Decade

A very happy 10th birthday to daughter Melissa! 10 years ago today we held our first child in our arms, exhausted after a late night of labor but excited and astonished about the tiny little person that we had created. Even knowing she was coming for the past 8 months didn’t diminish the wonder. I remember looking at that baby and thinking, “Holy cow, we’re parents!” If you had told me at that point that 10 years later we would be counting down the days to baby number 8… well, I honestly don’t know how I would have reacted. 🙂

Not coincidentally, today also marks the 10-year anniversary of HeinrichFamily.com and this blog! Social media wasn’t the big deal back in 2002 that it is today, and I wanted a way to share news and pictures about our new little family. A lot can change in 10 years, and our web site was no exception. Different hosting providers, different blogging software (it’s hard to imagine I started out pasting status updates into a static HTML page!), different photo management software, site redesigns, etc. But eventually, Facebook won out and HeinrichFamily.com updates fizzled down to nothing.

Well, hopefully this year all that changes.

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The Diabetes Trifecta

It occurred to me today that our family has achieved the diabetes trifecta: Rachel had Gestational, I have Type 2, and Ethan has Type 1. Not exactly something to be proud of, but I can see God’s hand in having us go through the easier-to-manage ones before allowing the more challenging types into our life. It’s a vivid example of how He doesn’t give us challenges greater than what we can bear at that moment through His grace. A huge thanks goes out to everyone who contacted us with their thoughts and prayers today, even people that we didn’t even know we were related to! Know that your love was felt and very much appreciated.

Talk about the weather

We’ve been hit with our first winter storm, and while I don’t enjoy shoveling the driveway, it’s nice to see everything covered in white. There’s something peaceful and starkly beautiful about it. That may sound kind of strange coming from someone who doesn’t particularly like winter, but at least you can play in the snow. Rachel and I are hoping to get some snow gear this season so we can play in the snow with the kids and actually stay warm. Perhaps then I might enjoy winter a little more. I know my toes would appreciate it. 🙂 Who knows, we have a ski area nearby, maybe we should look into taking lessons!

Summer’s End

I was driving home yesterday and noticed that a number of trees are starting to get their first yellow and red leaves.  I guess it’s right on time — last year we went to Washington for the first two weeks of September and were surprised to see fall in full swing when we got back.  Still, it’s a little sad to see Summer winding down.  It’s a reminder that we need to take advantage of our opportunities when we have them: to take advantage of those outdoor activities while the weather’s warm and do the things you’ve been meaning to do before it’s too late.  Carpe diem, etc.  There’s a good parenting lesson here too…

Comtraiya!

Well, the site redesign is just about finished.  I still have to fiddle with the Gallery theme so that it blends in with the rest of the site properly, but otherwise I’m very happy with how it turned out.  This has been quite the learning experience for me, as I had very little knowlege of WordPress themes or cascading style sheets, but Google was my friend when I didn’t know how to make things work right.  I hope that now we’ll be able to update more often (updating was more complex before, so it tended to get put off), which means more updates and pictures for you to enjoy!  And even if we haven’t updated in a while, you can still check out our current Facebook status in the sidebar on the Home page.

Changes

You can see that things look a little different right now. Our old color scheme is back (with a few updates), and I’m working on polishing up some of the oddities of the new theme. My goal is to have everything on the site actually fit together, rather than the home page, blogs, and gallery all having different appearances. More changes coming…

Pictures

Just a quick post to let you know that the photo gallery is working again. You can see pictures of Julianna in the Bundle of Hope album.

Redesign!

Hi everyone!  The site’s undergoing a redesign right now, so please bear with me while I get everything moved over.

-Jason

Update: This isn’t the final design. It will be a few days, though, before I can finish it.

Back to Normal

Well, for the most part life here in Pensacola is back to normal, though people still get tense when they hear the word “tropical.” The gasoline supply was very tight for a while, but has improved considerably (I don’t nervously check the gas gauge and every filling station I pass to see if they have gas and if I should jump in line). It’s a good thing, too, because our church is organizing work trips on Saturdays to go over to Mississippi to help with the cleanup and show Christ’s love.

I won’t be going the next couple of weeks, however, because Sep. 17-23 I’ll be in San Francisco at this year’s Oracle Openworld conference. I’m going with my friend David from work, and we’re looking forward to everything that we’re going to learn. In fact, the conference just isn’t long enough for me to attend all the sessions that I’m interested in! I’m also going to attempt to upgrade my certification for the latest version of Oracle, so pray for me if you think about it! I’ll be updating the new Openworld 05 blog daily while I’m there.

Hurricane Katrina

It’s about 3:30 in the afternoon now. The rain has stopped as the center of Katrina moves north through Mississippi. We even had a hint of sunshine a couple hours ago, but it didn’t last and the wind still hasn’t died down. So we’re continuing to wait for conditions to improve, and watching TV (sort of) through a web stream from one of the stations in Mobile. Speaking of Mobile, their downtown has been flooded by a record storm surge in Mobile bay which still isn’t subsiding. And New Orleans and the Mississippi coast are even worse. It looks like we here in the Panhandle of Florida will have the opportunity to repay all the kindness that we received from those areas after Ivan.