A week in the life of Dave

So many of you have heard me mention how busy Dave is this time of year, so I thought I'd share his schedule for this next week as a case in point. Tomorrow he leaves for Philadelphia with the Mavs, works the game there Sunday night, flies with the team to Milwaukee immediately following Sunday night's game, is in Milwaukee until the game Tuesday night, then flies with the team to Houston that night only to fly back to Dallas on Wednesday morning since there is not a local broadcast of the Houston game. So then Wednesday afternoon he flies to Denver where on Thursday he works not one, but TWO college basketball games for ESPN. Friday he flies from Denver to Dallas to Virginia where he works another college basketball game on Saturday. He finally returns home for a couple days on Sunday morning and he says he even plans to meet me at our Sunday School class at 11:15 a.m.

Confused? Now you see why sometimes when you ask me where he is, I have to pause and think and sometimes even say, "I don't remember." :)

So since he'll be gone all week, I'm going up to visit Susan and the kids in KC for a few days next week. Doug's out of town then, too, so we'll be keeping each other company. And the dogs get their favorite dog-sitter Emily for a few days, so everybody's happy.

Say hello to Teeny Weeny Keeney

We went in for our sonogram today and got to see our little one again. He/she was really active, doing a lot of waving and kicking. We are choosing not to find out the gender, and the sonogram tech said the baby was being modest, so she probably wouldn't have been able to tell us anyway. She said the baby was looking really good and healthy.

18 week sonogram

9 week sonogram

Baby Dreams

So far the dream count is girl: 2; boy: 1.

The first baby dream I had after I got pregnant was a few weeks ago and I dreamed it was a boy named David William. It was a few weeks after it was born, so we were out of the hospital and at some hotel or something. People I've known throughout my life kept coming off an elevator and I would introduce them to him. But the most notable thing was that this baby was HUGE. He was so big that whenever I would hold him I would drop him!

The second dream was a little girl. It was a few days after she was born and we were still in the hospital and I was visiting her in the nursery. Her name was (Blank) Grace (it was the first name we plan on using for a girl, so I better not tell since we're keeping the names secret).

And the latest was a couple nights ago. We were in the hospital immediately after the birth and somehow I had just been passed out for about 5 hours during the entire birth, so I had no memory of the labor or, most importantly, the pain. So when I woke up from being passed out, a man in the room told me it was a girl and we named her Homer. Yes, Homer. :)

Something else of note, a few months before we got pregnant, Dave and I each had a dream on the same night that we had a girl. In my dream she was named Hannah Marie and in his she was named Ana Lucia Maria. Very strange that we dreamt it on the same night and that the names were so similar!

Telling the family

Well, I'm finally getting around to the baby stuff! :) I was waiting until we had a chance to tell everyone, and I just about think we've got it covered. But if you're reading this and it's news to you, well then...surprise! (and my sincerest apologies).

So here are the pictures from when we told our parents and my sister and her family. It was the weekend of the half marathon (don't worry, my doctor had cleared me to run it) and we had the gang over for breakfast after the race. We told them we wanted to get a picture of everyone so we gathered on the deck, and as Dave was getting ready to snap the photo he said, "Now everyone say, 'Gretchen's having a baby!'" It took a while for it to sink in, so we have about 20 great pictures of everyone's reactions. Here's a good sampling:

OK, just one more dog photo

I couldn't resist posting this one. I got a new body pillow and the other night I walked in the bedroom and realized that someone else liked it, too. Needless to say it's now in hiding when I'm not using it.

Painting

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. I was about to post another photo of the dogs, but realized you've probably seen enough cute photos of them sleeping!

Dave had 4 straight days off this weekend (yes, four!) so we started our big painting project. We started with our large entry and it looks pretty good. Next on the list is the guest bathroom, office and nursery, but with Dave's crazy Mavs' schedule, who knows when we'll be able to conquer those.

Aww...they really do like each other

Half Marathon, Part 2

Dave did this one solo, but on Sunday he ran the White Rock Half Marathon. It was his first time running this one and said he really enjoyed the course and was really pleased with his time of 1:42. Not bad to cut 11 minutes off his time from a month ago. It was a really well done race and I was able to cheer him on at three different places along the route. I forgot to take the camera, but if you want, you can go to www.sportphoto.com, click on "Dallas White Rock Marathon" and then enter his bib number 6634. Pictures should be posted there tomorrow.

Winter comes to Texas

After temps near 80 on Wednesday, a cold front came through that night with heavy rains that set us up for a nice wintery day on Thursday. Temps were around 30 with sleet and snow (yes, SNOW!) off and on throughout the day. Of course, most of it has already melted today since it's going to be in the 50s. But it was fun while it lasted. Wesley actually liked playing in the snow on the deck, which is so strange because he won't step foot outside if the deck is wet after it rains or the sprinklers run.

The Half -- We did it!

This past Sunday, Dave, my sister and I all completed our half marathon. Whew! We had a really fun weekend leading up to it, and the race itself went well for all of us. Dave did it in 1:54, and that's after not really training and only getting 4 hours of sleep the night before. Susan amazed us all by doing it in 2:01, and I cut 13 minutes of my time from last year to do it in 2:25. I also ran the whole thing without walking, which really surprised me. But Susan and Dave really encouraged me to try to do it, so I did. We're all ready for some much needed rest now that our training is over. I'm definitely relieved there are no 10-mile runs in my immediate future.

Fair Food

Dave and I took the day off Monday and ventured out to the Texas State Fair. It was Dave's first time going without having to work an event. We ate our way through it, trying as much as we had the stomach for: corn dogs, Tornado Taters, fried Twinkie, fried Nutter Butters, fried mac and cheese, and a Donkey Tail (hot dog and cheese wrapped in a tortilla and fried). The fried mac and cheese was our favorite. Someone told us the fried Coke wasn't worth it, so we passed on that. And the next day we were wishing we would have passed on a few more things. Needless to say, our run on Tuesday morning was a struggle!

If only we could all sleep this well