Home Front Update

Well, progress is slowly starting to appear amidst the packing paper, boxes, and tape scattered throughout the house. Zaylee, Peyton, Bebe, Honey, and I have done amazingly well the last couple of weeks. Though there are still days when I'm so tired by the end of the day I could practically fall asleep in the shower, and days when Peyton is getting his nose into everything and is on my last nerve, we have managed to all stay healthy and sane. I've packed up 6 of the 8 rooms in our house and 2 closets. I've also made reservations for our travels at the end of the month, contacted our utility companies, found a realtor, and gotten a pre-approval for a mortgage loan. At this point, moving doesn't seem so scary anymore. I think we're going to make it. ^_^ That's not to say that everything is almost done. There is still much work to do, and thankfully I'll have some help doing it this weekend. My reinforcements (a.k.a. my parents) are coming in on Friday (weather permitting). I can't wait! It's a little lonely around here with Robbie gone, and this week we can't even talk by phone since he's out in the mountains. So, it will be nice to have someone other than Zaylee to chat with (although her "goo's and ahh's" are pretty adorable). Just wanted to keep everyone updated. It's time for me to go to bed. Hooray! My favorite time of the day! ^_^

A Walk Down Memory Lane

One of the cool things about packing up your house and moving somewhere else is that in the process, you often happen upon things that have been buried and forgotten about for a long, long time. Old diaries, photo albums, love notes, small tokens of friendship... Sometimes it's hard to stay on task when these little interesting things are uncovered. I also decided to put in me and Robbie's wedding video last night while I was eating dinner and Zaylee was playing on the floor. Remember, I don't have cable anymore and since our DVD player is on the fritz, I chose this VHS from our measly collection of video tapes. I popped it in and was teleported back almost 4 years to one of the happiest days of my life. I love watching our wedding tape. The people in it have already changed so much, and some special people are no longer with us. Robbie and I were so young and excited, not to mention we both were lookin' pretty good that day. A lot of my friends from college and high school were there, and those in the wedding party even left us pieces of advice and well wishes. Probably the neatest thing about watching the wedding all over again was hearing what the officiant, my uncle Pat, had to say to us and thinking all over again how right he was when he talked to us about marriage. We've had a lot of new, exciting, and challenging experiences in the last 3 years and 8 months. But it feels good to look back and know we've overcome them together and are still going strong.
I miss you Robbie, and I love you more every day. And I miss you, family and friends, who were there to share that important day with us, and who shared so many other special memories with us in the past.

On the Home Front

Yay! I'm so excited that Robbie decided to catch everyone up on our crazy happenings the last few months. Obviously, you can see we've been busy and I have had no time for posting blogs. So sorry. But I figure most of the people who read this blog would have seen us over the holidays anyway, so hopefully you didn't feel too out of touch. Robbie has now inspired me to start afresh and keep this blog going since he took care of the daunting task of explaining the last two months for us. So yes, Robbie is in Spokane...and I am home in Mississippi with baby Zaylee, Peyton, Bebe, Honey, and a house full of stuff needing to be packed up for the big move. Though I hope to continue posting every once in a while, they will be short because I have A LOT to do around here while Robbie's gone for training. So far, things have been going pretty well. My typical day starts around 8 am with Zaylee waking up and being fed. I then say hi to our kitties who are banging at the hallway door and let little Pey out of his crate to "go potty." I then proceed to eat breakfast while Zaylee sits in her Bumbo seat and talks to me. Zaylee usually stays awake about 1-2 hours after feeding time and then goes down for a nap, which is where she is now. This first interval of freedom is usually when I start working at my online job or packing up a few boxes. Or...post a blog. ^_^ The rest of the day is a cycle of eat, play, and sleep for Zaylee while I try to work in as much productive packing as possible. Hair and makeup are not so much of a priority these days. Neither is cleaning the house - why clean when I'm busy making a mess everyday anyway?? ^_^ By the end of the day I am usually so tired that all I want to do is play with Zaylee on the floor and watch like 3 hours of TV. Unfortunately, my cable is being cut TODAY. WHaaaaaaaaaaa! We thought it would be best if we went ahead and took care of that so we wouldn't have to pay for another month of service. I guess I'll survive. LOL - here I am complaining about not have cable the next few weeks and Robbie's going to be freezing his butt off in 6 ft of snow in the mountains of Washington. I guess I really have no reason to complain.
So that's basically what's going on in my life this month - take care of baby, take care of pets, pack up the house, work, keep my sanity. Please pray for all of us - animals included!

