Last week

Ainsley’s preschool was doing VBS again this year and I took advantage. Both the kids went from 9-12 everyday and it was great. I was able to get caught up on some stuff, swim at the pool and go to the doctor without having to figure out what to do with the kids. I’ve been having some abdominal issues and a CT scan showed that I have multiple fibroid tumors in my uterus and a relatively large cyst on my ovary. On Friday I had a colonoscopy which showed that I have a loopy colon. (Ryans comments) – Before Trina moves on from this subject I figured I would give all of you reading this a little taste of what happened that day of the colonoscopy. I had the kids of course and was running back to the house after their last day of bible school and got a call from the clinic telling me that Trina was ready to be picked up. So we rushed to get Mommy and after waiting 20 minutes in the waiting room we were called back to the recovery room. I will tell you right now that she wasn’t ready to be picked up. I have never seen someone in such bad shape after being put to sleep or at least under the influence of drugs. As we were sitting there, her eyes would roll into the back of her head. The nurse, bless her heart was very positive about the whole thing but I felt that there was something that was just off. She would wake up for a few minutes and then out again. Reggie was ready to go because he saw his Mommy the Zombie.. Not to mention that there was an old guy that just got wheeled into the recovery room that was snoring like a beast. After waiting there for another 20 minutes we finally attempted to head out the back door with Trina in the wheel chair. We got her out in the middle of the parking lot and suddenly the wheel chair stopped. The nurse called me over as I was holding the car door and said “hurry stay with her, I’m going to go get a barf bag. Right in the nick of time she gave Trina the bag and she began to throw up in it over and over again. Finally after a couple dry heaves we got her in the car. I had to hold her head up as she looked retarded as she was bobbing back and fourth going in and out of sleep. Half way home she begins to throw up some more and she didn’t have the bag in the right place. So now I’m holding her head, the bag and driving with 2 kids in the back of the car. Don’t tell me how I did it but God is good. Finally got home and drug her into the house barely getting her into the bedroom where she collapsed onto the bed out cold. 3 hrs later she awoke and was hungry. So after eating a piece of toast she started to come back to life and then 2 hours later life was good. Back to Trina…I have to say, I don’t remember much, except trying to communicate and throwing up a bit, but when I came to, I felt great. Nice and skinny (I think it was almost 2 whole days that I went without eating), well rested…the sleep where you are so comfortable, so no complaints on my end :o). I have to say the kids were beaming when I awoke and was back to normal. Reggie kept saying how happy he was that I was awake.
So back to all my results, nothing serious, but just annoying and I’ll have to go to the GYN to figure out what to do about my fibroids. I also met with an Endocrinologist because I had a very strange reaction to Progesterone cream a couple months ago (high blood pressure/pulse, weight loss and nausea). I only used the cream for 3 days and then it took a couple weeks to get back to normal. My reaction remains a mystery, but she recommended going back on the pill to solve some of my pain issues. Praise God, I’ve had the best few weeks in several months. I think my body had some kind of hormone change and it has been good :o). She said to wait until my pain returns (if it does!) and then try the pill.
Boy, this is all over the place…back to VBS; the kids had a great time. They made a costume, so Reggie was loving it, which is good because it didn’t go over very well last year. Ainsley was just happy to be back at school :o).

Six Flags

We are getting our money's worth!!! Usually, we go when we have visitors in town, but we went as a family and decided to explore new things. Ryan has been wanting to take Reggie on the go-karts at Six Flags and no surprise, Reggie loved it! The go-karts were in a part of the park that we hadn’t been to and we passed the dolphin pool. Several people were in wetsuits, getting to touch and learn about the dolphins. I asked Reggie if he wanted to do that and he said yes, so maybe we’ll do that in the future.

