Spoke too soon...

Yeah, it's not springtime yet....this is what we woke up to today. I shouldn't have been so excited about the weather yesterday. It looks like we're gonna get punished for having a record low snowfall this year. Humph.

Lee workin hard to get rid of it :)

Addie's first bonfire!

Tonight we went out to have the first bonfire of the summer :) It was Addie's first fire and she was quite mesmorized by it....she wouldn't stop staring! It was a lot of fun and the weather today was so beautiful! I can't wait for the rest of summer!

My New Niece!!

Little Abigail is here!! She's such a little doll, I can't wait to meet her, and Addie is excited to meet her new cousin! Congratulations to Tyler and Amanda! :) :)

I guess I'm keeping this blog :) UPDATE

I decided I should probably keep this blog since Lee's is primarily going to be for his buisness. I've been completely slacking off on keeping people updated, sorry!

Where to begin??? Lee graduated in December and since then we've been living in Valdez with my family while we look for work...kind of slow in the winter! I came back to Alaska a few weeks earlier then Lee because I was very pregnant and wouldn't be able to fly with him.

Beware, this next section will be LONG:

That was the trip from hell let me tell you....I HATE DELTA AIRLINES WITH A PASSION! I left Idaho Falls around 4:45 on November 28th (about an hour behind schedule), after dealing with some "less then friendly" personel, and arrived in SLC too late to make my connecting flight due to weather. This was no problem as I was simply bumped to the next flight to Portland and my boarding passes showed that I would still be able to make my connection to Anchorage at 10:50 from Portland. So I sat around the SLC airport for a few hours and then boarded the flight to Portland. We were all aware that all the flights were delayed for about an hour due to the weather, which was still fine. But, we then proceeded to spend almost two hours on the tarmack because our de-icer truck ran out of juice (just my luck). I finally made it to Portland at around 10:35pm and I was all excited because I was gonna make my flight!!! NOPE. The plane left at 10:05 instead even though my boarding card for that flight clearly said 10:50pm. Needless to say I was very upset. I went to talk to the personel and they simply ignored the fact that they gave me the wrong boarding card! I NEVER WOULD HAVE BOARDED THE PLANE IF I KNEW THE CORRECT TIME! No way would I have made it! Then they tried to make me collect my bags....yeah...I'm 8 months pregnant with three 50 lb. boxes. So I refused and they finally agreed to send them on to Anchorage without me. They "put" me in a hotel and had to send me back to SLC the next afternoon because there were no more openings on flights to Anchorage from Portland or SLC till two days later. They then refused to give me a hotel for the next night and I would've been screwed if we didn't have some awesome friends living in the SLC area that I could stay with. So I waited around with them for another day and a half, was driven to the airport, and was the only one in the security line! My only break! But then they tried to make me go through the new x-ray machines even though it was VERY obvious that I was pregnant. I refused and had the pat down even though they assured me it was a perfectly "safe amount of radiation". Bull, they don't know squat about the amount of radiation. This was also about my 4th time having to go through stupid security. I finally made it on my plane (redeye) and had a horrible seat in the very back isle, but I didn't care because I just wanted to be home! I got to Anchorage very early the next morning, went to a hotel, and then flew back to Valdez...FINALLY! I was an exhausted mess! Then I found that my luggage had been slightly less then destroyed in the traveling process! I even had some shoes missing from one box that had been horribly re-taped! I was pretty much treated like crap by everyone I had to deal with except one lady. I can't believe people are that mean to pregnant women traveling alone!

Needless to say I wrote a scathing email to Delta about this experience and they SOOOO kindly gave me a $50 travel voucher for my future travels. Yeah...like I'm ever going to fly with them again. Then a few weeks later I look on my credit card account and they CHARGED ME FOR THE HOTEL IN PORTLAND!!!! I was so ANGRY! Lee called and complained and they completely wrote him off. He explained that we understood they aren't responsible for weather delays, but they are responsible for boarding me on a plane that they knew very well wasn't going to make it in time for my connection. So I had to pay for my hotel room when they clearly indicated that it was on them......GRRRR. That's enough ranting about Delta......I hate them, enough said. It's just very surprising that I didn't have a complete breakdown being as hormonal as I was.... I was just too tired.

So....on to better things :) We had our baby girl on January 3rd!!! She was being pretty stubborn because we were doing everything we could to have her before the 1st for tax reasons :) I was actually due on the 9th, so she was still a week early. It was a pretty lengthy experience :)

Another long section:

My water broke on January 1st around 9pm. I was relieved because within the last two weeks I had swollen to roughly the size of a baby whale :) I started having mild contractions and we ended up going to the hospital to get checked around 11:30 or so when they were about 7 min. apart, but not very regular. I was only dilated to a 2, but my water had definitely broken so they wouldn't let me leave or induce me. I was kind of mad I had to stay there, but oh well. So the doctor said he'd start pitocin after 24hrs if hard labor still hadn't begun. It didn't... I had super irregular contractions that varied in strength, and the hospital monitor couldn't get a good read on them. My body was pretty much doing nothing the way it was supposed to. So I had to stay in "mild" labor for another whole day.

