So… Things haven’t changed all that much.
We’re still waiting on a baby at this point. But the location has changed. We’re at the hospital now and have been since midnight. (It’s 4 am as I type this)
Will post an update when we know something.
Christine, Jack and I took some family photos last night. You can see them here.
I had no idea how hard it is to take photos with a good camera on a timer. Ugh… we’ll have to practice that more.
The good thing was that Jack really enjoyed taking the photos.
We made it a game.
I had the camera on a tripod, and we (Jack and I) would get the camera ready to shoot, then we’d push the button, run to Christine, sit, and then all say “Cheeeeeese” until the flash went off… then run back to the back of the camera, look at the photo, move something here, tweak something there, then push the button again… and run back to Christine.
He thought it was hilarious, and was a great sport about the photos.
All said, we spent about 2 hours taking photos in the living room on Monday night.
(And yes, we’re still waiting on Jack’s little brother to come along.)
It’s Sunday night, and Christine and I are still waiting on a baby.
Jack’s little brother isn’t due until next Monday (10/16) but we were both pretty sure that he was going to make an appearance last weekend… nope, we’re still waiting. I think now that I’ve decided to stop traveling, the little guy has decided to hunker down for a few more weeks and stay cozy…
So, let’s see.
Since our last post, a lot has happened. A lot.
I flew to Santa Barabara, CA, again, for work. I was out there for three days. It wasn’t nearly as pretty this time due to the fact that there was a blazing fire a few miles east of us. The westerly winds kept us covered in soot for the entire three days I was out there. But it was good for business.
Then that weekend, it was Peggy’s birthday. She came to visit the lakehouse with Debbie and Raymond, and then stopped by the house to visit Jack on her way home. They had a blast playing in Jack’s room and reading books. Here are some photos from her trip up.
I went to New York City for two days for work. I attended some advertising conferences and trade shows, and spent some time in the New York office. Good trip, but sad too. While I was in New York, Christine called me to tell me Josh’s Dad was in the hospital and it didn’t look good. I spoke to Josh for maybe 5 minutes. We didn’t say many words to each other, but we communicated what needed to be said.
Then, when I got home from New York, I’d learned that David had passed away. Their loss is our loss. I can’t bring myself to write more about David passing right now… it’s still too painful for me. I still don’t know what to say about the event, because I want to say it all, but there are too many raw emotions behind my totally inadequate words. I attended the funeral that weekend. Alan Hillboldt and I drove down to Bellville together. Josh wrote about his loss here. David was a great man and we’ll miss him dearly.
This week was pretty mundane, but not. On Sunday night around 7 p.m., I came down with a fever… that lasted until Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. Ugh. I haven’t been laid up in bed sick like that for a long time. I still have a sore-throat. Christine thought she might be in early labor on two days this week. I took Jack to school and picked him up from school on Thursday, because we thought that might be the day. It was nice to see Jack’s teacher and the other parents, but it wasn’t the day. I did get a nice yellow parking ticket though for my troubles.
This weekend, we played with the neighbors a lot, and finished our power-nesting kick. The baby’s nursery is finally ready. The bedding is set, the walls are decorated with appropriate baby stuff. There’s a new shelf on the wall with stuffed animals. Christine has probably washed 50 loads of baby clothes in the past two weeks, and well, I sort of helped.
Like I said, we’re just waiting on a baby.
In the meantime, here are some photos from the past couple of weeks for you:
So, I’ve postd a video every day this week, and I figured I should treat you all to something really special today.
Here are five photo galleries I haven’t linked to yet:
And, here’s the double whammy… another video for today:
Have a good weekend folks! (We’ll be nesting!)
Jack and I play “Get You” at least once a week. Once day last month, I held the camera while chasing him. Gotta love it:
(No animals or children were seriously harmed in the filming of this movie.)
It was hotternhell™ this summer. What’s a boy and his dad to do when it’s 100 degrees outside (and has been for three weeks straight)?
Wash the car, or course:
I don’t know that we got the car clean that day, but we did get pretty wet, and had a good time doing it!
Jack’s teacher at pre-school, Mrs. Terry, sent Christine two videos via email. I’ve combined them into this movie for you:
Terry told Christine that Jack likes to play a lot at school, and that when he does, it’s usually doing his own thing. He’ll go find something that’s fun to him, and then he’ll try to talk a few of the other kids into doing it with him… yes, I realize he can’t talk yet, but that doesn’t stop him from talking them into doing it.
He’s enjoying school, and that’s what’s important.
Christine, Jack and I drove down to College Station on Saturday, to take Jack to his first Aggie game!
Long story short: The Ags won, and Jack had a GREAT time!!!
We got to town around 4:00, picked up Bussy at the mall, and drove to the reserved parking that Bussy has (he didn’t want Christine to have to walk too far, since she’s 8 months pregnant). After parking, we walked over to the quad, saw a few old BQ buddies, and waited for the band to step off.
He didn’t quite know what to do when the band marched by, but he loved every minute of it, even if the drums were a little loud for his taste. (He’ll get used to that).
Then we walked over to the Corps Center to watch the band march by again. Then on to the MSC to get Jack a good Aggie shirt (they’re hard to find in Austin folks). We ended up buying him a regulation 12th man jersey for $40. Why we spent $40 on a size 2T jersey when the shirt I was wearing probably cost $5, I can’t explain…
After cooling off a bit, we went to the car to change diapers and put away the stroller, then on to the game.
After huffing and puffing up two levels, we climbed about twenty steps to get to our seats in row 27 on the second deck on the parents side of Kyle Field. The seats are great! They’re on about the north 35 yard line, two rows down from the sky boxes, and look like they’re always in the shade.
We said “Hi” to Norma and Jake, and then Andy Kollman and one of the Luedke boys showed up to sit in front of us (they’re all from Bellville).
