Brian, Kristen & Kailyn...

Hello again!

2012-02-14T12:29:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I last posted. I've been very busy with school, my photography and just life with Brian away right now. I'm losing motivation to do my school work. I'm ready to be done. Just a few more months. It's difficult because I just want to do photography, especially when there's no job opportunities around here using my Operations Research degree. I know it'll be worth it in the end. And I'm sure I'll snap out of this feeling of no motivation soon.

The month hasn't been too terrible with Brian gone, it just stinks that I can't even talk to him!! I've had some pretty huge things happen these past few days and I just wish we could talk about it together. I've had to make some decisions on my own involving our house in San Antonio. Luckily I have some wonderful friends and family that I had no problems calling to discuss those scenarios with. Our current renter needs to break the lease early (she's been there almost 2 years) and we had an offer from some new renters that they would like to sign a 2 year lease but wants us to decrease the rent by $45 a month. Anyway, I countered with saving them $20 a month for a 2 year lease and I'm still waiting to hear back. The other thing that I really want to discuss with him is what's going on with my Dad's case right now. I went up to Lincoln this last weekend to meet with family to go over the case. It's hard going through all of this with Brian gone. I find myself laying awake at night a lot just crying and going over things in my head. Just having Brian by my side helps so much, even if it's him snoring in bed next to me. Enough with all of that! Let's talk about Kailyn!

Kailyn is doing great. She's sleeping so well at night for me. I think we're finally through her waking up once at night to nurse. She's been going 10-12 hours straight for almost a month now. It really started once she went to daycare and she decreased the number of nursing sessions each day. She's eating so much more now too so I know she's not hungry in the middle of the night. She's such a happy little girl and she's definitely made this month go by quicker. She picks up new things daily. She still doesn't say too much verbally, but she's signing to me pretty well. We go to the doctor April 2nd to have tubes put in her ears and they're also going to cut the frenulum on her upper lip. It's causing a huge gap on her two top teeth and they might as well take care of it now while she's under getting her tubes put in. I'll leave you with some pictures I took today of her in the shower. Normally she's fine playing in the bathroom while I shower. But the last few times she feels like she needs to be in the shower with me. She LOVES it! She's definitely a water baby!

Video

2012-01-18T19:57:00.001-06:00

Kailyn provides us with so much entertainment and even more laughter. We love this little girl!

Another Kailyn Update!

2011-12-21T15:43:00.004-06:00

I'm finally done with this semester of schooling. Feels good to be finished on time so I can actually enjoy Christmas break instead of catching up on projects and finals. Brian took this entire week of from work so that has been nice. We went home last weekend for three family Christmases. It was great to see everyone (while not being sick like Thanksgiving). It was also a little hard without my Dad. But I like what a close family friend said, "he was there for every laugh, hug and tear."

Kailyn's third and fourth tooth broke through this past week. And I see two more up top trying to come through. No wonder she hasn't been sleeping very well for me at night. I'm sure most of you saw my post about her 12 month check up. She's doing great, took the shots really well, and I'm not following the advice of her pediatrician of stopping with the nursing and transitioning to cow's milk. She's 31 inches tall and 21.5 pounds. She's growing and developing wonderfully.

Kailyn does this new thing we like to call, "happy feet". She gets really excited and moves her feet up and down really fast like she's marching in place. Sometimes she spins in circles at the same time. Too cute! She still loves to take a bath. We're working on the sign for bath. She hasn't gotten it down yet, but if I say the words she runs over to the bathroom door waiting for us to open it. Then she rushes over to the tub and opens up the shower curtain. All the while trying to climb up into the tub.

I'm amazed at how fast she learns things. She can now do the sign for "more, all done, cheese, milk, book, eat, drink, and help". Help is the newest one. The real sign for help is to have a closed fist with your thumb up resting on your other palm and then lifting your first up off of your palm. I think she sees me have a fist similar to "milk" and it goes up high so she just signs milk up high over her head, usually with both hands! Here's a picture of her doing it.

Earlier today she went to go get a book from her book shelf and they were wedged in pretty good. So she signed for book and then help. It was pretty cool to see! I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas. And sorry that my Christmas cards are going out late. You'll probably receive them sometime after Christmas.

Very long video of Kailyn!

2011-12-10T20:10:00.002-06:00

Here's a pretty long video of Kailyn. It's about 10 minutes just to warn you. She's becoming such a goof ball as you can see in the video. I don't know how many times she makes me laugh each day.

Happy Birthday Kailyn!

2011-12-01T08:51:00.007-06:00

I can't believe a year has already gone by. Kailyn has definitely changed our lives, but it's all for the better. I can't imagine life without her. Her personality is really starting to come through. She's very goofy and loves to laugh. You can also see how loving she is when she snuggles up to Sadie. Kailyn is also learning so much. She can sign "more", "all done", "cheese", "milk" and "book". She can point to my nose but not her own yet. She points more towards her ear when you ask her to point to her nose. She does know where her belly is though. And she loves to tickle Daddy as well as her own toes. She also loves to spin in circles and say "wheeee".

I can't believe she's gone from this:

To this:

Video

2011-11-10T10:30:00.001-06:00

Kailyn loves to help me take laundry out of the dryer. She's been keeping me so busy lately. She's getting into everything and she's moving very quickly these days. I turn my head for one second and she's gone.

Practicing with my camera

2011-11-08T16:38:00.004-06:00

I took some pictures for a friend and family member. Wanted to share a few of my favorites. I can't wait for Kailyn to sit still for me.

Having one of those days.

2011-11-07T15:23:00.002-06:00

It's raining and cold here and I'm just feeling down I guess. Not sure if this will actually get posted or not, but I think I'll feel better once I type some things out.

I thought my heart was mending from my dad's death, but today I feel like I've taken two giant leaps backwards. Maybe I've been acting like things are okay and it's all just coming out now. I know I put on a face sometimes, even when my insides are falling apart. The times when it's the hardest for me is when the house is quiet and Kailyn is sleeping. Just like now. She can be a great distraction for me.

I'm just sitting here, thinking of my dad. Looking at pictures and I can't stop the tears. I should really do my school work, but I've lost all motivation. I'm in need of a break from all of that. I hate that it hangs over my head all of the time. I hate that I know I could do better and get better grades, but I don't want my school to take so much time away from Kailyn. I'm not failing or anything, but I did get a B in a class that I know I could've earned an A.

I think I'm also in this mood because I was looking forward to going to Texas to visit some old friends, but the Army's funding fell through so now Brian will not be taking that course there. I was texting some friends yesterday and I really miss our time down in Texas. I loved the weather, I loved my job and I loved all my friends down there! I'm thinking of taking a trip down there with Kailyn when Brian leaves for a month for NTC in February. Maybe booking some airline tickets will cheer me up. :)

Well, Kailyn is waking from her nap. Time to go have some fun and get some much needed hugs. Not sure how this all reads as I don't have the time to read it before posting. But I really am okay. Just needed somewhere to let it all out and cry. Feeling much better now. Sorry for such a downer post!

Not letting me upload pictures

2011-10-31T08:12:00.003-05:00

I've tried to update the blog a few times over the couple weeks and it won't let me upload any pictures or videos. Each time it gives me an error. But I did want to update this. So I guess it'll be boring with no pictures.

Kailyn is walking around a lot more. The other day she went all the way from the kitchen to our bedroom on her own, which is about 20 feet or so. And she did it without us coaxing her. She's choosing to walk over crawl if she's already standing up.

Well, I think some pictures uploaded. Let me see if it works if I publish the post. We carved pumpkins this weekend. Kailyn tried to pick up the biggest one. She was grunting while she was doing it. But Grandpa Stoltenberg's pumpkin was just too big for her.

Another video!

2011-10-05T09:40:00.001-05:00

This is a video from our Florida trip. Kailyn had so much fun playing in these play areas that they had all over in Florida.

Video

2011-09-25T13:38:00.001-05:00

Yesterday

2011-09-15T07:58:00.006-05:00

Yesterday must have been picture day, because I took a lot of pictures! It's been so nice here lately. I love when the mornings are cool enough to wear jeans and a sweatshirt but then it warms up in the afternoons. Yesterday morning we took Sadie on her normal walk and stopped to try to get more pictures of Kailyn in the grass. She really hates the texture of grass for some reason.

Then we came home and I started to upload the pictures on the computer when I noticed the sun starting to come out. So we went out back to swing for a while.

And this is her after her nap. Can you guess which side she slept on?

We ended the day with bath time. She loves to take a bath, but hates to be taken out of the bath!

We got some good video of her playing in the tub, so if I have time I'll try to upload that as well.

So this is not the video I wanted, but it's still pretty cute.

Sleepy Kailyn

2011-08-31T07:52:00.003-05:00

Kailyn has been falling asleep in her crib after she finishes playing a little bit. So yesterday I went in because she had been sleeping quite a long time and I thought I heard her, and this is how I found her.

The times I think of my dad.

2011-08-21T09:56:00.004-05:00

There are many things and places that make me think of my dad and I felt like writing them all out. I miss him so much every day and I still feel like I've been cheated! But most importantly, that Kailyn has been cheated out on spending time with such a great grandpa!

So these are the things that remind me of him:

When I see a motorcycle.
When I see someone wearing a Harley Davidson shirt or hat.
When I see a Harley Davidson store, window decal, pretty much anything related to a Harley.
When I take a funny picture of Kailyn I think of how much he would've loved seeing it.
When Kailyn does something new I think of how I would've called him to tell him.
When I see Brian with Kailyn, he's such a great father just like my dad was!
When I hear certain songs on the radio that remind me of him.
When I look at the pictures I have of him around the house.
When I walk into our downstairs bedroom because he helped us finish it.
I think of him every night when I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep.
When I drive to Lincoln, NE I think about how I wish I could just stop by his house and say hi.
When I see Kailyn with her other grandparents I think about him missing out on moments like those.
When I see a hunting show on the TV, he loved to watch those boring shows!
When I eat brisket, chili, sausage, french toast or goulash (those were all things he loved to eat and make).
When I think about my wedding day I think of him walking me down the pier/aisle.
When I see a house being a built, or a window being installed (which we have houses going up all around our neighborhood).
When Brian and I do any type of upgrade or remodeling of our house I think about how nice it would be to call him to ask his advice.

Pretty much every hour of every day he enters my mind. I'm just waiting for the day when those thoughts don't hurt so much and I can smile instead!

Things Kailyn has been up to these days....

2011-08-15T21:47:00.006-05:00

Kailyn amazes me more and more every day. She's growing up so fast and learning so much. I enjoy every minute that I'm with her. Last time I updated my blog we were down here in the basement and the next thing I knew she had gotten into a pile of papers Brian had on the floory by our desk. All she wanted to do was help him sort them I'm sure!

We got a swing hooked up under our deck. It's her new favorite thing to do. It also works great to help get her tired before naps and bedtime.

Here's a picture of her being goofy! The faces she makes cracks me up.

Lately she's been pulling herself up a lot. She still hasn't figured out that if she lets go, then she'll fall. Or maybe that's her way of getting down because she hasn't quite mastered sitting back down from the standing position.

She pretty much eats anything we're eating. Still not a huge fan of the pureed baby foods. Here she is eating some spaghetti.

She still really enjoys bath time. She pulled herself up to the tub to watch the water fill up. She was so anxious to get in! Sorry for the nudity, but she has the cutest little tush!

This weekend we went to the zoo here in Manhattan. It's not very big, but it's actually the perfect size for her. It's also great because it's shaded really well.

Lastly, if you'd like to watch a video of some new things she learned today check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLzC4yywyx0.

A poem written by Brian

2011-08-09T10:35:00.003-05:00

Brian wrote this poem about my dad in the eyes of Kailyn and I thought I'd share it.

Grandpa, why did you have to leave us now?
I already miss your bright, playful smile.
I've shed all the tears that my eyes will allow,
And still I yearn to turn back time's dial.

Grandpa, why did you have to go away?
I already miss that glow in your eye.
Every time I saw you, I wished it could stay.
You were my dear grandpa, but now you're Heaven's pride.

Grandpa, why did you have to go so soon?
I already miss the strength of your hug.
I need something to turn this somber tune.
Please keep me safe, as you watch from above.

Grandpa, I miss you, why'd you have to go?
God must have needed your love, to help other children grow.

Baby on the move!

2011-07-28T10:08:00.003-05:00

Kailyn has been army low crawling for a few weeks now. But until recently she wouldn't get very far very quickly. But she's finally figured it out. So we had to put up the baby gate. She's also getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. She'll move a leg forward but she'll fall on her tummy. I don't think it'll be long before she really gets going! Here's a picture of her helping Daddy put up her gate.

