Paging Dr. Fletcher

Fletcher here are a few facts about your first Halloween ever:

 -it was in Vancouver, Washington at Grammie’s house.

-the first half of Halloween was spent on a plane getting to Grammie’s house

-mom hand sewed every stitch of your costume. Yes, she is the coolest.

-your first taste of Halloween candy was a dumdum sucker sent in a package from Auntie SunDee that arrived on Nov 14^th.

White Coat Ceremony

It's official. Brandon has his White Coat. There was a Ceremony and everything, so it's legit. haha

For those of you who have no idea what a White Coat Ceremony is--it's basically a ceremony where medical students receive their white coat and take an oath that they will be good and honest doctors and then there is a party.

For Brandon's White Coat a government official from Curacao was actually the one to present it to him, which is pretty cool.

We had fun time, ate lots of food, and took some pictures, and then danced the night away.

9M

Fletcher turned 9 Months on Oct 30! And to celebrate we got to ride on 4 airplanes!

He now:

Has 6 teeth

Can stand on his own

Can clap his hands

Can give Hugs

Can say Mama, Dada, Baba

Can buzz his lips

Can give High Five

Love you Fletcher Boy

into everything

Fletcher Boy is into EVERYTHING.

he figured out how to:

 open lids

open cupboards

pull things off shelves

spin the wheels on the stroller

move furniture

he is nuts. so smart. and funny.

anytime the fridge opens he drops whatever he is doing or playing with or chewing on and books it to the fridge and if he gets there fast enough, he always go straight for the lettuce and pulls off a huge chunk. if he thinks he has enough time he goes crazy and tries to get to as many things as he can before he gets caught. He even pulled the bottom drawer out once. 

Here is a video of his lid popping skills.

Sweetest Husband Ever

He's a keeper.

surf's up

We {LOVE} beach days!

*8 months*

Fletcher turned 8 months on September 30th!!

He is such a happy boy.

crawling

my documentation of the process of fletcher learning to crawl:

When he was about 5 and a half months he started pushing himself up to crawling position, but was too scared to move.

Then he got a little more brave.

but his head is pretty heavy. lifting your head and moving your arms and legs is tough work.

Then he moved onto baby yoga

and eventually wanted something (my computer) bad enough that he went for it!

and now he is a pro and gets faster every day!

growing up.

I promised I was going to be better at updating and I haven't.
some shame.
but when you're a wife and a mom and you teach calculus and you have a garden and you're addicted to cookies, which means you have to exercise to keep your beach body because you live in the caribbean so of course you have to go to the beach... blogging for me ends up being one of those things you remember that you didn't do right after you lay down to go to bed and there is no way you are getting out of bed and to do it because you are too tired and you don't really like writing anyway....
Yes, that is where I am.
But it is important, because this blog is sorta like my journal. and we are living in a super awesome place and I want to remember it and be able to tell and show Fletch what it was like.
So I WILL be better.

Also- I can't believe I forgot to post about it, but Brandon's turned the big 2-7 on Aug 13th. We celebrated with key lime pie and a hawaiian bbq. it was awesome and delicious. The day of the party we had one of the best beach days we have ever had. We got some sun (but not sunburned) we played in the water, met some cool people, had some good food...  We were at the beach for like 5 hours or something. It really was perfect. After the beach we got home and started up the grill and had some of the best hawaiian chicken ever made. Brandon is the grill king. Tons of people from the school came and brought some delicious food, including two cakes and literally the BIGGEST pot of arroz moro (thanks Ms. Maria) I have ever seen in my life. we had leftovers for dayssss. Brandon also got a beach volleyball, which he has been wanting ever since the Krout Family Reunion in Bear Lake.
So there's that.

Fletcher boy has been growing like crazy! He crawls around everywhere, pulls himself up on everything he can, eats big boy food in his high chair, and has a smile on his face even when he is sleeping. we love him.

