Friday, February 26, 2010

Sapphire Point

One year ago we were almost all together in the beautiful mountains of CO. This year... there would be a lot more bellys to maneuver around. :)


Miss you all!


Saturday, February 20, 2010

Update to plans for the Sapphire Reunion

I have an adjustment to make to the Sapphire reunion in August. As you all know now, Liz is pregnant and due in September. yay! However, Liz has a bit riskier pregnancy situation and a history of pre-term labor. There are already a couple of you unable to make the reunion this year and I'm afraid to lose one more because it's not really much of a reunion if there are only a couple of us there. Consequently, I am thinking we will have the reunion in Detroit rather than Cincinnati so that Liz can definitely participate. There is an airport in Detroit for flyers and the drive is comparable for the drivers. If anybody needs to fly into Dayton, OH we can still arrange pick-ups. Also, since we will be in Detroit, we will not have to spring for the cost of hotels. We can stay at one of our houses and any guys who come along can hang out with Josh, Nathan, and Adam for the weekend at the other house. It should be a little bit more cost effective trip for everyone this way. The plans are to visit the Henry Ford museum/Greenfield Village, go shopping and do pedicures and movie at one of the awesome outlet shopping centers and maybe catch a Tigers game. We can also visit the Motown museum (which is tiny and won't take much time at all) if we want to and are planning to have drinks in a skyscraper overlooking the city one evening with any guys that join us. The guys will probably come along for the Henry Ford and the baseball game as well. Then we'll do our shopping/girls' day and night on our own. The weekend of August 20-22 is also the dates of the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit, which is a HUGE deal where the entire city fills with classic cars for display. We thought any guys who come along could go enjoy the Dream Cruise on the day that the girls are doing shopping and girly things. Guys are welcome as it might make travelling with little babies easier and between mine and Liz's house, we will have plenty of baby supplies and arrangements for any babies that make the trip so that babies can be comfy and happy and mommy's can relax and enjoy the visit with zero stress. =)  As we get closer and I know more specifically who will be making it and when everyone will be coming in and how long you'll be staying, I will get a more specific schedule of events set up. I hope this works for everyone. Please let me know if you have any questions or need anything. I hope to see as many of you as possible in August!

Also, please start sending pictures so that I can start putting the scrapbook together. =) Love you all!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Jumping On...

So, apparently I felt the need to jump on the bandwagon here, so as not to be left out of all of the fun to be had. Nathan and I seem to have brought home a little stow-away from our recent cruise. Yep, we are super excited to be expecting baby #2! We're about 8 weeks along, and I'm due around October 1st (which will likely mean a September baby...hopefully no sooner!). Although we had a little scare last week, everything seems to be looking good now, with a strong heartbeat and development right on track.

We would appreciate your prayers throughout this pregnancy whenever you think of it, as I'm a bit more high risk this time around. Some tests back in August revealed that I have what is called a bicornuate uterus, which means it's heart-shaped instead of a more normal upside-down triangle. We don't really know how severe the shape is, but it's reassuring that I've already had a viable pregnancy. This basically puts me at higher risk for miscarriage, 2nd trimester loss, and premature delivery. It's also likely why I had difficulty getting pregnant the 1st time around. I've already been taken off running, but can continue working out low-impact until I hit 20 weeks (hoping for no bed rest later on). Before we stopped "preventing", we really sat down and prayed this time for God's hand to be on this pregnancy (whenever it happened), for God's timing, for the baby to implant where it needed to, and for God's hand to be on everything so the baby has enough room to grow and develop until full term. Shockingly, we got pregnant right away, and we just have a peace about things, and are really believing God will have his hand on this baby every step of the way. We're really, really praying for a healthy, full-term baby with no NICU stays!

PS: on a side note, our baby's esophagus is developing this week...of particular interest to us of course;)...although they'll try to keep a closer eye out for TEF this time, it's not genetic and we're not expected to have that problem again.

Love you girls and looking forward to baby updates, belly pics, and just general news:)

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Prayer Request for Julie

Hey girls, I'm sitting here at Julie's house with Lilah and Isaac, and thought I ought to put out a post here so you can all be praying for the Vicena's Josh and Julie had to take Seth into the hospital this morning. He apparantly woke up with excruciating pain in his hip and leg. He was in such pain they couldn't even sit him in his car seat, as he couldn't bend his legs, and he had to be taken by ambulance. Tests are still being run, but it doesn't appear to be anything terribly life threatening or un-fixable. It's looking as though there may be some rhuematology problems, which could also explain some previous neck pains Seth has had in the past. I'll let Julie explain things in more detail as they get more test results back and have more details. In the meantime, Seth has been admitted to the hospital and will be there as they run a few more tests, manage his pain (he's currently on morphine), and get him set up to meet with a rheumatologist. Just be agreeing in prayer for a quick recovery for Seth, a quick diagnosis, and wisdeom for the doctors. Poor Seth has definitely had a rough year in the health department, so just pray for God's continued hand on his life and healing for his body. Also keep Josh and Julie in prayer so they can have peace, rest, wisdom, and a clear head and they deal with this.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Hola

Thanks for getting things going again, Liz. I don't have too much to update but just thought I'd say hello.

We're braving all this weird weather going on right now--rain, hail, tornadoes. People just don't know what to do when stuff falls from the sky here. So Violet and I have been exploring all the many indoor activities our area has to offer. There's a really cool hands-on Noah's Ark exhibit for kids that she absolutely loves, and we've been going to the aquarium a lot, although I think she will forever prefer SeaWorld to just fish in a glass box now. But who can blame her?

I'm just hitting week 32 of my pregnancy and all is well. Life is starting to get a little uncomfortable, like when I drop something on the floor I really have to decide just how important it is to pick it back up. Adding a toddler to the mix certainly makes things more interesting this time around. She was up about every hour last night with yet another cold/cough and ended up sleeping with us, which means I woke up with little girl feet in my face all night. But she does keep me moving, that's for sure. Things were a little hairy there for a while, and I'm sure that now we're in the two's, we will hit some more interesting phases. But right now is actually a lot of fun. She's able to communicate pretty well, she can "help" me around the house, and she enjoys playing on her own or can even sit and do an art project by herself for periods of time. Plus, all the funny things she says are pretty entertaining. Like when I thought I locked my keys in the house the other day and uttered a somewhat choice word under my breath over and over until I found them. Later that same day, I heard her playing in her room, singing a little song that included that same choice word sung over and over to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

Adam's gone through a couple more moves at work and has yet another new boss. But he seems to be liking work a lot more now, which is really a blessing. In general, we're liking life in LA a lot more--having a great network of friends has a lot to do with that. Although, we just found out about half of those friends are going to be moving in the next year. No one can afford to live here on one salary -- well, no one normal anyway.

We're kind of car shopping right now--we've had one car for quite a while now but LA is just not the kind of place that makes it easy to do that. Plus, the car we have is getting old and I'm a little freaked out at getting stranded in Compton with a toddler and a baby. Not that I frequently drive through Compton, but you know.

I've been meaning to take some belly pics to show off but haven't managed to do it yet. Hopefully we'll get around to it before he comes.

All right, Dora's over so it's time for naps. Yay! Love you girls!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Getting the ball rolling

Ok, so this blog has been on the pitiful side lately. I know you all have a lot going on, so let's get blogging so we can all hear about it:)

Things with us are going well. Nathan and I just got back from a cruise to the southern Caribbean, which was fabulous. Katie stayed with Nathan's parents since my family went as well. So it was nice bonding time for them since we don't see them as often as we'd like. I'll admit it was pretty nervewracking for the first couple days for me leaving her and being practically out of the country. But she did great and we had a great time. I figure it was most likely out last "adult" vacation for like decades, since soon they will all be about Disney and camping and other such kid-related activities. It was nice, but I think I'm also ready for the kid vacations now too, since I got that out of my system. Although I must admit, the Caribbean has been calling me back all week since I've been home.

Not too much else going on here. Katie's keeping me busy all the time. She just LOVES her playdates with Seth and Lilah (she doesn't pay too much attention to Isaac just yet;). If I even mention Julie's name in passing, all I hear is "Yiyah, Yiyah!" Translation: "Lilah, Lilah!" I must admit, it's quite nice having a fellow Sapphire close by to hang out with. Especially since we're both trapped home raising kids, I mean enjoying the fulfillment of being stay-home moms:). Ok well, that's about it for us. Hope to hear from you all soon.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

drum roll please.....

The dates for the next Sapphires Reunion 2010 is......... August 20-22, 2010.  I chose the 3rd weekend of the month to just give a little extra time for babies to be born and mommies to heal and recoup. Jen mentioned a wedding the weekend of the 14th and that you probably won't make it regardless... But, I did it later in August just on a hope that you might be up for it. =) And for Jamie and Kim as well, that gives you a little more time to get your new routines figured out. So, unless anyone has a specific objection, we'll choose the 3rd weekend of August. Hope this works. And if not, we still have a little time to change it if someone has date conflict or major preference. Also, please remember that the dates are loose in that you can come in whenever you want and stay as long as you want and use my parents' house as an overflow home base hangout. I will come in as early as people want to hang and will stay as late as people want to hang out. Also if you're flying, the Dayton Airport is closest for pickup anytime before Friday afternoon and Cincinnati would be closest during the actual weekend. Columbus would be ok too if before Friday. And if anyone is flying in especially early and can leave a little later, feel free to fly into Detroit and ride down with me or Liz. =) Love you girls!

Monday, December 28, 2009

Survey

Hey girls! Sorry to bombard you all with tons of reunion stuff. But, I have had a little extra time today to start working on things and thought I'd get started. Please just take a minute to fill out the attached survey when you get a second so I can kind of start making some plans for the summer. Also, if you have already talked to me about not being able to attend this year, then don't worry about it. Maybe just fill it out if there's a chance you'll make it just in case or just answer the first Q that tells me you won't be able to make it for sure. I emailed it to you all too just to make sure nobody misses it.


Sapphires Reunion 2010, Survey #1

Reunion

Hey girls! Hope you all had a great Christmas! It's time to start making some plans for the reunion this summer. We do have a few babies being born in the Spring and early summer. So, I was thinking we should focus our date options on the August month to make it more feasible for some of the new mommies to make it with their babies if they want. I know we have some teachers in the group and Steph is in school and I'm not sure about school start dates. My school aged kids will be starting in September this year. So, basically... I need some feedback. Any strong opinions one way or the other about some specific weekends in August or maybe the last weekend of July? Let me know girls and I'll get on it! Love ya'll!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hey girls!

Happy Thanksgiving!


I thought I would start the sharing about what I am thankful for this year. First of all the thing I am most thankful for is the heartbeat of our baby! We are 13 weeks pregnant. :) After 3 long years of trying and a few mis-haps we have heard the heartbeat of our baby 3 times now.


I began to suspect something was up in mid-September. When I missed my cycle it took me another 5 days before I could even get enough courage to take a prego test. I told Nick by waking him up and giving him a Father's Day card that I had forgotten to give him. It took him a minute or two to put it all together.


I have had such a deep peace about this pregnancy that I didn't feel like I need to tell anyone for a long time. Nick had to convince me to tell my mom. We didn't start telling other family until we heard the first heart beat at 6 weeks.


As we went in for our first ultra-sound we were very guarded. That is where we found out there was no baby last time. I laid there with my eyes closed for most of the ultra-sound. When the tech said she could see a heart beat I could barely look. She turned the sound on and the sound was incredible!

We got to see the baby again about 10 days later at our second appointment. Our doctor is great about reassuring me at ever step. We heard the heart beat again last week at our 12 week appointment. :)

I'm beginning to get more and more excited that it is really going to happen this time. My stomach is beginning to show, only to me, but its growing. :)

So... we are extremely thankful this Thanksgiving! I pray that you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving. We are praying for you all and look forward to an update from you all soon.

Monday, November 02, 2009

news

Hay ladies, I'm pregnant! 7 weeks along. we had a scare last week and thought i had miscarried again. But we were able to get blood work, which was normal, and an ultasound where we got to see the heartbeat. So I'm due in June, which unfortunately means i won't be able to attend the Sapphire reunion next summer.
We had Megumi's first birthday party yesterday and had so much fun! She loved opening presents, and loved all her new clothes and toys. So you know, we definately have a girly girl on our hands. She loves clothes and shoes, purses, and baby dolls. Gramma Ekle got her a little purse and put some fake money in it. Her favorite thing now is to take all the money out and put it back in again.
And with the first birthday party came cake! We had cupcakes and she devoured the whole cupcake. First she poked the cupcake, and held up her finger to Chris for him to try it first (hilarious!). Then when he survived, she dug in and ate the rest without thinking twice. Precious memories!
love and miss you all!
Jen

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Next reunion

Hey girls! Since Jen mentioned it... I might as well get started on gathering some info about the next reunion. The plan right now is that it's my turn and I'm thinking we'll probably do Cincinnati, OH because there is quite a lot to do there and all in a very tight vicinty so we wouldn't need to travel much once we're there. It's also fairly economical and kid-friendly if need be. Also, my family lives 1.5 hours north. So we can kind of use my parents' house as a home base for anyone who wants to come in a little early or stay a little later. We can do some cookouts and hottubbing there and just relax. It would be VERY kid friendly is people have kids and just want some extra chill time with each other. I am planning to dump my kiddos with my mom, but like Kim said, we might have some childcare options for those who need to bring children. If there are children coming I was thinking we could look at getting a couple adjoining hotel rooms and putting babies/mommies in one or two rooms and then the non-baby ladies in another adjoining room so that kids can go to sleep and mom's can join the group with baby monitors easily. Also most of the daytime activities that I was thinking about would be fairly kid friendly. I was thinking King's Island, the Newport Aquarium/shopping area, maybe a Red's game, a riverboat cruise, etc.... So those are some of the things we'll need to vote on. Also, we need to get some dates kind of figured out. So maybe if everyone wants to email me the time frames that would work best for them and then I will gather some more specific dates that we can all vote one. I was thinking anytime from June through August... Miss you guys!

Friday, October 09, 2009

scoop

what's the scoop with the next reunion? i don't remember anything we talked about at the last reunion regarding the next reunion... i remember that we talked about it, but that's it! I'm missing you all!
Jen

Monday, September 21, 2009

It's about time...

I thought I would post an update to my last post... so here it goes...

First of all, we decided not to get the dog, but not for the reasons that Julie posted. I really do want to get a dog, but I don't think that it's the right time. AND I don't think that a golden retriever is the right breed for Aaron and I. We are looking for a more relaxed/chill dog like an english bulldog. GR are really nice, but are also very social and with us both working full time we would not be home enough to make it happy. Also, financially it is best that we don't add expenses right now. Hopefully sometime in the near future we will be in a better position to have a dog and treat it right.

On the job front, I decided not to go for the manager's position. It felt a bit overwhelming to me and I'm really not trying to add stress to my life right now. The money would have been great, but when it came down to it, that would have been the only reason I would have taken the job. As it turns out, it looks like I will be doing more baking for Stoltzfus Meats and will hopefully be able to stay full time there, which I'm really excited about. I'm also going to start working on putting a business plan together for my own bakery, just in case an opportunity would arise for me to jump on that. I do still feel a bit unsettled in where things will all land, so please pray that the pieces would fall into line with what God has in store for me.

Now for the somewhat disappointing news... The ultrasound I got at the end of August showed an ovarian cyst, which sounds really bad, but is ultimately (hopefully) not that big of a deal. It should clear up in one or two cycles, so I'm believing that is the case. The good new is that I did end up getting my period that following week, which made a huge difference in how I felt. What a relief... let me tell you! So yea, I go back for another ultrasound in a month or two and I'm looking forward to a good report. Please pray if you think about it.

So yea... I guess that about sums it up. Keep the posts coming. I miss you girls, especially those I did not get to see in Michigan.

Love to all.
Ang.

Friday, September 18, 2009

enjoyment

hey ladies,
first to update you on Carrie... she is doing good. She is in a regular room, started physical therapy, sits up and talks to everyone, and gets out of bed to go to the bathroom. All a miracle!! Praise the LORD!

I am fully, entirely, and wholly enjoying the phase Megumi is in right now. It's the crawling phase... which means exploring! I've baby proofed the house so that the things she can get into are totally safe, and i just sit back and watch her learn new things... like how to remove all of the diapers from their bins, playing with ALL the tupperware and climbing into the cupboard, taking all the books off her shelves, same with DVD's, and playing in the dog's water bowl. She likes to "help" me fold laundry too... which just means she takes the freshly folded clothes out of the bin i just put them in :) And all the while she does any of this, she talks... as if she's sorting the items into piles and telling them where they belong. I love this little peanut!

miss you all!

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Carrie

ok, ok, so Jamie, Steph, and I are jealous that the 4 of you got to get together... but we are glad you were able to have a mini reunion. Hope you had fun ladies!

So i just got a call from my parents, who arrived in Michigan last night. As of 3 AM, Carrie is breathing on her own. She can move all 4 limbs when they lower sedation and talk to her. The CAT scan this morning of her head is completely normal!!!! Please keep praying ladies, God is answering our prayers. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We also learned more about the accident. Carrie was merging onto the interstate and hit the guard rail. The car jumped the rail and tumbled down a 25 foot enbankment. They had to cut her out of the vehicle. Their car just about tore in two, separating the front and back seats.

Megumi is doing great, crawling and getting into everything. This morning she tore apart a newspaper and was covered in black ink. But she loved every minute of it, so it was worth the clean up. We are driving home from Minneapolis tonight after being here for the weekend, and for Chris' board meetings yesterday and today. I'm hoping to stay home for a few months now and not do any more traveling for a while. Miss you all! Jen

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

hehehehe....











Monday, August 10, 2009

The latest from Cali

Hi girls! So I thought I'd go ahead and add our little update to the mix as well. And by little, I mean around the size of a large grape. Yep, we're going to have another baby. I'm about nine weeks along and having morning sickness like you wouldn't believe. But thankfully, there are drugs for that. :)

We had the first ultrasound last week and everything looked great. They're putting my due date at March 25, which you may remember, is exactly three months after Violet's due date (for those of you who like that six-months-to-the-day stuff).

Can't believe we're going to do this all over again! But here we go...

Love you girls!