I Want to Go to the Airport!

Oh no, we lost Luke again!

This week was Marinda's birthday! In the morning Amit and Luke brought her breakfast in bed (the smoothie she wanted) and gave her her card. Luke was upset and didn't want to give mommy her card because "It's not mommy's birthday. It's Luke's birthday!" Which, incidentally, was highlighted on the card Amit made for Marinda.

Marinda went out with some friends for lunch, and later that night Amit and Marinda for dinner we sent Luke off to a babysitter and went out to Ciao Bella, which has been named Ciao Amore (it's not pronounced like 'more', as Marinda found out the hard way). If anyone is in Seattle and goes there for a special occasion, we highly recommend the lasagna.  It was so cute, there were only two other parties in the restaurant (we went really early) and they brought out a candle in her creme brule and they had their player piano play "Happy Birthday" - Marinda couldn't stop smiling.  She was just happy.

She also got A Heart Attack!  For those of you who don't know is basically the nice version of TPing someone.  Imagine how surprised we were when we opened the front door and found it covered in hearts with a note wishing Marinda a happy birthday.  Amit know's who's involved, but Marinda still has no clue who did it.  If you're reading this, THANKYOU!  Marinda felt so loved.  :)

I hear you get more susceptible to heart attacks as you get older...

This week marked the end of Amit's flag football season. The team made the playoffs by virtue of not forfeiting a single game, but only 5 people (the minimum required) showed up for the game. By the way, it's a 7-on-7 league. Thankfully the other team was nice enough to only play 5 people, until the second half when the game was close, and then they put in 6 people and built up a lead. But Amit had fun, and now Luke is obsessed with playing football at home. He needs some work on his throwing and catching, but he has the whole 'running' thing done pretty well!

Amit left this morning for his last conference of grad school down in Tucson, AZ.  Luke started bawling when he got up this morning and saw the suitcase in the living room - we still don't know if it was because he didn't want Amit to go or because he wanted to go on an airplane too.

In preparation for this trip, Amit went crazy and we ended up cleaning the whole house.  Did you know we actually have a kitchen table?!?  It is true!  Amit found it!

Think we can get this to last into High School?

So how did Marinda do for her first 10 hours of being Luke's sole caretaker?  Well, she and Luke made it to choir and he was pretty good during it - but then for sacrement meeting he went kind of crazy.  Marinda thought that just letting him run around in the foyer would be enough, but he was being so insane she needed to chase him a little - and pulled a muscle on her stomach.  You know, one of the ones that are being stretched and brutalized by this whole paricite infestation thing?  Yeah, she went back into the chapel to grab a diaper, and started walking slowly to the bathroom to change Luke's diaper.  Half way there, she just stopped against a wall and thought "How am I going to do this?"  And just like that, her good friend Kate appeared and took the diaper and Luke and told Marinda not to worry.  She said she had seen Marinda's face when she was going to get the diaper and knew something was wrong.  When Marinda was still in pain she then had Marinda get Luke's carseat and sent Marinda home to get some rest saying that she would bring Luke home after church.  Marinda was pretty near tears the whole drive home - both from gratitude for the mirical of good friends and because she was 3 hours in and already felt like a failure.  She just kept telling herself, though, that she couldn't base the rest of the week off of church.  Church is where parent's of toddlers go to die.  It is a pretty widely accepted fact that there is just something about it that drains parents.  Maybe it is to give parents confidence that they do in fact get blessings for trying.  :)

On other topics, a toy that Marinda saw two years ago on Kickstarter got funding and is now on the shelves of major toy stores including Toy's R Us.  It is called Golieblox and is a building/book game for girls!  It was envisioned and designed by an engineer from Stanford who is trying to get girls excited about being inventors and innovators instead of just princesses and fairies and instill confidences that they can do stuff that is traditionally "boy stuff".  It is so incredibly awesome Marinda kept almost crying with every video she watched.  Case was a really good school and Marinda didn't feel the discrimination that a lot of other schools give their female engineering students - but Marinda does have a couple of stories about being one of the only girls in her program that made this new toy really personal to her.  Anyways, check it out!!!

For a funny Luke story - Marinda was walking around the grocery store with Luke this week and he was singing "Old McDonald."  Then all the sudden between "cows" and "pigs" Marinda heard "Old McDonald had a DRAGON!"  followed by Luke laughing his head off.  It was pretty awesome.  :)

Anyways, we hope you guys had a great week!