Kodiak Koehler's

Potty Trained!

2009-10-31T11:54:00.005-08:00

Miss Donavyn is officially potty trained! She's even waking up in the middle of the night to sit on the potty or upset b/c she's pee peed in her pull up. She's doing great.

Anyway...we're SO proud of her and she loves hearing that too. I believe we have figured out her love language - words of affirmation with a close second of physical touch. We tried doing the M&M's and stickers, but she didn't really care, just wanted us to give her a big hug and tell her how proud we are of her. Gabriel likes to help her celebrate too.

She is so skinny though that panties are just saggy on her. I guess I'll be putting the underwear pattern I bought to good use. Just have to order fabric now.

Oh, and she just HAS to read her books while on the potty. She can stay in there forever just sitting on her potty and reading. She gets that from her daddy. *snort*

Here are some extra videos. The first is Gabriel and Zach at dinner. Don't mind Zach's hair....he had issues with the clippers, so I had to fix it after the kids went to bed.

The second is of Donavyn eating her soup...the girl LOVES her soup. You'll love the end.

Some Sweets and Some Funnies

2009-10-12T22:42:00.004-08:00

*Picture info at bottom of blog*

The kids were SO good today (until bedtime, but we won't talk about how they threw fits until they fell asleep). Even though they both woke up at 6 a.m. Here are some of the things that happened:

They wanted to play piano and I forgot that the cover was down. They must have been trying to lift it up when Gabriel's finger got smooshed. I don't think it got slammed, just the pressure of the lid on his finger. He starts crying so I go in there, pick him up (lifting the lid up so Donavyn can play and won't get hurt), go sit on the couch and he just cries into my shoulder for a while. He then says, "huwt" and shows me his finger. I kiss it and ask if it's all better and he says, "no" (very emphatically). This continues for a while, with me alternating between comforting and trying to make him laugh.

Meanwhile, Donavyn is playing the piano and singing "tinkle, tinkle dar, woner woner are" taking intermittent breaks to applaud and cheer for herself. After she tires of this, she comes into the living room and tries to climb up in my lap with Gabriel....or so I think. She IS climbing up, but NOT to get to me. She wraps her arms around her brother and says, "Wub ew bery mush, Babwiel. All be'er? Finger hut. I sowy, Babwiel. Wub ew". I was SHOCKED. Yes, ALL of that came out of my barely two year old's mouth at once. She was just hugging on him and patting his back and face the whole time she was talking to him. When she asked about his finger she held his hand and looked at it. SO cute.

I learned today that Gabriel not only can recognize numbers, but he KNOWS the numbers 1 and 2. He brought two signing flash cards to me with frogs on them and said, "two fwogs. weebit weebit." I thought it was a fluke until I experimented with him tonight and I had four cars and asked him how many there were. He took two away and put them behind his back then laughed and said, "two cars". I had no idea kids learned things like that this early.

They both now enjoy reading. Donavyn has loved books forever, but Gabriel has just started liking them in the past week or so. I could read to them all day and they wouldn't get bored, I think. He has his favorite now that he knows the entire book by heart. It's called Peek A Who? He turns the pages and "reads" the book and gets most of it right. His favorite page is the peek a BOO page b/c it has a ghost and he likes being scared lately.

Speaking of enjoying being scared, the kids try to scare each other all day. They can be doing something together or separate and they will just say "BOO" while jerking their arms toward the other one - or me - and they just giggle and say, "scare me".

Donavyn has taken to saying "catch 'er" when she wants to be held. Why, you ask? Well, b/c she likes to stand at the top of the stairs and when we are a few steps below, she will just fall forward, stiff as a board and we'll catch her to bring her downstairs. She is so trusting, it's almost scary.

They also ask for their "bitebabins" a few hundred times a day. Gotta love those Flinstones, huh?

There were some others I can't remember right now, but I'm sure that this is more than enough. Sorry for those of you that hate to read baby talk, but since my family doesn't get to hear them talk, this is the best way for them to know (somewhat) what they sound like.

I spoke with Zach tonight and apparently he has some great pictures from his deployment. I'll make him do a blog when he gets home. Which will be soon...YAY! I hate when he's gone. I really do.

*The picture at the top is one of my favorites from this spring while we were visiting my family. This was Easter day and we had JUST finished taking family pictures. They snuck into the back yard and climbed into their mini pool fully clothed. It was TOO cute!

EDIT TO ADD: Can you believe that I actually made another post already? I think it was my way of focusing on the good parts of the day since the ending wasn't so good. Ahh, the joys of two two-year-olds.

Ok, so here's my quarterly post

2009-10-08T06:25:00.007-08:00

Sorry I've been so bad about updating. Almost everyone is on Facebook, so I just usually do updates there, but I've been meaning to do this. Hopefully I'll be better. This will just be a quick recap of our summer and early fall.Back in June, we all went to San Diego for a few days. Zach was invited by the Discovery Channel to be interviewed for "After the Catch" - the post season recap with the captains of the "Deadliest Catch" vessels. We decided that the kids and I would go to, since we had the miles and the hotel would be paid for. We had a blast. If you want to see pics from our trip, HERE is a link to the ones on my FB. Ben Bailey was the host this year and it turns out he and Zach look a lot alike. Kinda crazy. See?

On July 1, Zach pinned on 0-4. Melissa was nice enough to watch the kids for me, so I could go pin him on. We had the wetting down (military tradition for promotions) in September. We went in with the Dorval's and Becca's XO for it. Just a small bbq in the cul de sac.

On July 5, my dad called to let me know my grandma had passed away. Zach was deployed at the time and had only left days before, so I decided to take the kids and head home...again. I must really like these cross country flights with two kids by myself, huh? Yeah...notsomuch. But I was glad I could be with my family. I miss them very much and this last year in Kodiak is proving to be the most difficult in terms of missing them. I'm so thankful that we got to go home in the Spring and that Grandma got to meet the kids. She is missed, but I know she is having a great time square dancing with Papa in Heaven.

In August we celebrated our 7th anniversary. I love him more today, than I did yesterday and not as much as I will tomorrow. We went out to Monashka Bay (aka white sands beach) for a picnic, but there were dead fish EVERYWHERE and it reeked. I think that was then. If it wasn't that time, there was another time shortly after that. Hmm...I do know that I ended up getting sick and we came home two hours before we told the sitter we would be. Fun stuff. I'm just glad I didn't decide I wanted to climb a mountain again for our anniversary, then gotten sick.

Zach also went to Cordova (aka "Man Camp") in August. He brought home a LOT of fish. He also had a cool case. He had to drop some researchers off on a beach where a whaled had washed up. I thought this was a great pic.

September was fun. Zach came home and took a week off of work, worked for a week, then took the rest of the month off. It was FABulous! The first week off, we had a nice dinner out (to make up for our failed anniversary date). We mostly just worked on the house though. We WILL be selling it this Spring, ya know. Bittersweet. Oh, but we DID go on a hike with the Griffin's. That was fun! I tried to get a pic of the boys too, but they were all running around too much, so they were blurry. Donavyn just loves Peach to pieces. I love the way she looks up to her.

On the 23rd, Nana and Gramps came to visit. That also happened to be the day that Gabriel turned 2 1/2. ACK! You know what that means, too though, right? Donavyn turned TWO on the 25th. I can't believe I have two 2 year olds. They are growing up so fast. They are best friends and play together so well...most of the time. They really are sweet.

We had a small birthday party for the little princess with a few friends. It was really nice. We even got to Skype with Grandma and Papaw and Aunt Becca. Gabriel likes Donavyn's gifts too. They love to play momma and daddy.

That's about it really. So much for a quick recap, but I needed as much time by "myself" as possible this morning. Gabriel came and woke me up at 4:30 am and he is NOT a good bed buddy. He's a kicker and likes to be right on top of me. SO, needless to say, I haven't slept since then. Let's hope they nap today...they didn't yesterday.

Enjoy this video of Donavyn singing to her dolly. She is such a good momma. I love how she pats her back. This made me cry. We were driving to the hike with the Griffin's when this was filmed. I believe it was Sept 20.
Pray for us. Zach is gone for x days (can't really say, but it's not for too long), so I'm by myself with the kids and I'm exhuasted. And we are awaiting orders, but we won't have them until Feb/Mar, so don't bother asking, we don't know. Pray that the detailer is good to us and that God guides her hands to write our number one choice (if that be His will).

Happy Father's Day!!!

2009-06-21T07:52:00.002-08:00

Just wanted to take a moment to say Happy Father's Day to all the father's out there. Especially the 3 extra special ones in my life.

First, my dad. Thank you for always being there and for supporting me. I know I didn't always make that easy, but even when you didn't agree, you still let me know that you love and support me. That means a lot. I remember running up to you when you would come home from work and walking backwards on your feet as you went from the kitchen to the den and sitting in your lap (probably driving you crazy) while you read the paper and watched the news - at the same time. I love you, Dad!

Second, Pops. Zach isn't here to share any of his feelings or thoughts, but I know that he respects you more than anyone in the world. You always worked hard to provide for your family. He often talks about the big camping trip you did and he hopes to re-create that with our kids one day. Thank you for raising him (along with OM - other mother for those that are curious) to treat people with gentleness and kindness. Love ya, Pops!

Finally, the love of my life, the holder to the key to my heart, and wonderful father to our children. Zach, you are amazing. You are right in the thick of it with me. Not all women can say that, but I can. You are right there beside me changing diapers, bathing kids, disciplining when necessary, and loving and playing with the kids. Thank you for being my rock. I wish you were home today so that we could take care of you. You spend so much time taking care of the rest of us that you don't get pampered. We'll make it up to you. We love you very much and I am SO blessed that God chose you to live life with me and to raise kids up in Him. I could go on, but I'll stop.

I'm ba-a-ack!

2009-04-19T07:38:00.002-08:00

I'm home now (as of about 11:30 last night). The flights were fairly uneventful. As usual, people stereotyped me and the kids b/c I was alone with two toddlers and kept rolling eyes and making snide comments, but my kids were troopers and acted better than some of the adults on the plane. Minneapolis to Anchorage was the hardest and I was met with several REALLY rude people, but it worked out better for us, as it got us a row to ourselves. YIPPEE!

The kids were SO excited to pull into the garage last night. Donavyn was pretty much jumping up and down in her carseat and they both were laughing. It was so nice to see them that happy. I let them play with their "new" (to them again, anyway) toys for a while and they went to bed around midnight. I was out by about 12:15 myself, but since one of our bags didn't make it home yet - "should" get here this morning - I didn't have the complete setup for the baby monitor, so I set the alarm for 6:30 thinking the boy may wake up early. It's now almost 8 and they are still asleep. I on the other hand have taken a shower, fixed my hair, moisturized, cleaned half of the bathroom, put away dishes and started going through mail.

I'll update with pictures soon. Zach has a lot of them on his computer too, so it may be a while since he is still in Mobile for a week of training. I'm going to see if my babysitter can come and watch the kids 2-3 days this week so I can just get some space. I haven't had much time alone in a month and a half, so it is desperately needed.

We had a GREAT time in FL and TN with my family. I miss them already. Love you all!

Told ya!

2009-02-28T16:33:00.002-09:00

See? I told you I'd be better. The kids are SO funny. They love to sing and play the piano. We may have our own house band one day.

Donavyn likes to play with the box that is supposed to hold Gabriel's Thomas trains and track. She just dumps it and either climbs in or, as you can see here, put it on her head and pretend she's a space cadet. Ok, so that's what WE say she's doing anyway.

Gabriel also REALLY enjoys feeding his sister. It's really sweet. He will take his own snack and feed it to her and she will sometimes to do the same to him. I love that he takes care of her. Granted, he also likes to steal her lovies out of her hands and run off with them, but he is a big brother afterall and he does have brotherly duties to fulfill. He is pretty good about giving them back to her though when she gets REALLY cranky. She just chases him squealing while he taunts her. It takes all I have to not laugh when she gets upset. Alas, I have no pictures of this part, but I do have a picture of him feeding her yogos the other night.

Love you all! Only 10 days until the kids and I leave for Florida! YAY! I cannot WAIT to see everyone! I love and miss you all so much! And I can't wait until my kids can join the kid stack.

Check it out

2009-02-20T16:43:00.002-09:00

Ok, two things.

1. We got our paper orders today. We are staying in Kodiak for one more year. Next year we have to do this all over again, so no, we won't know where we are moving until about this time next year. We are going to be back in the lower 48 in 2010 though, so there is that.

2. I created a new blog today. God has really led my heart to do this and I'm finally listening. It just so happens that I chose my 29th birthday to do that. So happy birthday me. Thanks mom and dad for raising me! I love you! Enjoy and let me know what you think! I am the clay.

A New Start

2009-02-20T00:19:00.003-09:00

The past month or so I've really tried to upload pictures and make some update posts, but every time I sit down to do it, I just CAN'T! I've been trying to figure out why exactly it's been so hard and I think I've come to the realization that I just don't like to live in the past. I know it's not really living in the past, but I prefer to post new pics and things as they happen, not two months later. I apologize to my family for not keeping up with this better, and I am going to do my best to start doing that now.

With that realization about not living in the past also came the realization that I don't particularly live in the present either. I tend to focus on (many would say worry about) the future. I'm not exactly sure when these truths hit me smack upside the head, but they have. The past few days I've been trying to focus on the present and enjoying things the way they are now. It's important to take the lessons from our past and our hopes and dreams for the future to work on today.

God has really worked heavily on my heart the past year on one thing in particular. Not long after we brought Gabriel home, I was up in middle of the night rocking one of the kids back to sleep. At that time, we had to leave the radio on all night for the kids or they would wake up every half hour or so. We left it on K-Love and there happened to be a segment about letting your "yes be yes". For some reason, it struck a chord and for the past year or so, I've been focusing on letting my yes be yes.

It hasn't been easy and I have failed in my efforts in several areas, but I feel that GOD has truly encouraged and given me the time to focus on decisions before making them. The times I do NOT heed His guidance to truly think things through, I have regretted my decision every time.

Why I'm sharing this, I have NO idea. Perhaps it's because I haven't let my yes be yes regarding my blogging (i.e. "I'll get another blog up this week", and here we are 6 weeks later).

SO, with that said, I hope these videos and pictures that I took today will suffice. For the family that I will soon see (YAY for visiting FL next month!) you can see all the pictures from the past year or so while I'm there, promise.

Oh, and please pray for me as I take a while to expand my focus to include living in the moment, while learning from the past and building towards a future. I think this is a huge struggle for me.

Ok, without further ado, here are your pictures and videos.

Here Miss Donavyn is playing on the "motorcycle" Grandma and Pawpaw gave Gabriel for Christmas. It plays music (which you can hear in the video). She had SO much fun on this today.

The next picture is of Gabriel, happy as a clam to be flipped upside down. We cut his hair the other day b/c it was long enough to put in a pony tail and was driving him crazy (not to mention me). And yes, I did say "we". Zach used his 1" clippers, then I used scissors to trim it up. It's not perfect, but he looks so cute. He's such a big boy now!

This last video is of the kids playing with the bubbles that Nana and Papa sent for Valentine's Day. We got them a couple days ago and they play with them for 15 minutes before moving on. You are lucky I'm even posting it b/c I HATE videos of myself, but the kids are just too cute in it, that I know you all will love it.

OH! One more thing! Gabriel has FINALLY starting making more sounds and can now say "momma", "dada", "nana", and make the "ba" sound. I am convinced that he said "bubble" more than once today. And my mom heard it too, so I can't be imagining it. Donavyn says, "momma", "daddy", "ni-ni", "nana", the "ga" sound, "baby", "hi", "hedo" (hello), "hey" (can you tell she is social?) and we're working on the "pa" sound too. I can't believe they are growing up so fast!

Sweet November

2009-01-11T08:54:00.004-09:00

Ok, so I'm REALLY behind, but I'm going to try to catch up in the next few days. I know I've said that before, but I really am this time...I promise.

Ok, so you are basically getting just pics (which is all you guys really want anyway, right?). Why does the slideshow start with a pic of Abbie and Jack you ask? Well, on Halloween, we went over to their house for a birthday party for Abbie. It was 10 years from the day she gave her life to God and what a fun time we had. BUT, I left the camera over there. I'm not sharing the pic of Jack mooning the camera...the feds may come after me for that one. What's even funnier is that I didn't even notice it until I was uploading pics to PhotoBucket for the month to make my slideshow, so I must have downloaded the pics and not looked at them right then. Too funny.

Some highlights: Seth and Katie got married...again. It was their big white dress wedding. Zach performed the ceremony again and it was fabulous. The bride was beautiful. We had our first snowfall. Kids played. Thanksgiving (Gabriel's first and Donavyn's first with food). Christmas decorating began. Enjoy! Love you all!

October

2008-12-20T22:12:00.006-09:00

In my attempt to catch everyone up, I'm going to combine October and November into one post. Not too much went on, so it shouldn't be too bad. ***Ok, so I was going to, but I found too many pics that were just too cute not to share, so this is just October. It's my blog and I'll do what I want to, so there. Pbbth.

We started Oct off by going to Anchorage for Zach's sinus surgery. His parents went with us to help take care of the kids while I took care of Zach. He healed very quickly and hasn't had any more problems. It's GREAT! He snores less and he doesn't have to blow his nose a million times a day.

He also installed the desk he and his dad built together. It looks great. We already gave one of our computer desks away, now just to figure out what to do with the other one. It was a wedding gift from Zach's parents and we really love that desk, so we are debating what to do with it.

While trying to organize the office for our new desk, we were busy shredding papers and getting rid of things and while I was out of the room for a bit, the kids decided they needed to help. Gotta love 'em.

Donavyn finally figured out how to get in and out of the chair that Auntie Melissa and Uncle Aaron got her for her birthday. She was so funny. I think she sat in that thing for an hour, just swinging her feet and jabbering. Gabriel just looked especially cute in this shot, I thought.

There was a really pretty day when Zach came home from work early and took us out to Near Island for a walk. It was a nice brisk fall day - all you FL folks probably would have frozen in your knickers though.

We ended OCT with Halloween. Unfortunately Zach had to stand duty on Halloween so he decided to go Trick or Treating with the kiddos dressed as a Coast Guard Helicopter Pilot. I think he pulled it off quite well. Gabriel went as a dragon. He looked a lot like the dragon on his wall. Everytime he sees his costume now he'll run up to it and go "rawr"!! He's so cute. Princess was our "Lil' Stinker". The costume was a bit hard for her to walk in so she was constantly falling down. Everytime she got up though it looked like she was getting ready to spray somebody!!

That should do it for October. We're still trying desperately to get everybody caught up. Some things to look forward to are obviously Thanksgiving and our trip to LA. So much fun!!

A Princess is Laid to Rest

2008-12-19T11:30:00.004-09:00

Today, Hadley Fox is being laid to rest. Many of you have been praying for the Fox family and now I ask that you all continue your prayers - only for comfort and peace. Last Friday, December 12, Hadley was called home to our Lord. She had been in so much pain and discomfort for so long that while we will miss her here on this earth with us, it's a blessing that she is now happy and pain-free. There are no tears in Heaven.

Her story touched us all. While I may have never met Hadley, or any of the Fox family, Angela opened up their story and shared their little girl with the world. They have been an inspiration. They never lost HOPE.

You are all in our prayers. We pray for peace, comfort and the faith that you will one day be together again in eternity. I have no doubt that Hadley is dancing and singing in Heaven today.

Rest in Peace, Princess Hadley. You have touched our hearts more than you could ever imagine.

Donavyn's First Birthday Party

2008-12-18T08:28:00.002-09:00

Ok, so it's been almost 3 months, but better late than never, right? We had a great time celebrating our little girl. Nana and Poppa were still here and the Griffin's came over and celebrated with us. There were supposed to be several others, but everyone else was sick, working or out of town. So, we had a family party instead. I can't believe how big she is now! Wait until you see recent pics too. And you will soon, I promise. I'm working on it today.

I made the cake - it's not pretty, but it was my first time decorating. I'm going to try to take a class before the girl who teaches it moves this summer. Hopefully we won't be moving either. We're still waiting on the detailer to tell us we get to stay (hopefully).

Oh! And I made her tutu too! Hee hee...sorry, I had to do it. Seriously though, she and Gabriel still like to play with it.

If there are any you want to print from the slideshow, you can just click on the picture and it will bring up the stillshot and you can print from that. They won't have very good clarity if you print too big though b/c I have them as smaller files on here. If you want them big, let me know and I can email them.

So without further ado, here is the slideshow from Donavyn's first birthday party.

The Hallelujah Chorus

2008-11-13T21:12:00.008-09:00

I can hear you all now. I know, I've taken forever. Here is September - except for Donavyn's birthday party. I'll do that next. It will be mostly in slide show form though.

The month started off with the Women's Retreat at Camp Woody! We had a great time! On the boat heading over with Tina (who was also pregnant at the time and didn't tell us until last week when she was 20 weeks along!) and Melissa.
Me and Abbie
Some of my girlfriends: Bronwyn, Melissa, Dena and Sarah (she was the preggo this year - about as far along as I was at last years retreat - luckily she delivered on time, so it wasn't the retreat that did it to me afterall!)
Donavyn the day I got home. She was so cute playing ball with Snowflake. She just giggles!

Peach and Melissa gave Donavyn Peachie's old dollhouse. Donavyn and Gabriel both love to play with it.

She had this Sailor dress I completely forgot about until the day before this was taken. She wore it to church and looked so cute.

Aren't they sweet?
He enjoys coloring every once in a while.
Where's Gabriel's belly? There it is! He is doing great learning his body parts. He now knows his head, knees, toes, eyes, ears, nose and of course belly.

Poppa and Gabriel became fast friends
Nana's first look at the kids. Snowflake wanted her attention more.
Nana and Donavyn checking email
Playing on the floor
These were Zach's boots when he was a baby! How cool is that?
Aww....isn't that about the cutest thing ever?
Whee! I love when Poppa flips me!
Our big one year old! I can't believe she is 1 already! Showing me where her snack is. She is too smart.
Racing cars.

Family Photo Session

2008-09-29T16:04:00.003-08:00

Ok, so to tide you all over while you await our birthday girl pictures, here are the family pictures we had made last week. We used Carol Scott again, the same one who did Donavyn's birth pictures. She didn't take time to crop/edit/touch up since she doesn't know which we'll want to order. Each pose ordered includes one hour of touch up time, so she can make my fly-aways go away (why can't she just follow me around and do this all the time?). Anyway, just click on Beth Koehler under "recent photos" and the password is beth (note that is all lowercase). Man, do we have our work cut out for us on finding our favorites to order!

Catching Up - Post 3

2008-09-28T21:32:00.004-08:00

Ok, so here's August for you. Not a lot went on really, so I didn't get many pictures. The first week, Zach was still in Cordova. Here is a pic of a view that he gets when flying there. Pretty, huh?
This is the Valdez oil terminal. The big Alaskan oil pipeline that runs from the North Slope of Alaska all the way to Valdez ends right here. This is where they pump it on to big oil tankers to be shipped out.

This is the high speed ferry. If we get to stay here for another tour the kids and I will go over to Cordova at the end of one of Zach's deployments, then we will take the ferry over to Seward to see what's there.

The most important thing of August....we celebrated our 6 year anniversary. It's funny because we are always amazed that it has been that long, but yet it feels like we have always been together. Zach likes to say that he has forgotten what life without me was like and that he hopes he never has to remember. (Cue "aww")

He asked what I wanted to do for our anniversary and I said "have a picnic on Old Woman" (remember our first experience with Old Woman?). Abbie and Jesse offered to watch the kids for us (aren't they great?), so we took off around 4 o'clock. It was nice to not have two kids hanging on our backs. We did each have backpacks though. We had to carry our food, wine and blanket up there with us afterall. Not to mention the camera and plenty of water and dessert. Oh, and we can't forget the wood we carried up to build a fire to cook our food. Zach made foil packets with salmon, veggies and lemon. And tiramisu, it has a very special meaning for us. It was FABulous! Yeah, I am the one that got the better end of the deal in our marriage. I feel so blessed to have him.

Here we are before our hike. Trust me, the pics of us after we hiked up are NOT all that great. Of me anyway. After just a quarter of the way up the mountain I was really wondering WHY I had to choose this as our date. Why couldn't I be a normal person and just go out to a nice dinner [read: Powerhouse or Chart Room]? No, I had to go on a hike up a mountain to cook my food. You know what though? After all the work, it was wonderful and something I will cherish for as long as I live. What an amazing anniversary with my husband.

Here is our dinner. Can't beat the view either.

Ok, enough gushing....for now anyway. Here the kids are standing on the heater looking outside making sure there is no mischief in the neighborhood. I'm training them well in my ways (I'm known as the neighborhood nosey Nellie). They have to take over since I'm always too busy chasing them to keep up with everyone else in the 'hood now!

The kids played with Bronwyn's tunnel while we were at her house one day and loved it. Bronwyn found one at the Salvation Army and got it for them. Wasn't that nice?

Gabriel had his first icecycle.

Gabriel likes to help Donavyn eat.

We had a date night in. While Zach was out picking up our sushi and dropping his stuff off at the base for yet another deployment, I set up the living room. Laying in bed the night before we were dreaming of our pre-kids days and how we were able to go on dates whenever we wanted and I mentioned I wanted a picnic in ______ (don't remember where I said - some exotic country), so I made one for us. I thought this was way better than a regular date night.

The kids enjoying a nice break from the rain while they could.

Donavyn learned that the music table is made for climbing, thanks to big brother.

And she turned 11 months old! Ack!

Isn't he adorable?Oh, and big news....Kodiak now has WORKING lights. Yup, they do sometimes turn red - or so they tell me. I have yet to be stopped by it though.

And finally, we went to the fair and rodeo. The kids weren't all too thrilled and it was basically a waste of money, but we did get to see horses and Becca's pictures that won 1st place (both of her people category entries got 1st and they were both of Miss D). Congrats, Becca!

Ok, I'll really try to get the next installment in b/c I have the BEST pictures of our ONE YEAR OLD GIRL! Can you even believe it? I can't. Let's just say she really is a little princess.

Help Kids Like Hadley

2008-09-17T15:19:00.002-08:00

Here is something you can do for kids with brain tumors (like Hadley). It takes a moment of your time and doesn't cost you a dime. You do have to be an American Express cardholder to vote...but, even if you aren't you can help out by spreading the word. Thank you SO much.

Project Brain Child is an iniative of the Pediatric Low Grade Glioma Association.

Members Project is a program sponsored by American Express where cardmembers submit innovative ideas for projects that make a difference. Cardmembers vote on the projects, and the winning 5 projects will receive up to $1.5 million in funding from American Express, awarded as follows:

$1,500,000 for the winning project
$500,000 for the 2nd place project
$300,000 for the 3rd place project
$100,000 each for the two remaining finalist projects
The Pediatric Low Grade Glioma Association (PLGA) submitted their project idea to American Express in August. They will use the funds to conduct a feasibility study to create a National Pediatric Genomic Brain Tumor Registry. The information collected in this registry would allow scientific researchers and medical experts to target specific genetic abnormalities with existing drugs most effectively.

The registry will embody all brain tumor types, not just low grade gliomas.

Project Brain Child was selected from over 1190 other projects to be in the top 25. As of today, September 17, they are in 9th place.

They need to be one in fifth place or better to receive an award. Votes must be cast by September 28.

Any American Express cardholder may vote. If you don't have an American Express card, you can still help by spreading the word to your friends.

Brain tumors kill more children every year than all other diseases combined. Please help this effort.

*Copied from Hadley's page which was copied from Steven's page. Let's do all we can to help these children.

And please continue to keep the Fox family in your prayers. They mean so much to so many.

Update #2!! Finally!!

2008-09-15T21:10:00.005-08:00

Hey everyone...it's my turn to update the blog, yes it's me Zach, and yes I do know how to type and use a computator. It's just been extremely busy at the Airsta but that's a different post. I was told by my lovely wife that I was to share our experience in Cordova.

Well it all started off with me having to fly the helo to Cordova and she had to ride the Herc with 2 kids. Ok...totally do-able. That is until we both get diverted to a SAR (Search & Rescue) case up in the Cook Inlet. So Beth gets to ride in the Herc as it yanks and banks and makes all the passengers airsick and I get to conduct a 6 hour search. We never found anything. I'm not totally convinced anything was there to begin with but I just get paid to drive. So long story short I finally make it to Cordova and meet up with Beth. She has already gotten the rental car and checked into our lodging. The Bear Country Lodges are by far the best place to stay in Cordova. Follow the link to check them out but we really had a great time there...right on the Eyak Lake. Gabriel and I would wake up before Beth and Donavyn and just sit in front of the picture window and look at the lake. This of course would be at around 6 am but I didn't mind. We got to see some ducks and geese and eagles.

I had duty every other day so I normally had a flight and was confined to the base during those days but Beth would bring the kids out and we would play and have some dinner. When I was off duty though we were gone. We drove down the road to see Child's Glacier. When we pulled up there was a big "reserved" sign and a TON of people having a BBQ. We thought it was some sort of private party so we parked in one of the outer parking lots and ate our picnic lunch and watched the glacier. It was SO active! We must have seen at least 6 calvings and heard about a dozen more!! Back to the people, we come to find out after we've been in the car for a while that it's Cordova's annual city picnic and everyone's invited!!! So we walk around a bit more but it was raining pretty steady that day so we didn't stay terribly long. We did get some awesome pictures of the kids with the glacier in the background. I'm really looking forward to looking at them again in the future when they are able to appreciate them more.

It all kinds of runs together since it happened a while a go so my times might be off but one day we went and hiked Haystack Trail. It's a very well maintained trail and the kids loved it. They would squeel and scream just to hear their echo. Beth and I joked when we saw another couple walking with Bear Bells that we didn't need those because our kids scared off all the bears for miles around.

I got to take Beth our hiking on a glacier, yes you heard me right I took her out to walk around on top of an actual glacier. It was a pretty tough hike with lots of hills to get to where you could actually get to the ice but we did it!! The down side is we tromped through a bunch of active Cottonwood and Beth lost her voice because of it. (At least that's what the lady at the health food store said).

Not all of our adventures involved hiking and being outdoors. Going to breakfast was an adventure in itself one morning. We asked around where the best place for breakfast was and she said "Well if you want atmosphere go to the Orca Cafe but if you want really good breakfast go to the Cordova Hotel". We wanted good breakfast so we braved the Cordova Hotel. It's really the Cordova Hotel and Bar and we had to walk through this metal door with broken glass in it and down a bare hallway with a single uncovered flourescent light and plywood on the floor. Then around the corner to another bare door with a paper sign on it that said "OPEN". I thought I would need a tetnus shot just walking into the place but the people were right it was really good breakfast!!

After the week was over I put Beth back onto the Herc. She'll never get on a Herc without me again. This time her box lunch that I requested was eaten by somebody else before they ever started engines and we didn't have time to get anything else to eat. One of the pilots heard about this though and made everyone give something out of their box lunches so Beth and the kids could have something to eat. I guess not all Herc drivers are bad-guys.

Then they had to go to Anchorage to pick up the Air Force Band so they could play during CG Day in Kodiak. It was only supposed to be a stop, pick up and go but they ended up being there for a few hours. Then when they finally made it back to Kodiak it was super foggy and they couldn't land. They had to circle for an indeterminate amount of time before they were finally able to land. And then to top everything off when Beth got the kids home our dogsitter had locked all the doors and taken the only key!!! So my neighbor who was deployed with me and rode on the Herc back with Beth came over and broke into the house so Beth could finally end the madness!!!

And that was our Cordova Adventure!!! Enjoy the pictures!!!

ps: Slide show up tomorrow cause Photobucket is down for maintenance.

***A note from Beth: Whew...okay, finally. It took me a LOT longer to do this than it should have due to problems with photobucket last night and then the html code not being right to just embed the slideshow. Alas, it is finally here. YAY! I wanted to say that I was lucky enough to meet some of my friends from coastiechicks that I have known through the forums for a few years. It was so nice to put faces with names now. I just wish I had remembered to take a picture. I had my camera with me even! Kristy and Mel, thanks so much for meeting me for lunch. I had a great time.

Catching Up - Post 1

2008-08-26T19:03:00.002-08:00

Ok, so since I have a lot of catching up to do, I'm going to break them up into 3 separate posts. I don't have time to do them all at once, so it may be a day or two between them. That will give you all ample time to check out my cuties without having to read several posts at once.

We spent mid-July just hanging out mostly. We went to Baranof Park to play with the MOPS group one day and they have sawdust in their playground. I thought it was brilliant! The kids loved it and I was amazed they didn't eat too much of it. Ok, so Donavyn didn't get any I don't think (maybe a tiny bit) and Gabriel got a bit more than she did, but hey, it's just more fiber, right? That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

The rest of the time we were pretty much just here and there until it was time to leave for Cordova - which will be the next post. I have way too many pictures to share from that to deal with right this minute, so it will be a day or so. Deal. Pbbth. *Yes, I'm sticking my tongue out at y'all.

Zach had duty a few times, ok, so a lot, and the kids and I decided that if we wanted to see him we had to go visit. We had lunch at the bowling alley since the Pizza Parlor is closed so they can remove asbestos (gross). We had fun playing outside once we all ate. I just wish I could have shared all of the pictures, but there were too many. These are my favorites.

Ok, that's really all. I smell some stinky kids, so I'll change their diapers and it's almost time for them to go to bed. Love you all!

Oh, and Zach is gone again. He will be home soon enough, but we miss him!

Gabriel's big boy haircut and more

2008-07-10T10:19:00.003-08:00

Shocker, I know. It's only been 10 days since my last post! Whatever are we going to do? I know....enjoy pictures!

I'm pretty sure Gabriel was long overdue for a haircut. He was looking a little wild. I think it was driving him crazy too; he would pull at his hair a lot. He doesn't any more.

I took him to my hairdresser, Alex. She is the only one I will trust with my hair. Her partner, Dana, is also very good to my friends, but Alex is my girl. Her son is a few months older than Gabriel, so she had some of his toys in her salon. Gabriel saw the car and was done for. He was SUCH a good boy. He just sat there and let her go at it. He wiggled a little, but not much. I was so proud of him. Donavyn just sat and played on the floor like a good girl so I could take pictures since Zach couldn't be there.

Here is our big boy all cleaned up! We had her give him a faux-hawk. It's short on the sides and longer in the center so we can stick his hair up. He's so funny. When we do his hair, he doesn't mess with it at all. We can also just leave it down and you can't tell he can have the punk rock do. We met Abbie and Jack at the Fly By (our kid friendly coffeeshop) and the kids had a great time playing in their kids corner. Jack is such a good boy and likes to play with Gabriel. There weren't many people there (and no other kids) so they got a lot of attention.

He's been scratching his tongue on his teeth for a while now and it just cracks me up. I finally caught him. I've tried to get this shot for a few weeks to no avail...until now.

Here's the princess playing at her table. Don't you just love her legwarmers? They are so cute! We have about 6 pair for the two of them. We can just let them go around the house in tees or onesies with their legwarmers on and it makes diaper changing go so much faster. And they are just cute. We also have black with white bones (see below), black with red flames, black and red stripe, white with different colored hearts all over (think 70's sweaters), and brown, beige and blue argyle (minus the stitching through the diamonds).

Gabriel LOVES music and loves to play his little piano. I am thinking about getting him a little keyboard.

The 4th of July was a rainy day, so the fireworks were canceled. We still had our cook out (or cook in I guess you could say) over at Becca and Jason's. The Anderson's (our new neighbors), Culver's and another couple (sorry I can't remember their names) and another new guy to Kodiak (sorry again) came too. We had a great time. Both kids sported their American pride. Gabriel got to wear his new raingear for the first time. Yup, it's pirates, Arrrrggggg. It's big for him now, but should fit him for a couple years (the jacket anyway). He was excited about being outside for the first time in a few days and kept spinning in circles looking up at the rain. It wasn't raining too hard, but little raindrops kept landing on his face and he loved it. Oh, the hood on the jacket even has an eye patch! Too cute! And isn't his mohawk adorable?!?

The kids enjoyed playing in Fred's toys. Why we bother taking the kids toys over, I don't know. They'd rather play with his.

Daddy had just walked in the living room and Gabriel wanted his dada. He is definitely daddy's little boy.

He just wanted a little snuggle.

Here we are all out in the garage while Jason braves the elements to light some fireworks in the cul de sac. I was really glad I stayed in the garage, it got a bit harried for a bit.

See the pretty fireworks? Yeah, picture this only going out a lot more and blowing up wrong and REALLY LOUD and you will maybe get close to picturing the boom that preceded the following picture. We were all scared by that one. We thought Jason was going to get blown up. He didn't though. Dan (our firefighting neighbor) came over with some of his fireworks and they got down to some serious fireworks. Donavyn and I went inside with Abbie, Jack and Becca.

Jack did NOT like the noise. They went in right after this and watched from the front window.

The kids really enjoyed it though for the most part. They couldn't take their eyes off them at least. Perhaps it was the trianwreck syndrome though...you just can't help but watch as disaster strikes. Just pickin' on you, Jason!

Just before Donavyn and I went inside Zach found this C130 headset and put it on Gabriel to protect his ears. He loved them. He's daddy's little co-pilot.

Donavyn and I enjoying the show.
Our boy got so worn out he just passed out in daddy's arms.

The Month in Review

2008-06-30T20:02:00.003-08:00

Ok, once again, I'm a lazy bum and didn't get to this sooner. I blame the kids and the constant whirlwind they cause around here. There is always something going on, especially since it's summer in Kodiak, which calls for a LOT of being outdoors and not so much being inside on the computer. YAY!

May 28

Gabriel likes to sit on the porch to eat his afternoon snack.

What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Went to Griffin's for a fire pit and my boys jumped on the trampoline.

Gabriel was a tired boy, but he loves to swing.

His first smore

Snugglin' with momma

May 29

Peek a boo, I see you!

June 4

Playing in the cabinet

Cheesy pose with momma

I'll let you out, Snowflake!

June 6

I think we have one like this from when G was just 3 1/2 months old.

Eat my finger, Daddy!

June 7: National Trails Day

Just one of the reasons I love it here. There is water on the opposite side of those trees as well, you just can't see it very well in the picture.

Don't the kids look thrilled?

Just chillin'.

Gabriel is now the ultimate flirt. Here is he winking at me. Look out girls! I've got a lady killer.

June 11

Our first family trip to the touch tank. I see a lot more visits in our future. Gabriel loved watching the fish and crab in the aquarium.

Melissa and her brood joined us.

G loves to be chased and Eli love to chase him.

June 15: Father's Day

For Father's Day we joined a lot of friends at a local beach for a bonfire. Offroading to get to the site. Turned out to be the wrong one though, so we had to back out and go to the next area. Oh well, it was fun anyway.

Notice the directions say to assemble on a hard level surface.

Hey, guys? Can you read directions? Hmm...

Having fun.

She loves rocks. One day that will change to the clear, shiny kind.

Our setup

The boys cookin' dinner. It was delicious.

I think they are in two different seasons. They had fun though.

Gabriel kept trying to eat the rocks.

Princesses at play

Bronwyn gave Donavyn some salmon jerky for teething. She LOVED it!

Aww...aren't we sweet? This was our potty spot. heh. Seriously.

Love this picture of them. And yes, Becca does always have her camera around her neck.

The boys headed off for a walk. We women followed along.

