The absence of posts says it all.

John and Heather came home on Dec 26th, and we've been a little too busy to post for the last few days. Here are the photos of them just before we left the hospital (The afghans were made by their Great-Grandmother).

Sarah and I have been doing pretty well so far. We have been blessed with very content children. They sleep well and long - so much so that we've had to wake them up several times to feed them! We even took them to Walmart to get a few items.

Christmas Party in the CCN

The triplets have all been moved to the Continuing Care Nursery (CCN). That's a great thing, since it means they no longer need the level of care the NICU provides. The nurses say the kids in their care are on the "feed and grow" plan. It looks good for us to take Heather and John home tomorrow! William needs another 10 days or so of growing - he's still got to gain about 330 grams (~11 oz).

We put them in the Christmas outfits their Grandma got them - the first of many embarrassments we are sure to cause them! They looked so cute!!

Oh. By the way, Sarah's Home

Sarah came home on Tuesday afternoon. It would have been headline news, but the babies did something special. I can't recall exactly what it was, but I'm sure it was special - after all, it trumped Sarah's return home, right? Musta been something...

Just kidding! Sarah is doing spectacularly! She's healing nicely, she's up and about, and she fitting back into her early pregnancy clothes. She's got a little while before she'll fit back into her pre-pregnancy clothes, but one thing at a time!

They've Gone Wireless!!

Here's a picture of Heather in her first night of wireless activity - she's off the IV and taking all her nutrients by mouth now. She's up to 40cc per feeding (every 4 hours), a jump of almost 10cc from the previous day.


The nurses tell us that John is scheduled to come off the IV tonight, and they are considering a "do not reattach" order for William (they won't take it off, but if it comes off don't put it back on). So all three are fighting hard to get to come home!

----

Both William and Heather are done with the Jaundice treatment. Hopefully tonight John will finish up as well.

Heeeerrree's Jaundice!!

We fully expected this - it is almost guaranteed in premies (and common in full-term babies too) to get Jaundice. It is an inability of the liver to break down excess red blood cells from the birthing process. Those cells collect in the skin and eye tissue and cause a yellowness. The light helps break it down.



William got it first, and by the time this is posted he should be off it. Then Heather and John followed suit the next day. They should all be done by Monday with the treatment.

--Break--

As far as their progress, everything goes very well. Heather and John are both taking 20cc's of formula/milk at each of 4 daily feedings and asking for more! For their size they need to take about 28cc's before they can come off the IV drip. That should be in the next day or two if they continue as they have. Both are back up over the 1800grams necessary to leave the NICU, too. Once they get off the IV, they are going to be weaned off of the heaters over about 3 days. Once that's done they can come home!!

William is fighting hard, but he's just won't be able to make up the distance between him and his siblings before they leave. He was the first to get and finish his Jaundice treatment, the first to start growing (all babies lose a little wieght right after birth), and the first to take food from a bottle. But he's just too small to come home yet. Poor little guy, he's fighting so hard! He'll probably be another week behind John and Heather.

Here they are!!

They have all arrived! All the babies and Sarah are doing unbelievably well! It is physically and statistically impossible for them to all be doing this well. Sarah is healing very quickly and will be discharged probably on Tuesday.

All three were breathing on their own right away - no intibation necessary. They are taking food via formula, and two of the three are well above the minimum weight necessary to go home. Heather and John could be home by the end of the week!! William has to gain about 400 more grams before he can come home. Still, I couldn't have asked for more!!

Heather Teagan was born at 9:30 at 4 lbs 1 oz. She appears to have Blue eyes and brown hair.

John Andrew V was born at 9:30 at 4 lbs 7 oz. He appears to have Blue eyes and Strawberry Blonde hair.

William Frederick was born at 9:31 at 3 lbs 3 oz. He appears to have Red hair and he has the most brilliant green eyes!

William is by far the most energetic - the doctor predicted he would be because he had to fight so hard to get nutrients inside. He is moving even when he sleeps.

The doctors and nurses have been nothing short of excellent. Here is a photo of the organized chaos in the OR at the time of delivery. Each baby had a team of nurses assigned, so the room was quite full!

Are we ready for this?!?

This is just a quick note to let everyone know that the Triplets are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow morning at 8AM. There is no pressing health concern for the babies or for Sarah, but both are showing increasing signs of stress and it’s time for them to be born. Please pray for all five of us. As soon as I have pictures they will be posted here.

