Thank God for technology...

Today marked 4 weeks down for Jason's deployment...15 to go. For the most part it seems like it has been much longer than that, but Riley and I have been keeping busy and that is key to making this time go by fast. I am so thankful for the methods of communication that we have at our fingertips today...I would be writing a much more unpleasant post if I had to rely on writing letters...although I would obviously not be posting on a blog if that were my only means of communication either! My most preferred method so far is using the chat through Gmail and my second favorite is Skype...the only downside to Skype is never knowing how good the connection is going to be. For the most part we have been pretty lucky but this past Sunday Jason kept losing his internet connection and our call dropped 5 or 6 times...aarrgghh! It is so great to see him though and boy does he look good! He is working a lot and working out a lot...and eating healthy! He is still doing really well, but misses his girls. You can take pics using Skype and this is a pic I took of him last Sunday night...he didn't even know I was taking the picture but you can see how happy he was to see his girls...Riley was smiling for him and clicking her tongue!

They have an awesome program where the soldiers can read children's stories and they record it on DVD and send it home to their families...ours is on it's way and I can't wait for Riley to be able to watch her Daddy read her a story every night...how great that will be! There are so many moments throughout each day where I just wish he was here to be a part of it. I am thankful to be a part of what he is doing and thankful that God has given us the strength to get through this time of separation.

On a funny note, I really wished Jason was home last night when I discovered that Hank and Kadie had managed to leave a nice surprise for me on our porch...a dead squirrel! It was so gross and I just kept looking out the window wondering if it would magically disappear...it didn't. I knew it had to be taken care of before dark, but it was just so gross. I contemplated calling our friend Wiley to come take care of the matter but felt that I was a wuss...after sharing these feelings with Jason through e-mail he agreed that I was a wuss and told me to get a shovel and take care of it...fine! So I did and I actually had tears in my eyes and let out a few screams in the process but the squirrel was removed and laid to rest in my garbage can...I can't wait for the trash to be picked up! UUUGGGHH! It was just so gross...have I said that already?

Here is another pic Jason sent this past week...this is he and some of his fellow comrades after attending some sort of function...I don't get much information as you can tell! The reason he sent it was to show us how he was being given a hard time since the Aggies had lost to Arkansas State and the original picture had Arkansas State paraphernalia photo shopped into the top of the picture, but I cropped that out...I'm glad to know they're having some fun over there but no need for that nonsense!

He looks so good in this pic!

As for the Aggies, Gig 'Em on the win this past weekend! Here's our little Aggie!

I know this is hard to believe but this is the same onesie that Riley came home from the hospital in...so much for calling her a fatty Derek...I bet Kaleb can't squeeze into his homecoming outfit! HeHe! Granted it was huge on her when she came home and it was a little snug this weekend as you can see her belly pooching over, it is still a 0-3 month outfit and we made it work...it was the only Aggie gear we had so we had to make it work! We went to watch A&M beat New Mexico with the fellow Aggies in Arkansas and had a great time...Riley watched much of the game and finally conked out the last 30 minutes we were there...one of the few moments recently where she has fallen asleep in my arms...it was great!

Gustav has finally left us alone...

As I sit here this Saturday morning it is beautiful outside...a sight we haven't seen ALL week! I have never seen rain like this before in my life. It started late Monday night and NEVER stopped until Thursday morning...not one break. There was no thunder or lightning and amazingly no tornadoes...just 11" of rain and 45 mph winds! At least the weekends before and after were and are going to be nice but boy was it hard to get out and go to work on those oh so rainy days! I am beginning to believe that Arkansas is "The Natural State" because it attracts natural disasters...the seasons here are tornadoes, hurricanes, ice/snow storms...we get a little bit of everything!

The rain didn't bother us too much until it started flooding the highway that takes us to Little Rock Thursday morning...my commute to work took over 2 hours and Riley was in the car with me the WHOLE time! She was a champ...the first hour and a half she laughed, played, and smiled away in her own little world back there and then she realized it was way past her breakfast time and she was HUNGRY! I had to pull over and feed her breakfast...you do what you gotta do! She then got to spend the day with DiDi and I had a short work day so all in all it worked out but here are the pictures of the flooding...

This is the access road

You can see the water creaping up to the highway

This is normally a very small dry creek overpass...now a raging river!

And here we have it...water covering the entire freeway...the reason it took me to hours to drive 4 miles...woohoo!

