Then and Now

Seeing as Benjamin was born two months and *counts fingers* four days ago, I thought it would be fun to take a little trip down memory lane and show you him then and now.

Then:



Now:

And you wonder why all we can say is, God is good?

A few more pictures of our hunkin' fat bald boy.

It looks like his hair is a lot darker than it actually is; I'm guessing that's because of the flash. His hair is so thin and light that it really looks as if he has none at all, lol.

Hey, buddy! Don't strike the hand that feeds you! Okay, so maybe you don't like being photographed in the (almost) nude! ;)

Have a lovely day!
~ Elisa

Nothing much going on here...

Wowzers, it's been awhile. As I've said over and over and over again, life just hasn't been lending itself to wordiness, lol! Trust me, my blogs aren't the only ones that have suffered.

So, nothing much going on here. As I'm sure most of you know, in May mom and I went for a week-trip to California to visit friends, go to Disneyland and attend the opening weekend of Prince Caspian at the El Capitan. Fun stuff! I'm in the process of writing up my  Trip Report, and when it's finished, perhaps I will post it here. Or maybe, I'll post it BEFORE I'm finished. So y'all can yell and scream at me for procrastinating so much. I'm doing about one post a month. *hides head in shame*

Anyway, only a few days after mom and I got back from California, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia (look it up; I'm not going to do EVERYTHING for you) and had to deliver the baby early. Benjamin James was born at 4:30 AM on May 27th, and weighed only 4 pounds. He was perfectly healthy but had to stay in the hospital two weeks..being a preemie, he naturally had a bit of a harder time adjusting to being "born" than other babies; mostly with his stammia. He had to have a feeding tube put in to suppliment his feedings until he grew strong enough to suck an entire feeding for himself. He didn't come home with any particular parapranelia, if you're wondering. Just a normal baby, although a teeny one.

Well, you would not believe how much that kid has grown! Talk about a chucka chunka bit of love. He goes for his two month checkup next week, and I'm guessing he weighs around 8 or so pounds. He's really been packin' em on! We love him a ton, and believe me, he quite spoiled. He has a lot of nicknames already, including Fatso, Ben-ger-mints, Benny-boy, Baldie (compared to all our other babies, he has no hair to speak of), Gerber Boy, Squeeker, Reeker, Grunty...the list goes on and on.

At the moment, I'm not currently occupied with anything exceptional except for helping out with Benjamin and doing laundry and cleaning. I'm unofficially graduated (although I've yet to receive my slip of paper) and I'm in the process of trying to figure out what I want to do this fall/winter, weather it be focusing on website development and such, pursuing other oppourtunities or whatever. I'm really stumped right now. A few months ago I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but now I'm not so sure. It's been weird, being in this limbo mode. I've been praying that God will show me what I'm supposed to do; I really have no idea right now.

Well, that's all for today...may there not be such a long gap next time! (but I always say that, right?)

A photo or two to send you off. :)


Disneyland...one of my favorite places on earth. Cheesy, but true.


Jody came with mom and I for a few days and we got to go to Disneyland together. We had so much fun!


We got STUCK on SPACE MOUNTAIN!!!!!! :D :D :D

And finally...

The reason behind the whole trip. *happy sigh*

God bless!

~ Asile

It's been a loooong time comin'...

Yo! Long time no write.  I mean, LONG time no write! So sorry for leaving everyone hanging like that, but let's just say that life has not lent itself to eloquence and wordiness lately. That and the fact that my computer has going AWOL quite frequently. Believe me, y'all, you aren't the only on es who have gotten very little of me lately, lol!

I see that it's been some months since I last updated, so I guess it's good that there hasn't been _too_ much going on, lol. Not that we haven't had our fair share of minor excitements.

In February, we had work start on our basement, intending to to turn the space into an extra bedroom, a school room and a living space with a kitchenette...abona-fide bachelor pad down there. ;) It's taken some time, but it was finally finished this past week, with work culminating with the carpet being laid down. It's actually quite cozy down there, and it's so nice to have the additional space. Right now we're in the process of putting together furniture for the downstairs, some of which are bookshelves...my books have finally come out of boxes; the first time since I packed them up in November!WOOT!
The bedroom down in the basement is going to be the boy's room, an d the boy's old room upstairs is going to become the guest room/Mary and Esther's room. That will leave any given room with no more than three occupants, which is just astonishing for us, lol! We're loving the elbow room!

Mom's pregnancy is progressing nicely, and we're all excited at the prospect of a wee little boy...I did mention that we're having a boy, right? No? Well, we are! Trust me, we're quite "chuffed", if I may use the expression. The day we found out, mom went shopping and bought the cutest little boy clothes she could find...really helped to wrap our heads around the news, lol. Anyway, we're all eagerly anticipating the upcoming arrival of our newest little man. My heart is melting already, hehe!

