Derek Pics

Here is a rough (and very brief/sparse) photo journal of our trip to Houston. We went down primarily for Amy's graduation but got to spend time with Dad, TexAnne and Denise, too. Derek also saw Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Thomison, his aunts, uncles and cousins for the first time in person. So cute.

Derek actually seemed excited to fly this time. He was a gem on every flight this trip.

Laughing Gulls

Brown Pelican

Derek and Grandpa Bazemore feeding the seagulls

Derek and Grandma TexAnne, also when we went to feed the gulls

Derek and Grandma TexAnne

Grandma TexAnne suggested rice cereal and Derek LOVES it. Figured the spoon out after three or four tries.

YUM!!

Derek and Nana

Derek and Aunt Val

Derek and his new toys

K, so obviously I didn't put a ton of pictures on here because I took them with the video camera which has no flash. Most of them came out dark or fuzzy, so you don't get to see the picture of the bat in the bag or the picture of when I took it outside. Nor do you see pictures from Amy's graduation party. :( To make up for the hideous lack and just because I think they're cute, here are some "bonus" pics that I took this month. :)

He's discovered he can grab his toes. He also can put them in his mouth, though that's not as common as finding him chilling on the bed or in his crib in this position.

Everyone calls this the "Gerber Baby" pic


Derek loves his fingers, but he loves the binkie more

Happy baby burrito

Reminiscing

So, I was going through some of the photos I posted to my facebook which I use as a backup photo storage (There are 94 albums; geez!) and I found a few I thought I'd share. Don't feel obligated. :)

Thigh deep in water and seining; I found a large frog in the mud we were sifting through. Senior year Aquatic Science class field trip. I loved this, especially since some of the girls (and some of the guys) in the class were wigging out. HAHA!

Senior prom. Date is Bryan Weatherston. Lots of fun! :)

Caught a duckling when my roommates and I went down to the Botany Pond south of campus. I really caught one Steph and Doug! ;P

When I was blonde (living in Heritage Halls)

First date at BYU. Not such a great one, but the first nonetheless.

First Escape and Evade my 100 year of AFROTC. It was a blast!

First SCIDM. Amazing doesn't cover it.

My best (girl) friend and only roomate while at BYU (Mitch is NOT a roommate). My first snow and our first semester in Deseret Towers. I miss you, Milla!

First official couple picture with my smokin' hot boyfriend! :P Love this pic.

One of my favorite engagement pics that didn't make the cut for the invitations

I love my husband! Best day of my life!

My baby boy. He drives me insane sometimes, but I love him to pieces. And I know the date is wrong on the pics. ;P

Happy Father's Day!

This has been a great day. Mitch gave a wonderful talk on fathers today in church. He discussed how great an influence his own father was, and still is, in his own life. My father-in-law is definitely an awesome man. I can really tell that the example he set for Mitch (at the very least) was very positive and very permanently influential. Mitch also focused on the concept of father as a relationship to the spouse. One thing he said that struck me was, "Brethren, you didn't kneel across the alter from your son or daughter, you knelt across from your wife." Wow. What a man! There are times (like this) that I wonder what I did to deserve him, much less how I attracted him. ;)

Chillaxin' with Dad

He adores Mitch

Heavenly Father has definitely blessed me with a wonderful husband and a great little boy. As much as I complain about lost sleep and frustration, he really is a good baby. He doesn't cry unless he wants food or wants to switch positions. He falls into routines fairly easily, especially after traveling, he smiles at anything that moves and is starting to develop into a plucky little optimist. He still likes to cuddle with Mom or Dad, but can be independent and actually likes some alone time (as long as he can glance over to you periodically). He can also do an assisted "tripod" sit. My baby is definitely growing up fast! :)

I love my awesome Dad!

