OMG

Oh My Gosh Liz! Congratulations! I had not even read your blog when I emailed you the other day or I would have congratulated you then. Sorry! I'm so happy for you and I hope you're feeling good. God Bless!

yea!

Congratulations Liz and Nathan!!! loved the pictures of the house too, looks like you have done a lot in a short time!

more news....

Well, you all should be very proud of me....blogging twice in the span of like a month or so. Things here continue to be busy. My new job is keeping me insanely busy, and grad school doesn't help matters. I can't wait until I'm done with my Master's. Only a few more months to go! The house is still coming along. I am uploading pics to Kodak as I type, so you will all have pics of the house shortly, along with some of Bella as well:) I couldn't resist. As much work as she is with everything else going on, it's so fun to come home from work and have her so excited to see me, and just want to play in my lap:) But many of you already relate to that.
Ah well, so we decided we apparantly did not have enough on our plates at the moment with continuous upgrades and work to be done to the house, the new dog, the new jobs, grad school, etc. This apparantly was not enough adventure for us at the moment, and we have officially embarked upon the new chapter of parenthood. Yes, we are pregnant! I am 9 weeks pregnant, and am due April 27th. We were going to wait till we were 3 months to spread the news, but our families couldn't make it that long. It's quite impressive we made it this far with them actually. Oh, and yes, it was planned. I figured I'd answer that now, as that seem to be the first question. So that's our newest news, and the most exciting by far in our minds. I wanted to make sure I shared it with my girls.

Mia Ann Ekle

I have a new niece! That makes 12 (i think) nieces and nephews. Mia Ann Ekle was born last night in Seattle, weighing 8 pounds 12 ounces and born with a full head of black hair. yea :)

Labor Day Weekend...

Hi all... I've really been meaning to post for quite some time. I still don't have Internet at home and feel bad taking more time to surf the net than I already do.

This summer was pretty busy for us. After Seattle, we sent 4th of July in Ohio. We decided to visit his Grandfather last minute cause he wasn't doing well. He's been dealing with prostate cancer for almost a year now and the doctors have pretty much done all they can. In spite of that, he has been doing much better lately. The last I heard he was getting up and around a lot more than he had and we are so thankful for this turn of events. He really didn't look well when we were up last.
Between now and then we had a couple of small trips and a nice week long vacation at the beach with my family. The summer went so fast, which brings me Labor Day weekend. The in-laws were in town, which mean lots of talking and entertaining for us. Overall I think it was a success and I'm pretty sure they had a good time, but let me tell you I'm very exhausted. I need a holiday to recoup from the holiday weekend. They stayed in town till yesterday, which extended the weekend a little longer than usual. Anyway... I survived.

Well I guess there isn't much else to say. Things are good. Sounds like you all are busy with changes in your lives - new puppies, new homes, new babies... What an exciting time for all of us. I just wish I could join in the fun. Soon enough I'm sure.

Talk to you all soon, until then keep it real.

Back again....

So i realize it's been far too long since I've blogged, so here I am. Things have actually been quite insane here with us since June when we closed on the house. The home we bought was a foreclosed house, and the previous owners took pretty much everything with them before they left (appliances, even the air conditioner!). So we had tons of work to do. We actually since have tons of work to do, but it's coming along. We had a lot to do before we could really even live here, and there was a rush to get it done because my parents had summer company, and we were taking up the guest room. Anyway, much of the inside is now done, which leaves us with some decorating, and the formidable task of the landscaping. I need to finish taking the "afters" of the before and after pics, but once I get those taken, I'll send them to everyone. We definitely are happy with the house, despite the work. The up-side to buying a house that needs work is that when it's done, it's exactly what you wanted, so that's nice. And the house is also only 7 years old, so it's like new now.

On other news, we also bought a puppy, as if a new home and all the work that comes with it wasn't enough for us. Her name is Bella and she's a Yorkie and she's just over 12 weeks old. I will also mention I think she's more work than many children sometimes. But she's starting to come along with her house training, so that helps matters quite a lot. I hate to leave her home while I'm at work:(

Which brings me to the topic of my employment status. After being unemployed for many months, I got a job as a preschool teacher, which I was more than happy to leave after a couple months of that. Not my calling. I just now started my first full week of school in my new job, which is great so far. I got a jobs as an elementary resource teacher in pretty much the best school district in southern Michigan. It's going to be an interesting year, as this city is one of the wealthiest in the country! I've even already had parents look me up online to check me out. But it should be fun. I'm happy to be back in elementary again and am looking forward to getting into the swing of things and finding my groove there. Also on the job front, Nathan is still enjoying his job. Things were very busy there for a while, adding to the stress of renovating and moving, but they've calmed down a lot now. So we're in the process of settling into our new life in our new home with our new jobs and our new little puppy. :) I wish it was really as idyllic as it sounds:) lol. I guess things like that never are. But we're enjoying the new adventures!

I've read the blog and kept up on everyone's life, even though I haven't posted, and it sounds like everyone is doing quite well. Kim, you'll also have to post pics of the new place. And let us know how the pregnancy is progressing! Jamie, congrats on the new position. It sounds right up your alley. How do you like having different kids all day? I love it. Julie, how's life in Ohio? You also need to post pics of the new house. Ok, I've gotta go work on a paper. I'm only 2 classes and comprehensive finals away from my Master's!! Whoo hoo!

Updates

So things went better than planned with Shawn's job - he's not hired on contract basis but on part time basis with a verbal agreement to work full time starting in December, which includes a renegotiation in salary at that time. Not bad at all. We're very happy with it. He's starting on Monday, so for the next week or so he'll be doing both jobs and school.





We went to MN over the weekend and had a great trip aside from the food poisoning from Taco Bell that put a damper on our first day there. Other than that, it was wonderful to see everyone...Shay is very pregnant and very ready to have little Madeline Loveday Rohde in this world. I can't wait to see what she looks like. We also went to dinner with bunch of my dad's side of the family after the shower - lots of cousins that I haven't seen in a long time. So, now I'm back at work and glad it's just a 4 day week! I have big plans of cleaning and organizing this weekend! I am actually very excited about it. I may even start on Friday night. :-)

Thank You for your prayers

Chad went home yesterday afternoon! The doctor has told him that he can return to college in January but Chad has decided he will prove the doctors wrong and be back by the end of September. The doctors have been amazed at his recovery and are shocked they sent him home so soon!! There is nothing left to do except praise God!

update on Chad

Hi girls,
I'm so glad today is Friday. I hope to take several naps this weekend as I had something going on every single night this week. I'm exhausted!
Wanted to give you all an update on Chad. The surgery was yesterday and the hospital staff all say it went as good as can be expected. The GREAT news is that Chad started moving his extremeties immediately after surgery. PRAISE GOD FOR THAT!! Chad took out his own breathing tube, another good sign. He is currently in ICU. Prayer requests at this point would be specifically:
1. that his previous symptoms would reverse
2. for there to be no swelling or bleeding as these are the two major concerns
3. quick recovery
4. Chad's emotional state
I'd like to use this time to say how much I love coffee. I'm serious! I LOVE coffee. It's getting me through these days!
So, Nobu is nearing on the 60 pound mark and has more and more energy every day. Funny, it's been raining for a week straight here and this "water dog" will not go for a walk in the rain. He also has to be coersed to go potty in the rain. honestly, it's not fun walking outside first thing in the morning, wrapped in a towel, and stand in the rain waiting for your pokey puppy to take a poo. Yes, this was the picture of us at 6 AM today! (we have a fenced in yard, i was covered!)
So Hobby Lobby has scrapbooking paper 50% off this week - i stocked up! I purchased $52.80 worth of paper, for only $26.40! How amazing is THAT!
And here's my final piece of breaking news. I just can't take it anymore. I've been keeping a secret from my blog reading friends (personal blog). This is a great feat for me since I have always been known to be a terrible secret keeper. You may think i don't deserve credit, because i haven't kept the secret from everyone. But, I'm taking baby steps here (big baby steps in my mind!) Oh, and most of you already know, so it's not really that big of a secret... On Saturday, September 1st, we get to bring home this cutie to join our family!!! Everyone, please meet Fujiko!

Life seems a bit crazy!

I've been thinking a lot about you all. This week started my third week of school and things are crazy. I love my new position as the Tech teacher. I'm really busy all day, but I spend it all with kids. I see the Kindergarteners - 6th grade. Each grade has it's uniqueness about it. My 2nd graders have to be the cutest. They are so poliet. They always ask how my day is going and tell me regularly that they love me. :) It is so cute.

My 5th graders are pretty good, but are starting to get attitude. :) My other favorite class is 6th grade, but that is only because they were my kiddos last year. I'm learning lots about computers and I'm really busy with school now. I've laid low the last few years and didn't get very involved with what happened at school. All has changed this year. I'm running lots of after school classes and committees. I'm going to love my break when it arrives.

Nick's family is coming for Labor day, so that will be exciting. I'm hoping that I will be prego by then, but nothing to report yet. It's been tough the past few weeks with the pregnancy stuff. I have a few friends around here that have gotten prego on the first try. I know God has a plan, but it is a little hard when you don't know His plan fully. I know you all understand that.

I love reading about what is going on in your worlds!! I'm praying for each of you daily. Keep posting!!

Kim...send pictures of your new house!!

Hi girls - It sounds like its been a pretty rough couple of weeks. I, too, have missed hearing from everyone, but I understand that life just plain gets busy sometimes. Kimmie, I am so sorry to hear about your Grandmother. I am keeping you and your family in my prayers more than usual this week. Juls, I am so glad you're close to your family right now. I would love it if you were here still - I could really use you around about now! - but I am so glad that your family is close to help you get through this challenging season. I really wish I was able to make it up to Ohio for the shower so I could see both you and Kim.

Thanks to all of you for all your birthday wishes! It was a good birthday, but I hope this year is even better than last. Things are looking up in the Cobb household. Shawn just has one semester left of school (yay!) and we just found out yesterday that the job situation is going to greatly improve. He will start next semester working on a contract basis (part time) for a company here in Tulsa as a Controls Engineer. When he finishes school in December, he will (hopefully) be signed as a regular salaried employee of the company. That's the plan, anyway, and it sounds like a great plan to me. Once he starts working full time, I can look at just working part time and going back to school. The financial burden will not be nearly as great, so that is music to my ears. That means more time and money to go visit my family and my Sapphires.

We are heading up to Minnesota over Labor Day to see my family. I am throwing a shower for my sister in law and my (soon to be) niece. The Dr. bumped her due date up to October 2. It's getting so close, I can hardly wait! We also got to spend some time with Shawn's niece and nephew and his mom last weekend. It was fun! But I would have liked it a lot more if we weren't all crammed into our tiny whiney apartment. :-)

Ok, well I suppose that should be all for now! I love you girls, and I think about you all the time. Let's get better at blogging, ok?

Adios!

sorry

Hi Girls,

Kim, I'm so sorry to hear about your grandma. I'm sure it's hard even when it's kind of her time and you've been expecting it. I'm sure it's especially hard because you can't make it into town for the funeral and stuff. That would be really hard. You and your dad are in my prayers.

I hope all the rest of you are doing well. People haven't been posting much since Seattle. I think maybe we all got our talking and updating out of our systems when we were together. =) I miss you all though. We've just been getting settled into life in Ohio. Josh is working all the time, about 90-100 hours per week. So we don't get much time together. The kids are good. They're getting big and staying busy and active. I'm still babysitting 3 days a week. We're still trying to find a church and I'm still trying to find friends and activities to do with the kids. That's about it for us. I've been going to my parents' house a lot when Josh is on call and that's been a huge blessing for me with his work schedule. I'm really glad that we're near family for residency. I don't think I could have survived otherwise! Love you all!

Another update

Things have been a bit hectic around here lately. My dad called me on Friday, informing me that my grandma had passed away. It wasn't unexpected -- she was 90 and had been sick for a while. For the past five years or so, she's had dementia and hasn't really been herself. And then about a month ago, her health really started to deteriorate. She quit eating and couldn't even get out of bed. Since she was DNR, all they could really do was wait.

They're having the viewing today and the funeral tomorrow. It was such short notice that I couldn't get a plane ticket. I would have had to fly through the night last night, and I know the baby wouldn't have liked that. I would have been a zombie when I got there. So Adam and I decided that I would stay home. I'm having a hard time with it because most of my Wilson relatives will be there, some of whom I haven't seen since I was a teenager. I really wanted to be there for my dad, though. Times like this make it very difficult to be far away from your family. Of course, if I really had to be there, I could be there. But with buying the house and the million other things going on right now, a last minute plane ticket just wasn't in the budget.
So I'd appreciate your girls' prayers -- especially for my dad. I think he's having a pretty hard time. Not that it wasn't her time to go -- I'm sure she's at peace now and not feeling any pain. But it's still got to be horrible to lose your mother. And he and she were very close.

In other news...Nancy and Ken (Adam's parents) have been here since Thursday, helping Kendra get ready to move into the dorms. Yesterday we piled all her stuff into about three carloads and moved her in. It really made me think of our ORU days. Of course, the University of Washington is a bit different than ORU (none of those Jetsons buildings) but the overall feeling was the same -- so much excitement and anticipation and meeting new people. Her little dorm room looks like something out of the Pottery Barn catalog. It helps that her roommate actually did her shopping at Pottery Barn. It's all very pink. We spent the afternoon there, helping her put things together and put clothes away. It was a lot of fun but exhausting. I came home last night and crashed. The in-laws are here until tomorrow then it will be just Adam and me again for the first time in over a month. We're a little excited about some alone time. And being able to walk around naked again, of course.

Ok, I'd better stop before this turns into a novel. I love you girls and miss you so much!

pray

Girls, please pray for Chad. Chad is the youngest son of my mom's best friend. The family lives in Seattle. Chad is about 20 years old but they have just recently found he has a birth defect that makes his skull not grow completely, thus blocking off spinal fluid from flowing. (that's basically what's happening but i'm really not well informed with specifics) Chad is going in for emergency brain surgery. He has spent an evening and night having tests done to determine what/when etc the surgery can be done but during that time has gotten worse. To those of us who aren't specialists, it seems he would need the surgery immediatley! So please pray for Chad and his family (one brother and one sister, and his parents) as they get through this day. I'll keep you posted as the surgery takes place and how it went, etc.

Little baby, little house

Hey girls! Hope all is well with everyone. I've been thinking about you all a lot lately. We had sort of a big week last week. First of all, we found out we're having a little girl. Yay! The ultrasound tech managed to get a couple clear shots of her little girl parts but, as always, it's not 100%. But we have both been feeling girl-y, so that just confirmed our thoughts. We'll have another ultrasound in October which should be more definite. It was just the most amazing thing to see her on the screen, sucking her thumb and wiggling around. We got a couple great shots of her profile and her feet. Everything looked normal and healthy. She's about six inches long right now and I've just started feeling her move a lot, especially when I'm sitting still. Adam's been talking and singing to her, which either soothes her or scares her -- we haven't decided yet.

Adam's mom, sisters, and nephews were in town last week to help move his college-bound sister out here permanently. So they got to come to the appointment with us, which was very special. And we got some good quality time with the fam. Lots of good quality time.
So now Kendra has moved in and the guest room has turned completely pink. She'll be staying with us until school starts.

Our other big news is that we put in an offer on a townhouse last week. The couple who is selling had to move to Ireland suddenly and are just trying to get it sold as quickly as possible, which means we're getting a pretty good deal on it. It has three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms and is about a year and a half old. Hardwood floors, fireplace, and a teeny tiny backyard. Right now, we're just waiting for our financing to finish going through as they examine every little detail about our past. It's a very exposed feeling, as those of you who have bought a house before know, I'm sure. But in the end, we'll have our own place and will no longer have to deal with pot-smoking landlords. I cannot wait.

Oh, back on the baby front, my family and Julie are throwing me a shower in Ohio in September. You'll all be getting invites soon, just in case anyone happens to be in that neck of the woods or feels like journeying to exciting Ohio. :)

Love you girls!

Camping!!!

So, Nick and I went camping for our anniversary. It was our first camping trip together ever and my first time cooking over a camping stove and fire. :) We had a great time!! And I felt super successful at this adventure. We drove up to an area called Grand Lake on the out skirts of Granby and Rocky Mountain National Park. We found a spot on the edge of Mountain Shadow Lake. We got the last campsite and set up. We have the cutest little tent that we got for our wedding and I've never used it!! We took a long hike one morning and then spent the afternoon doing homework. Well...Nick did homework, I read my Rachel Ray magazine. I even made pancakes one morning!! I kept thinking of you all!! We should go camping. We can make it super nice for those of you that won't camp. There was an incredible RV parked next to us. :) Just an idea to throw out there!

back from trip No. 2

Hey girls,
I'm sad that no one is posting! Has nothing happened in the last 3 weeks? Well, Chris and I just got back from Montana. We used a friend's wedding as an excuse to see all the beauty that Montana holds. After the wedding was over, we spent a day and a half in Glacier National Park, just the two of us for the full day. We saw mountains galore, went on a hike at the top (about 4 miles?), saw a bull moose, mountain goats, sheep, and a ram. The goats and sheep we saw while on our hike and several times we were close enough to touch them (if we were crazy enough). I'll send you all pictures soon, but there's one I took where Chris and a goat are in the same picture. So crazy!! We saw a ton of deer too, but that was nothing new to me. I have one picture too of me standing on a mound of snow in my tank top and shorts. Parts of the trail were still covered with snow. We stuck our hands and feet in fresh mountain water, and Chris even had a little sip. Brr... that was so cold! So Glacier National Park is officially on my list of places everyone should visit before they die. I could go on and on about how beautiful it was, and even show you all the pictures, but none of it will do the park justice. Just go there yourself!
I have my second voice student starting in August! I never knew I would enjoy teaching voice lessons so much, and this is a great way for me to get some extra pedicure money. Yeah, I've started a new habit... Pedicures once a month. Hey, if twenty five dollars and 45 minutes of peace is all i require to feel refreshed, pampered, and ready to take on my work-place once again... i'm going for it!

Vacation is like a Coma

This is what I came up with this morning on my way back to the office. I went an entire week without watching TV, reading a newspaper, or talking with any of my aquaintences back home. I feel like i have been in a coma for the last week and am just now waking up. What happened over the last week!!
We had an interesting trip home... We sat by a 10 year old girl with some problems. Steph, I wish you were there to help diagnose. First i thought she was just a wild child and liked to talk. Then she started pulling back her already damaged cuticles and yelling across us for her mom to give her another bandaid. Her mom replied, "People aren't going to talk to you if you're bleeding!" She kept picking and bleeding for a while and ended up with most, if not all of her fingers wrapped. Yes, there was blood all over her clothes. So then, as she was watching a DVD on her travel player, she started talking along, and SINGING along at the TOP OF HER LUNGS. What do you think her parents did at that point? "shh" ...that's about it! oh my goodness. At the beginning of the flight all I could do was laugh. By the time Chicago arrived, I wanted to cry. And guess who showed up at our next gate?! Thankfully they were on the flight after us.

Trip plans

Hey all!

We land on Friday at 2pm. My sister is coming to get us on Tuesday morning to go to Vancouver for a few days visit. We don't fly out until Saturday night. We are so excited to get away from the drama our life has become. :) I'm so ready to see you all!!

Your friendly Seattle weathergirl

The weather forecast for the coming week is as follows:

 

Thursday – High of 65, few showers

Friday – High of 65, few showers

Saturday – High of 63, partly cloudy

Sunday – High of 72, partly cloudy

Monday – High of 79, sunny

Tuesday – High of 81, sunny

 

Be sure to pack a rain jacket and comfy walking shoes. And dressing in layers is usually the way to go this time of the year.

 

See you all very soon!