The FlyingFish

Everyone needs pictures of Michaela

2011-10-07T19:05:00.004-08:00

I know a lot of people check this blog and are sorely disappointed with how little I've updated it. But I've been keeping up with my 365 Project blog faithfully, so if you feel like you've been missing out, go check that one out instead. The link is right over there to the right!

Just a few minutes ago, I posted a little story about putting Michaela in a long sleeve bathing suit today to go swimming in our somewhat chilly pool. I put up one really cute picture, but I had a few others that I thought were blog-worthy, so I figured I'd get 'em up over here. Go see the other blog for the story, and just enjoy the pictures here!

(She got a little bored with the whole ta-da, show off my bathing suit "fun" by the time we got to this one.)

(And pay no attention to the less-than-stellar editing on these. My settings were all off on my camera and I just did a few quick tweaks to these to get them up.)

The sacrifices of a mother

2011-08-19T20:30:00.003-08:00

Over the past couple of days, a few things have happened, and Jason and I have had a few conversations, that have me thinking about the sacrifices you make as a mom (or a dad, but, honestly, I think more so as a mom). They aren’t necessarily huge things, but it’s funny how motherhood makes a woman sort of morph into this person who puts this other person first, without even necessarily thinking about it. I honestly never thought I’d become one of those people, but I sort of have.

Today, I gave up the chance at about 3 hours alone while Michaela should’ve been at her Mom’s Day Out to do the right thing – which was to put her back to bed when she got up in time to go because she was definitely still too tired to be awake yet. She just started the MDO program on Wednesday - about three months after we originally planned to get her into something like that – and I was definitely looking forward to my second day of being able to do what I needed to without having to drag a toddler along. But it wasn’t to be for today. In fact, another one of the things I gave up was more time alone over this past summer because I (we) chose to spread out Michaela’s vaccines a bit so she had to wait until the Fall term instead of doing the summer program like we’d originally planned. Then there’s the money that’s spent on cute shoes and clothes for her instead of me, the hours spent in the pool when the last thing I want to do is swim again but it makes her so happy, the endless loop of the “First Nursery Rhymes” CD in the car, the… well, you get it. And, really, these aren’t conscious decisions to put her first. They really just happen. And honestly I’m a little surprised to realize how often I do this stuff!

One of the biggest reasons why we waited so long to have a child was because I was totally not ready (read: unwilling) to give up a lot of the things that I wanted to do for myself. We were enjoying unencumbered travel. We were advancing in our careers. We were dropping everything at a moment’s notice (or as “moment’s notice” as you can get when trying to coordinate two military schedules) to go away for a weekend, or just to head out in the morning and not come back all day. We were enjoying two paychecks and only two people to spend them on. We were having FUN.

And then one day, having a kid seemed like a good idea all of a sudden (ask me about my favorite red wine analogy on being ready for a kid sometime). I think I finally realized that giving up some of those things would be ok. Because I knew from the start that motherhood would mean giving things up. (Ever met someone who didn’t realize that? It’s a sure sign of not really being ready, if you ask me… thinking that your whole life will go along like it was!) But I don’t think I realized how far the “giving up” goes.

Like I said, it’s not necessarily the big things. Really, with the exception of the unencumbered travel and the second paycheck, we haven’t really given up a whole lot of big things. It’s just all the little things… the things that made me even think about this in the first place. The things that make me wonder where this mom in me came from. And the things that make me wonder why I’m ok with all this sacrifice as long as it keeps my kid happy and healthy.

Who the heck is this me and where did she come from? I have to say; I don’t hate this me, though. I’m pleasantly surprised with myself and the fact that all of that not being ready (again, read: willing) to have a baby for a really long time (for the love of Pete – we’d been married for 10 years when she finally got here!) all disappeared as soon as she got here. I’m not going to say I don’t have my own little internal tantrum every now and again when I can’t do something I want to do just for me, but for the most part, this is just the way it goes – the mommy sacrificing - and it’s all good in my book.

Summer fun!

2011-07-09T17:08:00.005-08:00

I hope you've all been keeping up with me/us on my 365 blog. With all the story-telling I've been doing over there, I've been completely neglecting this blog.

But I had too many pictures from our trip to the splash pad today, and I've been putting entirely too many pictures of Michaela over there, so I defaulted to the old stomping grounds so I can overcome both those issues.

So here's Michaela having fun at the splash pad. She's a big fan of playing in the "fountain." There were tears when it was time to go.

When we first got there, Michaela was very excited to have her own bucket (last week, she literally cruised the perimeter of the splash pad looking for other kids' buckets). She soon abandoned the bucket in favor of other activities. She's so fickle.

This was one of those activities.... standing in the steady-stream from this one fountain. She told us, "This feels good!"

She also thought it would be funny to stick her finger into one of the fountains when there was no water coming out....

Guess how well that turned out.

Standing on the fountain was definitely a much safer bet.

And running through it was even better! (Note the very droopy swim suit. We left shortly after this... the diaper and suit were both water-logged and Michaela's fingers were all "sprinkled" (that would be wrinkled to you and me).

That's all I've got for today. I've been keeping our family happenings updated on the 365 blog, so go check that one out if you haven't lately!

My little model

2011-04-23T19:27:00.005-08:00

I posted one of these pictures on Facebook today, but I had to put the rest of them out there, too, because Michaela is just such a goofball!!

This is a series of pictures I took of her this morning on our way out the door to go to a big Easter egg drop. She wanted her sunglasses... and she wanted to put them up on her head "like Mommy" (perched on the top of her head, like you would do with your glasses when you go inside or something), but then they fell down.

Staring into space, trying to find the glasses....

Working to get them back where they belong, and unhooked from the bunny bow....

Ha! They fell down completely! And upside down!

This would be when I told her to look up at me so I could take a picture since she kept looking at the ground. Yeah, I maybe should've said, "Look at Mommy." She looked up alright....

Perfect! Glasses are on and she's ready to go!

Oh, but wait! She thought maybe she'd just strike a quick pose for me! Why she equates looking at the camera with tilting her head like this, I don't know... but she's done it a couple times in the past few weeks!

I've had a few ideas floating around in my head about things I'd like to just write about, but haven't quite gotten to them yet. As you can imagine, this kid keeps me more than a little busy, so I don't get a lot of time to do things for myself! It's enough that I get my 365 blog updated every night. Sometimes it's right before midnight, but I've at least been getting it done every day! I know I always say I'm not going to neglect this blog so much, and I really don't mean to, but it's tough to find the time!!

Hopefully these pictures help make up for it!

365 Overflow

2011-03-13T18:50:00.004-08:00

I had way too many options for my 365 Blog today. Since the rule over there is one picture (though I've been known to post two on occasion), I figured I'd make use out of this blog for once and get some updated pictures posted. So here are a few from today.

Getting ready to head out to the park...

Free-fall from the monkey bars... one of her new favorite past times...

Checking out the flowers....

Stopping and looking at the camera for 3 seconds for a rare picture with Mommy...

Rockin' away on the spring toys...

Hope you enjoy the picture update!

I am a nursing mom.

2011-03-04T19:51:00.003-09:00

(*Disclaimer* If you don't want to hear a long story with some details about my nursing relationship with Michaela, don't keep reading! I'll come back next week or something with more pictures or a video or something!!)

I am a nursing mom.

Still.

Once upon a time, way before I even thought about having kids, I was pretty sure I would breastfeed, but I KNEW I wouldn’t go past infancy (technically, a year). To be honest, I was a little weirded out by people who nursed toddlers. Well, I should say, I was weirded out by the idea of a toddler nursing. I really felt like, once a child was walking and talking – the old “if they can ask for it, they’re too old” idea – how could there be any need to continue nursing. Ok, who am I kidding… I was weirded out by the idea of nursing at all. Really.

And then I got pregnant. Being in Kodiak, I was exposed to a lot more natural parenting ideas than I think I would’ve been in the real world. It wasn’t that I sought them out, it just seemed that I was around people who knew things about doulas and minimal-intervention childbirth, and nursing. I think going to a family practice clinic rather than an OB for my prenatal care probably helped that along.

The more I heard about these things, though, the more I looked into them. We took a childbirth class with a natural childbirth educator, who we also hired as our doula. She was also the volunteer with the Kodiak Kindness Project (a breastfeeding support program) who did our follow-up for breastfeeding. I watched “The Business of Being Born” while Jason was deployed one time (and promptly decided that homebirth was not for me, but that an unmedicated, minimal-intervention birth was). I started reading the kellymom website to learn about all things related to breastfeeding. And I decided I would nurse for a year.

To be honest, there were a few reasons why I chose to nurse, and not all of them were noble. Sure, it’s the food made just especially for a baby! But I’m cheap. And formula costs a lot. Assuming I’d be able to nurse with no problems, why would I pay for something I was making for free? Even with the expensive pump I’d need for going back to work, I was still going to come out way ahead. Also, nursing helps you lose baby weight faster. I had a uniform to get back into. Within a week of getting back to work after having Michaela, I submitted my paperwork to do the temporary separation program. There was no way I was buying all new uniforms for a year. So, although I knew that breastmilk was the best, most complete, source of nutrition I could offer my child, I liked the other benefits of breastfeeding just as much.

And then Michaela was born. And then she hit the 3-week growth spurt. And then I was a crying, blubbering, sore, touched-out, tired-of-feeding-the-child-every-hour-from-7-to-11-pm-just-to-wake-up-in-two-hours-to-do-it-again mess. And I wanted to quit. I didn’t want to be a snack machine. I wanted my child to see me as something other than just the lady with the food. But a wonderful group of ladies I know from an online community talked me off the ledge. They assured me that, if I could get to six weeks, it would all get easier. I doubted them, but I’m too stubborn to give up that easily (and I hadn’t lost enough weight yet, and I’m cheap), so I kept going.

And then it was 6 weeks. And then 8 weeks, when I went back to work. Nursing Michaela gave me an excuse to get to go see her every day at lunchtime so I could feed her once a day myself… something I was loathing at 3 weeks became my lifeline at 8 weeks. And then it was 6 months and we were still going, but she started to eat some real food, too. And then she was 11 months old and we were getting ready to move. There were some transitional issues going on at daycare and I found myself in a place I never thought I’d be… arguing for my choice – my right – to dictate that breastmilk would still be my child’s primary source of nutrition, regardless of the schedule at daycare. Who was this mom I’d become?

Then we moved. While we were on the trip, she turned one. I was going to stop at one. But through 23 days of cross-country driving, being able to nurse my – what??? – toddler was the one thing that made things a little easier for us all. Cranky afternoon in the car? Let’s pull over and let her nurse! She didn’t want to go to sleep at night? That’s fine, we’ll just nurse a little extra! Needing a little morning snuggle to get the day started right? Absolutely! Let’s nurse! Getting all set up in the new house with no furniture for a week or so was also made easier by the fact that we had a schedule of meals and nursing and naps and bedtime. I think the toddler was the one who dealt with all of it better than Jason and me!

But I was sure that as soon as we were settled, we’d wean. I was still a little weirded out by the idea of nursing this older child. By the time she was a year, she was able to sign “milk” so we kind of got passed that “old enough to ask for it” thing. So I’d moved past that. But I still didn’t like the idea of nursing a toddler, a real kid. But then we were settled and, although we started to drop some of the times we’d normally nurse as her schedule started to change, we were still nursing. Then she turned 14 months. 15 months. 16 months. By then, we were down to only two nursing sessions a day as she went to only one nap a day – nap and bedtime. Every once in a while, on a particularly cranky day, we’d throw an extra one in to calm her down.

But at 16 months, she still seemed so young to me. I knew she was a full-on toddler, but she just didn’t seem like she was “too old” to nurse. And then she was 17 months. And then 18. Somewhere along the line, we made our plans to go to the Mardi Gras Ball and have an overnight away from her in February. I just figured we’d be done nursing by then so it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. I mean, I was never going to nurse a toddler. And then she was 19 months. And then we went to that Mardi Gras Ball last weekend (and she was fine without me overnight!).

And now she’s less than 2 weeks away from turning 20 months and I’m a nursing mom.

Still.

And I don’t know when we’re going to stop. And I don’t know how I became someone who nurses a toddler. The strange thing is that, when I look down at her, I don’t see a toddler. I don’t see a baby, by any means, but I don’t see a toddler. I just see my girl, the one who has just always been a nursling. I don’t see a girl who’s “too old” or who “doesn’t need it” anymore. I see a girl who now says (or signs) “Milk, please!” when I get her ready for a nap or bedtime. I see the girl who stops eating to say random words as they pop into her head. Or to turn her head to see if she’s missing something on our bazillionth viewing of “Finding Nemo” in the past month. Or to get up and run around for a minute like she did tonight because she’s just not ready to settle down yet. I just see my girl.

Maybe she doesn’t *need* breastmilk anymore. She’s certainly getting great nutrition from all the food she eats. But some days, she doesn’t feel like eating much and I am comforted by the fact that she’s getting so much good stuff from me. And it’s not just the nutrition. Though we’re more scheduled in our nursing than a lot of other people are, and it can sometimes seem like more habit than comfort, I know that I am still her comfort and her constant. As she gets more and more independent every day, I know that coming to me to nurse grounds her and lets her know that she is safe and secure. That will help her spread her wings even more!

I don’t know how it happened. But I am a nursing mom.

Still.

We've got a climber!!

2011-02-21T16:35:00.002-09:00

Thankfully, we also have a near-by outlet to put all those climbing skills to work and we can minimize the things she climbs on in the house. She's partial to getting into her highchair on her own, climbing up on stools (big and small), and even getting onto the kitchen chairs (which are stools - we have one of those higher tables).

But at a couple of the local parks, including my favorite one, there's a little "rock" wall to get up to part of the play structure. She wore herself out today climbing up the rocks and going down the big slide over and over again. It was great until she was crying and asking for her "pahce-fy" (pacifier) all the way home!

She found the handle!

This big step is no problem!

Almost to the top!!

I would like to point out that she couldn't even get up the short steps over to the right of where she is in the picture just a month ago. It's amazing to me how quickly she's growing and changing!

(And don't worry, I wasn't just standing back and taking pictures and hoping for the best - Jason was with me today to spot her and make sure she didn't tumble backwards!)

Taking a turn in a new direction....

2011-02-13T17:15:00.010-09:00

You'll probably notice that I've been especially terrible at keeping up with this blog recently. With posting a picture to my 365 project blog every night, and usually sharing a little story about it, I haven't felt a big push to get over here and keep things updated.

If you haven't checked out my 365 project blog yet, you should! You'll get pretty well caught up with what's been going on around here. And who doesn't like pictures?

Meanwhile, I've decided maybe I can use this space for more than just keeping you all updated on what's going and maybe just get some of my own thoughts and ramblings out. I thought about just starting another blog for that, but then I'd have three to worry about and you've all seen how good I've always been about keeping ONE updated... maybe three would be a bad idea! I'll still post updates here (I seriously need to get some video up!), but I need an outlet, too. Skip the wordy ones if you don't feel like hearing it!!

Since I'm coming up on the 6 month anniversary of my last official day in the Coast Guard, I've been thinking a lot lately about my new role in life as "just" a wife and mom. (And I put the word *just* in quotes like that because it's long been a huge pet-peeve of mine when people in the Coast Guard talked about someone's spouse or child and called them "just a dependent." As if, some how, by being a dependent and not the active duty member, your life is less effected by the craziness that is military life.) In my case I went from being a career woman, wife and, most recently, mother, to being "just" a wife and mother, as if, somehow the last two are less important than my former career life.

I have to be honest, in the last 6 months, there have been MANY times when I've felt like I lost my "real" (there's those quotes again) identity and became defined by who I'm related to, rather than who I really am. Some days are worse than others. Some days, the absolute last thing I want to be is Michaela's mom. (Most of the time I don't mind being Jason's wife, though... I think I'm more used to that one!) It sounds terrible to say that, but any parent out there knows exactly what I mean. Somedays they just make it so HARD to be a parent! But I'm slowly learning that it's not that bad to be identified as wife and mom instead of active duty Coastie, or any other career title for that matter.

I've found myself making excuses for giving up my career (which I haven't really given up, I'm technically on a sabbatical, so I could go back still!) when people ask. Or laughing it off and joking about how I'm still getting used to being at home and how difficult it's been to adjust. I think I really had myself convinced that I shouldn't like being a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), that I'd invested so much of my life and time into being a Coastie that I should be devastated or feel like less of a person by giving that up.

And then, one day a few weeks ago, Jason showed up at the park while Michaela and I were there playing and we decided to grab lunch together. We invited a friend along, one I hadn't seen since right before Christmas. As we were walking into Moe's, Matt told me I was looking good (who doesn't like to hear that!), and commented on my suburban mom outfit. Then, a couple days later, when Jason's dad was here, we were at the base and ran into Matt again. This time he told me that what he meant when we were at Moe's was that I looked happy, happier than I'd been in a while, and that it seemed like being out of the Coast Guard was agreeing with me. I felt like I'd been smacked upside the head! I mean, here I'd been trying to convince myself that I didn't really enjoy being out of the Coast Guard, or being a SAHM, and yet my attitude and demeanor were apparently telling a good friend something completely different!

Since that day, I have to admit, I seem to have turned a corner. I don't know if I needed "permission" to admit that I like being out of the CG, that I LOVE being home with my girl (most of the time... then there are those days....), or if I just didn't realize it, but it's true! I am truly enjoying this new phase my life. It's certainly not all sunshine and roses (like, I seriously miss my paycheck. A lot. Especially now that we live in a place where it's a lot easier to spend it!), but we've fallen into a nice little routine and we're having fun. I'm learning to be more patient than I ever thought possible, I'm falling in love with my little girl all over again every single day, and I kind of like being home enough to know what's going on and to make it really a home around here. (Jason might argue that I'm getting a little too controlling of the house and everything in it, but I'm trying to work on easing up on the Type-A-ness a little, too. Really.)

So there ya go. That's a lot to share on the first time out of the gate, huh? I just really had to get that out. Part of me is still trying to believe that I should still be missing the CG so much that I couldn't possibly be happy doing what I'm doing now, so maybe writing it down and being able to come back and re-read this will help me out with that.

But who wouldn't love the chance to catch every moment of this little girl's life? And she's growing up so stinkin' fast that I feel truly blessed to be seeing all of it and not just bits and pieces!

Angry birds....

2011-01-22T19:36:00.004-09:00

I thought about posting these three pictures on my 365 Project blog, but I think they fit better here. Mostly because I have more of a story to tell about them than I've been sharing on the 365 blog, but also because it's supposed to be ONE picture per day, and I HAVE to post all three of these.

While waiting for our food at lunch today, we were trying to come up with something to keep the toddler occupied. I suggested letting her "play" angry birds on Jason's phone. Needless to say, she didn't really get what she was supposed to do, but she had no problem with Daddy helping out with making the birds fly. I never thought we'd get the reaction we did....

Watching the birds fly....

Wheeee!!!!!!

And then they flew into the wall.... and she said, "Ouch!!" over and over again.

And I laughed so hard that tears came out of my eyes. And Jason laughed so hard that he had tears. And my father in law thought maybe we were raising the world's weirdest child. And that maybe he should be concerned about the trauma we're causing our child in her early formative years.

