| WHAT'S UP - MAY 2003 Hello Everyone! I hope that reading this finds you and your families happy and healthy. First off, we'd like to ask that everyone keep the members of our military and their families in their prayers. Quite a few of our close friends are currently serving in combat areas - our thoughts and hearts are constantly with each of them, and all of the soldiers that we've served with in the past, and all of their comrades fighting beside them now. Such a huge part of us wishes we were still in and standing next to you today Eileen, James, Kane, Chris, Jimmy, Mike, Hugh, and many others....Godspeed. We also want to especially remember and honor the fallen Jungle Cats of the 11th Engineer Battalion - SFC Paul Smith, SSG Lincoln Hollinsaid and PFC Jason Meyer. I knew and served with SFC Smith - he was a remarkable sapper and leader - and it came as no surprise to me to learn that he died while providing covering fire for his soldier's to escape near the Baghdad International Airport. SFC Smith has been recommended for the nation's highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor. On a somewhat lighter note - we want to send a bunch of somewhat belated, though still just as heartfelt, congratulations out to several of you: Amy Austin and Matt for their marriage, Erin for her new townhouse, Jimmy, Tina and baby Jimmy Jr who was born on my birthday last year!!!, Lubelle and Jeremy for their engagement last fall (when oh when will we see you again little Lu!?), Amy F for her TV debute on the infamous Joe Millionaire show (still blows my mind buttercup!), Reb and Guillermo for their beautiful marriage last October (we love you guys!), Nate and Donna for their marriage this past January, Eileen for finally getting the hell outta G3 and down to a line unit, Alex for finding his dream-job, Caroline and Doug for their awesome new house, Dave for his super national ranking with Pfizer, Mike and his engagement to Beatrix and for finally taking command of A/27 EN in March, to Dad and to Penny for retirement!!, and last but not least, to me for getting all my wisdom teeth pulled at the ripe old age of...well...just know that I am about 10 yrs past the time when normal, un-dental-weenie folks get their wisdom teeth pulled! Life in Virginia is as busy as usual but, all in all, just fine. It was one damn cold winter, which I did not like one bit, but we did have some fun in the two feet of snow that came in February (by the way having a Jeep ROCKS!!!). We are truly looking forward to spring! We have a new addition to celebrate as well...puppy Kiowa came home to us from CT on Em's birthday in April, and is adjusting well to life here with the three of us. Of course, she is a lucky pup in that she will always have a Vizsla-angel with her as we know that Tybee is here with us in spirit. We see Tybee in the rainbows that dance in our kitchen in the evening, in the tall grass rustling before us on our morning walks, in the shadows that flit in and out of the corners of our eyes, and in the face of Delaney and now Kiowa. We hope you are all doing well and hope to hear from you soon! And, of course, if you are ever in the DC area - please let us know!!! |
| WHAT'S UP August 2003 Hello Everyone! I hope that reading this finds you and your loved ones happy and healthy. We'd like to start this What's New by asking that everyone continue to keep the members of our military and their families in their prayers. Quite a few of our close friends are still serving in combat areas and our thoughts and hearts are still constantly with each of them, and all of the soldiers that we've served with in the past, and all of their comrades fighting beside them now. Godspeed to each of you. Lots of great news from so many of you in the past couple of months! Congratulations to Dad for pulling though open heart surgery with flying colors and an incredible recovery so far, to Eileen for taking command of A/864th EN in the deserts of Iraq, to James for his return safe and sound from Iraq, to new Long Beach, CA homeowners Reb and Guillermo and Stoughton, MA homeowners Mike and Josie, to newly engaged Matt and Libby, to Gail and Emma for winning a major in July, to the riders of Team Sparky for another year of RAGBRAI, to Sonnet and Kyle for their engagement and move to Boulder, and to Bret and Katie for a successful move to Colorado Springs. We've been loving our summer so much that it has absolutely flown by this year. Then again, maybe an increase in the speed of time is almost part of the definition of summer... Never-the-less, we had a fantastic time seeing so many of you over the fourth of July and partying in the moho and at the Buffett concert! I've posted a few pictures of that weekend, but if any of you have other good ones...send 'em and I'll put them up too! We finally took