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In the past few days, I've noticed a lot of reminders of Whitney around me. Just today, I was on the phone at work and was drinking from this bottle of water. As I was on hold with the State Department of Health, I noticed Whitney's name right there on the bottle!! Now, yes, I know that this label has been on this particular brand of water for quite some time. But it is now a gentle reminder of our sweet daughter. She is never far from our minds... she's in almost every thought we have. Work is going good this week... I just wish that I could come home to my baby girl.

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Spring has sprung around these parts of California, and I have the runny nose, stuffy head and watery eyes to prove it. But even through my clouded, itchy vision, I can see that the colors popping up around me are beautiful! This morning when I left my house, I noticed how HUGE and billowy this tree in our front yard has gotten. It seemed to have opened up like an umbreall overnight! I love all the different hues of green that are in our front yard. Very soon, colors will be popping up in some of the hydrangea bushed! I can't wait!!!

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Our car loan is paid off!! We received an incredible blessing that allowed us to pay off our car loan in full. Today we got the letter that made it official! Yay! It is so nice to have one thing paid off. Now all that is left is our home and Sean's student loans. We'll be putting aside the money that would have gone towards our car payment to help with fixing up the Sean's truck. Its currently not working (we think its the alternator or the starter- yikes!) and we just need to find a mechanic who will fix it. So not having a car payment on top of that is truly such a blessing! And when there's no work to be done on the truck, the extra money will go towards knocking out that pesky student loan as fast as possible!! Yay! Who ever thought paying down debt would be fun!?

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David had to leave today. We had a good morning at church (all of us went together!) then had lunch at In-N-Out. This next week I start back to work at my full Monday-Thursday schedule. I have a lot to do, so I am ready to get back to it. We had a good visit with David, and I can't believe it has been so long since I've seen him... over 2 years! Hopefully it won't be so long the next time. Tonight, Sean went downtown with our junior high group. This is the kids' Spring Break week, and they are spending a few days downtown working with some of our local missions. When Sean left I went to my friend Christine's house. She's my Mary Kay team leader and is showing me how to get everything started. After that, we went over to Megan's (Jimmy's wife) house to watch New Moon. We are all getting really excited for the new movie to come out this summer!!!

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We left San Fran this morning around 10:30. We stayed the night at the Hilton in Union Square. I've stayed here before and its a great hotel. Sean and I got up and brought up Starbucks for us all for breakfast. We have a very smooth ride home (compared to the trip up!) Most of the afternoon, we just relaxed. David and I went to the mall for a bit. He needed some new jeans-- I had tried to sew a hole in his old pair, and while it looked ok, I wanted to treat him to a new pair. Afterall, he's a college kid living on coffee and pasta... I thought some new jeans would be nice. :-) So we shopped around at the Gap for a bit then came home. We cooked Tri Tip for dinner and it was delicious! We were all pretty tired by the end of the day, but it was another great day spent with my 'baby' brother!

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This morning we got up and headed to San Francisco for the day/night. We stared with some donuts this morning and headed out on our way. About halfway there, we stopped for a bathroom break. That bathroom break turned into more than an hour detour because Sean locked the keys in our car!! We were close to an auto parts store, so they let us borrow a slim jim to try to get in the door. However, as we were working the slim jim, a kid shouted to us from his vehicle in the drive through lane: "Hey buddy! Slim jims don't work on Hondas!" This kid obviously appeared to have experience with these kinds of things, so we took his word for it. Just as I was about to break down and call a locksmith, an old man in his beat up Civic motioned to me. He'd been on the phone the whole time we had been trying to get into our car, and when I walked over there, he told me he was on the phone with AAA. He let us use his AAA card and waited with us until the locksmith had opened our doors!! How nice was that!? We offered to get him some food or give him money, but all he said was, "I just want my health man." He said this as he lit up another cigarette! Ha!

As we left the parking lot, driving behind our "angel" Sean noticed that the frame around his license plate said "You just can't fix stupid." Ha! We all had a good laugh... especially when the guy drove up beside us and told us that they license plate was fitting for whoever locked the keys in the car! Touche! We had another adventure when we stopped off the highway to eat lunch somewhere in Oakland. (I later learned that just pulling off the highway somehwere along Oakland was not a good idea.) As we were eating our Subway sandwiches, a guy sitting at a table across from us started stroking his face with a $100 bill and saying, "I'm the money man!" He was clearly talking to Sean and wanting a response, so Sean said "I'm the food man!" It was funny.