We also finally moved out of our "temporary" apartment (two separate adjacent dorm rooms)  into our new apartment! It's not quite finished yet, but it has a bathroom and a kitchen and a living room and a bedroom and a place for Fletch and an ocean view and an AC! We love it and it feels so good after being here for 8 weeks, to finally really unpack.

We just finished with midterms. whew! Brandon did really well on all of his tests, but he sure put the time in doing it! He would be at school all day and then study all night! He even studied on friday nights and almost all day saturday (a first for brandon) for 3 saturdays in a row! welcome to med school right? but it all pays off.

needless to say we spent a lot of time at the beach as soon as exams were over and enjoyed his short break from school as much as we could!

7 months

Happy 7 months Fletch!!

you like to:

sit up

scoot

bear crawl

scream  sing

pull yourself up

put  EVERYTHING in your mouth

{especially if it's plastic}

brush your teeth -- both of them

roll around in your sleep

feel daddy's beard

eat bananas, apples, carrot, peas, avocado, beans, rice, paper, pears, and grapes

smile

we love you.

Visit from the Mellings!

The Melling family, our good friends that we met in Bonaire, who happen to be from Idaho, had an overnight layover in Curacao on their way back to the States and they got to stay with us! We were so excited to see them! When I had to go back to work after Fletch was born they were the ones that watched him during the day.

we love them.

let us talk about lettuce

After visiting Rocky Peak Gardens, which my family owns, this summer before we left for Curacao, I decided that it was about time I started my own garden. Green thumbs are hereditary, right?? 

My family has had a garden ever since I can remember. My childhood summer memories are filled with planting, weeding, harvesting, and EATING fresh fruits and vegetables. 

{yum}

 I secured a very small plot on campus for my garden.
 It's perfect for just starting out. 

  

So far I've planted tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and carrots. 

Me and my little helper boy will keep you updated on its progress. 

Back in the Caribbean {...6 weeks later...}

We are back! And Fletcher Boy was an angel baby once again on the plane. I mean planes. SO blessed. We had three connecting flights and for every one he slept the whole time except for the last 30 mins. What a stud.

Well, Brandon and I started classes on July 17 and are already looking forward to the end of the semester… It’s not that bad though. We actually really like the school, the students, and the professors. The semesters are just really long—20 weeks—which is like 2 months longer than the semesters at BYUH. yikes.

Oh yeah, by the way, I’m the new Math Professor for the Pre Med students.

Professor Krout. Haha. Slight promotion from my last job of a bartender/waitress, eh? More on this later.

We came to Curacao not knowing where we were going to stay or how we were going to get anywhere. We also had no idea how we were going to survive. I didn’t have a job yet and wasn’t really sure where to start looking. Needless to say getting on the plane was a giant leap of faith.

When we got off the plane someone from the university was waiting for us and had arranged a place for us to stay for free while we got settled.

Place to stay and way to get there: check.

The next day was registration and while Brandon was getting registered one of the owners of the university approached me and asked me if I would be willing to teach Math to the Pre Med 1 and Pre Med 2 students on campus. The professor that was supposed to teach wasn’t able to make it last minute and they needed someone quick. They had looked me up on LinkedIn (yes, all of my BYUH business professors were right) and were impressed with my resume. I was hired on the spot within 12 hours of arriving in Curacao. So I teach two classes a day (4 hours), get paid twice as much as I did in Bonaire and Fletcher boy gets to stay with us on campus while Brandon and I are in class. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! Also my classes are the exact time that Fletch naps. Quadruple bonus. I had been fasting and praying for weeks that I could find a job that would provide us with the income that we needed, but that I could also be a fulltime mom to Fletch. SO SO blessed.

 A way to survive and prayers answered: check.

Classes have been going really well for both of us. Brandon is studying super hard. I think it is hitting him that his ONE shot to pass the test that determines his FUTURE is in almost exactly one year. It’s a little nerve-wracking, but he is taking it one class, one day, at a time.

