Dirkse Girls in Motion

Lauren, Emma, and Olivia doing the dance from the movie Hairspray. I haven't seen it yet, now I'm convinced I must.

Alyssa and Lauren

I Love Our Cat

Sometimes I can get annoyed at Owen, our cat. He sheds. He wants to be petted at 3 am. He bats at the blinds and meows because of something he sees outside. He has long hair on his tush that needs to be trimmed to avoid any nasty messes.

But then, there are times like this. He went and laid down by Liam and let him pull on his hair and was purring the entire time. Love rekindled.

The Boy's Got Roots

Liam had dark brown hair when he was born, and it has been getting lighter. In this picture, it almost looks like a flash is making his hair look blonde in spots. Not so, there was no flash, it really is blonde at the roots and dark at the tips.

Funny Clip of the Week

Hi all... I haven't been good about doing the "Funny Clip of the Week" weekly. It's been more like monthly. But I really thought the last one was hilarious and would laugh out loud everytime I watched it. Did anyone else think the Chinese Food Pranksters clip was funny? This new one isn't so much funny, but the guy has got skills.

Orphan Relief and Rescue

I was searching the web today and came across Orphan Relief and Rescue. I don't know how many of you knew Mariel Besmer from Whitworth College; she also attended Faith Bible Church when she lived in Spokane. My main claim to fame in life is that she was my roommate for a year in college. She is now serving with this organization in Africa helping the immediate needs of orphans as well as equipping orphanages to better take care of the children while sharing about Christ. There is a link to their site at right under the "links" section, check it out!

Cute From All Angles

Somebody in Oregon Loves Me!

Thanks everyone for your encouragement and prayers during our crazy days! Things have calmed down and Betsey and I even got to Costco today and it felt like home!

One Bad Day

Today, started out bad and just went downhill from there. We were waking up this morning and Andy walked out to the kitchen. He quickly came back to get me because the aparment was flooded. There was standing water all over the tile floor and it had soaked into the carpet. Andy was trying to find the source of the leak and opened our front door, only to let a wave of water in. Source found. Our landlords were great and helped fix the problem as well as helped clean up. All in all, it wasn't too bad, nothing was ruined and it was just a few hours of cleaning. But then, we headed off to church...

The weather has been terrible in Rockford lately, today we had freezing rain. The Subaru was handling beautifully and we weren't slipping at all. We were almost to church when we saw a big, red minivan barreling toward us, crossing into our lane. We quickly saw that the lady was out of control and Andy, quick mover Andy, expertly avoided the collision by going the only place he could, the snowy ditch. The minivan plowed right through where we had been and also got stuck alongside us in the snow bank. Thankfully, a kind couple that goes to our church stopped to help and tried to tow us out with their truck. It wasn't working so we loaded Liam into their truck so we could get him inside at church. Andy and Patrick went back to try and get the car out of the ditch, but it was good and stuck. By that time, police had showed up and a de-icing truck was laying down salt. Andy spoke with the police officer and then decided to try and give the salt some time to work, so headed back to church before trying for the third time to tow our car out.

Andy and Patrick headed back to tow the car out after about an hour. They didn't have to worry about towing the car out because a new problem had arisen, the car wasn't there! It had been reported by the policeman as abandoned, go figure, and had promptly been towed.

Now, we are trying to get ahold of the tow company, but no, they are out busy towing everyone else's cars while the getting is good. Eventually, they called us back and Andy went to get the car. We got it back plus a little extra. Somehow a big dent magically appeared in the passenger side front fender. The towing company knew nothing about it but did know quite a bit about the bill.

We finally got home to find a burst pipe and water flowing in through a window, in the area of the apartment where the carpet had been dry previously. Our landlords promptly got it stopped. Liam was the only one crying at this time, but there was talk of joining him.

To top the day off, when I was holding Liam during lunch at church, I let him get too close to my soup, which he grabbed hold of, spilling all over me and a bit on him. This was after I locked the diaper bag in Andy's office (he was trying to retrieve the car) and had to change Liam. The church had a few extra diapers, newborn size, which I squeezed my size 2 child in. By the time we got home, newborn diddies just couldn't contain all of his fluid intake and there was just one more mess to clean up.

So, how was your Sunday?

Meet the Babysitter

We all love Liam's jungle jumperoo! It entertains him for a long time with all of its activities, lights, and sounds. Liam's new little toy has allowed mama to get the boxes unpacked. So, anyone with new babies-I'd highly recommend it!

Starting Solids

Since Liam had started waking up at night, wanting to eat, we decided to start him on rice cereal. This is his first attempt at eating. He did pretty well and eventually figured out that he was supposed to eat the stuff instead of spit it out. Liam still looks like he is trying to decide if he likes it or not.

Let's Try Again

Doing the Picasa Route

Here is the view from our little apartment.

Pops came along and helped us move out to Rockford. He and Liam had a good time!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We hope that everyone's having a "love-ly" day! We were pretty low key. A kind couple from church brought over some dinner for us and we got to spend time together as a family. Liam has been waking up a lot during the night, screaming for milk this past week. We were trying to wait for the 6 month mark before giving solid foods, but that dream went out the window tonight. We gave Liam his first bit of rice cereal tonight. He wasn't quite sure what to think but did get some down his throat instead of just his front. We do have pictures, maybe we'll try to do the Picasa posting if I can figure that out.

