My Nieces and Nephews

Talk about some good looking kids. Our nieces and nephews came to visit this weekend along with my Dad, Grandmother and Sister Alisa. We had so much fun being together. This picture was taken by our friend Jawan at the Easter Egg Hunt. I'll try to put up some more pictures when I can.

Shower Time

Chrissy has now had 3 showers. Unfortunately (and I'm being sarcastic), they've all been girl showers so I haven't been able to attend. The 1st one was with the teachers from her school. The second was in Anniston with the church she grew up in. The latest one was last week given by our Church here in town, Westminster. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from the Anniston shower, but our friend Jawan provided some from the latest shower here in Columbus.

Chrissy has so many wonderful friends.

Tara from our homegroup made the cake

There was a hole bunch of good food. Fortunately there was some left over when I came to pick her up!!!

Chrissy getting all excited about her presents

Angela (in the picture above) got Matilda some great Red Sox gear.

Cousin Ginger and Chrissy's momma came down for the festivities.

Getting some practice

Amelia modeling some of the presents
Amelia's mother Jennifer hosted the shower. We are so appreciative of friends like her.

Baby's first Bible

What's in the bag?

Winnie the Pooh!!!

My buddy Liam

Some other friends. Sara, Amelia and Louisa

Huntsville Times

We are here in Huntsville, AL for a class Chad is taking. We got into town Sunday night just in time for supper at Dreamland BBQ, yummo. I have family that live here so if course I called my cousin Steffany to see if we could hang out some this week. Steffany had been shopping at a place called Kids Market. It's like a very large 2 week long yard sale for kids clothes, toys, and other stuff. I had to check it out and get a few things for Matilda. I would have bought more but I have no clue how big Matilda will be and I don't want to buy clothes that she won't be able to wear or buy summer clothes when she will fit into them in the winter. I looked for warm 6-9 months clothing and this is what I got for $17.



Notice the camo pants, those are for Chad. He wants to get Matilda a Patriots jersey so she can wear it with camo pants just like her Daddy (it's his favorite outfit that he wears constantly, I have a hard time getting the chance to wash his jersey). When I got back to the hotel and I ran into Capt. Hacket, now she's Major Hacket, who was one of my ROTC instructors in college. It was so neat to run into her. She's here teaching a logistics class. Last night Chad worked on his fantasy baseball team and looked at Red Sox stuff for hours. Tonight he's not allowed to even get on the computer he's only allowed to take me out for supper and study and cuddle with me some.

A Baby Shower

Friday night the teachers threw me a shower and it was so nice. They really did too much. The food was great and so were the presents. I had lost my camera so I wasn't able to take any pictures at the shower ( I am hoping that I can make some copies from the people that did bring their camera ). I did find my camera yesterday so here are a few pictures.

One of the teachers, Theresa, made the cake, it was yummy. This is the top layer that I brought home, yeah for cake! Oh, the teddy bear is cake and icing also.

This is a Winnie the Pooh quilt that Julie, the other K-3 teacher, made for Matilda. Isn't it beautiful?

Here is a picture of all the presents. They were so generous they also gave me a $200 gift card. I feel so loved. I told you they did too much. Thank you to all my friends at WCS, the shower really meant a lot to me.

Chrissy's Real Answers

It was sweet of Chad to write my answers for me, but he got a few things wrong so now I will correct them.

5 Things About Me:

1. I would love to be a neat freak, but I'm not.

2. Although I do hate the lid to the toilet being left up becuase tiny particles do fly up in the air and land on my toothbrush I hate something else more. I hate it when I am in a public restroom and I see grown women not washing their hands. Why would you not wash your hands? It makes no sense to me, even most of my 3 year olds know to wash their hands.

3. Chad was right my favorite thing to do right now is lay in bed and watch Matilda move. It's just reassuring that everything is okay.

4. I do love my Snoopy pajama pants, they are very comfy.

5. I still get an Easter basket from Mom. She only puts Cadsburry Cream Eggs and a 1 lb solid chocolate easter bunny in my basket. I love to dip the chocolate bunny in crunchy peanut butter and eat it, it is so much better than a reece's cup.