a real vacation this summer and headed out to Iowa and Minnesota for ten days! Not your typical vacation destination, but the four of us had a blast visitng my Mom's hometown and getting out on the family farm, visiting my aunt, uncle and cousin in St Paul, and joining Team Sparky on the last three days of RAGBRAI (18,000 people bicycling across Iowa in seven days...and no...Iowa is NOT flat)! We are also looking forward to a couple of long weekend trips to finish out the summer and begin the fall so, all in all, it has been a fantastic past few months! This summer we've been incredibly blessed with the opportunity to visit with so many friends that we haven't seen in years...old Army buddies, childhood friends, and, next week, with old high school friends. We want to let all of you know how much you mean to us and how much we treasure your friendship despite great distances. We hope that you are all enjoying your summers and would love to hear from you soon! And, of course - if you are ever in the DC area - please let us know! |
| What's Up - April 2004 I've been such a lazy bum not to have updated this in over six months. It seems like time has flown this winter though...and since winter means cold...it's a good thing that it's flown. Let's see...news from our lives... Well, in the past four months we've welcomed three old friends to the DC area! James and Cristen Younts moved to northern Virginia in November when James left active duty and accepted a job with SAIC here. We were at the wedding in Savannah where James and Cristen first met five years ago and have shared so many fun times with them over the years. We LOVE living so closeby to them again and have been thoroughly enjoying just hanging out with the two of them. And in Janurary another old Army buddy, Craig got a promotion and transferred from Florida to the DC area with his company, Nextel. Craig has been keeping Matt's mind off of wedding detail stress and took my place (thankfully) in camping out with Matt for this year's Buffett tickets!!! We have gotten word of quite a few engagements and an even greater number of notices from parents-to-be. And we couldn't be more thrilled for all of you!!! So congratulations to Matt's HS friend Matt and his fiance Libby, my BC friend Amy F and her fiance Brannon, and Matt's cousin Deirdre and her fiance Matt on their engagements - we're SOOOO excited for your upcoming weddings!!! And congratulations to Matt's sister and brother-in-law Jen and Justin, my BC friend Kelly and her husband Dave, my cousin Michael and his wife Tammi, and James ande Cristen on their babies-to-come!!! It is absolutely jaw-dropping to think that some of our friends are actually having babies now! We also wanted to give a HUGE welcome-home to Eileen Moritz from a year-long deployment in Iraq with the 864th Engineer Battalion out of Ft. Lewis, Washington. We are very proud of Eileen and so thankful that our prayers were answered and Eileen made it back safely. Praise God! And congratultaions to Matt's brother, Nicholas, on winning an Army ROTC scholarship! We are quite proud of him and extremely excited at all the wonderful opportunities that lie before him! We thoroughly enjoy hearing all of his stories and can't wait for all that is to come in his Army life. Oh, and one last congratulations! An enormous one to our friend Gail and her Vizsla, Emma, for winning 'Best Female' at the 2003 National Vizsla Dog Show in North Carolina in November. Emma is an absolutely gorgeous Vizsla (and such a sweetheart), and Gail did an excellent job showing Emma to a much lauded win and her Championship title. We're so proud of them both! Everything is fine with Matt, Delaney, Kiowa and I. Matt loves his job as the supervisor of fuel accounting for Atlantic Coast Airlines (ACA) out at Dulles airport. Actually, ACA just released the big and wonderful news that they will launch thier own low-fare airline, Independence Air, in June!!! Matt and his colleagues are absolutely thrilled to be part of this exciting time in the aviation industry. And we encourage you to check into flying Independence Air this summer! www.flyi.com Delaney and I are taking Competition Obedience classes once a week and she is doing marvellously. Matt says Delaney is just a huge "mama-pleaser", and she is, but it is humbling and adorable. Kiowa turned one year old in February and is totally living up to her name (she's named after the Kiowa attack helicopter). Vizslas are known for their friendliness, but Kiowa really takes it to new levels. She is the most adventurous, fearless, amicable, happiest and curious Vizsla we've ever encountered! Matt and Kiowa are still active in confirmation showing and Kiowa is really performing well in the ring lately. I am still enjoying new challenges at BearingPoint and working to keep the many moving parts of our family together! We hope each of you reading this is doing well and is as psyched for spring to be here as we are!! We'd love to hear from all of you when you have the time! God Bless... |