Riley started eating puffs this week...a little cereal snack that quickly dissolves in her mouth! She has learned to pick them up and put them in her mouth although there are many missed attempts along the way. She made some of the funniest faces the first time she ate them and her whole body shook when she would swallow them...a new texture and experience for her! Now she is eating them every day and loves them! She wouldn't mind if you just put them in her mouth but she has to learn to do it all by herself!

That was a lot of hard work! This is the first time RIley has ever fallen asleep in her highchair. She was so tired that I fed her the last bit of baby food and she literally fell right asleep...I let her snooze a few minutes to get enough energy to drink her sippy cup and go right back to bed...she's like her dad and can sleep ANYWHERE!

She also fell asleep in my new jogging stroller on our first test run this past Monday! I was huffiing and puffing and she was snoring...gotta love it! I LOVE having a jogging stroller! The rain dampered my running plans for the week but I still got 2 good runs in!

Last night we celebrated Gaby's 8th birthday...how time flies! We went to dinner at Kanpai...a family favorite hibachi restaurant! It was not the same without Jason, but he called and was able to talk to everyone for a few minutes and it was great to hear his voice! A camera is en route to him as we speak so soon he will be able to share some pictures of his life over there!

Here are Jason and Riley in 2003 at our annual beach trip...I have always loved this pic!

And now she's 8!

The Birthday Girl!

So Gaby got birthday presents and a visit from the Tooth Fairy...she pulled her tooth in the middle of dinner! It was dangling and she was worried about choking on it while eating so she gave herself a peptalk "Come on Gaby, just pull it out" and she yanked and turned and yanked and turned and it popped right out...I am such a wuss and could not watch any of it! She's such a cutie!

"I'll have a California Roll with cream cheese and a spicy tuna roll...thanks!"

This is Riley's face in anticipation of her dinner...she makes it real hard for me can't you tell? Ha!

Riley had fun playing with her PaPa after dinner!

Riley Riley Riley

Despite all of the hard times that this past week brought...we are now one week closer to having Jason home! 16 weeks to go! Yeah! We have gotten to Skype with him 3 times now and it is AWESOME...we can see him and talk to him and he looks soooooooo good! I am so thankful for the technology we have this day in age...I could not bare to resort to writing letters!

Here's Riley looking at her daddy on the screen...she wanted to type on the keyboard so bad so I let her type and we would send it to Jason while chatting! It was pretty cute!

Riley is a true joy for me and I am so thankful that I have her to keep me company...we have so much fun!

Riley and I before church!

She loves taking baths...she just plain loves the water! She plays and splashes and loves having the water run down her face...she screams the moment I take her out!

It's so hard to see her grow up, but each new strive towards independence is fun too! I love going grocery shopping now that she can sit in the cart. She just kicks her little feet as soon as I put her in and she just checks everything out...she gets lots of compliments as she sweetly smiles at EVERY person that walks by us...I have to allow for extra time to talk with people!

She is SOOOOOO close to crawling, but as you can see she gets frustrated at times!

"I'll cry if I want to" and "I'll crawl when I want to"

I let her play with some tissue paper from a gift she received from her cousins in South Dakota...she LOVED it! Remind me again why we buy all of these expensive toys?

Riley was able to reunite with Kaleb after several weeks of separation...absence makes the heart grow fonder!

Here Kaleb is gently touching Riley's binky!

Here's Tara and I playing Baby Swap!

Megan came over Saturday night for a sleepover...like the old days! Jason and I's bed is the same bed I had in high school and Megan LOVES this bed...she might have come over just to sleep in the bed...who knows! We had margarita pizza and made margaritas...after this week I needed a few! We also stayed up talking 'till the wee hours of the morning...it was lots of fun. Riley awoke at 1:30 having pooped...that would wake me up too! So I changed her diaper and she sort of woke up so we decided to play a little...and guess who got out their camera? Here's what Riley looks like at 2 am after pooping in her sleep...

Despite being up in the middle of the night she was having fun too...

Thanks Megan for all the wonderful pics...AGAIN!
After her early morning photo shoot she went back to sleep and slept until 8:45...I LOVED that!

Last night I went over to Jason's family's house and had some yummy burgers and also received a wonderful spa treatment compliments of Proe Spa by Gabriella and Shelbella! Gaby and her friend Shelby charged me $4 for a spa treatment which included a massage, paper cucumbers on my eyes, perfume (water and soap mixed together...but smelled rather nice), and a hairdo! It was so cute and they had really thought through the entire thing...they had a lot of fun as did I.

Here's me and my beauticians after my spa treatment!

Here's Riley with her favorite Uncle...he can always get her to smile!

