A Few Random Happenings

A night out with a great friend before she moved to San Fran! My parents were so awesome and watched Emily for me while I went out. We went to the casino here and town, had dinner and spent some time wandering around watching people gamble away their money!


Emily had a play date a few weekends ago with one of my friends daughter's. They had fun...interesting to watch how much a child can change in 2 years! My friend's daughter just turned 2...I think I take for granted sometimes how well behaved Emily actually is in comparison to other children.
Nothing else too exciting going on over here. Still doing the relentless job search. Planning a trip to Vegas in the fall (hopefully) with my friend who just moved to San Francisco, and hope to at least go down there to visit so I can say I have been to California! And still planning on a trip back to Michigan in July to retrieve all of my stuff out of storage and be done back there.
Emily is still loving school, however missed 2 days this week because she was sick...which she passed on to me!

Emily's 4 Year Pictures

I have a CD with well over 20 pictures, but these are a few of my favorites. A close family friend does photography now and we asked her to do Emily's pictures since I am now back in Oregon. We spent about an hour at the park taking tons of pictures. I am sure she had tons of fun chasing Emily all over the park trying to get her to stand still for a picture! It was fun and I am thrilled with how they turned out. I think outdoor pictures are so much better than typical studio pictures.

A Day at the Beach

I just loved these pictures
Had to take a picture of us together!
She discovered how to let her feet sink into the wet sand!
We finally got a non rainy and semi warm day to go to the beach last Saturday. Emily loved it. I was attempting to keep her dry by keeping her shoes and socks on...but that lasted only about 20 minutes until I realized it was a lost cause!

My Big Girl

A day at Regatta Park...right on the lake. It was fun to take her there for the first time...it was my favorite park when I was young. Fun to sit back and watch her play and remember how much fun I had playing there...


Getting the mail with papa in the pouring rain!!

Her first Day of Preschool!



Emily had so much fun at school today. The teacher's assistant took her hand and introduced her to all of the high school students and the preschool students. The teacher said she did great today, but was very reserved. I told her not to worry, that would all change by next week! I love the high school preschool...it is such a great experience for the kids and the high school students. I took 3 years of child psychology in high school(which is the program for high school students to study the development of babies and children, and then they get to plan lessons, crafts and snacks for the preschool children.) It is interesting to be the parent dropping of the child now!! Emily goes Tuesday's, Wednesday's and Thursday's every week from 8:30am-11:30am. Early mornings means early bedtimes...which I love! I will take pictures of her in class soon...didn't want to take too many pictures today while she was adjusting to everything. More pictures to come of the actual preschool next week!

2009 in Review

January
First trip to Shipshewana, IN. Loved the waterpark!! Has named every pool and large bathtub a waterpark now!

Feruary
First pair of subglasses!

March
First tri-city blackout while I was at work. Luckily, uncle Rob and aunt Jen kept her occupied!

April

Easter and the March for Babies...Emily walked 3 out of 4 miles...I was so proud of her.

May

After 2 years of being stubborn, she was finally potty trained on my birthday! And we took our last trip to Chicago for Mother's Day weekend.

June
Uncle Rob bought the kids a slip n' slide so they could have some fun outside and cool off!

July

Visit from nana and papa!!!

August
Emmy and I finally got our own apartment!

September
Frequent trips to Meijer resulted in many pony rides!

October
Nice weather and living within 1/2 mile of the park, we would walk to the park on my days off and spend many hours there!

November
Reading to nana over the phone!

December


A month of many changes for us: Emily's 4th birthday, moving back to Oregon and Christmas at nana and papas in the morning, and then great grandma and great grandpa's house in the afternoon where she had tons of fun playing with her 3rd cousin.
This year has been challenging in many aspects, but it has been a great learning experience. That which does not kill us makes us stronger so they say. I am hoping that is true! I know the future holds many more challenges for me, but I am ready to embrace them and grow from them. I am so blessed to have Emily in my life. Without her, I am not sure if I would have made it through some of the challenges in my life thus far. She keeps me going and makes me want to better myself. It still amazes me that such a tiny person could make a grown adult melt. Goodbye 2009, hello 2010...let my new journey in life begin.

Quite Content!

Playing in papa's wheelchair

Emmy's new nightly tradition: sitting with papa and watching cartoons!

Christmas morning!

Emily's new dollhouse she got from nana and papa for her birthday! Furniture followed for Christmas!

It has been an interesting transition around here, but we are all adapting rather smoothly I think. With the limited amount of jobs over here right now, I am praying that my unemployment comes through, which has been an uphill battle thus far. It has been great catching up with my friends here in Oregon, but missing a few of my friends back in Michigan. I am heading over to Salem for New Years to catch up with some friends and have fun. Leaving little miss Emily with her nana and papa for the evening! Looking forward to Sunday when I get to catch up with another great friend that I haven't seen in over 2 years! In the mean time, I am so grateful that my parents are able to help me out right now. Without them, I don't know what I would do.

Back in Oregon

Just wanted to make a quick post since it has been forever and a day since I have bothered to get online! I love having a blackberry where I can access Facebook and Myspace from it, but it doesn't let me post blogs from it...oh well!

Emily and I are officially back in Oregon. We arrived Tuesday night around 9pm PST. We were delayed over 2 hours in South Bend, IN, which in turn caused me to be late for my connecting flight by 15 minutes. Luckily, when we landed in Chicago, I turned on my phone, looked up my flight number and seen that my next flight had been delayed. Big sigh of relief as I also found out that my next flight was in the same terminal I flew in to, so I didn't have to walk over a mile to get to my next gate. However...when I arrived at my next gate, they were already boarding. Thinking for a minute that this was just so freaking awesome, I then arrived to the counter to let them know I was there. When the lady informed me that the flight was full and I would have to get on standby, I about freaked! Since I was not there 30 minutes prior to boarding, they gave away my seats...AGH. Luckily, there were 2 seats and miss and I got on the plane. We arrived at PHX 4 long hours later and had some issues with seating there...but eventually made it to PDX. Emily did so well the entire day. By the time we arrived in PDX, we had been at airports or on planes for 12 hours and only encountered one rude person...not too bad!

Readjusting to being back home and going to start the job search next week. This week I am going to focus on getting settled, getting Emily adjusted and catching up with friends. I don't think that Emily realizes we are staying here because she still talks about seeing her uncle and cousins, but hopefully with time, she will adjust. She will be going to school the first week of January, so that will be fun!