But then I laughed all over again tonight while I was going through the pictures. Because it was hilarious!

I'll probably have to come up with some more toddler-friendly apps for my phone in the near future, but I know what I'll be doing if I need a little pick-me-up in the meantime!

What I did on my Christmas Vacation (extended version)

2011-01-02T18:58:00.016-09:00

So I don't really get a vacation. Afterall, my job is to be home taking care of the kid and until I can find someone else to step in and do that for a few days, I don't get a vacation. But we did get away for Christmas, at least for a few days, so Jason got a vacation.

Where did we go? Why didn't I say anything about it before? We flew to CT on Christmas. To surprise my parents. And it worked. They were surprised. We had a great time. We're never doing it again. That might not be totally true, but we don't plan to do it again. This year was easy because Michaela was too young to know that Santa came to our house a day early, but we might not be able to swing that again in the future. We sort of decided spur-of-the-moment to go (I think 3 weeks before counts as spur-of-the-moment when you're talking Christmas travel) and it was absolutely worth all the craziness of the whole thing!

The first bit of craziness was Christmas on Christmas Eve. This is what our tree looked like after Santa came:

This is all that came from Santa:

The rest was from family and friends. We feel very loved and very blessed.

It took three hours to open presents. With only one child (if you don't count Jason). That might not have happened had it not been for this:

That was from Mimi and Papa. They graciously got the one with the red accents so it would match my living room decor. I've resigned myself to the fact that children's toys have officially taken over my living room. But I'm crazy enough to want them to match. Michaela really likes it, too, which made it very difficult to get her to come back to the pile of presents to open anything else.

You'll notice the Powerwheels car in the picture above. Guess how many times she's actually ridden in it. Go ahead, guess.

Thank goodness I got a picture. This was it. It hasn't happened again. Before we moved it to the garage so the kids who came to our brunch yesterday wouldn't run into the furniture, she spent a lot of time standing by it saying, "I drive." But then as soon as we'd try to coax her into it and try to get her to actually drive it, she'd run away saying, "noooo." Good thing Santa brought her that!

I guess this guy is a little more her speed.

And monkey bread. Monkey bread was definitely a hit. We have monkey bread two times a year - Christmas and Easter. We couldn't let Christmas on Christmas Eve stop the tradition. I think Michaela is all for the tradition.

After all the craziness of Christmas Eve Christmas, we got to the business of actual Christmas Eve, which means church for us. On the way to church, the second bit of craziness hit us - our flights the next day were cancelled. Delta cancelled something like 300 flights through Atlanta due to the predicted bad weather. I'm not sure how bad it actually got, but at least they rebooked us through Charlotte on USAir. We were very pleasantly shocked about that. The only bad part of the whole thing was that our 9:15am flight was now a 6am flight. That meant getting up at 3am ourselves to get things going, and then waking the baby up at 4am. Thank goodness for a flight out of Mobile (the airport is literally less than 5 minutes from our house) and not Pensacola (which would've been an hour+ drive). And thank goodness for the USO in Charlotte. We had a long layover there and spent the bulk of it in the USO lounge relaxing and letting Michaela play in a gated-off area. And it was a quiet spot to call Mom and Dad so they wouldn't get suspicious!

Of course the next craziness was just trying to get to the front door at Mom and Dad's without them seeing us. It didn't work since Mom walked by the door right as I was running up to it. I heard "Oh my gosh! No way! No way!" from outside as she ran to the door. Definitely a successful surprise! Ryan was in on it, so he snapped a couple pictures. Not great ones, but better than nothing.

Then it got less busy and crazy for a few days. We got snowed on (not sure I liked that), but made it out just as easily as we made it in. All was going well on the return trip until the last bit of craziness. The kid puked. On final into Atlanta. All over herself. On her carseat. On her dad (thankfully I wasn't sitting next to her - he was!). So we used up a chunk of our short layover getting her cleaned up and changed (prepared mommy that I am, I packed extra clothes for her). We hoofed it to a different terminal for our flight to Mobile, with me carrying Michaela in the Beco carrier, and then took advantage of the early boarding for people with children. And then we were the last people on the plane anyway because she puked. Again. In the jetway. On me. Because she was attached to me and there was no way around it. Something made me leave her sweatshirt off when we changed her, so she only puked on her t-shirt and then rode shirtless to Mobile because we needed to make sure she had something to wear home. I guess with all the traveling we've done with her in her short life we're lucky this is the first time we've had this happen. I REALLY hope it's the last time. And for the record, she was totally fine by the next morning.

Since we got home last Wednesday, we just spent a lot of time getting the house ready for company. We hosted a New Year's Day brunch yesterday, so we had to get everything prepped (ie clean the house) for that and then enjoy some more craziness of having 15 adults and 8 kids ranging from 17 months (ours) to 9 years old in the house. It was definitely fun!

But it wore us out so we didn't get the Christmas decorations down like we planned. That worked out for the best, though, since I didn't have a single picture of Michaela in front of the tree this year and was able to get one of her in her cute church dress this morning before we took it all down.

So the dress isn't Christmas-y, but it's cute. And she's cute. And the tree is in the background.

Now the craziness is all over. Jason goes back to normal schedule at work tomorrow after being in a holiday status for the last two weeks (only working once every 3 days), and I'm back to the fun of entertaining the energizer bunny by myself!

Oh, and if you look over there to the right, you'll see a link to a new blog. I'm doing the 365 project if I can stay with it (Thanks for the idea, Melissa), so I started up a new blog tonight. I already started a day late, but I'm really going to try to stick with that one for the whole year!

So that's what I did on my Christmas vacation!

Thanksgiving to Christmas

2010-12-21T19:50:00.007-09:00

I think the best way to talk about what we've been up to is just to post a bunch of pictures. So that's what I'm going to do!

So first up are our visitors for Thanksgiving and the first part of December. Jim and Maryanne (aka Papa and Mimi) were here for Thanksgiving. Not only was it an awesome visit, but they flew in/out of Pensacola, so we got to get our Dunkin' fix when we brought them to the airport! YAY! Ok, there was more to it than that.... including a trip to the base to show off Jason's new work-place and pose for a few pictures. Here are Mimi and Papa with Michaela!

And, of course, I couldn't just take pictures of people. So this is a look at the side of the helo, looking up toward the rotorhead.

While Jim and Maryanne were here (and again with Mom and Heather), we went to Bellingrath Gardens to see the Christmas in Lights display. I had to get this shot of the flamingoes just for my lovely friends Christina and Brad! We think about you guys whenever we see flamingoes!!

Besides the flamigoes, I just LOVED these trees! These were just made out of strings of lights, in a huge open field. And the picture does them no justice!

Here are my two favorite people, taking in the view!! Look at the smile on that cute little toddler's face! If I remember right, a melt-down came shortly after that!

And since I never put any pictures of me on here, and I was happy to finally get a good one of me and Heather together, here's another one from our second visit to Bellingrath.

Michaela was eating up all the grandparent time! She and Grandma had some cuddles in the morning before Mom and Heather flew out after their short stay.

Once all the visitors were gone, it was back to the business of getting ready for Christmas. Shopping got done, cookies have been baked (and even given away to almost all the intended recipients) and we went to a few Christmas parties. First up was the kid's party held at the park next to the base. This picture absolutely screams "Christmas Party!" right? Yeah, I don't think so either, but those tights she's wearing sure are cute. And this kid seriously loves a swing, especially these particular swings because they have long chains so she can get some good air. Little Daredevil!

After another kid event - the Christmas night at Chick-Fil-A (complete with Santa Cow) - Michaela enjoyed a diaper change while checking out her new book. This is what happens when Daddy changes her - he teaches her all his ways. Of course, my first instinct was to go grab the camera. She's such a lady!

Finally, this was shortly after all the family/friend gifts were wrapped up, but before they were packaged for shipping! For reference, the tops of the windows are 9 feet from the floor - that's a tall tree! But with 11 foot ceilings, ya gotta go big! Sadly, we learned that "good" Christmas trees don't grow around here, so we'll be forced to get our tree off a lot for the next 4 years, rather than getting to cut our own, but we'll survive. It's not the same as heading into the hills to cut one down from the "wild" in Kodiak, but it's a beautiful tree anyway!

That's what we've been up to around here! Next up - Christmas itself! We'll have pictures to share after that. We've actually been letting Michaela open a gift every couple of days since there are so many and it will take her all day to open them if we don't start now. It's so fun, though, because she understands what happens when she opens a package and she gets excited about it! So Christmas should definitely be fun!!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and the quick update! Merry Christmas to everyone!!

Is this thing on?? (Again... because I just realized I used that title a few months ago...)

2010-12-13T21:19:00.006-09:00

In the last two days we've heard from three different people about the lack of activity around here.

All I can say is that I've been busy. First, there were preparations for Maryanne and Jim coming for Thanksgiving. Then they left and we had to re-prepare for Mom and Heather three days later. And then they left and I remembered that Christmas was only three weeks away from the day they flew out. And it was like they moved it this year or something because I had absolutely NOTHING done to get ready for it. At all.

I know... excuses, excuses. After all, I don't even work outside the house anymore, right? Can I just say that I really had a lot more time to myself when I worked full time and took care of the kid. First of all, Jason had duty days, so he would do things like clean and keep the house in order when I was at work and the kid was in daycare. And then there was daycare... those ladies did an amazing job of taking care of my girl during the day! They'd tire her right out and she was easy-peasy to work with for the few hours before bedtime at home!

Now it's MY job to do the tiring out and I SWEAR this kid is running on some sort of radioactive go-go juice because I simply can't keep up. I mean it. Naptime rolls around and I have this big plan - everyday - to do STUFF. (Not laundry - her bedroom is too close to the laundry room, but STUFF.) And then I sit down to eat my lunch - at 1:30 pm - and watch "The Talk" (my addiction to it has solidified my stay-at-home-mom status), and maybe just check facebook or a couple other sites real quick.... And the next thing you know, it's like my toosh is glued to the couch and I can't get up, even when I want to. Then two hours go by and I finally rush around trying to do things like lunch dishes and what-not so Jason thinks I was busy all day (shhhh... don't tell him!) and I can feel like I accomplished SOMEthing during naptime. Imagine how hard up I'd be if she only slept for a couple hours and not the 3+ we've been getting lately!!

So, my apologies for my absence (I think I say that a lot on here) and I really will try to do better. Maybe when I finally get to that "chore" schedule I've been meaning to do, I'll add blogging onto it. Not that blogging is a chore, but it's definitely something I don't leave enough time for. Like a lot of other things these days. Why do people ever have more than one child when one is so much WORK??

Oh yeah....

Ms. Personality

2010-11-04T18:16:00.003-08:00

In her defense, I'll say that I got the tutu down for her the day before I took these pictures. I put her in the duck onesie she wore for her 1st Birthday Party, so I thought maybe she'd want to wear the tutu as well. BUT, I left it out in the living room and she definitely asked to put it on the next day. (As much as someone with a limited vocabulary can "ask" for anything. But getting it off the chair and bringing it to me while stepping into it definitely passes as "asked" in my book.)

So this is Ms. Personality. Oh, and tonight she tried to say "seriously" after I said it. Good grief we're going to have our hands full with this one.

Halloween 2010

2010-10-31T19:17:00.004-08:00

Just a quick post to share a few pictures from tonight's festivities. Thanks to an invitation from our friends Dave and Hilary to join them (and their boys) for Trick or Treating, we didn't feel funny bringing a 15-month-old out to get the goods!

We only hit a few houses since bedtime creeps up fast when you're a toddler (and go to bed at 7pm), and she wanted nothing to do with the stroller and got WAY too heavy to carry around, but it was fun while it lasted! She quickly figured out what her little bucket was for, and was hanging onto it for dear life - even pitching a fit when I tried to help her carry it!

So here are the pics.... Michaela the ladybug!

She was totally fascinated by Dave and Hilary's jack o' lantern... probably because we didn't get around to carving our pumpkins so it was the only one she got to see up close. It was too cute to watch her bend down to get a better look!

Happy Halloween!!

The last of Disney

2010-10-21T19:07:00.004-08:00

... I promise. This is the last of Disney. At least until next year. Yeah, we'll probably go back... they're offering a military deal for cheap tickets and it goes through the first week of the Food and Wine Festival. So we'll see where that goes. I'm a glutton for punishment.

Anyway, this will be the last time I mention Disney 2010 - well, at least this will be the last time it's the focus of a post. I might have flashbacks later, so I can't make any promises that I won't mention it at all!

I'm keeping it simple... enjoy a movie! (My first attempt at using iMovie, putting clips together and actually adding music. Plus, like I said on Facebook for those who saw it there, I edited out Michaela's obnoxious parents trying to coax her into high-fiving and kissing Disney characters. So there's a bonus!)

What I learned about taking a 14-month-old to Disney World

2010-10-10T18:18:00.006-08:00

Don't do it.

That is all.

Ok, not really, but even with a week at home since the trip, I guess the memories are still a little too fresh to look at the it through anything but reality-colored glasses. To say we had no fun at all would be a lie, but it definitely wasn't the fun we were hoping for!

First, let me start where I left off... with Michaela getting a bit sick the first night at the hotel in Orlando. Little did we know, she wasn't done with that before-bed occurrence. And, sadly, we're not getting any awards for "World's Best Parents" since we ignored her little cries all night (she does that a lot - we can't even get out of bed before she's asleep again), only to find her covered in vomit in the morning... poor baby!!!!

We should've known that things weren't going to be great when we started with that.

So, here's what I learned about taking a 14-month-old to Disney World (or, Orlando in general for vacation):

1) Do NOT plan a park visit the day you arrive, unless you get there first thing in the morning with a well-rested child.

2) Do NOT overschedule your week. We thought we were doing well with having a whole day with nothing planned, which is unusual for us. We're not the people who just take a couple days to hang out at the hotel pool. We'd rather see and do it all. That's great if it's just two of you and you can manage your own tired-ness level. That does NOT work with a 14-month-old who has been taken off her nap schedule.

3) If your 14-month-old is still taking two long-ish naps a day, don't take them to Disney World. You will feel a compulsion to spend as much time at the parks as possible - after all, you spent a lot of money on that ticket! - so you will try to adjust your child's nap schedule. This will result in a cranky, over-tired kid who no longer sleeps through the night, even though she's been doing that for MONTHS.

4) DO limit your time at a park during the day. This we did kind of right. We left when it seemed to be getting to be way too much for her. We also kept meaning to go back later in the day, and never made it back on any of the days we went to the Disney parks. We went back to Universal, and that was well worth it because Michaela LOVED the rides there, and we went back to SeaWorld.

5) About SeaWorld... don't bother with the Clyde and Seymour show (my favorite). A 14-month-old needs stimulation, not corny jokes and silly sea lions. Blue Horizons was a big hit, though. She "oooh'd" and "aaaah'd" at that one. Go to Shamu instead of Clyde and Seymour. And it's fun to listen to your kid say "sh, sh" over and over again.... every time she sees a fish.

6) On your day "off," don't spend the whole day shopping at the outlets and Downtown Disney (though she was sleeping there) and then spend only a little while at the pool before running off to meet friends for dinner. Take the day OFF.

7) Train your child to sleep in a stroller. Ours will not, as long as there are things to look at. EPCOT was the one major exception to this, but that was probably because it's boring to any child. However, she chose her stroller sleeping wisely, and erased some of the bad nights we had by sleeping in the stroller there and allowing us to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival for a couple hours without having to worry about a bored and tired kid!

8) Bring a grandma and use her mercilessly. Uh, I mean, invite a grandmother to come along with you and enjoy the experience of your precious child experiencing the wonder that is Disney World! Yeah, that.

9) Don't expect to actually get a full night's sleep without a child - who has been sleeping in her own crib since she was 7 days old - in your bed.

10) Don't take a 14-month-old to Disney World. Wait until the kid is a little bigger, sleeping a little less during the day, able to handle the heat a bit more, and able to go on more of the rides and play areas. 14-months old is an awkward stage - old enough to be interested in what's going on (unlike, say, a 6 month old), but not old enough to do enough.

Follow these tips, otherwise you'll end up like us... and people will look at you funny when they see this:

(Disclaimer... she did NOT drink the Diet Coke. It was Jason's. The empty bottle kept her happy.)

I'm sure, in time, I'll forget all the bad. But hopefully I'll remember to look back at my own advice in case a second child ever graces our family, and we'll wait longer to take that one!! It wasn't all bad - I'll post more of the good in the next couple days - but it was a challenge!!! We're still thinking about going back again next year - armed with this knowledge, and maybe a grandma or two!!

The Happiest Place on Earth!

2010-09-26T16:47:00.011-08:00

That's where we are - Disney - the Happiest Place on Earth!

This is the 7th time we've been here since we got married, but the first time we've ever been parents here. Wow. It's different. Not necessarily in a bad way (though if the kid doesn't get some sleep soon, it could be REALLY bad), but definitely different!

First, we only spent about 2.5 hours at a park today. We got into town at about 11 this morning, were able to check into the hotel early, got the backpack and diaper bag packed, and headed out for Magic Kingdom. We got there about 1-ish and grabbed some food, which Michaela wanted nothing to do with. From there, we headed out to explore a bit, since we don't usually spend a lot of time at Magic Kingdom and we don't really know our way around.

Our first stop was the Carousel, Michaela's first ride ever! She definitely wasn't too sure what to think of it, and definitely didn't like having to wait for everyone else to get on the ride once she got on her horse! She did seem to know exactly what she was supposed to do, though!

Once we got going, she was definitely a little unsure of what to think about the whole situation! That could be due to the fact that she was EXHAUSTED already at this point. But she seemed to enjoy it at least a little bit!

Though maybe you can't tell so much from this picture, huh?

From the Carousel, we wandered aimlessly a bit, and finally made our way to Mickey's Toontown Fair. After standing in line for what felt like forever as we tried to keep the kid entertained, we finally got to the Happiest Place IN the Happiest Place on Earth.... the inner room of the Judge's Tent, where we met.....

That's right... Mickey and Minnie!!!!!! We weren't quite sure how she'd react to any of the characters, but we definitely didn't need to worry at all. She RAN over to them when it was her turn and couldn't get enough!

The day went a little downhill from there, though we did get on Aladdin's Carpet Ride... again, she wasn't quite sure what to think.

And, yes, the pacifier had made it's appearance by then.... it's hard to deny it when she's so incredibly worn out!

We decided the better part of valor was to head out a little after 3. Michaela was asleep in the car within seconds, but that wasn't very long-lasting. Unfortunately, as soon as we tried to put her down in her crib, she woke up and wouldn't go back down. She got to go for a quick swim in the pool, and then we tried to get ready to head back to the park for the fireworks tonight. That was not to be, though. Tired girl got progressively whinier (is that a word), and we decided to hang back and get her some sleep. Lo and behold, she wasn't just tired... she was over-sunned, under-hydrated and not feeling well. Now that she, uh, emptied the contents of her tummy, she's sleeping somewhat restlessly and we're hoping for a better day tomorrow!

But, if all we get out of this week is the excitement on her face when she got to meet Micky and Minnie, it'll be worth it all. And THAT is what makes coming to Disney with a kid different. Not bad different... great different!

Is this thing on??

2010-09-19T18:09:00.006-08:00

Geez Louise! Who's in charge of keeping the blog updated??? What? Me? Oh, yeah... um... we've been busy? I mean, yeah, we've been busy.

And I'm still not really feeling like writing much, so I'm cheating tonight and just uploading a couple videos. If you're not Michaela's grandparent, you might not care about this stuff! I'll try to get back later this week with some more exciting stuff, but this will have to do for now!

This first one is a little dark since it's from an evening swim the other night, but I think you'll get the idea.

And this one is from this afternoon. Michaela has gotten to be very helpful around the house - which is why I had a few hours of panic last night when I was pretty sure she'd thrown out my checkbook. Turns out she'd only hidden it under a shoe, under our entry bench. But you'll see how helpful she is in this one.

So, like I said, that's it for tonight! I'll try to get back later in the week to do a real update.

Catch up

2010-08-28T18:16:00.008-08:00

So what's been going on with the FlyingFish?

A lot. We've been pretty busy around here for the past couple weeks, with no real end in sight! We definitely have a lot more boxes still hanging around than we would like, but we're making some progress getting everything put together around here. It's amazing how much different a process it is to put a house together when you're mostly busy chasing a toddler around, and you just try to squeeze the unpacking in during nap times and when she's in bed for the night!

We've gotten one room painted so far - only 5 or 6 more to go - and we've even hung a few things on the walls (in the room that's NOT being painted... the living room!). We're loving our new furniture, and we're pretty sure the pool's going to be great if it ever gets done. The clay kicked the installers' butts, and then the rain moved in and nothing got done for almost a week! The pool that we were supposed to be swimming in after only about 5 days is now on day 24 of installation and it's still not ready!

In case you wondered, though, this is what a pool looks like when it's being built:

Right now, we have what mostly looks like a pool, including the concrete decking, a liner, water that's been sitting too long with no pump or the salt system, and a ginormous

red clay mess in our backyard! Everything should be done with the pool on Monday, including some more work with the heavy machinery (Michaela's favorite...see? There she is watching the show going on in the backyard again!)

to grade the yard a bit, and then we'll have to re-sod a giant chunk of the backyard so that it's usable. We'll be able to use the pool, at least, but Fred will be stuck tied out in the front yard til the sod is done since we can't take the chance of him tracking the red clay into the house.

In time honored Waitt family tradition - no project is ever easy or small... right, Dad?

It'll be worth it, though, when we can actually get out of the house for part of the day, even if it's to hang out in the very warm pool! I'm tired of being cooped up in the house because it's just too hot out to be outside! Poor Michaela gets soaked in sweat sitting in her carseat after only a few minutes! We actually let the car run for a while when we get ready to leave the house - not to get it warmed up like in the winter, but to get it to cool down so that it's bearable for the short trips to the store!! CRAZY!!

Besides the pool and unpacking, I've just been trying to get in the groove of the stay-at-home-mom gig. Thankfully, the kid is adorable, so it makes it a little easier to deal with the wanting to pull my hair out moments! I'm looking forward to getting completely unpacked and settled so we can start exploring a little bit more! Of course, since she's taken to napping for about 4 hours a day, it's tough to get too much done outside of the house, but I've been finding something - anything - to do every day, just so neither one of us gets too stir-crazy!

Speaking of adorable.... she is, right?

One of her new favorite things is to sit on the couch all snuggled up on these pillows we got from Ikea on the way here. I have to admit, they're comfy pillows! It always cracks me up to see her just chillin' on the couch like a regular person, though!

Another new favorite thing - having her picture taken, but only if she can point at the camera (or iPhone, usually) and then see the picture afterwards! Such a ham!

This was her first ice cream from an ice cream truck the other night. We're not entirely sure the ice cream truck is actually licensed to sell anything, but, whatever.... it was all wrapped in original packaging and we wanted ice cream!

And this last one is Michaela hammin' it up in her new rocking chair (that we bought in Houston - at Ikea - and Jason forgot about. I would've put it together myself, but the Ikea directions frightened me!) She LOVES to sit in the big rocker and try to rock, so this is just perfect for her. She climbs up and down a million times a day, and has definitely gotten the hang of rockin' away! The only problem is that we have to keep reminding her that her toosh belongs on the seat, not her feet!

That's about all the new stuff from here. In a week, Michaela and I will be heading up to CT for a quick visit. Mom and Heather were supposed to make a trip down here, but Mom's got some stuff going on that means she can't travel. So we'll happily leave the wicked heat and humidity behind for the cool(er) northeast for a few days. We're leaving Jason with the painting to do, so hopefully, when we get home, pictures will go up and the house will start to feel a bit more like home! In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the trip to CT and the chance for most of the grandparents to see Michaela, and to get a little family time myself. It's so nice to know I'll be able to leave here at 8:30 in the morning and be there by 3 in the afternoon! Such a change from the Kodiak travel!!!

Once we get the house finished, we'll be sure to get some pics up. For now, no one wants to see that, so I'll stick with pics of the kid....everyone likes those!

Today I am....

2010-08-16T05:38:00.007-08:00

.... a civilian.

For the first time since July 10, 1995, I will not be carrying an active duty ID card (as soon as I get to the base this morning to trade for the dependent one).

Of course, this could just end up being a temporary break since I've got 2 years to decide if I want to go back, but it feels pretty final to me.

In my 15 years of service, I got an amazing education which included traveling to all parts of the globe (Guam, Alaska, Europe and Russia as a cadet), got to sail from Nova Scotia to Venezuela and everywhere in between as a junior officer on two different cutters, worked with the best boss I ever could've asked for at a District staff, was fortunate enough to have the CG pay to send me to grad school for fisheries management, and then had my absolute dream job as the CO of a fisheries training center.

It hasn't been all good, of course - not living with Jason for 3 years while we were separated by orders kind of stunk, and so did getting seasick for those first 4 years - but I still wouldn't trade it for anything. The Coast Guard has been good FOR me and TO me. I feel blessed for the experiences I've had - good and bad - and will be forever grateful that being at the Academy gave me the unexpected bonus of finding my husband.

Although I've been on terminal leave for the past 5 weeks, and I've been doing the SAHM thing for the past 2, today is my first official day as a stay at home mom and "just" a Coast Guard dependent. I think I'm excited about it. I think it'll be good for me and the baby. But I'm also a little nervous and scared to make such a transition and to do something so completely different from what I've done since I was 18 years old.

Transitions are always scary, though, so at least I have that constant to rely on. Now if I could just get the house put together I'd be ready to start exploring all the things there are to see and do in Mobile. Something tells me we're going to need to keep busy!

Mish-mash

2010-08-07T06:17:00.008-08:00

Since there are two of us at home right now, which means I have a fighting chance of NOT having to chase the baby around the house, I figured I'd try to catch up a little bit on the blog and how things are going around here.

So we'll go back a bit to start off with... to San Antonio.... We initially thought we had just a short drive to Houston from San Antonio (you know, before the stop at the repair shop?), so we took some time in the morning to explore a little of San Antonio. I highly recommend doing that first thing in the morning since it got HOT by the time we left at noon. Not as much fun to walk around in that!

We loaded Michaela up in the stoller, broke the hotel rules by leaving Fred in the room, and headed over to the Alamo. Jason had been once before way back during an Academy spring break one time, but I never had. He was worried I wouldn't think that it was worth it, but it definitely was. One of the things that struck me was how funny it was that this modern city had sprung up around this building that has been there for centuries.

The building itself is incredible - especially since it's been there for so long and had so many different uses - and the history is pretty neat. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas (the official "keepers of the Alamo") have done an amazing job, I think, of telling the history.

From there, we headed back over to the Riverwalk, which was much quieter and much less crowded than at dinnertime the night before! Jason and I just laughed as we listened to Michaela go "ooooo" and screech every time she saw her favorite things - the boats, the flowers, and the ducks!!

Right around noon that day, we loaded everything up, blocking traffic again (since trailers are never meant to be driven around a city!!), and headed out toward Houston. At this point, the A/C sort of worked in the truck, and we were rolling along just fine. Of course, that all ended when we got just outside of Columbus, TX. After that, we don't like to talk about the truck.

So we ended up with about a day and a half extra time in Houston, which turned out to be a good thing because we got to spend some extra time with Kim and Brent - and go to Ikea. I'm in love with Ikea. I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm just ashamed of how many long weekends I now want to spend in Houston. Good thing we've got friends there - and they like Ikea, too!!

We finally left Houston around dinnertime on Friday night, and had a fabulous sweaty drive to Lafayette, LA, where we stayed for about 7.5 hours. Since we were without working A/C at that point, we decided to leave bright and early Saturday morning to try to get as close to Mobile as we could before the heat really kicked in. That almost worked! (By the way, the truck is currently at the Dodge dealership here, with the A/C getting fixed!!!)

Since we've been here, we've been busy shopping for furniture (we sold our bedroom set before we moved, and need a kitchen table since we now have an eat-in kitchen and a dining room), chasing the baby around the house now that she just wants to walk/run everywhere, and watching the pool company struggle with the super-hard clay that is the ground in our backyard. We still don't have our household goods, though we're expecting delivery of those on Monday (YAY!), but I do at least have my car now (which has working A/C). We bought furniture yesterday, which will arrive on Wednesday, and the pool will hopefully be done sometime this decade. We feel terrible for the guys working on it - it's been Africa-hot and the clay has been kicking their butts! It even broke the back-hoe!

Michaela's been entertained, though, between the empty cabinets in the built-ins and the heavy equipment in the backyard, so at least we have that going for us!

(Yes, I know there's an electrical outlet back there with no safety things in it. I don't leave her alone to play in there!!)

We had hopes that we'd be swimming in the pool by tomorrow, but since we still have giant mounds of red clay dirt in the backyard and they haven't even been able to finish getting the walls up yet (hole dug and walls up usually happens on day 1...we're on day 4 - and, yes, they're here working today!), we're looking at more like next weekend at this point. That's fine, though, because we have painting to do and closet organizer systems to design and install! YAY for a new house!!

And now I need to go because the baby is napping and I think that means I might be able to try to get to the store ALONE to do some clothes shopping!

Home, Sweet Home

2010-08-01T07:06:00.002-08:00

Well, we made it.

We finally rolled into town at about 11 yesterday morning after a 2-day delay in Houston, $2400 and a disabled air conditioning system in the truck. Which would explain why we got here at 11 in the morning... we left at 5:30 (AM!!!) from Lafayette, LA, to try to get as far as possible before the worst part of the heat of the day.

So when we first rolled into the random garage in Columbus, TX, the other day when the truck started making awesome grinding noises and the brake alarms were going off, Jason was pretty sure it was the wheel bearings. But the motorheads, who seemed to have just decided on a whim to start a shop because they liked cars, saw that the seals were bad on the CV joints so they just assumed that was the problem. It wasn't. It was the wheel bearings.

We didn't realize that was the case until after we pulled out of Columbus to head back to Kim's house in Houston. About 5 minutes down the road, Jason figured out that it was still the wheel bearings. So we limped to the Dodge dealership in Houston, spent another night with Kim and Brent, and finally got the truck back at about 4pm the next afternoon. We hit the road as soon as we could to try to make it at least a little ways down the road that night. Come to find out, the 7 hours that TripTik told us it would take was actually more like 10... so it was good that we got started when we did.

Anyway, we still don't have internet at our house, so I'm being rude by being on the computer at our friends' house. I just wanted to update real quick and let everyone know we made it here. Oh, and to answer the question it seems everyone is asking... yes, we still like the house! In fact, we love it! Now if only we had STUFF to put in it!

Hopefully we'll get internet (and all the rest of the services you usually have at your house) set up sooner than later and I can share the details of the last few days of the trip. For now, it's good enough that we're here!!

Texas, Day 3

2010-07-28T21:18:00.002-08:00

Short post tonight...

We're in Houston, TX. The truck, however, is in Columbus, TX. In case you didn't want to do the google maps on that, I'll tell you they're roughly 50 miles apart.

That's right... another breakdown. This time it appears as though the CV joint seals are shot and we've been leaking axle fluid. That would explain the awesome grinding noise we were hearing this afternoon!

Fortunately, we seem to have found a good shop in Columbus (completely randomly... AAA failed us with NO recommended shops) and they're planning to have it done as soon as the parts get to them in the morning. Ironically enough, the parts were coming from Houston, and so did our ride.

So our friends Kim and Brent brought both their vehicles (which included a truck that could tow the trailer) over to Columbus to get us, and Kim will take us back over there tomorrow when it's done.

The good news is that it could be worse. The bad news is we definitely won't be making it to Mobile tomorrow. We're going to wait to see what time it's done and then decide whether we'll take off tomorrow or just wait til Friday. Yep, the hits just keep on coming!!

So that's our update for today. Hopefully I'll have good news tomorrow!!

Texas, Day 2

2010-07-27T19:40:00.004-08:00

We've been in Texas for two days now and we're not done yet. It's definitely bigger than Montana. In Montana's defense (you know, holding onto the title of longest drive through a state), though, we planned three days in Texas. It just took forever to drive through part of Montana.

We're in San Antonio, enjoying a very nice hotel room right on the Riverwalk. The thing that kills me about it is that it's about half as much as the place we stayed in Grand Canyon, but it's about a bazillion times better. Add to that the fact that my margarita cost more than my giant plate of Mexican food at dinner tonight (and only because I ordered the good Tequila) and Texas is now the cheapest place I've ever been. I like that!

What else have we learned about Texas? It's hot. Really hot. And when it rains, it doesn't mess around. We got caught in a thunderstorm at lunchtime in Abilene today... in mere minutes there were rivers running in the streets. It was crazy! But it was over in about a half hour and we were able to open the windows of the truck where we were hunkered down to eat our Chick-fil-A (just had to throw that in there for Abbie!). Here's the rain... sorry about the blur - it's the rain on the car window. I was NOT opening it!

In wildlife sightings today, we had llamas and goats. Ok, they weren't wild, but we saw 'em!

Tomorrow we're going to spend some time on the Riverwalk and go to the Alamo. We'll head over to Houston tomorrow to spend the night with one of Jason's oldest friends and her husband. We're looking forward to seeing them (and having a very short 3-hrs in the car!). From there, we head to Mobile on Thursday - we have a LONG driving day ahead of us that day, but it'll be worth it to pull into our own driveway that night!

Somehow it turned 11pm already, so I'm going to keep this short. I'll just share the view from our balcony tonight. Not bad, huh?

Oh, and one more thing.... I said last night that we had 3 more nights in hotels. I was wrong. As of last night we only had two more nights in hotels. Now we're down to just tonight! YAY!!!!!

Hmmmm

2010-07-26T19:01:00.002-08:00

I have nothing to say about today. Seriously.

Michaela woke us up at about 5 this morning and wouldn't go back to sleep. It was so nice of her to help us reset to another new time zone like that!

We drove from Albuquerque, NM to Lubbock, TX today. We saw a lot of very flat land, some cows and a lot of straight road. That was about it. Oh, and I apparently snored in the car (yay for not having to drive at all!!!).

We have another long day of driving tomorrow - right around 415 miles - to get to San Antonio. I'm excited to stay right on the Riverwalk, though, and we should get the chance to enjoy it a bit the day after tomorrow before we head to a friend's house in Houston.

We're down to only 3 days of driving and 3 nights in hotels!! I can't WAIT to unpack this stupid suitcase!

Oh, and that time zone shift - it's our last one! We're officially in central time... our time zone for the next 4 years!

Some more eye candy and something for the grandparents

2010-07-25T19:24:00.010-08:00

I think I'll just let the pictures from the Grand Canyon speak for themselves. I wish they even came close to conveying the majesty of the canyon. I don't know how professionals do what they do, but I know my pictures fall a little short. But they might give you a small idea of how amazing it is!

The first four pictures are from the early afternoon. The light is flat that time of day, and it was a bit hazy, so it ends up looking like there's some rock in the foreground with a very nice painted background. I assure you, it even looked like that in person! Jason and I just kept saying it looked like a Hollywood set.

These next five pictures were taken from about 45 minutes before sunset until just around sunset (right up until the battery in my camera died. Nice planning, huh?). The light was so completely different that it was like a whole different place...even though we went right back to the same place we'd been earlier in the day. We almost didn't go back because of having to worry about the baby's bed time and stuff.... I'm SO glad we went anyway. Of course, that may or may not have had anything to do with her being up at 2:20, 4:10, 5 and then 6 this morning, but whatever... still worth it!

We left the Grand Canyon bright and early this morning, on our way here to Albuquerque, NM. We had a lot of miles to cover, but we made time for a little side stop in Arizona.... Winslow to be exact. Now, go ahead, I dare you to not sing the song....

So we're now in Albuquerque overnight and we'll head out for Lubbock, TX tomorrow. Only 3 more nights on the road... we'll spend Thursday night in our own house in Mobile!!!!

Finally, onto the stuff for the grandparents. First, I caught this picture of Michaela while we were sweating it out walking the Rim Trail at the Grand Canyon. Somehow I managed to get her to actually look at the camera.... a rare occurrence. The only person she'll pose for usually is Amy of Simply b Photos. Maybe she's taking pity on me since she knows Amy can't take her picture anymore since we moved!

And a little bit of action. Someone seems to have decided that crawling may not be the best mode of transportation anymore. She's gone from a few tentative steps between or to us, to choosing to walk between points on her own. Guess I'll be keeping some things in boxes when we get to the new house!

Eye candy back track

2010-07-24T20:13:00.010-08:00

Pictures from the Grand Canyon today are going to have to wait. My camera battery died shortly before sunset tonight (thankfully I was able to get some shooting time in before it happened), so it's charging and I can't connect it to the computer. In the meantime, we'll back track to yesterday since it's early enough for me to wait the bazillion hours it's probably going to take to get pics to upload to blogger!

Enjoy!

The first 7 shots are from various look-out points around the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater. The last two are from Red Canyon, which you drive through on your way out to Bryce.

I'll get Grand Canyon shots up tomorrow if all goes well. We have a looooong driving day from here to Albuquerque, so I probably won't have much to share about the drive. Meanwhile, the Grand Canyon was definitely worth all the extra time we're spending in the car. It was truly amazing and I don't think any pictures will do it justice. If you ever get the chance to visit this treasure, take it!!

Sneak peak

2010-07-23T20:48:00.002-08:00

Our internet connection here outside the Grand Canyon is a little less than wonderful. It just took me forEVER to even log in, let alone try to upload pictures. So the best I can do is a sneak peak for now.

We left Richfield nice and early this morning, anticipating a looong day. It was worth it, though, since a couple hours of our trip were taken up by a stop at Bryce Canyon National Park.

Wow.

It was amazing! Totally worth not getting here until about 12 hours after we started this morning, the sunburn I got on my arms and chest, and even the cranky baby!

