Aloha-oi veh!

Yeah, I know what you're thinking... "Two posts in two days! What is going on here??" Well, I've dug up something that Tim wrote several months ago, but never finished. I think it's still worthy of recounting this event so I'll post it and attempt to fill in the blanks myself. Be warned, however, I have a severe case of "graphophobia," and tend to just plain suck at writing. (Tim's will be in italics.)

A few months ago, we were given the very generous offering of a free week's stay in Maui. Brandi's mom was unable to use her timeshare condo so she extended the invitation. Luckily, we were fortunate enough to have several Southwest rewards flights that were approaching their expiration date. So we cashed those in for two round trip tickets to Oahu and bought a couple of additional tickets to jump from Oahu to Maui. All the world was flowers and sausages and we were getting really excited for a little island living at Blue Light prices. That's just about when our Hawaiian vacation turned into a mirage and left us in the desert drinking a canteen full of sand. Southwest doesn't actually fly to Hawaii, but the route was contracted through a company called ATA. Our Oahu to Maui leg was booked on Aloha Air. Within a single week, both airlines filed for bankruptcy. Fantastic. In the end, the price of replacing the tickets was out of our budget.

The silver lining to all of this, was that we decided to use our refunded rewards flights to cover two vacations. We cashed in the first one in May for a trip to Washington D.C. Brandi had lived back there for about five years before we met and we've been talking about getting back there for a long time, since Tim had never been and Brandi’s an awesome tour guide. Brandi found a spanking deal on the Marriott world wide internet site near her old stomping grounds out in the Virginia 'burbs. So we booked.

We flew out on a Wednesday morning and Paisley was an angel and practically slept her way through most of both legs. When she wasn't sleeping, she was making friends with everyone around her. It was a long day considering that we left Las Vegas at 7:30 a.m. and with an extended layover in Chicago, we didn’t touch down at Dulles airport until after 6:00 p.m. After arriving at the hotel and getting settled, we headed to the grocery store to load up on food supplies for Paisley and then found our own dinner at a restaurant that Brandi worked at. (If you don't know Brandi, she's had about 80 jobs in her life and has seemed to be able to hold most of them down at the same time.)


The next morning we got all loaded up and drove into town to the National Zoo to rendezvous up with a friend of Brandi's that she used to work with. Paisley and Allison's son Grayson had a fun time playing together as they checked out all of the animals. It must have been fetish day at the zoo since we encountered just about every gross zoo experience in one day. If you've ever experienced giant tortoises get frisky, that was one of the first, and tamest incidents. There’s a reason they call it “spring.”



After they kicked everyone out of the zoo due to some special event, we parted ways with Allison and Grayson and headed to our next appointment for the day: haircuts. Brandi thought it a good opportunity to reunite with her old stylist for some color and a touch of cut. Brandi also thought it was a good opportunity to introduce Tim to her stylist since his last cut was in 2007. Brandi got a touch of color and we both got a bit of a cut. There seemed to be a little communication mishap between Tim and the stylist, which should have resulted in a new wig for a cancer patient somewhere. In the end, Brandi promises that she can still love Tim with short hair. It will be nice for summer.


We spent a lot of time the next couple of days in D.C. enjoying many of the museums and monuments as well as stopping into the doctor's office that Brandi used to manage. Some of our favorite museum stops were the Natural History, the Hirshhorn and the Holocaust museums. Another highlight was walking around Arlington National Cemetery all decorated for the upcoming Memorial Day. It's hard to reduce the thousands of lives lost in serving this country into stone sanctuary but the reverence encompassing each memorial is tangible. Nowhere is this more pronounced than at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Not that our presence helped that solemnity with a squealing Paisley and both of our cell phones that decided to ring for the first time in weeks. Tim’s call was from his brother-in-law who is in the Navy, which makes the distraction a little less offensive, right?



Paisley was such a champion and was surprisingly content with spending so much time in her stroller. One of the biggest challenges of the trip was finding a) public restrooms and b) public restrooms with changing tables. But we seemed to manage well enough and Paisley never went more than a day or two without a clean diaper. She loved riding the Metro all over since everyone rides it looking down at their toes only to see a cute, smiling baby waving at them.