| What's Up - August 2004 My goodness. How time flies. It seems like just yesterday it was March and I was typing up the last "What's Up" and feverishly designing the wedding pages of this site. And here we are. In August. And Matt and I are hanging onto the wild wedding train with all our might as it races full speed ahead to our exciting day! As you can imagine, we're exhausted, but enjoying the sweet anticipation of our marriage and the celebration to follow. As always, we have other exciting announcements to make and report! And again, as always, we have lots of congratulations to extend! To Matt and Libby, LuBelle and Jeremy, and Rene and Liz on their marriages and successful weddings! We were honored to be a part of your special days and had a blast celebrating with you! Thanks for including us and we hope you're enjoying the relaxation that we're so looking foward to ourselves! To Jen and Justin on the birth of their first children and the third set of twins in Matt's family - Jonah and Annie! To Kelly and Dave on their bouncing, bundle of joy - Kerry Sheridan - who was born in May and was a surprising three weeks early!!! To Dave and Caroline who just found out that they're expecting a baby this coming February! To James and Cristen who finally moved out of James' parent's basement and into their newly built house and finally received their household goods shipment! YAY!!! To Mike and Josee on being the proud new parents of their puppy Kali and to making it through several sleepless first-nights-home! If we've missed posting anyone's big news - we're terribly sorry! And last but not least - we have some other big news to share. In our spare time in the past couple of months, we've been looking at real estate here in northern Virginia. Matt's good friend and fellow Cursillista - Chris - was kind enough to take us first time home-buyers on and to show us a few real estate ropes. After two months of looking at well over 30 houses that didn't fit all of our needs and wants, we saw two houses on the same day and really liked them both. We'd had been harboring a feeling for a long time that we'd face this exact situation eventually and, lo and behold, it panned out just as we thought. In the short hours after we'd seen both houses - we made a pros and cons list for each house, prayed for God to light the way for us and tried to discern His response. In the fast-paced real estate market of northern Virginia, we thought for sure one of the houses we liked would have ten contracts put down on it and that it'd sell for way over it's asking price, but we felt pulled in its direction, and decided to put a contract in for it. We were fully expecting our contract to be rejected and to move on to the other house, but remarkably, the sellers responded to us within a couple of hours and accepted our bid! We couldn't believe it!!! This contract was the very first one we'd put down on the very first house that we'd really liked and it was accepted right away and on our terms! All of that is almost unheard of in the fiercely competitive, four year long, seller's market in this area. We truly feel like God parted the real estate sea for us to buy this house and feel wonderfully blessed that he helped us so. Apparetly, we're "in escrow" now, and the closing date is set for the 4th of October, which will give us a few days to be back from our honeymoon and to finalize a few things before it's official. We're still praying that everything goes smoothly. And we're still somewhat shocked, but we're pretty excited and know we'll be even more excited after the wedding! And for all of you wondering about our dream of owning a beach house in Georgia - no worries - we plan on doing just that in a couple of years!!! We can't wait to see many of you in just three short weeks!! Love and hugs to you all! |
| What's Up - October 2004 Well...it's official...we're married and we're first-time home owners! It has been quite a month! We had a wonderful honeymoon! Since our Windjammer cruise out of Grenada was cancelled (due to Hurricane Ivan), we extended our stay in St. Lucia. So we were at Anse Chastanet for twelve incredibly relaxing days. We spent the vast majority of our days laying on the beach and reading - and catching up on some major sleep! We very highly recommed Anse Chastanet if you ever head down to St. Lucia! Currently, we are swamped with moving and setting up our new house, but we really wanted to get some pictures up on this site for folks to look through! We plan on posting more pictures very soon so please check back often! And -if you have pictures from our wedding - we'd love to see them if you get a chance!!! Oh! We also want to congratulate Gail and her youngest V, Emma, on the healthy birth of Emma's first litter of puppies!!!! Emma gave birth to her five, adorable pups on the 16th and 17th of September. YAY for Mama Emma! Sorry for the short post...more to come in the weeks ahead! |