Kailyn has also been more fussy these past few weeks. It could be a combination of her not sleeping well because we've been gone from home so much this past month and teething. Can you see the teeth about to break through. I keep saying they'll come any day now, but they never do.

Yesterday we had a little mishap with her baby food. She's still not enjoying the pureed foods I make. She's more into chunks of our food.

And here's a video of her on the go. She's also saying "Momma". I love to watch her cheeks go while she says it.

1 Month

2011-07-25T10:25:00.002-05:00

It's been one month since my dad's accident. In some ways it has gotten easier and in other ways I just miss him more! He's missing out on so much. I know some tell me that he's not missing out and he's able to watch us all the time, but really those words are not comforting at this point and time. I want to be able to give him a hug again and I want to see his face light up when he sees Kailyn. I want him to see all the new things she's doing. I still feel like I should be able to pick up the phone and call him. In this past month I had one day in which I did not shed a tear, and then I felt guilty for that. I know he wants me to be happy and to go on with my life, but I hate thinking that he's no longer apart of my life. I know he'll always be apart of my life, but what I mean is I'll no longer have any new memories with him. For almost my entire life, my dad was the number one guy in my life. I would turn to him for everything! If my car was making a funny noise I'd call him and stick my phone out my window so he could hear what I was talking about. I would call him when I would get hurt or when I needed to smile. He was also the go to guy if I had questions about our house. He would do anything for me. It's not fair that he has been taken from us this soon. We had so many plans in the future. He was so excited to come down here this August with his new truck so he could haul the big boat out to the lake. Last year he had a smaller truck and it just looked so funny hauling the boat. He was also looking forward to attending any of Kailyn's future ball games, dance recitals, choir concerts, etc... He very rarely missed any of mine. My dad was the best dad ever and I miss him so very much!

Update

2011-07-13T08:29:00.003-05:00

Becky has been moved to Madonna Hospital in Lincoln. She'll be doing some inpatient rehab for awhile. Not sure how long they'll want to keep her there, but at least she's closer for us to go visit. As far as I know, the accident is still under investigation. We were told that the truck that caused the accident had passed a semi truck driver and the semi driver informed the police that the other driver had been driving distracted. He wasn't sure if it was due to talking on a cell phone or what, but he could clearly tell he was distracted. Becky has been talking with a lawyer. She has no plans to sue this guy for everything he has or anything, but she'll probably go after him for wrongful death. Maybe also pain and suffering, but she just wants to make sure all of the hospital and funeral home bills are paid for as well as her loss of income over her recovery.

We're planning on taking a short vacation to Denver this weekend. We'll be going to visit Brian's brother & girlfriend and my aunt & uncle. It should be a good distraction. I just hope Kailyn does well in the car during the drive. I'm excited to go to the Rockies baseball game on Saturday.

A poem that helps describe how I feel

2011-07-12T12:48:00.001-05:00

Daddy

The day you answered God's call
Left an empty space
My world came crashing down
I couldn’t breathe…couldn’t talk…
I felt so numb, I couldn’t walk.

It was so hard to believe
That you were gone.
Once so strong;
Where do I belong?
Why did you have to leave?
Why did you have to go?

Thinking of you brings tears to my eyes
I never thought I would see your demise
Who will teach me right from wrong?
Now that you are gone?

Daddy, you put me through varsity
You did that by working with your hands
You built big buildings and painted tall walls
Times were tough that I knew
You did what you could, to help me through

You could fix anything you laid your hands on
There wasn’t a thing you couldn’t do
With a little cement or some glue
Just thinking about this, is making me blue!

You made me so proud on my wedding day
When you so unselfishly gave me away
You hugged me and wished me well
And I think a saw a tear

It was so hard for you to let me go
To let your “little girl” venture into a world unknown
Without you holding my hand or to catch me if I fall
But don’t worry daddy
I remember everything you taught me
If I forget, it’s a pity I can’t call

Now its time for me to let you go
The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do
I Love you Daddy
More than words can describe
I wish you were here, I wish you were alive!

One Day at a Time

2011-07-07T10:09:00.002-05:00

It's been twelve days since I received the phone call from my step brother, Ryan telling me the horrible news about my dad and becky's motorcycle accident. It's hard to express all the feelings I have, but I can say that it's getting easier to think of the happy memories I had with my dad. I think the hardest thing for me is thinking about all of the things he's going to miss out on with Kailyn. Even in just these twelve days she's doing new things that I wish I could pick up my phone and call him to tell him. She is a good distraction for me though. She's so happy and she makes me smile. Brian has also been amazing through all of this. I couldn't ask for anything different.

Becky is doing better, but she has another surgery scheduled for today. The doctors were hoping her bladder would fix itself but it doesn't look like that'll happen. They're not sure what or how they're going to fix it. It's hard to tell with all of the damage to her pelvis. She was told on Tuesday that the external fixators on her pelvis are going to have to stay for at least another 4 weeks. She's also non weight bearing on her left leg for at least 2 months because of her broken ankle and non weight bearing on her right leg for at least 3 months because her right hip was pretty much shattered and is "floating". Her left hand was also broken and is in a cast. She has a long road of recovery ahead of her both physically and emotionally. I can't imagine how she feels. She had to bury her first husband because of an ATV accident. No person should have to do this twice! It's just not fair!

As far as the guy that caused the accident, we're not very happy with his insurance company at this moment. They found out that my dad was a Shriner and he received a great discount on his motorcycle. So the insurance company went to the dealership to find out how much my dad actually paid for his motorcycle. They are trying to cut corners and trying to pay as little as possible. Another sad reality is the fact that my dad was in the middle of switching life insurance companies. He had all the paper work filled out, but he never made that first payment. I fear that this whole thing is going to take so long to work itself out which makes the healing process for me harder. I'm still in shock most days and question why this had to happen. It's just too sudden and too soon. I know that my dad is in heaven now and he will be watching over my family. I try to find comfort in the fact that now Brian will have one more guardian angel to look after him during his deployment which will be sometime this coming January or February.

Change of Command and Father's Day!

2011-06-19T19:51:00.005-05:00

Brian is officially done being the company commander of the IACH Medical Company here at Ft. Riley! He returned from Airborne School (which he graduated) and had one week left as the company commander. He says it's a bittersweet time for him. He enjoyed his command time but he's also looking forward to becoming 4th Brigade's Physical Therapist and deploying sometime next year. I'm excited to have him back where we don't have to worry about him having to go in to deal with some issue late at night or on the weekends! Here's a picture at his farewell. His 1st Sergeant was awesome! He's the one shaking Brian's hand.

Here's a picture of Brian giving his speech at the Change of Command. I didn't get very many pictures because Kailyn decided to be a little fussy. I don't blame her though, it was really hot outside that day!

And lastly here are a few pictures from today, Brian's first Father's Day! Kailyn is so blessed to have such a wonderful dad. He'll be someone that she can always count on and look up to! It's so much fun to see them interact with one another!

And this last one is just a funny picture! Kailyn is definitely teething. I hope they pop through very soon for her. We leave tomorrow for Las Vegas so I hope they don't bother her too much on the plane.

I hope everyone had a happy Father's Day! It is now time to go pack for our vacation!

This past week

2011-06-09T16:24:00.005-05:00

We've had a busy week. My mom came down for a few days. It was helpful to have her here and we had so much fun. Kailyn has now tried sweet potatoes, carrots and avocado.

Yummm....carrots and toes!

Not a fan of the avocado!

Had a play date with a little girl named, Mya. She's the daughter of a friend of mine from the high school I worked at last year. She was born 3 weeks before Kailyn. She's 14 lbs. and Kailyn is 19 lbs!!

Also had a play date with our neighbor, Ariana.

This time Kailyn seemed to enjoy the swing so much more!

We went to the zoo here in town with my mom. It's not very big, but that's perfect because we were able to see the whole thing before Kailyn was ready for her next nap. It's also very shaded!

Kailyn seemed a little more interested this time in comparison to our visit to the Omaha zoo.

My mom bought Kailyn a little pool. We have it set up behind the house which gets shade in the late afternoon. She loves the water!

Eating Sweet Potatoes

2011-06-03T14:03:00.002-05:00

This is a video of Kailyn eating sweet potatoes. This is the third time she's had them. I made a batch a few weeks ago and froze the remaining in ice cube trays. The first two times didn't go over as well. But she's finally getting the hang of it and she likes it!!

Swimming Time!

2011-05-30T12:56:00.004-05:00

Brian was gone a week at Airborne school and then found out that they had a 4 day weekend with Memorial Day. So he bought a plane ticket home on Thursday and flew in on Friday. Talk about a surprise!! We didn't have much time to hang at home, but it was nice to have him back for a few days. In just the week he was gone he talked about how much Kailyn had changed. We ended up getting a hotel room last night because his flight was at 7 AM and we would have to leave our house around 3:30 to get him there on time. So we thought we'd take advantage of the pool. Kailyn had a blast!! Please excuse all of her rolls. She's a little embarrassed by them! Haha!!

New Things!

2011-05-19T17:10:00.003-05:00

We've had quite a few new things occur lately!

I finished my semester. Yay! It feels good to be done, but I've found myself getting bored during the day so now I think I'm going to take a summer class and try to finish my degree early!
Kailyn rolled over for the first time from her back to her tummy!!! She's done it the other way quite a few times but from her back to front was new today!
She's sitting up completely unassisted. A few times she'll topple over if she reaches too far too fast, but for the most part she catches herself.
She's also standing up on her own when she holds on to the couch or some other object. She's not pulling herself up, but she can stand there for a good 3-5 minutes before she decides to sit back down.
Brian left for Airborne School today. The army was not the best with coordinating this. It's been very frustrating for us to say the least. He was going, he wasn't, he was going, he wasn't.... They couldn't seem to find the money to send him. Yesterday they found the money and booked him a plane ticket for Friday but he was afraid he wouldn't make it to the check in on time so now he's driving. He's already on his way.

That's it for now. I'm heading back home tomorrow for a week to visit family and friends. So I'll have lots of new pictures to post when I get back next Friday. :)

The many smiles of Kailyn!

2011-05-16T12:40:00.000-05:00

Video and other things!

2011-05-09T11:47:00.002-05:00

I just love this video of Kailyn. She's finally getting the hang of "jumping" in her jumperoo. It's so fun to watch all the new things she is learning. (So the video won't load, but it's on my facebook page.)

As for me, I have one final exam and one project left for this semester. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am really looking forward to this summer. I haven't had a break from school since last May! I hate it when things are always on my mind, such as needing to do this homework/project or what not when all I want to do is play with Kailyn!

Brian is doing pretty good. His job is really starting to get to him I think. We're both very happy that his command time is almost over. Usually people take command for two years, but he's lucky enough to only have to do it for just over a year. We have a couple of vacations planned, and I can't wait for him to leave his work behind him!! He's on call 24/7 and carries his blackberry (government issued) with him at all times. But come June 17th, he's done!!

I hope all you mothers out there had a wonderful mother's day! I had a great day. Brian woke up early and went and bought some bagels from Panera Bread. When Kailyn woke up I opened my card and gift! I got this beautiful heart necklace! I love my family so much!!!!

Random Pictures

2011-04-29T15:48:00.001-05:00

Kailyn's 4 Months Old!

2011-04-01T13:58:00.002-05:00

The time keeps flying by! I cannot believe how big she is getting. At 4 months, she's weighing in at just over 16 pounds and 26 inches long. I went photo happy today, so here's a slideshow of SOME of my favorite ones. Notice I said the word, "some". I took close to 200 pictures today and was able to narrow it done to just over 100. Don't worry, there aren't that many in this slide show. Just my favorites!

Then and Now!

2011-03-22T09:07:00.003-05:00

I cannot believe how fast Kailyn is growing! She has turned into my happy, chubby cheeked baby girl! I love her more and more every day! She is learning so many new things. Last Friday she finally rolled over from her tummy to her back. A few weeks ago she discovered her feet, so now she's always playing with them. She's also very interested in mommy and daddy eating. She watches us eat so intently. This past weekend it seemed like she was mimicking Brian chewing as he ate a twizzler. Every time he chewed, she did as well. I'm in awe of what she can do. When I look back at pictures from when she was first born, I am amazed at how big she has gotten! Everyone tells you that time will just fly by, but you're never prepared for how fast it really does until you are experiencing it!

Here she is first born.

Here she is at 2 weeks.

And now at 3 1/2 months!

Bath Time Fun!

2011-03-12T20:19:00.003-06:00

Kailyn has never minded taking a bath, but now she's actually starting to have fun while bathing.

What do you think?

2011-03-03T09:24:00.004-06:00

Do you see any resemblance of Kailyn and I? I think she may have my nose, but besides that she's mostly Brian. Brian says she also has my chubby cheeks (he swears he never had cheeks like hers). I had to find a picture of Kailyn where she wasn't smiling because when she smiles it just accentuates her cheeks! :)

Having a bad day!!

