We had another ultrasound today and I can handle tons more days like today! Zoie’s heart rate is back up, my blood pressure is back down to normal (well a little high but nothing to worry about) and our little Zoie got her first A+ today! This ultrasound she got graded and got an 8 our of 8 score - taking after her daddy with her A+’s She is also taking after her mommy and got her first picture today with her tongue sticking out! I was so proud of her… taking right after me (sorry Mambie… you might just have to put up with tongue pictures from her too!)

Our little Zoie is going to look just like daddy with her chubby little cheeks and I think she has his nose too! (yippee!) She weighs 5.11 lbs right now. If she is delivered on time and grows regular they say she will be around 7.5 to 7.75 lbs when born.

As for me I had really high blood pressure yesterday so they put me in the hospital to monitor me but then let me go home. I have some more tests and see the Dr again on Wednesday. Everything should be good - just probably need to rest more (didn’t know I could!). I have officially moved my office to my bed as of today so hopefully that will help!

We are excited for the baby BBQ this weekend - sounds like I get to enjoy it either in my reclining lawn chair or the couch probably, but am really excited to have our friends over and everyone on the webcam!

One More Thing to Cross off My Bucket List….
After getting up at 1:30am 3 days ago to walk to the beach and see the shuttle take off… only to be scrubbed a few more days, last night we got to see it and it was well worth the wait! They say this could be the last chance to see a night launch so I feel lucky I got to see one as it was beautiful. We are about an hour north of the launch area so we didn’t get to see the ‘blast off’ of smoke and fire but as soon as it hit the skyline we could see it clear as day. The shape of the shuttle as it rocketed into space… absolutely amazing and beautiful. Then we got to see the rockets separate and fall to the ocean (well start to as the fire was out before it hit so we didn’t actually get to see them go all the way down). Then we watched it as it became a star and then the sonic boom came! WOW! That was cool.. and have after effects for about 5 minutes of sonic booms. What a great experience and though we were tired and ready for bed hours before launch (midnight - yes we are getting old!) it was so worth staying up and seeing.
I got a video but I do wish I had brought the big video camera out as it is a much better quality and would have probably captured the beauty of it better than my digital camera. As you can see the shuttle just looks like a ball of light in the video… it doesn’t come close to what you see outside the camera with your eyes… but is a memento of the moment. Hopefully as I get older I will remember the real thing versus the video

Grady graduated from his second course on Tuesday and had the rest of the week off. Mom flew into Charlotte Saturday and spent some time with Travis and Rachel. Tuesday night after school we drove up and enjoyed a great extended weekend. We helped Travis finish up a remodeling job in South Charlotte, enjoyed games and spending time together. Thursday was our lake day as Travis is renting his boat for the holiday weekend. We took the puppies out on the lake and really enjoyed our day. The puppies have not been on Lake Norman in almost 2 years and just enjoyed it more than ever. There was a duck in the water that they tried to get as they would swim out and back to catch their breathes and back out again. It was like a relay, as Chicago came back Daisie would go next. They were so fun to watch. Of course they jumped off the boat and chased the duck without their life jackets on, if they had them on they might have caught it though! Chicago really enjoyed his life jacket as he floated with us in the water for a long time and just hung out with me and Grady - happy as could be. Daisie did her thing exploring. We all miss the lake and a big part of us would like to move back and live on it.

Friday night the YMCA set off an amazing show of fireworks. We ate ice cream and sat on the grass watching them with some of Rachel’s friends. Then Saturday morning their neighborhood does a little parade (which is really not so little). Grady got up early and washed the cars and him and Steve pulled the kids on a decorated trailer through the neighborhood. We sat on the side of the road and watched while holding Daisie from wanting to go with all the other dogs (should have left her at home or brought her training collar!). It was really fun to watch it, felt like we were in farm town USA. Mom and me spend the next few hours taking pictures and we went and visited Sky’s Graveside (got lost along the way). Grady fixed or did something mechanical to Trav’s old wave runner that has been sitting for years; and we saw him truly smile through all the stress and that was nice. I think he enjoyed tinkering. Then Travis took and tested it on the water… I too think he enjoyed that!

Sunday we got up and I made everyone breakfast before we hit the road. We drove a little out of our way and got lost in Savannah. We did get to see the historic down town by car and then we had a picnic in a neighborhood park just off the freeway, then continued to be lost until we found a nice family that had us follow them across town with many turns to get us back to the freeway. It was a fun little adventure off the pathway. We then drove through St. Augustine and down the beach so mom could see the area.

It was a rejuvenating trip and all was enjoyed (except for the news from Papa, but our prayers and positive thoughts are with him and Grammy). The only thing missing was Grady’s family and dad… we miss them. We decided that we have a really neat family and miss spending time with them often.

To get this to work I had to upload different sections.

