My Beautiful Car...

...got smashed to bits on Friday evening. Laina was in the car with me, but thank God we are both ok (but stiff and sore). We were driving home from my friend Rachel's house. About 5 mins away from her house I got a flat tire. I pulled into a parking lot and got it changed and called Jay to let him know we were on our way again. Then about 5 mins away from our house, I was crossing an intersection and a Ford F250 turned left in front of me. The light had turned yellow practically as I was crossing it...I didn't even give the color of the light a moment's thought...I was just driving. I saw the truck for a fleeting second before we slammed into him, and I remember thinking "no no no no why are you turning in front of me???" I was going about 40 mph so it was a very sudden stop, airbag deployed and all. Laina was very securely strapped into her car seat and it really did it's job well of protecting her. She was checked out by both the paramedics on the scene and also by the doctor at the ER (where they took us in an ambulance because they wanted to x-ray my neck and chest), and both said she was great. Nothing is wrong with me, either, except whip lash and bruising from the seat belt. I am actually surprised that I wasn't damaged by the airbag, since I've heard bad stories about that. I think it hit my chest if anything at all. So again, we are very thankful that we are ok.

The other driver told the police officer that I ran a red light and that's why he hit me. The good news is that the officer told me that even if it was true that I ran a red light, it would still be the other guy's fault because if you are turning left it is your job to make sure it is clear before you do so. This is where the story gets more interesting..I went to the towing yard today to get my stuff out of the car. I was chatting with the guy at the desk about the accident and he said "did you hit a black F250?" I was a little surprised that he knew that. "Driven by so and so?" Ya, how could he know all this? He then told me that the driver had just picked up his F250 from the repair shop that day of my accident. And why was his truck in the repair shop you may all be wondering??? Because he had just been in ANOTHER accident before mine! Seriously, this guy's license should be revoked! Of course, I don't know if he was at fault in the other one, but it makes sense to me that he was and so now he is really fighting hard to not be at fault for this one. He told my insurance claims adjuster that he is trying to get security camera video footage of the accident to prove I ran a red light. I really hope he does because it will only prove that I didn't. And like the police officer said, it would still be his fault even if I did.

Anyways, I just pray and hope this all gets resolved quickly!

Blossoms of Light...

We celebrated our 6th anniversary yesterday by going out to the Denver Botanical Gardens annual "Blossoms of Light" exhibit... basically a bunch of lights on trees... We'd heard from lots of people that its really cool, so we decided to check it out for ourselves. Its hard for pictures to capture it, because its a whole spread-out multi-acre walking tour, but here's a few



Someone told me beforehand that we had to get the 3D glasses they sell at the entrance that turn all the lights into snowflakes... so we did

And this is what we saw (notice the snowflakes, if you click on the picture the effect should be more obvious):
It was even more pronounced in person, of course. I was surprised it turned out at all through the camera. It was kind of fun driving around afterwards with the glasses on and watching all the city lights turn into snowflakes. Jenna did most of the watching, as I had to drive, so I only put them on at stoplights (which make for impressively gigantic red snowflakes when you're wearing the glasses!).

Then we went to the Sushi Den for dinner, and had some of the best sushi we'd ever had... Jenna couldn't stop raving about the seared tuna. It wasn't really the seared part that made it so good, it was just a really tasty cut of tuna, with a really good sauce. The unagi (eel) and bincho (albacore) were also delicious. I don't think I've ever had a sushi meal where every fish was so consistently fresh and perfect. I wasn't totally sold on Sushi Den the last time we went, but this time I was convinced... although I still want to find a good sushi restaurant a little closer to our neighborhood.

It was pretty cold out (in the teens), which we realized will probably be a staple of our anniversaries from now on, but it was fun to have a wintery night out.

Happy New Year, everyone! Here's a promised pic of Laina on her new rocking pony

Christmas and Christmastime photos

Laina helping decorate the tree (I know this is old but we never posted it)

Christmas Eve at the stables, Laina meets Max the horse

Laina and daddy in the snow at the stables

My Christmas Eve ride

Laina just being cute playing with a coaster

The traditional "open one present on Christmas Eve". Laina loved opening presents - she actually helped pull the paper off, mostly so she could stick it in her mouth, though.

The beautiful scene we woke up to Christmas morning.
Jay went outside to get this awesome picture of the snow falling in front of our house.

Christmas morning, Laina in her Christmas pjs and sleepsack
(which I had to unzip so she could sit on her new rocking/bouncing pony.
Why we didn't get a pic of her actually on the pony I have no clue.
I am going to re-create the moment though in the near future, and get a pic.)

One of many presents to open on Christmas morning. And afternoon.

(It ended up taking pretty much all day to open presents what with naps and all)

We also had a wonderful dinner with our friends the Heldts who managed to drive to our house in the very deep snow. For some reason we forgot about the camera and all picture-taking somewhere after Laina's first or second present. So we have no pictures of the rest of the day :(


And this is our house as it looks tonight

It was a beautiful Christmas; a perfect storybook Dec 25th for Laina's first Christmas.
In all of this though, we really want to remember why we celebrate Christmas at all -
the amazing gift that God gave us in the birth of his son.

Christmas in Colorado

What snow?

