Since getting the news about Willows our lives have been pretty hectic and the coming weeks look to be just as crazy. Most of the hecticness of life has been self induced but we've also been experiencing some of the less desirable excitement of parenting recently.
On the night of February 7th we took Naomi into urgent care because the cough and wheezing from her "cold" had gotten so bad. They checked her out, took a swab to check for RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) and gave her a nebulizer treatment gave us a prescription for an ear infection she had. The next day we missed church to follow up with her pediatrician who got us our own nebulizer machine and wrote another script to help with her cough. The following week was pretty interesting as we discovered that Naomi did in fact have RSV, made yet another trip to the pediatrician and did our best to start preparing for the transition to Willows and maintain our regular responsibilities while taking care of a sick little girl.
Naomi has recovered well from the RSV and her breathing has returned to normal. Thank you all for praying. This Tuesday Emily figured out that Naomi had developed thrush (a kind of yeast infection affecting her mouth and diaper area). This meant that Emily had to get a same day appointment at the Dr. to get two more prescriptions that same day since we were leaving for Florida early the next morning (more on that in a bit). At first the thrush didn't seem to be affecting Naomi all that much but the diaper rash she has developed as a result has become very severe. It is bad enough that it is impacting Naomi's overall disposition and it doesn't seem to be healing very quickly. We would certainly appreciate your prayers for her and this pesky and now painful condition. It also makes caring for her a lot more work.
Yesterday was a marathon day for us and a milestone for Naomi. We left the house a little after 4am where Matthew's mom dropped us at the airport and we got a plane to Salt Lake City in route to Orlando, FL for a visit with Emily's and aunt and uncle and their family. We were supposed to catch a direct flight from Salt Lake City that would've had us in Orlando by 4:15 Eastern time but our flight was canceled. We fortunate enough to get rerouted the same day through Memphis but it meant that we didn't get to Orlando until after 10:30pm, we were than delayed further by the car seat we had checked not having arrived yet. We finally got to the "Florida Hallsten" home at about 11:30pm.
Naomi actually handled things very well. She was wonderful for the first two legs of our trip and for most of the time waiting at the airports. If things had gone according to plan it would've been a wonderful experience but about 20 minutes into our flight from Memphis to Orlando the fatigue and over stimulation finally caught up to Naomi and she became inconsolable. It was a very stressful flight but we suspect someone was praying because about 25 minutes before landing she calmed down again and our transition off the plane went fine. Today was spent sleeping, relaxing and visiting with family. Naomi has been a bit fussy and it is hard to know how much of that is from the thrush and how much is her recovering from yesterday but we're glad that we've still had some good stretches with our happy, smiling baby girl for our family to enjoy.
We are in Florida until Monday when we fly out early and should land (Lord willing) in Sacramento around noon. Tuesday Matthew will work and Emily will unpack and re-pack and then on Wednesday (Feb 25th) we will drive up to Willows where we will stay with the outgoing pastor and his wife (Bob and Joyce) until Sunday afternoon. We're looking forward to this time to prepare for the transition and get to know these dear people who we see as future mentors. We also plan to meet with some of the other church leaders, explore the community a bit more, get oriented for our future house sitting gig and hopefully look at some houses for sale.
Upon returning from Willows Matthew will work two more days at Health Net (extending our benefits through the end of March) and than after a few more days to rest and prepare we will get on a plane once again this time for a trip to Portland, OR. We'll be arriving in Portland the afternoon of Saturday March 7th and leaving first thing the morning of Wednesday March 11th. We're really excited about the chance to see dear friends from our three years of living in that city while Matthew was in seminary and to introducing Naomi to some of the people have loved and blessed her from before she was born.
After that trip we will have two final days to prepare before moving to Willows on March 14th. It should be a fairly move since most of our stuff will be going straight from storage in Roseville to a garage in Willows as we'll be house sitting for the first 6 weeks or more in Willows. Matthew will officially start work as pastor on Monday, March 16th and preach his first sermon on March 22nd.
As you can see our lives will be pretty full over the next few weeks but we are excited about and looking forward to almost everything on our schedule. We do hope to say some goodbyes in the Roseville area but are glad that we will be close and should be visiting frequently. We'll do our best to keep you all updated with pictures, news, etc. but may not be posting all that consistently until we get settled in Willows.
Thank you for all of your prayers and well wishes. We appreciate you all.
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