So This is What It is Like

Yesterday, I went to bed with 3 children.  Tonight, as I type this new blog entry, my wife is laying in bed with our brand new baby son lying next to her.  It has been a good, long day.  I am emotionally drained from the events of the day.  I am physically tired ... going to bed at 1:30am (my fault) and waking up at 3:30 am to start the day with a 2 hour, if I am being generous, labor and delivery (not my fault - hehe), and then it was go go go with introducing all the kids to Joseph, our new baby son, and coming home just 5 hours or so after delivery.  The rest of the day was a full house of excited and over zealous children. 

Now, it is 10:30 pm.  I can finally slow down a little, and I ask myself, "So, is THIS what is like to have four children?"

And I look back to eight and a half months ago, when we found out we were pregnant with baby number four.  I can still recall the cautious enthusiasm I had that day.  It started with "Thank you, God for blessing us with your creation!", and it drifted over to " ... are we going to be able to do this?" 

From then until now, it was many nights of prayer.  Prayer for Kelly to be healthy.  Prayer for Joseph to be healthy.  Prayer for a labor and delivery with no complications, and as Jake prayed it "Please help Joseph to get here at the right time."

That 'right' time was 5:05 am on Sunday, April 15th, 2012.  At that time, God answered our prayers and reminded us once again that He is sovereign, and that He truly is the author of life.

Quick aside - my wife is the most amazing woman in the entire world.  She carried this baby boy for 9 months and 2 days.  She endured what I am deeming about 2 weeks of mild active labor and then 2 hours of violent transitional labor and delivery.  And at the end of those 9 months and 2 days was a beautiful baby boy.  Perfectly pink.  Eight pounds and five ounces.  Twenty-two inches.  The most adorable little boy.  Thank you, Kelly, for enduring and being so strong. Thank you for being the wonderful woman of God that you are.  And, thank you for choosing to do this whole life thing with me - end aside

We get home from the birthing center and the whole house is a-buzz.  Everyone is excited and tired at the same time.  My parents are here, Kelly's parents are here.  Three small children are here.  A dog, a recovering mother, a newborn and me.  A full house.  But I can still stop and smell the roses.  And I see a loving family all around me.  I grab my second oldest son and hold him tight. 

And I thank God, for the new life that He has blessed us with, and for the other amazing children that He has given us. 

And my mind drifts, and I know that we will, with God's guidance, be able to do this.

And I see my daughter holding my new son, Joseph.

And I tell myself, "So, THIS is what is like to have four children"

To God be the Glory.

Still waiting ...

Today is Saturday, April 7th.  The doctors moved our due date from 4/13 to 4/2.  This never bodes well for the mental state of a pregnant woman ... especially when the educated guess is wrong.  So, the due date is now, once again, 4/13. 

My impetus for writing today's blog is two-fold.

1.  I want to add an addendum to my previous blog.
In my last blog, I cited many instances in which God had intervened in our situation - to which I give Him all the glory.  One of my favorite verses/concepts of faith in the Bible is captured in Daniel chapter 3 and is summarized in verses 17 and 18 (Daniel 3:17,18).  That verse sets the tone for my addendum.  We had something 'bad' happen to us .  A circumstance that was not in our plan, that we were not expecting.  Luckily, things fell in place to make it easier than it could have been ..... BUT ... and please read very carefully, even if nothing 'good' would have happened to help us, nothing 'fortuitous', we would still be giving God the glory.  He alone is the author of all things.  Too many people give God honor and praise for just the things that seem to prosper us, but I think we need to seek and find God in the things that happen in our lives that do not prosper us.  In all our situations, every day, in all that we do.  We should seek Him.

2.  I love the family that God has given me.
My wife is beautiful.  She has a sweet spirit, and she seeks God with all of her heart.  She is my best friend.  My forever companion on this earth.  I would not be where I am today without her in my life.

My daughter is so precious to me.  She is very bright, so quirky, and she hides her face when Mommy and Daddy kiss.  I expect her to fall madly in love with some very bright, quirky man.  She won't let you know it, but she has a deep love (and understanding - I think) of music like her daddy.  When you catch her in the right mood, she will ask you the biggest questions about God.

