Another Pregnancy Update

Yesterday marked the six week mark until Micah's due date! We're having our last baby shower this Sunday and after that we'll get BabyPrep2007 into high gear. Things have been going really well and we're learning so much at our birthing class. It is just amazing how knowledge is power and how much most women don't know going into the birthing process. Thankfully, we're in a great class and feel like we both know all the options on the table and what they mean.


Since we have a one bedroom apartment right now, space is at a premium. Thanks to Ikea, we bought a smaller version of our dresser and it will also serve as a changing table. It has a thing on top that goes across the back and on the sides. We'll buy a changing pad and 'viola!' you have a dresser/changing table. and its at the perfect height. So here's a pic of me assembling it last night. With all of the furniture that I've put together, I could go into business assembling Ikea furniture. This makes 2 dressers, 2 nightstands, one book case, one desk, one coffee table, one bed, and one microwave table.



A lot of you have been asking for another 'prego-pic'. Here we are at 34 weeks.


HOLY COW!!!! In case you didn't catch it, here she was in August. And this is the exact same type of shirt that we took the latest one in. She couldn't find the exact same shirt, but she had it in a few different colors.

Babymooning in Boston- Day 2

Sorry for the gap, but I'm in the middle of a winterim class, as well as getting ready for two camps and my last semester. then the pics on this post didn't want to cooperate. but i finally gave up trying to fix them and just finished the post that I actually started about two weeks ago.

For those of you just on the edge of your seats anticipating the second day of our Babymoon in Boston, here's the thrilling conclusion!

Shopping!

For those of you who doubt that I let Leah decide what we do, I'd like to let you know that we went to the downtown crossings to 'shop'. Thankfully, Leah's definition of shopping doesn't always involve actually buying things and spending money. She is mostly content to just look at things and like them from a distance. So in the morning after checking out of the hotel, we headed up to some shops to do some 'shopping'.

We made our way into Filenes only to notice that they were going out of business in 4 days. We walked through empty displays and shelves only to walk into a room of pandamonium. Almost everything was 80% off so we poked around to see what was left. We did find a few shirts and shorts, and here are a few more things that you could have practically stolen from them.







this lovely lighting fixture could be yours for only $3,000, or a special of two for $6,000. Seriously, they were selling the fixtures.















then there was this lovely coat that was marked down 70% ! Now its only $4,045.00!!! Buy now before its too late!









now these next few pics just won't cooperate, so you'll have to risk getting a stiff neck to look at them. After doing some shopping we roamed the streets of Boston, running across a few interesting landmarks. Here is the birthplace of Benjamin Franklin:









Interesting that they now have a Sir Speedy on the grounds. It may be a tribute to his reputation with the ladies...











One thing I love about Boston is its history in the middle of the modern world. You definintely don't see this here in the L.A. area. Here is the old South Meeting house where Benji Frankline (Sir Speedy) was baptized.










Here is a Sir Speedy statue infront of an old city hall. Now what do you do with an old city hall in Boston? You surely can't tear it down. You could probably turn it into a historical spot, but there are plenty of those. The obvious decision is to...













...turn it into a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse! That's right, you can dine on a fine, overpriced piece of meat in a building older than the state of California!

Babymooning in Boston

Almost everyone that we have talked to has said that before the baby comes, we should take a babymoon. We normally just look back at them and laugh because we can't afford such a trip or find the time. But before we came home we decided to make reservations for an evening in Boston, figuring that was the closest thing we could get. So the past two days we have been in Boston, touring Fenway Park, walking around Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, and exploring the city by foot. Fortunately for all of you, I took my camera with me and snapped away. Here's our trip!

Fenway Park


Is there any other place that we could have started? The Red Sox brought us together (in the sovereignty of God of course), or at least gave me an excuse to talk to her and get to know her. So the first thing we did was go walk around Fenway, eat lunch at the Cask 'n Flagon, perused the souvenir shops, and took a tour of Fenway. It had been about six years since I've been inside, since that's how long I've been in California.


We ate at the Cask 'n Flagon, which is one of the best places to watch a game nationally. The restaurant is right behind the Green Monster (locals read Montstah) on Lansdown St. If you ever watch a game, just look to the left of the coke bottles and above the Bud Light billboard for a sign for the place. It'd be nice to go down and watch a game there, because it's a great atmosphere and you always get a better view of what is going on by watching the TV. That is, if I can't get a ticket in.


