31 Awesome Things in 31 Days: Thing #3—Road Trip to Houston

Hollie drank an entire sippy cup of milk before we had even left the driveway. 

Yesterday turned out to be a crazy day of grading, paper-writing, packing, and cleaning, so we decided to take one of our "extra" days between my birthday and Dave's birthday to be less awesome. (Although, I did finally watch the new version of True Grit on Netflix while I packed a bag for Hollie and me for our trip today, and it was quite awesome. Especially when David left to get a Coke from Sonic and came back with a chocolate sundae and mozzarella sticks for his pregnant wife. Midnight snacks are pretty awesome.)

Today, however, we took a totally awesome road trip to Houston, and we arrived just minutes ago. Hollie is asleep in a Pack 'n Play in the next room, and David and I are chatting with bro-in-law Andy while we wait for everyone to get back from the airport (where Mary and Mom are coming back from their own trip to see Drew and Rach in DC). It is 10:54 p.m. as I write this. 

We left our house at 10:00 a.m. The typical 9-hour drive was accomplished in 11.5 hours. All in the name of adventure!

Because our old Hyundai Elantra is less trustworthy these days, Dave's dad rented us a car—a Dodge Avenger. Since the radio is all but busted in my car, and the only other source of music is a broken tape cassette deck, it was fabulous to be able to plug in an iPod and have crystal clear reception the entire way. Not to mention cruise control. 

Hollie was surprisingly pleasant for the most part. We were really impressed with her. She definitely could use a playmate in the backseat, though.

Fed up with us.

I read Austen's Sense & Sensibility out loud to David whenever Hollie fell asleep (she hates my reading voice when she's awake, unless I'm reading one of her stories to her). I'm studying for my qualifying exams right now, so every hour counts!

Documentation that Hollie does indeed bite her thumbnails when she is bored, just like her dad. We haven't had to clip her thumbnails in months.

We made significant stops in just a few places. We had lunch in Abiline, which took over an hour—we found out a little too late that it was graduation day at the local university, so everyone was at Jason's Deli dressed to the nines. Still, it was very fun, and we chatted with good people while we waited in line.

The next layover we made in Hamilton, Texas, where we finally checked out The Kaboodle, a store we had already pegged as the precise halfway point between Lubbock and Houston, designated by a giant pink and zebra-print high-heeled shoe beckoning women to come and purchase their glittery wares.

The Halfway Point

The store is an adorable little side house behind a garage behind the house the owners lived in (behind the house that Jack built, etc.) Can you see the polka-dotted white building on the right? That is the store. We rang the bell and a super nice ponytailed man came from the house, through the garage, to the store and let us in. I felt a little guilty not purchasing anything after all that effort.

Hamilton has always been a favorite stop for us. The large gas station there has lovely bathrooms, and a whole row of rocking chairs out front. They also have these nice big slabs of benches for picnicking.

Pregnant Texan.

Seriously. Hamilton is the coolest pit stop. We couldn't ask for a better halfway point.

I'm a bit exhausted, so I will be wrapping up the post now. The drive was lovely—the bluebonnets are in bloom and we actually drove through the kind of green, hilly country that makes one proud to live in Texas. Wildflowers were everywhere, in all different colors. We saw a lot of Indian Paintbrush, and another bright red flower that I couldn't name. There were many papery pink blossoms, too, as well as yellow and white. I ached to have a field guide on me.

We only saw one scissor-tailed flycatcher this time (last year we saw several), but we did spot the one, as well as many cardinals, a million vultures, and some waterfowl that we couldn't quite make out from the car. 

We also ate at a Whataburger that was literally like the ones depicted on the television commercials, in which everyone shouts a welcome to you when you arrive, and the woman bringing meals sneaks your daughter a free cookie for eating all of her fries. (You know, because fries are almost vegetables.)

The Houston adventuring awaits! But first, some sleep, fingers crossed (since writing this blog post, Hollie has since woken and David is currently in there soothing. I'd better end this now so I can take the next shift and let Dave finish his paper).

Thing #3: Drive across Texas—ACCOMPLISHED.