Sarah will need about 4 days of recovery time in the hospital, and we don’t yet know when the babies will be able to come home. However, Sarah did a fantastic job going all the way to nearly 34 weeks, so it’s possible they will come home sooner rather than later. Here’s hoping!!

Cheers!

All Three Heads at 19 Weeks...

There are some that say two heads are better then one. I wonder what they would say to these three. :) Here are all three heads, and I am glad that I'm not going to have to push them out one after the other.

All are healthy, good in size, and hopefully staying that way. Just about 4 months left!!! And not soon enough. (at least until the first time one screams starting the other two) :)

19 weeks, Baby A

We believe Baby A to be a girl. When the tech first looked the baby's right arm was up resting on her forhead, and she kept her legs closed. I believe her to be my modest drama queen. Due to the tech not being 100% sure she reminded me it was only a guess at what she was seeing, but knowing our families, I think we've added another drama queen to the generations. :)

19 weeks, Baby B

This is Baby B. Now he is all boy, even though you can't see it in the pictures. Not only was he playing and grabbing himself the first time the tech measured him, but when she went back to get pictures for me, he had flipped around and was mooning us.

19 weeks, Baby C

This is Baby C. If you look closely you might be able to see its feet up over its head. I'm not sure what its trying, just having fun, or it's practicing diving positions. Who can know at this point.

Baby A

My most alien looking of the three, but still cute.

Baby B

Baby C

Week 15 (or close to it)

Okay, so I didn't get the pictures up quite as fast as I expected. The ultrasound was done, then everything needed to get done. Oh well, It's here now, and still no idea which is which sex. That should be coming in the next few weeks, I hope. They are going to give it a shot, and see what or if they can see anything. The picture isn't really clear, and they are less alien in form. They look like little blobs, but they are our blobs. Right now, hust crossing our fingers that they are healthy. (this first is the attempt at all three in one picture, didn't really work.)

3952 Miles Later...

We have arrived in New Jersey at Sarah's Dad's place. We are here for about a week. What a great trip we had! We had a few disappointments, but on the whole the trip was very good.

• We had a very good visit with my Uncle in Palm Springs. He has a great pool, and we spent nearly all day in it (with some good wine too, of course)
• When we got to Houston we met with a friend of ours. He took me over to the USS Texas. He volunteers with the ship or something, so he had keys to get into a few not-so-public areas. But it gets even better - we ran into a guy he knows who is a volunteer for the preservation of the ship. He had some time to kill that morning, so he took us all over the ship - literally everywhere!! We went down into the Ammo Storage room (the very bottom level of the 14 in guns!) and I got to lift and move a 14 in shell on the chain hoists!! Then we went over to the electrical generation room, the electrical distribution room, a boiler room, and (best of all) aft steering!! These rooms are totally unpreserved from the time the Texas was decommissioned - the flooding waterline was still visible in the aft steering room!! I was totally covered in rust when we finished. It was the tour of a lifetime!!!!!! Absolutely thrilling! Then we went to dinner with his family to a great Texas BBQ restaurant.
• In New Orleans we got to tour a plantation, see another, and walk around bourbon street and the French Quarter. We didn't hang around to see the fireworks, but I did catch glimpses from the hotel room. We had a great hotel room and enjoyed the trip.
• From there it was pretty much a rain-soaked straight shot to New Jersey over 3 days. The rain was so hard in Mississippi that I had to place myself behind a well-lit semi so that I could see something! That was basically 2 days. On the 3rd we tried to stop at the Biltmore Estate in NC but arrived to late to make the $45/per admission fee worth buying. So we pressed on.

And now we are at Sarah's Dad's place for a week. Then we go to Pittsburgh for a week (and buy the dreaded minivan!) and then its back to work!!

8 Weeks and Counting

Tuesday June 20th, we had our 8 week ultrasound. All hearts are still beating, and all measure to be the same size, or close to it. Still can't see if there's going to be red hair, or which is which, but can you find the head? You can only see it on #1, because they are already proving to be siblings by not wanting to share the spot light. We are still in a little bit of shock! :)

Reanna named them "Pink", "Purple", and "Orange", and we think those are excellent names, for now.

