16 Weeks and Current update!

Tuesday we hit the 16 week mark.  As my wife belly gets bigger, things are starting to happen.  A few days ago, my wife was able to feel the baby move for the first time.  And as of last night i was well.  Very cool feeling.  Our 19 week ultrasound is scheduled for mid feb and hopefully we can find out if we are having a boy or girl.

As for our house, things are moving along.  The lot is prepped and now the prepiping for the slab is going into place.  Hopefully, the slab will be in place by the end of the month, but i'm not holding my breath.  If not, next month should be very exciting. 

Planning stages are underway for me doing a little adventure of cycling up in skyline drive this coming march.  I'm sure it'll be a little cold and dreary but worth it as i attempt to tackle some of the hills i used to love going up and down in the car.  

Moby is still taking over the bed.  We are now finding him in there by himself sometimes.  Crazy dog.  More pics to come from all aspects of life.  

More Fun to Come

Nate :oP

First Step...er purchase

So it has begun.  Our first purchase for the new baby.  Technically speaking it was multiple purchases.  Saturday began with me coming off work and performing my usual run in the morning.  Now usually i would be wiped out, but i was excited about the entire weekend of not working or being on call for once.  Adrenalin is a wonderful thing.  So our shopping adventure began with the local stops to the lot to check on progress.  Yahoo.  We have more dirt!!

The 1000 dollars that we spent is really coming together.  I'm just glad it hasn't rained and turned our dirt pile into a mud house.  From there, we traveled around hitting stores here and there.  Eventually we ended up in Baby's'r'us with lots of coupons in hand.  Of course we weren't the only ones.  You would think they were giving out free pickles and ice cream with all the pregnant women shopping around.  We did get the things we set out to get...sort of.  Stroller has been bought, and the glider has been ordered just not coming in just quite yet.  Surprisingly, for knowing exactely what we wanted and knowing what we needed to get, it took an hour and a half in that store.  That is how busy it was.  But it has begun.  We now have our first items for the baby.  Now only 298 more items, 3 years of diapers, and enough formula and food to feed a baby elephant for a week, not too bad. 

Yesterday, we had the fun experience of living in florida.  Unlike most people,  We were able to spring clean our house in the middle of january.  Absolutely love it.  70 degrees, doors and windows open, garage reorganized and cleaned, cars washed and cleaned out, even cleaned our the house.  Just one of the reasons why i love living in Florida.  Looking forward to the next productive weekend i have off.  Though i'm suspecting that will consist of me packing up things and getting ready to move.    

Moby

So here is the culprit that has taken over our bed.  Suprisingly we had an interesting experience last night.  We decided to give moby a shower.  Now usually he totally freaks out at just the thought of getting a single drop of water on his skin.  Usually he cowers in the corner as far away from the water as he possible could.  However, last night we made some sort of progress with him.  Instead of cowering in the corner he actually just stood there and appeared to enjoy it.  Go Figure.  More to come.

Florida

So since moving down to Florida, i've noticed a few oddities.  First, everybody except us down here has the air conditioning on around the clock and set at like 60 degrees.  Even if its like 70 degrees outside, the locals complain that it is way too hot.  But yet, when the temperature drops to like 59 degrees outside, everybody bundles up and cranks the heat up to like 75 degrees in their house.  Not to mention they don't leave without their earmuffs, scarfs and winter coats.  When temperature drops to the 30's, the craziness begins.  Now i still haven't figured this out but in order to protect the oranges and strawberries, they turn the sprinklers on in the fields in order to create an ice layer covering the fruitt to protect the fruit from freezing.  Am i the only person in this entire state that doesn't see the logic with this?  And truely it only gets down to like 30 degrees for like 2 hours and as soon as the sun comes up the temp goes back up to the 50's, but it's histerical to see all these locals freak out.  How would they ever survive in VA, PA, or even way up north i have no idea.  On those rare occasions where frost actually forms on the windows, everybody turns to the old trusted driver's license or even better credit card to scrape the small hole in the front windshield to see out of until the defroster kicks in.  As if the florida driver's weren't bad enough.  After all 90% of them are over the age of 70, wear glasses, have peripheral neuropathy, have delayed reaction time, and now are trying to see through a scraped hole in the window about the size of laptop screen.  Not to mention the older drivers are more susceptible to passing out, having a stroke, or even a heart attack while driving down the road.  Lucky for us we don't have the added danger of having to drive during a snow storm.  Personally i can't image adding that lovely hazard to the way people drive in florida.  I will say i do miss those days of stocking up on milk and toilet paper before the huge snowstorm hits, even if it's a dusting.  I still haven't figured out if we are supposed to do the same when a hurricane comes through here.  I don't think it would make much sense, after all if a hurricane comes more than likely we'll lose power for a few days so the milk would just go bad.  If and when a hurricane comes through i'll be sure to run to the store to find out.  Though my best guess is water and batteries run out first.  Now that i think about it the way people react upnorth when a snowstorm comes through is about how everybody drives down here.  The good news about florida is the fact that we have a no helmet law.  As i recall reading somewhere florida has the most organs harvested than any other state.  So if your in need of an organ transplation....  Of course the shelf life of the organ may not be too long considering age of the population down here.  All in all i love it down here.  Which is why i'm so excited our house or should i say our lot has lots of dirt on it right now!!

And so it begins...

Things have finally started to come together.  Our lot, which was supposed be cleared like 2 weeks ago has some progress on it.  First on monday, there was a new sign leaning against the port a potty.  You know one of those signs that say what lot number it is, just in case nobody can figure it out.  After all it's probably the only house that is actively being built in charlotte county.  Personally i think it's kinda funny that it's leaning up against the port a potty.  A nice big strong gust of wind and away it goes, surely to get all the construction workers confused as to which lot it is.  Then on tues, amazing enough, the Lot is FINALLY cleared... Well sort of.  Most of the trees and shrubs are in a big pile near the back of the lot.  I think some of the trees that were on the plan got taken down by accident considering that we didn't know and didn't mark those trees.  At least we can plant new ones after we move in, in four to six months not fortysix months!

Thanks to my lovely dog, we now have to buy another power adapter for our macbook.  Apparently, after eating and relaxing on the couch, he decided to use it as dental floss.  Hopefully he got a little shock when he chewed right through it, considering this is the second time this has happened.  However, the first time he didn't manage to chew threw it completely like he did this time only enough to make it potentially electrifying if used.  So off to spend another eighty dollars buying another one.  Hopefully it will last longer than a year this time.  Another interesting note is how he sleeps now.  He has totally claimed the bed as his own.  I'm just surprised he hasn't peed on it to mark his territory.  Instead of laying parallel with everyone in the bed (would ensure the most room) he likes to maneuver his way to laying perpendicular to everybody in the bed.  From there he'll push his way up and over so i find myself all the way to the edge of the bed with only half of the covers covering me.  Repositioning him is accomplished with a few grunts and groans (from both of us) without even lifting his head or legs while heaving his 80lb dead weight around. 

As for my wife, She hit the lucky 13 week mark this past week.  Her belly is getting bigger and is getting harder and harder to hide.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that unfortunately nothing is quite like being pregnant and catching a cold or a sinus infection and nothing can be done or taken for it.  Suffering it out is the only thing that can be done.  Hopefully, her nausea symptoms may soon subside and she'll be able to enjoy this pregnancy a little more.  As for me, i'm still counting down the days until things start to change as all our new plans become reality.

Doggie beds.