June 16

Little miss has her first tooth

What a cutie.

June 23

Jesse, Abbie and Jack arrived on the ferry! YAY! Too bad I don't have any pictures of that. I was too busy catching up.

We love the monkey on his back. That way he can walk around and not get too far away. And it doesn't look like a leash.

Gabriel had fun chasing after the big kids. This is Sagan, she lives down the street and her daddy works with Zach.

June 25

Mean momma was trying not to let her eat it.

See the marks on the paper? I obviously failed.

June 29

She likes to chase me, calling for "ma-mam". Yup, mamam was her first word! Yippee skippy!

June 30

She's almost walking, too.

May days

2008-05-27T20:56:00.011-08:00

WARNING: Picture heavy, may take a while to load.

It's been another fun filled month here in the Koehler house. Ok, so it didn't start off that way. After it finally quit raining (it rained for 20+ days, yuck), the sun came out and we were finally able to get outside. It was quite cold at first, but it is finally starting to warm up...it's currently 53 degrees outside at 9 p.m. and the sun will go down in about 2 hours. We are actually about to go and work on the yard since the kids are asleep and we won't have to worry about keeping our eyes on them. We'll just have to keep our ears open - the monitor will be outside of course.

Ok, so I'm going to fill you in on our month with pictures...we've taken a lot this month and these are only a small portion, though there are going to be LOTS here.

May 2:

Gabriel playing in the kids cabinet. He loves to play with all of their dishes (most of them courtesy of Mary). When I say play, I mean throw them out of the cabinet and bang them, then cart them off all around the house, where Momma and Daddy have to play "Who can find a plate faster" to serve the kids dinner.

Daddy is so funny. He put my toy on his head. Momma did to, but won't show the proof. Gabriel did this too, but the camera just couldn't quite catch him.

May 5:

Gabriel enjoying his first lime. He actually did really enjoy it. He kept going back for more.

May 9:

This is the kids favorite book. It is an electronic book that plays music and "reads" the book to them. Big brother loves to "read" to Donavyn. They don't let me get more than a page into a book before trying to either eat or throw it, sometimes both at the same time, but they will play with this one for hours.

May 11:

Seems to me like there is a picture of another little boy near and dear to my heart in almost this same pose. Ahem, that would be you, Conley. We actually had to switch their cabinet not long after this picture was taken though. Gabriel was standing up and hitting some of the plumbing and I walked into a flood in the kitchen one night while Zach was on duty - of course he was gone, all things that can go wrong do while Daddy is away.

Hey, this looks vaguely familiar, Momma. Hmm....I seem to remember something like this.

Mom relaxin' with two of her girls on the couch. Morgan likes to crawl on top of us almost as much as the kids like to crawl on top of her.

May 12: Their first bath together. Gabriel just looks at her like, "Hey, what are YOU doing in MY tub?"

May 16:

He decided to run for it as soon as I got his clothes off for bath. He's got such pinchable cheeks. *snort*

Isn't she sweet? This was her last time in the baby bath. Aww....my baby is growing up! He loves this boat. It makes music, even under water. Thanks Joshua, Megan and Daniel! They got him this for his birthday. And this is why she is no longer in her baby tub. She tries to crawl right out.

May 17:

Our friends Seth and Katie got married and asked Zach to be the officiant. His official paperwork is below. He loves that is says he is the "Marriage Commissioner". It really was an honor for him and he did a great job if I do say so myself. He'll get to do it all over again in November for their big wedding. The state of Alaska allows a resident to perform one ceremony without being ordained or a notary. Since the one in November won't be official, he will be able to do that one too.

Melissa and Aaron, aren't they cute? We just love them!

A group family picture. After the wedding we headed down to the marina for some photos since it was so pretty. It was cold though!And here we are! Mom, I'll be getting this to a better size and finding a good one of the kids for you for your family tree photo montage.

May 18:

Hmph. He likes to climb. A lot. This is how I caught him the other day. There is no stopping him though. If he falls, he just climbs right back up. Man, what am I gonna do with him?

May 19:

We had an impromptu gathering/bonfire on the back deck. Man, I'm so thankful the Holloway's were so gracious in their giving to us what they didn't want to take with them to FL. We are getting a TON of use out of it. We had smores...yumm.... It was also the 9th anniversary of the day he got commissioned (i.e. graduated the Academy). Only 11 years until retirement!

May 20:

Gabriel has really gone from baby to little boy in a matter of about a week. While I'm a little sad about it, it makes my life as a mommy a little easier, though he is into everything. Yup. He's feeding her water. She was crying, so he grabbed her sippy cup from the kitchen table and brought it to her. He's done this several times since then and it just warms my heart. He is such a good big brother!Aren't they so sweet?

May 21:

I took the kids to have lunch with Zach at work, but they fell asleep in the car. We decided to just eat in the car since it was cold out. It was beautiful though!

I love this picture! He just wanted to snuggle on Daddy. Such a sweet boy.

May 24:

It's Crab Fest weekend and it was GORGEOUS! Which actually makes me a bit nervous since if CF is pretty, it's usually a crummy summer, but if it's a crummy CF it's a good summer. We'll see if that holds true this year. I hope not. Anyway, Gabriel had a lot of fun playing in the road before the parade started. Uncle Aaron was so funny. He was more protective than we were. Donavyn likes to crawl away from you when you are changing her diaper now. She was just putting on a show in the living room, traipsing around naked. She's so funny. She's getting her belly laugh too and it is just wonderful and deep.

May 25:

Donavyn is 8 months old now! She is getting so big and so funny. She is really starting to play now and get a personality. We saw a newborn at church this Sunday who is bigger than Donavyn was at birth and Zach and I couldn't believe our princess was that tiny, tinier even. Man, the time goes so fast. We had Katie and Seth over for dinner and Katie just LOVES Snowflake. And of course Snowflake just hates all the attention.

Zach was showing Seth a new comic he found online. They are both gamers and the comic is about ~~trolls~~ goblins -Zach made me correct it - (something they play online, boys). That's okay, it's good fun for them and they enjoy it.

May 26:

Zach had the day off, so we spent it working in the yard. See how hard lil' bit worked? She wore herself plum out!
Gabriel had a fight with the front steps a few days earlier (it did look much worse). He lost obviously, those rascally steps. It looked much worse than it actually was though.
Daddy's hands.

Lots of catching up to do

2008-05-01T22:54:00.007-08:00

Sorry, about the really long break between posts. I never meant for it to go this long. It's been nuts here with sick kids, a trip up to Anchorage, sick kids, husband gone, did I mention sick kids? Yeah, just craziness.

*5/2 - Here are some pics to get you started with.

Ok, so Gabriel is now walking and Donavyn is crawling. Funny thing is they both started on the same day. April 14 was a big day in the Koehler household. I was busy feeding Donavyn and trying to keep Gabriel from getting into things on the kitchen table and I kept telling him, "no, no". He did it a few times and by the last time I was so frustrated that I was going to pick him up and put him in time out, he looked at me, smiled, disobeyed, and I got up to get him. What does he do? Walks away! Not one step, but he walked a good 6 or 7 steps, fell to his knees and crawled away as fast as he could, laughing the whole way.

Later that afternoon, Gabriel is having his nap, I'm on the phone with Zach and all of a sudden little miss decides to crawl a few "steps". I could NOT believe it! She couldn't be shown up by her brother. She was going after a toy she wanted. It's now May 1 and she is pulling herself up. She started trying to crawl up the stairs about a week after she started crawling, but now she will stand there and walk along the width of the stairwell. She and Gabriel play on the stairs a LOT...which means a lot of falls and crying, but they're both tough cookies.

We went to Anchorage for Donavyn's appointment with the Pediatric Radiologist and found out she does indeed have kidney reflux. On a scale of 1 to 4 (4 being worst), she has stage 2 in the right and stage 3 in the left. She will be on Furdantin (a prophylactic antibiotic) for a year or longer, then have another VCUG to see if the kidneys have improved. If she gets another UTI while on the antibiotics she will have to have another test sooner to determine if surgery is needed. Pray it works! I don't like her on antibiotics for this long, but I hated seeing her in the hospital even more. We have to mix her meds with her bananas though, b/c she will not take them. I don't blame her. Why they make baby meds in banana flavor, one may never know, but you just can't reproduce banana flavor. They also don't make it in dye free which just ticks me off too. I could go off on a long tangent, but I'll spare you all that one.

Gabriel is such a fun little boy. He can make us laugh like nothing else. He is VERY ticklish. Not only that, but he loves being upside down more than any child I've ever seen. He's not happy until he's being tossed around. Not so much these days, but that's b/c he's been congested and coughing for a few weeks. Don't worry, everyone here has it. I'll give a brief synopsis of our weather yesterday to fill you in on why everyone is sick: rain, snain, snow, sleet, hail, high winds, more rain, then sun. Yup, just in one day. It was gross.

It's now raining and predicted to rain for at least the next 10 days as well. That's as far out as I can get on my Weather Channel Desktop, but I'm sure it will change a million and one times before those 10 days pass anyway.

Ok, here's a slideshow for you of the highlights of our month. It would take too long to put all those pics on here individually, so enjoy the show.

Ok, I'll have to do it tomorrow. The site is down for maintenance tonight. Sorry about that! I promise I'll get it done!

*5/2 - Ok, here is another. We went hiking with the Griffin's a few weeks ago. I really need to look at these pics a lot today since it's SNOWING....AGAIN! Argh. I really do love it here, but come on!

Happy 1st Birthday, Gabriel and Happy Easter Everyone!

2008-03-23T22:58:00.009-08:00

Ok, so the title is long, but I had to get it all in there. This first pic is out of chronological order, but he's the boy of the day, so deal with it! I can't believe he's ONE! We just wish Daddy were here to help us celebrate. So, we really didn't celebrate. He doesn't know he's 1, so what's it really matter? We'll have a birthday party when Daddy gets back home. Doesn't he just look adorable? This is right before going to Becca and Jason's for Easter dinner (caribou roast, salad, green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole...yummy). This outfit is from Aunt Becca, with the jacket from Aunt Dee.
This is Donavyn the day Daddy was due to come home. He is the boyfriend in reference. Isn't this just the cutest shirt? I had it paired with a pair of Gabriel's jeans. I can't believe she's growing up so fast! Oh, and Zach had/has to stay another week since someone got hurt and can't fly now. Bummer.
We went for a walk by ourselves Wednesday! It was the first time we took the Bob out and it was GREAT! Very cold though, but we made it on the long walk.
We put Miss D in the walker for the first time and Gabriel decided he needed to show her how it works. They had so much fun and it didn't take her long to figure out how to go backwards. She did go forward a few times, but I think that was accidental more than anything. Too bad I didn't have the camera downstairs when they first got started.

Gabriel has so much fun with mirrors. (See below also.) He was giving himself high fives. What a cutie!
Unfortunately this is the only picture I got this day. He pulled the mirror over and it caught on the wall just before pinning him to the ground. It didn't hit him, but it scared him pretty good. Momma learned a lesson. Then that night he threw a fit and hit his face on the coffee table, resulting in an ER visit because he knocked his front two teeth back up into his gums.
The next day he acted just fine. In fact, he was playing in the ER waiting for the Dr. He didn't want anyone touching his mouth though...understandably. I just noticed that BOTH his teeth on the opposite sides of his middle top are coming through, or trying to at least. I knew his right one was, but blowing this pic up I realized the left one is too. Teething stages are so fun, aren't they? Donavyn is teething too, but no teeth yet. I'm SO not ready for this!
First Easter pic (there are lots just so ya know). Is this bunny for ME? The Easter bunny knows him well. He got this stuffed bunny holding a soccer ball, a rubber Tonka truck (just the size for his little hands) and the book No No Yes Yes. I think the Easter Bunny knew Gabriel needs to learn not to eat out of the dog bowls since there is a picture of that as a No No. Mommy likes the Easter Bunny especially well for bringing him this book. Don't worry Nana, the Easter Bunny left a note for me to wait until Daddy got home to give him the rest of it!

Donavyn was waiting patiently, and not to mention oh-so-cutely for her turn. Nana sent this adorable dress for Easter. The cardigan came from Aunt Becca (you'll see the rest of the outfit that matches it later).
Ok, so this is the only one I got of them with Gabriel not trying to hit or push Donavyn. Who knew it would start this soon? Though, I'll take it since Gabriel also will go up to Donavyn to kiss or play with her. Too bad I don't have the camera ready at those times, huh?

Gabriel is checking out Donavyn's basket. I think he thinks the ball is for him. Good thing D is such a good sharer. She got a book, ball and stuffed bunny.
They were both going after the grass.
Just before getting ready for bed. She loves the "My First Easter" bunny that the Easter Bunny left for her!

Having fun playing with the grass. I have some of him trying to eat it too, but I couldn't upload them all.

Unfortunately this is the best of the two pics I have left of the three of us. I accidentally deleted the best one. Hmph. I'm so bummed about that b/c it was a good one of the kids and decent of me. Oh well. I've got my arm up b/c I'm trying to get Donavyn to look at Grandma who is taking the picture.

Speaking of Grandma. After Gabriel went down for a nap, Donavyn played in Grandma's lap and then slept there for a while. Unfortunately for Grandma, when she woke up we all realized that Donavyn had leaked through her diaper and right onto Grandma's lap. Luckily Grandma's used to being around babies and didn't mind. Grandma has that special touch to get her to sleep too, that Mommy just wishes she had!

Oh, and I DO have other pictures of Grandma and Pawpaw, but they are on another memory card and I keep leaving it downstairs, so I'll upload them at some point. And I have some GREAT ones of Pawpaw with both kids, but I think they are on Mom and Dad's camera since I can't seem to find them on mine. I'll get those before they leave too.

These are the birthday presents from Grandma and Pawpaw (and the truck from EB). He couldn't seem to decide which to play with so he kept going back and forth. It was adorable. We'll do the cake tomorrow. He was cranky and tired by the time we got home from J and B's. I don't think he'll mind. Sunday's are just so busy.
And I finally caught him standing. This is how he gets himself up. He's almost walking, but not quite. Maybe his first true steps will be to his Daddy when he sees him when he comes home soon.

And here's that last shot of Donavyn in the rest of the outfit to match the cardigan from Aunt Becca. Too cute! I tell ya, she lays JUST like her Daddy.

Hope you all had a very happy Easter, spent with family and friends.

We miss you, honey!

2008-03-14T00:25:00.007-08:00

This is for Zach mainly. There won't be much (if any) commentary. It's after midnight and I've been fighting with the laptop to load and shrink pics to upload here. Maybe I'll come back and give commentary tomorrow, but we'll see. Either way, enjoy the pics.

Honey, we love and miss you so much. We wish you were home. Only 5 days left now! I can't wait. You are the best husband and father to our children. We are all so blessed to have you. Please fly safely while you are away. You and J keep each other out of too much trouble. You are almost home. I'll try to get the video done tomorrow. I'm tired of fighting the computer.

I love you!

The night before Daddy left.

Mommy loves kissing me...and documenting it too.

Like father, like daughter.

Our sick baby. This was before we headed to the hospital for a few days. If you didn't know about this, I'm sorry. I haven't called to let anyone know. I answered calls, but didn't make them. I apologist. I wanted to focus on getting Donavyn better. She was admitted Monday (after an ER visit Saturday night/Sunday morning) for a kidney infection/dehydration/UTI. She is better now and we got home Wednesday around 10 am. She is MUCH better. We will have to go to Anchorage for an x-ray on her kidneys to make sure there isn't an anatomical reason for the infection since she is so young. The doc wants to rule out a reflux problem which could cause her a lot of problems in the future if she does have this issue and it goes unresolved. I'm so thankful my mom and dad were here to help. They were able to stay with Gabriel (who did GREAT with them by the way) while I was with Donavyn.

Zach's Aunt Vivian sent the kids some handmade...by her no less... sock monkeys. I am so excited about them. I was actually looking in to buying some for them when we got the package. As you can see, Gabriel enjoyed the packaging for a while. Snowflake looks confused, doesn't she?

Gabriel testing out the texture of the monkey. He loves to feel all sorts of textures.

Donavyn just had to love on hers too. Aunt V, these are just the best. Thank you SO much! We love them! I love the detail you put in, with their initials and they are stuffed so well!

Eyes of Wonder

I'll let you back inside, doggies!

We went for a walk today with Becca and Fred. We can't wait until Donavyn can go with us too!

Here was our view today as we walked along Spruce Cape. It was gorgeous! This is the second day this week we got to have a nice walk. Hopefully Becca will keep me on top of this walking thing. I think the kids would really enjoy it.

Hopefully we'll get some good pictures tomorrow. It's supposed to be mostly sunny again, but we'll see. If it is, I plan on taking Mom and Dad out to see some of the sites. I'm not sure exactly where we'll go, possible White Sands and Abercrombie. I may take them to walk along the pier at Near Island too. We'll see. I know I said I would narrate tomorrow, but of course I went ahead and did it tonight. We all know that if I didn't, it wouldn't have gotten done.

Love you all!

Picture Update

2008-02-20T20:51:00.004-09:00

Things have been understandably crazy around the house lately so we haven't been able to do an update lately. Beth's parents arrived this morning so with a few extra hands around an update is now possible. Isn't our little girl simply adorable!!! We've been taking a lot of pictures lately and captured the picture below. Even though he's sad we really like this one because it shows so much emotion.
Sad little boy. Actually I think he's in pain because his two top teeth finally came in and that on top of being up way past his bedtime made this picture.

Snowflake decided that she wanted to take a nap with Donavyn. Aren't they cute!!!

Gabriel learned how to open the Cheerio's!!
I surprised Beth for her birthday with authentic Guatemalan Jade that I smuggled home without her knowing. *sneaky sneaky*

We had Griffin's over for dinner one night and King Castle Peach wanted to hold Princess Donavyn.

Gabriel loves to smear his food into his hair during meal times!!

Another one of his favorite past-times is taking off his pants and throwing them with wild abandon!! Takes after his Daddy.

I don't care what anybody says, we made one cute kid!!! And if you don't think so then reference the below picture!!

Zach's Weekend Rescue

2008-02-11T13:59:00.000-09:00

Hi everyone. I'm sorry we've been bad about updating. I'm hoping to get some pics and possibly some video uploaded in the next day or two, but wanted to share what Zach (and Jason) did this weekend.

FOLLOW THIS LINK for the story and a video (you have to click the video link on the left side of the article) about the boat that capsized right behind our house on Saturday.

In this picture you can see how close they really were to the house. Mary took these as she was outside playing in the snow with her son, Josh.

Here's another article and another from the first responders (locals who saw the boat and tried to help). In it they say the family of the deceased man is blaming the CG for slowing things down. As you might imagine, I'm really burned up about this. This man shouldn't have taken off that morning with the weather being the way it was and his decision put my husband's life in danger as well as everyone else involved with the case.

Because they were right behind the house I could hear them all too well, but couldn't see them since they were below the trees. I stood by the sliding glass door most of the time listening to make sure they were ok. I didn't like them doing that rescue so close because I was listening and knew that if something were to happen I was going to hear it. I know Zach is a fabulous pilot and I trust Jason just as much as I do Zach and know he's a great pilot as well, but things happen that are beyond control. The weather was horrible that day and anywhere else it would have been considered a hurricane because of the winds. The snow had been coming down very hard and I can't imagine what the waves were doing.

Anyway....I'm glad not everyone feels the way this family does. And I can completely understand their grief. The Old Believer community has had a rough year and it's only the middle of February, but to blame the CG....hmm...

Ok, Gabriel wants some attention from his momma, so I need to go. I'll try to post pics soon. I know, I keep saying that, huh?

ETA: I found this through the blog network of Kodiak. It's a video taken from Mill Bay Beach by a witness to the rescue.