We took advantage of the perfect weather and only got rained on Sunday. How’s that for irony? Somehow we managed to get up early and make it to 8:30 am sacrament meeting at Brandi's old ward, then headed downtown and met up with Leti at Starbucks for lunch before Tim took off on his own to tour the Holocaust museum. It's not that Brandi is anti-semitic, it's just that she had already been before and Leti got stuck in traffic and they wanted a few more minutes together. She joined the tour later and we were both extremely moved.

That night we were able to see Brandi's 10 year-old nephew, Jamie, who lives in Virginia with his mother. Neither Tim nor Paisley had ever met him and Brandi hadn't seen him in 3 years so it was a nice reunion.

Monday was the day we were scheduled to leave so we spent the morning packing up then went over to Great Falls to show Tim the more beautiful part of the Potomac River. So a little bit of hiking around, then a short walk around Brandi's old neighborhood in Reston and before we knew it we were on a plane on our way back to Vegas.



It was a fast trip, but I am so grateful that Tim was willing to go back with me. Though my few years of living there were definitely filled with many downs and some ups, I really grew so much as a person during that time and sometimes I miss the independence that I was forced to have there. I think I needed some closure on that chapter of my life, which I felt like this trip enabled me to have. Hopefully we'll be able to go back again in the near future, as there is so much to do and see that there was no way to be able to do it all in 5 days.

Baby Boy Ricks?

In case you haven't heard the news already, Paisley will soon be a big sister to this little guy.


Thanks to Brandi's "high risk" pregnancy status, we are seeing a specialist who happens to have a very fancy ultrasound machine. Hopefully, they're not charging us extra for these pictures.


And to answer your question... No, we will not be changing the name of our blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

And by "everyone" I mean all three of you that might read this within the next week or two. One of my/our (hopefully, I speak for Tim on this) resolutions for the new year is to revive this blog that is in desperate need of a defibrillator. So I hereby promise to have something substantial posted within the week (and very possibly by tomorrow)!

I'm looking forward to 2009, I think it's going to be another exciting year for us!

P In A Tent (also titled: Happy Pioneer Day!)

As promised in our last post, we’re traveling backwards in time. Tim has the ability to go back in time - in fact, let’s clear up a common misperception: Superman got the idea from him. As the mercury in Vegas approached the 110s, we were itching to get out of the valley and break in our new tent. We spent a few days considering our options and checking in with weather.com to see what would give us the most relief. The debate came down to Big Bear, CA or Zion National Park, UT. Big Bear would have been cooler but given that it was almost the 24th, we honored the pioneers and trekked to Zion. This pioneer child refuses to walk, but loves to sing. Of course it was only June, but it can be hard to remember, living outside of Utah. The weather was forecasting highs in the lower 90s so as crazy as it might seem, it was enough to sound refreshing.

Zion has two camping options in the park. Campground 1 accepts reservations and usually fills up early since some people have the ability to schedule more than 3 hours in advance. Pure insanity. Needless to say, we missed the handcart on that plan. Campground 2 is right next to Campground 1 but is first come, first serve. (During the summer, policy should be first come, soft serve.) Leaving after work on Friday and getting to Zion before dark, much less finding a camping spot, wasn’t an option. So we got everything packed up, and hit the road first thing Saturday morning. At least as first thing as we will ever achieve, which this time was about 8:30 a.m. and downright impressive.

We rolled into the Park around 11:30 a.m. and were sweating bullets that we might not get a campsite. For the record, anybody that was hoping to get into one of the National Parks by tricking the rangers with your REI membership card opposed to the $80 park pass, it’s worth a try, but we think that they’ve taken training for this very thing. Very sharp. We eventually found the right card amongst all of Tim’s lunchtime punch cards and they let us in.

The experience of finding a campsite was similar to any news footage that we’ve seen from the neighborhood Walmart the day after Thanksgiving with the large white trash Americans being replaced by large white RV’s. After a few awkward “I don’t think we’re speaking the same language” standoffs, we finally managed to find a site that would meet our 24-hour needs. After setting up the tent and Paisley’s new Pack ‘n Play, it was lunchtime.



It was at about this time that we realized that those sweated bullets probably didn’t have anything to do with campsite anxiety. It was hot. High 90s hot and climbing. On the drive up, Paisley had taken full advantage of her back seat DVD player and her favorite movie, A Bug’s Life, which meant that after lunch, she was ready for a nap. This is where the high temperatures really hurt us. It didn’t take long for the tent to leave an impression on us. Big wet impressions on our Thermarests so we moved Paisley and her Pack ‘n Play outside in the shade. Although in the shade, there was way too much stimulation for her to fall asleep.

