Do you love Yosemite?

Well yet again we have had an incredible turn of events in our family. Everybody knows who the Heimlichs are, right? If you don't- they are my adopted family. I always say that I have two families. My biological family and then there are the Heimlichs, my adopted family. I lived with them after Ruby was born, they took care of Ruby for those years that I worked at Chili's. They have been an integral part of my life and of my family's life. Anyway, Tim and I invited them over for dinner last week to tell them the news and ask for their counsel about what would be the best decision for our family. They, last month, bought a retirement home in Bass Lake which is 10 miles or so from the entrance of Yosemite, and they offered it to us to live in until we can get ourselves financially stable. The only thing was if Tim can get a transfer to the Chili's in Fresno, about an hour away. We found out that he can!!! We are moving, AHH! We are moving to Bass Lake into a 6 bedroom cabin in the woods. Can you believe it? Amazing! This will be so good for our family. Ruby will start school in a small town where hiking and horseback riding are the norm. I'm just so thrilled and amazed. Last week we were biting our nails praying that doors would open and here we are week later moving in June to the mountains near Yosemite where I have spent so many of my summers. SO... if any of you are planning to visit the Yosemite area you need to visit us starting in July. And Cayce I know for a fact that you go to Yosemite. I saw the JH blog, too cute! Seriously, you have a beautiful son. I see that he has his mom's sparkling eyes no doubt. And I saw those thighs, obviously he's a good eater.
Amber, thanks for the affirmation that our job is stressful. It's nice to hear every once in a while. How's the sleeping through night thing with the little one? Is she making it through the night? Luke is doing fine right now, although we are transitioning Ruby back into the room so we'll see how that goes. We are celebrating his first birthday tomorrow. I can't believe that a whole year has gone by. There were times it didn't feel fast enough, esp. those many night feedings, but all in all it's been quick. And now he's walking about 80% of the time. He's a boy on the move.
Keep you posted on the move!
Love,
Danielle

Welcome Cayce

Wow, it's so fun to continue to hear from people! Sounds like you have a great family Cayce. How exciting that you and Jeremy have your own studio! Sounds like a great thing. How do you like motherhood? Is it what you expected? I actually just heard a stat from a MOPS speaker the other day......apparently mothers of preschoolers have the 2nd most stressful job in the country, doctors and lawyers are of course first! (Okay, maybe the mafia is up there too) But isn't that encouraging? It's not just me, my job is hard! Anyway, I'm glad to hear things are going well for you Cayce. More babies!!! Congrats Dephanie on little Estelle , how is that going? Hey do you still need some help figuring this blog thing out? All you need to do is go to the web address: www.blogger.com and click on sign-in in the upper right hand corner, then it will have you pick a username and password. Then once you are set up, you will sign in with your username and password and then click on "New Post" and then it gives you a box to type in....it is pretty self explanatory from there. It really isn't too hard. But I know we would all love to hear from you....I know that right now you don't have much free time....so we can wait patiently!! Also, congrats on your new bun in the oven Danielle:-) I must say, I have begun wanting to be pregnant again! Chris and I are finished, but I really enjoyed being pregnant.....hopefully this will pass! Thanks for the updates Amy! It is so fun to hear how life has been in Croatia! Things are well here in Vancouver, WA....just waiting for allergy season and sick kids to be OVER!!! Love you guys!
Amber

Back in Touch

that is so great danielle!! (this is cayce by the way)congratulations!! wow, i am seriously going through time as i read these posts. renee, your post cracked me up. well, a lot of people's did actually. skippy's story about her girls flipping out really got me. and danielle, your's made me totally laugh b/c i could hear you saying everything you wrote in a couple of your posts. anyway, it is refreshing to hear the stories from everyone. thanks for letting me be a part. amy, so exciting you are in croatia. someone sent me one of those "getting to know your friends" questionaires (which i actually love playing-i think it's the only forward email i do), and one of the questions was,"if you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?" and i said croatia. you know i still have alot of relatives over there, so if you see any scurich peoples, tell em hi for me! congrats to jana-sounds like you found a good one! and amber your kids are beautiful! actually everyone's are! so fun to see where we all go-i hope wa. is treating traci and rachel well. congrats to dephanie. i absolutely love the name estelle. i hope "the boy" is still working out for you susie. well, life here in santa cruz is great. i returned to work in feb. and it has worked out so nicely going back. i teach afterschool art classes in a studio jer and i started here and so i can take jack henry with me when i go. the kids love having him there and needless to say, he loves them and the attention they give him. so far it is working out great. jer is teaching english to high schoolers and loves it. he is also working construction on the side. he is quite good i must say. he remodeled our whole house. we bought a big time junker and have loved fixing it up ever since. i actually am embarrased to admit it, but we have a blog going on our kid. we did it to keep in touch with all of the people that live in south carolina and for people far from us now; if you want to check it out there are way too many pics, but be my guest. it is : jackhenryellison.blogspot.com please dont think i am trying to get more pics in, it's just an easy way to keep in touch. jer's dad goes crazy over it, it means everything to him to get updated. anyway, just thought i would write to say hi. i just got back in touch with shari k. too and it is so great. love to all, kc

+1 makes three!!!

Tim and I are finally announcing that we are pregnant...again! I have an appointment in May to see exactly how far along I am, although I would guess 9 -10 weeks. While this wasn't exactly planned on, we are becoming more excited about it. I'll tell you though, it doesn't matter how careful we are if we forget even one time apparently thats all it takes with me. So our talk of moving Arizona has now gone from casual to more determined. We are consulting some couples from church whose advice we trust and are really seriously thinking about the move. My whole hang up is that I don't want to move from my support system here and have a baby without them. But at the same time it's really expensive to live here and moving to Arizona would make it so that I really don't have to go back to work. Lots of questions that Tim and I have, but ultimately we need to decide which is best for our family. Keep us in your prayers or at least thoughts and if you all have some advice I would be opened to hear it. Thanks!
p.s. Congrats to Dephanie!!!! How exciting!

Congratulations Dephanie!

You probably all heard that Dephanie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on April 20th. Her name is Estelle Leonie Lilite. Just wanted to say congrats! That makes two gorgeous girls for Deph & Louima. Hope you are doing well and surviving the blur of those first few weeks.

Dephanie, just the other day I finally saw your comment on the blog about needing instructions on how to post to the blog. I will try to e-mail you about how to do that (or any other girls can too). I never would have figured it out except Greg helped me. Not that you have time to blog right now! But you can have Louima post a picture of the new baby sometime. =)

I am crashing the blog party!!

hope you all don't mind!!! just figured out how to get on this thing. it's cayce (was scurich, now ellison) by the way!! i ran into susie the other day at the grocery store, because that is what people do when they live in the same town (it only took us like 12 years to do it!)and she was telling me about you all. i am so happy you guys have kept in touch through these years. i only wish i had been better at doing it. i would love to stay connected and this seems to be the way. i have loved reading through the entries and learning where we have all gone. i am still in santa cruz. will be here forever if i have anything to say about it. we will see. it isn' the cheapest place, that's foresure!! jer and i have been married 6 years in july. crazy how fast the time goes. we have a little muncher-jack henry ellison. he is almost 6 months and i am currently listening to him talking to himself in his crib. he just woke from his nap. i love hearing about what everyone is up to, so if it is okay i will be checking and writing when i can. hope to all that your lives are rich and full-great being in touch again! love, cayce

Adventures

Just feeling like saying hi to all. Thought I'd tell you all the story of the boy. Basically, I hit a wall with bad dating experiences and signed off of e-harmony in a huff. Then, I figured -- well, I've got about 20 more days already paid for -- so I might as well keep the account open. In the meantime, I got back in touch with John from Canada and found out he was still in love with me -- but also still convinced he was never going to get married. Blah. Of course I've gotta fall for the boys with the committment issues at 30! Anyways, meanwhile, I started getting daily messages from Sumanth on e-harmony. I was completely incredulous about finding someone at that point, but -- as there were no blazing red flags -- I kept emailing back.

Well, then he asked for my number, called the next day, and we talked. and talked and talked. It was crazy. I think our first conversation was 3 or 4 hours. He asked GOOD QUESTIONS! He totally impressed me -- with his ethics, compassion, intelligence, ability to listen and make me laugh. He flew out from Philadelphia a couple of weeks later (by that time I'm pretty sure we had logged between 30 or 40 phone hours). It took me the first day or so to register that he was real and connect the person in front of me with the person I'd been spilling my guts to (and totally charmed by).

After that, it was just good. We did all sorts of funny stuff, like take him to the GAP and totally redress him so that he was appropriately attired for Santa Cruz (he was starting to feel uncomfortable wearing a polo and nice shoes when everyone else was in flip-flops). He insisted on taking my mom out to breakfast then bringing her leftovers of the dinner he made for me (VERY effective schmoozing)! He even volunteered to go to one of my doctor's appointments. That was cool. He's been amazing about trying to support me in the whole process. He gets super adamant that I don't give up pushing the doctors to figure out what's wrong with me. And he quizes me every day to make sure I'm taking all my meds and doing all the stuff I'm supposed to. It's pretty cool. I've been tapering down the antidepressant Lexapro I've been taking (it may have been making the weight gain worse -- and I seemed to have gained a tolerance to help with my energy level and mood), so he's been pouring on the extra moral support. It's really nice to not feel alone with all the medical stuff.

As for that, I have a referral to the director of endocrinology at UCSF. I'm calling tomorrow to set up the appointment. My recent med changes do seem to be increasing my energy. But my immune system is still shot (I think I'm on my 8th sickness since November). I'm also still getting all of the other lovely sympoms (hot flashes, a lovely beard, a belly that you could easily mistake for carrying one of those cute babies most of you have, etc! (by the way, CONGRATS to Deph and Louima! How beautiful are their children!!!!!) I'm really hoping that they'll agree to do a CT scan and MRI to see if there is a detectable tumor on my pituitary gland -- rather than just keep making me wait and repeat tests every couple months. Feel free to pray for all that if you wish.

So, those are the recent adventures. Love to you all. (and sleep too -- I hope the babies stop crying soon!)

Susie