Soooooo tired

2008-01-30T07:42:00.000-09:00

Why, oh why, does he have to wake up at 5:30 in the morning? Why can't he sleep until 7 or later like his sister? Why do we have to be so tired that we both have colds and can't seem to get rid of them? Oh well....the joys of parenthood. They're worth it.

Gabriel had his intro with the Dr. yesterday and the only thing we need to watch is his weight. He's only 18 lbs 12 oz. He should be closer to 21-23 according to her. Eh, I'm not worried about it though. I think a lot of it is that she's using the American growth scale, not the Central American scale. He's probably just going to be a skinny kid. He's fairly tall though - 31.5".

Donavyn rolled over for the first time yesterday! We're so proud of her. It was really funny. A couple days ago we were playing in their room and she kept trying to roll over and just couldn't get quite over. I told Zach that she was going to do it while we weren't looking. We would put her down, look away and look back and she'd be over. Yup, that's how it happened. Zach went to get more diapers out of the laundry room and I was changing Gabriel and when he came back she had rolled over. She hasn't really enjoyed tummy time lately, but she LOVED it after she had put herself on her tummy.

Donavyn has her 4 month well baby check today. She is getting so big. I'm going to have to put away all of her 3 month clothes now. *frown* I was looking at pictures of Amy's twin boys and remembered Donavyn being that small. I miss it, but I'm also so excited to see how she changes all the time.

Oh, Zach reminded me to share about the acid bath we give Gabriel 3 times a day. Yeah, we're mean parent's aren't we? He LOATHES to have his face washed after he eats and just screams. We use a baby wipe and as soon as he sees me grab it, he starts squirming trying to keep me from getting him. It was really fun this morning since he had oatmeal, yogurt and raspberries. Boy did he love the raspberries! Since he hates it so much we call it his acid bath since that's what it sounds like.

I'll try to get more pics up soon. I'm a little tired and this cold is kicking our butts.

Happy Birthday, My Love!!!

2008-01-27T09:53:00.001-09:00

I am so thankful that 31 years ago you were born and that God has blessed me with you. You are an amazing husband and father. I hope and pray this birthday is your best ever and that all you dreams for this coming year come true. This year is going to be a LOT different than the past, but filled with even more love, hugs, kisses and laughter.

We have shared a lot of laughs and there is no one that can make me feel better when I'm down like you can. You are always there to offer a hug, encouragement or just a silly joke or funny face.
Momma K and Pops, thank you so much for raising such a respectful son. You did a wonderful job and I couldn't be happier than I am with your son and the family we have made together.

Zach, we love you more than you will ever know and wish you the happiest of birthdays!

Your loving wife and darling children

Happy Birthday, Mom!

2008-01-26T08:39:00.000-09:00

I just wanted to take a moment to say happy birthday to my wonderful, amazing mom. She is a source of great strength, comfort and encouragement to me. She inspires me to be a Godly woman, wife and mother. I will always remember going to the table for breakfast on school days and she would be there reading her bible and praying. Her example has made me realize that I want my children to see that in me.

She is the most humble woman I know and I thank God for choosing her to be my mom. I wish we were close enough to celebrate with her, but luckily she will be here soon and we will have plenty of time together.

I love you, mom and I pray you have a wonderful birthday!

Gabriel and Donavyn wanted to say Happy Birthday to Grandma, too!

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Look who's the big 4 months!

2008-01-26T07:56:00.000-09:00

I'm starting out with her 3 month picture since I got a little busy and forgot to post that one. See how big she is getting? Man....

Oh, and her 4 month sign says "Can you believe I'm already 4 months? Momma and Daddy can't either!"

Our sweet little girl (as she sits here on my shoulder falling asleep) is now 4 months old. The time has flown by already. Before we know it she will be a teenager trying to avoid time with mom and dad b/c they are SOOO uncool. Yeah, right, we're going to be the coolest parents EVAH! Don't all parents say that?

Donavyn has been a blessing to our lives. One year ago we thought we may never have children biologically and yet here we are. Who knew that our lives would be this blessed just one year later? We have gone from no children to two in no time flat.

Donavyn is a sweet, cuddly baby. She is daddy's little girl through and through. She has been since day one. She loves her momma too though. As I get her up in the morning I sing "You are my Sunshine" and continue with it as I change her diaper. She wakes up with a smile and that is a GREAT day to start the day.

She loves to be talked to and cooed at. She is a very strong girl and loves to watch big brother play. She likes to play in her exersaucer (as long as she gets picked up after about 15 minutes for snuggle time). She is THIS close to rolling over and is persistent as all get out. She likes to talk to our Christmas bears (we still have them up since they are a source of great entertainment to her) and I think she's going to be a lot like me.

She's our princess and always will be. We love her and are extremely thankful for God bringing her to us.

Umm....

2008-01-23T20:37:00.000-09:00

Why didn't anyone tell us we would get NO rest during the day and that by 6 p.m. we would be ready for bed? This is the hardest job I've ever had. I don't know what I'm going to do when Zach goes back to work. He helps SOOO much. I'm so blessed to have him as my husband and the father of my children. I've had countless friends tell me how lucky I am to have him and that if I ever don't want him anymore to let them know, because they would gladly take him for me. Yeah, right. Like I'll ever let him get away! He's MINE, MINE I tell you! *snort*

Ok, so can you tell I'm a little tired? I think Zach is rubbing off on me some. When I get tired I usually get cranky...he gets silly. Tonight I'm a silly tired mom. And it's not even 9 yet. Luckily Gabriel is still up - Donavyn is already in bed (WOOHOO!) - and we're trying to hold off on his last bottle until at least 9 so that he may not wake up during the night.

He didn't sleep much today, so he's been a little cranky and clingy. Plus I think he's got a little bit of a cold. I've got an appointment with my Dr. tomorrow, so I'll ask her what I can do. I have some infant cough and cold meds, but I know they have since stopped recommending that for children. I seriously bought it a week before that report came out. What the deal, yo?

Ok, geesh, I've really got to get to bed. I think Gabriel is ready for his bottle now. Poor thing's coughing up a storm and starting to whine, cry, scream, and rub his eyes. So it's only 15 minutes earlier than we thought. We're getting closer to the schedule we want to keep. Probably only a few more days or so. The boy ate like a champ tonight too! He had more than he's had yet! That makes momma happy!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

2008-01-22T07:32:00.000-09:00

We made it home (finally) yesterday morning. Sorry we didn't update then, but we were all exhausted and were trying to get Gabriel settled into the house, used to the dogs and playing with his toys. The house he was great with, the toys he LOVED (especially the singing dog and helicopter), the dogs....well...that took a little time, but not too much. He whined a little as the dogs came downstairs and tried to sniff and lick him, but we would inch him closer and closer to them. Now, he was just pulling on Morgan's tail and she just sat there looking between him and me like, "Ugh...kids...what're you gonna do, huh?" Oh, and Snowflake is even more patient with him I think. He grabs the skin around her jaw and eyes (almost poked her eye this morning) and she just sits there and takes it. I think it's funny that Snowflake seems to favor Gabriel (and vice versa) while Morgan favors Donavyn (and vice versa). When I made this observation last night, Zach just said, "Good. That will make things easy when I tell them to take the girls for a walk." Always looking ahead, that husband of mine. Gotta love him - I know I do.

We're going to go to the Tricare office today to get our insurance taken care of. We'll go downtown too, to finish getting some Mr. Potatohead (or as we like to call him - Spud) things taken care of before we FedEx him back home to Conley's class at school.

I'll leave you with a lot of pictures from our trip. Ok, maybe not a lot, but some to tide you over at least. I have a lot of catching up to do too. I have pictures from my baby shower to post as well. You just wait for that one!

Well....America is now one person bigger

2008-01-20T08:04:00.000-09:00

Gabriel is officially a US Citizen. As of about 10:30 a.m. Central time. Customs was a breeze. We had to go though the Immigration line and then get escorted to another waiting room. There were a LOT of people there, but luckily we got seen very quickly. I am sure it's because we are US citizens, but we were a little concerned for a while.

The kids were pretty good the first leg of our trip. Of course they sat Zach and I together in one row and there was someone else already in our row as well. They can't allow two lap babies in one row since only 4 masks drop down, so the man in the aisle seat next to Zach was nice enough to switch places. Of course that left me sitting between two men who think they get BOTH armrests. Oh, and the guy in front of me decides to lean his seat ALL the way back so I'm squished and holding Gabriel - or as we like to call him El Fuego (fire). Man, was I sweaty by the time we got here. He did sleep some though and was good for the most part.

Zach had a guy in front of him that decided to push his seat all the way back too. Zach ended up asking him to move it up.

Can I say I just LOVE Continental? They are the only airline I know of that still serves meals on their flights. We got a ham, egg and cream cheese croisant and fruit and a muffin. I only ate the croisant b/c that was the easiest to eat when squeezed and being slept on.

Ok, Zach just got back with some food for us. I'm so glad for the USO. It makes our lives so much easier. Gabriel is crawling around and we don't have to worry about our luggage or anything.

Love you all! Next stop, Seattle, the Anchorage, then HOME!!!

That's it...I'm takin my boy and goin' HOME!!!

2008-01-19T14:59:00.000-09:00

This is officially the last post from Guatemala!!! We're leaving tomorrow morning at 7 am...which means that we'll be leaving the hotel at 4 am...ugh...but we're going home and that's the important thing.

We read all your comments and basically came to the same conclusion that God wanted us to have a few days off so yesterday I did what I promised some of you. We went down to the pool and I had a Mojito in the sun for you guys!!! Then we took them both swimming and it took Gabriel a few minutes to figure out what all that water was about but then we had a hard time getting him out of it. We even sat in the hot tub for a bit. Gabriel loves swimming and the water.

Hopefully he'll like flying just as well. Here's praying that he does. And in any case the flight can't last forever so even if he doesn't fly well it'll be over eventually.

Ok ok...Gabrial wanted to post so here he goes...

xq az v m, ugyungt y89;823, d.;' p,lfzx/.

Roughly traslated means: "I'm going home tomorrow!! and I'm gonna be COLD!!!"

Ok need to go finish packing and then try to get some rest because we've got an early morning...

Love you all and thank you so much for your prayers...They were definately essential in our surviving this trip without losing our minds...

Next time you hear from us we'll be in the states!!! and yes we'll post pictures as soon as we can...

Since Delinda asked...

2008-01-18T07:15:00.000-09:00

In case you didn't see the comments, Delinda (one of my sisters) asked what Gabriel and Donavyn think of each other.

You know....it may sound strange, but it's almost like they've always known each other. As soon as they saw each other they just looked at each other and smiled like they were seeing a long lost friend. They like to look at each other and smile and they sometimes get excited and sometimes just look at each other.

Gabriel is surprisingly gentle with her. Well, most of the time anyway. He tries to play with her. He likes to clap his hands and then he decided to clap her head. She was fine with it, she just looked at him like he was crazy.

Yesterday at one of the nap times, Gabriel was sleeping on the bed (and you saw in the previous post about how fitful he is of a sleeper) and Donavyn was sleeping on my chest right next to him. Zach was asleep on the other side of the bed, so Donavyn and I were left with about 18 inches of space on a king size bed. Tell me how that's fair. Anyway...as Gabriel is trying to wake up, he starts sitting up, looking around and then falling head first into the bed - HARD! You guessed it, he fell right into Donavyn's head. She had a little bit of a bruise and a bump last night, but both seem to have gone away already. They both cried pretty hard. It may have been the first time it happened, but it certainly won't be the last. Zach and I had to fight off laughing at that realization. You can't laugh while your babies are hurt, ya know.

This morning, they both laid on the bed for a while and Gabriel kept gently touching Donavyn's hands and feet. Then he would try to jump head first off the bed, but momma and daddy are quick. This time. He did fall off the first day, but didn't quite hit very hard because Zach caught him by the leg right as he was hitting Zach's shoe. He cried, but he was more scared than anything.

We got some video of him in the bathtub last night. Zach was playing with the water, trying to get him to join in and it took a while, but he finally did. It was so fun to see him play in the tub. I think it was the first time he's done that because he couldn't quite figure out how this thing he couldn't really see could make a splash. It was rather funny to see his face. I'll post it when we get home. I've got to get video of Donavyn getting ready for bathtime too. She's a hoot. She loves the pre-bath routine. Seeing herself naked in front of the mirror and then dipping her foot in the water. You'll just have to see it.

I guess that's all for now. We are in the family play room right now and then we are going to go down the the pool after the morning nap. He's usually ready for his nap by now, but he's still going strong right now. He'll fall hard soon, I'm sure.

Ok, Love you all. I'm going to go play.

It's in our hands

2008-01-17T15:12:00.000-09:00

FINALLY! We have Gabriel's Visa and passport with us now. Thank you, God! Zach went with Pedro this afternoon to pick up the Visa and got all the paperwork done. He said it went really well and that he was the first one to get called up to the number 7 desk (where they hand out the package and visa). The package consists of a lot of information in a manila envelope that we have to hand over (unopened) to immigration in Houston. If it's opened, Gabriel is stuck and won't go anywhere. Bummer too cause we all know how nosy I am. *snort*

I've got a question: How in the WORLD can a 10 month old boy take up an entire king size bed? I'm telling you. I'm going to have to try and video some of it. The boy moves around more than any child I've ever seen. I think that's why he doesn't like his crib. It constrains him too much. I think he would have slept just fine last night if he hadn't bonked his head on the crib. I think I'm going to leave some comments to the hotel letting them know that for relatively cheap, they can get some nicer crib mattresses (these are about an inch thick) and a better bumper (it's basically two pieces of fabric sewn together). You'd think that since this is a 5 star hotel and most of their business comes from adoptive families that they would spend a little money to make it nicer. However, from the business perspective, I can kind of understand why they don't. They already have the money coming in, so why bother spending more just to make the customers you will already have in any case happier. Oh well. It won't affect us again.

Oh, Donavyn is trying her hardest to turn over. She won't even bother trying to go from her belly to back, but she is SO close to going from back to belly. It's so fun to watch her try to do it. She's making my abs hurt just watching her flex for so long at a time.

We did go back to the Continental desk again to see if there were any open seats before Sunday and we were willing to pay another $200 because that would be cheaper than staying here another two nights. Alas, they did not. Unless of course we wanted to pay the price for first class seats and I'm sure the other passengers in first class wouldn't be too happy with two babies up there too.

Ok, I'm going to go feed Gabriel now. He's getting fussy and had to climb up my leg to get me to pick him up. We love you all!

Thank you God for such wonderful friends...

2008-01-17T07:26:00.000-09:00

I've said it once and I'll say it forever!!! We absolulty love our friends. No scratch that...we absolutly love our family!!! Thank you all for keeping us in your prayers. I was able to go to the Embassy this morning and got everything worked out. When we go to for our appointment they have to send a bunch of things to Washington D.C. for verification. That's why we can't get the Visa the same day. They normally get a reply later that day or early the next and are able to issue Visas the next afternoon. However due to a system glitch they didn't receive our verification in time to have the Visa printed and issued. I found out this morning that everything is in order now and I'll be able to pick up the Visa this afternoon at 3:30. Pedro will be coming to pick me up and I'll go in person just to make sure there's no more problems.

I talked with the Marriott front desk before I left and she wasn't sure that they would have space for us but she would talk to some people and see what she could do. Well after I got back from the Embassy, Beth and I took the kiddos to breakfast and then talked with the front desk to see if we would be able to stay. They told us that everything was taken care of and we will be able to stay in the same room until our flight on Sunday.

I think we may go talk to Continental this afternoon after I have Gabriel's Visa in my hot little hands and see if an earlier flight is even possible. They were able to get us out on Sunday because they said that that was the earliest they could do it. Maybe things have changed and it won't hurt to ask.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. You all had us in tears reading your comments (yeah me too...I'm man enough to admit it). This was a valient effort by Satan but he fell short yet again. Thank you for helping us weather this storm.

What's that saying?

2008-01-16T18:01:00.000-09:00

Don't count your chickens before they're hatched? Yeah, you see where I'm going with this? Umm hmm.... there is one of two things going on: 1. Satan is REALLY trying very hard to get us down, or 2. God is testing us. I'm not sure which it is, but it's been hard not to let it get us down. Oh, I suppose I should tell you all what's going on, huh? Well, Pedro (our agency representative) went to the Embassy to pick up our Visa and somehow they couldn't find our name in they're database. So Zach will have to go back to the Embassy tomorrow morning to see what is going on and try to get this taken care of. Yeah, we were supposed to leave at 7 am tomorrow morning, but instead, that's the time Pedro will be picking Zach up.

After we got the phone call, Zach went down to the Continental Airlines office at the hotel to try to get on the Friday flight and they said it would cost us $2000! Either that or we wouldn't be able to leave until next Thursday. So Zach called the Embassy emergency line and they were less than helpful. The guy that answered the phone said there was no one there to help us out, and when Zach asked if there was anyone there working late and he said "No, they're walking out the door." So why couldn't he stop someone to ask if they could help us, I don't know. It's a good thing we weren't in jail! I mean, criminy, aren't we US citizens, isn't the US Embassy here to protect and help it's citizens while in a foreign country? We are SO not happy about this, but what can we do? Just trust that God has a reason. We may never know what that is, but I'm sure there is one.

Oh, about when we get to leave...Zach called the 1-800 number for Continental (of course you can't call 800 numbers on a calling card from a foreign country, so we had to call international direct from our room. Who knows how much that will cost us. Then we had to do the same with Alaska Airlines to change our tickets with them. In the end, we got a flight on Sunday out of here (same flight plan) at the cost of $200. Alaska is charging us $75 for the change, but it's better than $2000 and better than staying here another week. We will get in on Monday morning. If anyone needs to contact us, they can check www.marriott.com/guadt to find the phone number. Our room is 857. Well...hopefully we'll still have a room after tomorrow. They won't be able to let us know until after noon tomorrow if they have room for us or not. I don't know what I'll do if they don't have room for us.

I was doing really well until a couple hours ago and then I just lost it. I just want my boy home, in his room, with his toys, in a comfortable crib. He is great during the day, but he cries out a lot in his sleep. And let me tell you, that boy is a FURNACE. We thought Donavyn was bad, but man, he's 100x's worse. He wakes up every morning sweaty.

So, we have a couple favors. Since we are here and running out of calling time and don't want to charge anymore international calls to the room, MELISSA OR AARON can you please call Heidi at our house or use the number in the church directory to let her know we won't be home until Monday. If she isnt' able to stay at the house that long, just ask her to have Keith or Mary take care of it. In fact, I'm sure Mary will read this too, so this is just a head's up for you. Also, JASON AND BECCA can you either leave more money for parking until Monday or get in touch with Melissa and Aaron and see if they can get the car there for us? Either way is fine. If you guys could just let us know that you got this and what you are going to do, that would be great.

We love you guys. I'm pulling my hair out. Ok, so right now Gabriel is actually pulling my hair out, but you get the idea. Please pray for us. Zach ran into a family at the Continental office here that were FINALLY getting ready to leave after being delayed 29 days here. Oh, goodness, I don't know what I'll do if that happens.

Ok, off to the room for us. We've got some sleepy little ones and they have some tired and cranky parents.

Unbelievable!!!

2008-01-15T09:13:00.000-09:00

This trip has truely been unbelievable!!! I just wanted to take a minute to tell you how much we appreciate all of you praying for us. This has to be the smoothest trip we've ever taken. It all started in Kodiak when teh weather cooperated with us getting out early. Donavyn was an absolute dream on the planes. The pressure changes didn't bother her one little bit. We were able to rent a car for the day and had a little mini-vacation before leaving Anchorage at 1 am. The flight to Seattle was nearly empty so Beth and I each had our own row. I took Donavyn and laid down and slept all the way to Seattle. Then one the flight to Houston it was just about the same way...we didn't have our own row but we slept the whole way. Checked into the USO in Houston and just chilled until our flight to Guatemala. When we arrived our luggage all made it too and for once wasn't the last bags off the plane. We walked right through customs, right out the door and into the waiting shuttle to take us to the hotel. When we checked in they said that due to high occupancy they were upgrading us to a better room. We're in the executive tower with a king sized bed!! All for less than we were quoted when we made the reservations. We saw Gabriel the next day and he's wonderful!!! Took to Beth right away and is finally warming up to me too. In fact he's in my lap as I type this.