In our bare bones packing, we had included a few thermoregulation items such as a little hand held battery powered fan and a spray bottle that we combined to make a rustic camp mister. Every time we sprayed Paisley the cool shock would cause her to make the cutest gasp followed by a huge smile. Brandi had also found this bandana for Paisley at REI that’s stuffed with a bunch of tiny gel packs that you soak in cold water and then tie around your neck, just like the pioneers. Once we accepted that these would only work so well, we decided to load up the car again and take a drive through the park in the comfort of AC and the sounds of adventurous ants. Paisley slept like a bug, but if you’re familiar with Zion, it’s not all that big. Especially since they only let you drive half of it these days. After about an hour loop through the tunnels and back, it wasn’t long before the three of us were sitting in an idling car stomping out a nice big carbon footprint in one of the most beautiful national parks in the world, for the price of a nap. And it was totally worth it.


The biggest revelation during the car ride was the thermostat reading on our dashboard. 104 degrees. So much for the forecast. Once Paisley woke up, we loaded her up in the backpack and took the 10-minute walk up to the weeping rock to take advantage of getting dripped on. Unfortunately, due to the shuttle system, it took 45 minutes to get there and another 45 to get back.

By the time we had made our way back to camp we were just in time for dinner. We had brought the camp classics: firewood, jalapeno brats, pasta salad and smores. It was really hard for us to justify building a fire when it was still so hot, so we threw the brats on the hood of the car for a few minutes. Really though, the fire and dogs weren’t ready until like 10 o’clock. Despite our hunger, it seemed earlier because Paisley refused to go to sleep. From inside the tent, she could see the flames from the fire and wouldn’t lie down. She ended up back in the car for another round of A Bug’s Life…you know, because she wants to be an entomologist. We’re pretty sure she gained a new appreciation for bugs and nature since with all the windows rolled down the TV screen was acting like a high tech bug zapper without the zap. A Bug’s Life in 3-D. Just as importantly, we finally gave all of our neighbors a chance to enjoy the outdoors as well with some well deserved silence.

Once the temps started to rise again the next morning, Brandi took Paisley into town to pick up some more ice for the cooler since we had plenty of extra food while Tim stayed back to pack up camp. Paisley took advantage of the opportunity and took a quick nap during the drive. Once we got the car all loaded up, we found a parking spot and took the shuttle back into the canyon to take another hike. This time we set our sites on Lower Emerald Pool. Having forgotten that the lower pool is nothing more than a puddle, we were well on our way to the Upper Pool before we realized our mistake. It was hot and we knew that Paisley was roasting considering the final stretch is pretty exposed. We eventually found the Upper Pond and took advantage of the cool water and shade. Paisley’s bandana probably saved her. She usually hates stuff around her neck and face but didn’t try to pull the bandana or her hat off once. The poor kid was so exhausted that she fell asleep face down in the carrier on the return hike. We had to wake her up at one point just to ensure that she was only sleeping.

We made our way back into the valley and after traversing the Virgin River to cool our feet off; we walked over to Zion Lodge and grabbed some lunch while one of the rangers taught us about rattlesnakes. We made our way back to the car and back to Vegas. Since we were too tired and full the night before to break open the smores, we decided to try an old trick Brandi had invented a few years earlier. Dashboard smores.The end product is different than normal smores because the marshmallow doesn’t really toast, but the chocolate totally melts. Funny, but not quite as funny as watching a certain someone trying to dig up a certain plant in front of a certain small town high school on the way home in an attempt to beautify our front yard.

Even though the weather turned out hotter than we expected, we had a fun first family campout and it seems like Paisley is a natural pioneer. And by our fermenting smells, maybe even a natural hippie. As the sun disappeared, Paisley fell asleep just before the mean bugs showed up again. We closed the weekend to the sound of bugs in the back seat and bugs hitting the windshield.

It's About...Time

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Paisley. Before her well-meaning parents were able to update their blog, she grew up and moved out of the house. Luckily, things haven’t gotten to that level yet, but we have really been negligent and are determined to redeem ourselves, again. The real tragedy is that in the time since our last post, we’ve taken some fun trips and Paisley has made some exciting accomplishments. After much deliberation, we’ve decided that the best strategy to catch up is to start in the present and work backwards.

