Our road trip west

We left after my 20 week dr's appointment and headed out on 1-40/Rt. 66

We drove through OK, TX, NM, and then AZ. It was really flat in NM but as we got closer to Arizona it got a lot prettier. We spent the night in Albuquerque and enjoyed good Mexican food.


The next day we made it to our bed and breakfast at the Desert Rose in Arizona.


They had turkeys that made fresh eggs for breakfast.


Awesome water feature in the back garden.


After we got settled we went out for a hike in Sedona.


Looking out from Cathedral Rock


The next day we drove to the Grand Canyon. We stopped at some smaller national parks along the way.


We finally made it!


The vastness of it all was incredible. It couldn't justly be captured in pictures.




We stayed for the sun setting over the canyon and then drove back.


The next day we spend time in Sedona. At the look out point of the chapel of the holy cross


I thought this sign was cute.


Sun setting over Sedona




Our delicious meal our last night at the barking frog grille.

We had a great time! We had lots of great talks, good food, saw amazing things, and both felt really relaxed after being away.

Celebrate!

A couple of weeks ago my parents took us out to celebrate me getting my license. I love to celebrate things, especially when it involves great deserts!


I just picked it up from getting it framed this week. Finishing my license is almost better than graduating to me. I am so relieved to have it done, and glad I finished before having kids. I will now have to start accruing continuing education hours every year, but that is no where near as strenuous as being under supervision for licensure. YAY!

21 weeks

I am past the 1/2 way mark! The diaper bag I ordered came in the mail while we were on vacation. I was excited to have one *tiny* thing to check off the list of the MANY things to do to prepare for our baby. I look so tired in this picture, which is due to waking up at 3:30 and staying awake for the rest of the night. The receptionist at work (who tells it like it is) told me this morning, "You don't look very perky." Well, it turns out, this pregnant girl with little sleep, and a hacking cough doesn't look too "perky" at 8AM!
I am off to the store to buy some of my current favs- OJ and natural peanut butter. When I woke up this morning I was wishing I had some hot peach tea to soothe my throat- so I better add that to the list too. :)

That guy...

Michael has been super sweet and encouraging to me throughout my pregnancy. A couple of weeks ago I randomly mentioned that a nutella crepe sounded REALLY good.


Luckily we have nutella on hand and he decided to try to make some. I just supervised the process, but it turns out they are super easy to make, even though we don't have all the "crepe making" tools.


It was SO GOOD!! :) I am very blessed to have him.

We are headed out of town now to go to Arizona for a few days. I wondered if I would dread being the car for that long, but I am not. It has been a really long last couple of weeks. With check out in the apartments for a week, and other things we have had going on, we have had something pretty much every night after work plus busy weekends. I am ready for some stillness, quiet, and downtime. I am looking forward to spending a few days alone with my best friend, seeing beautiful places God created, and checking off another place that is on our list of places to see.

Week 20

According to babycenter.com, our baby is the size of a banana this week!

It's a...

A couple of weeks ago, we went to our 18 week ultrasound with great anticipation. We could not wait to find out what we were having. Such a special moment- to see our baby again after 10 weeks and to find out if we were having a boy or girl. But to my great disappointment- our baby would not cooperate. The baby had its legs closed, put its hand down covering the area we wanted to see, and crossed its legs. The technician worked with me for a long time, pushing and poking me, but our baby was not having it. We had lots of phone calls, texts, and emails from people waiting to know the outcome. I just went to sleep after the appointment because the news was so anti-climatic! After my nap, I decided to call a place that does ultrasounds and see about scheduling another one there. My next one at the doctor would not be for a couple of months and I wanted to know. (I should note, that everything else went well. The baby's organs were all developing properly, the brain development looked good, all the things that they were really checking for! :)
We were able to get an appointment the next week. Our baby was still very "snuggly" with its legs closed and crossed for this appointment. But it was confirmed that we are having a baby girl! Michael wore a pink shirt and socks to the appointment, saying he knew all along.

Here is our baby girl at 19 weeks.


Leaving the appointment with our "It's a girl" water bottle. We have been talking about names over the past several weeks. I have loved the name Isabella for a long time. We are calling her Isabella, and still working on a middle name. (And NO, there is no connection to twilight.)


A snapshot of my maternity clothes and the clothes we have been given for Isabella this week.
I have no reason to have her clothes hanging up, as she won't be needing them for several more months, other than I just like to see them when I open my closet. :)


Mother's Day 2010


When my mom was pregnant with their first baby, my dad gave her an eternity band to symbolize his "forever" commitment to her and their baby as they began this new stage of life. I always loved that and had told Michael about it a long time ago. He remembered. This morning when we woke up he said sweet things about his commitment to me and our children, and then gave me my very own eternity band. So sweet! I love it!
I am happy to be feeling better and starting to feel her fluttering around!

