... then I heard a loud explosion from the other side of the house...

Actually it was a IM from my wife as I tried to get caught up on some work issues. It read, "help please."

I figure a true emergency she would have yelled, but I did a quick save and went in. She was holding Peter in burp position and said he had spit up on her and filled his diaper at the same time. The spit had gone down her back and she didn't want to smear it while trying to move while holding the baby.

I carried Peter into his room to start to change him and realized my hand was damp. I realized that he was oozing from the leg of the diaper. as I set him on the changing table I realize my other hand is wet too. Yep, out the top of the diaper too. As I try to get him out of the messy clothes without making things worse, I called Tera to come help, because Peter needs a bath. She holds him as I get the bath stuff ready. she takes his diaper off and heads for the tub and he lets loose with another BM. Got her arm and the floor. I gave her the towel and he pooped on that. And the next towel. But then we had a nice bath and are as sweet as a baby boy can be.

/for what it's worth, the bird just pooped on me.

Just a quick recap on week 2

Week 2 included Christmas! It was quiet because the girls were with their father, but we hadPeter to keep us busy. We even took Peter to the Christmas Eve service (Mom went and asked people to admire from afar, so he wouldn't catch anything). I spent all day trying not to breath on him, but he caught my cold anyway :(

Uncle Chris got the girls a Wii fit and we got them guitar hero, both were very popular, although the fit is fun for Tera and I too.

Catching up

So, Peter was born a week ago (I started this on Monday 12/22). The week in review:

Monday and Tuesday I slept with Tera and Peter at the hospital. I would go home and tuck the girls in, visit with my folks (who were awesome!) and head back to sleep on the fod out couch in Tera's room. Mom and Dad stayed at the house and took care of the girls for us.

Wednesday and Thursday I stayed at the hospital until after the girls bedtime (mom and dad took care of the girls until then), but went home to sleep there. Peter was jaundiced, so Tera felt it would be best for me to get away a little. I hated to see him fussing under the lights they put him under, knowing its best for him to stay there, but wanting to pick him up and sooth him.

Friday we brought Peter home!!! The girls had school canceled because of pending bad weather. Check out was supposed to be at 11, so Rachel came along to help carry stuff at 10. No snow. maybe a flake or two. About 10:30 Rachel and I took most of the stuff out to the van and there was pretty heavy flurries and a lot of wind. We finally get out a little after noon. 4" of snow on the car, and falling hard. The van has studded snows. We didn't have any problems. We almost got stuck behind someone on the hill, but I realized he was having problems and waited for him to back down the hill. We didn't even spin tires.
Saturday Tera's folks drove the 3 hours to visit Peter even though they had received a foot of snow and more was expected Sunday. They only stayed a few hours to make sure they didn't run into problems on the mountain at night.

Sunday we relaxed and Doug and Elaina brought pizza.

Tera's brother came to visit Monday.

Peter's big day! - Moving out

So, Tera is comfortable, ready to go.

While all the other stuff is going on, people have been checking dilation. 1, 4, 5-6, 8. Then Tera's Dr. comes in and says 7. I pointed out that that was a lower number, but she said that it was OK. She leaves and a while later must have been watching the monitors at the nurses station, because she sent a nurse in to get Tera up on her side, because the baby seems in a little distress during contractions. The nurses braced her about 1/2 way up. A couple minutes later the Dr. came in and said "Let's get her all the way up on her side." As she watched the monitors, she said "I think we need to talk about maybe needing to help the baby come out." She had Tera roll to the other side. the contractions have been at least a minute long and a minute apart for most of the time we've been on the monitor. As she watches she continues to talk. While Peter's heart rate isn't going into the danger zone, it cycles from high side of normal to the low side of normal during a contraction. She isn't happy about it, and says that we need to be prepared for the possibility of a c-section. After, or during, the second contraction on the second side the doctor says "OK, we are going to do a c-section NOW." Not louder, just emphasis. Nurses and staff started to move! 15 minutes later Peter was born.