They finally started the pitocin after I got an epidural on the 3rd around 2pm. After the epidural I was so exhausted that I just crashed! A little after 5pm I was at 10cm so I started to push. My baby had still not dropped at this point. So, we had to wait for her to drop, her head to cone, and for my muscles to move out of the way...all the while I'm having to push. The doctor said that I had too tight of muscle bands that the baby had to push through, so I was in for a rough time...YAY! :) I also wasn't allowed to have any more pain meds at this point as the machine still wasn't reading my contractions correctly. They needed me to be able to really feel when I needed to push. So, after 2 1/2 hrs of pushing, she was finally here, and SOOO Beautiful! I can't believe how much we love that little girl! Lee was such a trooper for the whole ordeal, MUCH better than I thought! He doesn't typically do well with blood and stuff :)

Now Addison is almost 11 weeks old and is so fun! Those first few weeks were pretty rough, she hated nursing so that only lasted for 3 weeks. She had her days and nights completely mixed up, so I was pretty tired (Lee sleeps through her cries :) She is also the most gassy little thing ever so she had belly aches a lot. We've switched her to a sensitive formula now and she's so much better! She's grins constantly and is starting to squeal and giggle, it's so cute! She can't roll over yet, but her head is in the 95th percentile so she does good just to get it off the ground! :) She's such a beautiful little blessing and I can't believe how much I love her more and more everyday.

I turned 24 three days after Addie was born, and dropped 20lbs of water weight....still a long way to go but I'm glad to be done being pregnant for hopefully at least a couple of years :)

Sorry for the long post, but it's been too long with too much going on!! Here's our little angel :)

Baby Bartelme!!!

The new addition to our family will make "its" debut January 2011! We're excited/terrified! :)

Valentine's Day

We had a fun Valentine's weekend! Lee gave me some yummy chocolate covered strawberries! This is what they looked like but in pinks and reds :)

I got his watch fixed for him and gave him a big Reese's heart, and then on Friday night we went to dinner in IF and watched Avatar in 3-D, which was awesome! Then we got to spend all Saturday afternoon snowboarding at Targhee!! It was such a beautiful day and we had so much fun! We were a little spoiled this year :)

I've been slacking...

Wow I have a lot to catch up on Huh? Where to begin....

1) Christmas: We went to Texas last month for Christmas and had fun with Lee's side of the family. We got to see his parents, siblings, and grandparents for about 10 days. We also drove with Lee's mom (she was sick most of the trip, sorry Heather!) to New Orleans, my first time ever, for a few days and ate some amazing food :) I got to see the graveyards (the tombs are very interesting) and the amazing architecture! I love the New Orleans homes! We also got to see some of the sad aftermath of Katrina that's still evident.
After spending time in NO with Lee's grandmother, we headed back to Dallas for some quality time with Ed, Kathy, Stephen, and Chris and met up with Brandon, Brittney, Ryann, and Seiler. We spent Christmas Eve with Lee's Dad's family, and Christmas day with Lee's Mom. It snowed for me both on Christmas eve and Christmas day :) Being my first Christmas away from Alaska it was nice to have it white. Christmas Day was fun and full of presents, and then we saw Sherlock Holmes that night. We also got to see some amazing fancy homes in Dallas that had awesome Christmas Lights!
Next on the list was the Mavericks' game!! I love basketball and it was a blast to be able to watch them play (and they won :) Wish I could say the same about the Cowboys...Sorry Lee :)
Heather and Bill took us out to eat at the Gaylord Texan, and to an ice exhibit themed as the Grinch stole Christmas. We got loaded down with big coats and wondered through the exhibit in 9 degree weather, it was fun! We had a lot of fun, and many thanks to the Smith's and Bartelme's for a great Christmas break! We love you! (pictures to come soon) Don't worry Mom and Dad, we love you too and hopefully will be heading to AK for Christmas next year :)

2) New Year 2010. We went to my cousin Carey's house this year for New Year's Eve with my brother and his wife to play games and eat all night, so that was fun. :) About an hour after midnight we started our new years resolution diet....so far he's lost about 10lbs. and I've gained 1. Success? I think not. It is NOT fair that we eat the same amount, exercise the same amount...and I gain weight? Damn men's metablolisms...That is all.

3) My birthday was on Jan. 6th, so I met up with Lee for chinese food in Idaho falls with Tyler and Amanda which was sooo good! Lee got me a new wallet and a plain wedding band so I can wear something on my finger that doesn't get in the way of the latex gloves I wear all day doing lab work and drawing blood! I was pretty excited, it's really pretty and shiny :)

4) At the present time we're just super busy with Lee's school and both of us working and going snowboarding any chance we get (Lee's getting so good! :). Lee's working and studying hard, and I'm trying to bring home the bacon as well. It's going good, but we'll both be glad when this semester is over! Future plans include a summer trip to Alaska, and hopefully an internship for Lee next fall!

Love you all!