31 Awesome Things in 31 Days: Thing #2—Visit the Silent Wings Museum

Today we went to the Silent Wings Museum, where WWII glider pilots used to train. We've meant to make this visit since we moved here three years ago, but never got around to it. The nice thing about doing 31 Things in 31 Days is that it really pushes us to do the things we've always meant to do, but never have.

Depending on which due date you agree with, I am either at the very end of my second trimester or the very start of my third trimester. This is Hollie and me showing off our tummies.

The Silent Wings Museum was certainly silent. There were maybe three other guests there besides ourselves. It made the dimly lit reenactments of foxholes particularly haunting. At times, all I heard was Hollie shuffling nervously about (I'm not sure she fully understood that the dummies wearing WWII garb were not real people) and tinny recordings of rat-a-tat-tat playing from camouflaged speakers. It was eerie, patriotic, nostalgic (of someone else's nostalgia), and beautiful. (Though, I should mention that Dave did try to lighten the mood a little bit by singing a few bars of Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon"—"And we were sharp...as sharp as knivesknivesknivesknives!" That's the thing about Billy Joel: even when he's singing about stuff that's real and serious, you just can't take him all that seriously.)

We particularly liked the exhibits that tried to recreate scenes and moments. Looking at the contents of Hollis Davis's trunk made us feel like we were snooping, they were such a random and interesting assortment of 1940s things.

David had just finished John Knowles's A Separate Peace (my old copy—one of my all-time favorite reads from high school) about young men at the start of WWII, and I had just finished teaching John McPhee's A Binding Curve of Energy about Ted Hughes and his work with and eventual disgust for the atomic bomb. So we were both pulled into the artifacts around us with more particular interest than otherwise. The museum was pretty comprehensive; it showcased not only American weaponry and outfits but that of the Germans and the Japanese as well.

An old Underwood that looks almost exactly the same as the antique Underwood I inherited from my grandfather, which had been a prototype. We snagged a picture hoping to make a closer comparison later.

I love air force museums because of all the space, light, and windows that are customary in any exhibit intending to show off huge planes. Dave and Hollie are checking out The Grasshopper, one of the training gliders.

The entire front of the glider opens up to let out anything from troops to jeeps. Because the gliders glide rather than rely on engine power, they were quite noiseless and stealthy. Hence, you know, "silent wings."

The visiting exhibit was called "Stay Alert, Stay Alive," all about the American '50s and early '60s when the atomic bomb was the topic. The exhibit included an assortment of nuclear warfare in pop culture, in educational pamphlets, and in emergency preparedness tracts. There was even a little girl's box of paper dolls and cutouts of a family living in a fallout shelter. It was breathtaking to imagine purchasing something so foreboding for Holls to play with. I had to not think about it too much, since my hormones are so loose and free these days.

I wasn't fast enough to capture Hollie staring this atomic-bomb pin-up in the face, which she did for a full minute or so. I'm not sure why I tried to capture the picture in the first place; it was a little unsettling.

Atomic bomb toys for kids in the '50s.

Note the "Assisting the Birth of a Baby after an enemy attack if no doctor is available" pamphlet. This one was particularly striking to me. The soothing pink and blue pattern was particularly non-soothing.

Two things: (1) I can't tell if Atomic Bomb Rings would be cool to own or terrible to own today, and (2) Kix used to look weird. More like Sugar Puffs than Kix.

Hollie is giving us her sign for "water," not because she is thirsty, but because she fully expected the center of this brick courtyard to contain a decorative water fountain like those she is used to seeing in the brick courtyards at Texas Tech. She was pretty disappointed there were no water fountains at this museum.