Peter's big day! - Getting started

or Tera's day from hell

Sunday night, Tera took a bath when I when to bed. She got out and relaxed for a bit. She started contractions about 2:30. At 4 she woke me and said she was waiting for the Dr. to call back and confirm that it was time to go to the hospital. We heard back about 4:30. I called my folks and asked for them to get the girls on the bus and we hit the road. We checked in a little after 5.

It took them awhile to agree that Tera needed pain management. We even tried a soak in the hot tub in our room. That helped during the pregnancy, but NOT during labor. Once they started, they couldn't find a vein for the IV, because Tera had been in labor so long she had become a little dehydrated. We went through 4 people and 5 sticks over a half hour until they got a good flow. After a while they decided to do the epidural. The first guy couldn't find a gap in the vertebrae. He called for back up. That guy hit it pretty quickly, but it stuck to his hand when he went to tape it down. He had to start over. At least he got some of the good stuff in first. Second try went good. As they were laying her down, the IV came out. There was a lot of disappointment. The anesthesiologist asked why it was a big deal. After hearing the story he volunteered to do it and put it in first try.

(note: Tera normally has easy to see veins, but they weren't there on Monday. I never doubted the skills or professionalism of any of the staff that helped her delivery).

The appropriate drugs now in her system, Tera was ready to have a baby.

Finally!!! We have a baby!

Peter Doty Blance joined us at 12:17 pm on Monday 12/15/2008.

Last week he was estimated to be about 7#, 12 oz, but "it's hard to tell with a close to term baby. It could be 1/2# either way, but probably on the low end of that range." Which made the 9# 14 oz baby a bit of a surprise.

It was a bit more exciting than we had hoped, but what a pretty baby!

sucker!

Last time we saw the Dr. she thought that she might want to "move things along" if Tera hadn't had the baby by the appointment today.

I bought it.

Tera told me not to get my hopes up, but I couldn't help but notice that my wife is still pregnant. At the appointment today the Dr. scheduled an appointment for next Monday.

But at THAT one, she will really want to move things along.

sigh

New car

Because you can't have a baby without a minivan, we got one. The minivan - the baby is taking his sweet old time. It's an 2005 Ford Freestar. Built in DVD player - sold the girls.

leftovers anyone

We did our thanksgiving meal yesterday (black Friday). It was a lot of hard work, but most of that was cleaning up. I also did a lot of un-packing of boxes that had been in the baby's room but had been moved to the porch. Four more empties!!!!

The food was all good. The turkey ended up fine. We cooked it in a bag, which kept it nice and moist. I didn't realize that it would also shorten the cooking time by about 30%, so it was done about 1 1/2 hours before our guests were scheduled to arrive . It had plenty of time to rest. But I did have time to get the the turkey carved before the guests got here. And my sister-in-law helped pick the bones clean, so I'm all ready to make soup.

Everyone pitched in and helped clean up, so we have a clean kitchen and a ton of leftovers, some of which will go into the freezer for post-baby meals.

Happy Thanksgiving

I have a wonderful life. An awesome wife and two great step kids. A nice house and a couple of nice cars. A decent job with a good paycheck.

My parents are great and in good health. I love my in-laws.

Baby Peter is due in 18 days and we are all prepared.

I could go on, but I just to share the highlights of the things I am thankful for.

Baby's room - check

We are all set in the baby's room. We are just lacking that one last little item.


Waiting patiently.


still waiting

Ouch and Oucher

Ouch: I have a pinched nerve in my neck. It started a week ago, but really got bad over the weekend.

Oucher: Tera is 36 1/2 weeks pregnant. She wins, not in a good way.

It makes for uncomfortable sleeping.

I am a Jerk

Playing the Dungeon and Dragons app in Facebook has taught me that. Every place I go I'm stealing stuff and killing anyone who gets in the way. I find and ancient ruin do I call the local university and help painstakingly discover the mysteries of the people that used to live there? Nope. I tear it apart looking for treasure.

