One of the cool things about having a husband that flies is the spouse flight.  Bill’s squadron invites the spouses to come out and fly almost every year.  Today was the spouse flight. It was my third flight in a helicopter and this time I took pictures.  What a novel idea. 🙂  Here’s a bird’s eye view of Washington D.C.

The last two days we have had thunderstorms roll through the area.  Billy does not like storms.  I think it’s more the possibility of the lights going out and he gets afraid.  This started when we were in Oklahoma last year visiting my parents.  A tornado hit in the east part of town.  My parents live in the north part of town so no damage, but we lost power until about 4 am.  Billy was really upset so we decided to say a prayer.  We went to sleep and then the power was on when we woke up.  Billy saw the power of prayer.  Well the last two days he has been an example to me.  When it started thundering and lightening on Monday evening, he said Mommy, let’s say a prayer.  So we did.  The storm passed and we were okay.  Yesterday afternoon another storm came through.  Billy again suggested prayer.  The storm lessened and went through.  He said to me God hears me when I pray.  This makes me feel so good that he is learning the simple truths and knows that a loving Heavenly Father is watching over him.

Baden is in the nursery at church.  He does pretty good.  I will stop by and check on him through the window to make sure he is okay.  He is usually playing and looks content.  Today, he escaped.  As I was sitting in Relief Society, my friend brought Baden to the door.  I thought he must need a diaper change. Nope, he had opened the door and was wandering around the foyer.  I took him back into the nursery and went back to Relief Society.  Then a member of our bishopric came by the RS door and motioned for me to come and talk to him. He told me that no one in the nursery knew the child that I brought in.  I looked at him and said, “It’s Baden! Baden Powell.”  He looked at me and started laughing.  I have to admit I did too.  I guess they didn’t think Baden was my child since to them he doesn’t look like me. This was a little bit of a stinger, but that ‘s okay.  He even said to me well he doesn’t have brown hair so he couldn’t be yours.  I said he looks just like Bill but with hair. (Sorry, Bill 🙂  Well things were all straightened out and there were many apologies.  I don’t blame the nursery workers who were all substitutes today.  I know what it is like to be in nursery.  I was the  nursery leader for a year and half.  It’s hard to keep one eye on the door and one eye on all of the kids.  It’s a tough calling, but I know that the children are well taken care of and loved.  Maybe instead of Baden, we should just call him Houdini.

We are painting and we had to take the door knob off of the bathroom door downstairs.  Baden likes bathrooms.  I keep all of the doors closed for this exact reason.  Baden is never very far from me so I can try to stop what he may do.  Well he escaped me.  I went into the downstairs bathroom.  Baden had been there.  Toilet paper and a  turkey baster were in the toilet.  I am not sure how he got the baster, but he did.  Okay so I threw the baster out and went on with my day.  Later I was upstairs.  I went into the hallway bathroom and opened the lid on the toilet. Baden struck again.  A very soggy Elmo was staring at me.  I rescued Elmo and got him in the washer.  Luckily the toilet upstairs is low flow so there isn’t much water.  I think back when Billy was Baden’s age and he never went into the bathroom.  I guess he just didn’t care.  I wonder if that is why it was so hard to potty train him? So if my theory is correct, Baden should be a breeze to potty train. I sure hope so.

It doesn’t seem possible to me that we will be moving in two months.  It seems so long ago that Bill was given this new assignment. We have been busy painting especially the trim in the house.  The people who owned the house before had painted all of the doors and trim a colonial blue color.  It just seemed to fit with the house and we never changed it.  Now we must since it should be neutral.  It does brighten things up and doesn’t look too bad, but it sure is a lot of painting.  Our household goods will be picked up at the end of the month and we will be “roughing it” with just the essentials until we make our way out west.  We are excited about the move. Billy tells me every day that he wants to move to New Mexico, but I know that he will miss Maryland.  It will be an adjustment, but we are trying to make things easier by looking for a house to rent since base housing has a long waiting list.  So we will enjoy Maryland for a little while longer. When Billy tells me he wants to go to New Mexico and asks what is taking so long, I will just say we’re almost there.

When Billy was about Baden’s age, he loved tomatoes. Not to eat, but to carry around. He liked the smooth skin, I guess.  Ocassionally I would find a tomato in the living room or in the toy basket. Luckily, I would find them  missing soon after I bought them so no yucky messes to clean up.  Today while at the commissary I figured out what Baden likes – butter.  With a just few more items to get, I picked up some butter for baking.  I put the box in the cart and went in search of ‘Elmo’ cheese.  My search came up short so I turned to start pushing the cart to the checkout.  That’s when I see Baden squishing a stick of butter in his hands.  He had opened the box, unwrapped the butter and was enjoying the feel of butter in his hands.  When I saw him the only thing I could say was oh, no which Baden repeated over and over again.  I got it all cleaned up and usually I would have just bought the box, but another stick was missing and was on the seat of the cart with no wrapper to be found.  I guess I just panicked because I was a bad shopper and hid it really far behind the cream cheese. I have never done that.  Billy ended up with butter on his shoe. I am not sure how that happened and Baden had butter on his jacket and of course in between his fingers.  It was another exciting day at the commissary.

It is officially spring and the boys want to get out and run.  Yesterday was a pretty good day in the 50’s, but we were so busy that we decided to take the boys to the park today.  We didn’t last too long. It was 37 degrees with a wind, but the boys had a great time running, jumping and climbing.

I have had my Kindle for a week now and I can honestly say that I love it.  I wasn’t sure how I would like it because I am old school.  I love books and I wasn’t sure I would like reading on a screen.  It is just  like a book.  It is lightweight and is about the size of a DVD case.  The screen is sharp and has no glare.  I can highlight and add notes as I am reading which comes in handy since I belong to a book club.  It has a dictionary which is nice because if there is a word I am not sure of, I can just put the cursor next to the word and the definition is there.  I love the ease of downloading books or first chapters of books that I might want to read.  The cost of the books range from $9.99 for newer books to free for classics like Jane Austen.  First chapters of books are downloaded for free.   There is a text to speech feature, but the voice sounds like Stephen Hawking and I would rather read the words then listen to them.   It can play MP3’s which is pretty neat.  It has Sprint’s 3G network so I can look at the Kindle Book Store for more books. I can also subscribe to newspapers, magazines or blogs.  It is a neat device and probably one of the best birthday presents I have gotten.  Thanks, Bill!