Week 125

July 20-26

Now that we are nearing our big departure from the lovely state of Florida we have suddenly become very busy! Pretty much everything is arranged as far as packers, movers, cleaners, inspection. As you know the new house is pretty much set up. My lovely brother Will graciously painted some of the bedrooms for me. I'm not usually super picky with paint colors, but the previous owners had big rainbow murals on the bedroom walls. I don't really think that will match Jack's future fire fighter themed room. Luckily I have a single brother with lots of time and who doesn't mind making some bonus cash while helping out his preggo sister. He said he would do it for free but I didn't mind paying him because painting is a pain in the ***.

The kids eating at their tiny table!

So anyways we are getting things ready and also trying to fit in last minute fun with our friends here. We are also trying to eat at all of our favorite restaurants one last time. There are so many unique places in our area that are not chains and we may never eat at again. :( I'm sure we will find new cuisine in Columbia.

Jack's favorite teachers!

Classroom!

Jack has continued to go to school. He goes about two to three times a week for 3 hours in the morning. He LOVES it! As soon as he hears he is going to school that day he wants to get dressed the minute he wakes up. I got to take some pictures of his cute little classroom. They are so organized and everything is labeled (and clean!). He will miss his friends and also his teachers Miss Lis and Miss Vivian! We are so lucky to have drop in child care for the wonderful price of $3/hr including meals. That is one perk I will miss in the military. Next year I guess I will sign Jack up for official preschool.

Pool time!!

We had a play date with Jack's buddy Madilynn. As most of you remember her mom (Andrea) is pregnant too, we are due around the same time. It's fun to hang out because we completely relate to each other having a small child and being very pregnant in the hot FL summer. We met up with them one afternoon at the base pool. Oh how I will miss that pool because it is so kid friendly I can just plop down in the water and let Jack run around freely to play. The day we went it was super busy, but Jack and Madilynn didn't seem to care. They played for quite awhile and were worn out by the time we left.

The adventures of Jack and Madilynn!

They actually did a pretty good job at taking turns.

Love this towel! So convenient!

This past weekend was my work baby shower thrown by the lovely Diane. At work everyone is pregnant it seems...but Jamie and I are due the same day!!! Diane invited all of the ER crew and graciously hosted a double baby shower for Jamie and I. As you can tell from the pictures Jamie is having a baby girl. I thought it was funny because we both kind of wore the same thing. Apparently the proper attire for an 8 month pregnant woman is a sundress in the appropriate color of the gender of the expectant child (white for me since I don't know) and sandals. Haha!

Yum! Compliments of Angelina!

It was so fun to see everyone outside of the hectic Emergency Room craziness! We had plenty of food, drinks, and CAKE! Angelina brought the most beautiful, delicious Publix (my FAVORITE) cake!!!!! Even some of the fire medics stopped by with their truck to hang out. For those of you who aren't familiar with what a fire medic is I will fill you in.

Our Fire Medics!

In FL at some fire stations the fire fighters are required to also become certified paramedics. Many 911 calls are more medically related, even the fire calls. So these guys/girls have certain days they are assigned to the fire truck and other days assigned to an ambulance. This is how we know so many fire fighters in the ER, they drop off patients to us. We really appreciate their hard work and we love them for what they do. Many states will probably soon adapt to this model of emergency services since they really do seem to overlap most of the time. Even Will (my brother the fire fighter) says he goes on tons of medical calls. If the fire truck is the first to respond, they have to secure the scene and stabilize any patients until an ambulance arrives. It saves lots of time when the fire fighters can do the things a paramedic would do. Ed has said he would love to go to paramedic school. I hope he does it because it is all very interesting stuff!!

Presents! :)

Okay I got off the subject....the BABY SHOWER was awesome. We played some fun games like measure a string and guess how big it needs to be to fit around the pregnant woman's belly. We got so many nice gifts from everyone. Stella the Great got me a Victoria's Secret Gift Card. I hope it does not have an expiration date because I am not even walking into that store until after the baby comes and I lose 50 pounds!!!! Hahaha!! Nice thought though. :) Everyone was like, "oh that gift is to be used to start on the next baby." I don't think so. We will have more kids, but not right away!

The Preggos!

The whole shower was a wonderful afternoon. Diane has the nicest house. Her little puppy dogs (Charlie and Carley) were also nice hosts. I have a million thank you notes to write, but it was all worth it! I'm going to be sad to leave all my friends. That is one nice thing about finally moving home...I don't have to leave everyone I have formed bonds with. I am very lucky that in my job there are many people my age with young kids. We hang out all the time outside of work to go on play dates, birthday parties, etc. I have been very fortunate!!!!

