An actual "blog"

I thought I would just write something. I realized that I haven't been posting as much as I hoped I would when I started this blog. I think that's because I wanted this to be mainly about the pictures and I figured I'd get less interest if there's all this crap to read through to get to the pictures. Well screw it...there've been many times where I wanted to share a story but hesitated because I didn't have a picture to accompany it. Too bad.

Update on Lisa...the best I can say is it's been "up and down". We had a great Thanksgiving (pictures coming as soon as I get the film developed) and Lisa felt pretty good the entire day. Friday wasn't as good...Saturday a little worse...and Sunday was just bad. I was wondering if it was because she wasn't at work and didn't have other stuff to keep her occupied but whatever it was, Sunday was a bad day. Thanks to a couple of timely phone calls from friends and family, I think she was feeling better by Sunday night. Monday went pretty well. She came home from work and declared, "I'm hungry", which I hear 3-6 times a day. For whatever reason, the babies wanted Mexican so we hopped into the car and went to our local Mexican restaurant.

In other news...the temperature is up a little. It has been COOLLD this November. We hit -10.1 Sunday morning with a high of 3 degrees. But it snowed finally Monday morning...just a little. With the clouds and precip, the temps jumped up into the upper teens. It felt like spring, it was soo nice and warm.

It was funny driving home this morning in the snow, I was having a hard time determining where the road started and stopped. I was focused so hard on the road I nearly missed 3 adult moose RUNNING toward me about 15 feet off the road like they just robbed a bank. I got a good laugh out of it after I changed my shorts.

That's all I have for now. I'm working through Thursday morning...hoping to finally buy a snowboard and go out for the first time this season. I'll try to limit these posts and keep it interesting.

Thanksgiving pics and updated Lisa photos coming in the next couple of days.

Remembering the moose

I have a sad story to share. I was working night shifts this past weekend and one night a momma and a baby moose stopped by the office to say hello. Lisa R. and I watched the two tag-team the shrubs and then lay down next to each other in the snow and take a long nap. It was a very sweet moment. It's especially nice when the moose come around the house or the office because we usually see them on the side of the road as we drive by at 40 mph and we don't get to observe them close up and personal like that.

Well...a day later I was on my way to work and it appeared that the baby had been hit by a car and had been killed just a hundred yards or so from the office. It was really sad. Luckily I didn't see the mom anywhere when I drove by but I was still a bit heartbroken thinking about the two of them just 24 hours earlier laying down side by side in the snow.

So...I thought I would go through some of our pictures and find some to remember the good times. At last count, Lisa and I have seen over 250 moose this year and have loved every one of them.




Twins

Growing....

Mom and babies are doing great. Lisa has been feeling better since she started the anti-nausea pills. We have our next appointment December 5 and can't wait to get more pictures of the little ones. Until then, here's a picture of Lisa and her growing pouch.

Thanks for all the emails and phone calls we've been getting. It is extremely nice to get all this support. I don't know if the news has even set in yet. We're still kind of taking it easy. So far, I don't think we've made many changes in our lifestyle except that I'm working out more. I realized that after the twins are born, I won't have the time to go to the gym anymore so I better lose all the weight I can right now. Otherwise we haven't made any purchases or started changing the office into the nursery although I'm going to start moving stuff soon.

If you're wondering about our winter here...it is really kicking our butts this year. November has been COLD!!!! After our decent snowfall in late October, it's been clear but cold. The low at the house so far has been -0.2 degrees but almost every night this month has been in the single digits. To make it worse, now we have some wind. The last two days have been really windy with the high temperature only reaching 12 degrees. That puts the wind chill around -10. It could be worse...the area about 20 miles to the north of us is having wind funnelled through the mountains so they're getting winds higher than 60 mph with a high temperature during the afternoon in the lower teens. No thank you.

You can always check the temperature at our house on the Anchorage Mesonet. Our house is "Dimond and Minnesota".

Drop us an email or give us a call. We always love to hear from you.

Baby on Board

We are expecting!!! Most of you know that we are expecting our first child in early June of 2007. I finally hooked up the scanner so I could share our first ultrasound pictures.



That's our dot! Isn't it cute?! We were a little surprized to find out that we were going to have a baby but we weren't not trying so we weren't completely shocked.

Next step was yesterday...we went in for our first scheduled appointment on Friday the 3rd. Lisa beat me into the exam room for the ultrasound (I was in the bathroom of course). As soon as I walked in the door, the doctor says "oh good, you're here. Do twins run in the family?" The question caught us off guard but we thought about it for a second and politely answered...still not knowing he was about to drop this bomb. "Well, you're having twins"!!!!!!! We were, and still are, SHOCKED!

So here's the cool part. Our hospital just received a new 3-D Ultrasound machine so we were able to see some very special images of our little babies.

The rest of the appointment went great. All the bloodwork is perfect and the only "abnormality" was Lisa's hormone levels were through the roof...well now we know why, which also explains why Lisa has been SO sick the last couple of weeks. The doctor prescribed some anti-nausea medicine to help Lisa out and she's been feeling better today.

As for whether or not twins run in the family, apparently that is irrelevant. Later during the ultrasound the doc said that they are going to be identical twins. He can tell because they are sharing the same placenta so the egg split at sometime early in the pregnancy. I've been doing some reading and it appears that fraternal twins are hereditary or as a result of fertility drugs, identical twins are a statistical anomaly...I mean a blessing from God!

We still don't know the sex, which will be the same, and shouldn't be able to tell for another 8 weeks or so. All of our efforts are being doubled...actually right now that just means we have to double the naming process. I'll post a link to a website soon so you can see what names we're thinking about and you can give us some feedback.

Otherwise mom and babies are great. The babies even were dancing for us during the 3-d portion of the ultrasound and we were able to hear each babies heartbeat.

We are extremely excited...shocked...nervous so keep us in your prayers. I'll start posting some before pictures so you can keep up with how mom's wasteline is evolving too. HA