Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

We have had a wonderful Christmas day. It is far from white; the temperature right now is 71! The highlight of Alyssa's day was finding a wooden train set that Santa left all aid out beside the tree. In fact she was so excited about, she passed all the gifts and went straight to the train. After about 15 minutes of play and 5 minutes of convincing, we were able to get her to open a present from her stocking. After just one present, she went back to the train! Needless to say, the train was a big hit. Thanks Santa!

Here are a few pictures from the morning. Videos are to follow.

Gift Ideas

Some people have asked about what we need for the arrival of our little boy. I've put together a "Wish List" on Amazon's website for our little guy. Here is a link to it.

Recent videos of Alyssa

Here are two recent videos of Alyssa enjoying life. Sorry about the quality, they came from our cell phones.

LeMar's Job Update

Family and friends, please keep the prayers coming! LeMar saw an opening with a near by police force. He quickly applied and will soon be going in for an interview!

LeMar's Job

LeMar has found a job here in Gainesville. We are quite grateful for his employment, but that being said, this job leaves some things to be desired such as wage, sufficient hours, and type of work. LeMar is working the floor at Target. It is a job, but please continue to keep his employment situation in prayer. We are hoping he can find something better. It is good that he as found something; this video is a testament to just how bored he was being unemployed.

http://picasaweb.google.com/LeMarPollard/CostOfBoredomVid#

October Update

Friends and family,

Please forgive my blogging absence. Grad school is no cake walk! What's new with us? Well, we found out we're having a little boy in January. There are pictures available via my Picasa (Link on the right). I think we've settled on a name for him, but we're still "test driving" it at home before making it public.

LeMar's job hunt continues. We're not sure what plan letter we're on now, but it is getting up there. Please continue to keep this situation in your prayers.

Alyssa is enjoying "school" (daycare). They get to play outside in several large playgrounds almost every day. She seems to really like her teacher and to have made friends in her class. We frequently hear about Eddie; apparently he goes to timeout a lot. She loves to read with us at home. She is also on a Disney princess kick right now thanks to our friend Eileen's influences. I definitely know more about these princess now than I did when I was a little girl. She has mastered all of her uppercase letters and a good number of her lowercase letters. She can also almost count to twenty, but she frequently goes awry between 14 and 18 and only hits about 1/3 of those numbers. She is also learning to ride her tricycle, but she prefers to push off of the ground with her feet instead of pedaling. She is less cooperative now than she used to be. I think she is just trying to assert her independence, but it makes parenting her hard right now.

I'm busy with school, as always. I just finished up midterms and my third cumulative exam. Now I need to get back into my research, which has been on the back burner for the last 3 weeks, write a paper for each of, accomplish a group project, and think about finals, which will be here way too soon.

Alyssa's room - Before and After

This was to be Alyssa's room when we first saw the house with our real estate agent:



This is her room now:


Here is a 360 degree view video. I couldn't rotate the video file, so turn your head on its side to the left or rotate your monitor 90 degrees clockwise for the best view.



And here is Alyssa waking up in her big girl bed and her new room for the first time!




She has adjusted great to all the changes with the new house, new bed, new city, etc. She misses her friends from Panama City, and we miss our friends, too. I will be starting orientation at the Chemistry department on Monday. Alyssa will start day care part time on Tuesday, and LeMar's job hunt continues to move at the pace of a three-toed sloth (slowest animal on earth). Please continue to keep us in your prayers. God bless!

The Worst of the Damages

Here is a look at the most extreme damage from the movers:

Before:


After:


They also damaged several pieces of furniture, some out of sight but some quite visible.