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven."

It has been a long past two weeks. Thinking about the losses people in my family have experienced this week, I hear my dad's voice quoting Ecclesiastes 3.

A Time for Everything

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

We have had times of weeping and laughing in the past week. Life seems very bitter-sweet right now. We are full of joy for our sweet girl that is growing inside me and brokenhearted by other things that have happened recently. According to Ecclesiastes, I suppose that is just life. There is a time to mourn and a time to dance.
Praise you Father for carrying us through the times of grief and also blessing us with joy.

I called him Gramps

His name was Ferrill Morris White. I called him Gramps. Before retiring, he was an executive of some sort at AT&T during the day and a beekeeper on the weekends. He taught me the difference between real backyard honey and the stuff that’s mass produced. He had a wood-shop and could fix or build just about anything. After we bought our first house, he helped me hang new cabinets with the greatest of precision and ease. He served in the Navy during the Korean War and had a lot of funny stories about life at sea on a Navy ship. When I was little, he took me fishing and showed me how to make pancakes. He was one of only two men I’ve ever let call me Mikey (the other is my dad). He’s gone now and I will definitely miss him.

My grandpa passed away this week after a long fight with pneumonia. Last November (two days before his 77th birthday) he went in for a “routine” heart surgery. The surgery went extremely well and the doc said he’d need to be on blood thinner for the rest of his life but that he thought he had several good years left. Then, while he was still in recovery from the heart surgery, he had a stroke that left him unable to speak and all but paralyzed on one side of his body.

Ever the fighter, he spent the next 5 months working to get better in rehab. Even though he’d had a few minor setbacks, he was starting to figure out how to walk again and his communication was improving a little bit every day. Then he had a bowl obstruction. Then he got pneumonia, and despite the best efforts of his medical team, his body just wasn’t strong enough to fight anymore.

The last few weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions for my entire family. We’ve spent a lot of time together by his side and in the waiting room at the hospital. We’ve celebrated as things seemingly got better and we’ve comforted each when things got worse. He’d been non-responsive for a few days and was supposed to go home on Wednesday of this week where hospice was going to take over his medical care. The doctors had prepared our family that he probably wouldn’t last much longer at home. Everyone was a little worried about making the decision to send him home, not sure if we were doing what we would have wanted. Somehow he must have sensed all of that because on Tuesday evening he simply stopped breathing and passed from this life into the next before any decisions had to actually be made on whether to send him home or keep him in the hospital.

The funeral is tomorrow and my brother and I will be pallbearers. Somewhere in my mind, I always knew this day would come, but I just never expected it so soon. My wife is pregnant with our first baby and I had always hoped he would make it long enough to hold his great grand daughter. After all, he was the chief culprit and source of most of the “When are you going to have a baby?” type questions that we’ve so frequently received the last few years of our marriage. We never quite knew how to answer those questions and they always caught us a bit off guard, but as I think back now, I can’t help but smile about it as we look forward to our daughter’s birth.

I will really miss my Gramps. I was very fortunate to be able to know him so well and get to be around him for so many good years of his life. Through his words, his actions, and even his demeanor, he taught me so much about what it means to be a man and I’m so grateful for the life he lived.

17 weeks

Here is my ever-growing belly at 17 weeks. We go this Tuesday, the 27th for the gender ultra sound. I can't wait and hope the baby cooperates to show us what it is. I have been feeling A LOT better. Even when I do feel nauseous it is not near as bad as it was for so long.


We went to the Art's Festival downtown last night. It is great to see the city so alive.


The art nothing special, well not compared to the food. Which is the real reason we go!
The Edmond arts festival is next weekend and I'm sure we will be there too!

Big Thursday at our house

Thursday we got letters in the mail we have been waiting for. Michael got his acceptance letter for a PhD program for this fall!! WHOO HOO! I got confirmation from the licensing board that I have completed my requirements for my license. It has been such a debacle working with the board and I should have been done two weeks ago. But I got the paperwork to file for the license Thursday. I went Friday and turned that in and paid my license fee, so hopefully next week I *may* really be licensed! That night we went to the Thunder vs. Lakers game. It was so much fun!! The crowd was insane, my ears were ringing when we left there.




Chesapeake donated shirts for the game. It was cool to see the whole arena in blue.


I was so nervous at the end, but we won!