Update

Never fear, we have been spreading the Tobin love in Illinois! Andy got the flu and promptly shared it with others. What a way to get to know people, right?! We've heard of two other people getting sick and are praying that it stops there.

People have been very kind though in helping us and trying to get us settled in. It took a small army of people to move all of our stuff last Thursday and ladies from the church are providing our meals for two weeks! Two weeks! I'm so excited-it really frees me up to try and settle us in and get better myself (I got sick and mostly lost my voice for all you how have been calling for updates and I haven't been returning your calls).

We did make it to the junior high and high school winter camp this last weekend. Andrew was supposed to be the speaker, and he did speak, although it looked at times like he was going to keel over. That was pretty much all he could do-get up and preach and then return to bed to fight the flu. We are praising the Lord that Liam hasn't gotten sick with all the germs in our house.

This definitely wasn't what we were hoping our first couple weeks in Illinois would look like, but we know that God is sovereign over little pesky things like the flu and colds. We are looking forward to getting to know the people at Harvest soon!

We are also having some weird problem posting pictures. Does anyone know what HTTP 500 Internal Service Error means? Hopefully, we'll figure that out so you can all keep seeing pictures of Liam.

A Few More Caly Pics

Here are a few last pictures from LA that I didn't have a chance to post. The Gilchers had been our next door neighbors from a few years. We are really going to miss them!

Well, actually it turns out I can only post 1 photo. I had one of Jerod and Sarah, but for some unknown reason, the website will not post any photo with Jerod included. I have no idea what is going on-I've tried for two days to post it, but it continually rejects me. Jerod, what did you do to Blogger to make it hate you so?

How Well Do You Know Rockford?

At a goodbye party thrown by some of our friends, Jerod Gilcher gave Andy and I this test to see how well we know Rockford, the city that we are moving to. I got 4/12 correct, and Andy got 5/12 correct. See how many you know...

I'll put the answers in the comments section.


1. This film about a women's baseball team has the story set in Rockford, Ill...

2. The civil and Spanish war memorial dedicated by Theodore Roosevelt by this name is right in the heart of Rockford, Ill.
a. Rockford Hall
b. Roosevelt Hall for Soldiers and Sailors
c. Carnegie War Memorial
d. Winnebago County War Memorial

3. These two Illinois cities are the only cities that are larger in population than Rockford...

4. The current mayor of Rockford is...
a. Lawrence J. Morrissey
b. Clay Bucholz
c. Esther Gibson
d. Joseph Conrad, Jr.

5. The is the highest temperature ever recorded for Rockford...

6. This is the lowest temperature ever recorded for Rockford...

7. This US city is the only city that produces more furniture than Rockford
a. Tallahassee, FL
b. Grand Rapids, MI
c. Nashville, TN
d. Dublin, OH

8. This is the tree that Rockford was known most for throughout its history
a. Elm
b. Spruce
c. Walnut
d. Ash

9. In 2005, Rockford received top honors in the contest for its cleanliness as a city
a. A Cleaner Greener America
b. America the Beautiful
c. America in Bloom
d. Your mother doesn't live here, clean up after yourself

10. This is the name of the river on which Rockford is located on both sides of...

11. Rockford is at the intersection of these major freeways. Which one does NOT intersect?
a. 39
b. 76
c. 20
d. 90

12. The Burpee Museum of Natural History, located just north of downtown Rockford is home to this ridiculous fictitiious children's interactive science exhibit dinosaur...
a. Jane the Rockford T-Rex
b. Bilpo the Rockford Brontosaurus
c. Crassis teh Rockford Cretosaurus
d. Captain Conundrum the Rockford Pterodactyl

Last Day of Work at Northridge Hospital

I worked my last day at Northridge Hospital yesterday. I've got to say that it was the best job that I've ever had. The staff that I was able to work with was wonderful. I learned so much from them about taking excellent care of patients. I can only hope if I do nursing again someday, that I'll be able to work with people as friendly and as good at teaching as the Northridge staff! So, thank you to all my friends at Northridge and best wishes!

Dlorah and Leela, our clinical supervisors

Judy, Joanna with her daughter Elizabeth, and Lori, our educator

With Marge, Cindy, Marina, Manush, and Eileen

Brandi and Elvira

With Sue, Pam, Brandi, Tess, and Arnie

With Jouse and Carlos

Goodbye Northridge ICU, Hello Illinois!

Moving

This last Wednesday and Thursday, we packed like crazy and took up more space, way more space, than we thought we needed. Both our dads and my uncle came down to help us with the whole moving process. One of our good friends, Doug, whose nickname is now Master O' Packing, fit all of our stuff into the moving trailer. We couldn't have done it, at least on schedule without the help of all these people!

Master O' Packing at work

Uncle Steve and my Dad loading the truck

The Hoch's, Adrian's, Finney's and half of the Gilcher's (Sarah was just getting back from work) gave us a send off dinner. We will really miss these wonderful friends!