Here comes Spring

We gave you all an update of some of the things we have done in last week’s post, here are some more things with pictures we have taken.

Glenn has increased in mobility over the last couple of months.  Not in walking, but in getting around the house and into just about everything.  Amanda has tried all sorts of “blockades” to keep him out the way and out of certain places, but it seems like as fast as she makes up a new one, he figures a way to get around it.

Glenn getting down the stairs

Here are some other pictures that don’t really fall into specific categories.

The first picture is Glenn playing “drummer”.  Although We (mostly me) hopes he doesn’t have wishes to become a percussionist (too much noise).  The second picture is Glenn wearing the shirt I got for him when I was in Nicaragua.

The first picture is of Glenn with the blanket that I used when I was a kid.  I found it at home sometime in the past, and kept it.  It was still in pretty good shape, so now it’s his.  The second picture is Glenn’s case of gonococcal conjunctivitis (aka bacterial red eye). (not really though).  He was eating yogurt and when Amanda wasn’t looking, he bent down to the spoon and kind of missed, getting his eye.  But he didn’t seem to mind.

After I finished my Boards exam we went down to Cincinnati & Lexington,  KY to relax.  In Cincinnati we went to the aquarium.  Glenn seemed to enjoy several aspects of it.  We got to see lots of cool things, and Amanda and I got to “pet” a shark.  The first picture above is a life-size model of a alligator, and then got to “play” on an oversized tropical frog.  We got to enjoy the penguin show and have Glenn stand in the observation ‘bubble”.

Penguins at aquarium

After the aquarium, we walked across the Ohio River to taste Skyline Chili in the heart of Downtown Cincinnati.  This chili is a unique Cincinnati/Ohio tradition and has special spices in it including cocoa and cinnamon.

In KY, we visited Amanda’s sister and their family.  We went to the park and spent some good time visiting.

For Easter, Amanda decided to give Glenn a few surprises.  We got him bubble bath and a big bubble blower.

Glenn’s bath time with bubbles

  Glenn playing with bubbles

Glenn with bubbles

Interesting Things

So…this post will be an odd conglomerate of different things that have happened over the last two months.

First, a few weeks ago we had several weeks of uncharacteristically warm weather.  One week specifically (of course this was the the last weeks of my quarter and finals) was in the upper 70’s and 80’s.  Then after that we went to visit family in KY and stopped in Cincinnati to see a few things, and it rained on us most of the time in Cincinnati.

 

 

 

All this warm weather has caused some more severe storms throughout the US, and there was a storm about 2 weeks ago that probably was the worst one we have seen here in Columbus.  It was a Sunday afternoon and we had the missionaries.  We knew it was going to rain, but didn’t think it would be so severe.  While were finishing, it started to rain, then thunder, then downpour and the tornado sirens went off.  We took the missionaries to our basement and for about 45 minutes they were in our basement watching the new bible videos on LDS.org.  Once the tornado sirens had ceased for about 10-15 minutes and the tornado warnings expired, I took the missionaries back to their apartment.  But…the storm hadn't stopped and while I was driving it rained and hailed pretty hard.  fortunately though, I got back before the worst, we got lots more rain and hail up to the size of those big marbles.  It didn’t do any real damage, knowing down flowers, and putting a number of little tiny dents in our car

 

Another thing that is interesting about living in Ohio.  For the entirety of our lives we have lived in places that are politically one sided.  We lived in areas with strong republican values, and in all that time I don’t believe that I ever saw or heard of any prominent national political figure visit the states we lived in.  But…in Ohio there is just the right mixture of enough people that are on both sides of the political spectrum, but especially people that are in the middle and persuadable to one side or the other.  Because of this, we have had lots of visits from national political figures.  A couple of weeks ago President Barack Obama came to The Ohio State University to give a speech.  In fact this is the 3rd or 4th time while we have been here that President Obama has come to Columbus.  It feels so interesting knowing that he is so close, only a couple miles away on campus. (although  it is a little bothersome because all sorts of things are disrupted, parking, traffic, etc.)

Throughout the last 5 months Amanda has been through an interesting experience.  At her routine dental cleaning, she was told she had an abscessed tooth, and would need to either get a crown or remove the tooth.  She opted to get a crown, not wanting to have a tooth missing.  But…she had no idea what she would be getting in to.  She had multiple visits between the dental student and the endodontist.  Then recently when they were preparing for making the crown, they noticed that her gum line was kind of high, and they would need to excise some of it to fit the crown.  She has had probably 6-7 appointments so far, and there will be probably 4-5 more to go.  Amanda feels like this is the Greek Monster the Hydra, where by cutting off one head, it grew into two.  It seems like every time she goes in and is ready for the next step, there is a problem and some new steps have to be taken.  I am not sure if this is because this is done at the college with students, or if it would be the same number of visits (approx.) as would a normal dental practice?