Christmas 2009

Most of December was consumed by preparations for Mom and Dad Peterson's visit, celebration of the holidays, and waiting for Simon to make his entrance. Mom and Dad were here for a month. The first 10 days passed quite slowly. We learned that the “watched pot never boils” adage also applies to pregnant ladies. (In contrast, the days following Simon’s delivery seemed to positively fly by.) While were waiting, we killed some time visiting an antique car museum and the town of Ghent, which proved to be enjoyable distractions.

We had a nice time on Christmas Day. We stayed home, relaxed, and ate yummy food. James received many more gifts than necessary. Like his cousin Bennett, it took James a few days to open all of them because he was more interested in playing with the toys than in making a concerted effort to open all of his presents. Goosie was just as interested in his papa’s gifts (a big remote-controlled helicopter and Zelda for the DS) as he was his own. He was so excited about the “copter” that it received copious pat-pats (“Touch it?”) and even a smooch… silly kid!

Em's Trip to Germany & Poland

Emily started the month of December with a “last-ditch, before-the-baby-arrives hurrah”. She went on a girls’ trip with some of the women from our church congregation. They took a 3-day road trip to Germany and Poland to visit Christmas markets and to shop for Polish pottery. It was a long drive but Em really enjoyed having an opportunity to spend time chatting, touring, and shopping with friends.

Dresden and Seiffen are well known for their holiday markets and are beautiful towns to visit. (Seiffen is the town where most of the German wooden decorations -like nutcrackers and wooden arches- originated). Boleslawiec, Poland is kind of a drab little town, but it has lots of factories that make pretty pottery. If you want to know what the pottery looks like, you can Google it or come and visit us and Emily will gladly show you her collection.

Jay is a really nice guy. While Em was off playing with her friends, he took time off work to stay home with James. They had all sorts of fun adventures in Mama’s absence.

James' First Trip to the E.R.

The third week of November was a pretty eventful one for us (and not in a good way). There were a bunch of minor inconveniences and scheduling hassles, but the highlights include a car accident for Emily and a trip to the E.R. for James. Our car got “gonked” (Goosie’s description of events) on the way home from church. Em was ticked because it was a stupid accident, her fault, and the collision was with an inanimate object (dote!). Also, it ruined her safe-driving streak...10 years without an accident. Argh!

One morning, Goose decided to go through Emily’s purse (which was inadvertently left within reach). He bypassed several yummy pregnancy snacks and decided to sample some Tylenol instead. So, we spent the entire afternoon in the E.R. for treatment and observation. James learned that if you eat momma’s pills you have to drink yucky black juice and have a needle stuck in your arm. Momma was reminded of how quickly toddlers can get into trouble, even if you’re in the next room. The blood tests came back negative, so Goose probably spit out all of the Tylenol he put in his mouth. We hope that the experience will serve as a deterrent for the future.

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday with the Passey family (friends from church). We had a really nice time and the food was good. However, we came to the conclusion that either (1) pies taste much better if you don’t make them or (2) there are some exceptional pie makers in our family and we need to take lessons. Maybe Mom can give us some pointers while she is visiting next month.


James’ parents are mostly boring. Em spent a lot of time this month traveling to/from various doctor/ultrasound/therapy appointments. Everything looks good with Boy #2. He is growing well and continues to be very wiggly. Some evenings, Jay is sure he must be building a rocket ship in there. Emily is feeling good most days although the veins and nerves in her legs have started giving her some trouble. This Thanksgiving, she was especially grateful for support stockings, body pillows, and Belgian physiotherapists. These interventions have helped her feel much more comfortable as Baby #2 insists on taking up more and more space.

Also, as in many other LDS congregations, November marks our annual Primary Program. After months of teaching and learning 8 songs in French/English, Em is grateful that the program went well. All of the children did a nice job and most of them actually sang...hooray!

Much to our dismay, our wonderful Bishop Gardner (and his wife Marie-Jeanne) moved away this month. We were extremely sorry to see them go because they are great people and have been so kind to us. Our new bishop (Edwards) is a good man and the transition seems to be going smoothly so far. We were kinda hoping for some shake-ups in our callings, but no such luck. Jay still serves as 1st counselor for the Young Men and executive secretary. Emily (almost entirely Anglophone) is still the arm-waiver (aka music director) for a mostly Francophone Primary. Oh well. We figure that the challenge is probably good for us...

