Weekend pictures

Blogger isn't letting me do this the easy way, so now all my pictures are jumbled together. Let me try and explain them...Eric's family at the River Walk, Eric and I at the River Walk, each time we go, we are suckers and get our picture taken again, in nearly the same spot each time.
Jenny and I, we have the same due date, her first, my 3rd, isn't she cute?

CJ got the best view a couple of times thanks to Daddy and Grandpa, our family at Sea world, everyone at Eric's winging, and Laurelei having a great time clapping at the Dolphin show. We had lots of fun and pictures only capture a quick moment.

He's a Pilot!

We had a fabulous and busy weekend. Here is the quick update, pictures to come later, so check back.

Eric got his wings!  He is a Pilot for the USAF. Six and a half years ago, this is what he wanted to do, and even though he took the long road to get here, he is now a Pilot.  Congrats honey!

To help celebrate this achievement, his parents and sibblings came, and we had a great time with our company.  Eric and Andy got a round of golf in, us girls did some shopping, Saturday we went to Sea World in San Antonio, and Sunday we spent at the riverwalk and the boys made a stop at the Alamo.  A good time was had by all and great food enjoyed.  Everyone was tired when we headed for home, but it was a good tired.

6 months

This week I'll reach the 24wk mark.  At this point, 6 months pregnant, statistically things really start looking great for the baby.  Another sigh of relief to pass this pregnancy mile marker, especially with as crazy and stressful as things have been recently.  A few have been asking me about belly pictures.  I don't do belly pictures.  Plus this time, I didn't just provide the little one with a womb to snugly grow in, instead I have provided him with a gymnasium to be able to adequately tumble, kick, stretch and flip around.  Sure, if I had done 500 sit ups a day between pregnancies I wouldn't be so large, heck if I had just done 5 sit ups between pregnancies, maybe things wouldn't have relaxed as quickly or as much as they have.  However, he needs to be ready to move when he arrives, since he has 2 big sisters who are very excited about him and all the things they'll get to do.

So here is a picture of me pre-pregnancy.  I had worked my tail off (minus sit ups) and was feeling pretty good and only had a small way to go to meet my goal.  Oh, and as a side note, this is a shirt that I made.

And here I am now, at least I have a tan.

This week things will be busy for us and time will fly by.  Celebrating the first day of fall tomorrow with a high around 95 which means the heat index will be over a hundred again.  Our Honeycrisp apples are helping us to feel a bit more like fall.  The seasons are at least changing elsewhere. Thanks Grandma Linda!

What a ride!

What a crazy life we lead!  As I look back over the past 2 years, I wonder just how we survived, but can’t imagine doing things any differently either.  Often I wonder how “normal” people would handle the changes, stresses, and constant uncertainty and if there is a better way.

I have heard several “nuggets” of wisdom through the years, such as “God will never give you more than you can handle.”  One that generally I agree with, but I would be VERY willing to handle a little less once in awhile – note to God just in case he visits my blog.  However, I often struggled with “God giveth and God taketh”.  Looking over the past 10 days, I do believe that God does offer and freely give me blessings, and balances them out with challenges -but I wouldn't say he takes.

I feel very blessed that Hurricane Ike did not hit and destroy our house, leaving us with nothing and facing the many challenges that come with beginning over. To balance that out, I am now looking for my opportunities to help out those that were directly hit and affected by Hurricane Ike.

I have been very blessed with 2 healthy little girls and a wonderful husband, but often I am on my own with the girls and far from family and friends.  As I look to the next year, it will be filled with trying to help them find balance with the upcoming changes and challenges we will face together.

 March of 2007

                                                                        August 2008

Here is a very quick summary of the past 2.5 years:
We have lived in 4 houses in 3 different states.
Eric has attended, worked very hard, and graduated from OTS, and completed pilot training for the USAF –with the Navy.
We welcomed our second daughter.
We have traveled as a family north and south to see family and friends, and the girls and I have made a couple of extra trips in there, both north & south as well as west & east.

