Chismville

We just arrived safely to Libertytown, Maryland this evening at 7:45. We were greated with Joli’s family standing out on Main St. and running along side our car back to their house! I felt like a celebrity! I wish I could have written the play by play for all of you during our 6 day journey to the east coast, but for some reason, my Blackberry handheld device did NOT like logging into my website! So, I could not update my blog! I had plenty of time too. Anyways, we are all very tired and ready for bed…so we will write more updates in the days to follow.

On stupid thing I did do that I should not have done was cancel Joli’s email account without checking the mail first! So, all of you who have tried to send her emails this past week will get them returned undeliverable. We have had Cox email since we were married, but because we were leaving California, I had to end my services. We just forgot to send an email out first!!!

So, a temporary email for Joli is: jnchism@gmail.com

Or just facebook Joli!

I’ve always been good at journaling when I’ve had nothing in particular to write about. It’s those times that there’s tons to say I struggle. Now I wouldn’t label this affliction writer’s block for it’s something much more banal–I’ll go for calling it plain and simple business of life. Of late details have been spinning far too swiftly for me to pin them all down and put them on paper or uhhm, pixels. (One day it’ll be poetic to say “pixels.”) What with celebrating Joel’s third birthday, David’s thirtieth birthday, our fourth anniversary and moving our little family to the other side of North America, August is loaded!

Joel’s dreams came true this past week when he received his very own wooden train set. My dreams have been coming true all of my life–my good dreams. My very vivid imagination allows for all sorts of bazaar and terrifying nightmares on occasion, but it’s my happiest daydreams that keep becoming reality for me as the days go by. The book versus blog distinction prohibits me from posting the daydreams come true of long ago. The creativity of our all- powerful God allow for the variations and design triumphs that make the garment of life more original and beautiful. I love to look back and see how God has directed the course of my life. At the same time I loathe my own persistent lack of trust in God. My worries over little and big details always boil down to a lack of trust in my ever-faithful Heavenly Father.

It is so hard saying good bye to the dear friends I’ve made here in San Diego. Last week we finished up books in two separate book studies. Almost as long as I’ve been married to David and living in San Diego, a group of us girls has met at Emily’s house or my house every other Tuesday to discuss a variety of books. Last Tuesday we discussed the last two chapters of a book entitled UnChristian. Then on Thursday we finished an intimate couples study on Love that Lasts. It is so marvelous how God takes such things into consideration! As I look forward to this family road trip across the country, I think it’s also interesting and providential how Aria is my only baby who I’ve trained to take a bottle. This will certainly save time as we won’t have to make stops every 2 ½ hours along the way!

There are many things I look forward to in Libertytown, Maryland. Amongst them is seeing my sister Kendra through her pregnancy, doing pilates in the early morning hours with various sisters, watching Joel bond with and learn from his young uncles Seth and Joseph, and having various family members, my grandparents and close friends over for a meal and games nights. I dearly treasure the possibility of being involved in my young siblings lives. I would always have a small twinge of anguish to hear of my married sisters taking Trina or Seth or Joseph on an outing. My dad will be able to visit us without having to get time off of work. I thrill with childish delight to think of exploring the pretty places of my hometown with my own husband. We’ll take walks through historic downtown Frederick, play tennis together at Libertytown park, follow the creek and let our kids get muddy playing in it like I loved to do! We’ll go sledding and make snowmen and then warm up with hot chocolate and wassail. We can drive to Annapolis, Gettysburg, Harper’s Ferry, Chincoteague, and DC to see the sights and enjoy time together.

I can hardly believe how swiftly our lives have changed. A couple weeks ago, I was painting the wooden letters of Aria’s name and mounting them above her crib. Now we’re labeling boxes. A few months ago we were preparing to have a baby and moving a few miles. That move was just a fire drill for the big cross-country venture. When I packed my luggage for my honeymoon in Maine and a new life in San Diego, I never would have dreamed that just four years later, we’d be a happy family of five, my usual car to drive would be a minivan or I’d be developing my thesis on how to regularly achieve the concurrent three-child nap! God is good to us. I certainly can’t imagine knowing the details of life for every living thing let alone orchestrating them in harmony!

Stay tuned on our adventures. Most likely my trusty, techy husband will keep people up to date even when our computer is stowed away in many layers of packaging materials on a moving vehicle.

I guess you can figure out from my Headline that the Chism Family is making the BIG move to the east coast. If you could not figure it out or were troubled by it, well…don’t be! It is the honest truth to date. With much prayer, I, Dave Chism, have decided to move my growing family to be closer to Joli’s family in Maryland. Some of the fine details about the actual location and job situation is still in the works. In short, we hope to live 30 min to 1 hour from the Washington D.C. area near or around Frederick County. Everything is happening so fast, but it looks like we might be packing up our home here and driving back east around the end of August or the first week of September.

