Super 36!

We helped cris celebrate his 36th birthday on Super Bowl Sunday! We had a really fun day, and got to spend the whole weekend together since i didn't have to work at all. Cris and our friend Saioa celebrating their birthdays at the SuperBowl Party

We were planning to see a movie that night; however, our plans were slightly disrupted. Remember when i said everyone had recovered from the Chuck E Cheese Ball Pit Virus that had caused lots of vomiting in the stickley house, well, i was just kidding. Nova has been coughing up copious amounts of mucous, and then vomiting from coughing so much. So, going out to the movies didn't work out so well when Nova got herself into hysterics from coughing and vomiting. No one has really be sleeping since Nova has been up much of the night coughing.

I don't think we had mentioned yet that we have moved both of the babies out of our room. They are both in the nursery now, which is overall MUCH better (Especially since cris and i get up at 4:30 a.m. for work, which is not really a good wake up time for babies). However, it means many many middle of the night trips to the nursery, as they have been waking each other up crying.

Juneau and Nova in their Football Gear watching the superbowl

Nova was OBSESSED with Tracy's (from here on out known as Auntie Pretty) Wine Rack

We have had a couple of cold mornings. Probably at least in the 60's :) Nova and Juneau have been practicing with their cold weather gear in case we end up leaving Hawaii this summer.

Saturday we attended our adoption agency's Lunar New Year Celebration. We forgot the camera! but Juneau had a fun time doing some of the activities. Nova had fun too, until a giant balloon she was playing with popped right in her face. Poor, fragile Nova about jumped out of her skin. Seriously, though, she is toughening up pretty well. She has become more of a dare devil, and her fear of loud noises and elevators seems to have subsided. She is crawling so fast these days she skinned the top of her foot from friction.

She is doing really well lately, so i think we can cross the following previously applicable Birthday Party Themes off our list:
Nova: I'm Afraid of Elevators

Nova: I'm Afraid of Loud Noises

Nova: I'm Fragile

Nova: I Hold My Breath Until I Pass Out

Still in the running is:

Nova: I cough so hard I puke

cute pictures of little girls

Well, there's not a whole lot going on around the Stickley house. Everyone (except Betsy) took their turn with the stomach flu. It hit me at 1 a.m. monday morning, and about halfway through my first surgery that morning i thought i really truly might lose my breakfast into our poor patient's open belly. But i didn't, and by the afternoon i had pretty much recovered. Sorry for all the gorey details of our family's ailments. it's just a little funny because neither cris or i have been sick since we first met, and now that our house is full of little germ-pools, i mean babies, we are suddenly experiencing some of the craziness that is the stomach flu.

anyway, we are all better now, and looking forward to a weekend off. My hours at work have been a lot longer than usual, and i definately have a lot of guilt about not getting home until 6 p.m. many nights. especially since nova can barely keep her eyelids open past 6:30. unfortunately, i think the next several months will continue to get worse, as i still have my Night Float Rotation, and my OB Senior rotation left. these are the 2 most time-demanding rotations of senior year. BUT in less than 5 months i can kiss residency good bye (and unfortunately i may also have to kiss Hawaii Goodbye)

well, i know mostly everyone comes here to see what's happening with these adorable little girls, so i will leave you with some pictures of the girls having fun this week. Finger Painting with Aunt Bets

Nova chillin' out

Double Trouble in their high-chairs. Nova still isn't really much for eating actual food. In fact, she really doesn't like eating anything at all. She is still drinking a bottle every 3-4 hours, but we can't really interest her in any food

Boxes make the best toys

Drying off her hair after a bath

Nova is sooooo ready to get out of the tub - this is how her eyes start to look after about 6:30 p.m.

Not so much for Juneau, she is ready to play anytime, anywhere

First Anniversary of Juneau's Referral

January 23 marked exactly one year to the date that we saw little June-bug for the first time. It was a rather crazy time for our family in general. I was 6 months pregnant with Nova, and living by myself in Kentucky doing a Gyn Surgery rotation. Cris was in Hawaii, working hard on the final stages of his PhD. We had been through a rollercoaster of an adoption process, and the state of Vietnamese adoptions in general was undergoing a major transition. We were left wondering if we would ever be able to complete an adoption from Vietnam at all, when Ruthanne from our agency called that afternoon. I didn't recognize the agency's phone # at first, and almost didn't answer the phone because i was pretty wiped out after a long day. When i did answer, Ruthanne told me that Kristine was in Vietnam, and had held the baby girl that would soon be our Juneau. I called Cris immediately, and we talked all about our new daughter. It would be another long 6 months until we held her in our arms, but this was the start of our new (and rapidly expanding!) little family.