| What's Up - December 2004 What a crazy, wonderful, blessed year 2004 has been for Matt and I. Highlights include, but are certainly not limited to, our marriage (first and foremost!), the search for and purchase of our first home, the birth of so many beautiful babies (and puppies!) to friends and family members, and our Cursillo retreats and the many new friends we've met through the Cursillo movement. We really know how to pack a load of fun into one year eh?! Of course, one of the best parts of the whole year, was seeing almost all of our loved ones in one place at one time in September! We had such a blast with all of you! Thank you!!! Since I've last posted, a couple of events that deserve congratulations have occurred! So, without further ado, congratulations to Cristen and James on the birth of their gorgeous little girl Ashley Grace (known to Matt and I as "Aggie" for her initials AGY). And congratulations to John and Keri on their marriage and wonderful wedding in November. We hope that 2005 brings each of you the love of true friends and the peace of Christ. God Bless, Cathy and Matt |
| What's Up - February 2005 Can't believe that we're well into the year 2005 already! Not much news to report from Memory Lane. Work has been incredibly busy for both Matt and I since the start of the year. Some days it's all we can do to roll home, walk the girls, and fall into bed. Our weekends have been pretty busy as well. In January, Matt was honored with the request to "team" the men's Cursillo retreat taking place in mid-April at Missionhurst. Matt and a group of ten other men from parishes around northern Virginia meet every Sunday afternoon to pray for those whom the Holy Spirit will call as retreatants and to prepare themselves for the retreat weekend. The months of preparation are a big committment, but Matt feels it is time gladly given to God's work! We're also still frequent riders of the dog-show circuit! Kiowa has showed well so far this year and we're excited about getting her out to the many upcoming shows this spring! Over President's Day weekend, we flew out to San Francisco to visit Eileen, a good friend from our Army days. This trip was Matt's first visit to SF and my second. We had a blast touring the sights, eating our way through the city, and taking a peaceful hike through the redwoods in Muir Woods. Thanks for a great time E!!! We're definitely looking forward to all the travels we have planned for this year! I'll try to post pictures of our trips on a somewhat regular basis. :) Oh! A few congratulations to send out too! Lots of pregnancy announcements!!! Congratulations to Matt's cousins David and Denise (due in June), our friends Luke and Katie (also due in June), and our friends Chris and Colleen (due in September - the day after our wedding anniversary!)!! A healthy and happy nine months to all of the babies and Moms-To-Be! God Bless, Cathy and Matt |
| What's Up - June 2005 My goodness...June already! Where oh where does the time go? As I'm sure you all have been, Matt and I have been so busy this spring. In March, "the Amys" came to visit for a much needed girls weekend here in Virginia. They were the second set of visitors to our new house (Matt's brother Nicholas was first in December!) so it was fun showing them all that we've done to make our house...ours! I n April, Matt teamed the Men's 111th Cursillo retreat. I missed him terribly while he was away, but he was blessed with an enriching and fun weekend, for which we are both grateful. The weekend after Cursillo, we had 1/3 of our Caputo family visit us!!!! Matt's Mom, sister Christine and her four children (Sarah, Emily, Kate & Andrew) stayed with us for four glorious days! We took a trip into DC, a trip to the movies, a trip to the library, and a trip to the ER and a hospital admission for one special neice of ours. That last trip is a long, humorous story so, if you're interested, feel free to ask us about it the next time you see us! We absolutely loved having them here and are certain that we got a pretty full immersion in the life of a family with four small children! I must add that Delaney and Kiowa were fantastic with the kids and Matt and I were very proud of them! In May, we travelled to Boston to witness Sarah's sacrament of First Holy Communion. It is a special day, one that we hope grows more meaningful for Sarah over time, and we were thrilled to celebrate that mass with her. A week later, Matt and I took off on our 2nd Honeymoon in the Carribean. We