I'm going to keep this short since our connection IS so slow. I'll just say that Bryce was incredible. The drive here was amazing and the gasp I let out when I got my first view of the Grand Canyon scared the poop out of the baby (yep, uncontrollable, inconsolable screaming ensued...oops!). Somehow I'll manage to figure out which pictures I want to share over the next couple days and maybe find a better wi-fi connection so I can actually upload them.

We're happy to be set up at the Grand Hotel just outside the south entrance to Grand Canyon National Park... and even happier to be here for two nights in a row! What we're not happy about is Arizona deciding they're too good for daylight savings time. Thanks, Arizona, we didn't REALLY want to stay in the same time zone for so many days in a row anyway!

So here's that sneak peak from Bryce. I picked this one because it showed some of the really cool formations. More to come as soon as I can! Plus, Grand Canyon!!!

Nothing!

2010-07-22T19:50:00.003-08:00

I told you to expect nothing today and I wasn't kidding.

We were on the road by 8:30 this morning and rolled into Richfield, UT, at about 4:30 this afternoon. It was a long, hot day of driving, but nice to be here before dinner. We got the chance to do laundry, dig out some more warm(hot) weather clothes, and relax a lot instead of running around and going to bed way too late.

The highlight of the day today was that we saw the temperature hit 99 degrees on the thermometer in the truck. And we tried to cook Fred by leaving him in the car (windows down quite a bit) while we grabbed a quick lunch. Looks like we'll be doing drive thru's or take-out at lunch time from now on!

So that's it for today. Tomorrow we're planning a side trip to Bryce Canyon on our way down to the Grand Canyon. As far as we can tell, there are no size restrictions on vehicles there, so we should be able to drive into a few of the viewing areas. We're going to stick to driving, though, since dogs aren't allowed on the trails at all. So hopefully, I'll have some good pictures tomorrow! It's going to be a long day, though, so I can't promise an update tomorrow night... it might have to wait til the next day. We're looking forward to getting the chance to sleep in a bit on Saturday before heading out to the Grand Canyon. It'll be nice to spend two nights in the same hotel, too!!

Sorry this is so boring tonight... but I warned you!!!

Montana is big.

2010-07-21T21:16:00.006-08:00

That is what I learned today... Montana is big. We were in the car for just about 9 hours today (9am-6pm) and most of that was spent in Montana. I read a book, I took a couple naps, we stopped for lunch, we stopped at a Safeway to just get out of the car for a few minutes (and get coffee), and yet, we were still in Montana. Only the last hour and a half or so of the drive was in Idaho, which is where we're spending the night tonight.

So, yeah, Montana is big.

At least most of the drive was pretty - rolling hills, some mountainous kind of terrain, streams, and lots of livestock, farms and ranches. But stretches looked like this

and that was boring (I think that's in Idaho, for the record).

But then we got to Idaho Falls... we weren't sure what to expect and we were very pleasantly surprised! We went to a Brew Pub for dinner and split a sampler of 6 of their beers, and then we took a really nice walk tonight along the Snake River. Who knew Idaho Falls was so nice! This marks two unexpected gems in the two cross-country moves... here and Missoula, MT (we also liked Kalispell last night, but it wasn't as great as Missoula to us).

I grabbed my camera for a our walk and snapped a couple shots of the Falls, some with the Mormon Temple in the background. Seeing the Temple made me think of my friends Lisa and Amy! (Hi guys!!)

The other thing we learned today is that it's summer in the non-Alaska world. YIKES. It was 84 degrees out at 8-ish tonight when we were coming back from dinner. This Alaska girl was NOT ready for that. Should be interesting to see how we do as we head further south over the next couple days.

So that's pretty boring stuff for today. But with 9 hours in the car, there's not much to talk about. Oh, another thing I learned is that I no longer get car sick when I try to read in a moving vehicle. I finished a book over the past two days ("A Thousand Splendid Suns"), the first one I've read beginning to end since the baby was born. That was pretty exciting (and the book was fantastic!)! Gotta remember to pull out another one for tomorrow.... 370 miles for us to Richfield, UT. TripTik is telling us 5hrs, 22 mins... we'll see!

Expect nothing tomorrow - driving all day and a stop in the middle of no where tomorrow night!

Are you serious? (or, why this trip isn't fun yet)

2010-07-20T20:09:00.008-08:00

The last two days have not been the best. In fact, by the time the second crappy thing happened, I was wondering what the most direct route would be from Kalispell to Mobile so that we could just get it over with. But then I figured missing out on the Grand Canyon would sort of be like cutting off our noses to spite our faces, so we should probably keep going. But the thought is still in the back of my mind.

I'll start with yesterday. This is why we were happy to make it out of Jasper....

Yeah. That's the truck being towed. Definitely not the best start to the day. As I mentioned the other day, we had a bit of an issue with the transmission as we were getting ready to leave Dawson Creek. It was slipping and we even stalled a couple times. We thought everything was ok, though, since we made the trip to Jasper mostly uneventfully. But then, when we went to pull away from the hotel, the same thing happened. Jason managed to get us going and down the street to a service station, where he parked on the main street and went to see if they could take a look at it. As luck would have it, they had no openings until the afternoon (it was about 10am at that point), so we braved the international cell phone rates and called AAA. They pointed us to a different place, so Jason left me with the sleeping baby (of course she was sleeping then!) and walked over to the other garage. They said they'd take a quick look if we could get the truck over there right away. Well, when he got back, we got to make another call to AAA... this time to set up a tow.

Initially, there was talk of possibly needing a new transmission, which would've meant THOUSANDS of dollars and MANY extra nights in Jasper (at least 10, come to find out) at $250-ish/night for the cheapest nice-ish, dog-friendly hotel. But instead of that, it was 6 hours, just over $350 and a little bit of worry. Come to find out, the guys we had do the service on the truck in Kodiak (to get it ready for the trip) didn't know what they were doing when it came to installing the transmission filters. So instead of actually pounding them in with a tool made specifically for that, they just banged on 'em a little with their fists. 2500 miles of ALCAN later, and they'd unseated enough to no longer get any pressure and thus no fluid and thus no transmission. So, you can see we were VERY thankful for more than a couple things - first, that we made it out of the most remote places of Alaska and the Yukon with a working vehicle, second that we didn't try to make it through the winding, remote Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff, and third that it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been and we were able to keep our schedule and not spend a fortune!

Once we got on the road, the views were spectacular... starting with this girl crossing the road right in front of us!

We were treated to a bit of sun every once in a while, though not as much as we would've liked. The baby mostly cooperated and we had a good afternoon/early evening. Thank goodness my little Alaska girl likes the cold temperatures and a ride in her Kelty backpack!!

I had to take this shot because I wanted to show what it looks like as you're driving down the road on the Icefields Pkwy. I didn't even have to stop and get out to take pictures... I took most of them from the truck!

How incredible is that!?!?

And here's the same mountain as the one above with the rainbow, just with a little more sun on it.

Just outside Banff is Lake Louise - which is apparently one of the most photographed places in the world. Unfortunately, we were there late-ish in the day and it was really overcast, so my pictures are not good. But I did have fun taking some pics of my girl!

Inspecting her first flower - a buttercup I picked for her, and which she quickly discarded. Fred took a turn at it, but he also spit it out. No love.

And here's Daddy and his girl! Like the goatee he's sporting? I love how it only takes about 12 shots to get one good one, too... thank goodness for digital. Wanna see an out-take?

So after all that yesterday, the only highlight of today was that we made it back to the US.

We intended to drive the Going to the Sun Highway through Glacier National Park. Intended is the operative word in that sentence. We did our homework this year, we thought, on getting through the road, thanks to being turned away the last time we rolled through. Yeah, it would've been nice if we'd paid attention to the vehicle size restrictions and not just the snow removal. Come to find out, you can't take that road if your vehicle is longer than 21 feet. Yeah, we're longer than that with the trailer.

Things got a little ugly for a bit after we were given the rules by the world's most unfriendly park ranger, and we were forced to drive around - AGAIN. Come to find out, it was probably better that way since the trip through was taking 2-3 times longer than the trip around, but we weren't very happy to be turned away at the gate. Again. (Did I mention that's happened to us before?)

So we're in Kalispell, MT, tired, a little road-weary, and facing our longest day of the trip tomorrow - 420 miles from here to Idaho Falls. We're praying Michaela handles it as well as she's been doing the last few days and that we get there in uneventful style. I think I'll take a quick look at the map tonight to see what that direct route might be, just in case.....

Quick check in

2010-07-19T21:28:00.002-08:00

It's 11:30 pm and we're just finally getting ourselves installed in tonight's hotel room (another nice one, this time in Canmore, Alberta, just down the road from Banff). We expected to be here HOURS ago (literally), but got off to a rough start this morning.

I'll save the details for tomorrow when I have a little more time and I'm not as tired with an early morning facing me. Suffice it to say, it was almost a REALLY bad PCS and we're thankful to have been able to get out of Jasper and get here tonight. Sadly, we didn't get to spend the time in Banff that we really wanted to, but we'll probably get over it eventually.

Meanwhile, in the wildlife count, we added a TON of elk to the count today... too many to actually count, in fact. But the best one was the one that crossed the road literally right in front of us when we were finally heading out of Jasper. And all she wanted was the little clump of flowery-weeds on the other side of the road.

The views were spectacular, but I'm not 100% sure any of them translated well to a camera... the weather was pretty overcast and not great, so we'll have to see on that. Again, it's too late to get to that tonight!

Tomorrow we head out of here bright and early for our last Canadian leg. We'll spend tomorrow night back in the Lower 48!!! Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I'll get some good shots as we drive the Going to the Sun Road through Glacier National Park... we're definitely looking forward to it!

That's all for tonight. I promise I'll share the stories of our Jasper delay tomorrow!

Starting to lose track of the wildlife!

2010-07-18T20:07:00.007-08:00

Official wildlife count:

6 moose

1 black bear

1 brown bear

1 herd of bison

4 deer

1 bunch of goats

1 fox

1 elk

and a partridge in a pear tree

Today was almost disappointing in the wildlife hunt... especially since we both had pretty high hopes. We started the day off seeing a lone fox trotting (HA!) alongside the road before we'd even really gotten away from Dawson Creek too far. After that, it was a drought until early afternoon when we finally saw another moose. This one was a little too quick for the camera (or maybe we were the ones going to fast to stop...), so no pics of it, but it was a pretty big one, with antlers that were just starting to come in.

From there, it wasn't until we got into the confines of Jasper National Park that we really saw some eye candy. First it was a big herd of goats alongside the road. And then, as we rounded a corner, we saw all kinds of cars lined up along the side of the road. I was amazed to see the most beautiful (and big!) elk imaginable! And I was more amazed that he just calmly went about grazing while tens of people stood around taking his picture, myself included. I even got a little brave and ventured closer than may have been wise... but I figured at least one other person there had to be slower than me, and that as long as he didn't choose me in particular to charge at, I was fine. Anyway, here he is:

For the record, I'm pretty sure I was zoomed out all the way in that first shot... to 75mm anyway. Yep, kinda close. In the second one, I'm only at 110mm, so still pretty close there, too! He really didn't care at all!

We didn't stop for the herd of goats, but I did snap a quick (not so great) picture of this guy as we made the turn into town. It was like he was saying, "Welcome!" (and that's from the car, so it's not great at all!)

And as if the wildlife weren't a cool enough welcome, the stunning views of the mountains drew us right in. Hopefully these are a sneak preview of what's to come tomorrow (as long as the weather clears - it's not so nice right now!!).

Backtracking just a smidge, the other thing we saw today was canola. A lot of canola. Did anyone else know what the plants that turn into canola oil look like? No? Me neither. For the record, they're low-growing plants with bright yellow flowers. And they grow a LOT of it up here. (Again, taken from the car... I can't be held responsible for the quality.)

That was our view for a good part of the day today. And I have a sneaking suspicion these little flowers - or their cousins - also have something to do with my dry, itchy eyes and my stuffy nose. Seems being in the land of more trees/plants than pine trees has brought my allergies roaring back to life. Yay.

Finally, in not so great news, we left from Dawson Creek this morning after a little issue with the transmission (on a Sunday, of course). Jason is hoping it's a low-fluid problem and nothing more, but we definitely had a moment of panic when he tried to pull into an intersection and nothing happened. We then stalled twice today. Totally not cool. Of course, we had everything looked at right before we left Kodiak, just to be sure we'd be ready for the trip, and then this happens! So say a few prayers that, if there IS a bigger problem than low-fluid, it decides to not manifest itself until we're somewhere south of Glacier National Park mid-week. We have no idea what we'd do if anything really bad happened up here.

Oh, and for anyone keeping track, we hid between the beds again tonight, but for no reason! At 8:30-ish, after I nursed her, Jason put the baby down and she just grabbed her blanket, rolled over, and went to sleep! That probably has something to do with the fact that she was up at 2:30 and 6 to eat this morning and didn't get much of a morning nap, but we'll take it!

Off to Banff, via Lake Louise, in the morning, and totally looking forward to it! If all goes well, stunning views to share tomorrow!!

We're all zeroes!

2010-07-17T20:48:00.004-08:00

Well, we're not zeroes, but we're at Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway!!

Tonight we're in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, the start of the Alaska Highway. And we can officially say that we drove the whoooooole thing, all the way from Fairbanks even! Technically, it starts at Delta Junction now, but at one point it started in Fairbanks, so we'll go with that.

I think we're also up over 2000 miles already driven, though I don't know if taking detours to different places around Alaska earns the same points as if you just HAVE to drive all those miles. Whatever way it works, we've been in the car a lot. A.LOT.

We seem to have settled into a bit of a groove and things have gotten much better since the horrific Denali to Tok day. It's also helpful that we haven't tried to cover so many miles at once since then - and we hooked up the DVD player (insert mommy guilt for putting a 1 year old in front of a TV for a couple hours a day). Tomorrow could be a long-ish day, especially since we lose another hour as we move into the Mountain time zone, so we're planning to hit the road at 8am! YIKES!!! Which means I should probably keep this short and sweet tonight so I can get some things packed up and get ready for bed!

We had a pretty short day today which was nice because we got into Dawson Creek early enough to check out the Alaska Highway House - a small little museum about the construction of the Alaska Highway (aka the ALCAN). Since we'd just driven the whole thing, we figured it was only right to go check it out.

This is a map of the highway they had up on the wall there. So in case anyone wondered, that was our route!

We were also able to get dinner at a decent time (meaning prior to baby melt down) and we went out for a nice walk in the 70+ degree temps! (Fred was dying!) Oh, and we also hit Walmart across from the hotel to pick up a few necessities. I promised I'd never step foot in another one again once I left Kodiak, but there's no Target here!!

All that fun once we got here meant we only had to hide next to the bed for about 6 minutes tonight while the baby cried...fresh air makes her tired!!! Tomorrow night will probably be terrible since she'll think it's an hour earlier when we try to put her down. Thankfully, the day after tomorrow is a very short driving day so we'll get her tired out in Banff and reset her clock again!

So that's about it from here for tonight. Nothing too exciting to report. The only wildlife we saw today were a couple of deer. Oh, and smashed bugs. LOTS of smashed bugs... on the windshield, stuck in the wipers, wrapped around the antenna... good stuff!

For the official record, we're up to 5 moose, 1 black bear, 1 brown bear, 2 deer and a herd of bison. Not bad!

Tomorrow we're off to the Canadian Rockies - Jasper for the night and then through the mountains to Banff the next night! Hopefully I'll get the chance to take lots of pictures to share... it was gorgeous when we were there the last time!!

Good night from Mile 0!!

Birthday on the road!

2010-07-16T20:50:00.006-08:00

One day, Michaela's going to have a great story to tell about her first birthday. Of course, she won't actually remember it, but she'll hear about how she sat in a car for 9 hours, minus a few brief stops, between Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, and Ft. Nelson, British Columbia.

Even more exciting, though, she can tell people that she went swimming for the first time on her first birthday and that it wasn't just anywhere... it was at the Liard Hot Springs! She wasn't too sure at first, but got used to it and even tried to jump out of Jason's arms and go solo!

On the walk back through the woods to the car, there was a squirrel sighting. That was definitely worth a stop to squeal and watch the squirrel run!!

Besides squirrels, today was also a good day for big wild life sightings! In addition to quite a few buffalo (which Jason made me take a picture of, but which I'm not posting because we've seen buffalo, a LOT), we saw a black bear first thing this morning and then a MOOSE this afternoon! I was so excited to get pics of the moose that I did a little squealing and almost woke up the baby who napped through the whole thing. Ooops! But, I think I'm the only person I know who managed to just about leave the state of AK without seeing a moose (we saw a few the other day, but no pics). And I just wanted to see a moose, dangit!

Here's the black bear. He paid zero attention to the fact that we were there. I stayed in the truck for this one, and only had to use my 300mm lens. He was more concerned about the cars coming up behind us than us... and the grass he was eating. And he was BIG. You can't tell from this, but he was definitely large for a black bear!

And the moose!!! So worth the wait on the pictures! The other 4 we've seen were either juvenile, female or just didn't have a rack. That and they spooked easily and ran away as soon as the truck came along side. This guy just stood there and contemplated me and the other guy taking pictures. I did get a few closer shots, but this one is my favorite. I busted out the 500mm for this, and braved the outside world (ie, left the truck), hoping he wouldn't decide to get mad at me!

And finally, we weren't able to go all out to celebrate our girl today since we're a little busy, but we did put her birthday bib on her at dinner tonight and she also got a small piece of cake for dessert. Jason and I had a small toast to surviving our first year of parenthood as Michaela slowly started to melt down because she was hungry and needed dinner! After we got back from dinner, we laughed at the ridiculousness that was the two of us ducked down between the beds in the hotel room so Michaela couldn't see us from her crib, all so she'd go to sleep. Ah, parenthood!

Happy First Birthday to our sweet girl! Lady-lou, we love you so much and can't imagine this world without you. We CAN imagine a cross-country PCS without the added work of dealing with your needs and wants, but we wouldn't have traded the last year in for anything!! You make life.... more. We love you!

Days 3, 4 and 5

2010-07-15T19:48:00.009-08:00

I thought I would only be a day or two behind at the most. I was wrong. Hopefully after today, when I'm caught up, I'll stay that way.

Let's start with Day 3.... Denali to Tok, via Fairbanks and North Pole. There's not much good I can say about the day, but I'll keep the whining to a minimum. Let's just say a late start + not hooking up the DVD player for the kid + mom not eating anything all day = bad night.

We got moving at a decent time and decided to go to the Visitor's Center at Denali and then drive in as far as you're allowed in a private vehicle. That was a total waste of time, come to find out. The weather wasn't great, so the scenery wasn't anything to write home about, and we essentially used a precious hour of nap time just driving in and out of the park, rather than heading up the road! Lesson learned on that one! From Denali, we headed toward Fairbanks, which I sort of wanted to check out. But by then, it was late in the day already, we had a lot of driving ahead of us, and we decided to truck on through. So much for seeing Fairbanks!!

The day wasn't a total loss, though... we DID get to go to North Pole. To say the town has made an industry out of Santa would be a total understatement. EVERYTHING is Christmas there... Here, I'll show you.

Yep, Santa Claus Lane. What's not to love about that?

Light poles? Candy canes! The pole for the McDonald's sign was even candy-cane striped. I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of that from the car, though.

