Richard & Stephanie Sipe

I finally have posted a few new videos on the site. Until I have a chance to put them into the picture gallery here are links to the new movies!

Movie of Kayla meeting baby Richard IV for the first time in the hospital (January 21,2008) [yes about 4 months ago]

Movie of Kayla and the Family playing on the Washington beach near Long Beach, WA. (February 2008)

              

After viewing a gallery using the new browser plug-in PicLens, I knew I had to setup our site to work with PicLens. PicLens is a Plug-in to Firefox, Internet Explorer, and even Safari that displays pictures as a 3D wall of images that you can fly through. It also enables you to view a slide show of images all using the PicLens Plug-In. All this is done in full screen mode so the pictures look amazing.

To view the images on our site using PicLens you need to:
1) Download the PicLens Plugin at their website: http://www.piclens.com
2) Install the Plugin. It is fairly straightforward but let me know if you have issues.
3) Browse to our Photo Gallery.
4) Now you can either:
   -Mouse Over an Image and then Click on the Arrow That Appears
   -In Firefox Click on the PicLens Icon in the upper left of your screen
   OR
   -In Internet Explorer Click the >> To the Right of Tools and Select “Launch PicLens”

Since I currently have ALL of our images in a single gallery, it may take a while to load. Once PicLens loads (you will see a black screen with all the pictures stacked in a 3D wall) you can grab the screen with the mouse and drag the wall of pictures to move through. You can also click on the rectangle with the 4 arrows at the corners in the bottom left of the screen to start a slideshow.

If you have any problems with this let me know. Of course you can always view all our photos using the normal method of clicking on one and moving throuugh the gallery without this plugin.

UPDATE 6/1/2008: You can now also view all of our videos using the PicLens plug-in. Just go to our photo gallery, then click on the PicLens plug-in in your browser bar or click on a picture to launch the PicLens viewer. The PicLens videos will be at the beginning of the “photo wall.”

Technorati Tags: PicLens, photos, Sipe

              

I have posted TONS of new pictures in our Picture Gallery. It had been quite a while since I had updated the gallery with new pictures but I finally have gotten all caught up!

I uploaded so many pictures that they go over to the second page so make sure you click through to the next page to see all the pictures!

              

Stephanie and I have owned our Eagle Crest Chalet for three years now and it has been a great experience. Everything was going along very smoothly with lots of happy renters and great success until we got a little too successful for the Eagle Crest Resort to handle. Seems we made it to the top spot for a few search terms in Google and Eagle Crest got jealous. As large companies do when they can’t win playing fair they resort to lawyers.

We have been forced to change our domain name and then of course our business name because they felt Eagle Crest Getaway violated their trademark. Not noticing the fact that there are tens of other Eagle Crests out there including eaglecrest.com and eaglecrestgc.com which are neither owned by the Eagle Crest Resort! We felt that the name Eagle Crest was merely a location and that location was where we owned our home and ran our Vacation Rental. We never pretended to be the resort and made it VERY clear on our home page that we owned and operated a single vacation rental that was located in the resort. But alas we have neither the time nor the money for a legal battle and when trademarks are concerned the big companies always win (can I get a Sam Buck’s Coffee please? … Not Any Longer).

Long story short now for the big reveal …. the new name of our Vacation Rental is …. Central Oregon Getaway! We wanted to keep the Getaway in the name and not have any more lawyers breathing down our backs so Central Oregon Getaway is the new name!

If any of my readers want to help feel free to paste any of the links below somewhere on your site to help get us back the three years we are loosing by switching domains.

<a href="http://www.centraloregongetaway.com" title="Eagle Crest">Eagle Crest</a>
<a href="http://www.centraloregongetaway.com" title="Eagle Crest Getaway">Eagle Crest Getaway</a>
<a href="http://www.centraloregongetaway.com" title="Eagle Crest Vacation Rental">Eagle Crest Vacation Rental</a>
<a href="http://www.centraloregongetaway.com" title="Eagle Crest Oregon">Eagle Crest Oregon</a>

If you do link send me a comment so I can return the favor

Technorati Tags: Eagle Crest, Eagle Crest Getaway, Eagle Crest Resort

              

You can see the first photos of Baby Richard in our Sipe Family Photo Gallery. Check back often as the pictures are sure to be increasing!

