We are now 36 weeks along! Wowza! Pretty much baby could decide to come at anytime, though I have a feeling this baby will take it's time :)
The baby is doing well, and the only concern at this time is going to be the size of the baby to ensure that I can do a natural delivery. Because I have had a c-section, I have a higher risk to rupture my uterus during labor/delivery so we need to make sure the baby isn't going to be too big to put added pressure on the scar from my c-section. As long as the baby is a normal healthy size, we should be fine! If this baby decided to be a chunky little monkey we might have to schedule a c-section to keep the risk down for my sake.
All is well though, and we are excited to meet our little baby whether it is a girl or boy!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Bullet Point Update List with Updates on this post to come....
What we've been up to since December....
We moved! Our new address is 8995 SR 21 N
We bought a new pick-up! Ryan finally got his dream truck, a crew cab, blue GMC Sierra.
We started seeing a new doctor, Dr. Pakk in Spokane who will deliver our baby at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, WA.
Our little boy turned TWO YEARS OLD! What?!?! On this day he learned the word and meaning of "mine!"
We painted! We painted our living room, laundry and one bath. The colors are a really light shadow grey and a very light powder/turquoise blue.
Still unpacking!
I have been taking over the books for the farm, which has been quite the learning experience!
Ryan has been busy with his dad, mostly securing the estate up after Kathy's passing.
Lord knows I am missing something! But that is quite a lot for just over two months...
We moved! Our new address is 8995 SR 21 N
We bought a new pick-up! Ryan finally got his dream truck, a crew cab, blue GMC Sierra.
We started seeing a new doctor, Dr. Pakk in Spokane who will deliver our baby at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, WA.
Our little boy turned TWO YEARS OLD! What?!?! On this day he learned the word and meaning of "mine!"
We painted! We painted our living room, laundry and one bath. The colors are a really light shadow grey and a very light powder/turquoise blue.
Still unpacking!
I have been taking over the books for the farm, which has been quite the learning experience!
Ryan has been busy with his dad, mostly securing the estate up after Kathy's passing.
Lord knows I am missing something! But that is quite a lot for just over two months...
Christmases
As with any married couple, holidays always get interesting at who can perform the juggling act best. With Ryan's family and mine combined, we have three sets of families to try and see each holiday. Luckily, my parents and Ryan's dad and stepmom live in the same town, so usually we are able to get that to work out pretty well. Ryan's mom lives on the west side of Washington and her side of the family is a little more spread out - Ryan's grandparents live in Newport, WA which is north of Spokane.
We were unable to celebrate with Ryan's mom this year, but were finally able to celebrate with Ryan's sister and her family as well as Ryan's brother Chris and his family. It was so awesome! It was the first time we have been able to give our nephews (and niece though she was just born!) their gifts in person. On December 20th we drove over to Seattle where his sister Melissa lives and we picked Chris and Amber and Alma up on the way at the SeaTac airport. It was an amazing two days. His sister made us amazing food, and the boys all got to play together and we all got to soak up a cute little baby girl that we rarely get to see. It was bliss! We headed home the next day, bringing Chris, Amber and Alma with us to Odessa.
Ryan and I had lots of running around and errands to do. Not to mention unpacking and getting settled in. Gavin had lots of lost time to make up for with his Grandparents. Though we were all tired it was still so amazing to be home. We had our first doctors appointment with our new OB-Gyn and even though we had some issues with them dealing with our insurance (much much more to come on this in another post) I was happy with our doctor and they were all on the same page to go forward planning on a VBAC delivery.
