Car Sick Baby

Dearest Castillo Children,

Another week my lovelies! Oh, and what it a week it was... On Monday we went out to do some shopping. I found these gorgeous glass tiles on clearance at Lowe's. They are usually 5 or 6 dollars for a 12x12 sheet but at Lowe's they were only 1.59 each. What!?! I had to convince your dad to let me buy them and to do a back splash in our kitchen with them. Love, love, LOVE. So I called the Lowe's on Monday morning to ask them how many they had. They told me that they only had a box left of them - about 21. I decided I needed more than that to do my projects so I started to call around to the other Lowe's in Tucson. Of course all the close ones were out of them but I found 12 more in a store far out on the east side of Tucson. Debating whether or not to drive that way I decided that if I didn't have enough of them there was no point in having any at all. So on the other side of Tucson (a 30 to 40 min. drive, by the way) Annalise starts to cough and then THROWS UP all over the back seat. We stop in the Lowe's parking lot and she does it again! What?! My poor baby! I keep some stuff in the car for emergencies - wipes, a spare outfit, diapers, bibs - and I was able to wipe her down and change her outfit. I wasn't, however, really able to clean up all the throw up. Especially since it was all over the baby seat and the car seat. Bah. I bought my tiles and decided that I already was out and I might as well finish up my errand. I usually do a ton of stuff on that side of town if I'm going to drive all the way out there. So instead I drive back toward Sahuarita to stop and get the last of the tiles from the Lowe's closest to us. I discover there that they had an whole second box of tiles. That basically I drove out there for nothing. AGH! Oh, well. I ended up buying both boxes and now I have no fear about not having enough. Any extras I plan to use in my laundry room. Excellent. I had to spend the rest of the day clean up throw up off of car seats (yes...Nora's seat also) and the car. Luckily we have leather so it was super easy to clean up...but it was still gross. It took a lot of work to get that smell out of the car.

While we were driving back from the super far away Lowe's (the car smelling of throw up the whole way...) I saw two interesting events that I feel really define Tucson for me. The first, an old lady pulling up next to me on the right said. Why is that significant? I was in the far right lane. Maybe she's turning? No. She decided the Bus Lane was a lane she could drive in and did so for about two miles before she finally turned right. Otherwise, I don't know how long she would have stayed in that lane. The second, as I was about to turn onto the freeway there were about 10 homeless people walking together in a group. What made this special was that it was almost like a homeless, hippie parade. They had their guitars and dogs with them. Oh, Tucson.

The rest of the week blurred together. I was really off of my game this week since I lost a day cleaning out my car. We went to Pilate's, and to the park. We had a picnic with some people from church and we played outside. Daddy put up a new plastic swing since Nora and Annalise fought over the other one. :) I got it online for a great price. So happy I found that! Daddy took the girls to the store on Friday so I could have some alone time and fixed the roof on Saturday. You're Dad is awesome girls. I sure hope you know that. I hope you understand exactly why I love him so much. He serves and serves. He loves the two of you without limits.

On Saturday night we decided to have a little date night to celebrate Valentine's Day. We went to this dance/dinner fund raiser and it was great! Babysitting was included and so we dropped you girlies off at the play area and we went to eat dinner. We got to dance for a few hours (which I love. Did you know that the first time I knew that I was completely in love with your father was while we were dancing?) and then picked our lovely babies up and went home.

Later that night your Aunt Geneva, Aunt Alicia, Uncle Eric and cousin Ellie showed up to stay the night. The came down to celebrate a dear friend that had passed away - your Uncle Jamie. You see, Jamie wasn't blood related but he was very much a part your dad's family. He died two years ago in a motorcycle accident. It was so sad - he left behind an amazing wife, your Aunt Jessie.  I'm sure we'll show you pictures of him since he is in a lot of family pictures from when we were married in the temple. He is still deeply missed, but Heavenly Father had another plan for him. I know he is doing amazing work in heaven.

It's always nice to see family - I'm glad Ellie and Nora got to play a little before everyone headed home. I keep telling Todd that he should find a job in Mesa so we can go live there so you can be closer to your cousins. They are all just such amazing people.

The funniest thing that happened tonight was when Nora went to get the Book of Mormon for our scripture study. We started doing it so she could get use to the language of the scriptures. She has started to pull the Book of Mormon out and pretend to read it. Mostly she just says, "and it came to pass". So funny! We sing Scripture Power before we do our prayer for scripture study and Nora was making all these explosion noises while we were singing it. Todd and I couldn't help but laugh. Adorable.

Love You,
Always and Forever,
Your Mother