Running into a group of strangers? Yep, more often than not I'm going to kill some of them. And take their stuff.

So murdering thief might be a better label than jerk.

It's nothing like me in real life, but I feel good that I feel bad about enjoying it so much

Back in the Saddle

After hours of frustration, emails and phone calls with tech support, I can finally work form home again.

It stopped working when they updated a security file, which fixes itself on a PC. They don't officially support Macs, but a guy tried to help me. As near as we could tell we had everything set up the same, except he runs so newest OS.

Rather than try the OS and have it not work, Tera suggested we set up the Macbook to dual boot. The tech guy says that he uses Parallels to have a PC window right in Mac. That works great! It cost about the same as a new OS, but the access to work is better in windows. But I don't get to play with the new OS :(

making progress

Halloween is mostly put away. As are most of the outside tables and chairs. There is some room left in the shed, so we should be able to get the last of the totes out of the house and in the shed, garage or spare room. Yay!

Some decent weather this weekend and we might put up some Christmas lights (but not plug them in!)

Cool In-laws

My in-laws came down for the weekend. Peter's room is all set up!

The crib and dressing table are put together (thanks to Papa), and little critters decorate the walls (thanks to Grammy). All the stuff we stored in there "temporarily" three months ago is gone. Or moved to another part of the house.

Chris and I also replaced the ceiling fan in the kitchen. OK, Chris replaced it and I handed him stuff. I also closed up the hot tub for the season.

Busy weekend, but we really needed help getting going in there.

Halloween Recap

We had a pretty good time. My in-laws were in town, so they stayed home with Tera to hand out candy and I took the girls around the new neighborhood. It's nice many of the people insisted I take some candy . We had a lot of positive feed back from the neighbors about the house, even a couple "you should see the house on Palmer" from people who didn't know it was ours! The spiders were commented as much as the pumpkins and the rest of the decorations.

We set up the fogger so it could be triggered from inside. That startled a lot of people in addition to being being pretty cool.

I put daytime pictures of most of the decorations on Flickr.

Oh, the neighborhood also does a pizza and doughnut party followed by a little parade. We missed out on that because they forgot to update the labels for the newsletter. We got it handed to us while out trick or treating. We were welcomed to the neighborhood in it!

Sometimes art imitates life...

... and sometimes games imitate life.

The adventure I just played was called the Shores of Despair. It reminded me of work. I keep doing the same things over and over and re-doing them because someone wants it a little bit different.

I didn't even make it 1/2 way through.

Sounds about right.

Facebook fun

Most of my time on Facebook has involved catching up with people I haven't seen in a while and playing spelling games.

Until Tiny adventures came along.

It is a Dungeon and Dragons game that plays in face book. You start is and walk away. It runs itself.

Except it runs better if you watch it. Sometimes an equipment change can save a game. Or a friend needs a boost, or a heal.

This proves my suspicion that I would really like the full game if I ever played it. And why I don't have enough time to do it. I would constantly be trying to tweak things, make them better for the current circumstances.

Excuse me, I have to go swap helm, belt, sword, shield, gloves and cape. And why can't I find any rings? I have gold, I could buy one, but no one is offering.

Halloween!

One of our favorite pumpkin designs. Check out the rest on Flickr.

We use the old style Christmas lights instead of candles. Flip the switch and they are all on. We use blown bulbs for the spaces between pumpkins.

Holy Cow!

Or Bull, as the case may be. We had an Ultrasound last week. Peter is measuring at about 5 pounds. The average baby gains about 1/2 a pound per week. 8 weeks to go would make him about 9 pounds!!!

That's a lot of baby.

Oh, and you can see hair in the ultrasound! The technician said she couldn't tell if it will be straight or curly, but there is a lot of it :)

caffeine induced insomnia

Since last fall I've been mostly caffeine free. Tonight I had a dinner meeting for work. They brought an extra cup of coffee to our table. I like coffee. I've been doing decaff, but I thought it's only one cup.

