The New Year has begun and I thought it would be best to start it by having a look back at the year 2005….(OMG This took me forever!!! hehe totally worth it though!)
January 2005 ~ Becca 6 months old

• Becca had her first taste of “real” food this month, starting with sweet potatoes.
• We flew home to visit our family. First stop my Dad’s then off to J’s parents place. It was Becca’s first time on a plane. She did very well, sleeping most of the time.
• J celebrated his 28th Birthday

February 2005 ~ Becca 7 months old

• Becca had started swimmining last month and we continued to go 2x a week.
• She also cut three teeth on top, so she had a tough month. Also suffered from some nasty colds.
• Becca started to roll from her back to her tummy. She learned to sit at 5 months, however rolling took her a long time to master.

March 2005 ~ Becca 8 months old

• J was awarded the NSERC Post Doctrial Fellowship Grant! This is a huge acomplishment and secured his position in California.
• Becca went down a slide for the first time at the park.
• Her colds continued to plague the poor little thing! Finally we saw her Ped and he prescribed an inhaler & an anti-inflammitory steriod! The doctor said it was “Astma like symptoms brought on by her cold”. Poor baby was having trouble breathing

April 2005 ~ Becca 9 months old

• Chelle celebrated her 29th birthday.
• J bought his laptop.
• Soodz.com was born ~ I started blogging here on April 20th! Here is my First Post!
• Becca pulled herself up for the first time! In the tub, the crazy kid!!
• Becca continued to love the swimming. 1…2…3 and under the water she would go!! The girl is a fish!

May 2005 ~ Becca 10 months old

• Last month Becca & I started attending the Mother Goose Program at the library. It was an interactive song & story time for infants and their parents. Very cool!
• The infamous “Barrette” incident occurred. Becca swallowed her barrette!! 24 hours later and we discovered it in her diaper. It now resides in her baby book!!
• Huge milestones this month. First Becca learned to clap then started crawling!!! We were very thrilled that she finally started in on the mobility!!

June 2005 ~ Becca 11 months old

• Crazy busy month for us! I bought Becca a kiddie pool for her to enjoy in our yard. She absolutely loved crawling around, splashing in the water.
• Becca said her official First Word! “DOG!”
• We said a tearful goodbye to our beloved dog Sidney. Sidney is now enjoying her days in the wide open spaces of my cousin, Trina’s farm, loving the freedom and new friends. Gawd I miss my dog!
• At the end of June we flew to Lethbridge to visit J’s parents. We left our sacred digital camera on the plane!! Luckily they shipped the camera down to us!!
• On June 25th, Becca’s Grandparents & Auntie Kristie held a “Pretend Firsst Birthday Party” for Becca. It was awesome!

July 2005 ~ Becca turned One!

• We started off the month at my Dad’s place. We had a wonderful visit with him, my Grandma and then attended my darling cousin, Trina & Cal’s Wedding! We had a great time at the wedding, & Becca fell asleep in the sling while we were there. It was too cute!
• July 13th, Becca turned ONE!!! We had a wonderful day, just the three of us! She really enjoyed her new toys and the birthday cake!
• J finished writing his thesis!!!
• I started back to work I loved my co-workers, however being away from becca was torture for me.

August 2005 ~ Becca 13 months old

• J defended his PhD Thesis and passed with flying colours!
• We said our good-byes to all the amazing friends we made in Windsor. I was super sad
• Becca stood on her own (truly) for the first time!
• We packed up the rest of our gear (despite the fact I was working I tried to be uber organized!)
• We all climbed into the Uhaul and headed out to California!!!

September 2005 ~ Becca 14 months old

• The trip out to California was challenging with a one year old, however we had fun & Becca learned a few new words…Like “truck” & “shoes” (when we put on her shoes it meant we were getting out!)
• Arrived in California and started to get settled in.
• Encounter the demon that Californians call the DMV *shudders*
• Becca totally loved California living, especially the fact we had a pool 10 steps from our front door!
• Becca learned how to WALK!!!!

October 2005 ~ Becca 15 months old

• J, Becca & I all went to the Santa Zoo, where Becca & I rode an elephant!!! It was so cool!
• I was an Ebay addict and bought some great playground pieces for Becca to enjoy in our little yard. The weather is still wonderful here, but too cold ot swim, so the playground stuff rocks as an alternative!
• My Dad & Grandma came to visit us in California!! It was so awesome to have them here. We went to the San Diego Zoo (amazing!) and on the way home, while on the interstate, Becca puked all over!! It was terrible!!! She like never pukes!!
• We also went to DisneyLand while my Dad & Grandma were here! OMG it was so wonderful. Becca puked on the way there (once again on the dreaded interstate), but started to feel better over the weekend. Becca had the opprotunity to meet her favorite, Winnie-the-Pooh!!!
• Becca went trick or treating for the first time this year! She was a cutie black cat and we had a blast with her going out!

