Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Contemplating...

I have a post nearly ready to be published, about the people I've met and the things I've done since moving here. I just can't seem to finish it right now...

My thoughts are with my old roommate from Moody. Kandice, who just turned 28, was diagnosed this month with inflammatory breast cancer. She has been preparing to go to the mission field in a Creative Access country in Central Asia to work with the deaf. She's meeting with an oncologist for the first time, even as I type this. Please keep her in your prayers...

My sister-in-law Amy just posted this video this week from a conference she recently attended sponsored by Living Beyond Breast Cancer. I encourage you to take a few minutes and watch it.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

The World of Kevin (updated)


Sorry - it seems I wasn't super clear - there is a separate photo page with 20 or so new photos - click the link at the word "here" in the following sentence:

I posted new photos
here! Some are from Easter, some are from various other times. Sorry about the photo page title - I forgot to change it from the iWeb prefab.

Here are just a couple...

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

(updated at bottom) For Matt:

But others are free to comment as well!!!! (That was for Andrea.)

Anyway -

Here's the story. In 2003, a 13-year-old girl named Savana was accused by a classmate of having prescription-strength Ibuprofen. Savana was called to the assistant principal's office, where a nurse made her take off all her clothes, then move her underwear aside, to search for drugs. None were found. Savana was a straight-A student who had never been in trouble in school before.

Oh, one more thing - her parents were not notified...

According to her, she didn't question it at the time, because they were people she trusted, and she really wasn't sure what was going on.
Her mother sued, and after several hearings, it is in front of the Supreme Court today.

So what do you think? Did the school have the right to do this? How would you feel if it had happened to your daughter - safer that the school is taking such a stance on drugs, or violated that she was stripped without your knowledge? If you think the school acted appropriately, would you feel the same way if it were a male doing the search?

Here's
one article on the story - though if you Google "Savana Redding Supreme Court" you will come up with a lot. I originally heard it on NPR's Morning Edition - it's worth the 8 minute listen.

The Court's decision is not out yet - I'm very interested to see what it is...

Here is an article written this afternoon chronicling the hearing - apparently they expect a decision in June.

Monday, April 20, 2009

It's a...

Wow, so I just realized that in the midst of my blogging absence, I forgot to tell you we got an ultrasound!

The day before we moved, we trekked down to Ft. Stewart at 6:30 in the morning to get to see the baby. Because of the move, I have yet to see a new OB/GYN, and since they don't have any on post here, that will necessitate me getting my insurance switched to here (check), setting up an appointment with a family doctor on post (hopefully I can set the appointment tomorrow, but at Hunter it routinely took over a month for this to happen...), wait for the referral, call the new doctor, and wait for an available appointment there. Suffice it to say they wanted to make sure everything was ok before we had that long break!

Everything is healthy and developing well. This U/S Tech was much more aggressive and thorough than the one who did Sophie. After checking all organs and such, I was pretty sure what I saw - then she confirmed it when she looked at me with a contented smile and said,

"You are having a little boy!"

We're really excited - though (as always), we would have been happy either way, I was really hoping for a boy! :-)

In other pregnancy news, the little kiddo is continuing to use my insides as a jungle gym. I'm feeling fine, though a little more tired, sore (and heavy!) than with Sophie. I'm now at 22 weeks - over halfway there!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Sweet Home Alabama!

We made it! (Ok, so that statement is 3 weeks late...)

You know, I LOVE moving to new places. Ask me in 15 years, I'll probably have a different perspective, but right now, it's great. It probably also helps that this was a good move for us - closer to family, non-deployable, etc. Still, it has been a great experience!

The new house is wonderful! 3 beds, 2 bath, 2 car garage, covered patio, family room AND living room, HUGE kitchen, tons of storage, over 2000 square feet - totally spoiling me! The houses here were recently renovated and are not very indicative of what Army housing is usually like - which is one of the reasons we decided to live on post here! (It helps that the Commissary is quite large too!)

Redstone is a beautiful area - Huntsville is not IN the mountains, but it's very hilly and the border of the town seems to be a few mountains. I can't wait for the fall!! When most people hear "Alabama" they think Southern AL - but where we are is on the Tennessee border - we're just a couple hours from Nashville. Gorgeous!

After being here for all of about 48 hours, we exchanged the U-Haul for a rental car and headed north! We had a great time seeing family - we actually got the entire Fisher family together for a day! As you can see, it's quite the crowd! Sophie had a great time with all her cousins (and aunts & uncles & Poppy too...) :-)

It was a quick trip, but we did get to see my parents, siblings, one set of grandparents, and Jon's grandmother and great-grandmother as well. And let me tell you, the 8-hour trip to my parents makes the whole thing MUCH easier to handle than the 15-hour one!

Much else has happened, too. I went to PWOC this past week - everyone was very welcoming. The group size is somewhere between Hunter and Stewart - about 20 women probably. Of course, here they have 3 separate meeting times (but child care at only one, hence my decision to go to that one!) We have a park about a block away that we visit every few days, much to Sophie's delight. Jon signed in to his unit - it is VERY different here from the last one!

Well, that at least catches me up, so I don't have this "need to write a blog post" hanging over my head. Maybe now I can write something more interesting! I did realize yesterday that it is still like February in my mind. It's April? How did THAT happen? Goes to show I've been a bit out of it lately...