November In Review

November simply seemed to fly by and I guess this is something we are going to have to get used to, especially with a little one in the house!  November was packed full of more doctors appointments and therapy sessions but there were also some great highlights as well.  Ricky and I attended the 237th Marine Corps Ball in Crystal City.  All of Marine Corps University was invited to this ball so consequently it was widely attended.  I estimate that there were 2,000 people in one room.  We had a great time but I would be hesitant to say it was one of the best Marine Corps events I have ever attended.  I truly enjoy small, intimate events like the Group 27 ball that I attended last year.  There were less than 100 people at last year's ball and everyone had the opportunity to chat, relax, grab and drink and let loose.  The best part was Ricky and I got to dress up and have a nice evening out with friends, and sweet Grant was tucked snug in his bed with my mom watching over him.

Ricky and I took Grant to his first Navy football game in the middle of the month. We defeated Texas State (yeah, we haven't ever heard of them either) in a bitter cold game. We attended the 73' tailgate with the Landers and the Campbells which as always, never disappoints.  They had such a variety of food and drinks that I don't think they would have eaten it all, even if the football team would have stopped by.  The night ended with dinner with Ricky's former CO, LtCol Scott "Kelpto" Cooper and Maj Chuck "Dude" Dudik, in downtown Annapolis, our fav. dinner spot.        

The month ended with spending a day talking about all of things we are thankful for.  Cathy came to visit and spend Thanksgiving with the Dolan side of the family and it was perfect.  We had 17 for dinner!  Grant started eating solids when he reached 6 months on the 20th and his first foods were pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and applesauce-very fitting for Thanksgiving.  I'd say he enjoyed his first Thanksgiving.  Just being with family, sitting around a table chatting, is one of my favorite things to do,  and having a majority of my family together was wonderful.  

October was a Blur!

The month of October took some getting used to.  As much as it was a blur, we had a lot of great memories despite my many doctor appointments and painful nights.  The doctor appointments (sometimes 4 in one week) caused the month to literally fly by.  On the third day of the month I had surgery on my wrist.  The surgery was to repair my radius and ensure that it would heal properly and that I would have 100% mobility in the future.  This was my first surgery ever, and I was very apprehensive!   Grant and Ricky waited patiently in the waiting room for my release.  The surgery went flawlessly, but I was left with a fairly large plate and between 6-8 screws.  Apparently this is the normal hardware that they place in wrist fractures.  My pain was non-existent because I got a nerve block from my shoulder to the tips of my fingers which made my arm feel dead and not a part of my body.  Even after the nerve block wore off, my pain was minimal and I did not need to rely on my pain meds.


As far as the other injuries, I have been to many dentist visits and you wouldn't be able to tell anything happened to my teeth.  I do not have my permanent crowns yet but what they have done to pass the time looks great!  I am also going to Occupational Therapy 2-3 times a week and I am having great success with the treatment and the hospital is amazing! I have had a lot of support from friends and family, especially my mom who has come to take care of us many times.  I don't know what I would have done without her!  We have also received meals when I wasn't able to even slice an onion or peel a potato.  We truly are blessed for all of the care and concern that has come our way.  Enough about me, but in a nutshell I am doing fine and every day is better than the last.

We celebrated my grandfathers 93rd birthday, yes 93 years during the first weekend in October.  It was so nice to have the family together and celebrate my grandfather's wonderful life!  We of course had his favorites, fried chicken, green bean casserole, cheese potatoes and PIE!  Our family always has the best time together and we are fortunate that we are so close.  I think my grandfather enjoyed himself as well!

That baby looks good on her!

Aunt Linda with her sweetie pie!

What's that? You need us to do what?

Oh No! I heard it too!

Grant and JiJi!

PopPop and his two youngest Great-Grand babies!  Happy Man!

Ricky rocked out two races during this month while I cheered from the sidelines.  He ran the Race for the Parks 10K the weekend of my grandfathers birthday and the Marine Corps Marathon during the last weekend in October.  I am so proud of him and I am glad that my injury did not prevent him from continuing to train.  Unfortunately he enjoyed the marathon and is ready to sign up to do it again right now, which means I need to get out there and train again! Hurry up wrist and heal!   

Now for the most important part of this blog entry, what's Grant been up to?  See I have to put his information at the end or you probably wouldn't read the other stuff.  Grant went for his 5 month check up (thank you Uncle Bill for coming with us and lending a hand!!!!) and he is doing great! Grant has reached the 28th percentile for weight which is HUGE for the little peanut who was in the 3rd percentile at his 1 month check up.  He is 15lbs 5oz.  He is also in the 70th percentile for height- 26.38" so we have moved from a peanut to a string bean, or as my Dad would say "a tall drink of water."  His head size is perfectly normal coming in at a 45th percentile.  He is finally in 3-6 month onesies and we have reached 6 month pants for those long skinny legs!  We have also been given the green light for oatmeal and fruits and veggies.  This week we started on the oatmeal and surprisingly he LOVES it.  He opens his little mouth like a bird and gobbles the whole bowl every time.  I can only imagine what he'll do when we give him peaches and bananas.  He is also trying to roll over both from tummy to back and back to tummy.  He is sleeping on his side these days so its only a matter of time before he is rolling all over the house.  Grant also moves all around his crib and is always facing the opposite direction of how we placed him, in the first place.  He is still taking 4 naps a day which is fantastic, especially because his afternoon one is 2.5-3 hours long!  We are so fortunate that he is a heavy sleeper and that he genuinely enjoys being in his crib...and we aren't surprised when he has Ricky and me as parents.      

Yum! Oh and Grant likes to play with paper towel rolls.

Grant also got to partake in his first Halloween! He was pumpkin, Ricky was a scarecrow and I was a crow.  It was Ricky's idea to go as a family and I think it was a pretty cute idea, myself.  We didn't take him 'trick or treating' because all of the houses on our street are town homes which makes it challenging with a wagon and because it was chilly.  He wasn't really digging the idea of a costume which deterred us even more.  I am sure next year when he has a full bucket of candy he'll be asking why he didn't get to go this year.   Hopefully he'll forgive us!

Although Sandy paid us a visit, she didn't stay long and didn't cause too much trouble.  Ricky had two

days off Monday & Tuesday (29th and 30th) which was perfect timing because these were the two days after the Marine Corps Marathon, allowing him to rest and nap on the couch the entire day.  We did not lose power and other than rain and some wind, it was uneventful.  

The Accident

I choose the title as "The Accident" because I am fortunate that I haven't had a lot of accidents and certainly not any that have lots of details or inflict facial reactions on those that hear about it.  Here's the story...

Ricky and I have been training for the Marine Corps Marathon for a couple of months.  The training was going well until I ran on some uneven terrain, causing the sides of my feet to be sore from all the switch-backs.  On Tuesday, September 25th, Ricky and I were going to do our daily workout.  Since my foot was still bothering me I decided that I would cycle instead of run.  In order for us both to get a workout in and more importantly for me not to be scared out of my mind of the crazy NOVA drivers, we headed to Mason Neck Park.  This park is extremely quiet and is 3.5 miles in length.  Ricky and I usually ride up and back 3 or 4 times for a 21-28 mile ride.  Its a beautiful park that is paved and twists and turns through the forest.  On this day I rode while Ricky took Grant running in the BOB jogging stroller through some other trails.

I had a great ride of maintaining an average of 19mph pace over the course of 23 miles.  I had only a mile or so to go before I would meet Ricky and Grant back at the car in the parking lot.  I was going about 20mph when I saw a stick in the road.  It wasn't a huge stick, probably a foot long and an inch or more in diameter,  but it was larger than many of the other sticks I had passed that day.  I moved to the left of the stick to go around it and B-B-B-B-B-A-A-A-M!  The stick catapulted into my spokes causing me to stop dead in my tracks.

The next thing I knew I was on the ground, spitting blood and pieces of asphalt out of my mouth.  I instantly felt that I was missing my front tooth. Other than the amount of blood pouring from my face, I wasn't in any pain.  Another cyclist rode up to me and told me not to get up and that he would get help.  I had to unclip myself from the bike however, because I was still clipped into the petals.  As he was talking to me and approaching to stop, he too fell off his bike-still clipped in.  The only difference was, he was going about 3mph not 20!  He stopped a car and told them to drive to the ranger station and he got back on his bike to go find Ricky in the parking lot.  After about 3 minutes of just being so angry that this happened, I realized that I could call Ricky, and so I did.  I told him that he needed to come and get me because I fell off my bike.  I told him that the bike was fine but that I had lost a tooth.

Ricky and the Park Ranger arrived at the same time.  Unfortunately the Ranger Station was less than prepared.  He brought his first aid kit which probably hadn't been used in 10 years.  All of the wet wipes were dried up, the box was dusty and the worst part is that he had no access to ice.  We decided at this rate, it was best to have Ricky drive me to the ER.  The closest hospital was south on 95 which meant TRAFFIC. AWESOME.

The trip took us about 40 minutes because the GPS misled Ricky and traffic was horrendous as expected.  I shivered but stayed silent all the way there, Ricky was sweating after finishing a 7 mile run, and Grant was screaming because it was feeding time, so overall I would rate that trip as a D- on the fun scale.

We get to the ER and since it was 6pm, of course there was a line out the door.  I am sitting in the wheel chair, the car is still at the entrance and Grant is still crying as Ricky is holding the car seat in his arm.  After about 15minutes its finally my turn and Ricky takes care of everything including asking for ice and warm blankets for me.  When I finally get called back, Ricky has calmed down Grant, given him a bottle and been total support for me.  The nurses and doctor were great and 4 hours later they send me home with a broken wrist, 8 stitches in my face and road rash (still with fibers from my shirt and the road) on my arm and lots of dressings to take care of it all.

I definitely was a night I'll never forget.  We are keeping the helmet and the stick which has spoke groove in it for a teachable moment for Grant.  Had I not been wearing my helmet, it could have been a million times worse.  I have about 6 weeks of recovery and then I should be back to normal.  Well normal is a relative term, but you get the idea.

            

  

Life in Virginia

So we finally completed our move to Virginia!  We began the moving process on June 18th and finally moved into our house on July 16th.  The move was fairly uneventful with us spending an entire month with my parents in Ocean City and having our items in storage.  The movers moved us into the house in one day and it was an extremely HOT day!  I just don't know how the movers do that job, day in and day out.  I was tired just watching them climb the three flights of stairs, over and over again.  We didn't have a lot of damage to our items and the damage we did have were items that can be replaced or fixed easily.

Now that we have been living here for two months, we have just really come to the conclusion that we miss New Bern so much!  I have always wanted to move back to a city that has a lot to do and lots of restaurants and shopping.  Well we are here, and its tough to take advantage of all of those things with a newborn!  Now would be the perfect time to live in New Bern where there isn't a lot to do or a lot of restaurants to dine.  The traffic is still terrible and it takes forever to get anywhere.  Just to drive 6-8 miles, takes about 25-30 minutes because of all the lights and cars.  We also do not have the friend circle that we used to have so we feel pretty isolated, or maybe thats just me, since Ricky has his classmates.

I have tried "Mom Groups" and bible studies and other similar groups but I just can't get excited about them.  When we were in the squadron I felt like we had instant friends and people that just "got you."  Now that we are in VA we are meeting all types of people and it takes more effort to get to know them and sometimes you can tell that you are just not going to hit it off.  Don't get me wrong, I have met people, I just think I am spoiled by having so many amazing friends in NC and I just miss them.

The one aspect that we are loving, are all of the beautiful parks that Virginia has to offer.  We have several a stones throw a way and we have enjoyed taking Grant in the stroller and watching his fascination with trees grow.  I can only imagine that in a year from now we'll be visiting the parks daily,  to meet Grant's wishes.    

This transition (from working professional without children to a Stay-At-Home-Mom) has been a lot tougher on me than I expected.  I adore Grant and I wouldn't change my situation at all; going back to work is not the answer, but I just wish I had people to do things with or motivation to accomplish a lot during the day.  Other than my daily run with Grant in the stroller, I lack the motivation to do anything but empty the dishwasher, vacuum my floors and play with Grant.  I think thats probably okay, but I still feel like I should be doing more.  I sorta feel like I am missing out on something, but whats crazy is that the one thing I am NOT missing out on is my child's life, the one thing I can never get back and the one thing thats MOST important.  As they say, this too shall pass, and I have a feeling this lifestyle of mine will begin to grow on me.  I am just so blessed that I am able to stay home with Grant because there are many moms out there who don't have the choice and would probably do anything to be in my situation.    

      

We Have a Water Baby!

If anyone knows Ricky and me, they know how much we just love the water.  We spend our weekends on the boat on the river, enjoy swimming, spend our vacations at beach resorts and talk about retiring in an area surrounded by water.  We are just so thrilled to learn that our son, probably enjoys the water more than we do.









During Grant's first bath at the hospital we were shocked that when the nurse was scrubbing him down and dosing his head under the faucet he just closed his eyes and appeared to be completely relaxed.  This has continued during every bath thus far.  As long as the water is warm, Grant is a happy camper in the water.  He truly enjoys bath time and only cries when you take him out and the air is cooler than the bath water.

                                                       

About to go swimming for the first time!

Taking a snooze under the bimini top while the boat is anchored.

We decided that it was time to take him on the boat. A little soon some may think, but when we found a Coast Guard approved infant life jacket we knew it was time.  Ricky decided that prior to taking a boat ride with this uncomfortable looking preserver, we would try it out my parents pool.  Well, he LOVED it!  He literally fell asleep wearing it in the pool and continued to sleep for 30 minutes just floating around. When his little feet began resembling raisins we took him out of the pool so he could continue his nap in the shade.  The next day we tested it out on the boat.  Again, he LOVED it, and slept for the entire 30 minute boat ride.  We have since let him swim and few more times and have taken him on the boat once more, and each time has been a complete success.  We know that once he starts walking that locks on the door and an alarm in the pool will be imperative as I think he would live in the water if we let him. 

The wild ponies on the beach-so beautiful.

We took another boat trip just days later to visit Assateague Island and see the ponies.  We spent only moments on the beach due to the warm temperatures and not wanting Grant to have sun exposure.  We did relax on the boat under the cover and just rocked back and forth in the cool breeze.

Happy Dad, enjoying his day off collecting berries at the beach.

Happy Boys on the sand.

Lovin' this water baby!

           

Grant Meets the Inspiration for His Name

If there was a word to describe my grandfather it would be gentleman.  They should have his picture next to the word in every dictionary ever published.  Harris Dolan is 92 and has experienced so much in his life time that I think it would take my entire life time to learn everything that that he has been through.  He and I have a very special bond because I am his only grand daughter and his youngest grand child.  He is so honorable, kind, generous, intelligent, respectful and adores his family so much and would do anything for them.

Each time I spend time with my grandfather, I learn another lesson about life and he provides advice that carries a lot of weight in my life.  During a conversation a year or so ago, the topic of names was discussed and how in his lifetime he saw a theme where names more often than not, shaped the future of the person.  It is human nature to visualize someones appearance when hearing a name and many times we are not even close to how the person actually looks, yet we continue to do it in the future.  This also tends to hold weight when we receive resumes for a job opening, choose a doctor, and even when deciding if we should go on a first date.  I would provide examples but the intent is not to offend anyone or make a misjudgement myself.  So in this memorable conversation with my grandmother, unfortunately my grandfather probably does not recall it, he explained how men especially with one syllable names or nick names that they predominately went by, they tended to be more successful, likable, popular and well respected.  I will give an example of this because I know lots of successful men with one syllable; Jim, John, Bob, Rob, Mark, Rick, James, Tom, Bill, Ken, Matt, Luke, Dave and the list goes on.  Why do I bring this up?  I mentioned that I had considered naming a future child (I was not pregnant at the time) Harrison.  He explained that not only was it not one syllable as most successful men are, that if we shortened it to Harris like him or Harry, the child would be made fun of.  He was teased throughout elementary school and referred to as "Harry-ass"because his name was Harris.  

When Ricky (who goes by Rick most of the time) and I were trying to figure out what to call our little boy we knew it had to be one syllable.  We also wanted Harris to be a part of his name as it is very important to us.  So we just fell in love with Grant, and Harrison just sounded so good together.  Once we decided on the name it occurred to us that these were the last names of our nation's 9th and 18th presidents, who were also successful people.  

We were very fortunate to spend July 4th with my grandfather and he had the opportunity to meet Grant Harrison for the first time. We hope my Pop Pop is correct and that he is successful and that he has an extremely bright future.   

Celebrations

Exhausted after a night of partying!

Grant arrived just in time to celebrate Father's Day, Ricky's birthday and Ricky's farewell from VMAQ-1.  Something tells me this kid is going to be just like his parents, in that he isn't going to miss out on a good time!  If there's a party or a celebration, he'll make sure he's there.

The "Farewell" also known as a Hail and Bail was hosted by our dear friends Chase and Amanda Rose whom we just love to pieces.  Amanda and I went through the last deployment together as Chase and Ricky became good friends flying around the world.  The celebration was bittersweet for us but we truly had a wonderful time.  It was catered by a local Mexican restaurant and the beer and wine was just a flowin'.  Ricky received wonderful remarks from both his good friend Matt Oberdorfer and his CO, LtCol Chandler "Sweet pea" Seagraves.  Both brought tears to our eyes and there was no question, that Ricky "Rico" would be truly missed in the ready room.

Amanda-I just love this girl-a true blessing in our lives.

Grant and his Daddy

World's Best Sister!

Three generations of Burias...three beautiful smiles.

Father's Day was a perfect day for Ricky and his dad.  We ended the contemporary service at church which was light and musical and very relaxing.  Immediately following, Ricky and his dad took off for a round of golf while the ladies and Grant went shopping in New Bern.  We ended up back at the house that evening for a nice Father's Day dinner with paper plates, plastic ware as all of our kitchen items were in the family room in brown boxes.  We're glad Ricky was able to spend this time with his dad and son.  Once we arrived in Maryland, we treated my dad to an evening out at the renowned restaurant, The Grove Market.  It was fantastic and we highly recommend anyone visiting the the Ocean City area to try it.  It is a quant restaurant where there are no menus, you have no idea what anything costs, the chairs dont match, the tables are all different and the food is simply amazing.  

Two VERY proud abuelos.

A happy family, even Luke is smiling.

Despite not having his family around, Ricky's birthday turned out to be pretty special as he had his military family surrounding him as well as his sister.  Grant and I left immediately after the movers took our furniture and headed to Maryland so Ricky spent his birthday cleaning and painting-sounds fun huh?  He was staying with our close friends Matt and Rebecca so Rebecca made sure to make Ricky and special birthday dinner followed by attending an open house for our friend Alex who just opened a cupcake shop.  Ricky was in heaven.  Later in the week, he went to his favorite restaurant called the Chef and the Farmer with Matt, Rebecca and his sister Cathy.  I really appreciate them ensuring that he had a wonderful birthday, since I was unable to make that happen.