3 more months...

We only have 3 months until we move and Lynn graduates, yikes!!! I was just feeling the sadness yesterday as a friend and I were talking about how quickly this time in Omaha has gone by. I am really starting to get sad, yet excited for something new. Lynn and I are going to be out in Ohio to look for housing in a week. So far we have almost gotten scammed a number of times on Craigslist, so we are very excited to actually go and see what is out there as far as housing goes. Hopefully we can find something quickly because we only have two days to do it. I have also been feeling the urgency to start packing. I guess that I feel like I am running out of time, but really I have quite a while. Oh well, it will all get done.

Snow Day!!!!

All week we kept hearing about the "big storm" that was going to hit Omaha on Friday. I thought it was really funny because the weather has been so nice all week. I've only worn a light jacket to school every day this week. It was starting to feel like spring might be coming. Anyway, Friday came and we awakened at 5:30 AM by the phone ringing, it was Porter's school and they were announcing that his school had been canceled for the day. I looked out the window and it still looked nice outside, no snow, just cloudy skies. I drove to school just in case it did snow. At about 8:30 or so it did begin to snow. By about 11:30 it was snowing pretty hard. I had a very important surgery to perform at 1:00 and the teacher I was working with found me and asked if I might be able to call the patient and ask him to come in earlier before things got worse. I did and the patient said that would be no problem. No sooner did I hang up the phone after talking with him the Dean of the clinic announced that we all needed to call our patients and tell them the clinic was told by the school to close for the afternoon. My patient just laughed at the whole ordeal, which I was glad he understood. So, I went home and enjoyed a wonderful snow day with my family. Erin and Peyton slept most of the afternoon, while Porter and I played his new game. Once everyone was awake and about 7 inches of snow had accumulated we all bundled up to go outside and play. We grabbed our sled and found the hill just outside our apartment and made a sledding run. Porter loved it, Peyton not so much. He liked being pulled in the sled, but not sledding down the hill. Erin and I had to laugh at Porter because last year I was all excited to go sledding and he fought me the whole time. This year he loved it. It was a great day. One of our favorite things to do on a snowy day is watch all the crazy drivers try and drive up our hill in the snow. It just makes me glad that I didn't have a reason to drive in the snow next to people who really have no clue what their doing in the white stuff.

First Dental Visit

Well, I know that it might be a bit past the "recommended" first dental visit (around a child's 1st birthday), but Porter finally made it to the dentist. I didn't really want to see him, because I don't really want to see him until he's older. Besides some "ethics" classes recommend not treating immediate family members for fear of interfering with personal privacy or autonomy issues. Anyway, we tried to prepare Porter a couple weeks in advance on what to expect. Key thing is trying to keep everything as positive as possible to increase the chance that everything will go smoothly for him. I sat down an explained to him several times how the dentist would take a close look at his teeth, how he would tickle them, place a mirror in his mouth for a closer look, explained to him how the dentist will take some really cool pictures of his teeth that he can look at afterwards, paint his teeth purple, and then how the dentist would use a really neat toothbrush and clean his teeth. After a couple of days talking about it he was actually pretty excited to go to the dentist. The only concern he every voiced was having his teeth painted purple. That made me chuckle a bit. I sat and explained to him that his teeth would only turn purple if he had bugs on his teeth and no to worry because if by chance his teeth showed some purple the dentist would get it off in no time. I think for the next couple of day Porter has never asked to have his teeth cleaned as much as he did just prior to his visit. I was able to brush his teeth for howeverlong I wanted. Usually I feel pretty good if he lets me brush for more than a minute. Lately he's let me brush for closer to 3-4 minutes. He did not want his teeth purple. At the dentist he did very well. A little nervous, but he did really well. He was able to see our close friend Jeff and that helped too. Porter loves Jeff. There were also some other friends in the clinic that came over to say hi and I think that helped as well. One time I went in to check on him and there were about 4 students and a couple teacher laughing and having a good time with him. The best part about the whole visit was Porter's beeming smile at the end as he said to me with the proudest voice he has..."Dad! I have no cavities!" His teeth never did show any purple...that is pretty amazing in and of itself.