Ready. Set. Fourth of July weekend. While on our last trip to Utah (we’ll get to that post eventually), we decided that the best way to celebrate Paisley’s first birthday was in Utah with family, friends and fireworks. Can you believe that she's almost 1 already? We can't either. We loaded up the car Thursday afternoon when Tim got off of work and headed north. We finally crawled into Salt Lake at 3 a.m. Friday morning and managed a few hours of sleep before Paisley arose with the sun. It was probably for the best since we had plenty of work to do before the pool party that afternoon.

The best news of the morning was confirmation that all of our efforts (20 lbs of dry ice) were enough to combat 112 degree temperatures and we managed to keep Paisley’s birthday cake frozen on the drive up. Even though Brandi had made a valiant effort over the week to make enough homemade ice cream for everyone, we ended up having to settle for a tub from the grocery store. We had the party at Grandma Sherry’s and cooked up some hamburgers and swam until our fingers and toes resembled raisins. Paisley just loves the water and had a blast floating around on her float (which is NOT a life saving device). But her favorite was when her mom took her down the pool slide. Squeals of delight. We almost even thought about getting it on camera. After drying off, it was time for presents. She’s one spoiled little girl. She’s still trying to grasp the whole concept of wrapping paper, but was fortunate to have two young friends that were eager to assist. I think next time presents are involved, we’ll just wrap stuff in our favorite magazines since she never has a problem tearing those up.


The birthday cake really was quite the ordeal. A couple people from work recommended a local decorator, so we made an appointment. Our appointment exceeded 90 minutes and not because we were being difficult. At least until they quoted the price. We agreed that designing our wedding cake was easier. The biggest challenge became when they told us that because we opted for the cream cheese filling, it needed to stay cold until serving. Thus the dry ice. When we picked it up, they threw in a little cake just for Paisley. We stuck a candle in it, put it in front of her and took cover from the sugar shrapnel. But the little princess took her time and dipped into the frosting one dainty finger at a time. The frosting eventually found its way all over her mouth, eye lashes, legs and mom just not at the blitzing first hyper rate we anticipated. Hopefully we don’t sound too disappointed.


Once we had finished with celebration #1, we loaded the car up again and drove to Oakley (where Brandi’s dad and step-mom live) for a rodeo rendezvous weekend. That’s right, we said rodeo. We pulled into Oakley just in time to catch the local firework show. Even though there isn’t any more snow on the ground in town, the high 60’s felt down right frosty.

We spent the next day hanging out with more family and when Paisley went down for her morning nap, we decided to leave her under the supervision of Grandma Lorrie while we headed over to the rodeo arena to check out something called a horse pull. The event likely qualifies as our second date since Paisley's arrival. A horse pull is exactly what it sounds like. A contest to see whose horses can pull the most weight. These horses were gigantic and the winning pair managed to pull 10,000 lbs. Very impressive. We headed back to the house, picked up Paisley and headed over to the Polar King for our third hamburger in four meals. Yum. Our lack of sleep seemed to be catching up with all three of us and we ended up all laying down for an hour or so before the night’s big event.


We forced dinner down Paisley's throat and skedaddled over to the arena. We timed it perfectly and got to our seats just as the announcer welcomed all of us good Americans to a good American activity. Paisley was so excited to experience her first rodeo she was in tears. The announcer combined with all of the sudden cheering must have startled her but like a true cowgirl, she quickly adjusted to her surroundings. Probably faster than her mom and dad. We’re probably self-conscious but it felt like everyone around us could smell the democrat on us. Our booing the rodeo clown’s Obama joke didn’t do us any favors.

If you’ve never been to a rodeo, you’ve got to try it. Especially the Oakley rodeo. That may come off as sarcastic, but it shouldn’t. It was really fun. We got to see AND use terms like bareback riding, tie down roping, saddle bronc riding, steer wrastlin’, team roping, barrel racing and the climax of the evening was of course, the bull riding. Paisley seemed to enjoy watching cowboys fall off of large snotty animals. So much so that she made us stuff her into her Halloween cow suit once the evening cooled off. We did manage to get it on, but couldn't snap the legs and the sleeves were probably closer to her elbows than her wrists. It probably just reminded her of a game she plays with her dad at home. After the last cowboy got tossed into next week, they turned all the lights off so that the night could finish off with a bang. Many bangs actually. Paisley doesn’t seem to hate fireworks.