One more crazy story from our trip up to the bay: We were about an hour out from San Fran driving on I-580 when I saw a huge semitruck in front of us start to cross horizontally across all 6 lanes of traffic! We were the next car behind him, and as we kept driving forward, the truck began to tip on its side, nearly tipping over onto the cars in front of him. We were in the middle of 6 lanes of traffic going 70+ miles per hour, closing in on this crashing semi! I held onto the door handle and just thought, "Is this it?!" Sean had amazing presence of mind and calmly and safely guided us out of the way of the semi. I was so glad we prayed before we left this morning, as God's angels had clearly protected us at least 3 times on this trip already! It was quite a day.

After about a 5 hour drive (which should have been less than 3), we finally made it to San Fran. It was great fun. We saw China town and hung out on the Wharf. We had dinner at my favorite restaurant, The Crab House and finished the evening with coffee and crepes. It was great and I loved spending the time with David!!

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My brother got into town late last night. It is so good to see him! I had to work this morning and I had a meeting out of town tonight, but we got to have dinner together. After dinner, we went to a memorial service hosted by Angel Babies. It was really nice. They read off all the names of the Angel Babies who were born in February (Whitney included) as well as all the hospice patients who died in February. It was at a church on the westside of town, and there were quite a lot of people there. It was nice to hear Whitney's name read and to remember her. I was really glad that my brother was able to be here and go to it with us, too. After the memorial service, I headed out to my meeting. It went really well and I think our abstinence education team is going to get into a new school in that area. Yay!

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Yay! I got my Mary Kay starter kit today! I am now a MK consultant. For right now, I am just using it mainly for personal use, but some day in the future, when things calm down a bit, I think I will enjoy building a business on it. Also, my little brother is flying into town tonight! He's going to be here until Sunday! I can't wait to see him... I think its been over 2 years since I saw him last!

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I went to work today, and look what we got! Boxes full of our new ultrasound machine!! Our mobile medical unit is getting ready to go out very soon!! The sales rep for our ultrasound is coming tomorrow to train with our sonographers. I went out to the mobile unit today and stocked it with brochures and organized it a little. I'm excited to get out in the communities!!

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We've been having a Bible Conference at our church this week-- its been awesome! Jeff Walling is our speaker and he's been talking about Holy Living. Each night, he's had some kind of visual illustration to get his point across. Here, these guys demonstrated the Beatitudes and how things can happen better when you work together. It has been a wonderful week and I think we've all been challenged!

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Again, I must apologize for the quality of this picture. No, I didn't get a big group of friends together and play scary zombie people take over Fresno. I just didn't bring my camera with me tonight because it didn't fit in my LV Speedy handbag. What can I say? Fashion first! :-) (I kid, I kid.) So I had to take the pic with my phone. This week our church is having a revival. Tonight was the first night and it will continue Monday and Tuesday. It was some GREAT preaching! Its so good to hear something really challenging that will also stick with you, ya know? So after church, a big group of us went to Dai Bi Dang for dinner. Here's a few of us waiting to get seated. It was a great time! If y'all live around here, you should come out to Northside for the rest of the evenings! It is some GOOOOOD stuff!

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Today was a beautiful Spring day. Despite the mid-March snow my Oklahoma friends are experiencing right now, its sunny and 70 here in the Valley. My allergies are making me absolutely miserable now! But I spend a couple of hours out in the sun today at a park. Definitely didn't help my breathing, but it was good for my heart. I finished Jackina's book Tender Grace (good read!), wrote in my journal and enjoyed my happy hour Diet Coke. It was a nice afternoon for those few hours. Reminds me that I need to read a lot more. The next book I'm going to read is "A Woman Of Egypt" about the former first lady of Egypt. Getting ready for our big trip that is coming up soon!!!

