A Tale of Two Cities

The following story is a novel - NOT a picture book. That means there are lots of words and no pictures. You've been warned......


Once upon a time, there was a boy named Menta*. He fell in love with a girl named Mendall* and got married. Shortly after they were married, Menta was promised great riches if he and his lovely wife would move to the far-ish away desert land of Tucson for a summer. Off to the desert they went. It was a great adventure and both Menta and Mendall became enamored with the kind people and curious landscape of the American southwest. They became acquainted with the dangers of the desert flora (SEE JUMPING CHOLLA) and learned that they could tolerate near drought conditions and 100+ degree weather. New friends were made and old friendships were rekindled . The football team at the local university was coached by one of the Brothers Stoops, immediately helping them to feel right at home. A trip to nearby California to visit Menta's Grand Pa and Mendall's brother, along with a visit from Menta's sister from Utah, assured them that family was still not too far away. As their summer adventure in Tucson came to an end, they were again promised even more riches if they would return after two years and permanently live there. Menta and Mendall were eager to return and establish themselves in the desert. They would live the American dream of owning a faux-dobe house with a lava rock yard less than 100 miles from the Mexican border. Yes, life would be grand for them in the desert.

Over a year into Menta's studies, Mendall gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Vhomas*. Mendall dreamed of raising her baby boy in the desert. As she shopped JBF sales, she thought, "I will never have to by my darling child a heavy winter coat!" So she didn't. Instead she stocked up on 6-12 month t-shirts and swim trunks. Yes, life would be quite simple raising a child in the desert, as they would probably be naked or shirtless at the swimming pool nine months out of the year.

One day near the end of the two years of studies, Menta came home from work and mentioned that he had sent his resume to MIT Lincoln Labs near the far away land of Boston. Mendall, thinking that he was talking about lincoln logs, gave it no further thought. A short time later, a man from Lincoln Labs contacted Menta and asked him if he would be interested in flying out to Boston for an interview. Seeing this as an opportunity to travel east of the Mississippi River for the first time in almost 28 years of life, Menta enthusiastically accepted the invitation. Mendall said good-bye to her husband and was grateful for the opportunity and experience for him to be interviewed by such a prestigious company. Then she proceeded to continue looking online for the perfect faux-dobe house, nestled in a patch of cacti, for their sweet little family.

After Menta returned from the far away land of Boston, the couple waited to hear back from the company that had offered them great riches in the desert land Tucson and the hard-to-pass-up-shot-in-the-dark job in the far away land of Boston. When both companies contacted Menta with their final offers, it became obvious to the young couple that they were going to have to make an agonizing decision.

West or east?

Far away or really far away?

Sort of near family or nowhere near family?

Long, hot summers or long, cold winters?

Suns or Celtics?

After much deliberation and a poll on Facebook, it was decided that the young family would establish themselves near the far away land of Boston. Menta was very excited for the opportunity to work at MIT Lincoln Lab. Mendall was excited about being able to make sweaters and scarves. They soon realized, though, that moving to the far away land of Boston would be far different from their previous plans of moving back to the far-ish away land of Tucson:

Average high temperature in Tucson in January: 66 degrees
Average high temperature in Boston in January: 33 degrees

Proximity to closest family member from Tucson: 600 miles
Proximity to closest family member from Boston: 1,000 miles

Proximity to closest Stoops brother from Tucson: 0 miles
Proximity to closest Stoops brother from Boston: 600 miles

Average age of houses for sale in Tucson: 2 years
Average age of houses for sale in Boston: 200 years

Number of friends in Tucson: at least five
Number of friends in Boston: zero

Distance to Mexico from Tucson: < 100 miles
Distance to Mexico from Boston: 2,000 miles


Menta and Mendall quietly kissed their dreams of owning a lava rock-yarded, faux-dobe house good-bye and began to embrace the reality of a few more years of scrimping and saving and apartment renting . They would not be making great fortunes in the far away land of Boston, but they knew that that was where they were supposed to go. Yes, little Vhomas would grow up a Northeasterner.

