5 years, baby!

Today is our 5 year anniversary. And, thankfully, we actually get to spend it together. Even though it will be a flooded adventure with my parents and our son. Not exactly romantic, but it beats all the times we've been apart on our anniversary.

Anniversary #1: Me, 6 days overdue with Tyler. We saw a movie and ate out. It's all I could handle. LOL.

Anniversary #2: Al in training in VA.

Anniversary #3: Al deployed that day to Iraq

Anniversary #4: He was actually home, and deployed 3 days later! We didn't have a sitter, but at least we were together

Anniversary #5: Together in Disney. Yeah!

I love you baby! Here's to many more years together!

Time to say goodbye

Fay, while your stay has been interesting, it's time for you to go.

We had no school on Tuesday, which I noted was rain-free. Now today, 3 days later, it's raining heavier than ever, with some high winds. You've made your presence known, and it's time to say goodbye.

See, my baby turns 4 on Sunday. And we have reservations to be in Disney this weekend. Reservations means we've paid money in the hopes of enjoying some time there. Nowhere in my plan was a mention of your name. My parents are here, plans have been set, and darn it, we're ready for fun. So I don't appreciate logging onto weather.com and find out that Orlando is STILL under a tropical storm watch and flood warning. Not appreciated. Not at all.

Time to say goodbye, Fay. Don't ruin this for my baby!

5 more weeks!

As some of you know, I had to go in for an ultrasound yesterday. Last week at my OB appointment, there was some minimal concern about my lack of weight gain, so they decided to schedule an ultrasound, just to be "proactive". Well, apparently the concerns were unwarranted, because everything looked good at my ultrasound yesterday! The baby is apparently weighing 5lbs, and I measured at 33w5d (being that I was 33w6d, that's only a day off!). The amniotic fluid is sufficient, and we (my mom and I) even got to see the baby do some "practice breathing", which was pretty cool!

As of today, I'm exactly 34 weeks along. I have a scheduled c-section at 39 weeks, which means I've got exactly 5 weeks to go! 35 days!!!! I can hardly believe it.

Perhaps we should really settle on a name. I don't think "baby bean" would be appropriate on a birth certificate!

Another "note to self"

Planning in advance isn't always the best option.

Or, as I say often, Florida heat sucks.

As most of you know, we were due to be hit by Tropical Storm Fay, which was reportedly going to be considered a hurricane by the time it made landfall right near us. As a dutiful Florida resident, we had stocked a hurricane evacuation kit over 2 years ago when we spent our first summer here (restocking it last year as well). We had all the necessities packed into a large Rubbermaid tote in our garage: jugs of water, cans of fruit/veggies, toilet paper, first aid supplies, some medications, flashlights and extra batteries, compass (not sure this would help me out, but it was on "the list" so we had one), ponchos, etc.

Well, yesterday I dropped Tyler off at preschool and came home to relax. Checked the weather and it wasn't looking good for us. I secretly laughed at all the people I knew were frantically running through Walmart and the grocery stores, trying to get prepared. Me, I knew I had my kit and all was good.

Well, something made me decide to go out in the garage and check on the kit. Apparently the water jugs had sprung leaks (most likely due to the heat) and therefore leaked all in the container which then turned essentially all of our supplies into mold. Likely toxic mold which may kill me. Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit, but don't let this happen to you!

So off to Walmart I went, along with the rest of Florida. Luckily it wasn't too bad, I think because most people were working. My dear father stayed home, armed with gloves and bleach, and tried to battle the evil mold situation.

Luckily for us, we didn't end up needing a single supply. Fay turned course and we were spared. Despite school being closed, we only ended up with some wind and occasional rain. We might still have some heavy wind and rain ahead of us, but I think we've been spared from the majority of the storm. Phew.

So, for now, I'm stocked again. This time though, I'm just printing out a magnetic list to hang to the fridge. This list will contain all I need to pack to head out in an emergency. That way I can make sure to keep these things stocked. But stocked within the air conditioned confines of my home. Lesson learned.

