Birthday Song #4 w/Family

"Again guys, again!"

Happy Birthday Song #3 w/Family

Again, again, again!

Happy Birthday Song #9

Happy 3rd Birthday Madelyn

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl

CHEESE!

Our best Texas friends, Melissa & Addy, came to celebrate with us. It's turned out to be a very wonderful birthday for our wonderful Madelyn...And we sang "Happy Birthday" like 15 times.

A moment of peace between TOTAL EXCITEMENT

A Quick Jump in the Pool w/the Wrong Diaper

"Why are you following me?"

"Ok, put the camera away!"

Is it acting like fall in California yet?

What about Illinois, Oregon, Arizona, and Utah? People have Halloween and fall décor up and it really confuses me. I still think I'm 23, it's the first half of the year 2000, and my little girl is still a baby in arms. No it doesn't make sense but the time lapse really doesn't either. What happened to all that time? The weather hasn’t changed here. It’s still pretty much pool season. I can’t believe it’s October and that Madelyn is going to turn 3 next Saturday. James is going to be in CA for Madda’s birthday so we’re not really going to have a celebration until we get settled in our new Brentwood home. Melissa and Addy (Madelyn’s and my closest friends) are coming over for the day to play so that we can make it as special as possible in the middle of a hard move.

I have some new pictures to share but haven’t gotten them on the computer yet. Sorry. Soon we won’t be such far away faces. We’ll be familiar and with family. I can’t believe that I’ve been away from home for over 7½ years and that James and I will be taking Madelyn away from the only home she’s ever known and bringing her home at the same time. Home is truly, where your loved ones are. James’ family isn’t very happy about us moving so far away and that’s understandable but James and Madelyn will be flying out for visits and I hope Grandma Collins and Aunt Mi Mi will be visiting us in California as well. Thank you so much for the gifts and pictures Grandma Collins.

I cry every time I talk or even type about it but it’ll be so wonderful for Madelyn to be surrounded by family and to be able to make friends that don’t move away as soon as we become close. It’ll be wonderful to put the military behind us and leave it in the past. James and I want to give Madelyn everything and it’s been such a heartache to see her hurt because of friends leaving and family being so far away. The poor girl is so socially neglected. We’re finally going to be able to change that.

California means so much to us; it means getting better and healing our bodies as well as our hearts. James and I are so sick. I don’t think it’ll really sink in to those that we’re coming home to until everyone that knew us before gets to know us again. My intensive 17 hr. sleep study (Wed & Thurs) didn’t yield hopeful results but I’ve got to have something positive to hold on to. I believe that the Lord will be able to heal us with faith, family, new friends, and an excellent diet with natural supplements. ☺

Love, Wendy

Always a favorite picture. I can almost see Madelyn sitting beside Grandma Nielsen. I also must point out that I still have my yellow blankie that Madelyn's G.G. Grandma Webster made for me in this picture. I think it died a mere few years later as I watched and cried (add some dramatic music in your heads) as my terrible and haunting brothers threw it right into the back of a garbage truck. I still have pinky, YOU NEVER GOT PINKY! :-)

Thought I'd share a favorite picture of our beloved President Gordon B. Hinkley.
I believe this is one of the pictures taken when he was given the highest honor a United States citizen can receive from President George W. Bush.

We love Halloween year round but we're showing off Madelyn's new Halloween night shirt.















Picture #2 "Uh, I just don't know what my motivation is supposed to be."













Picture #3: Scary spider!


















James has wanted a dog forever and I had a moment of euphoria (I suppose) I let him go get one with Madelyn. Our newest member of the family, Boog.

Not much we really want to bother everyone with as far as an update. James’ and my health is terrible. My sleep (or rather lack of) has gotten so bad that I’ve gotten Narcolepsy — A life-threatening disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks during the day. I’ve had another sleep consult in for a couple of months now because the first one showed that I was getting no restful sleep but the 2nd appointment has so far been a no-show. James is very very ill. I’ll leave it at that. In between all the health fun, we’re trying to get ready for the move. Boog is an absolute doll but James is driving him back to Dallas tomorrow (James is VERY mad at me) because we just can’t take care of him and Madelyn as we're both sick and living on the 3rd floor. Good news is that James will be picking him back up on his final drive back to CA.
Madelyn put Boog's feeding bowls box on her head all on her own and ran around the house being "Boog's eat". Other than Madelyn's tempers here and there about not getting ALL of mommy and daddy's attention, she and Boog have become good friends and Boog protects her from everyone. It's so cute from a 4 mo. old puppy.

Speed Racer

August

CONGRATULATIONS on another baby girl all you Portland Nielsen’s!!! I know when the twins were born, when I was six, they were my whole world after being surrounded by boys for so long and then I got the best gifts mom has ever given me, the rest of my 5 beautiful, wonderful sisters. And now Aaron, Matthew, and Michael have married the best women/sisters I could ever hope for. I wonder if Arwen would enjoy sharing a birthday. Madelyn probably wouldn't but we would sure have one heck of a friends party.

James and I have been feeling pretty good, physically, lately so we had a good weekend. Saturday we went to the too and all the animals were especially active. I watched a vulture start and finish an entire rat that looked the same as the black and white one that I had as a kid. James kept telling me to hurry on but I was stuck, I just couldn’t stop staring at this enormous bird perfectly devour the rat and then I got really stuck.
We moved on to the huge tortoises (Turtles/Tortoises are my favorite reptile and one of my top 5 favorite creatures). There were 3 that day and two were in a mud hole very close to the gate. I had an asian apple in hand from one of the trees at the zoo and couldn’t help but coax this beautiful prehistoric looking tortoise towards me. She SMACK, sloped out of her mud whole and reached as far as she could toward the apple. I called James and Madelyn back to watch her eat. Sooooooo fun. It’s so rare to see tortoises of this size ever move let alone eat. I couldn’t be more excited if she were an Apatosaurus (my favorite dinosaur). I was then naughty and coaxed her out with some green thing we picked off a tree just to pet her beautiful head. I made sure Madelyn didn’t see me get inside the fence (bad example and all). I didn’t let her eat the unknown (nut I think) but she let me pet her head until James got me to come running because the zoo had closed 10 min. earlier and then she, BUBBLE BUBBLE SQUIRT, slopped back into her mud whole.

Tuesday, James had the day off because I had a sleep study that night at 7:30. Lights out at 10, at 11 the nurse brought me a sleeping pill and what seemed like 5 minutes later, she brought me a second one (actually 45 min. later). She said everyone else was sound asleep. I think I fell asleep at 1am (no clocks), and at the 6am wakeup the nurse/tech asked me how I thought I slept. I felt like it was the middle of the night but felt like I did when I usually wake up and she said that my brain was awake all night long. Hmmm, maybe there’s a simple reason for all my health problems? YA THINK! I won’t get the results for who knows how long but she said that I’ll have two more sleep studies scheduled because of the results of this sleep study. I wonder if I did any arm tickling (like Emily and Aaron do also) in the middle of the night. I wake myself up talking all the time, the other morning I woke myself up by sculpting a face out of clay, I opened my eyes, and I was sitting up actually going thru the sculpting motions with my hands.

I don’t remember what day it was but James, Madelyn, and I spent some wonderful hot stormless time at the pool early in the morning and I actually got some color for the first time, even my face w/my SPF 30 on. Then in the afternoon, about 3:00 we got one of our hurricane-like storms, cannon fire thunder and pounding rain with winds that were blowing shingles off. So nice to be in such a nice apartment and not have to worry about a thing.