The last couple of months have been crazy...

So I know from talking to a few of our blog fans that you're severely disappointed in the lack of blog postings for the past couple months - well, I'm sorry, it's been a little hectic...

Starting way back in November about the time that Amber posted her last entry, I was revving up for my Assignment Night (November 21st) by flying just about everyday - I know, how exciting. But it was, I've waited for this night for a very long time. Flying has fascinated me for most of life and now my one of my dreams is being realized - how cool is that? Assignment night comes and I'm selected to fly the E-3 Sentry or AWACS out of Oklahoma City (there's a picture of it at the bottom of this post). Not my first choice, but not bad one by any means. It's mission is to act as an airborne air traffic control and direct fighter and bomber aircraft to areas of need/concern. When I tell people this most of them assume that b/c of it's mission or purpose it is a dangerous plane to plane. Yes, it is an aircraft that the enemy would love to shoot down, but it always has some sort of escort, is never really close to the front lines, and it could see an enemy aircraft long before it would ever see it. Pretty cool, huh? I've also heard great things about OKC.

Thanksgiving is the week after assignment night which was good and bad. Good because our families were able to meet our little Zaylee for the first time, it was the first time I've been home since January, and there was plenty of good food - we to 3 different Thanksgivings. It was bad because trying to drive 9hrs with a 2mo old baby takes forever with all the stops - I think it took around 12ish hours to get home. Talk about painful. For Christmas Amber made the drive to IN with Zaylee by herself, I called her when she was almost there and she sounded on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

After Thanksgiving it was back to flying my butt off. I had 2wks to get 4 flights in but mother nature decided to play havoc on our flight schedule - we had 3 or 4 days where nobody could fly. It got soo bad (how bad did it get?), that we had 3 people have their final checkrides the day before graduation - Talk about pressure to pass their rides. To put it into perspective, class 09-02 (the class before mine) finished all their rides with a week to spare before graduation, which is the norm. Graduation comes on Dec 13th, everybody gets their Wings (pictured below), and everyone is gay and merry.

The day after graduation, Amber and I along with my mom and sister drove to Tuscaloosa, AL and bought a Toyota Highlander (also pictured below). I guess you could say we needed to upgrade to a bigger vehicle with that little baby around - and we would need it for all the baby presents we were giving at Christmas time. Which, by the way, is kind of funny the number of presents she is given since right now the most interesting thing to her is her fingers, the tv, and her mommy.

The Monday (Dec 15th) after graduation, we all get our orders. Some people in my class get dates like January 29th for combat survival, Feb 2nd for water survival, JUNE 30th for combat survival, etc... Did I make out so lucky? In simple terms, no. My dates were Dec 18th for water survival, Jan 5th for combat survival, and Feb 2nd to report to my next base. OH MY GOSH - I nearly freaked out. I only had two days to get my life in order before I leave for water survival and then I was to be in a wedding that Saturday - Dec 20. Talk about the Air Force pushing me up against a wall, I was the only one in my class with start dates this early. I spent the next two days working 8 or 9hrs straight just trying to get my orders, plane tickets, uniform items, etc.... And for all you who don't know, the Air Force has decreed it almost impossible for anyone to get paperwork done in an expeditious manner. I probably put more miles on my car those 2 days driving back and forth between buildings then I had the previous 2 weeks. During that mess I was able to to get overnight plane tickets from Spokane, WA (where water and combat survival training is) to Indianapolis, IN. - so I was still able to make it to the wedding, that was a big load off my shoulders.

At water survival they train us how to survive in the water after a plane has crashed in the ocean. This included several hours in the classroom learning about edible/inedible fish, rafts, radios, evasion, water procurement methods, first aid, etc... After the classroom we got into the pool and practiced everything we learned. It was pretty cool and fun: we practiced getting into/securing rafts, moving as group while floating in the water (just picture a bunch of people wearing life preserves hooked together by wrapping their legs around the person in front of them in one big line-yeah, it was funny), and water rescue by helicopter (also fun, they had a huge lift that could hoist each one of us up 20ft to a platform). The last day - the course only lasted 2 days - we went through 2 "realistic" scenarios where they had us perform everything we learned/practiced the day before. For each scenario they blacked out the pool by turning off the lights; used fog machines, strobe lights, and fire hoses to disorient you; and used a big crane to submerge a fake cockpit attached to it to simulate a plane crashing. Pretty awesome if you ask me. They really went out of their way to make it seem real.

