General

Long Time No Type

So I realize I pretty much abandoned this site for a good 5 months, but there are a few reasons.

1. We have really been busy.
2. Jake has been all over the place since he learned to walk, and we have spent what time we have had chasing him (keeping him out of Moose food, the DVDs, etc).
3. I have felt like poop for the better part of 4 months.
4. Elizabeth also has felt like poop.
5. I have just been lazy and not really cared to make updates (probably the ultimate winner).

Now that the excuses are out of the way, we can get down to business. So let me give you a quick set of updates on all things us.

Jake is now 16 months old [can you believe it?] and, as I mentioned, is into everything. He is running all over the place, and really takes joy is getting into places he should avoid. I think we are up to 12 – 14 teeth now, but the kid still does not care for meat too much (so strange). He is basically a quasi hippie, since he also drinks soy milk now (as the cows milk was giving him some fierce blow outs). We have tons of pics and some video from over the past 5 months (plus of course the stuff I never posted before then), so I am going to work on updating those in the next week (pics at least).

Now a quick health summary. Again, as I mentioned, I have not felt great over the past several months. About a month ago now, my doctor put me on a pretty strong cocktail of additional meds (steroids, methotrexate, and Humira). So for those who remember from several years ago, the methotrexate is what I took for a good year (Elizabeth gave me a shot each week). That stuff did a really good job, but has its share of side effects though (mainly related to having children). Most people probably have never heard of Humira, but it also is a shot. Hopefully once everything calms down, that will be my main maintenance drug. Of course the steroids are a short term thing. I should be able to stop stair-stepping off those next week (a nice long 7 – 8 week process). All in all though, they are making me feel better. It prob has been 9 months or so since I have felt this good. The hope is that 6 months or so from now, I am just taking the Humira (we’ll see).

Elizabeth has also not felt great for a couple of months. The good news is that she seems to be doing better and hopefully is getting back to normal. It definitely has been rough with both of us feeling bad; Jake has no mercy…haha.

In more recent news….

Elizabeth had tried to move to a split baylor position at work. All this means is she was going to work 2 weeks out of the month instead of all 4. We were really looking forward to this, so we could have more family time. However, it looks like that is on hold for now. The hospital has decided to not make any changes to those positions at this time. I guess we should not complain, since at least Elizabeth has a job that works for our schedule with Jake. However, it still would have been nice to have the extra free time all together. Hopefully something will change in the future.

Also, this past week the family PC kicked the dust (well the main hard drive to be more specific). Since the PC was a good 6 years old (some parts older then that), we decided it was time to upgrade. So we made the move to a new Dell (picked it up at Best Buy) with an Intel i7 quad core processor. I have to say, this thing made me realize how out of touch I am with the latest hardware changes. It was a bit of a shock to me not to have any IDE interfaces (all SATA now) and no PCI slots on the motherboard. So today I made a trek to the Fry’s electronic ultra-mega super store, and picked up an IDE to USB converter and an PCI Express wireless card. Just a side note, but holy crap Fry’s is cool! I have never been before, but seriously it was like electronics mecca. ANYWAY, this new PC seems pretty cool. I am getting use to Vista and a 64 bit OS, but I do love the 24in monitor upgrade!

Finally, we went to the Georgia Aquarium for our second time this past Friday. We saw the Titanic exhibit, which was pretty interesting. The highlight though was watching Jake in front of the giant Plexiglas wall of the aquarium. He just stood there in amazement and watched all the fish go by. I think he could have stayed there for an hour and been completely happy. We were able to get some great pics and a bit of video (again, which I hope to add soon). All in all, just a fun visit. Oh, and we did learn that they are expanding the aquarium to include a dolphin section (to open in Spring 2010). A great reason to go back next year!

Well, I guess that is all for now. I really will try and do better and update this every week or two with some kind of random info. I hope everyone is doing well! Bye.

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