Learning the Importance of Responsibility

Erin and I have been thinking of ways to help our kids learn responsibility. One day we decided that maybe we could use Porter's passion with video games to help him learn the importance of responsibilities; like cleaning his room, making his bed, reading books, chores, etc. The things that need to be done each day before the fun things. Erin made a sticker chore chart, Porter's showing it in his picture, of many many squares. The idea behind is was for every chore he did around the house if got a sticker to put on his chart. Then when the chore cart was filled he could get his first lego video game. He actually took it to heart. It was pretty fun to hear him, almost everyday, ask..."what else can I do today?" He took a little over a month to fill the chart out completely. Towards the end he seemed to get even more motivated as he noticed the squares to fill were less and less. I think the last two days he did 6-8 chores per day. He was a great helper. The deal now is he can earn playing minutes by doing his chores prior to playing each day. So far so good. He's doing pretty well with the whole idea.

Sunday Evenings are Back

It's nice having a Sunday evening as a family again. Last year church was so late that by the time we were done, returned home, and finished dinner it was time for the kiddo's to go to bed. This past Sunday was fun. Porter rode home with me from church and we made some visits to some families that needed someone to come say hello. Porter made sure that we visited a certain family. He kept asking the whole time if we were going to stop in and see them. So, I thought it might be a good idea to do so and it was a great time. They were glad to see us and Porter had a great time. When we all were finally home we dressed down to our PJs, made some popcorn, and watched a Disney movie.

My Little Missionary

So, when I picked Porter up from school today his teacher pulled me aside and told me that she overheard a conversation that Porter was having with another classmate while they were playing with the blocks. Porter was telling the girl that Jesus died for all of us. She asked him how, and he said, "Jesus died on the cross with nails in his hands and feet." That was the jist of the conversation, but Porter's teacher thought that was the sweetest thing to hear. I thought about how the little things we do each day affect our children in the simplest ways. Porter can be a missionary now!

Porter and Dad at a UNO Wrestling Match

Porter and I were able to go to a University of Nebraska Omaha wrestling match. It was probably one of the funnest things I've done since I've been in here. UNO is currently ranked #1 in the nation in Div. II. The match was against the University of Nebraska Kearny which happened to be ranked #3 in the nation in Div. II. I've gotten to know one of the wrestlers through his parents. His name is Esai Dominguez. He's only a red shirt freshman, but very good. He qualified for the USA olympic trials last year and did fairly well for being the youngest wrestler in his weight to qualify for the trials.
Anyway, Porter was a blast at the match. He was so excited to be there. He jumped up and down, cheered for the right team. He cheered for "flaminguez" so much that the man sitting next to us was so impressed he gave Porter a bag of M&Ms to compliment his support. After Esai wrestled we found his parents and they let us sit right next to them in the stands. They were pretty nice to Porter. They had their son get us a T-shirt and introduced Porter to the team and had the team sign a poster for him. Porter thought that was pretty cool.
The heavyweights ended the match with a crazy intense fight-like match. All Porter could talk about afterwards was the really big guys were pretty tough.

This is Porter in front of the teams trophy display as we entered the gym. It was pretty impressive.

This how they introduced the home wrestlers. Porter thought it was pretty cool with all the flashing lights, smoke, load music, and crazy announcer.

I have to say that blimp floating only feet above our heads was one of Porter's favorite parts of the evening. It dropped coupons into the crowd. We tried to grab some, but they were just out of our reach each time.

This is Porter with Esai Dominguez during the poster signing. He thought that it was pretty cool. Esai was ranked 4th in the nation going into the match and wrestled the #2 ranked guy and beat him pretty soundly 7-2.