We went to the Embassy this morning to finallize everything. We had our appointment at 7:15 this morning. We were the first to get seen and we were back in the hotel by 9:30 having breakfast! Thank you all so much for praying that this would be a smooth trip because God has answered all of you. One more hurtle and that's getting home but with all your help we'll make it just fine.

Love you all!!!

Our last moments....

2008-01-13T13:23:00.000-09:00

....as a family of three. Gabriel will come to us tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.! We are ecstatic to say the least.

We are currently in Houston (at the USO) for a few more minutes and wanted to give you the little bit of info above. We're just about to go get some dinner and then head to the gate. Our flight leaves here at 7:10 and arrives just before 10 p.m., so this will be a quick flight.

We have so many emotions running through us right now and we are just so.....I don't know how to describe it.

Funny, we calculated it up yesterday and realized it has been over a year since we started this entire journey and almost 8 months since we got our first glimpse of Gabriel. In that instant knew right then that he was the son God had planned for us. So, this has been just like another pregnancy and I'm not sure which has been/was more difficult. I think they were both difficult and easy in their own ways, but both are SO worth every moment of joy, pain and fear. We love Gabriel and are so blessed that God has chosen us to be his parents and guides.

Ok, I've really got to go now. Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts through this entire time. And at 8:30 a.m. Central time tomorrow morning (or around there) we will forever be a family of FOUR!!!

Thank you God for all our our many blessings!

HE'S COMING HOME!!!!

2008-01-04T13:29:00.000-09:00

Just a quick update to let everyone know that the loud screaming you heard coming from the Pacific Northwest was from us - shouting for joy that Gabriel will be coming home! That's right, our boy is coming home to Alaska! WOOHOO!!! We could NOT be happier! We got the email - after waiting 6 weeks and sending 3 urgent emails and getting ready to call our congressmen to call them on our behalf - and our appointment is on January 15. We have to go back to the Embassy on the 16th to pick up all the paperwork and we leave on the 17th for home. Of course, getting back here is always a ....well...let's just call it a special treat, so we won't get home until the 18th.

We are going to leave Kodiak on the 12th for warmer weather and my other "sunshine" (I love to sing the Sunshine songs to my little ones). We have our flight and hotel taken care of already, except the flight to Anchorage. It's easier to book two separate tickets for this particular flight. Our flight doesn't actually leave Anchorage until 1 a.m. on the 13th, but I think we may try to get out on the morning flight. The weather is so iffy right now, that I'd rather be safe. The early morning flights almost always get out, but the later in the day it gets the harder it is to get there. This time of year especially. It's supposed to snow everyday up to and including the day we leave, so that may be better. I'm waiting on that to talk to Zach.

We are probably going to use our companion fare we get from having the Alaska Airlines Visa. Can I just say how great that thing is? Sure there is an annual fee, but we have received SO many miles and we get a companion fare each year. SO worth it! We pay almost all of our bills with that and buy everything on it, then pay it off every payday. We try to at least. We got a little busy one month and forgot, so we had a big payment that month, but it was still paid off.

Anyway....sorry there are no pictures this time. I've been going nuts trying to get everything settled. Finding a hotel was a nightmare. Apparently there is going to be a convention with presidents from several countries, so the hotels were booked, but we actually got the hotel we wanted. Thank you, God for hearing our cries!

We watched Facing the Giants last night at the recommendation of a TON of people. * SPOILER ALERT - if you haven't watched the movie, don't read this.* It took a while to get past the horrible acting, but it had a great story and message. When the wife said that she would still love God if she couldn't get pregnant I was almost bawling. I don't know if I could have ever said that out loud when we were going through treatments. I was too hurt and angry and confused. Then I kept crying when the nurse ran out to give her the good news. Did you see how she jumped up and down and hugged the nurse? Yeah, that was me with my Dr. Dr. Walters and I both cried and jumped and screamed together. So it was very cheesy and it's not really one I care to see again, but I loved the message, but they could have done a better job with actors. Oh, and it was totally funny, b/c I told Zach that it seemed like they hired people who were actually those people in real life to act those parts and it was very uncomfortable for them. In the special features it went into who the actors were and I was right! The wife is a real coaches wife, the Dr was a real Dr, and several of the football players really played for the school. It was rather amusing.

Ok, spoiler over.

Ok, must get back to work. I've got a TON to get done.

OH! I have to add, that my good friends Becca, Jana and Lisa are have a quicky baby shower for me this Sunday! It's going to be small and pretty much just a few of us from CraftNite and I cannot WAIT! They are so sweet to think of us. They were going to do a shower for us, but Donavyn decided "she was too cool for the womb" (according to Becca - isn't she funny?) and nixed our plans for that one.

Love you gals!

Some Christmas Pictures

2007-12-28T23:42:00.000-09:00

Ok, so I've been lazy and haven't taken the time to downsize the pics and upload them, so I did that tonight. Hope you enjoy them! I've got more to upload, but I figure this is a good start.

First, this is our tree this year. Yeah, we chopped a lot off....yeah, it looks like the top is sticking through the ceiling....yeah, we love it! We like our funny trees! We go out and hunt for them and chop them down (ok, so Zach does that, I offer moral support - i.e. "Are you SURE I'm going to like it?") and not to mention they are free.

A VERY MERRY KOEHLER CHRISTMAS PARTY

We had our annual Christmas party again this year also. We had a fun group. Only one couple wasn't able to make it at the last minute due to illness, but everyone else we invited was able to come. Melissa and Aaron, Teresa (Aaron's mom), Seth and Tina, Jason and Becca, and Mary and Keith came over for some food and drink. It was a great time!

Seth and Tina

Grandma Griffin aka Teresa aka Ranga (according to Peach) with Donavyn

Keith, Mary, Becca and Jason listen intently as Zach reads The Night Before Christmas and wait to see when to pass the gift. If you've never experienced a Very Merry Koehler Christmas Party, you just wait!!!

Our family picture in front of the tree right after everyone leaves the house from the party. Isn't the outfit the cutest? Aunt Becca sent that for Donavyn. She sent a matching set for Gabriel, unfortunately he wasn't here to be able to wear it. The hat and shirt both say "Baby's First Christmas". Unfortunately these are the best pictures I got. Maybe I'll put her in it again just for a photo session. Thanks, Aunt Becca!

CHRISTMAS EVE

The morning of Christmas Eve we woke up to about 6-8 inches of snow. I had to shovel a path to let the dogs out. Yes, Mom, I did go out in just a sweatshirt and a wet head. I know...I could catch pneumonia and die...I know, but the dogs needed to go out and Zach was feeding Donavyn and it wasn't really all that cold out. Yes, a Florida girl saying it was snowing and it wasn't cold. Go figure. This is about 8 hours later or so. The snow was dumped on us so much throughout the day I had to shovel us out again. I could show you the same picture as the one above this one with the outfit in this one, but I figured this one is funnier. We, make that I, had to shovel snow out of the house. As I opened the sliding glass door it all fell inside. Notice the oh-so-stylish Muck boot. Most people prefer the Xtra Tuff (as can be seen on the Dorval's blog), but I like my Mucks. They are neoprene and tighter and they are black, not to mention they aren't Xtra Tuffs.

I ran into Aaron and Theresa while at Safeway and they had just decided to have an impromptu get together that night at their place. Have we mentioned how much we love these guys? Melissa and Aaron are great. We had a great time. It reminded me of the Christmas Eve family party at my parents house every year. It was exactly what I needed - they have truly become family. It was a lot of the same crowd as was at our party.

Seth and Katie - they just got engaged. CONGRATS!!! You should see her ring...beautiful! Instead of a diamond, he got her a ruby in an emerald cut surrounded by diamonds. Very pretty!

CHRISTMAS

Morgan the cutest Rein-dog! She didn't mind these a bit! Too funny!

Look what Santa left under the tree for us! The cutest cloth diapered baby around! Those are the Fuzzi Bunz, we LOVE cloth diapering!

She loves the Exersaucer Grandma and Pawpaw sent her! She plays in this daily and even falls asleep in it sometimes. I'll have to upload those pics soon.

Ok, so this wasn't really taken on Christmas, but a couple days earlier for our churches Candlelight service. I LOVE this dress! She looks so cute. She'll be able to wear this one for a few months too. We got a 3/6 month, but I can't believe it fits her so well already! She is getting so big!

We did take the "Today I'm 3 months old" pictures, but haven't uploaded those yet. I'll try to get to that tomorrow. Got a video to upload as well.

Love you all!!!

Merry Christmas from the Koehler's!

2007-12-25T13:23:00.000-09:00

Wishing all of you the best Christmas ever. We love and miss you all. It's been a quiet Christmas this year. I'm sure it will be the last quiet Christmas we have for many many years to come though. Here it is, 4:30 and we're still in our pj's. It's a beautiful, sunny day outside, after a couple days of snow.

Enjoy these pictures from the last week or two!

Ok, so pics will come later. Sorry they are causing me grief again! Love to all!!!

You'll love me again!

2007-12-15T21:03:00.000-09:00

Warning....VERY much picture heavy!!!

Ok, so Delinda has been after me to upload some video of Donavyn, so here it is. I'll work on getting the video of Gabriel (yup, from JULY) up this week. I just figured out how to do it. This video includes some from when she was just under a month old and some from last week - at two and a half months. It is about 5 minutes long....sorry about that, but I figured our family would enjoy it being long since no one has seen her in person.

Ok. Now for the pictures. I'll include some...ok, a LOT of photos from the last few weeks also. Pics of our tree will come soon.

Donavyn fell asleep on me before going to the base Christmas party. Melissa watched Donavyn for us.

We didn't really have too much fun at the base party this year, but whatever. We made the most of it and were silly. Note to those throwing parties...just because the sound CAN go up to 11, doesn't mean it should. I left with a headache. We may skip the party next year, but it's the only time we can get dressed up so we'll see.

Us at the table getting ready to eat. At least the food was good, but we had both been on a diet for a few weeks already and it was hard to eat it all because there was so much - not necessarily a bad thing.
This is Becca before the raffle prizes were drawn. She was so excited and couldn't wait to see what she would win.

This is Becca after the drawings and realizing that she just helped pay for the prizes instead of winning one. You had to buy the tickets...Zach and I don't play b/c it's not like we are going to win anyway. There are people who go and spend over $100 on the raffle tickets, that's just nutso.

Here we are with Becca and Jason in front of the cheesy tree. It was a sorry excuse for a tree, but it was fun nonetheless. We had a great time chatting with them and the Wallins for a while out in the hall - the only place we could hear ourselves. Ok, I just realized I'm very negative about the whole party thing and yet I have a lot of pictures from it. Like any event you go to, there are ups and downs. Just so happened we did have a good time with them, but just not enough that we wanted to stay very long. I know other people had a great time, maybe we just weren't in the mood for it.

Donavyn and I went to visit Zach one night at work so she could have her pictures made with him in front of the 60 wearing her 60 onesie. I just love her in jeans. Everyone that looks at her says she looks just like her daddy. She just looks like Donavyn to us though.

Hey, let me fly this thing! I can do it!

Daddy, don't take off with me on here, ok?

Our nakey baby! She is so cute! I think every day the past week or so, she has done something new. From starting to kick her feet more to talking more to smiling a lot and getting close to laughing to crying more to being more aware of her surroundings.

She fell asleep on the ottoman with Zach rocking her back and forth on it. She looks so peaceful. Thanks to Nana and Pops for this dress. It came with a Santa hat and shoes too.

This is from her first sleep in the crib. She slept in there from 6:30 - 9:30 a.m. and this is how we found her. She had pushed her way to the corner and her foot was coming through the rungs. And you notice her little butt pushed way up. She's too cute. Have I said that already? Well...she is!

Father and Mother Christmas were at the Baranof Museum. I think we'll have to go back there to spend time and look around more.

Melissa and Bronwyn gave us a shower at Bronwyn's house. It was a lot of fun. It was our first shower and about 10 ladies from church were there. I'm so thankful to have found our church and the friends we have made through it!

This is for Grandma and Pawpaw. They got this dress for her and when we went to church with her in it, everyone asked if it was mine as a child. I have some dresses of mine as a baby, but they won't fit her yet.

This is Donavyn and I in front of the tree tonight. I was working on getting the pictures downsized and ready to put on the blog. Sorry it's dark, but the ones with the flash didn't show the tree very well....and they showed my double chin more! lol

Oh, and still no news about when we go get Gabriel. Hopefully very soon!

Welcome to the World, Max!

2007-11-30T14:20:00.001-09:00

Our friends Scott and Shana's baby was born on November 29 at 11:11 am and weighed 9 lbs 6 oz. He's just adorable, isn't he? I think Donavyn has a little boyfriend. I can't wait to see him. Hopefully we'll be able to see one another soon with three added kids to the mix.

We got word that the 2nd DNA test results are back. He's the same baby that took the first DNA test...shocker. But Sonya told me that PINK usually comes 2 - 2 1/2 weeks after those results come back. So I've been searching for flights that leave Christmas day just in case. Luckily I realized that Continental flies from Anchorage to Guatemala with just one layover in Houston. I hope that we can get tickets on that flight. I think there is only one per day.

I'll have to upload pics to the laptop (I'm on the desktop right now and it's driving me crazy not allowing me to upload right now. For some reason it isn't recognizing the camera. Ugh.)

Ok, anyway....hopefully I'll get those up today or tomorrow. More likely tomorrow since Zach goes to work in a bit and he takes the laptop with him.

Oh, and just to give everyone a laugh. You've got to see this video. This is the BEST first wedding dance I've ever seen!

Very Thankful

2007-11-26T11:05:00.000-09:00

We have so much to be thankful for this year! One year ago, we thought we may never get pregnant and were starting to look for an adoption agency. Who knew that one year later, not only would we have the call that our son was just about ready to come home from Guatemala, but we have a beautiful little girl. God has always given blessings, but this year I feel more blessed than ever.
We are still waiting for the email telling us when our Embassy appointment is, but we will only have 6-10 days to plan and get ready to go. This is going to happen fast. And the sooner, the better. We are ready for Gabriel to come home.
Thanksgiving morning was spent taking care of a sick dog. Snowflake must have gotten into something, b/c she was sick all night and morning. We spent at least an hour trying to clean the carpets. We're going to probably hire the local carpet cleaner to come deep clean next week.

Thanksgiving dinner was spent with our wonderful friends Jason and Becca. We have been truly blessed with the friends God has placed in our lives, just since May. Jason & Becca (and Fred) and Aaron & Melissa (and the kids of course) have become more than friends. They are our family now. We had a fabulous dinner that included our favorites, antipasto appetizer and a fried turkey. Apparently, it's Dorval tradition for the turkey to have a last flight.

We had a TON of food. I swear, I think we could have fed an army.

After dinner Melissa and the kids came for dessert. Unfortunately Aaron had to work, so he wasn't able to be there. (Hey, guys, I think this is where the blogs meld.) Check out Becca and Jason's blog for a group pic. I don't have a copy yet. The kids played Wii (and I'm talking about the grown boys too) and climbed Jason like a tree. Hmm....we've been working on getting the house ready for a crawler. YIKES!!! I can't believe he's coming home.

Oh, yeah, Donavyn went for her 2 month well baby check today. She is now 22" long and 10 lbs 10 oz. Her head measures just under 15.25". She is getting so big! Here are some pics. Love you all!!!

Donavyn's Big Announcement!!!

2007-11-20T17:54:00.000-09:00

Yup...that's right! We got "the call"! We are OUT of PGN! WOOHOO!!!! Sonya called at about 4:30 yesterday afternoon and asked if we were ready to have our boy home. Man, are we?!? Of course Zach was at work and wouldn't be back until today, but I caught him before he took off for a flight and he was happy too! We don't know the exact dates that we will be gone, but it should be between 4-8 weeks from now.

I'm sorry I haven't updated lately. It's been crazy and then we have been re-arranging furniture and misplaced our camera connector to transfer pics onto the computer, but Zach found it yesterday, just in time.

I'll put up more pics later, but Miss D is crying and Zach is on his way home and I'm not feeling 100% (probably all that screaming I did last night). I'm so glad Becca and Jason were home so that I could get a hug and have someone to scream with me! Thanks guys!

Only Treats this year!

2007-11-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

Happy (belated) Halloween to all of you! I tried to post last night, but wasn't able to get my pictures to load and didn't want to come without the good stuff - lest I be lashed out against. So, here it is!

Before we get to Donavyn's pictures, I just want to share that we got Gabriel's October medical report. As of Monday, our boy weighs 17 lbs and is 27 inches long! I can't believe it! He's getting so big now! He has two teeth now and is eating solids. And of course he's sitting up on his own too. I can't believe he is 7 months already. Will you all be praying fervently that we get a call within the next week? Every month we get new pictures, we fall more in love and yet our heart breaks a little more also b/c he is not here with us. We want Gabriel and Donavyn to be together and we want our family complete - until we decide to have more kids. Ok, so here are his pictures...

He's getting so big!
He looks like he's just amazed by something...
I remember getting pictures when he didn't even fill up this scale!
Sitting up so big and tall!
Zach had duty for Halloween, so he didn't have to go in until the afternoon, which allowed us to go for a walk. We took her out for the first time in a stroller. She seemed to like it until we got to the really pothole-y part. She was just jibber-jabbering and then fell asleep and started talking again. It was so cute.
We dressed her up as a chili pepper during the day. Doesn't she just look so cute? Of course, Zach had to keep making silly comments that she must be chilly - get it? chilly? (yeah, he said it). He's a goob, but he's cute and I think I'll keep him.
Then after her bath I put her in her BOO outfit with the cat hat and socks Aunt Dee (I got it right this time!) sent. They were a little big, but she looks SO cute. Of course, I'm a little biased, but she is, right?
I tried putting the hat on before the bath, but she was tired of me getting up and down with the trick or treaters and messing up her feeding and taking so many darn pictures. Oh well, she better get used to it! I'll be taking her picture for a looong time.
Oh, and she just loves her swing, which is where she's chillin' here in this one.
This last one is what she went to have lunch with Daddy in at work the other day. Fitting, no? I'm glad she'll be able to wear it for a while. One day soon we'll take her up there in it and have pictures made with her daddy in front of a 60.
Ok, that's enough for now. Happy Harvest! Enjoy November and remember to be thankful for all you are blessed with, I know we have plenty to be thankful for. Please remember to pray for Gabriel's quick arrival home too! Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers!

Land of the midnight sun no more....

2007-10-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

...now it's the land of the late morning moon. Ok, so it won't quite make it to a noon moon, as we are too far south still, but still.

This was taken at around 9 am this morning. I took the girls (the four legged ones) outside and saw how beautiful it was and had to snap a few pictures.

Don't forget there is another new post that I made last night.

Our girl is ONE MONTH OLD!!!

2007-10-25T22:38:00.001-08:00

I can't believe Donavyn is a month old already! On one hand it seems like she was just born yesterday and on the other it's like she has always been here. Please, someone, anyone tell me she'll stop growing. That she will always stay tiny. I love to just cuddle with her. It's so amazing to see the changes she is going through every day. She is really starting to respond to loud noises (read: when the dogs bark after being quiet for a long time) and she is following me with her eyes more too. She can hold her head up and is such a strong little girl.

Here she is with her daddy on the 19th...the day she was supposed to be born.

