Catching up...Sorry, This One's Lengthy...

I haven't put up a post recently for a reason. Tim's 34 year old brother Todd had 3 strokes on July 15th. I haven't known what to say about it. It's been pretty hard for us and all of the Thelin family. Since I didn't know what to say, I also felt a bit guilty just moving on and posting about other things happening in our life while Todd's is standing still. Well, this post is my compromise post made possible by Brett, Tim's oldest brother. He has put a site together for everyone to be able to read up on Todd's progress and find out how they can help his family during this time. You can find it at toddstroke.blogspot.com or you can click on the link called "Diff'rent Strokes" found on the side of our blog. Please look at it often to find out how he is doing and to show him your support!

This past weekend Tim and I drove up to San Jose to see Thom and Sarah and their kids and Jody and Erik and their kids. I had the car all packed up so when Tim got home we were able to start our trip right away. We made it to San Jose around midnight and were greeted by Jody, Erik, Cate, and a very wiggly and smiley Pete. Oh, and peanut chocolate chip cookies. We made the bed on their pull out couch and immediately fell asleep.

The next morning around 7 am, Tim got up to go to the bathroom then decided he couldn't sleep anymore. I told him tough and tried to go back to sleep as he lay awake. Then we heard this pitter-patter of small feet on the hard wood floor. There was a little guy in green standing at the foot of our bed grinning. (I didn't have my contacts in so it was all I could see.) Since Tim was fine with being awake he pulled Sam into bed and they started talking. Sam asked if Tim and I were still married, as he always does whenever he sees us, Tim said yes, then Sam asked if that meant that I tought other kids to swim. Ouch. (Last year we got married after swim lessons ended so I think Sam sees our marriage as the end of Sam and my hang out time. Poor guy.) That's when I decided to stop pretending to be asleep and told him that I don't teach anyone else, just him and Soph. Once Sam heard me, he crawled over Tim and gave me a hug. At this point Tim laid down and went back to sleep. That punk!

It wasn't long before the rest of the kids were up and crawling all over the bed too, including Karrsten. We spent the rest of the morning playing with all of the kids.

Here's Tim and Kickstand wearing the same Speedracer helmet. Look-a-likes? What do you think??

Around noon we were able to make it up to Newark to see my brother and his family. We got there as they were putting stickers on the back of their car. They are big Disney fans so they got those little family stickers except these ones have all the characters wearing shirts with the Mickey Mouse head on them and they all were wearing the Mickey Mouse ears. It's very appropriate for them. Luke was loving helping his dad put them on. After that we went in the house and Thom ran out and picked us all up some Subway for an easy, yet yummy, lunch. We were able to play with both Luke and Leona for a bit and hear Luke using more and more words, including identifying Sarah as "mommy." For the longest time he couldn't really say that. I think he called her "ba" and his dad "dada," so it was great to hear him talking about his mommy. Luke and I also got to read together a bit before he was laid down for a nap. We only had a short time to visit them before we had to get back down to Jody's on order to get ready for a wedding.

Before the wedding we had fall-off the-bone-amazing ribs that Catie and Tim were able to prepare for all of us. It was a fun meal with them. (Especially when we watched Pete dip his rib bone in his drink. Mmm!) The wedding we went to was for Kelsey (used to be Hansen) and Sam Seeno. The reception was in their new back yard and was pretty nice for an LDS reception. (I think that it wasn't in a gym was the big bonus.) We showed up an hour late and I had told one friend, Stacey Bond, that we were coming up that weekend and would be there. When we walked in I heard someone saying, "I thought you were making a liar out of me!" I guess Stacey was telling her parents I said we were coming and they were starting to doubt her. Anyway, we loved being at the reception, not only to celebrate our friends FINALLY getting married, but also to see so many of our friends from San Jose. It was nice to sit around and talk about nonsense things rather than talking about boring grown-up things that we have been forced to do in our very much family ward here in Northridge. Tim fell easily back into his "make comments awkward enough that they're hilarious" self and I fell back into my "playing off his awkward comments enough to make them even funnier" self. We did really enjoy ourselves.

Sunday morning Tim and I awoke to the pitter-patter of small feet again, this time there was a pair of them. I heard two voices at the foot of our bed saying, "you cuddle on that side and I'll cuddle on this side." So Sophie and Sam put her plan in action by Sam sneaking up to and cuddling with Tim as Sophie snuck up onto my side of the bed. She laid down just a little ways from me and ever so slowly wiggled closer to me. I was watching her with my eyes only a sliver of the way open so she didn't know. When she had almost made it to me I moved a little and she scuttled back to the edge again. That's when I sprang my trap and pulled her in close. Of course this ended up in a tickle match between the four of us.

After we all ate breakfast, Jody brought up an instance when she and Tim had had a water drinking contest and she had won, at least I think she brought it up but I don't really remember that part. This of course ruffled Tim's man feathers so he went out to the garage and got two quart water bottles, sat one in front of Jody, sat across from her, and gave her the challenge glare. They both exchanged this stare for a while when Erik pointed out that they had both just had quite a large breakfast. I suggested maybe they wait an hour. Of course those Thelins didn't let us phase them.

Here's the two of them chugging and Lucy being completely enthralled.

Brother and Sister at their best. Tim being very competitive and Jody couldn't help but laugh. Due to Jody's laughing...or Tims manliness...Tim won. I should have taken a picture of his stomach after it, his stomach was bulging! Remember, we had just had a huge breakfast plus Tim had being drinking a lot of juice as well.

Anyway, sorry for the novel, but I hope you enjoyed it. We had a great weekend! And not to forget Sarah Bruzzone and Kymber, we were able to hang out with them a bit at Jody and Eriks which was also very fun.