Our plans were to drive up to Spokane to celebrate Christmas Eve with Ryan's mom side of the family at his Aunt Ev's house. Ryan and I were kind of stressed about it and weren't sure if we were going to be able to make it as we wanted to make sure that both sides of our families had an equal amount of time together. That morning, Ryan, Chris and Jay were working on their well which had been having issues (they had been out of water for two days) when Kathy took her turn for the worst. She passed away that morning around 10 or 11am. For our families privacy, we have been asked not to release the official official determination of death, however it was basically the perfect storm in sense of the flu. She caught a very terrible strain of it and it literally took her life in less than two days. We obviously want to play the what-if game, but have been encouraged that because of how fast it happened, there was no way for anyone to know what was happening inside her body. You usually don't go to the ER for the flu, unless it gets super bad, and it was just getting to that point when all of a sudden that wasn't an option. We miss her terribly and even still it is hard to believe that she is gone.
As this put a tremendous damper on the holidays, we still tried to have as "normal" of a Christmas for our kids as we could. We celebrated Christmas at my parents house and opened all of our gifts to each other. It was weird and awkward, but also so nice to have a tiny taste of normal and an escape from what we were all dealing with. It was fun to watch Gavin open his presents and he got really into it this year. He got all kinds of toys, books, games and clothes. His favorites being the train set he got. He loves himself some Thomas!
The day after Christmas, Kathy's son Walt and his family came down and we "celebrated" our Christmas together and had the kids open their gifts that Kathy had bought them. It was extremely difficult as Kathy was so thoughtful when choosing gifts and just seemed to know exactly what to give everyone. Many tears were shed that day, but many laughs too as she also had a ridiculous sense of humor and with every gift the comment was made, "that was SO Kathy..."
We were unable to celebrate with Ryan's mom this year, but were finally able to celebrate with Ryan's sister and her family as well as Ryan's brother Chris and his family. It was so awesome! It was the first time we have been able to give our nephews (and niece though she was just born!) their gifts in person. On December 20th we drove over to Seattle where his sister Melissa lives and we picked Chris and Amber and Alma up on the way at the SeaTac airport. It was an amazing two days. His sister made us amazing food, and the boys all got to play together and we all got to soak up a cute little baby girl that we rarely get to see. It was bliss! We headed home the next day, bringing Chris, Amber and Alma with us to Odessa.
Ryan and I had lots of running around and errands to do. Not to mention unpacking and getting settled in. Gavin had lots of lost time to make up for with his Grandparents. Though we were all tired it was still so amazing to be home. We had our first doctors appointment with our new OB-Gyn and even though we had some issues with them dealing with our insurance (much much more to come on this in another post) I was happy with our doctor and they were all on the same page to go forward planning on a VBAC delivery.
Our plans were to drive up to Spokane to celebrate Christmas Eve with Ryan's mom side of the family at his Aunt Ev's house. Ryan and I were kind of stressed about it and weren't sure if we were going to be able to make it as we wanted to make sure that both sides of our families had an equal amount of time together. That morning, Ryan, Chris and Jay were working on their well which had been having issues (they had been out of water for two days) when Kathy took her turn for the worst. She passed away that morning around 10 or 11am. For our families privacy, we have been asked not to release the official official determination of death, however it was basically the perfect storm in sense of the flu. She caught a very terrible strain of it and it literally took her life in less than two days. We obviously want to play the what-if game, but have been encouraged that because of how fast it happened, there was no way for anyone to know what was happening inside her body. You usually don't go to the ER for the flu, unless it gets super bad, and it was just getting to that point when all of a sudden that wasn't an option. We miss her terribly and even still it is hard to believe that she is gone.
As this put a tremendous damper on the holidays, we still tried to have as "normal" of a Christmas for our kids as we could. We celebrated Christmas at my parents house and opened all of our gifts to each other. It was weird and awkward, but also so nice to have a tiny taste of normal and an escape from what we were all dealing with. It was fun to watch Gavin open his presents and he got really into it this year. He got all kinds of toys, books, games and clothes. His favorites being the train set he got. He loves himself some Thomas!
The day after Christmas, Kathy's son Walt and his family came down and we "celebrated" our Christmas together and had the kids open their gifts that Kathy had bought them. It was extremely difficult as Kathy was so thoughtful when choosing gifts and just seemed to know exactly what to give everyone. Many tears were shed that day, but many laughs too as she also had a ridiculous sense of humor and with every gift the comment was made, "that was SO Kathy..."
