Iguazu Falls

This Is a picture of the Iguazu Falls from the helicopter we flew in.

Or maybe it is a picture Dad took of a poster of the falls. You decide :)

Trying to download 5 pictures kept timing out, and getting just this one picture took forever(It only took me about a week to finish). Now I'll tell you about our trip.

We rode on a long distance bus for 20 hours to get to Igauzu in the morning. We went into the park, and had to pay about three times for foriegners than for the Argentine citizens. It was a wet and rainy day. Dad bought some ponchos to keep wallets and electronics dry, but everything got pretty wet in any case. For quite a bit of the trip, Nick was cold, and rode underneath Andy's poncho then proceeded to fall asleep there. Noah also got soaking wet in his covered rented stroller. All of the adults were dripping wet, but not cold. In the picture you can see several parts of the water fall. In the pictures that I'm going to add later, the picture of Laura's mom and Dad is the part farthest to the left called The Devil's throat. The other pictures are of different parts walking up and around the parts on the right.

Hopefully you'll see them here later :)

Looks like I got them all in. Maybe I'll get the second post started with pictures from Jujuy next. Have a Merry Christmas!

Argentina Vacatoin

Time has been steadily creeping by. My vacation came and went and it was wonderful. But not long enough. Because of a really great airlines deal, Mom and Dad were also able to come down and meet Laura's family. In addition to spending time with family and eating really good food, we went to two turisty places. We visited Iguazu and Jujuy. Here are some of the pictures. You can see we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and Mom and Dad practiced some Tango. I think we all had a great time.

Nick and Noah in the strawberry field

Today we went to take photos in the strawberry field

the field is in the back of the hause of my mother

Nick and Noah enjoy to eat to much strawberry

I hope you enjoy the pictures

The promised pictures

Here are the pictures I said I'd put on, plus a few extra. You can probably imagine which is where I sleep, and where I work.

Aqui estan las fotos que prometi, mas unas extras. Se pueden imaginar en cual lugar me duermo, y en cual trabajo.

A spanish translation

Just so every one knows, I'll try to make all of my posts in the future in spanish and english. If you understand one, you'll know what's in the other
De ahora en adelante, voy a hacer mis puestos en espanol e ingles. Si lo entendes a uno, entendras al otro. En el puesto pasado dice:
Tengo mucho suerte.
Mientras nos preparabamos para venir por aca, mi jefe me dijo que no tengo que dejar que otros me den trabajos tontos. Hay muchas cosas que hacer en mi trabajo que solo puedo hacer yo, y tengo que hacer trabajos que puede hacer cualquiera. Me dijo que si alguien tiene problema con esto, que hable con el. Bueno, hace unas semanas van diciendo que van a poner bolsas de arena arriba del hospital para formar posisiones de defensa contra ataque. Iban a empezar a las 5 de la manana y trabajar hasta las 9 de la manana. Segun lo que me dijo mi jefe (que esta en otro lado) no me correspondia esto. Pero tampoco quise jactarme frente a los que si andaban sudando en su labor. Asi que a las siete de la manana cuando me desperte me prepare para ir a banarme. Sali de la oscuridad el mi pieza al luz fuerte del sol. Con un ojo cerrado y con la mala balancia del sueno caminaba hacia las duchas. Cuando pase al camino donde estan las duchas, vi a personas en el techo con las bolsas de arrena. En mi estado de recien levantado, querriendo que no me vieran los del techo, me meti rapido en el edificio de duchas. Cuando entre, pense que era rara que no habia nadie duchandose, pero decidi que era por el trabajo que se efectuaba en el techo. Siempre me ducho en la ducha al final de la fila. Llegue, y empeze a colgar mi toalla y sacar mi champu. Que raro que cambiaron el estante de jabon, me dije. Y tambien el cano donde sale la lluvia. Ahi ya sospechaba que algo estaba mal. Me desperte mejor, y me di vuelta. Tambien estaban diferentes las piletas para afeitar. Agarre mis cosas y me sali corriendo. Al salir de la puerta me fije. Decie "duchas para mujeres." Como dije, tengo muchisima suerte que no habia ninguna mujer dentro, ni entro ninguna cuando estuve, ni me vio nadie entrar ni salir. Despues voy a poner fotos de como es mi vida aca. Y van a ver del facil que me resulto equivocarme asi.

