New Summer Job

During the school year, I teach College Success 1500 at Pellissippi State. BUT, I have gotten a summer job to fill the months I'm not teaching and keep me busy a few hours a week during Ellie's Mother's Day Out program. I have been contracted out to do academic advising for Pellissippi State! When I was job searching, my top job choice was to do academic advising at UTK, but that didn't pan out for me. That's when I started teaching part-time, but little did I know that I could also do advising! It's a job that I love to do, primarily because it is DETAILS, DETAILS and some more DETAILS! I have a lot to learn, but training started for me today and I am really looking forward to doing it. So, YAY for a summer job! :)

Visits to Daddy at Ft. Bragg

Jesse left right before Easter to go to Ft. Bragg for a Civil Affairs Qualification Course that he has to pass before being deployed as a Civil Affairs Officer (check out his blog that he revived for this deployment - http://www.realtnvolunteer.blogspot.com/). He only has had Sunday each week as his day off, so we decided that ANY day that we could spend with him, Ellie and I would be there. SO, I packed up the car for the last 2 weekends and took Ellie for a nice 6 hours drive to Ft. Bragg, NC. Ellie did ok the first trip down, but adjusted much better this past weekend. Sleeping in the same hotel room with us was a first and she wanted to stay up as long as she could to see what all was going on. Naps were tough for her to take, but overall she did pretty well for the short trips we made. Best purchase ever - a DVD player for the car so she could watch Boz videos. So, here are some pictures of our quality time with Captain Cragwall!

Tickle Time with Daddy

Playground Time Visit #1

Playground Time Visit #2

Easter Sunday

This year, we had to spend Easter without Jesse so my parents came up to celebrate! My parents dyed eggs with her on Saturday along with delivering some presents from the "Easter Bunny". Some of those gifts were some great books and a dvd of Boz, her favorite! Ellie wanted to put her hands in the dye so badly, but decorating them with stickers was even more fun!

Easter morning, mommy and daddy's "Easter Bunny" came to deliver some more Boz dvds and some books, but of course the bubbles were the biggest hit. We got Ellie ready for church in her adorable dress and got everyone to church on time. :)

My dad flew back to FL right after the service and mom stayed to help me host a luncheon for our small group families that don't have family close by. We even had a little egg hunt in the back yard and enjoyed visiting. Ellie & Kinsley Schaefer get along really well and had fun playing together.

What I enjoyed most about Easter this year is that the story was much more real in my mind from our year and half study of John at church and with our small group. The details of the story were so fresh in my mind of what happened to Christ and the appreciation of what He did for us was incredibly real and overwhelming. Thank you Lord for doing all you did to save someone like me. I am so grateful!

16 Months Old

Another month has passed and I feel like I just did the update for 15 months! We have been having a blast with her and doing lots of new things so that Jesse is here to experience them. You've already seen our fun trip to the zoo, but we've been to the park a few times, visited with other families and enjoyed every minute together. Ellie is growing up so fast, looking more and more like a toddler girl than a baby, and sometimes it makes me sad because of the fun we have had with her, but it also excites me to see glimpses of what she is becoming. We are so proud of our little girl and we are treasuring every minute, especially Jesse. She won't be the little toddler when he sees her next.

Our Overnight Date

Thanks to Bill & Cindy Mason and all of Jesse's family for watching Ellie in shifts, Jesse and I arranged to have an overnight baby-free (1st time since before we had Ellie). Since Jesse will be deploying soon, an evening and day away was much needed for quality time and fun together. We decided to go to Gatlinburg and live it up - just far way enough to have some separation, but close enough to not have a long drive. We headed down Friday afternoon and went by our favorite store (Eddie Bauer Outlet) because we had $20 of free clothes. Of course, it was a great shopping trip. Then, we drove on it to Gatlinburg and checked in to our hotel (Bearskin Lodge). We got an awesome King bed suite that was right on the river and had lots of perks. We were in walking distance to the "strip" so we walked to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for dinner. While waiting for our table, we went across the street and did a taste testing of moonshine - man, I did not like it! Once our table was ready, we enjoyed a yummy dinner. Afterwards, we randomly decided to go up the sky lift (something we've never done) to see all of Gatlinburg before it got too dark. It was a little nerve-wracking going up, but coming down was a lot easier. Once we got our feet back on the ground, we did another traditional thing that we always make fun of tourists for doing - old time photos! We laughed so hard while doing them - it was super tough to do a serious picture. We topped off our night with ice cream and relaxation back at our hotel. The next morning, we had a big breakfast out on our balcony over the river. Once we finished, we headed out to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park to hike up to Rainbow Falls. Thankfully, the government didn't shut down so we could get in to the park. It was a tough hike up, but well worth it. It was such beautiful scenery - we were so glad to do that hike together! This little trip was extremely refreshing and much needed and we are so thankful that we had so much help to be able to do it. This next year is going to be rough, but this quality time together only strengthened our marriage and love for each other.

Day at the Zoo

Before Jesse left for his recent time of training, he got a day off so we decided to make it a family day and take Ellie to the Knoxville Zoo for the first time. I was so thankful to have family time like that and for him to be able to see her reactions to the animals she has seen in books all this time. It was amazing weather and Ellie had a blast! What I also loved about the Zoo is that it was FULL of other moms with their kids in strollers and it was a great place to just walk around and stimulate the kids without much work. Because of this, we are seriously thinking about getting a year's membership so that I can use it to get out of the house with her. PLUS, the membership is good in other cities at participating zoo's, aquariums and parks. Once Jesse is gone and the semester is over, I will be looking for lots of ways to make the days go by faster. I love that I can do that by showing and educating Ellie on all the many animals that God has created. PLUS, her Daddy was there for a great family day. Here are the pictures from our adventure: