Weird Al again

Yesterday my dear wife was kind enough to watch Charlotte most of the day, and gave me the opportunity to do 2 things that I hadn't been able to do for a while. 

I went golfing for the first time in 5-6 weeks.  I went with Matt, and we both had a nice time.  My golf game continues worsening since Charlotte was born, but that's ok.  It's still fun and relaxing to go.

I also got to see Weird Al Yankovic in concert again!!!  He came back to the California State Fair, so I got to see him again.  This is the 3rd time I've seen him, the first 2 with Becca, and this time with Matt, Tina and Alan.  I'm fairly certain I enjoyed it more than the three of them combined, but they did say that they had good time and would consider seeing him again the next time he comes around.  If you haven't seen him perform, you should, I certainly think he does a pretty good show. 

Charlotte continues to do well.  While we were in Colorado she developed a bilateral ear infection as well as a nasty case of hand foot mouth disease.  Here is a picture of one of her legs, which doesn't show it perfectly but it's the best picture I have at the moment.  In any case, she got blistered on her arms, legs, hands and feet.  She still has some scarring which hopefully will resolve.  However, now that she's feeling better she's been acting pretty normal for about 2 weeks.  She's walking a lot since her birthday. We've basically stopped counting steps now because she walks so much. 

While I was enjoying watching Weird Al, Becca got a fun video of Charlotte dancing in her new car.  We already sent the video out to many of my reading audience, but I'm going to post it here anyway.  It's just too fun.

Sleepless Gardening

So, life at home with a newborn continues :).  The past 2 days she slept a good amount of the day, then cluster fed for about 8 hours overnight and didn't let us sleep.  At this point she has her days and night flipped, which I realize is normal but still exhausting.  On Friday we did a photo session, which we sent out some pictures to family members.  I'm putting a few of the other pictures up here.  The pictures came out pretty well.  Charlotte certainly is cute in them! 

Then on our most recent game night Gina was encouraging me to put some stuff about the rest of our lives here as well.  So here are a few pictures of our garden.  As you can see, it's mostly zucchini and tomatoes.  there are a few green beans getting overgrown by zucchini, and some red bell peppers by the tomatoes.  We're getting lots of zucchini, so there's also a pic of our recent harvest.  I'm not always very good about picking them early, so we end up with zucchinis that are best in grated recipes like breads.  But I love all breads, so no complaints there!

 

Charlotte's Arrival

So, you all know by now, but I'm going to post this anyway!  :)  On July 4 our daughter, Charlotte Meilee, was born.  Becca had to get a c-section because Charlotte wasn't coming out after lots and lots of pushing. She weighed: 7 lbs 14 oz and is 20 inches long.  We were in the hospital for 3 days then were discharged yesterday.  Both Becca and Charlotte are doing great.  Thanks for all of your prayers!

Here are a few pictures.  She's looks a lot more like Becca than me, and is therefore quite cute.  There is also a video of her playing on the floor.  Enjoy  :)

Name Poll

As you very likely already know, Becca and I are expecting our first child, a girl, in July. We've been working on names and have come up with a list of candidates. Let us know what you think!

What should we name our child?
	Alyssa
	Ashlyn
	Brooklyn
	Charlotte
	Claire
	Grace
	Margaret
pollcode.com free polls

The MILF and the Shire folk

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8-9-10

Today was 8-9-10. That's a good day as Becca and I were married on 10-9-8. After all, there is only one inverse anniversary day. I enjoyed writing it all day, then I got home from work today and the first thing Becca said to me was "Do you know what day it is?" Of course, I'm not really sure what an inverse anniversary day means..... I guess as long as it isn't a free annulment day for Becca, kind of like a get-out-of-jail free card in monopoly, I'll be happy. :)

I know what you're thinking: You don't blog for nearly a year and you choose this?!?!?! Admittedly I didn't blog about starting my job, my actual first anniversary, buying a house, building a bookshelf from scratch, the joy of pool care, my first swim in the aforementioned pool, whitewater rafting, buying a bike, getting another new job, my new nephew, my new niece, or the very exciting Cooper Book Club. But this was big. I mean, we may someday buy another house, and we'll certainly have more anniversaries, and considering how fertile my family is I'm bound to have a few more nieces and nephews in the future, but we'll never have another inverse anniversary day, so I don't want to hear it! :)

