Victoria & Chris' Wedding

On November 14th our good friends Victoria and Chris were married in a beautiful ceremony at the Carnegie Institution of Washington DC. Although not the official match maker, I was responsible for bringing Chris to Orbital. He met Victoria on his first day there (he and Victoria worked on a small 3 person team) and the rest is history. I had the honor of standing up with Chris as a member of the groom's party, a first for me. The girls (Victoria, her maid of honor Georgene, and the moms) were pampered by both a hair stylist and makeup artist as we got ready for the big day. Thank you Victoria for that special treat...especially for a 5 month old pregnant lady.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so until the professional pictures become available, I just have a few pictures I copied off a snapfish album, so the quality isn't great.

There were 6 bridal party members, 4 males and 2 females. Georgene and I were told to pick out a long dress we liked...what could be easier. Lucky for me, the dress I picked out 3 months earlier fit the baby bump perfectly.

The happy couple!
Their first dance was "fly me to the moon"...very appropriate for two space enthusiasts and Orbital employees.

Congratulations Chris and Victoria!

Aiken in the Fall

I'm trying to catch up with November and am starting with the beginning of November. Geoffrey had a long work trip at the beginning of the month, so Isabel and I used the trip as a good excuse to fly for Aiken for a week. We had a great time and Isabel loved the warmer weather, and of course extra attention from Grandma and Grandpa. Our flight down was smooth for the most part, minus a few tears when boarding the plane and a 20 minute delay getting off of the plane. The flight attendant claimed I didn't need a seat belt extender (I did) and her seat wound up almost becoming a permanent fixture of seat 1A. It wound up taking 2 pilots and the flight attendant to free the carseat.

Isabel has really been mothering lately, and always insisted on feeding her penguin and hippo...and they had to wear bibs.

Already taking after mommy, having fun with coupons.

Isabel saw Grandma using the watering can and decided she could help as well. She attempted to get every last drop out of the already used watering can.

Who needs toys? One of Isabel's favorites from this trip was a small, round laundry basket that she enjoyed sitting in.

Isabel decided that her baby needed to take a ride on this horse and string. She later attempted to sit on the horse which didn't work nearly as well as the baby did.

The silly fur hat was my Grandma Schaeffer's and made a great dress up item.

Grandpa taught Isabel about drawing on the window condensation.

Isabel was excited about one of the new sleeper's we bought for Mia and tried to make off with it by climbing upstairs.

Of course a trip to Aiken would not be complete without a visit to feed the ducks.

The flight back went very smoothly, with no tears or stuck car seats (this time we insisted on the seat belt extender). We had such a great time, but were happy to be home and to welcome Daddy back a few days later.

MIA and Mia

Just a quick update to let you know that we are not MIA. The past couple weeks have been pretty busy. It all began two weeks ago when Isabel and I boarded a plane to SC and Geoffrey boarded a plane for some work travel. The week was followed up by three lovely events surrounding the wedding of Victoria and Chris (I was in the wedding). Throwing in work, an airline delay on Geoffrey's end, a few CPR classes and normal life with an active toddler, one isn't left with much time to blog or download pictures. Hopefully next week I'll have a major update on the photo end, as there are plenty of good ones to share. Geoffrey and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary on Wednesday and are lucky enough to be having my mom come up for the weekend so we can take a short getaway, just the two of us. To say that I cannot wait would be an understatement.

As for the other part of this post - we have a name! No middle name yet, but we will be naming our second daughter Mia. Isabel is actually mostly responsible for coming up with the name. After the sonogram we had been talking about names and would jokingly ask Isabel what we should name her sister. At one point, she started chanting "Mia, mia, mia." thought it sounded more like "Meeea, Meeea, Meeea." Geoffrey and I both kind of looked at one another and said, Hmm, I really like that. Mia?! We let it sit for our respective trips and decided on Friday that would indeed be the name. I love being able to call the bean by name now, and Isabel likes to identify clothes that are Mia's (we got a few new things in Aiken), and will point to what will be Mia's room and say "Mia's (pause) room" very matter of factly. We hope she will be just as excited to meet Mia, as she is about naming her room, clothing and other items that will be the baby's.

Happy Halloween

Halloween this year didn't happen quite as we planned, but that is how life goes with little ones :). The Thursday before Halloween Isabel spiked a fever of 103 and by Friday was almost up to 104. We knew that the lovely H1N1 was going around, so we called the pediatrician's office and Geoffrey took Isabel in. A course of Tamiflu was prescribed and we were to treat it as the flu, as they have all but stopped doing the H1N1 test because the test can give a negative when indeed the child has the virus. Friday night was rough, her fever went to 104.5 and she was up many times a night just needing some comfort. As a parent, I don't think there is anything worse than seeing your child sick and in pain. My heart goes out to those parents who have to experience this on a regular basis, as we've been super lucky with this being Isabel's first major illness beyond a cold.

Isabel's fever started to break Halloween afternoon, but we knew that trick-or-treating was not in the cards for her. She had no interest in carving the pumpkin and just wanted to be held and cuddled, and we were happy to oblige. She went to bed early Halloween night and woke up without a fever Sunday morning, feeling a little better, but not her happy little self. A bit before lunchtime, she expressed interest in wearing her "bug" as she calls it, and we got her dressed and let her go trick or treating in the house and on the front porch with our leftover candy (although she didn't get to try any, since we only had butterfingers and she isn't supposed to have peanut products until age 2). She had a good time for about 15 minutes or so it and it was so nice to see a smile back on her face.

So what exactly do I do with this pumpkin?



Ohhh, it holds neat stuff. I'm not quite sure what this candy stuff is, but it makes fun noises when I squeeze it.

You mean I get another one? Yay!

I had hoped to get her to pose with the pumpkin I had carved, but she really wasn't into posing and we didn't want to rock the boat with our happy girl.

We asked her if she thought the pumpkin was hungry and she immediately decided he was...

...and apparently he was hungry via his eye.


That's more like it. Pumpkins eat with their mouths too.


During her time of being sick, Isabel had little to no appetite, and on Sunday I was getting a wee bit concerned. I asked her if she wanted some ice cream (the last time she'd had some was in July) and she responded "ICE CREAM!!!" Which Geoffrey and I thought was a good sign. So we let her eat as much ice cream as she wanted (a whopping 2 tablespoons), all while wearing the stocking hat that she insisted on modeling. We think she might have been cold and achy, as she kept repeating "boo boo" about every 5 minutes, but wouldn't point to a specific part of her body. Poor Isabel.



As a final sick day treat, we decided to see if Isabel would enjoy watching the fish from "Finding Nemo". She was interested in watching the first 30 minutes or so and calling out "shish!" each time a fish came on screen. Geoffrey snapped this picture of the excited fish girl after returning from a trip to the mall to buy Isabel a coat.

By Tuesday Isabel had pretty much returned to her old self. She is happy again, laughs a lot and is eating food and drinking her milk and water as she did before. Whether or not it was H1N1, we'll never know, and I'm hoping that enough vaccine will come around that she can get her second dose in 2 weeks (she did receive her first dose 6 days before coming down with her fever) and we won't have to worry about it period.

We hope that everyone had a great Halloween (or post Halloween) and stays healthy!