Getting Here

We spent the first few hours at the Salt Lake Airport playing at the “playground,” which in this case was just an area with a bunch of blocks and toys. Whoever invented such a space should be awarded a Nobel prize.

This was the first time in quite a few weeks that Rachel has had both room to play and toys to play with. Our house has been cluttered with boxes and her toys have slowly been disappearing, which was quite distressing to her.

(Side story) At one point in my packing, Rachel got out a box of her own, put one of her favorite books, I love trains, inside, along with some of her favorite toys. Then she closed the lid of the box, sat down, and started to cry. It was as if she was saying, “Fine, mom! Just get rid of it all!” It was so sad. I assured her she could take her favorite toys with us and unpacked them for her. It’s been difficult to watch her be so stressed out about everything.

So it was nice to be able to just let her play. No one was crying. No one was trying to hold her. No one was telling her to “not touch” or that she was in the way. She just played her little heart out.

She went on several walks to the drinking fountain and looked at the planes on the way. I think that she finally understood, in her own little way, what an airplane was. We talked about them a lot. She likes to look at them when they’re in the sky. She’ll point at them and get all excited, but they really look quite a bit different from the ground. They’re huge!

We told her that we were going to go on one and fly away. She watched them take off and waved bye-bye to them. At least she understood that they were going away. (We spent the drive to Grandma’s house saying bye-bye to everything: the house, the trees, the mountains, they playground, Target, the library, Macey’s, etc.) So she knew we were going to get on an airplane and go bye-bye.

She was so excited when we were boarding. Daddy told her she could touch the plane, so she did, just as we were going through the doors. She quickly made friends with the seatmates in front and behind us and then settled in for the ride.

She was the best baby! She’d been up since around 5:45 AM, so she just nursed while we were taking off and fell asleep for almost an hour. When she woke up, she spent her time looking out the window and playing with some of the toys we’d brought for her. She colored pictures and read books and played peek-a-boo with the lady behind us. She was a great baby.

We hit some turbulence just before landing in Chicago. Rachel thought it was the ride of her life! She was giggling out of control and clapping her hands. When we’d get steady again she’d bop back and forth, which means that she wants to do it again/go faster. We’d hit some more turbulence and she’d dissolved into a fit of giggles. She had everyone around us laughing, too.

While we were taxi-ing, Andrew and I made a game plan for our arrival. We knew Chicago was going to be tricky. It always seems to be tricky.

When we flew to Jordan I remember running through the airport, lugging my suitcase, and almost crying. We barely made it onto the plane.

This would be dejavu. We had only a half hour to gather our things and catch our flight. And we didn’t even have our tickets yet!

We decided that Andrew would grab all the carry on bags, and I would take Rachel and the diaper bag. We raced off the plane, opened up her jogging stroller, threw her in it (ignoring her temper tantrum) and made a break for it. We had to go from terminal 2 to terminal 1 so we had to use the underground passageway. We ignored the moving sidewalks and just ran through, passing everyone.

When we resurfaced at terminal 1, they were just paging our plane. We barreled down the hall towards our gate, B16, and immediately got in line for our boarding passes.

That was a headache. Apparently we were supposed to exit the secured area of the airport, go to the Lufthansa desk, have them issue our tickets, go back through security, and then find our gate.

We didn’t have time to do that, so the guy at the desk just gave us our boarding passes and told us to cut it front of everyone else because we had a baby. We did that, but then weren’t allowed on the plane because we didn’t have tickets. So we waited, letting everyone we had just cut in front of go in front of us, while he looked up our ticket numbers.

When we got back in line and handed them our information they still wouldn’t let us on because our stroller wasn’t tagged properly.

Breathlessly, we entered the plane. I swear we were almost the last three people on, but I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered if we were the last few on the plane as long as we got on the plane, which we did.

After taking off, a flight attendant asked the lady in the seat beside us to move to a different seat so that Rachel could have her own seat. We couldn’t have been happier, especially since Rachel decided that this was a party plane.

I don’t really know where she got that idea since the lights were off and everyone was trying to sleep… Rachel entertained herself by climbing from mom, across the open seat to dad, and back again; playing a variation of tag with the people sitting behind us where she’d stick her arm out on either side or above the chair and they’d “try” to grab it; eating; playing with her toys; etc.

