Scarlett meets her sisters

Miss Scarlett

Scarlett Lillian Viets

Born September 15th at 4:31am

7 lbs 2 oz
19 inches long

Miss Scarlett wasn't supposed to make an appearance until today, the 19th, but she and I were definitely ready. The funny thing is, my mom had just come home from Utah that same night, on Tuesday, and within hours of her being home, I had to call her to come watch the girls so that we could head to the hospital! My Father in Heaven knew I needed her here.

My birth story really isn't all that exciting - I woke up at 1am with some painful contractions, got to the hospital and had my epidural by 2am, then watched TV and rested for a couple hours. They called my OB when I was fully dilated, he got there about 4am, I pushed through 3 contractions and she was born at 4:31am. Easy!

We were so excited for Lydia and Claire to meet their new sister. All they want to do is take turns holding her, and they are actually very good with her.
Although the "taking turns" part really tests their patience.
Josh and all his ladies :) He's definitely gonna need another pay raise!
And as for the name....
My favorite name has always been Isla. I heard it a lot in Scotland and just loved it. I wasn't going to give in to Josh, who wanted Alaina, which was a name we had both liked when Lydia was born. But then when we moved here, I realized that every American pronounces Isla "EES-la", which is the Spanish pronunciation, instead of "EYE-la". And so at the last minute I had to
surrender my favorite name, because I didn't want her to grow up as EESla.

I wasn't entirely sold on Alaina, so I went back to the books and came up with more names. We had 8 that we liked! Then after she was born we narrowed it down to 4. It wasn't until that afternoon when I knew her name. The nurses had taken her away for a bath, and when they brought her back to me they had put on her head a bright red bow. I knew then that she was my little Scarlett.
Lillian is Josh's great-grandmother's name. We originally had plans to give our girls names from the Taylor side, and boys names from the Viets side... but at this rate I think we will only have girls! If they are all as great as my first two, I'd gladly have a few more. We are so very blessed with these little princesses!

Repatriation

We've only been away for 3-1/2 years, but there are still some things that have come as a "culture shock" to us as we learn to be American again. I really thought we might have a hard time living among the selfish, wasteful, and materialistic Americans again... but the more I think about it, I think these expectations were just fed to us by the British all these years! Not that they were entirely false... but the truth is the people here are wonderful. Especially Texans.

Having said that, there are still a lot of things that we hate and love about being Texan.

1. HATE the water here. Even a tiny sip of water for sacrament on Sunday leaves a raunchy taste in my mouth. In Scotland we could bottle the water right from the tap!
2. LOVE my washer and dryer. They are freaking enormous. I could get away with only doing 2 loads a week!
3. HATE how expensive everything is for kids - preschool, dance, swimming, soccer... nothing is provided through a community center, its all private, professional, and competitive. And costly.
4. LOVE American music. Brit-pop was so annoying, we only ever listened to talk radio. Or a Disney CD.
5. HATE that I come home with 15 plastic carrier bags every time I go grocery shopping, but LOVE the fact that they pack your groceries, take them to your car, load them for you, then say "have a good day, ma'am!"
6. HATE the scenery here. It's so dead and flat. But we LOVE that big Texas sky at sunset with all its shades of purple and pink.
7. HATE how drained I feel every afternoon because of this heat. But we LOVE the sun and swimming.
8. LOVE how easy it is to go out for food. Good food.
9. LOVE the enormous grocery stores here, but HATE that it takes a whole afternoon to get through it sometimes.
10. LOVE having a Pediatrician for my girls, and an OB/Gyn for myself. I can't think of anything I hate about my health care here - except the paperwork, and waiting for an hour for an appointment.

I LOVE the space here. We actually have walk-in closets, and a laundry room, and a garage that will actually fit more than 1 car. Even the roads are so spacious compared to what we're used to in Scotland. Our neighborhood roads are wider than the highways that went through Glasgow.

I HATE temporary living. Midland is such a small town, there's no corporate housing available for people like us, who need a furnished place while all our stuff is in transit internationally. So we had to negotiate to lease a house for only 2 months, when most leases are 12 month minimum. Then we had to rent furniture, and then we raided my parents house for cookware, linens, towels, tools, cleaning supplies, and bedding! So in the end it worked out fine...but we are still missing our own stuff. Here's a few pics of the rental house. Another big shock to us was car shopping. In Scotland it was so easy to shop for used cars, but here, if you get a car that's older than 2 years its got 100,000 miles on it! And I HATE that cars are such a status-symbol, especially in Texas. Every Texan owns at least 2 vehicles, and one of them is a truck. And not just any truck, it has to have a lift-kit, 4wd, chrome wheels, and a V8 engine. Minimum. And there's not a mountain for hundreds of miles!

But we LOVE how cheap the fuel is here. I filled up my car for $40. In Scotland we paid well over $100 every time we filled up.

I'm glad I lived in Scotland and learned to be more practical and less materialistic when it came to big purchases. Four years ago I would have never bought this:But now I must admit - I live in Texas...and I drive a minivan. I still haven't seen another one in Midland that is driven by someone younger than 50, but I LOVE this car. The doors open with a remote control - definitely my favorite feature.

But to compensate...Josh drives a Tundra - the Texas Edition (hence the blog header).

We're fitting in just fine ;)

Summer in September

We are BUSY. But for some reason I can't help but feel like I'm on vacation, because of the great weather! There's hardly ever a cloud in the big Texas sky, and the temperatures are in the 90's. My girls are in heaven - they've been in the pool every other day, and are getting very good at swimming around on their own and jumping off the sides.

