Family

Early preparation for the first few sleepless months (years)

Published on by Casey

Lava has been doing her part in getting us ready for this parenting thing we are about to engage upon and she’s been doing a bang-up of a job with it too.

It started Monday morning when I noticed a couple of bumps on her lower lip.  I kept an eye on them and noticed that were getting worse and multiplying.  Wednesday morning Noah and and I also discovered that Lava had crusted blood around her eyes.  That set-off a BIG warning flag, so on the way to work in the morning Noah dropped her off at the vet.

Turns out the bumps were actually lesions and were not only around her mouth but also her nose, eyes, vulva and anus.  On top of that, she was also running a low-grade fever, had enlarged lymph nodes in her neck and apparently was in pain.  The vet was very concerned about how aggressive the infection was attacking her body and thinks our pup might have an auto-immune disorder.  She took some biopsies, sent them off to a pathologist and Wednesday night Lava came home with a cocktail of medication.  She is currently taking an antibiotic, pain killers, a steroid and an eye ointment (to keep the infection around her eyes from affecting the eyes themselves).  We won’t get the results from the pathologist back until next week, which will lead to a diagnosis.  Best case scenario would be Lava is just having a really back allergic reaction to something.  Worst case is puppy Lupus, which only gives her about one year to live.  There are several other options that fall between those two.

Wednesday night Lava was very much not herself.  She was still coming off the effects of being sedated and was in pain/uncomfortable.  We stayed home from bible study to care for her.  She whined all night long and as a result neither Noah or I got much sleep.

Yesterday when I got home from work Lava was very happy.  The pills appear to be working and making her feel better.  She was jumping on me and ran around in the backyard.  It was good to see her feeling more like her normal self.  However, one of the side affects of one of the medication is increased panting.  So panting is what Lava did all night long, loudly.  If she wasn’t panting she was licking her cone (not sure why she does that, but it took makes a horribly disgusting and irritating noise in the middle of the night).  She ended up being exiled from the bedroom to either the landing or the bathroom so Noah an I could attempt to get some shut-eye.

So yes, Lava is preparing us for parenthood by a) requiring emergency medical attention and b) leaving us sleep deprived. And I am very much looking forward to the three-day weekend where I can sleep-in and take naps.  🙂

Cake

Published on by Casey

So I mentioned in my last post about how the cake Melina made looked good but I didn’t know if it tasted good.  The reason why — sweets make me sick.  Now this is a relatively new development seeing as how I’m PREGNANT!  Yup, you read that correctly.  Bailey Baby will be here around April 15, 2010.

A couple ultrasound pictures (and a super gummy bear) can be found here.

1st trimester pregnancy realizations:

  • A bowl of Cheerios in the morning makes all the difference in the world
  • I LOVE fruit
  • It’s going to take a long time to organize the baby’s room
  • I wish there was a bagel shop closer to my school
  • Everyday should have a mandatory nap time

Another day older and deeper in debt (not really about the debt part)

Published on by Casey

Saturday I turned 26 years old.  I don’t feel any older, or any younger for that matter.  In fact, I never really felt 25.  Perhaps that’s because the majority of my friends in CO are older than me by 2-12 years.  So perhaps I’m just pleased by how young I still am compared to my “old” friends.  jk.  😉  However, now that Tracy and her husband Artie have joined the group, I am no longer the youngest as I graciously handed that title down to Artie.

Yet even though 26 is not a landmark birthday, I wanted to celebrate.  So, I threw myself a party.  Including children, there were 28 people in my backyard Saturday afternoon (and for a couple stints, in my house when the trees didn’t shield enough of the rain).  I think everyone had a good time, even if they didn’t win the prize for guessing what time I was born (being the closest without going over).  That honor went to Meggan.  Enjoy your new hat.  🙂

Also, thanks to Melina for making an AWESOME softball field cake.  It looked delicious (more on why I don’t know if it tasted delicious later).  If I get a picture, I’ll link to it here…along with the sunflower cupcakes I made to supplement the cake.

Five, Cinq, Cinco, Cinque

Published on by Casey

Yesterday was our 5th wedding anniversary!  Wow!  Has it really been five years already? July 17th also is the 3rd anniversary of living in Colorado and in our house!  Neither one of us took the day off from work but we did celebrate by going out for a steak dinner at Magnolia in Lafayette.  Delicious!  We then went to Wal-Mart…partly to be a joke and partly because we’re too cheap to actually go to the theatre and would rather buy a DVD.  And to top off the red-neck status, we grabbed dessert at DQ!

Disappointed in how we celebrated 5 years of being married?  Perhaps you should know that we’re going to Ireland in December, when I have 2 weeks off paid from work.  😀  Better?  Thought so!

Christmas 2008

Published on by Casey

No new snow this year on Christmas, but we did have old snow still on the ground and ice on our street.  I think that counts towards a white Christmas.  We still had at least an inch on most of the backyard (North facing).

Christmas was relaxing this year.  Christmas Eve we went to a family dinner at Noah’s grandparent’s house followed by a gathering of friends at, what else, a friend’s house.  Christmas Day we continued our tradition of opening gifts with my family via webcam.  We’ve been doing this since Noah and I moved to Colorado in 2006.  It’s almost as good as being in the same room.

The rest of the day Noah and I lounged around in our pajamas.  With no where to go Noah and I didn’t see any need to get dressed.  One of the gifts Noah gave me was an MP3 player, so I spent several hours ripping CDs to load onto the device.

Today was the first day we ventured back out into public, for church.  We then went around town spending gift cards we recieved as gifts (Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target and Walmart).  Noah still has a gift card for The Home Depot but is not yet sure what he wants to put it towards.

Tomorrow is back to the real world for Noah, working up in Bailey (the town where he grew up).  But not for me!  I’m still off until the 5th!  I have BIG plans for my remaining time off (researching more on setting-up Homestead, cleaning house, taking down Christmas decorations, setting-up the 2009 budget, etc).  I’m sure I’ll find time to lounge around too.

Hope y’all had a great Christmas and have something exciting planned for New Year’s Eve and Day!  I’ll post more on our happenings after the fact.

Homestead

Published on by Casey

In light of Noah’s departure from Floorcrafters a few months ago, and after much prayer (continuing) we have decided to create our own company.  Of course, this is not going to be a quick process – I’m much too anal for that; and until the company has a chance to make a name for itself, Noah will continue to work for someone else.

However, we are in the process of creating Homestead Hardwood Floors.  Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?  So far I am still researching the back-end of things (what type of company to create: General Partnership, LLC, Ltd, etc), licenses required by the state/cities/counties, how much insurance will cost, equipment, tax liabilities, etc.   Yet, we have successfully reserved the company name with the state and purchased a domain name (no website yet, so don’t go trying to punch URL combinations into your browser window).

As things progress I will keep you posted.  Please continue to pray for us as we take on this new venture.

Bring on the Snow

Published on by Casey

Now that we have returned from our mini-vacation to California, I’m ready for some snow.  But before getting into that, here’s a recap on our trip out West.  Warning: this post is long…

Just when we thought we were in the clear for not having to go to California at all this year, especially since we were out there 4 times in 2007, Noah’s brother decided to get married.  As a result, up we were at 4am Thursday morning to head off to DIA (thank you Stan!!) to board a plane bound for Burbank.  FYI – 6am is a very early flight.

Thursday was spent mostly sleeping and visiting local food establishments that really should open franchises out in Colorado…like Jim & Robs.  Yum!

Friday was more bouncing around between restaurants meeting friends, more napping (man that time change is a killer — j/k 8) ) and finally heading up the hill to Noah’s brother’s rehearsal/rehearsal dinner.  This is the 2nd of Noah’s three brothers to make it to the alter.  The eldest, Joe (10 years older than Noah), who recently moved back to Colorado married 2 years before we did.  Now Nate, the 3rd eldest (2 years older than Noah) got married 4 years after we did.  We determined this now gives Jake (4 years older than Noah) 6 years to get married…in order to secure a pattern among the brothers.  Anyway, Nate decided not to have any of his brothers involved in the wedding, which was fine by Noah.  So we were able to spend the rehearsal behind the scenes helping Noah’s mom with the final touches.

Saturday was the wedding day.  I do believe that was the shortest wedding I have ever been to and could not have lasted more than 10 minutes.  The weather could not have been nicer in Ojai, however.  Temperatures hovered around 80*, so it was nice to be able to sit outside in a dress without bundling up in layers of sweaters and jackets.

After the reception, Noah and I headed to Simi to spend time with my bff Erin and her hubby…eating sinful brownies (they’re only sinful because they encourage gluttony) and staying up until 2am playing RockBand.  Man that game is addictive!  Especially the drums!