November 2005 ~ Becca 16 moths old

• We announced that our pregnancy was confirmed and we were approximately 8 weeks pregnant at the beginning of November. We were overjoyed at the prospect of an addition to our family.
• We celebrated out Fourth Wedding Anniversary.
• Since we let the Canadian Thanksgiving slip by, we experienced our first American Thanksgiving and had a blast preparing the turkey and all the trimmings!
• We started potty training Becca. Well we started to introduce the potty to Becca.

December 2005 ~ Becca 17 months old

• Sadly, we found out that the baby we were so excited about having was not ok. We went for an ultrasounbd and there was no heartbeat My heart aches to this day for the loss of our baby. I miscarried the first weekend in December and spent the rest of the month recovering physically & emotionally
• Becca & I spent a lot of time outside, in our little yard. She would enjoy her equipment and play, while I would tidy up the yard and pull weeds.
• We met up with my cousin and her husband, Trina & Cal in Las Vegas for a day. They were up there for a belated wedding anniversary & the Las Vegas Rodeo. It was an awesome day with them! Miss you Trina!
• Becca moved from her crib to the big bed permenantly this month. She had begun just napping in her bed, then the tranisition to nighttime just happened. We took down her crib after a few weeks of success.
• Becca got her first haircut No more pigtails for a while…But her hair looks so much better, thicker and not so homeless shaggy!
• Christmas arrived and we had a wonderful time. Becca totally was more involved in the process than last year. We missed being with our families but took advantage of it being just the three of us!

Phew ~ WOW~! What a year! Rock On Bring on 2006 Baby!!!

*gasp* The apartment is gorgous! Brand new carpet, linolem & counter tops!! The cupboards have 20 years of paint on them but, eh at least they are freshly painted!

Becca’s room is fabulously large (Pic of the day was us trying to set up her crib and her stealing the tools to try to eat them when we were not looking). I set up a little reading nook for us to curl up and read!! I will take pics as soon as it is ummmmm *cough* tidied up!!! We are still in the “organize the rooms so they do not look like an earthquake just happened” stage of the unpacking!

Totally have some unpacking to do still (mostly the OMG where are we going to put that?!?! stuff). But the second day we were here, J (mostly), Becca & I unpacked the Uhaul ourselves by 11am! We figured it was best to get it done in the morning, while it wa still cooler outside. J did all the crazy heave lifting and unloading, while I moved boxes on the trolley thingy with Becca in the backpack. It was insane, but we got it all in the apartment!

So we bought a fridge. It is so pretty and new and clean!!! It is so “adult” to own our own fridge, feels funny. It was delivered Thursday morning. Have to tell ya, living without a fridge and out of coolers for 2 days….Not all that fun. But we survived and luckily there is a grocery store like across the street, so we were about to go buy supper, make it eat it and not even need a fridge! It is very nice to have a place to put milk now though!! (And Beer…OMG J bought so much because cans are uber cheap here…..Half our fridge, Beer! Love it!).

Oh so when we first arrived we noticed it was hazey here. At first we thought…”Wow there must be forest fires near by”….Wait there are no forests near by….ARG! Haze…brown, icky looking…SMOG! But it is not the gross smelling Detriot smog, so we are moving on up in the smoginess factor! w00t!

Ok once again I am totally exhausted and will have to share with you the rest of our adventures in Riverside in the coming days. So much has already happened. I am looking forward to J returning to work (I love the man to pieces but I want to miss him a little to remind me why I married him!!). Besides, Becca and I have to settle into our own routines and start venturing out into California!!

Thanks for all the awesome comments and emails….I so will be responding to you all soon (Grandma I tried to call you today….you busy woman you!) Take Care Cuties!

After travelling all day in the heat (poor Charisma was not a happy cat), we decided to stop for the night Nevada Style! We pulled into Mostique, Nevada, a desert oasis right before Las Vegas. We checked into a Casino motel for $30!!! HAHA! The cheapest digs all trip! w00t!

Once we settled into our room (by far nicer than our previous rooms), we headed over to the casino buffet & pigged out on “real” food. I am so sick of fast food and gas station food. Even Becca gorged on fruit and veggies. OMG so while we were sitting there eating our meal, Becca was facing another table in a high chair and starting going “Oooo…Oooo” super loud and pointing in the direction of this guy sitting there eating his meal. At first we totally thought she was pointing at the guy, and were kinda embarassed and tried to get her to stop. But Becca Just kept on “Oooooing”. The guy was super nice about it, but you could tell he was getting a little uncorfortable with this little girl Ooooooing at him. Finally we figured out on the opposite wall there was a painting of a dog and Becca was pointing at that trying to tell us that she saw it!!! When it finally dawned on us and we said “Yes a Dog!” she stopped Ooooing and left the poor man to finish his meal in peace! Kids….they are crazy!