So on Dec 19th I fly out of Spokane and arrive at Indianapolis the morning of the 20th. Amber picks me up and we drive to Connersville, IN for the wedding - our friends Nick Sochinski and Allison Haselwander were getting married. Great friends=good times.

On the 21st we drove back to Amber's parents' house and we spent the next week going to 5 different Christmas' - we ended up needing every last inch of space in our new car to pack it up, which was comparable to putting a jigsaw together.

Dec 28th was a great day. For Christmas this year Amber got me 2 tickets to see the Titans vs. Colts game up in Indy - Talk about AWESOME! It was a good game (Colts dominated) and a great date!

On the 29th we left to go back to Mississippi - again packing our new SUV was an adventure in and of itself. We had originally planned to stay in IN until the Jan 4th, but now that I was flying out of Columbus, MS on Jan 3rd, we decided we needed to get back early so I could take care of more paper work before the base shut down for New Years. Once back I got all my business taken care of and we got to help one of my classmates move - he was driving his family (2 baby boys and a dog) all the way to Utah, so he was leaving on New Years' Day.

I flew out of Columbus yesterday (Jan 3rd) and here I am in Spokane, WA where they have around 60in of snow (not even joking) and I'm going to be spending a little over a week hiking/camping/surviving it in - awesome. Well everyone, I'll let Amber update you on everything else - I'm pretty tired of typing.

God Bless

A Perfect Morning!

Hey all! I just wanted to tell you about the wonderful day Zaylee and I have had. Being a new mom is such a rollercoaster - one day you feel like your world is going to come crashing down (see previous post ^_^), and a few days later you feel like you're on cloud nine. Well, this morning, Zaylee and I went to MOPS (stands for Mothers Of Preschoolers). I didn't actually attend the meeting - I'm a "moppet" which means I get to babysit all the babies whose moms come to MOPS. Since Zaylee is coming with me, I stay with her in the "Carousel Cuties" room which is devoted to babies who are still unable to crawl or walk. This is only the second time she's come with me, and I'm always a little nervous about how she'll do while we're there (and that we'll get there on time!). The moppets are supposed to get there at 8:30 am, so that means Zaylee and I have to leave by 8:00 am. I've learned to give us about 2 hours from the time we need to leave to get ready. So my wonderful day began at 6:00 am. Zaylee went the whole night without having to be fed, although she did wake up a few times crying. But I can't complain - I still got around 7 hours of sleep total. She woke up at 6:00 ready to eat. I fed her, bathed her, and had her down for a morning nap by 7:00. I got ready in plenty of time, fixed my breakfast to eat on the way, and loaded the car. We were out of the driveway by 8:02 am! While at MOPS, Zaylee ate again at 9:00, played in a swing for about 45 minutes, and then slept the rest of the meeting (til 11:00!). That freed my hands to take care of the other babies in the nursery. I got to feed and hold 3-month-old twins, a boy and a girl, and the little girl feel asleep while I rocked her. So sweet! I enjoy being in the nursery so much now that I know how to care for the little babies. I used to be so nervous around infants, now I can't get enough of them! ^_^ Zaylee and I left MOPS around 11:15 and we were off to Wal-mart. She slept all the way there and the whole time I was shopping. When it was time for her to eat again, we took a break in the fitting room (note to nursing moms - I've found this is the BEST place to feed your baby when you're out running errands. WAY more comfortable than in a bathroom stall!). She was happy the rest of the time in Wal-mart. We left there, I grabbed a chicken sandwich at the Wendy's drive-through and we were on to the next stop - the grocery store on base. We got back to base and this time, instead of bringing Zaylee in the stroller, I put her in a little baby carrier. These are great when you have a lot of shopping to do because it frees up all the space in your cart and you don't have to worry about your baby touching stuff and being exposed to a lot of germs in such a public area. Plus, it's a totally cute way to "wear" your baby. ^_^ She slept the entire time I did the grocery shopping! Once I got home, I had A LOT of stuff to bring in - stuff from MOPS, groceries, all of Zaylee's stuff, and trash from eating twice in my car. I brought Zaylee in first and kept her in her car seat. She was awake, so I hoped she wouldn't cry while I emptied out the car. And, since it's a wonderful day, she didn't! She was quiet the whole time I put away groceries. Once that was done, she was ready for ANOTHER nap, so I laid her down in her playpen and she went to sleep without a fuss.
Last night, I was really tired and was thinking that today was going to be exhausting. But, it was actually energizing because everything went so well. It's days like today that make me feel like a good mom. ^_^ And every mom needs those days!

