Monday, August 25, 2008

YouTube - Ennio Morricone - Gabriel's Oboe from "The Mission" concert





Gabriel is 8 weeks old now! These last 8 weeks have been a little busy, but he has handled it all like a trooper! He is such a sweet baby. As you can tell, he is starting to fill out some and getting chubby cheeks and legs. He is smiling a lot and cooing some too. We are so thankful for him.
Some have wondered why we named him Gabriel. We were thinking of names for a long time and had narrowed it down to Eli, Levi, or Gabriel. When we looked up the meaning of each name, we loved the meaning of the name Gabriel. It comes from the Hebrew name “Gav’riel” which means “God is my strength.” Of course, we pray that Gabriel grows up to be a man who claims that God is his strength.

One interesting thing is that one of my favorite songs of all time is an instrumental song written by Ennio Morricone called “Gabriel’s oboe.” It's from the movie "The Mission" and the soundtrack is fabulous...one of my favorites. I had wanted the song played in our wedding seven years ago, but it was too expensive to hire an oboe player. I didn’t even think about it until two weeks ago, how much I love the song and that we named our son Gabriel. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the song. It’s only about 2 minutes long.



YouTube - Ennio Morricone - Gabriel's Oboe from "The Mission" concert

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Settling in at the Fort

Paw Paw has spent a lot of time pulling Micah in the wagon and playing with him.
The hat and shirt were a gift from a friend in SF...thanks Cheryl!
Nana rocking with Gabriel.
Paw Paw talking with Gabriel.
Kim, Thomas, Harrison, and Benjamin with Gabriel. Not a chance of getting Micah in the picture with them.
Micah reluctantly joins Nana and Paw Paw for a photo.


We have been in Arkansas since the 4th of this month. It’s been a little crazy with taking care of two kids and trying to unpack. Thankfully, my parents have been here and have helped tremendously and we have enjoyed them being here. My sister and her family were here to visit for a few days and it was great to see them. I have found it hard to make time to sit down and concentrate enough to send an email or update this blog, but maybe I can be a little more consistent.



We are enjoying our new place and are still unpacking and trying to settle in. Wayne’s job is going well and he is enjoying it. U of AR Fort Smith is a beautiful campus and much bigger than I imagined. We are slowly exploring the town when we have a chance. We have visited two churches now and will visit one or two more and will likely go back to the first one we visited to check it out a little deeper. I have to say Sundays are a little weird because we aren’t going to FBCSF. There is just no place like it. Sure, we miss the bay area as a whole, but our church and the folks there was one of our favorite things.



One disappointing thing that we’ve found out is that the public school programs for preschoolers with special needs is not the best. They only offer a 2 hour per day Mon- Thurs. option and any services (PT, OT, and speech) would be included in that time. So, we are exploring other options. We’ve found that there are two organizations here in Fort Smith that have all day preschool programs for kids with special needs. I am going to meet with the director of one this week. It’s called Kids First and they have a M-Fri, 8-3 program which includes any therapy a child needs. There are only 9-10 kids per classroom with 2 full time staff in each and the school has 2 full time nurses and one pediatrician. It is through the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and is supposed to be a top notch program. Micah will have to be approved to be enrolled, meeting the requirements (which means being developmentally delayed enough, and he is) and being referred by a physician among other things. The lady I spoke to said that it sometimes takes a month before a child can be enrolled, but that sometimes there are exceptions. We’ll find out more about it this week.



Micah is still having a really hard time with Gabriel, with maybe a slight improvement. He got close enough to touch him last night but didn’t even realize Gabriel was in my lap until he touched him. He then got a really scared look on his face and ran back to his room. Gabriel is doing well, but he is spitting up a good portion of almost every feeding in the last week or so.
We will update again soon. Thanks for continuing to pray for Micah.

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Not in Arkansas yet

Well, I'm sure some have wondered if we got all moved in and are getting settled. That would be "No." When we called middle of last week to see if our belongings were arriving on the 31st, they gave us the date of August 4th. We weren't happy about that because that's the day Wayne starts work at U of AR Ft. Smith. They had given us a range of 10-17 days and they are taking the full amount of time. When we told them it was really 18 days, they said "Oh, Sundays are excepted." It has been a bit frustrating, but you realize it's no good to stay frustrated in these situations because it accomplishes little more than a bad attitude. So, the plan now is for Wayne and his Dad to drive over tomorrow afternoon, stay in a motel (since we have nowhere or no bedding items for sleep, and so Wayne can have a decent night's sleep before his first day), Wayne will go to work Monday morning and Cecil will be there when the moving company comes. Wayne's Mom and I and the boys will drive over on Monday. We thought it would be best to not have Micah there for all the chaos of moving in.



My parents will be there either Monday or Tuesday. We are excited to see them since we haven't since Christmas! They will get to meet Gabriel for the first time and get reacquainted with Micah.



We'll update more later in the week. We may not have internet access for a few days. The cable internet folks can't make it until Thursday. Why, I'm not sure. I guess these things take a while...it is Arkansas. Just kidding...I'm a native Arkansan so I can make comments like that.