The long ride home...
Hmmm. Where do I even start?!?! I have SO much updating to do!!!
I might have to break up this post into a couple different ones depending on how much time Gavin gives me to write this!
Let's start back at the beginning and get everyone caught up on the happenings in the Scrupps world
On December 5th, Ryan was released from the Marine Corps!!! We left Camp Pendleton that day and made it up to Bakersfield, CA. We ended up having to drive seperatly in two different vehicles as our original plan had a hiccup in it when we found out we were unable to ship Ryan's pickup back up to Washington. Taking turns with who had Gavin in the car, we made it about 4 hours the first day. The feeling of driving north towards home was one of the greatest feelings ever!!! We bought some bluetooth attachments for our cars so that Ryan and I could talk to each other while driving, which helped A LOT. Gavin did amazing. On the second day we made it up to Redding, CA. Around Sacramento we started seeing signs for a winter storm advisory, but figured it was just for that area as we were still pretty far away from any mountain passes. By the time we got up to Redding, it was starting to snow and we knew we might be in for a long day the following day.
{ Quick side note story about stopping in Redding...we stayed in a hotel that was walking distance from an iHop and because of all of the ice on the roads, we decided to get a late start and let the air warm up and melt the ice a little bit. We walked over to the iHop for breakfast, and we were sitting in a booth, and a lady came in by herself and was sitting in a booth kitty-corner from us. Her booth was to Ryan's back, and I was facing it. Gavin was in a highchair where he could look to his left to see her. She was older, had white shoulder length hair and was wearing a red knitted sweater and she had her back to us. Well, Gavin looks over and sees the white hair and red coat and yells, "SANTA!!!!!!!!" It was probably the funniest and most embarrassing thing that has happened so far in my parenting world. Ryan and I were just shaking and crying with laughter. Luckily there were a lot of Christmas decorations around us so the lady either didn't hear it, or assumed he was talking about those. Oh my, it was funny!}
So, we left Redding around 11am or so and the roads were ok for the first twenty or so miles. Well, after we got past Shasta Lake, shit hit the fan. The roads were TERRIBLE, the iciest I have ever seen before. It was literally a three to four inch sheet of ice covering the roads. We were going at a slight downgrade, and it was bumper to bumper. We were driving 5 mph. For an hour. Not even exaggerating. At that speed, 5 mph, everyone was sliding around and fishtailing. I had semi's in front of me fishtailing, at only 5 mph!!!! It was insane. So we were in the car for about 7 hours or so that day, and hardly made any distance.
We ended up staying at a hotel at the summit of Grant's Pass in Oregon. We went out to eat and started talking to another family who had also just gotten off the roads, but coming the opposite way as us. They told us it was terrible and that eventually they had shut down the road after they went through. She said that there were several trucks in the ditch, one had jackknifed and blocked the entire two lane freeway for several hours. We were happy that we stopped as that just confirmed our prediction that it was only going to get worse.
The next day we got up really early to try and make up for the lost time and were on the road by 7am or so. We got on the freeway and the roads were fair. I mean, we were on a mountain pass in December, so you aren't really expecting to have excellent conditions. We made good time for a couple hours and then ran into some yuckier roads. We were going about 20 miles an hour on them for a while, which was frustrating but still much better than 5mph like the day before. We were in the car for 12 hours that day as we decided to just push through and make it home. It should have only been a 7 hour trip or so but with the roads it nearly doubled the time.
When we pulled into Odessa, the thermometers on our cars read "0 degrees." HOLY CRAP it was cold!!! It was -3 out at our house and we were FREEZING!!! We were cold, but SO SO SO happy to finally be home and to have made it safely. We were both super tense and stressed from the horrendous roads, but thankful to be safe. Gavin did great the entire trip. The last hour and a half was iffy, but to be honest, I can't blame him, after being in the car for 11 hours, I was cranky and I can't imagine how bored he was of sitting in his car seat. Luckily we had our ipad's loaded with movies for him, but that only goes so far.
We had breakfast with our parents the next day, and Gavin, well really all of us, were in heaven with having family so close once again! That afternoon, Ryan and I drove to Moses Lake to stock up on our groceries and to get a few needed items for the house. We also bought paint and supplies to paint our living room, laundry room, bathrooms and kitchen. It was a big project to take on but we knew we had to get started before the baby came or else it would be another year before we would be able to do it.
I might have to break up this post into a couple different ones depending on how much time Gavin gives me to write this!
Let's start back at the beginning and get everyone caught up on the happenings in the Scrupps world
On December 5th, Ryan was released from the Marine Corps!!! We left Camp Pendleton that day and made it up to Bakersfield, CA. We ended up having to drive seperatly in two different vehicles as our original plan had a hiccup in it when we found out we were unable to ship Ryan's pickup back up to Washington. Taking turns with who had Gavin in the car, we made it about 4 hours the first day. The feeling of driving north towards home was one of the greatest feelings ever!!! We bought some bluetooth attachments for our cars so that Ryan and I could talk to each other while driving, which helped A LOT. Gavin did amazing. On the second day we made it up to Redding, CA. Around Sacramento we started seeing signs for a winter storm advisory, but figured it was just for that area as we were still pretty far away from any mountain passes. By the time we got up to Redding, it was starting to snow and we knew we might be in for a long day the following day.
{ Quick side note story about stopping in Redding...we stayed in a hotel that was walking distance from an iHop and because of all of the ice on the roads, we decided to get a late start and let the air warm up and melt the ice a little bit. We walked over to the iHop for breakfast, and we were sitting in a booth, and a lady came in by herself and was sitting in a booth kitty-corner from us. Her booth was to Ryan's back, and I was facing it. Gavin was in a highchair where he could look to his left to see her. She was older, had white shoulder length hair and was wearing a red knitted sweater and she had her back to us. Well, Gavin looks over and sees the white hair and red coat and yells, "SANTA!!!!!!!!" It was probably the funniest and most embarrassing thing that has happened so far in my parenting world. Ryan and I were just shaking and crying with laughter. Luckily there were a lot of Christmas decorations around us so the lady either didn't hear it, or assumed he was talking about those. Oh my, it was funny!}
So, we left Redding around 11am or so and the roads were ok for the first twenty or so miles. Well, after we got past Shasta Lake, shit hit the fan. The roads were TERRIBLE, the iciest I have ever seen before. It was literally a three to four inch sheet of ice covering the roads. We were going at a slight downgrade, and it was bumper to bumper. We were driving 5 mph. For an hour. Not even exaggerating. At that speed, 5 mph, everyone was sliding around and fishtailing. I had semi's in front of me fishtailing, at only 5 mph!!!! It was insane. So we were in the car for about 7 hours or so that day, and hardly made any distance.
We ended up staying at a hotel at the summit of Grant's Pass in Oregon. We went out to eat and started talking to another family who had also just gotten off the roads, but coming the opposite way as us. They told us it was terrible and that eventually they had shut down the road after they went through. She said that there were several trucks in the ditch, one had jackknifed and blocked the entire two lane freeway for several hours. We were happy that we stopped as that just confirmed our prediction that it was only going to get worse.
The next day we got up really early to try and make up for the lost time and were on the road by 7am or so. We got on the freeway and the roads were fair. I mean, we were on a mountain pass in December, so you aren't really expecting to have excellent conditions. We made good time for a couple hours and then ran into some yuckier roads. We were going about 20 miles an hour on them for a while, which was frustrating but still much better than 5mph like the day before. We were in the car for 12 hours that day as we decided to just push through and make it home. It should have only been a 7 hour trip or so but with the roads it nearly doubled the time.
When we pulled into Odessa, the thermometers on our cars read "0 degrees." HOLY CRAP it was cold!!! It was -3 out at our house and we were FREEZING!!! We were cold, but SO SO SO happy to finally be home and to have made it safely. We were both super tense and stressed from the horrendous roads, but thankful to be safe. Gavin did great the entire trip. The last hour and a half was iffy, but to be honest, I can't blame him, after being in the car for 11 hours, I was cranky and I can't imagine how bored he was of sitting in his car seat. Luckily we had our ipad's loaded with movies for him, but that only goes so far.
We had breakfast with our parents the next day, and Gavin, well really all of us, were in heaven with having family so close once again! That afternoon, Ryan and I drove to Moses Lake to stock up on our groceries and to get a few needed items for the house. We also bought paint and supplies to paint our living room, laundry room, bathrooms and kitchen. It was a big project to take on but we knew we had to get started before the baby came or else it would be another year before we would be able to do it.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Christmas Eve 2013...
First of all, where do you even start with a blog post like this? How do you come up with a title that gives what I am about to type justice or even explanation? Here it goes.
On Christmas Eve this year, my mother-in-law, my baby boy's Gamma, and (one of) my husband's mother passed away, unexpectedly. Even though it has been two weeks now it still feels very surreal to see it in writing or to say it out loud, she is gone. None of it truly feels real quite yet, I keep expecting to see her smiling face pop out of a room or call me on my cell.
A few days before Christmas Eve, Kathy started to feel sick. The flu was going around Odessa, so as she usually did, she decided to try to sleep it off. After only one full day sick and in bed she passed away. I fully expected that morning for her to be back to her happy, Christmas loving self. To say that we were shocked and stunned and whatever word could possibly describe a shock like we felt would be an understatement. Our entire community was shocked.
We had the funeral and burial services for Kathy on Friday, January 3rd. We believe there were over 400 people in attendance at the funeral and have no idea how many attended the reception. She was such a HUGE part of our town, of our friends lives and of our family's lives that we didn't even have enough chairs to seat everyone. Kathy blessed the lives of so many people.
I cannot even get into more all that I want to say about Kathy as I find myself choking up and overwhelmed by what to write. Not because of lack of material but because of too much. How do you describe losing someone who touched your life in such a unique and special way?
I suppose this post ended up being more of an informational, rip the bandaid off, type of post. I will be back to post about our move, baby update and settling in to Odessa as soon as I can. I will say for now we made it safe (obviously) on December 10th and the baby is doing great! Our 33 week check up is actually tomorrow.
Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers for our family during this heart wrenching time, we appreciate it so much!
On Christmas Eve this year, my mother-in-law, my baby boy's Gamma, and (one of) my husband's mother passed away, unexpectedly. Even though it has been two weeks now it still feels very surreal to see it in writing or to say it out loud, she is gone. None of it truly feels real quite yet, I keep expecting to see her smiling face pop out of a room or call me on my cell.
A few days before Christmas Eve, Kathy started to feel sick. The flu was going around Odessa, so as she usually did, she decided to try to sleep it off. After only one full day sick and in bed she passed away. I fully expected that morning for her to be back to her happy, Christmas loving self. To say that we were shocked and stunned and whatever word could possibly describe a shock like we felt would be an understatement. Our entire community was shocked.
We had the funeral and burial services for Kathy on Friday, January 3rd. We believe there were over 400 people in attendance at the funeral and have no idea how many attended the reception. She was such a HUGE part of our town, of our friends lives and of our family's lives that we didn't even have enough chairs to seat everyone. Kathy blessed the lives of so many people.
I cannot even get into more all that I want to say about Kathy as I find myself choking up and overwhelmed by what to write. Not because of lack of material but because of too much. How do you describe losing someone who touched your life in such a unique and special way?
I suppose this post ended up being more of an informational, rip the bandaid off, type of post. I will be back to post about our move, baby update and settling in to Odessa as soon as I can. I will say for now we made it safe (obviously) on December 10th and the baby is doing great! Our 33 week check up is actually tomorrow.
Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers for our family during this heart wrenching time, we appreciate it so much!
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