My son, Jake, is so sensitive and kind hearted.  He is the best little hugger in the whole world.  He is a track building genius and loves getting dirty outdoors!  He defends his mommy all the time and I hope to train him to channel that chivalry, so he can be a modern day knight for his future family.

My son, Jansen, is a chatter box.  He loves to talk.  When his hands get busy, he will start to sing.  No little two year old can sing Hosanna as good as him!  I love hearing that little guy's sweet voice.  He loves to kick the ball with Daddy and he craves one on one time with his parents. 

My son, Joseph, is keeping us in waiting anticipation of his arrival.  Who will he look like?  What will he be good at?  What will God teach us through him? 

All this is resting on my heart because in the last week, with us waiting for Joseph, God has given our family a lot of time together.  In the last week, we have done a ton of stuff together, and I am ending each day with a new found love for my family.  I have been working from home, we went and saw Christy Nockles in concert (AMAZING!), a night of Chuy's, park and ice cream, a night of looking at the planets.  And all this after Joseph was 'supposed' to be born.  Thank you, God, for my family and the time that you have given us together before our next bundle of joy comes.  You are truly great and greatly to be praised.

A Crazy Carlson Day

The day started innocent enough.  Waking up groggily with nothing to do, for once, but lay in the bed for another 10 minutes.  The day was already planned out for us, in our minds.  This day was a special day.  My niece, Katharine, was to be baptized at 11:00 am.  Then a reception.  Then back home for a relaxing Spring afternoon.  But first, I was off to HEB for a normal Saturday morning juice/milk run.  To add to the excitement of the day, I also stopped at Shipleys for some yummy donuts. 

The morning was going splendid.  We left the house on time and consequently made it to the baptism on time.  Now, while this may not seem like a very important point, I do want to stress that getting all three children and a pregnant wife out the door for a drive across Houston does not always end up in the most punctual of timings.  Let me also just take this moment to ready and prepare everyone in our lives .... when Joseph gets here ... we will continue to attempt to be on time with our appointments and meetings, BUT if and when we do show up late, please know, we tried our hardest to get there on time.   :)

The baptism was beautiful, and now it was time to go celebrate!  The reception was great.  It was a beautiful day at the country club where the reception was held.  We got to catch up with my grandparents and parents.  All the kids played under all the tables.  And there was cake.  What more need be said?

Sounds like a beautiful day, so far, right?  Hold on, it gets better.  We left the reception at around 2:00 or so in hopes of Jansen sleeping on the way home and then a fun afternoon of playing in the backyard and in the cul-de-sac.  Up 59.  Onto 610.  Getting onto I-45 North.  Life is good.  Driving in the family mini van, listening to Jonathan Park live his own adventure in an art heist.  And its always a good feeling when we start actually heading north.  I start feeling like we are finally moving in the right direction towards home.  But as we are merging onto I-45 North, I start feeling more.  A vibration.  And there is a weird noise outside the vehicle.  I look over at some trucks a few lanes over to see if its one of them, and then I finally put 2 and 2 together.  It's MY car that's making the noise.  It's a flat  :(  On the freeway!  Gripes!!!  Luckily, by the grace of God, I am at a really good place to exit the freeway and quickly get off the main roads and in front of a building.  We'll call that God's intervention #1 for this portion of our story.  Some may chalk it up to sheer luck or coincidence, but I believe in God's sovereignty, and this was nothing short of it.  I only say that because for a good portion of my freeway driving that afternoon, the van had felt loose.  And the tire pressure indicator light came on while I was driving on 59.  But I digress.

So I stop the car. Take a deep breath and gear up mentally for the tire change ahead - lol.  I actually like to change tires, but I'm in my khaki's and its hot outside - haha.  Some guy in a truck was leaving the building we were parked in front of and he offered to help.  I decline.  I know how to change a tire.  I ain't calling AAA.  Oh, what's that you say???  You have a better jack??  Oh, in that case. YES, please give me a hand.  We will call this random act of kindness, from the stranger in the truck with what appeared to be his wife and child in the truck, God's intervention #2.