I owe my earthly dad for much of where I am today. He has shown me such unconditional love and constantly challenges me to do better and be self-sufficient. All the father's blessings, nights of counsel, tears and challenges have helped mold me into the woman I am today. I love my dad so much and I'm so grateful for his love for me. I was thinking about all the memories we made growing up; here's a sample of my favorites:

1) Scaring Amy. Amy (my sister) left her bike at a friend's house and Dad told her she had to get it. It wasn't super late and the it was only a block away. We lived in a small town, so there was definitely no problem with safety. Despite a tearful protest, she left. As she was walking back, my dad, stepmom, myself and my two other sisters hid ourselves in the bushes next to our driveway to await Amy's return. As she was walking her bike toward the drive, we sprang out and scared her. I know it sounds super mean, but it was hilarious.

2) Holly. My first dog was a black lab/chow mix we named Holly. I don't remember where Dad got her, but I remember Mom driving our big white van to pick me up from 2nd grade and Dad had this little scrap of a puppy in a towel on his lap. I was so excited and it was chaos in that van on the way home.

3) Father's blessings. I remember how peaceful I felt after my dad gave me a Father's blessing. He would pretty much drop whatever he was doing to talk with me and then put his hands on my head. He always gave me a blessing each summer before the school year started.

4) Inviting me and my sisters to look at this profile on the online dating service he was using. It was a picture of my future step mom. He asked us what we thought and if we wanted to meet her.

5) Introducing me to the world of animals. My dad has always encouraged a love of animals in me. He told me stories about his horse, Popcorn, his dogs, his tortoise. One time, we found a tortoise in the engine of our car. I don't remember how we found it, but it was unharmed and we kept it for a little bit. Another time, Holly (or maybe it was our German Shepherd, Spike) brought us a baby squirrel. It was still alive and not badly harmed and Dad let us keep it. Another time, Megan and Lucky found a baby possum. Dad let me keep him, too (I named him Jake). Probably one of the coolest pets ever.

This was Jake's spot for car rides: right behind my shoulder

6) Spike started my love affair with German Shepherds. He was a retired police dog and was definitely one of the best dogs in the world. Just a big loveable lug who would tolerate any amount of childish poking and prodding from us, but was fiercely protective of the family. My dad would play with him and taught us how to brush his thick double coat.

7) My dad has the coolest Southern accent ever. Not a hick accent, a Southern gentleman's accent.

8) My dad taught me how to work. As a 14- or 15-year-old, I would mow our 1 acre lot with a push mower once or twice a month. It took 3 hours usually because of all the Virginia oaks. Sometimes we'd go outside after a big storm to pick up debris in the yard or just pick up sticks some days. To this day, I love doing manual labor outside.

I love the men in my life. And I wouldn't change them for the world.

Texas Trip Update and Bazemore/Davila Family Pics

Derek is just stinking cute. It's amazing how 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep changes your perceptions. I went to bed last night fairly annoyed at Derek, who wasn't being remotely annoying chewing on his fingers, and woke up happy to see him even though he was fussy and crying. Go figure.

Our trip to Texas has been great so far. We fly back to Alabama on Monday. Derek was the perfect baby flying out here - no crying and hardly any fussing. Hopefully he's the same way on the way back. We visited my Dad in Ingleside for a few days, too. We mostly hung around and had a relaxing time watching movies and playing with their three dogs. I'm going back to live with them for a few weeks while Mitch goes to IFS. I made some drawings and suggestions for remodeling their backyard and I'm super excited. They'll buy the materials and I do the labor... except for cutting the trees down. I'm definitely not comfortable slicing down 30 foot trees that are close to the house and jutting over the fence. No way. But installing a fountain, planting walled gardens, setting up trellises, laying grass plugs and a stone walkway I can do. :) Grandma TexAnne introduced him to rice cereal, too. At 5 months old, he figured out how to swallow soft food after 3 tries. Absolutely amazing. Now, he eats about 5-6 tablespoons of rice cereal twice a day. He sure is a hungry little boy!

