Hannah Month 4

Posted on by Jordan

Every Saturday now that Hannah is more or less in a routine, we have a sort of tradition, where I make breakfast and Heather reads from a baby book so we can learn what phase of development Hannah is in, or something like that.

A few weeks back the book said “she will probably start making raspberry sounds this week” within hours, Hannah was happily sputtering away! It became her favorite sound to make for the entire weekend, so I captured a little of it:

After that weekend she has lost some of her affinity for the raspberry sound, and has moved onto some great shrill squeals of excitement, while still throwing in the occasional raspberry.

When not making sound, Hannah has now discovered rolling over. She often isn’t quite sure what happened, but seems to deal with the inversion of the world fairly well.

We have introduce rice cereal into her diet, or at least into her mouth. I can’t tell if any actually made it far enough to provide any nutritional value.

one more anecdote before I go:

Heather, Hannah and I attended a wedding a few weeks ago. At the reception (a facility built to allow several concurrent receptions), we spent a surprisingly large amount of time in the hallway feeding, or changing, or just comforting Hannah. We were not alone however, many other slightly frazzled parents shared the space with us. Heather said to me “wow, I wonder if this has been going on at ever wedding we have been at and we just didn’t know about it?” It seems we have entered a whole new world thanks to Hannah! 🙂

-Jordan

Quick Hits

Posted on by Jordan

Five weeks left in the “Baby N” countdown…

Heather has a cold, and is starting to feel uncomfortably large. I think we both are a little worried that the remaining five weeks are going to feel very long.

I confiscated my first cell phone tonight! (Yay Scouting?)

I was in Nebraska last weekend looking for deer, but didn’t manage to cross paths with anything worth shooting at.

Meanwhile, Heather was in Florida participating in a wedding. To make a long story short, she did just fine, but wouldn’t advise unnecessary trips this late in the pregnancy game. The important part is, I suppose, that she and the baby are home safe, it was a beautiful wedding, and she really enjoyed herself while she was there.

-Jordan

Closing Out June

Posted on by Jordan

Well that went fast!

I probably could have eked a few posts out of the things that happened in June, but we are staring the first of July in the face and I know the new month will have new things to talk about. Rather than letting everything slip past without comment, I will throw a few words at the highlights.

Heather participated in a marathon! Not a half marathon like last year… a real one! Grandma’s Marathon takes place up in Duluth MN every year. Heather found out about it from a girl we know from church who is from there. They struck on the idea of staying at her parent’s house and doing the marathon. Somehow the trip grew in encompass two runners and three walkers. Heather was always planning to walk, and did what appeared to be rigorous training in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the event.

After eight hours of walking, however she decided that perhaps her training did not sufficiently prepare her for 26 miles of walking. Key point is that she finished the marathon! As I understand it she was the last person to finish, but that cannot detract from finishing the marathon! In what can perhaps be called a happy coincidence, she finished the marathon walking with an 83 year old grandma. It seems somehow fitting to complete “Grandma’s Marathon” walking with a grandmother.

To quote Heather on the event: “NEVER AGAIN!” I am still proud of her though 🙂

Wedding season? In contrast to last year, we haven’t had a lot of weddings to attend this year. In fact we almost made it to July before attending our first one.

It was for a family friend, and thanks to some combination of social circles and location the guest list contained a handful of people I went to high school with. I was surprised to find that I didn’t remember names for a few of them. Beyond some distressing gaps in my memory, Heather and I were excited to see another couple enter into married life. It has been a great thing for us and we hope it can be that for them too!

Dave Ramsey!

Well, sort of anyway… As has become a sort of trend for us, we attempted to sign up to participate in the Financial Peace University class that was going to be offered through our church. Participation quickly turned into facilitating… something we were open to, and I think is going to be a really neat experience.  We just had our fist class a mere two hours prior to my writing this, and are both excited to go through the material again, while sharing it with people excited to learn!

I think that will suffice to recap all the news we wanted to share for the month. With only two days left, I can say with certainty there will be at least one more newsworthy event in June, but it will have to wait until after the fact to show up here 🙂

-Jordan

The 2010 Wedding Season Draws To A Close

Posted on by Jordan

Just thought I would sit down and type out a quick post, as Heather and I just got back from Kansas City, and the last wedding on our calendar for this year.

We closed the year with a wedding that contains a lot of ties to us.

