We are off to Alaska!

The bags are packed (3 large and 2 small - 2 more than I planned on) and I almost think we are ready....crazy, but ready. Here's our agenda (mostly for my fam who worries about us).

We are sailing on the Norwegian Star out of Seattle. We are flying on Delta from Salt Lake to Seattle departing on 8/1 and returning 8/8.

Sat Seattle -4:00 PM

Sun Cruise Alaska's Inside Passage--

Mon Ketchikan 7:00 AM3:00 PM

Tue Juneau 7:00 AM1:30 PM

Tue Cruise Sawyer Glacier--

Wed Skagway 7:00 AM5:00 PM

Thu Prince Rupert 4:00 PM10:00 PM

Fri At Sea--

Sat Seattle 8:00 AM

Utah 7-year old makes the news!

ksl.com - Sheriff's office releases chase video of 7-year-old driver
I haven't had the TV on much this week, the first I heard of this was the interview with that Dad on the radio this morning. Dad was in his underwear in the basement while all this went down. Mom was still sleeping! The kiddo wasn't really avoiding church, it isn't until noon for this family. His Dad says he has no idea why he did it, but they took away the video game that involves cars running from police! Watch the Today show interview from the link above -- he's a cute kid. Lesson Learned: hide your car keys, kids are very observant and curious!!!!

Way to Go!

Joe's company made CNN! It's a big deal that they are in the process of making a huge contract in Brazil and have also signed with Europe. I am so proud of him and all his hard work! It is truly exciting for him and us as a family. It is so exciting to see all of his hard work pay off.

Click here to read the article!

awww....a pedicure!

It has been forever since I have gotten a pedicure (and I was a bit embarrassed). While in the parking lot at Kid to Kid (the used kids stuff store) last weekend, I was handed a flyer for a new "spa". I thought a mani/pedi for $25 in a brand new place sounded like a steal. Well....when I called today, it was too good to be true. That was "cleaning only". I opted for a pedicure and although not the fanciest place, the aesthetician was amazing. I am extremely ticklish and my feet are perfectly smooth and my toes look great. I also like going to brand new places - you know they are clean. Thanks to Joe for making it home early so I could get there in time.

Even though I'll be in Alaska -- it's summer and I'm wearing my cute sandals with dresses and capris to dinner on the ship. I figure the temperature in the dining room is the same whether in the Caribbean or Alaska and one pair of cute black sandals are much lighter than a few pairs of dress shoes.

Perpetual Planner

It's my favorite hobby! I love that I know my work schedule through eternity.....and it means I can plan vacations during my week off through eternity as well as holiday plans (since I eternally know my holiday schedule as well).

HUGE ROAD BLOCK in my life.....Joe's job is going to require a lot of international travel through the rest of the year and it is unknown. I may possibly have a 72 hour notice or less of when he is leaving. And I work evenings and weekends and daycare is only open until 8PM and closed on weekends. Anyone want to move in with us and help me????

I stare at calendars and highlight and contemplate......this is killing me!!!

I do have a list of 8 potential babysitters including Grandma Dorothy who will likely help us a ton (although she travels for work too) followed by friends and then babysitters!

I'm not sure my dear husband really understands how hard this is on me (not even yet considering how hard it will be on Miss Ella when she could have a different person putting her to bed nightly).

Everyone always suggests a nanny, but I don't think that is a good option for us. I would rather she experience other kids at daycare (despite my earlier post, she loves kids) and my needs for a babysitter are so random and unexpected I don't think it would work well for us!

Thank you to Grandma Dorothy who is willing to be flexible as well as my Dad and Barb who are willing to fly out and help when needed!!!!

I know it will all work out in the end (as my highschool friend Scott has always told me)....but I will still stress between now and then.

Why is the unknown so hard for me??

Daycare Report

When I picked up Ella today she had an interesting report.

1. She is sure busy. My response, "yes, I think she's ready for the next class".

2. She likes her personal space! When another baby gets too close to her on the floor, she cries!

This cracks me up. She loves people and she goes nuts over other kids when we are out and about. I guess when she is into her business of playing, keep away!

Seriously?

Yesterday daycare complained about Ella's eye and it was kind of red and has been goopy in the mornings again. I called late yesterday and got her an appointment for today -- we can't go a week without some kind of doctor visit, surgery, urgent care......