Argh.

gotcha!

Tera got me good in the best way. By accident.

I turned on the the water, standing next to the tub. Tera has left it in hand spray mode, which means it starts off with a blast of cold water. Which would be fine, because I'm not IN the shower, I'm next to the shower.

but she also left the handset turned slightly. Yep, right in the face.

When I told her about it she laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes. A very nice start to the work week.

hiccup monster

Tera said the baby had hiccups last night. I leaned down and whispered "boo" to her belly. Tera said "we will not traumatize the baby in order to cure hiccups." I shared my vision of a mask that we could keep in the closet. When Peter has the hiccups we could just pop into the closet to make the hiccup monster come out and cure the hiccups.

/ [sigh] I wouldn't really do that.

// The girls don't get hiccups any more. Even when that have them, they deny it. They asked me to cure their hiccups (once each). I ignored them for a bit and then whirled around and shouted "BOO!" right in their faces. It worked, but a little too well. One of them cried, the other didn't, but to this day just asking "do you have the hiccups" will cure either of them.

No longer a fire hazzard

We finally got around to the electrical work. They split the bedroom outlets into 2 circuits, the kitchen outlets from 1 into 3 and the ones on the counter are now GFI. The backyard from 1 into 3 (Hot tub, Koi pond and shed/yard). Ceiling fans (that don't wobble in each of the upstairs bedrooms and the living room. There wasn't power to the ceilings of any of the rooms, so we had remotes installed instead of wired switches. It saved a bunch of money and, well, gives us remotes. We also put can lights in the living roomto give a better light balance and added two lights in the hall so it can do light if we want it to be.

Done working on the house!!!

mostly

And now I feel about this big

Between the 8th graders volleyball and Diana's 7th grade match I went for a little walk. As I passed some 8th grade Owego girls, one of them (long, straight, dark hair) says "Hi, I'm Nancy ***'s daughter" like she's happy to see me. Not being able to figure out the joke, I reply, "That's nice" and keep walking.

A while later a good friend of a good friend shows up. I haven't seen her in a year or so. We get along pretty well and her birthday is close to mine. Her husband is a great guy. Her and her daughter have similar very curly hair, like mine. I know a lot of things about her, but she is half of "Nancy and Jeff". At some point I may have known a last name, but I've never needed it.

She happens to still be wearing her work name badge. Her last name is ***. Carp. The daughter has used a hair straightener. I remember how nice it is as a young adult to see a friendly face in a strange place (It's still a great feeling). I feel like a jerk.

done!!!

The tale of two bathrooms or complete. They were a little more than we planned, but the upgrades are worth it. The guys finished all the little odds and ends yesterday, and I put up the shower curtain last night, so we are good to go.

There is A LOT of storage. How will we ever use all that space? (Looks in Baby's room, looks in the garage)

never mind

The sun

The sun is very strange and beautiful. This is several minutes long.

Just wow

over 1 week?

I haven't posted in over a week. Work was busy, construction is still going on. highlights: Diana made the volley ball team (practice until 4:30 daily). A friend got married up in the finger lakes. Tera and I and I got to talk with people we haven't seen in over a year, even though they live here in town. We stayed in a B&B called the Glass Magnolia in Interlaken, NY. It wasn't super fancy, but it was recently remodeled, clean, comfortable and good food. The wedding was at the Sheldrake Point Winery. A very good time. I'm not a wine snob, but I thought the wine was pretty good. They also had an excellent apple cinnamon syrup and a pumpkin syrup. The former for pancakes, the latter for salad.

That's a quick look at a busy week.

First time in the new oven

I did home made pizza for the first time in the new stove. It worked great!

The girls got their usual 1/2 mushroom, 1/2 pepperoni stuffed crust. Tera and I did 1/2 cheese 1/2 garlic chicken with spinach on a thin crust. That turned out really good.