Section 1:
Spread eagle screaming “Stop calling me a boy cuz Im a girl!”
The first frame you see on the top right are 3 white lines… that is girl. You see her right leg bent over her body in the front (like she is bent in half) and you dont really see the left leg or her body.. You get the spread eagle shot a little further in.

Section 2:
Lots of healthy movement

So… My videos are kind of boring -I wish I was better at capturing the moment!

This first one is actually from a week or so ago when we had a huge thunderstorm (which Im beginning to think is normal around here). They were really scary at first but now they are just fun. This one was not as bad as the first one we were in when Travis and Rachel were here… and I took the video at night so watch for the lighting - it lights up the screen for a second, other than that its just sound. I also once again decided to video pretty much at the end of the storm missing all the good and exciting ones!

This one is of the ocean today in front of our house. This afternoon right at the end of the rain that has been going for 3 days strait the waves were so big and out of control - the ocean actually looked really scary. I again waited until later after it had calmed before taking a video but they are still a lot larger and more active than any given day here. It just started pouring rain again - coming down hard so maybe I will try another video later… maybe even get the guts to go out in the rain!

Just about midnight (a few nights ago) we all woke up to puppies on our chest - yes our 2 big ones as well! The thunder storm was so bad, worse than any of us had ever been in. It was so loud and sounded like lightning was striking in our back yard. I wasn’t sure for a minute if we would survive - I thought our house was going to crumble to the ground it was so bad. I have to admit… I was a bit afraid and normally I love the thunder.

Travis and Rachel woke up to it raining on them as our windows were all open and the rain was coming in at the right angle to get them. Trav said he closed the blinds to hopefully prevent the glass from shattering on them when the window breaks - as it was so bad he was for sure it was going to shatter with every thunder hit. He got up and said outside he could see lighting striking all around us. I kind of wish now i got up and took videos for you all to see!

The next morning was calm, overcast and a bit rainy. However by around 9am our TV changed to the emergency broadcast and we watch the storm roll across the state as a tornado hit down in Tampa and in Ocala. They evacuated Disney World and we were all under code red warnings all morning. The heart of the storm was more south of us so I didn’t get the best storm video. We had about 5 power outages and lots of thunder (but nothing to what it was the night before). I took 2 videos for you all to see but I have to warn you.. they are really not that exciting as I think we thought it was a lot worse that it actually was

However it was fun having our first storm and we talked to someone who has been in the area for 10 years and they said it was the worst they had seen, so I guess we survived the worse!

Video 1 - out our back screen porch.. too raining to step too far out.

Video 2 - out our front screen porch.. a little more protected to go outside

After a week or so in NC we are having a lazy Thanksgiving and enjoying our day. Mike and Cheryl are up and brought the puppies, I think we have others coming as well - we definatly have too much food! Cheryl shocked us all by cooking, she made these amazing stuffed mushrooms that i cant put down and we haven’t even started on the meal Hope all of you reading this are enjoying or enjoyed your Turkey day and are stuffed with food, love and family.

We are missing our puppies and wish they were here with us… we have their cousins all around us and they would just be in heaven here - but i am sure Aunt Gina and Grandma are entertaining them at home. I loved this picture of Pepe and Nugget - its so adorable!

So far we have had a pretty interesting and relaxed trip. Not so much as what we planned, but what is in life right? One of my fav parts of our visit has been spending some time with Skye’s husband and kids. We have made it over a couple of times to play and look forward to more visits before we leave. I would like to go to the grave as well as spend some time with Ryan going through old pictures and going through some of her personal things that we want to go through together. The kids are wonderful and a handful of energy! We plan on doing something fun tomorrow with them - maybe bowling. Here is a funny video of them being totally crazy boys trying to showoff but its cute:

This week Rachel talked us into (or tricked us i think) being in the Mooresville Christmas Parade. It was feezing but entertaining. I am actually pretty impressed that this small town had an amazing parade with over 3,000 people that participated in the parade. It was defiantly full of energy and a lot of kids. Graydon drove the truck with Rachels dance team girls on it and I walked with Rach and her friend behind the trailer. We got some exercise, waved, picked up candy and talked i think the whole way.

Welcome to our world and welcome to our family. Gina had her baby boy this evening after 2 long days - 30+ hours of labor, 2 hours of strait pushing and still… that poor head of his just didn’t want to come out. Gina worked hard and has been through a lot to deliver her baby boy via a C-Section (which by the way i got to watch!)

So I named him Oliver… as that is what we have been calling him, however until Gina gets to hold him she is not deciding on a name - so take it for what it is when you see Oliver’s name… as it Aunt Katie’s way of naming him for now. Oliver is 20″ long and 8.14lbs

So here are some fun things:

Check out Pictures!

And some great videos below:

Oliver in the Nursery

Oliver on the Scale

Oliver’s Feet

Oliver’s 1st Bath