For 2 years, I have been wanting to ride the elephants, and I finally got my chance. Ainsley went with me and as we were in line, I was noticing how short the ride was and kinda felt jipped. When I got on the elephant, I was very happy it was a short ride. Its backbone was hitting my tailbone and it was a very bumpy, jerky ride (not to mention the metal bars holding us on were digging into my legs). At least I can say I did it!!! We went on a few new rides and saw the bird show and Reggie was a maniac in the water spray park. It was such a relaxing, fun time :o).

Pride Training

Last year, Ryan and I went through the process of looking into International adoption. After gathering all the info., we decided it didn’t make sense for us. We actually felt like we were in a good place with our own kids and didn’t need/want to rock the boat. Life was good and we were pretty comfortable in our routine. Until….this January when I had a dream about adopting a baby and then the following Sunday, we had a message on the Sanctity of Life (all the ways to help children and preserve life). It felt like it was a very clear message from God that we should move forward with something. I talked to Ryan about it and he wasn’t so sure. I have to admit that I wasn’t really excited about the idea either because life was good, the kids are getting older and easier and I didn’t really want to take on more responsibility, especially with my daily back pain. We prayed about it and sat with it for a few weeks and decided to look into it a little further. We went to an informational meeting about Foster care and again felt led in that direction, but were having a hard time with the concept. Ryan wanted to straight adopt and I wanted to foster only. So, we decided to go through the training and see where we came out on the other side. It was an amazing 4 week class, every Saturday this month for 6 hours (a big THANK YOU to our friends who watched Reggie and Ainsley!). God has really changed our hearts and we’re now excited for this new adventure. We ended up not being in either category, adopt or foster, but something called concurrent planning. That is where we work to reconcile the family and if the parents can’t get it together, we consider adoption. Reggie and Ainsley have been talking about getting a new playmate….I’m not sure they fully understand what that means. I’m having more and more conversations to prepare them to welcome a child from newborn to age 5. We have some paperwork to finish up and CPR classes and then we’ll be certified. I know God already has a plan and it will be exciting to see what it is :o).

New Job (Ryan)

God is good - I have been promoted within my existing company (Molex). My previous position was managing a 7 man sales team that covered the Bay Area. Customers like Juniper, Google, Brocade, etc. all fell within my responsibility. It’s only been 2 years since coming here from Seattle and I’ve learned so much. In my new role I will be responsible for Cisco Globally. This is our largest customer globally within Molex. With that comes very high exposure with Senior Management & insane pressure to perform and meet our goals. I will also have a team of 7, once fully staffed, with reports as far as Hong Kong. I’m currently performing 2 jobs which is wearing on me fast but that should come back down to 1 job here in the next week or two. Trina has been great through this transition and this will challenge us mentally as there is some travel involved both domestic and international. It’s a great opportunity to grow within the company and professionally. A lot of praying and talking to God will come from this, so if anything else I will grow spiritually.

Sports

Baseball ended a couple weeks ago. We had a party and Reggie got a medal and a bat and a ball. He had a great year and was very excited about catching, but never really wanted to practice hitting. He would get very frustrated because he hardly ever hit the ball. It is really hard to hit the ball when you don’t look at it! Anyway, he was very excited about his new bat and wanted to give it a try, so the next day I went out with him and he swung and swung and swung. He wanted to get the T and I said, “let’s give it a couple more tries.” I kept throwing the ball closer and closer to him and he had to look at it because it was about to hit him. It seemed to click after that and he was launching balls across the street and into the creek. Now, he loves hitting and the season is over…go figure :o). Now we’re on to swimming. 2 weeks ago, Reggie wouldn’t put his face in the water and now he is doing 5 strokes with his face in the water. It is a lot to figure out, with kicking, holding your breath and using your arms, but he’s improving every time. He loves it, which is most important. We’ve been going to the swim center the past couple Sundays and all he wants to do is tread water, go under and jump off the side. We are going to have a fun summer and I think he is going to tire us all out!!! Ainsley, on the other hand, isn’t catching on quite so quickly. She kicks and will dip her ear in the water, but nothing more and today said she wasn't going to swim. Reggie was the same way at her age, so we’ll just wait it out and when she’s ready, it will click. She’ll just be in a life jacket all summer! Ainsley has decided to give gymnastics a break and try dancing. Her friend, Naomi goes to dance, so they talk a lot about it a lot. Some other friends gave us dance outfits and the shoes and she wore them for a week straight!!! Her feet were so red from the ballet shoes, so, thankfully, she’s given them a little break. Here’s a clip of the little dancer (notice she can't take her eyes off of herself!):

