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Friday, June 26, 2009

Just Married

Last Friday, June 19th Ronnie and I were married at the Aniak Courthouse. It was a really nice, short and sweet ceremony. Ronnie's parents, sister Rhiannon, Uppa Chuck, Aunt Sam & Uncle Neco, Neco's parents and friend, & Richie Diehl along with all the kids were there for the ceremony. The small courthouse was pretty packed.

After the ceremony Ronnie's parents had a little BBQ in their backyard. (We plan on having a big wedding reception next summer when I'm not pregnant!) The bbq was really nice and we had some family and a few friends over to celebrate with us.

I think I speak for Ron, when I say that both of us are incredibly happy, and looking forward to a long wonderful future together as a family with Danny (my new stepson) and baby Ryder...and who knows how many other kids :)

Here are a few pictures from the ceremony & bbq


Here is us with Ronnie's parents, our niece Alana, Danny, and Danny's older brother Dre

Here is us with Ronnie's Aunt Sam & Uncle Neco, Cousin Taylor, Neco's parents from Turkey, Neco's friend Omir, and Danny

You may kiss the bride :) (between my 33 week baby bump and Ronnie's stomach, we couldn't quite get our arms around each other)

My new sis-in-law Rhiannon, and niece Alana Jade


In the backyard after the ceremony with Danny and Dre

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

June News

A lot has happened this month, since I last blogged.

I have been teaching summer school since June 1st, and tomorrow is already my last day. I have had a fun group of mainly 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students. After tomorrow I officially will be on summer vacation, and will not be back to work until sometime around October!

On June 12th, I had my 32 week pre-natal checkup. My Dr. said everything is looking fine, and that I just have to take it easy for the next two weeks so I don't go into labor in Aniak. I will be moving into Anchorage sometime around July 12th to wait for baby Ryder to be born.


On June 13th, I did the Alaska Run for Women, which supports breast cancer research. I did the run/walk with Grace (Ronnie's mom) Sam (Ronnie's Aunt), Rhiannon (Ronnie's sis), and then one of Sam's friends. Grace, Sam, and Sam's friend ran and walked, while me and Rhiannon had Alana in her stroller, so we had to start out in the back, and could only walk---which is all I could do anyway at 8 months pregnant! We all did really well. The race is 5 miles, and there were over 5,400 women running/walking. Grace, & Sam finished the race in 1314 place, with a time of about 70 minutes, and Rhiannon and I finished in 1558, and 1559 place, with a time of about 95 minutes. Mostly I was just happy I made it the whole five miles! The rest of the day we had a pretty tough time walking around to shop, and get errands done. I fell asleep early, and slept the hardest I have in months--didn't even get up one time to go the bathroom!

Rhiannon, was getting the smallest member of team Ta-tas ready for the race (she ended up sleeping the whole 5 miles!)

Rhiannon, Grace, Alana and me posing for a picture before the run!



After the race, Uppa Chuck took us to breakfast at Jackie's Place. Alana was being a big girl in the high chair :)

A couple weeks ago Ronnie and I started talking about the possibility of getting married before we have the baby. Since we plan on getting married anyway, it made sense to us to just do it now, and then have a larger celebration next summer when I'm not pregnant. So, I went to the courthouse, and got the marriage license paperwork, and before we knew it we had a wedding date set up for June 19th, 2009! Which means in just 2 days I will be getting married in the Aniak Courthouse! Ronnie asked his friend Richie Diehl to be his official witness, and I asked Rhiannon to be mine. Ronnie's parents are going to have a bbq for us at their house, with a wedding cake after the ceremony. It should be a fun day! We even hired a photographer to take pictures, so I'll post some of those in my next entry.

In other news, I will be turning 30 on Monday!! Seems crazy...time is going by too fast. Luckily 30 doesn't sound as old and decrepit as it used to!

Just one month and 3 weeks until the baby is due---we are getting very excited!!

That is all for now...I will be sure to post next week after all the weekend's festivities.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

New Washer & Baby Furniture

Okay, so this might be the lamest blog post yet, but I'm so excited for my new washer and dryer and my baby room furniture that I had to post some pics. This is the first time in my life that I have had a brand new washer and dryer, so needless to say I am pretty excited! It's a front-loading kind--works super good and fast!

This is the washer, the dryer looks almost exactly the same


Here is the cool little storage shelf in baby's room. It took Ronnie and Richie Diehl a long time to get this put together. I added the baskets. If you look close you will see my unborn child already has an iPod. :)


Here is inside Ryder's crib, it has no mattress yet, but the crib set is super cute!!