Ava Rose

I was excited to meet sweet Ava Rose Askew on Tuesday this week. I barely slept the night Heather was in labor because I was so excited and anxious!


She loved being wrapped up and was not happy when the nurse had to take her blankets off.


Heather looked so great and did so well! I can't wait to spend more time with them!

Trip in May

We just booked a trip for May to go to these places:

Here


and here.

Where in the US are these places?

Weekend Fun

Michael worked a half day on Friday and we had lunch at 501 cafe and then went to the zoo. The weather was beautiful.


Of course the giraffes are my favorite. I have had crazy dreams most nights since I have been pregnant. Last night my crazy dream involved giraffes.


Saturday I joined Heather for some fun girl time before she has her baby. Here are our babies at 15 weeks at 38 weeks.


Saturday night we went to a banquet at Cattleman's steakhouse.
Our Sunday has been full and busy, but it has been a good weekend.

15 weeks

Michael said something silly right before he snapped this picture as you can tell by my smile.
15 weeks and YIKES! I feel like my belly is huge! My weight is the same as when I first got pregnant, but my bump is definitely growing. The baby is the size of an apple this week and is about 4 inches long. I can schedule to find out what we are having between 18-20 weeks, so hopefully we can schedule that appointment next week at our 16 week check up. I am starting to have a few more days where I feel OK, so it seems things might be improving. I am loving the sunshine and warmer weather, and Michael and I have enjoyed some nice walks in the evening. I'm looking forward to this second trimester.

Happy Easter

Isaac trying to be careful with his eggs


George making a two colored egg


The boys with our eggs. We made 3 dozen.


On Easter with my basket from my mom. She used to use our childhood Easter baskets, but the last few years has bought a piece of our dishes to use as our "basket". My basket also had an itunes card and candy for Michael.


My mom busted out this old jelly mold she used to make when we were kids. The boys loved it.


Michael and I


The hunt begins


A little brotherly competition trying to be the first to an egg

It was a fun Easter with great weather. We skyped with Michael's parents later in the afternoon, and missed spending time with them. Happy Spring!

12 weeks

Week 12 is almost over. I had my 12 week appointment this week. Everything was good, and the babies' heart beat was 166. My doctor said by week 14 I should be feeling a lot better. I have had a few more good days here and there lately and that has been great. Michael got back yesterday from Mexico, and I am so glad to have him home! We had a spring snow storm yesterday and enjoyed a quiet day sleeping for 5 hours!


Here I am at 12 weeks. According to babycenter.com my baby is the size of a lime this week, hence the lime I am holding. It is so fun to read about all the things that are happening each week and how my baby is changing. It is all pretty amazing!

Talks with my nephews

My family was together last night for my dad's birthday. My nephews were pretty cute- as usual. Isaac said "Mommy said you have a baby in your tummy and it will be my cousin". Kate said when she told him I had a baby in my tummy he said 'well I hope her tummy doesn't get too big because then her shirt won't fit anymore'. :) I wonder what he will think when he sees my belly at the end of 9 months!
Isaac said he wants it to be a boy. George said he is hoping for a girl because he already has lots of boy cousins. Isaac wants to be like George, so he changed his mind and said he thought a girl would be better too. They suggested I name the baby Chicken, Gerald, or Gerald-Chicken. Hmmm...I think I will pass on those names!

Viva la Mexico!

Michael left for Mexico last night on a mission trip with our church. I am so excited he gets this opportunity to have some time off work and spend time in service. It was hard to say goodbye last night, as this will be the longest we have been apart since we have been married. I was sick yesterday and threw up in the car on the way to drop him off at church. That made me so upset I couldn't stop crying and then when it was time to say goodbye I couldn't stop crying. Not exactly the positive "Have a wonderful time!" send off for him I would have liked! :) I can't really control the sick part and as for being emotional, I guess that might also come with the pregnancy.
The motel they are staying in is supposed to have wifi. I'm not sure how consistent the internet in Mexico is, but we are hoping there is some so we can keep in touch. I have lots of things planned with family, friends, and I'll be working so I will keep busy and hopefully it will fly by. They will be working at children's orphanage in Mexico, which I know Michael will love. I hope he wants to come home and doesn't surprise me with bringing 10 children home with him! :) I'm praying that God blesses their travels and the work they do there.

Where have we been?

I think most people have heard our news that we are looking forward to meeting our sweet baby in late September! Sorry for the drop off in blog posts, but over the last two months I have been trying to survive this first trimester and blogging has not been a big priority! Next week marks week 12, and I hoping what everyone has told me that I will start feeling much better soon after.