6. I also love my husband very much, but I don't love making a feast for him so he can sit in his boxers and watch sports. ( I know that I did one extra but I didn't want Chad to think that I forgot him. )

5 PLace US

1. Boston- not for the Soxs or Pats but for the history
2. Hawaii- I probably wouldn't love it there because of getting a sunburn but I still want to try
3. Alaska - the Northern Lights would be awesome and I've heard that a cruise there is beautiful
4. Disney World -I have never been
5. a drive up north somewhere to see all the pretty leaves in the fall

5 Place Outside US

1. Scotland
2. France - how could Chad have forgotten that one?
3. Italy
4. Egypt
5. Spain or Germany I'm not sure

I tag Carolyn if she will blog again.

Chrissy's Turn

Chrissy says there is nothing interesting about her, so I'm going to write her blog for her. Just pretend I'm using my falsetto voice while I'm writing this. See the rules in my blog below.

5 Things about me.

1. My favorite pajama pants have Snoopy on them.

2. I used to be a tough girl until I met Chad. Now I'm a wimp that HAS to be taken care of.

3. My favorite thing to do right now is lay in bed and look at my stomach, hoping Matilda will push her hand out and say hi.

4. I have this really, really, really weird thing about toilets. The lid MUST be closed when the toilet is flushed because it is possible that a tiny particle of pee could make the 15 foot trip from the bowl, through the air, around all of my makeup and lotions and mirrors and mouthwash and deoderent and land on my toothbrush. That goes along with my worst fear of brushing my teeth with a tooth brush that has a tiny particle of pee on it.

5. I worship the ground my husband walks on. He really is God's gift to women. There is nothing I like more than making a delicious feast for my husband to enjoy while he watches his sports from the comfort of the couch in his boxers. And then follow it up with his favorite dessert, Rice Krispy Treats

5 Places US

1. Alaska (Northern Lights)
2. Boston/Martha's Vineyard
3. DC
4. Hawaii (though I think she would hate it)
5. Disney World M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E, Mickey Mouse (Donald Duck), Mickey Mouse (Donald Duck)

5 Places outside of the US

1. Scotland
2. Italy
3. Ireland
4. Germany
5. Egypt

Tag: There is no one left to tag. Though I'm sure I'll get a response from Chrissy out of this one.

We're "It"

Our friend Jawan asked us to answer a couple of questions about ourselves; 5 random/weird facts, top 5 places you want to see/want to see again in the US and outside, and tell 5 other people to do the same thing.

Here's mine (Chad's)

1. I never like being the center of attention. I don't like people knowing a lot about me. Sometimes I wonder why I write blogs about my life and my family. It totally isn't me.

2. Despite having a job that requires me to be on top of roofs and scaffolds, I have a bad fear of heights.

3. Even though I'm the manliest of men (you can ask anybody), I really like watching The Hills and the Real World.

4. I want my daughter Matilda to wear lots of cammo clothes and I've already picked her out a pair of construction boots, still looking for cowboy boots. I'm not going to do well with barbie and tea party stuff.

5. I think I'm a gracious winner, but I'm a terrible loser. When I lose, I might not throw a temper tantrum externally, but I'm probably throwing one on the inside. I also will not be able to sleep that night either.

5 Places US:

1. Fenway Park
2. Camden Yards
3. Wrigley Field
4. PETCO Park
5. Cooperstown, NY

5 Places Outside US:

This ones tough. I don't know where any baseball stadiums are outside the US.
1. Kazakhstan
2. Israel (Jesus Places)
3. Rome
4. Greece
5. Scotland

5 People: I don't know anybody that blogs that wasn't already "tagged" by Jawan other than Abbie. I guess I'll include Chrissy too.

Gone Fishin

Got to catch a big one this morning. Ate him this afternoon.

Pictures from Jacksonville

We've spent the last few days in Jacksonville. I haven't been able to take many pictures, but I did see a few things that were interesting. There is this bird (seen below) that has been hanging around my house for years. My grandmother has always wanted a picture of it. For some reason, yesterday the bird allowed me to get pretty close to him and take a bunch of pictures. I'm going to frame one of them and give it to my Grandmother. Here are a couple of them:
Maggie's new little cousin Dixie was also there this weekend. She is sweet as can be. Too bad she's going to grow up to look like Uga one day.

Your Grandmother

Matilda (or whatever we decide to name you),


We're going to bury your grandmother tomorrow. I know how bad my memory is and how I usually don't like to talk about these things, so in my moment of weakness, I wanted to tell you a little bit about her before I forget. She was a sweet lady who loved her family, especially me, her parents, and your Papa Rick. Her world seemed to revolve around us. I can remember many football practices and baseball practices that ended late at night. She was there for every one of them. I'll never forget when she and Papa Rick dropped me off at college for the first time. Papa told me that she cried the whole way home.

She loved her church and Sunday School class. When she started to loose her memory, my Dad would come home from work on a Tuesday or a Friday and find her sitting in her Sunday dress, ready to go Church. It was obvious where her thoughts were.

She loved children. I didn't know her then, but when she was in her 20's, she worked for a bus ministry that went around to poor neighborhoods to visit children on Saturdays then picked them up on Sundays to take them to church. After that, she worked in the 5th grade Sunday School class for 10 years. There is no telling how many lives she touched through those ministries. If you see a picture of her and she's smiling, she probably has a kid in her arms.

She was a huge Florida Gator fan. She and Papa went to games down in Gainesville from the time they started dating. If a game was on late, and Papa went to bed, she would still stay up to see her Gators. And it didn't matter if it was football, basketball, or thumbwrestling. If it was on, she was rooting for those Gators.

She didn't talk much, but when she did, you knew it was something worth listening to. She was a great cook. She was a servant. She was a strong worker. She loved her grand children (your cousins). And she loved you. I remember the last time I saw her smile, was when we told her I wanted to name you Matilda. I wish she could have seen you. I wouldn't have been able to get you out of her arms.

There were hundreds there tonight at her viewing, to honor her life. She was loved by so many people.

Clementine Update

Our Doctor noticed that Clementine (we changed her name again) had some calcium deposites in her heart. It was a possible indicator of downs syndrome. We went to a specialist who told us that she had none of the other general indicators. Basically she went from 1/600 chance of having a chromosone disease (normal for any baby) to about 1/300 chance. We're still praying for her health, and also praying she looks more like her Momma than her Daddy. The other thing that came from the visit was we got some more pictures.

Aint she cute?

New Orleans, Days 2-5

Our New Orleans trip is almost over and I've been busy, mostly just enjoying the city. I haven't had time to write anything down over the last few days. Chrissy has been spending her days in the hotel, mainly because she doesn't like being out in a city she doesn't know by herself and also because it has been cold and windy. I've been in class during the day and spending my evenings touring the city.

Monday, we took a stroll down Decatur Street along the Mississippi River and ran into Margaritaville.
I was so excited. I'm not a huge Jimmy Buffet fan, but I thought it would be really cool to get a Cheeseburger in Paradise. Guess What....

I like mine with ketchup and mustard, heinz 57 and french fried potatos. Big kosher pickle and a cold diet coke. Little different from Jimmy but good food all the same.

Tuesday was more of the same thing. We did some walking around and found a nice restaurant for supper. We also went to Jackson Square. It was a beautiful garden with a Castle-like Catholic church in the background.

I read that people used to be hung or burned at the stake at this very location. Pretty cool huh?

Wednesday, we went to a New Orleans Hornets basketball game. That was a lot of fun. Despite getting really cheap seats, we had a great view.

