Heber 2009 - Ryan's First Campout

This last weekend we went to Heber with my family to go camping. We went up to the girls camp owned by the LDS church east of Heber. It's a nice little facility and fairly cost effective. You are able to get 4 cabins with lots of bunks in each and a covered pavilion with a fridge, running water, bathrooms, showers, etc. We have made it a family tradition to go every year at the end of the summer.

We weren't sure that it would be a good idea to take Ryan at such a young age (he hit 4 weeks while we were there), but he took it like a champ. He didn't complain much and he's starting to get on a good sleep schedule and we had some help from some family members taking care of him.
There was also some doubt as to whether I would be able to go because of a software release we were doing at work, but because of some of the circumstances, we were able to move it to Saturday night/Sunday morning so I was able to make it.

We played some fun games and ate some good food whilst up there. We had a good breakfast and Fettuccine Alfredo and lots of snacks. I was on my diet while we were up there, which was surprisingly hard. There were so many treats and good things to eat, but I did a pretty good job. I had plenty to eat and plenty of treats that are low-carb compliant.

We survived without too much contention, which seems to happen frequently when my family gets together for some reason. I'm a debater, and I, of course, had to bring up some recent political topics and some religious topics as well. Growing up, I never would have imagined that the political and religious range of beliefs would vary so much in our family. It's not like there's even enough variance of a different religion, but degrees within the same religion difference. Same politically, I wouldn't consider myself liberal, but I am much more liberal than some of my family members. But regardless, even with those discussions, there wasn't arguing or anything like that, just a debate.

We played tons of games, which I really enjoy. We played a game called the Movie Game that Trisha and I taught to everyone that we recently learned from our neighbors. We played Nertz, which is a solitare type game, we played a poker type game called "between the sheets" (no, it's not strip poker, you sicko). We played Pick, which is a scrabble variant and a couple other games here or there.

All in all, a great weekend.

Boy was I mistaken.

I was Was thinking at day 7 if ryan's life that despite the occasional choke that he had, my kid was gosh darn perfect. Everyone I know that has kids said that I nights were going to be tough. I thought that I wasn't going to experience that cuz Ryan slept so good. Boy was I wrong. It just didn't happen until day 10 or so. He sleeps during the day and is fussy at night.

So to all you out there that told me... No "I told ya so" needed. I got the point.

I would however appreciate any tips and timelines for his sleeping to get on track.

The little things

It's crazy how you notice the little unique things about Ryan and what things he has inherited from Trisha and me.
For example, every time Ryan sneezes, he sneezes, he sneezes not once, not twice, but thrice. Every time! (it seems).
Also, on my ring finger, my fingernail has a really unique shape. It's only on my ring finger on both hands. Ryan has the same thing.
One last example. One of trishas toes has a unique curl to it. Ryan has the same thing. It's cute and amazing at the same time.

Fear

Last night, I was the most scared than I likely have been in my entire life. Ryan woke up for a feeding with his normal quiet babbling in his bassinet. I turned on the light and went and got him. I set him down on the bed in between me and Trisha and laid down next to him. The weight of my shifting body put his head a little below his body, and exactly at that moment he spit up a very tiny amount and breathed in or hiccuped. He started choking again. Ugh.. I hate it so much. Trisha ran and got the sucker thing while I was trying to keep him calm and his airway open. He was crying, so I knew he was breathing, but he was struggling. He would try to swallow it down, but it was mucusy so it was hard for him to swallow. It would build in his mouth a bit and then he'd cry and breathe more in. I started sucking out all the stuff with the bulb sucker, but I wasn't getting very much, and it made him cry even harder when I would do it. He was inconsolable and I was ready to call 911 or drive him to the ER because he was getting so red in the face and it wasn't getting better. I decided to call my mom (Thanks Mom!) to see if she had any suggestions. She told me to continue sucking the stuff out and he should work it out. I decided that him crying harder was ok if I could get more mucus out. I got out a little more, still not a ton in there, which I think helped.
What it took was feeding him so he had something to push the mucus that his lungs were producing down to his tummy. That did the trick.
He ate for a few minutes and then fell asleep with no other problems.