As Menta and Mendall began their preparations to journey to the far away land of Boston, they realized what tremendous blessings they had received in the land of their youth: Oklahoma. Though most outsiders found this land to be particularly desolate and boring, both Menta and Mendall had sad and heavy hearts as they thought about leaving friends and family behind. What wonderful memories they had made there! They vowed to themselves that as long as friends and family remained in Oklahoma, they would return to visit and share tales of their adventures in the far away land of Boston. Between visits they would document the happenings of their lives on a blog (ahem...the one you are reading) and keep anyone and everyone who cared informed about their semi-exciting lives. Yes, they decided after all, moving away to the far away land of Boston was just the adventure that they needed.

What will happen to Menta and Mendall and baby Vhomas as they haul a harp cross country in a minivan? Will they find a place to live? Will Menta enjoy his new job? Will they be able to endure their first New England winter? Will they faint when they see the price of milk? Stay tuned for the exciting continuation......

*names have been changed to protect the innocent



And did you guys honestly think I was going to make you read that without rewarding you with some cute Thomas pictures? Puh-leez! You guys know me better than that:




Our li'l Santa Baby. Seriously. So. Cute.

Happy Thanksgivoween!!!

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I thought it was about time that I posted photos of our Halloween costumes (as promised). Yes, I realize that -except for a few lingering pieces of "reject candy" (i.e. smarties, tootsie rolls, dum dums, laffy taffy, etc.)- most of you have forgotten about Halloween by now. Well, I'm bringing it back. We're going to go on a little trip back in time to show you how Halloween went down here in the 'hood.

Disclaimer: I might have to do some fudging on the details since it has been so long and I have forgotten most of what we actually did. I will probably exaggerate and make things up. Now, if Kenta were the primary author of this blog, you would have already heard about Halloween in great detail at 10:30 p.m. on October 31. He would have covered such important topics as: what we wore, where we went, who was there, what the temperature was outside, the windspeed, barometric pressure, what time the sun set, what the trip meter was at in the car when we hit our final destination, the price of gas, our blood pressure, white blood cell count, and how many trick-or-treaters knocked on our door (oh, wait - I actually do remember that: ZERO).

I decided way back before we even had a baby that themed costumes were totally the way to go for Halloween. Naturally, I spent months thinking about a costume for three. After some brainstorming, I thought, "Yes!! I have it! We'll be Fruit of the Loom!!". Kenta, however, was far less enthusiastic about that idea and promptly shot it down (much to my dismay). So I continued to think: Alvin and the Chipmunks? The Three Little Pigs? Ariel, Sebastian, and Flounder? I just couldn't get excited about anything, until I had this idea:

ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS!!!

Thomas: "The Rock"

Group close up. (sorta). Thomas's shifty eyes and lack of mouth are hilarious in this picture. If you don't believe me, enlarge the picture. If you still don't believe me...we must just have different senses of humor or something.


As you can tell, it was way awkward trying to get a group shot when:
1) Kenta's costume was on his back
2) Kenta had to hold Thomas (otherwise the dowel rods at the top of my costume would poke Thomas in the face)
3) Some random dude at the Weather Center was taking the picture (I could have bossed him around and been really picky and made him take pictures over and over again until we got a decent one, but I didn't know him, so...whatever).

We met up with Kenta at work to take these pictures because this was like three days before his thesis defense when he was still "living" at the Weather Center. Thomas is obviously too young for real trick-or-treating, but we did attend a trunk-or-treat and managed to take no pictures (yeah...lame, I know), but we did wear our costumes a third time for - what else? - a 5k race!!

In 2007, I ran a 5k called the Monster Dash, dressed as a candy corn.

Last year I was out of town (and pregnant) for the event, so in 2009, I decided to make it a family affair. Kenta and I had made a goal this year to run a 5k together and this was pretty much our last opportunity. Naturally, I made him run it with a pair of giant cardboard scissors strapped to his back. It didn't help that some kids thought they were fairy wings, but he was a good sport about it (well...mostly, anyway) I pushed Thomas the entire 3.1 miles in the jogger whilst listening to Kenta complain about the scissors/fairy wings prohibiting him from running in a completely upright fashion. Luckily my sister, Maren, was also running the race (sans costume) and was able to document us in all of our post-race glory.


Back view. Maren's camera skillz are so amazing that it is actually almost entirely impossible to tell what the words say (it says "Runs with Scissors" haha...get it?)

This picture turned out much better. Thanks, Maren!