But our story has another twist.  While changing a tire seems simple enough, my endeavor today seemed a little more challenging.  I can't get the lug nuts to loosen with the 'wonderful' tire iron that Toyota includes with the vehicle (its not even a foot long - good luck with any leverage with that, buddy).  Luckily, our hero in time of need also has a four bar that I can use.  Even with the four bar I can barely screw off these lug nuts.  We had gotten new tires put on a few months ago, and the guy who put the lug nuts on must have gotten torque happy or something because I think he stripped out the studs that my lug nuts are on.  And because of this, we sheared off two of the studs trying to get the lug nuts off.  WHY ME!!!!!  Not only do I have a dinky donut to drive home on, but now, I am going to be using only 3 lug nuts to hold the donut to the car.  This is not good.  But eventually we do get the donut on, we thank the God sent stranger and we head up the road to Discount Tire Co. - which just happened to be only 2 miles or so up the road on the north bound feeder.  If you are keeping count, that God's intervention #3.

Intervention #4 came quicker than we thought.  As I pull into the parking lot, I see someone we know from the church we used to go to!  I waited in line and he was the employee who actually talked to me first!!  This is awesome to me because I was already planning on telling Discount that they will be paying for the new studs.  It made it so much easier that it was someone that I had a relationship with already.  What a God send!!!  Not only did it make the 'you're paying for this not me' conversation easier, he was able to get us into an auto shop not too far away to get the studs replaced.  He sent us on our merry way with a brand new tire in the trunk and he also filled the donut with air (apparently it was low - ha).

The guys at the auto shop, NLine off of Ella and 610N, were very easy to talk to and they fixed us up in a jiffy and we were finally on our way back. Oh yeah, by the way, did I mention that I had 3 children with me the whole time and a wife that is TWO DAYS AWAY FROM HER DUE DATE OF OUR FOURTH CHILD!!!!!!!  Let's call out sanity after this adventure God's intervention #5.  I would like to take two asides here. 
1)  Everyone that we dealt with in this adventure was VERY easy to talk to.  Very helpful.  How often, in Houston, do you deal with multiple people and multiple car repair stores and not have any hassle.  It may have happened to you, but in my experience its rare, and I am thanking God for that facet of this adventure.  And I highly recommend this NLine place if you are ever in that part of town.
2)  In the middle of this adventure, Julia - our oldest child, asks us, "Mommy, do you think God is testing our faith?"  What a great chance for us, as parents, to share God's love for us, His sovereignty!!!  I am so excited and in awe at the responsibility that God has given us, as parents, to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  To God be the Glory!

Back to our story.  We made it home around 5:50 or so.  We got a new tire.  God strengthened our faith in Him and we had the opportunity to teach our daughter more about God.  And we still had time to play in the back yard and the cul-de-sac.  It was a special day, indeed.

July 14th - A Good Day

I'm gonna skip the cruise blog today and write a quick note about a very special day, July 14 2001. On this day, 10 years ago to the day, Kelly Renee Hoffart married David Elliott Carlson. 10 years, 3 kids and a lot of great times later we arrive at today. To celebrate this great occasion, we went out for dinner at Carabbas and then went to watch And Then There Were None at the Alley Theatre (live action Agatha Christie play). It was a great night and a great time with my wife of 10 years.

I wanted to blog very quickly and just let everyone out there know how much I cherish and love my beautiful bride. God brought us together, and we are now one. I can't imagine my life without this amazing woman of God in my life, and I am so excited about the years to come. We have come a long way, but I know God has a lot more in store for us - and it will only work as long as she is by my side.

Kelly, I love you with all of my heart.

Come back on Friday for Day 5 of the cruise blog - Roatan ....

Cruise 2011 - Day 4

Day 4: Roatan, Honduras

(sorry it took so long to post this .... got busy having fun with the family and then work hit me)

We had a time change overnight on the boat to sink us up with time in the countries, so we actually got an extra hour of sleep on the boat. Hurray!!! Now, Ken, the over-the-top-lets-see-how-drunk-we-can-get-the-entire-boat, cruise director did remind us on numerous occasions the night before that we should not do the sensible thing and actually get rest with the extra hour, but instead we should party even longer! Oh yeah, baby. So, since it is so apparent that Ken totally has our best interests at hand, we decided to ..... do the opposite and actually go to bed at a decent time.

The result, I woke up an hour early - lol. But at least the weight room room was less full. I guess all that partying did me some good - haha. So another beautiful morning in the Caribbean. I could get used to this working out and seeing a whole different country coming into view every morning.