Jay continues to be a good papa. He works hard and doesn’t complain much even when he has to work crazy hours and deal with nutty/demanding people. James and his momma are grateful for a papa who brings home the bacon, provides health/car insurance, and still has energy left to “wrassle”.


Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Enjoy the Christmas season. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get a baby for Christmas and an additional 2009 tax break! Keeping our fingers crossed.

We love you all!
Jay, Em, and Goosie

James Update

Most of the action this month revolved around James. He turned 2 on November 8th and we had his birthday party the following weekend. It seems like James is interested in anything that “go-go-goes”... cars, trucks, helicopters, planes, boats, buses, you name it. Ever since visiting his cousin Anders a year ago, James has been especially crazy about choo-choo trains. So, he had a Thomas-themed birthday party, complete with a cool cake made by his very creative papa. We invited over 4 families (6 kids) that we really like and everyone had a great time.


If you haven’t noticed by now, James’ nickname has evolved from “Buster” to “Goose”. Em still calls him James and Buster (on occasion), but Jay has been calling him “Goose” or “Goosie” since he was a few months old. (He says it’s because James said “ah-goo” a lot.) Anyway, James has picked up on his father’s silly nickname for him and (for a few months now) has referred to himself as Goose. Fortunately, it seems that he recognizes/responds to his given name as well.



Goose is talking up a storm these days. He often speaks in sentences, but some of his words are still unclear. We never thought we would have trouble distinguishing between “airplane”, “McQueen”, “ice cream”, and “elephant”. It’s a good thing that James can sign these words as well, so at least we know what he’s talking about. “Better”, “butter”, and “brother” also sound similar… we find it difficult not to laugh when Goose announces he is “All butter!” The other day, he started saying “Awww, man!” Our best guess is that he must have heard this exclamation from one of his parents. It’s funny what kids pick up on, isn’t it? Goosie has taken to calling Emily “mommy-kah”… Who knows where that came from? (Could it possibly be related to the fact that his best friend’s mother’s name is Rebecca?)

In addition to learning lots of other things, James has been trying to figure out exactly what is fuzzy (Thomas pajamas, papa’s head) and what is not (mama’s silky pajamas). He is also learning to determine who is a man and who is a lady. This discussion arose from his 2-year-old check-up after which Goose told Jay that he was “afraid of the man”. His pediatrician is a woman. Oops!

Trip to Nova Scotia

We flew to Nova Scotia for a week-long visit over the Labor Day holiday. We had a wonderful time spending a few days with our favorite missionaries (Grandma & Grandpa Peterson), seeing the sites, and eating lots of fresh, yummy seafood (lobsters, halibut, scallops, tuna, haddock). We did a fair amount of driving and James was a pretty good sport, mostly because we let him throw a lot of rocks in the bay and eat a lot of ice cream. We visited most of Nova Scotia’s highlights: seafood markets, Halifax Public Gardens and maritime museum, Peggy’s Cove, Mahone Bay, Lunneburg, and Halls Harbor.



One of the coolest things we did while in Nova Scotia was to go whale watching. We drove out to the tip of a peninsula (Digby Neck) that juts out into the Bay of Fundy and stayed at a bed and breakfast on Brier Island. Mom and Dad were kind enough to watch James while Jay and Em went for a “3-hour tour” on the bay in search of whales. According to the whale-watching crew, we were a very fortunate group. We saw several humpback whales and they gave us a good show.

Our photos really don’t do it justice. It was amazing to be close to such awesome creatures. We saw plenty of flukes (tails) and waves (flapping fins). We also saw 2 or 3 breaches (when the whales jump out of the water) but we weren't fast enough to catch them on camera. As we were heading back in, we came across a group of 4 whales, one of which was very curious about us. This whale proceeded to swim back and forth alongside and beneath our boat. This is called a “close approach” and it was really neat. We could really get an idea of the whale’s huge size and we could smell the whale’s breath coming from his blow hole...stinky, but still cool!

