We've got some catching up to do!

We are just a LITTLE behind on our blogging....OH NO!!  We hope you will forgive us!

To begin...pictures of Ella at 2 months!  She didn't quite feel like sitting up for pictures but we gave it a shot anyway.

2 Months Old

Someone found the kitty!

We got quite a bit unpacked within the first week but still have some things left to go.  Most of our pictures are hung up and it's looking like home!  We will keep working on it but we not as fast; we like spending our family time snuggling!  We also have internet, landline, and cell phones working again!  It took about a week to get it all sorted out...ugh!  It was quite a hassle but at least it is all up and running again so we can stay in touch with the outside world and not be cut off ;)  We are a bit out of practice on our smoke signals so it would have been rather difficult to communicate.

Ella
Ella's congestion turned into Bronchiolitis :(  It is basically the baby's version of a viral infection for adults.  She has been on an inhaler since the 11th but has been getting better and isn't coughing as much.  Despite her being congested and coughing, she is still sleeping GREAT (6-11 hours at a time)!  We try and give her as much rest as possible to help kick the cold but really, she needs to be able to blow her nose.  At least we can use saline and suction as much as possible to help her in the mean time.  We hope she continues to improve and use the inhaler less each day.  When we went back to the doctor to find out she had bronchiolitis, we found out that she is in fact 23' and NOT 21"....oops!  The nurse measured correctly the first time but remeasured because Ella was being a wiggle worm.  So when we went in on the 11th, she was 11 lbs, 10 oz. and 23 inches.  Despite being sick, she's growing and gaining weight!

Ella is still doing great at daycare!  She continues to adjust and has been napping better but it still takes some effort.   Miss Julie, Miss Luci, and Miss Agnes are our favorites :)  They have done such a fantastic job taking care of Ella during the day and have really made our first daycare experience amazing.  Miss Luci is absolutely in love with Ella and is always telling us great stories about their day.  We really did luck out!  Ella gets lots of loving because the ladies  love to come over and say goodbye to her when it is time to go home.  Ella is still the quiet and good one of the group!  A few times all the other kids around her have been crying and she just lays there playing with her toys.  She has been VERY interested in everything around her and is always watching her friends at daycare.  Ella is still very talkative and we  enjoy hearing her "stories" that she has to share.

Ella's room is still a work in progress but we made a LOT of headway on it!  Don't mind the mess (we are slightly embarrassed by it) you see in some of the pictures (or the poor quality due to lighting)!  The decals alone have made a huge difference since are aren't painting and we love them!  (Thank you Boeckelman Family!)  We still have some things to put up and away for Ella's room but this has been huge progress from what she had back at our old place.  There are still some pictures to hang but also room to grow!  I am missing pictures of the door and the short wall when you come in.  The door has a sign on it and there are pictures on the short wall.  Perhaps once everything is complete and put away we can do an updated series of pictures.

Here are some other pictures we took of Ella over the past couple weeks that are just too cute not to share!  We went to the beach for the FIRST time with our friends Sarah, James, and their son Alex.  It was the first time for Alex and Ella at the beach.  Of course the day we went was the coolest it had been all week, 72.  Nonetheless, Ella got to put her toes in the sand.  :)  We didn't get to stay as long as we wanted but still a fun experience!  I bet if it had been warmer and she would have gotten to get her feet wet, she would have enjoyed it.  She kicks around during bath time and still loves the water!  

Happy Baby!!

Drama Queen

1st Beach Experience!!

Testing out my little blanket pod!!

Watching a movie with Dad

Julie
Julie has been busy at  school but she wouldn't have it any other way.  They will hopefully be getting the new circulation desk in two weeks and she is VERY excited to have something a little bit closer to the librarians and more permanent.  She is currently in the front of the library while the librarians are towards the middle and it seems like they are very far apart.  Sometimes it makes it difficult to communicate.  Julie has been taking on various projects in the library and she just loves that she can help the new librarian collaborate with other teachers in the building.  Freshman orientation just ended in the library and students were doing an iPad scavenger hunt to get to know the policies, procedures, and features of the library.  Julie got to test it out on her iPhone before they started and it was fun for her.  Julie has gotten to do some book talks with students who were looking for suggestions and one that made Curtis proud was getting a student to check out one of the Timothy Zahn Star Wars books!  Banned Book Week was this week...go read a banned book!!  Do you know some books that have been banned or challenged??  Did you know Harry Potter is on the challenge list?  Where the Wild Things Are is on the list as well.  How about the banned list...Grapes of Wrath, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, Catch 22, The Color Purple, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...

