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Saturday, November 28, 2009

Daddy and daughter

We went to Dru's friend's wedding a few weeks ago in Pacific Grove's, Lover's Point. Dru likes to scare the crud out of me by climbing out on the rocks to get hit by waves. While he didn't climb out on the rocks in the water, he did climb up on some rocks while holding Mina. It scared me and I told him to get down, but couldn't help but admire how beautiful everything looked. Mina staring out at the vast ocean with her daddy holding her "safely." I snapped a picture to capture the moment and then made him get down. We're going to miss being able to drive just a few minutes down the road to see these amazing sights.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Another week gone

Nothing much has happened this past week. Dru had a few days off. One morning I got up to feed Mina then Dru took her to the Wilde's house for the rest of the morning and I got to sleep really late!!! That was great. We had friends over for homemade pizza and pictionary one night and that was a blast. Wednesday we got to go to the Yoder's house for games and to see their incredibly cute 3 week old baby Griffith. He's pretty big for 3 weeks old, but still tiny and it always amazes me to see a new born and think that Mina used to be that tiny. We went swimming on Thursday. This was the first time Mina didn't really enjoy it. She was really, really tired when we went, though. I got her out and dried her off and she enjoyed watching Dru play around. And, of course, Ethan was there to make her smile. We always go swimming with the Wilde's and I guess we've made it a tradition to have pizza after we go swimming, so we went to the Wilde's house after to make pizza and play some games and ended the night off with some quality "the Office." It was a great day, "I do declare."
Sunday was the Primary program at church. Dru and I teach the 5 year olds and we love our class. I didn't get to sit up in the stands with the class because I had to take care of Mina, but it was fun to watch. During sharing time they had all the kids sit on the floor to watch a movie. Dru was laying on the floor with Mina and one of the boys in our class, Matthew, started being silly and all of a sudden I hear the cutest little laugh come out of Mina's cute little mouth. Matthew got her to laugh so hard and it was the cutest thing to watch. If you know Mina well enough, you know that it is extremely hard to get her to laugh. If you find something that makes her laugh it will only work that one time. She makes you be creative and find something new to entertain her each time. So far, my parents' dogs barking is her favorite thing to make her laugh. Now, Matthew. But, his technique for getting her to laugh did work for me and Dru later that night. Even during our class time, Mina sat and watched Matthew to see if he would do something silly. Sure enough, each time he would goof off, she would laugh. I loved it.
Well, Mina has been scooting all over the place. Occasionally she will get on all fours and rock a little bit, but so far no actual crawling. She can also almost sit her self up from laying down. She does a little more each day. I love that baby.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Aquarium trip

Daddy and Daughter

Dru had this past Friday off so we decided to take Mina to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was the first time she got to experience it outside of my belly and awake. She really enjoyed it. Had she not been so tired she probably would have enjoyed it even more. We invited our friends Michelle and Ethan to go with us. Mina really likes Ethan. We also invited our new friend Inga. She just moved here from Indonesia and married one of Dru's friends. She is a very sweet girl and the babies loved her.

We got to see the sea horse exhibit, the big shark tank, jelly fish, sea otters, the kelp forest, bat rays, and much, much more. Mina really loved looking at everything. There was one point when we were looking at the jelly fish and a little girl walked up next to us. Mina saw her and turned to her and tried to grab her. She couldn't reach her, but she just kept staring at her and smiling waiting for her to look at her. The girl just would not look at her and smile back. I guess little kids are more interested in the cool jelly fish than cute little babies. There were plenty of other people there that gave her the attention she desired. She really loves to have people smile at her and tell her how cute she is.

Jelly Fish

Staring at the big shark tank.

One of the sharks in the tank.

Ethan napping.

Ethan decided to take a little nap in the middle of the trip. Ethan really seems to like to sleep and if he wants to sleep he will. At least that's how it seems whenever we get to babysit him. It's funny because Mina is quite the opposite. She doesn't like to sleep unless she absolutely has to. If there's stuff going on, she wants to be in the middle of it. Needless to say, she got a little fussy in her stroller because she was so tired while we were there, so we put her in her carrier and Dru carried her the rest of the time with kept her quite happy, because she could see everything. Maybe we'll get to go one more time before we leave Monterey.

Mina just loved this seahorse statue.

Ethan, Michelle, seahorse, Mina and Dru.

The babies were facinated!

Giddy-up!

Well hello giant seahorse.


Dru loves to touch all the sea creatures. It looks like it's Mina's hand, though.


Mina was drooling a lot and her nose was very runny. Poor girl.


Swimming with the fish.


Dru and I have a picture of the 2 of us (3 if you count Mina when she was very tiny in my belly) in this shell the from the first time we went to the aquarium.


The penguins!


I think these were trout. Dru likes to stick his finger in and let them bite it.


Ethan seems a little disgusted by the snot.

If you'd like to see all of the pictures from this trip, follow this link to the album on my facebook:

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Dru's graduation

Dru and a few of his buddies from his class.

Dru's graduation ceremony was today. It was at 9 this morning which meant Mina and I had to get up early. Mina usually sleeps until 9 every morning. The last few days she has been sleeping until 10. Well, last night she went to bed around 9:30. Normally she would sleep until about 5, wake up to eat and then sleep until 9 or 10. I had trouble falling asleep last night and was lying in bed, awake, until after midnight. Guess who decided to wake up at about 1? Yes. Mina did. She woke up at 1 so I decided to feed her because that puts her to sleep the fastest. She wouldn't go back to sleep so I brought her into our bed with us and let her eat while I lay down. After about an hour she finally was asleep enough to put her back in her crib. She woke up again at 5 and I could not get her to go back to sleep. So, she lay in the bed with us again until about 6:30 when I brought her back to her crib. She slept for maybe 5 minutes before she woke up again. But, she wasn't upset so I let her stay in there. I had to get up at 7 to get ready and we had to leave the house by 8. I hardly got any sleep, but I didn't feel too bad. I was very excited for Dru's graduation.

