Thanksgiving letter to Elayna

Dear Elayna --

It's Thanksgiving in Blackwell and the house is surprisingly quiet.  You are napping, the turkey is cooking, and it'll be hours before guests arrive.  So I find myself in a unique situation -- time to ponder this occasion.

To say I am thankful for you is an understatement.  You are beautiful, clever, and charming -- an answer to every prayer.  However, to say I am thankful for you is not enough ... I am really thankful for so much more:

• I am thankful for your father, for our marriage, and for his support.  He loves you wholeheartedly -- but he also continually teaches me how to be a better parent.  To find a life-partner so wonderful is rare and I appreciate him everyday; I hope you find a great love like your Dad.
• I am thankful for our families.  Our parents have taught us everything about love and how to be a family.  More importantly, our families love and adore you, little one.  I hope you will also know the foundations of honesty, hard-work, faith, and togetherness we learned from them.
• I'm thankful for our jobs, our home, our security.  This is a scary economic time, yet we have all we need.  As you sleep, I know you won't be hungry or without medicine.  May you always have a grateful heart for our abundance.
• I'm thankful for our country and the freedoms we have as women.  You have inherited the ability to vote, the freedom to say and read and pray as you wish.  You can pursue any job opportunity, any school, any dream, and as a woman our country opens so many doors.

So I am thankful for you, yes!  But I am also thankful for your future and all it holds for you.  Keep growing and learning and know that we love you unconditionally now and always.

-- Your Mom!!

Planes, Trains, and Baby Strollers – our adventures in Newark / NYC

We are now safely in Blackwell, Oklahoma, after our 4 day adventure in NJ/NY.  We flew into Newark on Thursday to celebrate my cousin Noah's wedding.  While the trip wasn't exactly as we expected, we had a fun time and some definite memories.

I was very stressed about flying with Elayna but so far things have gone well -- thanks in large parts to Aaron's help and our good friend Benadryl.  While she hasn't been completely comatose, she has slept for big chucks on the flight and been a sweet happy baby for the rest.  Yeah!!!

On Friday, we met up with my brother Nathan (who flew over from Ireland to be the Best Man) and went into NYC with my Uncle Jim.  Now first, let me explain how close Newark is to Manhattan.  The 2 cities are separated by the Hudson River but the Manhattan skyline is quite visible from most parts of Newark and they're probably 5 miles apart.  Our hotel was connected to the Newark Penn Station by a sky walk and the Path Train runs directly from Newark into the city.  It should have been so easy.  And yet, it still takes over an hour for us to reach mid-town Manhattan and the tux shop.  Quite quickly, we had to re-adjust our plans of 'running into NYC for a quick trip' as it was apparent we wouldn't get as much sight-seeing in as we would have liked.

On top of that, Elayna lost most of her lunch on the train.  Working towards my 'mother-of-the-year' award, I decided to soldier on and marched my poor sick child all over Manhattan.  She was a good sport and although she didn't feel well, she didn't complain.  We ended up seeing the SE corner of Central Park, the Park Plaza, FAO Schwarz, and the windows of Bergdorf's before making the hour+ trek back.

Here's poor Elayna all bundled up .... poor thing!!

Since Elayna still wasn't doing well later that night, we decided to skip the rehearsal dinner.  I was fairly disappointed .... but was probably a good decision as she felt MUCH better for the wedding on Saturday.

Noah and Jean's wedding was GORGEOUS!!  The ceremony was on the 22nd floor of the Newark Club with amazing views of the harbor and Manhattan.  It was very fairy-tale-ish and lovely.  Jean was beautiful and she had organized a wonderful wedding.  Every detail was perfect and yet it was relaxed and comfortable.  Elayna played in the back during the ceremony and I was able to take some good pictures -- I'll post most to the pictures tab.

