Biji, 5 Months In

UPDATE: I know most of you have seen these pics on Facebook but for those who haven't, Biji has posted a couple photos of himself over the past month that I thought I should share.

in a STRYKER on [his] way back from Maiwand

160th SIG BDE CDR and 1/1 AD BCT CDR — at At Camp Nathan Smith, AFG 2013

I have been a terrible friend this tour - I haven't e-mailed Biji once since he left in December. He called us at Christmas but we hadn't heard from him since then. He does check in on Facebook every once in a long while so at least we know he's still out there. Luckily for us, though, he called us Sunday morning and we actually heard and answered the phone! :o) He actually sounded pretty good, all things considered, and we found out he's finished his Major schooling. (The Army wouldn't let him wait until he got back from Afghanistan so they made him do it online while deployed. :o/) That means he has more time for patrols, unfortunately, but because he is a Major, he only does about 2 per week. So that's a very thin silver lining. That's pretty much all we were allowed to know but we were thrilled to get to talk to him and I just wanted to pass along that he's still hanging in there.

A Trout-y Christmas

Robert and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Trouts' this Christmas break and it was, as always, a wonderful holiday treat! We hadn't seen Christina and Rob since Christmas last year and so hadn't yet met little Gianna. She. is. adorable!!!  Little G was not afraid of strangers at all and let us hang with her quite a bit. She's such a good baby! Of course. All of my friends have fabulous babies that are friendly and well-behaved (in front of us, anyway). It's a conspiracy! Robert was, as expected, goo-goo for G and Chrissie did her best to play the baby card to try to persuade us to get in on the fun soon. (You can send her thank you card to us, Bob, and we'll forward it along. :o)  )  We always love catching up with everyone and had a great night of food and games. So much fun!!! Thanks to the Trouts for hosting everyone and to Christina for letting us horn in on the occasion.

I actually swiped this photo from Chrissie's Facebook page - it's Gianna on her first Christmas morning. I love this pic.

Robert is all aglow with baby fever. Again.

I told Rob we were going to send this photo out to unsuspecting  friends and family as a  "surprise!"  He seemed okay with it so it could still happen...

Little G has her own room at the Trouts' and it's absolutely adorable. Hopefully that means she'll come for visits more often!

G was a good sport and wore her Santa hat for us for a good chunk of the night.

Christmas Break '12: Unwrapped

Well, the annual Christmas break update has arrived, much delayed and abbreviated. Did I get sick? Surprisingly, no. Did I do anything super awesome? Robert took the two weeks off, too, and my clinic didn't need me past the first few days so I relaxed a lot. I consider that awesome in and of itself. Was it just that perfect window of time where you're away from real life long enough to really enjoy yourself right before you have to give it all up again and join the daily grind, making you nauseous for three days beforehand because you've remembered how nice it is to feel well rested and you realize you don't want to spend the rest of your life stuck in the daily grind? Yes, yes, yes and, unfortunately, yes.

But enough of that. On to the pictures!

One of this year's new ornaments. Even dicks need a cute ceramic by which to celebrate them when they're a part of your family. 

Another new ornament - we bought this one in Disneyland (imagine!) when we went for our anniversary this year. 

And here's our dorky little family section of the tree. Whee!

Linguini apparently had enough of the festivities and was ready to look for greener pastures.

Biji came home for a few days (literally) so we dragged him out for a belated birthday celebration with the Blackards. It was so good to see him! Only six more months and we can (fingers crossed) see him again...

This is one of only two pictures I shot at my family's Christmas Eve celebration. 

This is the other. Finding photos for the 2013 Shutterfly calendar is going to be rough.

Here is one of only five pictures (all of which were of cats) I took of the McCauleys' Christmas celebration. It's Gracie wearing Maria's earmuffs. Took me three tries to get this shot. Anne Geddes of animals I am not.

Gracie was ready to hang with Gweenz.

And this is my present from Robert. He got back on the creative train this year and I loved it!

Fantastic! A wrapping paper featuring all of my men. :o) Who could ask for more?

Linguini wanted to help me unwrap his gift. What a thoughtful guy.

He stayed under the paper all morning. We totally wasted our money on his gifts. 

Amy threw our friend, Morgan, a baby shower over the break and I was able to corral a few people for a photo before the festivities were over. The party was vet tech programmers only and it was held just a few days before school started up again. It turned out to be a great way to catch up with everyone and ease ourselves into the coming quarter.