2011-02-23T12:03:00.002-06:00

I have this problem of being too trustworthy of people! I am almost 100% positive that I have been scammed by someone wanting to purchase our timeshare. Brian and I purchased a timeshare while we were down in Last Vegas last year. That was our first stupid mistake! We should've known that it wouldn't be worth it because we don't go on vacations very often and when we do we aren't the type of people that need to stay in some fancy hotel or condo!!

So we have been looking to sell it. We paid a company, Timeshares By Owner, to list our property and take care of all of the processing of the deed and other things that would need to take place in order to sell the timeshare. It was an upfront cost, but we will not have to pay anything else in the end. At first I thought this was a scam and I was kicking myself for signing us up for that one, but it turns out to be a legit company. We were even refunded almost 90% of what I paid because the guy that was working with me did lie to me and they had it on tape and they paid us most of our money back.

Then I get this phone call yesterday from a different company, Luxury Equity Traders, saying they saw our ad on the Timeshares By Owner website and there is a guy who buys timeshares and then resells them at a conference he holds every month. I've had many MA NY phone calls from people wanting to buy/sell our timeshare and I thought I was getting very good at knowing when it was a scam or not. 99% were scams!!! I won't go into all of the long details of everything, but long story short, I ended up sending them money that they said was needed to do the Deed Transfer and other legal documents. They are still in contact with me, but I just have this gut feeling that they are going to rip us off!!!! We were supposed to receive an overnight FedEx package today with all the paperwork and our check for the timeshare. But of course it's being delayed in their processing department. Yea right!!!!!!!! I'm guessing they will continue to say that there is a delay and then one day they will magically disappear and they will change their names and phone numbers!!!! I went to our local police department but there is nothing they can do because it is out of their jurisdiction. I filed a complaint on two different government websites that the police officer told me to because they have more authority and can contact the people in the right jurisdiction. I'm guessing that process will take longer than what it will for these guys to change their names and numbers.

I feel like such an idiot for falling for this scam. I should've known better!! Worst thing is, I was stupid enough to send the money via Western Union so there is no way to track it and I tried to cancel the transaction literally 2 hours after I placed it because I just didn't feel right about the whole thing and it had already been cashed on the other end! Didn't take them long! I'm feeling so sad about the whole thing and I really wish I could turn back time!!

Some more pictures!

2011-02-17T14:57:00.002-06:00

The days seem to just fly by. Kailyn had her shots a week ago and she did a great job. Of course it wasn't fun hearing and seeing her cry from pain! At least the crying didn't last too long. Unfortunately, her naps during the day have been thrown off ever since she had her shots. But I'm happy to say that so far today she's been doing great! Maybe she's finally gotten over whatever it was that was causing her to not nap. And most of you know that a tired baby is a fussy baby!! I'm also happy to brag that she slept so well for me last night! She fell asleep around 7:15 PM. I woke her up around 9:45 to feed her and let Brian see her. Then she didn't get up again until 6:30 AM!! And she ate and went back down for another hour.

Brian's job has been very time consuming and frustrating for him lately! He's putting in really late nights and he's been attached to his Blackberry phone (army provided this so he was available 24/7)!! However, we finally have a date in which he will have his change of command ceremony. He'll be handing over his company June 17th! Then we leave for vacation a few days later and he will NOT have his Blackberry! Yay!! As for me, I'm slowing plugging away at my classes. I still have one class that I haven't finished from last semester. It's the most time consuming one. I'm hoping to have it finished by Spring Break. That's my goal at least. I'll finish this post with some pictures of Kailyn. I can never get enough of this smile!

It was 70 degrees here today. So we went for a walk in her stroller. My mom has been in town for a few days to help me with Kailyn so I can get more school work done.

I bought some leggings for her before she was born. We haven't used them as much as I thought we would. Mostly because I feel like her chunky little legs are getting the circulation cut off by them!

My grandma and grandpa came down on Valentines day to visit for the day. My grandfather hadn't met her yet because he was sick over Christmas and Kailyn was just too young at the time to be around someone that had the flu. She had a great time showing off in her Jumperoo!

Videos!

2011-02-08T10:50:00.003-06:00

Picture Update

2011-01-31T08:02:00.005-06:00

We were without our fancy camera for 3 weeks, so here's what I have from our older camera. I'm working on uploading a video, but for some reason my computer always freezes when I try to do so. If any of my more savvy blogger friends (ahem...Alyssa or Amy) have any suggestions on how to make it work, I'd love to know what I'm doing wrong! :)

To kick off the pictures, here are a few shots I took the other morning of our Kansas sunrise. This is right out our back porch. I did not edit them or do anything, and they were taken with our older camera. So you can imagine what it looked like in person!

Now some pictures of Kailyn! I love how big her cheeks get when she smiles! Okay...so her cheeks are pretty big even if she isn't smiling. We have a doctors appointment Wednesday and I'm anxious to see how much weight she's gained!

I'm so glad Kailyn enjoys her bath time. I guess "enjoy" may be a little of a stretch, but at least she doesn't hate it and she doesn't cry!

I can't help but chuckle a little when she sticks out her lip like this! Is it bad that I ran for the camera on this one instead of picking her up?

So tired!! She's definitely a happier baby when she gets her sleep. How come babies fight falling asleep sometimes? She could be so overly tired, but she just fights it! But I do have to brag a little because she's been sleeping very well at night! She's been going 12 hours and only waking up once in that 12 hour period!

Loving her little Jumperoo! She definitely likes to be more upright these days. So this thing has been great! She's technically not big enough for it because her feet don't touch the floor yet, but she loves it!

Pictures!

2011-01-06T12:03:00.004-06:00

I cannot stop taking pictures of Kailyn! Most of these are of her at 4-5 weeks old. Brian and I are so in love and are truly enjoying this time. Unfortunately I am not getting much school work done. I had to take an incomplete for the fall semester and as of now, I still have 4 projects and 2 finals to complete. And the spring semester starts up in a week and a half!! Argh! I hope I find the time to do school and enjoy this time with Kailyn!

Kailyn has arrived!!!

2010-12-09T19:59:00.005-06:00

Our baby girl, Kailyn Nicole, has finally made her appearance into the world! I had Brian take notes on her birth as we went along because I was afraid I would forget. Here's how the big day/days came along!

Monday night we went in to the hospital to get checked because I had been having contractions that were ranging from 5 to 7 minutes apart. I knew that they wouldn't admit me, but I wanted to be checked to see if I had made any progress from my zero cm and 0% effaced status that I had been at. She said she'd give me a finger tip, but I wasn't a full 1 cm yet and maybe 50% effaced. I was happy to be progressing towards SOMETHING!!

Monday night was hard for me to sleep. My contractions continued to be 5 to 10 minutes apart. I didn't get much sleep at all. The next morning I had a Non Stress Test the results came back normal. Baby was doing great. She didn't check me because I had just been checked the night before. That night (Tuesday) when Brian got home, we ate dinner and then I thought we should go back to the hospital because the contractions were more intense and were getting closer to 3 to 4 minutes apart. So he gathered up the bags while I jumped in the shower (hoping it was my last shower at home for a while!)

Got to the labor and delivery to be checked, and we had a nurse that wasn't the happiest to be there. She seemed annoyed that we were there and she said that I wouldn't be admitted unless I was 5 cm dilated or more because they were so busy!! I was thinking...well lady, I can't really check for myself if I'm 5 cm or not so that's why we're here!! My contractions were pretty consistent at 3 1/2 mins apart and I was 4 cm dilated and 60% effaced! I was so happy!!! Then the doc came in and told me that they would be admitting me because I was scheduled to come back that next morning for an induction.

At 11:25 PM that night I received my epidural. The anesthesiologist was coming in from Manhattan that night and if I wanted to have one, I needed to do so right then before he left. Otherwise I would have to wait until 7 or 8 that next morning when the military doc arrived to work. I opted for the epidural because I hadn't had any sleep in over 48 hours and the contractions were really intense so I knew I wouldn't be getting any sleep that night either! An hour later I was checked and I was at 6 cm and 90% effaced. The doc decided to break my water.

An hour later I was checked and I was still at 6 cm so they started my pitocin. At 1:40 AM they upped my pitocin a little bit and I got to 7 cm and 100%. They backed off the pitocin at 3:05, I was 8-9 cm. At 4:50 AM I was 10 cm and ready to go! The epidural was wearing off, which was what I wanted. I was able to have full control of my lower body, I was even able to turn around on the bed and get on my hands and knees to try to get her out! I pushed until 7:00, making very little progress. The nurse also noticed at this time that Kailyn had a bowel movement and there was meconium surrounding her. I tried to rest for an hour, but the pain was unbearable. So at 8:00 AM, the new anesthesiologist came in and gave me some more medicine to help with the pain.

The doc thought that Kailyn was maybe facing the wrong direction so they had me lay in different positions to try to get her to turn around. At this point her head was really swollen so it was hard for them to tell which way she was facing. At 9:45 AM I tried pushing again, only to stop at 11:35 because again, she was not budging!! Then we waited for what felt like an eternity for the doctor to come in and evaluate me.

At 12:05 PM he showed up with another doc, 2 nurses and an intern. They were all surrounding me encouraging me to push a little more. The doc wanted to see if he could possibly assist in the delivery with a vacuum. But, I had nothing left in me and he couldn't pull her out himself. At 12:30 we decided that a c-section would be the best option. Her heart rate wasn't looking as good as it had been and she had been surrounded with the meconium for quite some time now. 45 minutes later, our gorgeous baby girl was delivered! She didn't cry for quite some time and they didn't show her to me right away either. They were working on getting all of the meconium out of her system. I finally heard her cry and I was able to see her. She was BEAUTIFUL!! Just perfect!

They took her away and Brian was able to follow her while they worked on stitching me back up. When I got back to the room she was in there and so was our family. I was finally able to hold my precious angel. She was SOOOOOOOOO worth everything that I had gone through!

Kailyn Nicole Stoltenberg
Born: December 1st at 1:14 PM
Weighing 8 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long

Brian and I are so blessed! We can't stop staring at our healthy and beautiful baby girl!

I'm Ready!!

2010-11-28T09:28:00.002-06:00

I'm officially over being pregnant! Things are getting more and more uncomfortable for me, especially sleeping! Yesterday I tried "walking" her out. I did 2 miles on the treadmill in 31 minutes! I'm feeling that one this morning. School starts back up tomorrow, I could really surprise all of my classmates and professors if I went and I was still pregnant! They didn't even think I'd make it to Thanksgiving break! Now I'm going to make it THROUGH the week long break! I don't know how Brian and I's mothers did it. Brian and I were both 4-5 weeks overdue. Guess I could make it through the semester if the hospital would let me go that far past my due date! But it looks like I'm going in Tuesday night to start the induction process. I really hope she comes on her own before then!!

40 Weeks and 4 Days!! No end in sight!

2010-11-23T16:24:00.002-06:00

I'm now 4 days past my estimated due date, but I'm still feeling fairly comfortable. Sleeping at night is becoming much harder though. When I wake up, I don't feel well rested even though I've been in bed for 8-10 hours!! I know it's just my body preparing itself. I'm still at zero cm and no sign of contractions or anything else! My induction date was set for Nov. 30th but I have been bumped back to Dec. 1st now because someone else needed my date/time for a c-section. I never thought I'd be having a December baby! Hopefully she comes on her own before then! I've been trying everything to try to help bring on some contractions, but nothing seems to work. I know she'll come when she's ready, it's just hard playing the waiting game. But I am enjoying some time off from school. I was hoping I could work on some of my projects but we haven't learned everything yet so I'm stuck with what I've gotten done thus far. I hope you all are doing well and we wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Here are a few photos I've taken recently with our new camera. I really like it and I can't wait to take pics of the little one once she finally arrives!

This last picture is me at 40 weeks and 4 days!

Today's the Day!

2010-11-19T16:02:00.002-06:00

Well, not exactly! Looks like the little one wants to hang around a little longer before she makes her big debut! I'm really not as disappointed as I thought I might be. I guess it helps that I'm not miserable. I'm looking forward to this weekend alone with Brian. I will savor every moment that she gives us. But I am anxious for her to come as well! I can't wait to see what she looks like and I can't wait to hold her in my arms! Dr.'s are going to induce me November 30th if she's not here by then. I really hope she makes it on her own before that time!! Hopefully the next post you read is one announcing her birth!!

Pregnancy Photos

2010-11-13T16:50:00.000-06:00

New Camera!!!