Eye infection -- yep, could be viral, but we have antibiotic drops to make daycare happy. It shall be an adventure getting the drops in her eyes!! Wish us luck!

Ears -- her pediatrician said, "have you seen the tubes, do you want to?". I said, "SURE". Followed by him, "not this ear". Seriously??? So, I saw the tube in her other ear. After further testing, one tube is not working. It's possible that it is just plugged with wax.....but that is never our luck! Not even one week!!! We'll try some drops to work out the wax and she will follow up with her ENT doc in 2 weeks.

Healthcare out of pocket maximum -- check!

We have power!

My phone rang as I was walking into the hospital, it was Joe. He heard a loud noise that sounded like a gun shot behind our house. The transformer blew up! We were without power.

I spent the day making plans for what I would do if it wasn't fixed and I almost screamed with joy when I pulled into the driveway and could see lights on in the house!!!

Yeah for power! I do take electricity for granted and today I am very thankful for modern times!

Interesting....

I watched Dating in the Dark last week on Abc and I found it interesting. I would not call it fabulous, but it's interesting. We put so much value on what people look like and I am very guilty of always judging a book by it's cover! Give it a go and see what you think! I've seen well run experiments on this topic that were much better and scientific, but of course this is done for TV ratings and it's very "edited", but I would call it entertaining.

How do I use this camera???

Wtih the Alaska trip coming up and my frustration with all the red-eye in pictures of my blue-eyed munchkin.....we jumped into a Canon SLR EOS Rebel T1i. I've already spent a decent amount of time with the guy at the camera shop and been to one class. We bought it at Inkley's which is a division of Ritz Camera and it came with free classes (I would highly recommend purchasing from them). Last Saturday on a holiday weekend I had almost a private class for "digital photography 1". It was good and I was brave and asked questions and even asked for some additonal tips after class. I am pleased already. Even in auto, the pictures are so crisp and defined. In my private session I learned how to adjust the white balance for our living room to adjust for our "green lighting" and make the pictures be less yellow. I have a lot to learn, but I see a photography hobby for myself.....

We already have a wall of frames in our home with black and white photos of places we've vacationed and I am already brainstorming on how I can take pictures better!!!! I also learned that blue-eyed babies are the most difficult to photograph without red eye, so now I have a mission!!!!

Expect great photography to come (after many more classes and practice)! I can even see a difference in the pictures taken and posted the last week on my blog, but maybe it's because I know which camera the pics were taken with.

I think I have already mastered the most important part of being a photographer --- always have your camera and take many pictures. I also at least have my Canon Elph and I do take many pictures, now I can do it and have more of a clue what I'm doing!

Nielsen Family

As a child I always wanted to be a Nielsen Family (I think because the kids got stuffed animals). Well, this week we are a Nielsen Family and we suck! It's summer....I don't watch much in the summer. I just asked Joe where the booklet is to write down what is on right now and he said, "oh, it's at work". It was nice of them to send us $30 cash for this week of hard work......

Be Like a Duck, really???

Joe keeps telling me to "be like a duck". I had to ask him what it meant. I even googled it. I think he's making up this expression!!! Do any of you ever say such a crazy thing?

I told this to my sister and it is ironic that ducks were her choice of subject today on red stick razzle dazzle as well.

All I have to say is quack, quack!

Pioneer Weekend in pics

New shoes -- are they tennis shoes or kicks? Either way, they are made for walkin'!

I love this look -- let's go Daddy!

We gave the new kiddopotamus tiny diner mat and disposable bibs a go -- I'm almost ready for a cruise (me, not her)!

You gotta wear shades!

Bring on the sushi!

A quick trip to Kid to Kid and Ella has a multi function bench! She needed something at the right height to pull herself up and practice standing. Our house is not very kid friendly yet.

That is pure happiness -- they just love eachother!

I love this face!

Look at our Baby Blueberry Now!

Ella was know as "Blueberry" until she was born. We read the books and followed along as the baby was growing in relation to food items....Blueberry stuck. I never imagined life could be so fulfilling and I praise God daily for blessing us with our little Blueberry!

Thank You, Life Flight!

Ella finally fits into her souvenir t-shirt. We are sad she needed to use the service at one hour of age, but so thankful it was available to us and I think she makes a cute life flight model! If only all the babies they transport could end up in great health!

Why do we buy her toys?