Shower

Thursday the guys took apart the two tiny bathrooms. During the process they set the toilet we plan to keep in the shower so it was out of the way. I prefer to take showers daily, but I didn't NEED a shower, so I just dunked my head under the faucet rather than risk breaking the commode. Friday they took the shower out. Saturday I didn't have time for a shower, so I just did a sponge bath. Ahhh, looking forward to a nice shower.

Shower

I went to my second baby shower yesterday. It was lots of fun. We need to get together with friends more often. Thanks to Norma, Jessie and my mom for putting it together.

Special thanks to Uncle Bill, Aunt Karen and Scott for making the drive down from Amsterdam. Cousin Steve and Kathy made it down from Fulton too. Both are family that I don't see enough of.

I am blown away by the generosity of my friends and family. Thank you all

Catch up

The new bathroom is coming along nicely (Check out the pictures on flickr). Just in time. When the construction guys were tearing apart the old tiny bathrooms, they noticed that the older toilet was leaking, so they tried to fix it for us. Unfortunately that made it worse. One of the dehumidifiers downstairs seems to be leaking. It's hard to tell because the carpet started wet because the overflow sensor wasn't working at first.

Weeee

Yay! the girls are home

The girls just got back home after spending all of August with their father. It's good to have them back.

Here's Johney!!!

We've begun the downstairs bathroom (today is day 2). The first day they discovered that the ceiling was too low. The original plan was to put the toilet and tub on a pedestal so there was room to drain into the pump that takes the waste and pumps it up so can drain out of the house. That made the tub too tall. So it was either tile around the tub (more time and money) or blast though the floor. HARVEY'S CONTRUCTION recommended the second because it would look a lot better without the step ups. Check out the flickr pictures.

lost and found

I found a bayonet from 1878 in the garage today. It's in pretty rough shape so it's not worth much.

it appears to be one of these.

Thanks to Derek for finding this data base and getting us dialed in.

Wow

Sunday AM I walked past the back door and did a double take. I was about eye to eye with a bird in the back yard. OK I was taller, but not by a lot. A great blue heron was in the middle of the yard! It took off as soon as I moved, so I have no pictures, but the size was very impressive. We did a head count and we have all the frogs and at still lots of fish. We actually have seen a dark fist we had never noticed before. Do herons deliver like storks do?

I've been faced

Tera's brother talked her into joining facebook. Tera talked me into it. There is a game you can play against friends called word twist (think boggle on the computer). Tera and I have played quite a bit. She usually wins. We played against a friend Bill. He didn't beat both of our scores added together. But he came close.

Any one know how to delete a friend in facebook? ;)

Spike was a good boy

This is the best picture I could find of Spike (he's the cockatiel sitting with Rachel).

He'd been fine, no sign of any problems. He was sitting on the eggs at breakfast, and later in the day he was gone.

We bought him as a boy to keep our first (female) company. We later bought another boy who sang more. Then we bought another girl to keep Spike company. That girl (Buffy) ended up singing a lot more than girls normally do. It wasn't until Spike started laying eggs that we realized we had been mis-imformed about the sex of the birds. But we didn't want to confuse the birds, so Spike was a good boy who laid eggs.

He was our best bird. Very friendly, even with strangers. We will miss him a lot.

Red is the new yellow

Tera and I were driving yesterday. Twice we saw a car go through a light that must have been red when they got to it, because our light had already turned green! We got to talking about the fact that you see that pretty often now days. It used to be that if you came to a light just as it turned yellow you'd hit the gas and maybe see a flash of red as you were passing under the light. It seems that it more and more people are deciding to hit the gas when the light turns red! I'm heard that in Florida they are encouraging people to count to five AFTER their light turns green before hitting the gas.

I now understand why they are installing the red light cameras to issue tickets.