I'm pretty lucky

When I was preparing to come out here, my boss told me not to let people push me around. He said that I shouldn't do any of the silly time consuming jobs that they make people in the army do because my job is too important. He said that if I'm asked to do anything that takes more than an hour or two a week, to tell them that they need to talk to my boss before I'm allowed to help. SO, this last week the top people around here(my boss is somewhere else) started preparing to move a bunch of sandbags onto the roof of the hospital and fortify fighting positions. The work would start at 5am, and go till 9am. That's more than an hour or two, so I decided it didn't apply to me. When I woke up at 7am to get ready for my 8am meeting, I was still very tired. With the European style roladens to keep the sun out of my bedroom, stepping out into the sunlight to head to the showers is always an ordeal. With one eye closed, and one eye squinting, I stumbled to the showers which are all lined up along one sidewalk. I noticed some people on the roof of the hospital, and in an effort to avoid their notice, I hurried into the shower building. I thought it was odd that I didn't hear anyone else taking a shower, but put it down to the work that was being done with the sandbags. When I got to the last shower stall, my customary spot, I noticed that the whole metal soap dish had been switched with a wire soap dish. Hanging up my towel, I saw that the shower head had also changed. At that point, I became concerned. Paying more attention, I realized that the sinks that I had just walked past were separated individually, instead of the troughs I was used to. I quickly snatched up my towel and practically threw myself out the door. No longer a surprise, the faded spray paint underneath the coating of dust said female showers. I'm very fortunate that no one was in there when I arrived, and that no one came in before I realized my error.

Later, I'll try to get some pictures up to demonstrate why it was so easy for me to make that mistake. You'll see.

big pompis

Noah tiene mas pompis que nick

El gordito pesa 22 libras y hace una semana ya comenzo a comer

Estoy re animada amor para que los veas a los chiquitos

These are some pictures that show a police station and a mosque right behind where I work. The police station is off base, but the mosque is on base. In the mosque picture, the guy who's taking the pictures and I are standing on top of a concrete bunker right outside my back door. In the police station picture, I'm sitting on top of a "T-wall" which is like a giant jersey barrier, and the guy is still standing on the same bunker.

Update

For any one who is checking in our blog, I thought it would be unfair to keep you in suspense. It has been more than a month since our last post, and I suppose that means it's time for another one. Sadly, the Noah and Nick Richards family is split up right now. Nick, Noah and Laura have fled the harsh climate of Lacey Washington to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma Richards. Laura often laments that it is impossible to diet there. She initially planned on taking advantage of the exercise equipment in the basement, but that hasn't gone so well. Nick is becoming more and more spoiled with every moment he spends with Grandma Richards, and has every whim instantly satisfied. Noah is a champion roller now, and continues to enjoy his role as baby of the house. I have not seen any of these things on my own, but have excellent sources. I, on the other hand, fled the inhospitable region of Lacey for the wonders and exotic experiences to be found in the Middle East. So far, the most exotic thing I get to do is leave my little room in the middle of the night to walk in the cool desert air to the port-a-poty. They have a trailer with real bathrooms but it's farther away, and not worth the walk at 2-4 AM. I do take the walks every morning in order to take a shower. The water is nice and hot, and the shower heads are separated into stalls about the size of a gym locker. There's almost enough room to turn around. The hospital I work in is a building, though my shop is an ISO shelter (a shipping container sized box that folds out into a nice size room). There is plenty of work to keep me busy, and I get lots of praise for doing lots of little things. I was called a genius by a physical therapist for pointing out that the machine he uses to stretch people like a rack will only register pressure when there is actually pressure on the hydraulic spring. I'm not sure what all I'm allowed to talk about regarding where I am or things like that, so I won't say anything. I just found out that I can access blogs from this computer (one of seven here in my office where I work by my self), so I might get posts up on an almost frequent basis. We'll see. Any way, I hope everyone is doing well.