In other exciting news, I was baptized a few weeks ago, April 20th. It's been a long road and a story which I won't take time to write down here, but let's just just say that I'd been waiting a loooong time for that day, and you can't imagine how happy I am to have finally done it! The actual baptism process went really well and nothing unusual occurred, except that I did receive a little memento that I had not been expecting, namely a nice big scrape on my left foot. I'm not sure at what point in the process it was acquired...the take at our church is pretty much made out of plywood, so I'm not at all surprised it happened at all. I was changing afterwards and I noticed a pink spot on my food; no big deal, and then I thought,hmm, why is there blood running down my foot?!? LOL! It's quite spectacular-looking, and it gives an interesting story to tell, hehe.

Oh, and i got my driver's permit a while ago...drivers of the world, beware. No, really...you know what they say about women drivers; well I don't know if that's true but it probably applies to me. >_< ;)

And now for some 'big' news, as some of you know already, mom and I are making a trip to California! May 13th-21st! Originally it was going to be just me going in June, but things didn't quite work out and mom decided that a trip (to Disneyland) would be therapeutic forpre-baby stresses, and so offered to come with me in May (so she could go to Disneyland) so I would have transportation, yadda yadda. No ulterior motives here, noooo. ;)

A shout-out to all my Southern California friends, if we can manage it, I'd love to meet up with any or all of you! Due to various reasons our schedule isn't exactly what I'd call flexible, but I'd love to see what we can work out. Mom doesn't want to do a whole lot of extra driving/side trips, so you'd probably have to come to where I'll be, instead of viceversa. The best days for me are the 14th and 15th (I'll be in the Moreno Valley area) and the afternoon of the 17th if I don't come up with something else to do, and I'll be in LA then. The other days are a little packed, but as I said, let me know what works for you and I can try and work something out on my end. :) Anyway, I'm super excited to be coming down to California and I'm looking forward to seeing y'all! :)

So now that I've got all the big news out of the way, I know you're all dying to know, "What's Illinois like? How's spring? What's the weather like up there?" (Or 'down', depending on your geographical location, ;) ).
It really is getting beautiful out here...we've gotten quite a good amount of rain, so everything is turning the most vibrant shade of green, and actually staying that way, lol. In California, it would turn green in early spring, but it never lasted long.
They don't call this the Windy City for nothing; the Santa Ana's have got nothing on these winds, baby! The other day we had a thunderstorm and were on tornado watch (!!!); quite the novel experience for us, and the wind was really blowing...my goodness, those were the strongest winds I have ever seen, bar none. There was a time when I was about to get into the car and the wind came rushing down, and I literally could not move for a few seconds. Definitely not something you experience every day in temperate California. ;)

Speaking of national phenomenons, I assume y'all have heard of the earthquake that rocked the Midwest a week ago? It's been quite the source of hilarity to me, to be sure. It's like we never left California, lol!!! Now mind you, I didn't actually feel the earthquake...it was at 4:30 AM, for pities sake; it would take a lot more than a little jolt to wake me up, lol. This really must be the mecca of strange weather; we have thunderstorms, tornadoes AND earthquakes; just throw a hurricane in there and hey, it's a complete set! ;)

Anyway, all that unpleasant stuff aside, it really is very beautiful out here. Every day I look around me and I think of how incredibly blessed I am...the Lord has been very good to us. Who would have ever thought I'd end up in a place like this? California and Illinois cannot be more different! I think I'm going to enjoy living out here...although I do miss my mountains...it's all prairie out here; couldn't tell you where even the nearest hill is! But besides, who needs MOUNTAINS when you have SNOW in the winter, for pities sake? ;)

To be sure, there are cons to very pro, and living out here is no exception. There aren't as many home-schooled families out here as there are in California (at least I haven't met as many), and you have no idea how frustrating it is to be shelling out real hard cash for a trip to California, that if I still lived there, would be merely a day jaunt and would cost barely anything. But all in all, I don't regret moving here,...we've only been here five months but I've enjoyed it so far, and I look forward to getting to know the area better in the coming years, Lord willing. This present year is shaping up to be quite the year...as I said before, the Lord has been very good to us!

Well, this has been quite lengthy so I'll stop now...thank you all for your patience, and I'll try not to be so lazy in updating in the future!

God bless!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2008!

Wow...2007 is all over...boy oh boy what a year it was! Here's a brief recap on probably the most momentous year of my life so far...I mean, how can one beat moving across the country? If you're me, anyway. :p ;)

• In February, Ruth went to EXCEL for two months and left me as the oldest child at home. Talk about an interesting way to kick the year off. ;) That thrust me into a whole new level of responsibility that I wasn't used to...it's silly to think that, but it's true. I guess you could say I grew up a lot during the last year, hopefully for the better.
  
