A Few Months Passed. . .

Obviously, I neglected to make the monthly update for March and April. . . and now May! I wish there was a better excuse than "I just didn't do it," but really there isn't. It's not that we didn't have things we would like to share or that things weren't happening, it's just a dropped ball (maybe that's why I prefer to use my feet!) One good thing despite all of this, however, is that we haven't stopped snapping pictures or recording interesting/funny/milestone moments. So, before you read on perhaps you need to make a trip to the restroom, get a drink or a snack, and find a comfortable sitting position because this posting will have more useless text and highly entertaining videos than ever before! And with our planned trip in June, I think we can expect the next posting to be filled with loads of things as well!

Since our last update, we have had a visit from Grandma Simonton and Grandma and Grandpa Workman. Their visits overlapped a few days, so it was almost like living near lots of family again for a few days! Alas, it didn't last long enough, as such visits rarely do, but we enjoyed our time together nevertheless. This means, of course, that more of you need to make the trek down and spend time with us. We are just a poor, destitute student-family working toward a better future (I hope!), so visits from us will be very few and far between. I understand the irony of this statement as we are coming to Utah in a few days, but once that's over, I suspect the next time we are in Utah you will have to call me doctor, or Craig Workman, PhD, whichever you prefer. The moral of the story is that you should come and see us while we are still humble and palatable company!

March represented the coming of a late spring; late for Houston anyway. The cool weather hung on for longer, which really delayed the heat waves and blooming flowers. However, once spring came, it was fantastic! I don't remember last spring having weather that pleasant and I sure didn't notice the Blue Bonnets either. One of the veterans with whom I was working was finishing his participation in one of our studies. During our time together we have talked about a lot of different things, among which has been training hunting dogs, his time in the service, and of course Jax and his grandchildren. He asked me if we had ever gone and seen the Blue Bonnets when they bloom at the beginning of spring. When I said no, he told me it's something we might like to do because they are fantastic and make for some good pictures and memories. About two weeks later, he emailed me and told me the Blue Bonnets were out and a drive into the country a little ways might be worth it. It just so happened the following Saturday was a MAGNIFICENT day, so drive into the country we did. And it fantastic was! 

We had to drive out a little further than we originally anticipated, but it was well worth the journey. It was a little funny how we found the spot, too. Aubrey was on watch duty for a field or something that we could stop in and take a few pictures. Then suddenly we rounded a bend and saw a dozen or so cars pulled off of the side of the road. "What's going on there?" I wondered. Then we saw it. . . the entire hillside was covered with Blue Bonnets! It's difficult to describe how beautiful it was to see these vibrant blue flowers blooming on a hill on the side of the freeway.  So, we stopped with the rest of the sheep, got out our cameras and started snapping away (100 something snaps)! These are some of the fruits of our endeavors. This was around Easter, so that's the reason for Harry the Hare being with Jax in the pictures. This really was a wonderful, fun experience that we will likely do again next year. Y'all should come with us (live down here for a few months and you'll be saying y'all too). It was another reminder of how loving Heavenly Father is that he has created such beautiful things for us to see and experience!

Sometime later that month, Frankie was having another not-quite-teething episode. He's had the same 10 teeth for several months now , but has acted like he's been teething several times in the interval, but hasn't gotten the fruits of more teeth for his suffering (update: he's for sure cutting two new ones as I write). These episodes also mean he doesn't eat or nap very well. Well, funny things can happen when 20 month-old boys are simultaneously starving their guys out and devastatingly tired! Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are usually soft enough to eat, and tasty enough that he eats more than a bite. But I've never seen him as tired as he was that day. If I'm really being honest, we were probably laughing at him more than we felt sorry for him, but you've got to admit that's a funny way to fall asleep. He's just enough like me to know that sleeping with your hands behind your head is the most comfortable position, even when you're sitting upright! Seriously, though, how tired do you have to be to fall asleep while eating lunch, with the sun in your eyes?

Aubrey is consistently on the hunt for fun things for us to do as a family. I like it because it adds variety to our days and it always seems like she chooses things that are just different enough that they make for great memories. Early this spring she found a Groupon to a local strawberry farm and we went and picked fresh strawberries. We weren't quite sure what to expect with this, so we geared up to get good and dirty, in close that we wouldn't mind staining strawberry red. As is turns out, we probably could have worn just about anything we wanted, because picking strawberries isn't as messy of a job as all that. We were given bag-lined buckets and set loose on the many rows of strawberries. The vibrant red of these freshly picked strawberries was quite astounding, and the freezer jam that ensued continues to provide us with a tasty reminder of something I'm sure we'll do again next year! 

This past March, Aubrey and I celebrated 5 years of marriage. As staying with me for 5 years is quite the accomplishment, we decided to celebrate in style by taking a trip to New Orleans. . . all by ourselves. New Orleans is only a short 6 hour drive. Well, it was supposed to be a 6 hour drive, anyway. As it turns out, one of the problems with most of Louisiana and it's swampiness is there aren't many alternate routes aside from the major highways. So, if something goes wrong on one of those highways, the rest of the highways behind the incident is SCREWED! Our 6 hour trip turned into a 9 hour journey because of three hours of stop, stop, stop, go, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, traffic. There was an incident on the interstate in downtown Baton Rouge and it literally took us 3 hours to travel 20 miles. We were stopped on this gnarly, several hundred foot high bridge crossing the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge for over 30 minutes. It was a bit of a frightening experience. We don't think about how much bridges shake and move when we drive over them because we can't feel the gyrations in motion. But when you're stopped on the bridge and feel every undulation, you can't help but fear for your lives a little. We were starved by the time we got past the stoppage (an RV's engine had caught fire), so we stopped at a McDonald's just off the freeway in Baton Rouge. This experience provided us with the worst example of customer service we have ever seen. The girl taking our order was texting as she was talking to us, wandering around the seating areas on her phone (presumably so her manager wouldn't see her), they messed up our order, and at least two other orders while we were in there. In the end, Aubrey said I can never work at Louisiana State because she's decided she hates all of Baton Rouge! And I really can't blame her. 