More Advice, Please!

I am scared to death to take Ella on this Alaskan Cruise!!! In my head I keep saying, we will be fine, but I just keep worrying! I roamed through Babies R Us last weekend trying to pick up all the little things that would make it all easier.

I found: scented diaper sacks (those rooms are small and well, her poop stinks), disposable washclothes, disposable changing pads, rain cover for the stroller, plastic covers for the table (these are from Tiffani), more bibs that I can rinse in the sink. I am contemplating a bottle of pedialyte, just in case!

I am just planning on packing all of her food. I have had the suggestion of bringing a small blender and using ship food for her.....but that's not really me and I think I'd rather have Gerber food that is less likely to have bacteria!!!

We have traveled with Ella a lot, but we usually stay with family and I've always had a grocery store close to me to get the random things I forget or decide I need. NCL doesn't have any public washing machines either and I would prefer to not send her clothes out to the laundry service, so I'm going to try to pack enough clothes.

This is going to be interesting......I'm sure I'll have plenty of blogging material when we get home!

Any tips?

Happy Pioneer Day!

I make acard with pictures every month to mail out to family from Ella. I did this extra one this month to send to a few people.

Parents....I need advice!

Carseat.....what shall I do? I hear from colleagues the only way to go is Britax!!! Do we need a britax? We eventually need to buy 2, one for each car.

Joe is likely going to be gone a lot in the next few months and I am going to need help with Ella (including picking her up from daycare) and his Mom will likely help us a bit and getting a carseat in and out of her car is difficult. We need to buy the big girl carseat soon anyway.....so we just may do it now. AND Babies R Us has 15% off all carseats this week.

We plan on buying one now and installing it in Dorothy's car rear facing and then buying another this fall so we have a front facing carseat each car.

Any advice? Ella is small and will likely stay petite, so I don't think we need to worry about exceeding the average weight limit. We have 2 small vehicles, so I don't want a huge carseat if I can avoid it. Do they all have 5 point restraints?

Oh, Kenny!

Kenny Chesney is in concert tonight and I thought about getting tickets and it just never happened. I thought I would be sad today when the day finally came and I wasn't going.....

In the end, it's 105 degrees and the show begins at 5:30 with 3 opening acts (although I heard Sugarland cancelled) and that is the very last place I want to be tonight.

Sometimes, it all just works out.....

It's our Friday!!!!

I am not a huge fan of living in Utah a lot of the time and I would like to move closer to family often......but today I LOVE living in Utah! It's our Friday! We have a 3 day weekend together as a family and no plans!!! Tomorrow is Pioneer Day (a Utah state holiday) and daycare is closed and neither of us have to work. Bonus family day. We contemplated a trip within driving distance, but opted to stay home and I now feel that was a fabulous choice!

I think we are going to go out for dinner tonight and then relax.

My big plans include some cleaning and organizing. I also want to be packed for our cruise by Sunday night! I cannot procrastinate on this one!

Light-Mastering and Line-Smoothing!

TRUE! I had seen the advertisements for Lancome's new foundation - Photogenic Lumessence and I love it! The first time I put it on I felt like I had just had a facial (and it's been more than a year). I wanted it because I wanted to make sure it wouldn't make me look pale in pictures (some foundations do weird things with the camera flash).

All in all - fabulous purchase and if you buy on lancome.com or at Dillards you can get a free gift! I justify my lancome habit with the free gifts!

Eggplant Facts

I like eggplant and I googled how to grill it this weekend to find out how long to leave it on the grill and I learned this from Bobby Flay. For those of you who don't want to read the article.

There are male and female eggplants. Look at the indentation at the bottom - if it's deep and shaped like a dash it's female, and if it's shallow and round it's a male. Buy the male, fewer seeds and less bitter.

The one I picked prior to this knowledge was female and made excellent grilled eggplant (3 min per side) with some Weber Veggie Grill seasoning and olive oil. YUM!

We're Home!

Ella did so well this morning! We all survived starving her and I'm thankful she is so social because watching all the other kids and action in the multiple waiting rooms kept her preoccupied enough to forget how hungry she was!

The surgery went well - the tubes are in and they drained a ton of fluid and gunk out. The scope went well and no further surgery at this time. We just will wait for her to outgrow it!

She took a long nap and I woke her to eat and now she is awake and happily playing and babbling like crazy --- I think she can hear so much better already!