So my wife and i had the advantage of having some time together yesterday.  We traveled around and got some more shopping done that we've been wanting to do.  We had hoped that our lot would be cleared by now, but to no avail.  A couple of drive-bys and now i'm sure the neigbhors are getting suspicious.  Won't they be surprised when the bulldozer comes.  The most interesting thing happened occured after we got home from petsmart.  Since animals are allowed into petsmart, we always try to take moby with us since he absolutely loves going on car rides.  We needed a new bed for him.  We spent all this money on this doggiepedic bed hoping he would absolutely love it. After all it's a doggiepedic, who wouldn't want to sleep on the doggiepedic bed.  The commercials even said dogs would have more energy!  Not that we are concerned with moby's energy level.  Almost all greyhounds sleep like 20 hours out of the day.  However, we saw the infomercial and of course we had to have it.  We are so gullable.  At first we thought moby liked it.  He slept on it at first.  He would even sleep on it if it were in his crate.  However, he would wake up and scratch at it trying to fluff it up which of course didn't work very well. Since the doggiepedic has a refund available, we decided to return it and get our money back since moby would rather sleep on our bed with us then sleep on his bed (see previous post).  Don't get me wrong, we actually thought it was quite entertaining to have him sleep on our bed, but he needed another bed.  Seeing as how his other one was destroyed when it was left in his crate after we left.  Moby has a little bit of separation anxiety.  Any by a little bit i mean he destroyes (chews up, tears, and scratches) anything with any type of fluffy material in it.  So off to petsmart we go.  The funny part is trying to get moby to try out the beds.  We mostly have to pick him up and lay him down in order for him to try it.  Except for the exact bed we got him last time.  He totally looked at it circled like twice and laid down like he normally does.  He does have some expensive taste, it's the most expensive bed petsmart has for his size, but what can you say, he loves it.  So homeward bound we go.  After we laid it in the living room, he feel asleep on it and didn't move for like hours that night.  And the really interesting part is when it was time for sleep, we dragged it into the bedroom and he totally fell asleep on it and didn't even try getting up on the bed.   We even tried to call him to come up and absolutely no response from him.  I forgot how much room there is on a queen size bed when you don't have a 80lb greyhound sleeping with you. 

Update and new suprises.

Wow, It's been a while since i've updated this.  The reason is that things have been incredibly busy and a lot has happened.  First, working 60+ hours/week has taken it's toll on my available free time.  I'm not complaining at all, it's something i totally agreed to do and am the one to blame.  In fact, I'm just glad i have that opportunity right now considering the house, and the baby on way.  I didn't realize how little free time i would have when i did sign up for all this overtime.  The good news is that my wife is pretty much doing the same thing. Needless to say we are both very motivated and definitely trying to prepare everything coming this next year.

Christmas came early this year.  I of course couldn't not buy my beautiful wife a christmas present.  I did get her something that we would eventually have to get anyways so it kinda is a christmas present, but yet knida not.  I ordered a vera bradley diaper bag and a ditty bag for all the future dirty diapers that we'll be carting around.  I ended of giving it to her early because i just can't keep something like that secret for long plus i wanted to see her reaction.  She absolutely loved it.  I item needed for the baby down, only 299 items left to go!  My wife of course had to go out and give me a gift since i got her a gift.  Since i gave her my gift early she had plenty of time.  So what did i get?  The complete season of Lost on DVD.  How cool is that?  We absolutely loved that show, and now we can have a LOST marathon.  I know some people hate that show or don't understand it, but what can i say we are totally geeks.  We even have a little darma sticker on the back of our Element.  Totally Geeky.

