Big News!!!

I quit TCH. Yes, almost 4 years of working at Texas Children's Hospital, I quit, my last day being May 19th. My friends at work brought lunch and brought cupcakes and gave me nice card they all signed. So sweet!!! I will miss TCH, mostly my awesome coworkers. The main reason I quit is because the hospital took the vanpool away this past April. So for two months I have been cummutting by myself which is about an hour commute plus paying the $12 parking to get to work, round trip, around 59 miles. When I had a free ride for almost 4 years with the vanpool, I could not take it and started applying at Methodist Willowbrook. I started May 23rd and now I have a 7 minute commute, round trip, 5.1 miles. My position is not a NICU nurse but a transitional nurse. Basically I will go to every delivery and transition the baby and either send it to the NICU or back to the mom. My first week was all in the classroom last week. Yesterday, Sunday, was my first day on the unit. I went to 3 deliveries-one set of twins. It was very different! We were busy. I would explain more but I don't want to get in trouble or get fired for HIPPA reasons.

Also this past Saturday was my birthday celebration at my parents house. We all had a good time and ate way too much. My mom is the best cook. She made my request of shish kabob, slaw, chinese rice, rolls and my birthday cake was LAVA an ancient Mears receipe that is the best. Plus Ryan and I, or should I say, Guen, revealed the great news! See pics below. Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend.

Hi

A few excited things have been occuring at the Fennell household. First off, Ryan and I went on a date this past Saturday night. We went to Roller Derby!!!!! Yes, very interesting and fun. I think I am trying out next Saturday. The only thing is I can barely walk on my own two feet much less with wheels on the bottom. We went out to dinner before at the Saltgrass. It is one of the only restaurants close to the new arena. They just recently moved the Roller Derby from down in the Washington St area up northside. We went with Chris Homer too and some of Ryan's work friends. Tootie and Chad her boyfriend came to babysit. My parents were so crushed they were not asked to babysit, they came over anyways. So there were 4 people watching Guen, that spoiled girl. The weekend before was Tootie's birthday. We had a delcious homemade lunch prepared by mom and opened prezzies. It was a good time and my sister Missy came into town too so it was great. This past Sunday was Guen's first Easter egg hunt and, boy, did she catch on real quick. It was with our Sunday school group at a park by our house. The weather was perfect!!! Here are some pics to keep you occupied til next write. Love, Liz

Wowzers!

It is been exactly a month since I posted. I need to get on the ball cause I have no excuse. I guess it is that not much is going on recently that has been exciting enough to post. But on Sunday, my sweet girl turned 18 months. She is getting so big and has mastered many words. Of course these words are hard to understand unless you are around her a bunch. She knows: park, bus, school, mailman, Elmo, ball, please, bird, moo, baaa, ruff, mama, dada, papaw, memaw, more, hi, hey, car and her favorite word --no. She loves to eat meat, cheese and any kind of carb. She loves to brush her teeth. She know most of her body parts especially her belly button, she loves to show that. When I am off, we go to the park almost daily. She wears a 6.5 shoe. She had her 18 month checkup and is 75% in height and weight and 90% in head circumference. That comes from the side of the Mears family. We have gone to the zoo and out to eat a few times recently and she was well behaved.

About us....My vanpool to Texas Childrens, that I have used for 3 years, was nixed due to the economy, the hospital took it away. I am now driving myself starting April 1st and really want to find a job at Methodist Willowbrook which is 5 minutes away from my house when their NICU expands this fall. Ryan is still having aches/pains with his back 6 months post op so we went back to his surgeon and had back xrays again. Basically he believes that his back is healed but it is just going to take longer for the nerves to rejuvenate and gave him another course of steriods. He said that if his back continues to feel the way it does at a year mark that he can do a CT scan. He offered to do it now but he truly feels like it is healed. He offered physical therapy but says that Ryan is doing all the right things with his exercising so if we did not want to do it, that would be fine. So we are just saying our prayers that he will feel better with time. Here are some pics to tied you over til next month unless something crazy exciting happens this month. It is my sister's birthday this coming weekend so there may be another post sooner than later.