2010-11-06T09:01:00.007-05:00

Last night, Brian and I went to Best Buy to look at some of their DSLR cameras. We've been looking for quite some time now, but we finally decided on one! We got a Nikon D3100. At first Brian said that I couldn't play with it until I got all of my homework done...but obviously that didn't happen. I'm still learning, but here are a few pictures with the new camera. I think it'll be great for when the little on arrives. It even can capture HD video! David was the only one that would pose for pictures this morning. But I'm sure you'll see many more photos of our other two creatures that we have wandering around the house!

15 DAYS (or so) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-11-03T17:34:00.003-05:00

The end is in sight and it's almost coming TOO fast now! I feel like there's so much to do before she arrives. My hospital bag is sorta packed. I can't pack a lot of things because I still use them on a daily basis. Plus, if everything goes as planned (haha....like that'll happen!) I hope to stay at home for the first parts of labor. You know, take a shower, EAT, etc... So I'm thinking I'll have time to finish the bag packing then. We'll see!!

School is still crazy for me. I have a project due Nov. 10th, 12th and 19th. Along with a midterm exam on the 17th. For my last project that was due I ended up staying up over 36 hours. Spending ALL night in the computer lab with 18 other classmates of mine. It really wasn't fair that they all had coffee and red bulls to keep them awake while I sat there with my water! But, I got it done just in time!

Here are a few pictures of the nursery. The only thing that is missing right now are the letters of her name. They are going above her crib.

28 Days!!!

2010-10-22T17:39:00.003-05:00

Holy cow, we only have 28 days left to go (giveor take a few weeks I know!). Ever since I started my classes the time has just flown by. I'm starting to get the feeling that it's going too quickly. I'm so busy, I don't feel like I'm able to really enjoy this part of my life. There are so many wonderful things going on right now, and I don't feel like I'm getting the chance to take them all in. I know that very soon, a little precious girl will be joining our family of 2 (okay 5 if you count the animals)!! We're very anxious for her arrival, but I also want to enjoy these last few weeks with Brian. I know we'll never truly have time to ourselves anymore. Yes, we'll go on date nights alone, while grandparents or friends watch her. But I know that she'll always be on our minds.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing by any means...it's just going to be different. Anyway, these past few weeks have been so busy for me with school. I get home late, or if I come home early I'm stuck on the computer doing homework. Or the nights where I've designated some quality time with Brian he ends up having to stay late at work because one of his soldiers has done something stupid. The past couple instances involve getting picked up for DUI and trying to commit suicide. I really hope that when Brian takes his 10 days off for Daddy Leave he's able to enjoy the time without worrying about what's going on at work.

Right now I'm considering giving my professors a date in which I stop going to classes so I can focus on me and my family. Well, I may still go to class, but maybe I'll let them know that I won't be able to meet all of their deadlines for projects. I don't feel like I'm fully prepared to bring a little one home quite yet. My hospital bag isn't even packed yet!!! Well, that's it for now. Here's a picture of my current belly size at 36 weeks.

What Changes When Baby Arrives?

2010-10-14T15:25:00.004-05:00

I found this list on the internet (babycenter.com). It's a list of what changes after you have a baby. I know that our little one is not here yet, but I'm looking forward to the moments that are listed below!!!!

1. You finally stop to smell the roses, because your baby is in your arms.

2. Where you once believed you were fearless, you now find yourself afraid.

3. The sacrifices you thought you made to have a child no longer seem like sacrifices.

4. You respect your body ... finally.

5. You respect your parents and love them in a new way.

6. You find that your baby's pain feels much worse than your own.

7. You believe once again in the things you believed in as a child.

8. You lose touch with the people in your life whom you should have banished years ago.

9. Your heart breaks much more easily.

10. You think of someone else 234,836,178,976 times a day.

11. Every day is a surprise.

12. Bodily functions are no longer repulsive. In fact, they please you. (Hooray for poop!)

13. You look at your baby in the mirror instead of yourself.

14. You become a morning person.

15. Your love becomes limitless, a superhuman power.

16. You'd rather buy a plastic tricycle than those shoes that you've been dying to have.

17. You don't mind going to bed at 9 p.m. on Friday night.
(Umm...is it sad that we pretty much do this already? Okay, maybe it's 10PM but still!!)

18. Your dog — who used to be your 'baby' — becomes just a dog.
(I can't see this happening! I know that Sadie may take a back seat for awhile, but she'll NEVER be "just a dog")

19. You take the time for one more hug and kiss even if it means you'll be late.

20. You realize that you can love a complete stranger.

Just 5 more weeks!!! We're getting so anxious for her arrival! Things are going great, still. Although each day it gets harder and harder to breathe! I'm also getting pain "down there". I think my pelvic bones are starting to spread apart. Ouch!!!

Umm... Seriously?!?!

2010-10-08T14:16:00.004-05:00

Today I went into the parking office on K-State Campus to see if they had any options for me once I get 1-2 weeks from my due date. As of now, I park probably 1/3 of a mile from my classes (that's if I can get into the parking garage). If the parking garage is full I'm closer to 1/2 a mile from my classes. Luckily, all of my classes are in the same building! But I'm already carrying almost 20 extra pounds of my own body weight plus any additional weight that my backpack, lunch, water bottle and purse add!! Not to mention I can hardly breathe right now with the little one compressing on my lungs!!

Anyway, I went in there today to see if I could possibly park in some of the reserved spaces they have RIGHT BY my building or if they knew of a better option for me. There are ALWAYS spaces available in the reserved area! Well the gal that was helping me (or not so much helping me) just looked at me like I was crazy for even asking! She said, "We have no control over where we can have you park. You're in the commuter lot and that's all that is available for you."

I just thanked her and walked out. I wasn't in the mood to try to argue or ask for a manager or anything. Although, I will be calling to speak with a manager later today to see if he gives me the same response. I'm not looking for handouts or anything. And so far, I really haven't tried to pull the whole "pregnancy card". I'm also just looking to see if there's another place for me to park for 1 MAYBE 2 weeks when my due date gets closer! She seriously looked at me like I asked to park in the President's spot for the entire year!!

Update: I tried talking to the manager but the girl on the phone wouldn't transfer me until I told her what my phone call was regarding. In hindsight, I shouldn't have told her! I got the same response as before...it was probably the same girl that I talked to in person!

Picture Update

2010-09-28T18:45:00.002-05:00

I've been bad about posting lately. My excuse is: I'm busy with classes. Since my last post I have had two wonderful baby showers. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of them because I didn't take any with my camera. However, my friends and family do have pictures. So once I receive some from them, I will post pictures from the showers.

Below is a picture of Brian putting a locking mechanism on our dropside crib. I purchased a crib through a friend, sight unseen!! Well, it happened to be on a recall list. So I researched it and the company provides a way to prevent the side from coming down. Sadie decided to help Brian out a little! Not sure if she was much help!

Now for the belly pictures! This picture was taken at 30 weeks I believe.

Here's 31 weeks. It was taken right before I went to substitute teach at the high school I taught at last year.

This one is taken at 32 weeks! It looks like I got a lot bigger, but when I wear that tighter purple tank top I always look bigger!

Everything has been going great for us! I have another doctor's appointment on Friday. A few weeks ago I was a little worried about our Little One because she wasn't as active as she normally is. But that didn't last long. She's back to kicking up a storm. Only now it's more just overall movements. I don't think she has much room to wind up and punch me anymore!!

Hiccups!!

2010-09-06T14:23:00.004-05:00

So I've been reading in some of my books and online that I could start feeling hiccups if our little one gets them. Well yesterday, Brian made some awesome Chili Con Carne which was a little spicy. Shortly after dinner I felt a lot of movement! She was going nuts!! Then about 2 hours later I felt very tiny but rhythmic thumps. She had the hiccups for about 10 minutes! Brian wasn't able to feel them very well, but I could definitely tell they were there. It was an awesome feeling!!

Today for lunch we had some more. She went crazy again shortly after lunch but I have not felt the hiccups yet. And can that pregnancy counter be correct at the top of this page!?!?! Only 74 days left to go (give or take a few days I'm sure)!! It's crazy to think that in just over 2 months I'll be holding her! I can't wait to see Brian hold her as well! I've only seen him hold a newborn or even baby for the matter, once! I'm sure she'll melt our hearts instantly!!

Baby Bump Pictures

2010-09-02T09:56:00.002-05:00

Here are some pictures at 28 weeks!

Here's my belly from my point of view! Notice you can still kind of see my toes sticking out! But maybe I'm leaning over a bit....I'm not quite sure. :)

We're so anxious to meet this precious little one!

Brian told me that I probably won't be able to wear my regular small sports t-shirts much longer. I think I'm about to show some skin! Oh well...guess I'll go to wearing his shirts! :)

Busy Weekend

2010-08-24T07:49:00.004-05:00

My brother got married this weekend, so we went home for the wedding. It was great to see my extended family. They got married in an old chapel building at Stuhr Museum. The whole day went great for them and everyone else! This first picture is my Aunts and Uncles on my mom's side. We're missing an aunt and uncle because my cousin had her baby at 3 AM that same day, so needless to say they weren't able to make it to the wedding.

My mom and I waiting for the wedding to start.

My little brother is all grown up. I think he looks a little nervous in this picture. :)

Here comes the bride! My beautiful sister-in-law, Rosalinda!

My dad and I (and a little of the baby bump)!

My grandparents, Nan and Dean and of course my wonderful husband!

Sunday we drove back home to Kansas to meet up with Brian's parents to go fishing on their big boat! It was a great way to spend the last day of my summer. I invited a couple of friends to come out with us and we tubed behind the boat. Don't worry we didn't go very fast when I was out there and I was able to sit up in my tube.

Brian and Katie were able to go faster. We all had so much fun!

Well summer is officially over. I started my graduate classes yesterday. Luckily all of my professors seem to be very understanding that I'll be having a baby at some point in time during the semester. It's going to be interesting to see how this first semester pans out!

O-Day Fun

2010-08-06T16:05:00.004-05:00

Thought I'd include this picture of David. He's resting on top of our mattress that we moved out of the guest room. We're finally starting to work on the nursery, those pictures will come shortly.

Today we had Organizational Day on post. They had bouncy houses for the kids, volleyball, face-painting, dunk tank, etc... Well, they had the command team up first for getting pies in the face. Someone offered up $60 to throw a pie in Brian's face...but they gave the opportunity to me!! It was a lot of fun!!!

Here's a picture of Brian and the 1st Sergeant. I think I got him pretty good!! :)

What better way to wash the pie off than a dunk tank!! Here's Brian's first dunk. Maj. Cass (from the physical therapy clinic) was there with his kids and they thought it was really funny that they could dunk Brian in the tank! I thought it was pretty fun as well! ;)

They finished off the day with a game of tug of war. Brian's team won. I just won't mention that they had an advantage of having two more people than the opposing team!

Having Fun Fishing!

2010-08-02T14:52:00.002-05:00

My dad and step mom came down this past weekend and we spent our time out on the lake! We rented a pontoon boat and were out all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Here's a picture of the first catch of the weekend!

We had a lot of fun. Didn't catch anything super big, but it was still a fun weekend out on the lake!

We were trying to mimic a picture we saw at the marina. The picture they had at the marina involved a much bigger fish...but this is still really funny!! :)

This was not a catch from this weekend but the weekend before.

Biking

2010-07-24T18:37:00.002-05:00

Brian and I went biking on a trail not too far from our house. I haven't been on our bikes in about a year, so it was great getting back out there. Don't worry I was careful!!! I could definitely tell that my lungs aren't working like they used to though!

Here's a picture of a little project I did the other day. It was really easy, but I'm not sure if I really like it. So far this is the only baby decorating we've done so far!!! Yikes! We're waiting because we need to finish the bedroom in our basement so we can move the guest room down there and have the nursery up on the main floor with us. Hopefully we'll get that done one of these coming weekends!!

My Trip To Washington

2010-07-18T13:09:00.003-05:00

I had such a great time visiting Alyssa and her girls in Washington this past week. The weather was beautiful and we were able to do a lot of things outside while I was there. We went to a couple different parks and had a few picnics. One picnic was in their front yard and was ended because the sprinklers came on. We all thought that was really funny, especially the girls!

Here's little miss Avery smelling a flower!!

This is Kinsey being her funny little self.

Playing chase!

Just the older girls went out for a few hours to shop and eat at this awesome restaurant called, "Katie Downs Tavern". We were able to find a table out by the water in the sun and had some awesome pizza!!!

The trip was great, I'm really glad I was able to go! It was nice to be able to just hang out with a great friend!!!

It's a......

