15th letter
Wed. 11/29/06
The irony (maybe not the best word to describe it?) of me being up right now…it’s only 11pm, we put Brock down at 8:30, he got fussy just a bit ago, I held him for a bit, he went back to sleep. So shouldn’t I be in bed? He kept me up til 3am last night, and 5am the night before (maybe I should be saying morning). So of course I’ve been tired. But now of course, I can’t sleep.
I’m not sure how I always seem to end up writing these letters on Wednesdays…it’s definitely not planned that way, it just happens. I’m not sure how our little babes got on such a weird sleeping schedule these last couple days. Good thing I didn’t have to be anywhere in the mornings. He’s pretty good about eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping, into the afternoon. So we sleep half our day away it seems. Can you believe this kid is 2 months old??! Yep, Monday was the 27th. I guess since he was born on a Wednesday, that makes him 9 weeks old today. He got his 2-month-old shots (immunizations) today. Bryan took him to get them while I was taking my test on main base. I like that they’re free….I like how all of this medical stuff has been free….with 2 surgeries and all his antibiotics when he was born, that has been really nice!! We were meant to be in the Air Force when we had our first kid!
For the most part Bryan is back on his regular work schedule. Thank goodness. They were saying at work that when they have days with nothing to do, that they’ll take off and go snowboarding!! How nice for Bryan eh? Yeah. It has not snowed here yet. It’s always in the forecast…but it never comes. But it’s in the 40’s so it definitely should be soon. I’ve been sick the last couple weeks. We keep our room pretty cold and we didn’t have our comforter out yet, and I’d wake up cold in the middle of the night, so it was my own dang fault. But anyway, Bryan is going to sign up to be a snowboarding instructor – it actually costs $100, but you can go up every Saturday after he takes the class in January (a 5-day class on the slopes), teach for 2 hours, then have the other 6 hrs to do what you want. If you weren’t an instructor and you just went up with the rec center group, this is something that usually costs $375 and $25/month, so it’s a pretty good deal. It first caught his eye as a leadership position that he’d be able to add to his resume for his officer packet. I told him it would also be one of his Christmas presents!
Thanksgiving was fun. We went to Liz and Justin’s house with a bunch of other people. Mostly it was the people we eat dinner with almost every Sunday. So no turkey buying for us – we just provided the vegetable dish – Bryan cut up and arranged the veggies and he did an excellent job! The Sunday before Thanksgiving we had over 20 people at our house for dinner. Naomi we made your White Chili – it was most excellent as always. I multiplied the recipe by 5. We ended up having probably about a 2-recipe-amount left over but we had no problem eating it over the week. I actually made it again tonight. We love it. But we don’t have the beans in a can so I have to soak beans for it!
Bryan got our car working the Friday before Thanksgiving. Work gave him time to work on it during the day so that was really nice. Otherwise with him getting home at 5 at that time, it was already dark…making it a little more difficult and time consuming for sure. He ended up having to exchange the alternator he bought, and with the next one in, it worked. So had we gotten a good one the FIRST time, we would have had a car working much sooner. Sheesh. So he got it working minutes before it was time to take the borrowed car back. Perfect.
It is now actually Thursday, because I had to go feed my crying kid, and then he was fighting going back to bed. He hasn’t whined for a bit now, so maybe he finally fell asleep. The difference tonight compared to the last 2 is that when I go in there I can tell he’s tired; the other nights his eyes were wide open, wide awake….just not good signs when you’re wanting to go to bed. Because it’s not like he was happy just laying there awake…
Bryan took the AFOQT, like I was talking about in the last letters, and feels he did decent on it. He was expecting to be able to use a calculator and he couldn’t, though. I suspected he wasn’t going to be able to but he thought I was silly for thinking he should figure out some of the math problems without having to use a calculator. Oh well. Now we play the waiting game to get his scores back. It can take anywhere from 3-6 weeks they say. Tomorrow will be 2 weeks. Bryan checks the website several times a day. After he gets those back he will work out the details of getting down to the base near Tokyo to take the pilot TBAS test.
When my mom was here she cut my hair to hit right at my shoulders. I haven’t had her cut my hair for years because….well, you know, certain things you want done to your hair can’t just be done by anyone. So I’m not sure what we were thinking. It was a work in progress the whole last week she was here. But I went and got it straightened at a Japanese hair salon – apparently this isn’t just any straightening, but the one that people tell me costs $400 in the states? So it was expensive – not that expensive, but enough – but worth it!! My hair dries (on its own) so much nicer and it looks much healthier and makes everything much faster. It was my early Christmas present. Ever since my friend here told me she got it done and I saw her before and afters, I’ve wanted to do it. That was back in the summer months – it would have been nice to do it then what with the humidity. Anyways….who cares about my hair huh?
My scarred stomach is finally becoming just that - - scarred – without all the other crap. Hooray!
I think that Brock is growing more hair on top of his head – he’s got some fuzz up there. So maybe he won’t go bald on top after all. It’s so funny when he laughs, I love it! Bryan said my Christmas present should be me and Brock going home. I was like, yeah right, not without you! It’s not even possible – too expensive, too late in the game to schedule that amount of leave so that he could come, and we don’t have Brock’s passport yet. Wishful thinking. …So I stepped on the scale with Brock…and it looks like he might weigh about 15 pounds!! And that was a week ago I think. Next Tuesday he has his 2-month appt so we will get a precise measurement there. That will be interesting to see…but he’s still in 0-3 month clothes.
So we are SO excited, Bryan especially of course, because he really has only a week left of class work to be done…then THAT’S IT!!! The Bachelor’s Degree complete! Sooo awesome. We are proud if you can’t tell. We need to have a major celebration for that one. I’m just excited for this one class that I’m taking to be done. International Business – I don’t think I’ve ever spent this much time on a class! The other one I was registered for got completely neglected – I just couldn’t find time to do that one as well. So I will have to retake it – I was going to next semester but Bryan says I shouldn’t…. after that class there’s maybe one more class I can take online from UVSC for my degree. So the remaining 25 credits I will either have to take somewhere else and then transfer them into UVSC, or they’ll just have to wait until we’re back in Utah at some point in the future. Hmm, but actually I think there’s a requirement that a certain amount of your last credits have to be from UVSC to graduate from there. And I’m certainly not going to transfer it all somewhere else when I have that many – unless there’s some miracle and I find somewhere that they all transfer straight across and I don’t lose anything. Actually, I’m not sure if that’s even possible either…cuz you have to have a certain amount of credits from the college in the first place to get a degree from them…so I’m just rambling now. Bryan’s mom asked, so I just thought I’d explain the situation.
There are some of you that I need to write back to personally – I will get to it! It’s a lot of writing. Really everything is in these letters…mostly anyway. You can see all of how we’re doing, just not in a personalized-to-you manner.
But anyway, it’s late, time for me to go to bed, while Brock is sleeping. I will send some pictures of Brock first, though.
But love you all! Can you believe Friday is December!!! I’m going to be 25! What an oldie!
Love, Us
Julie Bryan Brock
Here is a slideshow of a few pictures - again, just click on the link, then the picture, and the slideshow starts:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2t7pqtrs.4stpldzs&x=0&y=-kbvmqa&localeid=en_US
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
2 months old
Don't be frightened!! Ha ha. That is how Brock's pudgy face looks when Bryan is holding him up in the air horizontally - his chubs just hang down! Bryan thinks Brock's face is hilarious when he does that to him - like, 'hmm, I don't know what's happening but there's nothing I can do about it.'
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
11/15/06 - 14th Letter
14th letter
Wed. 11/15/06
So we are pretty much frustrated out of our minds with the Education Center here. These are the people that are the stepping stones to get Bryan commissioned as an Officer. They don’t know what they’re talking about, and try to turn it around and make it look like WE don’t know what we’re talking about. Either that or the guy we’ve been dealing with the last couple days is COMPLETELY scatterbrained. We know everything we need to do; we just need them for a few things that we can’t do ourselves….like getting them to administer the Officer Qualifying Test….SHEESH. So, we wanted to submit an officer packet in December for the board that meets in January, but that’s not going to happen due mainly to our crappy education center here and their lack of knowledge. So looks like we will be submitting a packet in May/June, for the board that meets in July. This means sometime around August 10th of next year we’ll find out if he was selected or not. We are disappointed in this turn of events…but perhaps it was meant to be. It will give him a chance to put together a more effective packet, and to get a more worthwhile Letter of Recommendation. Plus, he has to go down to Tokyo (Yokota AB) to take a TBAS test that pilot applicants have to take. We had to find out that one on our own…had we known earlier…people here don’t even KNOW what this TBAS is (the people who SHOULD know)…they act like they know, but only after we tell them what it is. I’m so extremely frustrated and I can no longer talk to this guy about any of it, Bryan will have to, because I gave this guy my piece. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t let him make us (me) look like an idiot when he was the idiot. Ugh!!
Alright, I guess I’ve got to let it go even though I’m bugged to death. Tomorrow morning Bryan finally gets to take the test he’s been trying to schedule since August. The Air Force Officer Qualifying Test. A huge deal as it will TOTALLY affect his whole future with the Air Force – his life-long dream of flying for them. This last week he has been doing extra studying for that, finishing his huge 20-page paper, and working on his CDC’s (upgrade training for work) – all with a much longer work schedule. Isn’t he amazing? I think so. That’s why I married him.
Brock is 7 weeks old today which of course as you know, I think is crazy. He is getting chubbier and balder. Soon I suppose he will look like an old man. He has quite the thigh roll. Man, rolls make it hard to wash him! Bryan does an excellent job at washing our babes – I cannot do it! It just makes me frustrated. Brock averages 4-5 hours from each feeding time. And I am learning his little ways. I will send pictures of a bunch of different face “poses.” On one of the last ones I tried to cover some of his chubs (neck and cheek chubs) with my hand… It is really easy to get him to smile. His favorite things to do are to eat, be held, poop, pee, sleep, and grunt.
On Monday I had my 2-week follow up with Dr. Blake concerning my gallbladder surgery. He said that I heal well and all looks fairly good (he didn’t get to see it when it was bad – it itched so very badly all around the 4 surgery sites that I thought I was going to lose my mind – it finally let up and tons of my skin died and peeled off). He said that I might have some pigment change around some of the sites – great. He looked at my c-section scar too – I told him that it is sore here and there and has a few bumps in it. I told him I cannot pull on it to look at it because that hurts. So he looked at it and pulled on it. Later that day I realized I was bleeding on the scar. After a few band-aids I realized the bleeding wasn’t stopping…and I touched it and it felt like a hole! Tuesday I had my 6-week OB appt and I showed them this. The doctor was alarmed but after pushing a Q-tip into the hole to see if it went all the way through (OUCH!!!), she found that it didn’t. So she put some stuff on it to burn it, to help it to heal (OW! OW! OW!!). Man do I wish all could be back to normal on my stomach! Ploka.
Monday morning before my doctor’s appt I took another one of my tests with the proctor here. Bryan was too busy and so Brock had his first babysitter experience!! I had asked Melissa the night before at the potluck if I could bring him in the morning while I took the test. She was great and took him for over 2 hours – what a lifesaver! It sure was hard to be out of the door by 7:30am though!!
Bryan had to get a ride to work so I could take our borrowed car. Yes – our car isn’t working. It completely died the morning Bryan was picking me up from the hospital the morning after my surgery. He had to have it jumped the night before when he was leaving the hospital, then again when he was leaving to come get me, but the car died on the way. Some kind soul picked up Bryan and brought him back home and a guy Bryan works with came over (cuz at this point most of the people we know are at church!) and they went and got a tow rope to bring the car back home. It could not be jumped – it was completely dead. Bryan figured out it was the alternator and after putting that $150 thing in, it kept blowing a fuse when he tried to start the car. Last night Bryan’s supervisor came over and they worked into the evening…and they actually fried 2 sets of jumper cables. They figured somehow the polarity in the alternator must be reversed. So this is where we stand here. So yeah, Bryan has been working on the car this last week, on TOP of everything else he’s been doing. Like I said, amazing. So right now we are driving the work buddy’s car (this is the guy that’s actually his trainer) that helped tow the car back, because he left for the states for a couple of weeks. But now he’s coming back on Sunday…and we still don’t have a car that works. I guess we were just glad it worked long enough to get me to my gallbladder ultrasound, and to the ER when I thought I was going to die.
There was quite the earthquake here last week. It felt like someone was shaking my bed as hard as they could and even went on for a bit. I even got worried. But not worried enough to actually get out of bed of course. It was like the one that happened when my mom was here that scared her pretty bad – it shook the sliding glass doors, and shook the couch she was sitting on…it was funny when she jumped. But this one was even worse. Bryan was already at work, and he didn’t even feel it! It seems like they never feel them there.
Well, I think that’s it for now….yes I can’t think of anything else…
How about some of you that I haven’t heard from in a while let me know how you’re doing….JASON.
Love you all,
The little Blumenkrantz Family (the Japan appendage)
For all the pics, click on the link and then click on the picture to view the slideshow: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2t7pqtrs.4ql0x9u0&x=0&y=-10d5ds&localeid=en_US. There are a lot of "repetitive" pictures - but you know how it is - the grandparents want to see them - so for the rest of you - you can skim! Bryan's dad is always asking for more pictures so I try to do so. The one where Brock's face is being squished together while I'm holding him - I realized it looks like those could be my arms - they're not, they're Bryan's! (I don't have nasty man arms). I also realized from these pictures - I need some sun - sheesh! We can't quite figure out why pictures distort the color of Brock's hair - it doesn't make sense. ...and the camera adds 10 pounds on Brock... haha. Ever so often he likes to look at his nose - hence some of the crossed eyes in the pictures - not so attractive! And then the ones saying goodbye to my mom at the misawa city airport - sad! And it's funny how when Brock is sitting how his head sinks down and really makes him look huge! Oh well - a fat baby is a healthy baby I hear! Love him to death!
**There is also one in there towards the end of a new baby bundled in a blue blanket - that is Ashley Castleberry's boy, Cadence, born Nov. 1st.
And here is the slideshow of Brock's faces: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2t7pqtrs.8o4rm7ew&x=0&y=u0h4xq&localeid=en_US. He's a chunk!!
Wed. 11/15/06
So we are pretty much frustrated out of our minds with the Education Center here. These are the people that are the stepping stones to get Bryan commissioned as an Officer. They don’t know what they’re talking about, and try to turn it around and make it look like WE don’t know what we’re talking about. Either that or the guy we’ve been dealing with the last couple days is COMPLETELY scatterbrained. We know everything we need to do; we just need them for a few things that we can’t do ourselves….like getting them to administer the Officer Qualifying Test….SHEESH. So, we wanted to submit an officer packet in December for the board that meets in January, but that’s not going to happen due mainly to our crappy education center here and their lack of knowledge. So looks like we will be submitting a packet in May/June, for the board that meets in July. This means sometime around August 10th of next year we’ll find out if he was selected or not. We are disappointed in this turn of events…but perhaps it was meant to be. It will give him a chance to put together a more effective packet, and to get a more worthwhile Letter of Recommendation. Plus, he has to go down to Tokyo (Yokota AB) to take a TBAS test that pilot applicants have to take. We had to find out that one on our own…had we known earlier…people here don’t even KNOW what this TBAS is (the people who SHOULD know)…they act like they know, but only after we tell them what it is. I’m so extremely frustrated and I can no longer talk to this guy about any of it, Bryan will have to, because I gave this guy my piece. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t let him make us (me) look like an idiot when he was the idiot. Ugh!!
Alright, I guess I’ve got to let it go even though I’m bugged to death. Tomorrow morning Bryan finally gets to take the test he’s been trying to schedule since August. The Air Force Officer Qualifying Test. A huge deal as it will TOTALLY affect his whole future with the Air Force – his life-long dream of flying for them. This last week he has been doing extra studying for that, finishing his huge 20-page paper, and working on his CDC’s (upgrade training for work) – all with a much longer work schedule. Isn’t he amazing? I think so. That’s why I married him.
Brock is 7 weeks old today which of course as you know, I think is crazy. He is getting chubbier and balder. Soon I suppose he will look like an old man. He has quite the thigh roll. Man, rolls make it hard to wash him! Bryan does an excellent job at washing our babes – I cannot do it! It just makes me frustrated. Brock averages 4-5 hours from each feeding time. And I am learning his little ways. I will send pictures of a bunch of different face “poses.” On one of the last ones I tried to cover some of his chubs (neck and cheek chubs) with my hand… It is really easy to get him to smile. His favorite things to do are to eat, be held, poop, pee, sleep, and grunt.
On Monday I had my 2-week follow up with Dr. Blake concerning my gallbladder surgery. He said that I heal well and all looks fairly good (he didn’t get to see it when it was bad – it itched so very badly all around the 4 surgery sites that I thought I was going to lose my mind – it finally let up and tons of my skin died and peeled off). He said that I might have some pigment change around some of the sites – great. He looked at my c-section scar too – I told him that it is sore here and there and has a few bumps in it. I told him I cannot pull on it to look at it because that hurts. So he looked at it and pulled on it. Later that day I realized I was bleeding on the scar. After a few band-aids I realized the bleeding wasn’t stopping…and I touched it and it felt like a hole! Tuesday I had my 6-week OB appt and I showed them this. The doctor was alarmed but after pushing a Q-tip into the hole to see if it went all the way through (OUCH!!!), she found that it didn’t. So she put some stuff on it to burn it, to help it to heal (OW! OW! OW!!). Man do I wish all could be back to normal on my stomach! Ploka.
Monday morning before my doctor’s appt I took another one of my tests with the proctor here. Bryan was too busy and so Brock had his first babysitter experience!! I had asked Melissa the night before at the potluck if I could bring him in the morning while I took the test. She was great and took him for over 2 hours – what a lifesaver! It sure was hard to be out of the door by 7:30am though!!
Bryan had to get a ride to work so I could take our borrowed car. Yes – our car isn’t working. It completely died the morning Bryan was picking me up from the hospital the morning after my surgery. He had to have it jumped the night before when he was leaving the hospital, then again when he was leaving to come get me, but the car died on the way. Some kind soul picked up Bryan and brought him back home and a guy Bryan works with came over (cuz at this point most of the people we know are at church!) and they went and got a tow rope to bring the car back home. It could not be jumped – it was completely dead. Bryan figured out it was the alternator and after putting that $150 thing in, it kept blowing a fuse when he tried to start the car. Last night Bryan’s supervisor came over and they worked into the evening…and they actually fried 2 sets of jumper cables. They figured somehow the polarity in the alternator must be reversed. So this is where we stand here. So yeah, Bryan has been working on the car this last week, on TOP of everything else he’s been doing. Like I said, amazing. So right now we are driving the work buddy’s car (this is the guy that’s actually his trainer) that helped tow the car back, because he left for the states for a couple of weeks. But now he’s coming back on Sunday…and we still don’t have a car that works. I guess we were just glad it worked long enough to get me to my gallbladder ultrasound, and to the ER when I thought I was going to die.
There was quite the earthquake here last week. It felt like someone was shaking my bed as hard as they could and even went on for a bit. I even got worried. But not worried enough to actually get out of bed of course. It was like the one that happened when my mom was here that scared her pretty bad – it shook the sliding glass doors, and shook the couch she was sitting on…it was funny when she jumped. But this one was even worse. Bryan was already at work, and he didn’t even feel it! It seems like they never feel them there.
Well, I think that’s it for now….yes I can’t think of anything else…
How about some of you that I haven’t heard from in a while let me know how you’re doing….JASON.
Love you all,
The little Blumenkrantz Family (the Japan appendage)
For all the pics, click on the link and then click on the picture to view the slideshow: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2t7pqtrs.4ql0x9u0&x=0&y=-10d5ds&localeid=en_US. There are a lot of "repetitive" pictures - but you know how it is - the grandparents want to see them - so for the rest of you - you can skim! Bryan's dad is always asking for more pictures so I try to do so. The one where Brock's face is being squished together while I'm holding him - I realized it looks like those could be my arms - they're not, they're Bryan's! (I don't have nasty man arms). I also realized from these pictures - I need some sun - sheesh! We can't quite figure out why pictures distort the color of Brock's hair - it doesn't make sense. ...and the camera adds 10 pounds on Brock... haha. Ever so often he likes to look at his nose - hence some of the crossed eyes in the pictures - not so attractive! And then the ones saying goodbye to my mom at the misawa city airport - sad! And it's funny how when Brock is sitting how his head sinks down and really makes him look huge! Oh well - a fat baby is a healthy baby I hear! Love him to death!
**There is also one in there towards the end of a new baby bundled in a blue blanket - that is Ashley Castleberry's boy, Cadence, born Nov. 1st.
And here is the slideshow of Brock's faces: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2t7pqtrs.8o4rm7ew&x=0&y=u0h4xq&localeid=en_US. He's a chunk!!
He's getting fatter...
10/29/06 - 1 month old
Losing that hair!
10/30/06 - Oh no! Saying goodbye...
11/3/06
11/6/06
Brock's faces
11/14/06 - 7 weeks old
What a chunk!!
His face/head looks very 'displaced' in these pictures...
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
11/1/06 - 13th Letter
13th letter
Wed. 11/01/06
Brock is 5 weeks old today – good crud!
So we took my mom to the airport Monday afternoon and man was that hard. It was so great to have her here – everything was very easy, I got plenty of sleep, and it was so fun! I have to admit, I cried and cried on Monday, sheesh – it was hard to see her go. It accentuated the fact that we are so far away from everyone. But it especially worked out that she was here at the end…
Because as some of you know (from mom’s emails), I had surgery last Saturday morning. For the last 2-3 weeks I’d had about 4 “episodes” of pain that at first sort of felt like a horrible stomach ache – but only at the very top – really it was right below my sternum. The pain would wake me from my sleep and last anywhere from 30 min to an hour and a half. The first 2 attacks were like that and then it was also in my back, directly behind where it hurt in my chest. Then, Thursday night (or I guess I should say early Friday morning) after I put the baby back in bed after feeding him, I went back to sleep for 15 minutes before being woken up by this pain. Within 10 minutes it hurt more than it ever had, and the pain seemed to have a wider radius – hurting on the right side of my chest as well, and actually up in my chest too. I could barely breathe, and making a lot of noise as I tried to suck in some air. I woke Bryan up (this is after 2am) and we went to the ER. The 10-min drive there about killed me and I about threw up in the car. They tried giving me a few things that didn’t work, and after about an hour of this intense pain the attack lessened and felt more like a normal attack, so I could at least breathe. Then they gave me a little Demerol and the pain was almost completely gone it was so nice. To make a horribly long story short, my mom and I had talked to a nurse a few times about these attacks but she had been convinced it was NOT a problem with gall stones – after bugging her long enough on Friday, after spending a few hrs in the ER that morning, she put in an order for me to get an ultrasound of my gallbladder (she was quite frustrated with me by this point) – I called Radiology for an appt for it- they didn’t have an opening ‘til Nov. 28th – but they called later and got me in at 3pm that day – a miracle. Anyway, I got lucky and when the tech in radiology was trying to find my OB doctor to show her the ultrasound results, the main surgeon was there and he looked at my ultrasound. He came down and took me to the surgery clinic where he told me and my mom that I had multiple small stones in my gallbladder and that my description of my pain was pretty much a text book response of gall stone symptoms (yet no one else would listen). By this time of day I had thrown up close to 5 times – he admitted me so they could get some fluids through an IV into me to get me away from my dehydrated state, and Saturday morning my gallbladder was removed. It all happened very quickly without preparation (a little dejavu…like what happened a month ago!) for it (mental preparation I guess you could say). The doctor said my stones were small and squishy, and that I had a bunch of other sludge in my gallbladder, and that it was a little more wedged into the liver than normal – but the surgery went as planned – laparoscopically – and no major incisions had to be made – 3 holes and a cut out of the belly button. My mom was a huge help and took care of Brock at home while Bryan was able to spend the day with me at the hospital. I stayed in the hospital the night after the surgery and I was discharged Sunday afternoon. I was extremely sad because the whole last weekend with my mom and our plans to show her more of Japan was ruined, but she was happy that she was there to help. Friends brought us dinner Mon., Tues., and Wed., nights – so that was really nice. Bryan has had to work though, so that was a little hard, especially since he found out Tuesday afternoon that day shift was going to last 2 hours longer now, until 5pm. Aahh! Not happy about that – of all weeks to change to that, too!! So until further notice, his shift is 6am-5pm Mon-Fri – so much for our “cushy” hours….so hopefully there is “further notice” on that!!
Our friend Ashley also had her baby Wednesday afternoon – so we need to go visit them and their new little boy! It’s so weird how you go from a bump in your belly to a baby!!! Still sort of a weird thing for me to really fathom.
Bryan finally was able to schedule a time to take his AFOQT (Officer Qualifying Test) – Nov. 16th. Way later than we ever wanted him to take it but oh well. Now we’re just trying to make sure it’s the right version (the newer, shorter one), and trying to get him set up to take the TBAS too (an additional test pilot applicants have to take) – we have to find someone here that even knows what it is!!! Man it’s so frustrating. Bryan also has a 22-pg paper due Nov. 15th and 2 other papers due a couple days after that; so he will be very busy this next little while!! Once again, what a horrible time to extend work hours! He’s tough though – he’s amazing – I’d be stressed out of my mind.
I am struggling to at least finish one of the two classes I registered for this semester. I expect that I’ll retake the other one next semester.
Brock continues to grow. We’ve started putting away some of the clothes that he’s grown out of. He also had his first blow-out last week – gross! He smiles a lot, and this week he eats a lot! Our little chubs…ahh sheesh. We know another little baby boy that’s 2 weeks older than Brock, who is way tinier – there is NO fat on that baby’s face! My mom just thinks the kid looks sick. But I have to admit, I think they’re cuter when they’re skinny. But we love our babes to death!!
Well like you saw from pictures I sent out earlier, we took my mom to see the “Big Buddha” – the biggest Buddha of all – the 2nd weekend we were here – only worth making that hour-and-a-half drive once for that I think. They have some crazy, detailed, gory beliefs here on what happens to you after you die! We also took her to Sukiya the first weekend she was here – a type of fast-food Japanese I guess you could say. We didn’t get out too much – she saw plenty of the base and all, that’s for sure, and of little Misawa – but that’s why I was so horribly sad about how her last weekend here ended up! There was more I wanted her to see! We did get to run to a HUGE bazaar that they do once a year here, where tons of vendors come from all over the country and a few others, and even though we only had 30 minutes, she was able to pick up some great stuff for her littlest girls, and she was really excited that she found a little something for herself as well – so I was happy about that. We also picked up some “cheese rolls” from a Japanese restaurant right off base, so it was fun to have her see just how small and squished together everything is here. By the end of her trip she was definitely appreciative of America and how spread out it is! We were jealous she got to go back to the states.
Well, time to end this – Brock should be waking up any minute for his first mid-nightly feeding. Like I said though, man I miss my mom to death – all the cleaning she did, all the great food we ate while she was here, the things we were able to get done (it’s so hard to get anything done now!), all the talking we were able to do…she was such a great support and I love her so much!!! It was quite an adjustment after she left, and still makes me sad when I think about it!
We appreciate everyone’s love and support!
Love, Julie, Bryan, and Brock Blumenkrantz
For a few more pictures besides the ones posted below click on this link and then the picture to view the slideshow: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2t7pqtrs.3hkxh2h4&x=0&y=-57ez3q&localeid=en_US. There are some really unattractive chunky monkey ones of Brock at the end!!
Wed. 11/01/06
Brock is 5 weeks old today – good crud!
So we took my mom to the airport Monday afternoon and man was that hard. It was so great to have her here – everything was very easy, I got plenty of sleep, and it was so fun! I have to admit, I cried and cried on Monday, sheesh – it was hard to see her go. It accentuated the fact that we are so far away from everyone. But it especially worked out that she was here at the end…
Because as some of you know (from mom’s emails), I had surgery last Saturday morning. For the last 2-3 weeks I’d had about 4 “episodes” of pain that at first sort of felt like a horrible stomach ache – but only at the very top – really it was right below my sternum. The pain would wake me from my sleep and last anywhere from 30 min to an hour and a half. The first 2 attacks were like that and then it was also in my back, directly behind where it hurt in my chest. Then, Thursday night (or I guess I should say early Friday morning) after I put the baby back in bed after feeding him, I went back to sleep for 15 minutes before being woken up by this pain. Within 10 minutes it hurt more than it ever had, and the pain seemed to have a wider radius – hurting on the right side of my chest as well, and actually up in my chest too. I could barely breathe, and making a lot of noise as I tried to suck in some air. I woke Bryan up (this is after 2am) and we went to the ER. The 10-min drive there about killed me and I about threw up in the car. They tried giving me a few things that didn’t work, and after about an hour of this intense pain the attack lessened and felt more like a normal attack, so I could at least breathe. Then they gave me a little Demerol and the pain was almost completely gone it was so nice. To make a horribly long story short, my mom and I had talked to a nurse a few times about these attacks but she had been convinced it was NOT a problem with gall stones – after bugging her long enough on Friday, after spending a few hrs in the ER that morning, she put in an order for me to get an ultrasound of my gallbladder (she was quite frustrated with me by this point) – I called Radiology for an appt for it- they didn’t have an opening ‘til Nov. 28th – but they called later and got me in at 3pm that day – a miracle. Anyway, I got lucky and when the tech in radiology was trying to find my OB doctor to show her the ultrasound results, the main surgeon was there and he looked at my ultrasound. He came down and took me to the surgery clinic where he told me and my mom that I had multiple small stones in my gallbladder and that my description of my pain was pretty much a text book response of gall stone symptoms (yet no one else would listen). By this time of day I had thrown up close to 5 times – he admitted me so they could get some fluids through an IV into me to get me away from my dehydrated state, and Saturday morning my gallbladder was removed. It all happened very quickly without preparation (a little dejavu…like what happened a month ago!) for it (mental preparation I guess you could say). The doctor said my stones were small and squishy, and that I had a bunch of other sludge in my gallbladder, and that it was a little more wedged into the liver than normal – but the surgery went as planned – laparoscopically – and no major incisions had to be made – 3 holes and a cut out of the belly button. My mom was a huge help and took care of Brock at home while Bryan was able to spend the day with me at the hospital. I stayed in the hospital the night after the surgery and I was discharged Sunday afternoon. I was extremely sad because the whole last weekend with my mom and our plans to show her more of Japan was ruined, but she was happy that she was there to help. Friends brought us dinner Mon., Tues., and Wed., nights – so that was really nice. Bryan has had to work though, so that was a little hard, especially since he found out Tuesday afternoon that day shift was going to last 2 hours longer now, until 5pm. Aahh! Not happy about that – of all weeks to change to that, too!! So until further notice, his shift is 6am-5pm Mon-Fri – so much for our “cushy” hours….so hopefully there is “further notice” on that!!
Our friend Ashley also had her baby Wednesday afternoon – so we need to go visit them and their new little boy! It’s so weird how you go from a bump in your belly to a baby!!! Still sort of a weird thing for me to really fathom.
Bryan finally was able to schedule a time to take his AFOQT (Officer Qualifying Test) – Nov. 16th. Way later than we ever wanted him to take it but oh well. Now we’re just trying to make sure it’s the right version (the newer, shorter one), and trying to get him set up to take the TBAS too (an additional test pilot applicants have to take) – we have to find someone here that even knows what it is!!! Man it’s so frustrating. Bryan also has a 22-pg paper due Nov. 15th and 2 other papers due a couple days after that; so he will be very busy this next little while!! Once again, what a horrible time to extend work hours! He’s tough though – he’s amazing – I’d be stressed out of my mind.
I am struggling to at least finish one of the two classes I registered for this semester. I expect that I’ll retake the other one next semester.
Brock continues to grow. We’ve started putting away some of the clothes that he’s grown out of. He also had his first blow-out last week – gross! He smiles a lot, and this week he eats a lot! Our little chubs…ahh sheesh. We know another little baby boy that’s 2 weeks older than Brock, who is way tinier – there is NO fat on that baby’s face! My mom just thinks the kid looks sick. But I have to admit, I think they’re cuter when they’re skinny. But we love our babes to death!!
Well like you saw from pictures I sent out earlier, we took my mom to see the “Big Buddha” – the biggest Buddha of all – the 2nd weekend we were here – only worth making that hour-and-a-half drive once for that I think. They have some crazy, detailed, gory beliefs here on what happens to you after you die! We also took her to Sukiya the first weekend she was here – a type of fast-food Japanese I guess you could say. We didn’t get out too much – she saw plenty of the base and all, that’s for sure, and of little Misawa – but that’s why I was so horribly sad about how her last weekend here ended up! There was more I wanted her to see! We did get to run to a HUGE bazaar that they do once a year here, where tons of vendors come from all over the country and a few others, and even though we only had 30 minutes, she was able to pick up some great stuff for her littlest girls, and she was really excited that she found a little something for herself as well – so I was happy about that. We also picked up some “cheese rolls” from a Japanese restaurant right off base, so it was fun to have her see just how small and squished together everything is here. By the end of her trip she was definitely appreciative of America and how spread out it is! We were jealous she got to go back to the states.
Well, time to end this – Brock should be waking up any minute for his first mid-nightly feeding. Like I said though, man I miss my mom to death – all the cleaning she did, all the great food we ate while she was here, the things we were able to get done (it’s so hard to get anything done now!), all the talking we were able to do…she was such a great support and I love her so much!!! It was quite an adjustment after she left, and still makes me sad when I think about it!
We appreciate everyone’s love and support!
Love, Julie, Bryan, and Brock Blumenkrantz
For a few more pictures besides the ones posted below click on this link and then the picture to view the slideshow: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2t7pqtrs.3hkxh2h4&x=0&y=-57ez3q&localeid=en_US. There are some really unattractive chunky monkey ones of Brock at the end!!
3 weeks old
Oct. 16, 17, 18, and 20th, 2006
3 weeks old
It is NOT attractive when their eyes cross! Especially when they're chubby!!
And yes...he does have brown hair...!
October 16th
Brock's First Outing
October 21st, 2006
The picture of me with all the pinwheels - those represent all the dead Japanese babies or something - that's why I'm making a sad face.
The BIG Buddha in Aomori, Japan! - 70 feet tall!
Our Blob
10/23/06 - 4 weeks old!Bryan loved to do this with Brock - I made him do it over our bed at least!
Bryan and my mom called it "lump 'o baby"
10/25/06
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