ALEXANDRA ZOEY PASTOR IS HERE!

Alexandra arrived Friday, May 23rd at 11:37 AM

Big Sis and lil Sis taking a well deserved break together!


She was born at Weiden Hospital, Germany about 2 weeks early and weighed in at 8.8 pounds and 21 inches long = as big as Tyler was, just past her due date! It was via c-section and while it didn't quite go as smoothly as Ty's, we are both doing great. In fact I think I am healing and up & around faster this time around LOL though part of that may be necessity :-)

Sebastian was AWESOME and he and Tyler got some true "Daddy & Ty" time. She is still following him around everywhere mimicking all that he does :-) No jealously rearing up much yet which is nice. The hardest thing has been that I cannot pick her up yet and she doesn't completely understand why I can carry Alex but not her. She has had a few meltdowns over that but we are working on it. Daddy’s ice cream and park time certainly seems to help a lot :)

We were discharged on Monday (a process that takes ALLLLL day here) and were home Monday evening. Since then we have been resting trying to get into new routines and, of course, begin all paperwork for the Army, etc….

To Lori H and Stephanie -

Special thanks to you wonderful friends for helping out - we don't know what we would have done without you!! Knowing you were taking care of Ty for us gave us a piece of mind that was so needed and appreciated while in the hospital!

More updates later but here are some pictures for now. Time to take a break :)

Me and Mom!

Ty and Alex visiting at the hospital .....

Finally at home .......relaxing with Dad

Finally feels like summer!

Well the weather has finally turned it seems and it is starting to feel like summer :-) YEAAAA! I still need a better picture of me than the ones below - thanks for the 'you're huge/swallowed a balloon' comments LOL - and I will try for that this week. You just don't think it is possible to get bigger but, I swear, in the last couple of weeks I have! I have yet another doctor visit this Thursday to see when Alex should be making her arrival - I don't think we will be going to June 4/5.

We went to Ramstein to get out of Graf for a bit and pick up a few last minute things for Alex as well. Somehow we forgot that it was Cinco de Mayo weekend. It was great. Even though the 5th fell on the Sunday they were still doing stuff on Saturday as well making it a more interesting visit. (The picture above was taken there.)

There are more photos below of the local 'duck park' as the kids call it :) I had planned on doing books for Mothers Day but found out only after doing the layout and everything that the pictures were not of a high enough quality to print with. Talk about %$#^% you off. Sure enough, I went into the camera and while 'superfine' was selected there are apparently better options still in there LOL So I have changed the setting and will have to take a bunch more

pictures to do a book with. In the meantime I will post some of the others here.




Checking out the crowd and starting to dance!

I'll go with Dad to take a closer look :-)





















"Now this is what right looks like" - Ty

Grafenwohr "Duck' Park















All at the park......



















Ty and Paige checking out some ducks.....

















They've found something!


















Then it's off with Drew to the

...park favourite!

Preggy Picture

OK I have procrastinated long enough LOL I am almost 33 weeks now so I took some pictures - not the greatest but you definitely get the idea :) I am hoping to do a couple better ones over the next few weeks before the baby comes.

Yes, I am now wearing Sebastians sweatshirt and I feel like I have swallowed a beach ball!

Paris: Part 2

Thanks Rachel for bringing to my attention that Slide had dropped the last 12 pictures from my slideshow!! Apparently there IS a limit as to how many pictures you can have in one show LOL

Here is Paris:Part 2 (that does include the torch...or what you can see of it!)

One interesting note on this whole escapade with the Olympic flame was the way it was reported in the media. While we all know that the way something is reported is often not necessarily exactly the way it went down, it is still sometimes surprising when you see it happen first hand just how different it can come out.

There were pictures taken of a couple of protesters who ran out onto the street with flags in front of us. That's it. They didn't try to grab anyone, tackle anyone, or do anything other than shout stuff ('Free Tibet' usually) and wave their Tibet flag for which they knew they would get bum-rushed by the police (no one is allowed out on the road)....We later saw these pictures in the French media, Drudge Report online and other places...It was amazing how suddenly these individuals who ran out on the road were shot in close up with the police on top of them making it look much worse, much more violent and out of control than it was.

What I wish had been shown in the media was the freaking photographers/paparazzi themselves. IMO they were more out of control than the "protesters" we saw. Picture if you will: single young man runs out onto street waving a flag saying 'free Tibet' and 2-3 police quickly grab him and physically carry him off the street...all followed by up to 6 (yes that is SIX) other individuals racing across the road, surrounding the police and protester all vying for the best shot, the best angle. It was unreal how often they would get in the way or in the face of the police...I commented that the French police showed great restraint - not with the protesters (though they acted professionally there as well), but with the stupid photog's because if it had been me I would have slugged more than one of them that morning!!

Just my lil sidenote for the morning :-)

Paris 2008