Quick update; more will follow

Hello all! We've officially moved to Gainesville. We bought a house and took on some serious re-flooring and quite a lot of painting. My parents were down from Colorado to help out, and it was greatly appreciated. Now that they've returned home, Alyssa is missing them a lot and asks about them daily. Speaking of Alyssa, she is all grown up! Potty training progress continued throughout the move without too many set backs, and in more exciting news, she now sleeps in a big girl bed. Her room is very, very cute. I'll post pictures soon of before-and-afters throughout the house. In case you're wondering how the fish did during the move, you'll be happy to know most handled it well. We lost only 1 of 7 even though they were forced to live in bags for 5 full days. A couple were sick after the ordeal, but we've been medicating them all and it seems everyone else will pull through. Well, it is now after midnight, and I'm exhausted. Check back within the next week for pictures!

Introducing Alyssa's brother or sister

He or she is expected to join the rest of the air-breathing family members in January 2011. For those interested, that puts me currently at 12 weeks along in a "40 week" pregnancy. Alyssa came at 39 weeks, praise God; she would have been 9+ lbs. if she stayed an extra week. I seem to be past all the morning sickness and have moved into the "honeymoon phase" of pregnancy; I look normal and feel great! We are all very excited about the new addition. It will of course make the move, grad school, and LeMar's job situation all the more interesting, but this child is a such a blessing we wouldn't trade him/her for anything.

Speaking of LeMar's job hunt; he has applications pending with FHP (state troopers), TSA and UFPD. Please remain in prayer for his job situation.

We are continuing to get ready for the move which is now less than 4 weeks away. Time flies! We're excited to get down there, but a little sad about leaving friends behind. Good thing we have a blog, email, skype and phones to keep in touch!

We found a house!

We're back from Gainesville, and the weekend was very successful. We found a house, which is now under contract, and it will be ours at the end of July barring any snags in the rest of the process up to and through closing. We also found a daycare that we think we'll like. No news on a job for LeMar, but we'll keep that issue in prayer and trust God's provision. Here are a few pictures of the house:








Our next adventure is rock climbing. I can't wait to get up there on the cliffs again. We'll bring back some pictures. Speaking again of pictures, check out the link to Emily's Picassa Albums on the right. There are pictures from our trip to Atlanta two weekends ago.

Busy, busy, busy

About 60 days until we move, and life is moving at a breakneck pace. We celebrated our 3-year anniversary a week ago. LeMar was working on the actual day, so when he was finally done with his work week, we went out to dinner. He spoiled me rotten with dinner at Melting Pot, a new digital camera, framing of my most recent diploma, a Bible cover (for the Bible I got for Mother's day), and roses sent to my office. His parents gave us a Wii for our anniversary, which we've been enjoying separately since we've hardly spent time together since it arrived.

Alyssa and I just returned yesterday from 2.5 days in Atlanta; LeMar was stuck in FL working. We went up with some friends to visit Ryan's parents for what should have been the celebration of Ryan's 25th birthday. Please continue to keep his parents and sister in prayer; they are still feeling a lot of hurt and sadness. The weekend was not a downer though. We were able to share lots of good memories of Ryan, take in the Georgia Aquarium and visit their lake house.

This week we'll be looking for a new house and a new daycare in a new city. The AF has finally agreed to send me for a PhD instead of another Master's degree so we've decided to buy a house instead of renting one.

Just a few days after returning from that trip, we'll be heading north again to go rock climbing. After that we'll be spending a few weeks at home without any trips, but life is sure to remain busy. With the move looming overhead, there is a lot to be done.

Check the links to the right for pictures, I'll upload some soon.

The Slide

This video is a little old, but still good and more recent than our last video/picture update. In other news, Alyssa is well on her way through the journey of potty training. No more diapers (except when asleep)! Yay! She is speaking quite a lot including an occasional complete sentence! Books are still very popular, as is climbing things and moving things around. Life is busy here; only 85 days until our move! Please be in prayer about LeMar's employment in Gainesville. In spite of the move, we have 3 trips in the next 6 weeks: Memphis, Gainesville, and Sandrock (rock climbing).