Richard’s Birth Story

We left for church Sunday January 20th with no idea that by the end of the evening we would have a new baby boy. Stephanie had been having false contractions for the better part of a month and was dialated at her last prenatal appointment but things did not seem to be moving along any further.

We went to Target after church and had some Burgerville for lunch then went over to the Harriers, Stephanie’s parents. As we were playing some card games in late afternoon Stephanie started having contractions and they seemed to be the real thing. We expected them to be far apart but after they seemed to be pretty quick we started the stopwatch.

Within about an hour we were headed to the hospital to hopefully have a baby! We passed the triage test even though the contractions nearly disappeared at the hospital as Steph was 6cm dilated.

Steph was very calm and walked around the birthing center to pass the time and help things along. Her contractions started to be very uncomfortable around 8:30pm so she decided to have her epidural. With the one she had during Kayla not working we prayed this one would do better.

It took a few returns by the anesthesia nurse to get thing dialed in and she just had a small hot-spot of mild pain. Around 11:30pm it looked like we were going to have a long road ahead since at 9:30pm she was still 7cm dilated. Boy were we wrong.

Around 11:32pm Steph’s hips were hurting from laying on the one side so the nurse and Richard helped her get flat. That was very uncomfortable for her and she had lots of pressure so we helped her get turned to the other side a bit. That was really not good and she started to feel ill. We got her the bucket to be ill in. She vomited a few times when we heard a small sound. Richard said “That sounded like a baby crying!!!” The nurse was luckily in the room and hurried over to lift up the sheet covering Stephanie …

AND THERE WAS RICHARD STARING BACK AT US LAYING ON THE BED!!! The pressure she felt that caused her to vomit was Richard getting into position for birth and moving down the birth canal. The nurse was excellent and quickly got the cord in position and cleared his mouth then hit the button to bring in the calvary. Within 20 seconds there were 6 more nurses and our midwife in the room.

Baby Richard was doing great after his quick trip into the world. The nurse and midwife took great care of him and Steph. Steph did have a little bit of tearing but nothing like before. No huge blood loss or anything this time.

We thank all our friends and family for their prayers for a smooth and easy delivery. Steph was very very apprehensive after her last near death birthing experience and those prayers made it possible. Steph’s grandmother woke up around 1:30am her time with the strong feeling to pray for Stephanie. Grandma Eggert did and within 7 minutes we had our baby (since that happened to be 11:30pm our time).

Again we had a very memorable birth of a child!

              

We are excited to the newest member of our family Richard Vance Sipe IV. He was born January 20, 2008 at 11:36PM, weighted 7lbs 2oz and was 19 3/4 inches long. It was a very different birth than Kayla’s. Both mommy and baby are doing amazing.

Tons of photos and more information to follow soon!

              

I recently left my position as Director of Online Communications at Pacific University. The nearly 2 hour commute each way was just becoming too much for my family. I had previously been working from home two days a week which lessened the blow but as that was coming to an end I decided I had to find employment closer to home.

I am excited to be working for Trailer City in Portland Oregon. I am now the General Manager for the Trailer City family of trailer dealerships. We have lots in Portland and Gresham as well as in Hood River, Oregon. I created the Trailer City website last year and it has been a great addition to the business. Trailer City has a great reputation in the community and carries great products.

I am working on some new marketing strategies and how I can use technology to grow the business. We are also working on using technology to increase communication between the different locations of Trailer City.

If you are in the Portland area and are looking for an enclosed trailer, utility trailer, dump trailer, or flatbed trailer; drop me a line and I can show you around one of our lots.

              

 
I recently found the great website Photogamer.com. Photogamer is a group of photographers who got together to sponsor weekly photo competitions. The group sets the theme for the week and the photographers set out to capture photos that display that theme. You have from Thursday to Sunday night to take the pictures and the winners are picked the next week.

My first attempt at the contest yielded a wining photograph. My interpretation of “Glowing,” which is the picture at the beginning of this post, won for that week. This is a huge honor because photogamer includes many professional photographers and all are very very talented with many using superior DSLR cameras to my Konica point and shoot.

I am having a blast taking the pictures each week and it is really great to get ideas from other photographer’s submissions and be a part of the photographic community. You can view all of my flickr photos here or view just my photogamer flickr set here. You could also sign up on flickr, add richsipe to your contacts, and join the photogamer fun!