We left the museum as silently as we entered it. It perhaps wasn't the typical giggly goofy dancey-pants Grover adventure we typically bounce after, but it was still certainly "awesome." Dave and I talked on our way out to the car about how strange a connection our generation has with WWII. It is the war of our grandparents, but it isn't our war. It is the war of our childhood films, of Indiana Jones, The Rocketeer. Two Christmasses ago I watched The Bridge over the River Kwai and Empire of the Sun in the same week while nursing Hollie. After the latter, I stared at Hollie sleeping next to me and wept. I had started the film during a middle-of-the-night feeding and didn't go to sleep until after it had ended, sometime around 3:00 a.m. It choked me. I walked funny the following two days. I tried not to let too much of this return as I walked around Silent Wings and thought of the soldiers, the bombs, the people at home, the aftermath. It's too big. And it isn't my history to remember, exactly. So it's hard to know where to shelve things.

What was really nice was just walking around a small museum with Davey and Hollie in tow. West Texas is not exactly the most culturally diverse and resplendent place to live, but that doesn't mean you can't find awe-inspiring exhibits when you look for them.

Thing #2, Appreciating the silence of the Silent Wings Museum: ACCOMPLISHED.

I promise tomorrow's Awesome Thing will be more rip-roaring and carefree. Also, as soon as David has less pressing final papers to complete, he'll start doing his share of blogging, too.

31 Awesome Things in 31 Days: Thing #1—Start This Thing Up Again with Ice Cream Cake

We're so bad at kick-starting our 31 Things that I didn't even take a picture of my cake like I did last year. But here is evidence of David's excellent present-wrapping skills that put my own crappy attempts to shame.

Last year I turned 30, which is apparently a big deal. I admit I was a little nervous to leave my 20s—those rip-roaring years of sowing both wild oats and tame ones, bouncing around from Tokyo to the Sonoran Desert to Southeastern Idaho and finally into the big happy arms of my David (who promptly waltzed me off into the British Isles for more adventuring before digging some shallow roots in West Texas). To turn 30—well, it seemed like ending not just a chapter, but a whole miniseries.

Since David and I were both 30 years old for one month before David turned 31, we decided to celebrate our thirtyness by doing 30 Awesome Things in 30 Days. It was such a lovely way to start a new decade of life that we decided to reprise last year's experiment and accomplish 31 Things in 31 Days this year (there are technically 35 days or so in-between Dave's birthday and my own, so we could keep this running for a while).

We weren't so good at documenting today—we didn't take any good pictures of the really good stuff—but we're hoping to get back into the swing of Things in the next few days.

In any case, today we kickstarted 31 Things by celebrating my 31st birthday. It looked like this:

• 9:00: Eat homemade cinnamon rolls
• 10:00–12:00: Work while Hollie sleeps
• 12:00: Family walk
• 12:30: Lunch
• 1:00–4:30: Hang out at the DMV and get Emily a Texas driver's license on the day that her Idaho license expires.
• 5:30: Dinner at the Manna with a few close friends
• 7:00: Ice cream cake & present opening

It was a great birthday, in spite of spending almost four hours at the DMV (which involved a quick trip over to another government building to get a hard copy of our car registration renewal receipt, because apparently a printed online copy of said receipt doesn't cut it). I'm not going to lie, though—the DMV was grim. The only water fountain was covered in a black garbage bag and super-duct-taped over with large signs warning against even approaching the water fountain. I'm pretty sure someone must have peed in it and no one knows how to clean it now. Furthermore, the "take-a-ticket" format of waiting in line was completely botched. The numbers were all out of order. My number was 309. 308 was called at around 3:00 and I got excited. Around 20 other numbers as various as 069 and 753 were called between 308 and 309—I didn't end up getting called back until nearly 4:15. Hollie's nap was supposed to begin between 2:30 and 3:00. It was rough.

Perhaps this is why taking pictures today was difficult. We were a little exhausted, not to mention it is finals week here. 

I did manage to snag a picture of Hollie just before heading to dinner. The three of us were each equally as frazzled, starving, and semi-dolled-up as Hollie is in this picture.

David had arranged for three of my closest friends to meet us at Manna Bread & Wine, a place we had never been to. It's the kind of place that doesn't even own high chairs. It's the kind of place we still took our 18-month-old daughter to, and she was perfectly lovely (surprisingly, especially considering her late car nap). The restaurant was tucked away inside a small, artsy shopping center with a grassy sitting area and decorative fountain (complete with a bridge) that we all found very charming, especially Hollie (who loves water fountains).