We ended the evening getting to all skype with Jason...this was the first time he had gotten to see his family and it was very special to all of us!

Traveling Nightmare

Well here we are on a Sunday evening all cozied up in our comfy airline seats awaiting a somewhat long, but simple trip to Rapid City...little did we know what the evening would entail! Our United Airlines itinerary included a flight from Little Rock to Denver and then a short flight from Denver to Rapid City...it would be a late night so Riley was already in her pj's! We were delayed 45 minutes from leaving Little Rock due to weather and/or mechanical issues. Apparently Denver had experienced tornadoes that afternoon right where the Democratic National Convention was to be held...it's a sign people! So anyways, we were told we "might" miss our connection...they just didn't know. When we boarded our plane we were in the VERY first row...perfect for jumping off to catch our next flight. Well they made us move to the VERY back to balance out the weight of the plane...something like that. So now we are stuck in the back and I explained our situation to the flight attendant who said our connecting flight would know we were on this flight because "it's all in the computer" and she would try to let us off first. Well we land at 9:27 pm and our next flight is at 9:43 pm...our connecting plane is still at the terminal when we landed. The flight attendant asks that if you are not catching a connecting flight to remain seated...yeah right! So it was dog eat dog to get off the plane because, while we were the closest to missing our flight, others were in fact trying to make connections too. One guy even got a huge cut in the process and had blood running down his arm...I wasn't responsible for that I promise! My mom had sweet little sleeping Riley and I broke through the crowd and wouldn't you know I was the FIRST person at the door and they wouldn't open the door to the plane...COME ON PEOPLE! I told my mom to just take Riley and get to the gate to let them know we would make it and I would get the "carry-on" items which included stroller, car seat, car seat base, and suitcase! So off we went on our separate ways and we were literally running through the airport only to find out that the plane LEFT US! Can you believe it? Last flight out and we weren't even late...I thought "it was in the computer." So we found a fellow traveler who had been on our flight and was also left behind...wouldn't you know she was using a free ticket from when they did this to her before! Ha! So we made our way to the "Customer Service" gate to find out where they would be putting us up, when we could get on the next flight, and to accept our free ticket...NOT! While we were told our plane had mechanical errors and while our connecting flight had technically not left when we arrived, they used the excuse that "weather" was the cause and therefore we were on our own...and good luck finding a room with the Democratic National Convention in town. So we had waited over an hour to hear this sad news and Riley had woken up and was keeping everyone entertained...she was just content playing and smiling. There were people yelling curses at United throughout the airport and while that seemed appropriate at the time I just looked at that sweet little girl and it made everything better! We managed to find a hotel at midnight...had never heard of it so I was totally afraid it would be a dump. We even debated just sleeping in the airport, but I figured even 4 hours of sleep in a bed would be better than NO sleep at an airport. So we waited 45 minutes for the shuttle and made our way to the hotel...which was pretty decent thank God! I had no bed for Riley as my family had one waiting for us in Rapid City...the hotel had a Pack-N-Play but it was so disgustingly dirty that I could not bear for her to sleep in it...she was already fast asleep in her car seat carrier so that is where she slept the few hours we were in the hotel...in her car seat carrier hooked into the stroller rolled between the two beds in the hotel...needless to say I did not even sleep well even though I was exhausted and I knew the morning would come soon. Riley slept the whole time but awoke with us at 5 am and was cheerful and watched some toons while we got ready...
So we hopped back on the same shuttle with the same driver that we had just ridden with several hours prior and start to see daylight as we get to the airport. We have to go through security AGAIN which is not exactly easy when you are traveling with a child, but oh well! So I haven't mentioned yet that we managed to pack for all three of us and get all of Riley's gear to Rapid City without having to check a bag...I refuse to pay $30 to check one bag so two women and a baby had all of their belongings in one carry on suitcase...impressive! We had all of our toiletries in the right size containers and I had packed plenty of baby food for Riley so I wouldn't have to be distracted with having to go out and buy anything while we were there. So as I get to the security line I am taking my shoes off, breaking down the stroller and car seat, holding Riley, and pulling out the bottles and baby food that I had in the diaper bag. I made the mistake of telling the TSA lady that I had more baby food in the suitcase...that's what you get for being honest! She then starts making a big deal over how many jars of baby food I have...what the heck? I had no idea there was a limit on bringing food for your infant child! She even calls a fellow employee over to scope out the situation and he freaks out and says "This is wwwwaaayyyyy too much baby food for a one hour flight!" I am obviously questioning all of this and begin to break down in tears. They precede to tell me that you can only take enough baby food for the duration of your flight...so these guys must be taking a kickback from the airlines by forcing people to check their bags and pay the ridiculous fees!!!! So my option was to watch them throw away 10 jars of baby food or go back downstairs and pay $30 to check our suitcase. At this point I was in tears and pissed and I simply threw my arms up and said "Just take the food!" The lady then says to me "Mam, you have to feed your baby." WHATTTTTTTTTTTT? I obviously meant to take the food that they would not allow on the airplane and leave me with the oh so generous amount of 4 jars but she assumed I meant to take ALL of Riley's food. How dare she insult me as if I am such an emotional basket case that I would not be responsible and feed my baby? My goodness...what is wrong with these people? As all of this was going on the suitcase had rolled through the scanner and my mom had already gone through as well...another TSA lady pulled the suitcase out to "search" it and she was trying to say that we had too many toiletries and we should probably check the bag...wrong people to mess with lady! My mom begins telling her our sob story and the lady quickly puts things back in the bag and says "I'm sure it will be ok." That's right...it will be just fine! So we scooted over to the gate only to find out that our friend who had been on the EXACT same flights as us had been put up in a hotel at United's expense and given a food voucher...we got NOTHING! Don't worry...our friendly customer service agent gave us a self-addressed envelope to send a letter to United and ask that they pay for our hotel room...they will get a letter, don't you worry! After all of this we had no other problems and thank goodness because I think I may have ripped someones head off if one more thing was said or done to us...I HATE FLYING unless I can fly on Southwest...that's all!