The lovely Diane. Awesome nurse and retired fire fighter!!!!

I remember when I first started in the ER I was soooo scared!!! It has been an amazing experience and I have learned so much about nursing. There are some VERY SMART, VERY DEDICATED nurses at the Wu ER. It is sad that they are getting treated so poorly with crappy insurance and low pay. It is a shame. I love you guys and I hope we keep in touch!!!!

Week 124

July 13-19

So I am finally 30 weeks! Yippee!! Actually on Monday the 18th I will be 31 weeks! :) We decided that since we had a 3D/4D ultrasound with Jack (it was offered at our OB/GYN's office) we should probably get one of this new baby. I had mixed feelings about it because I didn't want to somehow accidentally find out if it was a boy or girl. We told them about 10 times to make sure.

Jack 28 weeks 4 days

Storch Baby #2 30 Weeks 5 days

The other part of me secretly couldn't wait to catch a glimpse of the little creature that has been moving inside of my belly for the past few months. Ed and I are both so curious as to who this baby will look like. We discuss it all the time. Will it look like me? Ed? Jack? It's so neat to grow a family.

So we did our research and found a nice ultrasound place that offered a simple 30 minute session that included some print out pictures and a CD/DVD full of pictures for $59. Quite the bargain if you ask me. This past Saturday I had my yard sale in the morning. I got rid of lots of junk and made lots of money! Then at 1:00 we dropped Jack off at Madilynn's house for some swimming while we went to our ultrasound.

Here is what we saw. I wanted to also put up a picture of Jack's ultrasound to show how similar. The first thing we both said was, "it looks just like Jack did!" Haha! For the record we still don't know if it is a boy or a girl...what do you think?

We managed to get in a couple hours at the beach! It was such a nice day too. The tide was out and the sand was super soft and flat. Perfect for playing in the sand and relaxing a bit. I love having my camera and taking pictures of Ed and Jack interacting. They are so sweet together and the best pictures are when they semi forget that I'm even there and I can sneak in to capture those special moments. Jack is so fond of his dad, I don't know what he would do if Ed wasn't around all the time.

It was a nice afternoon and I got a little bit of sun so I was happy. :) Making the most out of my big fat maternity bathing suit. Haha!! I can't even fit into the bottoms...they are ginormous! I had to wear my bottoms from my smaller black suit, which suits me just fine.

Oh how I will miss the beach and the pool! Whatever will we do at our new house? My sister works at the water park in the summers. I guess we can start going there.

Week 123

July 6-12

This week we were able to witness a blip in history. The last shuttle launch STS-135. We are privileged enough to live on what is called "The Space Coast" in Florida. We have seen many shuttle launches from our back yard. One time we even got to get on base to one of the closest spots a civilian can get to witness a night launch. We have been very lucky. This is the end of an era and we got to see the tiny blaze of orange in the sky followed by a cloud of white smoke.

We even had some friends drive down from SC to see the launch. I was so happy when it didn't get scrubbed (aka delayed or cancelled) which happens a lot. Everything has to be practically perfect in order to pull off such a feat. Ed got Chuck and Aaron passes to get on base for a better view. They seemed to enjoy themselves. Jack and I stayed back because he had school and I had some things to get done, but I made sure to take a peek at the sky when the shuttle launched.

We enjoyed having Chuck and Aaron as guests. Jack had new people to play with and we got to make lots of good food! We love cooking! :) We made ribs, potato salad, corn on the cob, and chocolate eclair pie. Mmm! It was nice visiting with them and we can't wait to move to SC so we can hang out more often!!!

In other news we are still working on the big move. Ed has been making calls and appointments to arrange the packers, movers, etc. I put in my notice at work. Jack and I will probably be arriving in SC on or around August 8th and our stuff might not get there until the 15th so we will have to figure out what we will do for a week. This weekend coming up I am having a yard sale. We have so much purging of "stuff" to do. One fun thing about moving is that you get to go through all of your stuff and organize it. I love streamlining everything.

Not much else to report. :)

Week 122

June 29-July 5

After a week in Columbia without Ed, it was nice to come home and still have a few days off for a long family fun filled weekend! Fourth of July fell on a Monday this year so the festivities were kind of spread out because I think that most people weren't quite sure when they should celebrate. Fine with us, we love fun stuff to do.

Sunday morning we started off by going to the beach...but when we walked down and settled in a nice spot we realized there were jellyfish. Everywhere. Literally, you almost couldn't take 3 steps without seeing one. We were out of there. There was no way Jack was going to stay out of the water and I did not want to see him get stung. With his seemingly sensitive skin and odd rashes, who knows what that could potentially do. We went to the pool.