Last night, my sister, Amy, was taking Derek upstairs and she suddenly stops halfway up the stairs and calls for me. "Is that a dead lead on the stairs?" Well, if it was, why would she ask me? So I walk up next to her and check out what she's pointing at. Dead leaf? No. Bat? Yes. Itty bitty little bat, about 2 inches long, was nestled up against one of the stairs close to the top. So, as always, I was called upon to remove the critter. Rick gave me a piece of mail that came that day and an opened bag to catch the little bat. After a couple tries and several warnings from Mom not to be bitten (haha!), I finally took it outside and managed to take a few pictures. Unfortunately, I can't get them off my memory stick just now, since the computers here don't have memory stick slots. Oh well. I'll add them in another post on Monday when we get back to Maxwell.

I wish I'd taken a before pic so you could see how long my hair was before I cut it - it was almost down to my waist when I straightened it. I have a picture of the 10 inch braided pigtails, but it's stuck on my memory card, so will be added to the Monday post. I love my new haircut though. Super cute and it feels like I've lost 10 lbs! Enjoy the pictures!

We have "sister rings." Aren't they cool?

Derek is so cute!

My sisters, my mom, Derek and me. Yay for new hair!!

Derek and Papi

Nana and Derek

Kelly, Amy, Mom, Valerie and me - tallest to shortest, haha!

Me and Derek

Aunt Bella and Derek

Aunt Amy and Derek

Aunt Valerie and Derek

Back: Val, Kelly, Amy, me

Front: Mom, Derek, Rick

Me and Mom

Group Shot

And Just Because People Have Been Wondering...

Here are pictures of our "6-week home" as I've taken to calling it. Disclaimer: These were taken during the process of moving in, but I'd love to show you around...

Knock Knock!

This is our kitchenette; the first thing you see when you walk in the door.

Our little bar/shelf that you see looking into the kitchen from the living room

Our living room...

...which is coincidentally in our bedroom.
But where is the bathroom...

Here's the bathroom...behind the closet!

No Narnia through this closet, but at least we have a bathtub. :)

This is where I spend my days, but I usually take Derek out into the little playground in the evenings for some sun and fresh (somewhat cooler) air.

Florida and Adjustments

We've already made new friends! Megan, Mike and their 2-month old son, Kellen. They graciously invited us to join them on their Memorial Day weekend trip to Florida and Mitch and I were really excited to accept. We hadn't really made any plans to leave, even though almost everyone else in his flight was going to New Orleans, Birmingham or Florida for the three-day weekend.

We stayed in a condo in Panama City within walking distance of the beach. We got there around 5 on Saturday and immediately high-tailed it to the beach with the babies. Mitch and Mike got in the water and Megan and I sat in the surf letting the babies feel the waves for the first time. Derek loved it! He stamped his feet as the water lapped around his little legs and was a little confused when the water moved away. Mitch and Mike started yelling at us and gesturing out at the waves. Stingray were jumping clean out of the water! Big ones, little ones... tons of them. The guys came in from chest high water when they saw two stingray swim between them and offered to let Megan and I head out, which we did only for a few minutes before the sight of jumping stingray drove us back in. Then Mitch and Mike tried to corral a large crab and attempt to pick it up. They pursued it all the way back out to chest-deep water and lost it.

The next couple days, we just hung around the condo, the beach and the heated pool. Derek also loved that. Mitch held him under the arms and pulled him around the pool like a little motorboat while Derek kicked and kicked. Super cute. Mitch hadn't woken up and I had to pack up Derek's pack N play to put back in the car, so I just plopped him on the pullout bed that we slept on and snapped these pics really quick.


Megan and Mike are great friends! They weren't kidding when they called themselves professional relaxers. I think we've been almost completely converted into professional relaxers ourselves. Going and doing on a vacations is a great idea, but when you come back needing to recover from a vacation, it kind of defeats the purpose, don't you think?

As far as the "Adjustment" part of this post...

I've definitely come to realize just how sheltered life was in Provo. In one of his first briefings, Mitch's squadron commander told his squadron to leave the area around the base if they were going off-base because it's a bad area of town. No joke. When we first came into our new "6-week home," we found a little note from our housekeeper, Gwen. She cleaned our room mostly while we were out, so we didn't meet her for a few days. However, one day a lady came in to clean our room.

"Oh, you must be Gwen," I said.