Holy Mole-y

Well, this past week has been insane. I'm just about to lose what little brain capacity I have left. Used to, I could easily put 13 things on my to do list every day, and get them all done with time to spare. Now, I'm lucky to get out of my pajamas by 2 in the afternoon. I hate to be a downer, but I guess that's what makes blogs more personal - sharing the thorns with the roses. So today is one of those "thorny" days. I have been hoping beyond hope for the past two weeks that Zaylee would FINALLY sleep through the night and I could catch up on some much needed rest. Yet, every night, I am sorely disappointed as I drag myself out of bed at 12:30, 2:00, 4:00, 4:15, and 4:30 am. See, Zaylee has developed a very strong fondness for her pacifier at night. If only her ability to keep the paci in her mouth was as strong as her desire for it. The first four times listed above are just to calm her cries and return her paci to its place in her cute little mouth. The fifth is mom tired of getting up every 15 minutes, and "alright, I get the picture - you're hungry... feed, if you must." And after a good 10 minutes, Zaylee is back in a deep sleep only to awake again to eat at 6:15!!! Yes, I love my baby. Yes, I'm so happy she is growing and eating well. But, 6:15??!! Come on, you just finished eating an hour and a half ago!
To make matters worse, the temperature changes here in Mississippi have gifted me with a wonderful week-long cold, which I can't seem to kick due to exhaustion. It's hard enough to sleep when you have to get up 5 times in the night, let alone when every time its time to go back to sleep, you can't breathe through your nose and your throat is sore.
Well, atleast today the cold seems to be on its way out. I am SO glad it's Friday and Robbie will be home for a couple days with me and Zaylee. He's been working LONG days these last few weeks and even two weekends on top of that! That's probably another reason I'm so worn out. It's hard to do Wal-mart runs, hair appointments, doctor appointments, etc. with a little one in tow and no one to accompany you and help keep her happy. The value of having family around is so great - a luxury that I certainly wish I had on days like those. Thankfully, we do have some neighbors who are like family to us and have been willing to pitch in when they could.
Well anyway, you're probably wondering about the title of today's post. I had a doctor appointment today to ask about a couple moles on my skin that have started to look a little weird. I'm sure it's not a big deal, but with all the horror stories I hear about skin cancer these days, I thought it would be best to be proactive. I went in today and the doctor took a look. She's only a family practice doc, so I didn't have any tests done today, but she gave me a referral for a dermatologist because of a spot on my nose. Not a good place to have an irregular mole. I'm nervous about having it looked at/removed. There were also two other places on my back that she thought should be tested.
So, ... great. I've always been a very healthy person, avoiding the doctor whenever possible. I don't like taking medicine, I don't like being sick, I definitely don't like stitches. And here I've finally recovered, for the most part, from having a baby and all the wonderful medicines, doctor visits, etc. associated with that, and I get to go to a new doctor and have chunks of skin taken off my back. Not fun. My hope is that when I go in to the dermatologist, he just tells me that I'm worried for nothing and can go home unscathed. We'll see.
It's definitely harder to take care of yourself when you're a new mom, but I think it's really important even if in my mind I think everyone else's needs should come before mine. If you get spread so thin that you can't attend to your family's needs, then you're not of any use to anyone. You're just a grouchy, sick, and tired person that the other people (and pets) in your household have to tolerate being around. That's sort of the position I've been in this week. I just pray that I can get ahead again and get back in the game in the next few days. Amazingly, writing about all this has already made me feel a little better. ^_^ Thanks for listening!

Oh where does the time go??

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post! To all my followers out there, I'm so sorry. There's just something about having a baby that makes time speed up faster than ever before. Zaylee is now 8 weeks old and will reach the 2-month mark this Friday. She has changed so much! In the last month, she has graced us with her adorable smile, learned to suck her fingers (although she still very much prefers her "paci"), supports her own head when she's sitting up, and even speaks a little "goo" to us every once in a while. Though these may seem like small things, to a first-time mom, they bring so much joy and pride. She really is a good baby - and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mommy. ^_^ The days are ticking away before Thanksgiving, and Robbie and I are SO excited to bring her home to Indiana to meet the family for the first time. From what I can tell from her experiences in the nursery at church, she is really good with new people and seems really alert compared to other babies her age. She's staying awake longer after she eats and she likes to play, but she is still taking nice long (sometimes 2-hr) naps during the day, which keeps mom very happy, too. ^_^ Robbie and I have settled into a pretty normal routine, but there is always room for improvement (like sleeping through the night, for example!!). Here are some more photos...