The only nap she took on the plane was after one of two horrific experiences in which she turned into a fountain of poop. Right during dinner. It was just cascading down her legs, so Andrew had to take her to the restroom, while I sponged myself off with baby wipes, maneuvering around the carts of food and showing off our disgusting baby to everyone trying to eat their meals. When he got to the restroom, he realized that he didn’t have the baby wipes because I was using them to clean off my lap. He also chose a stall without a baby changing table, so he balanced Rachel on the toilet seat (gross) and used wet toilet paper to sponge her off.

While he was back there the plane got a little bumpy and Rachel fell off the toilet seat and her head got wedged between the toilet and the counter. I could hear her screaming and we were like 10 rows away from the restrooms!

He shoved her clothes in a motion sickness bag and brought them back to me and then we sponged Rachel off with some baby wipes. I nursed her, and she fell asleep…for twenty minutes.

Then she was up and at it again. The whole night long. Fortunately she was happy, for the most part, and the only other horrific experience was when laughed so hard she threw up. And she had eaten a lot. Like 2 bottles of juice and some milk and…a lot. (Ew. But much better than incident #1).

The flight wasn’t really that bad. Just long and unrestful. In the morning when they were serving breakfast, I was nursing Rachel when the flight attendant walked by.

“Is she finally sleeping?” she whispered.

I laughed and shook my head no when Rachel stuck her little hand out from under the blanket and gave a little wave.

She fell asleep for the last half hour of the flight and was awake the whole time we were in the Frankfurt airport, still relatively happy.

Boarding our last flight went off without a hitch. We had three hours to make that flight, so we weren’t really worried about it. They gave Rachel a coloring book and some pencil crayons soon after we were seated and she wanted to use them right away. I opened them up and let her color for a while. Soon I tried to convince her that she needed to sleep. I needed to sleep.

Daddy got the most sleep out of anybody, I think. Rachel was fine to let Daddy sleep while Mommy played with her, but if Mommy tried to sleep, she kept getting poked/hugged/etc. by Rachel, who always wanted Mommy to see what she was doing.

(As Daddy explained to Rachel this morning (at 6 AM) while I was napping, “You can play with Mommy not watching. It’s okay.”)

The only way I was going to get to sleep was if Rachel was, too. I tried to take the pencil crayons away and she valiantly fought against me. Many tears were shed on her part, but she fell asleep like 5 minutes later and slept, seriously, through the whole flight. That’s 4 hours. 4 glorious hours.

Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep because the seats were uncomfortable and I couldn’t put it back for some reason and Andrew was already asleep so he couldn’t help me and I had a hot, sweaty baby on me…but at least she slept!

Which is what I’m going to go do right now. Tune in next time to hear about how Rachel becomes a victim of her own stubbornness.

واهلا مصر

After a crazy layover in Chicago where we almost didn't make the plane, an eight hour trans-Atlantic flight in which Rachel decided sleeping was for losers, and a four hour flight from Frankfurt to Chicago Cairo in which Rachel changed her mind about the social status of babies who sleep on planes, we made it!

Now to go find some money and food...

مع السلامة امريكا

Well, here we are...our last few moments on the American continent for who knows how long. Truthfully, leaving the country doesn't bother me as much as leaving our family behind, but there are still some things I'll miss about living here.

Grass, for one thing. I like grass. And friends, and family, and little comfort things like peanut butter and normal cheese. But, we'll adjust. Life everywhere is normal. People live everywhere. Therefore we could, hypothetically, live anywhere. It just takes some time to accept that lifestyle as normal.

We're looking forward to being back in the Middle East again. I love listening to the Call to Prayer. And the falafel shops all over the place. And camel crossing signs.

As odd as this sounds, Andrew and I both knew we would be back in Cairo at some point in time. We absolutely loved being there. The weather was perfectly not-too-hot, the sky was relatively clear, and our hotel was amazing. We found Cairo to be beautiful and intriguing. In short, we loved it.

We talked about coming back after we visited the branch on Friday. We knew then that we'd be back.