We finished the race in 32 minutes. Not a bad time, considering we were dressed as over-sized office supplies. Besides us, there was only one other adult racing in a costume. I'm not sure if we finished before or after Gumby did, but we chatted with him afterwards and he complimented us on our awesome outfits.

So that was our Halloween. Was it worth waiting to hear about?

Sorry, kids. Life got really busy and this little blog went by the wayside. Honestly, I didn't mean for it to happen. I had a post about college football awhile back that I didn't finish writing due to the untimely death of the 2009 OU football season. Then I went to Missouri for a week during Applesaucepalooza 2009. Then my husband neglected Thomas and me for a month while he lived at the National Weather Center finishing his thesis. Then Thomas grew teeth and decided not to take naps. Then...I can't remember. I'll just blame Kenta's thesis. it basically sucked the life out of our family for a few weeks. My creative juices were not flowing, thereby rendering me completely useless at blogging..

I've learned that blogging is a lot like flossing your teeth. You're really good and consistent at it for awhile, then you skip a day....then a week.....then a month...then you decide it's really not that important and quit altogether. You can't really see the immediate benefits of flossing. You don't really know if it's been worth your time until your dentist compliments you on your nice teeth at your check-up. The same with the blog. I put a lot of time into each post (don't ask - it's a little embarrassing how much time I spend) and wonder who actually reads it. So I get neglectful and people I didn't even know were reading it start asking me to update. I feel so loved. I solemnly swear I will never go AWOL again.

I mentioned we were busy. Kenta's been the busiest of all. He defended his thesis last week and PASSED. Huzzah! I now present to you:

Masters of the Universe

Master Yoda


Phil "Zen Master" Jackson

Master P

and the newest Master.....drumroll, please.....

.....Master Kenta

Doesn't he look so distinguished? That's what averaging 4-5 hours of sleep a night for six weeks will do to you. While Kenta was busy working on his thesis and not sleeping, Thomas was busy growing teeth and not sleeping. And, as usual, he was busy being very cute. I have pictures to prove it.

I realized on Halloween Eve that I had yet to take Thomas to a pumpkin patch for some pics. I'm a bad mom like that. Luckily there were about 4.5 pumpkins left for Thomas to pose with.

Caught by a huge gust of wind.



His hair is now long and plentiful enough to blow in the wind. Please take a moment to enlarge the picture and experience the cuteness for yourself.

I didn't have any snacks on hand, but Thomas found something else on his face to snack on. You might not want to enlarge that picture. Ewww...

Speaking of Thomas's face, here are the aforementioned teeth:

We are up to five now.

The obligatory "My Baby is So Cute in the Bathtub Picture":

( I may or may not have parted his hair that way)

And a bonus "My Baby is So Cute in the Bathtub" video:

The battery died after 20 seconds, which was extremely upsetting. He laughed for probably five minutes. It was the cutest thing ever and, of course, Kenta was at work when it happened and Thomas has not done it since.

You might remember that Halloween happened a few weeks ago. So as to not bore you with more blabber and self-indulgent Thomas pics, I will save our Halloween post for another day. But here's a preview:

to be continued.....

Sick and Tired

...is how I would describe the current state of my little boy, in three words or less. This is a first for us. His first time being sick and my first time taking care of a sick kid. Poor little guy.

I'm not quite sure what it is that he has. I can tell that he is way uncomfortable because he's been super-whiney and that's how I get when I'm sick and uncomfortable. Yesterday there was a drippy nose and eyes and the sniffles. I thought it might be allergies. He woke up less drippy today than yesterday, so I took that as a sign that he was on the mend. This excited me because I had plans to start a project and needed to make myself a Hobby Lobby run. Halfway to the Lob, I heard some painful cries from the backseat and then a horrible wretching noise. I've smelled some awful things in my young life, but I have discovered that banana barf is particularly offensive to my olfactory senses. Mission aborted: I turned the Hoodmobile around for the most direct course back home.

After I got the little guy cleaned up and took his temperature once again (negativo on the fever, so I ruled out The Swine) I suddenly realized that I didn't know what to do with my sick child. I waited for some motherly instincts to kick in, but they never did. So I called my mom.

