We’re having a baby!

We’ve kept it a secret but we are happy to announce that Honeybun and I are expecting our first child. I’ve been keeping track of my thoughts leading up to this so let’s catch up:
April 23
Honeybun is pregnant. Wow. How’d that happen?

We’ve been talking about it for a while now. For those who get our Christmas letter, you know we keep saying, “maybe next year.” Well this is “next year.”

The timing though? Honeybun broke her arm a week after the night the magic happened. The pregnancy test came back 20 minutes before she went in for surgery in April 21. The pregnancy was the real reason the doctor did not put a prostetic replacement in her arm instead of just taking out the broken part.

May 5
We went to the OB today for an ultra sound. It is really early but because of some abdominal pain on top of everything Honeybun has been through, they wanted to check the viability of the embryo. Not much to see, a black spot on the gray background. About all we can say is that she is definitely pregnant. Everything is measuring all right at the moment, but we go back in a week for another check.

May 12
Second ultra sound.

It is strange how everything changes in a second. I was looking at the screen and saw a small circle of movement. Then the nurse said, “that’s the heartbeat”. It seemed the whole world realigned in that one moment.
Wow. This is real. There are not words to describe how seeing that little heartbeat can realign your whole world.

May 18
Honeybun is totally pregnant. I’ve heard of strange cravings. Pickles are supposed to be cliche. Honeybun hates them. Any time we order a burger, “no pickles!” But today she is making a cheese and pickle sandwich. This is the fourth one this week. Strange, but I can deal with that.
What I didn’t know about is the heightened sense of smell. It’s like a super power.

Honeybun: “Do you smell that?”

Me: “Smell what?”

Honeybun: “Oh gross. It’s making me nauseous.”

She’s been looking for a new slip to wear under a skirt. We had been to six stores looking for one. I finally asked her, “can’t you use your sense of super smell to find where one is?”

She wasn’t amused.

June 1
Honeybun went to visit her parents in Las Cruces. Meanwhile I’ll be working and have just started the summer semester.

Hopefully she will feel better down there. With the broken arm, she is cooped up all day doing nothing. At least she can see her nephews down there.

June 18
Honeybun comes home tomorrow. This three weeks has sucked for me. It just isn’t the same without her around.

Apparently her pickle sandwich cravings have been replaced with cravings for fruit. Lots of fruit.

June 20
Had a third ultrasound today. Everything is looking good. We saw the baby’s head, body, and two arms and two legs. I was amazed at how much the baby is moving. More tests tomorrow.

6/21/2006

June 21
Big day. We had more tests done today. It was painful. They put a needle through Honeybun’s abdomen to remove some fluid. The ultrasound today revealed two sacks but there is only one baby. Turns out the pregnancy seems to have started off as twins but the second embryo didn’t develop. We’ll get preliminary test results back in 2 days.

June 23
Good news, preliminary results came back and all is well. They also told us the sex…..a girl! Honeybun said she was sure all along it was a girl. Women’s intuition I suppose.

The thing is, we had agreed on a boy’s name but still can’t agree on a girl’s name. Well, we have six more months. The due date is 12/29.

June 29
The final results of the testing has come back and everything is normal. We are starting to actually let people in on our little secret.

June 30
Told my family tonight that we are expecting a girl. My mother is thrilled. Dad seems happy, but he doesn’t show much enthusiasm for anything. My brother just sat through the rest of dinner in a dazed silence. Don’t think he was expecting this.

We want more expensive gas!

American’s like expensive gasoline. No really. Even with record breaking gas prices, AAA is prediciting an increase of 1.2 percent increase in road travel over the Independence Day holiday. That increase would be set a record of 40.7 million people driving to their vacation destinations for this holiday.

So in spite of our collective griping about high gas prices, we are driving more than ever. Know what that means? It means we aren’t really that upset about it.

Better get used to high gas prices.

HD DVD or Blu-ray?

How about neither? I heard a show today talking about the differences between the two competing high definition video formats that have just been released.

I’ve heard the first generation players are not only expensive, they are actually slow to start. Some HD DVD players can take minutes to turn on (they are actually computers that need to boot up).

So should you buy one? Definitely not now. There are few movies available and the players are very expensive ($1,000+) and the two formats are competing. There are a lot of people who remember the VHS and Betamax format wars who will wait until the dust settles. That could take between five to 10 years. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray could be obsolete by then.

Technology is advancing so fast that within five years, HD content may just be delivered electronically. It’s already happening with music. Why not movies? If that is the case, most people will skip HD video players all together.

Still not the beast

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost chastises another blogger for defending the view of some protestants that the catholic church is the beast in the book of Revelation.

Joe’s right because everyone knows that the catholic church is really the “whore of Babylon”.  Sheesh!

This is why I still like Evangelical Outpost. I started reading it while I was an evangelical. Soon thereafter, I came into the catholic church. (Don’t worry Joe, not your fault.) He thinks clearly and doesn’t go for conspiracy theories. If I were to question any book of the Bible, it would be Revelation only because of what some on the fringe movements have done with it.

World Cup….of what?

The World Cup of Soccer (misnamed “football” to the rest of the world) is taking place in Germany. In the U.S. the games are being shown on ESPN2. That means that the tape delayed World Championship of Poker on ESPN is more popular to Americans than live soccer.

Tech toys

The video game wars are still raging. Nintendo’s new DS Lite is just getting to stores. Nintendo seems to have a hit on their hands. Reveiwers are impressed with it’s design and feel. Unlike the orignial DS, this one has a more sleek, grown-up look. Definitely iPod-ish with the white scheme.

Nintendo looks like it is going to keep its dominance in the hand held games category. They seem to have ceded the hardcore gaming market to the Sony PSP. Instead, they are marketing family-friendly games (as always) but tapping the adult market of casual gamers with games that might just make you a better person. Their Brain Age game is supposed to help improve you mental capabilities.

What a great market. Adults like games, but don’t have hours a day to play them. Brain Age only asks for a few minutes of play time a day. And unlike the Sony PSP which costs $250.00, the DS Lite will probably go for about $129.00 – much more affordable, especially for families with young kids.

I think I want one. After all, don’t we all need to improve our brains?

Sex abuse pandemic

Expagan has a list that shows how widespread the problem of sex abuse has become – in our public schools. And this list is only the women abusers.
This is why the Archdiocese of Denver campaigned so hard against a bill that would increase the statute of limitations and raise caps on sexual abuse judgements for private institutions only (i.e. the catholic church). There were priests that abused their position and the church did handle the problem poorly. Even so, the attention focused solely on the catholic church is giving public institutions cover for their problem that is effecting many more people.

All child abusers need to be stopped and put away for a long, long time – not just those few in the catholic church.