2009 has been quite the year for the Springs family. In September 2008 we found out that Tammie was pregnant with a May 2009 due date. Tammie was nauseous for the first trimester but then things got better – until she went a week over her due date! Evangeline Grace Springs was born on May 20, 2009 at 9:16 in the morning. Tammie had her naturally – she was 9 pounds 4 ounces, and 23 inches long.

Becoming parents has been an amazing blessing! Evangeline started sleeping through the night about a month in – that has been amazing! She’s just a great baby (we’re spoiled for sure). When she’s awake, she smiles all the time. She’s also big! She’s now 29 inches long, and weighs in at 19 pounds – that’s off the charts! (To put that in perspective, some of Tammie’s friends have 16 month old babies that are the same size as Evangeline at 7 months.) We love being parents! Evangeline is the first grandchild on both sides—but she won’t be the only grandchild for long on the Correll side! Stephen and Heather are due in April with a little girl so Evangeline will have a cousin!

This summer we took a road trip with Evangeline to Salt Lake City to visit Tobin’s brother Peter and his wife Lisa. We did the trip down in 3 days, and the trip back in 2. Evangeline was a great sport the whole time, and it was nice to get out of the house!

In other news, Tobin took the National Board test during the 2008-2009 school year and last month we learned that he passed! Besides the raise the National Board guarantees, Tobin can also teach in any state with that certification (not that we’re planning on ever moving out of Washington).
Tobin has also been getting his masters degree – a Masters of Arts in Teaching from the University of Idaho over the last few years. In November he put on an art show at the Soap Lake Art Guild (watch the video of that on Tammie’s YouTube account). And just a few weeks ago, turned in his final paper. He got an A in his final course, and should be getting his diploma in the next couple of weeks. So now we both have masters degrees! Tammie got hers a few years ago from City University – a Masters in Computer Systems with an emphasis in Web Design.

Tobin is in his 9th year of teaching at Showalter Middle School in Tukwila. He is still teaching 6th, 7th and 8th grade Art. In the Spring of this year, the New York Times named Tukwila School District as the most diverse in the nation!

Tammie is still working for Biblesoft as their Senior Web Developer. As of November she’s worked there six years. The company has been having a difficult time with the economy so Tammie is working 20 hour weeks (from home). The decrease in pay isn’t fun, but Tammie is really enjoying working from home and the extra time spent with Evangeline. Tammie is also doing some contract web design and development work on the side. The work situation is in the Lord’s hands. He has always been generous with us, and we have faith that He will continue to provide for our family.

Well that’s about it. We wish you an amazing holiday season with family and friends!

The pass was so bad we ended up leaving before church on Sunday so I didn’t get my Sunday picture taken.  So here’s a current one – we’re almost at 32 weeks (another 2 days)!  Wow.

Oh, and those are my new boots – Nine West. Love them!  :)  Here’s a bnw version…

For those of you in Washington, here are some important links: Voter Turnout, State Executive results, and Measure results.

Irene’s Story

Irene E. Springs, 82, longtime Anacortes resident, died of complications from a stroke on Sunday, October 26, 2008 at San Juan Rehabilitation & Care Center in Anacortes. The daughter of Erik J. & Ina E. (Raikula) Wagar, she was born on April 14, 1926 in Anoka, MN. Having moved to Anacortes in 1938, Irene was in the graduating class of 1944 at Anacortes High School. She married Ned Springs and they raised their four children in Anacortes. Besides being a homemaker, Irene was a medical secretary at Anacortes Family Medicine for 27 years. She was an active member of Anacortes Lutheran Church and worked for many years as a volunteer at Island Hospital. She enjoyed her many trips to the Oregon Coast to walk the beaches and search for agates. The staff at Calico Cupboard graciously kept a caring and watchful eye out for Irene as they served her either breakfast, lunch, or both, for which the family is ever grateful!. She was preceded in death by her husband Ned, in 2002.  They were married for 57 years. Irene is survived by her sons and daughters-in-law, Randy & Alice Springs, Greg & Carol Springs, all of Anacortes, and Jeff & Marilyn Springs of Coarsegold, CA; her daughter & son-in-law, Nancy & Jim Loftis of Anacortes; 12 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.

If desired, memorials may be made to Anacortes Lutheran Church Memorial Fund, 2100 – O Ave., Anacortes; Island Hospital Foundation, P.O. Box 1143, Anacortes; or a charity of your choice. Arrangements are in the care of Evans Funeral Chapel and Crematory, Inc., Anacortes, WA and the San Juan Islands. To share memories of Irene, please sign the online guest register at www.evanschapel.com.

I’ve included the funeral program for you to download here. If you’re wondering about the music, I purchased the slideshow songs from Amazon MP3: How Great Thou Art, and Amazing Grace.  I’ve also included all the pictures from the slideshow in my photo gallery.

By the end of Week 10, your baby graduates from embryo to fetus, which literally means “little one.” It also translates to “I’m just going to keep getting bigger and bigger and so are you!”

Your baby now has discernible fingers and toes, which will explain the steady stream of kicks and punches you’ll feel down the line.

10 Weeks Pregnant

I’m hoping that I’m nearly out of the woods as far as the nausea is concerned. (Maybe I’m just managing it better? I don’t know.) I have felt better nearly this whole week – with the exception of throwing up first thing Wednesday morning.

So what has the pregnancy looked like over the last few weeks?  Well I’ve been super tired, and until recently, very nauseous.  We took the youth to Convention last weekend in Yakima, and I had to have Tobin take me to the hotel during the festivities on Friday night as I was just exhausted.  I’ve basically been getting home from work and resting.  (Right now a nap sounds great.) :)  I did get a bunch of decent pics though from the Conference…  Shot in manual nearly the whole time.

This has been an especially tough week at work (the hardest week yet of my 5 years at Biblesoft). I’m glad it’s Friday and I’ll soon be able to put this week behind me.

Margie Lou is super excited to be an aunt.  She called me up the other day to tell me all the patterns she’d bought to make baby things for our baby.  :)  Pretty fun.  She wants us to find out the gender ASAP. I originally thought 20 weeks was the time when that could happen, but it looks like an ultrasound can find that out as early as 18 weeks.  That means we might know before Christmas if we’re having a boy or a girl. I’d like to know so we can really focus on names (two lists are a lot of work), and maybe start a baby registry.

Yesterday was our first ultrasound.  It was very cool.  :)  We got to see the baby’s heart beating.  That was really amazing.  Life is so amazing!  Every time I think about this, I am reminded of what an awesome Creator we have.

The ultrasound was the best part of the doctor’s appointment. The rest of the time we had to answer family history questions, and decide what kinds of tests we want run.  Ugh.  My next doctor’s appointment is Nov 4. Oh, and I have a revised due date – May 17, 2009.

I put together this slide show for his Memorial Service.

Here’s a copy of the shortened obituary from the program:

Bill’s Story

Bill was born May 11, 1908 on a farm in Orleans, Nebraska to Edward and Carrie Correll. Bill was the eighth of eleven children. His early years were spent on farms in Nebraska and Kansas. Bill graduated from Garden County High School in Oshkosh, NE in 1926. In 1927 he moved to Montana to farm with an older brother Sam. It was there that he met and married the love of his life Margie Boice in 1930.

In 1932 severe drought and the Great Depression forced Bill and Margie to leave farming and Montana to seek employment in Washington State. They settled in Ellensburg where Bill became a radiator repairman/mechanic and auto parts man at Heinrich Auto Electric and later Butterfield Chevrolet.

While Bill and Margie were living in Ellensburg they both came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and became active in His service.

When the US entered WWII in 1941 Bill went to work for the Boeing Company in Renton where he was a foreman of millwrights.

When the war ended Bill and Margie moved to Ephrata and started Correll Radiator Service which eventually developed into Sun City Auto Supply.

Bill and Margie helped to start the Ephrata First Baptist Church in 1947 and continued a very active involvement in the Lord’s work there for the rest of their lives.

Bill retired from selling auto parts in 1975. Later he went back to work part time as a farm hand for Murray Van Dyke of Quincy. Bill loved being back in farming after a 60 year absence and enjoyed working for Murray for several years before fully retiring in his 80′s.

Over the years Bill enjoyed many hobbies including photography, fishing, painting, woodworking, giant walnut propagation, reading, watching the Mariners, and eventually maintaining a weekly blog on the Internet.

He wrote a couple of books and received two patents, one for a radiator funnel in the 1950′s, and another for a folding saw horse in the 1970′s.

Bill was preceded in death in 2002 by Margie, his beloved wife of 72 years. He is survived by one brother Ivan Correll of North Carolina, a sister-in-law and brother-in-law Maxine and Gerald French of Ellensburg, a brother-in-law Clifford Boice of California, a daughter Doris Matlock of Soap Lake, a son and daughter-in-law Gary and Karen Correll of Nine Mile Falls, WA, a daughter and son-in-law Sue and Paul Barton of Portland, OR, and a son and daughter-in-law Bill and Debbie Correll of Ephrata. Bill also leaves 13 grand children, 24.2 great grandchildren, numerous nieces and nephews, his church family, and many friends.

