An Update

If you don't follow my baby blog, there may be some tidbits of information that you are not up-to-date about. So I decided to post a little bit here to make sure everyone knows the most recent happenings in the Peterson household. I'll post the links to the original posts, too, so that I don't have to re-type everything.


1) I'm more than halfway through my pregnancy now at 22 weeks. For those who don't know, we are having a baby boy! We found out on April 2nd and are naming him Josiah David Peterson. When Jesse and I were engaged, we were discussing what names we might like for our future children. Each of us listed about 5 names and Josiah was the only one on both lists. I know how rare it is for a couple to immediately agree on a name so we knew our first son would be named Josiah. As I dug deeper into the meanings behind the names, I found that I was drawn to names that end in "iah". These names are actually Hebrew and mean that the person who named the child is a worshiper of Jehovah (God). That resonated with me a lot! And, furthermore, each name means something like "Jehovah has heard" or "Jehevoh has given". Josiah, specifically, means "Jehovah has healed" which is a beautiful meaning for us considering the infertility we faced before receiving our miracle. It also means the "fire of God" which is pretty amazing too. David is after my brother (who is also Jesse's best friend) and my dad. David happens to be a Hebrew name too and it means "Beloved" or "Friend of God". I received an awesome email from an acquaintance yesterday about these names which REALLY touched me. If you want to read it, click here. At our ultrasound, we found that he is a big and healthy boy, measuring (at that time) 11 ounces and assumedly around 10 inches in length (it's hard to tell when he's all curled up and has no baby fat). He was very active and it was absolutely amazing to see our son up there in live action. In fact, we got a 3-D picture and I'm convinced he already resembles Jesse (especially in his nose). You can read in-depth about the ultrasound and see pictures by clicking here.


I have started to feel the baby move around too. In the past month, I have noticed that I get these really light tickles across my tummy. I can't wait until they get stronger and I can distinctly notice kicks. Meanwhile, each tickle serves as a reminder that he's there and doing well.


2) My grandma passed away April 4th. She had been on hospice for nearly 3 weeks after battling cancer for 5 years. You can read more about it if you click here and here. In short, though, our family is much at peace about it. It was difficult watching her deteriorate and, knowing where she is now, I wouldn't want her back here. In the latter post, you can read about our Easter weekend and in that last post, you can also read about our fabulous trip to the coast we took last weekend.


3)Jesse is still doing his drumming in the band. They have another gig coming up in 2 weeks. Things have slowed down since his last show, but Jesse's passion for playing remains steadfast.


4) We're finally moving forward on the landscaping of our house. I'll try to post pictures soon.


5) Michael is still living with us, but if things go according to plan, this will only be for 2 more days. While his apartment and schooling are not finalized yet, the plan is to move him to Idaho on Friday. We're hoping things are going to be more finalized before that day. He REALLY needs to be back with his kids. Not only is he missing them like crazy, but being away is causing more problems between him and Kaela, and this is the only thing she really has to hold against him (the fact that he left and is in a different state). Things have gotten really ugly in their divorce. Kaela came out with claims that Michael physically abused her during their marriage. Michael has been very honest with us as to what extent things are true or not, like saying that he did throw things on the ground, but never threw things at her. Or by saying that he did grab her arm if she tried to walk away from the argument, but always let go if she said he was hurting her (not intending to physically harm her). The truth is, though, that Kaela is very unstable in her mental state and varies between extreme degrees of moodiness. I, in 100% complete honesty, believe she has some kind of chemical inbalance, and maybe even is bi-polar. She's also been known to thrive on drama and exaggerate a bit. In her mind, though, she begins to tell herself that something happened and then believes it to be true, fabricating stories to back up her ideas. I say this, not just in witnessing her marriage to Michael, but also in my former friendship with her. So, she really believes this abuse occurred and has proceeded to openly tell everyone and say horrible things about Michael in public forums. She also wants Michael to sign over full custody of the kids to her. And, if he fights her, she says that she will bring all of the abuse stuff out in court, even calling him a wife-beater on the phone. In the midst of this, she does talk to him on (almost) a daily basis, and is frequently civil to him, but will all of the sudden explode about something random. She has changed her phone number preventing him from being able to call to talk to the kids, and instead, got a pre-paid phone (separate from her own phone) that Michael is allowed to call. This process did take about a week, though, so during that time Michael was unable to contact his kids. She refused to answer her own phone until the day she knew he was getting paid and would probably be sending her money. And, she has also asked Michael to take out a loan (in his name) to pay for the divorce so that when he moves there, they can finalize things quickly. However, this would require HIM going into debt to give her the divorce SHE wants, which will then give her the grants SHE wants for HER to go to school. Doesn't seem fair to me. So, Michael refused, which only made her mad, and that's when the threats to bring out the abuse in court arose. Before I go too far into it all, I'll stop and just say that he's in a VERY difficult situation, but going to Idaho to be with his kids is the best thing he can do. Please be praying for him as he faces court and the judge determines their futures.