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I love Friday's. They're Sean's day off, and usually we get to spend it together. Sean got up this morning and went to get us breakfast from Chick-Fil-A. I was still in bed when he brought it back-- yay! A few days ago, I went to every single thrift store in town, looking for frames. I'm working on a wall collage and wanted some interesting, chunky frames. I bought all 9 of these (found at 3 different stores) for less than $12! Score! I am working on sanding them down and then I will paint them all the same color. I absolutely LOVE the green frame. I am actually thinking about maybe keeping it (and the original watercolor it houses) just as it is. But we'll see... I'll have to find one I like just as much to replace it and then I might. So today I started sanded down the frames. I didn't get very far though... just one down. :-) Tonight Sean and I went to a Christian Community Development conference downtown. It was pretty cool, too!

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Tonight was our quarterly New Members Banquet at John's Incredible Pizza. It was especially fun because our friends, Sean and Christine have been through the 101 class at our church and got to come this time!! After pigging out on salad and pizza and breasticks (post-baby diet to start later) we hit the skiball tables. It was so much fun! We played so many games, won tons of tickets, and in the end, gave them away to a little girl who looked like she was going to cry when we gave them to her. (I think we scared her.) It was great fun! Now its off to bed, with basketball on the TV, of course. March Madness...... Oh, and here's one more pic of Sean and me, with our booty!

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Happy St. Patrick's day! When I woke up this morning (ok-- midmorning... around 10:30), I was surprised to see the crock pot already cooking away. Sean got up early and set to work on our Irish-themed dinner! We had a feast of corned beef, cabbage, veggies (carrots, potatoes and leeks), home made french onion soup and beer bread. MMMMmmm MMmmmm GOOD! The first picture is our feast, and the second is us toasting our cream soda and root beer to a lucky year! :-) This meal will definitely be a new tradition!

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Tonight we went over to Megan & Jimmy's for pizza and a few episodes of "Community." Gotta love a good sitcom. Its been years since there have been any good sitcoms on primetime tv. We're talking late 1990's, Friends era. Spring has sprung in the Valley and it was beautiful outside today! So before the boys went to pick up our chow, we hung out in the backyard. Here are the boys playing kickball with Ellie. I am so thankful for our good friends here! And for beautiful weather!

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I got this precious painting from my adorable little niece today. She painted it the day of Whitney's memorial service. My sister wrote a really nice note with it, so I thought I'd just post that instead of trying to explain. Here's part of her letter:

"This is the painting Emmalia did for Whitney on the day of her memorial service. I got the idea from a magazine, but as we did it, it seemed more and more fitting for Whitney. We made the painting by adding just a few drops of paint to a bubbles solutions, blew the bubbles and caught them on the paper.

I thought abou thow beautiful and joy-giving bubbles are. I thought about hoe quickly they disappear. I though about Whitney and her beauty, the joy she gave us all when you shared you were pregnant and as you hit milestones of feeling her move and discovering her gender.

How quickly she went home to Heaven... But you and Sean gave her the greatest gift-- a little pain in the bubble solution-- celebrating and protecting her life, sharing your story, sharing her birth with us, giving her her place in your family and ours. Because of that she has made a lasting impression on this earth and in our hearts forever. She will never be forgotten. She is a masterpiece."

Thanks sis and Emmalia! What a beautiful analogy... and I agree, she is a masterpiece!

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We had lunch today at Bobby Salazar's with a group of our friends... here I am with sweet Ellie. Isn't she adorable? The weather is finally getting nicer outside, and the spring flowers have been blooming for several weeks now. I am so ready for nice, warmer weather to be here... but so NOT ready for the heat to be turned on in full force (like it will be very soon).

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What's my favorite place to be on a Saturday morning? Well other than still in bed, its BJ's Kountry Kitchen! Sean and I LOVE this place for breakfast. Its a good 'ol, homestyle cookin' place... closest we can get to a Waffle House or Cracker Barrel breakfast this far west. :-) We love it because they always play country music, the interior decor is tacky, country hodge-podge, and we've gotten to know the waiters and waitresses over the past few years. But the main reason we really love it is because it reminds us a lot of North Carolina. Today as we were eating our breakfast, I closed my eyes, and just for a quick second, it felt like we could get up and walk out the door onto Julian R Allsbrook Hwy. I miss NC a lot... a lot more than I thought I would. I miss the people, the food, the hospitality, the giant magnolia trees and brilliant azaleas, the sweet tea (!!!)... basically, the down-home Southern goodness of it all. And BJ's Kountry Kitchen is that momentary escape for us, way out here in the Golden state.