First Day!

Well, we did have some first day jitters before Tyler's big day at VPK today. However, they were from me, not from him! LOL. I couldn't get to sleep until after 1:00 and then couldn't get back to sleep after Al's alarm clock went off at 5:30.

Tyler woke up as happy as a clam. He once mentioned that he didn't want to go to preschool, but then quickly changed his tune. He happily ate breakfast, got dressed, and even eagerly put on his non-Croc footwear! And we were out the door!

He skipped into school without a care in the world, and quickly joined the other kids for some coloring. He did get a little hesitant when it was time for us to go, but never shed a tear and happily said goodbye. I even peeked back through the window, and sure enough he was busy in his activity and not at all crying! Way to go, Tyler!

At pick-up time he was happily playing on the playground. The teacher said he did great, but he got upset when it was time to transition to a different room. She said quite a few other children got upset as well, so maybe he just got caught up in the moment. She said he recovered quickly though, and I was happy to see that he was not one of the kids that was still crying.

We told him he could pick a restaurant for a celebratory lunch. He picked Wendy's, so we ate while he happily told us about his day. It appears that he was incredibly pleased, well, except for the disappointment over the lack of snack time. He is anxious and ready to go back tomorrow! Well, tomorrow IF they hold school. Hurricane Fay may have other plans for us!

Stay Away Fay!

Yep, now under a Hurricane Watch. Yipee.
The following, taken from the news:

"The forecast track for the storm shifted Sunday evening to take Fay over the Gulf of Mexico and into Pinellas County, and just west of Tampa, on Tuesday evening, with winds near 85 mph and close enough to possibly bring hurricane-force gales to the coast.

The projected path exposes the Tampa Bay area to a more serious storm surge threat than if the storm had crawled up the peninsula east of Tampa, as earlier forecasts had predicted.

The new track puts the Tampa Bay area on the eastern side of the storm, where the winds are strongest and extend farthest from the center."

Looks like fun, huh?

Did I mention that Al is leaving on Monday morning for Ft. Lauderdale? By vehicle. Gotta love the military.

Don't even get me started about all the hype about the increased likelihood of going into labor during hurricanes and tropical storms.

So, baby bean, please stay put. Fay, please stay away!

Birthday Boy!

Okay, it's not his actual birthday yet (not for another week) but we had to celebrate Tyler's birthday on Saturday. In reality it was a VERY last minute party. We are celebrating Tyler's birthday weekend in Disney, so we weren't going to do a "party" in addition to that but he started asking questions about his birthday party...so I felt guilty. So then I had planned on doing something AFTER his birthday, but incredibly-clueless me, on WEDNESDAY, realized I HAD to have the party on Saturday. My parents are here now, and they are now sending Al away tomorrow until Thursday, so if we didn't have the party this weekend the party would have to be held without his grandparents or without his father on a different date. Neither sounded like a good option. And having the party tonight (Sunday) wouldn't have been good either, with the start of school for everyone tomorrow.

Anyway, now that I've covered that boring back story, I will share that this neglectful mother contacted the guests on Thursday and managed to order Tyler's apparent dream cake (involving dinosaurs and a volcano) and managed to pull something together in time. All in all, I think I managed to make him quite happy, although apparently I must post another note to myself next year that all parties apparently must include carrots and dip. Hmm. I must say, if that was his only complaint, I guess we did fairly well.

I was in a quandary as to whom to invite, being that it was SOOOOO last minute, and being that our house is so small (with a bad weather forecast predicted), I was afraid to invite too many people anyway. So it ended up being just myself and Al, my parents, my neighbor and her son, his little friend Dionna and her new housemate (I won't get into that), and his friend Gabriella and her parents. But it was just perfect. Tyler got to play with his friends, eat pizza, gobble up some obnoxiously colorful cake, open presents, and then do some more playing. It was all topped off with providing gift bags to our guests, which, according to Tyler, was a huge highlight of the party.
Tyler got some awesome gifts, so we've been busy around here playing!