st louey with the turners

During our road trip.. we were blessed to swing thru St. Louis to meet lil man Jackson Patrick Turner!!!
He is adorable and perfect!


Ha. Sally is hanging out and Jackson is snoozin'.

All snuggled up with his daddy.


Ruthie was trying out my sling. and Jackson fell asleep in it!




This video CRACKS me up! and look at the pup- Neuman, watching carefully.

We had a good time with the Turners and wish they lived closer to Nashville!

On the home front...
last night we went downtown Franklin to see a friend's show. This is soo crazy and random, but thru Facebook, I connected with Corinne Chapman- a friend of mine from good ol Rim of the World High School. I hadn't talked with her in over 10 years, she found out that I lived in Nashville and then told me about her show. SO..... we went last night!
It was super fun to see her... and her show was FANTASTIC!
Check out her music
Seriously, her lyrics were incredible (she writes all her own songs) and her voice was beautiful.
It was fun to chat a bit and to my surprise.. Rick Williamson (a guy from my high school youth group) was there too!
Talk about a blast from the past!
So it was a super fun evening topped off with some peach cobbler! =)


He lives about 5 minutes from us here in Franklin. CRAZY

snippits from our chicago trip

alas- i am posting once again from days gone by. =) but wanted to share some of the fun pix from our time in Chicago.
Sally Jane petting Daisy, my Auntie Karen's fluffy dog.
It was fun to spend a few hours at Auntie Karen's. Sally was intrigued with Daisy's fluffiness, Jane and I caught up with Auntie Karen and Gow cleaned off a bird feeder for Auntie Karen. We wrapped up our convos over some cool freeze pops! Yum!

With the cousins we went to a fair... Benny with his balloon sword.
Kristi and Ben on a ride. Note Ben's RED hair! The kiddos picked a color and had their head's spray painted!
Dave and Gow.. "man-ing" the strollers and balloons.
This pix cracks me up! Look at the back of the dragon and you will see my two 6 year old nieces holding on for dear life.
Uncle Gow... might have been a bigger "attraction" than the rides at the fair. =)
a picnic after the parade (which we missed due to road detours) and before the fair.
My other nephew Tim, enjoying a slurpy snow cone.
Auntie Jane "packed" Sally Jane. It was wonderful and gave Gow and I a chance to play with the other kiddos.
Neal and Dave- hoopin it.
Sarah and Emma with purple hair! and Sally Jane watching from behind.
my siso Jane and Sally Jane... yes, Sally is Jane's namesake, and they are having a LOVELY time together.
grilling out at Neal's house.. with Dale and Jeannine Holte and fam!
ahhh.... cute pix of the older cousins!
This is Kristi. She is 2 years old and is waiting patiently for Sally to grow up so she can have a playmate too!

Love this one... we had JUST arrived and all of Sally's cousins are excited to see her again!

We also spend time with Mark and Korita Taube while in Chicago-- but I forgot to take pix!

Gow is out buying some supplies to work on the Passat, Sally is sleeping and I think I am going to go and take some time for myself. =)

For this evening... we are going to go see Corinne Chapman (a friend from middle school in Lake Arrowhead, CA) sing. We randomly "bumped into" each other on Facebook and she is doing the county music scene! Will be fun as I haven't seen her since 1995!!

cruisin' upright

Sally is excited to be strollin' around town sitting up! No more "baby laying down stuff".
=)
seriously, I was watching Sally today as we were pushin' her around.... she was just lounging without a care in the world, taking in the sights and sounds and chilling.
i would LOVE to have an adult size stroller... with a cup holder. =)

that's it for tonight folks.
i am zonked as Sally has been getting up at 7am this week.
toddle loo!

right in front of our eyes!!!

about two hours ago, gow and i were enjoying some warm chocolate chip cookies, discussing our lives' happenings and watching Sally play on the floor with some toys.

and then she did it! she was looking at us, looked at a toy and right there in front of our very own eyes... she rolled from her tummy to her back! it cracked me up cuz the look on her face looked like she has been doing it all her lil' life. (she has rolled maybe 6-7 times, but always during a nap and we've never witnessed it)

so fun!
here she is in her crib
showing it off to ya'll. she has been sleeping in there almost a week and is doing great. she continues to average 10-12 hours of sleep each night and we are working on just laying her down in the crib and letting her put herself to sleep. she's great at that in the mornings and seems to fight it a bit more as the day goes on.

ah- look at her lil bow! we love our lil dolly!

this week gow is working on fixin' up the passat. we are thinking we may sell it and buy a honda. volkswagen's are super pricey to maintenance... we will see.

i am happy to say that i am officially back in all my pre-prego clothing! hip hip hooray!

on that note... we are all headed to the pool this afternoon to soak up a few rays and then swim in the indoor pool as the outdoor one is no longer warm enough.

happy day to ya!

5 months old today!

Sally Jane is 5 months old today! Can you believe it? We took her to the Dr. today for her 2nd round of shots... she did wonderfully, only crying for about a minute. Here are her stats....

height weight
at birth....... 21 inches 7.6 lbs
5 months..... 26 inches 16.10 lbs

so if she continues to grow an inch taller every month... we could have one INCREDIBLE vball or bball player on our hands! =)
she is in the 93% for height and 84% for weight.