Trisha and I just sat there afterwards and talked about what we needed to do if it happened again and we talked about how much we love Ryan and it would absolutely devastate us if something happened to him. I spent an hour or so looking up things online to see what could be causing the problem and what other people have done to help the situation. There are a couple things that were prominent (acid reflux, cow milk in the mother's diet, cold/pneumonia, etc.), but none of them seem to match how it happens to Ryan. I guess that it just happens occasionally. It just scares me to death. Our biggest fear is that it will happen in his sleep one night and we won't wake up from his crying. I know that I would wake up, because I wake up to his little wiggles and moaning when he's hungry. But what if he didn't cry very loud, or what if he couldn't cry at all?

Parenthood is stressful! I never thought that I could care for a child so much. I would do anything to protect him. I just hope that this isn't an ongoing issue, cuz it freaks me out so bad. Ugh...

Home at last

Wow, what an experience. And finally, we are home. What a great feeling to be able to get home with our baby and relax. Our stuff, our space, our home. Also, props to Penny for cleaning our house so well! You rock! Thanks so much!
Its so nice to be at home where we are more comfortable and able to veg out and relax. It's also really nice to not have to worry about someone coming in every 5 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that we had the nurses to help out, but it kinda sucks to try to sleep when people are coming in to help, but their timing always seemed to be as I was falling asleep. It was uncanny.

Next, I want to thank our nurses at the hospital. We had some GREAT nurses (and a couple to remain nameless who left something to be desired.) By name, we wanted to thank Kathleen, Kristi, and Isabel fir their great work and for making our experience a good one. There were several other nurses that did a great job, but those 3 went above and beyond.

We also wanted to thank everyone for their support, love and prayers. For those that visited, thanks for the company. For those who couldn't come because of illness, thanks for being thoughtful about our baby's (and our) health. For those who couldn't come, but wanted to, thanks for the support and everything. We understand that it's tough to get out, especially with kids and on such a short notice. For those who weren't able to come and didn't want to, screw you, clown! ;)

thanks again! Come visit if you want! Love you all! Now we are off for baby's second tubby and some much needed sleep!

My "fun" diaper changing experience.

So there I was, thinking I was a pro, changing my 6th or 7th diaper. Ryan had a wet one and as I checked it out, he started to poop. So I set the diaper down over him and waited for him to finish his business. 10 seconds or so later he spit up pretty bad so I got out the bulb sucker thing. I started to try to use it, but he was choking a bit. So what do I do? I try to turn him over a bit to get it all clear and he starts flailing about and choking. So I promptly panic. I pick him up to clear his airway. Oops!! There goes the diaper! I pull him up to my chest and put my hand underneath him for support. I use the sucker and get things all clear.
Well, he was pretty upset about not breathing well for a few seconds and starts crying. All the tension from his cry tightens his stomach.
Out comes the poo!
Right into my hand!
At this point, I'm kinda out of available hands, so we call in the nurse to help me out.
I'm proud of myself for not freaking out and getting him breathing again, and even more proud for not puking with a handful of poo!

He's here!!!

Wow. What a day this has been. What a week this has been. What a pregnancy this has been. And here we are enjoying the company of this beautiful new boy! What an experience. Lots of waiting. A little frusterating at times at the lack of progress. But with the support of family and friends and our AMAZING nurse Kathleen, we made it through. What a miracle!

In the coming days and weeks, you may notice the "Sears Nick" (come see the softer side of Nick. ). I'll probably be all cheesy and sugary over my baby boy. But, you can't blame me! He's so damn cute!!

I'll be posting some high quality pics soon for all to see. For now, Trisha and I are waiting for his first tubby and then off to bed.

Guess what?!

I'll give you 2 guesses as to whether we're still waiting. You're only going to need one guess.

Ladies and gentlemen start your engines!!

They are starting the pitocen drip in her IV now. They put a scalp monitor on the baby's head and her water broke. That's right. She has been popped!

Waiting for our little miracle...

Here we are at the hospital. Trisha's blood pressure has been pretty elevated so far, only 1 of the readings came back in the normal range. I don't know why I expected this to go any quicker. I guess that there are other more pressing deliveries happening right now. It's looking more and more like he won't be born until tomorrow. Well. Here's to waiting.

