VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED...

If you don't like swear words or are anti-military, you might want to avoid this post. I, on the other hand, love this picture. HUA!

Ingleside and Happy Anniversary!!!

Derek and I drove to Ingleside this past Friday to stay with Dad, TexAnne and Denise for a couple weeks while Mitch is in Colorado doing some flight training. Hopefully he'll be back in two or three weeks. It was a pretty brutal drive, but we managed. It will be better going back to Del Rio because I know how to get to and from now. :) 410 is a beautiful thing.


Speaking of beautiful things, Grace Anderson took amazingly gorgeous photos of my wedding and surprised me at church today with copies of the pictures. Thank you so much, Grace! Here are not-so-few of my favorites in celebration of that wonderful day (mostly for Mitch's benefit because he's never seen most of these).

I love you, Mitchell! Thank you for the real "best two years."

Internet, cable, painting and the wonderfulness that is Mitch

Happy birthday to my sweet, wonderful, amazing husband! He's such a gem. Seriously, sometimes I have to wonder what I did to merit this blessing from the Lord. When I think about all the things that had to happen to bring us together and even get us to the point where we would be ABLE to get married, it's rather amazing. Someone had to want us to have the chance to get married. :) I love him so much and I'm so glad we get to share this wonderful adventure of mortality together... but even more grateful that I can share eternity with him.

My friend, Andrea, has agreed to babysit Derek so Mitch and I can go to a local BBQ joint to celebrate. I guess this will be an early anniversary celebration, too, since Mitch will be in Colorado on the 25th. That's ok, though. I'm getting used to the idea that he will probably miss big events. Speaking of big events, I'm pretty bummed we won't be able to make Jared's wedding. Just a combination of things, but it's for the best. We'll see them for Christmas though, and that's just around the corner! We'll be in McKinney for 2 whole weeks! How 'bout them apples?! ;) Flashback to my middle school years. Gotta love the glasses, crooked teeth and uniforms.

We finally have internet! And cable. Not gonna lie, it was a nice break from classes while we didn't have internet, but I'm glad it's back.

I can post pics of our new house too! Ok, so it's really one half of a duplex, but still! It's probably 2 or 2.5 times bigger than the one we lived in back in Utah. It's weird to think I lived there for almost 2 years after being used to moving every 4-8 months. It was a good to us though. Lots of fond memories with friends and family. :)

Drumroll please......

The first thing you see when you step through the front door is the back door. :) And that space would be our "dining room"

Then you look to your left and see the living room, or you can stand in the hallway and look back at it like I'm doing.

As you enter the hallway, you look to your left and see into the kitchen. VERY nice.

This is your view down the hallway. The open door on the left is Derek's room, the guest bathroom is directly across the hall from there, the office/storage room is at the end of the hall on your left and the master bedroom is directly across from there. The door at the very end of the hallway is our "hidden library." A lot of our books are stored there now because we need the shelf for Mitch's UPT manuals and books and things.

Who is that studly painter man?! And the walls! BLUE AND YELLOOOOOW!! Yes, we put a little color into our lives. And we like it. :) That would be the dining room in the back.

This is the view of the hallway from the middle of the living room. I love the blue. Mitch actually suggested the yellow as a contrast. Kind of going for an ocean/beach theme. Wait til I finish my plastic shelving project. Ugly no more!

Liz, this one's for you. I think this a univeral baby behavior when put into the baby carrier. I'm definitely ok with that!

In other news, Derek switched from peas to sweet potatoes today. My little chunker loves his yams. And his bottle. That would be rice/formula/yam mix on his chin, face, hands and pretty much everywhere else. He kinda does look like the gerber baby on his bib in this pic though.

He's getting so big!!!

Eating yams for the first time!

thought of the day

I know I've mentioned the verification words that you have to retype at the end of a comment already, but seriously...totion? What, is that lotion without an "l"? Did you miss the "l" and hit the "t"? I pity the guy or gal that has to come up with these. Apparently the cardinal rule is they must not be real words. Now for some power snuggling and Jurassic Park! I love classics. :)

P.S. We're almost done painting the living room/dining room (the only parts we'll paint this time round). It looks AWESOME!! AHHH!! Pics to come tomorrow... hee hee. Goodnight!

Sea World!

Mitch, Derek and I were able to go up to San Antonio to hang out with my mom and my sisters Amy and Kelly. I also met Kelly's boyfriend for the first time. We had an interesting time trying to get to the hotel my mom had booked and finally ended up figuring out we were one exit off the whole time. Honestly, women were not made to give verbal directions.

SeaWorld is having a great discount this year for military members! It's called Here's to the Heros and military personnel and up to three of their direct dependents can get free admission! The only catch is you can only do it once a year and, as far as I know, it's only lasting for this year. But still, a very nice gesture seeing as how there are two or three Air Force bases in San Antonio alone and everyone who enlists has to go to San Antonio for Basic. Speaking of which... it kinda bugs me that there were Airmen Basic, Airmen and Airmen First Class (basically the three lowest on the totem pole period) walking around in blues and I even saw a few in PTs IN THE PARK! K, not only is it a very uncomfortable uniform to be in walking around in hot weather (and some had garters on), but that is not something you can be splashed in. Maybe it's just an ROTC thing that we can't wear uniforms to pretty much anything but an Air Force function, but all I know is it bugged me. End of rant.