finally went on our Windjammer Barefoot cruise out of Grenada!!! What an amazing adventure. I've posted some pictures (see the link above) of our trip. I don't think that the photos quite accurately show the clarity of the ocean and the brightness of the sunshine, but they show you some of what we saw :) Sadly, two of my favorite moments weren't caught on film though. We met two wonderful dogs - an old girl behind the chapel in Mayreau and a young pup on the streets of Carriacou. We also didn't get to capture the Green Flash, but we sure saw it! It's a bright, neon green flash that shoots out over the water a split second after the last of the sun sets over the ocean. Over Memorial Day, we got to spend the day with Rebecca and Guillermo who are visiting from CA! We attended a Memorial Day mass at the Little Church (where both couples were married) and then drove up to historic Harpers Ferry and hiked to a point where you can see the convergence of the VA, MD and WVa state lines! We've also been quite busy in our gardens! If anyone is in need of basil or dill (and hopefully tomatoes and cucumbers in a few weeks), please let us know! And if you're over anytime soon, make sure to stop and see Matt's enormous roses!!! So now....here we are, in June! We hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying these long, summer days! Please let us know if you'll be in the DC area at any time this summer...we'd love to see you! God Bless, Cathy |
| What's Up - September 2005 It's virtually impossible to imagine that summer has come and gone and we're staring fall down. Well, if you're in the DC area, it doesn't feel like it weather-wise, but it's true that we're almost into October! We've had a most blessed summer here! Please check the "Baby Page" link to see more about it! Lots of congratulations to go out! Congratulations to Amy and Jon who were married in August! Congratulations to cousin Dierdre and her husband Matt who were married in July! Congratulations to Andy and Diane who are expecting their first baby in March! Congratulations to Kelly and Dave who're expecting their second baby in November/December. And congratulations to Chris and Colleen who had their first baby, Jack, on the 14th of September! It's so exciting to be a part of such excitement in everyone's lives. Thank you all for letting us share in it with you! It's been incredibly hot here this summer and we're definitely looking forward to the cool weather of autumn. With it brings one of my favorite days of the year, the Fairfax Fall Festival, a hot-air ballooning trip in the Shenandoahs, and a week long vacation for Matt and I. We took a mini-vacation over our anniversary a week ago. We went up to northwestern Maryland to the Savage River Lodge. We stayed in a very nice cabin, ate gourmet dinners in the lodge restaurant, and took long hikes each day. The lodge and its cabins are dog-friendly so we brought Delaney and Kiowa along with us. They absolutely loved walking out the door of our cabin and onto a wide-range of new and good-smelling trails! They also loved the freshly baked dog biscuits they got delivered to our cabin door in a picnic basket each morning (along with muffins and fresh OJ for their Mom and Dad)! We loved the quiet serenity, the serenade of crickets and tree frogs each cool night, and the beautiful forests and colorful meadows that we walked through every day. And, of course, we loved watching our girls have such a fantastic time exploring everything new. We hope you all are healthy and happy. As always, please let us know if you're in the area or thinking about visiting! We'd love to see you soon! God Bless, Cathy |
| What's Up - November 2005 C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S to Jen and Justin on the birth of their son (and our newest nephew) William Christopher Will was born on September 27th (also Delaney's birthday) at a healthy 9 lbs 4 oz Unbelievable that it's already NOVEMBER!?!? Where did all this time go? Today has actually been quite un-November like. We're enjoying lots of sunshine, day time temperatures in the 80s and light breezes. This morning, we took a walk with the girls on the wooded trails of the park close to our house. It was wonderful to walk along in shorts and tee-shirts watching the shower of yellow and red leaves falling all around us. Delaney and Kiowa thoroughly enjoy these warm days. Delaney likes to sunbathe on the grass in the back yard. She'll lay out there for hours at a time on a nice day - just like her Mama :) And Kiowa will spend a whole afternoon sniffing around the back yard and stalking who-knows-what. A couple of weeks ago, Matt and I took a trip out to Seattle to tour around and to visit Cathy's cousins. We had a great time catching up with cousins Michael and Tammi and meeting their beautiful daughter