This was tonight. Zach had to give his princess a one month birthday kiss. Doesn't it look like she's saying, "Dad, please! Ugh..." Nah, just kidding, honey. She loves her daddy.

Here are two of our girls. They were napping with Zach on the couch. Aren't they cute?

Aww...sleepy baby. Thank you ~~Grandma and Pawpaw~~ Aunt Dee (oops...sorry about that!) for this outfit! It's so comfy!

We had the annual OSA auction on Saturday night. I donated this cake stand with some homemade caramel apples. The sticks were picked up that morning at Fort Abercrombie. I was so excited, it went for $85. The money raised goes to SO many great causes including Santa to the Villages (see pictures from mid-December of last year) and many other local charities. I had to take a picture and thought it was pretty enough to share.

Ok, it's late, I need to get to bed. Love you all!

Week of Firsts!

2007-10-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

This was a week of firsts for our little girl. Last Sunday was Donavyn's first Sunday at church. The pants were/are huge on her, but she still looked adorable - everyone told us so (not that we really needed to be told). The sweater fit perfectly though. Our friend Bronwyn got this for little miss before we headed to Anchorage. Of course, right in the middle of church I had to get up to change little miss stinky pants (and boy did it stink too). The blanket she is sitting on was made by my Aunt Linda for Gabriel. I'm sure he won't mind if his little sister uses it every once in a while though.

Donavyn also had her first real bath on Wednesday. She seems to really like it too. She is so calm and relaxed when she is in there. After bath is momma/Donavyn time. I love to snuggle with her while she's in her towel and then put lotion on her. We don't have a chair in the nursery for me to sit in, so we have been sitting on the floor. I've been using one of my old baby blankets to put on the floor and we play on that. She's really starting to notice more and stay awake longer. Of course, she likes to be awake when momma and daddy want to sleep, but what should we really expect, huh?

Yesterday, the 4H club held a Harvest Fest/Pumpkin patch at the fairgrounds. We grabbed Becca and made it out to find that all the pumpkins were gone! Bummer. We wanted a picture of our pumpkin with some pumpkins. Yeah, I know...cheesy, but that's me! We did get to see a horse though. The owner is really nice. She does therapeutic horse training with developmentally challenged children. By the time we got to the horses, she had moved her into a stall because she (the horse) had been around children all day and was tired. As soon as the owner saw us looking at the horse, she stopped in the middle of a conversation with someone else and said, "Is that a baby? Come over here!" When Zach mentioned that we were hoping to get our picture made with the horse, she led her back out and let us. When she found out Pops is a ferrier, she said he could come work on her horses any time he wanted. So, Pops, you've got a job if you want one from the sound of it!
The rest of the pictures are just for fun. Donavyn likes to rock on! She is so much fun to play with! She's like a little doll and we can mover her around any way we want. She makes some pretty cute faces on her own too though. She really likes to have her hands near her face, but she doesn't really suck on her fingers too much unless she is hungry.
Isn't this outfit cute? Abbie sent us some outfits this week! We love them!

We had two Dr's appointments this week. Monday was the first one and she had gained 4.2 oz just over the weekend. Friday we had another and she was up another 7 oz! Just a few days and she gained half a lb! Dr. Walters couldn't believe it. She walked in and started snorting and said we've got a little porker now! Not quite, seeing as she's just now only 6 lbs, but we're working on it! She has fuller cheeks now and looks healthier.

Little hands....she even clasps them together at times. It's really cute...she's really cute!
And her little feet. She does like to have her legs crossed. Her legs are starting to straighten out now too from being curled up in the womb. She's going to be SO tall, just like her daddy.
Speaking of Daddy...he sure does love his little girl. He's so good. He loves feeding her and walking her out on the deck. We gave her a bottle for the first time last night. It's taking some time for her to get used to it, and she's just not eating much today, but this is going to be so much better for us. Sorry this got so long. I got carried away. Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Be praying for us too. Things in Guatemala are slowing down right now and we're a little concerned. We want our boy home. When I was still pregnant things seemed to be going so fast. Now that we have our little girl home things seem to be going slower. Maybe it's because we are seeing how much we have already missed of his life, but nonetheless, it's slow. Please be praying that we get a call soon!

Shhhh!!

2007-10-06T17:11:00.000-08:00

That's the word of the day around this house lately. Beth and I have been doing absolutely nothing and enjoying every minute of it!! We're finally settling into a routine and now are just fine tuning it. We're feeding Donavyn about every 2-3 hours and she's started waking up when she's hungry, which is a very good sign because before we were having to wake her up. She was 5 lbs 14 oz when she was born and then went down to 4 lbs 15 oz (all babies lose weight but this is too much!!) We started really feeding her a lot to try to get her weight back up and that really tired us out but she's back up to 5 lbs 5 oz as of her last weight check. We'll go in on Monday to see how much she's gained over the weekend. The only time she really cries is when she gets her diaper changed because she's got a wicked diaper rash right now. Other than that we've been sleeping whenever we can. Beth and I are tag-teaming feedings right now with one of us taking one night feeding and the other taking the other one. That way we both are getting quite a bit of sleep. HOORAY!!!
One more factor to our getting more sleep has been the wonderful friends that have been bringing us dinner every night. Between the Officer's Spouses Association and Coastie Chicks we have been eating like kings and the best part is we aren't having to cook and therefore don't have to clean up afterwards!!! We've made meals before for other people who've had new babies but never realized how much of a help it really is. You have no idea!!

Circle of Life...

2007-10-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

Isn't she precious!!! Well it's been almost a week now and we're still surviving. Actually I'd say we're more than surviving...we're thriving. Yes Beth and I are a little tired but that comes with the territory. Nobody told me our house would turn into a disaster area though. I was expecting a little disarray but nothing prepared me for this.

We did hit one little hiccup. Donavyn was a little jaundiced this weekend so we had to take her back to the hospital. We did get our room back though, the room we were in when this little adventure called parenthood all started, room 19, Providence Hospital. One more stay there and we get our name on the door.

Anyway we stuck her under the lamps and 24 hours later she was right as rain!!! Beth and I entertained ourselves making Star Wars references to carbonite freezing chambers and Storm-Troopers.

Look at her goggles and tell me she couldn't be working for the Empire!!

Here by special request is a foot picture. We love you!!!

Introducing...

2007-09-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

Donavyn Faith Koehler!!!

Born Sept 25th 2007 at 6:33 pm.
She weighed in at 5 lbs 14 oz and 19 3/4 inches long.

It's been an exhausting couple of days but we are finally home and couldn't be happier!! We really appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers. We couldn't have done this without the support of everybody out there!! I hate to lump you all together like this but if I were to list everyone of you I think I would break the internet. You are all so special to us and we are truly blessed to have you as friends and family.

Mother and Daughter are doing just fine and hopefully 0nce we get settled in a little bit more we'll be able to share our story with you. We have most of it already written but every time we would try to finish it and get it posted we would be interrupted by a doctor or nurse. But no more interruptions now!! (yeah right) But we promise we will get more pictures posted and fill you in on the exciting new addition to our family.

God Bless You All!!!

Happy Half Birthday, to You!

2007-09-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

Our dear Gabriel is 6 months today! I wish we could celebrate this with him, but we are happy knowing he's with a wonderful family.

--------------------------

Ok, so this is where I got cut off yesterday as I was typing this out. So YESTERDAY was his half birthday. So, what happened to cut my posting time so short? I thought you'd never ask! The Dr. on call (Dr. Wiggins) came in for rounds and said she thought it was time for us to have a baby. Yup, that's right.

We asked a lot of questions and we are likely going to start the induction this morning at some point. She and Dr. Whitefield (my Dr.) are in surgery starting at 9, and I've been told that Dr. Whitefield is going to try to stop by today - don't know if it will be before or after his surgery though. I'm really hoping that he will be available to deliver our baby girl.

Please pray that everything goes well and that I have a fast, easy labor and delivery. For those of you that have been calling and emailing, thank you so much. It means so much to have friends and family like all of you thinking about and praying for us.

We have been EXTREMELY blessed with some amazing friends and neighbors who are watching over our dogs and house. A very special thank you to Melissa and Aaron, Becca and Jason, and Mary and Keith. I don't know what we would have done without you all. You have all become more than friends (not only through this, but through everything), but are now family. We love you guys! I know there are so many others out there who are doing so much for us and we appreciate all of you.

So, with that said, I'm going to go for now. Zach is off getting me some breakfast. He said he's surprising me this morning, so we'll see what he has up his sleeve. We'll do our best to let you guys know what's going on, but can't promise anything. Next time you hear from us we MAY be Momma and Daddy! Wow....

Still waiting...

2007-09-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

Beth on Bed-Rest

Well no news is good news I suppose...Beth and the baby are doing just fine. Beth is doing a lot better in fact. Her blood pressure has stabilized and her protein has actually gone down. It makes us wonder why we are still here and not being sent home but they said that with bedrest Beth can actually get better but if she went off of bedrest and went home she could get worse very quick so until further notice we're stuck. Beth is really enjoying her bedrest though. She's been able to catch up on her sleep and reading. She's a Sudoku genius too!!! Anyway I've got to go get the laundry out of the dryer now so here's some updated pictures.

Leaving the house as a pair for the final time.

Pretty toes!!! (She is the spoiled-est person I know)

All In One Update...

2007-09-20T08:22:00.000-08:00

Ok here’s the scoop for those of you that don’t know already. Saturday morning we had to take Beth to the hospital and by “we” I mean our very dear friend Melissa had to because I was on duty. Beth had a feeling that her blood pressure was a little high so we purchased a digital blood pressure monitor a couple days before and Saturday morning it was WAY high. We’re talking triple digits high. So Beth called the doctor’s office and they told her to go to the emergency room and NOT to drive herself. That’s when she called Melissa at home and her exact words (okay, so pretty close anyway) to her husband as she ran out of their bedroom were “Gotta go, watch the kids. I am taking Beth to the emergency room” and that was it. I can only imagine what Aaron was thinking at that point. But they made it alright and got checked in. I was able to find a short notice relief from duty and went to the hospital too.

When I got there they had moved her into another room and had her all settled in. She had high blood pressure and they were testing to see if she had any protein in her urine. Two of the symptoms of pre-eclampsia, a very un-understood (new word for the win) condition. Doctors are not sure what causes it but the only treatment is to deliver the baby. Beth was only 35 weeks pregnant at this point so the main concern was how developed the baby’s lungs are. There was some talk of letting her go home and just be on bed rest because her blood pressure, while high, was not in the severe range and was manageable. That was until the Doctor came in Sunday morning expecting to tell us that we were able to go home but instead had to tell us that Beth did have protein in her urine and was pre-eclamptic. To be pre-eclamptic you need to have between 300-500 mgs of protein with severe pre-eclamsia being between 4000-5000 mgs. Beth has 600-700 mgs so is barely pre-eclamptic but that means we can’t go home. In fact they went one further and sent us to Anchorage where there is a very good neo-natal unit and some of the countries best Perinatologists (doctors that specialize in problem pregnancies – shocker considering this is Alaska…why the best are here, who knows?). So that way if our little girl’s lungs are not developed they have the best equipment to care for her.

So I did some calling around. Made travel arrangements to get us on the jet out of Kodiak. Called my work and told them the situation. Said I have to take Beth to Anchorage and I don’t know when I’m coming back. They said that they cleared my schedule indefinitely and they’ll worry about accounting when I come back. I’m on medical orders so our plane tickets, rental car, and my food is all paid for and I’m not burning any of my earned leave. I love the Coast Guard!!

So we got here and talked with Dr. Whitefield (the guy who got Beth pregnant) and he gave us three options to think about. 1- Wait and see if baby girl can get a few more weeks of cooking in. 2- Perform an Amniocentesis and that will tell us if baby girl’s lungs are developed or not and induce labor. (Dr’s choice at this point) 3- Induce labor and deliver baby girl with out the Amnio. He ordered another ultra-sound to check the baby and find out how much fluid is around the baby and get an idea of how far along she is. The Perinatologist herself did the actual ultra-sound and could find absolutely nothing wrong with baby girl!! Can Beth grow them or what!! She was weighing in at a whopping 6.7 lbs give or take a pound!! And there is plenty of fluid around the baby for an Amnio. They also measured the protein in Beth’s urine again over a 24 hour period and found out it hadn’t changed much. So armed with the fact that Beth’s condition hasn’t worsened in 4 days and baby girl is looking really good option 1 of waiting is now our top choice. The risks of a late stage Amnio just outweigh the benefits in our mind right now. We are very comfortable waiting and keeping a close eye on Beth because that’s who’s at risk now, not baby girl.

Now, in other news. We received new pictures of our Guatemalan Angel. We also talked with Sonya and she said that we did receive a kick out from PGN. Apparently Guatemala is now requiring the birth mother’s birth certificate to be signed by the mayor of the city she was born in. And it appears that this requirement is only for some cities. Ours happens to be one of them. This is a new requirement, one that hasn’t cropped up before and caught everybody off guard. But the kick out is actually a positive thing. It means that our case was being looked at and if it hadn’t gotten kicked out we would have been through PGN at this point. Our lawyer down in Guatemala has been trying to track down the mayor every day but the elections down there have put a serious strain on his time and has been hard to get time with. But our lawyer is very persistent and has promised to get the signature

and our case back into PGN this week or next. This will give us time to get baby girl home and settled before I have to go down to Guatemala to pick up Gabriel. Oh, and she emailed new pictures too! What a nice surprise for us!

We’ll update you all again when things change if we can. Love you all and enjoy the pictures!!

One step closer...

2007-09-13T21:34:00.001-08:00

Well we are one step closer to being ready to bring two new little ones into our home. We finished painting the nursery and put the cribs together!! Now all that's left is to move the changing table into the room and figure out the layout. Gabriel and Baby Girl will be sharing a room so we had to figure out a theme that would be appropriate for both of them and since I always call Beth "My Princess" we thought that a Prince & Princess room would be cool. Actually, a friend of Beth's on Coastiechicks was the first to suggest the theme, so thank you MamaFox (aka Angela)! We loved your idea and ran with it! It took a bit of research and a lot of erasers on my part but I finally figured out how to draw the murals on the walls. We then had our neighbors scan them into the computer and we borrowed a computer projector to blow the drawings up on the wall. Beth helped me trace them and finally paint them. It took several weeks but we are quite pleased with the result. Hopefully our children will one day appreciate all the hard work we put into their room.

Starting the Dragon and Knight on Gabriel's side of the room.

Unicorn and Princess on Baby Girl's side of the room.

Starting the Castle on the third side of the room (over the changing table).

Finished Castle.

Gabriel's side of the room including his crib.

Detail of Knight. (Look at how well Beth painted his face!!)

Baby Girl's side of the room including her crib.

Detail of Unicorn and Princess.

Gabriel's 5 month check-up

2007-09-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

Hi all! We just received an email from Sonya (our wonderful co-ordinator) with Gabriel's medical report from August. We can't believe he's already FIVE months old!!! Please, God, bring him home soon!

He is doing well and is very healthy. He is on a multivitamin with flouride, so he's getting all the nutrients he needs to grow big and strong. As of Aug. 20 he weighs 16 lbs and is 25.6 inches long with a 16.5 in. head circumference. We can't believe how big he is!

Of course I (Beth) cried and didn't want to move off of the first picture. His face is thinning out. It's amazing how fast they change at this age. We were just there a month earlier and he changed so much!

We want to update you on the adoption progress as well. In my last post I mentioned that we had already entered PGN. Well...we didn't enter until this past Monday or Tuesday (the 27th or 28th). Why? Oh, because the US Embassy just likes to make our lives difficult! They decided at the last minute that they were going to shut their doors for the week of the 20-24th and also decided that because they were going to be closed that week that they didn't feel like handing out paperwork the Friday afternoon previous. Great....we (along with our attorney) didn't receive the email that our PA was ready to pick up until Thursday after close of business. Lovely, huh? So yeah, instead of having nearly 3 weeks under our belt, we are only at one.

We have faith though, that God made us wait so we could get on the "right" persons desk. That's about the only thing keeping us sane right now. So pray that we are right and that God had us get placed on someone's desk who will get us OUT quickly! We really appreciate all of your prayers and support. It really means so much to us. It's so hard to be away from our families right now, but it helps to know that we have people all over the place praying on our behalf.

Also be praying for the people of Guatemala right now. Hurricane Felix is downing about 25 in of rain there. We have been assured by Caroline (the PH director) that she has been in contact with the attorney's there and that they aren't seeing too much in Guate City, so that is good for all of our agency's families. Ana and Byron live pretty high above sea level, so I'm not worried about flooding, but I hate that it's going on nonetheless and that I'm not there to comfort my baby.

Ok, enjoy the pictures. We love you all!

Funny thing, time

2007-08-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

It's amazing to me how fast time flies and yet how slow it seems to go at the same time. My pregnancy time is FLYING by, whereas the adoption time seems to be dragging on forever. I am now in the single digits of weeks left in my pregnancy. I've got just about 8 weeks left. Here is a pic of me from last week.

Now...some GREAT news! We have finally exited Family Court, received Pre-Approval from the US Embassy and entered PGN which is basically this:

After receiving Pre-Approval (PA) the lawyer submits a petition for approval of the adoption case to a notarial officer of the Attorney Generals office (Procuraduria General de la Nación or PGN). (A Notary in Guatemala is an attorney with additional powers, not simply someone who certifies signatures as in the US.)
Notary in PGN reviews all the documents (sometimes requesting that some be re-done because of minor spelling errors, expired notary seals, etc. - however our agency is very picky about how paperwork is completed and there are few kick-outs) and almost always approves the adoption. The PGN may at their discretion investigate aspects of the case if they wish and as a result of that and other variations, time in this step (as in many steps) can vary widely. Our agency is currently averaging anywhere from a couple weeks to a few months. We know people that have gotten their OUT - approval from PGN - in two weeks (or less) and some who are still in after 3 months. It really just depends on whose desk you get placed on.
PGN issues its approval for the adoption to proceed. Once we get our OUT, the US Embassy will then perform a second DNA test on Gabriel to make sure he is the same baby they tested at the beginning of the process and then we will be issued our appointment date for the pick-up (called PINK because the appointment slip is pink). The appointment is usually anywhere from 6-8 weeks after OUT.

Please be praying that we will get our OUT in a very short amount of time. I'm crossing all crossables that we will get ours in two weeks. However, that will make the Embassy appointment around the time I'm due, but I have faith that God will allow Zach to witness the birth of our baby girl.

We are making progress on the nursery also. Above is a pic of one of the walls. Didn't Zach do a great job? I'm not showing the anything with the murals until they are all finished though. You'll just have to wait! I will give you a hint though: we are going with a prince/princess theme. Zach has done a great job so far and he has even designed some murals to go on the wall. He is gone this week (he'll be home tomorrow - thank goodness) and while he's away he's working on the last one - for above baby girls crib. We have only penciled them on the wall so far with a projector we checked out from the library (who knew they had those to check out - my husband is brilliant for thinking of it!). Now just to figure out colors. That is the hard part.

Our cribs got here the day before Zach left, so they are still sitting in our entryway, making maneuvering difficult, but the dogs and I are managing. Now just to get all the other necessities so that we'll be prepared for the kiddos. Must buy diapers too. I keep forgetting the coupons Mom sent me (thanks, again!) when I go to Walmart. Maybe I'll do that today and get myself out of the house.

Not really too much else going on. I hope everyone is doing well! We love you all!

Gabriel's 4 month check up

2007-07-26T07:26:00.000-08:00

Got info about his 4 month check up, which was on Saturday. He weighs 14.8 lbs and is 24.8 inches. His head circumference is 16.4 inches, which puts him in the 93-94th percentile for Guatemalan children. On the American growth charts he is at about the 25% for length, 50% for weight, 25% for head circumference, and 75% for lenght/weight ratio. I haven't found a Guatemalan growth chart for anything but head circumference, but I'm so glad that he is on par with American children. I think this will probably help him as he grows up.

