We Love Minneapolis and Johnbro

Molly and I went to the Minneapolis Orchestra last night.  John drove down from Fargo to see us and babysit for us. We LOVED the experience so much be bought subscriptions (well 8 tickets over the next year).  Also, we wanted to support one of the friends we have made from church who plays French Horn in the Orchestra (He got us these tickets). It was a sampler performance of many of their pieces throughout the year and there was a lot of awesome stuff.

 Our favorite piece (perhaps rivaled by the Star Wars theme) was Tchaikovsky's Death of Tybalt from Romeo and Juliet.  It brought tears to our eyes.

Here's a pretty good version:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H4qu7hMctQ

Help me Jonah, you're my only hope!

E.T.

Sometimes I think Poppy & I have an "ET/boy from ET" thing going on.  I can tell what she wants cause often times I want the same thing.  Yesterday she pointed up at the bookshelf... to the oreos. Yes that was exactly what I was thinking!  We're typically tired around the same time, and hungry. I can't think of any really good examples, but it happens.  It's probably not the same as on ET cause its been 100 years since I've seen it and it frightened me, but whatever, that's what I call it.

Last night I was having a sad time. I have been missing some special people.


Today Poppy carried this photo around - for a good part of the day- and would talk to it and laugh at it.

I know she misses them too.  

Day one

It's really been three days since leaving my wife and daughter but I spent the next two with my mother in Utah.

Today was the first day alone. It seems like it's been weeks since I saw Molly or Charlotte and I miss them incredibly. 

The house is lonely. Checking the mail was sad.  I left for work at 7:30am...came home at 11pm.  I'm exhausted. The house was hot when I came home.

Baby Update

 Our sweet little one is over 9 months old! On May 2nd she will be 42 weeks which was the amount of time I was pregnant! Then on the 12th she will be 10 months and then before you know she will be 18! Yikes!
This is her as she is today.

She is awesome.

She enjoys food, especially anything we are eating. She is so over getting spoon fed and just wants to eat things she can pick up herself.  Her favorite thing by far is raspberries.

After she eats and is a mess, she likes to get a drink from the faucet as I rinse off her hands and face.

If there is a song on TV she will make soft singing sounds.

If she's talking to one of us she will make loud shouting sounds - we will shout back and this is how we chat.

She loves to walk and holds on to anything she can. She walks everywhere.

She like playing peek-a-boo. But sometimes its just her holding clothes up above her head and then pulling them down, not hiding at all.

Her favorite chore is unfolding the laundry.

She has been spotted removing silverware one by one from the dishwasher and licking each piece.

She still loves getting tossed around by Daddy.

She gives great hugs and big wet kisses.

She is very social & loves attention.

...except from old people, they are frightening.

At the Bellagio roughly 42 weeks ago

At the Bellagio more recently

Going whale watching with Grandma!

sweet snuggles

Playing with uncle Todd

Selfie with our resurrected Lord on Easter

Typical meal time mess.

Melancholia

I've been a little depressed the last several days--maybe weeks.  In fact, it's April and I'm depressed again.  It seems to be a pattern for me. I can remember dropping out of track in high school about this time--despite winning meets consistently. I can remember being depressed and dropping out (failing out) of college about this time--despite travelling all across the country with the BYU Cheer squad for basketball tournaments and NCAA March Madness and Cheer Nationals and a week in Daytona Florida.  Before graduating from BYU and coming down to Las Vegas I was also pretty depressed.

One of my professors brought me into her office to talk about it she was so worried. I had just been accepted to 2 MFT graduate programs, gotten engaged to a beautiful caring woman, and was preparing to graduate from BYU--but I was depressed.

Last year, Gerda died about this time.  I can remember being more than a little depressed then too.  However my feelings were less worrisome last year because they made sense. This year, it has been harder to make the connection.

We are preparing to move to Minnesota for my PhD program. I have worked extra hard throughout my Master's program to even get considered for Minnesota's program. We want to be by family, we want to get out of the heat of Vegas. We want to get away from the driver's that speed up and pass you as soon as you turn your blinker on here. We want to be around people that are just nicer.

Yet still here I am in April and depressed again.  On my drive to work this morning it suddenly hit me.  It was about this time that my brother Eric died.   I don't remember when his funeral was, or when he went missing, but I do know that during this time 23 years ago my family was struggling to deal with his loss.  I think that is the big connection to my history of depression in the Spring.  I just miss him more now than normally.

New Trick!

Much to Molly's chagrin, Poppy and I have been practicing a new trick.