Sorry it has been so long since we have updated our blog - I guess life kind of spun out of control for awhile there. Ryan's first semester was incredibly busy with three classes plus the TA position (and becoming a new father), so we thought he would try to slow down this semester and only take two classes along with the TA position, but apparently that wasn't enough for his schedule because an interesting research project came up that may lead to his dissertation topic. To simplify, it is a geothermal research project on an indian reservation in South Dakota (a place Jamie has actually heard of because YouthWorks! has a site there). Anyway, we will try to catch you up on what has happened in our lives since the beginning of October.
Let's see, Aviella had her first bath - she hated it! Due to the dry climate we waited nearly a month to give her a bath. She still hates baths, but some are worse than others. Aviella experienced her first Halloween and had a really cute "Pink Panther" costume thanks to Ryan's Dad and Mary Lou.
In November we did some traveling with Aviella. She had her first plane ride and first long car trip. Ryan's sister Nicki got married in Orange County, CA the weekend before Thanksgiving. Aviella did wonderfully on the plane and we enjoyed seeing family. Nicki was a beautiful bride!! For Thanksgiving we visited Jamie's friend Amanda and her husband Christian's family in the SW part of Colorado - should be a six hour drive, but turned into an eight hour drive due to traffic and snow, as well as crazy mountain passes. Before the trip, Amanda told Jamie that it was possible to safely nurse while in the car with your seatbelt on and we discovered that this was true. It saved us some time and frustration. Aviella wasn't very interested in taking the bottles that Jamie had prepared for her (and worked hard to produce). Thankfully the trip home was exactly six hours, including stops and Aviella slept most of the way.
December was fairly busy. Jamie organized and facilitated a Tea/Brunch for International Women through the ministry that she is involved (Horizons). Despite a very snowy day we were happy with the turn out. Ryan was busy finishing up projects for his classes - he wasn't home much. December also brought us an extremely long car trip back to WI for the holidays. Somewhat of a nightmare, at least for Ryan and Jamie; Aviella seemed to do just fine, but she was extremely tired of her car seat by the end of the drive. What others told us takes about 16 hours took us 21. We were tempted to spend the night somewhere, but by then the weather was deteriorating and was expected to be worse the next day. Arriving at Jamie's parents' house around 4am after 8 hours of driving through fog at night started the trip off poorly, not sure if we caught up on our lack of sleep until we returned to CO. We enjoyed our time in WI seeing family and friends, but cut our trip a bit short for Aviella's sake as she was getting sick and lost her voice. If you have never heard a baby cry that has lost its voice, it is really sad!
Hmmm, January was actually somewhat low key. We reorganized the living room and storage unit (actually this happens nearly every time we have to take something out or put something in it). We spent most of the month getting Aviella on a nap/sleep schedule. The first few days were horrible (at least for Jamie), but now it is wonderful!! She was a great night time sleeper fairly early, sleeping 7-9 hour stretches. Now she sleeps 11-12 hours at night and just this week she has started a more consistent nap schedule and sleeping close to two hours. Jamie is ecstatic about this!!
We anticipate a fairly busy February and March. Jamie already had another Women's Tea and is also involved in starting a "Parent Support Group" in Family Housing. Ryan turns 31 one this month (Valentine's Day) and Jamie and Aviella will be traveling to WI (Feb. 27 - Mar. 11) to help Jamie's mom after her knee surgery. Ryan will be home alone to work on his research and fend for himself for nearly two weeks (he might not make it through!).
