Dear Family: I think Tim and I are writing this one together. I shall begin. Well, as many of you have discovered I’m the new blog writer reminder. However, I think I should have had someone remind me that it was our week. Several times I almost forgot…. Life is much quieter at 408 E 13th now with both Kate and Chris gone. However, we are not alone as the pets are alive and well. For all of you wondering, Tommy can and does get through the corner of the fence to go in and out of the backyard. It was a point of discussion earlier in the summer how he was doing this and then lo and behold Chris and I have seen it done. He must turn his head sideways and then he kind of pops his hips through. It is an interesting thing to see. Now the poor boy has a skin condition and is rather bald on his tummy, and head. It isn’t a pretty sight.

. Miss Shona misses her master and some evenings just seems to mope around the house. Other times she is being very ornery. We now have a couple of holes in the backyard, she carries rocks around and dumps them in various places and earlier took it upon herself to pull out the water plants from the water garden. Amelia is alive and getting around pretty good. Connor is still the worry wart, although he is being pretty friendly with Shona. Noel, aka pretty girl, misses Chris terribly. Tim and I just don’t pet her the same. She hasn’t learned to fully appreciate Shona at all. We seem to have acquired a flock of cardinals. There have been up to 10 males at the feeders this Fall. It is fun to watch them and woe unto any pet that catches one.

My work has been rather slow. My co-workers have provided some entertainment though. A couple weeks ago they were experimenting with a new explosion in Dr Goddard’s lab. Basically, they ended up making a pipe bomb, putting a hole in the plexi glass and sending one of them to the ear doctor for possible hearing damage. The ears were okay but we have had a good time teasing them about it. Last week, I managed to drop my keys down the bathroom sink (attached to a lanyard) and get them stuck at work. I wasn’t too worried until I went to pull them out and they stuck. I grabbed them with my fingers and pulled again only to have the lanyard come off. Now I’m stuck in the bathroom holding onto the keys with one hand and wondering what to do. I know if I let go they will go down the drain and possibly clog it. I was thinking of yelling for the guys in the office but wasn’t sure if they would come into the women’s bathroom to rescue me. I had just decided I would use my cell phone to call someone when the keys gave and popped out of the drain. Good grief only to me would this happen. We have both taken trips this Fall. I went to Indianapolis to spend time with Jeni and her family. Jeni and I have been best friends for 37 years. We toured Indy, went to Jeni’s Bible Study, Rusty’s (Jeni’s son) cross country meet, watched movies and just had a relaxing time.

Oh, I did get my first pedicure and rather enjoyed it. A trip to the Half Price Bookstore was great. I would recommend it if you have one in your area. One night we watched Jeni’s favorite movie which is “Tea with Mussolini” and the next night we watched Art’s which was “Beautiful Mind”. Both were good and if you haven’t seen them you might give them a try. As Rusty said “Jeni’s movie is about feminists and that should be no surprise” Enough of my adventures…I’ll let Tim share about his trip to New Mexico and Nevada.

Early in October I flew to Denver to take my Mom on one of her bucket trips. It was kind of a two at one time type trip as we went to the Albuquerque Balloon Festival and to Las Vegas NV to visit her college roommate who is in a nursing home. We drove to Albuquerque on Sunday (stopping briefly in Santa Fe—neat place, gotta take Laurie there some time!) and then Monday we went to the Balloon Festival. This was one of their “slow” days, only launched 150 or so balloons that morning! We got their pretty early, about 6:30, shortly before sunrise and watched them inflate and fly the balloons. You can walk right into the area that they are launching the balloons. You can relax, sit on benches and watch the balloons fly around northern Albuquerque. The reason they like Albuquerque is that the winds there allow them to fly in a box so they land back where they started.

There are balloons of all shapes; traditional tear shaped and lots of specialty balloons in different shapes. My favorite specialty balloon was Darth Vader but the cow balloon was pretty cool too. The festival is like the Kansas State Fair going through two weekends with the best launches on the weekends. I gather they were launching over 800 on the weekend before. They had to launch in shifts as there was not enough room at the park—which is huge. On Thursdays they launch only the specialty balloons and have a “rodeo”.

The balloon festival is an amazing sight and I highly recommend going if you ever have a chance.

We were done by 10:30 that morning, so we took a ride up the tram at Sandia Peak above Albuquerqu. It is quite impressive to go up about 4,000 feet above the city and be able to look out over the Rio Grande Valley. On the back side of the peak is a ski resort. I guess a lot of people ride up to ski for the day then ride the tram back down in the evening. I would like that.

