Our Life

We went on our baby-moon last week. “Baby-moon?” you ask? yep… it’s like a honeymoon, but is the last time you get to go on a vacation without kids (in the figurative sense).

We went on another NCL cruise. We ported out of Charleston, which was a much more paletable drive than to Miami, so was not as long. We spent 4 of the 7 days at sea, but it was ok. We were ready for it.

For the impatient, check out all the pictures here.

In the “Getting there” link, some notes:

Ships captains relinquish control to “Pilots” for each port. Pilots know the ins and outs of the ports, like shifting currents or sand bars, etc. We learned this on our last trip, but didn’t know how the pilots got on or off the boats. Leaving Charleston, I caught a second wake behind us, and saw the Pilot boat flanking us. So, I snapped some pictures. The no-frills hand off looks like this.

In the Grand Cayman:

We went to a private beach/resort. The water was too rough to go snorkeling So I shutter-bugged around. One of my favorites is this one.

In Cozumel:

We bummed around like tourists for a while. We went back to the same corner joint we got rained into last time we were there. Looks like they had made some upgrades. And, we went back to the dive bar, to get some pictures of the ceiling and mural… One of the things that really grabs you about Cozumel is the water. We overheard that on a good day, the visibility can be up to 200 feet underwater. A fact that seems to be illustrated by seeing the daylight under the ship as the sun set behind it.

In Key West:
We went to the Sunset Festival in Mallory Square. It was more a Street Festival than a Sunset one. I was expecting some sort of cohesive moment, like the countdown at New Years, or something. There was nothing. Not even Ooooh’s and Aaaaah’s. Mabey the sound of clicking cameras, at least the “cka-sheeeh” programmed into them .

If ever I am in Key West for another Sunset, I want to check the local forecast and get the sunset time… and @ 5 min till, yell loudly: Ladies and gentlemen, especially the tourists and first timers… Do not take your eyes off the sunset or your beloved to look at me, I am only a time-keeper and a voice… We have 5 minutes left in this day and sunset… We have one minute left of sunset. 10! 9! 8!” Kinda proves you make your moments. So if a moment isn’t quite what you are wanting, change it to what you do. You will never get THAT moment back, so make it count!

Chris’ Cube:

Chris’ co-workers missed her… to the tune of 5 of them spending 3 hours wrapping her cube in aluminum foil. Now, the pictures don’t show it, but they wrapped the change in her drawer, the individual paper clips in her drawer, the individual pieces in a magnetic sculpture, even the phone cord. They missed her.

I wasn’t left out either, but the things they did to my monitor are not family-friendly. But to describe it: I put post-it’s up on my monitor when I need to remember things to check back up on things. There were a few extra when I got back:

• Cliff uses too many post-its
• Shutty rocks! (this is a guy that works with me and was ’squatting’ at my desk while I was gone)
• Shutty is Cliff’s daddy
• The Circle

Thank’s Shutty!

When we got back to Charleston and were walking out of the customs check, the last custom’s official at the door said it best: “Welcome back to reality, sir”

An update on selling our house! We’ve sold our house, within two weeks we had two offers, for more then our asking price. We’re closing on 04/26 and the buyer wants our house as is, no inspections, and no repairs. (I feel like I’m taking candy from a baby.) We just have to pay some in closing costs and we’re out Scott free! Now all we have to do is find a new house in a month. Sounds easy enough, right, well it’s not. We’re undecided about where to move, and have been looking a little further away then we originally planned, so life’s a little exciting right now.

We’re going a cruise next week, our final trip, just the two of us, before the wee ones arrival. On the baby front, my belly is bigger everyday and I can see some of the baby’s movements rolling across my belly, and the occasional percussion beat, where my belly just bounces, from whatever the wee one is up to.

We’ll update with pictures of the new house when we find one!

I am starting to dislike selling the house. It’s not that I don’t want a house that our family will fit in, I do. It’s not that I will need to call on friends, as my wife will not be able to assist with moving; I will.

I hate answering the phone to then have to essentially need to vacate our house in ~10 min as an agent (we have never met) brings someone over (who we have never met) to see the house.

I feel worse than Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day off. If you remember the movie, Ferris had a theory that one of Cameron’s issue was that his house was like a museum… Well, our house is like that now. Devoid of “Our” things. Cleaned and arranged so that one looks at it and can imagine themselves living in our house.

We get up, put the dogs out, and make sure the house has that “You could live here!” look. That part was kinda not so annoying. As I suck at cleaning, my job was not to make any mess that Chris would have to clean up. My office – just don’t use it if you have to change anything about it. If you take a CD/DVD in there… you take it back out. My laptop bag goes in the closet. We have to be in a constant state of “you may have to leave any minute”. As if that wasn’t enough, we also have to get out for blocks of time the agent’s give us. “I’d like to show your house tomorrow.. sometime between 1 and 4 PM” ok? so friggin when can _I_ be here? It’s not that big a deal when you aren’t going to be there anyway, like on the weekdays… But on our Saturdays!? it just kinda sucks, ’s all I’m sayin.

For those that are interested, you can see the new carpet, and some pictures of most of our stuff from 3 bedrooms shoved into 2 rooms here.

You can also see what the “Prepped” house looks like here

As a general note, the pictures are large. Don’t even click if you are on dial-up. They will be ginormous.

We went to the doctor again, on Thursday (Mar1). This was an exciting one. Chris’s mom came along. This was the 20 week ultrasound. They told us to bring a VHS tape, so that we could get a copy of it to show the family.

We got some fruit juice, coz Chris says that is what makes the little one move some. When we got in that little room, and she laid on her back (a general no-no) she started to get queasy. After a trip to the bathroom, and some breathing, she was better…

The ultrasound showed that everything was normal. To my (un-ultrasound trained) eyes, that kid is going to be CRAZY tall! It did some dancing for us while under the “Wand”. It was really neat to see something that now looks human, where the previous one was just an alien. The ability of the ultrasound to view through tissue does not help in some views.

I will see if I can get the VHS -> DVD -> AVI (or flash) and post it here so everyone can see this facinating mini-human in a water-balloon that is inhabiting my lovely wife…

In a slight downer, we have a low placenta. The Mid-Wife assures us many of them ‘migrate’ to the north. We will have to wait till the 28th week visit to find out.

We did also get a few print-outs of the ultrasound, but all the scanning equipment is in storage, so you will have to wait!