2010-07-05T17:15:00.003-05:00

This was the card that I made for the doctor to mark if it was a boy or girl so we could find out for ourselves at dinner instead of in the doctor office. Inside the little box she wrote "90%". She's 90% sure that it's a girl. I have my true anatomical ultrasound in two weeks. Brian and I are both very excited! (And yes, I did see that I put the comma in the wrong spot on the front of the card...I'll go back and fix that sometime!)

Landscaping and Baby Update

2010-07-01T16:09:00.004-05:00

First I wanted to show off our new landscaping. It's finally all finished!! If you didn't know, when we moved in we had nothing but weeds and some grass growing in our yard and that was it. No trees, no flowers...nothing. So here's what it looks like now:

This is part of the back yard. There is this stone stair case that you can see in the middle of all the little rocks. In the very back they are finishing up that drainage ditch. They're going to lay sod and put some nice river rock back there to spruce it up.

Now for the baby update! Well I had my 20 week appointment today thinking I would be able to find out the sex of our baby. Apparently I was supposed to schedule a different appointment on a different floor of the hospital to get the gender/anatomical scan. The doctor I had at my 16 week appointment was supposed to put a referral in for that and let me know that that was what I was supposed to do, but he never informed us of this.

However, the doctor (actually midwife) that I had today was very sweet and I really really liked her. She told me that she would try to get me into the smaller ultrasound room that they had on the OB floor and she would look for us. We got in right away and we were able to see our little one moving around like crazy!! Our little one looks very healthy and she said that he/she is very tall looking. She also mentioned that the umbilical cord is very thick and healthy! We got some really good shots (I'll try to scan them and put them up later!).

When she started to look for the sex, Brian and I turned away. She kept it a secret from us (because that is what we had asked) and wrote in a card that I had made. We sealed it up and are going to dinner tonight to celebrate and find out the sex. I stole this idea from a friend (Alyssa I believe, but I'm not quite sure). We're going to try to hold out until dessert to find out. We'll have our server bring out a cheesecake if it's a girl and a brownie sundae if it's a boy. But who knows...maybe I'll change my mind as to what dessert I want when dinner time comes around! Now the midwife informed us that she wasn't 100% sure and to keep our receipts if we buy anything gender specific. But we're still excited to find out. I do have my gender/anatomical scan July 19th to find out for sure. We can't wait!

Baby Bump

2010-06-21T09:09:00.004-05:00

Here's a picture of my tummy at 18 weeks pregnant. I'm just waiting for the day for it to really stick out. I guess there are advantages of being smaller...I can still wear all my normal clothes! Also, about 1 1/2 weeks ago I felt the baby move/kick. I know for sure that it was a kick because I had to look at Brian to make sure HE wasn't the one who was poking me in the tummy. It was such an amazing feeling. I've been able to feel regular movements almost daily since then. Actually, I feel them most of the time at night. We even think Brian was able to feel it last night! He felt something at the same time I felt a kick. I can't wait until it gets stronger. And I also can't wait to stop calling it an "it". We get to find out if we're having a boy or girl July 1st! Anyone have a guess as to what we're having?

San Antonio Trip

2010-06-14T09:25:00.005-05:00

Last weekend my mom and I took a weekend trip down to San Antonio. My old "teacher" friends were just finishing school and I wanted to get down that way to see them before Heather and her family moved to West Virginia. They were the ones who were nice enough to let me live with them for a few months last summer while I was still down in TX and Brian was up here in KS. It worked out nicely because it was Hadley's birthday and I was able to make it there in time for her party. Here's Hadley and her dad, Jeremy.

This is the amazing cake that Heather made for Hadley. I really want to learn how to do this! I tried signing up for a class at Hobby Lobby but it's full all summer long!

Heather and myself. Sorry, the picture doesn't go down far enough to show my TINY baby bump!

The following day was the math department end of the year party. I LOVE my old math department. Everyone is so nice and fun to be around. Little did I know, Heather had planned a small surprise baby shower for me at this time!

The kids always have a fun time. Here's Hadley and Asher swinging. Asher is Jamie and Kyle's little boy. Aren't they adorable!

Here's a picture of me opening some gifts. And no, still can't see the baby bump!

Here's our old math department.

On my last day in San Antonio we got our old Pre-Calculus team together for lunch. We always have so much fun together. Here's Laura with her 6 week old baby girl, Amelia.

Then there's Christine, Jennifer and Heather. The little girl is Kadence who belongs to Jennifer.

My mom and I stayed two nights with Jennifer and her family. We had a lot of fun!

Here's a picture of my mom, Kadence, Zoey and myself.

This is Christine. We also stayed two nights with Christine and her husband, Oscar. It was so nice to have friends to stay with. We were able to have some GREAT home cooked meals and even better company!

One last visit with Heather and family. They are actually on the road right now to West Virginia. Jeremy got into a residency there. I hope we can see each other again soon!

We had a wonderful trip and it was nice to have my mom along for the ride. That can be a very long and boring drive by yourself! Hopefully we can make it down that way again next summer, only I hope to have Brian and BABY with me for that trip!

Fun at the Omaha Zoo

2010-06-01T08:17:00.004-05:00

This past Saturday I met up with my friend, Bobbi and her family at the Omaha Zoo. We did this last year and had so much fun, so we did it again this year. They live in South Dakota so it's a good meeting place for us. My friend (and neighbor) Katie came with me. I've been to the zoo quite a few times so I didn't take very many pictures of the animals or exhibits. Actually I only took this one picture of a monkey holding a mountain dew bottle.

This is my friend Bobbi and her little girl, Abby.

This is Katie. It was her first time to this zoo and she loved it!

Here's Abby riding the carousel.

We were in the jungle area and there was some water dripping down by the water fall. Abby found herself underneath it and she didn't know why she was getting wet, but she didn't try moving either. It was quite funny!

I'm excited to go next summer because I'll be able to bring our little one for a fun day at the zoo!

Pickles Anyone?

2010-05-24T11:43:00.002-05:00

It's been so nice to have my appetite back!! And I really haven't had any weird cravings or anything I don't think. But I do LOVE pickles right now. That was one thing I could eat even when I was feeling sick. At least I haven't had the infamous "Pickles and Ice Cream" craving yet.

I'm still not into chocolate really though. Kind of depressing I know! I can eat a chocoloate chip cookie, but if the main ingredient is chocolate I don't want it. I guess it's okay though, I know I need to be eating healthy anyway. Another weird food aversion I've had is chicken. Prior to getting pregnant, chicken was my main source of meat. Now all I want is red meat. (Not bloody red, but beef.) Who knows....this whole experience is just strange to me.

So the other night, Brian and I sat down to watch a movie. We watched the Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino. At the end of it, I found myself crying! And not just a tear or two, but I had some pretty good waterworks going. Brian found this to be really funny!! Don't get me wrong...he was being nice about it. But he thought it was funny that I cried during a CLINT EASTWOOD movie. It did have a sad ending though (at least I thought it did!). If you haven't seen it, I would say that it was pretty good. We did skip through quite a few scenes in the beginning though. I thought it had a pretty slow start and I hated all the swearing that they had in it. But the middle and end were definitely great!

Nothing else is really new here. I'm still not showing really. So I don't have any pictures to post. But I'll keep you all updated!

More Pictures!

2010-05-19T17:40:00.004-05:00

Here are some more pictures from Brian's Change of Command Ceremony.

And here's more pictures from Brian's Bataan Death March.
This is a picture of the big group that went to compete from the hospital.

Anxious to get the race started.

The Co-Ed Heavy Team!

Beautiful Scenery!

The big finish!!

These past few weeks!

2010-05-10T16:28:00.003-05:00

I know I haven't updated this in over a month, but I do have an excuse as to why I haven't. Some of you have asked if there is a Spring Break Part 2 coming...and there was supposed to be. I had good intentions of putting up pictures of Brian's Bataan Death March that he participated in the last weekend of Spring Break but that obviously hasn't happened. I would do that now, but I'm not sure where those pictures are currently located. So they'll come at a later date! But, his team did very well at the Bataan. They beat last years winning time by over 30 minutes!! Despite those efforts, they did not come in first. I believe they got 3rd...but it was so long ago that now I'm not 100% sure.

The big reason I haven't been updating my blog is because I'm pregnant and I really wasn't feeling well at all for about 6 weeks!!! I had some bad morning sickness, but it hit me in the evenings. Starting at about 4 PM, I would start to feel nauseous. And that would last until I went to bed. I ended up losing 10 pounds, but I'm definitely feeling better now!!! Thank goodness!! Brian and I are finally eating dinner together again. Poor guy lived on cereal for dinner for way too many weeks!! He knows how to cook, but he didn't mind eating cereal. Plus, if he made something that gave off too much odor when he cooked, it would make me feel worse!

We are very excited! The baby is due November 19th. I'm into my second trimester, so hopefully things just keep getting better!! I promise to do a better job of keeping you all informed on our progress. As far as future plans go, I'm still planning on going to Graduate school this fall. Just need to figure out how my semester finals will work out for this first semester. Brian is also the current Company Commander for the medical company. Here are a few pictures of his Change of Command Ceremony.

Spring Break Part 1

2010-03-18T20:54:00.007-05:00

My spring break is almost over. It has been a great week away from work. Brian and I headed off to Las Vegas last Friday. Here are the highlights:

We took a tour of the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam.

We're smiling in the picture below...but not so much once we were on our drive back from the Grand Canyon. It ended up being a lot longer drive than what we expected. Basically we were on the road from 7 Am to 10 PM and only stopped at the Hoover Dam for about 10 minutes and the Grand Canyon for 2 Hours. The rest of the time was spent in a bus!!!

I wouldn't say that it wasn't worth the bus ride there, because it was absolutely breath taking. But, we probably would've done it all a little differently if we would've known how long the drive was and how little time we were going to spend at the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon.

The following day, we met up with my friends from Texas. We spent the day and night gambling, people watching, and walking. A lot of Walking!!!

Here's the hotel we stayed at: The Luxor. It was pretty on the inside and out. The only bad thing was the fact that the bed was pretty hard...but who sleeps in Vegas anyway?

We also went to the Shark Reef exhibit at the Madalay Bay Hotel and Casino. Here we are petting a stingray that was trying to burrow under the sand.

One of the most exciting parts of the trip was playing in a Blackjack Tournament. It was a $20 buy in, and you got to play with $2500 worth of fake chips. They gave cash prizes to the top 10 people out of the 96 that signed up. Brian can probably tell the story better, but in short I was so nervous to play for some reason. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking the entire time. Especially when I put all of my chips in on the last hand which was $15,000!!!! I won that hand and that put me in second place overall!!! But that didn't last very long because Brian beat me out of the second place position. Oh well...if someone was going to beat me, I was glad it was him. So we ended up taking 2nd and 3rd place!!! It was a lot of fun!!!

Here's a picture of us with our winning certificates!

We also visited the M & M World Store. It was 4 stories tall and one of my favorite stores we went to while being in Vegas.

And here's a picture of us prior to leaving. It was a great time and we can't wait to go back again!

The last part of our spring break will be spent apart. Brian is headed off to the Bataan Death March in New Mexico and I'm going back home to Nebraska to see family.

I see change in our future...

2010-02-19T14:22:00.004-06:00

I have finally made up my mind concerning what I'll be doing once this current school year is over. I'm going to go back to school to get my Masters Degree in Operations Research. I'll be doing this full time so I can finish my degree before the Army moves us again. My step mom told me that I can't wear the K-State purple though. And I agree....I'll be wearing my Husker Red proudly!

As for Brian, he just got the Company Command position with the MEDDAC. This means he'll be attending a lot more meetings and making quite a few important decisions for the soldiers in the hospital. Unfortunately, he'll be pulled out of the physical therapy clinic to do this. He's excited about this new opportunity, but I know he'll miss practicing physical therapy. The ideal situation will be for him to have this position for 12-18 months, and then after that he'll go back to being a physical therapist.

School is going pretty good for me. Our state assessments are just around the corner, so the teachers are feeling the pressure. Once spring break gets here, life will be a little less stressful for me and the entire school.

Brian is still training for the marathon down in New Mexico. They have a 18 mile pre-qualifier here at Ft. Riley tomorrow morning. If their team can come in first place, they will get funding to make the trip down to New Mexico without spending a penny of their own money.

All in all, things are going great. The weather is very slowly starting to warm up. I actually went out without a coat the other day...and it was a steaming 45 degrees out. But it felt wonderful!!!

Waiting for the Warm Weather!

2010-01-31T15:29:00.005-06:00

I'm ready for summer to get here. Heck, I'd be happy if we had a day where it didn't get below freezing! But it's not too bad, I'm actually getting used to it. I know!! I never thought I'd say those words! We are keeping ourselves busy in spite of the frigid temperatures. Here's a little break down of what we've been up to the past couple of weeks.

