Wednesday, August 29, 2007

LUUUUUUKE


Baby Luke arrived almost 3 weeks ago today. Yeah, yeah - I should have rushed out here to blog about it on August 9 (his birthday). Remember though, this is a slacker blog!!

Everything went way better than I expected. I returned from a pool patrol (more on that later) a little after 10:00 pm and Lynn says she thinks she is in labor! We get to the hospital around 11:45 and the baby is born at 12:24 am. Well then, guess I should have rushed us along better!

Here's a shot of Luke!

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Blogger Deadbeats

The blogger deadbeat is back. A wicked long hiatus (over six months) from the blogging world that I joined back in December. As you might guess, a lot has happened since then. A brief recap is in order I guess. The biggest news is we are expecting our second child in August. Second, we sold our old house and found and moved into a new one. Third - Abby is amazing us every day - full sentences and all.

The new baby boy is due on August 10 - Lynn is doing well and the major projects (paint, furniture) in the nursery are completed. We are scouring the earth for names - I never dreamed there were so many names out there. We sort of have it narrowed down. Lynn vetoed two of mine - Gordon and Kevin. I'll just get defensive now - they were not at all NASCAR related. I rated her short list, I couldn't veto any of them. We should have our short list in a week or so I guess.

The house sale/purchase/move amazed us. Our old house was in a decent but not hot neighborhood. Great location surrounded by lots of noise from the 2nd busiest airport in Georgia (Peachtree DeKalb for you pilots out there) as well as a large immigrant community. We watched all the houses sit on the market for months and figured we'd be in the same boat. The schools are poor and families are not common or desiring the area as a result. Anyway, we signed up with an agent that lived in the neighborhood and put the house on the market. The project took well over a year to get the house on the market! Mainly because I was lazy about the bigger projects and figured there was no hurry. We listed the house on a Monday and received a decent offer. We countered and hoped for more. We then received an offer over our asking price and permitting us to remain for up to 60 days. What a blessing as we barely started looking for a new place figuring again that there was no hurry. We came to agreement with the buyer on Saturday night and closed 2.5 weeks later. WOW!

New house - we hired a different agent because we were moving across town and the agent that sold our home was not as familiar with where we wanted to go. We met with her on 3 or 4 occasions to see homes. She did a great job. After about 30 places or so, we decided to purchase a new home on a fantastic lot. The lot is in the corner of the subdivision in a cul-de-sac and backs up to heavily wooded property. Looking out the back of the house, you can barely see a few homes that are even larger (separate subdivision) so it is very quiet. There is a lot of construction in the subdivision but we barely hear it. Our street is completed so there is no construction traffic or noise next door or across the street. The new house puts Lynn much closer to her office and she does not need to travel on the expressway. The local traffic can be savage though. We saved and saved for furniture and are slowly buying what we need. We hope to eventually finish the basement or as the real estate people like to call it "the terrace level". Window coverings are frighteningly expensive but a necessity - they are due to start coming in within the next couple of weeks. New plasma TV with HD is mounted on the wall and very cool - I don't know how I watched the old Fisher 27" for so many years. Discovery HD's Planet Earth series is AWESOME. We are very blessed and pleased to have such a nice house. In fact, I still don't believe I actually live there. More on the house later - assuming I keep this blog up better!

Abby - what a joy!! She is amazing. I simply cannot believe the things she understands and says. She is a lot of fun and has amazing energy. The community we moved to has a big pool (Junior Olympic - whatever that means). She loves to go to the "big pool" - we have a lot of fun there playing with various toys and taking her around. We spent probably like 5 hours there over this past weekend without another person in sight. She has her new room (painted pink) with some new furniture with the double bed. Yep, she's moved up and out of the crib. We have been hiking at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield twice now. We saw a deer and a snake on our first hike. The second hike we climbed on the big giant rocks. She pretty much rides on my shoulders (great exercise for me) and has a big time looking fo animals and a pond or creek to throw some rocks in to. In 2 weeks, Abby and I are heading to Chicago. Lynn is on travel embargo until the baby is born. Abby is going to hang out with Grandma while I head off to NASCAR with her Grandpa and my brothers. It should be a lot of fun. More on Abby in future posts!

Enough for now - hopefully back sooner than 6 months from now.