Doug, Sue and Robert's "Son"

Our friends Doug and Sue (and their son, Gus*, of course) came out to the Bay Area from Cincinnati last week and Robert wound up having brunch with them in the city on Saturday. I, unfortunately, was pretty unwell that day and knew when I woke up at about 5 that the brunch was going to be a no-go for me. :o(  Doug and Sue only make it out to CA about every two years so you can imagine the depths of my bummed out-ness on not being able to catch up with them on this trip. (As I was flailing around in bed feeling sorry for myself upon Robert's return, he tried to make me feel better by telling me that it "smelled like urine" where he'd parked his car. Made me laugh but didn't really make me feel any better about the situation. Go figure.) I had just about gotten over it when Doug (I can't stop typing "Dough"! So annoying!) forwarded these photos to Robert and reopened the wound. The pictures are great! I'm just super sorry I wasn't a part of them. Call me Phoebe. Boo. Boo!

They're holding hands. :o) Robert probably stroked out from giddiness.

* You should be aware that Robert totally wants to Gus to be his son. He looooooves when Doug tells him funny Gus stories and inevitably will relay them to me with the ending "Wouldn't you like to have a little Gus?" With all fairness to Gus, he IS a hilarious little guy (he's like a little man in a kid suit, it's too funny) but I was hoping he'd be in an ill humor so as to put Robert off a little. No such luck. Why do our friends all have such nice kids?! You're killing me, people!

Baby Bacon

Leah and Quentin were in Fremont yesterday for a family party and asked if they could pop by afterward for a short visit. Of course they could! Not only had I not seen the Bacons for several months but neither Robert nor I had met little Ellie since her birth last month. We always have such a good time with them, it was really nice to grab a moment to catch up. I had the same talk with Ellie that I'd had with Elliott - "try not to look too cute, be really annoying and cry a lot!" - so that Robert wouldn't be wrapped around her finger but, just like Elliott, Ellie did not comply. She was adorable and sweet and even I was sucked in. For a little while. :o)

The finger grasp? Really, Ellie? Wow. I underestimated your wily ways.

Meeting Elliott

Jo and Judy made it up to the Bay Area earlier this week and we were SO happy to see them!!! We hadn't seen them since the wedding so not only had it been a couple of years but, of course, we'd never met Elliott (who is now just over 1 year old). Robert and I were bummed we couldn't make our way to them while we were in southern California so it was very fortuitous that the Yis' vacation plans brought them to our neck of the woods on Tuesday. We always enjoy catching up with Jo and Judy so when they mentioned they're kinda, sorta thinking of maybe moving up here someday, we did our best to pressure them into it. ;o) That would be fantastic!

Elliott was so happy and mellow and friendly - he was awesome! Which just fed riiiiight into Robert's Baby Fever.

Can you SEE the Baby Fever in his face? You can see it from outer space, people.

Seniors!

Y A Y!!! My first year of vet tech school is officially over! My brain can finally relax! (I will still work at the clinic over the summer but otherwise I'm scholastically free and clear. Whee!) More blog posts to come...

Alisa, Jeff and Amy help us celebrate the end of a loooooong year. :o)

Amy's 30th Birthday

I referenced Amy's 30th birthday back in the Linguini post and since I'm procrastinating heavily (I have a 5-page paper on uses of lab animals in research due on Thursday) and I've already organized my iPod, I figured I'd go ahead and put up a slideshow of the event. Amy's boyfriend, Jeff, organized a surprise party at Johnny Foley's in the city back in April and it was a mesh of both program and non-program friends. Of course, as usually happens at such gatherings, each groups sort of stuck to its own but I'm antisocial so that was A-OK with me. :o) The bar was really fun; I'd done something similar for my bachelorette party but this was much more expansive and animated. And I got two of my songs played ("Take on Me" and "I Saw Her Standing There") early so it only cost me $2/song. As the night rolled on, the songs were costing much, much more - in fact, someone payed $40+ just to stop one of the guys from playing "Party in the USA." Ridiculous!!! Poor drunk people. They are really stupid.

Baby Gerbe!

Woohoo! Gianna Marie was born on Sunday, February 27th, at a healthy 6 pounds, 3 ounces. Christina was kind enough to post some photos of the little gal on Facebook so I'm taking that as an okay for me to post'em on the blog... ! I'm so glad Christina took a moment to share a few pictures because I was dying to see the newest Gerbe! I don't know when she'll make her inaugural visit to CA but I assume it won't be for quite a while. I'm so jealous of all their East Coast friends who get to visit so soon...

Congrats, Christina and Rob!!! She's a cutie and you guys look so happy. :o) Can't wait to see you all!

I can't believe how much hair she has!