We ate well, we chatted and laughed, and Hollie didn't really start to make a fuss until after the check had come.

We returned home, friends in tow, and ate a small strawberry Marble Slab ice cream cake while I opened up the presents that David had wrapped up the night before. We mosied about, and one friend stayed late to play some games with Dave and me. 

My ridiculously large amount of loot. My mom sent me a KitchenAid Blender because our old blender can barely cough up a simple smoothie these days, and my friend Jo got me some excellent summer-y maternity clothes, including incredibly comfortable stretchy pants that are not in this photo because I was already wearing them. My friend Mel also got me a Harry Potter Time-Turner—you know, for getting through my reading list before taking my qualifying exams this July! Davie got me an ice cream maker, a copy of Moonrise Kingdom, a Chieko Okazaki book (a marvelous Japanese Mormon sister who is delightfully progressive, blunt, feminist, and loving, and I love her), and a new set of my favorite pens (Pilot G-2, size .05). Per tradition, David also wrapped up some library books for my birthday (every year he "gifts me an author" via the library). He and Hollie picked out some books from the Miss Nelson series, which we had been reminiscing about earlier this week. You know the ones? The teacher "leaves" and a mean "substitute" takes over, but it is really the teacher in disguise? I can't wait to revisit these books!

It was a lovely way to turn 31. I am more Texan now, and I have an ID to prove it. 

So.

Turning 31: Accomplished.

Acing the DMV: Accomplished.

Dining well with lovely people: Accomplished.

Thing #1: Accomplished.

Oh yeah, and Hollie is 18 months now. One of these 31 Things will focus more on her so we can brag about her cuteness. In the meantime, this picture will have to suffice.

Holls at 16 mo.

Hollie's favorite hand-me-down dress thus far—it turns her into a twirling, whirling imp.

Hollie is 16 months old and a hoot to boot. I haven't been so good at these updates, but it is harder and harder to get together with our families, so I'm going to be better at updating this old blog.

Our young elf has been into all kinds of trouble lately. Despite knowing how to sign "all done!" she still prefers to let us know by throwing food (usually something really sloppy like avocado pieces or mashed potatoes) off her high chair tray and onto the floor. Her favorite word is "no," and she has learned to say it in about forty-two different cadences. My favorite versions include the one I call Old Grizzle-Grouch when she says "no" in the lowest, growlingest, troll-like voice, usually over and over, like this: "no no no no no no noooooo." My other favorite is the coy "no," when she gets really quiet, looks away, and softly, sadly, with lips puckered says, "nooooooo......" in one of the highest registers I have ever heard from this growling puppy girl.

Helping with a little light yard work.

Here are some of Holls's favorite things:

• Favorite food: avocado, which she calls "CADO" in a low grunt
• Favorite vegetable: peas and cooked carrots
• Favorite fruit: strawberries and apples 
• Favorite words to say: no, book, moon, baby, ball, bee, dog, avocado, more, "oh, pretty!" and eyebrow (seriously)
• Favorite words to sign: outside, water, again, dog, cracker, cereal, more, leaf (for "tree"), cold, pajamas (sleep + clothes), and hat
• Favorite time of day: bath time and brushing her teeth
• Favorite books this week: Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider and The Very Quiet Cricket, and Leslie Patricelli's Tubby Time
• Favorite game: dress up with Daddy, in which the two of them stand in front of a mirror and take turns wearing hats, my dress scarves, bracelets, sweatbands, and bows
• Favorite animal: lions
• Favorite crayon color: white (seriously, although she did eat a blue crayon under Dave's watch)

Holls loves to play peekaboo, and she likes to hide behind trees and then jump out to scare me or Dave. She thinks if she can't see us, we can't see her, so this is her "hiding" behind our hobo horseshoe set, just before jumping up and "scaring" me.

Some of her least favorite things include:

• taking naps (though some days she doesn't seem to mind them at all)
• putting clothes on (including socks, shoes, and jackets)
• putting lotion on
• getting her hair washed
• hearing "no" to one of her own requests

Playing with her bowling pins from Grandma Grover. She mostly just throws them whilst shouting barbaric yawps.