2 months off is plenty!

I have been shirking my duties. No more! Back by popular demand! Nix Blog!

I have been using Facebook a bit to keep everyone notified of Trisha and my state of being, but I figure that I should use my blog for that! Well, here I am. Of course, I thought of this 6 weeks ago, but I procrastinated until now.

So, the current status of things:

Trisha = Pregnant and ready to pop
Ryan = Stubborn and unwilling to come out to play
Nick = Nervous
Work = Going really well. Alianza is an exciting place to be these days. I'm SO blessed to have a good job (and one that I love!)
House = Messier than we would like, but overall, in good condition. Still need to get our tile floor fixed. The grout is all out again, and a couple more tiles have cracked because they shifted on the uneven subfloor. Boo!
Life = Good.

Mosquito Tally

I just marked each mosquito bite with a pen mark and counted them as I went.
My left leg has 72 bites.
My right leg has 78 bites.

That's right. 150 effing mosquito bites on my legs/feet. WTF?

Mosquitoes Suck

I went up to my friends brother's house up in Kaysville again to make wands a full week ago. When we were there, there were a couple of mosquitoes flying around, but I decided that they were tolerable, especially since they weren't everywhere. My friend offered me some Off! so I could keep them from bugging me. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt, shorts and flip flops and thought that they would leave me alone, and if I noticed more of them, I would put it on.
These mosquitoes had to have been in ninja mode, because I didn't see or feel a single one bite me, I only saw a couple flying around my face, and trust me, I was constantly checking my legs because I didn't want to be getting bites.
Boy, am I an idiot for not using the off. I have lost HOURS of sleep over this, so I'm tired. They got me on my toes, on my Achilles tendon, all over my feet and calves.

See the pictures below. These pictures are from a FULL WEEK after the bites took place.
I am miserable.

Wands

So, my good bud Ryan at work has made it a Tuesday tradition to make wooden wands using a lathe at his brother's house. he brings them in, and they're pretty freaking cool looking. He invited me to go with him a couple of times, and I've been eager to try it out. I finally was able to make it yesterday. Dude.. So fun... I've never been much of a handy-man, and never really worked with power tools, especially things like table saws and band saws, etc. It was really fun.
We stopped by Woodcraft Supply to try out some different types of wood. I ended up with a really dense heavy (wet) wood with a strange name that had the word negro in it. The other one was called purpleheart, which is a BRIGHT purple wood. It's pretty cool.

I made 2 wands and polished them up nicely. The two wands I made are shown. The Purpleish (bottom) one is the purpleheart wood, the brown one is cherry. I like the cherry one better, just because the design worked out better. The purpleheart is a MUCH harder wood, so it's hard to get rounded edges.

I'm stoked to go do this again. Makes me wonder why I've never tried anything like this before.

Mile Markers

So, another thing that I was just thinking about my trip to Philly that I found super strange is the exit reminder markers. In Utah, the markers will show 3 miles, or 3 1/2 miles, or 3/4 miles or 1/4 mile, etc. When driving around in Philly, I was surprised to see the markers showed things like... 4/10 mile. WTF?

Anyone have any clues why they do that?

Weird.

Go Phillies!

As I have proclaimed in the past, the first team that I was able to see at HOME for an MLB game, would be "my team," at least temporarily.  Because the first MLB game that I have seen in person was the Phillies, they are now "my team."  I really was thinking that I would see a game in Boston or San Francisco before seeing a game in Philly, but I have to tell you, I'm actually pretty stoked about it.  Not that I'm a huge baseball fan, or anything, but I like sports, and following another sport, even leisurely, will be fun. 

Coincidentally, the Phillies won the World Series last year.  This did not affect my decision to make them "My Team."  Had I visited the Twins in Minnesota, I would have (grudgingly) at least temporarily made them "my team."  (Thank heaven's I visited a COOL team! ;))

The game was awesome.  It rained really hard during the first couple innings.  I'm surprised it wasn't a rain delay.  There was even a little bit of lightning.  Not that it mattered because we were in box seats!