My Thesis Writeup

I finally received approval to convert my thesis into Adobe Acrobat, which is the final step! So it is done. Now I just need to route signatures to get it all complete and wrapped up.

Here is the writeup.

I's Gradumicated!!

Here's the official photo from my Graduation. I swear I was smiling at the time! They edited it out of the photo!! It's all a big conspiracy!!

My Thesis Presentation Video

Here is a low-res video of my presentation that Sarah wonderfully recorded for me. It is in 3 parts because of the restrictions on the free account at YouTube. I cut the video to occur between slide changes so it's easy to watch. Enjoy!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

My Thesis Presentation

The presentation on Friday went very well. Sarah says I was the best one of the group!! And we all know she's not biased... But I do think it went quite well. I was asked some very good questions, which means people were actually listening! I have made a video of it, but unfortunately it is way to long and too big to post. So you'll just have to settle for the powerpoint presentation I presented. Here it is:

My THREE babies!!!

Today was our first ultrasound of many. This is also the day we found out that we are going to have THREE CHILDREN!!! They printed a picture from the ultrasound for us. I've numbered them to help identify them.

Road Trip 2006 - Try 3

My orders arrived today to throw yet another monkey wrench into the well-oiled machine that is my plan for our cross-country trip. Here is try #3, I think this may actually be the final one! (knock on wood!!)

A Video of My Thesis Algorythm

Here is a video that shows the optimization routine that I wrote. Its about two minutes long.

The first block is the 3D flight path that is being tested. Every time it changes is a new test. Under the 3D flight path is the control effort required to execute the path. The red lines are the maximum capabilities of the missile (which varying by altitude), so an optimal path cannot require a control effort that crosses those lines. The set of 9 blocks on the right are the x,y,z plots of the path, the first derivative of the path, and the second derivative of the path (note: they are spatial derivatives not time derivatives, so they are not velocity and acceleration as they would normally be interpreted. They are instead the rate of change of the flight path).

Road Trip 2006 Try 2

Here we go again!

It's time for a Road Trip!

I have begun the planning process for our next road trip, the one that will bring us back to the east coast! We are taking the extreme southern route for numerous reasons, but mostly because we feel like it. Here is the tentative schedule of events (the "D" refers to the Departure Day which I expect to be aroung 28-31 June):




There are only really 3 official "sightseeing stops" in the plan (Carlsbad, Houston, New Orleans) but we learned on the last road trip that some of the best sights are stumbled upon by just watching the signs pass - so I left plenty of time to see what we come across!

Just call me WEPS

Here's the email I received from my Detailer:

John,

Just to follow-up on the voicemail I left you. The slate has not been
approved; however I have the tentative slate in front of me which is the 99%
solution. You were slated to your #1 choice: WEPS in VELLA GULF CG 72 in
Norfolk. I hope to meet you next week while I am at NPS. Have a
great weekend and let me know if you have any
questions/concerns.

R,
Samantha

So there you have it! Not only did I get my first choice of billet, I got the billet I would have chosen for myself if I had the list! This is one of the newest Cruisers in the fleet, with all the fun bells and whistles! This is fantastic!

Here's the beautiful ship I will be serving on next!

I have a Master's Degree!

I received this in the mail today. I officially have a Master's Degree in Defense Technology and Systems from the National University of Singapore. It was awarded to me about a month ago, so I've missed out on a whole month of the "privelages" associated!

I need to get cracking catching up on using those privelages...

New Motorcycle Jackets

We went to the mall today and discovered Wilson's is having a huge sale. We took a look, and found these jackets at 70% off.

And since we got a small bonus this month due to a Navy accounting error (made years ago by the way), we figured w'ed spurge a little. So we each got a new leather jacket to wear when we go riding!

Sarah's is the red one, mine is the blue one.

Updated Files

I have updated my "Master Plan" Document, so it shows the current coursework I am taking for my LAST quarter! It's not too full, but I'm still working long hours! I also changed the colors to match the new blogpage.

I've also updated my Navy Biography to match the new color scheme of this blogpage. No new information there.

Both files are permanently available in the links list at the right side of this page.

This is our first post!

This is the new family blogpage. I intend to get it up and running soon as the primary location for all information regarding John, Sarah, Q.

Below are images I am storing here for use on other websites...disregard.