Rocktober

Remember how we were hoping that life would slow down once we got done vacationing and everything? Well, it only seems to have gotten busier and busier. Usually around the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas), our calendars are chock-full of events and things to do almost every night - but seriously? September and October too?

Here’s just a little bit of what’s been going on:

(By Jen) – My friend Ali made (and sent out) THE cutest baby shower invitations for my shower last week for all my non-affiliated church friends/family. She is so awesomely creative! I hope someday I can be as creative as her when it comes time for HER baby shower. I was going to take pictures of the invites and post them, but she already beat me to it and blogged and posted pictures on her site - and again, she is much better at picture taking than me, so click here to visit the post on her blog and see pictures! I KNOW you will love them! ----- Bunco is back in full swing again. We took a break over the summer, but we commenced to start again last month. It’s a lot of fun and I enjoy my night out with the girls SO much!

(By Greg) - Let the studying begin! I got my CFA books in the mail the last week of September and I have created a schedule to get through the 3100+ pages of reading by December 31st! Halfway through October, I am still on track. It’s nice when days are slow at work, because I can read on the job, which allows me more time to hang out with Jen during the evenings and stay caught up on my reading! ----- As some of you may know, the Rockies made it to the post-season again (Rocktober!) this year! My friend and I got tickets to Game 3 and we were extremely excited! The game was supposed to be on Saturday night, but it was freezing, there was drizzling rain, there was still snow on the ground, and the temperature was in the teens; therefore, they postponed the game until Sunday night at 8:00 PM MST! First pitch temperature was 31 degrees (the 2nd coldest game in Coors Field History) and we’re certain it was in the high-teens by the end of the game. The game didn’t get over until 12:15 AM, which means I didn’t get home and in bed until 1:45 AM! It was an awesome experience, and although it was freezing, I’d do it again in a heartbeat! Also, I got one of those cool looking “Rocktober” towels that you see the fans waving around during the games! =)

It was fun this past week...... we got to go with Brian and Becca to look at a potential first house for them! It’s the cutest little house and it’s even kinda close to us too! It brought back some fun memories of when we went and built our first house. =) ----- We went to a wedding this past weekend. A friend of Brian’s (who has become our friend too) got married on one of the nastiest days we’ve had this fall. It was a beautiful wedding though and we had a lot of fun. The weather didn’t seem to bother anyone. ----- Coming up next week, we have our first “Childbirth prep,” (a.k.a. “Lamaze class”) to attend. We’ve been told it’s both worth our time and not worth our time. But knowing how we like to be prepared for everything, we’re going. ;) Should be interesting! ----- In our spare time we keep buying things here and there for Noah. Some necessities, some fun things. His room is full of all kinds of fun stuff! This is all just too exciting!

SOLD!

Yay! We finally sold the Trailblazer! This was something we’ve been wanting to do since last summer, but for some reason never got around to doing it. So this summer, back in July, we posted an ad on Auto Trader and hadn’t had one single call on it...... until the week before last. It’s not like we were in any huge hurry to get it sold, but once you know you are ready for a new car and start looking at new ones to replace it, you kinda get excited and just want to get it off your hands, ya know? So we said our goodbyes last Tuesday morning – we are officially now back to being a 2-car family again. We don’t plan to get our next vehicle until spring/summer of 2010 because with winter raring its ugly head at us, we’d rather buy a car AFTER all the snow and ice has melted off the roads. ;)

It was a great car and we LOVED having it, but we’re sure we’ll love our NEW car even better! Gotta love that new car smell. =)

Now...... off to do our research on some of the vehicles we already have picked out...... can’t wait to reveal our final choice!!!!!

Name That Baby!

Well.... we have to admit, this was one of THE most difficult things we have ever had to do in our life. We really thought that since we had officially picked out a girl's name, that that was kinda a sign that that's what we were having. Plus, there were really NO boy names out there that we even remotely liked at all. We even said to ourselves, "well, if it turns out to be a boy, we'll just have to get ready for one of the biggest challenges ever!" Challenge extended - challenge accepted - challenge overcome. After having read many books, looked on many websites, consulting with friends and family, and staying awake many hours and agonizing over what to call our son, we finally came up with a name that we both love.

