Our Crazy Life

Well, it's been a week now since we left Alabama. Ten months goes by so fast! We are on the road to our new home in North Dakota but we've been able to make some stops before we start that way.

We had the opportunity to visit a friend of Brian's that he met in Florida years ago - Beth and her husband, Don. It was nice to catch up with them. From there we headed to my brother's house outside Atlanta. We spent a couple of days there then headed down to Savannah to my mom and dad's where we've been able to recooperate a little from the stress of packers and such before we head out on the road again, tomorrow. We arrived here on my birthday and my mom made a yummy dinner of Low Country Boil - for all you non-Southerners out there it's a big pot of shrimp, new potatoes, corn, and sausage all boiled together with Old Bay and other seasonings. She also had a cake for me and a present - Switch Flops, cool flip-flops that you can change the strap on to look different. After dinner, we went to my aunt and uncle's house to swim in their pool and enjoy their hot tub. My cousins were also there so it was nice to visit with everyone. Tuesday we ran some errands and just kind of relaxed. Wednesday we woke up to me not feeling well and Ellie running a fever. We stayed around the house while Brian took the van to get a new tire (on the way to Savannah, we got a flat tire). That evening my mom was kind enough to let Brian and I get away to our favorite place for Buffalo shrimp - the Oyster Bar on River Street downtown. It was just as good as we remembered and we enjoyed some time to ourselves. Thursday we went to the beach. We were only there about 3 hours but most of us left with a burn of some kind. I am probably the worst since I was pretty white to begin with. We then went to another Savannah favorite that my granddad used to take us to all the time - Johnny Harris. We were all looking pretty rough but we sat in the kitchen area and enjoyed a nice dinner. Today we ended up doing some shopping and got to meet my cousin, Tina, and her kids for lunch. Tomorrow we are going to my paternal grandmother's side family reunion and I hope to be able to see my other aunt, uncle and cousins there plus meet some other family members I've never met before. Should be pretty interesting. From there we are heading back up to Atlanta for the evening then beginning our trek north.

Well, that's pretty much a quick overview of life with us right now - and it only gets crazier from here! If you think of it, please say a little prayer for us that we'll have a safe trip!

Eliana is ONE!!!!!!

I'm a little late in blogging about it because life has been a little hectic lately but I wanted to take a few minutes (while I'm waiting on the packers to get here) to post some pictures of Ellie from her birthday party and her actual birthday.

It's still so hard to believe that one year has passed since giving birth to her. I remember thinking the day would never come as she arrived 4 days past her due date. I would look around at all her cute baby things and think - it's not actually going to happen, I'll always be pregnant! {smile} But, she did come - the morning of June 12, 2007! I woke up around 3am realizing that my water broke. I quickly woke Brian up and he's asking me - Are you sure? To which I quickly replied YES!!!! Well, with my past labors, my water didn't typically break until right before I was about to give birth so we quickly jumped into action getting ready to go. As we were leaving I went to tell my mom that we were heading to the hospital. The weird thing was I still wasn't really having contractions! We arrived at the hospital in no time - about the only time traffic isn't bad on I95 in northern Virginia - and they got me checked in and hooked up but I wasn't dilated very far and still wasn't having hard contractions. Once I was hooked up I did have a pretty good contraction and decided right then that even with my aversion to needles in my back (I remember having a spinal tap done as a child) that I would give the epidural a try (I'd gone natural with the others). So, they got me hooked up to the epidural and from there, things were good. Brian and I were both able to take a nap and I only awoke when I was starting to feel a little more pain. At that point they checked me before trying to give me more "stuff" and found that I was 10cm dilated and ready to go! I will say it was weird trying to "push" when I couldn't really feel anything but after just a few minutes of pushing, our beautiful baby girl was born! She was 8 pounds, 5.5 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long. Our biggest baby and my longest labor - right around 6 1/2 hours! Life wasn't easy with her as I had troubles with nursing in the beginning and she was a pretty fussy baby and although some of that hasn't changed (she's still fussier than either of our other two) she is such a blessing to us and our family.

