September

We had Walker's, Barrett's and Davis' here to help us unload our moving truck and start unpacking. This was the first time Q got to meet the Barret side of the family!Luckily Mom Walker decided to stay the night with Q and I our first night to help unpack essentials. I might not have survived otherwise. Ian immediately left with the guys to unload the rest of our stuff in our new storage unit (full to the ceiling and wall to wall!) then drop off the moving truck (they couldn't find it so it took them hours) and finally go home with his Dad to get dropped off at the Bellingham airport early the next morning.About 4 days later I flew with Ian's parents to Denver, Colorado for a Walker reunion. Ian followed a few days later from Sacramento. His sister Christina put up the entire family! That takes way more guts than I have. There were 28 people in their comfortable house, including 15 grand kids. It was really fun seeing family we hadn't seen in years. Again I must say that I apologize for my behavior on such a fun occasion, I promise I will try to be better next time!One of our excursions was to a red rock park, it was beautiful.Quintin absolutely LOVED his cousins. (All of them, even those not in pictures!) He loved being pushed around in the red car by Peyton. He would have stayed in that car the whole week! I was amazed he was able to stay in and NOT fall out!Look mom! I'm a big boy!All the kids loved playing in the hot tub.Ian had fun with the nieces and nephews.It was really good to see family we've been away from for so long.Quintin and I were alone in the still-packed house for two weeks once we got home. It took me about a week to find the crib parts so he slept with me until then - that was rough. We tried to make the best of it and get out to enjoy the state park across the street. Marvelous views! We tried the moby and the backpack and had fun getting some fresh air. Getting our new phone/net hooked up was such a headache. It took 9 phone calls just to find the right company. Then it ended up taking 3 weeks for them to get our order screwed up again and again and again. It took over another 10 phone calls and 2 house visits by technicians to get it straight, man was I frustrated.

Over the past (stressful) month my milk supply had been diminishing considerably. Since I had been trying to do this gradually anyway I decided to let it happen. By the end of the month I was no longer pumping at all. Q was solely on frozen milk. It was kind of sad for me but my arthritis had been getting so bad that I needed to stop. I think by this time Q's tongue tie had been repaired to the point that he could have learned to breastfeed, but it was time to stop.

After those two weeks alone Q and I got on an airplane back to Cali for a week. We stayed with some friends of ours, the Aldous' from when we first moved to Davis. Thank you Alice and Chuck! You were live savers! These pictures are on their trampoline out back. Poor Q had an MRI requiring sedation (it took them 3 freaking tries in his chubby ankle to get the IV in while he's screaming his head off-way to wrench a mom's heart), a pelvic ultrasound, and a special x-ray entailing catheters and dye. Poor guy. I think the x-ray was the worst because he had to lay on his side for about a half hour waiting for him to pee out the dye, which his bladder was in no hurry to do, meanwhile they're pouring warm water on his parts to stimulate pee but just turns cold once it's on the table. Therefore he was lying in cold water on a cold x-ray table mostly naked for a half hour with mommy and daddy holding his head and arms.
MRI Results: There are more folds on the left than on the right, but the computer says this is a normal way of developing. Lets cross our fingers.
Kidney test results: Dilation has increased from a 2 to a 3 requiring further monitoring and tests. Here we come Seattle Children's Hospital.
Quintin and I went to visit Grandma Alvina one last time and Winters to see my old school friends and say goodbye. We got to see Dianne, Andi (and Reagan), Alicia, Garret, Cynthia, and Tanya. They told me about how my old, awesome WHS principal is now a kindergarten teacher! I couldn't believe it. And my old classroom at WMS is correctly set up now, too bad I missed it myself. The new WMS administration is going well also.Groupon had a special deal at I Fly (indoor skydiving in a wind tunnel) so Ian and I decided to do that for our anniversary (albeit a month late). It was way down in the bay area but awesome. We have the video on DVD, but don't know how to transfer it here, so I guess you'll have to miss out. We had a blast.

Right before we left town we stopped off at the INCREDIBLE SPCA Thrift store in Davis for one last peak and snagged ourselves a nice black pak'n'play for $12! I had never intended to get one but with all the traveling we've been doing we needed a travel bed for Q. I couldn't believe we got such a deal. It was hiding under 2 other not-as-cool play pens. Yes!The Neurologist gave Q a fun pin wheel so that kept him happy for the start of our laborious trip home. In the first car picture you can see his one tooth that came in the day we packed the truck. :)We stopped and stayed with my cousins Carl and Chris in Portland on our way home. We'd learned our lesson last time not to try to do it all in one day with Quintin. It was good to see them and my cousin Jimmy. We made it home without any huge mishaps. Phew.