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Here she is! My soon-to-be home away from home! This is the PCC's newest branch of services... a mobile medical unit! The sign wrapping is unfinished in this photo, but we had a driver training session this afternoon, so we had to take it before the sign people were finished. (It was taking a little longer than they thought it would.) So the front will also be completely wrapped, but it will be ready to bring our high quality, free, medical services to the rural areas very soon! (Like, next month soon!) It is so exciting to see God's timing in all of this, and to actually be able to see it come to fruition! I am sure you'll be seeing more pictures of this in the coming months!

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It was exactly one month ago today that we held our baby girl for the first and last time. I cannot believe that the past 4 weeks have gone by as fast as they have. My maternity leave ends in two weeks, then it will really be back to 'normal' life... our new normal. This morning, I wanted nothing more than to wake up, grab my precious girl up from her crib and tell her "Happy One Month Birthday." But taht didn't happen... I hope and pray some day I will have that chance. But for today, Sean and I went to the lake where we had Whitney's memorial service. It was a beautiful day. We picked up some Chick-fil-A on the way (Whitney LOVED sweet tea... she'd always get real active when I drank that...hmmmm... maybe it was just the sugar? Nah, I think she really liked it!) then just hung out for a little bit.

These crazy ducks were everywhere!! The terrified look on my face really says it all! That big white one was pecking at me!! It was nice to get out to the park, to think about our baby, to miss her, and to look forward to holding her again in heaven. We are one month further away from the last time we held her, but we are also one month closer to the day we will hold her again. Oh sweet, sweet day. :-)

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Again, another sucky picture... sorry! I've been carrying my camera with my but forget to actually use it! Grrr... Anyways, this evening, I had coffee with a friend and we talked about Mary Kay. She is already a consultant and I am thinking about becoming one, so we were talking about that over Starbucks. It was fun! I really enjoy make-up, I love Mary Kay, and really need to get back into a good, healthy skin care routine so I think this may be the route for me! What do you think... do any of you use Mary Kay?

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As I mentioned yesterday, the PCC banquet was tonight, and I was especially excited because it was the first time we had our Mobile Unit out for people to tour and look at. We were hoping to have the whole vehicle wrapped with our graphics, but due to a last minute glitch (the entire RV had to be buffed before we could have it installed. Boo!), we didn't have it done by the banquet. But, it is getting wrapped today and I'll have a picture to post on Friday (hopefull!)! So this first picture is me with a mock-up of what the finished product will look like!

Sean says there's no way I'm going to be driving this thing... its a 39 foot Monarch mobile home... I think I could totally drive it. What do you think?? :-)

I love these ladies. They are some of our friends/partners from a nearby rural town. Our mobile unit is going to be servicing the rural areas around our city. Our home center is right in the middle of a downtown, urban area and we realized that there are so many women who don't have access to our services because they live so far out of town. So we're bringing the services to them! The ladies in this picture above are actually going to be working to open a Pregnancy Center in their own town. We will go do pregnancy verifications and ultrasounds for them until the go medical. They are all such a blessing to me, and have been so encouraging in every area of my life!

The banquet went great tonight... quite a few people came through and toured the RV and David Beireit was our speaker. He is the founder of 40 Days For Life and his message was phenomenal. I am so blessed that God is allowing me to be a part of this life-saving ministry!

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Tomorrow is our annual fundraising banquet for the Pregnancy Care Center. These notepads and pens are our hostess gifts, and I volunteered to put them together with the ribbon and stuff. Well, Seal thought the box looked like a good place to hang out while I did that... only problem was that the notepads were IN the box! Silly kitty...

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Sorry my picture for today is kinda lame... but I really didn't do a whole lot today! My favorite time of the year is award show season... Grammy's, Golden Globes, and the Super Bowl of them all, the Oscars. In years past, we've had Oscar parties with my best friends. But, sadly, they all live in Tulsa so there was no Oscar party this year. We're hoping to have another big party next year. I wasn't really interested in many of the nominated films this year, but was really glad that "The Hurt Locker" won Best Picture. And of course, I was thrilled that Sandra Bullock finally won a best actress Oscar! Sean and I made a chicken pot pie (someone from church made it for us a few weeks ago and gave us an extra one to freeze.... YUM), drank Cream Sodas and watch the awards. I also tried to IM with my BFFs during the show... but it wasn't the same as being there! Sean and I still had a great time, though!

