Family

  • Friends,  Texas

    Snow Day

    It feels like forever since I’ve written here. I better get used to it—you too—because after looking at our proposed stops it appears I might only be on once a week or even a bit longer than that. After leaving the Dallas side of the family on Tuesday morning we drove to East Texas, near Tyler, to see one of my bff’s Michelle at her house. We left early in order to beat the snow that was moving from the west across the DFW metroplex. We made it to Terrell, just east of Dallas on I-30, when the snow started. It snowed the entire day and melted as it hit…

  • Family

    Big Sis—Little Sis

    After a few days, Zoe has finally started to warm up to me and Chris. She’s in love with Samson. She also loves Leo, but Leo has whacked her a couple of times and though his claws are trimmed, it scares her, yet she still keeps loving him and trying to get close. We finally let the dogs start getting closer to the cats. We thought it would be more of a cat fight in the house with the other two cats already living here, but it appears it was the dogs that were the problem. Samson wandered the whole house today and Leo came out if the dogs were…

  • Family

    Love Thursday

    Photo courtesy of my Curtis and Stephanie Whitlock In trying to understand just how tiny Ashleigh is, this really brings it home. Yes, that is my brother’s wedding band on her arm. Her little rib cage makes me want to tickle her ribs, just like my dad liked to do with us, and say “goochy, goochy, goo!” Ah, that will have to wait a few months. Somewhere in the mess of the past week my brother found time to post a blog chronicling the saga up until her birth. Hopefully he will be able to etch out more time for other thoughts, but I suspect that things will be busy…

  • Family,  Florida,  Outdoors

    Dinner Island: Part 1

    I found Dinner Island WMA while on Google Earth one day. I am always looking for new places to explore, parks to see and find the little out of the way places no one goes to. Well, this is one of those places, especially when it isn’t hunting season. A long road winds its way through the property, and you can get out and hike through any of the hammocks any time. Cattle ranching is also done on the land so cows are very prominent as are deer and hogs. The last two you’ll see more in during the non-hunting times. Oh, turkey, too. If you’re lucky maybe a bobcat…

  • Family

    I keep staring

    All I’ve done is keep staring at the photos of Ashleigh. It’s surreal to call my mom up and hear Zoe talking and carrying on in the background. And then there’s 10 and 3/4″ long Ashleigh. The whole thing is magical in a way. She’s here, she’s alive and as tiny as she may be, she’s already a fighter. I already envision her sitting in her room with her big sis, playing dress up or house and then getting into some sort of mischief. I get to meet Ashleigh in about three weeks for an already planned visit at home. Until then I am looking at photos and calling in…

  • Family

    Photos

    Just quick update and I will write more later, but my brother has some photos up on his Flickr here. Check out the one with his hand at her feet—that gives you some scale! A teeny, tiny little blessing—she’s going to be an astronaut…or maybe President. 😉

  • Family

    1 pound 1 ounce

    Ashleigh Ryon has arrived….3 months early but she’s doing good so far. Mom and baby made it through everything well. I got to see a text message photo of her—tiny but she looks like Zoe! My brother is going to put a post up with photos and video later tonight so I will link to that when he does. Until then, they still need thoughts and prayers—they have at least two months of NICU time ahead of them.

  • Family,  Thoughts

    Meh Monday

    My mind isn’t here, for various reasons but one of them is because my sister in law, Stephanie, is in the hospital right now. I’m getting my information second hand from my parents, but from what I understand she went in for a check up and found out the baby hadn’t grown in the past three weeks. She’s 26 weeks. After some tests they found out not enough blood was getting to the baby and well, there are various things going on, but the important thing is that it is possible this baby may be premature. Possibly as early as the next few weeks or six weeks from now, that…