Bigger Ben

Ben has been a bit under the weather lately with a slight cough, runny nose, and congestion, which has gotten Jet concerned.  As our trip to Milwaukee is getting closer and closer, Jet is nervous that Ben will be miserable during the visit, so she has tentatively scheduled a visit to the doctor tomorrow.  Jet attended the breastfeeding support group today, which is held every Wednesday, and found out that Ben is now 16 pounds, 13 ounces … a full 10 ounces gained in only the past week!  Ben is almost at the point where he can sit up on his own and my new favorite thing is the way he yawns when we go walking together in the morning and evening.  When Ben yawns, he makes a very cute faint sound that just brings a smile to my face.  For the past week, I have walked with Ben for an hour both in the morning and in the evening, which is a good way to get exercise, keep Ben occupied, and get him a bit tired so he can nap when we get back home.  I have finally gotten Jet to come walk most of the way the past few times that we were out, which is good because she really wants to get back into shape.

On Sunday I attended a new church with Donald and Linda, my fourth one that I have tried since moving down here.  This was another Baptist church and it really was something different.  The preacher was very good and certainly had the ability tell good stories, which made the service enjoyable.  Donald and Linda both enjoyed him as well since most of his sermon referenced the Bible.  This may be a church that could get used to going to every week.

I have some sad news to share as well – Buddy 1 will be moving out at the end of next month.  I guess it is good news for him since he will be moving in with his daughter, but we will surely be missing him once he leaves.  From what we know, a young guy (younger than us) bought his house for around $215,000.  Buddy mentioned that he finished building it last year for about $155,000 … I guess that is a good sign of the increase in property values in the neighborhood.  It will be interesting without him, but perhaps the new neighbor will be nice too.

On Monday night I finally gave my lesson for my Fellowcraft degree (the second degree) at the masonic lodge.   I say finally because I was about ready to give it two weeks earlier, but there was so much going on at the lodge that they didn’t have the time to get to it.  I did very well, with one old-timer mentioning that it was the best lesson he had ever herd in over 41 years.  A nice complement indeed, but the true credit goes to Donald for bearing with me and spending a good deal of time teaching me.  I will now wait to be initiated into the third and final degree and become a Master Mason until after I return back from Milwaukee.  On Saturday night there will be an installation of officers ceremony at the lodge which Jet and Ben are planning to attend, which should be a lot of fun since Jet has had a lot of questions about what I do there.  I won’t be able to stay for too long since at 9:00pm I have a 5K run at Fort McClellan.  That will surely be a busy weekend for us since we will have to leave for our flight at about 5:00am or so on Sunday morning to be on time.

99 Degrees!

The “official” high temperature in Anniston yesterday was 99 degrees!  What a great day to pick for an outdoor party.  Other than that, the party appeared to be a rousing success.  Lots of people showed up (30+), everyone was talking to each other the whole time, there were a lot of delicious meals served up, ate too much food, and there was tons of food leftover.  There were Jet’s cream cheese won-tons, chips, salsa, pasta salad, three kinds of potatoe salad, baked beans, cole slaw, hamburgers, hot-dogs, two cakes, fruit salad, a delicious tort, two cheesecakes, and three different kinds of homemade icecream (perfect for yesterday), among all of the other items that have now slipped my mind, but certainly not my stomach.  The original idea for the party was to have it in the “area” of Donald and Linda’s house, meaning that it would spill out over to the neighbor’s houses as well.  Since the weather was so warm, Donald and Linda prepared in advance for it by cleaning out their garage, adding a few large fans, and set-up tables and chairs there so that everyone could mingle and eat in the shade.  It worked so well that you hardly noticed how warm it was outside until you walked in their air conditioned house and was greeted by a blast of cold air.  There were already talks about the next gathering, but the dates thrown out were for the fall when it should be a bit cooler and more comfortable out.