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Basketball season is in fulll effect at our house right now. The famed Duke-UNC game is tonight! After church tonight, we came home and put on a pot of Skyline chili (from the massive batch that Mom and I made!), got out some hot dogs and Cream Soda and settled in for a great game! Way to win, Duke! So in honor of the great basketball game that was on tonight, I had to get this picture, in front of our yummy basketball food cooking, with our kittyboy, Duke. He hasn't quite learned how to cheer for his namesake like we'd like him to....

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My hubby is the greatest! He loves me so much and is so thoughtful! He told me yesterday that I needed to be home around 10 o'clock this morning, and that he had a surprise for me. I asked if I needed to wear makeup, and he told me no. Hmmmm... what could it be? He told me this morning after I got up and took a shower that I was getting a full-body, one hour massage! Missy is a great woman at our church (we first met at a New Member's Banquet- fun!) who has such a gift for massage. She works at a Wellness center, but will also come to your home. Her massage business is also her ministry. My massage was UH-MAZING. I think I might try to make this a regular monthly thing! She came to my house, set up her massage table and it was wonderful! I turned on "Whitney's music" (aka Yiruma) and just relaxed. I thin there is something so healing about touch. It was great. Thank-you hubby and thank-you Missy!!

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Today's picture is me and Katy... she's my hair stylist and is the sweetest person I have ever met. I've been going to her a little over a year, and aside from being a great stylist, she is just so caring... and fun! The last time I saw Katy was just a few days before our 18-week ultrasound with Whitney. So of course, I had no idea that anything was wrong at that point. After we found out about Whitney's problems, I have to admit that I was kind of nervous about the next time I would go get my hair done. I knew I would have to tell her about Whitney, and its just so hard to tell people about it sometimes. That's why I was so shocked and pleasantly surprised when she texted me a few weeks ago tell me that she had heard about Whitney (through a mutual friend) and that she was so sorry. She also said she wanted to pamper me and do my hair! It was so sweet of her to reach out like that. I was actually supposed to get my hair cut on the day Whitney was born. I had to cancel that appointment (obviously), but she still sent me a few encouraging texts that day. So today, I finally got to go do my hair. And I love it! Thank-you so much, Katy! You have such a caring heart and I just appreciate you so much! If anyone lives around me and needs a stylist, you should totally go to her! She is at Estancia Salon.

And just so you can see the new 'do better, here's another pic. (The fat cat had to get in on in, too!)

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Can you guess what this picture is all about? That's right... we're walking like an Egyptian, gettin' in some practices... cuz we just booked our tickets tonight!!! We're going to Cairo! I can't wait! Today was an alright day... I went back to work. Only broke down in tears about 3 times. I realize at some point, life will have to get back to 'normal' but I'm just not ready for that yet. Afterall, if I had a living baby at home, I wouldn't be worried about work. So why am I putting so much pressure on myself to get back into it so quickly now? Good question. No answer. :-) Tommy & Shiny brought us dinner tonight... it was so great! She made us Indian food and it was, of course, delish!!! It rained this afternoon and I loved it. Its been a busy day. I still just miss my baby so much.

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I love these SOOC shots of the tree in our backyard... its the same kind of tree that we saw blooming on the morning Whitney was born. I went for a short walk around our neighborhood. It was kind of nice, but a little chilly still. I finished up our taxes today and got a lot of our papers filed that I needed to file. (I even bought fun new colorful file boxes!) I also shredded about a million papers, but then my shredder died. :-( Tonight its American Idol then to bed, since I am going to go to work for a little bit tomorrow... not sure how long I'll make it. I'm really not ready.

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Sean and I went on a drive today. I needed to just get out of the house for a while, so we stopped for a Diet Coke and some Zingers then headed off towards the foothills. It is so beautiful this time of year... all the fields are green and covered with thousands of yellow, orange and purple wildflowers. In just a month or so, they'll all be gone and the green grass will die and turn yellow. Its still pretty... just a different kind of pretty. Spring is my favorite time of year here. We missed Whitney a lot today.