I love my Grandpa, and am very fortunate to have such an awesome Christian heritage. Here’s a fun shot with ML and Grandpa from this last summer.

I posted all the pics from the slideshow here.

Oh and if you didn’t gather it, I’m the .2 for great grandchildren.

Tobin and I debated about keeping it a secret until I started showing, but realized there was no way we wanted to keep that big of a secret that long.  So Friday night we drove to Anacortes. There was a lot of family at Tobin’s parents’ house as his Grandma recently had a stroke.  We showed up and brought Greg’s early birthday present with us (little did he knew what it held).  I told Greg he’s have to open the present before we left (but really I was hoping much sooner than that).  Greg proceeded to eat his dessert painstakingly slow (the suspense was killing me).  We were there for about 2 hours before Greg finally opened his present.

Tobin had gotten a pen for his dad – so he opened that first and was happy.  Then he pulled out a baby bottle filled with peanut M&M’s and exclaimed that he loved peanut M&M’s.  Everyone just sat at the table looking at the bottle until Tobin’s mom looked at me and mouthed something about me being pregnant.  When I nodded my head yes and said that we were due May 15 everyone started screaming.  lol

We spent a few more hours in Anacortes until we left (a bit too late) for Seattle.  My parents were flying in and we were supposed to be their ride but we were in Shoreline when they called to say that they’d landed and had their luggage.  We had them wait for us, and about 20 minutes later (at about 11:30pm) we picked them up from the airport (they’d been in Mexico for a 2 week vacation).  Originally we’d been planning on following them over to Ephrata Friday night, but by the time we actually got home, I was waaay to tired to spend 3 hours on the road.  So my parents left (around midnight), and we spent the night and headed out Saturday morning at around 6.

When we got to Ephrata we headed up to the hospital to visit my Grandpa who’s been hospitalized since the end of July (he’s 100 so he’s had a full life, but right now he’s dealing with prostate cancer).  Grandpa was a bit groggy – but then we woke him up so that was somewhat understandable.  We all visited with Grandpa (it was pretty emotional), and then headed home for breakfast.  By then ML and Kevin were at the house with their new (very cute) puppy – Sasha (a black lab).  It was very hard getting everyone together at the table for breakfast (M&D, ML, Kevin, Heather, Tobin & I), but I succeeded and then forced Daddy to open his birthday present.  :)  I’d gotten him a camera shirt a few weeks ago at Forever 21, so he got that first (and wore it the rest of the day – matching me).  Then he opened the rest of his present – a bottle with pistachio nuts in it.  Mommy and Daddy both cried I think.  It was really sweet.  :)

After breaking the news to the fam, we headed over to Quincy to take in the Farmer Consumer Awareness Days…  I’d told my boss a few days earlier about the activities, but was still surprised to run into him at Quincy High School.  lol  I didn’t tell him we were pregnant, ’cause I wanted to wait on that…

There was a tractor pull that we watched (it was a lot of fun) until Tobin couldn’t take the sun anymore. :) Then we headed home.  We hung out on Saturday, then on Sunday we went to church and then visited Grandpa again.  After lunch Tobin and I headed home.  We tried to connect with two of our couple friends (Dusty & Kristen Buchmann and Terry & Christina Fritsch) to let them know the news, but nothing really worked out…  We drove to Dusty & Kristen’s but they weren’t there, so we ended up calling them and telling them the news.

Monday night before our youth leadership team meeting we caught dinner with Terry & Christina (at Athen’s Pizza in Des Moines), and informed them of our being pregnant.  They were happy for us.  We didn’t tell the youth at the leadership meeting, opting instead to wait until youth last night to pop the news – which we did and I think the kids screamed for about 5 minutes straight. lol  They’re all pretty excited.  I got a ton of hugs, it was cute.

I also told work yesterday and they’re being pretty cool about it, so that’s nice.  :)

And this morning I updated my Facebook and Google Talk status to I’m PREGNANT and have gotten comments all day from friends.  :)  It’s pretty exciting!

So by now I’m around 6 weeks along, and have my first ultrasound scheduled for October 6.  :)  As you can probably tell I’m pretty happy and excited about this new stage of our lives…