One week from new we will be in Milwaukee!  I caught the first half of the Busch race last night before I fell asleep, but it sounds like it was an interesting one.  It was nice hearing Rusty Wallace and the other announcers talking about the history of the track but it was also nice to hear that it was clear and 70 degrees outside too.  Hopefully weather like that will hold up for our visit there!

First Greystone Gathering

Just before Jet and Ben returned from Thailand, Linda suggested that we throw a block party for the entire neighborhood – the first of many.  I sent out invitations to everyone living in the area as we scheduled the big bash for this coming Saturday at 4:00pm.  We have gotten a good response from most of the residents so it should be a good time.  The only problem now is if the weather will cooperate … and it is looking more and more like it won’t.  The forecast for the next three days is 97-98 degrees and lots of sunshine.  I suppose it is better than rain or even snow.  We will take lots of pictures and give a recap of how things went.

It appears that the builder of our house has a short fuse.  I have likely told many stories about him since we moved in, primarily that he is very difficult to get a hold of and even tougher to get him to do work for you.  If you did not know, all new houses in the area come with a 1 year builder warranty … something goes wrong (e.g., lawn watering system leaked in April) and the builder will fix it.  For the past few months I have been trying to get our builder to have a look and fix the large crack at the end of our driveway.  This is something that he has been against doing (he claims that it is not covered in the builder’s warranty) but did agree to “patch it”.  After three weeks of waiting for him to stop by our house, he arrived last night and I asked Donald to come over and watch as well as get a second opinion.  Donald told the builder that he should cut out the bad section of concrete at the end of the driveway and put new concrete down.  Our builder didn’t like to hear that and pretty much just packed his stuff up and left.  What a guy.

So it is confirmed that we will have the kids pictures taken on Saturday, July 7?  Were you thinking of going to a picture studio or just taking pictures on our own?  I was thinking of taking pictures on our own, but I wasn’t sure if that is what everyone else was thinking.  Still have yet to hear from Stephanie, so I will have to find out if they are able to commit.

Cheesehead Invasion?

Sitting on Donald and Linda’s porch yesterday afternoon with them, Jet, Danny, Sarah, Tom, and Buddy (we regularly gather at their house to shoot the breeze each evening), a man stopped his car in front of their house and approached us.  He had a Harley badge on him, said that he was from Wisconsin (West Bend), and wanted to check the neighborhood out since his co-worker (also from Harley in Wisconsin) had just bought one of the new houses being built.  He liked seeing Ben since he and his wife had twins 18-month old babies.  Funny how things like that work out.  And to top it off, both he and his friend work in the IS department at Harley.  He was in a hurry (he had someone waiting in the car) so he could not stay and chat.  He made a good impression on us, as Donald best said, “if he is the type of person not afraid to go up to a bunch of strangers and start a conversation, he will fit in here just fine”.

Jet is still waiting to hear from some of the places that she applied a job at, but is a bit impatient and would like to get some results (either good or bad) soon.  I will be at school for most of this week preparing for the fall semester and getting some research done.  On Wednesday, our department will be hosting a bunch of area guidance counselors to show them what it means to have a degree in computer science/computer information systems.  That way, they could “hopefully” steer some of their graduates to our program.  It works well for the guidance counselors too since they earn some of the credits they need to stay in step with state requirements.  A true “win-win” scenerio.

It has been in the mid to upper 90’s for the past week here, but finally we are expected to get a good rain today.  Over the past few weeks, we have been fortunate to get a sprinkle here and there, but nothing substantial and no good soakings.   Hopefully that is what we will get today.  As a result, I have had to water the watermelons and pumpkins each morning - and they are struggling.  It is fun to do it, though, because I will have Ben with me in the Baby Bjiorn, and he likes helping daddy water the plants.

Only 12 more days till we are there!  I am sure that the time will fly by fast.  Anytime will work well for us for a “kids” photo, daytime or evening.  We will have a new camera along with us to take the pictures.  Let us know if it can happen.