I think that was the Lord's way of preparing me to go. He knew we'd be back, so he made sure to make Cairo as beautiful to us as possible...so that we'd want to go back (not everyone enjoyed it as much as we did, apparently).

Since coming back to the States, we've planned our lives around going back, even though we didn't know when or why we'd be back. Every purchase that we've made, every little thing that we've done did not happen without thinking of moving back to Egypt at least once.

It's been remarkable how everything has happened to get us to this point. We definitely see the Lord's hand in our lives. With the financial aid that we've received and the people we've been able to meet and how everything has worked out...there is no way this is coincidental. We know this is where we're supposed to be.

We've both been rather in control of our emotions, unlike last time we moved to the Middle East. I don't think I ever lost it quite as badly as I did when we moved to Jordan. I was a complete basket case then. I've held together fairly well this time, which is definitely a blessing.

Anyway, before I get too sappy, I'll just say that we're so excited to be off on our adventure.

Now for a Rachel story... (how's that for a subject change?)

We've decided to take pictures of our child(ren) in front of a special landmark by each of our places of residence. In this case, it was the sign outside of our apartment complex.

We took Rachel down to the sign and got all ready to take a picture of her. Andrew went and set her in the grass; I was the one with the camera. Getting a picture of Rachel was difficult. She wouldn't smile or look at us and she kept whining and trying to climb up the wall.


After getting a few awkward pictures, I went to go get her.

Andrew had set her down in a little patch of thistles in her bare feet! Silly Daddy!

Olympic Packers, we are

If suitcase packing were an Olympic event, we'd for sure earn gold.

We started training about a month ago, setting aside things we thought we'd like to take. Then about a week ago we got really serious, actually putting things in suitcases and weighing things.

We would weigh ourselves on a bathroom scale and then get back on holding a suitcase. That proved rather inaccurate, but it gave us a general idea of how much stuff we had waiting to be packed. First we were using Andrew to hold the suitcases while I bent over and looked at the number, but then we switched roles. I'm now just over 100 lbs. (yahoo! I'm not in the 90s anymore!) so it was easier to tell if we had reached 50 lbs. or not. With Andrew we kept messing up our math.

A few weeks ago we had decided to just eat the $155 fee for an extra bag. On Sunday we decided to eat the $310 fee for two extra bags. Have you ever tried to cram your life into 100 lbs.? Babies require a lot of stuff--and we're going for two years...

So we had way too much stuff. We began to feel like pioneers. We opened up our suitcases, dumped them on the floor, and started weeding through our stuff, taking only what was absolutely essential. I don't know why I feel so hard done by since we're each taking 100 lbs. and the pioneers could only take 15 lbs.

After packing and weighing and repacking and weighing several times, with the world record line chasing us all the way, we decided it was time to invest in a luggage scale. We were going for accuracy and a luggage scale is far more accurate than trying to balance on a bathroom scale holding something half your weight. Plus, Radio Shack sells them for like $2. Awesome.


And so, with 11 hours to go, we are completely packed up and have loaded our suitcases into the van. We're both feeling relaxed and excited and nervous and sad and anxious and happy and afraid. I suppose that's how most Olympians feel.

Playground Extraveganza

We went to visit my family late this afternoon. Since we had all eaten late lunches and since Rachel has been wanting to go to the park for quite some time (we didn't go yesterday, so it's been more than 24 hours; Rachel thinks that's too long) we decided to take her to the playground one more time instead of having dinner.

She couldn't have been happier.

She went down the big twirly slide, first with Grammy, and then by herself. She wasn't too sure if she liked going by herself or not, but we kept sending her down, anyway. Auntie Josie took her down a few times and Grammy a few more times. She seemed to be happiest when she was riding on someone's lap as opposed to flying solo.

Static Hair!

Slow this thing down!

She sat in the sand with Uncle Patrick and they got all dirty together. Rachel put a few handfuls of sand on her head and she got a few in her mouth. I don't know what it is about sand but I just can't keep it out of her mouth!


Rachel had a fun time with Daddy, too.


He let her try out the monkey bars and jumped up at her and Auntie Josie, making her giggle with delight!

Uncle David came to the park after we had all been playing, which was rather nice. We were all hot and tired but Rachel was still going strong. I think we were starting to bore her, but then Uncle David came along and tossed her in the air.


