Baby Showers - from Co-Workers

On Tuesday and Wednesday both Andrea and my co-workers threw us showers.  They were both very fun and our friends are so generous.  We have a good start toward equipping the nursery, and were also given a good start of diapers.  Apparently diapers are the main talk at baby showers and, funny enough, it is usually the guys that are talking about them....

Forest Hills Baby Shower

The gang at Forest Hills, with nephew 

Wyatt front and center.

Danielle, organizer and hostess extraordinaire

(notice the goodie bags behind her...)

Eno River State Park Shower

Most of the gang.  Karen pulled the teeth and twisted

the arms (in other words organized the event).

California Vacation

Andrea and I recently took a vacation to California.  We were in Cali from May 23 through June 1.  The main purpose of the trip was to go to our friend Marie's wedding.  We were lucky enough to get lots of time off and made a "Babymoon" out of it.  Marie lives in Berkley and the wedding was just north of there in Sonoma County, so we are talking Central/Northern California.

On Alcatraz with the Golden Gate in the background.

Free Chocolate!!

Really....

We had so much fun.  We spent four days in San Francisco, three and a half days in Yosemite National Park, and two days in wine country.  We were so relaxed and carefree it was terrible entering the working world again.  I remember the day we got back Andrea said she had a huge list of things to do and then exclaimed that she didn't even think about lists or chores while on vacation!

A romantic dinner at Rose's Cafe.

Olmsted Point, Yosemite NP.

Lower Yosemite Falls

We took a ton of pictures, 1,087 to be exact!  It will take a while to sort them but I will post more as soon as possible.  

Me, Andrea, Marie and Jeff

Andrea is such a trooper, she let me walk her all over San Francisco and she camped in Yosemite with lows at 32 degrees while 6 1/2 months pregnant.....

Now how did they know she would be there?

New Baby Picture

Andrea and I had another Dr's appointment yesterday.  It was not very fun for her because she had to drink the super sugary Diabetes test drink, get a shot, and have blood drawn all in the same appointment.  

It was super fun on the other hand because we got some face pictures.  At our last ultrasound the baby was face down and the sweet ultrasound tech could not get us a 3D face image, so she said at our 28 week appointment to try again.  So yesterday she tried again, free of charge.  Unfortunately the baby was still face down and she could not get us a 3D image but we did get some good 2D pictures.  I labeled the pictures for those of you who have trouble....

The even cooler part was that we saw the baby open and close its mouth on the ultrasound and Andrea said she saw it blink!

This is probably the best picture we got, it is just a head shot.

I liked this picture too.

Dog Days

We recently watched our friends dog while they went on a cruise.  Doc and Brody are good friends and enjoy wrestling and playing tug of war.  Doc also likes to run Brody over or jump over him.  Brody's favorite thing is chomping on Doc's neck.

They played musical crates a lot.  Doc is

bigger but belongs in the small crate

and Brody belongs in the large one.

They tired easily, as they are both out of shape.

Notice how well Brody matches the floor!

The sound is my favorite part of this video!

(Notice which dog wins....)

Belly Watch!

I know this is really what you all check the Blog for.  Here is a series of Belly Pictures.  Andrea is 6 Months and it is getting close... We are very excited!

5 Weeks

15 Weeks

17 Weeks

19 Weeks

21 Weeks

23 Weeks

24 Weeks

27 Weeks

(After typing the word "week" so many times it looks really wierd....)

Triathlon!

750 meter swim, 14 mile bike, 5 k run......

The White Lake Sprint Triathlon was AWESOME!!!

The Tri Gang (left to right):

Laura, Jon, Me, Andrea and baby, Jeremy, Heather, Walter

Andrea and I had done a triathlon in '06 and really enjoyed it, and I was able to talk some buddies into another one.  Andrea was originally planning on doing the Tri too but she has a much more important job of growing our baby right now :-)  Walter, Jeremy, Jon and I did the White Lake Sprint Triathlon on Sunday, May 4 and had a blast.

That's my beautiful Baby's Momma!

The race was in White Lake North Carolina.  It is a rural area east of Fayetteville.  White Lake is actually managed by the prestigious North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation.  It is a Carolina Bay with a sand bottom, is perfectly oval and only eight to nine feet deep at the deepest point.  It made for a great swim course.  The bike was two loops of a nice seven mile course around the lake, and the run was an out and back into a development adjacent to the lake.  

We all had a great time in and out of the race.  Some of the more memorable moments were Laura and I laughing uncontrollably and hysterically at nothing during dinner, some drunken guys trying to get into our hotel room at midnight, and the beautiful weather and scenery.

Pre-race trying to decide if the Cliff Shot will be worth it.... It was!

I love this picture!  Walter, Jeremy and I are

starting our watches while Jon is already going :-)

Our swim wave on the way to the first turn (the pyramid).

Transition to the bike, a great time for some energy goo!

Transition to the bike.

Walter and I running out of the 

transition area to start the bike.

Our group of guys did great!  We all swam 750 meters, biked 14 miles and ran 3.1 miles.  Jon finished the swim first out of all of the Novice Men, and Walter finished the run third out of all of the Novice Men.  I came in 19th overall out of 37 Novice Men.  I am really happy with my times.

The next four pictures are of us finishing and in the order that we finished.

Walter victorious!

Jon victorious!

Jason victorious!

22:25 Swim, 3:05 Transition, 45:00 Bike, 

1:46 Transition, 26:57 Run

Jeremy victorious!

The Four Triathletes!

Who is in for the next one?

October 4, 2008 all are welcome and there is plenty of time to train!

http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_detail&eventID=942

Sunday Mornings

On Sunday mornings Andrea and I attend our church, The Summit Church.  We really like this church and have a ton of friends there.  We go to the early service and during the late service Andrea watches the one-year-olds.  When I am not working I tag along with her, and despite my protests I always end up enjoying it.  

The Sunday before last was pretty crazy we had 18 one-year-olds in our room and a second room of at least 9 more!!  The kids are super cute and a lot of fun to watch.  They don't really play with each other yet, they just kind of play next to each other.  I usually play cars or toss a ball around with some of the boys, but there is always a kid that will bring up a book and request a story.

One day when I was not there the kids 

made a "train" and it was really cute!!!

One of the other fun things about watching one-year-olds at church is the contagious crying.  If the right kid starts crying it will start a chain reaction and you will have 5 adults trying to calm 6 or 7 kids that are upset.  You can always spot the sleepy ones.  They roll on the ground or rub their eyes or sputter cry and won't let you put them down no matter how much you distract them... but of course they fight a nap as hard as they can!!!  Then there is the diaper changing...  There are lots of diapers but I have actually never changed one :-)  Usually Andrea or another one of the girls takes care of those.... I don't think I have ever seen a guy in the room change a diaper........

This little girl sputter cried for a little over an hour and finally

fell asleep about 20 minutes before her mom came and got her.

A glimpse of the fun.  Check out the slide, car tower and 

table for snack time and racing cars.