We've been watching lots of football! It's going to be boring after the Super Bowl. There won't be anything on TV to watch on the weekends once it's over.

Here's my friend from work, Jenn. After we finished watching the Vikings whoop up on the Cowboys we decided to scrapbook a little while the guys played video games.

Brian and I went fishing last weekend. We tried a couple of lakes, but guess what....they were frozen solid!!! So we headed to the river. We didn't stay very long because it was pretty cold and there wasn't a fish in sight!

I've been baking a lot as well. I love trying out new recipes, and that's what I've been doing. In the past week or so I've made 7 new things. They include: homemade cinnamon rolls, monkey bread, pound cake, baked mac & cheese, chicken pot pie, roadside diner quiche and minestrone soup. Brian even got in the cooking mood so he tried a new recipe for chili con carne. They were all keepers. Here's a picture of the monkey bread and pound cake.

More scrapbooking!

Spending time with our pets! I know, you get to see a lot of pictures of them. But they do keep us entertained and busy.

Brian and I have also kept ourselves busy with one of spare bedrooms in the basement. We finally got all of the drywall up and it has been taped and mudded. We still need to do a couple more applications of mud. But it's getting there!

When I first started this post I didn't think I'd have much to show you guys, but I guess we have been pretty busy these past few weeks. Nothing too exciting, but we like to be at home together. We hope everyone is doing well where ever you may be reading this. Know that we are thinking about each and everyone of you!

Personal Update

2010-01-15T07:59:00.004-06:00

Well I know that I'm excited for this new year, especially because it means I made it through half of the school year and I'm finally on the down hill slide. I made a countdown calendar and there are 84 more SCHOOL days! 84 seems like a pretty big number but if I can make it to spring break there will only be 46 days left. I'm learning how to deal with/handle the kids at school and I can honestly say that I don't "hate" going to work every day. I'm even having some pretty good days. But I still don't see myself teaching there next year.

By now I'm guessing most of you know that Brian and I have been trying to increase the size of our family. Not with any more pets, but with the human variety! We've actually been trying for over a year and a half and we've been unsuccessful. So I finally made an appointment with a specialist last Thursday. She thought I had endometriosis and she wanted to do a laparoscopic surgery to confirm. So the following day (yep the very next day) I went in to have the procedure. It's nice seeing a civilian doctor, I didn't have to wait a month to try to make an appointment. The doctor could not see any signs of endometriosis or any other condition that may be causing us issues. At first I was a little disappointed because I really wanted answers, but it is Good News that I don't have endometriosis!!!

That's the update on my end. Brian is still doing very well. It's actually his birthday today!! Yay!! He's actually out in this freezing weather doing a 9 mile ruck march. He's training to do the Bataan Death March in New Mexico. Crazy guy!! For those of you who do not know what this is, it's a full marathon (26.2 miles) but you are wearing your army uniform including the boots and a 35 pound ruck sack. Did I mention it's in the sands and hills of New Mexico? Like I said, he's crazy!!!

Brian is also making quite the impression on everyone around him. He has actually been offered a company command position for the hospital. He hasn't decided if he's going to accept the offer. Right now he's leaning towards not going for it because he wants to put in for the opening with the 10th Special Forces Group in Fort Carson, CO. That is his ultimate dream job! I'll keep you posted as we find out more!

Christmas Pictures

2009-12-29T19:45:00.001-06:00

This Week!

2009-12-08T19:50:00.003-06:00

This past weekend was a really good weekend! We got a lot of stuff done around our house. We're trying to finish one of the bedrooms in our basement before we have family out for Christmas. So far Brian has wired all of the outlets in the room. And this weekend we both put up the sheet rock for the ceiling. Tonight we may try to put in the insulation for the walls and this weekend sheet rock the walls.

We also watched our Cornhuskers almost pull off an upset against Texas. It was such a good game!! I can't believe we lost with a last second field goal by Texas. We also played with our pets quite a bit this weekend. We get so busy and I feel bad for them. So we made sure we paid extra attention to them. Here's a video of me playing with Sadie. We just discovered that she does not like her paws touched while playing with her toys. You can see her do her funny dance every time I reached for her paw. Also, look at my hair. I really want to do something different with it but I'm such a chicken. Anyone have a good idea for me? I was thinking about getting a loose spiral perm in it again. I don't know though!! Let me know what you think!

Sadly, the squeaker in her duck was torn out by her yesterday. Along with all if it's stuffing!

Today started out as a disappointing day, but ended joyously! We were the only school district from Salina to Lawerence that had to go to school today with all of the snow. Our superintendent received numerous emails and phone calls from irate parents and staff members so he decided to let us out early today. I think he had us come to school because he wanted more money. Schools receive funding based on attendance. And if you close school, there are no students there for attendance and you lose out on money. I hope that money was worth putting our lives in danger. But at least we were able to leave early and we also get tomorrow off!!! I can't wait to bake and scrapbook all day!!!

Busy Weekend!

2009-11-25T08:28:00.006-06:00

This last weekend was a very busy weekend. But it was a lot of fun! Friday night, Brian and I had a movie night at home. We absolutely love our set up in the basement. We have surround sound, a pretty big t.v. and a blu-ray player so it's like we're at the movies!!

The next morning I went to Topeka to meet up with Heather and Hadley. They're the family that so graciously allowed me to become part of their family for a few months while I was in Texas and Brian was here in Kansas. Heather's husband, Jeremy had an interview for a residency in Kansas City. So we met up in Topeka for a few hours. It was great to see them.

This is Hadley trying on some new hats! She got to pick which one she wanted. There were some more girlie looking ones, but she chose this one. Not quite sure if it's a monster or if it's supposed to be a shark. Either way, it looks pretty cute on her! She's even posing for me in this first picture, giving me some pursing lips!! Too Cute!

After that, I hurried home to pick up Brian so we could head to Lincoln for the Husker game. Our Cornhuskers beat up on the K-State Wildcats! It's been a game that a lot of my students have been talking about. I'm so glad we won because I would have heard about it for weeks from the kids!

On Sunday we spent the day putting up some of our Christmas decorations. It took almost the entire day! Brian spent a lot of time outside with the lights and I think they look great. I'm very excited for this Christmas. We're having my side of the family out for Christmas this year. Each year it rotates to someone else and we haven't had the chance to host because we've always lived so far from home. But this year is different! It's nice being closer to home!

Sadie likes spending time outside, and she loves giving kisses!!!

Here's Brian giving me a heart attack. Luckily all the lights are up and there were no accidents!

Our NOT so wonderful pets.....

2009-11-17T20:32:00.003-06:00

So this past week our animals have been very annoying. Sadie has gotten into this bad habit where she'll start whining in the early hours of the morning wanting us to get up and play with her. She'll carry one of her toys in her mouth (usually her duck) and walk back and forth from my side of the bed to Brian's side of the bed, WHINING! As if I don't get enough of that at school! It's also starting to get REALLY cold here and I'm not enjoying being out in the cold waiting for Sadie to go to the bathroom. Which means Brian does it most of the time. What a guy!

Then there's our cats. This past weekend we woke up at 6:25 AM to the loud sound of glass shattering from in the other room. One of our kitties jumped up on the counter and knocked a drinking glass onto the floor! And then, just today, I came home from work to find one of my nice decorative plates in pieces on the kitchen floor. It was sitting nicely on top of our cupboards, but it doesn't any longer. It now resides in a box in our trash can!!! So sad!

Here's a picture of the pieces of the plate after I swept them up.

And here's the picture of where the plate used to sit on display! Just an empty space there now!

On a lighter note, we bought a new vacuum and I love using it. So it was just another excuse to get it out! It actually picks up all of the pet (and human) hair that used to stick to our carpet. It's truly amazing!

Our Wonderful Pets Surely Keep Us Entertained!

2009-10-23T20:24:00.004-05:00

So when Brian's parents came down last week they brought us a nice assortment of pumpkins for our front porch. That night, we went to take Sadie for a walk but when she caught a glimpse of the pumpkins on our front porch she headed straight back inside. She was so scared of the pumpkins. It took a lot of convincing for us to get her to come out. The following is a video of us taking her out the following morning. Not as funny, but you can still see that she doesn't like those scary pumpkins. They're not even carved with scary faces yet!!

PICTURES OF OUR TIRED PETS!!

Kei and David don't act like they like each other sometimes, but we caught them snuggling together one day. It was really cute!

Here's fatty (Kei's official nickname) soaking up the warmth of our fire!

Here's Sadie chasing a laser pointer. It's funny watching her try to paw at it while she's running!

Promotion Ceremony

2009-10-18T12:51:00.005-05:00

We finally had Brian's promotion ceremony last Thursday. It was a nice little ceremony. Congratulations Brian!!!

I'm going to complain...

2009-10-04T20:25:00.004-05:00

I'm really struggling with my new job here. I knew that I had it good in Texas, and I thought I was prepared for the change...but it's been a lot harder than what I thought it would be. I truly wish I could/can make a good impression on these kids, but it's been so hard to find the motivation. I feel so bad for the few good kids I do have in my classes because my time and patience are taken up by the others.

Most of you know that my pay was cut by over $20,000 per year. I was prepared for this that's not what makes my job so miserable. If that was the reason, I wouldn't have taken the job in the first place. Even if my pay INCREASED by $20,000 I would probably still complain.

I'm at school more than I'm home, which is hard. I take full responsibility for that, I decided I would coach volleyball. I like the head volleyball coach and I like the girls as well. We don't win very many games which kind of makes for a long season. But, we have 3 weeks left so we'll see how my attitude changes once I have more time to spend at home.

Now it's time to tell you a few stories of what has happened in my class. I had to go out and buy most of my own supplies for my classroom, including pens and pencils for the students to use because they don't come to class prepared. Not only do they not return the pen/pencil to my desk once they are done using them, but they CHEW on the ends of them and then try to throw them across the room into the trash can. In one day, I found two of MY pens laying by the trash can with the ends chewed off and a pencil as well!!! So then I decided to not provide them with pens/pencils, but then they don't take notes because they don't have anything to write with.

I give a quiz almost every day and my students know that they can use their notes and homework assignments on these quizzes. They are short and they are SUPPOSED to be easy. So that same day, I was reviewing my Algebra 2 class for their quiz and reminded them that they can use their notes and homework assignment on the quiz, so they should be writing this down. But of course some of them were not. And I was about to erase what I did from the board and they started to complain. So one of my good students said, "she said you can use your notes, you should've wrote it down." So I was standing in front of them and this one boy looks at me and says, "Move!" I was standing in his view of a problem that I had not erased yet and he wanted me to move so he could copy it down quick. I just stood there and looked at him and asked, "How do you ask a teacher to do something?" And his response was, "Fine, I'll just look around you" as he started to shift back in forth in his chair to see around me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's see, I have a pregnant girl in a class that has morning sickness so she throws up almost every day in my class so she sits with the trash can right next to her. I've had kids swear at each other, yell across the room at each other, and even stab each other with a pencils!!!!! The kids have no respect for me or one another and it is ridiculous. They expect you to do everything for them, but they won't even TRY to learn for themselves. I had over a 50% failure rate at one point and time so I had to go talk with the principal. So I'm to the point where I'm going to lower my standards and not try so hard because I'm putting in 100% of my time and effort for these kids and they aren't even putting in 50% and I'm tired of it!!!

I'm not the only teacher that feels this way either. There are 2 other teachers that I went through new teacher orientation with and they are seriously thinking of resigning at semester!! They aren't first year teachers, just new to this district like me. The crappy thing is, we have to pay the district for resigning early and apparently you have to continue coming to work until they find a replacement. But I'm not sure if that's in our contract. I know we do have to pay $1,500, but I'm not sure about that second part. All I know is, this is my first and LAST year working for this district!!!!

Sorry for complaining and for being so negative. I try to go in each day with a positive attitude, but it's getting harder and harder each day! On Thursday and Friday I had 3 different kids come up to me at 3 different times asking me if I was okay because I looked sad/tired!!!! And it's a bad thing when your husband makes a comment 3 hours after you've been home saying, "I think that's the first smile I've seen since you've been home!"

It's official!!!

2009-09-26T20:38:00.002-05:00

Brian has spent the past two weeks waking up way too early and working way too late!! He's completed two 12 mile ruck marches, a 6 mile ruck march, a 4 mile run, multiple push ups, sit-ups, and he has even repelled out of a perfectly good helicopter. But he is now Air Assault Qualified!!!! There were 293 soldiers that wanted to complete the training, and only 143 graduated. Great job, Brian, I am so proud of you!!!

Some more exciting news, he's going to be promoted to Captain this next month!! Not sure exactly which day yet, but starting next month he'll be getting paid as a Captain. It almost makes up for the pay cut that I took. :)

What we've been up to these past few weeks....