Pilgrimage to England

It’s a short month so we’ll keep our entry short too. We went to a couple of cool places in February.

The first place is an Abbey ruin in Villers-la-Ville, Belgium. It reminded us of a bit of Glastonbury in England for those of you who may have visited it. It looked like the Abbot had a nice place to hang his miter. The ruins were much more intact than Glastonbury as they’ve only been abandoned since the 1800s.


We also did a pilgrimage to the land of our forbearers, jolly old England. We were invited to go with another couple from our ward, the Millers. Who knew it would be so easy to get there from the continent. We drove to Calais, stayed overnight, and took the Chunnel in the morning. You just drive your car onto a train in France and drive it off in England, on the left hand side of course. We just visited London. We went to a show, Wicked, based on the life of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, not bad. We ate Indian food, we visited Saint Paul’s Cathedral, went to the National Gallery, and shopped on Portobello Road (remember the song from Bed Knobs and Broomsticks?). Best of all we did the Beetles walking tour and ended up on Abby Road. The Beetles tour is much cooler than it sounds, we didn’t see any Beetles, but it’s a fascinating historical look at London in the 1960s.

Buster is taking signing classes and has increased his vocabulary quite a bit. He loves to sign “all done” and “get down” especially when he’s in a car seat on a long trip. Lately, he gets real excited when he sees shoes and exclaims, “dooos!” This word also works for juice and everything that goes on feet…including socks. We’re hoping he’ll learn the some real words from his cousin Anders during our upcoming visit to the States… “gock-gocks”, “crap-it”.

We’re excited to see the folks in MI and UT in April.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everybody!

Not much is new across the pond. We’re very excited to have a new administration and really hope that the generalized excitement and positivity inspired by the election will continue. Those in the foreign service community are especially hopeful that upcoming changes will be beneficial to the U.S. and it’s reputation/influence abroad.

It has been interesting to watch an election from overseas. Since the U.S. is such a powerful and influential nation, the entire international community was very concerned about the outcome. (With the frequency of Belgian and British news and radio reports on the U.S. election, you would have thought it was happening right next door.) The day-to-day of Jay’s job is usually not impacted by a change in the administration. However, the general morale of the State Department is definitely affected…which does impact him. Jay was hoping that he would have Colin Powell as his boss again, but sadly, that is not the case. He’s trying to be positive about the new Madame Secretary.

Our highlight this month was driving to Dusseldorf, Germany to hang out with Mike. He had a job interview there, so we took advantage of the rare opportunity to visit with family.

For some reason, we thought Dusseldorf would be different. It was smaller and more commercial than we expected. It featured lots of Art Deco and ritzy, high-end shopping. Since we don’t have a lot of Euros to throw around, we mostly just ate yummy food and wandered around while Mike and Jay pointed out a lot of “fahrt” signs. Mike figures that his boys would find Germany hilarious because of the prevalence of “fahrts”. Emily figures that many men are really 10-year-olds in full-grown bodies. (“Fahrt” means “ride, journey, way, or mode of transportation” in German.)

James continues to surprise and amuse us. Our favorite thing about James these days is his little stick-out belly. Some of his shirts are now too small only because they don’t make it past his tummy. He continues to babble almost continually, and his attempts at real words are comical. Buster makes noises that sound like words but they are mostly tonal grunts – like uh-oh turns out to be grunt-grunt (vary the pitch to sound like uh-oh).

We totally rearranged the furniture on the ground floor of our house so that James could have his own space to play in (destroy). So, our dining room has become a family eating area/playroom. We’ll see how well it goes. Emily is just happy to keep the toy mess in one room that glad that James can play in the next room while she prepares dinner.

Buster is getting much better at signing and we are excited to begin a baby signing class this month. A few weeks ago, Emily was helping James eat lunch and he kept making the sign for airplane. She kept looking out the glass doors and around the room trying to figure out why he was signing “airplane.” After a couple of minutes, Emily realized that James wanted her to “zoom” the food into his mouth like an airplane… something she does during many meals, but had failed to do during that one. Once she began “zooming”, James was content to eat his lunch. What a silly kid!