Thanks to my wife, the new item that is totally funny is our dog moby.  Since we pretty much sleep alone, she allowed our 80lb huge greyhound to jump up on the bed and sleep there.  Now first off, if anybody has a greyhound they will confirm, these dogs aren't the most graceful animals.  Being able to run at 45 mph has it's drawbacks.  Can't exactely stop on a dime and turn like a maserati.   In fact sometimes just walking can be difficult for him.  Our greyhound tends to run into things at times, walls, furnitur, glass sliding doors, and even people when your least expecting it.  But when it comes to jumping up on our  bed, he has the gracefulness and poise as an olympic skater.  He seems more like a dainty 5lb Chihuahua then an 80lb behemoth.  His gracefulness totally amazes both us.  However, his gracefulness goes away when it comes time to lay on the bed.  BED HOG!!!  Not only does he lay completely on his side, he completely stetches out his legs.  Then wuth his back up against you, he pushes his legs into the bed to give him more room.  So soon your at the edge of the bed, and he is taking up the more than half of the bed.  Then he flips over sometimes so that his legs are laying on top of yours.  SPOILED.  The good news is that he is sleeping better on our temperpedic bed to the point that he doesn't care about the alarm going off anymore like he used to.  However, if we knew that he was going to do this, we would've gotten a king size bed.  We didn't realize how bad it was until last night.  After a very long time (next paragraph) we both laid down.  Now with two adults, there isn't really enough room for essentially another adult (aka moby) in our queen sized bed.  That didn't stop him though.  He jumped up on the bed and laid completly on my legs.  How that was comfortable for him i have do idea.  But he didn't mind, and actually neither did i at first.  At some point i woke up because both of my legs were hanging off the side of the bed and moby was taking up the entire bottom of the bed where my legs shouldve been.   Of course my wife (who also tends to be a bed hog when i'm home and actually sleeping with her) was almost in the middle of the bed.  So i got up walked to the other side and asked her to slide over a little bit.  She woke up and told moby to get off the bed before sliding over.  He got off like he always does, paced a little and then let out a sigh as he laid down on the floor.  In case we didn't hear it, he let out two more huge sighs to let us know that we was on the floor.   Talk about spoiled rotten!!  That lasted a whole ten minutes before i found myself wedged between my wife and moby who gotten back up on the bed and wedged himself beside me between me and edge of the bed.   I just dread what is going to happen when we get another greyhound.

Since both of us worked christmas essentially, i worked the eve into the day and my wife worked the 24 and 25th during the day, we were able to enjoy the 26th to ourselves.  From back before thanksgiving, we planned on going out shopping since Ty will be with his dad over winter break and that is the only day off we have together while he is gone.  The main goal of the day is spend a few hours at babys'r'us to pick out everything we are going to need for the baby.  Then of course finish christmas shopping.  The one advantage of having Ty go up north for christmas is that we can take advantage of after christmas sales for christmas shopping.  However, that advatage will soon be gone.  The day began like every other day begins when we plan on leaving.  Moby freaks out and gives us those puppy dog eyes to guilt us in staying home.  It never works.  He always knows when we plan on doing something like this.  Then off to breakfast and off to our shopping adventure.  Best buy, target, then Babys'r'us.  Registering at Babys'r'us was quite fun.  It would be wonderful to be able to buy everything we want and need and not have to pay for anything of it.  I guess that is the point of registering at these things.  That of course isn't the reason we registered.  Since we are starting from essentially scratch, we decieded it would be nice to have a list of everything we absolutely need since it'll probably be us buying everything.  It took quite a few hours to get everything registered but it was fun and exciting.  From there off to the mall up in sarasota for lunch and more shopping.  Wow.  I felt like i was back up in virginia on the day before christmas.  It was a cattle call.  Makes me appreciated the less congested less busy area of north port/port charlotte.  From there, a quick visit to our house site where new and exciting changes are happening.  First off, we have the survey paper in hand to see the layout and all the trees that they intend to keep.  Surprisingly, it's all the ones that we want to keep.  Yeah!  In addition to, there is a port a potty on the corner!  Just like a nurse, getting excited about poop.  The good news is that means they are starting soon.  Supposedly, the lot is going to be cleared this coming week.  Very exciting.  From there it was off to dream land.  We traveled around looking for things we would love to have for the new house but can't really afford at this time.  We found some awesome things.  We have our new living room set, ty's bedroom set, and a new bedroom set picked out for us.  Now if only it were free!  It's wonderful to dream sometimes.  Back to reality and off to walmart for some groceries and more christmas shopping.  It's going to be a good christmas this year.  An exciting day.  And now, back to the fun of working with ACLS all day tomorrow.  Yahoo!  I'm just glad i don't have to do that but every 2 years.