I think this was the third test I took (had to be sure). Next time I will always buy the pregnant/not pregnant kind instead of having to decipher those lines! We had gone out for dinner and a movie with my father in law, who was in town visiting from Germany. We went to wal-mart late and bought a test, and on the way home I became so sick and nauseous I couldn't stand or keep my eyes open. So I just went to bed. I got up in the middle of the night and took the test and then went running in to wake Michael up. He was a bit disoriented at first, but really excited.



We told our families very early on, because Michael was dying to tell his dad in person while he was still in America. We told Michael's mom on skype after that so his dad would be able to talk to her. She was so happy! I tried to think of a quick creative way to tell my parents. We went over there a few days later with these cupcakes.


They were so surprised and happy. My dad said a sweet prayer over us.


Since then the time seems to have flown by. Waiting for that first doctors appointment seemed like an eternity, but it is already time for my next one this week. The two biggest questions seem to be 'how are you feeling?' and 'are you excited?'. Well, of course, we are so excited and couldn't be happier as we had prayed for this child. Some days I have felt fine and normal. Many days I have been so sick, nauseous, and throwing up constantly that I can't leave my house. Many of those days in a row leave me feeling really discouraged and down. I didn't want to, but eventually got some medication to help, (after throwing up so much there was some blood). Most of the time that helps, but this last week nothing seems to be helping. At times, I have had to miss out on some of the fun things we have had planned, but I know in the end it will be worth it. Michael has been so wonderful through all of this. I have not cooked one meal over the last two months as the thought and smell of most food sends my gag reflux to work. When he has been home, he has come to the bathroom with me and held my hair back while I loose everything and not complained about the smell or the grossness of that whole situation! Anyway- enough about that! :)



Here is the baby at 8 weeks. I'm sure now it looks even more human like and less like a gummy bear. It was so incredible to hear its wild heartbeat so early on. I loved it! Please pray for us as we continue on this journey!
Hopefully I will be coming back to life soon and updating more often! I can't believe it is March already!

The lovely and talented wife...

I don't do it often enough, but I'd like to take a minute this morning and publicly brag on my wife.

If you know me at all, you've probably heard me refer to her as the lovely and talented wife or the lovely and talented Annaleise. After a while it's easy for words to lose their meaning, so this is what those words mean to me.

I love my wife's smile. Despite how much I might talk about being driven by my desire to make a difference in this world, I can tell you one of the biggest joys I have in life is just seeing her smile.

I love her sense of humor and the way she encourages mine. She'll tell you that she does not encourage it. Don't listen to her. She's lying. Anytime she laughs or smiles at something I say or do, I want to do it more. (see the paragraph above)

I love her gentle spirit... she is one of the most merciful people I know. This quality probably bugs her from time to time because I've seen it attract weird people, but then again, I'm weird too.

I love being married to a woman who runs our family so well. She manages our budget with the greatest of precision and ease. She is organized, efficient, disciplined in all of the domestic arts... my favorite of which is her cooking.

She is a talented Marriage and Family Therapist. Well, at least I assume she is. Confidentiality laws have prevented me from ever seeing her in practice. I love the laser-like focus she's maintained the last 10 to 15 years of her life as she's taken the necessary steps to finally become licensed in a field she's wanted to work in most of her life. As someone who flip flops almost daily on what I want to do with my life, her single-minded determination and passion for what she wants to do is a daily inspiration.

She cooks wonderfully (and blogs about it), she even likes to clean, she introduced me to the Swiffer Wet Jet and now I like to clean too, she sows (this is a new development), she's crafty, she organizes, she plans, she doesn't get mad at me when I do the laundry even though I mess something up almost every time, she keeps me grounded, she tells jokes and says funny things at the right time, she changes people's lives, she always smells nice, she has beautiful green eyes, she lets me have too many hats and jackets, she has too many shoes and I love every pair, she inspires me with her smile, she is a good friend to a lot of people, she makes time to read and even started a book a club, she cares about people, she puts up with my child-like wonder (her words, not mine), she makes a grocery list and we go grocery shopping together each week because I once told her I wanted us to be that couple, she buys me cool socks for no other reason than they were on sale, she loves to shop, she dreams up vacations for us to take and then makes sure we take them, she talks to her mom on a regular basis, she's cute and trendy, she stays in touch with old friends while making new ones, she is a renaissance woman, a Proverbs 31 wife, a hotty, a great friend, a blessing and an encouragement to me.

I may not tell her enough, but I am so thankful to be married to a woman that truly defines (with both grace and style) what it means to be lovely and talented. She is the one and only, THE lovely and talented Annaleise... and I love her.