We spent Sunday morning relaxing with the Hoggan’s and getting ready for the long trek back home. After a late departure and probably 4 more rounds of A Bug’s Life, we got home just after 10 p.m., late enough to watch the car temperature gage drop back to the double digits. All in all, it was a great trip and we were so glad that Paisley could be surrounded by family as she celebrated her first birthday. Thank you Grandma Sherry and Grandpa Don for hosting a fantastic pool party. Thank you Grandma Sue Ann for the great presents. And a huge thank you to Grandpa Randy and Grandma Lorrie for taking such good care of us, exposing us to rodeo and making the whole trip possible. Cowboy up and we’ll see you next year!

Happy First Birthday Paisley!

It was exactly one year ago that Baby Girl Ricks came into our world. Not the blog, but the little girl - and she would soon be the biggest joy in our lives. If you read this one day Paisley, please don't let there be any doubt in how much we love you. We are forever grateful for our poor choices in birth control. Just because we've neglected our blog doesn't mean that you aren't our first priority, in fact, that's probably why our writing has suffered.

In honor of Paisley's birthday we promise to post a lengthy update (with pictures) sometime today.

At-TENT-ion!

We've been trying to come up with a good way to keep Paisley corralled in a way that she doesn't feel deserted, but still allows Brandi a few moments in each day to focus on her own goals without having to watch where she steps. We thought that our best solution would be some type of Pack 'n Play that would be easy to move from room to room, so we were excited when we found something on sale at REI that we thought would serve our needs. Needless to say, we were a little surprised once we got it all set up.


It really did look smaller in the store. This is actually a result of out growing our little two man tent (which isn't to say that folks of our stature were ever cozy in the two man) and finding a replacement that will afford us room for 3 more little ones. Considering our ages and inability to pack light, it will most likely be 3 person, 6 bag tent. As much as we are looking forward to taking a little weekend trip to test it out, the idea of camping with a baby, who can make even fairly simple things like going to the grocery store a challenge, seems overwhelming. This really speaks well of our parents who managed to take a car full of kids camping several times a year. Maybe the effort was motivated by their strong appreciation for nature, but there's a chance that it may have also included the hope of "thinning the herd" a little.

P' Standing Up

Paisley continues to grow and develop in ways that are just impossibly cute and at times, equally hilarious. After much anticipation, Paisley's 4 months of "teething" concluded a few weeks ago with the near simultaneous emergence of her two middle teeth on the bottom. She has since been a little squirrel with these things and chewing on whatever she can get her hands on. One of her books now looks like we're raising a puppy. One of the positives that has come from this though is her new appreciation for pacifiers.

Another recent accomplishment for Paisley has been the ability to stand up for significant periods of time without any support. She seems to have started to grasp the concept of balance and manages to improve her training session times on a daily basis. She hasn't managed to take any "official" steps just yet, but has been sneaking in a few stutter steps a few times before we catch her. We don't know if this new skill will directly lead to her running around the house in the next few weeks, but it has seemed to help her develop a few new dance moves, which alarmingly look awkwardly similar to a few of Tim's.

Cry Me A River

We realize it's now been almost a month since our last post, but we have plenty of good excuses.

1. We burnt out another hard drive. On our other computer. This one didn't have the extended warranty but Brandi is her own Genius Bar and replaced it herself. This really didn't affect our blogging too much but we did lose a couple of months worth of photos, which is sad. If you have an Apple, back your stuff up as soon as your computer is 3 years old!

2. We were all on our death beds for about 2 weeks. Brandi went down first and despite putting up a good fight, Tim and Paisley eventually succumbed. This was the first time since Tim has known Brandi that she got sick first. The colds were annoying in their own right, but they carried severe consequences: our dear sweet baby stopped sleeping through the night. After 8 months of at least 10 hours of solid nightly slumber, Paisley was so congested that she would continually wake herself up from snoring/not being able to breathe. These startling moments always ended up in screams for comfort and eventually it was easier to have Paisley take dad's spot in bed while he slept somewhere else.

