Hanging out with Friends, Bethany Beach
New Baby Chugg
Hey, guess what... our good friends, Jared and Geneva Chugg had a baby BOY this morning. They thought it was a girl throughout the whole pregnancy so they were completely surprised. 6 pounds 7 ounces. CARTER JARED CHUGG. We went to visit them. He’s a doll... and the parents are doing great. It’s so fun to see your friends become parents!!
All About Ryan at 11 Months
Ryan has been so cute the last couple of days. He gets a kick out of chasing other little babies. When they start crawling, Ryan is close behind. And he's giggling too like it's a fun game. Today he was chasing his friend Riley but Riley didn't like it one bit. He was scared to death to see 'sturdy' Ryan coming straight for him and consequently started crying. It was pretty funny. Its interesting watching Ryan and his little friends interact. They are always trying to play with the same toy and grab each other’s food. Ryan usually gets what he wants, though, because he's bigger. Ryan waves bye-bye so well now. Whenever we say hi or bye he waves his hand... in fact, yesterday when Ryan was drinking from his cup, Chris said, "Ryan, raise it up high". Ryan immediately put his cup down and waved. He's not walking yet but so close. He's not afraid at all but he gets too excited and loses his balance. It's amazing how fast they learn new things. It's such a fun age!
Chris is at a fun age too! He's learning so many new things. It's funny to hear him talk and laugh with his medical school friends... it's like they're speaking their own language. Chris is busy working on a three-page paper, a fifteen page paper and studying for a big histology test that he has on Monday. He's a busy boy this week. He also had some military training this week too. Obstacle courses where they have to carry someone on a flat stretcher over big walls, through windows etc. Chris really enjoyed it. He'll be doing a lot of that kind of stuff the week after finals when he goes for a training exercise in Virginia. Flying in helicopters, riding around in hummers, shooting M16's... sleeping in little pup tents... I'm sure they will have fun.... it sounds like a boy's dream to me.
I am doing great as well. It's been a busy couple of weeks but I enjoy trying to fit everything in and get everything done. I haven't been working on my scrapbooks very much but plan to get started again soon... as long as I can keep Ryan out of everything long enough to get anything done. I’m trying to wean Ryan. As of two days ago I'm down to two feedings - one in the morning, one at night. Without even thinking Chris said to me, "Lisa, you're such a good wean-er!"
We are looking forward to a fun weekend. We have a goodbye BBQ for some of the 'fourth year' med students who have gotten internships and will be moving away. We will be sad to see them go. They are great friends and it has been nice to ask them so many questions about what they've already been through. I can't believe we are almost done with our first year.
Visiting the Chuggs
We took dinner over to the Chugg's last night and held their baby for a while. So tiny. 6 pounds 7 ounces. Then we look up at Ryan and he's sure not a baby anymore... he's a little boy.
We have had a great weekend so far. On Friday I drove Geneva to the hospital again for an appointment. Her little guy is a little jaundiced and they had to check him out again. It was a very emotional time for Geneva because they had to take so much blood out, he was screaming, she was bawling, he was hungry, she was exhausted... and I was there trying to help her out and calm her down. The blood work took so long and poor Geneva just needed to go home to bed. The baby, Carter, had a higher jaundice count so they had to bring him back the next day. Jared and Geneva were so worried about him that they asked Chris to give him a blessing. Jared was bawling all the way through it and it was emotional for all of us. Jared said he didn't know why he was bawling so much but he looked at the baby and said, "but you're the best thing I've ever done." Everything is fine but they were so stressed out about it. It's especially hard because Geneva's mom isn't there to help out. Jared's mom is coming but doesn't get here till Tuesday. We've been helping them out a lot.
4th Year Graduating BBQ
Friday Chris and I went to our 4th year graduating friends BBQ. It was a huge party and a neat little park. The husbands started a huge game of Frisbee and were having a ball. The kids were having a blast on the playground and the wives were chatting away on the side. At the end we took huge group pictures.
Miscellaneous
Today Chris studied a ton for his histology (the study of cells) class. I was helping him for a while... boring! I can't believe how much my husband knows though.
Ryan and I went to a free Disney extravaganza at the fairgrounds... shows, story time, shops. It was fun. It was a hot day... Ryan got little red cheeks and some sun on his arms. He had a great time... we even rode a little train.
This evening we went to a Ward Activity Dance. I love to Dance! It's so much fun. We had a great time... especially when we went crazy dancing to "rock lobster". Reminded me a ton of the good 'ol youth dances. Chris went up to one of his boys, Scott Lovejoy, and said, (pointing to me) "Hey, what do you think about that one? She's pretty cute. I think I'm going to ask her to dance". Scott just laughed. Chris said, "no, really, what do you think? I think I'm going to ask her. Scott said, "Not if I get to her first." I of course didn't know about this at all until later but Chris said he and Scott were joking around about it all night. Scott would whisper to him, "You wife’s my next dance." Chris has a really good time with his boys and you can tell they like him!
I just got back from Michaels where I had a 'scrapbook booth' to get people interested in my class. Lots of people seemed really interested but nobody signed up so again my class on Saturday is cancelled. I'm frustrated. Everyone commented on how cute my pages were. I even had three ladies that worked there standing around talking to me for a while and telling how cute Ryan was (from his pictures... he was at Ethan's house) Anyway... I spent awhile on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday getting cute pages done to show etc. Chris even took Ryan to scouts with him last night so I could get some flyers ready. Very helpful.