• In April, I celebrated my 17th birthday and Ruth left (again) for Arkansas, this time to help my Aunt out. Rumblings of a possible move started to come my way, but nothing definite was happening.
• In June, after much prayer and consideration, we decided to put our house up for sale. The day the realtor was to come and look at the house, my Uncle James died. It was a horribly sad and difficult time for all of us, to deal with his death along with the realization that we really were going to leave California. Another tough growth time. The Lord was very faithful to us and blessed us in so many ways during that time. Definitely a month I will never forget.
• Summer...oh, summer! Talk about an interesting time. Trying to sell a house is definitely not something to undertake on a whim. ;) Although, one of the perks was that we got to keep the air conditioning on a lot more than normal! ;)
• In early July, we all went up to Sacramento for the annual ATI conference, where I led (not assisted!) a team of children at the CI. Whoa. What.A.Week. The most brutal thing I have ever done. I nearly passed out from exhaustion when we got home after the conference; it was THAT tough. But oh, how fun it was too!
• The end of July brought about Comic-Con. Oh, Comic-Con. WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!!! Definitely kind of silly to admit this, but it was one of the highlights of the year for me. I had so much fun there! I mean, there's nothing like making a fool of yourself in front of 6,000 people plus the very people who just happened to have made your favorite movie series, including Andrew Adamson and Ben Barnes! AHHHH! I still cringe when I think about it. ;) But oh boy, was it ever amazing! Whenever I'm feeling down or unhappy I just remember those two days in July and I can't help smiling. I would love to go back some day!
• September brought about the Disneyland Annual Pass that I had coveted from afar all year. Forgive me, I have sinned. But despite the fact that I only got to use the silly thing for two and a half months, I enjoyed every second of it and do not regret getting it! I'm really hoping I'm able to make it back down to California some time this year so I can get some use out of it.
• October brought us a new house. 'Nuff said.
• November saw us leaving our house of seven years and my birth state. Probably the roughest thing I have ever done, the actual moving process aside. To add to all this additional drama and life-altering circumstances, we found out at the same time that my mom is pregnant! Talk about timing, folks...:p ;)
• December, December...New house...what can I say? IT'S COLD HERE!!!! No white Christmas for us, unfortunately. I was going to take a picture of us at Christmas and post it just so I could rub it in y'alls faces. ;) No such luck. We sure had a doozy of a white New Years, though!

So, there's my life during 2007 in a nutshell! It's pretty brief and to-the-point, but I sent out more detailed updates of the big major events out before, and I'm too lazy to type it all up again. ;)

It's really pretty here...it snowed all day yesterday and today! At midnight on New Years Eve we went outside to set off sparklers (no fireworks due to the weather, unfortunately!) and I made the fatal mistake of sticking my hand into a snowbank to determine the depth...my fingers nearly froze in the ensuing celebration. When I came back inside to type out a happy New Years message on the computer, my fingers simply would not cooperate. Lesson learned...do not get your hands wet if you intend to stand outside in the freezing wind!
Today was pretty interesting weather wise...lots of snow and TONS of wind. We drove to a friends house for a New Years/Baby's First Birthday celebration, and just getting there was an adventure in itself. And when we left the house at the end of the party, I nearly FROZE, and I the walk from the house to the van was less than a minute! Brrr. That's the coldest I've ever been in my whole life. My AccuWeather says it's 7 degrees, and tomorrow we're supposed to get a heat wave..a whole whooping 19 degrees! Time to break out the suntan lotion! ;)

Well, it's getting late here, so I probably should wrap up now. My prayer for all of you in the coming year is that the Lord will continue to richly bless you and make His face to shine upon you and give you peace, and reveal Himself in ways like never before. I say that a lot, but it's true.

God bless you!

Love,
~ Asile

Home Sweet Home (Continued)

Hi, everyone!

Well, here's the (hopefully) longer update that I promised y'all last night! I'll just start writing and we'll see how it goes...

Let's see. When I last sent out a proper update, we were in Weatherford, TX, not far from Fort Worth. We drove through Dallas later that day and waved at the Ambassador Hotel, which is were the ATI Dallas headquarters are and where Ruth went for EXCEL last January.

We got to Conway, AR later that day, and we spend two nights at the hotel where my aunt Debbie works. We got to visit her and her family, and my aunt Marnie and her two children, whom I haven't seen in years. It was great to visit with them, and I know several members of my family who wanted to stay a week or so before heading up to Chicago. ;) But, the weather was not getting any better up in IL, so we thought it would be better to get settled in now rather than risk driving in dangerous weather.