Now, Roatan. What a beautiful island off the coast of Honduras. We were actually a little discouraged with the Costa Maya stop, but Roatan completely flipped us. This little island, looks like, from the boat, a tropical paradise. There are green hills, the port is really cute (see pictures below) and the water is once again beautiful.

Our planned excursion in Roatan was to go zip-lining on the canopy top of the jungle. When we got to the booth, and because we are really wanting some beach time after seeing such beautiful water, we upgraded the package and got a zipline/beach combo excursion. We were not disappointed with either. The zip lines were awesome!!!! My pictures won't do it justice. Basically, once they got us all geared up. We loaded up on a truck, did some off-roading up some pretty steep hills. When the truck couldn't go any further, we got out and hiked up some more through the jungle. The trees were beautiful and there were huge iguanas all over the place ... ranging from 12 to 18 inches long. We finally got to the first zip platform (after climbing some more stairs up the tree), they gave us the run down and Kelly was on her way. Then I followed. Some zips were short, some were long. Some really high, some low. All of them were over this lush jungle. It was awesome. I got some quick video that I will try and post too. Also, our guides were really good. They did a good job of keeping us safe, letting us know what to expect and helping us out when we needed it (like when Kelly didn't make it to the end of one of the lines :) ).

We finished the zips and headed to the beach. After a little confusion on if we were allowed into this one beach park, we finally got to the beach on our cruise and this beach, Tabyana Beach, was phenomenal! White sands, crystal clear water, good food, chairs. Stick us in those chairs with a book to read and we are livin' the dream, baby! We had a great time sippin on pina coladas and wading in water, chillin on the sand, and we even stumbled across this huge beautiful star fish that was at least 12 inches across.

After a couple of hours at the beach, we headed back to the ship, do some souvenir shopping at the port and then got back on board with plenty of time to spare. Then we listened to some of the Caribbean music from the band on the boat called Flex. Another relaxing night of fine dining and enjoying the fresh sea air and then we were off to bed. Tomorrow's port of call is in Belize City. We have to start our excursion early, so we turned in early, even with the voice of Ken in our head reminding us to party party party (aka, buy our drinks, buy 0ur drinks, buyour drinks).

I want to take a quick aside and mention one thing about this cruise that we were surprisingly pleased with. When we first got on the boat we noticed the ship had its own photography crew, and on day 2 we noticed the photo area, where the pictures from the day before were all available for sale at a fairly high price. We kinda laughed about it, but also went ahead and posed for some pictures with backdrops behind us throughout the cruise. It was kinda fun doing all these photo shoots :) The phot staff were awesome. They were everywhere all the time. The staff looked like one of the smaller crews on the boat - maybe 10 of them - and they took pictures, lugged their own equipment around, set it up broke it down, they had to work the area where they sold the pictures, they were on the boat at the parties, on the boat in the main atrium for the backdrop photos, and they were off the boat taking pictures in the port. And they always had great attitudes. AND the pictures that we took were REALLY REALLY good. So good, in fact, that we decided to get a couple of the pics and we are so pleased with them. I am gonna try and get those pics posted, too, at the end of this trip blog.

Next up - Belize!!

The port from our ship

Ziplining

Tabyana beach

more pics of the island

Chillin on the boat

Cruise 2011 - Day 3

Day 3: Costa Maya

So we wake up and we are all of a sudden in a different country. This cruise thing is pretty cool. :) Today is Costa Maya, Mexico. I started the morning out in the weight room again. Then we ate breakfast in the buffet restaurant, Raffles. The activity on the ship this morning was a lot more hectic than yesterday. I guess everyone is up and about to get off the ship and do their exursions - or whatever else there is to do in Costa Maya.

Costa Maya - what can I say about it. No one has ever heard of it probably. That's because it looks to be a town that the cruise industry fabricated just so they can have another stop. The port was nice and clean and the buildings seemed new. There were a bunch of shops that were willing to 'deal' with you - yeah right. There was one little thing we wanted and they would never give it to us for the price we wanted - and we could have found it in Wal-Mart for even less. I can't complain, though, because the one souvenir I wanted, I got here today - a Nacho Libre luchador mask - yeah baby!!!