HAPPY EARLY AUGUST BIRTHDAYS TO:
(Your birthstone is a Peridot and your birthflowers are gladiolus)
8/6 My nephew Steven, Happy 21st!
8/14 Our cat Dresden, she’s actually 31 (in cat years), same grumpy age as me.
8/22 Meghan, Happy 22nd on the 22nd!
8/30 Sequoia, ha ha, you’re finally as old as me!
HAPPY ANNNIVERSARIES TO:
8/9 Michael & Heidi, Happy 4th!
8/20 Mom & Dad, Happy 38th! Yes mom, I have scrapbooking pages in the works.

Love, Wendy

My buzzet pixie and where she get's her Pixie dust.

This is a REAL picture of *The Eagle Nebula, M16; Located in the constellation of Serpens taken thru some NASA telescope.
I'm pretty sure it's one of those places fairies come from. That and mom and dad's western eucalyptus orchard. DON'T YOU DARE TAKE THAT OUT!
This week as been the same ol' thing. Thunder & Lightening storms everyday. Fun to watch but we can't go out to the pool as much as we'd like because the lightening is so bad. The pool pictures are of our Buzzet about to beat up the fountaints and of the battle face after her victory. I met two 14yr old girls at the pool that did their first of my 9 hour unpaid babysitting trial on Friday. They were awesome. I thought they were too good to be true but then I remembered everything I did when I used to babysit. It's just so hard to trust anyone with the statistics in this area, especially since James' works in the ER and sees so many of the wost cases of neglect and abuse. We're still on track for moving to CA in October and that's all there is to report. Michael & Heidi, let me know how to put videos on my blog, I've got lots of cute one's.
-Love Wendy

PS Just got my hair trimmed (for the first time) 3 inches since my awful original cut in December '05. Once picture is the week before I got it cut (longest my hair has ever been) and the other is the week I got the awful cut. I can't tell an inches difference in lengh since my current trim. I'm hoping to donate or sell it soon and go back to a long shoulder length.

Pixie Dust

July 21, 2007
Here's the best update I can give everyone. James and I are still organizing, packing, unpacking, and moving (old storage unit to new garage saving over $200 a month, yea!). The current plan is that Madelyn and I will be flying out to CA mid October and get the living room at mom and dad's (thanks again) ready for some real living in. We'll have everything boxed up and ready to go and pay "handlers" to put it all on the moving truck around the same time. Everything else about the driving part of the move is still a bit confusing to me. Speaking of confusing...

A medication slipped past my system of double-checking all meds that my Dr's have prescribed me and then I choose to take or not to take them. Anyway, I've had very serious side effects including bad short-term memory loss that may be permanent so Dad and I will be quite the pair. James and I are both very ill but are planning on slowly getting off all chemical medications before we move and then are planning on seeing dad’s holistic Dr. in San Fran, filling out the survey, and following his advice but first we’re both doing multiple body cleanses. Just a few examples are the liver, gallbladder, and this ionic water one (James found it and I forgot the name) that pulls toxins and excess metals out of your body. There’s a foot one and a full body one and I plan on doing the ionic cleanse right before I start the supplements and diet that dad’s holistic MD puts me on. I’m very optimistic about the whole thing, probably too much but it’s not like my body’s let me down before, ha ha (not so funny sarcasm).

Wish I had some current pictures for ya’ll but I haven’t downloaded the camera lately.

I have to apologize to everyone about birthday’s this year, it’s been a hard one (year) and I love to send birthday cards and at least an email but haven’t been very good at it so here goes…

HAPPY belated BIRTHDAY to everyone January 1st thru June 30th. HAPPY belated July BIRTHDAYs to Sarah, Heidi, David, and Evan. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY Grandma Collins, I told James you called. Thank you so much for your prayers and generosity. HAPPY pre-BIRTHDAY to Michael and a big HAPPY UNBIRTHDAY to everyone (except Grandma Collins of course, we'll start celebrating your unbirthday in less than an hour). Every time I light a candle Madelyn starts singing happy birthday so we sing a lot of happy unbirthday songs. Its past time to go night night so sweet dreams everyone and I hope you all have wonderful dreams filled with plenty of pixie dust.
Love, Wendy