The microwave saga ends

My first attempt at installing the microwave was a strike. At some point while installing the support bracket, it got crooked and no longer had room under the shelf. I took it down and Tera decided it would be better if I had non-pregnant help. A week goes by and I finally get my dad over (My folks are moving now). I figure 20 minutes tops. After trying to mount the microwave, it turns out that when I leveled the bracket even with the high side, I should have leveled it with the low side. Microwave back down. Strike 2. I moved the board up 1/2 in inch. Microwave goes back up. The cut out for the cord is on the wrong side (I still have the template - I followed it!!!) I'm going to call that a foul ball. microwave back up. The third support bolt is off center. Also on the wrong side. Bad template - another foul. No longer trusting the template, I measured over from the other hole on that side of the microwave and drilled another hole in the board. Did I mention that there was already a hole in the board from the old microwave? Yep, I measured over from the wrong one. Sigh. That should be a strike out, but rather than take the microwave down, I used a drill bit by hand to make a new hole (no room to use the drill. TADA

Only an hour

Check out the picture from 8/14 on flickr - it's pretty

Stuck in first gear

Tera and I were both under the weather last Friday. We've had trouble getting back into unpack mode. We are still doing unpacking, just at a slower pace. I got the old microwave out. I've been taking my time with putting the new one in because I don't want to screw it up.

Which means all meals need to be either stove, oven or grill. How do people live like this?

There's a wave in our future

We finally found a microwave we liked at a price we were willing to pay. It has all the features of the one we bought for the old house 2 years ago from Olums, for only $200 more. About $100 more than the next best we liked. It does more, but the main thing we wanted was a rectangular tray that slides back and forth so you can do 2 plates or a rectangular dish. We had no idea what a great deal that was.

We found it at Sears. The salesman in that area was tied up on the phone for at least 15 minutes after we found the one we wanted. We were fine, we just checked out the stoves (ours is 4-5 years old, doesn't do convection or a warming/second oven like the one at the old house. Another Olums special we didn't appreciate at the time. It was about $700. Stoves with those features are over $1,000!. Sears had one for about $1,150. No thank you.

The sales guy apologized about the long wait, we told him it was fine. After answering our questions, he started to ring us out. He asked is we were interested in the stove. We said it was out of our price range. He said well, there is a one day after the store closes, friends and family sale coming up. if you buy it then it would only be... does some math... $750! Awesome! So we are getting a new stove too.

Last Friday wasn't a great day.

The guy came to install the internet. That would be good, but he wasn't done before I had to leave to take the girls to a hair appointment. I waited until he was done inside and then took off. He had to finish up outside and then I would have to call the office. I got to the hair appointment and the time was wrong. Tera was supposed to be before the girls, not after and they couldn't switch.

So I came back to the house and did some unpacking and then remembered to call about the internet. The guy was busy, so he would call back in 5 minutes and I went back to work.

15 minutes later I realized it's time to leave for the hair appt. The girls aren't quite ready, so I rushed back downstairs and dragged some boxes back into the garage in case of rain. I closed the garage door as the girls came down the stairs. They were quite proud they had remembered to lock the door as I requested.

As I walked to the blazer I put my hand in my pocket - no keys. I checked all the doors to the house. Twice. From the back door I can see my keys on the hook where they belong - UNLESS I LEAVE THE HOUSE. As I peer thought the window, disgusted with myself I hear the phone ring. I tried the keypad entry even though the code given to us hasn't worked. Tera has the only other key and the only remote for the garage door. In Cortland, about 45 minutes away.

That's why I now have 3 ways besides my key to get into the house.

So I called home. Mom wasn't doing anything (just packing for her own move, yeah I feel bad)
so she came and gave us a ride to the haircut place. Of course, by then we were pretty late, so she took a walk-in.

Mom gave us a ride back to their house and I borrowed my brother's truck, because my Dad was using mine.

My ran over to the mall and did walk-in's there. The girls looked cute.

And then they left to spend a month with their father.