Hollie gets to watch one Signing Time half-hour video in the mornings (when Mom and Dad are still trying to wake up), and she gets to watch one Yo Gabba Gabba half-hour episode before she goes to bed at night. I sort of hate letting her watch any television at all, especially since she loves it so much, but I admit it is a nice way to wake up slowly and a nice way to calm her down for bed.

Many, many thanks go to my sweet cousin Erin who sent us the signing videos—they have revolutionized the Grover household. We are converted.

Watching her daily Signing Time video with her blanket from Grandma Hollie.

We also had one snowstorm last week that gave me a day off from school (awesome). Hollie helped me make these snowmen. We didn't find out until David got home from school that he has never built a snowman in his life! I still feel bad about not waiting for him to get home. I had no idea!

Hollie being impish.

Final points of interest:

• This baby is getting teeth! She is growing them all out of order, I'm afraid, with four front top teeth, three bottom front teeth, and what looks like a few molars on the top and bottom on both sides of her mouth. Her grin is delightfully lopsided as a result.
• The one thing this baby will eat 100% of the time are goldfish crackers and Macaroni and Cheese. Since David and I are trying to oust all processed and high-sodium foods from our diet, this always concerns me. And yet there is something so rewarding about seeing her have a healthy appetite that I can't help but give into her cravings, she eats like a bird so often the rest of the time. Oh, babies.

My handsome husband and daughter. *swoon*

Oh yeah, and Mowgli is doing chipper, too. We're around nineteen/twenty weeks along and I can feel him/her moving around a lot these days. I've been able to feel little feet when I lay my hand on my stomach (and much higher than Hollie's early days, so Mowgli must be head-down most of the time). I'll see if I can get David to feel the kicks this evening, since some of them are already pretty strong.

Here is a video from a few weeks ago, after Holls demanded to wear the hat that belongs to my Strawberry Shortcake doll from early 80s. It was sort of an impromptu video, with just a few animal noises and body parts—she was already losing patience with me—but I thought her grandmas might like it:

The Day the Boxes Showed Up

This post has been over a month in the making, even though I am only just now starting to type it up. Something remarkable happened last month, but it wasn't anything I'd call a miracle, and it wasn't anything that had to do with the health or overall wellbeing of my family. So I don't know quite how to share this story because I don't know where to put it, and sharing it feels like bragging.

Sorry, I'm being obscure and mysterious and likely ruining the story this way.

A year ago I wrote a post about owning things and losing things, a story about how all of the Christmas presents and other gems from my childhood home got lost in the mail, about how we lost three huge boxes of material treasures and gifts. It took until mid-February before we finally decided to stop waiting for the boxes to come and move on. I liked writing that post, because it gave me a chance to think about my relationship with material objects, whether they be brand-new Christmas presents or old childhood books that, to me, are more artifacts and symbols of my little kid self than pages and binding.

But David and I decided that life isn't composed of gathering a collection of things that make your life meaningful, and that old books and toys don't really document your life the way stories and memories do. I felt like we learned that Christmas to let silly things go, and to not mourn for things that can't breathe and don't mourn you in return.

Well, you guys, last month, somewhere in the middle of January, David and Hollie came home from the store to find three huge boxes on our front porch. The Boxes. All of what was lost, all of what we had let go; all of it showed up on our doorstep exactly one year overdue.

The Boxes. Surprisingly, they looked in better shape than most boxes that show up on our doorstep, the ones that show up on time.

And I haven't known how to write about this incredible, bizarre thing, because both the religious side of me and the English major side of me wants stories like this one to carry meanings and points, and I'm not sure what the point of this story is. The point of losing these presents and treasures was clear, and I felt wiser having learned to let go of silly things like SuperNintendos, rare game cartridges, and Wiis. These were not happiness or blessings. These were just things.

