Pictures of You, Pictures of Me

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Well there might no be pictures of you up here and I think there’s only one or two that I actually show up in but that’s beside the point. It’s been a while since I’ve actually posted anything on the web site and tonight I sat down and put together three updates. Count em, three. Never mind that I’m actually about to go blind after staring at this screen for the last three hours, it’s what I do to keep you happy.

First up are more pictures of Caroline. I’ve been told a number of times that people have been asking for more pictures so here you go. There’s some really good ones in this set now that she’s more alert and making some expressive faces. (That or she’s got gas.)

Second, I’ve pulled together a couple of pictures from Easter. We took the boys to Andrew’s school where they were doing a community Easter Egg hunt and to be honest I think they had more people show up then they anticipated. There were about a zillion kids running around, the lines for the activities where huge, and at one point the sheer number of kids overwhelmed the volunteers as they just started to Easter Egg hunt before they were ready.

And lastly, hot off the digital camera memory stick are pictures from Alex’s birthday party which we did this weekend. Last week we did a small family gathering and this weekend was the official broomball party at the ice rink with his friends.

Andrew talking picture

Adventure Guides Spring Campout

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Last weekend was Adventure Guides campout weekend for Alex and I.  Just like the fall campout we were in the southern part of Oklahoma, but instead of the freezing weather we had last time this time it was quite nice.  We even got to wear shorts on Saturday.

I took a bunch of pictures and put them up in a fancy schmancy flash based photo album which made it much easier to pull together.  The only drawback was that I didn’t take the time to put comments on all the pictures so you’ll have to make up your own commentary.

Pictures are here: http://www.mceachernfamily.com/comanchecubs/2009springcampout/index.html

Pictures from Stars Game

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Couple of pictures from the Stars Game that Alex, Andrew, and I went to last night. We all looked very sporty wearing our hockey jerseys. Stars ended up winning 3-2 in overtime which was pretty exciting though Andrew was more intested in seeing the Zamboni and Ice Girls.

Adobe Flash and Acrobat Upgrades

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A couple of months back I installed Google Analytics on the web site as an experiment. Analytics collects various information about who visits the site, what browser you use, what pages you visit, if you got here via a search engine what search terms got you here, and other interesting stuff. I’m an information junkie and love sifting through this type of information.

One of the things it reports is the version of Adobe’s Flash Player installed. Since I work with computers and try and keep with the latest goings on in the security front I feel I need to tell you it’s time to update your flash player.

Why does it matter you might wonder? Virus writers and purveyors of spyware exploit vulnerabilities in software that lots of people use. Things like Flash Player, Acrobat Reader, Internet Explorer, Windows, etc. A couple of weeks back Adobe released an update to Flash to address a vulnerability Players 10.0.12.36 and earlier which can allow attackers to take complete control of the affected machine.

Based on my Google Analytics results 93% of users visiting here in the last two weeks are running outdated flash versions. Nine different versions in fact.

How can you figure out what version of flash your running? Go to Adobe’s web site at the following link:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/about/

and it will show you the version you have installed. Here’s a screen shot:

If the version you have installed doesn’t match the version you should be running then upgrade from the following link:
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

The installation should be pretty straight forward. I use Firefox and my install was to download the install program, close my browser and run the installation. Once you have upgraded go back to the about web site and verify that your installed version has been upgraded.

This is also where I warn you never to install flash from any web site other then Adobe. If you surf your way onto a site that tells you your running an old version of flash don’t believe them, check with the official Adobe site and verify. A very popular phishing technique is to tell you your running an old version and provide you with a convenient download to upgrade but it’s actually just spyware. Any reputable site will direct you to Adobe’s site to get the correct version if you really are running and outdated version.

Once you’ve upgraded flash go ahead and upgrade Adobe’s Acrobat reader if you use it for reading pdf files. On Wednesday they released version 9.1 which fixes a number of critical vulnerabilities . You can get that here:
http://get.adobe.com/reader/

Couple of Pictures

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Just a couple of pictures of Caroline. The one on the left is of her sleeping on the couch during the afternoon wearing her fancy designer bably outfit. On the right is a decidely less fancy outfit with the mult-coloured, multi-pom-pomed toque. Just the perfect picture she’s going to love when she gets older.

Caroline sleeping on the couch. Caroline wearing her funny toque.

We are so going to need Speech Therapy

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I was helping Andrew get his shoes on this morning and we were having this conversation.

“Which foot does this shoe go on?” I asked him.

“This one here, the right one.”

“Well actually, this foot over here is your right one, that’s your left one.”

“Oh, this is my weft one.”

“Left, LLLLLL, Left. Try saying it again.”

“Weft”

“No, no. Left, LLL sound.”

“Oh, I know like WuWuWuWu Wion.”

Home at Last

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Caroline in her Car SeatWe are finally home from the hospital and I would love to report that it has all been very smooth and wonderful but unfortunately it’s been anything but. A couple of minutes after being home Andrew threw up in the front room and since then the stomach virus has been making its round through the family. So far Jen has had it the worst which landed us back in hospital last night for a couple hours while they loaded her up on IV fluids and anti-nausea medication. I’ve manged to keep everything down but my stomach has been churning and by a small miracle Caroline and Alex have not yet showed any signs of being sick. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it stays that way.

I took this picture of Caroline just before we left the hospital. This is the manditory “babies first picture in a car seat” photo. We have a similar pictures of both Alex and Andrew so why break with tradition. (I couldn’t find Alex’s but Andrew’s is on this page.)

Day Four at the Hospital

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We’re wrapping up day four at the hospital and we are both really ready to head home. Sleeping last night went from being just a little bit of a nuisance to an all out painful exercise. I woke up a couple of times during the night in pain, it was actually being in pain that woke me up. I must have been sleeping in a different position or something but it felt like this fold up chair was trying to swallow me.

Our routine hasn’t changed much in the last couple of days. Feedings every couple of hours during the night, Jen orders breakfast in the morning when she wakes up which I usually skip, more feedings, and couple of doctor visits thrown in for good measure. Around lunch I’ll head out to find something near by, more feedings, and then the coveted nap during serenity time from 2:00 to 4:00. As excited as I am about getting to leave here I’m really going to miss getting that afternoon nap. In the evening I usually head out to find dinner and then we spend the evening watching TV before one last feeding and thenback to sleep.

There isn’t much to do while hanging out at the hospital so we spend a good amount of time watching TV/channel surfing. I’ve come to the conclusion that daytime TV is absolutely the worst, there isn’t anything decent on worth watching. But the most difficult part of watching TV is actually hearing it since that there is only one small speaker in the nurse call button/light switch/integrated TV remote thingy.

Day Three at the Hospital

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We are winding down day number three at the hospital. Alex and Andrew came up here again tonight and I took them out for dinner so Pat could have a little bit of a break and gave me a chance to hang out with them. They were pretty excited to see Caroline again. She was a little more awake this time and Andrew was very excited that he got to touch her.

Last night wasn’t bad either. We only had two feeding sessions during the night and we managed to get some sleep. When I woke up this morning I actually felt pretty good and thought, “hey, this isn’t too bad. I can handle this.” when I realized it was just after 8:30 in the morning. Once we leave the hospital I’m going to have to have to the boys off to school and be at work before 8:30 so things are going to change.

Our nurse last night was the best we’ve had but when she first came in I was totally freaked out because she sounded exactly like Kathy Bates character Annie Wilkes from Misery. She was telling us something and all I could think about was her leaning of James Caan holding the big hammer getting ready to crush his ankles. Like I said, we made it through the night ok, ankles in one piece.