Two By Two

Happy Holidays!

Cheli On Thursday, December 25, 2008

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS

The boys Christmas haul this year

River's big gift :)

He LOVES it

Journey playing with is big gift it's a music table.. I think he likes it too :)

Actually both boys like it for that matter LOL

So as many of you know we have people staying with us. A friend of my mother in law and her niece. Well her niece goes home to her parents every weekend and comes back on Sundays. We think she brought lice into the house on one of those weekends.

So we take a look at River's hair this morning and sure enough his head is COVERED in it. There is no way I was going to force him to sit there for hours as I nit picked his hair due to how long it was.. so we cut his hair..

I was devestated and he was terrified. It was awful.

Before

After

Journey is 10 months old!

Cheli On Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Journey turned 10 months old yesterday. I can't believe it.

He is now
Crawling
Pulling to a Stand
Cruising (slowly)
Saying "da da"
Laughing all the time
Has one tooth
Eating stage 2 baby foods (big accomplisment for him)

I promise I'll get around to a real update eventually. The rest of us are all trudging along. School is going well. Doug's work is going fine. River is doing great. We've just been busy.

Yes I'm Still Alive...

Cheli On Friday, November 28, 2008

No I haven't dropped off the face of the planet.. I've just either been so busy or so exaughsted lately that I haven't had the time or energy to write.

I haven't lost any more weight but I also haven't gained any either so that's good. I started school on November 10th.. so approximately 3 weeks ago. My first semester contains English, Algebra, Anatomy and Physiology 1 and Microbiology. I like all the classes except for Microbiology.. I don't know if it's that the teacher sucks or that the subject taught be anyone sucks but the class is SO difficult for me to pay attention to. This semester runs through Mid February. So only about 7 or 8 weeks to go. It's been an adjustment for me from being able to "sleep in" and stay up late to having to be up by 6am and out the door by 6:30 in order to make it across town in time for class. I am enjoying the school atmosphere again.. I love learning.

Doug is still enjoying work. He is getting alot more clients now that they are giving him Deep Tissue clients and normally does 3 to 5 massages a day. It's nice money but tiring for him. The bills are being paid thought so what more could we ask for. He was supposed to go for another class for "Lava Shells" this past weekend but got his days mixed up and missed the class. He will catch the next class and that will add to his list of what he is able to do. He is starting to get repeat clients now which is great and people that are specifically asking for him which is also great. Wednesday was his 45th birthday. It's hard to believe that he's 45 already. It reminds me of the age gap between us but then most days I hardly notice. We went out the previous Sunday for his birthday. We went to the movies and saw the movie "Twilight" (I'm now reading the first book) and then we went out for Sushi. This seems to be our pattern date when ever we get the chance.. dinner and sushi. LOL

River is growing by leaps and bounds. Every day he amazes me with some new word or phrase or behavior that he didn't know the day before. I can't believe how quickly time is passing now. He's closing in on 3 years old and it seems like just yesterday he was Journey's age. We bought him a potty chair this week and will be starting to potty train here in the next few months. I don't want to force him to do it if he's just not ready but I don't want him to be in diapers forever. He has always been one of those kids that doesn't do something at all until he can do it just right.. I just don't think potty training works that way.. or does it??

Journey is 9 months old now.. closing in rapidly on 10 months. He goes on Wednesday for an MRI of his brain to make sure there is no damage or abnormalities. He goes a week after that for a surgery to clip his tongue. We found out through his speech therapist that he's been seeing for a few months now that he is tongue tied (explains the nursing issues and makes me proud that I made it to 7 months even with that) and they recommend that we get it clipped now rather than later as he's having issues eating etc. Then in January he will be seeing a geneticist for testing. They think there is a possibility that he has something called Noonan's Syndrome. It doesn't mean much other than he may have delays and he has some characteristics of people who have this syndrome so they want to find out. They want to send him to physical therapist for evaluation now as well because he appears to be falling a little too far behind developmentally. *sigh* He is at about a 7 month old level and he's 9 1/2 months. Oh well. One interesting thing, the doctor thinks that his eyes will remain blue. So I have a blue eyed boy and a brown eyed boy.. how interesting. He still doesn't sleep through the night most nights and ends up in my bed by about midnight where he sleeps comfortably for the rest of the night. He and River could not be more different if they tried sometimes I think. LOL It definitely is going to make things interesting as they grow.