3. We have all since recovered fully from our sicknesses and returned to our rightful sleeping assignments but Paisley just hasn't been able to break the habit of waking up at Godless hours and not being able to put herself back to sleep. This has been going on for weeks now and Tim and Brandi are edging ever closer to insanity. On average, Paisley wakes up at least twice a night but can reach four or five times and is always in hysterics. At first we would make the mistake of picking her up and attempt to rock her back to sleep (usually pretty easy) and attempt to put her back in her crib without waking her up again to prevent having to repeat the process (nearly impossible). It was like playing Operation in the dark at 3:30 a.m. with an even more aggravating buzzer. This is the main reasoning of our lack of posting as it has compounded our tendency toward procrastination. We're bordering zombification. We sincerely apologize and we promise to be back online soon - as soon as Paisley promises to give us a break. Until then, since we've been enduring a lot of crying and screaming lately we thought we'd post something that was written a long time ago that we just never got around to posting.

This is a topic that we've been meaning to write about for a few weeks now. Maybe opening up our most recent copy of The New Yorker was just the motivational push we needed. The article is about colic in babies. Since there's likely more than a few childless readers out there, we should explain, especially due to the fact that up until 6 months ago, Tim insisted that he had a colic in his hair.

Colic is one of those mysterious newborn issues that has apparently puzzled doctors and driven parents to the edge. Colic is generally defined as the rules of three: the child cries for at least three hours a day, three days a week, lasting for at least 3 weeks. It seems that most parents that we've talked to insist that their child had colic. The reason for this is the fact that there is something encoded in the throaty cries of a new child that leave a parent feeling completely helpless and frustrated. Here's a section out of the magazine article, "The sound of of a crying baby...is just about the most disturbing, demanding, shattering noise we can hear. The United States military has reportedly used the sound of wailing infants as an instrument of psychological stress, piping recordings of their cries into the cells of detainees at Guantanamo Bay." With his love of torture, you'd think that the Cheney's would have had plenty of lil' ones running around the Wyoming ranch. And to think we volunteer for this stuff. Well, WE didn't exactly volunteer.

Before we get too carried away with this article, we need to make it clear that Paisley is a wonderful little girl and neither of us are trying to argue that she suffers from colic. This we will say though, she suffers from crying. And as a result, we've suffered along with her. Brandi was blessed with the motherly instincts and is much more skilled at the calming process but even then, sometimes consolation comes slow. In the last two months, we have discovered several tricks that seem to help calm both the crier and caretaker. The irony is that by themselves, all of the below tend to be annoying beyond measure but measured against the wailing, it's an easy choice.

1. Dinner Sucks. We've pleasantly had plenty of dinners over the roar of the Hoover Windtunnel as the noise quiets her right up.

2. Driving Ms. Paisley. When Paisley gets sick of us flipping through the hits of yesterday and today we have a preset reserved exclusively to the purest frequency of the dial for static.

3. We've recently read this book called "The Happiest Baby on the Block" and one of the five calming techniques recommended is a very loud "SHHHH SHHHHHH SHHHHH SHHHHH." Sure this is a rather innate and universal symbol for librarians, but even with newborns who have yet to learn the finger to lips, this sound is pure biology.

4. Vidal VaVoom. Hair dryers are nice and portable and really pack a lot of decibels in such a small package. Kind of like babies. If you've seen Paisley after a good nap, it looks like she's taken a direct hit from the hair dryer but in reality it's just one of the impracticalities of newborns with hair. It can be challenging.

5. Baby shower. Brandi has realized that having a newborn makes some of life's luxuries, such as showering a few times a week, extremely challenging at times and therefore, requires some adjustment. The adjustments that work best seem to be parking Paisley in her car seat and setting her up in the middle of the bathroom floor with the combined sounds of the shower and the hum of the bathroom fan. On VERY good days, Paisley stays content long enough for the "Repeat."

6. Fan fans. Our favorite white noise machine is the small room fan that sits next to Paisley's crib that not only keeps her from overheating in her mini sack but also creates just enough buzz to keep her sleeping her 8 hour stretches at night.

Double Take: The Addendum

Sometimes life can be an emotional roller coaster. Turns out the joke was on us. After all of the drama from yesterday, the doctors office called Brandi this morning just to say April Fools. Are you serious? What sort of sick people would play such an elaborate joke and then let it ride out until the next day? Needless to say, we will no longer be scheduling ANY more appointments with this doctor on April 1. We apologize for any confusion yesterday's post may have caused.