Besides school, Julie is doing well.  She is about 10 pounds away from pre-baby weight!  She is still trying to figure out what she wants to do for a workout routine because she likes to get Ella right after school and spend time with her before it is time to get Ella ready for bed.  It will get figured out but no rush when you get to have snuggle time!

Curtis
Curtis' eyes are doing great after surgery!  He got cleared to stop taking the medicine eye drops and just keep doing the moisture drops.  He is enjoying his eye freedom! ;)  Curtis is actually in Key West for a couple weeks for training and qualifications.  He got there Thursday afternoon to assist in the setup before the jets and everyone else arrives on Saturday.  Every trip there is a small group of people that get sent early to do this and for Key West, Curtis was selected.  This will be the shortest of the trips that Curtis takes over the next year as his squadron begins their work ups for deployment next August.  As of right now, they are scheduled to deploy for 9 months.  We are currently focusing on the present because changes can always happen.  We also think spending the time we do have with one another and Ella is more important than worry about something almost a year away. 

Congratulations Chief Spencer!!
Jim is officially a Chief now!  They had their pinning ceremony on the USS Truman and we were able to get pictures off of their facebook page!  We are so proud of him and we know he worked very hard to get to this point.  Bravo Zulu Chief Spencer!!

We may have forgotten some things but hopefully nothing too big!  If we did, guess what!  We can tell you about it next time.  :)  We hope everyone is doing well and thank you for your patience with our posting delay.  Hopefully the extra pictures won you over and you completely forgot about how long it had been between posts! 

Until next time, which hopefully won't be as long.  We make no promises though!

We've Moved!

All Moved In

Our New Place!

We are officially moved into our new place and we love it so far!  We are excited about all the extra room we have and cannot wait to be fully organized from our move to really enjoy everything.  We had some difficulties along the way...internet, landline, and cell phone service but everything is slowly getting better.  We switched from digital cable to Direct TV and it came with an internet and phone bundle with Verizon.  We were supposed to be remotely activated last Friday and after we moved in, none of it worked!  So up until today, we had tv and that was it.  Long story short, Verizon wasn't doing what was needed to transfer our landline and get everything working so we went back to our original provider.  Verizon didn't even care to retain us as new customers but that is another vent and unnecessary to share with all of you!  This afternoon we got internet and our landline so we can access the outside world again!  The best part is having our WiFi back up and running so we can at least text family and friends now to say we are alive ;)  It's amazing what a week of not being connected to the outside world feels like these days but for our purposes I think it sucked more in the event of an emergency or if we needed something while the other was out.  As for our cell service...we were supposed to have a resolution Friday afternoon which then got pushed to 3:30PM today and THEN got pushed out a couple more days.  UGH! 

We are VERY fortunate to have such great people in our lives!

Let's see, our move started last Friday (August 30th) after work.  We had the walk through of our new place and then it was time to start bringing things over.  Our new place is only about 10-15 minutes from our old place so it wasn't a terrible experience overall.  Curtis loaded the car up and took as much as he could to the new place while Julie (and Ella) would continue to box things up at the old place.  Eventually, we got some help from Alex, Cammi, and Ella's boyfriend Orion ;)  Curtis and Alex work together and they actually live in the community we just moved into.  Play dates have been discussed but Curtis is still telling Ella and Orion that they still have the rest of their lives ahead of them to date ;) Anyway!!! Alex and Curtis took both cars back and forth and Cammi and Orion helped to unpack some things at the new place.  It was a very late night but worth it because we got a lot of little things moved.

Saturday morning we got started around 8AM and provided donuts and coffee!  We had Sarah, James, their son Alex, Linda, and Andy come to help us out around 9AM.  (Sarah and James are actually from back in IL!  Julie used to work with Sarah at Huntington.  Yeay! for more friends from home joining us out here!)  A SPECIAL thank you to Linda because it was her birthday and she is an AWESOME friend for being willing to help most of the day.  We are very appreciative and thankful for everyone that helped us move.  We simply cannot say thank you enough for all your help and hard work!  You are all amazing and have inspired us to pay it forward when we get the chance.
 
If you still need our address or landline number, please get a hold of us via email, text, cell phones, facebook, etc. :)

Ella's version of helping on Saturday

Think someone else is happy with the new place!