2009-09-09T20:28:00.006-05:00

Sorry again for taking so long to make this post. Life has been very busy for us ever since we finally moved into our house!! We've been unpacking boxes almost every night, but I think we have finally gotten to the end of unpacking. So it's now time I update you all on what we've been up to.

We'll start with Brian's work. He is really enjoying his time here working in the clinic. He says it's nice because he's only working with soldiers. He tells me that the dependents are usually the hard ones because we complain a lot!!!! Brian will also be attending air assault school next week. It's a two week course here at Fort Riley and he can't wait to get started.

I on the other hand, am not enjoying my job so much. I knew it was going to be different compared to where I'm coming from, but it's a lot harder than I ever imagined. The school is really old so the way their technology is set up is difficult to work with. My projector is not mounted to the ceiling so I have to constantly step over the cords to the wall. My classroom is right next door to the principals office...and I mean right next door!!! I have a door in my room that goes straight into his room!! So I'm constantly thinking that my kids are being too loud.

I'm coaching volleyball which is not a sport that I'm too familiar with so that's kind of difficult, plus the time I have to spend on it seems worse here because athletics is not an actual period of the school day like it is in San Antonio. Plus we have to travel pretty far ( usually an hour or more) to play other schools. It makes for very long days. I usually leave my house by 6:35 Am and on game nights I don't get home until after 10 PM.

To top it all off, the level the students are at here compared to San Antonio is very low. I can't believe that I'm still teaching Algebra I topics to my Algebra II class and I will be for another month!!!!!!! My geometry students Algebra skills are also very low. It's hard to cover the topics that I'm supposed to when they don't have a basic understanding of the foundation for mathematics!!!!!! I'm done venting for now, hopefully the school year gets better for me. Right now I can definitely say that I will not be teaching here next year.

Now it's time to get to the good stuff!!! Here's a picture of our first night in our new house. We're sleeping on an air matress because our stuff was going to be delivered the next day.

My mom was nice enough to come down that same weekend and bring Sadie with her. Sadie had spent the last few months with Brian's parents. She became their shop dog.

The following weekend we drove up to Lincoln, NE to get the cats from Brian's brother. The cats really got spoiled there. Thanks for taking such good care of them, Todd.

The following weekend we went to a Chief's game. It was a great day for a football game.

And now I'm finally to Labor Day weekend. We had a little house warming party this weekend. We had lunch at the house and then we headed out for the lake. Ed and Deb brought their boat down and we took our jet ski out on the lake as well. I think everyone had a great time.

My good friends, Karen and Randy made the drive down. It was great seeing you guys again!!!

Here's Jennifer showing us all how to ski. Jennifer is a friend of mine from work. She's really one of the only math teachers that I talk to.

Here's Brian's Aunt Judy enjoying some sun.

Here's a picture of my dad getting up on the skis.

I think this may be a picture of Ed looking back at me as I attempted to get up on the skis. It took me probably 3 tries before I finally made it up.

Thanks to Ed and Deb for bringing the boat down, it really made the weekend that much more fun!

It was nice that Aunt Judy made the trip down. She even had the chance to drive Ed's boat! Go Judy!

Here's my dad trying to dump his mom (Nan). Be nice dad!!!!!

Nan and Dean made the trip down as well. I'm really glad they stayed for the boat ride.

Here's my big catch for the day. This is probably the biggest fish I've ever caught. It was a lot of fun trying to reel this one in. I even held it up ( and I hate touching a fish).

My college roommate, Alicia made it down for the get together as well. Thanks for coming Alicia!

Another beautiful sunset on the lake! We're really going to enjoy being so close to this lake!

In all, it was a great weekend!! I just wish I had one more day to recover from all of the fun! We hope everyone else enjoyed their Labor Day Weekend as well!!

Quick Update

2009-08-19T21:28:00.003-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, life has been very busy these past few weeks!!! I started work the 3rd of August. However, we just got kids this week. I still can't tell if I'm going to like the school that I'm at. But I do know that I really miss working at Reagan right now!!!!! I know I said that I wouldn't coach this year, but if you know me well enough you probably could guess that I didn't stick to that plan. I'm coaching volleyball and softball. I may even be the head softball coach. We'll see towards the end of September. That's when they'll have their interviews.

This past week we also FINALLY closed on our house!!! YAY!!!!! No more hotel rooms!! No more hearing our neighbors until 3 in the morning. No more paying $2.50 for each load of laundry. ($1.25 to wash and $1.25 to dry) No more getting locked out of our room because our card became deactivated somehow! There are many reasons why we are so happy to finally have our home!!! Now we just need to unpack all of the boxes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thankfully, my mom came down this past weekend to help us. She also brought Sadie down too. We got a lot accomplished, but there are many boxes that we haven't even touched in the garage. It was so nice that the movers just piled EVERY SINGLE BOX in our garage. Heaven forbid they set them in the right room, or even just inside the house somewhere!! Oh well, we are slowly but surely getting things put away.

We hope you all are doing well!! Just two more days left of this work week, and back to the grind of unpacking! :)

Fishing

2009-07-31T13:18:00.004-05:00

Brian went fishing almost every weekend while I was still working down in San Antonio. And I knew that once I got here he would want to continue. I enjoy fishing too...just not every weekend! So here are a few pictures of us fishing in a river.

I was having issues with getting it snagged on the bottom. It was really frustrating. Brian ended up spending half the time getting my line untangled! Needless to say, we didn't stay at the river for too long. After I stopped trying, Brian got his line snagged as well! It was kind of funny!

So after the river, we went to try the lake. This was much better! However, the spot we picked was kind of tricky to get to. We had to climb down these huge rocks to get to the lake. And some of them were pretty wobbly.

But we made it!

And I even caught a fish!

The sunsets here in Kansas are gorgeous! Watching this sunset was the best way to end our day.

Having fun in Manhattan

2009-07-26T08:22:00.004-05:00

Some of you may remember what happened to me during the first month of moving to San Antonio. Yea that's right, I ripped my fingernail out and I had to drive myself to the Emergency Room. Only I had no idea where that was!! So I went to the only gate I knew of at Fort Sam (and with tears rolling down my cheeks) asked the guard where the hospital was.
So Brian made it a point to make sure I knew where the hospital was here at Fort Riley and here's my proof that I found it!! :)

Hopefully I won't be visiting this place anytime soon!

And now for a few updated pictures of our house. We finally have tile!!! We're only 3 weeks out now, so hopefully we'll be seeing a lot of changes here shortly. The last time we were there they had the padding for our carpet ready to lay down.

The fist picture is of our tile backsplash in our kitchen. You can also see the kitchen counter top, but it's pretty dirty.

The countertops, fixtures and toilets are also in.

Like I said earlier...we have tile! Here's the tile in our entryway.

Now for the fun part. We bought a jet ski yesterday! We took it out to Milford lake and had a blast. Apparently the old owners got it up to 70 miles per hour, but I didn't go over 50! Brian got it just over 50 at one point and time. It's so much fun!!!

Milford lake is absolutely beautiful! It's also extremely big. I don't think we even saw half of the lake and we were out there for almost 2 hours.

I had to get a picture of Brian's hair ( I know...mine isn't much better). But I just love how it was standing straight up in the front from the wind!

Caution!!! Extremely Long!!!!

2009-07-14T12:22:00.008-05:00

Well I have been very busy these past few weeks. I'm warning you now.... this will be a pretty long post. But I'll include a lot of pictures, so hopefully that will help!!!

I'll start off by showing a picture of us at Seaworld in San Antonio. Heather and I stayed fairly dry on this ride, but her sister did get drenched!

This was taken at Shalin's wedding. The wedding was one week prior to me leaving San Antonio.

Here's a picture of the Padalecki's. They have been so awesome to live with!! They really made me feel like I was part of their family. They kept me busy which was nice because it made the time away from Brian fly by!!!

That same weekend, we took a gambling bus to the Coushatta Casino in Louisianna. It was a 7 hour bus ride there. We gambled for 10 hours and then turned around and came back. We had a lot of fun. Jeremy's 85 year old grandmother came with us! I actually won $150 at the craps table with someone else's money!!! They found out that I had never played before so the guy next to us put $10 of his own money down for me so I could roll. I turned his $10 into $150 and he didn't even want me to pay him back his $10!

Here we are at the rehearsal dinner for Oscar and Christine's wedding.

The next morning Hadley played in the water. I'm sure going to miss Hadley's smile and her laugh!!! Even Dutch (the dog) got in on the fun!

Later that day I went to the airport to pick Brian up. He flew down to go to the wedding and to ride back up with me to Kansas. Hadley fell in love with Brian. It was so sweet watching him interact with her! She is so smart. She only met him a few times, but the entire time he was in Kansas she would refer to him as "My Brian". "My" being me, because she also has an uncle Brian.

Here we are at the wedding. Hadley was the flower girl and Heather and I read scripture in the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding!

Here's a picture of the beautiful bride, Christine!!

The next morning was moving day. Brian did an awesome job of packing my car. I don't think I could've squeezed one more thing in there. I was just happy that there was room for Brian to drive back with me!!!

Once we finally got to Kansas it was time to unload my car and try to stuff everything into our hotel room. Here's what we'll be living in for the next 5 weeks!! Sorry for the mess!!

Brian took the first Monday and Tuesday off from work so we could spend some time together. We went to Kansas City to a Royals Baseball Game. We also went to a driving range at a golf course here in Manhattan. It was nice to be able to spend so much time with him!

Golf is not my game. I'm much better when I have a bat in my hand and I'm swinging at a larger ball!!!

I hope you enjoyed this post. Sorry again for the length! Hopefully I'll be able to stay caught up now. I'll post updated pictures of our house sometime soon!! We hope everyone is doing well!!

The Carraba's Run

2009-06-28T08:34:00.006-05:00

Last weekend I ran in another marathon relay. This one was actually only half of a marathon with four people on a team. I ran with Heather, Jeremy and Jeremy's cousin, Danny. The race took place at McCallister Park, here in San Antonio. Heather did our first leg, which was the longest. The guys took the middle two legs which were the shortest, and I had the last leg. It got to be pretty hot once I started on our last leg. But we did really well. We all ran faster than our goal time. As a team, we finished 13.1 miles in 1 hour and 59 minutes. Here's a picture of our team.

Here's Heather starting us out.

Here's a picture of Jeremy finishing his part of the race.

This is Danny finishing the third part of the race.

And at last, here I am running to the finish line.

A little update

2009-06-22T11:50:00.002-05:00

Well, I have 2 weeks down of summer school and only 2 weeks left to go. It's going pretty well. A lot easier than last year so that's good. But the kids are getting tired of it already and you can really tell in their behavior and motivation. Other than summer school I've kept myself busy with birthday parties, scrapbooking and movies. Heather has decided that I haven't seen a lot of movies so she's determined to get me to watch them before I leave. They have so many movies, it's like living at a movie store!!!

Here's a few pictures of our house. It's really coming along. I wish I was able to see it for myself, but Brian is doing a good job of taking pictures and sending them to me. I hope everyone is doing well and I hope you have a wonderful week!!!

Softball Banquet, Bridal Shower, and Dallas Zoo!

2009-06-04T09:27:00.005-05:00

First I need to show you an updated picture of our house. We will be painting the siding a different color but it's hard to explain the color so you'll just have to wait until I can post a picture with it painted.

Here's a picture of our upstairs dining/living room.

I have definitely been keeping myself busy. The day after I got back from Kansas we had our end of the year Softball Banquet. It was a lot of fun and we had really good food. The dessert was my favorite part because it was chocolate with more chocolate and even more....CHOCOLATE! I'm going to miss all the girls and coaches on the softball team. We had a really fun season. Here's a picture of me, Coach MacKay and Coach Gonzales.

On Saturday we had a bridal shower for a teacher who taught at Reagan last year. She's now teaching at Johnson....our rival school.

Then on Sunday we went to the Dallas Zoo. I love going to the zoo. Especially with little kids, they are so cute and I love watching their faces when they look at the animals. Of course I went with Heather, Jeremy, and their little girl Hadley. They are always keeping me busy. It's been so nice staying with them. It has made the time away from Brian go by faster.

Here's a picture of Heather and I.

And of course a gorilla. I think the gorilla's are one of my favorite animals to see other than the elephants!

The zoo and all of the fun really took it out of Hadley!

More Pictures from Kansas!

2009-06-01T09:48:00.004-05:00

It's been a week since I left Kansas and the time has actually not gone by too slow. I'm staying busy at school and Heather always makes sure we have something to do. I'll update you all a little later on what we've been doing. But here are a few more pictures from Kansas!