Even gingerbread men have iPods now... (the other guy's just dancin' to the music in his ginger-head)

Christmastime in the city (my firm's conference room is the window on the upper right)

Taking the bundle of joy back from hot cocoa, a bonfire, carriage rides, and caroling at our community pool (that's our house in the background). Of course, she didn't drink any hot cocoa, ride on the carriage, or sing... but she was a pretty happy camper watching everyone else.

We're sticking around in town for Christmas this year, so we're enjoying the fact that we've been getting just enough snow to enhance the holiday spirit, but not so much that it makes life difficult. Hopefully it will stick around until Tuesday (we're supposed to get some flurries on Christmas) so we can go 2 for 2 on White Christmases in Colorado (apparently they're not as common as you might think here).

We'll miss seeing family in person on Christmas, but we're going to use technology to its fullest and Skype everyone so we can at least see each other and say hello. Laina has lots of presents to open, including a rocking 'pony' from Grandma and Papa Hoskinson that I assembled last night, although she could very well focus most of her attention on the bows and wrapping paper...


Merry Christmas!

Book Reports

I finally got the 2 books I was waiting for at the library, and read them both in a total of 4 days. They aren't very long and since I was interested in the subject matter, they were both fast reads. I decided to do a "book report" on them both here for any interested parties. First let me say I would recommend both of them to anyone who has or is planning to have children. OK, on with the reports...

"What Your Doctor May Not Tell You about Children's Vaccinations" by Stephanie Cave, MD, was a fascinating read. Although it was outdated, being last revised in 2000, it still had very interesting information about how vaccines are manufactured and what's in them. One could basically skip over the parts about vaccines that we no longer use in America, but I still found it interesting to read these parts, just to find out why we stopped using them. I would say this book is a little more anti-vaccine than the second book I will review. There were some very scary points brought up in the book, but some of it was theoretical and not proven, but of course that still doesn't mean it's not possible. I don't want to give away all the details of the book, because I do think you should go out and read it for yourself. I will say one thing that thoroughly disgusted me was the fact that some vaccines are made using cells from aborted fetuses. So I realized there are many reasons why parents may choose not to vaccinate their children - moral, ethical, and religious reasons being part of them.

For some, Dr Cave's book may "scare" you into wanting to skip vaccinations. However, you must remember that a lot of the scary things are related to vaccines that we no longer use. It does make me wonder though, what could possibly be wrong with the vaccines we use today that no one knows about yet?

The second book, "The Vaccine Book" by Dr Robert Sears, was a very balanced book with pros and cons not only about types of vaccines, but also about specific brands of the same vaccine. While this information is certainly interesting, I do wonder that it would be very useful, in a practical sense, because I don't think pediatricians will let you pick which brand of which vaccine you want to use. However, maybe if you know they use a brand of something which has a lot of controversial ingredients, you may consider switching doctors or at least having the vaccines administered one by one so your baby isn't inundated with so many foreign substances all at once (with the numerous shots they like to give in one visit). I think Dr Sears' book is definitely worth having in the household library as a reference book. Also, he is publishing updates on his website, www.thevaccinebook.com. He has a blog format and is even personally responding to readers' comments!

Besides the great info on the vaccines themselves, Dr Sears also has listed some of the reasons parents in his own practice choose not to get particular vaccines, and of course the reasons one would want to get the vaccines. Then towards the end of the book, he gives very nice alternative vaccination schedules. One very selective schedule which he recommends to parents who would otherwise choose no vaccines at all, and one schedule which has all of the government-recommended childhood immunizations but a different timeline for getting them.

All in all, both books are good reads, but I plan on buying (or perhaps some kind person will get me for Christmas) The Vaccine Book. Because it is so current and because I believe I will reference it again each time Laina is supposed to get vaccinations. I still haven't fully decided what I think is best for the rest of her shots. Jay is reading The Vaccine Book now, so he can be an active parent, too, and we can decide and pray together about the choices we are fortunate enough to be able to make for our daughter. I believe I said before, I do want to protect Laina from serious diseases, but I want to do it in the safest manner possible. If that means spreading vaccines out and paying more co-pays in order to do it, that's fine with me (I think I'm leaning towards that idea). We also need to talk to Laina's doctor and see if some of the possible changes to the scheduling are doable with them.

So again, if you are a parent or especially if you are going to become a parent, I urge you to educate yourself on vaccines. I would recommend first The Vaccine Book, because it's current and balanced. Then if you want to be a little more scared and grossed out, Dr Cave's book. But then go back and read Dr Sears' book again, just so you stay balanced. I really regret not doing this research before Laina was born, because I would have done things a little differently with her newborn vaccinations, mostly the timing. I also recommend books over internet research, because at least for me, I got only pieces and parts online, and the books provide a nice, whole, cohesive picture.

Happy Baby

Laina was giddy for most of the weekend... She kind of just opens her mouth really wide and squeals when she's really happy. Here's some video of her cracking up over just about anything (while wearing her bear suit).

A Girl and Her Dog

Here's some pictures of Laina and Ella being buddies...

"What's this wet sensation sneaking up on my mouth?"

"I'm supposed to pet the doggy for the camera, now, right?"

"Wow, she's bigger than she looks from the couch"