Pogo and other news

Well, good news and bad news this time.

First the bad news. We, my parents and I, had to make the decision to put down our dog Pogo. Pogo has been with us for twelve years. He had a great, pampered life with us and brought all of us joy and laughter. Over the last couple of months he's been getting progressively sicker. I'll spare you the details, but it was of the digestive track variety. Putting him down was no easy decision, but he has led a good life and his suffering at the end was minimized. He will definitely be missed.

Now the good news. LeMar was able to feel the baby for the first time last night! Trust me, our baby is an active one. He/she is doing flips, kicks, and summersaults all around my belly. Our next doctor's appointment is Monday, but before you ask, they won't be doing an ultrasound this time.

Baby update - 17 weeks

By the growth charts, the approximate size of our baby is 5 oz and 5 in. I'm feeling him/her move now, which is a very strange sensation to say the least. Trips to the bathroom are pretty frequent, but nausea and vomiting have almost completely subsided. I'm starting to show a little bit and pants aren't quite fitting the same. A few pairs have even been given a sabbatical for the next few months. I've been hunting the web pages to find the best bargains for baby items. I've started a registry at Walmart.com to keep tabs on my favorites.

In other news, LeMar continues to be busy juggling full-time employment at Sam's Club and full-time school at the law enforcement academy run by the community college. He finishes his classes in April and takes the state exam in May. Completing the academy makes him competitive for the Sheriff's Department and all the local departments. It gives him quite a few options, but he will be competing against his classmates for the open positions. Please keep him in your prayers.

I begin my work on my master's degree this week. There were no available programs of interest to me in the area without a two hour one way commute, so I found an exclusively online program in chemistry through Illinois Institute of Technology. I will be working towards a professional master's degree in Materials and Chemical Synthesis. I'm taking two classes this semester for a total of five credit hours. This should occupy the majority of my free time in the evenings. I hope and pray I will be able to handle the demands of the classes while surviving pregnancy.

We continue to miss Colorado. We have found it especially hard this time of year when Colorado gets all the snow and we get thunderstorms. If you have snow, make a snowball for each of us. If you get a chance to hit the slopes, do a run for us. Our love and prayers to you all. God bless!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Florida!

Friends and family from near and far, we appologize for not writing to you all in a while. The holiday season, as you all know, can be a very busy time. We enjoyed many firsts this Christmas: our first Christmas together, our first Christmas in Florida, and our first Christmas without our parents. Though the second and third of those could be a sad occasion, we made the most of it and thouroughly enjoyed the day together with just the two of us. My exciting gifts of the year were Racquett ball gear including glasses, balls, and racquets. LeMar's best gifts were a train set and some much needed jeans and shoes. I didn't get the puppy I was childishly hoping for, but I did get an adoreable puppy ornament for our tree.

May God bless you all in the coming year. LeMar and I are are constantly praying for health and the continuation of our steady incomes. Why? Well, we are expecting an addition to the family at the end of June. We are having a baby! I am 13+ weeks right now which makes the due date June 27th. Please join us in our prayers for health and financial stability. We are very excited about this upcoming year and the birth of our baby. May God bless you and keep you in 2008!


This picture was taken at 11 weeks, 4 days. The baby was measured at 5.6 cm, and we heard the heart beating at 156 bpm.

On the road again

We just got back from a glorious 4 day weekend in the Big Easy with the Turley & Pollard sides of the family. We had a great time visiting with all the relatives, at the Battle of the Bands, and at the Bayou Classic. We decided to pull for Grambling over Southern, so it was a bit of a disappointment when Grambling lost. However, the final score of the game worked out for us in the pool we had going and we made five bucks off of Southern's victory. Traffic was a bear getting back this evening. We got kicked off of I-10 just into Mississippi after a long hall of bumper to bumper traffic only to be sent into more bumper to bumper traffic on the the new route. All in all, our 5.5 hour trip took us 7 hours.

This wonderful delay now leaves me with an 11 hour turn around as I prepare to go to Tampa for a conference this week. Monday and Friday are travel days, so I will be home Friday night. Well, I better get on with the un-packing and packing.

Has our blog absence been puzzling?

Yes it has!

LeMar and I have been keeping ourselves busy working on puzzles. We had been working on the hot air balloon puzzle for ages. I got the Bear Lake puzzle for my birthday, and we finished both of those on the same day. Then we started going into puzzle withdrawal, so we went to Wal-Mart and picked up the huge puzzle of Times Square. We have loved working on this one together, and I can hardly wait until it is finished!