It was kind of nice because the pool opens early on the weekends and apparently no one realizes it. We had the whole place to ourselves. Jack went from the baby pool to the big pool, back to the baby pool, etc. We had a great time and wore him out (on purpose) so that we could take him home, feed him lunch, and we were hoping he would take a nice nap. Worked like a charm. He slept for over 2 hours and woke up in a great mood. We all got ready and headed to Palm Bay for the "Splashes and Sparks Independence Day Celebration."

It was a super cute festival geared toward families. They had a live band, food, free bounce houses, and a couple of vendors. No alcohol allowed. I really liked that about this particular festival because it kept things focused on kids. Jack absolutely had a blast. He went in quite a few bounce houses, even one with some bigger kids. He held his own and jumped his little heart out. He LOVES to jump!! It was pretty hot so we made sure to make him drink plenty of cold water. After the bounce houses Jack and I took a ride on the "choo-choo train" to cool off. The breeze felt great!

At that point it was about dinner time so we spread our blanket and got some food. One of the fun parts of festivals and holidays like 4th of July is eating the "junky" food. We tried to be a little bit health conscious and ordered ham and cheese paninis with sweet potato ribbons. The food was delicious! While we ate we sat for awhile and listened to the band that they had.

After eating we needed to kill some time before the sun went down and the fireworks started. We let Jack jump a little more, walked around, and then got ice cream to top off the deliciousness of the day. :) Jack had a red, white, and blue spider man popsicle. So cute! He never gets sweets like this, so he was having a pretty great day!

We got back on our blanket and waited while the sun set. To pass the time Jack and Ed colored some pictures. Finally it got dark! Fireworks started at 9:00 pm. Ed and I were a little nervous about Jack lasting this long (his usual bedtime is 7:00 pm), hence the planned nap. He was so excited! These were his first fireworks and I wasn't sure if he would be scared of the noise. He just clapped and yelled, "boom, boom, boom" when the loud ones went off.

He lasted through the whole show. I was so proud of him. He even stayed awake for the whole ride home. He couldn't stop talking about the fireworks. I could tell he had a great day and I'm glad we went to the festival. There was traffic getting out of the fair grounds and he didn't get to bed until almost 11:00 pm. By far the latest he has ever stayed up in his life! He still got up at 7:30 this morning.

Today was actually 4th of July. We decided to hit up a parade in Downtown Melbourne. It was super hot and started raining about 30 minutes before start time...then stopped. This made all the heat rise up from the street and the humidity ridiculous. We promised Jack a parade so we stuck it out. The actual parade was pretty much a repeat of the one we went to on Memorial Day Weekend, but Jack really seemed to enjoy it. There were some interesting floats though.

After the parade we went to lunch at a delicious Irish Restaurant called Meg O'Malley's. It was super yummy! Tomorrow it is back to reality with the food. No more eating out. No more junk. We had a fantastic family weekend, now it is time to go back to work and also get ready for our big move. Today makes 29 weeks of pregnancy for me! 11 weeks left! :) Happy 4th of July to everyone, hope you had a nice family weekend!!

Week 121

June 22-28

As many of you know our family is about to take on some major changes. MAJOR. Basically every major life change a family can have...we have crammed into one year. Yeah we are crazy. So as many of you know Ed is getting out of the Navy. This is a decision we made awhile back and Ed has been working very hard to assure he has a job to fall back on. He just graduated this week from college with a 4.0 and earned a Bachelor's of Fire Science. He is ready to pursuit his dream job as a fire fighter. Luckily for us the City of Columbia is accepting applications and will be hiring 30 people in the near future.

This means we are moving. We would move whether he stayed in the Navy or not because we have been at this duty station for 3 years. This move is different. We are choosing to move and we are moving home. We are moving where we know people. We have family. We are so excited!

Another life change is the whole adding to our family thing. This is very exciting and we are so happy about it...but it adds an element of stress when it is in the middle of all these other changes. It kind of puts all of our life changing plans on a certain timeline. The baby is due September 19th so we figured since we are moving either way...we would need to make the decision as to whether or not to move before or after the baby is born. We didn't think it would be possible since Ed technically doesn't get out of the Navy until mid-October. But then we remembered Ed has a lot of leave time saved up. Score!

We decided it made way more sense to have the baby in Columbia where we have family to help out with Jack and everything else. With this in mind, we needed a house....fast. I went to SC for 5 days and found a rental near where Ed will be going to fire school. Eventually we would like to buy a house and settle down, but for now we were in a major time crunch and had to just rent. We won't know where Ed will be stationed until well after fire school. We also want plenty of time to make an informed decision so we get a house we love in an area we love.

