As many of you know I turned 30 this last Tuesday. It was by far the best birthday I have had yet to date, as we got to come home from the hospital. The joy of bringing Joey and Lindsey home healthy was somewhat overwhelming. On top of that the dogs got to meet him and he was very quickly welcomed with loving licks from them. In fact Diesel has taken protection of Joey as his new charge. He rarely lets Denver come close to Joey and when he does allow it he watches him very closely. His guard mentality is even more accentuated than usual, and he is attentive to every noise the boy makes.

Lindsey is doing well. We have made a point of doing little outings every day since she has been out. One of those outings was actually a bit much, as we went to Spokane, WA to pick-up my parents at the airport. The trip itself would not have been bad, but the ensuing trip to baby's r us and Target may have pushed her over the top.

So like I said, my folks are here and will be until next Wednesday. On top of that several of our friends have been making a real effort to help us out during this time. Lindsey's folks arrived today (they are leaving again tomorrow, but will be back next weekend). Hopefully Joey will get to meet Uncle Charlie this week, as he is going to come up here for a couple of days. His aunts Joellen and Bethany are going to come out the end of August.

Sleep has been scattered for Lindsey, I have been doing my best to take Joey on little outings to give Lindsey time to sleep for a few hours during the day. Last night he was only up once at about 3 am, and that was to feed, and he went right back to sleep. All told we (me more than Lindsey of course) are feeling pretty rested compared to what we have been prepared for. But it's just the beginning so we are not getting our hopes up just yet.

Enough babble, here are some of our favorite pics over the last few days.

As most of you figured out from the last post, Joey is here. He made his arrival at 10.13pm on July 22. He was 7lbs 12 oz and 21" at birth. Lindsey is doing great, the labor was as smooth as anything called "labor" could be, and she is recovering very well at the moment. Joey is nursing, and seems to really enjoy eating, when he doesn't fall asleep in the middle of it. He is very alert, and does NOT like camera flashes.

I'm sure this is far from the last time I will post about the little guy so stay tuned if you are interested.

Dr. Shupe is having us come in tomorrow, Sunday, July 22, at 7.30am. He plans on breaking Lindsey's water, and hopefully inducing labor as a result. So by the end of the day Joey's lungs should be filling with his first puffs of CO2 (and a little O2 as well).

But for now, these are a couple of photos we took today.

Ready or not here he comes!

We had our weekly doctor's appointment yesterday, and Lindsey's blood pressure was a little higher than desired. She is currently at 39 weeks, so the doctor does not want to take any chances. Because of this he is giving her until Sunday morning to go into labor on her own, if she does not then we will head into the hospital and she will be induced. Until then she has been told to lay low and take it easy. Of course for Lindsey that means cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry, and attempting to make some cheesecake. I think I've talked her out of the cheesecake (however I am hesitant to leave the house because she may try again) but I did leave to go have lunch with a friend and when I got back she had been busy. So if you think about it, perhaps give her a call and keep her occupied.

We are excited, there is a slight cause for concern, as there is a potential for toxemia to develop, with her blood pressure elevated etc, but the other signs are not there yet, which is why we are going to have her induced. But by doing this now, hopefully we can avoid having to do a cesarean, which is the step they take if toxemia develops.

More info to come....soon we hope!

NEWS!!! NEWS!!! NEWS!!!

not that news.....I just realized I had not blogged that my ski is back. The ski I lost back in Feb is now back in my possesion, and none the less for the wear.....I even got to ski them when we were on Hood. Probably not the best ski for the conditions, but they are fun skis no matter what....
The pics are from the recent travels. Photo one is of (left to right)Denver, Diesel, and Jesse's dog Tamu on the flanks of Wing Ridge in the Wallowas. Photo two is Trevor expressing his self satisfaction with his wood splitting abilities, the Seven Devils are in the background, this photo is from Wing Ridge as well. The third is of a Patty's Mexican kitchen burrito (our favorite Moscow eatery) with Capn'Jon Totten and Jesse Sears, and Mt. Hood in the background. Finally a shot of "base camp" at the timberline ski area parking lot, yes. we did rule that place....

Well we are down to the final days. It's gotten hot here in Moscow the last week or so, and Lindsey is really starting to want the boy to make his appearance. We of course are and have been anxious to meet him, but this heat (and us with out A/C) has really gotten her wanting him OUT!