Poop prize

Nicholas is nuts for spider-man. He has spider-man shoes (target for $4.50), and has been asking for spider-man boots and spider-man shirts. He has also been falling behind in the toilet training department. For several weeks, he had been very good about pooping in the toilet, but in the last two weeks, he has not done so once. So, we made a deal. If he poops in the toilet during the day, he gets to wear his brand new spider-man pjs. About an hour ago, Nick earned a night wearing spider-man. I asked Nick for his "happy face" in the first picture, and he preceded to put on his angry face in the second. We're sure proud and hope that earns his pjs every night from here on out.

Smiley

I know that I'm breaking tradition by making a post in a consecutive month, but Noah's smiles are just too cute not to share with everyone else. Noah has been smiling more and more these last few weeks, and he doesn't take too much encouragement to get going.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas.

On the family blog, Mandy asked every one what they are doing for Christmas, so I thought it would be a good chance to update our blog. We are having lots of fun getting ready for Christmas, though we haven't started establishing well defined traditions. We went to cut down a real tree for the first time, but when we got to the farm, we realized that we hadn't brought the camera. We looked at all the animals, then went to get the camera. By the time we got back, they were closing. After getting all of the other decorations out, we decided to use the small fake tree instead, and just save the money, So we took the tree that we had decorated on our balcony and put it inside. After all the wind and snow, it's just as well. We have had alot of fun with the snow, trying to sled, snowball fights, slipping and occationly eating a small handfull. We haven't done much by way of Christmas treats, but we have two bags of cranberries in the fridge waiting for some really nice loafs of bread. I hope that you all are having as much fun as we are.

Noah is growing VERY well. He checked in at his two month well baby with 15 lbs, 6oz. He is almost always happy if he his full and clean. Sometimes, he'll even cry when we're holding him because he preffers to be on the ground. He's started to smile if we really work at it, though he usually looks serious or angry.

On Christmas, we're going to fly to Mom and Dads. While we are very excited to spend more time with them, we were able to justify the trip to give Yanina the chance to see DC and New York. We might even take the time to post something about it before Easter.

NOAH!!! WHAT?!!! I NEED YOU TO BUILD ME AN ARK

RIGHT...Laura's going to love me for this one. I think she was talking to me...Aren't brothers so helpfull

Just fascinating.

Now, up close and personal.

Mandy sent me the following:

Hey Andy! Um, we'd like to see more pictures of Noah!!! But really I wrote to ask what kinds of things you guys need for Noah? Or are there things you don't really need, but want and wont buy yourselves since you don't need them?

Well, here are the pics. As far as things Noah needs, I asked him this morning. We had a long discusion, and came to the conclusion that Noah needs his own room in a house that his parents own. Prefereably a 3br, 2.5bath 2 car garage (with a new car in it) on a .5+acre lot. Now, he says that not as much of a need as a want, is a hitch-hiker double stroller. I think his mom convinced him to want that particular kind of double stroller, seeing as how it's the most difficult and expensive kind of double stroller we've seen. Of course they never have that kind at the local baby consignment store. More pictures should follow at our regular interval of every five months or so...

Well, I finally finished the bed I've been working on for the last several months. I had just put the stain on the individual pieces before we left to the family reunion. This morning I went to the ware house I work in, where I was also making the bunk bed, and loaded all the parts into my car (I bet that very few people in the world have ever fit a home made bunk bed in an accord). It took me a few hours to get all the 2x4s bolted together, but I'm done. Yanina will be it's first occupant. Very exciting.

The Farm

Today, we went to a little farm that's close by and got to see some pretty fun animals. We had no idea that it was there, but some friends of ours took us, and we all had a good time. The little girl with Nick is Camila, the daughter of our friends. She and Nick tried really hard to feed the chickens and turkeys, with varying levels of success. They also got to feed goats and throw food at non responsive peacocks, peahens, pheasants, ducks, and a pig. The goats where very enthusiastic about getting their food, and one young kid, that is a literal kid, slipped out between a gap in the fence and jumped up on Maribel, Camila's mom, and Nick. It was a pretty neat outing.

"Congratulations, its a.....

BOY!!"
Little Noah has all ten fingers and ten toes. He's a cute as Laura. When the technician told us that she could see his boy parts, I told her that we've had experience with techs that have mis diagnosed gender. I asked her to give me a percentage of how sure she was. She got very serious and said "I don't do that. If you want, you can show the doctor the pictures I took and ask him." In any case, we'll name a him Noah Martin Richards, and make something up on the spot if he turns out to be a she.

I've been tagged

Mike tagged me a while back. I need to think of seven things that you might not know about me. The problem is that you all probably know just about everything interesting about me already. I'll do my best to not bore you, but you might just want to skip the last six or so...
#1: I change my mind about what I want to be when I grow up several times a week. Currently, I want to spend all my free time while deployed learning mandarin Chinese. I'll then go through the green to gold program, receive a commission, and work in Military Intelligence. If that seem far fetched to any one, don't worry. I'll probably change my mind next week.
#2: I REALLY want to own my own home. My favorite thing to watch on tv is HGTV. When I get back from the "sand box," I'm going to write them a letter and try to get on their house hunters, or first time buyers show.
#3: My pinky toe nail is only about one millimeter long.
#4: I once ate half a bowl of banana nut crunch cereal full of weaviles. I wondered why it was so crunchy, until looked really close and saw the little guys swimming around. "You must always choose the lesser of two weavils."
#5: I made a bunk bed out of pine 2x4's and 4x4's. It's sitting at work, and I just need to choose a finish, and put it on. Pictures will follow.
#6: Green is my favorite color.
#7: I weigh more now than I've ever weighed in my life. I think I'm going to buy new Sunday pants this week, because I was uncomfortable throughout the block of meetings.
I tag Dad.

Slow blogging

It may seem that we've been pretty slow recently in blogging and commenting in other blogs recently. The biggest reason for that is the army. About half of last month I went to a desolate place called Yakima. Now that sounds pretty exotic, but it's actually in the mountains of Washington. While there, my "hospital" set up a tent and shipping container hospital complete with OR, Lab, Emt, ICU, ICW, Xray, Pharmacy, and the most important, medical maintenance. And now, I'm in Augusta training on the problems medical equipment have in Iraq. I will be back in WA on the 24th, and hope to have about a month before our next big trip... to MD for the family reunion. Just thought I'd let you all know that we weren't trying to neglect our blog responsabilities. Laura does know she's been tagged. She spent the weeks I was in Yakima with mom and dad. As far as the next ultrasound, the big diagnostic one where they measure everything will be on the 27th. We'd like every one to guess what it will be, but I'll put a post on the family blog for that later.

Hair cuts and answers

Nicholas got his first hair cut in the United States today. He got his first hair cut while visiting the parts of his family that are in Argentina. I think he looks just as cute with long and short hair, but I try to push my imaginary bangs out of my eyes when it gets too long. In any case, while the little airplane was pretty cool, I don't think I'll ever pay that much for Nick's hair cut again, barring gross inflation.
Now for the answers. Mandy has asked me two questions in her comments and I haven't answered her, so here it goes: The military pay system is all very structured and sure. I can find out exactly what any one in the military earns after a little research online looking at pay charts and allowance calculators. I was promoted from PFC(E-3) to SPC(E-4). That means that in addition to the great prestige associated with passing through the rigorous requirements mentioned in the former blog, I get to go up a notch in the pay scale.
For the other question: Laura does want to know what the baby will be. She is banking on a girl, and bought a bunch of great deal girl cloths at a garage sale last Saturday, justifying that with her sister and her cousin also expecting, one of them, at least, is likely to have a girl. I think that she just jinksed it so that they will all have boys. Not a bad jinks, I suppose.

Andy got promoted

Yesterday, I got promoted to Specialist. The two requirements for this promotion are very selective and are as follows. Stay in the army for 2 whole years, and not get caught breaking the law too seriously.

Laura's first OB appointment

Today, Laura got to meet her assigned OB. He seems like a nice guy and was very attentive to our concerns and worries. He's one of two Docs who speak Spanish, although the other is a GYN. Unfortunately, Laura won't be seeing him for her next apt.
Something that surprised me about todays apt. was that Dr. Morris wheeled in a very low resolution ultrasound imager and we got to see the little baby. It is the same machine that I service for a forward surgical team, though when they jump out of their airplanes, they only take the ultrasound, and not the whole cart w/ accompanying printer. Baby is currently 3 cm long and Laura's due date is the 17th of October.
This was also an important day for Nick because it was the third time ever that he's been with out a family member. He only cried for the first 30 minutes...

