Today was anniversary number six for Laura and I. It seems like just a moment ago we were at the Ohio Historical Society getting married in that old church and enjoying our time together with family and friends. Here are our wedding pictures and here are our honeymoon pictures.
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Category Archives: Family
Bringing Up Baby
The thought of bringing Kiley home from the hospital was a bit daunting. For us new parents, there was safety in knowing that nurses were just down the hall, a push-button call way for help if something happened in the night. There was also a nursery that we could let Kiley “visit and enjoy for a while” during the night while we slept an hour or three. The Riverside nurses were so great and knowledgeable that whenever we had a question, they had just the right thing to say. At home, there would be no safety net, no answers, no nursery, and no free diapers, for sure.
Part of me really wanted to get home so I could stop sleeping on a couch next to Laura and enjoy my own bed, but part of me knew that once they walked us out the front door of the hospital, that was it. We would be on our own from that point on — she would be ours, and ours alone. People have been taking care of newborns for thousands of years, and for the most part, it seems to be working just fine. It’s not like she is a human genome sequence formula or an Apollo 13 reentry maneuver, she’s a baby and that should be simple enough.
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Picture Frame Gift
We got a really fun picture frame from our friend Kristy that came in the mail today. It’s really cute with Kiley’s picture in it, and it will help daddy remember the vital numbers some time into the future! A big thank you to Kristy!
Kiley Addison Cline
Our little blessing arrived 24 minutes after midnight, on June 6th, 2012. At first, we could only see a little hair on the crown of a little head, but a few pushes and contractions later, she came right out in Dr. Ronda Gaiser’s skilled hands. Less than a second later, we heard the crying from the first healthy breath of fresh air that meant her lungs were okay. Dr. Gaiser showed her to me so that I could tell Laura that she was a girl, for we had kept that fact a secret, even unto ourselves, so that we could be surprised the day she was born. I took a long, hard look, not wanting to mess this up and to make the right call. I looked into my beautiful wife’s eyes and said, “It’s a girl!”
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Gus Ran Off
Gus gave us the scare of a lifetime — he ran off! As parents, you never want to lose your child, and to us, Gus is our first child. I placed him in the yard because he wanted to play and chase squirrels and I had to give Laura some medical attention with a shot she had to take.
As I was giving her the shot, she heard him barking. However, the bark seemed to be coming from the street out front, not the back yard. I said, “Oh, your just imagining things.” But, to be sure, I looked out the back window. To my horror, I saw the back gate wasn’t closed!
My mind raced back to Alamo, my family’s first dog when I was a kid. He was a pure bred Irish Setter, and at six months old, got hit by a car when my cousins came to visit and unknowingly left the gate open. The last thing I wanted was for life to repeat itself this way. I ran downstairs, grabbed the car keys, and ran out the door. I yelled for him from the middle of the street, but never saw him so I took off for the car.
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A Puppy!
Laura and I had been wanting to get a dog for a few years, but we couldn’t agree on what kind to get or how big it should be. With me being gone a lot on long trips, we wanted Laura to have a friend at home while I was away. I always wanted a medium to large sized dog, and Laura always wanted a little buddy to run around our small house. My sister has a Chihuahua and after I got to know him, I decided that a small dog wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Chihuahua’s are affordable, but can have lots of genetic problems with their legs. Yorkies are cute with fewer genetic and breeding issues, but are a LOT more money. In the end, Laura found our perfect puppy — a Chorkie. Chorkies are a cross between Chihuahuas and Yorkies, costing less than a Yorkie, but without the knee and leg problems of a Chihuahua.
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New Photos
Sorry it’s been so long, but we uploaded some new photos to our Galleries page! Click the Photo Galleries link at the top of the blog, or the picture above, to see photos of our latest cruise, water skiing, San Francisco, Auroras at work, and our latest vacation to the Smoky Mountains. Enjoy!