Freaking sweet.

In the end, the Phillies made a rally, but weren't able to pull it off.  They lost the game.  They played the Brewers (who they lost to the next day as well), but have won the following 5 games (with another game tonight).  The one thing I have to be impressed with baseball, is the sheer number of games played.  They play 5-6 games a week (even if the guys that are pitching are rotating).  Impressive.

Well.. Go Phillies!

The ONLY way to fly...

So, I had my first "First Class" experience while I was on my trip to Philly. Wow. What an incredible experience. It's one of the things that I've always wanted to do, but wasn't sure whether it would ever happen. Here's the highlights:

Real food. On the flight there, they had a really yummy chicken sandwich thing with fresh fruit.

On top of the real food, the snack choices were better, rather than pretzels and/or nuts, they have those, plus cookies, candy bars, fruit, etc. They bring the snack bin around several times throughout the flight as well.

I never thought that drinking out of a glass cup would be that nice, but to have someone refill your drink every 10 minutes and not having to try to stretch 1 can of coke for an entire flight was very nice.

Comfort: full reclining, tons of leg room, tons of side-to-side space. All of these things make first class classy.

The small things. Things like a tray cover during your meal, the infamous "hot towel," free headphones and free movies/games during the flight certainly make a long flight like that more tolerable.

It will be a real eye opener next time I have a flight, cuz I'm sure it will be a long while til I get first class again.

Start Spreadin' the News...

I'm in Philadelphia, baby.  I found out yesterday (Tuesday), that a friend at work had come down with vertigo and would be unable to visit a prospective client.  I was available, and I quickly jumped at the opportunity to take his place.  So, I booked my flight.  The flight was pretty expensive because it was last minute, and because of the high price, I decided to check out the price of the first class tickets.  For $100 more round trip, I was able to book my seat in first class.

FREAKING SWEET.

I've never flown first class before.  It is awesome.  It is the only way to fly!  I understand it's expensive, but it really is nice.  More to come on that.

I found out on Tuesday night that we were also invited to a Phillies MLB baseball game!  FREAKING SWEET!  I've never been to a MLB baseball game.  It was awesome.  Box seats are so nice.  More to come on that.

After the game, we went to Pat's King of Steaks for a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich from an original cheesesteak sandwich place.  It was very good.  Note to self, next time you get a cheesesteak, get it with cheese whiz, not provalone.  The provalone, wit-onions, pepper, mushroom cheesesteak was yummy.  Nextime, gunna get a "wit," whiz, pepper cheesesteak.  Mmm....

My hotel room is nice too.  Nice view of the city on the top floor.  Sweet.

Well.. I better head.  I have a long day tomorrow.

10 things I learned on my Anniversary Weekend

The following is a summary of my Anniversary weekend.  We had a blast (for the most part)!

1.  The Anniversary Inn is pretty effing cool.  Our theme room was pretty awesome, although it wasn't exactly what we were expecting.  It was pictured with 2 awesome looking leather reclining theater seats.  Instead, there was a roundish type loveseat.  It was pretty cool though.  The picture also showed a soda fountain in the room, which was replaced by unlimited 20 oz. coke products.  All in all, pretty cool.

2.  The breakfast at Anniversary Inn is the best hotel breakfast I have ever had.  The first day, they provided a cream cheese/raspberry tart type thing.  Think of it as a REALLY high end pop tart.  It was pretty effing amazing, even though it was a bit rich.  The next morning, they gave us a choice for our meal which we opted for the ham and cheese croissant.  Even though I didn't eat it until that night, (to be explained later), it was freaking rockstar.

3.  It's satisfying when a movie you see surprises you.  I see a lot of movies, and I generally don't see a lot of movies that I would want to see more than once.  It's only a movie that pleasantly surprises me with a good story line and/or acting that really piques my interest.  One of those movies is State of Play.  I generally.. No.. I always dislike Ben Affleck.  I find him to be a horrible actor and self indulgent.  He has ruined more than 1 potentially good movie by attempting to act in them.  State of Play was the first movie that I completely believed his performance.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Not to mention that the story held some good and unexpected twists.  Very nice.