Brian surprised me over Memorial Day weekend with a trip to Kansas City. Well, I knew we were going to KC but I didn't know what we were going to do exactly. We stayed in a very nice hotel down on the Plaza. We ended up going to the Melting Pot for appetizers and dessert around 4 PM because that was the only reservation time they had left. Then we went to P.F. Changs for the actual meal. We were pretty stuffed after the Melting Pot, but you always have room for some good Chinese Food! Then we went on a Gondala Ride. It was a lot of fun. They gave us Sparkling Grape Juice, a rose, and a small box of chocolates!

Here's a picture of some beautiful Kansas countryside. These are called the Flint Hills.

Here's a picture of how big our garage will be in our new house! It's really big, especially when you compare it to the small one car garage we're coming from. This will be a three car garage with really high ceilings!! We can't wait for the house to be finished.

Here's a picture of us in the small hotel room that we'll be staying at until the house is finished. Hopefully, we'll be signing papers the day after my birthday!!!

A trip up to Lincoln, Nebraska

2009-05-21T09:19:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday I made the 3 hour trip up to Lincoln to meet my mom for the day. We had a lot of fun...we went shopping and we ate at one of my favorite restaurants. It was a quick trip, but it's nice to know that I will be able to see my family almost whenever I want in just one day!!! No more driving 14 hours to go home!

I made it to Kansas!!!

2009-05-18T07:17:00.004-05:00

I have taken a week off of work and I have come up to Kansas. I was in need of a break from school and I have 9 vacation days left so I decided to use 5 of them. The days will not transfer with me to Kansas, so I either use them or lose them.

Before I could make the long drive by myself to Kansas, I went down to Corpus Christi for a race! On Saturday morning I ran in the Beach to Bay Marathon Relay with 5 other teachers from work. We had a lot of fun. It was crazy!!! We ran from the beaches of North Padre Island to the Bay of Corpus Christi. I ran the Naval Base leg. Heather started us out on the beach while Shalin took us to the big bridge where Wayne took the baton up and over the bridge. I ran the next leg through the Naval base and I handed off to Jabalie who then handed off to Larry to bring us to the finish line! We finished in 4 hours and 11 minutes. I ran 4.7 miles in just over 44 minutes and it was hot!!!!

We ended up leaving Corpus Christi around 1:30 or so on Saturday. We made it up to San Antonio around 4:30 where I packed up my car quick and headed North! I ended up spending the night in Oklahoma City. I finally made it to Kansas Sunday around 11 AM. My dad and step mom came down Sunday to meet for lunch and my dad was going to help Brian pre-wire our basement for surround sound. Here are a few pictures of our house. It's really starting to come along!!

After they finished at the house we went miniature golfing. It was a lot of fun. I am going to have to get used to the colder weather. I know it was a beautiful day, but I still got the goose bumps a few times through out the day. San Antonio has spoiled me with the warm weather!

I got a hole in one on this hole! When we finished we added up our scores and I won by one stroke. So this hole in one was crucial!! :)

A few pictures....

2009-05-03T20:03:00.002-05:00

Here's a picture of how far along we are on the house and a picture of Hadley.

Just an Update!

2009-05-03T15:13:00.003-05:00

So Brian has been gone for about two weeks now. Our two cats are with his brother, Todd and Sadie is with his parents. We are very lucky to have family help us out while we are waiting for our house to be built. Brian is adjusting to his new job in Kansas and living in a hotel room. It'll be interesting when I get there to try to fit all of our stuff in the little area that we'll have. But we will make it work and we're hoping our house stays on track for an August 14th closing date!!

The week after Brian left was crazy for me. I had to deal with house cleaners, pest control people, and carpet cleaners. And it's still not quite ready for our new tenants. That's right, we have official tenants. They'll be moving in on Friday. So I need to go mow our lawn and drop off the keys.

I've been very greatful for Heather and Jeremy. It's been really nice staying here. I like having people around to talk to. Also, this past week I've come to their house after softball practice to see dinner on the table. They've been great. And I love to play with their little girl, Hadley. Well that is it for now. I'll add pictures later!

Our Crazy Mess!

2009-04-16T20:13:00.005-05:00

So the moving company finally showed up this morning around 9. We opened the door to see two older and grumpy looking women. Brian and I both thought the same thing....."this is going to take them forever!" I happily went off to work to leave Brian behind to deal with everything at home. This past week we've been trying to pack and trying to organize what we want to personally take with us and what we can live without until AUGUST!!! That's right, AUGUST!! We won't be able to get to any of our stuff until our house is built in Kansas!!!!!! For the rest of the time that I'm in San Antonio I'll be staying with another math teacher I work with, and I have most of my stuff at her house right now. But I couldn't take all of what I wanted over there because I won't be there until Tuesday and I'm going to need some clothes unless I want to wear the same thing everyday! So I also have stuff here that is all packed away until August. I have some things that are not packed away because I need them this weekend, and I have a lot of things over at Heather's house.....and it's just been crazy trying to organize everything. We keep telling ourselves that building a home was the most cost efficient thing to do, it's just going to be hectic until it's finally finished.....IN AUGUST!

Here are a few pictures of what our house looks like currently!

On top of all that, we've been having people come through our house to look at it to see if they want to rent it from us. So up until today, we've had to try to keep our house fairly picked up and neat!! Can you tell I'm a little stressed out right now ( I think Brian can)?

Also, I'm in my two week window in which my PRINCIPAL can just stop by my class and sit in on an entire lesson so he can write up a report that goes in my permanent record! And when I got to school today my computer was acting up and my powerpoint presentation wouldn't work and I just knew that this would be the day he would come in to observe me. Luckily, he never graced me with his presence. Oh, and our state mandated assessments are in one week and that just adds to all the stress at work.

To top it all off, we were supposed to have a JV softball tournament this weekend (actually it was supposed to start today) but it was canceled because of the rain. But we do have a Varsity game tomorrow. I think God really knows when you're at your limit because I think if I would have had games tonight, Friday, and all day Saturday it would push me over the edge. Good thing Brian and I really don't get stressed out (or at least we don't show it!).

Here's a picture of what our bedroom looks like right now. At least we can still use our bed. We did remember to keep some sheets out, but we forgot to save our pillows from the two grumpy old ladies, so they're somewhere in a box. Guess we'll either do without, or we'll go to a store and buy some new ones! :)

I'm not writing all of this so you can feel sorry for us, we're actually doing very well. And we are really excited to move closer to home. It will be nice when it's all done and over. I'm actually going to take tomorrow off of school so we can finish things up with the house, at school we call that taking a mental day! I'm going to be glad when all of our stuff is on the moving van and on it's way to Kansas. But then again, that means Brian will be too! Oh yea, I forgot to mention up in my ramblings up there, that I somehow managed to squeeze in a phone interview with a school in Junction City, and I'm working on getting all my credentials over there and I need to start looking at what I need to do to get certified in Kansas. Well I suppose I should go do something productive. If you have actually made it this far in my post, WAY TO GO! Sorry it was so long, but I hope it wasn't too boring! :) Brian and I hope you are doing well, and we hope you are able to enjoy a nice, ordinary weekend!

Easter Weekend

2009-04-12T12:58:00.005-05:00

We had a pretty fun Easter weekend. I had good Friday off, so we headed off to Canyon Lake for some camping. We brought Sadie with us on our trip.

When we arrived at Canyon Lake, we decided we would set up our tent right away because we've never set it up before. Probably not the best planning, but we had all of the pieces and we did finally get it up!! Here's a picture of Brian trying to figure out the directions. Don't worry, I looked just like that earlier, he just wasn't smart enough to get the camera out!!

Here's what it looks like all put together. It was a really nice tent. It has two rooms which you can seperate with a zipped divider. Sadie ended up sleeping with us inside of the tent. She was scared at first, but then she loved being in there.

We took Sadie down to the water to see if she could swim, but she was too scared to get into the water. In fact, each time a bigger wave would come in she would jump backwards. It was pretty entertaining!

We went fishing that night and Brian was able to catch a large mouth bass. It was funny watching Sadie react to the fish.

When we woke up the next morning we ate our breakfast and then packed up camp. We had to get home so we could drop Sadie off at our house and so we could get Brian to the E.R. to get his finger looked at. He sliced up his knuckle pretty good opening up a box with a knife. He ended up getting stitches. But then half an hour later they finally came back into our room and then removed them. An intern was the one taking care of him, and for some reason she wasn't aware that you cannot give stitches to someone who was cut more than 6 hours prior. So I felt pretty bad for making him go get it looked at. I think when we finally left his finger looked worse than what it did when we first arrived at the E.R.

Some more exciting news... I had an interview with the high school in Junction City. I felt like it went really well. I should be hearing back from them in about a week. Also, we have almost finalized the contract for our house in Manhattan, KS. And they should have the house framed prior to Brian getting there in just over a week. Lastly, we've had 4 house showings for our house here in San Antonio. We know that one couple is putting an application in for sure. So hopefully by the end of this week we'll have someone to move into our house here. Which means I should go start packing!!! Yikes!!

More pictures from graduation week!

2009-03-31T17:39:00.001-05:00

Graduation Week!

2009-03-28T17:53:00.006-05:00

We had a lot going on this past week. It started on Sunday when our friends, Kate and Andy and their little girl, Mora came to San Antonio for a family vacation and to see Brian's graduation. They stayed with us a few nights until our family arrived on Wednesday for graduation as well.

On Wednesday I picked up our family from the airport and I took them to one of our favorite "hole in the wall" mexican restaurants....really cheap really good food! Then we headed to Randolph Air Force Base for a dinner. Thursday was the big day!

My camera was not cooperating with me during the actual ceremony. All of those pictures turned out really dark. Here's a cute picture of Mora sitting so nicely at the graduation. When they walked up to us that day Mora was trying to hide her dress from me because we had the same color on!! More will come tomorrow....I am extremely tired and I am going to go to bed early tonight!

Sadie and her Squeaker

2009-02-07T09:11:00.003-06:00

Sadie got the squeaker out of her raccoon. I have no clue why dogs like that noise, but you can tell that she wants that squeaker!!

Our Zoo!!

2009-01-25T14:59:00.006-06:00

We sure do have a house full! With two cats and a dog, life here is never boring!

Sadie has this thing where she'll take one of your shoes over to the corner of our couches and just lay her head on them. She won't chew on them or anything. Sometimes she'll pull the towel down from in the kitchen and do the same thing. I'm so glad she isn't a chewer!!!

Brian has spent a lot of time getting our grass in the backyard to finally look the way it does. The other day Kei enjoyed his time in the grass. He tries to get really low to the ground to try to be sneaky, but I don't think he realizes that he's a chunk and he doesn't hide very well!!

See I told you that she likes to take our shoes!!!

We don't have a very recent photo of David. He hides out most of the day. Kei has been tormenting him lately like a typical little brother (or should I say younger brother, he's definitely bigger than what David is) . Needless to say, we haven't found them in this pose in quite a while. I just really like this picture.

Weekend filled with fun!

2009-01-21T16:55:00.005-06:00

Bryan and Sonrie (two of Brian's classmates) had a wedding this past weekend. It was a beautiful wedding and we had so much fun seeing all of his classmates. It feels like we don't see everyone ever since they all started their internship. We also went down to the River Walk to meet up with Brian's cousins.

Here's Alyssa, Janice, and myself!

And here we are at the down at the River Walk.

I was Tagged!!

2009-01-11T11:14:00.003-06:00

So I was tagged by a friend which means I had to upload my fifth picture from my fifth folder and here it is!! Look how ugly my leg was! This was from March of '07 and, believe it or not, I still have a little bit of bruising left!!!! I know tag Riann Doyle!

Christmas in Nebraska

2008-12-31T10:32:00.005-06:00

We did so much in short time we were home. We visited our friends, Kate, Andy, and Mora. She was playing dress up!

We visted Trish, Aron, Caleb and Samuel. I love this picture. Look at Brians face!!

We had Christmas with my mom, brother, and his fiance! Did I tell you he was engaged!?! Did I tell you he's leaving for Iraq next month?

This is a picture of my mom's side of the family. We don't get together very often, so it was nice to have ALMOST everyone home for Christmas. We were only missing one of my cousins.

We also had Christmas with my dad's side, and three Christmas's with Brian's family. But we lost our camera for a few days so I don't have any pictures of that. It was a busy week, but it's always nice to see family. Oh yea, we went shopping the day after Christmas and bought our Christmas tree and some decorations. We had a full car load for our trip back!!!

Christmas Party

2008-12-14T17:33:00.003-06:00

We went to a Christmas Party for Brian's work on Friday. It was at an Embassy Suites Hotel up in San Marcos. We had a good time. It was nice to be able to "party" with the Doyle's and the Collinsworth's. The food was awesome and the cake was even better!!!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-08T20:06:00.001-06:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards