shay 14 months

My piggy is growing up so fast!!

She is not a baby anymore, she is a toddler

Some cool things about her are:

1. She walks everywhere now. She is all over the place!

2. She eats the food we eat. This is the awesome. We were traveling to dothan the other day and stopped at Mcd's for food and Shay had her first happy meal. (I know, SO unhealthy!) Still so cool that she can sit at the table and eat whatever I cook or eat.

3. She copies everything ya do. this is good and bad. For example, alysha thought it would be funny to stick her tongue out at her while shay was eating. So, of course, shay sticks her tongue out - with food in her mouth. Bad big sissy. One the other hand - when I feed her something hot, I blow on it first. She copies me and puts her finger near her mouth and "blows", while I do it. Haha!!!

4. She talks and communicates so awesome. She repeats things we say. Alysha hurt herself and said "ouch". So shayla started saying that and repeating "ouch" over and over that whole day. She "sings" with her toys that have music with words. When they sing the alphabet, she "sings" along and it is pretty unintelligible until she hits G. The "G" is perfect.

Ck out that belly.
Shay and Alysha share a room. We have a curtain covering the crib side of the room. That is so Shayla cannot see alysha laying in the bed. Shay will lay in bedfor over an hour playing, but only if she does not see us. Once they see ya, they want out. She managed to get the curtain and poke her head through a hole. hilarious.

One year ago today.....................

........... I was the passenger in an awful car accident. We were driving along 231, heading back home from a day at PC when a little old lady in her BIG old Cadillac decided to shoot across the street to the median from a side road. Unfortunately, she could not see us because we were in the inside lane.... long story short, the driver expertly swerved to avoid t-boning this lady - which saved her life -and we went for a little joy ride. We went airborne for what seemed like eternity, but in reality was only seconds. We landed on the concrete and the sound of the crunching metal will never leave me, it was awesomely horrific. We proceeded to flip three times and stopped facing oncoming traffic on the opposite side of the road. It sounds like I am talking about a story I heard on the news, not something I lived through. It is surreal. The driver and I are blessed to be alive and with our families, all in one piece.

I will not go into detail about the rest of that awful day because I do not like to relive it. Although there is one memory that always stands out in my head. I am strapped to a stretcher laying in the median and there is a girl holding my hand. She was in the car right behind us and saw the whole thing. We are waiting for the police to use the JAWS to get the driver out, her door was crushed shut. (did you know they actually tape your head down to the stretcher?)Anyway, the girl says to me "Man, you guys were in the air for a LONG TIME." Yeah, we were....

So, here I am in the picture below in my traction unit. What is wrong with me? From that experience I walked away with two bulging discs in my neck and WHIPLASH. I have been in physical therapy this whole year. I have had acupuncture, craniosacrial massage, therapeutic massage and chiropractic care. As of June 1st, they suspended it for two months, to see how I would do.

I learned ..

• You have neck muscles that go all the way to the middle of your back. when I say "my neck hurts", I mean all the muscles starting at my shoulder blades and up to my neck, all the muscles on the top of my shoulders and all the muscles in my chest, down to my "tata's". It is awfully painful.
• what referred pain is. When they work on my muscles, I have pain in other parts of my body.... referred pain... nice.
• whiplash is a real injury. It is an unseen one, so you really get no sympathy. Kinda like a paper cut, it really hurts, but nobody feels sorry for you. I am in pain everyday of my life in one of the many muscles that surround my neck, but because it is not "visible" my family does not really understand. Now, if I had sling or a cast... then that would be something.
• It is very easy to re-injure yourself after you get injured. Two or three times I have gotten better only to over-do-it a little and be back in ultimate pain again. Then I have to up my physical therapy to three times a week.... it totally sucks.
• I learned how to sit, stand, drive and hold my baby. When you have an injury, your body changes to fit that injury. So I have to constantly think about how I sit, stand and lay. Basically, posture. If I dont sit a certain way, I start to ache after ten minutes. When I go to bed, I sleep on my side with a pillow between my legs and a pillow under my arm. That is all to keep my neck and shoulders in line. When I don't I wake up in the night in terrible pain. I mean, it is a constant thing to think about your alignment, trying to "retrain" your body to adjust itself. But it has become a way of life for me.............

How am I really doing now? Not so good. I am doing therapy at home, that is basically all that happened when they suspended it, cause I am still in pain everyday. Of course, it is nothing like the pain I was in for the first six months after the accident - nowhere near that level. I just HURT in some of those muscles at some point every day. I have three things I can do to relieve it

1. I use "wet heat". Apparently it is not good to use heating pads.. something I learned in therapy. I have the kind of pad you heat up in the microwave, and it is cloth, so you wet it.
2. I take a hot shower. That is a quick fix, it really only relaxes my muscles. They tighten up to the point that I just cry sometimes. So, a quick hop in the shower will help.
3. I get Alysha to massage it. She has become an expert at massaging out the knots. That is my biggest problem and causes all my pain. The KNOTS. Alysha has gotten really good at massaging them out - unfortunately she thinks it is gross. My muscles get so many that it tightens up to the point that I cannot handle the pain. Which is what my therapist always took care of it.
4. When all else fails, I get in a hot bath. That will relax them even more. But I only do that once a week, it takes to much work.

That is me sitting in the traction unit. It is supposed to pull my neck up so that my discs will pop back in place.

more tubing photos....

I found some cool photos of us tubing down the river... I did not know jon took these. I forgot he brought the old camera.

This is an otter. I did not enjoy seeing a big animal in the water, really really close to me - harmless or not.... Hey, Hila, do you think it will bite me.... (private joke, but OH SO FUNNY)


That is me in the pink tube, alysha in the green and another little girl that went.
Me and alysha
Jon rode in the boat with his shipmate.

Fun on the River

As I posted previously, we are trying to make up for lost time and do some of the fun local stuff before we move. So, we got together with one of Jon's shipmates and Jon, Alysha and I went floating down Rainbow river. It is a big thing around here and we have never done it. Sometimes I wonder what in the world we have been doing for the last three years we have been stationed here....

It was fun. It is a four hour float. That is another reason we took the boat, in case we got tired, we could all get in and speed down the river. I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It is a clear river, more like a spring. You can see to the bottom. I just lay out on one of the floats, Jon tied me to the boat and floated and suntanned for hours. There is a natural current that just pulls you along, at a nice leisurely pace. After two and a half hours, we got tired so we tied all the floats to the boat and Jon drove us to the exit. We had a blast!!

There were two casualties: Nick ran over his phone, before we even got in the water and Jon took his phone on the boat and it got soaked. (I was the only one with sense, cause I left mine at home.) Still, we had a great time.

This is Jon and his friend Nick tying up all the tubes and floats into Jon's Little jonboat. Jon is still pretty bad off since his shoulder surgery, so he got to ride in the boat, while everyone else floated. :)

This is me and Nick's girlfriend, sitting on the tail gate waiting for the men to get it all tied down.

This is all the girls. Look how tan Alysha and I already are. We look like sisters in this pic!! We took this right before we left.

Traditions and memories of the Nilla/Bean

On a whim, while Hila was visiting, we decided to get our pics made together, since it had been exactly ten years. What a great new tradition and what a fun memory.

HILA AND JULIE
1999

HILA AND JULIE
2009

Ten years later
we look pretty good
if I do say so myself.
I look really tan (which makes Hila seem Mighty whitey). I think it was the lighting.

Goodbye to Shayla's best friend

We said goodbye to another of Jon's shipmates. This time it was our really good friends that we hung out with all the time. His wife and I were preggo at the same time and our kids were less than six months apart. This little girl is so sweet!! I just loved her. We really miss those guys. Here are some pics of Shay and Alaina's last time hanging out:

That was Alaina trying to steal Shay's bottle, so Jaime is giving her one.


Check out their matching outfits. That was totally a coincidence. Alaina came over with the outfit on and I told Jaime that Shay had that exact same outfit, so we decided to dress them the same. Fun!!
That is me and Jaime. It is lonely without them here, we had such a good time together.
Jon and Phil. They have been stationed together and in the same section for the last three years. They got stationed in OHIO. This was Jon's best friend here, so it is just not the same. We are ready to transfer out... ...

80's party

While Hila was here on a visit, we had an 80's party!! It was so fun. As adults, we just do not have fun, for-no-reason parties. It was awesome!

The food was: pizza rolls painted green in honor of TMNT, fig newtons, oreo truffles dyed pink and orange, reese's pieces, charleston chews and some TAB soda. There is also chips, dip and a strombli in the pic, but those are not 80's related, just for sustinence. (FYI - Tab soda is nasty.)

My hubby was dressed up as Mark Harmon from the movie Summer School. His Shipmate was Don Johnson from Miami Vice. HILARIOUS!!
This is Alysha, shayla, Me, Hila and Christy. I think Christy gets the award for the best outfit, but Hila gets the award for best 80's hair - she crimped it!! Ck out Lysh's leg warmers. (you can double click to make it bigger.)
We are the original 80's chicks. Alysha and I went to the Key training centers and bought our out fits for about $6.00 each. Accessories and all. The other couple that came did the same thing. We all really got into this party!! We played the 80's game (in the food pic) and watched Karate Kid. The girls beat the guys in the 80's game. Then we played Apples to Apples until like 1:00 a.m. It was so awesome. The only negative --- the other couple's dog threw up on my floor at the end of the night. Yuck!

A day at the spa

For mothers day this year, I got a full day at the spa package. It was a "special Princess" package. Special because they changed it up and formatted it to fit me!! It was all Alysha's doing......... she is awesome!! My package included a facial with pore extraction, a spa pedicure, a spa manicure with paraffin dip, shampoo-cut- and style, and Lunch.

First, I had a facial, which I have never done before, but I absolutely LOVED!! I was nervous about the "extraction" part, but I have pretty clear skin so she did not have to work on my face. No little black heads on me... heehee. It lasted an hour and included a massage of my neck and upper shoulders. Wonderfully relaxing.

Next I went to my spa pedicure. It was nice, I have actually had one of these before, but she really took her time and I enjoyed it. Sometimes our feet need some pampering.....

Next I had a manicure. She only got halfway through before she had to stop, cause it was lunch time and my lunch had arrived. They have it catered from a local restaurant. They have a little cafe table set up and they had my food all laid out with place settings and cloth napkins. It was neat, all prepared for me..... the princess.

After I completed my turkey wrap and pasta salad, it was off to finish my spa manicure. First she did my paraffin dip, which was just OK. I did not like it so much. It was HOT. You dip your hand in this hot, hot, hot wax and let it dry(I say hot 3xs cause you dip it three times and each time hurts more than the last.). It dries like a latex glove on your hands. Weird. It was like watching my hands morph into some alien hand. Then they stick your hand in a plastic bag. They then take your plastic bag wrapped hand and put it in a soft cloth fingerless glove. So your sitting there like flipper... haha. Like I said, it was just O.K. It peeled right off after ten minutes and it made your hand slimy. Anyway, she finished my manicure and sent me on to the next department - my hairdo.

My hairstylist was awesome! She shampooed me and then gave me a scalp massage. I got sorta a new cut. She gave me lots of layers and side bangs. Basically she left it all long and layered it up! Here is a pic:


:) That is shayla after sissy put it up in a bunch of different pony tails.



This is me. Not a great pic. Doesn't really show my hair that great, but that is all I have uploaded. oh well....