Some of you may be asking why such a big move, Dave? Whew! That is a tough question to answer! I still have many hours of doubts building up in my mind right now, so I might have a better answer in a few years when I look back to see what the Lord was/is doing. I will try to give you all the short and clearest answer: Joli and I have talked a lot about someday being on the east coast to either raise our family or after our kids were grown. I guess in more recent months the thoughts have been settling on the plan of raising kids back there instead of retirement. Joli was a trooper to leave her entire family and extended family to marry a west coast, native from San Diego. She left it all to follow me. It has been a wonderful 4 years yet still a challenge at time. I think now the tables have turned where I feel a longing to be near her family! It is very mutual! Her siblings are still very young, and we wish to see them grow up being near by if at all possible.

Another major factor in my decision to move east is to get experience as a leader of my home and in the business community on my own. I’m not necessarily trying to be independent. God has been SO good to bless me with one of the best jobs I can ever have: working for my father. He is an amazing boss and has given me the freedom and liberty to be creative in his business. Many sons tend to get experience outside the family business before committing to take over the business. One can learn a lot about serving a boss who is not his father, and I will now get that opportunity. My dad always thought it was a good idea to work for someone but I was too scared to branch out on my own or leave because of the stable and wonderful job I had. I grew to really like my job and put my whole heart and soul into it. I then began to wonder if I could work for another boss and be a good and faithful employee. Would I have the discipline and the determination to be successful? I don’t know! So, I have lacked the confidence to grow in my business and leadership skills and feel it is time to make the second biggest decision of my life: moving to the other side of America (1st big decision was marrying Joli).

The reason for leaving now instead of a few years ago probably has to do with our current situation at Chism Bros. The economy in San Diego has been getting worse every week, and we are now in the middle of a recession. For the past 10 years, we have been in a growth mode and have been richly blessed. With my uncle, Pat Chism, dying of cancer a few years ago, I could not leave, because my Dad had to take a lot of time off to be with him. The following year was even more busy and I had no one to replace me. I finally have begun to share my estimating system with 2 employees this past year, and I feel confident that I am more replaceable. So now is a better time to leave than ever!

So, we will continue to post our plans, thoughts, travel plans, prayers and updates of our new life in Maryland in the coming days, weeks and months! Please drop us a line when you can! Thanks for reading.

I hate parking garages–well if I’m trying to finagle a large vehicle through one. I hate taking my kids to doctors appointments, waiting through a number of episodes of virtually the same show entitled “juggling three small children at a place they don’t particularly like at lunch time,” watching the helpless adoring eyes of my 8-week-old daughter as I assist in her unexpected torturous shots, trying to comfort two sad, afflicted little girls at the same time, waiting for an elevator that is slow and always too full for a stroller when it is going my direction, then settling for taking car seat, stroller and toddlers down stairs in shifts, then the inevitable, “YOU have your hands full!!!,” forgetting to bring change for the parking garage, and realizing upon arriving at home that I have somewhere managed to step in green bubblegum. Nevertheless I love being a mother to my precious children. Life is settling into a lovely new normal. I’m finding joy and fulfillment in the miniature joys of life like fixing myself yummy coffee drinks, crossing completed items off my list, being unpregnant and able to return to my favorite forms of exercise, and watching my two toddlers take such obvious delight in their little sister. We had a wonderful time on the east coast partaking in my dear friend’s wedding and enjoying recreating in Massanutten, Virginia with my dad’s side of the family. I look forward to the time when more of our friends and family also have children and we aren’t trying to keep up with everyone else or at the mercy of others to forego their desires to help out with our little ones. Aria is a joyful addition to our household. She’s a little more demanding than her older siblings were as infants. Her preference is to be held all the time. But since I still have only two arms, she is already learning part of the hard call of a Christian to die to self! She has been quite busy growing over the past few weeks to 150% her hospital size. She currently has one blue and and one brown eye. I don’t know whether she’s keeping us in suspense about which color will break the tie in our family, or maybe they’ll stay brown and blue. Chalice is a little character trying to keep up with her brother in some respects and holding her own in others. She and Joel are quite the duo. Joel recently told me, “Don’t be afraid, Mommy, Thomas is with you.” I know I should keep such sacrilege to myself. :) I’m enjoying our new little community and the safety of taking walks right from our front door. There’s a nearby park and stores within walking distance.  Ironically my favorite asset or our new home is the attached garage or more precisely the potential to load and unload children safely without having to herd them around our condo complex along with armloads of groceries. It’s great having a small yard and being able to plant flowers, herbs, and a few vegetables, though I was a bit preoccupied during planting season this year. I’d better get on to other details of life, but after two months absence it’s nice to leave my little mark on cyberspace.

We are currently enjoying our family vacation in Maryland. We arrived last night with our now family of 5 and one of Joli’s sisters, Kirstie. Kirstie joined us for 2 weeks and was able to be on the same flight back to Maryland. Ste was a big help to us!

We will be back east for 12 days and are looking forward to a much needed vacation from work! Work has been very slow and discouraging lately as San Diego’s construction is very slow. So, I will enjoy the time off visiting with our wonderful east coast family and friends.