But now we have all of these things back and it feels . . . selfish? Awesome? Relieving? Exciting? All of those things, I guess. We danced around the living room when we opened them up, and shouted in glee about all the stuff we had forgotten we had even packed in the boxes. There was a lot of, "Ha! That's where my shirt ended up!" and, "Oh yeah! I forgot about the Nilsson records!" It was like an extra Christmas, or opening a time capsule. We felt gluttonous, rich, like we'd won some major award in a contest we didn't realize we had entered. We were both embarrassed and giddy.

It was strange to watch Hollie pick up toys and clothes that she never played with or wore. She sort of looked at the old gifts and then back at us, as if to say, "Are these supposed to be for me?"

We don't know what happened to these boxes, or where they travelled, or where they have been hiding. They are like adventurers, things that were lost at sea but then found their way home.

Books, records, baby food processing gear, clothes, kitchen gadgets, Miyazaki films, the SuperNintendo and its accompanying rare game cartridges.

The inscription I put in my Country Bunny picture book that I won when I was six years old. I still remember scrawling these words in the best handwriting I could muster. (It would be another couple of decades before my handwriting actually got any better.)

Baby toys (including a bunny from my dissertation director from when Hollie was a newborn), baby clothes, an expensive shaving kit, sentimental cards Dave and I had written for each other, a teaching bag from my mom, stocking stuffers, Christmas ornaments.

A saw (so Dave can follow his woodworking dreams), a jigsaw puzzle of our hometown here in Texas, a Bumbo that never got sat in.

Our old red Wii that we bought to console ourselves with the Thanksgiving of 2010, when we realized it wouldn't be safe to make the drive to Utah to see my family after all.

Hollie playing with the toys intended for her three-month-old self.

So that is our story—our weird, bizarre story. Our boxes showed up after all. We're currently conniving ways to share all of this unexpected wealth, particularly the pieces that don't quite fit anymore. It's just too much for our little family to take in—we feel so shy to have so much.

In the Meantime...

Hollie's Birthday. Thanksgiving. Other milestones. They are just falling left and right by the wayside, but I will get to them soon—oh yes, I will get to them soon.

In the meantime, here are some illustrations that David and I made at church today on the iPad (with Paper). They are Christmas-related, so we weren't being 100% naughty, just 86% naughty.

David's Robot Santa

My Robot Christmas Tree (ballistic ornaments and presents courtesy of David and his dexterous fingers)

Someone please cut this baby's bangs! This was on election day when Hollie thought the "I Voted" sticker was a barrette and kept sticking it in her hair. It was 500 times more effective than an actual baby barrette.

Spooky Grover Halloween

Han Solo, Baby Wicket, and Princess Leia

I'm clearly very behind on blogging some important Grover family moments (including a first birthday party and a first camping trip for ole' Hollie-by-Gollie).

But this will have to do for tonight.

Behold: ye olde Grover family Trunk-or-Treat (and by "olde" I mean, the very first Trunk-or-Treat me, Dave, OR Hollie have ever been to).

This semester has been horribly hard, and we almost bailed on tonight. However, the day before yesterday, we decided that we were Grovers—I say! Grovers!—and Grovers celebrate their holidays with style! So we went to Hobby Lobby last night at 8:00 p.m. (fortunately the Holiday Hours were in effect and they didn't close until the uncustomary 9:00 p.m.), gathered the needed materials, and stayed up until 1:30 making costumes, grading, and cleaning what we could of the house.

We even sewed a furry ewok costume for Hollie which we then accidentally left at home when we left for the church parking lot. Oh, well. As it turns out, everyone still thought she was super adorable.

On the way home, we stopped at a Sonic for chocolate/banana shakes and 50 cent corndogs. Hollie sat in her carseat and read Eric Carle books to herself.

All in all, not too bad for a last-ditch effort.

She literally would not stop running around the church parking lot. She couldn't stop pointing and shouting at everyone dressed up—she loved it. And she loved stomping the leaves in the gutters. She truly is a spooky little Halloween girl.

Grover Family Star Wars Trunk

This was actually after our ewok began to slow down. Still moving, just slowly enough now to get captured in the same frame as one of her parents.

Happy Halloween, everyone!