Wearing brown- you can see that SJ's eye are dark like her daddy's.
She has been spending a lot of time on her tummy playing with toys and also even on her back. We are wanting to provide ample opp for her to roll over. (She has rolled over probably about 4 or 5 times- but we have yet to witness it as she rolls during naptime.)
She is sooo much fun! So full of smiles and giggles and funny noises.
With Gow being at home.. we are soaking up the family time. We have been eating almost all of our meals on our back porch. It has been PERFECT weather and we have a pond with a fountain in the back.



this if funny... at the end it looks like she is licking a lolly pop!

So we are praising God tonight for two wonderful things...

1- an amazing and healthy baby girl that we love beyond words

2- Gow was talking to his boss at Big Idea and he asked if Gow would be interested in being the head editor for the next TWO Veggie Tales! (Gow already knew about editing one, but the chance to edit 2 will take us thru our apartment lease.) THANK THE LORD!!! Oh, He is soooo good.

on that wonderful note.... Good Night Ya'll!

Alaska Grand Finale

Okay, so this is the grand finale of our Alaska trip. Gow commented to me today that it is time to start living/bloggin' in present day. =) So, here are the last of the pix I want to share with ya'll from our FANTASTIC trip to AK.

We hiked in to a glacier. The iridescent blue is crazy!

This is Gow fishing along the road somewhere while I am feeding Sally.

The beautiful flowers are called fireweed and are all over Alaska.

Check out Sally Jane's smile in this one! Her and grandpa are laughing at something!

a fun perspective of Gow doing what he loved best in Alaska!

Ok- so one day (in Eagle River/Ancourage area) we went to a Native Heritage Center. It was very cool to glimpse into Eskimo life! Above is the doorway into a replica of an Eskimo home.
This is a seal skin, filled with air and attached to a rope made of caribou skin. A hunter would attach a harpon to the end of the rope and then spear a whale. The seal "float" when then mark where the whale was after he had died from the harpon. crazy! and dad is modeling eskimo sunglasses made out of bone. eskimo hunters would burn their eyes from the sun's intense reflection on the snow without these sunglasses.

yikes!
ok. this is nuts. we are standing between 2 jaw bones from a whale. yes. this is whale was one big sucker!

and here is the skeleton of another whale....
red fox.
eskimo dancing. it was fun to see that each dance told a story about hunting, the hard winters, blue berry picking etc.

This dear lady (wife of KICY's director) gave Sally Jane an incredible gift. Our whole time in AK I was hoping to find an eskimo doll for Sally as I had one as a little girl. However, these dolls are hand made by eskimos from real fur and start at about $90 each. I had given up the search as all the dolls were around that price. Our last night in Nome, Candace and Dennis had us over for ice cream and blueberries, and she gave Sally this doll. So fun! And the cool thing about this doll.... you can take the whole parka off and the core of the doll is made from caribou bone... the core is a teething toy for eskimo babies. PERFECT! It was such a precious gift to Sally and me.
yes, this is a bit nasty- but wanted to visually express the YUMMINESS of this blueberry cobler we had at the Batcheldor's one evening. ahhhhhh yes!

this was an adventure to a "ghost mining town" near Eagle River.
it was COLD there.. here Sally is wearing three hats on her lil bald head... and still happy as a lark.
Check this pix out! even Sally is proudly doing the "Dave DeVries arms of victory"! They are celebrating the beauty of Alaska together! =)
And this is the end my friends. This shot was taken at about 10:30pm on our last night in Nome. Gow, Sally and I walked to the beach to say goodbye to the Bering Sea, the amazing beach, Nome, the wonderful weather, incredible wilderness and the adventure of it all. This trip was sooo much more than I had always dreamed it would be. Thanks to my amazing husband that gave us the gift of going back and my wonderful parents who helped us experience it all.
It was truly a blessing and one I will cherish for life.

winding down on the AK pix.. maybe 2 more posts?

Good Mornin' Ya'll. It is an overcast and beautiful mornin' here in Nashy... and I think I am ready to wrap up the AK pix. I will post today and then maybe one more and be ready to move on. I like the fam pix above.... sigh... it was such a great time in Nome.
Gow is pickin' blue berries! YUM! They are bigger in AK and taste WAY tangy-ier in AK than the blueberries you buy down here.

and they grow on the ground!
Barage Savings... when my fam lived in Nome, my mom ordered all our groceries ONE TIME A YEAR and they came in on a barge. Can you imagine planning ahead for a WHOLE year?!?! My dad went from cow's milk on the farm to drinking powdered milk in Nome. (No cows to be found in Nome). So now, all the food is either barged in or flown in on Alaska Airlines. it's crazy and makes the cost of food HIGH. A gallon of lowfat milk was like $5.95

This sweet lady's name is Mina. She used to sing songs to me when I was a baby... and here she is singing to Sally Jane.

Mina and her family had us over for Salmon and blueberry cobler one night- YUM!

This is a teeny camp on Salmon Lake. We went there for church... it was BEAUTIFUL. We drove for about 40 minutes from Nome on a dirt road into the wilderness... check out the video....



and of course we went fishing there too. =)


Sally checking out the wilderness from the car...

check out gow's waders! soo hot! =)

and here is my first home! we lived in this lil gray house for the first 5 y ears of my life! it was fun to be able to walk thru it..... brought back alot of memories and fun to see how my family of 6 "made do" in such a small house during such LONG winters. (in the winter season there is only day light from about 11am-3pm every day).

Last night Sally spent her first night in her own room in a crib.
it took FOREVER to put her down (and this was a bummer for me cuz Gow was playing tennis adn I was trying to hang out with Linds- sigh) but we were proud of her and proud of US for putting her in her own room. =)

Enjoy the weekend ya'll!