Where the fun is - Santa Claus House! More Christmas ornaments, decorations, trees, etc., than you could imagine! And, of course, the big guy himself.

World's Tallest Santa. Look closely...we're there!

I think we might use this last one as our Christmas card this year. We fully intended to have Michaela sit on Santa's lap, but we seem to be in a bit of a "stranger danger" phase with her, so we went with the family picture instead! And that's totally not going to be our Christmas card picture. I don't do Christmas card pictures....

We didn't hang around North Pole long. We were on the hunt for some great ice cream, courtesy of a tip from our friend Amy, who used to live in North Pole. So we headed south the the Knotty Shop to check out their Alaskan made gifts and get some ice cream. It WAS good and a welcome stop. Definitely a kitchey tourist place, but we at least got out of the car for a bit! From there, we had the final (loooooong) push to Tok, where we expected to arrive by 5 originally, and didn't get in til 9-ish. Nothing good happened there except that the cabins we stayed in were great. Super cute, a good price and the owners were really nice. If you're ever staying in Tok, check out Caribou Cabins!

We did a MUCH better job of getting out of Tok at a reasonable time than we did leaving Denali yesterday morning, which was good because we had a long day of driving. I have absolutely nothing of value to tell you about the drive from Tok to Whitehorse because it rained most of the time, we sat in the car a lot, and mostly we tried not to get motion sick from all the frost heaves. It was definitely a BUMPY ride. And, Dad, all the tetris-style packing in the world was NOT going to keep things from moving around in those heaves. We had a bit of rearranging to do in Whitehorse. (And by "we" I mean "Jason.")

Although she slept well in the car yesterday, Michaela ended up slightly restless last night and we definitely did not all enjoy any sleep. Jason was able to get some, which was good since he's the driver, but I fought with the baby for over an hour at 2:15 this morning to try to get her back to sleep, even after being up til past 10 last night. She then woke up for the day at about 5:15. We tried SO hard to get her to go back down, but gave up at about 6 and decided we might as well get moving instead.

This is total blackmail. That's Michaela at 6:45 this morning, playing with the dog collar. That was after she started dancing at 5:30, crawled all around the room at 6:15 and tried diligently to get to the toilet at 6:30. She crashed at about 7:30 and slept until about 8:30 when we loaded everything up and headed out to find breakfast and hit the road.

Thankfully, today brought nicer weather and a shorter drive from Whitehorse to the Nugget City cabins outside Watson Lake, so we were able to stop for a bit at a scenic park in Teslin and stretch our legs for a while. What was going to be a half hour stop turned into just over an hour once we got gas, but it was totally worth it. Michaela finally figured out grass isn't that bad and was crawling all over the place. Yay for burning off energy!!! Of course, we still fought to get her down for bed tonight and I'm dreading a 2am wake-up again (Jason already warned the neighbors!), but it was a much more relaxed day than we'd had so far!

Here's Michaela enjoying the view, and the chance to sport her cool shades. Meanwhile, it only took forEVER to get her to look anywhere NEAR the camera. Amy took our pictures again last week and she hammed it up... I grab my camera and she does her best to look away. Turd.

And here's that view. I had fun playing with my fish eye lens!

Tomorrow we head out from here to get to Ft. Nelson, BC. Jason's looking at the Milepost right now to see how long it looks like the drive will be. We both remember it being a short-ish day on the way up, so hopefully we'll get the chance to stop a couple times again tomorrow for some energy burning for the baby (and the dog), and we won't have the 20 minute scream-fest we got tonight for bed time! We shall see!!

We'll also have to figure out a way to celebrate Michaela's birthday tomorrow! I can't believe a year has gone by already, but our little girl will (really) be turning one in about 24 hours! We'll come up with some fun way to commemorate it, I'm sure! And hopefully I'll get to the blog again tomorrow night so we can share it with you!

That's all from Nugget City! I'm off to do a couple things and get to bed! Sleeping in the car today didn't really catch me up after last night and I think Jason would appreciate it if I got some sleep. 'Night!

Cross Country – take 2

2010-07-13T23:12:00.007-08:00

It’s hard to believe it’s been three years since we first started this blog as a way to keep everyone up to date on our cross-country trip and our time living in Kodiak.

That time in Kodiak is up, and we’ve officially begun our trip back to the east and south. I need to back track, probably, and talk about our last week in Kodiak, but that’s going to have to wait.

For today (I’m actually drafting this the night before I plan to post it, so I apologize if any of my references to time sound weird. The hotel only has wi-fi in the common areas, so I have to work around that), I’ll stick with the first two days of our trip.

Day 1 was the ferry, and it either started REALLY late, or REALLY early, depending on how you want to look at it. Our 11:30pm ferry departure was delayed due to the weather the day before, so we didn’t actually leave Kodiak until about 2am on the 11^th instead of the night of the 10^th. Thankfully, the weather had rolled completely through, and we had a super calm – and fast – crossing over to Homer. Michaela even slept in a bit (after being up until around 11 the night before) the next morning, and then we took some time to grab breakfast, wander around a bit, and then get packed up and ready to head back to the truck. Fred seemed a lot less flipped out about his time on the ferry this time around. He HATED it three years ago, but I guess the years have mellowed him a bit!

Michaela enjoyed playing with a coffee straw and hanging out on the bottom bunk while I got things packed up before we disembarked. Yes, she tried to climb off the bed. Of course.

Keeping up the trend of pictures of me and Michaela together, this was during our walk around the ferry. I don’t know if she was quite sure what to think of the whole thing.

Did I mention our crossing was pretty fast? They were trying to make up some time (which they did), which meant it was a smidge windy out on deck. And, no, my daughter is not wearing a coat. And, yes, it was chilly. We didn’t stay out there long!

After a quick stop just outside the ferry terminal to let Fred out and get him some breakfast, we hopped back in the truck and headed to Seward. Our friends Brad and Christina moved to Seward earlier this summer when Brad took command of his own cutter over there. So we took advantage of the road-trip situation to get in one last visit. Unfortunately, Brad is in CT for some training, so we didn’t get to see him, but we thoroughly enjoyed some time with Christina. We did a whirlwind tour of the SeaLife Center, getting there just an hour before they closed, and then she gave us a quick driving tour of Seward – quick being the operative word. I didn’t realize how tiny it is!! From there, it was back to the house for some real food (instead of all the restaurant food we’d been eating!), and then chaos that is the Dorval family on the road! She might not ever invite us all back again!!

Michaela had no problem reaching into the cold waters of the touch tank at the SeaLife Center and touching a sea star! That’s my girl!!

Who can resist a puffin!?

And here we are with Resurrection Bay in the background. There was no getting the baby to cooperate.

After a late night chatting with Christina, it was a little tough to get going in the morning, but we finally made it out of her house only an hour late. After a couple stops in Anchorage (Red Robin for lunch!!!!!), a lost Bear (Michaela’s lovey… thank goodness for spares), and a LONG time in the truck, we finally made it into Denali State Park and were SUPER excited to get a view of Denali herself. Apparently, the mountain is only visible about 20% of the time thanks to the cloud cover that usually swirls around her, so we are counting ourselves EXTREMELY lucky to have caught glimpses of her for miles as we drove north along the Parks Highway.

Denali isn’t the only draw along the Parks Highway, though. The whole Alaska Range is just incredible and we were in awe of the scenery along the way. Here are just a couple examples of how incredible… and these were just pictures I snapped while we were driving!

So now we’re in the first hotel of the trip, the Denali Princess Lodge (a compound, really, not a hotel), and we’ll get up and get out of here at a decent time tomorrow (theoretically) so we can head into Denali National Park for a bit, and then head toward Tok by way of Fairbanks and North Pole. I don’t want to give too much away, but there very well could be Santa pictures – from the North Pole!

Stay tuned!!

(Note: We're going to be a day behind. There was no way I was getting this updated tonight after the day we had today. I'm just finally posting this stuff about Days 1 and 2 at 11:30pm on Day 3. I'll try to catch up when I can!)

She's ONE!

2010-07-05T21:31:00.011-08:00

Well, not really. She won't be one for another 11 days. But she's going to turn one in the armpit of the world, Watson Lake, so we figured we'd celebrate here in Kodiak where people know her and we could have a chance to have one last get-together with our friends.

Using the trusty internet to procure all the rubber ducky themed things you could imagine, I started making preparations for the party about 3 or 4 weeks ago. I finished yesterday, finally, since things like having our entire life packed into boxes got in the way. Rubber ducks, by the way, were the theme because the girl is truly fascinated by them. If she's having a melt down or just needs a toy, the rubber duck (or, one of the bazillion she has) never fails us.

Taking advantage of the federal holiday status and another day off from work, we loaded up lots of stuff into the car and truck and toted it out toward the base to the rented space we had to use (figured the guy who loaned us his house might not appreciate us having a party in it). From here, I'll just use pictures:

All dressed up - Ducky onesie: check! Yellow tutu: check! Headband complete with feathers: check! And small-pink-rubber-duck-turned-choking-hazard: check!

No, that's not a birthday present... that's her own push toy, but we had to keep her occupied!

Fluffy butt! Couldn't resist!

The cakes! The big one was a full-on, yummy carrot cake with regular (cream cheese) frosting. The smash cake was also carrot, but with a hollowed out center filled with whipped cream. And the frosting was only whipped cream... in an effort to decrease the likelihood of sugar shock!

Close up of the cake... aren't the bubbles cute? Plus we added two more ducks to her collection!

Showing off the bib Grandma sent her. She'll wear it again (probably with some residual orange frosting that I'm not sure is going to come out) on her actual birthday. Maybe she'll get a free sundae at dinner (that I'll eat).

Mommy and Michaela! There are very few of these pictures in existence! Thanks, Zoya, for offering to take it!

Hmmm... cake.... I'm not sure what to do with this....

No worries!! I figured it out!!

No, really... I got it!

Opening one of her presents. If you'll notice, her hair looks a little wet. Yeah, no, it was actually crunchy at this point. She got so much "frosting" in there it was ridiculous. We tried to wipe it up a bit, but the result was just this nastiness. Needless to say, bath was the first order of business when we got home!

And, finally, the damage to the cake. I think I only saw her eat one or two (BIG) bites of cake. The rest of the time she just got as much frosting as she could. She MUST be her daddy's daughter (and her Mimi's granddaughter) with an immediate love of anything that tastes remotely like Cool-Whip!

We took some video of her playing with her cake, too, but it'll have to wait. I've already had to fight with blogger tonight for pics, so this will have to do for now!

Happy (almost) birthday to my sweet girl! I can't believe that a year has already gone by! At this time last year, I was eagerly anticipating your arrival and feeling VERY large (scroll to the bottom of that link). I'll wait til next week to gush completely, but it was so fun to celebrate a year of my baby today! A lot because of how wonderful she is, and a little because we're surprised we've survived a year as parents!!

Oh my.

2010-07-04T21:53:00.002-08:00

She walked. One very tentative step on each of two tries, so it wasn't much. But she walked.

She's only 11 months old (ok, she's 12 days away from being a year old). She is NOT old enough for that yet.

And, yet, she walked.

And that made this mama proud, scared and sad at the growing up all at the same time.

(Don't worry, Mom... we'll get video as soon as we can!)

Making our own fun

2010-07-03T18:35:00.002-08:00

Since we're currently homeless, living in a friend's house, we've had to get a little creative with the baby.

Oh, who am I kidding... this still would've been the world's most fun game, even if we had every single one of her toys available!

Try not to laugh as you watch it - I dare you!!

Last Night.

2010-06-28T00:18:00.002-08:00

I'm not sure how to feel right now. Part of me is just plain tired. Part of me is worried that I'm forgetting to pack some things. Part of me is super excited that tomorrow is the day the movers come and we're a step closer to heading back to the lower 48.

And then there are the parts that are sad. Weirdly, oddly, unexpectedly, and unwelcome-ly (it's my blog, I can make up a word if I want) sad.

Tonight is our last night sleeping in this house. Our home. I put the baby to bed tonight for the last time in her first room. Unfortunately, she has to sleep in a pack 'n' play for the first night of the next month+. (We decided to take her crib apart ourselves so that we could be sure of where the parts are, and so that Jason could be sure of how to put it back together at the other end. I'm sure the directions are around somewhere, but who wants to look for them?) Even more unfortunately, she did NOT like the pack 'n' play and was VERY difficult to get down.

Well, it was either the lack of a crib, or it was her innate sense of her Mommy's sadness. Tonight is our last night in this house. Tomorrow, the movers will probably get the bulk of our worldly possessions (and there are a lot of them) packed up into boxes. They'll stack them high in the living room, or maybe the garage, and, little by little, this will become not our home anymore. And then tomorrow afternoon, we'll go to the title company and sign the paperwork, selling our first home to someone new.

Add to all that the fact that I suddenly have this strange sentimental attachment to Kodiak - the place I've wanted to leave desperately for the last year or so - and it's just a weird night. An odd, unexpected and strange night. I'm sure the exhaustion isn't helping. And I KNOW the worry about forgetting something isn't helping. But I really didn't expect these feelings.

Check back with me in a little over a month and I'll let you know if I'm still sad to not be in Kodiak anymore.

5 minutes to go, sir!!

2010-06-18T21:18:00.004-08:00

(Note... I'm cross-posting this from another blog I contribute to, with the numbers changed slightly since it's a couple days after I originally posted it.)

I should probably start by explaining the title… At the CG Academy, at least way back in ancient days when I was there, a fourth class cadet (freshman) was assigned the task of being the “Clock Orderly.” The job of the Clock Orderly was to count down the minutes until a formation, so that all the upper class knew when they had to actually rush out and didn’t have to show up early. The Clock Orderly would stand under one of the clocks in the passageway (hallway for you non-nautical types) and start his or her schpiel with the words “5 minutes to go, sir!” (or “ma’am” if the Company Commander happened to be a woman). In the interim space between 5 minutes and 4 (and then 3 and 2), the Orderly would then spew all kinds of random information, called indoc, to keep people up to speed on things like the menu for the next three meals, what movies were playing at the local theater, the opponent for the football game that weekend, and finally, the days to go until major events like vacations, or federal holidays when cadets would get some time off.

All that said, this is my version of the Clock Orderly days to go count, as I near the end (at least temporarily) of my Coast Guard career. Back in September, it seemed so far away when I wrote my resignation letter and submitted it, which, at the time, seemed like the strangest thing I’d done to date in my Coast Guard career. Then Christmas rolled around, and I got my orders approving my temporary separation on Christmas Eve. THAT then took the place as the strangest thing to happen yet in my career. That was topped yet again the other day when I received the draft of my DD-214 (discharge certificate) for review. So far, that wins.

My departure doesn’t happen tomorrow, though. I still have a few more milestones to get through. So here we go!

Five minutes to go, sir! There are five minutes to go until this afternoon’s lunch formation. Lunch formation will be held at (well, it’s nice in Kodiak today…) FAIR weather parade! Uniform for lunch formation is ODU without parka.

Sir, there is 1 day to go until our pre-moveout yard sale!

There are 10 days to go until the movers show up at the house! (What!?! Who authorized that? I’m not ready for them yet!!)

There are 12 days to go until we move out of the house. The first house we ever purchased. A house I love. The house I’m proud to call my home and have welcomed so many friends into during our time in Kodiak when the only thing to do was to hang out in the house because the weather was so bad. The house I brought my baby home to. The house I hated to see in the middle of the night as I tried desperately to calm that baby when she was crying like nothing could ever make her stop. The house that I’m reminded every day is not child-proofed as my now-11 month old manages to find yet another thing she’s not supposed to be getting into. The house that has been home when “home” is 5000 miles away all the way on the other side of the country and then some. The house I hope the new owners will love as much as we have.

There are 21 days to go until my Change of Command. I’ll finish my dream CG job – the one thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a junior at the Academy. I’ll never have a job as good again, in the CG or out.

There are 22 days to go until we board the ferry, bound for the mainland and a 19-day cross-country adventure with 2 parents who haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in almost a year, a 90-lb lab, and an almost one-year old who’s never been in a car for longer than 4 hours at a time – and that was only once.

There are 41 days to go until we arrive at our shiny, sparkly, brand-new, never-been-lived in house in Mobile, Alabama, where we’re likely to melt in the heat and hole ourselves up in the air conditioned comfort until sometime in January.

There are 58 days to go until my last day in the Coast Guard. I will officially become a civilian on 16Aug, after serving for 15 years, 1 month and 6 days (or 11 years, 2 months and 28 days if you don’t count my Academy time). The option will be open for me to return to the Coast Guard within two years, but I don’t know if that’s something the future holds for me. Juggling two active duty careers with a child (and maybe more one day) in the mix just seems a little more than we want to try to handle. We’ve done our time being separated by orders and it was hard enough on just the two of us, let alone bringing a child into that mix. So, although I may work again, I have my doubts that it will be as an active duty member of the Coast Guard. Instead, I’ll wake up on 16Aug, knowing that my only “paycheck” will be the time I get to spend with my daughter, the time I’ve missed by being at work this past year, and I think I’ll be more than happy to collect my pay.

As I type this, the reality of everything is washing over me. I have some major transitions on the horizon! Some exciting – like leaving Kodiak! – and some slightly terrifying – like being a stay at home mom! – but all of them just a few more steps in this adventure of Coast Guard life.

And I think we’re down to about 30 seconds to go until that formation. Seems my thoughts got away from me a little! I hope I don’t get in trouble for rambling and forgetting to tell people what’s for lunch!!

Road trip!!!

2010-06-11T21:40:00.008-08:00

Exactly one month from right now, we'll be hanging out at Brad and Christina's (minus Brad) house over in Seward. That will be night one (as long as you don't count the night on the ferry) of our big cross-country move (take 2). We have a fabulous trip planned, starting with an overnight on the ferry from here to Homer the day after my change of command, and ending 19 days later at our new home in Mobile. Yep, that's right. 19 days. In the truck. With the baby. And the dog. Did I mention 19 days? Oh, and the baby is still rear-facing in her carseat, so she gets to look at the back of the truck for 19 days.

So pretty much now I'm just hoping I don't get too car sick from the backseat of the truck while we're driving on the awesome-ness that is the ALCAN.

Doesn't this look like fun?

In case you're counting, that's something along the lines of 4800 miles. And 19 days.

We do have a few exciting stops planned, though. We're going to take a little time in Alaska on the way out, doing the stuff we said we'd do before we leave. Which, I guess we technically are, we just meant sooner than actually on the way out! So we'll stop in Seward to see Christina (and the SeaLife Center), and then we'll head north to Denali, a little further north to Fairbanks, and then we'll start making our way south again after first going through North Pole! Many Santa pictures will follow.

Reservations are made - this time without a stop in the armpit of the world - and we're the most excited about the extra time we'll be spending at the Grand Canyon! That'll be our one big stop this time around, rather than the 3-4 extra stops we made on the way out. We figured with the baby, the better part of valor was to truck along instead of taking too much time!