On Tuesday Mom and I drove to Las Vegas via a short stop at the Grand Canyon. That was a long trip but really neat. Mom had never been to the Grand Canyon before so that was special since it was her 80^th birthday. We also stopped in western Arizona and looked at the stars. It was a beautiful moonless night and we could see the Milky Way very clearly. Very very awe inspiring. God has certainly made a beautiful place for us to live in.

On Wednesday Mom visited with her roommate, Helen, who lives in a nursing home. I went to the Hoover Dam and explored it and the new Pat Tilman Memorial Bridge which opened a week later. I had fun sending picture e-mail to Chris and Laurie showing them where I was at. Mom and I never did do any gambling in Vegas even though we stayed in a casino and Mom had a role of quarters in her purse. Just never had time to sit down at a slot machine as we were both tired that night.

Thursday we drove to Salt Lake City and were able to visit Kate for a couple of hours. We had not originally planned on stopping to see Kate but the Center for Change had said it was ok to visit. Kate really enjoyed our visit and we were pleased to be able to see her.

Friday morning Mom was anxious to get home so we were up and moving at 5:00 AM. We drove through snow and rain into Wyoming and into Denver into rush hour traffic. Mom was glad to be home. We drove just a few miles short of 2300 miles in six days. We saw lots of pretty scenery and friends and family. Mom can now cross three bucket list items off her list.

The traveling has been fun, but home is still the best.

White Water Rapids

My post happens to fall the weekend before my fall concert, so it's one of those times when I am so focused on what I have to do that I have to remind myself to stop and take a deep breath every once and a while. It's what I imagine paddling through white water rapids would be like. You are so focused on keeping the raft afloat that you cannot take in the beauty of nature around you. There is, however far away it may seem, the comfort of knowing that at some point calmer waters will come.

Amidst the rapids there have been a few rather hysterical "You're not in Kansas anymore" moments, a few of which I thought you might enjoy.

First: homecoming mums. This is the explanation a website gives regarding this Texas tradition.

"A homecoming mum is an oversize mum corsage decorated with three-foot long streamers in the school colors, bells, charms, banners, little plush animals done up in bows, sparkly letters, even Christmas tree lights."

This is the first time middle schoolers were allowed to wear them at my school (new principal), so I had not experienced them before. Our theatre teacher has children at the high school so she was showing us pictures the day before everyone wore them to school and I seriously thought it was a dress. The next day she explained everything to me. Each of the mums cost more than 100 dollars and up to 300 dollars. I've included a picture I found online for your viewing pleasure.

Second: my toilet. I can't remember if I shared all of my plumbing trouble with you in my last post, but I sure had my fair share of it when I moved into my new apartment. The kitchen sink leaked as well as the bathtub faucet, which caused the apartment below me to flood. They finally fixed all of that and my toilet started constantly running. It took about a month to get it fixed and now when I flush, it flushes three times, every time! So much for saving money on rent :), I'm paying it all back in my water bill!

Third: the size of high school football stadiums in Texas. I think they rival KU and K-States' stadiums :-). James and I have season tickets to the UT Football games this season. Even though the team is struggling it has been fun to be one of the 100,000 fans in the stadium during home games. Here is a picture I took on my phone from our seat.

A couple of cool things I have discovered this fall are segway tours and glass bottom boats. James and I were given a segway tour of Austin as a gift, and riding a segway is awesome! I highly recommend it if you haven't had the chance. Here is a picture from our tour.

Also there are natural springs in San Marcos, a 30-minute drive south of Austin, which give glass bottom boat tours. You can see everything beneath you perfectly. They have lots of fish and other wildlife, and you can see the water bubbling through the sand at the bottom of the spring. If you ever travel this way, you should definitely stop for a tour.

I think that is about it for this post. Have a Happy Halloween! Love and miss you all!

Blessings,

Hannah

Life with the Johnstons

It is unbelievable that Adelynn just celebrated her half birthday! These last 6 months have gone way too fast and it’s amazing that time continues to speed up. Dave and I cannot imagine our lives without her or even remember what it was like before her. In fact, just the other day I was walking, only carrying my purse and it was such an odd feeling. I am now used to carhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrying Addie, diaper bag, purse, and whatever else we might need for wherever we are going. But of course, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dave is still working and going to school like normal. He gets to graduate in May! Yay! His classes are all pretty good, except his Networking teacher is ridiculous. That class is proving to be more challenging because of the teacher. He is still donating plasma twice a week and playing paintball on the weekends. If this is the first you have heard of him donating plasma, you are probably surprised because of how he feels about needles and blood. You all know the flu shot story… And on top of that, when I got my epidural, he almost passed out and he couldn’t even see it! (He loves when I tell that story :) ) He has overcome that fear because for 2 hours a week now, he sits with a huge needle in his arm. In his downtime, he watches Futurama since it is on the air again, and Halo Reach has been the game of choice.