The 2 main events this trip are a wedding (Jennifer Wold and Daniel Scoggins) and a family reunion at Massunuttan in Virginia.

Joli’s mom, Cath Howard, flew into town for a 5 day visit today. When I got off of work, I drove straight to the hospital so Joli could get away with Mom for a few hours. The hospital policy is that one of the parents has to be with the baby at all times. I did not mind one bit as I had a special time cuddling my new little daughter. My dad also came in for about an hour to get some grand-daddy time!

Aria had one of her final antibiotic treatments on my watch. It is over an hour long process! At the end of the first dose, the nurse came in to flush out the IV in her little hand. I think her hand the IV had quite enough medicine. The moment the nurse began to flush the IV, Aria began to cry! So she stopped and had another nurse come in and check the IV. Both agreed to stop and check with the supervising doctor. The doctor quickly ordered the removal of the IV, and I knew at that moment that things were looking good. Besides, she had already had about 6 days of treatment!

When Joli returned, the nurse came in to give her the good news that the IV was off and that treatments had ended. She also informed us that the doctors wanted to keep her there over night just to keep an eye on her. At this point, we were both exhausted and just wanted to be home. Before the nurse had entered the room we had a brief family prayer and asked God to bless us with favor in the eyes of the doctors to go home tonight! The nurse told us about three times that the morning is what the doctors had ordered. So Joli and I both put on our puppy dog faces and asked if we could appeal. The nurse graciously said she would call them up and see what they would say. We continued to pray and sent a text message over to Eden and Mom Howard to begin praying. About 5 minutes later, one of the doctors came in with a big smile on her face and said, “Aria can go home tonight!”

We just cannot believe how awesome those words were to us tonight, as we were SO anxious to get home and be with Joel and Chalice too, who were being perfect little angels! We praise God for the care of professionalism of the UCSD staff. The nurses and midwives were just amazing. We made some new friends and were able to give God the glory during our 5 day stay too! I was so excited when we all drove home that I had to wake up at least one of the kids. Joel is the only one who does not mind being woken up…so he has been running around the home with the biggest smile on his face that Dad woke him up to fellowship and eat ice cream!

We’ve posted more photos on our website, and I hope you’ll take a moment to view them and post your comments as well!

At around 1:30 this afternoon, Aria was finally able to be released from the ICU. I was downstairs holding her and just waiting for the doctor in the ICU room to sign her release up to Joli’s room. The doctor came up, handed the paperwork to the nurse and said, “Everything is ready except my note of release…but I’m really busy…so I’ll have to finish her up LATER!!!!” The nurse looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, David. It may be a few more hours.” Maybe it was my sad face when the doctor walked by again that made him feel guilty, because after about 15 more minutes he walked up and said, “Ok…she is ready to go. Congratulations on your little girl!” It was awesome.

So, the staff at UCSD have been fantastic. Aria is back in Joli’s room until Wednesday and doing great. She is nursing very well and happy to be in Mommy’s arms. She did have an infection, and the doctors are still researching where he infection started. So Aria will be on antibiotics until Tuesday, and if all goes well, she’ll be released on Wednesday morning. Joli has been released but will be staying at the hospital with her. Thank you for your prayers everyone.

We just received word from the hospital ICU staff that they want to put Aria on a 7 day antibiotic and carefully monitor her. It is a bummer for us parents to have to wait when we want to cuddle and be with her right NOW. However, the Lord has blessed our world with caring doctors, nurses and the proper medicine, so I need to rest assured that He will take care of our little Aria!

Aria’s white blood cell count was high yesterday and went up even more today, so that is not a good sign. She looks great and is the cutest thing ever (besides Joel and Chalice of course). I just pray for wisdom for the medical staff at UCSD that they would treat her with the proper medicine and that Aria would not have any problems. So far, they have not found any problems, but they are still running test. So…we’ll keep everyone updated as we have computer access. I’m at work ready to head back to the hospital. Those of you who are local can swing by and visit up til 6:30pm daily. We are at UCSD Hillcrest Room 431.

We were blessed with a beautiful baby girl this morning:

Aria Noelle Chism
8 lb 4 oz / 10:57am
21 inches long

Joli did great! Little Aria is extremely cute too and looks fantastic! The problem, like Chalice, is she had fluid in her lungs, so they now want her in ICU. So we could be here for another 2 days! That is the bummer, but we are glad the doctors are not real alarmed.

Praise God for another child we have the privilege of raising for His glory! Thank you all for your prayers.

Pictures will come shortly.

At 1:41 am, I got that nice little whisper once again that said, “David, I think we need to get our stuff together and get ready to go to the hospital!”

We arrived at UCSD at 2:45 and have been in waiting mode for the past 6 1/2 hours, but the contractions and pain continue! So, we are not leaving and expect the good news of Baby C #3 anytime! We’ll keep you all posted!

This is my first post on the blog using my Blackberry and my nifty thumbs!