I could just tell Jack was impressed with everything that was going on. About 10 minutes before the game started, I went and bought us all hotdogs and water, and a pretzel. Jack ate a whole hotdog (sans bun) before the game really got started.
We sang “Spirit of Aggieland” with the band, and the National Anthem, and Texas Our Texas, and watched four F-16’s fly over before the game… then it was time for kickoff.
About half-way through the 2nd half, we said our good-byes, and headed towards the car, but we met Mike Elmquist (one of my buddies from the band) at the Reveille graves on the way out. Man it was good to see Mike!
Jack passed out once we got on the road, before we even got out of Bryan. The trip home was uneventful, but, we did get to hear the last few minutes of the Ohio State v. Texas game on the radio once we found the station. In lieu of the radio, Mike Kamp (Chrsitine’s brother) was giving us the play-by-play of the game via text messages on my cell phone (thanks Mike!).
There’s a video from the day if you want to see how much fun Jack had. It’s a big file (about 60MB, so it might take a while to download, but it’s worth it if you want to see his face when the drums marched by, heh!):
Gig ‘Em!
(oh, and by the way, since Texas lost to Ohio State, I’m thinking Thanksgiving will be a fun game this year)
You gotta love it when your kid has this much fun brushing his teeth:
More photos here: Brushing Teeth.
Christine and I were looking through old photos today. This is one of our favorites:
Last week, I flew to LA, drove down to Irvine, then up to Santa Babara, then over to Pasadena, flew back to Austin, spent the night consoling Josh, and then drove to Bellville after work on Friday. Long week.
But what a great weekend!
Christine had driven down to Bellville on Thursday, and spent two days with Mo-mo (my mom’s name from the grandkids is now “mo-mo”) while I was traveling. They had an absolute blast for two days, and then we kept it going through the weekend.
We didn’t do anything spectacular, other than just hang out with each other, visit and catch up with each other, and let the kids play… and play did they!
Jack and Ella had a lot of fun on Saturday playing outside, and I took a few photos:
After a long day, Jack took his bath, and then we all sat on Ella’s bed reading books while Jack drank his milk. Ella read to us, and found Jack’s “piggies” when she got to the “This little piggy…” nursery rhyme:
After reading nursery rhymes, we sang some songs:
Like I said, it was a fun weekend. Even mowing the lawn at Mo-mo’s house was fun with the new riding lawn mower.
This past Sunday morning, Reese and Karen brought Kade and Gabby over to Evan and Shadel’s house. Lori and Conner joined us too. Evan was cooking lunch: Chicken, Sausage, Beans, and Green Beans… mmmmm….
Before lunch, we let the kids play, so I took some photos of them all for their parents:
Great kids! See the rest of the photos of them here.
This past Sunday, Christine and I met Amanda and Murphy up at the Hyde Park pool so that Ben and Jack could go swimming together.
It was really cute to see the boys playing with each other, and giving each other five:
Here it is, 11:30 p.m. on a Friday night, and Christine and I just got done getting ready for a garage sale we’re having tomorrow.
Having a garage sale when you have a 19 month old is tough work. We really couldn’t work on getting stuff ready for it until 8:30 p.m. every night, and by 10:00 we were exhausted and frustrated… We pretty much worked on getting ready for the garage sale every night this week. Maybe took one night off.
I was supposed to come home early from the office today, but, I got stuck there until 5:30… ugh…
So I got home, and poor Christine had been pricing stuff since about 2:00, and then when I got home, we started cleaning out the garage. At dinner time, we took a break from that and then gave Jack a bath. After putting him down, we worked hard again until just now.
And we’ve probably got $500 worth of stuff for sale in the garage, all priced between $0.50 and $20…
We start at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow… I’ll report back the earnings tomorrow night. Hope we make some money! If we do, it’s all thanks for Christine’s hard work this week.
update: It’s almost noon, been out here since 7 a.m. I’ve got about $140 in my pocket… that’s about what, $25/hour? Not bad so far.
another update: It’s 1:15, 94° F and I have $206 in my pocket. Traffic has really dropped off, and I’ve got a lot of shit to take to Goodwill now… hope someone comes by before 5:00 and buys some of this crap. Ugh, it’s hot out here in the garage!
last update: It’s 2:45, and just started sprinkling… I’ve pulled all of our stuff inside the garage, and am heading inside to eat lunch. It’s still freakin’ hot. We’re up to about $230 or so if I had to guess.
really, the last update: We stopped selling everything at 3:40. Packed up all the leftovers and took them to Goodwill. We probably sold 1/4 of all the crap we had for sale this morning. At the end of it all, I had $240 in my pocket. Take out $40 that I started with (for change-making) and the $45 that we collected for Heidi and Lee (neighbors) and we earned roughtly $155 and some change. Was it worth it? Well, Jack just got some more money for college… Last time we do a damned garage sale in July though… ugh, it was hot!
On the evening of the 4th, we drove out to Lakeway. Josh, Elise and Maly met us out there. Debbie and Raymond cooked dinner (mmmm, porkchops). We went to watch the Lakeway fireworks at the Lakeway City Park, but stayed in the car, because it was raining. Jack said “Gow, Gow!” a lot. Oh, and Josh almost ate his daughter:
Christine and I spent the night out in Lakeway, and I got up around 7:00 to head to work. The commute was about 45 minutes… which is about 40 minutes longer than my standard morning commute.
Since it was a short week at work, I ended up trying to get to work pretty early each day, and stayed until 6:00 or 6:30 each evening.
I got home on Friday afternoon to Christine and Jack out in the front yard:
Jack sure loves those sunglasses 😉
After playing outside for a while, we ate dinner (Christine cooked for us) and then we played with Jack’s cars inside before bed.