4.  Advertising that a hotel room has a huge HDTV does NO good unless said TV has some sort of HD content.  Yeah, big TVs are awesome, but they are no better than any other TV if the content shown is standard definition.  Our room had an HDTV in it and Comcast cable.  The Comcast box was even an HD converter box, but they wouldn't pay for the HD package, so the only HD channels available were the local channels, which you can get for free anyway.  Pfft.

5.  Carbs suck.  I occasionally abandon my low carb lifestyle for a weekend eating junk food.  I try to limit it to 2 days every month, and REALLY try to make it for a special occasion.  I figured that our Anniversary would be one of those occasions.  I always end up feeling disappointed at my 2 days off.  I think that I'm going to be able to eat all sorts of food that I shouldn't be, and everything will taste wonderful and be worth the binge.  I am never right.  Of all the things that I ate this weekend, only 2.5 of the things would I consider "worth it."  The croissant thingy (that I literally had 2 bites of because I was still nauseous when I ate it at 3 PM on Saturday) and the scones at Ye Lion's Den.  The .5 would have to go to the tart thingy that I had for breakfast the day before.

6.  Ye Lion's Den.   Hrmm... What an interesting idea.  KSL (specifically the Movie Show) really lauds Ye Lion's Den as one of the best restaurants in Ogden.  While the food was pretty good, it was really expensive too.  I don't mind paying a lot for prime rib, especially when it's yummy (and it was), but I really want to enjoy an environment that is reflective of the large sum of money paid for said food.  This is where the restaurant fails.  The food is yummy (and props to their ranch dressing, the best I've ever  had), but the restaurant is kind of a hole.  I really like the theme and all, but for how much they charge (40 bucks for a 16 ounce prime rib (which also included salad, drink, scones and dessert), you'd think that they wouldn't be in a strip mall.  I just think that they could really step it up a notch if they had their own building, or SOMETHING.  C'mon. 

7.  Logan is boring.  Unless you're a co-ed who wouldn't mind going to a dance club where everyone is sober (not to say that drunk people make dance clubs fun... Nothing makes dance clubs fun...) , or you're haning out with friends at their apartment... There is nothing fun to do in Logan.  Well.  Hiking and fishing and mountain biking and things like that excluded.

8.  When you're away from work without internet access, everything that could possibly go wrong at work will go wrong.  Ugh.

9.  Under no circumstances should you order a meal that contains eggs from a mexicanrestaurant in Logan.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I ended up with food poisoning.  We got back from the mexican place around 7 PM on Friday and started watching movies.  By the end of the first movie, I was really not feeling well.  I had a pounding headache and the nausea had just begun.  Trisha gave me one of her anti-nausea pills, which didn't help the nausea go away, it just helped me not puke, which, as everyone knows, when you're sick, the only way to make it really go away is to let it all out.  Finally, at around 2 in the morning, I puked my guts out.  The rest of the night was long and arduous.  I slept like crap, I was freezing cold and burning hot at the same time.  Finally the morning came and I still didn't feel any better.  I started getting everything packed up because I just wanted to go home to try and relax.  I puked again at around 10:30 and then I started feeling better.  I didn't really feel 100% better until about 9 PM that night, but the nausea went away.  Ugh.. What was I thinking?  Eggs at a mexican restaurant?  That's like ordering sushi at McDonalds.  Not a good idea.

10.  Trisha is the love of my life.  Even though Trisha was pretty sick with being pregnant, an in a lot of pain from her Fibromyalgia, she still takes care of me when I'm sick.  And I love that about her.  She's the love of my life, and life wouldn't be the same without her.  She is the jam in my pb&j sandwich and the cheese in my mac and cheese (inside joke).  I love her with everything in me.

It's a BOY!

That's right... We're having a little baby boy! We picked out a name, although it's not set in stone. We're going with Ryan Nicholas Fielding. I know, vein, right? ;)

We're so excited. I'll scan the ultrasound as soon as I get a minute.

Ugh..