6) Finally, yesterday was Administrative Professionals Day, formerly known as Secretary's Day. That's me!!! I walked into my office to find a bundle of flowers sitting on my desk. I had no clue about the holiday so I was astounded and wondered if I had a secret admirer or something. Soon after, I received a phone call from my friend who works at our sister hospital doing my counterpart position. It turns out that he and his wife had left the flowers for me to celebrate the day. (They both are administrative professionals, too.) Just as I was arranging them in a vase, my boss walked in and I pointed out with joy what I had gotten. She replied, "Well, I was going to wait until you went on your break, but here are some from me," and she presented me with another vase of flowers along with a card. The card included two gift cards as well- one for Cold Stone Creamery and one for Michael's craft store. (Pictures below...)

In the end, things are busy as ever, but we're enjoying life. We're working on accomplishing some big goals and working out all of the little stuff that occurs in the meantime. That's life!




(From my boss)


(From Camron & Melissa)

Five Minute Decision

Jesse has a new hobby. For years, his biggest passion has been playing football. But, he has recently discovered a talent and love for something he never imagined doing before. Jesse now plays the drums.

And, not only does he play the drums, he has now found himself in a band!

Let me start from the beginning, though.

Jesse has always enjoyed rocking out to his music and is known to pound on the steering wheel as he keeps beat to the music on the radio.

Out of curiosity and, for the fun of it, Jesse asked if he could borrow the djembe (you know, like a conga drum) from a guy at church. He took it home and taught himself how to play by watching instructional videos on YouTube. He grew tired of it, though, because of its simplicity. So, he asked the same guy (the previous drummer) if he could take home the full drum set. The previous youth band had dissipated and no one was in the band anymore except for the lone lead singer with his guitar. So, Jesse borrowed the drum set and made our garage his new practice pad. He spent about an hour each day practicing as he taught himself how to play. The kid has a natural knack for hearing beats, though. He quickly began to recognize bass beats, even hearing them in the background music of the decorating shows I was watching on HGTV. I heard nothing but narration of the show! As he listened to the radio, he began to realize that he could pick out the drum parts to the songs and, for many of them, had the skills to already play it.

Meanwhile, the lead singer of the former band, Jared, began teaching my brother David how to play guitar. David had gotten a guitar for Christmas last year and was slowly learning how to play something more than "Jingle Bells". Since Jared already played the electric guitar, he taught David to play the bass. The two of them began playing together on Sunday nights during our worship time at church. Knowing that Jesse had been teaching himself to play the drums, though, they invited him to join them in practice to see how they played together.

They started with simple chord progressions as they learned to all play cohesively, but found that they did pretty well together. So, they invited in a 4th member, Chad, to begin playing the acoustic guitar.

When the band had barely formed, they discovered that the church where Chad was originally from (First Baptist of Springfield) was going to start hosting concerts twice a month during the Spring and Summer. All of the sudden, the band was presented with the possibility of opening up for the mega-hit Christian girl band, Superchic(k). These girls play all over the country and have hits on the national radio station. We've even seen them perform at big concert festivals along with the biggest names in Christian music.

So, without any warning, these 4 guys now had to get serious about being a band together. They upped their practices to 3+ times a week. Then they were informed by the Baptist church that they needed to come up with a name for the flyers that would go out in a few months. We racked our brains to come up with something cool and creative. However, when the guys were called and told that they had to come up with a name and get back to the church in 10 minutes, they decided to finish playing their video game first. With 5 minutes remaining, they came up with the name "Five Minute Decision". While not the most profound name, knowing the story behind it gives it a bit of humor. So, aside from getting their songs down, the next most important thing is to get promotional photos taken. I, being the only groupie, became their official photographer!

A few weeks ago, we had a beautiful day. So, the guys dressed up and we set out to the park and I took pictures of them. Most of them turned out pretty cool, and there's some really funny ones too. With this group of guys, you have to allow them to do bizarre things once in awhile.

So, in a matter of months, Jesse has not only picked up a new hobby, but he's found a new passion. He told me that as much as he loved playing football, the way he feels when he's playing the drums is far more intense. He loves it! And, because of that, I fully support him. In fact, I support him so much that I allowed him to buy a $1700 electonic drum set with our income tax return (knowing that this particular drum set is worth almost twice that much and is in brand new condition). This will allow him to play at home at all times, day or not, and because he can plug headphones into it, it will not disturb me or our future baby. Additionally, he will be able to pack it up easily to play with the band AND it's high enough quality that he will be able to play it in performances despite it being electronic. He has been so excited. He talked about it every single day and checked our bank account at 7:00am in the morning to see if the tax return had come in yet. When it did, he obsessed all day about picking it up as soon as he possibly could. Since he got it, he plays any chance he gets. It's actually really cool. It has many various settings, allowing him to play African drum beats or techno sounds. It even has a beat boxing setting that goes, "Yeah," when you hit it in a certain spot. He's been having fun with it.

So, you're all invited to check out their upcoming concert at the Baptist church. Their band is not yet as loud and rocking as they hope to be someday, so if Christian Rock isn't your genre of choice, you're still safe. And the concert is free. And, now that my husband is going to be a rockstar with his drumsticks, I need to find some sticks off my own to beat the girls off.

Valentine's Weekend

Wow! I am not so good at this writing thing anymore! I suppose it's partly to blame on our recently busier schedules, but, on the good side, it gives me more to write about now that I am here...

To start with, Jesse and I spent a wonderful weekend at the coast for Valentine's Day. Two years and 2 days earlier, we drove up the coastal towns, spending the day doing unusual and fun things before he asked me to marry him at sunset at Seal Rock. So, in lieu of it being Valentine's Day weekend, 2 years after our engagement, because we haven't gone on a trip since our honeymoon, and because we won't be able to travel as much the more pregnant I get (and certainly after the baby is born), we made this our opportunity to get away.

I made reservations at Driftwood Shores, and after work on Friday, we packed and headed to the coast. We first went to our hotel and checked in. I knew the location would be fantastic, as I've been to Driftwood Shores before, but our room was a little disappointing. As soon as we sat our bags down, we realized that you could hear everything, word-for-word, that the people in the room next to us were saying. And it sounded like they had little kids with them. However, we made the best of the situation, and since we didn't get back until they were asleep, it seemed to work out okay.






After dropping off our bags, we headed to Three Rivers Casino. Neither of us had ever been to a casino before and thought it'd be fun. We didn't realize until we walked in the door that it was legal to smoke in the building (since smoking has been banned in public buildings all over the state). However, this is an Indian reservation's property, which makes them able to smoke. While not ideal, we made it through just fine. I just tried to avoid sitting next to someone who was puffing away, and we made use of the "non-smoking slot room" later. First, though, before we played any games, we wanted dinner! We were starving!



Our choices of dining in the casino were an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet (not my cup o' tea), a cafe, and a steakhouse. We opted for the final option. Steak sounded fabulous! This place was probably the fanciest place we'd ever been to, though. Prime rib and lobster for 2 was $99!!! We each got a steak, about $30 a piece, and a salad (another $5-6 each). And since we ordered soda instead of wine, the waitress brought us our Mountain Dew in the biggest wine glasses I'd ever seen. Our food was really good and it was a nice experience. My pictures didn't turn out too great because I didn't want to use my flash in the restaurant.





After our bellies were filled, we were off to the slot machines. I have to admit, gambling is much harder than I ever realized. I'm a smart kid, I think. I graduated top of my class in both high school and college, but I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to play these slot machines. It, first of all, took me awhile to realize that some machines had buttons that you pushed AND a touch-screen that you could push. On top of that, even though some had a lever that you could pull on the side, you could also push a button in front of you which would do the same thing. More confusing than that, though, was that you could select lines to bet on. So, as the wheels turned and the little icons flashed before you, you could not only bet on the middle one, but also on any combination of icons you wanted. The more lines you bet on, the more chances you had of winning, but the more money it took out of the amount you had. And, when you bet on these lines, you were betting on the next spin. There's no strategy, as far as I can tell, other than playing smart enough to not bet all of your money on one spin. We did fairly well, though. We only spent $20 in the whole casino and we made $8.27 back of it! It wasn't really the experience we thought it would be, but it was fun to try something we had never done.


After sleeping in the next morning, and waking up to a beautiful oceanview,





we drove up to Sea Lion Caves.



I We have been to this place many times over the years, but I had never actually paid to go down into the cave and see the sea lions there. Jesse had done it only once, I think, as a little kid. So we paid our $11 each to go down there. There were 250 sea lions in the cave, and you could smell every single one of them! Surprisingly, though, I think the smell bothered Jesse more than me. The disappointing part of it was that you had to stand a distance up from them and peer at them through a chain-link fence. Both Jesse and I were under the impression that it was more open, although I knew that you wouldn't be close enough to touch them as that could be dangerous. You also couldn't use flash photography, so my pictures were pretty dark. Aside from watching the sea lions sitting there barking at each other, there were a few museum-esque exhibits. One showed a sea lions bones, as they lay on the ground, in the same place they did 200 some-odd years ago. And, another showed the skeletal system of a female sea lion, which was really weird looking.

There was also a video you could watch, some historical facts about the cave's discovery you could read, and a look-out to view Haceta Head Lighthouse. It would not be worth the $22 to go down there again, but we were glad we experienced it.






We took these pictures outside of the caves. When we were dating 4 years ago, we took pictures at this same lookout point. So, I wanted one of us now. In mine, you can hopefully see where my belly is beginning to pooch a little bit (12 weeks pregnant).




After that, I wanted to get as close as I possibly could to Haceta Head Lighthouse. It's standard practice to get a picture of the lighthouse over-looking the ocean EVERY time you go to the coast, but I had never been any closer to it. So, we drove up the road to a sign that pointed ahead to the lighthouse.

We had no idea how deceiving that sign really was. This sign o' lies was pointing in a very vague direction towards two streets, one that headed down and one that headed up. So, we drove down first and found ourselves on the beach. There were other signs that indicated tours of the lighthouse from this area, but they didn't begin until mid-March. Furthermore, to get to the lighthouse from this point, you would have to hike quite a ways- not easy for me in my pregnancy-fatigue. So we drove back up and decided to follow the other road which pointed up. As we drove, this road became a never-ending one. We joked about it leading straight to someone's private house, making this the world's longest driveway. We joked about it leading to the edge of a cliff with a sign that said "Ha Ha! Sucker!" We joked that there should be signs all along the way telling you if this really was the right road or not. Unfortunately, no such signs existed. The road continued to wind up the moutainside, and since we could still see the oceanside and knew we were heading in the general vacinity of where the lighthouse should be, we kept going. Since we could only travel about 20 miles an hour around this windy road, it was slow-going, but before long we reached the point of no return. Our curiosity got the best of us and we couldn't stop without seeing where this road went to. If we went this far, we HAD to keep going.

As we drove, we began to see patches of snow.




That was odd to me. I had never seen snow at the coast before. Then the patches of snow (or the inbetween lack of) became fewer and fewer. Soon, we were fish-tailing our way through car tracks in inches of snow. This began to freak me out a little bit. I realized that we were a long ways up there, I had no phone service at all, and we had only seen one car the whole time we were on this road (just leaving as we were getting on). If we were to crash, no one would know where we were. We drove on, though, determined to keep going, and then we hit our dead end. The road T'd off with a sign saying that there was one freeway to the left and one freeway to the right. The one to the right was the one we had previously been on, only 13 miles away, but stopping us dead in our tracks was 3 inches of untouched snow. Considering that we had already been sliding all around on this narrow road in the places where cars had previously driven, I was more than leery of continuing to drive on fresh snowy roads, especially without chains of any kind. So, we attempted to turn around. Jesse backed the truck off the side of the road to make his turn-around, only to find that we were immediately stuck. The tire kept spinning out. I was thoroughly freaked out at this point. Jesse remained calm saying that he could get us out of it, but admitted later that he was freaked out too. And then the snow began to fall, hard and fast! Since we couldn't go forward, Jesse backed us out of the rut, driving alongside the edge of the woods until we were able to get safely back on the road, now heading in the opposite direction. Disappointed that we never found the lighthouse, but laughing at our adventure, we headed back the way we had come. The whole trip took around 45 minutes, due to the slow-driving conditions. And now, having said all of that, don't follow the sign that says ---> to Haceta Head Lighthouse. It's a big fat liar!

Now back on our original path, we headed north to Cape Perpetua and went to their visitor lookout center where we could see the ocean. They also had the giant jaw bones of a blue whale on site. Crazy big!



From there, we drove to Waldport and had lunch at Subway and then (for the climax of the trip) we drove to Seal Rock where we got engaged 2 years earlier.









The only times it ever rained were when we were driving. Any time we got out of the car, though, the skies were bright and sunny. We made our way down to the beach and found a spot nearby where Jesse had proposed.



(The view from where he proposed to me)


We sat and looked out at the ocean, with our arms around each other, and discussed how thankful we were for our lives thus far. We had no clue 2 years ago that we would be more than happily married, be home-owners, have great jobs, and be pregnant with our first baby at this time. We sat on the beach 2 years earlier in extreme excitement about everything we hoped to achieve together, but where we are now is far greater than anything we ever imagined. After we got engaged that day, we prayed together, dedicating our marriage and wedding-planning to God, asking for wisdom to love each other as He wants us to, and praying that our love be a testimony of God's love to all who witness it. Now, 2 years later, we again prayed, thanking God for bringing us this far, praising Him for what He has given to us at this moment, and asking His continued blessing on our future.





To finish the day, we drove back to Florence (where we had started from) and got ice cream in the downtown district before heading back home. A wonderful weekend!

Oh, and I got one souvenir before we left...

I collect these Willow Tree figurines that I think are beautiful. Each original piece is hand-carved by the artist, and these figurines are so expressive in their relationships with each other, despite the fact that no figurine actually has a face carved into it. I got one figurine when Jesse and I got married. It is called "Together" and says, "For those who have found their true partner in love and life."



On Christmas this year, just 2 weeks after finding out I was pregnant, I received another as a gift called "Cherish" which says, "Awaiting a miracle."


At the end of this trip, I found this figurine in a gift shop which seemed to befit this occassion perfectly: "Promise" saying, "Hold dear the promise of love."