Becca was totally beat. We had driven through 3 time zones at this point! However tired she was, she totally buzzed in the casino! “Light! Light!”; pointing and going “Ooooo…OOoooo”….it was totally funny. We stopped for a quick game of air hockey in the arcade room before heading back to our room (what good Canadian can pass up air hockey?)

Just as a side note…I have to say, travelling with a cute baby that smiles at EVERYONE has its advantages. Throughout the whole trip, people were uber nice & smiley! Smiles are so contagious!

Being in Mostique, totally reminded J & I of our honeymoon. I had put my name in a contest at a wedding show & won a honeymoon trip to Las Vegas. We had an amazing time there. Although we were married November 10, 2001; a mere 2 months post 9/11 so Vegas was so dead. We had very little line ups and had free run of the strip. The only drag was, there were so many places offering free shows & Dinners but we did not have a US address therefore did not “quailfy”. They were trying to promote internal tourism since so many international visitors were not travelling at that time.

Anyhoo, back tot the trip. In the morning, we took our time and headed out on the road by 8am. An hour into the trip we passed through Vegas *sigh* Becca slept through the entire city, which was a little sad that we could not point out were Mommy and Daddy Honeymooned! Afterwards we stopped for lunch……When we realized OMG! We were only a couple hours aways from Riverside!!

We were all very excited to finally arrive! We drove directly to our apartment building in hopes that the managers would allow us to move in a few days early……

As a side note, Charisma the cat, had it especially tough the last few days on the road. It was uber hot here & started to get hot around eastern Wyoming/Northern Arizona. Well Poor Charisma! We had him in a soft pet carrier, resting at Becca’s feet on the floor. He got HOT! But we were so busy caring for Becca and making sure we did not get lost, we failed to notice how hot he was getting. Luckily, our cat is a self sufficient little devil! He made a hole in the mesh of the cat carrier and escaped! The pitiful little creature was panting he was so hot! Needless to say, the rest of the trip, Charisma travelled in style on our laps with the a/c blowing directly on him.

Ok so the last leg of our journey was crazy. Riverside’s main freeway is under construction, so it took us forever to get to the University area. Attempting to weave through traffic in a uhal towing a car…..NOT FUN! For the first time during the trip, J was driving through the chaos, so I got to sit backa nd navagate, for a change!!

We finally arrive at the apartment complex, exhausted, hot and so ready not to be in that frikin Uhaul anymore! The cat is panting, the baby is whining, and J & I are plum excited that we actually made it!!! The landlord asked us to give him a couple hours to finish up the apartment and then we could move in! So we returned the tow for the car to free of us of that & returned to see our new home!!!

We were a little quicker at getting out on the road, which helped my anxiety level a lot! Seriously, at this point in the trip it seemed normal to spend the entire day in the frikin Uhaul We made our way out of Nebraska and into Wyoming. Becca had a tougher time in the Uhaul today and we had to stop more frequently than other days. It broke my heart, we were cruising down the road and Becca was totally napping peacefully….when all of a sudden she woke up crying, this way piercing cry that I have never heard before. Nothing would calm her…..tears were streaming down her face and her cry just got more heartbreaking…..Finally over the horizon we see an exit and totally get off the road to comfort her. By that point I am crying, J is all tense and freaked out….Becca pretty much stops crying as soon as she is out of the car seat. (see her in the driver’s seat? that was 5 minutes after her freak out!)

That whole episode kinda freaked me out. Was Becca being a trooper but secretly really upset about all this driving? NOPE! Since we left Canada….Becca has broken through TWO molars!?!? Poor kid….trapped in a Uhaul for 5 days and teething molars

We totally drove to Rawlins Wyoming before collapsing….That night we made cheap tacos and wne tswimming in the hotel pool (outside…brrrrrr)….then all slept like babies…..

Ok…the story of the trip will be conitnued tomorrow…I am totally beat…

We woke up early to hit the road, however it seemed to take us forever to get out of the hotel room. We had to pack up all the gear (man, babies need a lot of stuff!), get all settled back into the uhaul….Everyone was relieved to get moving again. We drove through Illinous and onto Iowa. Despite what seemed to be a lot of rest stops for Becca to take a break, we made it to Nebraska!

When we would stop for Becca, it was usually at these cool roadside rest stops which usually were clean, had vending machines and gave Becca a chance to stretch her legs and walk around a little.

Once we hit Nebraska, it was time to stop for the night again. As we would travel down the Interstate, we would see all these signs advertising for cheap motels, yet everytime we wanted to stop, we never could find one!!! Grrrr! At last we found an ok place and crashed for the night!