The Abbott Family Web Site

Gee, it’s only been five months since the last update. My how the time flies.

What’s been going on during that time? Hmm, well, here’s a short synopsis:

• Ellie got out of the hospital the Friday after she was admitted. She spent three days there, none of which she or Helene enjoyed.
• The following Wednesday Steve was “no longer needed” by his company, whose name he will not speak here. Unfortunately he wasn’t there long enough for FMLA to apply and as Washington is an at-will state the company could let him go when and how they wanted. Needless to say he won’t be recommending them or their products to anyone in the future.
• All in all July was a pretty bad month.
• Ellie went in for an ultrasound after her infection had cleared up and the doctor determined that her left kidney was slightly underdeveloped. This was allowing reflux from the bladder up into the kidney. They will check again when she is a year old as they are expecting she will grow out of it.
• Helene had her XX birthday in October. There was cake, ice cream and much rejoicing!
• Steve got a contract job with Integra Telecom, located in Portland, Oregon one day shy of his three month anniversary of being unemployed. He’s enjoying the work and the people and has received good feedback from them on the work he is doing. It does mean traveling across the Columbia River into Oregon on a daily basis again, but that is minor compared to the benefits of working.
• Josie and Robbie are growing like, well, saplings we guess. Getting taller but not as much around the middle. They are both in the < 20% weight range (Josie being in the 5% weight range for most of the year), although Robbie is turning into a pretty solid little linebacker. They eat how much they want and walk away when they are done. I’d never seen a 4 year old and 2 year old walk away from sweets like these two do. Obviously didn’t get their parents sweet tooth.
• We were fortunate enough to go to Disneyland in December. It’s a tradition that the December, or Christmas season, after we have a child we go to Disneyland. We did it with Josie and with Robbie and we had scheduled the trip back in May, before Ellie was born and before Steve’s old employer did what they did. Fortunately with Steve getting a new job and by economizing during the trip (having a time share at Disney helps cut the costs) we were able to enjoy 4 nights there as well as a pretty nice drive there and back.

Those are the highlights, at least what can be recalled right now. We’re sure there’s more to write and we’ll try to be better about it this year. And we’ll also post more pictures than we have been. We promise!