Pretty soon we'll need to get these girls in swimming lessons and take off those armbands!

What about a NAME!?

Yesterday I just realized that I am 38 weeks pregnant. That's basically full-term. This baby can come any time now, but its freaking me out because for the first time I am NOT ready! We've been a little busy moving, buying a house and cars and getting our new life figured out...that we don't even have a name picked for our little girl!! Every time we try to discuss names, it just ends up in an argument, so we change the subject. SO....as much as I hate to do this... I'm doing a poll for baby names. These are our top 4 (on the right). Josh has his #1, and I have my #1....and we are too stubborn to give up our favorites. But maybe this poll will sway our decisions. Or maybe not! Worth a shot though.

The Journey Home

Yes I know this was over a week ago, but I'm just getting around to blogging again :)

At 4am on Friday morn we loaded up the taxi and our rental car with all our 8 pieces of luggage, plus 4 carry-ons, and headed to the airport. We met our good friend Chris at the airport, who helped us with our luggage and the girls while we checked in and returned rental cars. We couldn't have done it without him!

Flight to Amsterdam at 6am, then had a little over an hour there before the flight to Houston. We were all feeling, and looking, a little groggy. And had NO STROLLER! The flight crew checked it through to Houston, but the girls were happy to ride on the luggage trolleys, or run around free :)The flight from Amsterdam to Houston was 9 1/2 hours, but the girls were wonderful. Lydia was thrilled with all her business-class amenities, like the cozy socks and the sleeping mask. She slept so well - she was probably out for close to 3 hours.

Claire was happy to have the DVD player to herself while Lydia slept. She watched Princess and the Frog and Totoro, then took a looong nap herself.

This was probably the first international flight where I was able to get a good nap too, and get through at least one movie! I'm very proud of my girls, and other passengers made comments on how good they were as well.

In Houston...everything started going wrong. First, we lost 2 pieces of luggage. Then, there were 4 international flights arriving at the same time, so the line to get through customs was HORRIBLE. Then, the police dog sniffed out the plums I had in my carry-on...so we were escorted away to a screening area so they could scan all our luggage to see what other "foreign contaminants" we had brought into the US. THEN Josh had to leave us to go get the dogs and drive them to Midland, while me and the girls were left on our own to make it to our next flight. That was a little crazy, but I had a few doses of my "rescue remedy" to calm me down. I just let the girls run free until we had to board. Unfortunately on the flight - Claire fell asleep. SO when we arrived in Midland I had 3 carry-ons and a baby to carry....and I'm 8 months pregnant. It was 6pm, which was Midnight in Scotland. Then there was no one there to meet me at the airport, and I had to lie Claire on the floor while I filed paperwork for lost luggage and got my rental car.

But in the end...we made it.

Things are just getting better now.

That was hard

Moving away from Scotland was a lot more difficult than we expected. When we first found out that we were moving, many people asked us what we would miss the most about Scotland. I would always answer "the beautiful Scottish countryside."

(Firbogs)

It is truly beautiful and so different from anything in Texas. I will miss our Firbogs House, the deer, the pheasants, the foxes and rabbits, the stream beside the house, the castles and the stone walls.

At least we went out in style - we stayed at the Logie Country House for our last week in Scotland while the movers were packing our belongings. We had friends over, fed the chickens and jumped on the trampoline and enjoyed the beautiful Scottish scenery.

So yes, I miss the beauty of Scotland. But what I definitely miss the most are our friends. I didn't think it would be so hard until the last week, when we were saying goodbyes. Why was this so much harder than moving away from the US? I was an emotional wreck, and I just blamed it on stress and being so pregnant... but Josh was the same way! He was especially sad for his boys, the young men in church that he's worked with the past few years. We realized that what hit us hard was permanence of this move. We will most likely never live in Scotland again. We will never see these friends again. We tried to be optimistic, and talked about seeing eachother on vacations and such, and I'm sure we will...someday...but its just not the same as having them a phone call away for a playdate or a night out.

(Chapel of Garioch mums - my neighbors, friends, and best pals with my girls)

(expat friends - we know we'll see you in Houston someday!)

(mormon moms - always there for us :)

We're also sad for our girls' friends. Lydia and Claire don't understand the permanence of this move, but we did, and it is hard for me to explain to that we won't see their friends again. The girls have had such a ball with their church friends.

and boyfriends

and best girlfriends

We miss you all so much.

We also had a birthday bash

Today Lydia is 4. We moved to Scotland when she was only a few months old, and this is the 4th birthday she's celebrated in this country. She's our wee Scottish lass.



And as usual, we had a huge party to celebrate her special day. We booked it at the Paddock, an outdoor play center near our town.

They had swingsThe giant "jelly belly"A sandpitPedal-cartsAnd we had a pinata It was a good thing the weather cooperated, because there were nearly 30 kids!We came inside for lunch, and Birthday Cakeand ice cream And had loads of presents to bring home!Which we had to open immediately.

Then on Saturday, daddy treated us to dinner and a movie (Toy Story 3) with Lydia's best pal Laney.We had a fabulous birthday weekend. Thank you to everyone who came to the party and made it so much fun! Lydia is a lucky little girl. Happy 4th Birthday Lydia!

The Time Has Come

The Viets are moving back to the United States.
Back to TEXAS.
Back to Midland, where I grew up. And where my mom and dad still live.
At least here it's not so bad to work for an oil company.

But it's unfortunate that they don't care that your wife is 8 months pregnant when they ask you to move. We'll be home before September!