I hope Rachel enjoyed herself. That will be her last playground adventure in quite a while.

Too much stuff!

It's official: we have too much stuff!

Yesterday we took over what we thought was the last of our stuff and reorganized the storage room in Andrew's parents' basement. That whole aisle is full of our stuff--floor to ceiling. How we ever acquired that much stuff, I will never know. The bigger mystery, though, is how we fit it into our apartment in the first place...


We labeled all of our boxes with numbers and took a [fairly] detailed inventory of the contents for this move. Our stuff will be sitting in storage for 2 years--there's no way we're going to remember how we packed things.

Just when we had put the last of our stuff in here, we realized that we were missing a box that we meant to leave out. We have several boxes of things that need to be "accessible" to our parents, in case of emergency. We had packed it in that mess...somewhere.

Luckily we were able to look up the box number on our inventory and scan through the boxes that we could see. We spotted the box number, 49, in the very back. Behind the stroller and bassinet. Behind the bags of clothes. Behind the boxes and the bed.

We debated for a few minutes about what we should do. Our options were to pull everything out of the aisle, retrieve the box, and put everything back...or...climb back there and get it.

We decided on the latter. Then we had to debate over who should do it. I won the honors because I am lighter and more agile than Andrew is. So away I climbed.


It was actually pretty fun. I stepped on the diaper pail, and then the box spring, and balanced myself on a box. Then I lifted down the two boxes on top of 49, handed 49 back to Andrew, and put the other boxes back.

We're excited to have all our stuff packed away. It's a good thing we finished because we move tomorrow...

Happy us!

You might notice that I'm sporting a new haircut. I told Andrew it's my Rosie the Riveter haircut. I haven't cut my hair so short in a long time. In a way it's kind of empowering, although I do miss my nice long hair. And, no, it's not a "mom chop." It's more of an "Egypt chop," actually.

Thank you for moving us

Thank-you cards are not my forte. In fact, every time I receive a thank-you card I feel guilty. I have the most difficult time remembering to do them. And even if I remember to write them out, I rarely remember to deliver them. I'm terrible at it.

I only got half the thank-you cards from our wedding reception finished. And I still feel terrible about that. If you didn't get one, thank you!

It isn't that I don't appreciate what people do for me. I do! But I find the whole thank-you card thing a little over the top.

Take baby showers, for example. (I'm pretty sure I forgot to get cards out for that, too!) Here all these women bring you gifts. And then they sit around and watch you open them up. And you tell them thank you and gush over the gift so that they know you like it. And then you're supposed to go home and write up a bunch of notes to thank them again. It seems a bit ridiculous.

I had a baby less than a week after my ward baby shower. I don't think I got the thank-you cards out for that, either. I know I didn't get the cards out for my family shower. Thank you!

People also seem to give help when I'm in need of help. You know, the times when I'm absolutely swamped and don't have time to write out 50 individual notes to people, thanking them, and then taking the time to stick them in envelopes, lick them, seal them, stamp them, etc., etc., etc.

I don't know why that seems so overwhelming to me. It just does.

Part of the reason might be that Andrew refused to help me write the thank-you notes after our wedding because, quote, "My handwriting stinks."

That is true, but we just got a thank-you card in the mail (that made me feel quite guilty) from one of Andrew's mission companions. He obviously wrote in the card. And his handwriting stunk. But he did it!

Oh, and since we're on the subject, what do you write in thank-you cards, anyway. After you've written in 20 of them, everything starts to sound cheesy and lame and absolutely the same. Especially if you received duplicate gifts. Take our 5 crock pots, for example. Or our 12 muffin tins. Obviously we didn't keep each one of those, but we had to write out cards for them, anyway.

"Thanks for your crock pot! It will be so nice to use for our Sunday dinners!"

Did the person that received that card (if I mailed it) compare it with someone else who also gave us a crock pot. If they did, would they know that we returned one of the crock pots, or would they think,

"Well, she wrote out Sunday, but she's probably using our crock pot for Saturday dinners."

And then the lame ones.

"Thanks for your gift. It was...nice..."