Sunday we went to our home church in CA, to lunch with friends, then hit Mervyn’s for some good old fashioned shopping.  Mervyn’s was one of my favorite clothing stores while living in CA, so everytime we go back I make it a point to do a little shopping.  Unfortunately, Sunday the chain announced that they were closing all of their stores.  So I had to make the most out of what will be my last chance to ever shop there again.  I got many a new clothing item, but am still a little sad.  I don’t know what I’ll do if Kohl’s ever closes!  After shopping we headed to the ‘Nard to see a friend’s new house, then back home for Mom’s yummy pot roast followed by a rip roaring (Aaron, our scorekeeper “cheated”) game of Shanghai Rummy with friends.

Monday before we flew out, we headed downtown for some thrift store shopping (I’m on the search for cowboy boots, preferably black to match my hat).  I was successful in finding boots but the prices have sky-rocketed since the days I went to horse camp.  For what used to cost $5 the thrift stores were now asking $50-$80!!!  Um, no thank you.  I came back to Colorado without the addition of another pair of shoes.

Now for 10 random thoughts on the trip…

1) Apparently a direct flight to Southwest means it’s okay to stop in Vegas or Phoenix as long as you don’t have to get off of the plane.
2) Going through a plane de-icing is a new experience and interesting to watch.
3) Getting free jewelry cleaner is nice…but it’s nicer when you can take it on the plane.  Sadly, my container of cleaner is still sitting on the piano at my parent’s house.
4) We have great friends willing to get up early and go to bed late to cart us to/from airports.
5) A TSA agent at Burbank noticed my USAR shirt and decided to chat me up about rugby.
6) I much prefer flying in/out of Burbank to LAX…except for that whole lugging your luggage up the stairs bit.
7) Every time I fly out of CO I’m reminded just how lax TSA is at DIA.
8 ) The male flight attendant on our return flight has a good singing voice (seriously, he sang us two songs about how great Southwest is.  One was to the tune of Mr. Sandman and the other was to When You Wish Upon a Star), he also knows French…kinda
9) For some reason I cant help but think about how “Southwest has great low fares” (the female flight attendant whispered the aforementioned phrase subliminally throughout the flight)
10) Colorado is even prettier than when I left…although while we were gone someone decided to dump leaves all over our back yard.

The Heat Is On…

Published on by Casey

Not quite yet, but Noah will be turning the on the heater tonight.  Neither one of us likes to get out of bed in the morning to a cold room…especially since nighttime temperatures have now dropped into the 30s.  Plus it might snow this weekend (rain/snow showers), with highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s.  Last night we also had our first frost advisory.  I didn’t notice any on the ground when I left this morning…but we did cover the tomatoes just in case.  It won’t be long before we have to turn off and clean out the sprinkler system.

In other news, a Lava story.  On occasion, Lava will whine when the phone rings.  Not sure why, she doesn’t do it all the time.  She does do it more often when Noah is not home.  Sometimes she even bellows.  I’ve told Noah about it before, but Lava doesn’t do it when he’s in the house…even hiding in another room.  Last night Noah was out helping friends and called the house.  Lava whined/cried/carried on.  It was funny.  So I had my mom call the house to get Lava’s reaction to the phone on video.  She gets really loud when she hears Noah’s voice on the answering machine.  I have the video posted on my Facebook profile, but if you’re not on Facebook I also posted it on YouTube.  You can check it out here.

Nothing Says Love like a GPS

Published on by Casey

This past Thursday Noah and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.  This was actually the first anniversary we have had where we did not have some enormous drive to make!

1st – Drove to San Diego (5 hours)
2nd – Drove from Cedar City, UT to Lafayette, CO (the big move day 2 – 12 hours)
3rd – Drove from Diamond Lake, OR to Davis, CA to Oakland, CA (8 hours)

This was also the first anniversary we have spent alone in our house!  Although we moved into our house on our 2nd anniversary my family was here, so it wasn’t celebrated too much.  This year we celebrated by going to a quiet dinner and we still plan to go to the movies but haven’t yet.

Traditionally the gift for the 4th anniversary is fruit or flowers (I got neither).  The modern gift is an appliance.  Noah’s parents bought us a steam cleaner (vacuum), which qualifies for the modern gift.  It was also much appreciated as destructive Lava caused us to rent one from King Soopers twice within 2 weeks!  The gift I purchased for us qualifies, maybe, in the modern category too.  I purchased us a GPS unit.  Despite high gas prices we still like our road trips, plus Noah uses GPS (on his phone) daily for work.  So this purchase will pay for itself very fast!  It’s our new fun toy, of which one of my coworkers (when she saw me playing with it) said, “Nothing says love like a GPS”.  I tend to agree.  🙂

According to traditional gifts, the 5th anniversary is wood.  So, I’m really hoping I get my pretty hickory floors!  If not for next year, the modern gift for the 6th anniversary is also wood.  🙂