Yeeeee Haaaaaaw!!!!

Howdy there! I am in cowgirl mode after going to the rodeo this past Friday. To be honest, I was not expecting much, especially for things for Guen to do, but boy was I wrong. I had a great time and Guen had an even better time at her first rodeo. My friend Sarah and her daughter Kate, Guen and myself went in the morning. We parked by Reliant Park, loaded up the girls, and took the tram into the rodeo. We did not go to watch the actual rodeo but got Reliant Park Admission Tickets that allows entrance to the Show, including the carnival, Reliant Arena for horse show events, and Reliant Center for Capital One Bank AGVENTURE, livestock show, shopping and food exhibits. Our first stop was looking at all the cows. It was so much fun to watch Guen point to everything and say "moo" to the cows. Other stops included: the petting zoo, watching the mutton bustin, going through Fun on the Farm, seeing the birthing center and all the babies animals at the birthing center, playing on the tractors, eating a fried snickers bar and bbq and of course seeing all the other animals. Definitely going back next year because we did not even do half of it. But after being there for almost 4 hours with a 1 year old and a 8 month old, we had to go home for naps. I worked all weekend so no other adventures besides the rodeo on Friday. Here are some fun pics:

Sweet Kate:


Guen planting her tomatoes on the farm:


My first fried Snickers:


Baby Chicks:


Riding the tractor:

Aaaah!

This new year is flying by so fast already. I have not even posted in about two months. But I do have a valid excuse for January. January 6th evening, I will not forget. I was coming home from a girl's get together when I started to feel really bad. I ended up saying I was getting the flu and decided to not go to the doctor on Friday. Instead I just got sicker and sicker that weekend that when Monday rolled around I thought I was going to die. I made an appointment first thing on Monday and found out I had a raging case of strep. At the same time, Guen was sick with a virus/cold and when ended getting her tested for strep too but luckily it was negative. Unfortunately she stayed sick for about two miserable weeks of not eating and fevers. In fact we took her to the doctor two more times just to make sure something was not wrong with her. She lost almost 2 pounds off of her little 24 pound body because she was so sick. Then about during this time Ryan got really sick. This is when I am so lucky and thankful that my parents live close. We were both so sick that some of those days they had to come and take care of Guen. Ryan ended up having a raging ear infection. It was so bad that he could not even make it through the weekend and went to an urgent care clinic and got some antibiotics. Poor thing, he was sleeping with an ice bag/heating pad to his ears cause it hurt so bad. It really felt like we were all never ever going to get better. I am happy to say that this month has been much better. And now I am finally getting around to posting. This past weekend I had off 4 days, starting with Thursday. I took Guen to mother's day out. I hurried home and cleaned up the house and made lots of food. That took up my entire 5 hours that I am free of my 1 year old. Picked her up and called it a day. Friday, I met my sister for lunch at her favorite place Empire Turkish Grill off of Memorial. Guen was an angel the entire day and so well behaved. Why does she do this around others but not when she is with me? Anywho we went to the mall where I actually bought myself some clothes, yes myself some clothes. And we called it a day. You can see from the pic below how worn out Guen was with her day with her Aunt Tootie. Saturday I went to the grocery and made some dinner and we had the Homer's-Chris, Aaron, Sarah and Kate all over for an early dinner. We played a lot with Guen that day since it was such a nice day outside. Anyway see pics of the fun below. Today, Sunday was our usual go to church in the morning and then we had a birthday party to attend that afternoon. Today is Danielle's 1st birthday, our neice, Guen's cousin. We went over there where Guen was so cranky and shy, it was kinda disappointing to see her cousin's having a ball but she just clinged to Ryan or myself. Eventually after cake and when the party was coming to an end, she came outta her shell and playing. Oh well. Back to work for me tomorrow. Hope all is well with eveyone. Love, LIz

Before the big day with Aunt Tootie:



After the day with Aunt Tootie:



Sweet Sarah and Sweet Kate:


Guen, Lovey and birthday girl Danielle:

Christmas at the Fennell's

Christmas is so much more fun when you have a kid. I bet it will be even more fun when she understands Santa. Unfortunately, I had to work on Christmas Day but I did have Christmas Eve off. We had my side of the family (my parents, Tootie, Chad, Missy) over for a mexican feast of chicken tortilla soup, tamales, queso, salad, and tons of sweets. It was tasty and we opened prezzies afterwards. When Guen went down for her nap around 3pm, everyone left to go to church and other festivities but Ryan and I got ready to go to party number two. We went over Ryan's sister's house and had Christmas with them. We ate again an appetizer themed meal and all the cousins played together and we opened prezzies. Guen made it til about 8pm (an hour past her bedtime) and we went home and straight to bed. I worked the next day but Ryan and Guen spent Christmas day with my family again over at my parents house eating a big meal of turkey and then going to see a movie. I have been working ever since Christmas, so I am finally sitting down to write a little blog about our day. It was wonderful. I hope you had a great Christmas, here are so pics to see my family enjoying the day.

Busy Weekend

This weekend was quite busy. Let's start with my first day off Friday. My first day off, I ran errands and made an appetizer for our Bible Sunday School Classes Christmas Party. My parents came to babysit that evening and we had a nice time visiting in the beautiful house of the Sunday school teachers friend. We had to leave early because Ryan had to work on Saturday and we were both tired. Saturday, Guen and I ran errands again and that afternoon at 2pm we went to my coworkers babyshower. My coworker has been on strict bed rest since about 24 weeks pregnant. So far she is 32 weeks. She is living out our worst nightmare of having a premature baby. Luckily she is past 30 weeks and in our minds she is "ok" to have that baby now. But the longer in, the better and so far so good. She has a terbutaline drip that is going into her leg to keep her from contracting. Anyways, it was nice to see her and my other coworkers outside of work and visit. But we did not stay long because it was around Guen's naptime and she was getting cranksters, so we left. That evening Guen was up 4 times that night which is very unusual but I thought she was just teething, gave her some Motrin and luckily after the forth time of waking up at 3am she was down til when she woke up at 730am. We did our usual church in the morning and that afternoon we went to Amy Enger's kids, Ally and James, pirate themed birthday party, in the Woodlands. I got to see Amy and Barbie and Sarah (and all their kids), so that was fun. It was super cold but Guen was a champ and partied hard and played hard at the park. Unfortunately again that night, around midnight, she woke up again but this time I actually felt heat radiating from her and she had 102 temp. I gave her some drugs and she got up about 2 more times. I called in for Monday at work because after Saturday night getting up with her 4 times and then Sunday night getting up with her 2 times and a temp, I did not want to go in. On Monday I called the pediatrician and told them that Guen had been running a temp from last night of 102-100 but did not know if she was teething or what. The nurse at the office said to just watch her since she did not have any other symptoms. I should have gone with my gut instinct which would have been to bring her in. Because even though I was medicating her with Tylenol and Motrin every 4-6 hours, her temp never went below 100.5. In the past with her teething, she is usually 99-100.2 at the most. So that night, poor thing, she was up all night with temps now as high as 103. Luckily I was off today and took her to the doctor first thing this morning. The doc says that she thinks it is just viral but her urine did come back with a little something so she went ahead and gave her an antibiotic til the urine culture proves negative. This is the first time Guen has EVER been sick and it has been a learning experience. My parents have her right now so I can take a nap before having to go to work tomorrow. But I am so dedicated to this blog, look what I am doing!!! I better go catch some zzzz's. Hope you had a great weekend. Even though I had an eventful weekend, I took no pics, although I took my camera to each event. So just boring words for this report.