First off, Casey was in our wedding. Second, we met Carson when he came as Casey’s date to our wedding, and finally I put together an awesome website for them! (Looking through the archives, I did the site sometime back in February)

Okay, maybe my making the website wasn’t a major point of connection, and to be honest hacking up a WordPress theme isn’t really much to brag about. The real connection is that Heather and Casey have been friends from early childhood. I have enjoyed getting to see Heather interact with such a great friend.

On a related note, I am glad to be done with weddings for the year! I tried not to be jealous of the wedding couple as they monopolized my wife’s time over the course of the weekend, but there isn’t a ton for a spouse of a bridesmaid to do during all the ancillary activities that take up the proceeding days before a wedding.

The plus side of a KC wedding is that we get to see our nephew on the trip! Heather is enamored with Holden, and complained vocally that I got to see him more than she did this time around. I should really throw up a picture as he seems to change ever time we see him!

I think that sums up another eventful weekend…. now I should go to bed, as somehow Monday is going to be here again already.

-Jordan

Deep Thoughts… Or Something

Posted on by Jordan

Over the weekend, Heather and I drove out to western Nebraska for a wedding.

But before that, let me setup my frame of mind…

First I saw this video:

And then, the Internet being what it is, the remix video:

So, back to my drive out west. The song was kind of stuck in my head, and at the same time I was driving into an awe inspiring lightning show. I mean a really incredible storm! Clearly I all to easily forget how intense a storm can be.  I was really enjoying the lightning show, and started thinking about the guy in the video.

Now, I am afraid he may have been under the effects of some mind-altering chemicals at the time of that filming, but I don’t think that means he was wrong really. Rainbows, storms, all the other things you see outside… they are so amazing and I kind of take them for granted too often.

I actually have started investigating some ways to force myself to get outside, and outside of city limits, but I won’t post any details until I actually get something going. For now lets just leave it at enjoying the amazing show weather patterns in the Midwest can produce, and in awe of the splendor God has built around us.

-Jordan

A Wedding, Fireworks, And Demolition

Posted on by Jordan

It has been a while hasn’t it?

What have Heather and I been up to?

Well, we went to her cousin Kiley’s wedding. Perhaps most notable in the fact that it will probably be the last wedding ever to hold it’s reception at Dana College. The news of the college going into bankruptcy came out a few day before the wedding, but somehow arrangements were made to allow the reception to proceed as planned.

Outside of that excitement, it was really nice wedding… I just don’t feel like I know what to say about it. Heather has a big family, and the majority of them came for the wedding. I got to meet a few family members for the first time while I was there! I am beginning to realize that easily my favorite aspect of weddings is the opportunity to interact with the other guests. Everyone has such tight schedules that chances to see some friends or family may only come up at major events like weddings. Not to discount seeing the bride and groom, but if my wedding is anything to go by, so much gets packed into those few hours, it’s all a blur. A warm fuzzy blur, but still a blur.

After the wedding, and after staying up far too late talking to family at the farm in Blair, Heather and I drove to Kearney to see my side of the family. Quite a few of my cousins were there, and they all brought fireworks! To be honest I was a little disappointed that things worked out this year such that Heather and I were unable to attend a professional fireworks show. I am not sure getting to supervise a handful of my younger cousins as they set off an arsenal of patriotic spirit is a full consolation, but it’s something. We have managed a perfect safety record so far, although towards the end of the “show” a lot of effort was put into trying to simultaneously launch two and three things at once. I was sure  that would eventually lead to problems, but we ran out of fireworks before we ran out of luck I guess. 🙂

Moving on to this weekend (still in progress) Heather and I finished work Friday without any special plans for the evening. We had attempted to set something up with a few couples from church, but no concrete plans ever finalized. When we got home, Heather had an e-mail from another couple we know through church, inviting us to come help them demo the house they just bought. Maybe your thinking, “hey, that doesn’t sound like a great way to spend a Friday night” well, maybe you don’t live in an apartment and type on a computer for a living? I am not sure I would want to do that every night, but I truly enjoyed getting to swing a hammer for a few hours! Beyond that factor, it is just nice to feel like we have some friends we can hang out with here in town.

Looking to the future, Heather and I plan to ride our bikes all the way down town this morning to visit the farmers market. It will easily be our longest ride this summer, although not long by most bike enthusiasts standards I suppose. We have discovered that Des Moines seems to have spent a significant amount developing an impressive trail network throughout the metro area, but they have not spent much putting together an online map for said trails. A few low-res .gif files are they best they have to offer, and what they have are years out of date. The adventure may end up being if we can find the trail everyone tells us we should have seen on our last ride.

-Jordan

Two Weddings And Some Pancakes

Posted on by Jordan

Can you guess where our first wedding of the 2010 Memorial Day Weekend was?