              

We celebrated Easter yesterday with family and it was wonderful. It was Kayla’s first easter and God provided beautiful weather. We started the day at 6:30am by attending the sunrise service at Brush Prairie Baptist Church. This time of year in the Northwest is usually very very wet but this morning it was 45 degrees and mostly cloudy. The service was great and Kayla sept through service and was super cute. Morning service was followed by a light breakfast which Kayla also slept through

We then went back home, relaxed a bit, then headed back to church for the egg hunt and service. Kayla had fun at the egg hunt but of course didn’t completely grasp the concept. We did get a bunch of great pictures with the weather being so nice and enjoyed some time in the sun. The Easter cantata service was very nice and it made for a very meaningful Easter service.

After service, we had Grandma and Grandpa Sipe and Grandma and Grandpa Harrier over to our house for a late Easter lunch. Our lunch was amazing and it was truly a Northwest menu. We had salmon cooked on the BBQ, a greek salad, pasta salad, green salad, sushi for an apeteizer, a Northwest white wine, and Parmesan French bread. We followed lunch with some games and then we went our separate ways because were all tired from the early morning.

Check out our Family Picture Gallery for all the pictures of Easter.

              

It has been great seeing all of our family again and I am excited they all have gotten to meet Kayla and Steph since they are such a big part of my life. Our trip back to Portland started out well but turned ridiculous. You can view the picture gallery of our trip back to Portland HERE.

Step 1: Return to Charlotte
We again decided to leave early to fit into Kayla’s sleep schedule. The drive home was great. Kayla again did spectacular. We only hit one hiccup when we stumbled upon an accident and what looked like a drug raid on a white SUV with 6 police cars present. Not sure if there was a chase or what but it was quite the site. We stopped in Hickory to eat lunch and met Great Grandpa and Grandma Sipe and Great Great Aunt Virgie at a Cracker Barrel.

We had a great lunch and Great Grandpa had fun feeding Kayla some apple sauce and it was good to get to see them again before we headed home. Kayla also enjoyed rocking in a Cracker Barrel rocking chair outside. Our trip back to Charlotte was uneventful and we got some good sleep at the hotel.

Step 2: Fly to PDX
We woke up bright and early at 5:30 am and had breakfast at the hotel before catching the 7:00 AM shuttle to the airport. We had to wait in a large but not too long of a line before waiting in a really really long security check-in line to get to our terminal. When we arrived at our gate we were not gleeful to see our plane had been delayed for an hour. This was no good because we only had an hour layover in Minneapolis. So …. with the help of a very very nice NW Airlines clerk we were rerouted to a US Airways plane leaving in an hour.

The new flight was not a perfect situation because we were now going to be going through Phoenix which added about two hours to our flight time and would cause us to get into PDX at 4:50PM instead of our original 1:40PM. BUT, we were still going to get home which was the important thing. Stay tuned.

The flight to Phoenix was long but went well. We were all assigned seats in different rows and all in middle seats. This was not ideal with Kayla and we were all stuck in the very very back of the plane. Luckily, a very nice man offered to give up his isle seat to me in-order to help keep our family sitting together. He was 6′4″ and not excited about the middle seat but even more amazingly the guy in the isle in that row offered to switch with him. It all was pretty great to see strangers be so friendly on a plane and it made our flight much more pleasant.

Our layover in Phoenix was pretty long but it gave us a chance to get something to eat. Turns out that Spring Break time is not a great time to fly through Arizona. The crowds were pretty intense. Then things got weird. It started to rain and then hail in Phoenix … yes the middle of the Arizona desert. We thought this was neat and took some pictures but it was deadly to our time-line.

We all boarded the plane and the plane taxied onto the runway. The pilot announced that because of the storm we were 24 in line to take off but we would leave shortly… He lied. We proceeded to sit on the runway for the next 3 and 1/2 hours!! With Kayla! This was not fun. Luckily she slept for a bit and we survived until we finally took off. The flight was a bit bumpy but we survived and landed at around 9:00pm … that is 12AM EST which we were on instead of the 1:45pm we were supposed to get in.

It was a really really long day but we survived. Steph went to work the next day and a couple of days later we were finally able to catch up on sleep.

Thanks again to all our family for the fabulous time and we hope to see you all again soon.