hello, old friend.

you guys. it's been almost four years. four. a lot has happened in that time, and our life looks completely different these days.

for starters, we have been incredibly, incredibly blessed with these two precious loves.

oh you guys. outside of jesus, that's my whole entire heart, all in one picture. i was crying before i started writing this post - just completely overwhelmed with these two, healthy, precious blessings whom travis and i love so much.

i needed an outlet so i pulled out my laptop and found myself navigating to this old, but familiar place. i've said for a while now that i wish i kept writing, documenting the experiences and adventures we've been on. maybe i will again. maybe tonight will just be a one-and-done-again for a while. i don't know. we'll see where my heart {and time} is led.

what i do know is that parenthood has wrecked me in the most incredible, beautiful way i could have never imagined. the bittersweetness of the experience is overwhelming sometimes. i could not be more grateful {and i mean that so sincerely} that i have two beautiful, growing babies. growing means they're healthy. learning means they're doing what they should. but it also means time is marching on. time. i've always been ever-aware of how quickly it passes. so i have to remind myself that i have to take time to celebrate the incredible love and joy i feel when seeing these babies because already my heart aches as i picture them walking out the door and spending the majority of their life outside of the walls of our home. and i don't want to spend the next sixteen and seventeen years sad. i want to relish this season of our adventure. before marriage and before babies, i never knew i could love people as fiercely as i love these three people. and if anything were to ever happen to me, i would want my babies to know i loved them fiercely, with an everlasting, inexplicable love.

God is so good, you guys. he is so, so good. and seeing how i love these three has given me just a tiny glimpse of His unchanging, unwavering, inexplicable love for us.

i'm in a hotel room in washington, dc. {unlike four years ago, i don't actually travel all that much} but i'm in dc and i've been able to facetime my favorite guy and those two babies i can't quit gushing about; travis and i have spent a good half hour texting about our days; he's reminded me multiple times to take care of myself and be safe while i'm here; and i've reminded him that it's time for us to talk about our hopes and dreams again. and that i love him always.

life looks so different than it did four years ago -- it looks so different than it did even a year ago. but i love it. and i'm grateful for it.

where will we go next? i don't know. but i'm glad we'll be together. and i'm grateful it includes cohen and norah and their journeys, too.

family dallas trip: day 1.

it's only taken me a month, but i'm finally getting around to posting about the family trip we took to dallas at the end of summer.  haley has never been out of the state of oklahoma, except to visit our aunt who used to live in arkansas. 

haley has stayed pretty busy babysitting for the loves and the leaches this summer, and my travel schedule at work has picked up quite a bit. still, we knew we wanted to get her out of town for a bit, even if we couldn't go for an entire week.

july 25th was a thursday.  haley spent the day babysitting for the loves in barlesville.  we picked her up right after work and headed to the tulsa airport to pick up a rental car.  travis and i had taken the next day off work, so we were going to have a three-day weekend.  instead of using one of those days for driving, we had decided we would drive down on thursday night so we would have all day friday and saturday for activities and part of the day sunday before heading home.  the rental car took a little bit longer to get than we had originally anticipated.  with the plan i have, we can usually get out, pick a car from the aisle, and head on out ... but the tulsa airport was beebopping-showstopping, so we had to wait for one to be cleaned and available.  i grabbed the car and haley and travis headed out ahead of me.  we got to the house and travis and i quickly packed, said good bye to the boys (my mom and sierra helped watch them at the house while we were gone - and then took them to tahlequah and muskogee later in the weekend), loaded up the car, and away we went. 

the drive to dalls from tulsa isn't really all that bad.  we had spotify to keep us company, and i created a fun playlist for our dallas trip.  sometimes almost always, when we get in the car, haley puts in headphones, so i tried to make sure it was a fun mix of songs we would all like.  i even included some one direction songs.

when we drove through durant, haley could see flashing lights in the distance.  she asked what was glowing in the sky.  it kind of cracked me up, because what was glowing in the sky was actually the casino.  (ignore the terrible quality of this picture).

when we got into dallas, we actually hit traffic.  haley was outraged.  what the heck? seriously? traffic at this time?? we explained that texas does all their road construction at night.  the trip definitely wasn't bad, but the last forty-five minutes of the trip i was definitely counting down the minutes until i could crawl into a nice cozy bed.

i wanted to stay at the omni dallas (the hotel that plays in the opening credits of dallas, the show), but they were completely full. so we stayed at the omni mandalay hotel instead. (also in dallas).

now, there are a few perks that come with travel as frequent as mine.  i had earned three free nights with omni because i've stayed with them so much, so our hotel room for the weekend was completely covered -- and we were able to upgrade to a suite for no additional cost.  (yay for free suites for a whole weekend!)

when we finally got to our hotel at a little after midnight this was waiting for us. 

we didn't spend too much time enjoying it, though, because we were all completely wiped out.  we quickly found our pajamas and toothbrushes and started getting ready for bed.

while i was changing, travis tried to make up the sofa bed for haley.  turned out there was no bed in the sofa.  we looked and looked, but there was definitely not a bed ... and there was no other furniture in the room that turned into a bed.  i felt terrible.  haley said she didn't mind sleeping on the couch, so we promised we would get it fixed in the morning, and all headed to dreamland.

another phone date with parker.

i have to tell you, i'm loving my facetime dates with little p.   he did much better this time.  he didn't hang up on me when i called {he did end up hanging up with me at one point, but we reconnected}. 

he was just too cute.  we started off playing a fun game of peek-a-boo.  he just sounds so precious when he says my name ... and i realized he says my name a couple of different ways.  i wish i could remember exactly how he says them so i could capture it here. 

i remembered i could snap screenshots of my phone while we were talking so i captured a few here.  {ignore my goofy faces in the shots}. 

i watched him play for a little bit and run back and forth between the kitchen for "cahkers."  he even shared one with me through the phone.  i made a little sound like i was fake eating and justin said parker already does the same thing with his animals.  if they are all eating, he will bring a stuffed animal in and hold up the food like he did for me and make that noise while the animal shares a bite.  what a cutie! 

i called him back over for this last picture.  he had lost a little bit of interest in the phone and was occasionally distracted by the movie cars, but he came over to blow me kisses and wave goodbye a couple of times. 

i just love this kid.

flying to houston.

there was an incredible wall cloud that we had to fly around tonight on our way to houston.  the pilot called the flight attendant up to the cockpit to point it out to her.  

i never grow tired of seeing this sort of thing. 

we flew a "C" around the storm and then straight on to houston.  the sky opened up quite a bit once we were around it.  i love when we see wall clouds like that.  this particular one went up higher than 60,000 ft!  pretty incredible.  and since we fly so far around, we can enjoy the view without all the turbulence. 

{rhiannon's} trip to urgent care.

well after a three-week long headache, i headed into urgent care today.  i've been traveling to houston quite a bit over the past couple of weeks, so i haven't been in town to get into see the doctor during the week.

it wasn't one of the worst headaches i've had, but after having a headache every.single.day for three weeks, i just couldn't take it any more.  i start to feel completely worn down, worn out, and exhausted, mentally and physically. so, to the local urgent care i headed this fine saturday morning.

sometimes travis and i get completely fed up with the urgent care by our house -- they're the doctors who kept telling travis he was constipated and that a laxative would help.  they also said they couldn't see anything in his mouth when he kept complaining of terrible pain in the back of his throat.  when we got home, travis shined a flashlight into the back of his throat and both he and i could see a really large, really painful looking ulcer (another symptom of chrone's). 

this time was not like our previous experiences at all.  dr. bushyhead came into the room not long after i arrived and spent almost an hour with me talking about my headaches, how they present, what i've done, how long they last, how they make me feel, etc.  he was wonderful.  he did some blood work as well and wrote a prescription for a heavy-duty medication that should help my headache until i can get in to see the neurologist again. when i thanked him for spending the time with me that he did, he said "you don't get into medicine for the money.  you get into medicine to help people.  and if something i do for you helps you, you'll share that knowledge with others, and hopefully make a difference in their lives as well."  an altruistic doctor.  how wonderful!  he encouraged me to get out and look at the sky at least five minutes a day, so i'm going to try to take that recommendation.

it always makes me a little sad when i find a doctor i like who doesn't have PCP hours.  hopefully this medicine he's given me will be able to break this headache, and i can start to feel a little better.

facetiming with parker.

last weekend i was really thinking about how much parker is changing and growing and just how much i miss him.  a few days before mom told me that parker had picked up a picture of me at the house and started saying my name and asking about me.  i texted lindsay and asked if she thought parker would facetime. he's not putting entire sentences together yet, but he is saying more and more words all the time, so i thought he might be up for it.  plus i've only facetimed one other time - it was with kate when i was trying to show her a weird bruise on my face - so i thought it would be fun for me to learn more about it, too.

we couldn't make it happen over the weekend, but on monday night i was in houston in my hotel room alone.  i knew i was going to make it an early night {i had been up since 3:15 that morning!} so i texted lindsay to see if they were up for it. 

they texted me back a little later and said they had just come in from playing outside, but they wanted to give it a shot. 

when i first called, he touched the screen and hung up on me.  when i called back lindsay kept laughing and telling him not to touch the screen.  he was so funny.  he got really excited, then he just kind of ran around.  he ended up showing me his truck, and we played peek-a-boo.  he says "rhiannon" now {!!!!} and my heart melts {as if his smile wasn't devastating enough}.   he also showed off his new big boy bed. 

he had to leave to get in the bath, and i ended up having a nice, long talk just catching up with my brother until the phone died.  

he texted me a few minutes later apologizing, but i assured him it was quite alright as i was already in bed and was quickly getting the lights turned out.  did i mention it was only 9:00? i was one tired girl, but it was so great visiting with my brother.  i love that guy so much, and we just don't get to hang out nearly as much as i would like. 

6 months.

dear haley,  

today marks your sixth month with us.  you started the month feeling a little heavy after several months of new adventures and adjusting.  you just really miss your dad, and it's hard for you not seeing him.  here are a few things you miss about your dad:

• seeing or talking to him everyday
• his smile and laugh
• that i-love-you-even-though-you-made-me-angry look
• him telling you how much he loves you
• him bugging you to watch a movie with him
• him asking you to scratch his back
• him telling you you're pretty (it was just so special when he told you)
• his snoring
• how he'd make you mad when he'd fall asleep in the middle of you talking to him
• him giving you hugs and kisses
• how he'd listen intently if he knew it was important
• him joking around with you, even if it made you mad sometimes
• when he'd ask you to cut his hair or trim his beard
• him watching your tv shows with you

right now you want to understand why life isn't fair.  the day your dad left, it happened very quickly.  it was horrible for you to see him like that.  as hard as it was for you to see him like that, we've talked about how glad you and i both are that he didn't have to be alone while he was going through that.  

the rest of the month progressed a little easier and you had a lot of fun experiences. you: 

• met travis's aunt lou from tennessee for the first time.  you also got to meet her grandkids, caitlin and kevin
• spent the fourth of july with us and travis's family during the day:
• swimming at the pool, homemade ice cream, time with amanda
• spent the evening of the fourth with aunt deniese, uncle john, lindsay, justin, parker, and uncle john's best friend john bodean and his wife deb.  
• had fun in the sun with sierra at our neighborhood pool
• got to take riley jo out to uncle john's land and spend time there with aunt deniese; you were so excited to see riley.  you've been missing her a lot these days.
• spent almost a full week babysitting levi and asher - well mainly just asher.  levi hung out with you guys one day but then headed to his grandma's for the rest of the week
• headed to dallas with us for a family vacation. it was your first time to go to an aquarium/zoo, but i think your favorite part was medieval times (we'll have to go another time when we can stay for the whole thing), and south fork ranch. 
• you spent another few days at aunt deniese's the week after vacation and got to see uncle jason and justin. they told you they loved you and you were super excited. 
• will go to bartlesville schools this year {we're 99% sure}, so the three of us and aunt deniese spent a day at the board of education.  we didn't get to enroll you, but hopefully that will happen on the 8th. 
• got to spend part of the day at my office, see where i work, and meet a few of the people on my floor 
• are counting down the days until your birthday {16 more days!} 
• still have a lot of people in your life thinking of you, praying for you, and asking about you

i know august will be a little different for you -- moving to a new school and meeting new people -- but you're excited for a fresh start.  everyone we've met in bartlesville has been really nice so my prayer for you is that you'll meet some really incredible friends, the kinds of friends you deserve to have in your life.  i know this will bring about more change, but change, even when tough, can be really great.  we're here for you, cheering you on. 

we love you, 

travis, rhiannon, conor, & oli 

sweet cuddle pup.

i had just gotten to work this morning when sierra sent me this picture of my sweet conor pup.  how precious is he peeking out from under the covers?!

each morning we put the boys in sierra's or oliver's room depending on whether sierra is home or not.  they are always happy to have another cuddle buddy since we leave so early in the mornings.  conor usually burrows right under the covers so he can get next to the person he's cuddling.  oliver makes himself comfortable on the bed, down near he foot of the bed. 

melt. my. heart.

dr. lajara {new neurologist}.

today i went to see a new neurologist. my headaches have gotten pretty intense again lately, and i decided i couldn't wait any longer.  i've been seeing the doctor at work, and he ordered a CT scan for me. it came back clear, but my headaches still haven't cleared up, so he referred me to doctor lajara.  dr. lajara is  a neurologist in bartlesville.  

when i went in today, he agreed that i've done a lot of what he would recommend.  i like that he took the time to listen to my full history, ask more questions, and then start making recommendations.  some doctors seem so ready to just get you out of their offices.

he's started me on a new preventative - topamax.  hopefully we'll find that it does its job and keeps me from having these massive, never-ending headaches.

i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

{little} reminders.

i thank God for my husband every single day.  there are some days when i thank Him even more frequently.  earlier this week i was having a rough day.  when i got back to my desk i had these two little reminders that my husband loves me.

the note is a note he left at my desk probably a year ago, and yoda was in my stocking this past christmas.  they are silly trinkets that make me smile and remind me that i have someone else on my side.