There was one good thing at the port, and it was one of the highlights of the whole trip for us. There was this dude painting these really cool paintings with nothing but spray paint. His pictures were cool


- i don't really see how you could safely transport them, but that is beside the point. He had this sign above his little booth, and when you read it like Nacho Libre - it is stinkin' hilarious:




Kelly and I can't stop laughing everytime we read this - lol.

Our excursion in Costa Maya was to visit the Mayan ruins of Chacchoben. It was rainy on us, so that kinda put a damper on this excursion, but these ruins were pretty cool to see. The most impressive thing to us about these ruins is how everything was built up. This whole area of Mexico at Costa Maya was basically marsh lands - it was kinda like a Mexican version of Louisianna, but all of a sudden 60 kilometers inland there are hills???? We think we heard the tour guide say that the Mayan people built the hills and then also put these temples and their village on top. There were some pretty impressive sights from the top parts that we had access to. Also, I got to summon my eagle powers for my match against Satan's Cavemen later on that night (major Nacho Libre reference).



There were some more shops at the ruins as well. Again - no one wanted to deal with us. Poor Mexican families my rear. They were selling mini cans of Off for $10.00!!!! Overall, the excursion was cool. How often do you get to see Mayan ruins? They were awesome :)

We got back on the boat on time - this is something we were very mindful of. There is no way we want to be left behind. We had another great dinner, and then we watched a Cirque de Solei type show. It was 2 aerealists and the girl was very bendy. This was was awesome and we were amazed at some of the things that this pair was doing. Absolutely stunning.

Overall, we weren't too impressed with this port because it felt so fabricated. Tomorrow is Roatan. I hope this port is better.

Here's some more random pics of the day:

Cruise 2011 - Day 2

Day 2: A Day at Sea

Well, we are on the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I woke up promptly at 6:00 (Thanks, AonHewitt!!) and got up to walk around the boat and check out the views. We never imagined the vastness of the waters would be so awe-inspiring. Once again, we are blown away with God's creation. The breeze and the water completely woke me up so I decided to go work out. Working out on the boat, looking out at the water was pretty stinkin' amazing.

Once Kelly was up and we were both ready for the day, we ate breakfast in one of the main restaurants on the boat called Windows. It was a very elegant restaurant in the aft (back) of the ship, and it had these huge windows that looked out over the back of the ship. The wake that this boat made was huge and that was a pretty cool sight to see too. The breakfast was awesome!! Fresh fruit, omelettes and coffee. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

The rest of the day was basically just chill time. I got an anniversary package that included two 25 minute massages, so Kelly used one of those and loved it. We found a quiet spot on deck and read, we chilled at the pool, ate lunch in the buffet restaurant called Raffles. More good food! It was just an all around relaxing day.

We ate dinner in the other main free restaurant called The Garden. Again, very delicious. I am starting to see a trend in the quality of food - lol, and can I just say - coffee after dinner with dessert is soooooo good.

This boat has a theatre in the back of the boat that takes up two levels. They have shows and stuff there every night. This night was a Broadway revue show, so we decided to go. The show was actually very good. The singers were very good and the dancers were pretty good too. They did songs from Wicked, Jersey Boys, In the Heights, Movin Out and Mamma Mia. Even though we didn't know all the songs, I was pretty impressed.

One thing we were not impressed with was Ken, the cruise director. We actually first saw Ken on the television the night before. Apparently, all the main shows in the theatre get recorded and they show them on the room tvs later on. Well, late on the night of Day 1, we caught a glimpse of the opening show which was really just a big commercial of perfomances to come. Ken was over-the-top-I'm-gonna-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-you-excited-about-this-show guy. I can already tell that this guy is going to annoy me. Ken opened the Broadway revue and introduced the show to us. He also apparently likes to promote evey passenger to get liquored up as well. Maybe he gets a commission on the alcohol sales on the boat?? My guess is every time he gets a mic in his hand he is going to ask everyone if they are having a good time - no one is going to respond to his liking, so he will ask again and everyone will finally chime in just so we can get past that routine. I'll let everyone know how that goes. :)

All in all, a great day at sea. Tomorrow is Costa Maya. We are excited about something different, and our excursion there is to go look at some Mayan ruins.

Here's some pictures from today: