August pictures

Life is good. Jeran started classes again. His schedule is pretty good except for most of his classes are midday which isn't ideal, but it doesn't seem too busy. He's also still working part time, but he's so great about helping out with Allison, letting me get more sleep, etc.

We got a new nephew. He's so cute. Congrats, Jess and Chase! My friend Mary came to visit us and we had a nice time hanging out and visiting. 

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks. 

Getting ready for bed

Hanging out with Dad

Cute baby

Fun with Peter!

Four little girls. How fun.

Hanging out with Mary and Peter

Yay for friends!

Two babes in car seats

Toby still doesn't want much to do with her

Sleepy baby. She likes to sleep up on her knees a lot. Seems familiar...

Turtle face!

At a friend's pool

Holy cow! All of a sudden she's up on her hands and knees all the time. Still not much more than getting up and holding it for a few seconds before settling back down, but it really seemed to come out of nowhere! And she knows that is the way she's going to get from A to B, so she tries it whenever she wants to move.

Hanging out with a buddy

August 7 update

Not much going on here: just hanging out, working, and keeping on top of housework. Jeran is enjoying his few weeks of freedom but I'm starting to realize just how fleeting they will be. Classes will start in less than 2 weeks!

We had the missionaries over last night for dinner and made some delicious zuppa toscana. I also made overnight bread, which was also scrumptious and very moist. I'm very grateful we get to make and eat such delicious food. Yum.

Allison is growing bigger every day. She still does not roll often although we know she can. She has been practicing making really breathy - almost hoarse - talking noises which are funny to listen to and not annoying because she can't do it very loudly. 

We went to a used book sale and picked up lots of kids/baby books for a good price but it was hot and crazy! They do this sale just a few days each month so it's a crowd of people rummaging through big bins full of kids books and around shelves full of other books, but I think we got some good ones for a much better price than we would have otherwise. It is in a warehouse and after just 10 or so minutes we were hot and sweaty in there with so many bodies and not much breeze.

A silly tired girl giggling about the noise this dog toy makes.

Hanging out with a cute friend! These girls were born just a few days apart and live just a stones throw from each other.

Such a funny, sweet girl.

Earmuffs

Here is our little bug helping Dad eat breakfast. She is sporting Jeran's noise-cancelling industrial earmuffs that he wears while studying.

Qualifying exams are now officially done but results don't come in until September. Jeran feels like he did pretty well on the second one so that is great news. Now for a few weeks of relative freedom!

Happy Early Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated Jerans birthday several days early. He will probably have a pretty lame real birthday this year because it's (finally) qualifying exam week! Jeran has been studying all the material from his classes of the last year to prepare for the Masters qualifying exams, which are given between years one and two. The first six hour exam is on Tuesday and the second is on Friday. We are all sooooo ready to be done with the studying for a few weeks until school starts mid-August. Allison and I just try to stay out of his way so he can study study study, which can be pretty boring in a small house

Anyways, good luck to Jeran and the other students this week!

A quick run down of things going on for us right now besides that:

Allison and I need to find new health insurance in the next two weeks.  Ugh.

I'm managing a few projects that need to be completed by Monday but still have lots of work to be done. I think we've got sobe good developers working on them so I'm not to worried (yet) but I may end up working a good amount this weekend when Jeran will finally be free to go have fun.

We're starting to make plans for a graduation (last one!) trip for next spring.

We're getting excited for Mary to come visit us!

And some Allison updates:

She loves grabbing her toes now. She has a hard time getting them to get mouth - either she's too long or she got her mom's flexibility, or both.

Her legs are good at crawling but she doesn't lift herself up with her arms so she scoots forward face-down, leaving a trail of drool like a slug.

She went through a period of crying every time we drove somewhere, but now she sits and quietly looks around or makes quiet little sounds. The crying in the car was getting very old so this is a wonderful turn of events.

4 Month Appointment

We just went in for Allison's 4 month appointment yesterday. She's weighing in at 14 lb 5 oz (50th percentile) and is 26 inches (96th percentile) for height and 30th percentile for head circumference. She was a trooper through her vaccinations, crying briefly after her shots but then settling down and being pretty good all afternoon.

She rolls from her back to tummy but not tummy to back (at least not that we've seen), so when she gets frustrated of being on her tummy, she flexes her legs and scoots forward, scooting when she's in the crib until there is no more room to scoot.

It's been slightly cooler than June was so we've been trying to spend some time outdoors in the shade most days. This week we went swimming again, walked on the American Tobacco Trail, and visited and ate lunch outdoors with some friends.

Summer activities

We've been doing some fun summer things. We've gone on several hikes at the nearby state parks. This one is at Umstead Park.

We went to the pool for the first time with the Young Women. She's the cutest little swimmer!

 Allison was pretty indifferent to the water, but that may have been because she was hungry and distracted with eating her hands.

 And we sometimes spend time sitting outside on the hammock just looking around at all the trees.

Still sick

Happy 4th of July!

So I thought we were just about done with this sickness stuff but now Allison is getting more congested again. I suspect Allison and I had a mild cold that we were about over then Jeran got this more severe cold (or whatever it is), then I got it, then Allison got it. Oh well. This to shall pass, even if it means staying sequestered for all of July, which is often the most social summer month.

Otherwise things are good. Allison has rolled over several times in her sleep but she doesn't do it deliberately or when she is awake or unswaddled. We put her in some footie pajamas instead of swaddling her last night and she did all right, especially one she fell deep asleep. It took a while because I think she's used to having her feet move more in unison and swings herself about that way, which wasn't working so well being unswaddled. Overall night one of that was a success.

Work is going well overall. Lots of things are getting done which is good news for my stress level. Allison is being good when I have to have her with me on conference calls and Jeran is good about taking her on walks and stuff in the afternoon when I need to get work done.

Life is good. Getting excited for August though. Lots of good, fun stuff happening then: tests finished, babies born, visitors coming!

June 2015

The other night we had a pretty good storm, complete with grape-sized hail. No real damage right around us, except that our over-achieving tomato plant (Jeran counted 56 tomatoes!) lost one of its most laden branches, Really just bent it good, it might pull through.

Here are some hail pictures - not very good ones since I was in a hurry and holding a squirmy baby, but you get the idea.

Allison has been sick with a decent cold for over a week. I think she's improving but still wakes herself up coughing. Since she gotten sick she has been staying up until 11pm instead of her normal 9:30pm. She has also been pretty much impossible to set down during naps without waking her completely and won't nap well unless she's held. So we've been holding a coughing, sleeping baby a lot recently. I'm not sure whether it is just a normal phase or if it is because she's sick, but hopefully it won't last forever.

Jeran is sick now too, and he gets pretty miserable whenever he gets a sore throat, but it can't be too serious because he was well enough to go wake-boarding twice this weekend despite the rain. :) Allison also wakes up to his coughing, so I got treated the other night to the amusing sight of Jeran rushing into the bedroom to grab a pillow to smother himself with while he coughed after putting her to bed one night.

My sister, Jessica, came to visit us this past week. She braved Allison's sickness and we just hung out and went out to eat and talked. It was so great to see her again and talk baby stuff. Woohoo! Not long for her now!

My work is going pretty well and I think I'm doing a pretty good job balancing work and home even as they are blended together so thoroughly. Jeran has been trying to study most every day for a few hours for his Masters qualifying exams that will happen at the end of July so that's keeping him pretty busy. I'm excited for the few weeks in August between those being over and school starting again, plus my friend Mary and baby Peter are coming to visit during that time so it will be doubly good.

I'm going to try to post a little something much more regularly. I always enjoy my family and friends' blog posts, even if it's only one or two lines or just a picture, so I'm going to try to update my own more even if it's just a tiny post. Happy end of June (already?)!

We had a baby!

Our sweet baby Allison is two three almost five weeks old. Yes, this post has been a long time coming. We are blessed to have a darling, oh-so-cute little girl join our family. After being married and on our own for over 10 years, it has been quite the adjustment to have a new addition.

Allison is healthy and doing well. She's right on track for growth and is generally happy and sweet.

12 hours old! 

All the clothes we had for her at the hospital were way too big. Oops. :)

Napping with Daddy 

She is very good at pulling weird faces, waving her arms around, and blocking her face when the camera comes out. Wonder who she gets that from...? The result is that I have lots of sweet pictures of her like the one below, peaceful and sleeping, that all look more or less the same.

She looks a lot like Jeran but every once in a while I see some of myself in her.

She is pretty good at being hungry at predictable times, but we haven't yet gotten into a predictable sleeping pattern, besides sleeping pretty well most nights. Thus we're tired but not completely out of it (most of the time).

We are very happy and love being parents to this wonderful baby!

Dr. Stratford!

Last Thursday was a very important day in our household. After many long years of dedicated work, Jeran defended his doctoral dissertation! He did such a fantastic job! He got the dissertation turned in a week or two ago and had only about a week to create his PowerPoint presentation and rehearse it. Considering he had mounds of data and information that he has collected and knows, he did an amazing job keeping it short and understandable while still relaying the full message of his project, which dealt with understanding the underlying biology and mechanisms of pancreatic cancer.

(thanks to Bryan for pictures at the defense)

Presenting Dr. Stratford!*

*But don't call him that - he'll probably get mad or at least roll his eyes. As we like to say, he's "not the kind of doctor that helps people".

Jeran's mom came out to be here on the big day. Hooray! His presentation was really quite exceptional and I wish everyone could have been here. His labmates threw a very thoughtful and awesome party afterwards, including some of Jeran's favorite foods and his typical lunch foods too. Jeran requested the US-Belgium game be playing at the party also since he had missed watching it and several other World Cup games to prepare.

We later went and wandered around Duke Gardens.

Jan and Jeran at Duke Gardens

This log had 5 turtles on it sunning themselves! Another nearby had two or three on it. Some of them were moving around, displacing each other, and it was very entertaining to watch.

The Future

Many of you that we have talked to in person already know this, but we finally have definite plans for what Jeran will do after he receives his PhD this summer.

Jeran's PhD defense is set for July 3 and we are VERY ready for it to come. Or at least I am very ready and Jeran is very stressed and busy getting ready for it to come. He has to submit his dissertation a few weeks in advance and also prepare a presentation. He also needs to submit a paper for publishing by then, but luckily that is part of the dissertation, not a completely separate thing.

So after the defense, he will have a week or two to finish making any adjustments and finalize things (I'm not really clear on what this entails, thus the vagueness, but he said he would need this time to finish work), and then several weeks off before he starts a Masters in Biostatistics at UNC-Chapel Hill. Hooray!

At least I think it will be "hooray" and not "groan". He would like to go more in the analysis direction so this should help him get there and give him training that would make his skills more broadly marketable. We are excited for the change in pace this will bring and are curious what going back to being a full-time regular student will be like after so long. And really anything would be better than what he is doing now because he is so burned out on his work and not thrilled with how his PhD career has gone.

It is a two year program, with some chance of being able to finish a semester early, but we aren't counting on that. Jeran will likely do an internship, teaching or research assistanceship, or part time job to make some money and gain applicable experience and network with useful contacts already in the field.

We will not have to move, although our intention is to gradually make some repairs to our house and then put it on the market next summer or so, so we won't be in a big rush to take any offer we get. Then if it did sell we would rent somewhere (which would also be weird to go back to).

In some ways, I've wanted to move for a while because we've had so many friends move away from us and we've long anticipated Jeran finishing his PhD and then needing to move, so not moving seems weird, but I think the change in his schooling will provide enough of a change of pace to satisfy me right now. And a Masters won't drag out indefinitely like a PhD can. It will be hard whenever we do move away because we have really liked the area we are in and our ward, although it goes through huge transition periods, is pretty much the nicest, friendliest church ward of mostly people in very similar circumstances to us. And the weather here is pretty awesome.

Anyways, we are both excited for this small but major change.

1 Wedding + 1 Wedding = Lots of Pictures!

We went to two family weddings in the last three months. Yes, we had fun and had good times, or as Jeran would say, "It was a wedding." Since most interested people have already seen pictures on Facebook, I won't go overboard on the pictures.

The first was my lovely sister, Jessica. She got married in Atlanta to the dashing Chase and they are now living happily ever after.

Maybe some hugs now or something?

Relaxing before the reception

The other lovebirds

Bridesmaids

Us

The second wedding was Jeran's brother, Rylen's. He and Desi got married in Idaho Falls (which was gorgeous - good choice guys!). We flew out west and got to go to the wedding and spend some time with both our families even though it was a quick trip.

Rylen and Desi

So happy!

Idaho Falls panoramic

What a beautiful morning around the temple!

Brothers and nephews

In between these two weddings, we had a month full of getting lots of work done and still making time for some fun summer activities like going to the beach, hiking, and bowling. Here's a picture from Topsail Beach. It makes me sigh every time I look at it. Sun, sand, water, warmth, ocean breeze...

August and some of September

Hello again. This has been a weird week for me. There were many things that I wanted to do: exercise, stick to a healthy menu, do crafts with Mary, go to the Relief Society Activity, maybe go to the biscuit-making ward activity, get lots of work done, etc.  However, I decided to get sick instead. Nothing too dangerous, just a cold that was just serious enough to cause me to miss doing mostly all of those activities. It's still around now and I'm hope hope hoping it isn't going to turn into sinusitis, but having already had that once this year, I'm pretty familiar with the symptoms and it may be on the verge since I have a good amount of head congestion with little in my nose.

Anyways, one of the thrills of working at home is, unless you are really debilitated, you can work right through most sickness. Sometimes this is actually nice because you can be productive and take your mind off how yucky you feel and how you can't/shouldn't do things with other people because you don't want to spread the love. This would have been one of those times when work is a good activity to occupy me if I weren't in one of those work lulls when I am waiting on information, files, etc. to come back to me before I could do much work. Oh well. I did end up watching the first two seasons of Downton Abbey, making chicken soup for myself, and laying in bed.

We also finished watching a really great show that I would recommend to pretty much anyone. It is called Avatar: The Last Airbender. It is an animated series that was on Nickelodeon a few years ago. There are three seasons and we watched them all in the last few weeks. I really liked this show. It has little details that I really like, it is funny, and the whole story is engaging and interesting. You should watch it. They have it on Netflix.

Jessica came to visit over Labor Day(-bor) weekend. We went canoeing at Cane Creek reservoir in Orange county. We were hoping to see some bald eagles but alas. We did see many turtles. a heron or two an egret, and some little fish. We were the only canoers on the water (that we could see) but there were quite a few fishermen in little electric motorboats. There was a tree that from a distance looked like it was just growing out of the water in the middle of the lake. When we got closer it turns out it was on a very low-lying peninsula of land that was partially flooded. The tree still looked pretty sweet.

Mom and Dad also came to visit for a day or two. We went to dinner and shopping and church. Sadly I did not take a single picture.

I went to the dentist and had no cavities. I like getting my teeth cleaned. I remember when I was younger the hardest thing about the dentist was keeping my mouth open so long. Now it takes most of my concentration to keep my tongue from following the dental hygienist's hands around with my tongue. I'm sure they are used to that but it seems so weird and should not be so hard to keep it down out of the way. Anyone else have this problem? Or even think about this...?

I also went to the optometrist and my prescription has changed slightly. I need to get new glasses. Last time I just got new lenses in my ten-year-old frames and I think I need cuter ones so if I don't want to put my contacts in one day, I won't feel silly going out in glasses.

This post is probably misnamed because I can't really think of much that we did in August. Probably just same old, same old. Jeran gave a department seminar presentation and did awesome. That's about it.