Juneau holding one of her referral pictures.

We celebrated by taking Juneau out to eat at Ba-Le, our favorite local Vietnamese Restaurant. She scarfed down some MahiMahi and Rice, along with some Chicken Pho, and then we headed over to Baskin Robbins. While in the parking lot at Baskin's she started a little heaving, and then vomited an amount that could rival a 30 year old man (we were actually able to confirm this hypothesis when Cris ended up puking his guts out the next day). Nova had been throwing up all night long the night before our Referral day celebration, so we weren't really surpised that Juneau had caught the same bug; although it did throw a bit of a wrench in the celebration.

Regardless of the stomach flu, we had a wonderful day with our sweet girl.

Juneau, it didn't take us long to discover what an amazing little girl you are. We are blessed beyond words to have been given the chance to be your Mom and Dad, and we will do everything we can to help you grow into the compassionate, loving, daring, and insightful girl that we know you will become. We love you more than we believed possible, and we have loved you since our first glimpse of you, January 23, 2008.

a video montage of our week with the fam....enjoy!

Catching our Breath

Where to begin? The last 3 weeks have been an unbelievable whirlwind. First of all, I wanted to say a quick "thank you" to our family and friends who have been so wonderful and supportive during the loss of Cris' Grandpa. Cris was honored to be able to participate in the memorial service of such a truly great man last weekend. Cris and Juneau both flew home to Ohio for the service. I was unfortunately unable to attend (I have basically been "strongly advised" not to take any more leave from my residency program after my 6 weeks of maternity leave and 3 weeks of adoption leave). Juneau did great traveling 18 hours on Thursday, spending Fri, Sat, and Sun in very cold Ohio, then turning around and traveling another 18 hours on Monday. She is a trooper. Cris has started back to teaching at UH this week, and we are all settling back into a somewhat normal routine (although i imagine our idea of normal may be a little warped). Four Generations: Don, Denny, Cris, Brent

I wanted to try to post a little about our unbelievably wonderful week with the family. I also want to eventually get around to posting an adorable video of Juneau demonstrating her knowledge of anatomy by showing where her Phalanges, Clavicle, and Patella are. Although she did get her patella confused with her medial mallelous. Poor Juneau, she is doomed to being a giant nerd with an Anatomy Professor for a dad, and an OB/GYN for a mom. Although i would like to say i had no part in the anatomy lesson.

So, back to our vacation. Nova and Juneua's (from here on known as Noveau- a term coined by Aunt Nutkin, for the sake of brevity) Grandpa, grandma and Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma flew in on Christmas Eve night. Actually, to back track just a bit, on Christmas Eve Day we attended the Hawaii Bowl, in beautiful 70 degree weather, and watched Hawaii get sadly embarrassed by Notre Dame. Later that evening the family started trickling in. The girls had an awesome Christmas. Neither of them has really grasped the concept of presents quite yet, although they are both enthralled with paper.Our 2 Favorite Nova's

They spent the morning opening presents, and playing on the new Kangaroo climber that now resides in our living room.

Not that we were ever the defiition of "classy decorators", but any hopes towards having a somewhat normal appearing house have been squashed by a huge, plastic climbing gym and slide that occupies approximately 1/4 of the space in the living room. Fortunately, Nova's swing engine burned out from constant swinging for the last 7 months, and it made a little extra space for our new designer plastic furniture. It's totally worth it because the girls are crazy about it. Nova is dangerously near-suicidal on the thing, and can climb all the way up the slide the wrong way, then balance precariously on the platform.

She's fallen off the platform both forwards and backwards several times, which have led to our newest problem - breath-holding. She has had a couple of pretty serious episodes of getting really upset from something, then crying so hard she actually stops breathing. she gets a little dusky looking, then gets floppy and passes out. She did this about 3 times last month, until Dr. Aunt Coral taught us the magic cure-all of blowing hard in her face. So far it has been working to snap her out of it, and she hasn't really had any bad episodes since we have been using this technique.

The Girls on their first Christmas Morning

So, Christmas day was great. The next day things got even better when the entire Matus clan landed in Honolulu. Noveau completely ADORED the cousins. Alex, Lyndsey and Brent were so awesome with the girls, and the girls loved the attention from the 3 coolest kids on the planet. We then headed up to the North Shore to check in to the rental house.

The first night in the rental house was a little freaky. That was the night of the total, all-island blackout. Lightening had struck some major power line, and completely cut out all electricity for the entire island. We didn't have any power until the following evening.

The rental house was very nice. it had a huge living area, with plenty of room for the kids to play (and for everyone to play Wii!). It had an unbelievable view of the ocean, and although there wasn't really a beach, there was still a very nice swimming area. Fortunately, the waves weren't too big (as is often the case in the winter) and we got to enjoy lots of quality beach time

There Was Lots of Playing - And Napping - on the beach

Highlights of the trip were our frequent visits to Matsumoto's for Shave Ice. I think Great-Grandpa was the biggest fan of the Shave Ice, and probably packed away more than anybody else. We also had a very nice trip to the Arizone Memorial, which i hadn't had the chance to do yet prior to this trip. We spent an awesome day snorkeling, and also some time bodyboarding. I think Cris' highlight of the trip was setting off hours worth of fireworks on New Year's Eve. this may have been Juneau's favorite part as well. I think Ed's favorite thing, and probably Alex and Lyndsey's, was jumping off the giant rock at Waimea Bay. Alex and Lyndsey attracted quite a bit of attention as they were by far the tiniest jumpers, and probably the most fearless. Most of the crew also took an amibitious kayaking trip to the Mokes (little islands just off the kailua shore). I stayed back with the girls, and i can't say i was really sorry to stay behind for that one. It is definately a pretty significant physical endeavor, and we had some very tired people when that trip was over.

Juneau LOVED her cousin Brent

Dad and Bug

A Farmer visits the Beach
Grandma trying her hand at a little Wii Bowling - She's a tougher competitor than she looks. You gotta watch out for her mean spin on the bowling ball

Brent became a mermaid for the afternoon

Cris and Coral showing a little friendly sibling rivalry

The Cousins giving us their best O-H-I-O

The first of hopefully many unforgettable Christmas' for our sweet little girls. We made some amazing memories that will last a lifetime.

In Memory of My Grandpa

Donald Eugene Stickley
October 19, 1924 - January 4, 2009


I am grateful to have the opportunity to write a few words in remembrance and celebration of my grandpa’s amazing life, both to honor the role he played in my and everyone in my family’s lives and probably as a little bit of catharsis.

I could recount lots of things about my grandpa that I’ve been told by others as part of our family history – like how he was born in 1924 to Freeman and Opal Stickley; or how he grew up as part of a hard working farm family in Darke County, Ohio and had 5 siblings – 3 sisters (Ruth, Kathryn and Olive) and 2 brothers (Duane and Dean); or how he married my grandma, Nova Eileen Reck, 3 days after returning home from serving in World War II.

Don Stickley, U.S. Army

The blushing bride and groom

But the things that I remember the most are what I know firsthand from all the time we spent together over the years…How we used to joke about he and I (and later my brother Casey) being the only Lefties in the family…and how I knew that since I had been given my middle name after him that I had to live up to the example he set as the patriarch of our family. In my pre-teen and teen years, it seems like I spent every afternoon with my grandpa, especially during the summer. My dad was still working second shift at the post-office so after lunch, when dad left for work, grandpa and I had plenty of time to get into trouble. Usually our afternoons involved any number of tasks to keep the family farm running smoothly…grandpa would run the combine while I sped back and forth between the field and the elevator in the grain truck…or when I got home from school we’d hit the field for some quality time picking up stones…and who could forget getting up early on a Saturday morning and walking up and down row after row of soybeans pulling weeds. We cleared fence rows together and baled straw in the fall and made trips to the Case-IH dealer to pick up parts to fix one thing or another, which grandpa often used as an excuse to stop at the Dairy Queen. I’ll always remember how when I was 16-18 years old, I still had to push myself to keep up with my grandpa who was in his 60’s.