Emma. We also had a fun afternoon out on Bainbridge Island visiting with Jim, another of Cathy's cousins (Michael's brother), and walking around his quiet, tranquil property. In Seattle we spent a long time walking around Pikes Place Market, checked out the locks and salmon runs, took a tour of the Red Hook Brewery (Matt drank all of my samples!), and took a trip up to Snoqualmie Falls with Mike, Tammi and Emma. We also crossed the Canadian border and spent a couple of days in Vancouver. We had good weather there and were able to take a tram up Grouse Mountain, walk around Vancouver's market place, and do some shopping. Our hotel was amazing and gave us a room with a view over the harbor and to the mountains beyond! All in all, we had a fantastic trip. It was super take in some new sights, to relax together and to get away from our jobs! Over the last weekend in October, I was blessed to again travel with loved ones as a couple of women in my prayer group invited me to spend a weekend away at the beach with them! We shared a quiet weekend together full of talking and more talking and even more talking! It was a wonderful way to re-charge and to grow in spirit and friendship. As always, we hope that each of you is doing well. Know that you frequent our thoughts and prayers. God Bless, Cathy |
| What's Up - January 2006 Happy New Year! Welcome to 2006 Everyone! We hope that you all have a healthy and peaceful year. With my due date only a month away, we're pretty certain that we'll miss out on the 'peaceful' part this year, but perhaps our peace is to be found in acceptance of that fact. And we're working on it... Matt, Delaney, Kiowa (and baby) and I spent Christmas in Milton with Matt's family this year. As always, we were blessed to be able to spend time with our neices, nephews, brothers, sisters, and Mum. Unbelievably, it didn't snow or sleet while we were there this year, but the blizzard came by the Christmas tree in the living room on Christmas day. It was a feeding frenzy of the most crazed sort - children and wrapping paper everywhere! We received an extra special gift from one of our neices (and possibly one of our nephews). It was a super secret gift that we didn't even know we'd received until we were home in Virginia. It wasn't until two hours after we'd gotten home that we found it. The flu! And - oh boy - did it ever have fun with us. Five days later, we're still recovering from some of the side effects, and praying that this baby doesn't arrive until we've caught up! We've got a several more things to do in preparation for the baby. Heavens knows we probably won't ever get it all done, but I suppose we'll keep trying. Essayons! We'll be thinking of and praying for you all this year. God Bless, Cathy |
| What's Up - February 2006 Congratulations to two couples expecting their first children - Rebecca and Guillermo & Mary and Eamon - we're absolutely thrilled you! So...as many of you know...our baby girl, Faith Mae, celebrated her birth day on the 7th of February. She weighed 8 lbs. and 2 oz. and was 22 inches long. And she took her own sweet time getting here. Sixty two hours to be exact. No typo there. I was in labor for sixty one hours and pushed for an hour to bring Faith into this world. As a few of you have mentioned, I have serious ammunition to use should I need to during Faith adolescence! Many have asked us how we came to give Faith her name. We did have another girl name picked out, but several events ultimately led us to chose Faith in the end. To begin with, Faith was conceived through our faith in God. We didn't have all of the i's dotted and t's crossed in our lives like we ideally wanted, but we both felt called, through prayer, to conceive Faith. Not only did God reward our faithfulness and trust in His will for our lives with the conception of Faith, but He also blessesd us a few days later when Matt received a wonderful job offer from his current company. During the pregnancy, as we worried about our readiness to be parents, we tried to remember that our faith had brought us to this point and that God would remain faithful to us in return. We trusted that He would give us the grace and wisdom we needed when we needed it. Towards the end of the pregnancy, as many of you know, Faith was found to be in a breech position at 37 weeks. She was quite an acrobat as it's highly unusual for a baby to be able to turn in the womb past 36 weeks! So very, very many of you showed your amazing faith as you prayed for our baby to turn back into a head-down position. And, thanks be to God, it worked!!! Faith turned back into the correct position at 38 weeks! Then, at about fifty nine hours into labor, our obstetrician told us that Faith was stuck in the birth canal. He said he'd come back in two hours to see if she'd turned and made any further