After the baby is born I will go back to work as well. In one year we will have 2 new jobs, a new house, a major move, a new baby, and Ed graduated from college. Crazy, but that is our life right now. We have to work hard to get where we want to be. There are still a million details to iron out between now and the move, but at least we know we have somewhere to live. I love the house we got. It is out in the country a little ways...settled on a 2.5 acre lot...in a nice neighborhood and at the end of a cul-de-sac! Perfect for what we need right now! I will put up more pictures of the inside when we move in (the ones I took have all the previous owners things in them). For now we will be preparing for our big move and for the baby to get here!

Week 120

June 15-21

So this week we had two exciting events...they were both kind of intertwined so I will talk about Father's Day first. This is Ed's 3rd Father's Day! Wow! Next year he will have 2 kids to be a great father to. :)

There is a specific formula I use to create a successful Father's Day. It is as follows:

Good food + Favorite Beer + Relaxation = 1 Happy Father!

Of course I think Ed is the absolute best Father in the whole world so he deserves anything he wants on this special day. First Jack and I let him sleep in. We decided to make a 7:00 am trip to Publix to gather supplies for the day. Quite often Ed makes delicious breakfasts so I wanted to return the favor and make him a big family breakfast. Jack helped me pick out all the food along with a big bouquet of balloons, and a bunch of Ed's favorite beers. It was a little embarrassing because he kept announcing to everyone in the grocery store, "We got beer! Lots of beers!" Since it was early in the morning and I am obviously pregnant this made a few people look at us strangely. Pretty funny though.

When we got home Jack was so excited to get all of Ed's goodies together. We wrapped his present, a mug that Jack painted at the local pottery place near our house. We made breakfast and then Jack just couldn't take it anymore. He kept saying "Dada wake up! Presents, balloons!" Ed came down for breakfast and we gave him all of his goodies. Jack really liked helping Ed open his card. Jack picked it all by himself and it was a singing card....every time he opened it he would laugh out loud. Too cute!

This week was very special because Ed surprised me with a visit from my BFFL Holly! As most of you know Holly lives all the way in Wisconsin and we have been friends since 7th grade. Last summer we traveled to WI for her wedding to an amazing husband Ryan. They both came to visit for a few days and I had no idea until we "ran into them" in Cocoa Beach.

At first I was mad because no one told me about the trip and so of course I didn't have anything fun planned out. I like to plan ahead so this bothered me. Luckily Holly and Ryan are much like Ed and I....laid back and relaxed...so they pretty much wanted to do what we would have done anyways. I had the whole extended weekend off so we made the most of it. The first night we went out to dinner at Milliken's Reef for some delicious local seafood. Jack really started to get comfortable with both of them and by the end of the night was chit-chatting their heads off.

I am really sad because I didn't get many pictures. Yeah I know...I didn't get pictures....the queen of cameras in your face at all times. Honestly I was so relaxed and in the moment of everything, I didn't think about it until the last day when they were leaving. Over the weekend we enjoyed the beach, swimming at Holly and Ryan's hotel pool, and even eating a breakfast at Waffle House.

Jack has (surprisingly) never been to Waffle House. He LOVED it! He called it "Waffles House" and ate a whole waffle, 1/2 of Ryan's waffle, and bites of everyone else's breakfast. My little piglet, I really do need to start watching his food intake. It is out of control.

The last night they were here, Holls and Ryan took Jack to Toys R Us even though I insisted that the last thing he needs is more toys. Holly is Jack's Godmother and she wanted to do it...so I figured she could trump me on this one. I knew I wasn't winning the argument anyway. They let Jack pick out whatever he wanted and he chose a big red truck from the Cars 2 movie. It is pretty neat because it can hold all of his little matchbox cars. He is still playing with it now.

The same night happened to be Father's Day so I made a steak dinner for everyone. We went to the Green Turtle and picked out whatever cut of steak everyone wanted to eat. I love that place! We had a nice meal at home and hung out with Holly and Ryan. They even got to see the fun summer Florida storms that happen in the evening--threats of tornadoes, hail, 50 mph winds. Good stuff.

They spent the night at our house that night and the next day they drove to the airport to fly back home. It was so sad because we had a great time with them. What I would give for them to live near us. I could seriously see us hanging out all the time. :( Maybe one day. Here are some pictures of our goodbyes. Holly and Ryan rented a fancy new convertible to cruise the strip in. Jack was fascinated by how the top went up and down! We will miss our dear friends but I know we will see them again soon!!!!!