So, once we finally got to Nawlins, we were looking forward to things picking up very quickly. Good thing we weren't disappointed. The place at which we were staying was on St. Charles with a trolley stop just outside. We were able to trolley to the French Quarter every morning and spend time seeing the sights, like the sarcophagi,  and experiencing new things. We tried po boys, étouffée  alligator, muffalettas, oysters, gumbo, and of course some beignets. All in all, it was a very relaxing and pleasant experience. Of course we didn't really "experience" The Big Easy to it's fullest because we don't drink, get tattoos, or walk around scandalously dressed. No big deal, at least we got to see Mark Harmon filming with NCIS!

Because the weather has been cooperating lately, we've had more chances to get outside, explore the grass, and pick up and collect every stick that has fallen from the trees over the winter. I've never seen someone so fascinated by twigs and branches as this little kid! I think part of  his motivation is that he wants to be outside as much as possible. . . and bending down to look at and collect as many sticks as possible is the best way to stay outside for extended periods! It's also a great time to run around. Even if you have a funny run that makes your parents giggle every time you get going. Do all little kids run this funny, or just mine? (Some of you dirt bags are tempted to make a crack at how "funny" his parents run; try to resist!)

Aside from running around and picking up sticks, he tried something very unexpected on one of our adventures onto the green surrounding our complex. We were just walking along, picking up sticks (I had been handed at least half a dozen by this point), when he suddenly ran over to a small tree. A small tree he very badly wanted to climb. . . and I have no idea where he got the idea! Funny little guy, isn't he? I particularly love his effort noises for when he's really trying, but it's just too hard! They say little boys have an innate desire to rough-house, climb, jump head first into anything, and do many other seemingly reckless activities that leave their mothers in a panic with the hospital on speed dial. I've seen several flashes of such behavior from this little man as well. It sometimes seems odd to me that the same little boy that isn't afraid to try climbing trees, or jump in the pool, or balance precariously on almost anything higher off the ground that half an inch can get a little fright and run behind the couch when the doorbell rings. I suppose the fear of unknown noises is stronger than the fear of bangs, bruises, lacerations, and pain.

Among the many things Jax is learning as he continues to grow is to be more independent. He has always wanted to be away from us at the park, but his desire to do things solo and in his own way can be very entertaining at times. For example, he's decided that the best way to go down the slide is face-down, and backwards. I find myself saying, "Really, Son, face-down and backwards?" We've been taking him to a park and doing slides for more than a year and we've always done the traditional feet-first and seated style with him or helped him get into that position for the sliding fun (which to be fair to him, he hasn't always found that much fun). So, what's the deal with face-down and backwards? There's really nothing wrong with it, it just makes me wonder where he gets these ideas! First it was trying to climb trees; then it's making up his own ways of going down the slide. And now he seems to have inexplicably gotten over his dislike of dirty hands and has decided that to play in the sand, dirt, and rocks, one must lie prone and fling handfuls of whatever he happens to be in behind himself in a quasi-swimming motion. If I'm being completely honest, it really does look like a lot of fun. I would join him in the rock and sand swimming, but I've been instructed my whole life to keep clean and it's a bit of a hard habit to break. Besides, someone needs to hold the camera.

Now that the warm weather has come and begins to be oppressive, it's finally time to get out and go swimming. We swim as often as we can, and Mom's tan is evidence of that! Over these last two or three weeks, I think we swam at least 8 times, and each time it gets harder and harder to leave. Once, we made the mistake of thinking we could take lunch to the pool and eat before we got in the water. This was a monumental failure. As soon as he had his swim trunks on he knew what we were doing. And going to the pool and not yet being allowed in is the sort of terroristic torture upon which most governments frown. So, instead of eating his sandwich that day, he had a handful of Cheetos (it's not a pool picnic without Cheetos) and was ready for the water. With very few exceptions, he has always loved bath-time, so it's not much of a surprise that swimming is a fast favorite as well and something we do every day it's not raining. Actually, that's not entirely true. There was one afternoon when the day started sunny after a raining evening, but was overcast while we were swimming, and started raining a bit as we were walking back to the apartment. We cut that one a little close, but it's well worth it when he has so much fun and sleeps so well at night. The video is our first swim of the summer. The water was chilly, but felt good once we got acclimated. The last time we went (only a few days ago), the weather was hot and humid, the water was warmer but still very pleasant. It's only going to get warmer, so it's nice to have pools around in which we can cool off and enjoy ourselves despite the tyranny of the sun.

So, that's all we can think of. Aside from our entertaining child, our lives are rather pedestrian and boring. I go to work and school, Aubrey keeps things going at the apartment. We try to get outside as often as possible, get stir crazy when it rains, and generally do everything we can to have a good life. As always, we miss all of our friends and family that can't be with us and hope you are all doing well. We're excited to see some of you in the coming days and can't wait to have the opportunity to see the rest of you as soon as possible. We are grateful for the Lord's blessings and his watchful gaze continually upon us.