Monday, March 21, 2016

Getting Outside

We are wrapping up the winter season in West Virginia, so I wanted to wrap up the memories that I still needed to write about.
Mike, Emma and I took a walk in the woods to enjoy some fresh air. About 10 minutes after this photo was taken, and a little deeper into the woods we were, the weather changed drastically. It was the craziest thing watching it happen before your eyes. We ran back to the car while having a mixture of heavy rain and sleet drenching us. 
Emma and I went to one of our favorite parks. It had just rained so the small river was flowing nicely. 
The lake sure didn't look to appetizing though. 
This small waterfall is the overflow from the lake so the water level has to be high after a big rain. 
I swear this child never looks back to see if I am still there. 
This is not the picture that I wanted to put up because 1/3 of us is smiling and only half the bridge is in the photo...but my internet sucks and this is the only one I can get up. 
Anyways... the famouse Fayettevill bridge from a view from the bottom of the New River. 







We hiked a little in the area but couldn't do the whole thing. Emma had swimming lessons and we were about 1 1/2 hours from home. 
Kaymoor Trail


 There are a total of 800 steps to get to the bottom.

I wish I was able to put up the photos that I had edited. They have much better color and brightness to them. 


This was a old coal mine site. 




We explored the area a little but but wasn't able to finish the whole thing because of swimming. this one will be done again. I have to see the bottom. 
























I wanted to get Bolo outside a little so I decided to take the kids to a really easy walk along the Elk River. 
It was a beautiful sunny day so it felt so good to be outside. 


Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Happy Patty's Day



Summersville lake

I had really been itching to get out and check this lake out. There are always so many beautiful photos in Instagram that I see of this lake. 
Finally, I drove the winding road out so see for myself.  

This lake is extremely popular with boats, kayaks, fishing, swimming and camping in the summer months. 
When I went...it was dead.
They close the dam off so the water flows into the river instead of the lake for the white water rafting season.
So, where the tree line was is where the water should be. It was still beautiful there but know where near what it would be like in its full potential. 


Long Point

The rafting river 

Such a beautiful place that we will definitely be returning to this summer. 

Sandstone Falls and Pipestem Park

I am not sure if I had written about this before, but if so I am going to repeat myself. Living in West Virginia, with all of the beautiful mountains surrounding you, does not make getting around quickly. Traveling seems to take two times longer just because there are no roads that take you easily, and all of the roads are twisty. 
With that said, we took a day trip to see the longest waterfall in West Virginia.
1500ft  Sandstone Falls







It took us over two hours to get here, but it needed to be seen. 
All of the snow fall from the mountain run-off made these falls heavy that day. 
There is a board walk that takes you to great viewing spots along the way.  



The falls were beautiful and I am so glad we were able to spend a little time here. I just wish it wasn't such a pain in the butt to get out there.  

On our way out of the Sandstone area, there were plenty of waterfall runoffs to stop and see. 



After Standstone, the plan was to drive just a little bit longer to Pipestem State Park.  I didn't pack a lunch for us because I thought we would be able to stop at a food spot along the way. Little did I know, there was not a anything in sight. 
We finally made it to Pipestem and decided to eat at the restaurant there. 
Pipestem is a very popular park in the summer. Its almost like a resort type place. At well known golf course, pool, horse stables...
Wintertime it was a ghost town. 
We get to the restaurant, sit down with just two other people in the place and wait on our food for 45 minutes. 
After the long wait, we decided not to explore to much but let Emma play on the playground, then hit the road for home. 
We were exhausted from driving. 

Even though it took so long to get our food, we still had a pretty fantastic view to look at. 
I would love to come back here and actually see the park. It has so much to offer. Maybe spend the night or two. 

Em's first time sledding

West Virginia only had two really big snow storms this season. Moving from Hawaii, we of course had no snow sleds. 
The first snow storm all of the sleds seemed to be sold out.
The second storm we were prepared! 
She loved it! 
We went to a park semi-close to our home with lots of different hills to choose from. 
Where we were snowing was actually a golf course. 
I had never heard of that being allowed before (private golf course), but the 10 other people there that day didn't think twice. 
It was perfect snowman material! 
We had such a great time. Even though I am not a fan of snow at all, I'm looking forward to next year just to do this again. 