Isn't it funny that no matter how old we get, when we are sick and not well, we still want our mommies? I remember a time when my younger brother got sick. My parents had just moved to Missouri. I was starting my sophomore year of college and my brother (almost 19) was starting his freshman year and living on his own for the first time. He got really sick and needed some serious TLC. I went over to our sister's house to meet him (she actually lived in my parents' old house with her family) and he was sitting on the front porch, crying, with his face in his hands. It was a pitiful sight. He was sick and needed his mom. But she wasn't there. So he went looking for another mom -my sister- to help him feel better.

So, as I'm contemplating a mother's ability to comfort a sick child, I'm wondering when this super-power kicks in because I know I sure don't have it yet. Poor little Thomas is probably suffering immensely because of it, too. Sorry buddy - I'm doing my best!

Since I can't figure out what to do with my sick baby, I thought I'd just take pictures to document how totally cute he is, even with drippy eyes and horrible banana barf breath.

Here are some of the "Best Ofs" from the sick Thomas photo shoot:

*A click on the above images will magnify his face in all of its goopy-eyed, crusty-nosed glory. You've been warned. Yummy.

Get well soon, little dude.

09-09-09

Well, with the date being 09-09-09, I thought it would be fun to do something that would be memorable and I had something nice just fly into my hands. It was the the Stevens Aero SQuiRT!


So, I signed up about a year and a half or so ago to be a pilot for Wings Across America (WAA) to help fly an r/c airplane in every state in the US. They started it last year in Virginia and it's finally made it to me. I was pilot number 155. Yesterday, I met up with Jim who was pilot number 154 and we made the hand off in Moore. It was nice to meet a fellow pilot and I was able to get a picture with him. Since I didn't ask his permission to post the picture, I'll hold off on it although if you really want to see it, you can get to it through the WAA website in a round-a-bout way. Anyway, he explained to me a little about the plane and what I needed to do to get it set up and what was in the box. After a few words and pictures, we loaded up the box into the car and I headed home hoping the weather would cooperate enough to let me fly it quickly to get it to Jim, pilot number 156. Maybe I'm supposed to name my next son Jim.


Anyway, I got the box home and we were both very impressed with how nice the box is. There are stickers all over the sides of the box of various r/c clubs that have participated.





There are signatures of every volunteer pilot registered to fly for WAA on the top of the box as you can see in that last picture.
I'm even on the website for WAA as having possession of the plane. You can see for yourself if you go to www.waa-08.org before Saturday afternoon.


Anyway, today, I thought it would be nice to try and fly the plane and hand it off the Jim #156 as soon as possible. I was online at work and saw an article on CNN about how people did some interesting things on September 9, 2009 (999) and I thought, "I should fly the plane on 09-09-09!" I looked at the weather forecast to see if I could fly today and saw the wind was pretty low at the time and that it would be picking up after 3:00 pm. I was originally planning on flying after work one day when the weather was nice but with the winds calm right then, I decided to take off at lunch to go fly it and then go back to work.

I got home right before Kendall did, as she was out running errands, and got the camera and video camera ready to go. Kendall was hoping to go but it was almost time for Thomas's nap so she was a little disappointed. Since this was a rare occasion and it wasn't going to take long, she made and exception decided to come along with Thomas for the event.

I first had Kendall snap a picture of me and Thomas with the SQuiRT in front of the apartment.


Then we packed the plane back up and headed to the park to go fly. As I was getting it put together in the back of the van, I found the wind was stronger than it was supposed to be. I had the thought in the back of my mind, "Don't do it" but I really wanted to fly on 999 and I didn't know when else I would be able to fly soon because of everything going on with school (that's another story) as well as the fact that there was a 20-40% chance of rain for the next 4 days. Yes, I know, 20% - 40% chance of rain in Oklahoma doesn't usually mean a thing but it's completely unpredictable, as I'll prove in the coming months, and I didn't want to take chances.

So, I got everything ready, Kendall sat in the back of the van ready to take pictures and Thomas sat in his car seat.
I did a range check, lined up the plane to fly into the wind, got behind the plane, and hit the throttle to get going and it just went in a circle. I tried again, and went in another circle. I repeated this several times.

You see, with a tail dragging plane, there are issues when you try and take off. Unless everything is just perfect, you tend to turn one way or another. The trick is to just throttle up the plane so the tail doesn't drag and if it's trimmed right, you'll go straight. I was nervous doing that though because it was windy and in addition to that, it wasn't my plane and there are about 150 more people after me that need to fly it, so I couldn't take unnecessary risks.