Milwaukee in Atlanta

Yesterday we traveled to Atlanta for the last home game for the Atlanta Kookaburras for the 2007 season against the Milwaukee Bombers, my former team.  Since the Bombers were short of numbers, I agreed to play with them.  As it turned out, the Bombers were over-matched and a close contest became a blowout in the fourth quarter with Atlanta winning 106 - 45.  I was happy that I was able to play another game with my old teammates, but was also happy that the Kookas were accepting of me playing against them.  The MVP of the day would go to Ben for being such a trooper.  The temperatures escalated into the 90’s and shade was a dwindling commodity.  Jet was somehow able to manage him well in these conditions.

How about a family photo of all the grand-kids while we are back in Milwaukee?  I am not sure if this is feasible, but this would be a great opportunity for something like this with us being in town.  I guess the next possible time to do this would not be until the holidays.  Let me know your thoughts if this is a good idea and if this could be done on Tuesday (July 2) or Wednesday (July 3).

The Big Clean

Looks like the plan will be for a two-day event at Dad’s house when we get there.  It will start on Monday, July 2 and finish July 3, followed by a rummage on July 14.  After speaking with Dad, looks like we will need to separate into two teams.  The first team will be outside painting, the second team in the basement and garage sorting items for keeps, rummage, or trash.  Dad agreed to spend the next two weeks in the basement and garage identifying what needs to go.  We will likely be moving everything (if possible) from the basement into the garage so that it might be easier to work with for the rummage.  I am not sure that this is the best idea, so I am open to suggestions.  On Monday, Kristin and Sandy have off of work and I will be there to help out.  Anyone else?  On Tuesday, Aunt Sue has taken a vacation day to help out, but Kristin has to work.  Anyone else can make it to help?

For the past two nights, we have had Ben sleep in his crib in his own room with fairly good results.  He still awoke a few times during the night, which either Jet or I had to give him a bottle or a pacifier to calm him down, but more importantly, we have gotten much better sleep.  We have also “tried” to ignore his cries a few times, waiting up to a whole 10 minutes this morning, until we attended to him.  Our pediatrician recommended that we let him cry to get him used to sleeping through the night.  But it is tough.  We have never left him cry longer than a few moments before, not that Ben cries that much other than at night.  This will take a bit of time and nerves of steel.  Jet began feeding cereal to Ben for the first time this week and Ben has really liked it, eating every spoonful that Jet delivers.  Yesterday we stopped by the Kim’s (both faculty members at JSU with me) so that Jet could see their son who was born right when Jet left for Thailand.

Jet’s alergies have kicked in once again with some itching giving her discomfort and a headache as well.  Linda recommended an alergy doctor that she visited yesterday and Jet liked very much.  She took an x-ray of Jet and saw that she had a significant sinus infection causing her headache and gave her a prescription that has helped.  In addition, she scheduled Jet for a skin alergy test in two weeks, which is something that she has tried getting for years but the insurance has said no.  We eagerly await the results there and hope that we find something difinitive as the cause of her ails.

I am happy that Sandy finally got a medal for her running and was also glad to hear Stephanie did so well.  I have my next 5K coming up on June 30 at 9:00pm, the night before our flight to Milwaukee.  I hope it will be a fun one.  As for a run on July 7, which one is that?  I noticed that there is one in Cambridge.  Not sure how that would fit into our schedule, however.

Flights Are Booked

Our flights are booked and we are ready to come and celebrate the 4th and Maggie’s birthday (more cake!) with the family.  Here are our flight details:

Arrives in Milwaukee, Sunday, July 1 @ 11:02am (Delta Flight 4432)
Departs from Milwaukee, Sunday, July 8 @ 7:05am (Delta Flight 4495)

I will try to organize a day or two for everyone to help out painting Dad’s house and ”cleaning” out the basement/garage.  With Dad’s input this time, hopefully it won’t be such a bad experience for him.  Then again, it might even be worse!  Remember, we must get him to agree that we work on the inside of the house before painting commences.  He really wants the house painted, so if that is done first, we will have no leverage when it comes to removing ”unneccessary” items from the house. 