Monday, March 7, 2016

I have a 2 year old

2.27.16

Cant believe it! 
Crazy!

We had a small get together with a couple of kids the day before. The day of, we took it pretty easy.

Emma goes through these stages of being attached to one object for about a month, sometimes longer. 
The first object I can think of would be a ping pong ball. She had to have that in her hand at all times. She never uses the hand that it is in so she was a one handed baby for the time being. 
Next was a toothbrush. She once again just had to have it or her life would be over. 
Pooh was on that lasted the longest. We have photo after photo of Pooh in her arms. Even family pictures, Pooh was included. 
Now, her main item is the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 
I am not just talking about one book. 
No. 
She has two of them. 
One is the mini book of it. 
Do you know how many times I have been accidentally hit in the head or poked in the eye by the corner of the books. 
She actually wont even let me read it. She only wants the page turned to the pictures of all of the yummy things to eat. I will ask her where the cake is, and she will lean down and pretend to take a bite out of it....ext...she knows them all.
The books though.
 I just wish it was a more plush object that she can easily hold, not a hard rectangle that has pointy corners. 


She has been talking up a storm lately. 
Her two-three work sentences are really coming along. 
She is really into saying, 'ohh baby, sorry and more'.
'Thank you' is another one that she has down perfect.
Please and welcome are really coming along also. 

Mike and her have the cutest bed time routine. 
Before we head upstairs, she gives him a kiss on both his cheeks, a Eskimo kiss and then he kisses her forehead.  It happens every night that he is home so she looks forward to that.


She has been loving giving pound. Instead of a high five she now only wants to give pound.

Eating is still going great. Pasta is probably her ultimate favorite.
Recently, she just started to drink milk. We had been having a hard time with getting her to drink any. After I stopped nursing, all she wanted was water. Now she is enjoying it... but it has to be with a straw!  

He wake up time is around 630-700. The early morning time is killing me with me being pregnant. I am so tired! 
Sleeping through the night though! I never thought that day would come.

She really enjoys scaring people and being scared. She will go and hide then run and scream, then we have to do it to her. This happens over and over and over and over.....

She has been loving the Polar Express movie. Christmas is long gone and we are till watching it on a regular basis.
The Guardians, Winnie the Pooh, Monsters Inc., and Wreck it Ralph all faves too.

She can count to six... just not in the right order.

These past two years have been such a blessing. I am so excited for the years to come.
I feel so lucky to have such a sweet girl. 

Life

My updates have been far and few between. Having a two year old, and a husband out of town a good amount of the time makes it a little tricky to sit down and write. After she goes to bed I just want to stretch out and not move, and when Mike is home, I want to spend time with him. 
Not to mention my internet still sucks!

I'm going to start with a update on Bolo. 

There is still a full on struggle with this little boy. I had been looking at him for the past month debating on if this was the "time" or not. It looks like he has no will to live anymore. I am still force feeding him food and water. He lays on the couch all day sleeping. 
This has been going on for about 4 months now. 
After we had taken him to the vet and reduced his pill dosage, I reduced it even more. 
When he was originally diagnosed with Cushings, he was on 40mg twice a day. 
After this last visit we cut him down to 30 mg twice a day.
He wasn't getting better.
I for some reason thought it was the pills that were making him so lethargic. 
I cut him down even more to 30mg once a day.
He still wont eat or drink on his own. 
My dog is 10 years old. All I can do is trial and error. 
I have now gone down to giving him one pill ever two days.
On the second day, I almost have a new dog living in my house. 
He eats (people food) and drinks on his own. We go for slow walks, he brings me a toy, and he even cuddles again. 
I called the Dr. this morning to talk about taking his dosage all the way down to 10mg because of how well this outcome of waiting two days per pill was. 
I hopefully will talk to him tomorrow and he will agree.
Taking him off the pills all together might sound like a good option also, but the one negative that we have experienced is him not being able to control his bladder when he has not been on them. He will be sleeping and peeing at the same time. 
I am hoping that this low dose will equal everything out.

Winter time has been a little boring not so fun lately. We were so spoiled living in summer for the past 4 years. I have been trying to keep busy...but I am not going to lie, where we live does not have a lot of options for kids. 