In the next 4 weeks (ACK!!! How did it get to be so soon!?!), we have to have a yard sale, decide what's coming with us in the trailer, deal with the movers, close on the house, move down the road to our temporary house (courtesy of our friend Rob), wrap things up at our jobs, host some family, have a change of command, throw the baby a birthday party, and about a bazillion other things. But, it'll all get done, I'm sure. If it doesn't, well, we'll still be on the road on time anyway!

Part of me can't believe that our time here in Kodiak is coming to an end so soon. The other part of me is jumping out of my skin to get out of here and move forward! We've got an enormous amount of changes coming and, even though change scares the poo outta me, I'm excited!

In 2 weeks, when the movers show up, I'll probably forget about the excitement under the huge weight of the stress, but, for now, I'll talk myself into the excitement!

So, anyone know of good places to stop along our route? If you squint really hard, you should be able to figure out where we're going!

Figured out the camcorder

2010-05-30T20:42:00.005-08:00

After months of having our little camcorder, and wondering why it only came with software/drivers for a PC, I finally figured out you don't need any of that for a Mac. I seriously need to learn more about my computer.

So, since I got it hooked up, I'm now going to see if I can figure out how to get a video on here. If this works, this should be video of Michaela climbing the stairs a couple weeks ago, the day she was 10 months old.

Here goes nothin'!!

First word... I think

2010-05-28T22:13:00.005-08:00

I'm pretty sure Michaela said her first word today (or maybe it was yesterday... the days are running together).

I think Jason would like to think her first word was Dada since, lately, when I ask her to say, "Mama," she just looks right at me and says, "Da-Da," instead. That's an awesome ego boost for me, in case you wondered. But, although she can say "Dada" she doesn't actually use it in reference to her father. So I'm saying it's NOT her first word.

However, in the past day or so, she HAS said "Hi." (that's with a period, not an exclamation point) in the correct context. And I have to tell you, it's the cutest little sound in the world! It should come as no surprise that "hi" would be her first word, though, since her very favorite thing to do is wave hello to everyone she sees. She's been waving hello for a couple months now, and only recently figured out you do the same thing to say good bye as well.

So, I'm calling it - "Hi" is Michaela's first word, spoken a handful of times today, May 28th, 2010. Time to write that down on the calendar!

M is for....

2010-05-20T21:56:00.007-08:00

.... MOOSE! (and you thought I was going to say Michaela, right?)

No, I still haven't seen a moose, though I have high hopes of finally getting to see one when we get to the mainland at the start of our cross-country trip this summer.

The moose I'm talking about is the kind that's neatly packaged in our freezer.

In anticipation of the move, we're trying to finally eat at least SOME of the stuff we've got in there. We're planning to have someone ship whatever is left to us once we get to Mobile, but, in the meantime we need to eat some of it or we'll spend half our moving money to get it to us. So this past week, we dug into the moose.

And our little Alaska girl - the one who had Daddy-caught salmon as her first meat - couldn't get enough of it. Granted, it was moose disguised as smoked sausage (and later hotdog), but she still absolutely loved it! Add that to halibut and salmon as some of her favorite proteins. Yep, Alaska girl!

(I know it's hard to see, but the little nugget she's getting ready to pick up is, in fact, moose sausage.)

In other food news, I finally let go of my Type-A-ness for a few minutes and let her just pick up some noodles with marinara instead of trying to feed them to her. In a nod to the Italian part of her heritage, she definitely had no problem with that. She LOVED it!

And, finally, making this post about Michaela, yet again, this picture just cracks me up. No, she does not put herself in there, but, yes, she likes it. And the bonus is that I can keep her contained for a few minutes. Now that she's mobile - wait, did I tell you she's mobile? Yep, crawling like a champ... even tackled the stairs the other day - keeping her contained for a few minutes is a nice thing to be able to do.

I think I said something in my last post about trying to keep up with the blog better. Ha. That's funny since it's been over 2 weeks again. In my defense, though, I finally got around to planning our cross-country trip and that kept me busy for quite a while. I'll tell you all about it in my next post. We're not sure whether to be excited or scared to death about our 19-day adventure beginning in Kodiak and ending in Mobile, with about 4500 miles of driving in between!

Pictures and pictures and pictures

2010-05-03T21:24:00.006-08:00

And almost all of them are of Michaela. A little because she makes a good subject and a lot because I'm pretty sure her grandparents would kill me if I didn't include them.

Let's start with the (mostly) non-Michaela stuff...

It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL the last couple days here in Kodiak. Jason finally got back from three weeks in Mobile (1.5 of which I was traveling, too) on Saturday, so we took the chance to do some family stuff for the first time in a while.

It's the time of year when the whales start to come back to Alaskan waters, so we hopped in the car, made a pit stop at Java Flats (our favorite local sandwich shop), and headed out the road. We went out toward Narrow Cape - Pasagshak - where we ate our lunches in the car on the beach, watching the whales right off the beach. Unfortunately, even the super-mega-zoom lens wasn't enough to capture them, but it was awesome to watch. Lunch done, we bundled up and headed for what turned out to be a VERY short walk on the beach. It was FREEZING!! The thermometer said 45 and it was sunny, but the wind made it bitterly cold. Michaela, my little Alaska girl, loved it!

Besides the whales, Pasagshak is also the place to see Kodiak's wild-ish buffalo herd. For these guys, the super-mega-zoom was handy!

When we got back from Pasagshak (with both a morning and afternoon nap out of the way in the car!.... um, for the baby....), we still had the business of taking the dog out for a walk to attend to. So we headed to another cape - Spruce Cape - to get some exercise for Fred. He was kind enough to pause for a moment and pose for me.

Michaela posed, too. Oh, and I would like to point out that it was May 2nd yesterday. And she's wearing her snow suit and winter hat.

The business of fun out of the way, we headed back home where my to-do list failed to be completed and it took me way too long to get up-to-date on the finances that I hadn't touched in the three weeks since we'd last been home together. Ugh. I still have that to-do list to get to, but figured catching up here was more important!

Moving on to the Michaela show.... here are some of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks. We'll start with one I took in the car after we went to visit Grammie (my grandmother) when I was in CT. We should see if we can have a happy baby next time, right?

Next up - crazy hair day for daycare last week. April was the Month of the Military Child, so they had a different theme to each day last week... pajama day, dress up like mom or dad, crazy hair, etc...

I tried to do something crazy to her hair, but it's so fine that mousse wouldn't even make it stick up. I probably could've tried gel, but like every other day while Jason is gone, we were already running late, so I went with Plan B - clippies!

She also figured out how to dump over her toy bin in the living room while I was busy getting everything ready to go. Oh, and this was the 2nd to last day that it was safe to leave her alone - because she's now MOBILE!!! Yep, stinker finally decided to crawl on Friday, right at 9.5 months old. We're thinking it's going to be short-lived, though, since she's already learned that walking/cruising/standing in general are more fun. See?

And, finally, a series of pictures from tonight. The light was great in the kitchen and she was having fun playing with the magnets I put on the lower part of the fridge for her. Just for the record, she has about a million dollars worth of toys. But she'd rather play with anything that isn't really a toy - like paper, plastic water bottles, cups, and magnets. Oh, and the sunglasses are new and I'm trying to get her used to having the band around her head. Enjoy the Michaela goodness!

And, some close-ups. In addition to a happy baby next time, we're going to try for a cute one, too...Oh, and the tear is because she'd had a crying fit a minute before I set her up with the magnets because Daddy had the nerve to cook dinner, and Mommy had the nerve to go to the bathroom, leaving her all alone (in the middle of the kitchen, where Daddy was) for about two and a half minutes.

She's also a little ham who stops whatever she's doing to have her picture taken. Cracks us up. I was sitting all the way across the room, using a zoom lens, in an effort to get her without her "posing," but that only worked part-way. She's just too much!!

As far as Michaela's parents - we're doing well. We're down to about 2 months left here in Kodiak. Jason got a bunch of stuff taken care of with the new house during his trip and we'll be closing in less than 2 weeks! We still have a cross-country trip to plan, a house to finish selling here (we're under contract), a house to get ready for movers, etc, etc. The next couple months are going to be crazy, but that's ok... we're up for it since it means heading back to the "real world!"

Ok, it's after 10, I have to be up in time to really be on time for work tomorrow (it's so good to be the boss since that's not usually an issue), I haven't gotten my Mother's Day card(s) ready to send to Mom yet, and I should already be in bed. Hope you enjoyed the update. I know I always say it, but I really will try to be better over the next couple months if I can!!!

Alaska to Alabama!

2010-03-08T21:54:00.008-09:00

Last week - or was it two weeks ago now? - we packed up the baby and traveled for 26 hours or something like that to go to Mobile, AL. Why would we do that? Well, Jason goes once a year for training, so that was his excuse. I just wanted to get off Kodiak for a little while because the weather was driving me batty!

But, what was supposed to be just a trip to get some sun and maybe a little warmth turned into a trip with a purpose - find a house! We got the verbal word shortly before we left that Jason will be stationed in Mobile starting this summer for 4 very hot years. He'll be an instructor pilot at the Aviation Training Center and is VERY happy about that. I'm happy because he's happy, though I wish ATC could be in North Carolina or something. I mean, seriously - Alaska to Alabama?!? Last summer, we had a day or two when the temperature actually hit 70 degrees here. In Alabama, in the summer, it cools down to 80-ish at night. We're going to melt! But we're excited to be heading back to the lower 48, and we're that much more excited now that we have a place down there to call home.

On two different days, after Jason did his training in the morning, we met with a realtor in the afternoon to take a look at a few places. We didn't expect to find anything this trip, and luckily didn't feel pressured since we had plans to go back in April again anyway, but we got lucky on the last day! Our realtor had pulled the listing for this house the first day but we hadn't gotten to it. So we told her, because of the price mostly, that we'd love to just take a look on Friday afternoon - less than 24 hours before we were flying out!

Lo and behold, the minute we stepped into the house, we were in love! It's a brand-spankin'-new place - it's been the model home for a recently-developed neighborhood and has only been finished completely for about 5 months. We'll be the first owners! It's 4 bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms, with a very open floor plan and just over 2200 sq ft of space. It's on a corner lot, which we'll be fencing in and filling up at least a little bit with a pool (I reference you back to the melting). The road it's on is a cul-de-sac (though we won't be on the end like here), and it's kitty-corner from a small park with swings and toys for kids. Since Michaela will be 5 by the time we get ready to move again, we're very excited about all the kid-friendly stuff!

Here are a few pictures, as requested! We had given some people the MLS listing to look at, but it's been pulled since we're under contract. We'll close on May 15th!

The layout of the house is really great. We're especially happy with the dual vanities in the master bathroom, the huge walk-in closet, and the fact that one of the bedrooms and a bathroom are sort of off in their own area of the house which will be perfect for guests! And now, for the next 4 months, I will try to decorate and re-decorate the place in my mind!

Now we just need to sell our place here. And, thanks to the power of Craig's List, that might happen sooner than we thought. We showed it twice on Saturday and we're expecting an offer tomorrow! Fingers are crossed that the selling process will go as well as the buying process.

And now, very quickly because the wailing from upstairs means a baby is ready to eat again... I'm pretty sure the grandmothers would kill me if a put pictures on a blog without including any of said baby. So here are a few... In the first she's showing off her love of yogurt. The second is her playing with the curtain at the hotel in Mobile. And finally, her first taste of cheesecake... she's DEFINITELY her daddy's girl on that count. She LOVED it!

(Yes, those are tears in her eyes... she had a lack-of-another-bite-of-cheesecake meltdown. Jason caved.)

That's the latest from winter, wintry Kodiak! The countdown is on - only 4 more months left on the Rock! Bring on the heat!

Daylight Check!

2010-02-03T22:58:00.002-09:00

Although our weather has been absolutely TERRIBLE here for the past... I don't know... MONTH or so, we're at least gaining lots of daylight every day.

On the way into work one day last week, the sky was starting to brighten up even before 8am - which is a welcome sight when you've come though the darkest part of the winter when it didn't get light until 10am!

And then, on the way out for a class tonight, at 6:20pm, it wasn't all the way dark yet!

Yay for more hours of daylight.... now if only the sun would join the party!

Fun with a baby!

2010-02-01T21:50:00.006-09:00

Back when Michaela was only a few weeks old, we did something to her one day that made me tell Jason that she would probably need therapy by the time she turns two. I don't remember what made me say that, but I bet this won't help....

Ha! This is funny, Mom! I'm wearing my walking hat in the house! These little straps taste good!

Ok, it's not really funny anymore. Do you have to show the ears on the hat? No one wants to see those....

Ok, seriously, I don't like this thing anymore.....

No, really... how do I get it off??

This is NOT working!!!

Yeah, take that, hat!

This pacifier is much better. I don't need no stinkin' hat!

Yes, I put the hat on her for my own amusement. Therapy... at two. It'll be my fault. I think I'm ok with that!

All Michaela, all the time!

2010-01-16T21:16:00.011-09:00

Today is about Michaela. Why? Because exactly 6 months ago from this moment (about 9:30 Alaska time), my interthecal block was wearing off, the nurse had pushed pitocin against my wishes, and I wanted to die from the horrific pain in my back as I tried to bring this wonderful little girl into the world. HA! About an hour after that, I was reluctantly signing the consent form for my c-section. And about an hour and a half after that, Michaela made her appearance!

The last six months have absolutely flown by and neither one of us can imagine life without her in it. Ok, well, there would be more traveling, and better nights out at the movies (where we both get to stay in our seats the whole time without having to visit the crying room to calm down a baby who should be asleep), and definitely a LOT more sleeping, but our lives wouldn't be nearly as rich as they are now. And I really mean that.

So other than saying that the last six months have been great (almost) all the time and that I never could've imagined the depth of love you could have for a single little person, I don't have that much to say. I'll give you captions on the pictures, but we'll just let everyone soak in the Michaela-goodness!

NOT a fan of peas. We'll try again some other time...

We busted out the Kelty backpack this week. We had a day that was warm enough to skip the extra blankets, and the potholes are too much even for the Bob (thanks to 3 weeks of rain), so we figured we'd try a new ride. She didn't like it until we started moving. Then she enjoyed being up so high!

Until....

Yeah, she can sleep anywhere. She fell asleep at some point on the walk and we managed to get her off Jason's back and moved around the living room before she eventually woke up. No, this is not the only picture of this. Silly girl.

Today we tried green beans. I think more got in her mouth than everywhere else, but I can't be sure. Like her handiwork on the tray?

We switched back to the old standby of rice cereal and sweet potatoes later today, but mixed it up with a few bites of green bean as well. This would be the end result of that. She likes to "help" get the spoon in her mouth... yeah, not so much a help as painting on her face!

The big girl hanging out in her highchair! Jason made a comment about how different she was in just six months... from a helpless, tiny(ish... I don't think 8lb, 13oz counts as tiny) little baby to this baby who can sit up in a high chair (or on the floor by herself) and eat real food and make faces and crack us up!

And, finally, a 6-month portrait. We're having real ones done by my friend Amy later this week (she's just starting a photography business here in Kodiak and we already had some pictures done with her... check out her blog - Simply b photos), but I had to get at least one on the actual day. This took many tries because my goober of a daughter keeps trying to look around the camera to find me. So between her being all crooked and leaning over to the side, and me just laughing at her, it took a while to get a good shot! See, she cracks us up!

Someone asked us the other day if we now wished we'd had a baby sooner than we did. I mean, really, 10 years after getting married we FINALLY got around to it. But I told him that I think Michaela arrived at just the right time. There will never be any "what-if's" or "I wish I woulda's" for us in terms of the other goals and things we wanted to achieve (at least for me... I think Jason would agree). For that, I'm so thankful because it means I can really just enjoy my daughter and appreciate the blessing she is to us!

Happy Half Birthday, Sweet Girl. Mommy and Daddy love you!

Stop Growing Up!!!

2010-01-06T20:05:00.008-09:00

Not only are there teeth in the baby's mouth, but she's just picking up on all other new skills, too. She's still only rolling from her belly to her back - mostly because she HATES being on her belly and that's her way off of it - but today she decided sitting up might be fun, too. What the heck?! She has GOT to stop growing up. I mean, seriously.

Yesterday, we sat her up and she lasted about five seconds. We were pretty impressed, but it only happened once and we couldn't get her to do it again. Then today when I went to feed her at lunchtime at daycare, I tried again and she lasted a little longer, even managing to keep herself upright when she started to wobble.

And then, the next thing you know, I sat her up tonight to show her new skill to Jason, and she just stayed there! Eventually she toppled over (yay for soft carpet!), but we kept sitting her back up again and she was hanging out. She even did really well balancing and catching herself when she needed to. I can't believe she's old enough to be sitting already! I have no idea how the last (almost) six months have gone by so quickly!

I mean, LOOK at that! She's just sitting there, waving... well, maybe flailing, but whatever. The point is, she's SITTING with nothing around her. How did this happen?!

Of course, she's only so good at it.... what goes up, must come down, right?

Is it me, or does it look like she's saying, "Enough with the camera, Ma. Just get me off my belly!"

Add to all of this the fact that she's turning into a major chowhound on the solid food front, and it's like we have an actual little person on our hands! Crazy!!!

I have two great videos to upload, but I tried to get both of them up tonight and even though they weren't that long, they were taking forEVER to process, so I'm going to have to try again when I'm not trying to finally get to bed at a decent hour. Technology is fabulous, isn't it?

Sigh. Why do they grow so fast?

Playing catch up

2010-01-03T20:36:00.008-09:00

I was happy to see that it hadn't been that long since I'd last blogged when I logged in, but it's probably been longer than some of our family would like to see. I'm going to try to do better, I swear. If I have a reason (blogging), I'll probably also be better about taking pictures of Michaela. We've managed to catch all the highlights with her, but I thought I'd be much better about catching everyday moments, too. I think working full time and trying to be the best mom I can is a little harder than I ever thought it would be! I'm still trying to find the right balance without neglecting any specific area. I'll probably get it all figured out just in time to change it all up again.

That change will come this summer when my employment status changes. Right after going back to work from maternity leave, I submitted my request for a temporary separation from the Coast Guard. The approval of that request showed up in my email inbox on Christmas Eve, so, as of 01Sep (or sometime around then), I'll transition to the civilian world for at least two years. I'll have those two years to decide if I want to come back in or not. It's a great program the CG offers to allow career-minded members the chance to take care of whatever personal issues they might have... in my case it's being home with the baby for a little while, but it could also be to explore other employment, go to school, whatever. I'm VERY much looking forward to the time away from work, but it's also very odd to think of myself as something other than a CG officer. Luckily, Jason will keep me close to it, so I won't have to say goodbye completely!

Anyway, obviously, the other big doings around here have been the holidays. Somehow we managed to actually get everything done that we wanted to do before Christmas. The tree went up, the cookies were baked, gifts were bought, wrapped and shipped as necessary, and we even managed to breathe a little bit. Sadly, even with all that being done in plenty of time, we weren't able to enjoy our Christmas very much.... because we got sick, both of us (luckily, the baby didn't get it). We're still not sure exactly what it was, but it's probably safe to say it was just some kind of 24-hour bug. For Jason it lasted a little more than 24 hours... for me, it was more like 3 days. With nursing the baby, I think I just had a hard time getting rehydrated so it kept me down longer. So, the only real pictures we have of Christmas were some I took on Christmas Eve, before we were hit. Here are Michaela and Jason checking out the tree....