Journey 9 Month WBV

Cheli On Monday, November 17, 2008

I'm too tired.. or is it lazy? to post a real update.. but I did want to come on here and update Journey's stats just so I have them when I want them later.. .

Journey went for his 9 month WBV today.

He is 19 lbs 7 oz and 27.5 inches long. 2 lbs and 1 inch smaller than his brother at this age :) LOL

He goes back February 18th, 2009 for his 1 year appointment.

Happy Halloween 2008

Cheli On Friday, October 31, 2008

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
HAPPY SAMHEIN!!!!
I hope everyone has a safe and happy evening and night. Stay safe!

Nothing Exciting

Cheli On Thursday, October 30, 2008

WOW so I'm slow and just realized that a shared a few pictures of the boys that I had previously shared the week before. LOL oops. Not that it matters , am beginning to wonder if anyone reads my blog at all LOL.
So let's see.. I have decided not to focus so much on the number on the scale but more on other things like how my clothes fit etc. Otherwise i'm going to drive myself insane. I did so my measurements and since I started measuring them back in June I've lost 5 1/2 inches off my waist, 2 off my hips, and 4 off my each thigh. I'd say that's pretty good :) So I am going to keep doing what I'm doing and stop stressing so much about the stupid scale. I went today and got on the depo shot again. We don't want to get pregnant right now since I'm starting nursing school and it worked well for me in the past so we'll try it out again. Orientation for school (which means getting my books and scrubs) is in exact 1 week. School starts in 11 days. I'm SO excited. And nervous. And anxious. And I can't wait!!!!!
Doug seems to be getting more hours at work now. Not sure if that's just because we changed his schedule to 5 hours instead of 7 in a day so he's getting all the clients at once or what. I don't think so but it seems that way. He will start getting deep tissue clients very soon. Everyone he has done deep tissue practicums with has raved about his pressure. So that should keep him busy and booked at work which is good because more bookings equals more money. His birthday is next month (26th) and our anniversary is the 10th (3 years). I'm hoping we'll be able to do something nice for it this year.
River's behavior seems a little better than it has been. He's listening better and not having as many fits but maybe it's just me not seeing them as much. Not sure. He continues to amaze me with how smart he is. I can't wait until next August when he is old enough for the preschool program (as long as he's potty trained by then) because I want to keep him growing mentally. Keep him challanged.
Journey is doing okay. He went Tuesday for his speech appointment. She agreed that he is tongue tied and that it needs to be clipped which means yet another referral to yet another specialist for evaluation. I'm so sick of appointments and doctors and evaluations. I know he has to be sick of them too. On Tuesday he wanted nothing to do with the therapy or the therapist. I can't say I blame him. I'm not sure I like her either. LOL He is 8 1/2 months old now. Time is flying by. In some ways he seems to have grown so much but in other ways., he still seems so little. He still trying to master crawling. He'll get up on his hands and knees and rock but can't seem to figure out how to go forward on hands and knees. However he's gettin faster at the army crawl and is starting to use his knees more to help him go forward so it shouldn't be too long. He's still not sitting up and he still has no teeth. The pediatrician said if he wasn't crawling and sitting up unassisted by 9 months she would refer him to a physical therapist for evaluation.. yeehaw.
I'm so afraid he won't live a normal life. He just seems to have so much going on :( I'm going to try not worry about it. Because it's not like I can do anything about it anyway.. Right? He has a speech appointment on Monday next week and a GI appointment on Friday next week. I'm eager for Friday's appointment as we should get the results of his bood work and allergy testing. I've been waiting for them. In some ways I hope they come back showing nothing and in some ways I hope they come back showing something as then we'll have an idea of why his tummy is having such a hard time handling foods. Still no word on the genetics people. I guess I'll call them tomorrow and see what's going on as it's now been almost 2 weeks since Journey got released from the hospital

Hospital, Appts, and School

Cheli On Friday, October 24, 2008

It's been like 2 weeks since I updated but it feels like it's been about 2 years with all that has happened in the last 2 weeks.. so here we go...

I weighed in this week at 174.6.. so another lb down. I don't understand why I seem to be stuck at this weight. It's frustrating. But at least it's not going up anymore. I went on Tuesday and met with financial aid and got it squared away. Found out tha t I got more in credit then I thought I did so the program will cost less than I thought it would. YAY! Then today I got my acceptance letter in the mail. WOOO HOOOO. Orientation is in 13 days. School starts in 17 days. WOW. I can't wait!!!!My acceptance letter.