We go to "art museum" type place that has a little area for kids to play. Its nice and Emma loves it, but there are only so many times a week we can do this without it getting repetitive. 
I signed Em up for a gymnastic. We have only had one class so far and boy was it a work out for me!
The last 5 minutes weren't that fun though. She started coughing and all of a sudden...puke everywhere!
Hopefully next class will be better.
We signed her up for swimming lessons before Christmas. I thought this would have really been good to keep her love for water going. It was 30min once a week which was enough because she seemed to get cold in the water after a little while. 
I thought this was a class for the kids actually learning things like how to hold their breath...turning over and floating...things like that. But this class was more just a free swim. They sang 3 songs in the beginning of each class (itsy bitsy spider...ect) and that was it. Then everyone was on their own. 
Also, we only really attended 4-5 classes out of 10. After Christmas the pools boiler broke to heat the pool so they canceled a bunch of classes. We weren't aware of any of the make up classes so we lost out on those.  
Mikes work had a "family fun day" at a bowling ally. Emma loved it!
We will have to go again.
A lot of painting happens in our house. 
Stickers are a big deal right now. 
She went to her first movie.
Zootopia was so cute from what I saw. We probably missed the last 30 minutes. She was sick of sitting there and wanted to play.
I think it would have been a little easier if we didn't go to a movie that just came out that weekend. Em wanted to stand up and move around but the theater was packed.
Another activity that we are looking forward to is ice skating. 
A ice rink out here does a totcicle skate for toddlers once a week. 
We will definitely be checking that out.  

After all that, it still seems that we are twiddling our thumbs most of the day. I'm just ready for warm weather so we can get outside again. 


Emma has been practicing her veterinary skills. 
I have a friend that owns a climbing gym.  
We've been going there every once awhile to run around. 

On to the baby boy. 
I went for my fetal scan a couple weeks back. 
I got the results that everything looks good.
I have had a couple things happen with this pregnancy that have made me feel bad for this tiny baby inside of me. Not that they are major things at all, but things that never happened with Emma's pregnancy so they are just new. 
Having that food poising really scarred me. 
I have had a cold for the past 2 weeks.
A toddler jumping on my belly...
and a few others...

I went to my second OB appointment two days ago. 
Heartbeat is still strong. 
155bpm

I didn't have a ultrasound at my last OB appointment but this was taken at my fetal scan. 



I started to feel him a couple weeks ago but I am just ready for Mike to be able to feel his kicks now.  Its like he stops moving once a hand goes on my belly. 
I have my next appointment at the end of the month.

Last Friday was the first time that I had ever taken Em to the doctors for being sick. She had a cold going on about 2 weeks that just didn't seem to be getting better. I had a appointment on Wednesday for her 2 year old check up (i was going to discuss her being sick also), but that doctors office decided to be a crappy business that has crappy receptionists so they lost us as clients. Anyways, we like our Dr. now and Em has been diagnosed with a double ear infection. She was complaining that her ear hurt the day before so it needed to be taken care of. When I was a child I had terrible ears. Ear infections seemed like a once a month thing for me so I am just hoping this wont be a common thing. 

So this is pretty much all that we have been up to lately. 
Hopefully more exciting things will come soon with the warm weather. 

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Discover the Dinosaurs

 There is not much that comes to the area where we live so when I hear that something fun is happening, even if it is a hour away...we have to go. 
 Discover the Dinosaurs were in town for only two days. I heard about it from the news on the first day so we only had the next day to get there and experience it. 
It was expensive for what it was, but like I said, there is not a whole lot of things that come here so it is what it is. 

Emma wasn't that excited in the beginning. All the replicas of the dinosaurs were really scary for her. 

She enjoyed being a Paleontologist for a little. 
More scariness.
 Some of them moved and made noise so she was clinging to dad.


After she got used to it, she was having a lot more fun. 
They had a bunch of bounce houses that she could not get enough of! 
It is so surprising that I got pictures of Emma with no other kids in the background. There were kids everywhere! 
We had overpriced snacks and played a lot! 
I wish she would have gotten up and rode the Dinos. 
Overall she had a blast. It was a expensive day but it was something she ended up enjoying. 
She now goes around roaring at us.