Most of the children we saw while on our visit were TINY. There were children close to a year old who were smaller than Gabriel. Some of that has to do with genetics, but a lot of it (I'm certain) has to do with the care they are receiving. I'm so glad I've got a healthy boy!

He did receive some shots: his second dose of DPT and his first of Meningitis. Poor baby didn't look to happy in the pictures we got of him. I don't blame him either. They are on the other computer, so I'll update that later today. It's amazing how much his hair grew in just a week! Man, we are going to be cutting it all the time!

I have my next prenatal appointment next Tuesday and then I start going every other week. Fun stuff. I guess since I'm getting close, we need to start looking at the classes the hospital offers. I can't believe baby girl will be here in about 12 weeks! ACK! SO much to do!

Zach did start painting the nursery this week, but unfortunately it will have to wait a few days for another coat. He found out yesterday at about 3:30 that he has to leave for a couple days to go down to Spokane, WA for some training. If he doesn't go this week, he won't be able to fly until he gets it done. That's ok though. I'm glad he's doing it now and not once the kids get home.

Here's what you've been waiting for!!

2007-07-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to the rest of our pictures from our Awesome Guatemala Trip!! There are two albums, one from our visit with Gabriel (the first link) and the other is for the vacation portion of our trip. We haven't captioned the second one yet, but Gabriel's has been done. When you click on the link, if you don't have an account with Snapfish, you can either create one or you can skip that part and just click the "View now" button at the top right of the page.

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=167545626/a=57694574_57694574/t_=57694574

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=167549702/a=57694574_57694574/t_=57694574

New equation...

2007-07-18T18:00:00.000-08:00

Chicken buses = "Holy cow did he just do that!?!?!"

For those of you that don't know "Chicken buses" are the super cheap transportation around Guatemala and especially between villages. They are painted really vibrant colors and designs and are rather cool looking...until you watch them drive. They are CRAZY!!!! Literally crazy...they treat all road markings and signs as meer suggestions. There are a ton of them on the road and they are all privately owned and as such compete with each other like its the Indy 500. They will pass on double yellow lines, near curves, hills...doesn't matter. They hardly even slow down to pick people up. Which is wierd since the passengers are the ones paying their livelyhood. I can't tell you how many people I saw run up as the bus was pulling away and jump on the ladder in the back. The drivers have a helper that handles luggage, tickets, etc...and they ride hanging out the door. We saw the helper climb to the top of the bus as it was careening down the road to get the luggage ready for the next drop-off. I tell you they are certifiably NUTS!!!! But then again I think every driver here is wacko...they will pass you on the left or right...doesn't matter if there's on coming traffic or not. There were probably 50 near head on collisions today on our way back from Lake Atitlan. I wish I was making this stuff up.

Just had to let you know that part of the trip first. To set the scene a little bit, so let me back up now. I think last time we left you we had just dropped of our Angel on Saturday. Sunday we took a half day tour of Guatemala City. The city is pretty much like every major city but has some pretty interesting history. Many very beautiful churches and palaces and squares. We've got some great pictures to show you when we get home. Then we spent Monday and Tuesday in Antigua. That is by far both of our favorite spots to go. If you ever get a chance to come visit Guatemala be sure you spend at least 2 days or more in Antigua. And stay at Casa Santo Domingo. This place definatly earned its 5 star rating. We spent about 4 hours just exploring the hotel itself. It has 3 museums and a world class chef. Muy Bueno!!

That night our amazing Foster Father Byron came to pick us up at our hotel in G.C. and drove us to his house to see our muchacho poquito (little man) again and to show us that they are taking good care of him for us. He speaks zero english and neither does Mama Ana (his wife). So it was an interesting ride. Luckily my Super Wife spoke enough Spanish that we were able to talk to each other. And it also turns out that his oldest daughter (Katie) speaks english fairly well so was able to translate for us. They live in a very nice condo type house that is in a gated community. It breaks our heart to have to leave him but we can at least rest a little easier knowing that he is very loved and all of his needs are being met. He will be their 6th baby that they have fostered, so they know what they are doing. They are so amazing and we are so blessed that they are in our lives now.

Today we finished our Guatemalan adventure with a trip to Lago de Atitlan

We drove to Panajachel (aka Gringotenango..."The place of the Gringo") Very much a tourist trap but that's where we caught a boat and rode across the lake to Santiago. Very cool place but because a lot of tourists go there you are virtually assaulted by kids and people trying to sell you stuff. And they won't take no for an answer. The only way to deal with them is to completely ignore them but it is very hard and doesn't leave you with a good feeling. All in all though a very nice place to go. Highly recommended.

Well Beth and I are completely exhausted. We've had a roller-coaster ride of a vacation that would rival anything Universal Studios could imagine. With all the emotional and physical ups and downs...but we would do it again in a heartbeat. But we are ready to come home and share some great pictures and wonderful stories with you all.

Thanks again to all of you hoping and praying for us...

Sus amamos!! (We love you all!!)

Two familes + One baby = ?

2007-07-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

Answer: One big happy family, part in Guatemala, part in Alaska and all who love little Gabriel very, very much. We woke up this morning, went to bed last night in fact, expecting this to be the hardest day of our lives. While it was hard in many ways, it was also very refreshing and joyous. We got to meet our co-ordinator, Sonya, for breakfast as well as about 4 other families working with our agency. She is amazing and we couldn't be happier to have her working on our behalf.

We did have to pack Gabriel's bags, which was very difficult and we took a family nap today. Of course, today was the first time he has actually taken a good nap and we all slept for an hour and a half, waking up in just enough time to finish packing his things and getting him ready to go back to the foster family. He definitely fits with our family! (see previous post about sleeping late on important days).

The foster family came to pick him up and we took Gabriel down with all his bags and I was near tears the whole time. I was very surprised when the entire family (minus the oldest daughter who came Tuesday) was there with Ana. We met Byron (the dad) and their 10 year old Gabby and two cousins or nieces from Long Island...yup, as in NY. The cousins acted as our interpreter until Marisol could make it (lots of traffic this weekend).

I don't have a lot of time right now to explain a whole lot, because there are several other people waiting to use the computer. Let's suffice it to say that we will get to see our baby boy one last time. Byron is going to pick us up at the hotel after he gets off work on Tuesday and take us to their house for dinner. They want us to see where Gabriel lives and that he is being well cared for with our own eyes. You can tell how much they love him and adore him. It made us feel SO much better! Oh, and get this...the hotel we are switching to tomorrow...they got to church with Freddie, the owner. So our baby boy is already going to church and learning about God.

I do want to share one more thing that Ana told me when they were getting ready to leave. She said, "We already knew he was the perfect child for your family, but after seeing you with him, I now know you are the perfect parents for him as well." She then leaned over, tears in her eyes [both of ours], gave me a hug and said, "te amo" or I love you.

We have seen several families here who are very close with their foster families and I have a feeling that we will be the same way with Byron, Ana, and Gabby. I pray that is the case. Because Gabriel has two moms and two dads who love him very much and want nothing but the best for him. When we get home, I will post pictures of us all. We have a great picture of all of us together. What a great thing for Gabriel to have, verdad [right]?

Love to all of you. We can't wait to talk to you all. Much love and hugs.

He's so much better in person!!!

2007-07-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

Ok so we're finally able to sit down and write for a few minutes. We finally made it to Guatemala after 24 hours of traveling. What an exhausting trip!! We barely made it on the plane out of LAX after waiting in the check-in line for about 2 hours. Everybody was already on the plane and were just waiting for the last few people. We made it though and we got checked into the hotel just fine.

When Gabriel got dropped off we got the chance to meet his foster mother and sister. We could just see how much they love him and it sets our hearts at ease. We still don't look forward to him leaving on Saturday, but we know that God will bring him home in His time. As soon as we looked down at him he smiled right at us and the foster mom (Ana) pointed at us and said, tu mama, tu papa. I know the quotes are missing, but I can't seem to find them on this keyboard (it's a Spanish set up and the keys are a little different).

We've been in heaven with our angel. I wish we could upload pictures, but unfortunately the internet hookup is expensive and the computer in the baby lounge won't let us upload them here either. We promise there are TONS of great photos and even about a 3 minute video of him laughing. Daddy can make him laugh like nothing else. It's the cutest thing ever.

Ok, Gabriel needs to be fed now, so I'm going to go. We love you all and please pray for continued guidance throughout the process.

Happy 4th of July!!!

2007-07-04T11:30:00.001-08:00

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day today! I'm busy washing clothes and packing for the trip. I can't believe we leave in only 4 days!!! Less than a week now until I hold my boy! I can't believe it! The excitement is really sinking in.

I had a busy day yesterday. I had a Dr's appt and they scheduled me for an "emergency" 1 hour glucose test for later that day. Everything is fine, it must have been the Honey Nut Cheerios I had for breakfast that made my sugars high. Of course I don't eat very well while Zach is gone, so that probably had a lot to do with it to.

Becca had her Change of Command, so she is officially the Commanding Officer (CO) of Fish School. It's a lot longer name than that, but I'm not even going to try it. She even made the front page of the paper. Check out the article. I wish it had a picture on there. She should have one on her blog soon. She better.

CraftNite was last night too and it was a lot of fun, as always, with good food, good girlfriends and plenty of laughs. Not much crafting though. What's new?

Then Jason and Becca invited me to go watch the midnight fireworks with them down at the marina. It was fun. I was really impressed with the fireworks show too. I'm used to music for the fireworks, so that was missing, but they had a good show none-the-less. The photo at the top was the grand finale. Actually, the one below was the beginning of the finale also. I know the top one looks like it was actually dark, but the one below shows what it was really like. See? More like twilight? This was at about 12:30 a.m. too!

Today, we're going to grill out for dinner. It's not as pretty today as it has been for the past week, so I think our gorgeous streak is going away. I hope Guate isn't very rainy while we're there. It's winter and rainy season, but I've heard that July is the least rainy of the rainy months. I'm looking forward to the warmth though. Must remember sunscreen though.

Oh! One more thing....we are going to TRY to blog some while we are in Guate. The Marriott has Wi-Fi, so we should be able to with no problems. We'll share pics here too.

Greenpeace meets Kodiak

2007-07-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

As I was driving home on this yet another GORgeous Alaskan night I noticed an interesting boat docked where one of the ferries was when I went past a couple hours earlier. As I got closer I noticed it had a rather interesting paint job and that is said "GREENPEACE" on the back. So of course I pull in to the ferry terminal parking to get a better look. Luckily I had my camera with me and got some shots of the boat. I'm not sure how long they are here for, but they were loading what looked like food on while I was taking pics. I am SO loving my zoom lens! Then I saw the crew coming out of one of the famous local bars on Marine Drive across from the marina. I know it's them because I looked at their website to find out why they are here and there were pictures of the crew and the lady was wearing the same outfit. If you want to know why they are here, look here.

Just want to say too, that I don't necessarily agree with Greenpeace. I think their hearts are in the right place, they just don't go about making their point in the right ways most of the time and end up hurting the environment themselves. It's just not something you see every day and thought it was interesting.

We got new pics of our boy!

2007-06-30T22:03:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to share the new pictures we received today of Gabriel. He is just adorable, isn't he? I think this is what Zach and I really needed to get alleviate some of the angst we've been feeling about the trip. He is getting so big! We didn't get any information yet about his 3 mth check-up. I'm hoping he had one or that he will this week. I want to know how much he weighs.

11 days until we hold Gabriel!

2007-06-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

Yup, we're going to Guatemala for a visit. We got approval from our agency, the attorney's and the CG. We are filled with so many emotions about it I think we're more overwhelmed than anything. People keep asking if I'm excited and I am, but I'm also scared, nervous, anxious, worried... I think there are so many emotions running rampant that I don't feel anything, almost like it's not real. I feel guilty about that, but I can't seem to change it either. Is this normal?

We had to go buy lots of stuff for the trip since we have to be prepared for the foster mom to only bring formula, although she will likely bring more. $300 at Walmart later I think we are almost done. Kids are expensive! We had to get several brands of bottles b/c we don't know what kind he likes or will be willing to use, and clothes and diapers and medicines and and and. Whew....I wasn't expecting that much, but it's all worth it. I got a diaper bag that will work when we only have one at a time, but will need a bigger one for both of them.

Little girl is definitely alive and well in the belly. She gets herself in some mighty uncomfortable (for mommy) positions which has been making it hard to sleep. She seems to favor the lower right side of my belly making me look lopsided. It's pretty funny. Ok, so just because I said that she is moving her little legs around my mid-tummy and left side. She's so clever, that little one of mine. We're starting to see her on the outside more, but not all the time yet. Zach has started to be able to tell where her head and butt are by pushing around on my belly and feeling her move from side to side. It's pretty funny. It seems like she is RIGHT up under the skin too.

I've changed a lot over the past few weeks. I've got a couple pictures. The first is from June 8th at 21 weeks. Looks like I'm saying, "Hey, how did that happen? Who put that there?" or as Zach likes to say, "OH, so THAT'S where I put all the donuts!" He's so funny.

The other is from last night. We went to a going away/thank you party for Erin L. - the social worker who wrote our homestudy. She leaves on the ferry tonight for their new duty station. There were about 5 families there who she has helped form. There could have easily been a LOT more than that, but it was kind of put together at the last minute so not everyone knew about it. It was really neat.

It's been beautiful for the past few days...thank you, God... so we went out on the back deck for my 24 week pictures. I can't believe I'm 24 weeks already! Time has flown by so fast. It seemed like it was going to take forever in the beginning, but now it seems like it's going too fast almost. I'm starting to get the lower back/hip pain and just the pain from the Princess getting into these uncomfortable positions.

I think it's funny though. If you look in the archives at some of the pictures of me from a year ago, my face is so much thinner now than it was then. I am still lighter than I was a year ago too. That won't last too much longer, but it seems like all my baby weight (so far at least) is all in the belly. Makes it kinda hard on my maternity clothes though b/c most of them are too big for me still. I feel like I wear the same thing all the time. It's ok though.

We have new neighbors, Becca and Jason (see links). They got here last week on the ferry with Fred, the dog. He's so sweet. We took the dogs to White Sands Beach on Monday and had a great time. The dogs played in the water. Snowflake and Morgan were even let off their leashes and did really good about not venturing off too far. I think it helps that we were there with another dog and there was only so far they could go b/c of the water.

Ok, hope you are all well. We love you all very much. Mom, thanks for rubbing it in that you were looking out over P'cola Beach from a condo. Appreciate that, really.

Ok, just wanted to share this video with you too. It's SO funny and made Zach and I get tears in our eyes from laughing so hard. We can't wait for this!

Well the results are in!!

2007-05-30T18:16:00.000-08:00

After lots of prayers and waiting we have finally found out if Gabriel will have a little brother or sister...Our appointment wasn't until 1 p.m. so to keep Beth's mind occupied she went to her Yoga class and then had coffee with the girls. To make sure bellybaby was up and active she had an extra large triple espresso coffee and then came home and ate an entire bar of chocolate!! (These were doctor's orders by the way so stop having heart-attacks) Needless to say bellybaby was a squirmy worm for the ultrasound. So the time for the appointment finally arrived and we headed to the hospital. Beth called at least every week leading up to the appointment to make sure her favorite tech was going to be the one performing the ultrasound and it turned out that we were her last appointment before she left for 5 weeks. She asked us some questions and Beth told her that she was still not 100% positive that we weren't having twin bellybabies...we're not!! That was the first thing that the tech told us. Then she started looking at our baby...checking their brain, spine, fingers and toes...all perfect!! The tech had quite a handful trying to get all the right measurements because bellybaby was all hopped up on caffine and wouldn't stay still. She had to keep switching what she was measuring because our little worm was all over the place!! Then the time came when we found out if we were having another son or if I was still gonna be outnumbered by girls...dying to find out yet??

Then scroll down already and find out!!!

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

Gabriel will have a sister to watch over and I guess I need to start getting all my shotgun cleaning tools in order for whenever her dates come to pick her up. Thankfully that won't be for another 20 years or so. Thank you all for your prayers and support. We couldn't be happier!!

It was really amazing when we got back in the car after the ultrasound. We had on K-LOVE - a Christian music station that is syndicated here on the island. As soon as we turned the car on "You are Amazing God" by Chris Tomlin was on the radio. Here are some of the lyrics:

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and
You
know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God

And here's a video someone made. I tried to find a way to embed the song, but I can't figure that out. Maybe we should get Scott to give us a lesson in that.

Just a quick note

2007-05-28T23:07:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post a quick update. I'm sure I'll post a big one either tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm sure most of you know by now that we have our referral for our first born son, Gabriel. He was born on March 23 at 4:25 p.m. near Guatemala City. We received a referral last week and fell in love. Here are some pics...

Next, we find out the sex of BellyBaby tomorrow at 1 p.m. I can't believe I am almost 20 weeks already! It seems like just yesterday that we found out we were pregnant! What an exciting year we are having! Here is a picture of me from last weekend. This was at Jewel Beach that Zach spoke about in the previous post.

That night we went and had a campfire on the beach with some friends. We are so thankful that God has led us to some new friends that are Christians and focused on family. It was funny b/c none of them are CG, so there wasn't really any shop talk, which was nice. All the guys that were there all play WoW (World of Warcraft - Zach's online game he has been playing for a while) so they all have that in common and it was funny b/c Zach would quote something from a Robin Williams stand-up routine from the 80's and the rest of the guys would finish the quote. I just looked at him and said, "Wow...you are definitely with your own kind".

We also met with the youth minister and his wife for dinner on Thursday and discussed our working with the youth group starting this summer. The girls are going to have a Bible study on Tuesday's studying Esther which I am going to be involved in and then on Thursday's they will be doing a "Destination Unknown" where they will only be told where and when to show up at a certain place. We came up with some good ideas for that too, so it will be a busy summer.

Not to mention us going to Guatemala in July to visit Gabriel. Unfortunately we won't be able to bring him home with us then, but it will be nice to meet him and be with him for a few days. We should be able to meet the foster mother as well, which I am looking forward to. So if any of you that speak and write fluent Spanish want to do us a favor and translate some letters to her, we would appreciate it. We don't have them done yet, but we will definitely have some.

We had Crab Fest this weekend, but we'll talk about that in our next blog. It's time for me to go to bed.

Ok, so this was a little longer than I expected, but still only took a few minutes. Pray that the BellyBaby has open legs tomorrow! We want to find out if Gabriel is going to have a little brother or sister!!!

B-E-A-UTIFUL!!!

2007-05-19T17:13:00.000-08:00

Today was an absoulutly gorgeous day outside today...the first day in a long time that it was above 50 degrees and not a cloud in the sky!!! I got home from deployment last night after a very long day of waiting around. Beth and I woke up early (compliments of Mother Nature's big glow bulb) and had breakfast out on our front porch this morning. Then we were actually out the door before 9:30 to go yardsaling - didn't find much. But we did make it down to Jewel Beach out on the base to go hunting for Sea Glass. The beach is right at the approach end of one of the airport runways where a C-130 was doing touch and goes. Was pretty cool!! Tonight we're headed for White Sands Beach - which is neither white nor sandy - to have a beach bonfire with a couple of couples we know from church. All in all I'd say it was a down right decent day!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

2007-05-14T22:13:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make sure I was able to wish a very Happy Mother's Day to our mom's and all the mom's we know out there! You are all so special and such an inspiration. I have learned something from all of you. I just hope that when we have our children that I will be as wonderful as so many of you are.

We haven't celebrated Mother's Day here yet. I didn't think we were going to do anything for it, but Zach has informed me otherwise. He has something up his sleeve. He apparently has whatever my surprise is with him so that I wouldn't go sneaking around the house trying to find it. He knows me oh so well. Of course, I've been so lazy and tired I have no desire to expend the energy searching the house for things.

I did receive a few Happy Mother-to-be Day cards. Thanks Mom & Dad, Delinda and Rebecca!!!! I did have to laugh when I opened the cards from Delinda and Mom though...they were the exact same card and had almost identical words written inside. Too funny! Not only that, but they arrived on the same day. I'll have to take a picture and put it on here to show you all. I loved them all though. It was very considerate and very much appreciated. I just wish I were able to see you all and spend time with you shopping for the rugrats!

We had a scare last week at the Dr's office. Ok, so I did...Zach is deployed, so I was there alone. When she measured me she said I was big and a few minutes later left to see if the Dr. with the ultrasound machine in the office was in. I heard her tell him that she had a patient (me) that is 17 weeks who was measuring 23 weeks. This is where I start freaking out! I can't handle being pregnant with TWINS!!! I can't take care of TRIPLETS!!! Thank goodness the ultrasound only showed one baby. Whew...dodged a major bullet there. God sure does have a sense of humor, doesn't He? I know if it were the case we would handle it, but I'm SO glad we don't have to handle it!

It was so neat to see the baby though. Bellybaby is a wiggleworm. Dr. Zimmer was shocked that I couldn't feel anything. He said to enjoy it while I can b/c this baby will be making his/her presence known soon and I'll be sick of it before too long. Oh, they said I was probably measuring so far along b/c I'm petite and only gaining in the belly. That's good news to me! I can actually still wear a lot of my pre-pregnancy clothes. Jeans anyway...they sit below my belly. I just wish Zach could have been there to see the baby.

He will have his chance soon enough though. We have "the BIG ultrasound" on Tuesday, May 29th at 1 p.m. So everyone be praying that this baby doesn't choose to be modest while in the womb. As my friends like to say..."send open leg vibes!!!". We sure do need them. Dr. Walters told me to drink coffee and eat chocolate before I went (oh, darn) so that the baby will be moving around and hopefully get a good look. So what do you all think? Boy or girl? I still have no clue. I keep going back and forth.

We received our last bit of paperwork we were waiting on for our dossier, but the homestudy agency messed up on the notary so they have to do it again. Which means we had to have our social worker here print up another set of reports and have hers notarized again. Fun stuff. I guess Guatebaby needs to bake a little longer. I can't wait to get that referral though. I think we are REALLY close. One of the other families working with Palmetto Hope and our coordinator (Sonya - she rocks) brought home their little girl Savannah at only 4 1/2 months old. That is a huge feat right now, so I'm hoping a praying that God will let our little man come home that early too.

Ok, I'm done. Love you all and I'll post a new picture this weekend when Zach gets home. I've definitely grown since the last picture. It's amazing how much two weeks can change you! Wow!!!

So I'm doing a little better...

2007-05-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

...I'm making another post less than a month after my last one! That's an improvement, right? We are now 16 weeks along in the pregnancy and could also possibly have a referral by mid-June! I can't believe how fast it all seems to be going! I went to a friends garage sale today and bought a double stroller. ACK! It all became so real that we're going to have TWO babies when I bought that! Whoa...it's a good thing I know God has His plan, b/c I sure question it sometimes, but I have faith that it's all in His timing.

Anyway...We were lucky enough to fly to Sitka (see above photo) on a C-130 on the 24th of April to visit our friends Scott and Shana and thier wee one, Madison. She is just a DOLL! She has such personality! She's 15 months and everyone in town knows who she is. Sitka is beautiful. We actually got to go out on their boat, which is called "The Jedi". No joke. Anyone who knows Scott, knows how appropriate that is too. I caught my first fish and then would have caught another one, but it broke the line. It must have been a "big 'un" too because the pole had 60 lb line on it. I'm going to say it was a halibut, no one knows for sure, but that's what I'm going to go with. It was really awkward though and I feel silly even saying it, but I felt guilty once the fish was in the boat and dying, trying to breathe. I've never killed anything. I would have put it back in the water, but they told me that it would have died anyway because the hooks were so large. I made Zach put it out of it's misery. I couldn't stand watching it flop around. It makes me want to fish more though. It was thrilling.

Unfortunately Shana had to work a lot while we were there, but we had fun with the time we did have with her. They are pregnant too and are due about a month after we are, so she and Scott were giving us all kinds of tips and hints about things. Madison is so cute, did I mention that? Poor thing had a cold and was teething while we were there though. She was still fun and fiesty and we had a blast playing with her. It was neat to see Sadie (their dog) again too. They had her in flight school and she so sweet. She looks like the missing link between Snowflake and Morgan too with her coloring. It was pretty funny, we didn't remember that about her.

Oh! We bought some baleen while we were there too. Most of you probably don't know what it is...I didn't either until I got here. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Baleen makes up baleen plates, which are arranged in two parallel rows that look like combs of thick hair; they are attached to the upper jaws of baleen whales. It is composed of keratin, which is the same substance that makes up human hair and nails. Whales use these combs for filter feeding. Whales are the only vertebrate group to use this method of feeding in great abundance (flamingos and crabeater seals use similar methods, but do not have baleen), and it has allowed them to grow to immense sizes. The Blue Whale, the largest animal ever to live, is a baleen whale.

Depending on the species of whale, a baleen plate can be 0.5 to 3.5 m (2 to 12 ft) long, and weigh up to 90 kg (200 lb). Its hairy fringes are called baleen hair or whalebone-hair, referred to as "blasko" by the Native Inuit in Alaska. Baleen plates are broader at the gumline (base). The plates have been compared to sieves or Venetian blinds.

The word "Baleen" derives from Early Modern English word meaning "whale". It derives from the Latin balaena and is related to the Greek phallaina, both of which also mean "whale".

We have it hanging on our wall in our stairwell now and ever since we put it up Morgan sits at the top of the stairs staring at it and growls when Snowflake goes near it. I'm thinking that she may still smell the whale. That's about the only explaination I can come up with. We are going to try to find someone here that etches pictures into them and pay them to do that for us. So we now have our "big" memory purchase from our Kodiak tour. It looks really cool. I'll take a pic sometime and put it up. If I can remember.

I have this big sucking sound coming from my brain and into my belly. I think the baby is eating it! It's crazy! I can't seem to remember anything lately and I have heard it just gets worse. Fun stuff. Zach has taken to saying "There's only enough for one" (speaking of brain cells). He thinks he's so funny. It's a good thing he's cute. My family has hassled me to post some pics of my belly so we have been taking pictures in the same spot in our hallway every few weeks. It's been pretty fun. I'll post a timeline from two days before we found out we were pregnant through Thursday. (Don't forget: too see image larger, click on photo.)

Zach is gone on deployment to "man camp". He has duty every other day and gets to fish/hike the opposite days. I think I'm going to go to the local Mexican restaurant for Cinco de Mayo tonight with some friends. One of the guys at the AirSta is in a band that is playing there so I'll check it out. If it's too smokey I'll have to leave though. Oh well. It's been beautiful the past few days and I hope it stays that way. I just wish it would warm up some. 45 degrees shouldn't be the norm for May!

Ok, I've talked enough. Love you all and I'll try to get back even sooner this time!

I've come under fire...

2007-04-15T21:16:00.000-08:00

...for not updating the blog in so long. Sorry about that. My poor hubby has been harrassed while he has been visiting with my family. Most of you know it's been a crazy year for us so far. Honestly, I totally forgot my username and password to even get in and couldn't remember which of my dozen (not quite, but almost) email addresses I used to create this account. So, I finally remembered and was quite surprised to see comments from some of our good friends that we haven't spoken with in YEARS!

So sorry Eric and Kris, we haven't neglected to call you guys on purpose, we just didn't know your number, until now. Zach gets home tomorrow and we will call you guys sometime this week. Can't wait to talk to you and find out how your lives are!

So as most of you know, Zach and I started the adoption process back in December and are still waiting on some final dossier information before we receive a referral. We are so excited to become parents. Our little one will be from Guatemala and will almost 100% be a boy. Boys are much easier to receive referrals for in Guatemala for some reason. There are a lot of reasons we chose to adopt internationally as opposed to domestically and I will get into those perhaps in a later post.

In January I was able to go to TN to visit my family. It was a wonderful 2 1/2 weeks, but also made me appreciate Kodiak much more. I love the slow pace and lack of traffic and only 2 blinking traffic lights on the whole island. My idea of traffic here is it taking more than 1-2 minutes to get out of the Walmart or Safeway parking lot. That's usually only right after school lets out too, so I've learned to stay off the roads at those times. How sad is that really? Oh! Zach also turned 30 in January!

Now onto February...this was another very exciting month for us. We found out we are pregnant!!! Most of you know this by now. We are now 13 weeks along. I'm counting down until we can find out the sex (7 weeks!). Zach is convinced it's a girl and so many other people are too. I'm still not 100% sure. Honestly, I'm not even sure the whole idea of me being pregnant has really hit me yet. I've been blessed enough to hear the heartbeat twice now and will get to again tomorrow, but for some reason it's still not quite "real". I feel like that makes me a bad mommy b/c I think it's hindering me from being really excited. Although, since we were already expecting a child this year anyway, I think now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to take care of twins basically. HELP!!! We always hoped for twins though, so we think this is God's way of giving them to us.

March was pretty uneventful. I was tired most of the time and Zach worked a lot. He was deployed for a week and may as well have been for the rest...they worked him so much...but at least he was home with me most nights.

Which leads us to April...Zach left for Pensacola/Mobile and got to spend Easter with my family before heading over to AL for his yearly flight training. He was able to spend this past weekend with my family too before heading home tomorrow!!! I can't wait for him to get home. It's been an awful week. I have been very sick with a sinus infection and some other gross stuff. And with being pg there's not too much I can do for it either. My Dr. was able to give me some things to help, but they aren't really helping too much as I am still only able to breathe through my mouth. Fun stuff, let me tell ya. Zach was at his school with our good friend Shana who we met while Zach was in flight school. She and her husband Scott are stationed in Sitka, AK with their daughter Madison. She is a doll! We are going to be able to take a free flight over in a week or so to visit them and we are SO excited to hang out with some friends we consider family.

So the upcoming months are going to be crazy hectic, but I will do my best to keep up on the blog now. I changed the password to one that should be easy for me to remember now...still have no clue what it was...had to do this whole dumb process of changing it. Anyway...when Zach gets home we'll put some pics up too. Most of the newest ones are on the laptop which I let him take.

So family...QUIT HOUNDING ME NOW!!! Don't upset the pregnant woman!!! lol We love you and miss you all! *muah*

Base Christmas party (and just random goodness)

2006-12-16T23:56:00.000-09:00

I know, I know! Two posts in one week! Ok, are you up off the floor yet? Good...now...We've had an eventful week here. Not only did I get to do the Santa to the Villages flight this week, we also had our first Christmas visitor arrive. Makenzie (Zach's sister, for those that don't know) got here after spending 15 long hours in Anchorage. Luckily the Koehler family has friends there (remember Sunny, Jed and the rest of the Hefley family from our travels here?) and they picked Mak up from the airport for a few hours and took her to lunch. We pretty much have spent the first few days just relaxing. She has slept until 11 everyday so far. I don't blame her though. The school she goes to in L.A. keeps her really busy and she also works, so she doesn't have much time to sleep or eat right. She has been able to get plenty of rest and get some home cooked meals. We even special ordered fresh snow for her! Ok, so God blessed us on His own with that, but we were hoping for some.

Friday night we had the Air Station Christmas party. It was a lot of fun. We got to eat and they had a good DJ. They had raffles and we didn't win anything. Oh well, no big deal. I was actually really happy cause there were only a few officers that won. I think it means more to the enlisted guys and girls. And they deserve it! We got all dressed up for it. It's one of the few occasions that we get to dress up here, so I will take advantage of every opportunity. We danced after dinner and then went upstairs to the sports bar where the band Stranded was playing. The band is made up of 5 guys, 4 are pilots here and the other guy is a local. They are actually really good. We were dancing and having a good time. Zach had duty on Saturday though, so we ended up leaving early. He had duty with Kevin Rapp and he was the one organizing the party, so he kinda had to stay late. Zach decided that he should get extra sleep since he knew Kevin wouldn't get to. Good times were had by all.

Today Mak and I went to the base to help with "Pictures with Santa". Zach met us up there after about an hour and we got our picture taken on Santa's lap. Zach didn't want to but luckily for me (unlucky for him) Devin walked in and said he needed to pick up the pics he and Stef had taken last week with Santa. Hah! I got him there...I made him take off his jacket and sit in Santa's lap with me, flight suit and all. We got one just the two of us and one with Mak in it too.

After that we had lunch together at the pizza parlor on base then just came home and chilled the rest of the day. Zach had to stay at work and will be home in the morning, but Mak and I pretty much just sat on the couch, played on our computers and watched Ray. Yeah, very exciting, but I ended up with a headache and she just wanted to hang out. I've really had a good time with her the past couple days. We've had quite a bit of time just the two of us and it's been nice.

Oh! I never did post about our annual Christmas party! We had it on the 9th. It was a lot of fun. We had about 11 people here. Some couldn't make it that we were originally expecting due to extenuating circumstances. We missed them, but we still had a good time. It was a very relaxed party and it was actually the least stressed we've ever been before a party. We had hot apple cider and all kinds of appetizers. The food was great, but the company was better. We said we'll invite more people next year.

It's been really pretty here the past few days. There have been snow showers and I got some pics of our backyard. Let me just say...I love it here. I love the snow. I don't particularly enjoy driving on the icy roads, but it beats sitting in traffic any day. I think I will probably go nuts when I go back to the lower 48 even for vacation with so many people and traffic. Sure, there are aspects I miss, but I like the slower pace here. Plus, you just can't beat the views.

We've got some pics on Snapfish. Here are the links to our other digital albums.

Random Wintery Pictures

Base Christmas Party

A Very Merry Koehler Christmas Party

Coolest thing I've ever done

2006-12-14T22:45:00.000-09:00

***WARNING*** Really long and picture heavy. Don't forget you can click on the picture to see it larger. If you want to see more pictures, you can visit our page on Snapfish: Santa to the Villages. If that link doesn't work, email me and I'll email you an invitation to see them.

Ok, so Monday morning I wake up to go in with Zach to the base. He was scheduled for a flight and I was volunteering with Santa to the Villages - an OSA program to bring Christmas to the outlying villages of Kodiak. The presents had all been wrapped and organized into their proper locations - seven villages in all I believe - in the few weeks leading up to this and this was the day we got to distribute gifts to the children of Chiniak. You may be wondering how we got the gifts to the villages....well, Santa of course...only he arrived via helicopter with his elves in tow. I was one of the elves. That's right, I got to fly in a helo...not just any helo, but a 60, the same thing Zach flies. Zach wasn't allowed to be my pilot, but he was flying the other helo. We took two out there to carry all of us elves and the gifts. We had to get in flight suits and helmets and go through a brief about what to do in an emergency...basically if you see the flight mec running...run. lol

The flight to Chiniak was a short one. Chiniak is located on the main island and is accessible by road, but it just makes more of an impact for Santa to arrive on a helo. It was crazy taking off...we taxied down the runway and then we stopped...next thing I knew we were in a hover. It was the coolest thing ever! There are really no words to describe the feeling of being in a huge hunk of metal that according to the laws of physics really shouldn't be able to fly and hovering above the ground. It was thrilling!

We landed in the school's baseball field with the children and citizens of the village outside watching. There are 14 students at the school, but 18 kids 0-18 years that live in the community, so we give gifts to all of them. Santa was amazing! The kids loved him and he interacted with them the whole time, from the moment we arrived on scene to the moment we left. He played on the floor with the kids and sat with his arm around the "grandma" of the village talking to her. It was very impressive! The kids were so excited too. Some of the most amazing things happened with the gifts too. There was a girl, probably around 13 or so, who is definitely a tomboy. As soon as I saw her I thought, "Oh, no, I really hope she's not the one who got jewelry or bath stuff". What does she get? Walkie-talkies, which she LOVED! There were a couple of kindergarten girls (one black, one white) who both got babydolls with strollers. Just so happened that they got a black doll and a white doll respectively. The amazing thing about this is that no one KNEW these kids to know what to pick out from our pile for them. We didn't have a wish list for each one, we just have a slew of gifts for kids of various ages and figure out who gets what from there. We didn't know that the one girl was a tomboy...another neat thing about that is that we actually changed her gift last week. For some reason, it didn't "feel" right to any of us to give her bath stuff or jewelry. She was the only girl out of all the villages to recieve the walkie-talkies. We had 10 sets. And the dolls, we didn't know one was black and one white and you couldn't tell by their names either. Very cool experience. There was also a sweet young boy around the age of 13 or so who, when Santa gave him his gift, said, "Thank you, sir, I just hope I was good enough for this!" And then later, when he was putting together his gift (a wooden pinball machine) and I asked if he needed any help. He said, "No, but thank you for doing this [he motioned around the room], it really means a lot. I just hope I deserve this!" I told him that just by him asking, I knew he was good enough. Just makes me think that he probably gets told at home that he's not good, ya know? There were so many kids that I wish I had the time to tell you about all of them. There was a little boy about 9 months that was crawling around and loved Zach. He crawled across the gym to him and pulled himself up on Zach's leg. Very cute! There was only one little girl who was a little disappointed in her gift. Four year old Sienna said that she asked Santa for a kite, not a doll. By the time we left though, she had picked out a name for her new doll...Ashley. She said she wants her mom to have a real baby named Ashley. I told her mom and she laughed and said fat chance. Too funny. It was really neat that the entire community came out to the school for the day.

The kids were having a Christmas program that night and were sweet enough to sing us a small portion of a song. Ok, so it was more like yelling it, but it was cute nonetheless. We stayed and had lunch with the kids too. It was a sight to see just as many adults (more probably) as children sitting at the small lunch table eating the school lunch of pizza sticks, corn, apple and milk.

We took off again shortly after lunch and the pilots were nice enough to give us a tour around the island. They could have just taken us directly back to the base, but they flew around pretty much the whole island. I got to see things I've never been able to see before from the ground and places that you can't ever see from anywhere but the air. It was exhilerating! At one point I got tethered and sat in the doorway with the door open and flying around. CRAZY!!! It was really neat to see and experience just a portion of what Zach gets to do every day. I have always understood that he loves what he gets to do for a living, but I got a deeper sense of that during that day. I don't think the smile left my face the entire day. The pilots I flew with were laughing at me because I was giggly and giddy and just smiling the whole time. I saw one of their wives the next day and she said her husband told her that I was a trip and that he loved flying with me because I had so much fun. And I did....I had a GREAT time. In fact, as soon as we landed, I asked for another go round! They didn't let me though, I don't know why!

When we were flying around we saw a cross on top of a mountain that was placed there by the Russian Orthodox Church. The original was wooden, but that rotted and so a 60 lifted the specially made steel one to the top of the mountain and lowered it into the hole dug for it. Only it couldn't be called a cross...it is a "historical landmark". You know...the whole seperation between church and state thing. Sheesh...

They gave us one heck of a ride too. They were yankin' and bankin', pulling up, swerving one way, then another. Zach was following in the other helo and said that at one point we crested a mountain at about 40 feet. WOW!!! I think that was the same point that Kevin (one of the pilots) told us (there were 4 elves in the back) to look out the front if we could. We did and saw that we were headed straight for some mountains and going pretty fast. They kept getting closer and closer and all of a sudden he pulled up real quick and you should have heard us all scream! We were having a great time!

We also flew over our house. It was really neat looking at our neighborhood from the sky. I realized we are a lot closer to the water than I thought. I wish there were more ways to describe this experience, but there really isn't. Most of the time I am just speechless when people ask how it went...which for those of you who know me well, know is very rare. All I can seem to say is that it was the coolest thing that I've ever done. I really hope I get to do it again next year too!