:(

another light day

Sunday was long and fun due to the reunion, but we didn't get much done around the house.

After a long day at work I picked up a new deadbolt and lock for the front door because we didn't have a key for the deadbolt.

I went with a keypad model (with key backup) and a keyed alike knob. Kwikset has this new feature where you can re-key a lock yourself. Pretty slick, takes about 10 seconds. The keypad allows you to lock the door from the outside with one touch, but you need a code to get in. The first time I tried it I had it jumpered wrong and it unlocked with one touch, but you needed the code to lock it :)

I also programmed a new garage remote, as only one came with the house, and figured out how to program a new number pad for the garage door opener (no code for the one that came with the house). Tomorrow I will install that and the hide a key.

Hmmm, I don't think I posted about why I'm concerned about ways into the house, That will have to be my next post.

I can't find my cordless drill (black and decker 18v). While getting new keys made, I noticed that Lowes had a combo set for only $130!!!! The drill alone would be $90. My old drill works great, but sometimes it's hard to get the battery in and out, stemming from a 2 story drop. and I can't find it. and it has a flashlight and car vacuum and a small circular saw. I already have one of those, so this will go to a friend who has the same drill.

Happy house warming to me :)

Reunion

I know where I've been the first Sunday in August my whole life. Family reunion. It's been that day for over 70 years at one of 2 state parks on Lake Ontario. As a kid it was a lot of fun. Eating and playing in the sand and the lake. Now it's a lot of fun catching up with family, eating and yes playing in the sand (I was helping my nieces and nephew so it's cool). No swimming because I can't find a suit or even another pair of shorts.

In fact I almost wish I didn't have to play at the beach so I could talk more. OK, playing with the kids isn't a "have to", but I'm an uncle.

Great day

We got internet!

We are trying plexicomm. It's supposed to be faster than Time Warner Cable, and cheaper. It uses radio from a dish. Seems to be pretty good so far, but I haven't tried video downloads yet.

We "survived" the last couple days borrowing wireless from a neighbor. It worked pretty good from one side of the deck, spotty every place else. Almost non-existent from inside. At least the weather has been good. The only table we have readily available is the outside one, so the weather has been great for us.

I started moving halloween stuff from the garage to the shed. That should help free up space in the garage. Well, my break is over back to work.

Dan

We have plates!

It took a couple days to find plates. We still haven't found the cable box.
We found (most of) our clothes the second day.

Love the house!
Out on the deck checking email.
Ahhh.

Home 2.0

Yay!!!! more details later, but we slept in the new house last night. we all found our bedding and the refrigerator stuff putt away. That's about it, everything else is still in boxes.

4 years strong!

Tera and I are celebrating the fourth anniversary of our first date Monday 7/28.

I reminded her of that the other day on the phone. Being clever I said "and it's been all.. uphill? ever since. It certainly hasn't been down hill. Sideways?"

time to fake an injury.

FINALLY!!!!!

We finally have a closing date! We close on the new Tuesday 7/29 and the old house Wednesday 7/30. Whee. All we have to do is finish packing and move.

Frustrating

So the realtor's agree that the microwave should be fixed. They don't seem to agree about the hot tub. After I sent the signed contract for the buyers to sign, they penciled in "as-is" next to the hot tub and signed it. They claim that if we don't notice they are trying to scam us for three days, it's the same as if they aren't liars and cheaters.

Tired

Another long weekend working at the new house. Painting is done in baby's and Diana's rooms. Almost done in kitchen. Tera's dad put vinyl tile in the bay window, it looks great, see flickr picture.

Tera, Bilieta and the girls did weeding, and cleaned the gutters!!!!

Then we got to enjoy a pretty awesome storm - lots of wind and lightning, but I didn't get to sit and watch for bolts. Tera said that a neighbor's tree came down.