Heather and I drove to Kansas City Friday night, and then carpooled with her parents down to St Luis for the wedding of a family friend. It worked out really well to be able to team drive that leg of the trip. Being able to spend that much more time with our new nephew, during the car ride, was certainly another advantage from Heather’s point of view. The wedding itself was… elegant I think is the best word, the chapel on the Washington University campus, in keeping with the rest of the campus, is just beautiful. Even the newer buildings are designed to project a sort of old stone aesthetic. I suppose I should talk about the actual wedding but I really never know what to say…

We did discover that I don’t remember portions of my own wedding. Heather didn’t find it amusing that I couldn’t remember if we had done unity candles in ours or not. In my opinion there are more memories generated from that day than in most months, so I think I should get some slack when it comes to candles.

So back to the wedding, there was a large block of time between when the wedding ended and the reception began. Large enough we decided we could go back to the hotel, change, and catch the train down to the arch. I can without hesitation say that the arch was the highlight of St Luis for me. I think Heather might be more inclined to mention Holden (The nephew in question… can’t remember if I have used his name before, I was going to leave it out but it’s just cumbersome to leave out all other names). I don’t know if he would feel the same way though. Once I get some time to edit together some more video I can demonstrate in a much more visual way his reactions, but for now lets just say he isn’t sold on the Aunt Heather idea quite yet.

The next day we loaded early up and drove back Kansas City. Being able to do a sort of layover in KC was a lifesaver to try and breakup the drive. Heather took full advantage of the situation, both taking a nap on the drive, and a nap at the house. It had been a kind of late night the night before, so I took advantage of the napping opportunity too!

Then it was on to Lincoln, where my cousin Josh was getting married. They had opted for a very small wedding, and then invited everyone to the reception, so we didn’t actually go to that wedding. The reception was really fun though. Heather and I have been married for well over a year now, and it was the first time she got to meet a number of the cousins on my Dad’s side. I have to admit that I get a little overwhelmed in situations like that. You really want to seize the opportunity to talk to all these people that you haven’t seen in years, but there are so many of them, and then add in the fact I want to make sure and introduce my wife to everyone… and well I think we did ok, but I wish we could have talked to everyone a little more. A quick note about the venue: The reception was held at a country club that had two noteworthy attributes. One, it was really cool. They had done a rather good job of the giant lodge build, I guess you could say it was sort of rustic and classy all at the same time. We will pretend not to notice the fact that we were not anywhere near where trees like they used grow, nor does Lincoln have native stone like they were using. 😉 The second point is that it was the lodge for the home course of the UNL golf team, something that featured prominently in Heather’s life shortly before she met me. It was fun to get to see a place that she had spent so much time!

We stayed as late as we possibly could at the reception, but had to leave before we were completely wiped out as we were spending the night with Heather’s aunt Amy in Omaha. We rolled in a little after midnight, actually beating her home as they were off doing some baseball tournament in KC that day, crawled into bed and passed out. The next morning we awoke to the smell of bacon! Amy had mentioned something about doing a pancake breakfast, but neither Heather nor I had thought about it much. When we walked downstairs Amy was nearly done frying what must have been ten pounds of bacon! After recovering from the initial shock, Heather spoke up to suggest that we probably weren’t going to eat that much bacon. It was at that point that we discovered we had inadvertently invited ourselves to a breakfast party. Apparently the graduation reception for Heather’s cousin Jarred had been in the AM, and breakfast themed. As is often the case with receptions, they had substantial leftovers. The solution Amy had was to invite about 30 people over for breakfast on Memorial Day! Heather and I certainly enjoyed getting bacon and pancakes for breakfast, as well as getting to spend a few minutes talking to so many people from the area.

Eventually we had to say our goodbyes, and headed back to Des Moines. We made it home in time to do a few loads of laundry and get ready for another week of work! (albeit a short week)

-Jordan

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I really had planned to stick a few more in, but I just ran out of time… this ended up being a substantial post even without embedding pictures! If you click on the picture at the top of this post, you should to to the gallery and be able to find a few more pictures from the trip!

Up Up And Away!

Posted on by Jordan

Heather and I will be Heading to Florida for Chrissie’s wedding. The same Chrissie who was in our wedding, and now in a nice turnabout, Heather gets to be in her wedding. I will be mostly trying to avoid getting sunburned.

I feel bad saying this, but I am hoping this weekend isn’t another of the hit and miss amazingly nice spring weekends Omaha has been seeing. That would be such a waste 🙂

-Jordan