But it wasn’t always hard work…every August, after dad left for work, Grandpa and I would sneak off to the Darke County fair. We’d spend the afternoon watching the tractor pull or seeing who could get the most right in the horse races. We also had a knack for making my dad just watch us and shake his head…like when grandpa and I tore off through the wheat stubble in his pick-up attempting to chase down a fox that had wandered into the field…or when we decided to kill time while we waited for the combine at the end of the field by setting off some old firecrackers we found in the glovebox of his truck. Those years of working and playing with my grandpa taught me how to work hard and how to have fun at the same time.

But my grandpa’s life wasn’t confined to the fields of Ohio. I remember sitting with him about 10 years ago as he told me about his time in the Army during World War II. In 1945 he was station on Panay Island in the Phillipines. Just a few days before his infantry division was sent to attack Mindanao which was a Japanese stronghold, a reaction to a mosquito bite caused his eye to swell up and put him in the hospital. I remember how hear teared up as he recounted the many men in his company that he knew that were injured and killed during this attack.

It was while he was on Panay that the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. You could hear in his voice what an impression it made on him when, the day after the Japanese surrendered, he was ordered to march out and line the sides of the road, fully armed, as 350 Japanese soldiers marched down out of the mountains of Panay to surrender.

In recent years, my move to Hawaii meant I didn’t see grandpa as much but as his health began to deteriorate, my grandma was a tireless angel, constantly by his side, attending to his every need as he dealt with the challenges of aging.

Grandpa and Grandma Nova meeting my little Nova back in May

His Final Week…

My grandpa made the trip to Hawaii the day before Christmas with my grandma, dad and mom. I was thrilled that he and grandma were able to come make the trip to meet Juneau and watch my girls enjoy their first family Christmas. During his final week, we all enjoyed lots of family fun at our rented beach house on the north shore of Oahu. Grandpa sat at the big bay window and watched us play football in the yard, enjoyed some time at the beach watching us kayak, spread flowers at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, and smiled as all the great-grandkids were in constant motion around him.

Grandpa and my little Nova - Dec. 2008

Spreading flowers at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial


As our week together neared an end, Grandpa’s energy took a serious downturn. His last night, he struggled to get out of his chair and we had to nearly pick him up to get him into bed. But, even still, as I helped him get situated into bed that night, I rubbed him behind his neck and said “Are you comfortable Grandpa?” and he looked me in the eyes, smiled and said a soft “yes”. Even up to that point I know he still knew it was me.

Sunday morning it was clear that Grandpa was struggling. At that point it became time for us as a family to decide that he wouldn’t be able to go home as scheduled the next day. We made the decision to bring him home to my house and care for him there until the end. I remember how weak he appeared as my brother Casey practically lifted him into the car. Back at my house, when I had to completely lift him out of the car and into a bed with the help of my brother-in-law Ed, I knew he didn’t have much left. Less than 2 hours later, Coral called to us to come to his bed as it was clear he was fading fast.

It is still a little hard for me every time I walk into the room where he died as I wonder whether at the end, if given the choice, he would have rather been at home where he lived his whole adult life instead of thousands of miles away…but I like to think he knew exactly what was going on and that after having spent a wonderful week as a family, and having all of us there together, he knew it was time to let go of his present struggles.

And so, on a warm clear Hawaiian day, my grandpa took his final breaths in my home as I sat and held his left hand. He was surrounded by those he loved and who loved him most including his wife, son and daughter-in-law and his 3 grandchildren (only his daughter was unable to be present, unfortunately) and he passed from this life very peacefully. I’ll never forget the words of my grandma, to whom he was married for 62 years, as she stroked his head during his last moments: “We had a good run daddy…we’ll meet again in the air”.

Our final family photo taken the morning of January 4, 2009

2009

The Stickley's and Matuses have made it back to Ohio (and Tennessee), and we are trying to get back into a routine. Particularly Nova and Juneau, who aren't quite sure what to do with themselves whitout doting aunties, uncles, cousins, grandparents and great-grandparents to shower them with attention.

As many of you may know, we had an amazing week together as a family, but a difficult start to our new year. Cris will be updating the blog later this week, but for now i wanted to say we are grateful for the prayers of our families and friends. We are so thankful and blessed to have such an amazing family. We love you all.