I know it doesn't look that good from the picture, but we were on the front row of the upper deck and could see everything really well. I'm not a huge basketball follower; mainly because Chrissy said she needed a break between football, baseball and basketball season so she made me pick one to drop. She gets a little tired of nothing but sports almost every night. Anyways, I'm not a big basketball follower, but I'd heard that NO's point gaurd, Chris Paul is one of the best in the game. I wasn't disappointed. You could tell he was good when halfway through the 3rd quarter, Chrissy noticed he only had 6 points and was shocked. She thought he would have been leading the team in points. I explained that despite scoring little, he is a huge part of the game because of the way he "quarterbacks" the offense and creates easy baskets for his teammates. Kevin Durant of the Seattle Supersonics, a rookie out of Texas was not that impressive. He took way too many bad shots and turned the ball over a bunch too. I know nobody cares about basketball, but I like it and I wanted to write about it. So there's my sports rant for the week.

I asked 2 different hotel front desks' (the one where we're staying and the one where my class is being held) if it was safe to walk to the basketball arena. They both said it would be fine. I was willing to take their advice, but during dinner, right before we were going to leave for the game, I asked a policeman the same question. His response was that there was a good chance I wouldn't make it to the game with my wallet, or tickets. Since I've got a pregnant wife, and I like my wallet, I decided to fork out the $10 for the 1.5 mile trip to the arena. Problem was, after the game, there were no taxis around. I happened to overhear a couple of men saying they were going to a hotel close to ours. Assuming safety in numbers, we tagged along with them back to the French Quarter, wallet and purse still intact. Here are a couple more pictures from the game:

Me and My Sweetheart

Hugo the Hornet

Sadly, Hugo never made it to the upper deck but he did point at me as if to say in hornet language, whats up.

This evening (Thursday, day 5) we went to Cafe Dumonde and had some delicious french donuts with hot chocolate. Although it has been good, I was a little tired of the cajun/seafood so we found a nice little Italian restaurant and shared a pizza. Not too much siteseeing tonight, but a relaxing and enjoyable evening just the same. We'll be leaving tomorrow afternoon, so I'm not sure if we'll get to do much else.

Everyone always told me that New Orleans is a dirty city. I don't agree. They wash their streets all the time. This is how I'd rate the city overall:

Kid Friendly: D- DO NOT EVER take a child to Bourbon Street; EVER.

Pregnant Women Friendly: F Its hard when you have to use the bathroom every 10 minutes and there aren't many bathrooms around.

Cost Effective: C+ You can find a hotel for a decent rate. You can also find food at a decent price, but you just have to look for it. Parking (even at the hotel) is expensive, but if you take a taxi from the airport and walk everywhere, you're good to go.

Accessibility: A+ I never once thought that I wished I had a car; except when I got out of the basketball arena. Pretty much everything I would have wanted to see was in walking distance. The trolly or taxi took me everywhere else I needed to go.

Safety: C (You just need to know where to go)

Things to Do: A Basketball, the Aquarium, the Zoo, and just walking around is enough to keep you busy for 4-5 days. I'm excited about possibly going to the museum tomorrow also. I think one of the coolest things we saw was a small blues band playing on the street. There was a tuba, drums, couple of trumbones and a couple of trumpets. They were excellent. There always seems to be things to do or see in the French Quarter.

Food: A- The food was really good, if you like cajun and seafood. I know Chrissy was disappointed with a couple of the restaurants, but for the most part, they were great.

The People: A I would call the people I saw interesting to say the least. Everyone was really nice to us though. People watching was entertainment in itself.

I've had fun, but I miss my bed and I miss my dog. If we have time to go, I'll put some pictures up from the museum.

Until next time.