I took one picture of Jason and one picture of Michaela on Christmas morning, but neither one of them is worth showing. It's just a good thing Michaela didn't understand Christmas this year! We would've had one very sad girl on our hands!

Kodiak has proven fruitful in the picture taking world again these days. I think it was a couple weeks before Christmas that we woke up one morning to a white wonderland... minus the snow. Everything was coated and sparkly with hoar frost. I grabbed the camera with my macro lens and tried to get a few pictures. It was really cool! This is our front evergreen bush.

Then, just the other day, while finally out on a walk (we had a rough 10-ish days of rain, so walks have been few and far between), we saw what had to have been the biggest eagle we've ever seen. Of course, I didn't have my camera that day, so I brought it the next day, hoping to see the eagle again. Unfortunatley, that one wasn't around, but a juvenile watched us from the top of a tree until it decided to move on. I was super excited to catch him in flight!

More exciting is the fact that the sky is actually blue-ish behind him. We haven't seen much blue sky or sun lately, so we took full advantage of them the couple days they poked out this past week and got Fred out for walks. He's definitely been moping around the house a little bit, which might have something to do with the weather, or with the fact that Michaela has discovered him and decided she likes him. So, anytime he walks by her, she smiles, giggles and reaches for handful of hair. I hope he eventually likes her as much as she likes him!

And, finally, in Michaela news... it's been a big couple of weeks. First, she had her first non-routine visit to the doctor a couple weeks ago. She ran a low-grade fever for a few days, was tugging at her ear, and was pretty stuffy. My untrained diagnosis was teething, but we were worried that it was lingering, so off to the doctor we went. Lo and behold, it was just teething. The fever went away the next day and she was back to herself for a couple weeks. Then, in the past week or so, the drooling started again in earnest, along with an increased level of crankiness and more ear pulling. We figured it was a matter of time until the tooth poked through, but we were very surprised to look at her bottom gum on Thursday (New Year's Eve) and see TWO teeth had made their way through. Since then, we're still experiencing really bad sleep and some crankiness, but we're hoping that'll taper a little now that the teeth have come through. Then we'll just get to gear up for the next round! Mom asked me for pictures of the teeth, but that's going to have to wait until they're a little more visible so that, when we wrestle her down to try to get the picture, it's easier to see them!

In other Michaela news, we had planned to wait until she was 6 months old to start any solid foods, but we caved a little early this week. She literally dove at my pizza the other night, so we thought she might be more ready for food than we thought. She was showing all the rest of the necessary developmental signs as well, so we went for it. We tried rice cereal a couple times, which she ate, but didn't seem to enjoy. I can't blame her on that - it smells and looks terrible! So, since the cereal isn't really necessary, we decided to move onto sweet potatoes. We just tried those tonight, and they were definitely a hit. We had the same mess as the cereal, but the sweet potatoes definitely made more of an impact! She reached for the spoon from the first bite and then proceeded to dive toward it with every bite. That could explain the mess on her face...

We're still not in too big a hurry to pump her full of solid foods, but she's definitely a fan of eating, so we'll be putting the high chair together this week and we might start eating at the table a little more often.

I took a great video tonight of her jumping in her jumperoo, but I've already spent way too long on this post, so I'll save it for tomorrow. Needless to say, she had us cracking up with her crazy jumping! She's also been trying out all kinds of new sounds, the latest of which is something that sounds like she's choking. I could live without that one. But, we'll give it a couple days and she'll move onto something else anyway. Never a dull moment....

So that's it from here. Like I said, I'm going to try really hard to get to this more often, hopefully keeping the posts shorter so it won't take me as long. It's definitely hard finding any "spare" time, though, so I don't make any promises!

Does this make us bad parents?

2009-12-14T22:27:00.004-09:00

We had to run to Walmart last night for a few items. On the way in, I asked Jason if we should get one cart for the baby and one for the stuff. We decided we didn't need that much stuff, so we'd be able to just fit it in the cart along with the carrier (keep in mind, we can't set the carrier in the seat part of the Walmart carts because it slides).

$190 worth of stuff later, I'm thinking we should've gotten two carts.

Where's Michaela??

Ah, there she is... between the windshield wiper fluid, the wipes and the cookie containers!!!

She rolled!!

2009-12-08T18:22:00.006-09:00

We have a LOT of catching up to do on here, but we'll start small with a little video and pictures with Santa.

We had the chance to travel (again) this past week and get our little world traveller off the Rock. This time it was a short(ish) trip to Juneau where I had a conference for work. Jason came in the "Mr. Mom" roll, and was assisted by his dad. Once the conference was over, we headed to Anchorage for a couple days as well, where we were able to have pictures taken with Santa at Nordstrom (along with other things).

So, first up, Santa pictures.

This was the first shot of the day. You'll notice how firmly entrenched her hands are in Santa's beard. She has a thing with hair right now...mostly mine. But I was happy to share that particular joy with Santa.

A lovely family shot. Ok, well, an "alright" family shot. We weren't expecting to get in on the action.

And the real thing. I don't think my daughter ever met a camera she didn't like! Isn't she cute!!

The last thing I'll post is a quick (and dark - sorry about that) video of her rolling over. While we were in Anchorage, she rolled from belly to back but we thought it was a fluke or a function of being on a nice squishy bed. But, it was NOT a fluke. She did it again at daycare yesterday, and then last night I managed to capture it on film. So here she is showing off two new skills - the rolling and the grabbing of her toes (which usually end up in her mouth).

That's it for now. We'll catch up with a slideshow of our trip to the East Coast and Juneau, but first I need to do things like write out Christmas cards and bake cookies. Hopefully it won't have to wait that long, but to say I'm behind on Christmas preps is the world's largest understatement, so I have to get some other things done around here before I get to this again. Hopefully the video and Santa pictures tide everyone over.

Because we can't Skype right now...

2009-11-08T13:46:00.009-09:00

For those of you who really don't care to see two and a half minutes of babbling, sort of rolling-over baby, my apologies in advance. For everyone else (particularly grandparents who haven't been able to see Michaela via Skype because the desk top is being repaired), you'll get to see two minutes of Michaela practicing her two most recent talents.

The first is that she is a shoulder away from actually rolling over. She's managed to get herself over from the torso down, but hasn't quite figured out how to get that other arm out of the way and get all the way over.

The second is that she is now a champion bubble-blower/raspberry-noise maker. She wakes up practicing. And she makes her mommy laugh like it's going out of style. Endless entertainment for both of us!

And for everyone who didn't want to watch video, here are a few recent pictures...

From Halloween, the world's cutest frog princess (pay special attention to her feet....)

And from yesterday, one of the two of us lounging in the chair after a mid-afternoon snack...

And one of the little miss all bundled up for a walk out on Spruce Cape. We had stopped to chat with some friends we ran into and she started crying her eyes out. Being the mean mommy that I am, I made her stop again so I could get a picture of her with her sad little teary eyes.

For Sale!!

2009-10-30T19:44:00.006-08:00

I'm super excited to announce that I have taken a leap and I'm trying to sell some of my photography!

A friend of mine owns a store in town and asked me if I wanted to consign some of my work in her store. The store is called The Kodiak Company (on Marine Way just past the Brewery for those in town!) and has all kinds of Kodiak-related items as well as nautical things and a mish-mash of other stuff.

I currently have 12 pictures down there (unless some have sold... I should check on that), and I'm really hoping this might be the start of something. I don't claim to be the world's best photographer, or even really that good, but I think I've managed to capture some neat shots and I'm ready to learn more about both my camera and some processing techniques.

All the pictures I have down there are 8x10s, but I'm planning to come up with a price list for everything from 4x6s all the way up to poster size so I can do special orders, too. Unfortunately, we're going to be out of town for the BIG bazaar here this fall, otherwise I would've gotten a table and tried my luck there, too.

Anyway, here are the pictures I'm selling. They're cropped a little differently in the 8x10 size, but I think they turned out really well. Oh, and they're mounted on a matte board, which gives them a little heft, but no border. I was REALLY happy with how that worked!

Here they are!

Hopefully I'll be able to post sooner or later that I've sold my first one. If not, all our family members should definitely pick out their favorites because those will be your Christmas presents! HA!

As promised!

2009-10-19T19:50:00.009-08:00

It's definitely too late for our family and friends on the east coast, but here in Alaska it's still "tomorrow night" (as per my last post), so I'm getting pictures and video up!

That first picture is from last Thursday, the day before Michaela turned 3 months old! As I said in last night's quick update, she's no longer considered a newborn now. She's officially an infant. And, in the interest of full disclosure... I had no idea there was a difference/dividing line. I learned that just last week!

Moving onto the Baptism. Yesterday, October 18th (the Feast of St. Luke), Michaela was Baptized into the Episcopal church. Her godparents are Ryan and Heather, who, of course, couldn't make the trip up for the service. So the whole congregation pretty much acted in their behalf. She did really well through the entire service, except when I put her hat on her. Her hat (which I didn't get any pictures of on her head) was the hat I wore at my Baptism. It was then turned back into a handkerchief, which I carried at my wedding. I then turned it back into a hat for her, and will now safely tuck it away until she gets married (a long, long time from now if she knows how to keep her daddy happy). So the hat stayed on her head for about 2 seconds and she immediately stopped crying as soon as it came back off again. We figured quiet baby was more important than cute hat, so there ya go. Now onto the rest of the pictures...

Being Baptized with holy water. No crying at all, which surprised me because she doesn't really like the water getting on her face during bathtime.

In this one, you'll note that Jason is sort of laughing. She grabbed onto Fr. Paul's finger and wouldn't let go. This wouldn't have been a problem, but he was trying to reach for the chrism. She eventually let go (after he shook her hand off!) and was sealed with the oil.

Shortly after the actual Baptism part of the service, she fell asleep. This does not look comfortable to me, but she seemed quite happy to stay that way for a while. She looks like she's a lot more sideways than she is, but that's a lot of dress around her!

Finally awake, we tried to get a few more pictures. Isn't her dress gorgeous? She looked so pretty... too bad it made her sweat like crazy! I'm looking forward to doing a portrait session and getting some good pictures of her in this gown, as well as the one I wore at my Baptism. We might even be able to keep the hat on her for more than 2 seconds to get some pictures of that, too!

And, here's all three of us. This would be an awesome picture, but Jason has a little bit of a goofy look on his face. By the time we took it, everyone was starting to filter out of coffee hour, and Michaela was more than ready to get that dress off! So we didn't try for another one. It might not be perfect, but it's a good memory of the day.

And for the final picture, this is also one from last Thursday. This is my girl, sleeping while propped up on a boppy, but on the floor. We figured out that she REALLY likes this little bear blanket that Maryanne (Mimi) gave her before she was even born. It's silky on one side, and very soft fleecy kind of material on the other. With a pacifier in her mouth and Bear in her hands, she'll work the fleecy side in her fingers, and slide it around so the silky side is rubbed all over her head until she falls asleep. It cracks us up, but it's a way for her to self-soothe, so we like it!

And finally, a little video. I was trying to get video of her lifting up her head (she's gotten good at it), but instead she just spent the time on her tummy telling me exactly how much she enjoys being like that (or not).

Things are going well here in general. Michaela is definitely getting to the age where she's so much fun. She interacts a little (blowing raspberries back at us when we do it), smiles a ton, and she's started to giggle a little, too. She keeps us laughing and amazed at how much she's learning and changing every day! SO much fun! We can't wait to make our trip to the east coast next month so everyone can meet her!

Quick update... more to come tomorrow

2009-10-18T21:52:00.003-08:00

Because I KNOW my mom's going to check the blog first thing in the morning to look for Baptism picture, this is just a quick note to say there's nothing to look at yet!

Time got away from me today, and I'm in the process of uploading a bunch of pictures to Shutterfly, so the computer is running a little slower than normal, and I don't want to try to upload pictures here as well. I'll get some pictures and recent video up tomorrow. I promise.

In the meantime, in recent Michaela news....

She had her second round of shots last Monday, which resulted in a VERY cranky night. Fortunately for him, Jason had duty. Unfortunately for me, Jason had duty. It was a long night, followed by a late start the next morning. Thank goodness I'm my own boss and could go in a little late on Tuesday - both of us needed the sleep. I'm NOT looking forward to going through the same thing every month for the next few months. We're following the Dr. Sears vaccination schedule (basically, no more than 2 at once, and some are delayed a few years), so rather than getting shots every two months, she gets 2 every month. I now know the trick of giving Tylenol prior to the visit and again 4 hours later, so hopefully that will help manage the crankiness a little better next time.

Michaela is no longer a newborn... at 3 months old on Friday, she's officially an infant now! I just can not believe that she's already three months old!!! In some ways it feels like she's been here forever since we just can't imagine life without her now. But then it seems like just yesterday that made her way into the world. At her appointment on Monday, I popped her on the scale really quick to see how much she's weighing these days and she was up to 12lbs, 9oz. In three months, she's gained 3lbs, 11oz! She still seems so skinny to me, but she's definitely a loooong baby. I didn't get to measure her at the appointment, so we'll have to wait til her 4 month well-baby in November. But she's outgrowing all her 3 month clothes and is moving into the 3-6 month range!

Finally, in other big news, Michaela was Baptized today! I'll share pictures and give the details tomorrow, but I can tell you that it was a very joyous day, and I just found myself being amazed by how much love I have in my heart for my little girl, and how happy I was to watch her be "marked as Christ's own forever." I got to help pick the hymns for the service today, and I found myself too emotional to sing during at least two of them... I didn't want to "waste" the chance to sing the songs I love so much, but it was hard to keep the happy tears at bay.

I'll tell ya, no one can explain the frustrations, fears and exhaustion of being a new parent. But no one can explain the joys and LOVE either. I'm constantly amazed by this transformation from person to parent.... and it's something you have to live to understand.

That's it for tonight. I promise to have Baptism pictures up by tomorrow night, along with at least one recent video. My pictures are all uploaded to Shutterfly now, but it's after 10pm and I need to get to bed, so it'll have to wait!

What I learned on my weekend in Anchorage

2009-10-05T21:57:00.008-08:00

I (we) learned a lot of things on my (our) weekend in Anchorage this past weekend. It can all be summed up pretty simply in four small words...

A baby changes everything. (Go ahead, laugh now....)

Because 11 weeks of having this little person in our life didn't quite get that message across yet, our trip to Anchorage this weekend for a little getaway definitely hammered it home! I hadn't left the island since April (waaaaayyyyy too long for me), so we took advantage of a recent sale on airfare, and headed over for some different food and some retail therapy. WOW was it a different experience from our past weekend trips over there!

Michaela did great on the plane, with the exception of a major blow out diaper shortly after this picture was taken. Luckily, it was before take off (and before there were a lot of people seated around us), so she had a quick diaper and wardrobe change while we waited for everyone else to board. So, lesson 1 - change the baby's diaper before getting in the security line. Other lessons we learned were that we needed a bag for her carseat (which we bought while in Anchorage), and that the stroller was completely unnecessary as a gate-checked item. We bought the travel bag for the stroller while in Anchorage as well, and it came back as checked luggage. Much smarter. And, finally, on the trip back, we learned that wearing her through security in the carrier was the easiest way to deal with the whole screening process. So those were lessons two through four.

After the short flight over to Anchorage, we checked into the hotel, and then headed down the street to meet Christina at the Glacier Brewhouse for a yummy dinner and house-brewed beer. Our tired, and somewhat overwhelmed girl made it through dinner ok, though we also learned lesson #5, which is to be ready for her to need to eat at exactly the moment her mom's food arrives to the table. Jason did a great job keeping her occupied while I scarfed down my food and then got myself all covered up so I could feed her. He then enjoyed his food. Oh, that's lesson #6... we'll never eat a meal at the same time again (we kind of knew lessons 5 and 6 from home, though).

Here's Daddy and Michaela enjoying some play time on the floor at her first hotel... and a fancy one at that. She and I had a chat about making sure she gets a good education and makes enough money so that she can always stay at nice hotels like the Hotel Captain Cook. You'll note the crib bars in the background there. That crib was a lovely decoration in the room. I say decoration because she definitely did NOT use it. That brings us to lesson #7: you can have them bring the nice crib to the room, but if it's not hers, she won't sleep in it. On Friday night she slept on Jason's chest on the couch. On Saturday night, she slept in the little cocoon-like nest we made for her in her carseat. That was not my first choice of sleeping location for her on Saturday, but after Friday, we were desperate!!

She may have slept in the crib on Saturday, though, because she was EXHAUSTED after a big day out. We shopped til we dropped and exposed her to a whole new world of sights and sounds. And our girl, who suffers from serious PMS (paranoid of missing something) just would not sleep while we were out. We saw LOTS of babies snoozing happily in their stollers, but our baby just wanted to look around at all the new things! So she did not sleep, but instead did things like enjoying the people watching at the food court of the 5th Avenue Mall! So, the lesson learned there was to break the shopping up into a couple rounds with a quiet nap in between. That's lesson #8.

She also enjoyed all the lights and fun things to look at while we were at Red Robin for dinner Saturday night. For the lessons learned there, I'll send you back to numbers 5 and 6. She was pretty good at Red Robin, though. I think she knows a good thing when she sees it!

On Sunday, we had the opportunity to go to church at St. Mary's. Why would we go to church on a weekend getaway? Well, I'd like to say it's because we're good Episcopalians like that. But really, it's because Ted, who used to be the curate at the church we went to in Massachusetts, recently took over as the Associate Rector at St. Mary's! So, we got the chance to visit with him for a few minutes before and after the service. It was GREAT to see him!! The visit to St. Mary's brings us to lesson #10... when visiting a new church (or pretty much any other gathering place), be sure to scope out a good nursing location in advance of the actual need to feed a soon-to-explode-with-hunger-crankiness baby! I found a nice quiet spot, but we almost had an emergency situation there!

And, finally, we get to the last lesson of the weekend... Lesson #11... even though it's a completely different experience now, we wouldn't trade it for the world, because this little girl has filled a part in our lives that we didn't know was empty. I mean, seriously, what's not to like about this?

So, we had to learn a lot of things the hard way, but we're armed with this information for our next trip off the Rock in November, which will involve a LOT longer travel day, and a whirlwind week+ of meeting friends and family. Of course, by then, she'll change all the rules on us again, but some of it might carry over!

And, finally, because I told Mom I'd get this up, here's a short video of Michaela showing off her new skill... she has figured out that she can make a different noise when she breathes in from what she makes when she breathes out. She's been practicing for a few days now.... and I can't get enough of it!

I hope our lessons can serve to help others as they adjust to new life after the arrival of a baby. And it's ok to laugh at us... we're laughing at ourselves!!!

Jason is fired as my co-blogger....

2009-09-28T20:59:00.009-08:00

Maryanne - I SWEAR it's not my fault it took so long to get this post up here! I put him in charge of it, but he keeps forgetting!

Moving on...

