Cute Little Baby

28 Feb 2009

Our baby is so cute. I was giving her a bath the other day and I snapped this amazing picture! I love it! She loves to sleep and eat and she smiles all the time that she's not sleeping or eating. She hates shots but seems to like gas drops and Tylenol.

This is Derek holding Holly on my bed. There are two things wrong with this picture. One is that because of the tilt of the camera it looks like they're both about to roll over and konk their heads. The other is that you can clearly see that we have flannel snowflake sheets on our bed. Don't make fun! The set was on sale at Walmart for $9 and they are so super cuddly.
Here's a better picture of Derek holding Holly. He always wants to hold her but as soon as I get them all set up, he wants to give her back.

This is how I hold Holly.

On an unrelated note, here are some socks that we found by a garbage can outside the immunization clinic on the base. We took this picture especially for Jared.

Visit from Grandma Cooper

26 Feb 2009

Grandma Cooper came to visit us this week. We had a really good time. We went to the Alamo and the Riverwalk and Grandma enjoyed her time by holding Holly and playing games with Tyler and Derek (usually while still holding Holly - I don't know how she does it.) Grandma is actually still here in Austin. She's at Joseph and Amanda's house anxiously awaiting the arrival of thier new baby boy. He is 6 days overdue as of today. From what I understand they are going to the hospital tonight and Amanda will be induced tomorrow if he doesn't come on his own before then. We're praying for them all.

We've Remodeled!

20 Feb 2009

So I finally figured out how to make my blog look super-cute! I went to http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/ and got this great background. Then I spent about 4 hours making the background colors just right and adding new pictures to the banner and the sidebar. I think it's great! Enjoy.

Suzie

Valentine's Day Fandango

I [Jared] have been a casual jazz-fan since High School when I would do homework while listening to KUER Nighttime Jazz. When we moved to San Antonio, Dave James pointed out that the Riverwalk was the home of Riverwalk Jazz on NPR, a terrific weekly radio program which showcases mainly pre-war jazz. On Friday, Suzie and I met with our friends the Reardons and celebrated an early Valentine's Day in a cozy little jazz club, on the Paseo del Rio, listening to Jim Cullen (pictured below playing the cornet, a.k.a. 'tiny trumpet') and the Jim Cullen Jazz Band. They were unbelievably talented, more so when I told the others that most of what we were hearing was improvisation. When Cullen would decide it was time for the song to end, he'd wave four fingers in the air, signalling that the band was to end after four more measures. They took turns soloing, and Jim even did vocal work! It was a very fun evening, and we left with a couple of autographed albums. Best Friday the 13th ever! Suzie's aunt Lisa came down for a visit, and she and Suzie spent some quality Chick-Bonding time at the most chic shopping mall in SA. They hung out in Saks (as in '5th Avenue'), dodging the folks who insisted on giving them Champagne, when their 'attendant' offered to show them them the most expensive item in the store. He took them to a concealed panel in the wall, and withdrew the ring shown below.
The attendant said that the ring cost $485,000! The center diamond is a 6 karat yellow diamond, with 10 total karats of diamonds in the whole ring. Maybe for our 20th anniversary...

Later, Lisa snapped the picture below in a tender moment at the Cooper household. Nature can be so beautiful.

Derek found a ball point pen, decided that our computer monitor was too boring, so he spiced it up with some of his own original art-work! Luckily, I could still see through the ink well enough to find out how to safely clean it off (isopropol alcohol, of course), and our monitor is now cleaner than ever!

Part of our duties as Air Force psychologists is treating Soldiers and Airmen for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after participating in combat in-theater. Many of the treatments for PTSD involve revisiting the traumatic event in your mind, while processing your emotional reactions and practicing relaxation techniques. Below, I'm training with some new equipment which employs Virtual Reality to better simulate the specific experience that the client had. The goggles present a 3-d interactive environment, coupled with surround-sound headphones. The platform I'm sitting on rumbles with explosions and the engine of the humvee, and the grey box on the table provides smells which might have been present during the trauma (any combination of B.O., exhaust, weapon-fire, building-fire, middle-eastern spices, etc.). The details of the experience are all orchestrated by the therapist. It all seems like really flashy technology, but it also seemed like it would be easy to get lost in the wonder of science, rather than the emotions of the experience. But it gave a positive indication of where the future of treatment lie.

My supervisors at the Clinical Psychology Residency invited us to participate in Convoy Training. Driving Truck is a whole different experience in the military. In the 21st century, most 'combat' consists of roadside bombs and urban ambushes, so the vehicle operators must be trained and flexible tacticians. They are trained to stabilize blast and gun-shot victims, start IVs, and call in air-support and med-evacs. Below, the vehicles circle to form a box after a simulated roadside blast. The box provides cover for the individuals providing triage for the wounded. The only heads you can see are the shouty-screamy sergeants who are there to provide 'combat stress,' direction and observation.

The Clinical Psych Residents playing the part of Third-Country Nationals, or TCNs--basically useless people-baggage who must be protected at all costs, but would contribute nothing in an emergency situation. We had to wear kevlar helmets and 40-lb body armor the entire day (until 9:00 p.m.), I literally had bruises on my shoulders from where the vest hung (as well as bruises on my booty from sitting in the Korea-era 5-ton truck).

Below are some of the young (18-21 year-old) Airmen who are charged with saving the lives of others. This is one of the most dangerous maneuvers (hence the drawn weapons), where they are returning from delivering the wounded to the med-evac. They are in the wide-open, in an area where they have already come under heavy attack.

These guys will be doing the job for real in Iraq next week. Vehicle Operators and Security Forces (military police) make up a significant percentage of a Clinical Psychologist's patients in the Air Force. One more experience that reinforces my belief that this is the most noble population to work with.

Tyler - The Dark Cloud in Our Silver Lining

7 Feb 2009

Lately Tyler has been so so negative. He has developed an amazing ability to always find the dark side of every situation. Here are some of his more depressing quotes.

Explaining to Mom why she needs to climb up on the top bunk on Feb 1st: "But Mom, it gets so annoying for me to have to flip the puppy calendar month after month."

To Mom after she bought him a kid sized sundae at TGI Fridays: "This is the worst day ever. There's only one kind of kid's dessert at this restaurant. I got this same sundae the last time we were here." Later that night, "I sure hope that we get to eat more ice cream when we get home. If we don't I'm going to be so sad."

In tears, to Mom, after playing Wii for an hour and a half: "If I can't play Wii for any more time today then I guess I'll just never play any games any more ever again. I don't even like Lego Star Wars anymore. It's just not any fun if I don't get to unlock Ghost Ben Kanobe."

Maybe Mom (me) just doesn't get it. Maybe she should just make sure that Tyler doesn't get to play Wii or eat ice cream at all. That way he won't be so sad when he has to stop.

Sometimes he reminds me of Debbie Downer from Saturday Night Live:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/debbie-downer/999727602