Things are good for me, too. I am still doing a little work for Rachel, although not as much. She needed a lot of help from me to start up her big website and now that it’s up, I have less to do until the next big thing comes around. Work at Stifel is always good, but I will be cutting my hours down starting next week. There is just so little to do at work right now and it’s a good way to spend some time at home with Adelynn. Plus, I will have Fridays off so that will be nice.I have joined a Mom’s group called Little Apple Mommies. It is to meet other Moms and kids and organize play groups. Adelynn mostly watches the other kids, because they are fascinating big kids, but we both enjoy going to the meet ups.

We have been church searching basically the whole time we have been in Manhattan. For the last year or so, we have attended a church we were happy with, but it’s not our “home” church like South Hutch is. We decided to keep searching and decided to try Vintage Faith church. It is small, but we had heard good things about it. We have met at least a dozen people in the few weeks we have attended. We also joined their young marrieds Bible study on Sunday nights. There are 2 other baby girls there, Addison – 3 months and Alexis – 11 months. Adelynn was the only quiet baby last week. The 3 month old was fussy, and the 11 month old was rowdy. The only noise Addie made was a random burp :) Our good friends Ally and Travis go with us to both church and Bible study and they enjoy it too. The group does a great job of helping us get involved. We have brought snacks to one Bible study already. We are even greeting this Sunday! Even though we are nearing the end of our time here, it is nice to finally have a “home” church in Manhattan.

And now, the part you have been waiting for… the bragging…and the pictures :) Adelynn can now sit unassisted for short periods of time without her hands. She sometimes topples if something is beyond her reach. Or she will just lay down and “Army crawl” to go get it! She is getting fast, too! She sure got a double whammy with the stubbornness inheritance.



At her 6 month check up, the doctor said great things about her. She is 16lb 5 oz (57%), 27 inches tall (89%) and her head is 40cm (60%). The doctor calls her “the tallest kid in the class”. She said she is advanced to the 7-8 month stage with sitting and supporting herself. While we work with her to do new things and are proud of her for all of her achievements, she does not need to hurry to grow up! She is at the 9 month stage with her stranger anxiety :(. Dr. Klingler said to reassure everyone that her being upset is not personal! So if you hold her and she cries, she doesn’t hate you.

We all went to a dairy farm a couple weeks ago, and Addie had the chance to see the animals. She wasn’t sure about touching them, but she enjoyed watching them. She also really likes our cats. She sometimes sees Bruce and just starts laughing. Although, one time she grabbed his tail and he wasn’t too impressed with that. We have video of her sitting by herself and petting Bella. (She is usually gentle, but luckily we also have 2 tolerant cats!)





Adelynn has started solid food now twice a day. It is always fun to feed her the food and she enjoys it too. She really likes to rub it all over her tray. She wasn’t a fan of cereal, but she seems to like it mixed with carrots, mango and squash so far. It is amazing that one little person and 4 little carrot-spoonfuls can make one giant mess! When eating is over, you clean her face and she grabs it again with a dirty hand before you can clean them. It is an endless cycle! (Sometimes I think she does these things on purpose. You know her Dad, right?:) )



She also wants to sit up too much now to use her baby bath tub anymore. We got her one that goes in the bath tub that she sits up in. It is like a boppy with a seat that hangs in the middle. She puts her arms on the sides and looks like she is in a pool float. She tries to drink the water all the time and she loves kicking and splashing, too. Maybe she will be a fast swimmer like her Dad someday, or enjoy relaxing baths like her Mom, or maybe both!



Dave and I laugh so much more than we ever have before. Who knew dirty diapers and other messy events could cause so much laughter? We laugh at eachother’s antics to make her giggle, silly mistakes made caused by lack of sleep, and at her new tricks. It seems like she does new things every day now.

One new thing is how she “sings”. She kind of yells this really long “aaaahh” sound when she is playing in the carseat. We can barely hear each other talk in the car. We wait until she is done, start talking again and then she “sings” again. We usually end up laughing some more and waiting to finish conversation until we have reached our destination. She has “sung” herself to sleep in the car a couple of times. We look in her mirror and see her “singing” with her eyes closed when she suddenly stops. She is out!

She has started blowing raspberries and squealing… A LOT. She is a vocal child, we all know which parent that came from. She also loooves books. We read to her every day and she used to actually listen as we read and let us turn the pages. Now she likes to bang on the books and chew on them. She has certain books she really loves and certain pages she likes best. She giggles all the time and she responds when you say “Adelynn”… sometimes…if she feels like it. From reading this, you can tell she is developing own fun personality It’s so fun to see her blossoming every day and we love every minute!