Life is like a box of chocolates...

This past week has been full of ups and downs...a LOT for ONE week...it's weeks like this that I'm so thankful for the amazing God that we have. This past week started with the news that my Grandad Ray had suffered a brain aneurysm and if I wanted to see him it would mean a quickly planned trip to Rapid City, SD. Rapid City is a hard place to get to, but we managed to get an emergency fare and get up there as quick as we could. My mom was already in Little Rock as previously planned so she, myself, and Riley made the trip. After NUMEROUS travel disasters thanks to United Airlines I was beginning to feel like not much more could go wrong...the travel experience is another post in and of itself. We finally made it to Rapid City and everything we went through to get there seemed trivial now that I was able to spend some very hard but extremely memorable and sweet moments with my Grandad. The aneurysm paralyzed his left side entirely so although he tried to talk we could not make out much of what was said. I know that was frustrating for him. We spent an entire day together and he was able to meet Riley for the first time...to which he shed a tear. She talked and laughed and smiled for him and even showed him how she could clap her hands. We also got to see my Grandma Rose which was wonderful and she didn't look a day older and has been a rock throughout all of this. We also got to meet all of my Grandma's family which was really good...Riley was the 10th Great Grandchild for these two! We had some great time with Grandad and that entire day I will NEVER forget. He lived a great life and passed away in his sleep this past Saturday at 87 years old. I know he is in a much better place now, but he will be greatly missed!

Grandad Ray Herr...December 22, 1920 - August 30, 2008

Me and Riley with Grandma Rose

Morello Girls Visit...

Becky, my best friend from college, and her 2 year old daughter Sydney arrived Thursday for a visit to me and Riley! The girls are cute together and Sydney likes to help Riley with her paci and she plays really well with her! Becky and I have had the evenings to ourselves after the little ones have gone to bed...we have cooked good dinners, watched Olympics, and just caught up...it has been refreshing and relaxing! Looks like Sydney had fun relaxing on my gumdrop pillows too...

Today we ventured out to the Zoo...I have to admit I was not expecting much from the Little Rock Zoo because the last time I went it was pitiful...but my how they made improvements...it's looking very nice and they had lots of fun animals! The giraffe was my favorite! I think Riley was mesmerized most by the Bobcat...it kind of looks like Jack, my parents' cat!

Here's Riley checking out the fishies...

Here's Sydney talking to her daddy on the phone...

Cool Giraffe...

Huge Elephants...

The Gang...

After the zoo we went to Burge's to grab a bite and then to Cupcakes on Kavanaugh...a new cute cupcake eatery! I had the Mud Pie, Becky had plain 'ol vanilla, and Sydney had the Black Bottom...of course we all shared and tasted each one and Riley even got a swipe of marshmallow icing...YUMMY! It was a fun morning and now everyone is napping...except me!

My sweet hubby

Check out these beauties...Jason sent them to me for our anniversary!

These made my day and they smell great too! Riley LOVES the balloons too...she just stares and stares at them! Love you!