Shelly's email to Amy Nov. 18th

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving week!

Amy, I'm so excited to hear that you may have received my package that I sent back in September for your birthday! Is it true?!? Mother just told me that your mission office emailed her to say that a package arrived but that she hadn't sent any and so it could be the one that I had just finally given up on being lost or stolen. I really hope it's true because it actually had several of the things in it that you had asked for on your Christmas list. That was actually one of the highlights of my week. I have to tell you a sort of funny story about the package, too: I thought I was being really smart by going to the post office and picking up one of those flat-rate priority mail boxes and getting it all carefully packed and addressed in advance of shipping it. Then on the day I actually went to ship it, I of course had Miles with me and he was running around the post office and I finally had to pick him up and hold him to keep him from running out of sight and he started crying. There was an older guy in line behind us (there is always a long slow line at our post office) who then proceeded to lecture me on "smothering" my child and criticizing my parenting and telling me that Miles's crying was hurting his ears, so I had really had it by the time I finally got up to the counter. Then the post office worker told me that the flat-rate to ship priority boxes to Russia was almost $50, but at that point I was so desperate to get out of there I didn't even care even though I hadn't realized in advance that the flat-rate is not a good deal outside the US--there was no way I was going to re-box things and come back another day. Haha, funny now but that day I was about to strangle the guy in line behind us and ship Miles off to you in the box I was sending. Just know that if that box did arrive it was not without a lot of effort : )

Anyway, we had a rather un-eventful week here other than I had the pleasure of having my first kidney stone over last weekend. (Daddy, just so you know they did end up doing a kidney ultrasound and it did show some mild hydronephrosis but the urologist that consulted said that once I passed the kidney stone it would likely resolve on it's own and didn't warrant any intervention unless it took more than a few days to pass the stone, which fortunately it didn't).  Anyway, luckily it passed in three days and I immediately felt better. 

We also had our first big snow of the winter, which actually was the biggest snow-storm I can remember having since moving to SLC. It snowed for almost three days straight and we ended up with probably at least a foot and a half accumulation. It has warmed up and most of it has melted now, but it was really beautiful while it lasted and I'm sure the mountains now have a great start to the winter snow-pack. We also took Miles out to sled and it was super fun--he was mad that I wouldn't let him go alone down the huge hill. I will try to upload pictures to the blog tonight.

Other fun things Miles and I did this week were going to the pool and going to the "jumpy place" where they have all these big inflatable jump houses. Miles is really starting to get independent and wants to do everything on his own, from going down the slides to jumping in the water. It's fun but a little scarey because he a little too brave for his own safety at times. You guys will really get a kick out of him next time you see him, I think. Hopefully he will be awake on Christmas when we skype with you, Amy.

Well, that's about it for us. I am scheduled to work on Thanksgiving night this week but we will head to Elko on Friday to spend a the weekend with Mother and Tina. It will be kinda weird having only a few of us there for Thanksgiving, but Christmas should really be fun. Hope you both have a good week. Love you!

FML
Shelly