We had her birthday party on Sunday the 8th and had a couple of families from our OCF group come, my parents were here plus my sister-in-law came with my nephews (my brother was in Florida helping set up for a church camp my oldest nephew was going to that week). My mom and I made some snacks and it was nice to just hang out for a little while and relax. It's been a while since I've been to a party for a one year old so I wasn't quite sure what all to do! We did do cake but because of her allergy to milk we didn't want to give her cake with buttercream frosting so I bought her a blueberry muffin. She took a couple of bites and decided she didn't like it. I then gave her some of the chocolate layer of her cake and she ate some of that but even starting throwing that over. So, we don't have a lot of good cake pictures that you sometimes get for one years olds. She had fun opening her presents and playing with the new stuff she got. She didn't cry over all the attention but seemed to look at us like "what's all the hubbub?" All-in-all it was a lot of fun. If I had more time right now, I'd probably make a digital scrapbook for you to see all the pictures but because I don't have that kind of time right now, you'll just have to enjoy the few I'm sharing for now!

On her actual birthday, we started the day in Ft Walton Beach, went to the emergency room for her then came home (we were planning to anyway) had a couple of hours at home then had Ian's end of the year baseball party. When I say emergency room people kind of perk up but we went because she'd been running a fever since Tuesday afternoon (when we arrived in Florida) and when she got up Thursday her temperature was back to normal levels BUT we noticed she had a rash all over her legs and some on her arms and when we called our Primary Care Manager they said to take her in. So, we did and it was a waste of our time. Because she's not up-to-date on her immunizations they wanted to run blood tests and do a urinalysis to see if it was something more serious then a viral infection. The frustrating thing is that they were basing all of this on our memory of what shots she'd had and not on looking it up in the system to see. We left but had to sign a paper that said we were leaving against their better judgement. Turns out that some of the things they were concerned about, she has had some immunizations for so I would have been REALLY upset if we'd done all of that to her for no reason. We got in the car and she slept almost the whole way home and was acting "herself" once we were home. My concern at this point is that she's a homebody and the next month or so is not going to be any fun because she's going to be a bear - so please say a little prayer for us that she'll do well even with the upheavel of our house and being on the road.

She still has no teeth but likes to eat - at least if she likes what you're feeding her. She is a little picky which drives me crazy and makes it hard to know what to feed her. She started blowing kisses in the last week, likes to "walk" by holding our hands, seems to say "bye" when she hears me say it, does the sounds for a cat and dog, waves, does the sign language for "more" and "all done" and is very clear when she doesn't want something you're trying to give her. She doesn't like to go to strangers but if none of her immediate family is there, she does fine. She's begun exploring things and points to everything and does this little sound that sounds like "huh? what's that?" She also likes to crawl around with things in her hands but then she has to use her elbows so it looks like she's doing the lowcrawl. Well, that's our Ellie. I've spent a little more time doing this then I meant to yet the packers still aren't here - I could've slept in a little more!

PS The last picture of Brian and Ellie is a little more realistic of how she looks a lot of the time! {smile}

WHEW!!!

WOW!! Can you say extremely busy? That's what sums up the past week for us. It has been filled with fun things but VERY tiring. For about 3-4 days in a row, Brian got about 5 hours of sleep each night. Ian and Ellie didn't see Brian from Tuesday morning until Friday evening when we attended a family BBQ for Brian's class. The reason for all the busy-ness was Brian's participation in what's called the Gathering of Eagles for his class here. They had 14 "Eagles" come in who each had done amazing things to advance Air and Space power. They were: Brig Gen Harry "Heinie" Aderholt, Dr Roscoe Brown, Jr, Iris Cummings Critchell, Kenneth Dahlberg, Col George "Bud" Day, Col Charles "Chuck" DeBellevue, Gen Charles "Chuck' Horner, MSgt Edwin Weston Horton, Jr, Eugene "Gene" Kranz, CWO5 Lance McElhiney, Alfred "Paul" Metz, Capt Dolphin "Dolph" Overton, Ken Rowe and Col Walter Stewart. To read about each of them and to read a little about the program, click here. Brian's "Eagle" was Dr Roscoe Brown and we really enjoyed getting to know him (and his son who accompanied him) and hear his stories - it really is important to hear them and learn from them. I also had the privilege to take my mom to hear Mrs. Doris Day speak about what she endured while her husband, Bud, was a POW in Vietnam for almost 7 years. Saturday night we had the graduation ball and although we were exhausted from the week, it really was a lot of fun to see our friends one last time before we head in separate directions. The picture I've attached from the ball is of us with the guys (and their wives) Brian met with once a week as an accountability group. This morning was the end of all the craziness (well, at least that kind of craziness!) as Brian graduated this morning. Now we begin the craziness of movers and packers and driving across the country! We would not have been able to do all the things we were able to do this past week with ease without the help of my parents who were here since last Monday. We are so thankful for all they did for us - it was so nice to know that although Brian and I weren't around a whole lot, our kids were in good hands. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for all you did - in the middle of your stress, too!