So far, we love Curacao. It is very different from Bonaire. It literally has 10 times as many people. It also has stoplights and crazy traffic circles and really high bridges. It has huge super markets, even one that is just like Costco, and the food is WAY cheaper. It is much more ‘Caribbean’ too. We hardly hear anyone speaking Dutch and there aren’t nearly as many Dutch people, which sadly also means not as much European chocolate. We still have iguanas and goats though, but hardly any donkeys or mosquitoes. (Thank goodness)

The place where the school is located is off the beaten path and not that close to downtown Willemstad, so we still get the same Laie/Bonaire feeling, which we love.

Church is 100% in Papamientu, so we both have to work on that, but the branch seems really nice and is 3 times as big as the one in Bonaire. Lots of new people to meet and friends to make. We have a beach party with the branch this Saturaday and we are excited!

I promise I will be better at keeping you updated with the Krouts in Curacao!

playing catch up

FINALLY!! My computer hasn’t been able to connect to the Internet since we have been here, which has been no fun, but now it is fixed! YAY!

Last time I posted was almost 3 months ago!

Whoops.

Here is a sweetened condensed (yum) version of our short summer.

Fletcher turned 3 months

And 4 months

And 5 months

We went camping

We went to the zoo

We went to the Oregon coast

We went boating

I made Brandon a “downtown abbey” breakfast for his first real fathers day

Fletch got to meet Grandparents, Great Grandparents, Aunties, Uncles, Granties, Gruncles, Cousins, and more Cousins for the first time!

We made a trip to Yellowstone

Went to the Krout family reunion

We helped Auntie Jay pick out her wedding dress

Learned about grasshoppers

Met up with some awesome friends

Took Family Photos

We loved every minute of it

Ouchie Ouch.

pre proceder

it has been a rough week for Fletcher. He got circumcised on Tuesday (5.7.13) and the very next day he got a cough and a runny nose. poor guy. needless to say it has been a traumatic week and he was pretty upset with us...luckily he is a pretty forgiving guy.

also this week...I get to teach my first stroller mommy running class. I'm excited and nervous. I think its going to be lots of fun. Brandon is training a door-to-door sales team manager and of course studying like crazy. 

And we got to go to Auntie Elyse's softball game.

plus it's our 4 year anniversary. Yay us!

always on the move

it's so great to be back in the states and drink real milk and take a hot shower!! 

a few days after we got to Washington we took a road trip to Idaho/Utah! 

My sister had a baby 5 weeks before me and blessed her sweet little boy Canon. (5.5.13)

family photo before the blessing

It was so awesome to be with my family again. Fletcher got to meet some more aunties, uncles and cousins and of course Grandpa J for the first time! He also got to hang out with his Granna again :)

all the grandkids ADORE Grandpa J

I also got to visit with one of my best friends and meet her little guy that is three months older than Fletch. 

Fletch 3mo, Canon 4mo, Rand 6mo

it was an awesome weekend. I also love visiting my sisters because they give me their hand-me-downs. I got a stroller, a bouncy chair, and some new clothes for me and Fletch! love you sisters.

the dreaded flight home

oh my goodness. our flight home.

 22 hours. 5 different airplane. 2 different airlines.

1 super happy angel baby. 2 super grateful and amazed parents.

he got his very own seatbelt

we were a little nervous for this trip for a couple of reasons.

1. we had a three month old and with him comes a car seat/base, a stroller, a diaper bag, a baby carrier, a c pillow, and the possibility of spit up and pooplosions. 

2. 3 out of our 4 layovers were 50 minutes or less. Not much time to get off one plane and on the other. 

Luckily our longest layover was when we were in Miami, which was a huge blessing because we had to go through customs and pick up all of our luggage and drop it off at our other airline.

it seriously was a miracle day. Fletcher was happy all day long. didn't cry. didn't poop. didn't throw up. and he smiled and laughed at all the right people. we also made every single one of our flights. most of our flights we got of the plane and walked right onto the next one. it was amazing. if any one of them was even a little bit delayed we would have missed all of our other flights. 