I mean, what do you say? You already saw them at the reception and thanked them for coming...isn't it all a bit redundant? Tree wasting?

Deep down inside I know that it's a nice thing to do...but I also know that I will never get around to it. So, I will thank you all here.

Thank you to Kim, Val, and Bonnie for babysitting Rachel these past few days so that we could get all our stuff packed and our apartment cleaned.

Thank you to Jacob for coming home from work on Monday, riding up the driveway on his bike, and then immediately coming to help carry boxes into the house without being asked.

Thank you to Karen and Reid for letting us store our stuff in your basement.

Thank you to Grandma Pat for letting us store our furniture at your house.

Thank you to Patrick, Jacob, Emily, Sarah, and Dan for helping us get all our furniture into the truck/van/car.

Thank you to Shallee and Dan for letting us borrow your truck.

Thank you to Karen for playing with Rachel while we moved things.

Thank you to Reid, Dave, Grandma Pat, Jacob, and Emily for helping us unload the truck/van/car.

Thank you to Emily and Karen for driving up to Salt Lake loaded with furniture.

Thank you to everyone who came to our Farewell party.

Thank you to Sarah for helping me wash our walls.

Thank you to Heather for cutting my hair and for lending us your Pack'n'Play (again) and your bathroom scale.

Thank you Karen for lending us your bathroom scale, as well.

Thank you to Dorothy Gillespie for notarizing our documents.

Thank you to the Parkes for letting us use your internet when ours was shut off a day early.

Thank you to Kim for letting us use your printer.

Thank you to Grandma Sharon for the extra suitcases.

Thank you to Josie for watching Rachel while I went to the dentist. And for spending the day with me.

Thank you to all our family for supporting us in this adventure. We're crazy, I know. Sorry to take Rachel so far away from you!

Thank you to all our friends here for your support as well. We've loved living here!

Thank you to anyone we may have forgotten. And thanks for anything that you'll do in the future.

Don't expect a card. Please...

Goodbye to Primary

The ladies in the Stonewood Stake Primary Presidency came to see us off on Sunday afternoon. I've loved working with these ladies; I've learned so much from them! I'm kind of sad to leave my calling, but I'm sure that there's a new one waiting for me in the Cairo Branch.

I'm glad that they came over, but I'm not happy about how my house looked when they did! We had everything spread all over the living room and were trying to decide how best to shove the mess into our suitcases. Yikes!


They said they understood...but doesn't that just look awful? It makes me feel happy about the times when my house is "messy" because it's never this messy! Except for Sunday afternoons when the Stake Primary Presidency comes to visit!

Kris Baxter, Angela Bates, Janet Gurney, Me and Rachel

I love how we're all wearing pretty jewel tones. It looks like we planned the picture. I also love how Rachel is pulling my shirt down. She decided that it was time to eat just then.

Rachel was in the picture because she's the 3rd councilor in the presidency. Her duties mainly revolved around timing our meetings and providing plenty of entertainment. She would play nicely on the floor during our meetings until time was "up" and then we'd quickly end our meeting and go home. Rachel was never afraid to let us know when we were running overtime.

I also had the opportunity to serve with Kristin Sampson and Bonnie Zundel. Both were released for different callings--Kristin is the Stake Relief Society President and Bonnie went into Young Womens in her ward. So Janet and I were the only "originals" left from when they reorganized the stake back in September of 2006 (I wasn't called until November). I can't believe I've been in this calling for almost two years!

I'll miss visiting with all the primary children and presidencies. At least our ward primary is fairly small so I won't go into shock when we move into a branch!

Great Grandparent Gatherings

We've had the opportunity to get together with all of our living grandparents this past week--Rachel's great grandparents. Unfortunately she's a little nervous of them. I can't really explain why because there are plenty of grandparents in our ward and Rachel will play with them. She won't really let any of them hold her, but she sure does flirt with all of them! I guess she's always been comfortable at church.

It always takes her a while to warm up to her great grandparents though. I suppose she's lucky to have any great grandparents! I have one picture of me with my dad's grandparents, but other than that I had no great grandparents. And I certainly don't remember my great grandparents.

I guess we just live longer now, which is a good thing--I'm glad Rachel has her great grandparents still.