Well, I finally got it up in the air and started a circuit around the parking lot in the air. By then Thomas had started crying so Kendall had to get him and take care of him so all the pictures of the plane were taken while taking care of Thomas. Quite the feat if I may say so. Some were great shots.




Some were not quite that great.

Where's the plane?

She did a great job. I like the one where it's just taking off. You'll have to click that first picture to see the details.

Anyway, I got up in the air and realized, "It's a lot windier up there than it is down here!" but it was too late to jump ship. I had to fly it and get it down somehow in one piece and I could only fly for 5-6 minutes on a pack before the motor could have cut out. Definitely not nearly as serious or important as what Chesley "Sulley" Sullenberger had to do to land in the Hudson river


but I was pretty nervous.

I wanted to get the plane down so I did one circuit around the parking lot and tried to bring it in for a landing and was way too high to land closely so I throttled up again to gain altitude and do another circuit. Well, same thing again. I came in too high so I throttled up and tried to get it back North flying with the wind to get in position and lost control for a second and the wind turned it left (I was trying to go right) so it lost altitude quickly but finally turned North and went where I wanted it to go. I made sure to give it a little down elevator and got it low enough to land. The wind was strong enough that I probably could have floated it down and landed like a helicopter but I didn't care to try so I just landed the best I could and I landed it just fine.

Kind of hard to see there but it landed just fine even though it may look like it might crash.


I was quite relieved that it was back down on the ground in one piece. I took it back over to Kendall relieved that I had been able to fly it on 09-09-09 and also get it back down without any problems because I really thought I was in trouble when I was in the air.

This evening, I finished off the rest of my responsibilities. I was supposed to write my experiences and any advice to the next pilot(s) in the log book


and sign the top of the box as I was one of the volunteer pilots.




It really was a lot of fun to be able to participate in Wing Across America. If I end up in Arizona in the next few months, I could have the opportunity to fly it again which I believe will be a first for the journey, to have the same person fly in two states, but I could be wrong.

Here's the video of the flight. Sorry for how bumpy it is. If you zoom in closely where I'm flying to plane in the picture where it's taking off, you'll probably be able to see I have a hat on with a camera mounted on it so I can record where I was looking. Obviously, I missed the plane in some areas but I didn't care at the time because I was more concerned about getting the plane back in one piece. It was just a bumpy recording since I was moving around with it on my head. Image stabilization would be nice but you come to appreciate how well your body does it when you move around. You can click on the link below the video for a large version if you want to see the plane a little better.



Here's the final hand-off with Jim #156.


What did you do on 09-09-09?

I'm showing off Thomas if you can't tell.

6 Months

Our little guy is celebrating 1/2 year of life today. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. It seems like it was just yesterday when we were holding him in our arms for the first time....

He used to be so tiny (well, to ME) and would sleep all the time - anywhere and everywhere. Now he's a big boy and is growing and learning so much every day. He's a great sleeper - he still takes three naps a day and has been sleeping (completely) through the night consistently for over a month now. The only day we struggle a little bit is Sunday because we have church during his nap time - but we'd rather be there with a fussy baby than at home with a sleeping one. Here's a little bit of what Thomas has been up to lately:


Sitting unassisted. He's kind of skipped the rolling over stage (for now), but he loves to sit and play with his toys - especially his sock money (thanks, Aunt Mika!).

We started him on solids recently:

some edible....

....and others not so edible.


We've been trying out new veggies with him. So far we've had squash, sweet potatoes, and green beans. He wasn't too keen on the green beans, but has loved everything else. It's fun to see him grow up, but I have to admit that part of me is a little sad. The more solid food he eats and the older he gets, the less he will need me. Well, I guess he'll still need me - just in other ways.

Perhaps the most exciting development is that Thomas sprouted some new teeth about three weeks ago! We had kind of a difficult time getting a picture of his two little teeth...

We finally got a good one:



I guess this means we'll be giving Uncle Soren a visit in a few years (assuming he graduates from dental school and Thomas continues to grow teeth)

What else can I say? Thomas is busy growing and babbling and chewing and slobbering and discovering and, in general, just busy being very cute.

What a good lookin' guy. He's quite the ladies' man.

I think it goes without saying that he's got us wrapped around his little finger. How could you say "no" to a face like that?

Happy six months, Thomas!