Happy New Year

It's been a month but I'm finally updating the blog. Happy 2009 everyone!

Christmas in Iowa was a whirlwind 12 days. The celebrations themselves were great. Our family let us kick back and spoiled us with an abundance of incredible food (Prime Rib twice). We were able to spend Christmas on both sides of Iowa, and attended the Geraghty Christmas for the first time in 9 years. This year, they decided to forgo a gift exchange and donate gifts to a flood family instead. Very cool.

Caden always loves his Iowa visits because of all the new playmates and things to do. He spent hours exploring Grandpa Bob's new machine shed, full of farm vehicles, which we had fun driving too. And he adores his cousins. This video of Caden, Lawson, and Isabella jamming out to Ice Ice Baby is a must-see.

Lawson shows Cade some love


Um Bella, that's MY Cars sippy


Allie performed a private concert


The cousins




YES...my 500th truck!

Outside of the family gatherings, the travel itself left something to be desired. Here's the gist...Midwest Airlines lost our luggage for about 6 days. I did a poor job packing so I blame myself for the important items (especially the camera and my bridesmaid dress). We never did get our bags during our Cedar Rapids leg of the trip. We spent a lot of time on the phone and they told us something different daily. Brian's bag finally arrived the morning of the 23rd and they told me mine would be an additional day, because it was sitting at some lady's house in Grand Island, Nebraska. Huh?! I got her name and phone number, called her, and coordinated for my sister to pick it up on her holidays travels to Avoca. Jen was a lifesaver. But geez, what a mess.

At least we got everything before Christmas Eve and nothing was missing. Midwest gave us 3 round trip tickets to use in 2009. I guess things turned out okay, but we definitely learned from it. (Um, don't trust airlines.)

Another travel dilemma was Iowa snowstorms. This is nothing new to us, but every time we set out on I-80 for a new leg of our trip, we were greeted with a brand new storm. Luckily, Brian got us to our destinations safely, but not without some undue stress.

Goettsch Christmas

Knock knock...who's there?

He wanted to sleep with his Mack truck.


The fam, including Jeff's girlfriend Tina

The Mule

Brian plays with the loader

Dad and his pride and joy


Grandma shows off her skid loader skills

Haven't seen these lights in Red Oak since I was a kid


We fit in a wedding on top of all the holiday festivities. My friend Laurie got married Dec 27th. The wedding itself went well, but much like our travels, there were some setbacks. Their 11-month-old daughter Honor caught pneumonia the week of the wedding. She was miserable, and her parents, likewise. Luckily, Honor was doing much better the day of the wedding, which I think helped Laurie and Jason enjoy their day a little more. Of course, Honor could not attend and Laurie's family rotated watching her. Laurie and Jason also left the reception fairly early to spend the night with Honor at the hospital.

The wedding was in a gorgeous Catholic church in Laurie's tiny hometown ( about 400 people, which is smaller than Avoca). Brian came along so we had a whole night to hang out while Caden stayed with Grandma and Grandpa in Avoca. My friend Steph entertained us as always and we had a good time.

Beal does anything we tell her to.


The happy couple

Steph Sandwich

Our transition back to Quantico was rough because Caden was scared at night. We slept with him for several days out of guilt, but we soon realized that we were creating a destructive habit. After one rough night of tears, we got through it and we're back to normal. Our upcoming arrival in August will result in a lack of sleep...we don't need our toddler adding to that as well!

The pregnancy is going well. I'm at 12 weeks and we had our first ultrasound 2 weeks ago. The baby was moving all over and had a fast heartbeat of 180. I informed Brian that fast heartbeats tend to be girls. I'm nauseous and tired, but that's normal (unfortunately). The Hasley's found out that their fifth will be a boy. The whole family is excited, even Lawson, who's first response was, "But, I'm the boy."

Junior G's First Photo (Look for a hand and feet)

Caden continues to get taller AND louder as time goes on. He escaped under the pew at mass yesterday. A source of problems lately is sharing. Everything is "mine." He wants to snack constantly and thinks canned whipped cream is an hourly luxury. (Thanks, Brian.) He has started calling all his friends Bryce, which I guess is a compliment to our 5-year-old neighbor Bryce. Caden turns 2 on the 21st and Brian will be 29 on the 25th. My parents arrive tomorrow to help us celebrate. And yes, that means we're driving in DC on Inauguration Day. Crap. Wish us luck!

Brian will be here as well, although he's jumped right back into a busy TAD schedule. He participated in the All Marine Cross Country Championship 2 weeks ago in California and placed 7th. He finished first out of Quantico runners and their team placed 2nd. Not a bad start to 2009. He goes to his All Marine Triathlon Camp in Florida in another week. His buddy Ethan will be there so he's pumped.

Thanks for reading. I hope you had nice holidays and I'd love to hear from you. Maybe someone else has interesting travel nightmares to share...