Rachel agreed to sit on Grandma Pat's lap if she could hold the book

Me and Rachel with my Grandma and Grandpa Layton

Andrew and Rachel with Grandpa Frank and Grandma Sharon

A few Random Stories

Story #1: In which we experience real-life surround sound

Andrew and I were talking late into the night the other night, trying to come up with a game plan of sorts. While we were discussing our transportation, I used the phrase, "For crying out loud!" for emphasis. As soon as those words were out of my mouth, we heard a cry from Rachel's room. Fortunately it was just one of those "I'm a noisy sleeper" cries and not a wake up cry.

Story #2: In which Rachel discovers salt

All of our stuff that used to be up high was moved to the living room floor yesterday morning so that we could pack it up. Rachel found this very entertaining. There were so many things that she'd never been allowed to touch, and a few items that she'd probably never even seen before in her life. She was having a great time going through everything, touching it and experimenting with it. And then she found the salt and pepper shakers. She grabbed the salt shaker and started shaking it up and down. She smiled happily while salt snowed down all around her.

I must have looked upset.

"Don't worry about it," Andrew assured me, "We can vacuum."

After he had said this, Rachel decided that shaking a salt shaker was a thing of a past and instead decided to use the salt shaker as a bottle. She lifted it up to her mouth, put the top inside, and gave it a good, solid suck.

You should have seen the look on her face! She put the salt shaker down and didn't bother with it again.

Story #3: In which Rachel bumps into Rachel

We went out to dinner last night. We have no food or dishes, so it was kind of necessary. Splurging wasn't necessary, but we decided to do it anyway since we hadn't since March. I've never been to the Olive Garden, so we decided to go there. While we were waiting, Rachel was wandering around the foyer making friends with every child that she saw. When there were no children around, she occupied her time by walking around in circles, looking at her feet.

This is a dangerous occupation. Her circles get wider and wider and the epicenter travels and she's not looking where she's going. You can imagine this can be dangerous.

So she's wandering around in circles and a hostess walks by. I tried to get Rachel's attention by calling her name, but my plan backfired.

"Rachel, stop!" I called out.

Rachel didn't hear me, but the hostess stopped and gave me a funny look. Rachel ran smack into her legs.

Rachel shook her head to recover from the blow and then continued on her tipsy, circular path. I glanced nonchalantly at the hostess's name tag. It read, "Rachel."

Story #4: In which Rachel is accused of speaking French

Rachel made friends with a four-year-old girl in the Olive Garden lobby. They kept handing toothpicks back and forth and chasing each other around. When the little girl decided she'd played long enough and started to walk back to her family Rachel was upset.

"Uhhhhh!" she called out after the girl, longing for her company again.

The little girl came back, overflowing with curiosity.

"Can your baby talk?" she asked.

"Not really," I said. But my answer wasn't good enough.

"Why did she talk to me, then?"

"Because she wanted to get your attention" Again, my answer wasn't good enough.

"But why didn't she use English?"

"Well, she can't really talk yet," I tried again.

"Oh," said the little girl, "If she doesn't speak English then does she speak French?"

Story # 5: In which Andrew loses his cell phone

Our landing pad has been relocated to Andrew's parents' basement. One of our kitchen chairs has taken its role, holding our wallets and keys and Andrew's cellphone. Unfortunately, the kitchen chair is a little more within Rachel's reach than the landing pad was so she can grab things off of it a lot easier. Things are often missing. Luckily there is next to nothing left in our house, so finding things usually doesn't take very long.

Except yesterday. We were getting ready to go run errands. Andrew went to fill his pockets with his keys, wallet, and cellphone. The keys and wallet were there, but the cellphone was missing.

After hunting around for a few minutes we asked Rachel where it was. She often knows where things like this are and will go get it for us if we ask her to. It's kind of like playing fetch with a puppy.

"Where's Daddy's cellphone?" Daddy asked, "Go get Daddy's cellphone..."

Rachel just shrugged her shoulders.

We hunted around a bit more until Andrew finally decided to phone his cellphone from our house phone. We heard no ring.

Andrew hung up without leaving himself a message and we decided to leave without his cellphone, so Andrew continued to load up his pockets. He reached in and found...his cellphone, on silent.