One of the airline workers made me take a picture because he was being such a perfect baby.

Also--we didn't end up paying for any of our bags. the caribbean airline lets you check 2 bags free each and they checked them all the way to Portland! we had to pick up our bags in Miami when we changed airlines, but we just dropped them off and didn't have to pay for anything. so awesome.

one advantage of flying with kids though is that you get to skip all lines. that is what saved us several times. We wouldn't have made some of our flights if we weren't bumped to the front of the security, customs, and boarding lines. 

I could't believe we actually made it and all of our flights were on time. Heavenly Father loves us.

good bye Bonaire!

Last weeks in Bonaire

Hello Hello!

Its been a while since I put anything up. Life, as it always does, got super busy and crazy!

my last couple of weeks of work actually went by super fast. thank goodness. I couldn't wait to get back to my little guy. My last week of work though I got super sick. Super high fever, aches, chills, headache, the works. I even had to miss work one day. Brandon got super sick too. I went to the doctor and the said that it was probably Dengue Fever from the mosquitoes here. not fun. 

 I didn't have to work the last week of April, which was great because it gave me time to pack and clean and get ready for us to move. Move. once again. that makes the 9th or 10th time that I had to pack up everything that we own in suitcases. I'm becoming quite an expert at packing though. I don't even need a scale anymore to weigh our bags. I can get them to 49.5lbs pretty much in my sleep.

Fletch and I had a couple of doctor appointments the last week we were there. First was Fletcher's ultrasound on his hips. Since he was breech he had a greater risk of developing congenital hip displacement so we had to get his hips checked out at three months. 

almost time for the ultrasound

They were perfect. 

Yay!

The next appointment was at the baby clinic. I understood that the appointment was to just pick up photo copies of his records so that I could take them with me to the States and to Curacao, but the ended up giving him his second rounds of shots. Ouchie! he only had his first round 3 weeks earlier and they are supposed to be 6 weeks apart, but since we were leaving and not coming back and all that jazz and because it was vaccination weeks they gave it to him anyway. the saddest part was that I wasn't prepared and I didn't have any medicine for him and we had a dinner appointment and some other stuff came up and so he didn't get any until night time. he was so miserable. I felt terrible. terrible for him, terrible for the Smiths that invited us for dinner and had to have a crying unhappy baby interrupting...

 he is a tough kid though. 

The other stuff that came up was that we got pulled over! that never happens in Bonaire but we did and it turns out the car we were borrowing (we sold our truck at the beginning of April) wasn't registered and all this stuff. we got it all worked out, but it was nerve racking because it happened 4 days before we were leaving the island and we have seen people get pulled off of planes for unpaid parking tickets. we for sure didn't want that to happen to us. 

what else... the car we were borrowing also gave us lots of grief. it died ALL of the time and then wouldn't start. Brandon and I got really good at the old push-start-pop-the-clutch trick. we even got so good we could do it when we were just by ourselves. luckily it was a small enough car that I could run behind it and get it going fast enough that I could just in an pop it. It was pretty stressful, but looking back it is kind of hilarious....crazy americans....

Brandon had his first real patient. our really good friends have 3 kids and the middle one, Don, fell and spilt his head open when brandon and i were there and brandon got to doctor him up. i'm so excited for him to be a real doctor. he really is a natural.

Donny all bandages up

Our last saturday we of course went to the beach. we almost didn't make it because of the car, but we persevered and had an awesome time.

Brandon and the young men

Our last sunday was pretty emotional for me. I got to give a talk and I pretty much cried the whole time. I love the people there so much and was super sad to leave them.

-oh yeah, we also had a branch party/going away party that was really sweet, but Brandon was feeling super sick so he couldn't make it. They made a slide show of our time there and sang us a song. We are going to miss our little branch so much.

we loved our time in bonaire.