Then there is a big billboard about some Asian guy that the team apparently signed. They like him so much that they put up a billboard of the guy. I wonder why I haven't heard anything about this guy? They have talked about him on the radio or at least on a red sox website or something.

Touring Fenway
After lunch we toured Fenway. The guy took us up on the roof in right field where the new seats are and to the new Budweiser Pavilion seats. The tour guide was great about telling the history of the park and its metamorphasis over the years. he told great stories of how things came to be as they are and little things that you normally wouldn't hear.


Not a lovely day for a picture, but it'll do.

If you look to the seats behind center field, you'll notice that there are none. That is because they took them out to install a rain shield. If not this winter, then next winter they will be putting in a new bar or restaraunt underneath them.






That has been one big improvement in the park since I was there last. The new ownership has done a great job of improving on what is already there. The place is a lot more presentable and they are going to continue to do so. This winter they are adding more luxury boxes that will go for around $250,000 a year if I remember correctly. that should help pay for that Matsuzaka guy.



Another cool thing was that he talked a lot about the Yawkey's role in the life of the Red Sox and the stadium. Here's one tid bit: If you look closely at the white verticle lines on the scoreboard, you'll notice that the one under the "American League" and the one to the left of that are not solid lines. This is because the Yawkeys wanted to take a subtle way to keep themselves a part of the stadium. If you can look closely, you'll notice that they are Morse Code. The one of the left is Mr Yawkey's initials in Morse Code and the one to the right is Mrs. Yawkey's initials. And if you notice that the top of Mrs Yawkey's initials read RIP across. A cool little tid bit for ya.

Well, that's our Fenway Tour. I'll write later about Faneuil Hall, and the rest of the wanderings through America's favorite old city: Beantown.

Incredible Power of God's Creation

Saw this picture online. amazing power. here are a few comments that were left under the pic:

"I love wildlife but cant watch this programme its so bloodthirsty and sad. Why do they concentrate on the unpleasant aspects of nature?"

"Well I for one have got fed up with wildlife programmes, however long it takes to film them. They always end up with something eating something else."

"People who are offended by nature have to understand that this is how the animal world is. Something is ALWAYS eating something else, and the animal world is an unpleasant place. Period. The law of the jungle dictates that everything gets eaten at some point."

Cousins Pics

This is the first of many cousins pictures where one of them is on 'the outside'. Now I realize that the parent of this 'runt' is already talking smack about how he will be able to beat up our child, as if size has anything to do with it. What she doesn't know is that our child will be raised watching a loop of Rocky V and will have the mentality of Rocky to Liam's 'Ivan Drago'. Where Micah lacks in size and brawn he will thrive in speed, focus, and wits. While he may not have the size, he will be crawling circles around a clumsy and stumbling Niam.

And as is already clearly evident, Micah is able to lure Niam in, let him relax and lower his guard. Micah will be like a sting ray that buries itself below a small amount of dirt, waiting for some unknowing prey to be lured in and then... BAM! he'll strike and gain the upperhand. What Niam doesn't realize is that Micah is doing this even now. And yes, he could reach out through the porthole that is the belly button and exact his dominance upon lesser prey, but alas it is not his time to reveal such skills and abilities for such domination.

Prego Pics

Here are some prego pics that we've been looking to add. The one of just leah is the most current. She's about 4 months (out of ten) now.

Updated Picture!

Here's a picture of the progress so far. You can see that she's showing just a little. More updates to come...

Stay Classy San Diego- pics to come!

This past weekend the wife and I had our real first vacation since our honeymoon and we went down to San Diego for the weekend. We stayed at a place called Humphrey's that was designed to look like Hawaii. It was a really beautiful place. the pool area was great, a heated pool surrounded by palm trees and tropical flowers, with a nice 12 person hot tub off to the side. Then there was a little bar that you could order drinks from and a phone to order food out to the pool. We spent each night relaxing in the hot tub, broken up by time in the heated pool to cool down.



