Seattle with a Chance of Sun

What is it that comes to mind on a sunny day in late March? Anything? Well if you've frequented the University of Washington campus for a combined thirteen years like Bri and Ben or if you're Japanese, you're thinking Get the kids! Cherry Blossoms! Now!

That's right, for a few weeks in late march - early April the cherries on the quad are in bloom. Mix that short window with Seattle weather, and you have a total of about 50 hours of quality photograph time a year. So when the skies opened yesterday the Wilsons were scrambling for the camera and getting the girls into dresses. We reached the quad about half-an-hour after the clouds parted (about a ten minute walk from our apartment). It was still relatively empty but Japanese Seattlites were already pouring in from all entrances. Kids were being placed in trees and couples were posing in the blossoms. The best photo spots soon formed lines. Our first goal was a repeat of Ginny's baby pictures from two years ago with Violet. Can you tell which is which? Neither one looks too happy to be there...

Ginny 4 days old, Violet 5 days old, Same tree Next it was time to get cute family shots and let Ginny run around. Luckily Japanese are good photographers. We stayed for about twenty minutes then headed out as the clouds moved in again. The people we passed coming in on our way out were already too late. We thought it was funny how many people saw the sun and made a b-line for the quad like us. Here are some parting shots.

Ginny Breaks loose across the Quad, still just beginning to fill
Mom and Violet
Dad and Ginny

The Family

Baby Sister Arrives

After 49 rib kicks, 31 pre-labor contractions, 64,451 extra calories in Bri's diet, and 6 days 7 hours and 7 minutes past due, Baby Sister made her long anticipated debut in the Wilson Family. The short story:

+Everything went well

+Mother and baby are recovering nicely

+baby weighed 9 pounds - 5 ounces

+Name: Violet Iris Wilson

Now for all of you delivery junkies who love the gory details, this is how it all went down...

Sunday 3:50pm: Bri heads to the kitchen during a game of Monopoly for a slice of Cindy's cake. She chokes on a bite, starts coughing, and her water breaks. Plans are made and Bri and Ben head to Swedish, arriving sometime around 5:00pm.

7:00pm: After having to wait in line to enter delivery triage, being hooked up to monitors for two hours, and numerous not-so-glamorous tests its what we thought. The doctors don't believe that Bri's water broke because she's not having contractions. This happened with Ginny too. At that time we finally convinced them after two hours by showing them the puddle on the bed that Bri was sitting on. But there's no puddle this time. Not wanting to send us home they tell us to walk around for an hour to try and start contractions. Still nothing. Finally the fact that Bri is already dilated 5cm compels them to admit us. We reach the birthing suite at 9:00pm.

Monday 1:30am: After a whole lot of deliberating by nurses to see if Bri will start contractions on her own and receiving some antibiotics Bri is FINALLY induced (note: 9 hours after the hospital was first contacted!). Contractions start around 2am, an epidural is received at around 4am.

With the epidural doing it's thing, the mood is light in the birthing sweet as Ben's sister-in-law Ashley arrives around 5:30am. Bri has reached 10cm and we're lettin' the contractions do their thing before Bri starts pushing. The pushing starts at about 6:30. Bri has been taken off of pitocin so her contractions are about 5 minutes apart. Bri is in such a good mood and the pace is so leasurely that we actually miss pushing on a few contractions because we're shooting the breeze with the doctor and nurses. It only takes 30 minutes or about 7 contractions worth of pushing to get the baby out. Compare this to the 90 minutes and about 45 contractions with Ginny.

The baby arrives at 7:07am and the scale reads 9 pounds-4.8 ounces. A sharp increase over Ginny's 7-12. Imagine if they had let Bri go longer. Baby-Sister looks just like Ginny did only a bit chunkier. After more than 24 hours of deliberation the name Violet Iris sticks. It was hard because she looked so much like Ginny that it was hard to come up with an original name. Enjoy the pics and footage and thank you to all the helpers and well-wishers!

Bri able to enjoy Baby Sister's first moments thanks to an awesome epidural

Baby Sister chills out after the post-delivery trauma. What a cutey!

Ginny meets Baby Sister

The Bunny Cometh

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz. The Easter Bunny made his annual visit to the Wilson home one day early, per the parents' request. In case you're wondering, no baby yet; four days passed due and counting. Here is some footage of Ginny finding the eggs. Note her correct color identification (orange and blue). It has been a lot of work but she now doesn't call every color blue.

Afterwards Ginny enjoyed the spoils of victory. Here are some photos.

Ginny collecting eggs.

Ginny munching some treats.

Happy Easter!

Ginny Update

It is amazing to me how creative little kids are. I didnt know they were so smart. Here is a video of Ginny being a horse and one of her and her best friend Riley playing "Ring Around the Rosie." Enjoy!

Also for your viewing enjoyment, can you tell who is who? There is one of Ginny, one of Me and one of my sister Lily. All in the same outfit!

Ben Corner: Scouts on Ice

What is the best calling in the church? Simple: Young Men Leader. Why? You get to act like a teenager all over again. Take this last weekend's snow camp. When else do grown men get to go out, build igloos, get two hours of sleep, and go sledding off irresponsibly large jumps? Not often.

The trip was really a two part saga. Part one was the first day and night, which proved to be one big object lesson on Alma 34:33.

"...therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed."