Then my awesome in-laws drove home, the storm was fast moving, so they spent the whole 3 hours in the middle of a severe storm.

taking a break

Rachel went to 1,000 Islands with a couple of friends and one of their dads. They left Sunday. We had planned to pick her up Thursday and continue into Canada for a long weekend. Tera wasn't feeling up to a long trip though, So just Diana and I went up. We did some cruising in Doug's boat and then did a dinner cruise. We went along the Canadian border, including Rockport which is where we used to launch out boat when I was little. It's amazing how much that place has grown in the 20+ years since I saw it last.

We stayed in tents, my first time in about 15 years. It was like I remembered (except the air mattress was comfortable). There was a big storm at 4 am. We got some hard rain, but the wind and lightning stayed to our south.


I was up about 3 hours before anyone else, like always.

We spent more time on the boat, had lunch and came home.

Back to normal

Yay!! Tera's amniotic fluid is back to the normal range (it's been low since the amniocentesis). Baby is doing great. Tera is off bed rest and back to work tomorrow.

I need a nap

We spent a lot of time at the new house Saturday and Sunday.

Chris (Tera's dad) and I got the koi pond up and running (still need to clear up the water, but the pump is running down the cascade.

I mowed in the back yard (push mower on the highest setting).

Bilieta (Tera's mom) painted almost the whole time. Diana, Tera, Chris and I all took turns also. Diana's room got 2 coats of pink, The baby's room got 1 coat of blue and the kitchen got a coat of white. We also primed the wains coating in the kitchen from natural to white. Chris pointed out that a high gloss finish would match the cabinets quite well.

Tera's folks also weeded the planters along the front steps.

Very busy weekend, but the house is looking good.

In-laws

I like my in-laws. You hear so many jokes about in-laws, I thought I'd share my in-law story. They spent about 5 1/2 hours round trip to spend 8 hours painting and cleaning at the new place. And are already planning to come back next weekend.

I really like my in-laws.

Soccer baby or privacy dude.

Tera got a high tech gizmo that lets you listen to the Baby's heartbeat. After poking around to get the position right we could hear it! Then there was a loud thump and Tera exclaimed "I felt that!", it was baby's first kick!

She's on bed rest until Tuesday, but the baby doesn't seem to mind. :)

Got key?

We finally got the remote for the garage in the new house! Took a truck load over last night :)

After I threated to bag the house and get an apartment instead.

It looks like closing will be next week. Of course that is probably a lie, everything else has taken longer than predicted.

Moving whoa's

So, a condition of our offer was that we wanted to start moving stuff in before the close, since the house we are moving to was empty. We asked to start 6/30 to give ourselves a month. Our offer was accepted.
6/23 they said that we would need a letter of commitment from our bank. So, we asked for one of those. That took a week instead of the could days we were told to expect, and that was a fax instead of the mail it was supposed to be.
7/3 They got the letter and said - oh, you need insurance before you can move stuff in. insurance has to wait until Monday to send someone out to the house. A nice long weekend wasted.
7/7 The insurance company says they only cover 2 weeks of pre-possession.

I'm about ready to just get an apartment and just back out of all this crap.

And waiting....

Tera wasn't feeling well after going to work 2 days after the amnio, so she went to the doctors on the way home. He said that if anything was going to happen to the baby, it would have already happened. He was a little concerned that she hadn't replaced the fluid he drew quickly, so he put he on another 4 days bed-rest. Argh. Even though there is "probably nothing wrong" this waiting is very hard.

Moving on up

We are also moving. The new house is on a bit of a hill, not too steep, but enough to have a nice view. Looking forward to that.

and a quiet street. ahhh. no waiting for traffic to get out of the driveway.

My Blog - The Begining

I've been thinking about a blog for quite some time, but I didn't think I could find enough to say. I think recent events will take care of that. We have about 165 days until our baby is born.

Here is a video Tera took of the ultrasound. It came out better than the one I took.
Baby

We also found out that the baby looks healthy and is pretty clearly a boy.

We are thinking of naming him Peter, with a middle name of Doty.