an even bigger family at church. Well that about wraps it up, I hope I didn't bore you, but I thought it would be nice to catch everyone up on our comings and goings and to record all these recent events here in TX. I'm sure that I've missed a lot of the details but I hope to get back on track with our updates. I would ask that if you're flipping through pictures and if you see some of our family with yours please take a minute to email it to Janelle or I. We don't need piles of photos coming in but you know if you see some of those special memories that we've shared we probably don't have any records of them. We were lucky that my mom had a bunch of photos that we had downloaded on to her computer at random times but other than that we have our blog and misc others. Thanks for all of your love and support, your prayers are felt here in TX. We love, miss and appreciate you. 

The Dicksons

Jon, Janelle, Dayna, Dax, Alana, and Avery