In other news, the whole reason we went (other than to have fun and see family) was to watch Kelly and Amy swim with the beluga whales. It's only $170 per person and you get to play with these amazing creatures....

Martha

I participated in the same program about 8 years ago and it was wonderful to see how developed the program is now. You have an 8 minute introductory video to the beluga, change into your wetsuits and head to the tank. There is a platform about waist-deep in the water that you stand on, so you don't really swim with the whales, but you still touch and interact with them in a one-on-one basis. Lots more photo ops and interactions as well as smaller groups per whale. Kelly and Amy had only two other girls in their group. I think I had 7 or 8 in mine. Both whales, Martha and Chrissy, had their calves in the tank with them. Martha had a three-year-old son named Gracin who was training with one of the other trainers a little ways off and then there was Bella, Chrissy's one-year-old daughter.

Bella

Oh. My. Gosh. She is the cutest thing I have ever seen. She was still pretty small, about 3oo lbs and 5 ft long, so she was able to swim up on the platform where the girls were and nudge them around a little. She actually "bit" one of the girls in Amy's group. Since she didn't have any teeth yet and the girls were wearing wetsuits, she didn't get hurt at all, mostly got her knee mouthed. Still, how many people can say they've been bitten by a baby beluga, huh? Bella actually nudged Amy off the platform while she was posing for a picture with Martha; Amy and Martha were on their backs and Amy was kicking her feet to signal Martha to flip her tail. Bella saw her feet (which she thinks are the greatest toys on the planet) and tried to suck on them. How can you be more adorable?

Well, Derek tried to top her. Makamae, here's another "bebe tidbit" for you: Derek tried to talk to the whales when they did their really loud squeaky sounds that sound a lot like Derek's excited squeaky sound (which he did more of in Relief Society on Sunday than he ever has in one hour). I don't think they really responded to his really loud squeals, but he enjoyed thinking they did, I guess. Too cute.

Amy getting a "kiss" from Martha

Kelly posing with Martha

The girls were able to cue the whales to perform about 10-15 different behaviors and learned about why some natural behaviors are important.

Martha rolled over on her back, submerged her blowhole and blew bubbles. Cute.

Getting splashed by Chrissy, the other beluga the girls interacted with

Wanna know something funny...

My son is growling in his pack n play. It's the cutest sound in the world. Usually, when he wakes up from a nap, the first thing I hear is a squeal or the sound of him talking to himself. Today, I heard a soft, breathy "grrr, grrr.. SQUEAL! Grrr... grrrr... grrr..." And now he's doing the laughing/talking thing and thumping his little chunky legs on the stiff mat he sleeps on (which he also does in his sleep). Life is good.

AHHHH!!!.... I'm happy. :)

Yep, I'm happy.

I'm in the middle of "Hell" Rio and I'm happy.

We've been living out of a suitcase for the past two months and I'm happy.

It's really amazing what sleep and a good sweat does for me. :) Jared is getting married next month. Wow. And Mitch can't make it. How dumb is the Air Force? Honestly, don't they know Mitch's brother is getting married. Ok, well, obviously that isn't important to the Air Force, but I'm still disappointed. There's always Colton's wedding though. :)

Derek is really learning how to sit up now. We went to play group with some of the other Air Force wives on base and he had his first look up close at other kids close to his age. Playing with Isaac doesn't count because there was only one of him. It was funny to see him absolutely uninterested in anything but his pink teething ring. Sidenote: on our roadtrip out to Del Rio, we stopped at a Jack in the Box and a lady asked if he was a boy or a girl. I think it was the pink teething ring. Oh well.

Money, money, money... everything costs money. I'm slowly coming to the realization that we probably won't be able to get a dog anytime soon. It definitely wouldn't be responsible. I can compromise with a fishtank. Or maybe a cat, but Mitch doesn't like cats. Oh well, I have Derek and he's a ton of fun. :)

I'm also slowly warming up to the idea of getting pregnant again. I don't have a scale handy, but I can tell I'm losing weight. This makes me happy and a little put off; finally I start losing weight and we talk about when we think the next one should come. We'll see. Research that I did for one of my psych papers suggests that women should wait at least 11 months and no longer than 24 months between pregnancies. Women who get pregnant sooner than 6 months or longer than 24 months after the birth of their last child are more at risk for preterm delivery, low birth weight or miscarriage. I think I'd be fine getting pregnant in December if that's what the Lord wants, but I'd also be fine waiting til next August or so. It's kind of fun to watch all the baby shows on TLC too. :)

Sometimes We Scare Ourselves...

So, Mitch was sick, then Derek was sick, now I'm sick. Derek never fails to show me the silver lining in each day (even it it's only a few minutes a day) and today was no exception. We just got a Bumbo tray to keep Derek from immediately bending over to play with his toes. Combine that with Derek's new trick of banging things on the desk...and sometimes Derek scares himself. Enjoy!




Derek playing on his tray



Scary toys!

Rice Cereal

So, I hear rice cereal makes kids fuller so they eat less often. That is a lie. Or my kid is a bottomless pit. Derek will eat about every 3.5 hours, will wake from the middle of a nap to eat and wakes at least once an hour during the night (sometimes every 30 min) for the past 3 nights just because the pacifier falls out at night. Maybe he's in another growth spurt and needs to go back to night feedings? Ugh.

Any other suggestions? Solid food is becoming more and more appealing... if only I didn't think he'd need to eat every two hours with that. Ha...ha.

This is the end of my rant. Thanks. :)

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