Life has been pretty busy around here, until about a week ago. At the end of June we both had a series of outings that left us away from home quite a bit. Starting in June I took my soccer team to a tournament in Redmond, Oregon. The tournament was a great one for us to be a part of, unfortunately it was a tale of two days and two teams. On the first day the girls just could not capitalize on their opportunities, while our two opponents found ways to capitalize on the ONLY opportunities they had, we lost both games 2-1. On Sunday, however, the girls got things figured out and they won the first game 4-2 (gave up a goal late in each half) and won the second game 3-0, with all of our goals coming in the first half.

A week or so later Lindsey took off for Reno, NV for 2 days to present at a professional conference. She was one of 5 keynote speakers at the main session, and had been invited to do so, so she felt it was important for her to go. They put her up in a suite at the Grande Sierra resort and casino, it sounds like the room was pretty plush (tv in the marble bathroom).

She was home for two days and I took off on that Friday for the Wallowas (one of my favorite places on earth). My friend Trevor and I left Moscow and met our good friend Jesse Sears (who was getting married in a week, more on that later) in Enterprise, Oregon. We then met up with Roger Averbeck (owner operator of Wing Ski Tours, which is for sale by the way) at the Terminal Gravity Brewery. On Saturday we headed into an area called Wing Ridge, where Wing Ski Tours has a series of wall tents which are used as backcountry ski huts. We spent Saturday and Sunday in there collecting firewood (not a small task, he needs 9 cords for the winter, we got 3).

We got home late on Sunday night, and I needed to get some work done on my research, which is going well be the way. Jesse came back with us (he lives in Boise) and then headed to Coure d'alene with Trevor. They were supposed to pick-up our friend Jon Totten whom had flown into Spokane from Bellingham, WA to be with us for the upcoming bachelor party for Jesse. However, early Monday morning Trevor's mother passed away, very unexpectedly. We delayed some of our plans, and waited to see what was going to happen with the services. Trevor encouraged us to continue on our plans as the services were not until later in the week, and he really wanted us to do what we had planned.

So we proceeded, with heavy hearts of course. Jon and Jesse came down to Moscow, we picked up the Hud (Eric Huddelson, a very good friend and also Jesse's brother-in-law). Finally by about 8.30pm on Tuesday we got on the road. We were headed to the Cascades with our skis and climbing gear. We were pretty sure we were going to climb/ski one of the volcanoes, it was just a question of which one. The basic plan was to buck the traditional bachelor party scheme and do what we loved most SKI and be in the mountains. So at 2.30 am we found ourselves at the Timberline parking lot at Mt. Hood. We threw our sleeping pads down and pulled out our sleeping bags and fell a sleep. We woke to Bram Roll (another or our friends) running over a couple of cones and swinging between us at about 7 am. He was reading and rearing to go, he had been stuck on the other side of the Columbia the night before because of bridge construction. We were hungry, we had some burritos from Patty's Mexican kitchen in Moscow, but they were for the climb. So we hit the lodge, grabbed some food (really roughing it) and started climbing around 10 am. We got to about 9500' and decided that the snow was just too inviting. It was too late to try for a summit anyways, so we made a fast/fun ski decent.

Eventually we found our selves in Olympia sleeping in some one's yard, and with a new quest. Find Jesse a wedding ring (his bride had failed to make a decision on one), we accomplished this task in record time and before long we were in Kirkland, WA (outside Seattle ) to help the bride's family prepare the house for the wedding (the wedding was an outdoor wedding at the bride's home). The wedding went smoothly, lots of good friends and good times. An interesting side note. Jesse and Shelly were actually married this winter, for logisitcal reasons. She had no health insurance, and they wanted to purchase a home, and it was much easier with a court document saying they were married. However, Jesse made the comment that it never really felt real until that day. My take on that, you can stand before the court and say "I do" until you are blue in the face, but who is going to be there to help you make sure "you do" when time get rough? Your friends and family, all the court cares after that is if "you don't". Anyways, I finally made it home to Lindsey (she chose not to make the 5.5 hour trip to Seattle, for the sake of comfort) on Sunday night around 7pm.

So we are back in Moscow, and will probably be here until it is time to take Joey on his first back packing trip, sometime in September.