An Amazing Opportunity

I know that I should have blogged about this almost 2 weeks ago, but it had been a really crazy week that week. On February 2nd I got to have one of the most amazing opportunities anyone gets to take part in during their lifen the birth of a child (not my own). At 9:30am on the 2nd I took my good friend Chisti, who was 41+4 weeks, to Balboa to do a labor check. When we went in we were hoping for enough progress to keep her there, but the chance of that happening was not good considering the 2 weeks of checks before that. When the midwife came in and checked her she was at 3-4 25% which wasn't much progress since Friday and it broke poor Christi's heart thinking she would have to go another week like this. The midwife went out and pleed Christi's case and came back in about 3 minutes later (probably felt like 30 to poor Christi) and told us "lets get you in a room you're staying." Apparently the in-charge Dr really felt sorry for her and let the midwife get this show on the road. They started the pitocin at about 1030 and things were on their way. We had a great time laughing and joking, especially when Christi was sitting on the bed through contractions on Danielle's phone trying to access myspace to update it. The nurse learned very quickly that Danielle and I are a bunch of goofballs especially when she'd come in to up the pitocin. We kept telling her "put it at 55" even when it was only at 20. It was a great day and things progressed nicely throughout the day and into the evening. They broke Christi's water with "the hook" which made us ALL laugh because, if you've never seen the hook, it looks like a crochet hook and Christi was threatening all week to use a crochet hook on herself to get him out. Christi did AMAZING breathing through all the contractions and with the support of Danielle and I made it to about 8cm before even thinking twice about an epidural. Once it was time to push Christi was all business and that little "runt" was out in about 6-7 pushes. Eli Austin-Wayne Alexander was born at 920 pm (or 2120) weighing in at a "small" 9lbs 8.9oz and 21 inches long. CONGRATULATIONS Christi and thanks so much for letting me be a part of such a great moment in your life.

 

Super Bowl Sunday

Well Josh had to work Super Bowl Sunday so we did our normal routine on Sundays and had some fun. We went to Church, came home EVERYONE took naps and then went outside to play because we didn't have small group that night. Before we went outside Kenzie asked if they could get wet and where else other than San Diego, CA can you run through the sprinklers on the 1st of February. Mackenzie thought it was the funniest thing in the world that she was running through the sprinklers, but Rylan would rather play in the bucket under the hose until it filled up enough he'd tell me "plweas mommy" because he wanted me to dump it on his head. I know this is a short blog, but I've got a longer one coming this afternoon, but I wanted to get this on here first.

 

Adopt-A-Family

Yes I know I'm blogging out of order, but I didn't realize I had these pictures in order to do a blog about it. There is a FANTASTIC organization for military families called Operation Homefront. They have a lot of different ways that they help our service members and their families from emergency flights for the death of an immediate family to instructional classes. One of the big things they do every year at Christmas is a program called Adopt-A-Family where you can apply to be adopted by a family or company in the area and they provide presents for the kids for Christmas. This was the 2nd year we participated (thank you navy for messing up our paychecks) and the group that adopted us (which was a department of homeland security) SPOILED the kids. The jammies they have on were bought by one of the people from the office that adopted us and there were a TON more presents which included some stuffed animals, a neat wagon that had building blocks for Rylan, a really fun game called Fix The Mix for Mackenzie which is teaching her how to hear something and remember the order it was told to her and she has to figure out how to put it back in that order. I think those were the FAVORITE gifts of Christmas this year. We were blessed beyond words by this company and hope that this next year we can be financially set to be able to adopt a family this year instead of being adopted.

 

Mackenzie's First Dance

Well last night was a first for Mackenzie she got to go to a dance. The ASYMCA (Armed Services YMCA) did their 2nd annual Father Daughter dance and I told Josh he had to take her this year. Last year she didn't go because Josh didn't think she was old enough to enjoy it, but this year she enjoyed it even though they were only there for about 2 hours. The dance was from 6-10, but we all knew she wouldn't make it that long because she woke up at 630am and then took about an hour nap so by the time Josh and Mackenzie left she was yawning. Actually she was yawning the whole hour I was doing her hair because she was tired, but she sat and let me finish her hair and she looked adorable if you ask me. From what I've heard (since I was not part of the dance) they got there and got their professional pictures done and then went to find a seat. Josh said they sat down for about 5 minutes while some instructional dancing lessons were being given that Kenzie probably wouldn't have understood (in other words Josh didn't want to learn the dance). After the instructional dance was done they gave out ice cream and after Kenzie had her ice cream she went to the dance floor with her daddy. Apparently the conversation of the hour with Kenzie and Josh was "daddy I'm going to dance like a ballerina. How are you going to dance" "Like a pumpkin Mackenzie" "daddy Pumpkins don't dance". She had been asking all week how daddy was going to dance and finally got an answer. Kenzie twirled all over the floor and was so enthralled in twirling that Josh said he'd have to call her name because she'd be so far away from him that she couldn't find him when she'd stop and look up. The photographers apparently too a lot of pictures of her so I can't wait for them to be loaded on the ASYMCA website to look at her in action. She got a cute picture of her and her daddy from the professional photographer and a nice "Tiffany's" bracelet that he wanted on as soon as she woke up this morning. She had a great time with her daddy and Josh actually said "next year we'll get there earlier" so all in all it was a success and they had a great time together just Daddy and Kenzie.

 

Christmas in Manteca

Well the kids and I went up to Manteca the day after Christmas to visit with the family. Mom and dad flew in on the 27th in the evening after an interesting adventure with the whole island of Ohau loosing power so they couldn't fly out on the 26th like they were supposed to. The kids and I spent the week at Brett's so that was 8 of us in a 3 bedroom house, but it was fun. We did a LOT of stuff while we were up there and by the 1st the kids were VERY ready to come home and sleep in their own beds. On the 30th we took BART over to the city (San Francisco incase you didn't know) and met GG and grandpa bob, Aunt Julie, Uncle Maury, Taryn, Aunt Kathy, Uncle Lonnie, Rebecca, Chris, Craig, Joey, Cierra and Kyle (my mom's side of the family missing a LOT) and went ice skating. Here are the pictures from that.



On the 31st we took the kids to the snow and had a great time. Mackenzie and Rylan had NEVER played or even seen snow so it was so much fun watching them play. They tried out the sled, but because they don't weigh enough the sled went too fast for them. We then did what the Hinton's do best and used trash bags for the little kids to slide down the hill on. Jace and Kaleb had a blast going down the hill on the sleds and both ended up in the trees at one point or another and we laughed and laughed. Mackenzie's favorite part was building a snowman with Uncle Brett. She even used one of auntie Brittney's chips for a nose because we didn't have a carrot.

Christmas

Well tomorrow's Christmas and it's been a LONG time since I've actually taken 2 minutes to sit here and blog. My New Years resolution is to actually take time and blog since we have family all over the US now that mom and dad are in Hawaii. This year has been quite a year and it's changed our lives in many ways. We've made some new fantastic friends and had to say goodbye to some best friends, which when you're 3 is not easy. In December of 2008 my best friend in San Diego (Lindsey) left to head out to Pittsburgh, PA while her husband was deployed. In her being so far away from us her beautiful little girl, who is like my niece, got critically ill and that was just as scary as having my own child in the hospital. With the grace of God Derrick made it home and thank GOD it was taken care of and things seem to be getting better for them. In February Rylan turned 1 and I can't believe my baby will be 2 in a few months. In March I took the kids out to Hawaii and had a BLAST. There were 8 of us at my parents little 2 bedroom condo, but it was so worth it to go spend time with Brett, the boys and my parents. We did get stranded thanks to ATA closing, but we weren't really stranded since we had a place to stay and no hotel fee's. We started our 2nd deployment in May which was a lot different than the first one. The first one was a lot harder to say goodbye than this time (at least for me). It was probably harder on Josh because instead of just saying bye to Mackenzie and I he had to add Rylan into the mix. In July I decided try to be neat like Lindsey and fell down the stairs holding Rylan (he's fine). It's a good thing I had such a great friend who lived around the corner and came picked me up off the floor, dropped the kids off at her house with her husband and took me to the ER. Nothing was broken, but I was on crutches for 3 weeks (mind you Josh was deployed). The ER technician found an abnormality in my foot and told me I should talk to my Dr about doing an MRI and so we did one which did not end how I was hoping it would. July 3rd was our first real ER trip with Rylan who on the way there turned purple on me. He had a massive asthma attack and after a breathing treatment, scope to make sure he hadn't swallowed something, and bloodwork to rule out CHF (congestive heart failure) because my grandfather died from that. That was a fun scare with me since Josh wasn't home. Mackenzie turned 3 in July and she is amazing me everyday with the new things she's learned. My little princess can write her name which just amazes me and she's trying to learn how to spell Rylan. In August I went and saw an orthopedic surgeon who said "I'm not touching it you need a foot and ankle surgeon" so there started the craziness with Tricare trying to get them to approve me seeing a specialist. Finally got into see one and surgery was scheduled for September 8th. August was a really hard month for our family because I had to do the WORST thing a military family has to do which is say goodbye to the person who's been there for everything for the last 2 years and had to watch my daughter say goodbye to her first best friend (I'm crying just thinking about it). Derrick, Lindsey, Jamison and Izabelle have been our best friends here for the last 2 years and it's hard to watch them go across the country knowing we'll never live this close again unless something really strange happens (we lived 10 houses from each other). The end of August abruptly ended our deployment by Josh coming home so that I could have this surgery which would keep me off my feet for 6 weeks (hahaha he got to be Mr. mom). The 8th of September came and I had my surgery which was worse than anyone expected. It took longer than they expected and was more painful than I expected (especially with the stinking nerve block not working). For the rest of September I was up in bed about 90% of the time while Josh was taking care of the kids, house and everything else. I am very blessed to have a husband who can and will take care of that kind of stuff. He did learn really quickly how hard it is to be a stay at home mom and he said he'd rather be on the boat with the amount of work he had to do. September 30th I finally got my cast on instead of having it splinted and wrapped. By October I was at least able to come down the stairs and be part of the family which I was really missing being upstairs. October 14th I got my cast off and got the boot on which was very interesting, but much needed so that I could actually take a shower without worrying about my cast getting wet. October 28th I started learning how to walk again and it's been an amazing recovery. Josh went back to work FULL time on the 29th of October and was on the USS Pinckney while waiting for the USS Thach to get back home. November marked a tragic point in our lives when my "other mom" Altha passed after a 14+ year battle with breast cancer. I miss her more than anything in the world, but we know she's in God's presence and probably goofing off with Grandma Midge and Grand mom Odine and no longer suffering from the cancer that took her from us. Josh and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on the 6th of November. Well we didn't celebrate it that day because I flew to Manteca on our anniversary to be home for Altha's funeral on the 7th, but hey it was my turn to miss one since Josh has missed the other 3. We do have FANTASTIC neighbors who watched the kids that weekend so we could go out to eat with no kids. We have some VERY regularly scheduled days in our week which makes it go by much faster and we have a blast. We have become great friends with our neighbors and we all get a good laugh that their last name is Zigler and we get each other's mail. We spend a lot of time together and are loving having another great friend like we had in the Furr's. Not that the Furr's can ever be replaced, but it's nice to have someone to talk to on a daily basis. Our weeks consist of Craft Group on Mondays and MOPS on Wednesdays. We also have a set play date with the Zigler kids at about 3 (or right after nap time) everyday, but Thursday because of mid week services for the Ziglers. Play dates are great because we pull the van's out of the driveway and let the kids play while Dotty and I sit at the patio table and talk (Josh and Chris join us if they're home). We have another deployment coming very soon and it will be Mackenzie's 3rd deployment in the 3 1/2 short years of her life (she'll turn 4 during it) and Rylan's 2nd by the time he's 2 1/2. We also face a possible move because Josh is up for orders right now which means our time on the boat we're currently assigned to is up the end of August and we have to find somewhere else. Our picks for places right now stand as #1 San Diego (we don't want to move), #2 Hawaii, #3 Washington. All in all our year has been VERY eventful with best friends moving, making new friends, loosing ones we love and surgery. Those of you we don't see on a weekly or daily basis we miss you and those we do it has been amazing to have you in our lives. Have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy New Year! ~ Andrea, Mackenzie, Rylan, and Josh Bigler

New Year!

Well in the 3 years we’ve been married the plan every year has been to write a Christmas letter. Well this year it didn’t happen again, but we’re doing a letter anyway even though it‘s February and we‘re just getting it out. It has been quite a year for us with lots of ups and downs but we’ve made it through. In September we made our 3rd move since being married and still haven’t left San Diego. We had been looking into buying a house, but in the process found out that the stuff we could actually afford with Andrea staying home 90% of the time instead of going back to work wasn’t something we wanted to live in or was in a bad area. We made the decision as a family to move into base housing and it’s been a nice experience. The houses are nice and we actually have a front and back yard for the kids to play in. As a family this Christmas we were blessed beyond what we could have imagined by being part of Operation Homefront’s Adopt-A-Family where we were blessed with a gift of $1,000 to do what we wished for Christmas. What an amazing group of people the San Diego Yacht Club is. We couldn’t begin to thank them enough.
Josh finished his 10th year in the Navy and only has 10 more to go before retiring at 37 (won’t that be nice). He’s been aboard the USS Thach since August of 2005 and unfortunately has not been the best command to say the least, but we make the best of it and are looking forward to new orders in 2009. With another deployment approaching fast we’re preparing our family for the separation once again. As much as Josh hates being gone from the family it’s not as horrible as we thought it would be at first. One of his daily activities while at home is rough housing with the kids which inevitably leads to at least 1 person getting hurt, which usually ends up being Mackenzie, but hey they’re having fun. He’s starting to get Rylan in on the rough housing which is fun to watch.
Andrea is still a stay at home mom, but now is working part time to at least get some adult interaction from time to time. She is selling PartyLite and is working toward going on the cruise that PartyLite sends them on in May. It has been a great outlet for her to get out of the house and feel like she’s helping the family because the money she makes has been paying for most if not all of the van payment every month. Andrea got her first REAL taste of Military life and how people that you met just over a year ago become your best friends very quickly and are soon the only family you have around you. She also had to experience the worst of military “families” when they have to move across the country. Andreas parents moved to Hawaii this last year and that was a tough thing to get through, but she knows they prayed about it and it was a good move for them. Her dad left in February right before Rylan was born and her mom left in July. The good thing about the difference in when they left is that now her mom can honestly say she has a grasp on a little bit of a deployment feel with Kent being so far away.
Mackenzie’s growing like a weed and way too smart for her own good. She turned 2 in July and loved having 2 different birthday celebrations. The week before her birthday we went out to Florida and spent a week in Disneyworld with Nana, Papa, Uncle Brett, Auntie Meow, Jace and Bubby. Talk about a BLAST. She loved meeting all the characters and we can’t wait to take her to Disneyland sometime before Josh deploys. She is a fantastic big sister and loves playing with RyRy in her room with all her toys. She is loving our new house and the fact that she has a “backard” as she calls it. We have some things that we do every week and she loves both Mom & Tots as well as Craft Group. Because of Mom & Tots she has learned so many songs as well as her left from her right. Every Wednesday she knows it’s Mom & Tots day and that Thursdays are Craft Group day. She has made a lot of new friends and in her short 2 years has also learned how the military works and that we make good friends and then they have to move. She misses her “J” very much, but we’re hoping to get out to Pittsburg to see them while Josh is deployed.
Rylan joined our family February 24th 2007 and is the complete opposite of Mackenzie. He has been very quite since he was born with very little crabbing. He is growing up so fast and in a few short weeks he will be turning 1 which we can’t hardly believe. Rylan’s favorite thing in the world to do is chase Mackenzie around the house and attack her. He’s learning so much so fast and it’s crazy. We love having him in our family and couldn’t imagine it without him,.
We hope you all have had a great year and continue to have one this year.
The Biglers
Andrea, Josh, Mackenzie and Rylan