big bear

well i forgot to bring the nikon, but managed a few photos with my cell phone. the weather was pleasantly cooler than forecasted, and very breezy by the lake. we had lunch, sat by the lake and took a nice walk around the village. michael worked overtime everyday last week trying to get the school's paper out on time, so it was great to have him for the entire day and relax a little.

audrey & daddy

fascinated by ducks

mommy got her pumpkin spice latte :)

delicious pumpkin autumny scarfed goodness

tomorrow michael's taking the day off work and we're driving up to big bear lake for audrey's first visit. i'm so excited because it's the first official day of autumn and i've been craving a pumpkin spice latte since the beginning of september! oh yum! it's been too hot lately for such an autumn brew. tomorrow it's only supposed to reach 65 degrees which means: jackets?! and scarves!? and an adorable bundled up baby!? and crunchy orange and yellow leaves!? and a wonderful hubbs to walk hand in hand with!? and delicious pumpkin autumny scarfed goodness.

what a difference a year makes

about this time last year michael & i had just gotten back from our rejuvenating vacation in chicago a month after the news of a fourth miscarriage. it's also the same time i found out i was pregnant, again.

i was scared. i knew i was going to have another miscarriage. and why not? nothing had changed, i was still damaged. i was scared of the toll this was going to take on my body. two dead babies in two months. i was scared of the toll this was going to take on my faith.

as i type this, audrey is nursing in my arms and drifting off to sleep. she'll be four months old on the fifteenth. this little baby fought for her life. she won over the same affliction which took the lives of her brothers & sisters. she's our little survivor. our little miracle. our answer to tearful prayer.

we drove to the beach yesterday (audrey's first time!) and stopped at corner bakery in anaheim hills for breakfast. we ate breakfast every morning we were in downtown chicago at a corner bakery down the street from our hotel. i loved drinking my hazelnut cream coffee, (BEST cafe coffee ever,) watching business people hurry by with their briefcases and shooing pigeons away from my breakfast panini. mornings are still my favorite time of day.

i ate the other half of my breakfast panini already. oh yes, it's that good. :)

www.jennylynnbaker.blogspot.com/2009/07/and-so.html

chicago pictures

to view our chicago pictures, go to www.flickr.com/photos/jennylynnbaker & click on the chicago & mobile upload sets on the left of the screen.. :)

chicago

we leave tonight.

and, so...

thanks to those who have been praying for michael and i. we're doing better. when we found out we were pregnant this time, we tried very hard to keep it a secret for as long as we could. we expected that something could go wrong again and were prepared for it. however, our secret didn't last very long (3 days!) due to the fact that my body loves to tell everyone (aka, my boobs get huge!) yeah... people caught on pretty quickly.

this now being our fourth miscarriage, we've finally gotten over the shock. that may sound a little jaded, but we've just accepted the fact of it. it's another part of life for us now, forever. we don't want pity and we don't feel picked on, we're counting our blessings and agree things could be a lot worse.

physically, this one is easier to deal with so far. i'm not in as much discomfort as before. last fall i took a blood test and was found positive for hyperhomocysteinemia, it's a blood clotting disease that cuts blood and nutrients to the baby and it's a common reason for miscarriage. i've been taking a baby aspirin everyday for several months and now we just have to figure out the dosage until we finally get it right. it actually is a good thing i was tested for the disease because i could be at risk for heart attacks and strokes later in life. if i hadn't had a miscarriage, i probably never would have known.

we're in good spirits and are actually planning a trip to chicago at the end of the month. it may sound like an odd thing to do and at an odd time, but who knows what next year may bring.

hopefully soon i will be tied down with a slobbery stinky baby without any time or money for myself. :)

san francisco!

michael took me to san francisco for valentine's day, he's pretty wonderful. it was cold and rainy and exactly how i had hoped. we hit up the city lights bookstore (www.citylights.com) where michael bought a copy of 'san francisco noir' and a little something for sherry, and spent a few hours in SFMOMA looking at the exhibits. (you can check out the pictures from that on michael's blog.)

we had dinner at johnny foley's pub, which was loud and very americanized, but was wonderful anyway. (they had great curry fries!) michael saw the actual johnny foley walk by with a glass of guinness. we know this because there's a giant painted portrait of him in the entry holding a glass of guinness. hmmm... U2's bono also had a giant portrait in the pub as well. i tried to get a picture of him, but there was a nice family enjoying their conversation at the table in front and i didn't want to creep them out by taking a picture with my cell-o-phone.

on sunday we drove to sherry's house, who i was excited to meet for the first time! those of you who read sherry's blog may have no idea how fantastic her house is. (we share a mutual love of anthropologie!) for dinner we went out for pizza with pete & lucy, brandon & kim and played apples to apples after. sherry was nice enough to let us stay the night and it was hard to leave the next morning. :(

anyway, enough blabbing... here's some pictures.

san diego...

(well, coronado island actually.) with santa barbara, big bear and san diego all within a short couple hour's drive away, heat and traffic aside, living in riverside isn't too bad.

brainy brian!

this weekend michael and i drove down to san luis obispo for brian's graduation from calpoly. whooo! we had a great time visiting with him and michael's parents in fabulous san luis obispo and surrounding areas. i used to live about 20 miles southeast of there before i moved to oregon so it was great to see the old stomping grounds again.

since lately my thing has been to post a lot of pictures rather than actually write something readworthy, here you go once again!




hello graduate!



we drove to the olde port inn for lunch at avila beach after the graduation. avila beach is great and perfect for a photo op!