So, Trisha and I have worked our butts off to get out house ready to show. And it was a resounding success thanks to the help of some friends and family to help us out while we were both in bad shape. I feel as though I have been beat up with a baseball bat. I want to lay down and take a nap.
Hopefully all of this work will pay off and the couple that looked at our condo last night will make us a huge offer!

Well, crap...

So, Trisha and I have been trying to do some spring cleaning and de-junking. We never really got our 2nd bedroom set up how we want and stuff kept piling up in there. It's really been a struggle trying to organize that room, especially since Trisha has been sick a lot, and pregnant. Not to mention that I've been lazy.. ;) Well, lazy and really exhausted lately. Hrmm.. We'll get to that...
I decided to take some initiative and clean where I could. I feel as though I'm finally getting into some good habits of cleaning. As a part of this spring cleaning, we decided to move our bedroom furniture around. I was getting ready to move the bed after I vacuumed part of the bedroom floor where we wanted to move the bed. I walked around the edge of the bed and started to lean over. I felt a twinge in my lower back, and I collapsed onto the bed. I felt as though I had been stabbed in my lower back. A few minutes later I worked my way back to my feet, but I knew that something was wrong. I had tweaked my back pretty bad. I continued to move the bed by pushing it into place with my legs.
After I was done with that, I had to lay down for most of the rest of the day because my back hurt so much. I was laid out all day Sunday and Monday as well. Sitting up, standing, walking, or rolling over while laying down was killer. No fun. Trisha, thankfully, has a prescription for Lortab. I took a couple of those to tide me over until I got to the doctor. I was unable to sleep well any of those nights because I move a lot in my sleep and whenever I move, my back screamed at me, and it woke me up. On Monday night, I had a bowl of low carb ice cream shortly after taking my sleeping medicine and another dose of Lortab. I was so tired and drained from the lack of sleep and the narcotics that I fell asleep sitting up on the couch with my hand laying in my unfinished bowl of ice cream. Lovely.
On Tuesday (after another missed day of work), I went to the Doctor to see what could be done about my back. He thinks that I just strained my back, which is not uncommon. I told him that the past few weeks I've been pretty drained before my back problem even came up. I told him that I had a bit of a sore throat as well and was concerned that I had mono. They took a blood test which just came back today (Thursday).
That's right. I have effing mono.
Boo!

That is all for now.

Nix Watchman review

So I went and saw Watchmen last night (midnight showing). I'm giving it a solid 4 stars. It's a great movie that makes you think, which is always a good sign in my book.

The cinematography was AMAZING (as to be expected).

The character development was good, even though it was a bit rushed because there was so many important characters to develop.

It didn't seem like a 3 hour movie. The pace was good and I thought I'd be overwhelmed with the story, but I think they put it together well. I definitely want to see it again to see what I missed, because I'm sure I missed some stuff.

The acting was great, especially by Rarschach and the Nite Owl II. I was even impressed with Silk Spectre (I was not expecting much from her based on some of her previous roles).

It was completely different than I expected, and I went in with completely different expectations than what I feel they were trying to set in the trailers.

I am definitely going to go see it again (with Trisha).

Other notes:
The sex scene was a bit much. The gore/violence was spot on. :D
There wasn't too much language in it (which doesn't bother me anyway).
There was a lot of blue wang that I could have done without, but on the flip side, it wasn't out of control or pornographic. It was just there.

After the movie, I took Trisha home (got home around 3:45 or so) and then drove straight into work.

I'm huggin' tired.

That is all.

School

I just passed 2 classes last month for school. I finished a writing/presentation class and a JavaScript class. This semester I'm starting off with a class for Leadership and Professionalism. It's worth 12 credit hours. It aught to be fun. or not.

Wish me luck!

Baby Update

Trisha and I went in for our 2nd Dr.'s appointment yesterday for the baby. Things are looking good so far. Trisha has lost over 10 pounds during the month due to the nausea and such. She was glad to hear that at least there was SOME benefit to the nausea...
We also heard the baby's heartbeat with the sonagraph. The heartbeat was around 156 bpm. The doctor guesses that it will be a little girl, but it's pretty much a guess anyway. Apparently girl's heartbeats are faster than boys. He guessed wrong for a couple of my nephews though, so we'll have to see.
We get the next ultrasound at the end of the month! Exciting!