Chrissy's Take on New Orleans

I can't say that New Orleans has been my favorite place to visit. I would much rather be in Savannah, but now I can say that I have been here and walked down Bourbon Street. Like any big city things here are overpriced ( even Krystal burgers ), there are almost no public bathrooms and to use one you need to purchase something and receive a token, and it smells like puke every now and then. The bathroom thing normally isn't so bad but being pregnant it's been hard on me. Bourbon Street is a paradox to me. It's loaded with adult only places that have pictures everywhere with girls and some guys in the buff ( I can't believe that parents take their children down this road ) and then right next to it is a very nice restaurant where there is a dress code and the steaks are $30-$50. I would think that the nice places to eat would be on a diferent road, but that's just me. When we went to Wilmington, NC last year I had a hard time finding hush puppies, now in New Orleans I am having a hard time finding chicken. Hard to believe isn't it? Who doesn't have chicken on the menu? I guess this is just a seafood place. Good for Chad, bad for Chrissy. Thankfully we have found a few places that are not crazy expensive and have chicken. One place we went to the ranch dressing had seafood seasoning added to it which was gross and the chicken wasn't very good, but the rest of places we have found have been good. Another thing that's different about big cities like this is that they have no continental breakfast instead they have a breakfast buffet that cost at least $10 a person. Who needs a breakfast that big five days in a row? Definitely not me, I'd gain 20 lbs. Actually, I don't think that we had this problem in Savannah or San Fransisco, maybe it's just a New Orleans thing. Now that I've pointed out some of the negatives I should tell you about the nice things here. As you saw from Chad's last post we went to the zoo Sunday and it was great, don't waste your money on the aquarium though. They have a beautiful park here and some lovely older homes in the Garden District. Also everyone seems very nice. The only problem we've had is when we went o Walgreen's to buy some contact solution. Apparently we looked like criminals ( I was wearing a big sweatshirt and a large jacket ) so a cop followed us all around the store.

Here's a picture of a pretty church at Jax Square.

Here is a statue of Andrew Jackson.Tomorrow we are hoping to get a chance to go to the a WWII Museum. They are showing a special exhibit called When Baseball Went to War, you know Chad is pumped about that.

I miss my class. Jawan let me know how they are doing.

New Orleans, Day 1 (Sunday)

We're in New Orleans this week because I have a class for work. We originally were staying at the Hilton Hotel on St. Charles Street, and we would have had to pay for internet service, so that is why I haven't written until now. Being the cheap scape that I am, we've moved to a different hotel with free internet and free breakfast. Don't worry though, it is still nice and still in a good area. I'm only going to blog about our first day because I'm tired and I want to go to bed. We've had a lot of fun so far and really like New Orleans.

We arrived at our hotel early Sunday and decided to go check out the sites. There was a worker at a local restaurant that was about to start washing the street when we walked by. Unfortunately when he turned on the water the hose was pointed directly at us. And it wasn't one of those wussy garden hoses. It was a fireman-style hose. It soaked the back of our legs and feet. It was already really cold outside, and that just made it worse. Well, we found our first New Orleans style restaurant on Bourbon. It was called Krystals. They have these neat little miniature hamburgers, and Krystal Chiks. Great stuff. After warming up, we decided take in more of the sites. First stop was the New Orleans Zoo Chrissy always complains how we don't see her family enough, so I figured when we were close to some of them, we might as well stop by for a visit. Yes, I did use that joke last time we went to the zoo. I just wanted to prove to Chrissy that it is still funny. I just giggled. Told you so Chrissygirl.

Don't know why, but this handsome fellow kind of reminded me of my Dad.

You see the little monkey in the right corner? She was sleeping in a little bucket. The monkey hanging from the ropes decided he wanted to go visit. He went up to her and started headbutting her. When he realized she wasn't getting up, he pulled the bucket out from under her.

He took the bucket back up to his little resting spot.

The monkey sitting in the bucket was happy, but the previous owner wasn't too pleased. It kind of reminded me of an old married company fighting over the covers. Found a Jaguar and made me think about Jacksonville. I hate that my Pats had to beat them, but they had a great season.

Chrissy doing her best Jaguar impression. ROAR!!!!

She told me she'd do the Jaguar pose in return for me showing you the worlds ugliest parrot.

Go Gators

After the zoo, we took the trolley back into town and went to the aquarium.

The trolley kind of reminded me of San Francisco. Look Andrew its a lobster!!!
Chrissy petting a sting ray.

More to come!!! Hopefully tomorrow.

Our Other Daughter

With Matilda on the way, I haven't written much about our other daughter.

She just keeps getting sweeter and sweeter.
Her 2 favorite things to do are go for rides in the car and cuddle.She already loves her little sister.