progress and, if she had not descended further, he'd probably recommend a c-section. Matt and I prayed fervently in those two hours. We listened to a tape made in the 80s of Mom's church choir singing and we prayed and prayed. When the doctor came in an hour and forty five minutes later, his face registered a happy surprise as he told us that Faith had turned and descended. And then Matt's face reflected the same emotions when the doctor said, "...so get ready to push in the next ten or fifteen minutes!" Faith had defeated the medical odds again! Our labor and delivery nurse (who was fantastic) told us that babies rarely turn that late into labor. YAY GOD! With her whole life rooted so firmly in faith, what more appropriate name could we give our daughter.. Life at home with Faith these past two weeks has been interesting. Every day is a new day and brings new challenges and joys. We're learning more about her and falling in love with her more each day. We think that having a child is amazing in that it's a giant leap in understanding how much God loves each of us -His children. And yet we still know that our understanding and our love for our child is only a miniscule fraction of God's enormous love for us. It's awesome and humbling. Delaney and Kiowa are doing very well in accepting their new sister into their family. They're incredibly protective of Faith, especially Delaney, and are always interested in where Faith is, who is holding her, why she's making the sounds she's making, etc. It's certainly a huge change for them and we're so blessed that they've been so understanding and welcoming of Faith. At her two week check-up, Faith had gained one pound and grown one inch already! Mom is betting she'll be a basketball star and Auntie Erin is pulling for a volleyball champ. In fact, she's already planning on coaching her team and trying to figure out what Faith will call her then - Auntie Coach or Coach Auntie?!? I know that you're all looking for photos and promise to get some up in the next few days! God Bless Each Of You, Matt, Cathy, Faith, Delaney & Kiowa |
| What's Up - Marh/April 2006 Hard to believe it's already April! The saying really should read, "Time flies when you're taking care of a newborn". Although, if Faith has grown out of her newborn clothes, does she still qualify as a newborn? All is well here with the five of us. To read more about Faith, please visit the Baby Pages of this website. Since Faith perpetually takes up most of the space in our answer to "What's Up?", you can read about and view snapshots of most of our happenings in those pages! We're certainly keeping busy these days. Matt's job is going well. He still enjoys number-crunching and really likes his co-workers. We've decided that I'll go back to work part-time starting in May. My supervisors are amazingly accomodating in allowing me to work 10 hours a week through the summer and into the fall - whereupon we'll re-evaluate to see how it's working out. I'll be back on the project I've been on for 2.5 years now so the work and clients are familiar and I should be able to ease back in smoothly. Not to say it won't be excruciating to be away from Faith those first few afternoons. Even though I know she'll be in excellent hands with her Grammie and Grampie. We'll see how it all goes for a few months. Well...we're ecstatic that warm weather is finally making its way to Virginia! Lots of walks and time out in the garden in the forecast this spring! We hope you all are doing well. As always, let us know if you'll be in the area any time in the near future! God Bless, Matt, Cathy, Faith, Delaney and Kiowa |
| Continued Archives |
| What's Up - May 2006 Congratulations to Nicholas on his commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and his gradution from Stonehill College! We're so proud of you!!! This month turned out to be as busy as predicted! We were blessed with a visit from our friend Eileen and we were able to catch up on recent times and reminisce about old times. It was wonderful to see Eileen and to introduce her to Faith (see photo below). We also had a chance to see Rebecca and Guillermo when they visited Fairfax for Rebecca's baby shower! It was incredible to introduce my daughter to the woman who's been my best friend for twenty five years - just remembering how Rebecca held Faith brings tears to my eyes. It was also amazing to see a beautifully pregnant Rebecca! We also celebrated the commissioning and graduation of Matt's youngest brother Nicholas. We are sooooooo excited for him and the new adventure he's embarking on as an Army officer. It brings us back years and years to the time that we were both in his shoes. Faith is almost four months old...check out recent, three-month photos of her on the baby pages. God Bless, Matt, Cathy, Faith, Delaney and Kiowa |