Basically we had six hours of day light to make a shelter out of snow to get us through the night which proved to be VERY cold. Some chose to build igloos, some chose snow caves, some went sledding, some managed to soak themselves to the bone within the first half hour; but I think most people were wishing they had put just a little more time into their shelter when the sun went down and they shimmied into there coffin-sized ice shelter to stay for the next ten hours, sleep or not (and it was mostly not). Here's me next to my coffin-sized niche in our igloo. Doesn't that look toasty?

Speaking of our igloo, we did an awesome job thanks to our muscle, Kent; our structural engineer, Danny; and our Canadian, Eldon. Despite being made of jerry-rigged blocks of snow, our well-chinked dome easily held all four of us the next morning. (The little pink flag is to make sure people didn't accidentally walk over my afore mentioned ice coffin coming off the main dome).

Everyone managed to survive the night with all their fingers and toes. Some people just did it in a little more style than others (we had a few boys abandon their shelters, but we're not naming names).

In the morning we entered part two of the saga, that vital key to every successful outdoor endeavor: doing something stupid. It started with a steep slope, some sleds, some intertubes, and a lot of bored teenagers. It didn't take long for a jump to be built. I arrived on the scene from an errand just in time to see Danny add the finishing touches to what proved to be one of the most brutally effective jumps I've ever seen. We were LAUNCHING people. Sol Garcia, Dallas Pinkham, and Drew Smith get the most air awards for the youth. But the adults weren't about to be shown up. Just about everyone took the chance to partake of the big air, including yours truly.

All in all the trip was great. For more pictures see the website Danny set up. Here are some parting shots. Our igloo in the shadow of Rainier and the boys strapping on their snowshoes.

Bri Corner: February = Bri's Favorite Month

Early morning on February 1st, Bri and Ben still in bed. Bri wakes up "Happy February BEN!!!" A startled Ben sleepily replies, "happy february honey."

I never get Christmas let down - okay maybe sometimes - but usualy never. Do you know why? Its because February is my favorite month. Top reasons My Birthday and VALENTINES DAY.

My birthday is cool because I usually always have someone to share it with. First it was President Regan, who sent me an awesome white house packet when I was 6. Then friends in school shared my day and even my high school French exchange teacher. Later I found out my good buddy Tawona shared my birthday too, we met at UW freshmen oreination back in 2001. And now my Niece Olivia who just turned 7, we met in 2004 when I married into the family.

Valentines day has always been my favorite. We decorate the house in conversation hearts (for the whole month), some of them say "1+1=3" and "wanna make out?" while others say "just friends" and "washing my hair." I usually buy some cool PJs and a $5 Old Navy tee (sadly, not this year), I get to eat chocolate, bake yummies, go out on a date, recieve a meaningful gift and watch a chick flick! Back in the day I had some pretty crazy adventures in high school on Valentines day, which included things like: the Kingsmen, scavenger hunts, sledding, etc... all on video too.

This year February has had a couple extra cool events. Such as a High Tea, a baby shower, and a stampin' up party. All very fun things. Here are some pictures and comments of all said events.

2/2/08

This is Tawona and I

We are getting a pedicure

in honor of our 25th bday.

We are both pregnant with girls!

Here is me at the Tea

with my sister in law Traci.

this was a family Celebration

of Baby-Sister

Here is the Hostess and I.

Ashley chose to have the event

at the Queen Mary Tea Room

it was lovely!

2/6/08

Here is the Wilson gang on my Birthday.

We ate a Agua Verde.

Service was bad that day,

We will have to try it again sometime.

Ginny looks a little stunned here,

but I garentee that she enjoyed

singing "happy too you mommy!"

and munching on the yellow cupcakes

with chocolate frosting. (I made them).

2/9/08

This was the baby shower.

Here is the whole group!

Thanks again Ladies!

These are the adorable onesies

we all decorated.

2/14/08

Ginny presents daddy with her Valentine

she pretty much made it herself

just a little mommy supervision.

Here she is opening her Valentine gift. Last year she got

Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton

This year Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann

You can tell she was very excited,

Not to mention she had crazy hair all day!

And Ben and I went out to McCormick's and

Schmicks. Had a lovely dinner and view of downtown, sorry its not to clear in the photo.

I gave Ben small scrapbook titled

"The Story of Us." And Ben wrote me a song

I got a little misty eyed when

he preformed it for me. :)

Lastly was the stampin up party last saturday. You can look at the cards we made on the card blog. I hope you all had a lovely Valentines day and a happy February so far.

Ginny Update

Virginia is learning many new things one of them is counting. On my birthday I (and other witnesses: Ben, Brandon and Ashley) heard for the first time her count to ten! Ben had heard it a few days earlier aswell. You will note in these first two videos that she is more interested in the camera than counting. She is also looking at her favorite book "Go dog go."

Here is a video of her making the sounds of different animals. These are only a few of the many noises she knows. She has been doing this for over a few months now. Enjoy!

Finally here is a video of Ginny dancing like a "rina" which translates to Ballerina. This dress was given to her by my mom, Ginny thinks its a tutu.

She also enjoys sweeping the floor, coloring, putting on makeup and nailpolish with mom, and doing mommy's hair. She is already sounding and looking like a teenager, scary! Not to mention she attened that cute Ethan Connell's birthday party. I think Daddy was a little worried. :)