"No, actually she just passed," was the response.

Hang on. Passed....as in died?

"Yes. Domestic violence is a real problem around here."

Speechless silence.

Welcome to the real world.

I heard the national anthem playing last night for the first time since moving here. It's played every night at 5 when the flag is lowered on BYU campus and I think it's played here at the same time to mark the end of the business day. Hearing that familiar sound put me quite a bit more at ease. Makes me much happier that we're staying on-base.

I'm looking forward to starting a garden when we get to Laughlin. I've been doing some research on different kinds of plants that would thrive in the deserts of south Texas and was really surprised to see tulips listed. Really? So, that's my main pick along with a couple ground cover plants that haven't been decided yet. :) Strawberries would be fun to grow too, but you don't harvest them the first time. You pluck the little flowers off and then harvest next year. But I'm not sure where we'll be in two years, so I'm not too sure about that one.

In brighter news, Derek is doing well and growing quickly. He's probably 15 lbs now and I'm really starting to notice, lol. He's trying to roll over onto his back from his belly but only has intermittent success. He never does it when I bring out the video camera, haha!

K, so no pictures. Bummer

Well, the reason we don't have pictures is pretty dumb: the movers packed the camera. After seeing the camera prices at Walmart and Target, I think I'm becoming slightly more resigned to Mitch's firm "NO" to my request for another, especially since we had to get a new laptop for me to be able to do my online lessons while we're here. That was unexpected.

Mitchell will be leaving for a 5-day excursion to the field in a few minutes. Derek is asleep in his pack N play and will probably be waking up soon and needing to be fed. I, however, have decided to update my blog. If I don't do it now, I'll fall out of the habit.

The trip from Utah to Alabama was pretty much uneventful except for a hotel reservation mixup. Mitchell booked one hotel room through a third-person booking party (here's where I went "uh-oh") and forgot to change the hotel on our driving instructions we were putting together. Luckily, we were only a mile or two from where our reservations were. Lots of rain during the trip from Wyoming to Lincoln. That was fun, though.

We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Wade in Tennessee for a couple days. We were able to attend the Nashville, TN temple while we were there and kept Grandpa Wade up late watching movies with us a couple nights. We found that he shares a love for NCIS with us. :) They also introduced us to Australia with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman (great movie!) and Avatar with Sigourney Weaver (also great!). We moved into our tiny hotel room (with our own kitchenette and our own bathroom - no sharing with other couples, thank heaven) and it's been working really well for us.

I'm excited to see how I fare on my own without Mitch. I've already learned to change the bucket in the dehumidifier (came with the room, awesome!), which is really heavy when full. I've also learned my way around the base to the BX, commissary and the gas station. I've made some friends and have a spouses' meeting tomorrow evening to discuss the spouse program here for ASBC students' spouses.

Wanna know a secret? I am SO not motivated to finish my psychology classes. I'm getting distracted by all the other super shiny things I want to do. Like getting my dog training certification. This is a minor certification but it opens the door for me to be able to get a higher certification that will let me put letters after my name. Cool, huh? It will also let me be able to administer the "Good Citizen" test to dogs.

Why is that important? Well.... personally, I think it's totally stupid that the bases limit dog owners to certain breeds. Pitbulls, dobermans, and rottweilers are prohibited because of "breed aggression." K, for one, that's stupid. Just because a high percentage of these kinds of dogs are used for aggressive activities or purposes does not mean the entire breed is automatically aggressive. Other breeds can have aggressive individuals, too. Enter the Good Citizen test, sponsored by the AKC. Basically, it's a piece of paper that says your dog has manners (basic obedience and lack of aggression) that are good enough to pass a 10-part test that evaluates how well they interact with people and other dogs. I'm going to try to petition the Air Force to only approve dogs to live on base based on whether or not they have a Good Citizen certificate rather than on their breed. We'll see how it goes.

Before I start that certification, though, I have to finish my psych classes. I'm aiming for August, but we'll see if I make it. December is the absolute latest I can graduate, but I will not wait that long.

That said, I'd better go do a lesson or two.