Hallelu!

All #2 went in the Loo! Can you tell we played a lot of rhyming games today?

FYI

My mom called to correct me on my grammar yesterday after she saw the blog. I told her that I know what the proper spelling of The Russes is, but because most people try to find ways to avoid it or completely flub it up, I thought it was an appropriate title for our blog. So, I'm guessing it's not that funny.

Travels and Travails

As many of you know I left last Friday to go to back to China. This happens to be my first trip across the Pacific while not sitting in business class. The good news was that through some nifty maneuvering, I had been assigned the bulk-head seat - so no worries! I woke at 4:00AM to drive from my home on the border of Louisiana and Texas (Murphy) to make sure that I was on time for my flight to Chicago, where I would get my connection to Shanghai, China, from there. It is extremely important not to miss the connecting flight as there is only 1 flight per day direct. The bad news is that even though I was on-time to the airport, we had a 1 hour delay to our flight to Chicago. The good news is that when we landed in Chicago, we were not late for our next flight, because it had been cancelled!!! After standing in line for 4 hours we were re-booked on a United Flight for the next day – looks like I am partying in Chicago – “what, we can’t get our bags” – looks like I am bunkering down in my hotel room as to not get my clothes more rank than they already are.

Side Note: I saw Ron Jeremy in the airport, he was wearing a shirt that said “rise 2 the occasion” on it. If you don’t know who he is, then count yourself as a quality human and I would not recommend Googling his name. I happen to know who he is from the show on VH1 – not from any of his award winning videos.

Since it was 19 degrees in Chicago and I hadn’t planned on walking anywhere, I was not really dressed to walk around town looking for a place to eat. The very nice hotel/airport shuttle driver “offered” to take us to a local pizza place for an authentic Chicago Pie. After eating we had a nice brisk walk back to the hotel (1.5miles) in the cold. Upon entering the hotel, we were greeted by our kind driver that had dropped us off. She was a bit disappointed that we had not “taken care” of her with a tip for dropping us off at the pizza place. She proceeded to demand a tip for her services – only in Chicago.

Day 2 of our initial 1 day trip and we are on our way. I decided when confirming my seat for my United flight that I would pay $119.00 extra dollars for the 5 extra inches of seat space – that might be the best decision I have made in a long, long time! I get on the plain and wedge myself into my window seat for my 14 hour flight to Shanghai. Miserable. Good thing I have 4 of the best movies to watch and take my mind off of how uncomfortable I am. Stardust, Resurrecting the Champ, Game Plan and December Boys – AWESOME. Also, the route through Chicago goes directly north over the polar icecap, down through Siberia, Mongolia and then into China. All of those rumors you have heard about Siberia…they are true – not much going on there.

I finally made it and am in pretty good spirits. Friday, I get to try and do it all again!

Sound Theology???

Over the last several weeks, Bekah has begun an important teaching lesson with our kids. She has started to post a bible verse of the week so that Kate and AJ can begin to memorize scripture. It is sad to say, but after only 3 weeks of "training" Kate and AJ have committed more scripture to memory than I did in the first 16 years of my life. I don't think that I have ever been more proud of our kids after they recited their first week verse for us. Yesterday after lunch, I asked Kate and AJ to recite 3 weeks worth of verses for me so that I could bask in the glory of how good a job I am doing as a parent. In reality, Bekah is responsible for the good stuff, while I am responsible for AJ not being offsides in our game of living room tackle football and for both our kids having a black belt in nose picking at the age of 3.

Side note: nose picking has long been a skill that has been passed from generation to generation in the Russ clan. I believe that Jedediah Russ (back in 1743) was described as a "master blacksmith and thine nose pick'r" - Old English. It was not unusual on a Sunday afternoon as child to see my dad taking a nap with the double-finger tri-pod nose napping maneuver. Visual - Index finger in each nostril, elbows on stomach for support and head slightly leaned forward with your neck creating the other "leg" of the tri-pod - sweet dreams. Try it, you won't regret it.

Now back to the story at hand. It was during lunch that Kate decided to share with the family what she has been learning about God! "In the beginning God created...(wait for it, wait for it) - Taquitos". I guess Kate had really enjoyed the Taquitos that we had gotten her for lunch! After lunch, Kate and AJ went outside to play on the their swing set and Kate kept referring to it as her "temple". Apparently, they learned something about the Temple in Sunday School, but I don't think that they ever told Kate that it was in her backyard. Bekah and I are now carefully monitoring Kate to make sure that she does not start a cult with the neighborhood children, where everyone comes to our backyard temple and worships at the alter of the Taquitos. I think that this is how a young Joseph Smith got started. We are concerned!

More concerning is that later in the afternoon, while watching the Partiot-Chargers game, AJ got a hold of the remote control and changed the channel to ice-skating. After I changed it back to the game, AJ was upset and kept asking to watch ice-skating. I calmly explained to AJ that we don't watch ice-skating over football in our house. Doubly-concerned!!

I spent 90% of my time today in the ...

BATHROOM! And not because of me, thankfully. Today was the big potty training push at the Russ home. And, even though Kate is pretty much potty trained, she's been struggling with some issues, and struggling is truly the right word. So, she's in there about once every hour, and AJ decided that he likes just sitting there until he can go. Good thing we have two potties crammed in there. You know, quality time together. Well, I figured since he was just happy sitting there, I'd go straighten up the kitchen. That 1% of my day in the kitchen prompted about 10 more percent in that bathroom. I return to find that AJ has decided to conduct an experiment on how much toilet paper one toilet can handle. Apparently, he had to keep increasing the amount since the entire roll was gone. When I walked in, the water was already touching his bum. I grab him off the toilet, put him out of the bathroom, and proceed to plunger with a fury like none other. But, as mentioned above, the toilet was already full, so, the push down of the plunger caused a deluge of toilet water(which let's face it, even if there was no human exrement in it, is still gross) over the rim and onto the floor, the bath mat and my slippers. Quick, get to high ground!
I finally got the situation under control with a fully functioning toilet back and a cleaned up bathroom. I come out, and AJ is still crying, and I think it is because I had not kept my cool. Come to find out, he's crying, "My socks are wet!" So into the wash go the bath mat, my slippers, the towels, and AJ's socks. Good as new in no time at all. Gone are the days when AJ gets to sit on the potty and wait it out unsupervised.