Well, since I mentioned it anyway, here are a few other updates from my life. I have accepted a new job with Kaiser and will be switching to work there at some point in November. The delay is because I need to get my hospital privileges set up with Kaiser before I can start working for them. Ultimately, I think this will be a much better fit for me so I'm pretty excited about it. Also, 2 of my sister-in-laws had babies within the last month and a half. Matthew out in Columbus, and Emily here in California. I haven't gotten to see Matthew in person yet, but Becca and I have been up with Jen, Alan and Emily a good bit over the last week helping out, which has been fun. Oh yes, and the Cooper Book Club. After all, just getting on and playing Everquest 2 every week isn't nerdy enough, so we had to step it up a notch and read books to talk about as well. We started out reading Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind, and now we are reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. So far we've really had a good time with the book club, and hopefully can keep it going for a while. Anyone else want to start playing EQ2 and reading nerd books at the same time?

Okay, that's all for now. Any guesses on when my next posting will be?

Oahu

So, I just got back from vacation in Oahu with Becca and her family. It was great. We rented a condo up on a hill outside of Honolulu, with a great view of the city and ocean. To the far left in the picture is Diamond Head State Monument, a crater that formed following a volcanic eruption. We walked up to the peak on Friday morning (our first full day there).

That afternoon the guys went golfing at Kahuku Municipal Golf Course, up near the northern tip of the island. The golf course was right on the coast, so we had great views of the ocean the whole time. Also, it had huge, forgiving fairways so it was just about the right level of difficulty for me. While we were out golfing the girls stayed back and went to a spa for manicures or massages.

On Saturday we went to Hanauma Bay where we went snorkeling and saw lots of coral, some beautiful fish, and a sea turtle. Then to top it off Becca's brother Matt proposed to his girlfriend Tina before we left, so we then had an engagement to celebrate!

For the engagement celebration we went to a Luau that evening. They had lots of fun activities, including a spear throw for which I am simply grateful there isn't a video of my throw attempt. :) Let's just say it's not quite as easy to do as it looks.

So that takes us through Saturday. On Sunday we went to the Swap Meet, which really was a huge number of vendors in tents surrounding Aloha Stadium. They did have pretty good prices; Becca and I bought 8 T-shirts from one vendor for $20. Can't complain too much about that. After the Swap Meet, we went to Chinatown and ate Dim sum for lunch. After lunch we walked around Chinatown some more. There was a statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who I hadn't heard before. He played a large role in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and was the first president of the Republic of China as we know it today. I hadn't expected to learn about Chinese history in Hawai'i, but was pleasantly surprised.

On Monday we went to Pearl Harbor. We first went to the USS Arizona, which was one of the battleships sunk in the attack. It suffered enough structural damage so that they were unable to pull it up. The picture to the left is of the memorial that was built over top of the Arizona and the nearly 1000 U.S. servicemen who died and could not be recovered. Additionally some of the surviving members of the Arizona's crew have been interred in the ship when their times passed as well.

We also went to the USS Missouri, which is the retired battleship best known for being the location of the signing for the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII. It is a pretty impressive ship. You can also see the USS Bowfin, one of the submarines from that time.

On Tuesday it was a raining, and we'd planned on going for a hike. Instead we drove up the North Coast, stopping frequently for photo opportunities. One of the times we stopped there was a coconut tree that had a few coconuts down low enough that I could knock one down with a stick. So I did. Here's a pic of me proudly holding my well earned coconut. How many of you knew what a coconut looks like coming right off the tree? I sure didn't. Unfortunately it wasn't ripe yet, so there probably is good reason no one else had picked it yet.

Then on Wednesday the weather was cooperating so we went on our hike, up to Manoa Falls. It was a fairly short hike, around 1.5 miles round trip. Then just after leaving the falls we came across a group of nearly 100 elementary school students on their way up to the falls, so we figured we'd left just in time. That afternoon we went to Lanikai Beach, where we went kayaking, as well as some more snorkeling.

On Thursday when we went to the airport. Becca, her dad and I got on our plane and waited there for 3 hours. Then they gave up on the maintenance issues for the plane and canceled the flight. So we left the plane and got our checked luggage back. They put us up in the Marriott downtown in Waikiki, up on the 30th floor. We had an amazing view of the ocean and Diamond Head Crater. We spent the remainder of the day walking around Waikiki, then got some sleep before heading back to the airport where we got on our new flight. They told us that instead of canceling the flight, they had simply delayed it for 20 hours. I prefer to think of it as a whole new flight. This time the flight went as scheduled/delayed, and we got back to California with no additional issues.

Well, that's the story of my week in Oahu. Like I said, we had a great time.