Meet Noah Alexander!

We chose this name for many reasons. The meaning of the name doesn’t really mean anything significant to us, but we figured that he DID need a short first name since his last name was so long. We also figured that he needed a "normal" first name since his last name isn't something you commonly hear every day. The only name we kept running back to was Noah - we had dreams about him being called that, jokingly called him that while picking out names, and even prayed for clear guidance for a name. Noah it is! We chose the middle name because that's Jen's Grandpa's middle name. We desperately wanted any name we picked out (for boy or girl, first or middle name) to have someone from the family's name in it. So after writing down both sides of the family (and definitely vetoing a few), Alexander seemed to be a perfect fit and flowed the best. Hopefully he will make his great-grandpa very proud! So...... in the future, when/if we get pregnant again, we hope it’s a girl only because we already have the name picked out and we won’t have to go through all this again. If not...... we get to go through this all over again! ;)

What a wonderful gift we have been given! We feel so blessed and really are in awe with the plan God has for our life together and the life of our son. Our lives have truly been enriched and blessed beyond measure lately, and we just can't put in to words all the emotion and excitement we are going through.

6.5 months along! Getting a little bit bigger now!

Random Pictures

So it snowed yesterday AND today here in Colorado, and yesterday wasn’t even Fall yet!!!! We sure weren’t very excited about it, but we know there are quite a few of you crazy people out there who “just absolutely love it!”

We haven’t really had anything TOO exciting to blog about lately, so we’ll just show you some of the random pictures we’ve taken within the month or so.

Referring back to our old post here about how badly our last name can be butchered, here is another example..... Greg’s birthday cake. This was written on the side of the box. Ha ha! NOW, can we change our last name to something else?


Jen bought these for Casey and Kobe because they were just TOO cute to pass up. She figures if humans can eat animal crackers, animals can eat people crackers! =)

What do you think of Greg’s new look?

Here friends, is what we like to call “The Ugliest Car in the World.” People ought to be ashamed to be seen in one of these. =) Can we get an amen?

Just can’t get enough of each other..... =)

Which of us is pregnant? Definitely more of these types of pics to come...... =)

Here we’re at Biaggi’s “rehearsal luncheon-ing.” So cute. =) All 3 of us. =)

Our Babymoon in California

We’re sure most of you already know what a babymoon is, but for those of you who don’t, here is the gist of it: it’s a pre-baby vacation for expecting parents – for the couple to have one last hurrah. Even though this technically won’t be our last vacation (seeing as how we’ve already planned a couple of vacations for next year), we still enjoyed every minute together without worrying/wondering one last time about what was happening back at home with the baby.

Without boring you with all the little details, here is a very quick rundown of our vacation. We had such a blast and didn’t want to come home. In fact, we even lightly approached the subject of finding jobs in the L.A. area! But we digress..... we flew in late last Friday afternoon. By the time we got there, we didn’t have time to do much except get our rental car, eat a bite of dinner, play a quick game, and head to bed. Saturday, we got up early, decided to skip having a posh breakfast in Beverly Hills so we could quickly get on the Pacific Coast Highway in our convertible to see as many of the sights as we could. We drove way up past Malibu, but wound up coming back and spending most of our time in Malibu. We had lunch at the famous Paradise Cove Café, and later that night, had dinner at our favorite (and also famous) In-N-Out! =) Sunday morning, we headed out to an orchard and went raspberry and apple picking. We picked so many raspberries that Grandpa made us some homemade jam to take home. It was divine! We also had some mini apple cider donuts that they make fresh right there. We felt like we were in heaven! After all that hard work, we picnicked later that afternoon out at a different orchard. We were having a grand old time until fire trucks started racing by, and as we looked up, we realized another fire was starting just over the hill from where we were. As we were packing up, it was getting bigger, and as we left the parking lot, ash rained down on the car. Obviously we made it out in time. ;) Monday was our day at Disneyland. We had THE best time at “the happiest place on earth” even though that day was a record high in the heat wave that they were having. We felt very blessed because it was apparently a slow day for Disney, so we got on pretty much every ride right away. We got there as the park opened and stayed for the fireworks show at the end of the night. Such a fun and magical day. Tuesday we spent the day in San Diego. We had never been there before, so we thought it would be fun to tour the city and see what it was all about. We definitely could see ourselves going back there again someday. Wednesday was our last day there. We slept in and then raced to Seal Beach for a couple of hours so we could one last time feel the sand between our toes and to see/hear/smell the ocean. It was definitely no fun to have to go home. =( As we like to say, “If you’re lucky enough to be at the beach, you’re lucky enough!”