We tried out Naomi's dance class and it was a hit. Ainsley jumped right in and looked like she had danced before. She said she wants to do faster dancing, so we might try Jazz, but she really had a good time.

Two peas in a pod:She’s also found her biking legs and loves to ride her own bike. We went to a birthday party bike parade and she could not stop grinning. She rode around the park with the big kids and honked her little horn. It was pretty cute.

Fun with animals

Since Riley is no longer with us, we’ve adopted the squirrels in our yard. Peanut is our favorite and comes a few times a week to stock up on nuts. He is very sweet and comes to Riley’s old ledge and looks in the window, asking for nuts. The kids love to throw some out and watch him eat. Word has spread and we’ve had as many as 4 at one time and that’s when we stop feeding the squirrels. We have a crazy one who has lunged at the window when we’ve opened it, so he gets no nuts! They are very entertaining :o).
Our other animal adventure was watching all the animals in Reggie’s classroom. They got to see chickens hatching right out of their eggs, the tadpole grow in to a frog and the caterpillars die in their jars (they didn’t make it). It was so much fun to go in every day and see what was new. Since Mrs. Pierson asked us to get the tadpoles, I felt responsible and became the keeper of the tadpoles and fed/cleaned the tank. It was really fun to watch them change. We had a female who decided to lay eggs which was really exciting. We had already let our other frog go, so we put the rock with all her eggs in the other kindergarten classroom. She had at least 10 tadpoles, so we were hoping that one of the males would step up. We put the rock back in the creek, so who knows. The other classroom lost a frog that jumped out of its bowl and was MIA! They were the tiniest frogs I have ever seen and I was shocked that Reggie and Ainsley wanted to hold the frog before we let it go back in the creek. We might do that at home next year :o).

So much to write about, but no time!

Well, we've been very busy doing Ainsley's year end preschool stuff and last week was Reggie's turn. They both got lovely memory books with all their arts and crafts and special projects. They are amazing kids :o). Ainsley has been asking since school got out, when she can go see her friends. I'm glad I saved her Child of the Day hat because she put it on today and that's what she loves to talk about with her babies. She did a nice little song presentation, although she just stood there. She did do a couple hand movements, so that was good. Interesting how 2 kids can be so similar in that way....is it us as parents???? We'll never know, so we'll just keep encouraging :o). Reggie sang his songs this year and did the hand movements, so maybe it is age? Anyway, he did great and has had a big couple weeks swimming and playing baseball (I'll get to that another day!). Just thought I would share the video from today....he was getting his memory book (still shy in front of the group). I told him after that it is o.k. to smile when someone says something nice about you :o).
Reggie and Mrs. Pierson: My video wouldn't upload, but she said he was a sweet boy and all the kids wanted to sit by him and be his friend, so much so that she had to move him up by her because the kids would fight over sitting next to him. Them she read a little ditty he said about why he loves mom and dad. Mine was pretty basic, I make him food and play games with him. He loved Ryan because he bought him presents when mommy was gone! Too funny :o).
The last day of school was Olympic day and the kids went around to various activities and got participation points for their "country". I had a group of 3 kids, plus Ainsley and it was a riot. It was fun to see Reggie interacting with his friends and trying new things. They had some pretty high hurdles to go over and I never thought he would do it, but he did! He is growing up, literally. School has been out a week and we've had a couple playdates and the moms were noticing after just one week that he had gotten taller!