Those were the highlights (blessings), and they each had challenges built in.  I’ll leave out the heart breaking stresses and low points (challenges), since now it is time to look to the next year.

“There is a bigger picture.”  God sees it. I often have a hard time seeing it, until later.  We will be welcoming a son to our family some time in the next 3-4 months (wow, that is soon!!!)  We will be moving – to Tuscon AZ, Eric has 3+ months of training in Little Rock AR first, reporting late Oct.
Eric will return to a more "normal" schedule that unfortunately will include more time away from the family.

Each of these is a blessing.  I know they are.  I need to wait for the bigger picture to come into focus.  Each will come with challenges, because I do believe that is how to have balance.  For now, I have rambled long enough.  I’m sure my next entry will be back to the silly things my girls do or some other random event I decide to share.  Thanks for sticking through my need to process.  What a ride we are on!

Hurricane IKE update

As many of you know, hurricane Ike made a bee line for Galveston and Houston.  They have suffered great damage and it may be a couple of weeks before they get power back on.  They are fortunate that it never gained more strength than a Category 2, even though it may be hard to see that now.

The water levels did rise a bit around here, and our official storm surge was 3.89ft.  We haven't seen a drop of rain, yet.  Maybe Sunday and Monday.  Currently our heat index is still well over 100. Cooler weather may be in store for us beginning Tuesday with highs in the mid 80's, which means our heat index will finally drop below 100.

We have kept busy.  We made cupcakes yesterday, and delivered to our friends today.  Today we will unpack the van and start to put our house back in order so we don't feel like we are living in Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's house.

 

Eric is scheduled to return on Monday.  Yesterday he had lots of fun, golfing, Barnes and Noble, Hooters and the guys went out and closed down a bar.  He said it was funny to watch the guys hit on the women and get turned down.  I asked if that meant he wasn't getting turned down. He said he was just a spectator.  He was pretty groggy at 8:30 (9:30 our time) when we called this morning and was claiming that he was done having that much fun.

Thank you for your prayers and concern.  I am very thankful that we didn't sustain the direct hit of a category 4 that was originally predicted.  We were prepared to leave if our safety was of concern.  Let's pray that the rest of hurricane season is quiet.

Hurricane IKE update

Apparently my shaking of fist and daring hurricane Ike to come and wreck havoc on our next two weeks worked.  Late last night he made a turn north.  I feel terrible for anyone who will be a direct hit, but there has been some good news.  Currently the eye is small and tight at about 10 miles wide and the barametric pressure has risen, meaning it is not currently growing in size.  Still expected to be a catagory 3, but no longer are they predicting catagory 4.

Eric still evacuated with a plane this morning, and will spend the weekend in New Mexico golfing when it is not raining there from the Pacific Lowell storm. I must mention that Eric was a saint in getting all the play stuff down outside and the garage organized to fit everything including his car along with helping move things high in the house and getting the girls and van packed to evacuate.  He did try to get sandbags before he left, but that did not work out.  He certainly earned a round of golf.

Due to the shift north, it puts us at the very edge and even possibly just tropical storm area.  That means we'll have thunderstorms, heavy rain, localized flooding and possibly some wind damage.  The city has put a hold on evacuating even the medical patients at this time. I made the decision to stay here and ride it out.  There will be no mandatory personnel evacuation.  In our own house we have things of comfort and more space.  Along with lots of neighbors so in between down pours we can even have playdates. A couple of neighbors and I went and filled sandbags this morning, so we all now have some basic protection at our doors from any possible flooding or storm surge (which is unlikely at this time).

No chicken art farm for us.  And that is really okay with me.  I know that Eric will be back in a few days, he'll finish his program here and get winged here instead of New Mexico.  We'll finally find out where we are heading next in a week and best of all we are safe and so is our home.  CJ is dissapointed that we didn't go on "vacation" and yet daddy still did.  But we'll find something fun to do, we may finally hit up Chuck E Cheese.