Daycare Etiquette?

Ella came home with this barrette in her hair. Is it ours now? Do I return it? I feel dumb asking them.....

Where do I buy cute barrettes like this?

Time for Tubes

Say a prayer for Miss Ella -- she goes in for surgery at 8:45 on Tuesday. She will be getting tubes in her ears and they will also scope down her throat to see how things look after her first surgery when she was one day old! Surgery will go fine. I'm anxious for her to be able to hear better and for all of us to have the end of ear infections and I want to hear about what they see when they scope her.

I am most worried about what to do after midnight tonight when she can only have pedialyte and even more worried about what we will do from 5:45 until surgery when she can't have anything at all.....

I'll update tomorrow!

9 Month Pictures

Ella was in the perfect mood and I bought them all!

Silly

Daddy's lacrosse headband makes me silly!

Thanks Nana for sending me a new mallet, we lost the first one and it was like finding my long lost friend!

Thanks Aunt Karol for the awesome bucket hat from North Carolina! I love it and I sometimes put it on Elmo's head too.

Happy 9 Months Ella!

She had fun in the car waiting to meet Susan at the water park.

She is pretty proud of her new skill of climbing

Ella had her 9 month appointment this week. She has met all of her 9 month milestones and is now classified as caught up! She doesn't have much interest in crawling, but she can scoot around and pivot to find what she wants. She has more and more interest in "walking" with help from Mom and Dad and she can pull herself up with help and likes to stand with help. We protect her so much due to her extra soft spots and our fear of hurting her brain, so some of it is our fault. Her doctor feels she will do what she needs to do with time and all will be fine. He agrees it is best to keep her protected as best we can! The bummer is that her growth has slowed down. She has fallen off the growth curve in weight and height, so he is going to recheck her in a month. We are just going to try to offer her more to eat and see if we can get her to grow again! Some days I wonder she is really my daughter....

Stats:

Height 26.75 Inches (23%) (6 months 40%)

Weight 16 lbs 1 oz (8%) (6 months 29%)

The buggy arrived!

A huge thanks to Susan for driving out the buggy! Susan was getting ready to leave for her trek accross many states to ultimately arrive in Utah to see her son. She called my mom to ask if there was anything I needed from Iowa. DT thought it was a long shot, but said my grandma had given me and Ella a doll buggy that we didn't want to ship because it's so fragile. Susan said sure!!! I still can't believe how nice she was to haul this out here. I think it was in 3 or 4 different vehicles as it made the trek from Iowa to Minnesota, to South Dakota and then the trip to Utah!

We met Susan and Robbie Monday night after they had been at the waterpark. I took a photo, but promised I wouldn't show anyone.....

Thanks again!!!

Thanks Grandma Eunie for this awesome doll buggy. It still has the gold tag from German Toy Company from West Germany. My sister and I each picked something out from Grandma's house when we were little girls. Alyssa is very proud of Baby Love and now I have the doll buggy which will someday belong to Ella. I hope to put her first doll (yet to be found) in this on display. What an amazing family memory to pass down for years!

Ahhh...it's over!

This was my most challenging week yet at my current job. I was either acting as 3 0r 4 people every day. It's a big difference for 1 person to run the show instead of 4! Either my allergies kicked in since it's finally been dry for a few weeks or I caught Ella's random summer viral illness. This was the first time I have been the drop off person to daycare and it involves getting up even earlier. I stretched myself to the limit in so many ways and I am so glad it is over!

Lots of updates to come this weekend, but for tonight, I'm done!

Junk in the Trunk!

I just died laughing this afternoon. We recently changed the way we deliver routine medications to the patients on each floor. The technicians used to push around huge carts of meds and place each bin near the patients room. Now they use trunk organizers (we received them as an employee gift last year and few people use them) and use large envelopes with each patients medications.

Anyway, our technician used to call and say, "the carts are ready to be checked" and we would go check all the meds for our floor.

Now, she jokingly calls and says, "the envelopes in the trunk organizers are ready".

Today, he replied, "oh, the junk in the trunk is ready"! I lost it. He has heard someone say this and he is 60 years old and Mormon Bishop.....he has no clue what this really means! We all laugh when he says this and no one has told him what the urban definition is!

I'm left with a moral dilema, do I tell him or do I just enjoy my afternoon snicker?