Let the adventure begin

From the receipts I could find so far it looks like we have made:
7 trips to Walmart
2 trips to Target
2 trips to Babies R Us
2 trips to the Pharmacy
2 trips to the Children's Hospital pharmacy
2 trips to Best Buy
2 trips to the Dollar Store
1 trip to Marshalls
1 trip to Gabriel Brothers
Not having to shop till we get to Nairobi will be priceless. But then we will have to shop for all of our food for one month!

Our bags are packed, our house is semi-clean, looks like we are actually doing this. I tried to get my 6 mile run in this morning but didn't have it in me. The day after we get back from Kenya Andy is running the Pittsburgh Marathon and I am running on a relay team. I was hoping to get my miles in before we head out but looks like I might be running in a skirt:)

The first trial of anti-malaria meds did not go so hot for me. I started vomiting violently and was out of commission for an hour or so. All the memories of being sick in Kenya swarmed back to me. What am I going to do if I get sick this time? I have Arathena to care for. Luckily we were able to get another medicine for me, unfortunately it cost $320 for the month...which we didn't budget for:) I am worried that Arathena isn't handling her meds either, she has been out of sorts, but the medicine she is on is the only one that she can be on, so she has to take it.

Since we had most of our bags packed we headed over to the Easter Egg hunt that our church sponsored for the community of Millvale. It was a lot of fun and so nice to see everyone one last time.

We are off to the airport...Arathena has not napped:) here we go

We are off

So we are off to Kenya tomorrow. I have about a million emotions running through me. The most prominent being, “What in the world are we doing? We are CRAZY!” I am a little anxious to say the least:)

Arathena has been a wreck this week, I am praying that she will do well with all of the travel and adjustments with time and culture that are ahead of us.

I have been super emotional this week as well. I wasn’t sure why and I couldn’t put my finger on it. The more I thought about it the more I realized the hardest thing for me about leaving is leaving my mom. I can’t count how many times my mother has unbuckled Arathena’s car seat base without me knowing only to have Arathena’s car seat completely fall over when I drive. Or the number of times I have had to call “clean-up in aisle 9” at Target because one of the Dynamic Duo (Arathena and my mom) spilled something. Arathena and my mother are a pair, but they are my pair. My mom has Alzheimer’s and I am so sad to leave her. She does drive me crazy more than I would like to admit, but I love her so much. I don’t know how she will do with us being gone. Her brother in NJ will be watching her for a few weeks but I am scared that she will not do well with that change. I have wrestled with this for months; do I go, who will watch her, what if she gets sick? At this point I feel even though I don’t know why I am going to Kenya, it is ok, and God will take care of my mother because He loves her. This is where I need to trust and have faith.

We were asked to keep a blog/journal so that when we come home we can debrief with World Medical Missions about our trip. I really don’t know what to expect this time. I know that for 2 weeks the Bemms will be away and Andy will be the only pediatrician at Tenwek hospital and that will definitely be SCARY. I am hoping to help out in the therapy department but since we have Arathena this time we will see how that goes.

I am excited to see our friends in Kenya, but sad to leave such sweet friends here in Pittsburgh.

Getting Crafty

When I heard my sister-in-law was pregnant, I wanted to make something special for the baby. I had never sewn anything except for a drawstring bag in home ec class. My friend Lisa convinced me that I could make a blanket and I am glad I did. The blanket turned out nice and I learned a lot about sewing along the way with all of my mistakes:)

Blanket for my nephew Max

I hand stitched all of the circles onto the blanket

Blanket for baby Piper!

My friend Lisa is a creative guru and helped me figure out how to make Max's blanket. She was also due at the same time as my sister-in-law so I made this blanket for her daughter, along with a bundle me

My friend Lauren also had a baby due first week of January! I made this bundle me for her, I have some burp cloths on the way:)

All babies have arrived safely and I am so glad that they are here!

I found this doll house at a church yard sale for $5! Sarah V. spotted it and I could not have been happier. My plan was to fix it up for Arathena for her Christmas present. I didn't get to it till the night before Christmas even though I had the house for several months:) It is not done yet, but it is looking good so far. I was hesitant to paint the house because it is beautiful wood, but there is water damage to it so we decided to go ahead and paint it.

Water damage

starting the staining process.

All of the rooms are painted, we just need to finish tiling the kitchen and bathroom:) Grandma and Grandpa bought Arathena a cute furniture set and great grandma gave money for Arathena to buy a little doll family. I will post pictures when we are all finished.

Fun night cooking at home

Its been a long time since I have blogged...almost a year! Andy has been getting into cooking which is fun for me to have help in the kitchen. This has been a rough month with Andy working in the PICU, but he had today off so we decided to make a nice meal at home. Tonight we had Chicken Marsala, Polenta, and salad. It was very good and fun to learn some new techniques. Both recipes were from Cooking Light. Recipe links here: Chicken Marsala and Polenta

Polenta

Chicken in the Marsala sauce

Our finishsed plate

It was fun to cook with Andy and spend time together tonight. Looking forward to more nights like this!

She didn't listen to us

We told Arathena ever since she was born that she was not allowed to go to Children's Hospital unless she was visiting her mommy or daddy at work. Well last night we had to go the ER because she had a high temp and difficulty breathing. She was pretty miserable. We waited 4 hours before we saw the intern and it was 5 hours before we got to go home. Luckily we got to go home without any tests. Originally they were going to do a chest x-ray and then check to see if she had a UTI, but when they checked her ears after taking out a bunch of wax, they saw her ear drums were infected. Luckily the antibiotic that she is on would treat pneumonia if she has it so we didn't have to get the chest x-ray.
It definately gave us a new appreciation for what families have to go through when their children are in the hospital. Just the sheer fatigue from waiting in the waiting room to see the doctor. I began to think, if Arathena was ever admited to the hospital we would go crazy. She wouldn't want to sleep in their cribs and just the change from her normal routine would be a disaster. She also FREAKS OUT with doctors. Arathena was flipping out last night and later Andy told me that the doctor was wondering if he needed to do an LP because she was so irritable, but Andy made sure he knew that it was because they were messing with her.
Well we hope to never have to go there again outside of work and we are grateful that Arathena is going to be ok.

Steelers win #6

Way to go Steelers! What an awesome game, we had so much fun watching the Superbowl!

The Borings Leave Us:(

For the past 9 months we have been blessed by having Don, Renee, and Annie live with us. Don and Renee came to Pittsburgh to have their daughter Annie. They were living in Nepal doing international development work before they came to Pittsburgh. We met Renee at our neighbors house and learned that they needed a place to stay once Don and then soon Annie arrived. Since Andy is gone a lot we thought it would be a prefect fit, and it was! We will miss having this wonderful family live with us.

On New Years Eve we had a going away party for the Borings. Don got a job in San Francisco working for the Asia Foundation