Inside Ryder's crib, and his cool airplane/helicopter mobile


One more pic of the crib, and you can see the cute rug too :)

I'm currently 31 weeks and 1 day pregnant. The baby has been getting even more active in the last couple days. My next appointment is on next Friday June 12th. I will be heading into Anchorage to do the women's run with Grace, Rhiannon, Ronnie's Aunt Sam, and Brenda. Danny's older brother Dre has been here visiting us since Monday, so we've been having fun playing games, playing Wii, watching many episodes of Sponge Bob, and just hanging out. Well, time to go enjoy the weekend---Bye for now!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Still amazed by my latest 4D Sonogram

On Sunday I went into Anchorage with Ron & Danny for my Dr. appointment, shopping, and a little R&R (rest and relaxation--not whiskey :) ). I think we managed to get all of those things accomplished. We stayed at a hotel this time so Danny would have a pool to swim in. Ronnie's cousin Taylor stayed with us all three nights and her and Danny went swimming just about every morning and night. On Sunday evening we had a bbq over at Aunt Sam & Uncle Neco's house. The weather was perfect, and Neco's parents from Turkey are here visiting for the summer. They are super nice, and it was good to meet them. Monday we spent some time shopping, and got a new washer and dryer. We brought the kids to Chuck.E.Cheese, and a movie. Danny was so excited for the movie, and made it through all the previews, but then only lasted for about 5 minutes of the movie before he fell asleep! Tuesday was the highlight of the trip. Ron, Danny and I went to my sonogram appointment. It was so neat to see our little boy. They recorded the whole thing on DVD, and you could see the little guy yawning, smiling, opening his eyes, and even making a cute little frowny face. Here are some pictures from the sonogram:







Danny was very happy to see his little brother, and of course so were daddy and I :)
After the sonogram the Dr. checked me out, and said everything was looking good...baby's heartbeat was around 145, and I was measuring right at about 30 weeks (at 29 weeks 4 days). She said that it seemed like most likely I would deliver earlier than my due date of August 7th, but we'll see. My next appointment is just over 2 weeks away. Well that's all for now. As soon as I get a chance I'll take some pictures of the baby furniture and put them on here.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Pictures!

We finally moved out of the B&B this weekend. Here are a couple pictures from our last week living there... Danny having too much fun in the bath

Looking Cute in his airplane pj's

Danny & Daddy


Taking a nap with Dewey

Although we still have some work to do, Ronnie finished putting all the new flooring down, and painting too. Here are some pics of our room ...

The new floor looks really nice!


can't complain about the 42'' flat screen in the bedroom

close up of the new rug, floor, and curtains

Danny's race car room is finally finished too, here are the latest pics:

He loves his Race car bed!

He picked out the rug himself

Lightning Mcqueen TV, and Ramone DVD player

Cars Toy Box

Gotta have the Cars easy chair

Baby's room is still in the works. The new furniture is here, but we still need to put it together. I will post pictures when we get it done. This is my last official week of work! Can't wait for a little time off :)

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The week in a nutshelll

This will be a quick post, as I don't have time to add pictures now...but will make sure to put up some pictures over the weekend.

The week started out with Mother's day on Sunday. It was a nice and relaxing day. Ronnie's mom cooked us yummy sourdough pancakes (my favorite) for breakfast, and she also cooked us dinner that night too. I started my walking training by taking Danny on a walk in our new stroller (a super cool hand-me down from our neighbors!) from our house to Ronnie's parents house on the other side of town. It was a good workout---think I'm going to have to do something similar this weekend. I've also been walking to and from work every day because we've had beautiful sunny weather for a couple weeks now.

The beginning of the week was rather uneventful, but on Wednesday I had the privilege of being the commencement speaker at graduation in Chuathbaluk. 2 of my students were graduating (Charlotte & Onna), and they asked me to speak so I did. I was kinda nervous giving a speech, especially with the Superintendent and Board members there, but it all went just fine, and I was told the speech was very good!

Also this week Ronnie has been putting in a lot of hours at our place. He finished putting in the floor in our bedroom, and some other odds and ends. It's starting to look really nice. We are officially moving in this weekend so I will definitely get pictures taken and posted by Sunday.

I'm 28 weeks pregnant today, and feeling pretty good! My stomach looks huge, especially from my angle, but I still love feeling the baby move and kick--and he is getting stronger all the time. Can't wait to see him during my appointment on the 26th! Well, that's all for now...Check back soon and I will be updating with pictures!!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Aniak Flooding & Danny's Birthday Party

Every year around this time the rivers in Alaska "break-up" and the ice starts to move down river out to the ocean. This year we had A LOT of snow and ice. The Kuskokwim river was super thick with ice. The last week of April the temperature really warmed up in our area. By Saturday, May 2nd we had temps reaching nearly 70 degrees. The heat wave caused the ice to start moving fast...some villages upriver from us flooded, including Red Devil, where Ronnie's aunt, uncle and cousins live. On May 3rd, Sunday evening around 8:30 pm the ice in Aniak started to move. We were standing on the dike watching, when all of a sudden huge 4 ft thick ice chunks were thrust onto the bank. It was only a matter of hours before the water from the river started coming up into the town. To make a long story short...we experienced a couple days of flooding here in Aniak, and luckily I live on the higher side of town, so we didn't lose anything to the flood. I have lots of pictures, and for some reason I can't get some of them to upload, but here are a few anyway...

Water going over the main road to the firestation, high school and housing

This is looking down one of the main roads in town where the store is, the phone company, light and power, post office, and my office----people were canoeing and boating on this road.

One of the side roads, completely under water
This is at the end of the road that goes around the runway...so much ice came up that it completely blocked the road so you couldn't get to the other side of town.


This is at the other end of the airport, lots of water around the runway. A couple of boats even ended up on the runway.

Since Danny was in Bethel for his actual birthday (April 28th) we finally had a party for him on Tuesday, May 5th. His Grandma Grace got all the party supplies and birthday cake---just what Danny wanted a "Cars" birthday party! The party was at Grandma's house with mostly family and a few of Danny's little friends. Of course baby Alana was there, and Ricky & Jenny brought over their little 5 month old girl Skylar too. Danny's 2 year old cousin Landon came too, and he had fun helping Danny play with his new toys! A day before the party, when Danny was at the airport with his Grandma he found where she was hiding his birthday presents in the back. When he came across the big helicopter teeter totter for the backyard he said "Gramma we should buy this!" He also found his Cars TV from his Auntie Rhiannon, and his Cars toy box from his Uppa and Grandma. Auntie Rhiannon also got Danny a new Cars bike! Here are some pics from the party:


Opening presents, sitting in his Cars chair

Miss Alana


Danny's Cake


Ricky & Skylar


Blowing out the candles!


As for my pregnancy---things are going well. I am 27 weeks today, and this little baby can't stay still very long. I've decided to join Ronnie's mom, aunts, and sister in the women's breast cancer run in Anchorage on June 13th, so I've just started getting out and walking---I'm going to have to do a lot more before I'll be ready for 5k!

Ronnie and I have been remodeling his house (with the help of his parents). So far we have Danny's "Cars" room done, and are almost finished with the baby's airplane nursery. Next we will work on our bedroom, and odds and ends around the house. I will post some pictures sometime soon. Only 2 weeks left of school here, and then I will be off for summer vacation (except for the 12 days I'm going to teach summer school in June).

Well, it's a beautiful sunny day in Aniak---hope everyone is well---TGIF!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

26 weeks & 4 days pregnant

Since it's getting harder to keep up with sending out pictures to everyone I want to, I thought it was time to start my own personal blog to keep my friends and family updated with the happenings of our lives up here in Aniak, Alaska. A lot has happened in the first few months of 2009--

In March I went to Hawaii, and got engaged to Ronnie Vanderpool.


We plan to get married next summer in Alaska, but for now I already feel like I am a part of his family and he is a part of mine. He has a 3 year old son named Danny, and I love every minute we get to spend with him. He is super smart, and very adorable!



Ronnie's younger sister Rhiannon had a baby on February 2nd, her name is Alana Jade Kelila.


My younger sister Laura had a baby on April 29th, her name is Ella Joy McMahon.



We are expecting our first little baby boy this year on August 7th. We are planning to name him Ryder Robert Vanderpool (Robert after my father, Ronnie's Grandfather, and Ronnie's uncle). We are excited about being parents to Danny and Ryder, and Aunt & Uncle to Alana and Ella (who we still need to meet!)

As I write this blog today I am 26 weeks and 4 days pregnant. My stomach is getting huge, and this baby boy likes to kick a lot!



Well, this is enough for my very first entry...more next time!