Ahh, the joys of pregnancy

So, Trisha has been fully enjoying all the many wonderful and bountious things associated with pregnancy. She has been sicker than a dog, and her fibromyalgia has been worse. She has had more migraines than usual, more nausea, fatigue, heartburn, pain, etc.

I've heard that the more sick one is, the healthier the baby is. Holy crap, we're going to have a freaking super-healthy baby, I guess.

Also of note are her cravings. She has not craved sweets like she normally does. She instead craves things like: pickles (she ate an entire jar in one sitting), fruit, hot dogs, and toaster strudles.

It will hopefully only be a couple more weeks of sickness and then all the bad stuff will go away.

We're excited to find out the sex of the baby. It's still a month and a half away, though.

First ultrasound

Trisha had her first Dr.'s appointment today for the pregnancy. Our doctor is Dr. Quinn. He delivered most of my nieces and nephews on my side of the family. He's a very nice guy and did a good job making sure all the bases were covered. He tried listening to the heartbeat through the stomach, but because Trisha's uterus was turned upwards, and the baby is only at 10 and a half weeks, he wasn't able to get the heartbeat. Because he wasn't able to track it down, he suggested that we have an ultrasound if we wanted. We elected to do that. We got some pictures of the baby that I'll have to post. Pretty hard to see what was going on and all, but it's in there! We also got to hear the heartbeat. Really cool.

I'm getting excited!

Life goal

Over the weekend, I had to go into work for a weekend maintenance window and software update. There was a little bit of time in which I had to wait for the developers to finish something up. I picked up a Rubik's cube and started screwing around with it. I was able to get one side finished. One of the developers helped me figure out the 2nd layer and then during the superbowl, Drew, my cousin-in-law, taught me how to do the bottom row. I can now finish a rubiks cube on my own!
For as lame of a life goal that is, it's something I can cross off the list. Maybe I should now try to do a 4x4 and then a 5x5.

Yay! Go me!

Aww crap...

So, during the period of time that the toilet had become unhinged and my handy-man fix-it, there was some leakage going on. My neighbors below me have had some water damage in their bathroom walls because of it. Aww crap...

Handyman

I'm not a very handy guy, but I just finished my first "mid-major" fix-it. Thanks to my brother and the internet. I have now successfully replaces a wax ring for my toilet. It really wasn't that hard, it was just a matter of getting it done. I'm glad I'm done.

Milestone

Well, last night I decided to break out the scale. I've kind of been worried since I was not dieting from 12/16-1/04, but I picked back up, and I wanted to know how I was doing. I found that I had hit a bit of a milestone. I just surpassed 75 pounds lost. I couldn't believe it. 75 pounds is as much as an 10 year old kid. Maybe even more.
That means that I have another 83 before I'm at my "I can be comfortable" goal. Anything after that is gravy, and I may not stop there. My real target goal would be an additional 50 after that, but I just don't know how realistic that really is.
Either way, I've come a long way, and I'm proud of myself.

Changes

Sorry it's been a while since my last update. I've been CRAZY busy. My work just laid off 3 more people last week. My job was eliminated, but luckily (for whatever reason), the management team here went to bat for me and had me put into another position. In fact, I was put in the position of someone that was laid off.
Layoffs are really difficult to stomach, especially in a smaller company when you become friends with most of your co-workers. I really liked the guys that were let go, and it's too bad that it had to be done. I am grateful, however, that I was thought enough of to "save."
Since this change, I've been busy. I've had a lot of old issues to resolve, as well as my fair share of new issues to work out. One night I was up until 2 AM with an issue, then I had to make a phone call at 5 AM on the same issue, then I got a call at 6 AM and had to make another call at 8, then I got up at 9. It was crazy. But also fun and rewarding.
I'll do my best to keep up on my posts. I have plenty of fun stuff to write about.
:D