Thank you for the prayers, continue to keep the whole Houston area in your prayers.

Old Farm Chicken Art Center

That's right, I heard about this place, you know surfing the web, one page led to another during a search and thought, hmmmm....we should go check it out.  So we are driving, 6 hours, if traffic isn't thick, on a field trip.  Look out Chicken Art, here we come.

What was that?

What about what?

Oh yeah, I might of heard of something...San Antonio possibly getting 20 inches of rain.  How crazy is that? A Hurricane??? Really??? Heading towards us?  A big one????  NO WAY!!!!

Hi, my name is Cyndy, and I am in denial about some little ol' Hurricane called Ike. 

Very much dragging my feet, the girls and I will be heading to San Angelo for the weekend.  Six hours away without traffic.  Probably 158 billion hours tomorrow.  Eric is flying a plane to New Mexico to go golfing.  You think I'm kidding? I'm not.  He is taking his clubs with full intentions of golfing the weekend away.  The girls and I are caravaning with a neighbor and her kiddos and dogs, but I just don't want to leave.  I don't want to be stuck here with no power and some big storm surge either.  I don't want to live in a hotel with the kids and the dog.  Yes, I'm having a bit of a hissy fit.  I'll admit it.

We took down everything outside, and put it in.  The new play house is perfect in our living room.  We moved things upstairs, cuz I've always wanted a piano in my bedroom.  The girls packed their own clothes.  CJ as if we currently live in ND and are heading to Canada for the weekend.  The van is packed and garbage was picked up today so tomorrow when I dump everything out of the freezers and fridge it should be lovely to come back to in the trash can.

What am I taking?  The girls, paperwork, pictures and food.  Now if only I could find the little girls.

p.s. If it keeps shifting north, we may stay put.

Sew busy

That's right...a relatively new hobby at our house is sewing.  I have made curtains, diapers and a hooter hider, along with a shirt for myself, that currently I can't wear, and a couple of dresses for the girls.  I stay simple with mostly basic stitching.  Eric has tackled dresses for the girls that involved zippers, gathering and rick rack.  Most projects are joint. Eric seems to have issues with our self threading machine and doesn't like to pick out material and accessories.  I have grand ideas but am too impatient to actually work with a pattern and follow the directions, including basting.

 

It was nearly impossible to get the girls to stop twirling in the dresses that Eric made.

 

The straps I originally sewed on, did not work out.  I'll find something to use before they wear them out of the house. Again, the girls didn't want to stand still.

September

September is here, and Hurricane Gustav brought us the hottest day we have had yet this year and the   craziest part, no wind.  So yesterday the actual temp was over 100, no wind and I think the heat index was actually 212 billion degrees.  No wonder we are dreaming of Alaska.

CJ started "school" yesterday.  She had a great time.  She helped pack her lunch and she made sure she had a plate in there too.  CJ got a great report from the teachers when I picked her up, and she was not ready to go yet.  However, some backlash we are experiencing from all of our recent moving is her proclaimation of not wanting to make new friends.  It is hard for all of us to make friends, and then either move ourselves or the friends move.  Despite her resolve to not make new friends, she has and I know she will continue to and she will want to go back to school tomorrow.

While big sister was busy at school, Laurelei helped us put together a play house we picked up for the girls.  Both have had lots of fun filling up the car and playing in the house.

I had an appt. yesterday.  Had a good report on the Ultrasound.  I have been feeling pretty good, especially now with the belly support belt.  Apparently, I have been feeling a bit too well and managed to gain 8lbs in the past month, which my OB very polietly said I didn't need to continue to do.  I know...so I reported back to Eric that he is not allowed to make big pans of brownies anymore.

Great Grandma Peterson sent the girls some very cute moose socks she picked up in Norway for them.  Even though we don't wear socks much around here, the girls put them on and "skated" around the kitchen the rest of the night.

Eric has 5 flights left.  We will fill out our dream sheet next week.  Things are finally coming to an end.