I had meant to write allot more in the previous post but got caught up in other things wile the pictures where being downloaded. So, by way of more explanation: For quite a while we've been living with a major problem. Ice cream can't fit in our freezer due to all of the frozen veggies and meat. I've been keeping my eyes on Craigslist for a freezer that would fit in our pantry_closet_thing, that would fit our budget, and that wouldn't take more than an hours drive back and forth. While I would have preferred a stand up or a smaller chest, I'm pretty happy with this. I had measured to make sure it fit, but hadn't thought about how it would change the process of getting things out of our storage shelves and book case that I had pushed against either wall. With the freezer in between, it would have been impossible to remove anything from the book case or from the bottom two rows of the storage shelf. It took more organization and thought to get everything from the book case onto the shelves, and the book case went into Nick's room for now. We are now excited to visit the commissary or walmart or costco and be able to buy anything there with out having to ask "is there enough room in the freezer for this?"
I just tried to upload pics of where the freezer is now but I keep getting server errors.

Andy's secret

Today, a woman called for Andy while Laura was talking with her family. She left a message for him to call her. Andy told Laura that it was a secret and that he wouldn't tell her. Later, Andy told Laura that he had to go away for an hour and that he wouldn't tell her where or why. When he came back, Laura found out what the secret was. I had TONS of fun getting it up to our apt.

Nick's new necklace

As mentioned before, Nick loves the bathroom. The other day, we didn't realize that we'd left the door open until we heard Nick crying and running down the hall. This is how we found him.

Party and a Cow

I'm not sure why my text is underlined or blue...

Now it's not...
Any way, Nick was invited to a birthday party today after stake conference, and we had a good time. The birthday girl, Camila turned one. She's the dark one sitting on Nicks right side. Today, during the conference, Nick tried to kiss the red head on his left, and she slapped him. I wasn't there because I was sitting with the choir. It's just as well, or I would have burst out laughing in the middle of a speakers talk. After the party, Laura was looking through a box with some clothes and found this cow suite we bought on clearance after Halloween 2006. Nick is an animal nut, and wanted to put it on, so this is our little bull calf.

Cow

Snow and bunk bed plans

I've been thinking about bunk beds for a while, and have seen lots of cheap metal frames in garage sales, but they seem pretty unstable to me and Laura doesn't like them very much. I've never seen a wooden one in garage sales, and the ones I see in stores are way to expensive, so I'm thinking of making this one out of four 4x4s and a mess of 2x4s. At first I was thinking about doing an L shaped bunk, but thought it would take up too much space and be less sturdy. What do you all think?




This is Nicks first time in the snow since he was a wee baby. He didn't want to leave his mittens on, so his hands got so cold he started to cry pretty soon, but until then he seemed to have a good time. Unfortunately the evil men in the army made Andy go to work and by the time he got home all the snow was gone. We keep hoping that the rain will turn to snow so that we can go sledding or make a decent snow man, but no such luck so far.

Potty training

While I was looking for the pictures that go with the paragraph that follows, I found these pictures. Nick had thrown my army sock into the toilet...
Nicholas' favorite room in our apt. is the bathroom. Hands down. If one of us needs to go, Nick will wait out side the door, pining. If he manages to get in, or we take him to brush his teeth, wash his hands, or take a bath, he'll throw a fit when it's time to leave. Now that we've bought this nifty seat, I hope that his love of bathroom will help in potty training. So far, he's been able to potty in his seat, but has had problems with pooh.

The most important part of a vacation...

I'm not sure what Nick was eating there, but it sure looks good. Laura just told me it's dulce de leche.















Belen, Laura's sister made these mini kabobs for new years eve appetizers.










The whole new years eve appetizer spread.


















This is a small portion of an asado-barbecue. This one is for mothers day.











Joaquin, Laura's cousin, is the guy with cake all over his face. It's kind of a tradition.

Get togethers

more fun in the rio

Argentina trip highlights1

While in Argentina, we had a really good time. Laura, Nick and I all enjoyed different things, but we all had fun together at the river. The pictures here show a spot about a 15 minute walk from Laura's folk's house.

First pictures

Here are some of the first pictures taken of me. I sure was tiny back then. I weighed 7lbs. 5.8oz