Dru singing the National Anthem.

Receiving his Associates Degree.

The 8 of them who received an Associates Degree.

Receiving his Chinese certificate from DLI.

Mina chowing down during the ceremony.

The ceremony was nice. It was short, which was my favorite part. Mina can't stand to stay in one place for very long. Dru sang the National Anthem with a couple of his classmates. They did pretty good. Mina loved it every time the audience would break out in applause. She did really well sitting there with me. I brought her some little puffs to eat while we were in there and that kept her quite happy. She was so good! Dru not only received a certificate in Chinese for completing the rigorous course at DLI, but he also received an Associates degree in Chinese. Because of the credits he had from previous college attendance and taking some CLEPs at the education center that I worked at, he was able to attain the degree. I'm very proud of him.

Not only is he excited to be finished, but I am. There will be a little less stress lingering around and we'll probably get to spend a little extra quality time with him. This entire week Dru has gotten to go in late and tomorrow he has the entire day off. We're going to go to the aquarium with a few of our friends and their babies. It will be a fun day. After the long weekend with Dru, he will sign into casuals on Monday and get to do a bunch of "silly" things around post until we get to move next month. We are very excited to get back to Texas.

Here are a couple of family shots:


Monday, November 2, 2009

Mina in a nut shell

So Mina will be 6 months old on Friday! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by. Here are some of the milestones or cool things she has reached or done these first wonderful months of her life:
May 5, 2009- Mina made her way into this world at 8:28 am, 8 pounds 3 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long.
May 16, 2009- Mina's umbilical cord stump fell off!
May 30, 2009- Mina enjoyed her first bath.
June 15, 2009- Mina slept for 6 hours straight!
June 21, 2009- Mina slept in her bassinet for 3 1/2 hours and mommy got some much needed rest.
July 9, 2009- Mina got her first set of shots. Sad day.
July 12, 2009- Mina pooped a lot. She also took a long nap in her swing so mommy and daddy could spend some time together.
July 13, 2009- Mina went to sleep on her own in her bassinet. (This going to sleep on her own only lasted a week, though.)
July 29, 2009- Mina rolled over for the first time (belly to back) and moved up to size 2 diapers. She was 12 weeks old.
August 2, 2009- Mina rolled over back to belly for the first time.
August 9, 2009- Mina laughed for the first time!
August 10, 2009- Mina went on her first plane ride.
September 5, 2009- Mina turned 4 months old and ate rice cereal for the first time. She also slept in her crib, by herself, in her own room for the first time.
September 12, 2009- Mina started sitting up by herself.
September 23, 2009- Mina sprouted her first two bottom teeth! 4 1/2 months old! Early teether.
October 5, 2009- Mina and mommy flew to Texas to see her new baby cousin William.
October 19, 2009- Mina started scooting all over the place to get whatever toy or item she desired.
October 22, 2009- Mina got her second set of shots. Another sad day.
October 31, 2009- Mina's first Halloween as a skunk!

Mina's napping so I can update

Mina really likes to sit at the computer with me and bang on the keyboard with me while I type. It makes it hard to sit down and write anything. First off, Dru finished up his 63 week long Chinese language course here at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA! He spent every workday during this time in a classroom from 8 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon just learning Chinese. Sometimes he had an extra hour of classroom time after that and then a couple hours of homework on top of that. He also had several other responsibilities and duties to attend to. Physical conditioning after class, drill team which was where they learned some cool marching routines and eventually performed them in a competition, being a "rope" which is a leadership position where he keeps track of those in his flight and makes sure information gets passed and they also have extra marching sessions for being a rope. On top of all of that, he became a dad. He normally doesn't get home until 6 every night. He leaves at 6 in the morning. He has been a very busy guy the last year and a half and I am so very proud of him. Last week he took the final tests that he needed to pass to be able to move on. We found out on Thursday that he passed. So, it's official that we will be leaving Monterey December 17 to head for Texas. It's perfect that he has a long break for the Christmas holiday at that time. After a couple of weeks off, Dru will head down south a couple of hours to Goodfellow Air Force base in San Angelo to complete the remainder of his training. Mina and I will be staying in Fort Worth with my parents. Training will be completed in May and then we will make our way to Fort George Meade in Maryland! We are very excited about that.
As much fun as it has been here in California, we are ready to be closer to family. We've enjoyed all of the friends we've made here and will be sad to leave them. We're just very excited for the new adventures that lie ahead! Texas here we come!!!

Halloween!

This year Halloween started on Thursday. I got to take Mina to Earthbound Farms where there were tons of pumpkins and other babies all dressed up for Halloween. Mina dressed up as a skunk! We didn't want her to be something that tons of other babies were going to be. She was the only skunk at the farm and on Halloween we only saw one other skunk, but Mina was cuter. Dru and I dressed up as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum from Alice in Wonderland. We argued about who would be Tweedle Dum, so Dru decided that he would be Tweedle Dum and that I would be Tweedle Idiot. I still maintain that I was Tweedle Dee. We went to the trunk or treat at the church where Dru was in charge of the cake walk. Mina sat in the middle of the circle and loved watching all the kids circle around her. After that we went to our neighbors house for another Halloween party. We played some games and mingled with some other cute babies. Then we went home for a nap. We then went out to dinner with our friends the Wildes and proceeded to their house for a scary movie to end the festivities! Mina was so good the whole day and had lots of fun!!!