There was a quick cocktail hour downstairs and then we went back to the top floor for the reception.  Elayna luckily took a quick snooze in her stroller at the start of the reception and was a dream baby the rest of the time.  She danced with her dad, Jean, her Uncle Nathan and my cousin Emily.  Dinner was amazing.  My brother gave a really sweet toast and made most of the ladies of our family cry ...

http://www.motionbox.com/videos/ee92d2b51c19e664

After the wedding, Aaron and I hired a babysitter (thanks to Jean's help!!) and went back into the city for an official DATE~!  The train was easier without a sick child and we had dinner at Lupa, one of Mario Batali's restaurants in Soho.  The food was incredible and the restaurant was small and intimate.  We then took a cab up to Rockefeller Center and walked over to Times Square.  Manhattan is fast and sleek at night and we enjoyed the people and lights.  Of course, we still spent most of our date on the train ....

Sunday morning it was my turn to be sick.  Although we still were able to visit with my family at the wedding brunch, I needed a nap the majority of the day.  Luckily Elayna was also exhausted from all the festivities so we spent most of the day in our hotel room.  Not a very exciting last day in the city....

Yesterday we flew into Wichita to spend Thanksgiving with Aaron's dad and family.  And this time it was Aaron's turn to be sick.  Poor Aaron didn't feel well for most of the flight and went to bed as soon as we arrived.  So this bug has effected us all.

So we're happy to be here and get some good relaxing.  We definitely enjoyed seeing my family though and it was nice to catch-up.  Congratulations, Noah and Jean!!!!

Technical Problems

Sorry for the lag in journaling.  For some reason, we've had a lot of problems loading our site on our home computer ... a major issue when trying to update!  I'm not sure if this is a glitch with Shutterfly or our computer but I'm happy to see everything working from my work computer this morning.

Elayna is officially crawling and it’s now time to BABY-PROOF.  This weekend she successfully opened the TV cabinet and I'm sure she'll find our collection of archaic VHS tapes fascinating (Austin Powers, anyone?).

Aaron has been playing softball for the last few weeks and has his play-off game tonight.  As his team hasn't won a game yet, we don't have a lot of hope ... but he's really enjoyed playing.

We took Elayna for her first hike last weekend and she had a great time.  We loaded her up in her baby-backpack (thanks Allyson) and Aaron carried her for 3.5 miles around our favorite mountain loop.  Clancy also thought it was a great day and we really enjoyed the Arizona fall weather (finally!)  I have pictures I'll have to add later....

We leave on Thursday for Noah's wedding in Newark.  It should be a fun weekend although I'm really nervous to fly with Elayna again.  We follow that up with our Thanksgiving visit in Oklahoma with Aaron's family.

Congratulations Barack Obama!

The national news declared Barack Obama the new President-Elect around 9:30 last night.  It is a little over-whelming the historical significance of this event and I said a quiet prayer over my sleeping daughter thinking about it.  What a great time for her to be alive -- she was born the same year we elected an African-American as President.  It gives me confidence in our American dream; it gives me faith in American system.  I can legitimately tell her she can do anything.

While I recognize the wonder of this day, I do have other mixed feelings.  I have liked Barack Obama since I read his book 3 years ago -- and yet I didn't vote for him.  My vote went to the more experienced candidate (as did Aaron's), and John McCain did win Arizona. 

I'm not sad at McCain's loss however, I'm disappointed at the overall failing of my Republican party.  In a time when the economy is suffering, the country continues its war, and George Bush's legacy is a joke, the Repubican party laid down and died.  They have become stagnant, irrelevent, and behind-the-times.  Obama's campaign out-classed and out-smarted in almost every way -- from capturing the internet technology to inspiring the grass-roots efforts.

I am inspired by the passion I saw in this election and look forward to seeing what happens in the next year.  I do think a new chapter of history has started and hope it is a good history to tell my daughter.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Elayna dressed up as a Tootsie Roll -- costume is a gift from her friend MacKensie Schug.  She was not initially a huge fan (I think the head was a little tight) but she warmed up to it once people started paying attention to her.  She is a diva after all! 

We have a very nice group of neighbors and I always feel like Halloween is one of the few times we SEE them.  This year, everyone congregated outside Eric and Lisa Alinder's house and we had a really nice visit.  Elayna was even fairly cheerful after her bedtime and she was able to meet a few new friends.  Phoenix is unseasonably warm right now but it was really pleasant at night and was a perfect first Halloween for our 'sweetie'.