Crazy but true . . . stories of Alyssa

Alyssa is getting big and her little personality is showing up in full force. She is quite silly, and she enjoys making us laugh. For example, if you ask her, "Who are you," she will reply, "Alyssa," (pronounced Iss-a), but when you ask her, "What's your name," she invariably answers, "Woof woof!" We don't know how it started, but it keeps us laughing and I think that's why she keeps doing it.

She LOVES books and particularly those by Dr. Seuss (or P.D. Eastman). Her favorite, hands down, is Fox in Sox. The day isn't over until we've read it at least once and frequently more times than that. Her second favorite is probably Dr. Seuss's ABC's. We also have Hop on Pop, Go Dogs Go, One Fish Two Fish . . . , and Oh, the Places You'll Go. All other books in our decent sized collection are second rate compared to these.

She is learning her shapes, colors, numbers and letters. She's doing very will with her shapes, and she's finally getting better with her colors. For a long time ANYthing we asked her the color of, her answer was, "YELLOW!" With both numbers 1-10 and letters A-Z, she's doing better at the middle or end of the sequence than at the beginning. For example, she'll say, "W, Y, and Z" (skipping X) and then continue on to sing, "Now I know my A,B,Cs . . ." What a goof!

Alyssa has shown interest in music: playing, singing, and dancing! I found a little toy keyboard for $3 at a consignment sale, and she will play on that from time to time. She's always ready to dance to any upbeat music that's on, and we frequently catch her singing bits and pieces of songs or jingles. We listen to Family Life Radio a lot and have done so since Alyssa was real little. She sings along to their jingle every time they play it, and that occurs at least once every 10 min!

She is showing sporadic interest in the potty, depending on the day. I can't really claim to be "potty training" 'cause I have no clue how to do that. However multiple times throughout the week she'll tell me she needs to potty and we're moving from actual waste deposit only 5% of the time to 33% of the time!

UF & Gainesville Trip

It was a shame, but LeMar and Alyssa had to stay in Panama City while I took the trip to Gainesville alone. I spent Thursday afternoon looking at rental properties with a real estate agent. I saw one great option, one okay option and two non-options. We're trying not to, but we're getting attached to the great option. I hope this house is still available when we move this summer. Friday morning I visited the child care facility on campus, and I was unimpressed. We've ruled that facility out as a possibility and are looking elsewhere. I spent Friday afternoon and Saturday with the Chemistry department at UF. It was the first of two visitation weekends for potential grad students who've been offered a spot in the fall class. I was able to tour the department, socialize with current and potential grad students, meet with potential advisors, and take in the sights of the city. I went into the weekend interested in two certain professors, but I left only interested in two different ones. Over the next couple of months, I need to figure out which one I want to study under, because with my short timeline, I have to know who I'm working for and what project I'm working on as soon as I arrive. Here are a couple of pictures:

Here comes February

Again, it's been too long since I've blogged. Here's a quick overview of the events from the last two months:

Dec: I finished grad school, we took a trip to CO, we returned to FL and celebrated Christmas, I was accepted into UF Grad school for Chemistry

Jan: I rung in the new year by re-reading Harry Potter #7 (finished 2 hours into 2010), we lost a very close friend of ours to suicide, my best friend gave birth to a beautiful little girl, we tried to help my coworker out by adopting her dog but had to send the dog back because all 4 of us were exceedingly stressed, I took my first business trip since Alyssa was born, we traveled to Atlanta for friend's funeral and took the sites while we stayed there for the rest of the weekend. Whew! Now you're all caught up.

It has been very tough loosing Ryan. He was a great friend, a brilliant chemist, and an accomplished athlete and musician. I miss him very much.

Being done with my master's has been amazing. I have so much more time now which I spend with LeMar and Alyssa while they're awake or reading novels, not textbooks :), when they're asleep.

I am VERY excited for the Olympics to start in less than two weeks. I will be able to enjoy them much more this time since I don't have schoolwork that needs to be done. We are also looking forward to a trip to Gainesville to familiarize ourselves with the area and preview the Chemistry department at UF.