After arriving we went to downtown San Diego and walked around a shopping area and dined on some Mongolian BBQ. We barely made it alive, since Leah kept telling me to go the wrong way on a one way street. (Side note: never try to find a parking spot in San Diego. They are all controlled by the people who own the parking structures that make you pay $10 to park for just dinner. I know the people that own them are parking their cars and taking up every single spot on the streets.)

On Saturday we went to the San Diego Zoo.

Before we left for the weekend, it looked like it was going to rain, and that morning everyone was saying it was going to rain, but ended up having a great day. It was a little cool, but that was good because we did a lot of walking. We started by riding around the park on a bus, taking in the whole zoo. First of all, its huge. We walked all around and still didn't really see everything. Second of all, they have some great displays and set ups.

We started by seeing the Koalas (which are not bears, but marsupials). There were some tree kangaroos there too that more walked around than hop, and they were the size of Koalas. From there we walked down to some monkey displays and then saw the Pandas.



they had just had a baby in the last year, and had the momma and daddy separated and the babby with the momma. they were really beautiful animals and the baby just hung out in the tree.

Before lunch we also saw the

polar bears, lions, ibex, leopards,

a black panther,

zebras (they tell which one is which by the print around their butts),

giraffes,

and brown bears.


We saw these little guys called a dorcus something and Leah thought they were really cute. this is her doing her sign language for 'cute'.
We ate lunch on this patio that overlooked a lot of the park and hung over the panda pen. It was such a great view up there. After lunch we headed to the monkey section of the zoo. We hung out and watched the apes for awhile. they were great! There was a young ape that kept messing around and chasing what seemed to be the mother. they kept flying all around trees, over hills and around the other apes. There was this huge silver back ape that was definitely in charge. One time he charged a couple of the apes and cleared them out and then came charging up to the glass where Leah and I were standing and stopped right on the other side. it was really scary because you felt like if he wanted to, he could just break right through and break us in half.






then there was this other ape that seemed to be the reject of the group. he was sitting in front of us for a little while, staring at me, looking at Leah, and then started to get up and walk away. Before he got up, i saw him pick up a bunch of pieces of his own fecal matter and walked over to the other side of the viewing area. There he progressed to rolling up such pieces and began to consume them. it was so gross. we were joking around that the other apes were going over to him as an intervention, "Hey man, what are you doing?! You're making a fool of yourself! Get a hold of yourself, man! You're making us look bad." Then he walked up the hill, grabbed some more poop, and walked back down and kept on eating them.

We took off after sitting and watching the apes for awhile and watched some smaller monkeys for awhile. There were these walkways in the air so you could look down on the monkeys and we sat up there and watched them clean each other and pick at themelves. It was really neat to see them look things over and pick at things with their little fingers. so human like. of course not one of them said hi to me or even waved, so there are still quite a few differences.



we finished the day off looking at the reptiles and the petting zoo. they had a bunch of suffolks and a couple southdowns in the petting zoo that were not very friendly. the only animals that were really friendly were the stupid goats, giving sheep a bad name and making people think they like goats. they needed to get some hampshire sheep in there, to make the group better looking and more friendly.

After leaving the zoo we drove through the rest of Balboa park and want to go back there sometime. they have some great huge, old buildings and its just a great place to walk through. We then headed up to Sunset Cliffs to watch the sunset over the ocean. It was a little cloudy right on the horizon, so we couldn't see the sun go all the way down, but it was still a great sunset.






On Sunday we ordered room service for breakfast, packed, played a few games of croquet, which Leah won 3 games to 2. Then we took off to La Holla (pronounced Hoya for you non spanish speaking people). We walked up the coast after practically having to park in Mexico, and saw some seals up on the beach. Apparently at least one of them was pregnant and was ready to give birth, so they weren't letting people near them on the beach. We walked up to this place called 'La Holla Caves' and paid $5 to walk down into it and see the only cave that could be accessed from land. These were a series of six caves that the water had created by pounding against the cliff. We were expecting a little more than about 200 steps down to see a big hole in the rock. rip off. they wanted us to pay $4 each, but I only had $5 on me. they made it seem like you could walk through these cool caves, but you could only walk down and stand on this little deck built in the opening.

Finally, we headed up north, only after returning back to the hotel after discovering that Leah had left her pillow in the room. We got home safe and sound that evening, and had to hit the books and get back to work right away. the weekend was very relaxing and we're looking forward to our next chance to get away!