Michaela Meets Her Reidy Grandparents

That should've been the real title of this post, which is LOOOONG overdue. Maryanne and Jim were here during the last week of August, soaking up all the Michaela they could for an 8-day visit. Like most of our guests over the past two years, they got in bright and early on the morning jet, after a 4-hour layover in Anchorage. I think we forget to ask, though... did Jim wake everyone with his snoring this year, too?? (Sorry, Jim, I couldn't resist!)

Maryanne (aka Mimi) scoops a sleeping Michaela out of my hands at 8 in the morning! You can tell she was mostly still asleep by the fact that she's curled in that little ball. It still cracks us up when she does that!

Jim (aka Papa) FINALLY gets his turn. I think he had to actually pry the baby out of Maryanne's hands!

We did our best to enjoy a week of decent Kodiak weather while managing my continuing c-section recovery and a finicky baby's schedule. Luckily, by the time they got here, I was about 5 weeks post-op, so I was up and about much better than when my parents were here. If you remember my post a few weeks back about fishing with the baby, that happened when Maryanne and Jim were here.

Besides that, we did some easy hiking, drove to the top of Pillar Mountain for the view of downtown Kodiak, went down to the harbor on Near Island to see "the very famous boat" (Cornelia Marie of Deadliest Catch fame... a little kid walked by and asked his dad if they could see the very famous boat), and they went halibut fishing (with Jason... I stayed home with Michaela) in an absolute downpour. Though there was no fresh halibut to grace the table, we pulled some out of the freezer and Maryanne made us a FANTASTIC dinner one night. Fortunately, I have the cookbook she got the recipe from, so I can try to recreate it at a later date... it was one of the best ways I've eaten halibut yet!

Mmmmm....yummy!

We spent most of their week here relaxing around the house, though, with Mimi and Papa (I guess we'll stick with that since it's what Regan's already calling you guys!) getting plenty of time to cuddle and play with Michaela - which was the only reason for their visit anyway! Jason and I have quickly realized that nothing is about us at all anymore... but we're ok with that.

Everyone but me (behind the camera) at the top of Pillar Mountain. I think we made Maryanne nervous with how little clothes Michaela was wearing. She was plenty dressed to us - she's a Kodiak girl afterall!

And now here we are, over a month later since they left, with only 6 short weeks until we get to see everyone again! We're already looking forward to our visit to the east coast - and basically reintroducing Michaela to everyone. She changes so much every day, that it'll be exciting all over again to see everyone "meet" her again!

My apologies to Maryanne and Jim that it took so long to get this post up, and that it's not very detailed! We had a great visit with you guys, though, and we can't wait to see you in November!!

And Jason's fired.

Sometimes I hate him.

2009-09-23T21:58:00.004-08:00

Or maybe I'm just jealous. If I tried to do this, I wouldn't be able to actually fall asleep, or Michaela would decide she didn't want to. But, no, they've been like this for at least a half hour, maybe more....

Don't tell him I told you, but I think he would've put her to bed instead of sharing a nap like this, but he had to fly the last two nights and only saw her for about a half hour in the mornings (not counting the 4am feeding), so he needed his daddy time.

Plus, by doing this with her, I was able to do some stuff I wanted to and haven't been able to since he's been gone the last two nights.

But I'm still jealous.

Back to your regularly scheduled program....

2009-09-10T21:31:00.006-08:00

And we're back to baby stuff.

Mom/Mary requested some video of Michaela. We've taken some lately, but nothing really worth sharing. And then within the last couple days, she took on a new activity, so we have something worth sharing now.

Right before I sat down to write this blog, Jason called me upstairs, where we watched our daughter struggling and getting frustrated as she attempted to roll over from her back to her tummy. She obviously hasn't gotten the memo that you're supposed to go the other way first (tummy to back) because she is bound and determined to roll over. Unfortunately, all she managed to do tonight was spin herself around so that her head turned toward the foot of the crib and her feet were at the head. I tried to get some video of that in the night mode of our point and shoot camera, but the battery died right after I turned in on, so you'll have to settle for the stuff I took earlier with the Flip.

We'll get to that...

In other major news, she's 8 weeks old today (HOW did that happen?!?!) and has now gone to three half days of daycare. I only cried the first day, and I managed to stop the periodic crying most of the way through lunch with Jason. Before that first day, there were days I would get so frustrated with her when I couldn't seem to get her to stop crying no matter what I did, and I thought I couldn't wait til I could get a break! Now, after three half days, and my return to work looming in the very near (MONDAY!) future, all I can think is, "HOW am I going to be away from her all day!?! I'm going to miss everything!!" Luckily, I'll get to go to the CDC (Child Development Center) once a day to nurse her, so we'll have a little time during the day, but it's definitely not going to be the same! She'll thrive there, though, with lots of one-on-one time since there are soon to be only two babies in the infant room. That makes me happy - if she has to be in daycare, at least she's getting the same time I'd be giving her!

Michaela recently had her 8 week well-baby check a little early, too. She had it right around 6 weeks because we had paper work to fill out for the CDC. I've been concerned about how much she spits up, and wondered if she was keeping enough food down. I didn't need to worry at all! At 6 weeks, she was 10lbs, 14oz and 22.5 inches long, which was a full two+ pounds more than her birth weight, and a full inch longer than her birth height! And today, we took the infant insert out of her carseat! This girl is growing like a weed!

So that's the big stuff in baby news. I still need to put together a blog about the Reidy grandparents meeting their second grand child. But, we're having a big party at the house tomorrow night - our wetting down to celebrate our promotions this summer - so I have to get through that first, and then I'll get back to the blog.

Meanwhile, in non-baby news, I have a "job" coming up that I have a lot of work to do for as well. A friend of mine, who owns a souvenir-type shop here in town has asked if I would sell some of my Kodiak photography on consignment in her shop. So I now need to go through two years of pictures and find the ones I think would sell the best! I'm pretty flattered that she asked me to provide her shop with something that she thinks it's been missing... but I'm also nervous that no one will like them and buy them! So, wish me luck on that front!

Finally, what everyone has read this whole blog to get to... the video from earlier tonight that I talked about a million paragraphs ago. Here's Michaela getting a little exercise and trying valiantly to roll over!

Sometimes it's not about the baby

2009-09-04T22:20:00.003-08:00

I would love to offer up a picture-filled and witty post about the latest and greatest adventures in the life of Michaela.

But, last night Jason and I had a combined total of sleep less than what is recommended for a normal adult, so my wit and patience for uploading pictures are a little limited.

Instead, I'll just share a little piece of Kodiak beauty. This is what I saw out the front window about an hour ago... and I promptly ran outside to catch it with the camera, leaving Jason inside with a screaming baby. Heh.

Anyway, this is the product of a sunset just 20-ish minutes before moonrise (plus a 500mm zoom lens and a little cropping/zooming on the computer). Enjoy!

You can keep 'em, but the limit is one....

2009-08-25T20:14:00.006-08:00

Hopefully everyone gets that... just in case, though, it's a reference to the bag limit for how many fish you're allowed to keep. In this case, I'm referring to a very special kind of catch....

As I walked up from the Buskin this afternoon, with a baby in my arms, a couple guys walking down to the river asked if you could catch those down there... I told 'em yes, but the limit is one!

I've told my mom for MONTHS, that I'd head out fishing at some point this summer, even if it meant I had to bring the baby with me. Mom didn't believe me, so we took pictures so I could prove it. That first picture is Michaela showing off her Sox pride right before we put her back in her carseat and headed out for the screaming ride home.

Here's the rest of the proof...

Having a quick snack before heading down to the river. YAY for bottles so Daddy can get in on the feeding, and I don't have to find a private spot to feed her when we're out and about!

Here I am... all dressed up in my waders, and ready to head down to the river. Of course, she started crying right after Maryanne took this picture.

But, she stopped as soon as we started walking down the path, and then fell asleep, allowing me to get to business!

You'll note in this picture that, not only am I fishing, but I actually have a fish on my line (note the bent tip on my pole). Sadly, this cast only resulted in a pink (hooked legally in the mouth, but still a pink), but Michaela was pretty happy with her first fish.

I don't recommend fishing while wearing a baby unless you have someone to help you get the fish off the hook. Truth be told, I usually make Jason do this anyway, but at least I had a good reason today.

And here we are, showing off my stinky pink! We were trying to decide whether the baby would have increased our bag limit of silvers by two since she was helping me out. You don't have to have a license if you're under 14 (I think 14), so I'm wondering if I could've claimed an extra two fish on her behalf. It turned out not to be an issue since she had a melt-down and we had to leave before any of us caught any silvers anyway, but I'll have to do the research for the next time.

Finally, I have to share this picture because 1) she's too cute for words in it and 2) that's a doll she's smiling at (thanks Mr. and Mrs. A!!), so it's not all fishing and boy stuff for her! She likes the girl stuff, too!

That's the latest from here. Jim and Maryanne got in on Saturday and will be here until Sunday morning. I'll share the rest of the grandparents-meet-Michaela stuff later in the week... I just had to get this up here today.

So, yes, Mom, it IS possible to bring the baby fishing with us!!!

Four weeks already!

2009-08-19T17:43:00.006-08:00

Truth be told, she'll be five weeks tomorrow. But we're slow. And sleep-deprived. Yesterday, I thought about blogging, but then I decided to take a nap instead. I should be doing that right now since Michaela is sleeping for the first time all day today right now (It's 5:45 pm and she's been asleep since about 4. I'm pretty sure babies are supposed to sleep between the hours of 9 and 4... she didn't get the memo.). But, I feel so bad that it's been over two weeks since we updated the blog that I'm doing this instead. See how much you mean to me?

Let's see... what's happened since the 2nd? We've done about a bazillion loads of baby laundry, but Jason ran out of socks one day because we forgot our own. We've gone through more diapers than I ever thought humanly possible and she's showing no signs of letting up on the VERY regular pooping. We've started to get back into our Kodiak hikes - slowly at first while I continue to heal, but we're going further and at a better pace now with only one major "feed me now" melt-down so far. We've learned not to leave a naked baby on the changing table for too long or it can result in a bigger mess. And, Michaela got to meet her Waitt grandparents and aunt.

In the midst of all that, she took her first bottle (YAY! No worries that she'd starve at daycare), let us know very firmly that she's not interested in a pacifier, slept "through the night" (5 hrs) on more than a couple occasions, and grew like a weed! Jason and I are trying to settle into some kind of a routine (not a schedule, just a routine), and I've tried to avoid going crazy by getting out of the house as much as possible. I'm pretty sure that full-on sleep deprivation is in effect, but we're managing to function and find our way through our new life as a family of three. It is truly amazing to me that such a small person can change your life so much and can fill your heart with so much love. She can also fill your heart with frustration as she cries unconsolably for the third night in a row for no apparent reason, but we've decided we're definitely going to keep her. She made us fall in love and there's just no going back now. *grin*

Moving onto the good stuff... pictures!

Hiking out at Spruce Cape. I LOVE my Sleepy Wrap. Jason prefers the Baby Bjorn, but I like the cuddly feeling I get from the wrap instead.

Grandma meets Michaela! Grandma is lucky that Michaela was out of bed for her... just remember that, Grandma.

I think Grandpa had to pry Michaela out of Grandma's hands. He had to continue to do that for the rest of his visit....

Heather doesn't seem very excited to be meeting her niece (*snicker*, *snort*). Heather liked holding Michaela the best when she was like this. Like a good aunt, she was quick to hand her back when the screaming started. She also continously offered to change a diaper, but never did....Smart lady.

Family portrait at Ft. Abercrombie. Next time, maybe we'll show Michaela's face.

I did not lay my baby like this to sleep, I swear. She started on my chest and slid into my lap and then slowly kept moving her head off my lap until she ended up like this. She slept like this quite comfortably for a half hour or so. Silly kid.

This is more like it! Isn't she cute!!?!

First bottle!!! Daddy's now in on the feeding game! We started her a day after she hit 4 weeks just in case she resisted it at all. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get used to it since she'll get bottles during the day while she's at daycare. She's now had 4 or 5 feedings this way with no complaints at all! YAY!!!

She really WILL sleep anywhere....

Here's the wider shot of that one... I'm guessing she started higher on Jason's chest, too adn slid her way down. Again, silly kid.

And, finally, a story.... Jason is going to hate me for this one. Oh well!
Today, I scheduled a hair appointment since Jason was home during the day. I waited WAY too long to schedule it, so I was stuck with the 2:45 appointment. Jason had to leave the house no later than 3:30 to head into work for his duty night. I figured I'd be close to getting done by the time he had to go, so, if I wasn't home, he could always just drop the baby off with me on his way out to work. Well, that's what he did, but it wasn't pretty! Apparently he didn't get the text I sent him, telling him he'd had to drop her off because the hairdresser was running behind. So he did some stuff between 2:30 and 3-ish, at which time he determined Michaela was hungry so he'd give her a bottle real quick. That was his first mistake. So, when he brought her into the salon, looking a little worse for the wear, I said "Rough afternoon?" and he said something along these lines:

"Yes. She was really fussy the whole time. I gave her a bottle, which she spit up half of. On me. Then she was in the bouncy chair and had a major diaper blow out. So I had to clean that up. My other flight suit is just on the floor in the living room. I really have to go now. Oh, and she's not wearing pants. Just a onesie. Ok, bye."

Something tells me he's really looking forward to my doctor's appointment next week when he'll get to fly solo again (though Maryanne and Jim will be here, so it won't really be solo). At least we all had a good laugh at the salon!

And now I need to run because she's starting to wake up and I have left-over pizza in the oven that I was hoping to eat before she needed to again! We'll do our best to not wait so long between updates anymore!!

Where is the time going??

2009-08-02T21:36:00.008-08:00

I can't believe it's been over a week already since Jason last updated the blog! I guess when you're barely sleeping and your days are defined by when the baby last ate, time can get away from you!

Ok, it's not totally true that our days are only defined by when Michaela last ate, but that is definitely a planning factor when we have ventured out. We try to fit everything into the three hours between the last diaper/feeding so that we don't have to worry about finding a place to do that away from home. Eventually I'm sure we'll (I'll) become pros at it, but for now it's much easier to limit the challenges!

We did make it out a couple times this week, though, as we tried to make the best of the limited sunshine we've been seeing around here. (The last really GOOD weather we had was actually the day Michaela was born... figures we spent it in a birthing suite at the hospital!) We went for a couple (short) walks, drove to Miller Point at Ft. Abercrombie and snapped some pictures of Michaela enjoying the sunshine, went to Coast Guard Day at the base, and went to the doctor for Michaela's two-week check up. In between all that, we tried to sleep, learned the value of Mylicon, single-handedly filled the Kodiak landfill the rest of the way with diapers, and changed clothes (ours and hers) about a million times due to Michaela's "sensitive" digestive system.

So the big news was from the doctor's visit. Amazingly, Michaela has not only regained the weight she lost at the hospital, but she's far surpassed what the doctor would've expected to see. When we left the hospital on the 19th, she was down to 8 lbs, 4 oz or so. At her one-week appointment, she was already back to 8lbs, 12 oz (just an ounce and a half short of her birth weight). At her two-week appointment, which is when the doctors want to see babies back to their birth weight, she was up to 9 lbs, 6 oz!!!! Not only is she way past her birth weight, but she gained 10 ounces in 9 days!!! Now you see why our days revolve around when she last ate! She also grew a bit, and was just shy of 22 inches. I'm a little skeptical of that measurement, though, just because it's hard to measure a squirming baby. But she's pretty much outgrown the newborn size clothes, and is even pushing the limits of some 0-3 stuff. Unbelievable!

Since I'm kidding myself if I think anyone wants to actually read anything about what's going on, I'll just skip ahead to the pictures now!

What's not to like about baby feet? *sigh*

This is from our day out at Ft. Abercrombie. I was trying to get a good picture to use for birth announcements. Of course, after walking around for a while with Michaela in the Sleepy Wrap, she was, in fact, sleepy, so we couldn't get any with her eyes open!

Helping Daddy study for his final exam for his latest grad school class. Gotta love that smooshy face!

Playing (sort of... ok, not at all... just laying) on her playmat. Fred is such a big help....

Fred on guard over the swing. It's too bad he can't keep her head from falling over uncomfortably like that.

And, finally, we snapped this beauty tonight. The "aww, cute" version of the story would be that she found her thumb and was happily sucking on it, keeping me from having to feed her right away after her bath (you'd think we were killing her the way she screamed after her bath tonight). I'll let you figure out the not-so-"awww, cute" version of the story. Sadly, we tried to capture a second picture somewhat like this one later, but she moved and we weren't able to continue the series. Yes, we're probably going to scar our child for life. But it's too funny. In fact, I just laughed all over again when I looked at this picture. Yep, she'll be lucky to make it to toddler-hood without having to see a shrink. (For the record, I'm proof-reading and laughed AGAIN when I looked at this picture...)

And because it wouldn't be right to end on that.... here's one last one. I just love how she'll curl up into a little ball like this. The funny thing is that she'll end up sliding down my front all the way into my lap, too, curling into a smaller ball as she falls. I guess they really do like to feel like they're in the womb for a little bit longer once they're on the outside!

So that's the latest from here. We're doing well... just trying to figure all this new parent-hood stuff out. Jason heads back to work for the first time tomorrow night, so I'll be on my own over night. As much as I like the fact that he'll be home during the day for one last day, I'm NOT looking forward to the night-time changings to go along with the feedings (Jason's been getting up to change and bring Michaela to me in bed, and I just have to worry about her eating). I guess I might as well get used to it sooner than later, though.... there will be a lot of nights on my own for the next year! Thankfully, my friend Abbie, who also just had a baby about a week after Michaela was born, invited me over for dinner, so we'll make the trip out to the base to hang out with friends for a while so we won't be on our own all night. Wish me luck, though... Yikes!

Next update will probably be sometime when Mom, Dad and Heather are here... I can't wait for Michaela to get to meet more of the family! That's it for now!

One week old already!

2009-07-24T10:49:00.008-08:00

Well, today marks the end of first week since Michaela's birth and things are going well. We went to the doctors on Wednesday for her first visit and she was given a clean bill of health. She has been eating great and was almost back to her birth weight on Wednesday, so that would probably make her officially back to her birth weight today. We'll see what she weighs next week when she has her second visit. Mom is doing well, but still pretty sore from her surgery. She's been trying to take it easy and even made it through half a day by herself when I had to go to work. (Thanks Christina for bringing her lunch). We have been blessed with friends bringing us dinners over the next two weeks, and we really appreciate not having to make that decision every day. So far we have been trying to figure out the sleeping thing, and last night was a success as far as I'm concerned. Two three hour long stints in her pack n play and the last one on Daddy's chest. It was nice to finally get eight hours of sleep for the first time in a week.

Other then the normal daily stuff of learning her schedule, we've been good and have ventured out once to Walmart and probably heading to the base quickly today. I'll attach some more pictures and two videos. The second video is just her in the pack n play, but if you wait till 30 seconds in you will get a surprise. (Make sure your speakers are on). Stand by for more pictures, we'll get them up when we can.

Jason

Drunk on the Boobie Juice!

Hanging out in the Pack n Play.

Michaela's Baby Picture

My Baby Picture

Think she looks like Daddy?