We started driving to Joliet on the 5th, and were debating if we should get a hotel for the night or try and make it all the way home that night (it would have been 1 AM if we had) when whoops, Joanna threw up all over me. Talk about writing on the wall..."GET A HOTEL!!!" ;) So we got a hotel somewhere in IL and spent the night there. We were only a few hours away from Joliet, so we thought it would be better to drive in the morning and get to the house while it would be daylight.
Dad and I left the hotel a little earlier than the others so we could pack the van up, and we were surprised how cold it had gotten overnight. We opened up the van to discover that anything liquid had frozen, which to a Californian is pretty cool! ;) Water bottles, plastic batons with sparkly water inside, and other sundry items. My dad had asked me to take a box of wipes and clean up a mess in the van, and when I told him that they had probably frozen he said I was probably overreacting to the cold. Well, they were frozen. :p ;)

We arrived at our new home at around 2 PM, and immediately began exploring the house! Some folks from our church had shoveled our driveway and left some food for us, which was very kind of them. We're very delighted with the house, and I think we're going to enjoy living here! :) I'll send some pics soon.

The weather here has been cold and snowy. :D When we got here there was several inches of soft, powdery snow on the ground, and it snowed several more last night. Today was a bit warmer and some things began to melt a little, but I know it's gone below freezing again because all the partially melted snow has gone hard again. It normally doesn't snow this early up here, so it's probably going to warm up soon, but either way I'm sure we'll get our fill of snow before winter is over. ;) It IS a nuisance at times, but it's so pretty! The view from my window is breathtaking. I still can't get over all the snow around here, lol...I ought to take a few pictures and show them to you, just to rub it the faces of my beach lovin' Cali friends. ;) They don't have weather like this down there, that's for sure! I can't wait until next year, when I can assume the air of a seasoned Ilinoian (is there such a thing? lol!) and not appear such a newbie...and trust me, I DO look like a newbie!

People aren't really big on property fences down here (everything seems more casual and less "locked up" then California), so there's a lot of open stretches of snow around us. The lot on one side even has a small "pond" that's frozen over. Our yard is the only one with ton of footprints in it. ;) The houses on either side of us have not been built yet, and neither has a lot of houses on the opposite street. It makes everything look very open and spacious. Our property lot isn't really that big, but the lack of fences and houses on either side of us make it look a lot bigger. Right now, I'm enjoying the space and quiet, but I know next summer I may feel very differently about a bunch of dirt and a ditch full of vermin-infested water. Our realtor says that both of the empty lots have been sold, but the buyer has a contingency plan where they won't actually buy the house until their own home sells. And with the way the market is, that could be awhile. So, in theory, we could have a nice spacious living area for a long time. Either way...if the DO start building, it's going to make life very miserable for us for several months. I guess that's what earplugs are for. ;)

Well, this update has been long enough and I probably should close now. I could go on and on and talk about the city of Joliet and the different kinds of stores and restaurants that they have here (no In'in'Outs, sadly!) and about my "little" shopping excursion today (when one brings very little necessary living items with them on a move, one has to buy a LOT when they arrive at their destination), but it's 11:30 and I've still got work to do before I can go to bed.

Thanks so much for all the kind comments that have been directed my way! I'm not sure when I'll update next, but hopefully not before too long. :)


God bless,
Asile

Home Sweet Home

Well, we're here!

I really was planning on giving you a full spiel of what we've been up to since I last updated you, but it's 12:00 AM here and I am absolutely exhausted. Lord willing and if time permits, I'll send out a really long one tomorrow to make up for it!

Thanks so much for your prayers! :)

God bless,

Asile

P.S. It's all snowy here; and cold, even by Illinois standards! ;)

On the Road...still!

Hey, everyone!

Well, not much to report...we've done some driving, but besides that I can't really think of anything of significance that's happened. Yesterday we drove from Tuscon AZ to Van Horn, TX, and today we drove from Van Horn to just outside Fort Worth, TX. We had hoped to make it to Dallas tonight but it was a bit far away and it got late.

Tomorrow we hope to leave early and make it all the way to Conway, AR, where we hope to spend a day or so with our relatives up there. It's going to be a lot of driving, but I'm sure we can do it. :)

Life in the car has been getting a bit old, but at least the last few days has given us a lot of experience on how to manage things in our van in the most efficient way. We've never traveled with this car before (we just bought it last month) and I think we all agree that the sliding door is a huge pain. You have to be careful when you open it, otherwise practically everything you own falls out onto the street. But, I think we're finally getting the hang of it. Still, I cannot wait until we get to Chicago and can live semi-normally again.

The Texas landscape hasn't been too spectacular so far; the way we're going takes us through mostly open spaces, with a few rest stops and hotel-based hick towns along the way. But, it's not completely without things to see...today we went by some cotton fields, which was pretty interesting!

Well, it's a bit late (we went through two time zones yesterday, or something like that), so I probably should run. I'll update y'all again as soon as I can! :)

God bless!

~ Asile