Tonight I have another friends baby shower tonight. They asked me to do the scrapbook pages for Chelsea like I did for Geneva. I'm taking Geneva to the shower tonight... her first outing. Everyone has been so helpful to her... making dinners, cleaning her house... shopping for her... it's really nice. Her mother-in-law got here last night. After the shower we're all staying to work on our Family Home Evening packets. I image I'll be there really late... Chris will be home with Ryan and now that I'm weaning Ryan I don't have to come home to put him to sleep. How nice!!!!! Weaning is going really well. I'm going about every 24 hours now. I guess I'll just keep going longer and longer. Weird... how do I know which feeding will be my very last feeding??
Our weekend was so busy and so fun!! On Friday night after Chris got home from school we went on a walk over to the park and then went over to the hardware store to get some wood to make extra shelves for some closets. Then we watched the Season Finale of ER.
Saturday we got up early, picked up some friends and met a huge group of people to go see the Phantom Menace. It was a really nice theater and there weren't very many people so we got the perfect seats. We loved it! Both Chris and I thought it was very entertaining with great special effects! It was fun. Ryan watched about half of it and fell asleep the other half. After the movie we invited the whole group over to our place for lunch. We had about 15 people over and bar-be-cued some hotdogs and hamburgers, played games, watched our little boys start walking, and started to watch the Jazz game. Most of the people left when the game started but some stayed for the whole thing. By the time the game was over it was 5:30 and we had half an hour to clean up and get things ready for the dinner party we were having that night.
We had Chris' Young Men Presidency and wives over for dinner. They are cute couples. One has a baby boy 3 months old who reminds us a lot of Ryan. He's cute. We had so much fun just chatting away!! In fact, we had so much fun that Sunday after church we got together again over at the White's and stayed there from 1:00 to 6:00!! We though we were going to play games but we never got to it... we just kept talking. When we realized it was 6:00 we all raced home and got all ready for the fireside at the Stake Center at 7:00. It was a youth fireside so our husbands had to go but we girls decided to tag along. It was really good. Sunday night we were exhausted...
Ok... Now the bad part. This morning Chris was getting ready for school and went downstairs with Ryan to get breakfast. All of a sudden he was calling my name. I ran down there... WATER EVERYWHERE. The pipe from the cold water to the faucet sprang a leak and was spraying everywhere. The kitchen floor had an inch of water all over it and it was soaking into the carpet about 3 feet out in all directions. Even the bathroom floor and carpet around the bathroom was soaked. Chris had to turn off the water, call someone else to drive 'the carpool' and then Jared came over to help us move our furniture to the other side of the room. We spent the morning soaking up and mopping as much water as we could, calling our landlords, getting schedules arranged, etc. We just had someone come rip up our carpets, get rid of the foam underneath, spray chemical stuff down and now there are fans blowing under the carpet which makes the carpet look like rippling water. It feels really weird to walk on. It's going to be like this for three days until it dries out. Nice, huh?
Memorial Day Weekend
Our Memorial Day Weekend was so much fun. Friday at noon I picked Chris up from school and we headed to the actual EAST COAST... the real Atlantic Ocean. We stayed with some friends, Tom & Keri Jewel, in their summer cabin near Bethany Beach, Delaware. Terri & Brian Brienholt and their cute kids Janae, Connor, Alynn and Jace were there also. We got there at 4:00 and unpacked, BBQed hamburgers and then walked down to the boardwalk by the ocean to get ice cream. It was beautiful. After we got home and put all the kids to bed the adults talked and talked and talked till 1:00am. Fun couples!!
Saturday we headed out to the beach. Ryan loved it! He looked so cute in his bathing suit. Chris and I each held one of his hands and headed out towards the waves. He LOVED it. He wanted to walk straight out into the ocean!! He loved it when the waves swished past his legs... even though it was very cold. After 5 minutes at the beach Ryan was SO SANDY! We gave up trying to keep him clean. There was a little baby pool that we filled up with ocean water, which Ryan loved to climb in and out of. He played and played and played and when he was finally so exhausted he couldn't play anymore he would climb up to one of us and just fall asleep cuddling us. Chris and I got some good sun but Ryan didn't since he was plastered with 45 sunscreen and wore his old navy cap the whole day. Some additional friends, Pete & Lisa Curran (and boys Kevin & Jason) and Doug & Missy White (and baby Wesley) came to spend the day with us so we had six families there that day. We ate lunch, played cards, did some boogie board surfing and slept the day away. It was fun to get to know the girls better... especially Terri. She’s so cute. Late afternoon we packed up, headed back to the cabin and showered. It felt SO good to be clean again. And... (You can imagine what Ryan's diaper looked like! Sand everywhere).
That night we left the kids with babysitters and headed out to PHILLIPS.. a great seafood restaurant. I had Fettuccini Alfredo with shrimp and crabmeat. OH... YUM! We sat across from the Brienholts and bonded about Canada! They are so neat... Sunday we drove 50 miles to the nearest LDS Branch. It was so small. Only the Brienholts and us went. The Jewels never go to church on vacation... we felt awkward bringing it up but it turned out ok. They had originally planned to go out to dinner on the Sunday too but we asked if we could switch it to Saturday night... Whew! The rest of Sunday we played lots of games. After the kids went to bed it was even more fun. We played TABOO, RAPID RECALL and CATCH PHRASE. (All games we brought!... We are now known as the games family... since we were always trying to start up a game of this or that.)
Monday was another day at the BEACH... even better weather too. It was still very hot but this time there was a nice cool breeze. After dinner that night we packed up and the Brienholts and us went up to the outlet malls 30 miles north. We went to the OLD NAVY, GAP and CARTER's outlets. So fun. We got some really cute things. (Especially for Ryan... he's so spoiled. He's all set for summer clothes!) AT 8:30 we finished shopping and headed straight home from there. We made it home in good time. 11:30.
Ryan practiced walking lots while we were there. His new record stands at 51 steps! Wow, huh? He'll be running by the time he's one!!!