We took Ben in for his fourth-month check-up, which was almost one month late due to his being out of the country and all.  He weighed in at 15 pounds, 13 ounces and is 25 inches long.  The doctor said that everything was fine with Ben and that he was “very strong” for his age as he is able to hold his head up well, uses his arms to hold up his head, and has very strong shoulders because he is able to roll over well too.  Our doctor did notice a heart murmur, but diagnosed it as benign.  Ben then had his four shots (ouch!) and is now sleeping it off.  We asked our doctor about his coughing over the past few days, but she checked him out well and confirmed Jet’s suspicion that he might have been doing that simply for attention.  Ben’s next appointment will be his sixth month visit on July 16th when he will get another four shots.  Poor little fella.

They’re Back!

I picked up Jet and Ben from the airport in Atlanta yesterday (Tuesday) and boy was I glad to see them.  Ben gave me a smile and a laugh when I first held him and that really did feel good.  We got back home in the early afternoon and it was just sleep for Jet and Ben with a little bit of unpacking afterwards.  It was an early morning today as it was tough getting Ben adjusted back to Alabama time.  We made a quick stop to Birmingham today so that Jet could get fingerprinted as a part of the citizenship process, but back home in the afternoon for more sleep.  I was beat from the early start coupled with an active Ben, so I joined in for a quick cat nap.  The toughest thing now is learning all of the new things about Ben (e.g., how he eats, how he likes to sleep, what he likes to do) that have changed since he left.  The more time I spend with him, the more I realize he has changed.  Tomorrow I will be off to JSU to get some work done and Jet will be meeting with some friends from Colonial Bank.  I hope Ben adjusts back to Alabama time soon or else it will be a couple of long days ahead of me.

You want pictures?  I got pictures!  I uploaded so many, that I separated them into four albums!  Enjoy.

The Day I Was A Tiger

Yesterday in Atlanta was a lot of fun.  The Baton Rouge Tigers were short a few players and I was “selected” to play for them against my team, the Atlanta Kookaburras.  I was told only to play one half with them, but the Tigers wanted me to play the whole game for them and I obliged.  Atlanta won in a blow-out, 150-40, but I played my best game of the year for the Tigers and with it, hopefully gained a bit of respect from some of the Atlanta players.  It will be interesting in our next match in two weeks as my former team, the Milwaukee Bombers, come to town.  Since they might be a bit short on numbers too, I will likely play against Atlanta for the second straight game.  I am really looking forward to that match.

I spent the day today with Donald and Linda visiting Donald’s relatives that live just north of Birmingham.  Linda warned me as we got off the freeway and started passing through the rural back-roads where Donald was raised as a boy that we would be entering areas where rednecks lived.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that some people I know would think we never left.  After spending time meeting several new people and some of Donald’s “kin”, they were all very nice and welcoming.  I really enjoyed spending time with them traveling today.

Now only two more days until Jet and Ben are back here!  It is a strange feeling to feel both excited and exhausted at the same time.  Excited that I will get to see them again, but exhausted because time passed by so slowly since they have been gone.  I am going to wait and speak with Jet about daycare options when she gets back.  She actually has a bit of expertise herself in this area as she worked for KinderCare a few years back for about three months before she got her job at P.F. Chang’s.  I have heard lots of good things about JSU’s child development center but Jet had also heard good things about another daycare closer to home.  Another thing we will have to discuss is where Ben will sleep at night.  Jet requested that I move Ben’s crib into our room so that he could sleep with us at night.  She told me that both her Mom and Dad recommended her to do it and that all parents in Thailand do it.  I am very reluctant to agree to this since everyone I have spoken to over her has told me that if we do that, it will take a long time to get him out of our room once he gets bigger, among other things.  Regardless, it will just be nice to have them back home.