Here are a few pics from our vaca. We won’t bore you with all 200+ of them!








As a fun side note..... we went on our first double date with Brian and Becca as married couples to a Sky Sox game (and dessert afterwards) the Wednesday before we left for California! It was an awful lot of fun in general, but what made it even MORE fun was that Greg got picked to go out onto the field in between innings and participate in those cheesy games they played - he had to catch water balloons in a bucket strapped to his head. LOL. He beat the person he was competing against, so he won our whole section free food. Needless to say, he ended up being everyone’s best friend that night! =)

Right now, we find ourselves in Estes Park Colorado, enjoying this 3-day weekend in a cozy cabin along the river. Beach last weekend, mountains this weekend. We live such a fun life, don’t you think? =)

And last but not least..... here is the latest picture of Jen at 22 weeks. Getting a little bigger each month! =) Almost 6 months along now – can you believe it?

It's A......

BOY!!!

It feels like we are on cloud nine right now, and we’re loving the fact that we can now refer to our baby as a “him” and “our son.” This is all so exciting!!!!! It’s also fun because we’ve been starting to buy some baby clothes and get the nursery prepared. Lots and lots of fun things happening around our house lately!

Now for names….. we already knew the name if it was a girl. It was a done deal. We had pretty much NO boy names that we liked. So for days now, we’ve been reading baby name books, writing down names, saying them out loud, and going over all the ways that he could possibly be made fun of by other kids his own age because of what he was named. We’ve come up with about 3 different names and we hope to have it narrowed down soon. It would be nice to start calling our sweet baby boy by his name. =)

Here’s some recent ultrasound pics… isn’t he SO CUTE??? =)



Here’s how we made the announcement of the sex:

CFA Level 2 Results

(By Greg)

Well, August 18th has come and gone, D-Day for the CFA Level 2 test results!

I was very anxious to open up my envelope last night to reveal my results; however, it wasn't what I was hoping for and my heart sank--I did not pass!

I am pretty bummed about the results, but I am trusting in God's plan and knowing that this is what He has planned for me. Hindsight is 20/20, but looking back someday, we'll see the reason why it wasn't in His plans for me to pass Level 2 this year… It's just frustrating knowing how much time/effort was dedicated in the 5+ months leading up to the exam and 300+ hours of study time.

Unless God changes my course, I will sit again for Level 2 next June! I am having some doubts about continuing, but just because I didn't pass Level 2 of the most difficult exams in the world, God doesn't expect me to just give up and quit because of that--so I must press on!

MY PLAN was to get a pass on Level 2 yesterday, study the 6 months for Level 3 starting in January (due date January 1st) and be done with the CFA by June, when the baby is 6 months old. But, maybe a "review" of Level 2 and retaking it would be easier than starting fresh on Level 3 and I can spend more time with the baby! Only God knows the reasoning right now...

Even though I did not pass, thank you to everyone for your support and prayers these last 8+ months as I was preparing, taking the test, and awaiting the results.

"But these things I plan won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day!" (Habakkuk 2:3)