Ella
First of all, Ella was a trooper during the entire move!! She did a GREAT job and we were pleasantly surprised because we had no idea how she would do.  The Wednesday before the move she actually slept for 9-10 hours straight!! It freaked us out when we woke up to her on the monitor and saw what time it was!  The next night she slept for at least 9 hours straight, we were very excited!  After the move she got a little congested and wasn't sleeping as long but we also tried swaddling her with her arms out which probably didn't help.  We made sure she was completely swaddled last night and she slept 8.5 hours!  Julie is very excited about Ella's room and being able to decorate it; she got quite a few things up Sunday and Monday and has more to do but it is a start and looks great so far.  When she is done, she will be taking pictures of everything to share :)  

Ella turned 2 months old on the 4th, pictures are still to come for that!  Her 2 month wellness appointment went well minus a mix-up on the clinic's fault where they didn't tell us immunizations would be closed at the time of her appointment which meant we had to come back...  Moving past that irritation...  Ella weighed in at 11 lbs, 7 oz. (68th percentile) and 21.5" (20th percentile), and 39.2cm for her noggin (63rd percentile).  She is following the curve nicely the Dr. said and seems to be very healthy.  She still has her congestion but it doesn't seem to be a big issue just an irritant but Ella has some saline drops for that and her humidifier to help.

Daycare is going very well and all the ladies seem to adore Ella!  She has been making friends as best she can at her age ;) and has been adapting to the new surroundings very well.  Within 2-3 days she was not crying as much and she was SLOWLY adjusting to napping in the crib.  Each room at daycare is set up in a really neat way.  When you first walk in, there is an open area with a rug and cubbies for each child.  Then to the right there are a few big play areas with cribs lining the wall.  The ladies take great care of Ella and she has become very chatty with them.  When Curtis went to pick her up the other day, they said they think she will start talking early because she "talks" with all of them so much.  If she has a boyfriend AND starts talking early, we really will be in trouble!  Time will tell but we are in no rush!  We are just enjoying every minute and all the adorable things she does!

I'm a happy baby this morning!!

Hi!!

"Cheeeeeeese!!"

Curtis
Curtis got LASIK on Tuesday morning.  He went in with 20/200+ and the next day he was at 20/15! It was a very interesting procedure but quick.  After the surgery he was already able to see a few things but of course not great.   After the surgery, he came home and rested the rest of the day.  The next day was a follow up appointment and everything was looking really good.  There was still some blurry parts but overall a HUGE improvement.  Curtis is still getting used to not having glasses and catches himself doing somethings he normally would do while he had them like going to reach for his glasses when he was changing his shirt.  He is happy he got the surgery and is doing a great job of taking care of his eyes as they continue to heal.  And so far, knock on wood, Ella hasn't headbutted him!  If you need a good laugh, look up fighting giraffes on youtube...that is kind of what Ella will usually do to Curtis when he is holding her.  Because of the surgery, Curtis didn't have to go into work the rest of the week.  Julie was just a tad jealous this week ;)

Curtis also finished getting all of the signatures he needed to get his Wings.  All that he has left to do is take the test and stand a board which will hopefully take place before the end of the month.  He did hear back about his officer packet and unfortunately was not selected this round.  It was rather disappointing but it isn't the last opportunity he has.  This may mean that he looks at another officer program in the medical field instead of intelligence but time will tell.  We figure that everything happens for a reason.

Julie
The first week back for Julie went pretty well but was very busy!  There were no students the first week but it was extremely busy with meetings and helping to get the library ready for staff and students.  The new head librarian made a QR code for a couple things in the library which Julie thought was pretty cool and a great idea to go along with 21st century technology that is very big in the district.  One QR code is posted by the time sheets for teachers to take a survey to give feedback on what kind of things they'd like to have help.  A lot of changes are taking place but a lot of staff members seem to be pretty interested in the new program.  The poster Julie made even seems to be attracting some attention and teachers were adding their names to it within minutes of it being hung up!  Check it out! 

Voting for favorite book series to get students more involved

The picture was taken shortly after being hung up.  After the Open House Meet and Greet on Wednesday, there were a LOT more stars!!  Not bad for a first poster in a short amount of time! ;)

The first week back with students was this past week and the library was packed the first two days as students came in to pick up schedules; it was one place that was big enough to accommodate such a large group of students.  It was pretty slow in the library with book check outs and students but it allowed Julie to catch up on some projects and start new ones.  There is still a bit to be done as it is a new process but everything will get sorted out and she will figure out what does and doesn't work for her.  In the mean time, she is doing what she can and learning some new procedures but also gets to teach her librarians how to use Google Drive!  She was so excited when the new head librarian mentioned using Google.  Thank you Kathy and Linda for having me use Google Drive!!  Julie has been slowly teaching them some new things with it and they have been sharing a calendar and docs and hopefully more to come!  It is so much easier than sharing things on the common drive, especially when the document is locked on the school's drive because someone else has it open.  Oh, the little things bring so much excitement ;)




Hopefully next post will have pictures of Ella at 2 months in her bumpo chair and her decorated room!  We hope you are all having a great weekend!  We will continue to unpack and organize this weekend and just simply enjoy our new surroundings.  Until next time!!