SeaWorld

So, I'm a bit behind on my blog of my vacation to Florida, so I'll do my best to get everything added.
On Monday (the 29th), we drove up to Orlando with plans to go to a dinner show and SeaWorld the next morning, but Arabian Knights was sold out and Medival Knights was too expensive, so we ended up going to Macaroni Grill (where Amie gets a good discount).
We bought our tickets at a discount ticketing place. We had done a little research and found a place online that had good prices, and while we were driving, saw some advertisements for another place. We made some phone calls and decided to stop at the first place (which was on the way). We got there, and the guy was a jerk, and they wouldn't honor what they said on the phone. On the phone they said that if we brought in a quote from another discount ticketer, they would beat that price. He (the owner) wouldn't do that, so their prices were higher. He also said that he was partners with the other place (that we had the quote for), so they had the same prices, when bringing up specific prices (like to Medival times), their prices were different, and he was a jerk about it, so we bought a t-shirt and left. The T-shirts were Disney World 2008 T-shirts, so they were discounted (3 for 10). We drove to the other place, and got our tickets to SeaWorld. They had the same dang shirts at the 2nd place we went for 1.99 each! I couldn't believe it! It made me even more mad about the other place.
We spent the night at a Motel 6. The beds were full size, and it was rediculously uncomforatable for Trisha and me, so I ended up sleeping on the floor. We slept in a little bit and went to McDonalds for breakfast.
SeaWorld was rediculously busy. It took 30 minutes to drive the 5 miles from the motel to SeaWorld (on the freeway) because it was so backed up. Then it took another 30 minutes to get from the exit to the parking. We finally got there at a little after 11. Later we found out that there was over 38,000 people that went to the park that day. Crazy.
We basically did everything we wanted to do at SeaWorld. We saw the shark exhibit (and fed the sharks), we saw the dolphin show, the acrobat show, we saw the seal show, we saw a Shamu show, we pet the sting rays, we went to an all-you-can-eat picnic thing, we saw the penguins, and we fed the dolphins. It was awesome.
The low-lights were:
The long lines - self explanitory
The Shamu show - boring, lots of singing, church chiors, and not much of the whales.
The Dolphin show - more about acrobatics than about dolphins. The dolphins were out for a total of MAYBE 3 minutes out of the 23 minute show. They came out towards the beginning, did a couple jumps, and then went back while the people did a bunch of diving and other stuff, then came back out for a couple minutes towards the end. I would rather see the dolphins and their abilities and learn about them rather than see a "show" about a little girl who escaped to a world of imagination.

The mid-lights were:
The Penguins - You stood on an escalator for 30 yards in front of the penguin display. It was cool to see the penguins, but really short.
The Shark exhibit (and feeding the sharks) - Of course, you can't really get close to the sharks when feeding them, but the experience is nothing like the sting rays or dolphins. You throw in the food and the sharks kind of just swim by and eat it. The shark exhibit was ok, the coolest part was the underwater tunnel, but I didn't really see many sharks.
The acrobat show - It was pretty amazing what they could do, and the special effects were pretty cool (lots of bubbles), but I found myself asking what it had to do with Seaworld.

The high-lights were:
The all-you-can-eat picnic - the food wasn't really amazing or anything, but at an amusement park the food is generally really expensive and not good at all and you don't get much. For 15 bucks for an adult, I ate some good food, and got to sit and relax (and drink several $3.50 bottles of soda). We took some soda and water with us when we left too, so we didn't have to buy any.
Pet the Sting Rays - I love that they allow you to interact with the animals. That was my favorite part when I went to SeaWorld in San Diego a couple years ago. It was pretty cool, and the kids got a kick out of it.
The seal show - Not only was this the best show of the ones we saw, it was ESPECIALLY good because the actors kept screwing up. They were so distracted by things that kept happening, they'd forget their lines, but they were good sports about it, and made it really funny. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. On top of it, at the beginning (while you're waiting for the show to start), they had a mime come out and screw around with the audience. He was hilarious.
Feeding the dolphins - This had to be the best thing about our day. We stood in line forever to be able to do it, but barely made it in (the last group of the day). It was kind of expensive, but it was a good experience for the boys, and it was really awesome to see the animals that close up and to be able to interact with them.

We got done with SeaWorld around 11 and made the long journey home. We finally got home at a little after 1. It was a long day, but it was worth it!