6 months of weight loss... First one is me back in April and 2nd one is me just a few days ago.

Doug got a new schedule at work that I think will work a lot better for us. He works 5 to 10pm Tuesday through Friday and 1pm to 6pm on Saturday then he's off on Sunday and Monday. My schooling for the first semester will have me at school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 8 am to 2pm. So this way we won't have to put the boys in daycare especially Journey because it's just not an option at this point.

Which brings me to Journey.. Last Friday Journey went in for a GI appointment.. the ended up doing some blood work to try and see if he has any allergies or even celiac disease. We'll get the results on November 7th when he goes back. So we came home from that and Journey felt hot to me so I checked his temp and it was 103.1 so I gave him motrin. Shortly after, he had a seizure. I called Doug and told him he need to come home but he was in the middle of a massage so I couldn't get ahold of him. 30 minutes later he had another seizure. This time I got a hold of Doug and he came home and we took Journey up to the children's hospital ER to be evaluated. We ended up waiting in the waiting room for almost 4 hours.. While we were waiting he had a 3rd seizure. We got back in the ER and they ran some tests to rule out all the obvious problems and then decided that because he had 3 seizures and has all these other issues they wanted to admit him to just make sure everything was okay. So from Friday to Monday he was in the hospital for observation. On Saturday they decided to do a lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis and started him on some IV antibiotics while we waited.. 48 hours.. to see if the cultures grew anything. On Sunday the attending noticed a bulge between his eyes when he gets upset.. he thinks there is a possibility to might be an encephlocele. A pocket of brain matter coming through a spot in his skull that didn't close properly. So he has been referred for an MRI as soon as we can get one set up.. they weren't comfortable doing one while we were there because it means he has to be sedated. He also brought to our attention that Journey has a lot of markers for a genetic disorder called Noonan's syndrome so he has now also been referred to a geneticist for further testing. Monday he came home and has seemed fine ever since.

Today he went to the speech pathologist evaluation and they determined that basically when he's eating he is losing his coordination to suck/swallow/breathe. So we need to teach him how to do so. They gave us some techniques to try to help him handle foods but said we can't really work on that until we know what his tummy issues are all about. So she gave us some very basic exercises to try. He goes back every week for now for therapy. She also said that his tongue is tied. How it's possible that no one else has noticed this is beyond me.. so now she wants him to see an ENT (I know yet another specialist) to see about getting his tongue clipped (either now or in the future). *sigh*
One positive.. Journey is army crawling now!!! YAY!!!

River is doing okay. His behavior isn't improving any but everyone says it starts to get better around 3 or shortly after... so hopefully. Until then we'll continue to love him and try and guide him to make better choices with his behavior.

8 Months old today :)

Cheli On Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Journey is 8 months old today.. so of course I had to get pictures

Journey's New Food

Cheli On Monday, October 13, 2008

So I have started making Journey large batches of formula and keeping them in the fridge. I'll make 32 oz at a time and keep it because it's easier than trying to make individual bottles as needed with the thickening that needs to happen. So this morning I made up a batch to specifications.. Let me break it down for you.. for 32 oz of formula (approximately 1 1/2 days worth of food) Journey needs:
16 scoops of Nutrimagen
32 oz of water and one of these:

Yes that's right... 8 oz of rice cereal for 32 oz of formula.. Which means we go through approximately 8 cans of formula a month and 20-21 of the above rice cereal containers. For those that don't know.. Nutrimagen formula is 27.00 a can. Rice cereal is 2.50 a container.
Breastmilk was free.
This sucks

Tests, Tests, and More

Cheli On Friday, October 10, 2008

Where to begin....
So after I weighed in I balloned up to 178.4. We joined the Y and I have started going at least 5 days a week to walk and 3 days a week I am doing weight training to help get into shape. I weighed in this morning and I am back down to 175.6. Not wonderful but at least now I'm moving in the right direction, right? *sigh* trying not to get discouraged. I went last Tuesday and took my pharmacology test. You had to get a 57 on it to pass and it was graded on a pass or fail type thing. I got a 63 so I passed. And that means I will get credit for the pharmacology class I took while I was in school for my PN license. So now all that is left is to iron out the details with financial aide. Which hopefully will be next week.
Doug went last Saturday for his deep tissue class. So now he is certified in deep tissue which will hopefully mean they can start booking him for deep tissue. He also heard back about the scheduling.. he will work Tuesday through Friday 5pm-10pm, Saturday 1pm to 6pm and have Sunday and Monday off. So we won't need to worry about daycare for the boy which is a huge relief (and money saver). Hopefully he'll find out today when the new schedule will go into effect.
We took both boys to the doctor this week because they are sick. River has an ear infection for the first time since he was 11 months old and had tubes put in his ears. According to the doctor, the tubes don't look to be in place anymore.. lovely. He is 34 lbs and 41 inches tall. He's HUGE. He still isn't listening at all. Which is really beginning to grate on my nerves. Time outs don't seem to phase him anymore and I really don't want to use spanking as a form of discipline so I'm really at a loss of what to do with him. Everyone keeps saying this is a phase but I really don't know how to get him to get past this... alive.
Journey went to the pediatrician on Monday where she said he has another upper respiratory infection. He's a miserable little boy. He is 19 lbs even now. WOOT. Tuesday he had to be at the children's hospital for his Barium Swallow to figure out what's going on inside him with the acid reflux and what not. We found out 2 things.. 1) he has severe acid reflux.. every time he eats it immediate starts to come back up but is forced back down when he takes another swallow. 2) whenever he eats he is aspirating some of the food into his lungs. She said that he HAS to have rice cereal or some other thickener added to his food which means we are done breast feeding.. :( He has to have 1 1/2 teaspoons of rice cereal added to every ounce of formula. All liquids from now until otherwise noted need to be a honey consistancy. He has also been refered to a speech pathologist for therapy to learn how to swallow and to learn how to take solids. The pediatrician said that if he isn't sitting up and crawling by 9 months she wants to refer him to a physical therapist or occupational therapist for evaluation as well. *sigh*
In other news.. he won't sleep in his bed. Or I should say he won't fall asleep in his bed. He'll fall good and asleep when he's being held or when he's on our bed but not when we put him in his crib. And if we lay him down in his crib too soon after him falling asleep he wakes up. At 8 months old he's only getting about 8 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. He refuses to nap during the day and doesn't sleep well at night. He's such an over tired little boy.
This week we got caught up on the Dell account. Which means we are officially caught up on all bills for the moment.. YAY! Hopefully that lasts.

Irritated and an update

Cheli On Monday, September 29, 2008

I am so irritated with myself.. I got on the scale today for the first time in almost 2 months a few days ago.. I've gained 6 1/2 lbs. I've got to figure out a way to get going again. *sigh* So my weight as of right now is 175.. maybe if I get back into posting my weight etc it will help. BLAH. I'm going to weigh less than 175 by the time I start school November 10th .. it's my goal. 6 lbs to go. I took my net exam last week. I knocked it out of the ball park. It's pretty much garenteed that I'm getting in. I filled out the first part of the financial aide and spoke with someone about it. I'll get the actual figures in another week or 2 but it's totally affordable with the grants and student loans I can get which is awesome. I have to go back next week sometime to take a pharmacology test. And I'll have to meet with financial aide again to iron out the details etc.. but it looks like November 10th I'll be starting school. My graduation date will be February 25th, 2010.. approximately 15 months.
Doug asked his work if he could switch his week hours from 3-10 to 4-10. She said it shouldn't be a problem but better yet, why not give them a schedule that works for us and they'll see if they can work with it. How cool is that!!! So we are going to ask if they can have him work Tuesday through Friday 5-10pm and Saturday from 10am-3pm with Sunday and Monday off. If they can do that it would be awesome. It would allow for us not to have to put the boys in daycare while I'm in school and he's working so we won't have that cost. Which would be wonderful. He goes on Saturday for his Deep Tissue class. It's an all day thing and it costs 175 dollars but that's okay. It will be worth it in the long run. Other than the lack of constant clients, he LOVES the job which totally rocks.
Today we switched River's toddler bed back into a crib and moved Journey from our room to River's old room. So tonight will be our first night of River sleeping in his new room, Journey in his new room, and Doug and I and our room with no baby since before I was pregnant. How awesome! Can't wait!!! I hope all goes well.
River is having some major attitude/behavior issues and I can honestly say that 2 is the first age I have absolutely HATED. He back talks constantly, has no regard for anything we say and half the time with blantantly disregard what we say. He yells, throws things, hits, bites.. he's horrible. We're trying to be more consistant in the time out department and hope it works. I won't consent to using spanking.. as I just can't.. and we can't seem to come up with another form of discipline that we think might work with him so we're going to try time outs more consistantly even if that means he lives in time out for a while. On the other side.. he can be so amazingly sweet and smart sometimes. He loves Dora still and he actually interacts with the show now.. answers the questions. Says the words when she asks. He can recognize some letters and numbers now. Can count to 30. Loves to play and sing and run and jump and is ALL boy. I can't believe he'll be 3 in a few months.. where has the time gone?? It is time for him to get another hair cut as he's starting to resemble a shaggy dog so we might take him tomorrow to get it done.
Journey is still pretty much the same as last week. Nothing new and exciting other than getting his own room and what not. We're watching him to see when he'll start crawling or sitting up. His eyes are still blue, I'm so hoping they'll stay. I bought his Halloween costume the other day and am waiting for it to come in the mail. He is going to be a Dalmatian dog and River is going to be a fire fighter :) hehe I can't wait.
We took the car in on Thursday to be looked at because the rumbling/shaking that it was doing was driving us nuts. We figured we needed to replace one of the tired because the shaking seemed to be in one side of the car more than the other. Well he said our 2 rear tires could go any time and our shocks were bad. So we replaced the two back tires on Friday and started to look into getting the shocks replaced. What a joke. No one in our city carries the shocks we need. The one place we found that did wanted to charge us 400 dollars to do it.. WOW. So we aren't getting that done yet.. We also need to get some belts fixed before I start putting all those miles on the car in November. Yee haw.

New beginnings.. I hope

Cheli On Monday, September 22, 2008

I meant to post an entry like 2 days ago.. then I meant to do it today.. Now here it is 11pm at night and I am finally sitting down to do it and I don't have the energy. LOL

I go tomorrow for my NET exam for nursing school. I'm anxious and excited and nervous and all sorts of stuff. I hope I can get in. We need this so bad. I want this. We'll see. Wish me luck! My weight loss has apparently stopped but that could have something to do with the fact that I have completely fallen off the wagon as far as that goes.. I've got no drive to do anything anymore. I'm tired ALL the time and just blah. I need to forcce myself to start walking and eating right again. I need to keep losing weight. Someone kick my butt in gear please.

Doug is going to start looking for a better job. It's great that he has the Massage Envy thing going right now but he's just not making enough money to survive really and he's getting severely underpaid for the profession so he's going to see what's out there while he continues to work for Massage Envy. He goes on October 4th for a Deep Tissue class. After that it will hopefully open up more clientele to him.. right now he's only allowed to do Relaxation massage and not many people are asking for that unfortunately. The office manager also said that October through December are their busiest months so hopefully things will pick up some. She said that he can start coming in on a day off if he wants and picking up more masages then so he's going to try doing that I think at least until I start school in November if I get in.

Journey went to a GI doctor on Thursday. He's having all sorts of acid reflux problems lately. They had him on the max Zantac dose they could for his weight and it wasn't helping so they wanted to have him evaluated by the GI doc. They want to do a Upper GI/Barium Swallow on him. They switched his medication in the mean time to Zegerid and said that they want to see him back in 4 weeks for another follow up and if he isn't doing remarkably better they want to do some blood work to see if there is an underlying problem going on like food intolerance or allergies of some kind. Then Saturday he started his RSV prevention shots with the pediatrician. He'll have to get it every 28 days from now until March or April in hopes of keeping him from getting RSV during the winter months because of his heart. That was not fun. Poor kiddo. We did discover that he is now 18 lbs even (OMG) and 25.6 inches (yes he's short). He is still not crawling or sitting up on his own (he can for short periods of time) but he did start laughing this week which was a wonderful treat for me :)

River is still being River. Too smart for his own good and his back talking is out of control. But a good turn of events is that he is back to sleeping in his own bed at night. We do have to leave his bedroom lamp on for him though or he won't go in there. He doesn't even like me turning it off during the day when he's not in there. Silly boy. He can count to 29 now which amazes me. He is such a happy boy most of the time and such a joy. I love him so much. Oh and he desperately needs a hair cut.

Here is a few pics of Journey we got a few days ago.

A trip and an Update

Cheli On Sunday, September 14, 2008

So I was informed that I HAD to come here and write an update so while I have a minute I figured I would come here and write an update.

Let's see... not much to report on me.. I started my first period since conceiving Journey in May 07 and I'm miserable and bloated so I didn't weigh in this week. I also didn't weigh in last week because we were out of town which I'll get into later.. I go on Tuesday for my NET exam for nursing school. Wish me luck. She said if I do as well I did when I got into the PN program I'll have no problem getting in this time either. I hope thats the case. I spoke with her last week and she gave me some more details on the program.. namely the approximate cost. It's going to cost approximately 30,000 dollars for the full program. This includes books, scrubs, application to test, application to the board of the nursing and a bunch of other things so it's not THAT bad but considering my student loans are currently totalling in 13,500 dollars with out this program added in.. we're looking at heafty student loans once my education is completed.. especially if I go for another 2 years after this for my Master's.

Doug is still plugging away at work. Severely underpaid. I'm trying to get him to realize that he could either a) be making much better money in a month than he is or b) be working a ton less hours than he is currently if he would try to find somewhere else to work. He doesnt seem to get that. Due to various reasons through the last month and a half that he's been working at Massage Envy this will be like his 2nd or 3rd week that he's actually completed every day and not had to take time off. BLAH.

River is the most infuriating kiddo I know. He can be so endearing sometimes with some of the things he says and then at other times he just pushes every last button and makes me SO angry. He back talks all the time now "No MOMMY! " "NO I don't wanna" and when he gets in trouble he rolls his eyes and says "GEEZ". He has identified McDonald's as the french fry place and every time he sees a McDonald's he says "Look look it's french fries" this made for a very long drive when we went out of town last week. I think he has McDonald's Radar. We joked that he could spot a McDonald's 3 miles away and down 3 blocks. LOL He still won't sleep in his room very well but now we know why.. our son is afraid of the dark. We were leaving his light on at night.. all night.. and that seems to work but his light blew out last night so we put a table lamp in there that is not quite as bright he had a hard time falling asleep but he did stay asleep once he fell asleep. I hope he'll outgrow this stage. He is up to 29 in counting now. He gets hung up on the 30, 40, 50 thing still but can do the "straight aways" really easily now. He's gotten great at UNdressing himself but not so hot at dressing himself.

Journey will be 7 MONTHS tomorrow.. Yes that's right folks.. it's been 7 months already.. can you believe it?? He had to go to the pediatrician last week because we are still having issues with his tummy and his acid reflux and he weighed in at a whooping 17 lbs 6 oz and 26 3/4 inches long. YAY!!! he's growing like a weed now. He's been referred to a gastro doctor for evaluation because he's doing a ton of spitting up/throwing up after every bottle and he's just miserable a good majority of the time. He's still having a hard time sleeping at night even with his bed at a 45 degree angle. He rolls everywhere now, can pivot himself around to go any direction he wants and then rolls to whatever it is he wants. It's his mode of transportation now. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks from time to time but can't figure out how to go in a forward motion yet... soon though I think. We are still breastfeeding.. at least 3 times a day. he's getting Nutrimagen supplements as well because I'm having supply issues but that's okay at least he's gettign what breast milk I can give him. It really seems to be helping too (at least that's what I tell myself) he's had no real sickies other other the 2 that I can't do anythign about (acid reflux and his heart). He squeals, coos, giggles and smiles all the time. He doesn't take naps..nope not at all. He sleeps roughly 10 minutes from the time he gets up to the time he goes to bed at night. And by the evening time he's a total crab pot.

Now for the trip. As you know Tropical Storm Fay came through Jacksonville and dumped a ton of rain and lots of wind on us.. well she also put a hole in our roof and let in a lot of water. We called a roofer out to get an estimate and we were informed that not only do we have a hole in our roof but we have black mold in our ceiling... lovely. For those that don't know, black mold is deadly. Especially to the young, old, and sick. Journey classifies as 2 of them so really we couldnt' stay here. We decided to go up north on an inpromptu vacation to visit friends. We stayed with R and K while we were there and had a great time visiting other friends. We saw Stacy and Makaylee. MaKaylee is River's age and is absolutely adorable (see below). We saw Missy and Jim.We saw Mo and her beautiful children and her kitties (whom River talked about for hours). And we went to Gatlinburg for a day to walk around and sight see which was soo much fun. We came home last Sunday and Doug went back to work Wednesday. The roof is fixed, the ceiling fixed.. Everything is good again. Now for pictures..

River trying on daddy's work shirt LOL