Andrew's Arrival

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by davidremerson

Well I guess there's no reason to trip any longer, Andrew Ryan Emerson has arrived. We had him on December 22 at 5:37pm. He's 6 pounds and 10 ounces and 20 inches long.

I had all of last week off which was nice since the holidays saved me some vacation time. I'll be working half-days from home the next three weeks.

We had to more-or-less cancel Christmas as he just got to go home on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. We ended up having all our family come over to our house for Christmas, baby adoration time, and present exchange.

So today is his 8th day alive and he and mama are doing good. He wakes up about 3-4 times a night for the whole diaper / feed-me / burp-me routine, and I'm just starting to get used to working on 5 hours of sleep. He on the other hand still spends most of his days asleep. Must be nice....

Then again, it's kinda nice having a little buddy on my lap while I'm playing Fable II. :o)

Sick and Tripping Out...

Thursday

Yesterday Lisa, Justin, and I all stayed home sick, all with similar symptoms. For me sore throat, turned into lung-butter, slash itchy-eyes, inflamed sinus goodness that's been going on for about 4-5 days now. So we stayed home and did a helluva lot of laundry, cleaning, and just nesting in general.

Along with this, Lisa has been showing some very obvious signs that she'll be going into labor soon. Without going into the gory details, she seems pretty confident that it could be going down 'in the next day or two'.

Friday

Today Lisa decided to be a trooper and go to work for her last day before her preggerz leave. Justin and I are still pretty sick but I still went to work, and Justin to his last day of school before his two-week Christmas break.

I got a call around lunch time from Lisa and she said that her morning was pretty rough, but she was hangin' in there.

I can't even quite describe how I feel. Between being sick still, and the intense anticipation of having this baby any day now, the only way I can describe how I feel is A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y C-R-A-Z-Y. I'm just really glad it's Friday and we have the weekend to chill until this little monster decides to come.

Surprise Baby Shower at Work!

Wednesday

So I was working with Alex today in the training room just before lunch. I kept saying I wanted to go to the Hospital for lunch, but he kept stalling me and working on the project. I said eff it, and ditched out, walked to the hospital and had a salad, sandwich bought and ready to devour. I expected to see him coming around the corner any minute to join me, but instead I get a call... he says, 'Where are you man? The boss is having a surprise going away party for us at work. You have to come back RIGHT NOW!'

It wasn't until I hung up that it clicked. Ahh crap, they're having a surprise baby shower for me, but I had no idea to what extent. I stacked my sandwich, salad and OJ, and started hoofin' it back. I was trying to think of how to act surprised. I finally got back and Alex met me at the door continuing his bullshit story of the going away party. I told him I knew he was full of crap, but he kept a perfect poker face.

We headed up stairs and as soon as I saw the room full of people, the party streamers, and the projector running showing, "this video is rated E" I knew a whole lot of effort when into this thing. I went in shocked as hell. Lisa was there at the head of the table! She had coordinated with Alex giving him old photos for the video and taken time off work to come down for the party that I was now 20-minutes late to. Lourdes had made incredible raviolis, and chicken, and we got a ton of baby clothes and other loot.

I was very surprised, and very blessed to have such a great group of people to work with every day.

Week 37 Doctor's Appointment

Tuesday

Today we had Lisa's week 37 pre-natal doctor's appointment. Everything is dynomite, and as of this week we're officially "full-term". Which means that if the baby were truly a bun, it could feasibly be ready to remove said bun from the oven. She's at 1-cm, and the doctor said that I could happen any time from tonight, to a week after the due date (Jan 6th-ish). The anticipation is KILLING ME. :o)

Slow Busy Weekend...

Saturday

Justin and Lisa have been sick, and Saturday I realized when I woke up that I was as well having a gnarley sore throat. We had the weekend without Justin and Lisa had to work; it's her 4th to last work day before her pregnancy leave.

I however got up at 5am, to get to Carmichael by 7am to video tape my buddy Alex's black belt promotion at Kovar's Karate. It was a brutal 2 hour testing event for about forty advanced brown belts. Alex did a rockin job and got his black belt; a nice trophy after four and a half years of training.

When I got back to Lodi Lisa still had several hours to work so I got a Foster Freeze burger and burrito to hold me over. I went home and took the opportunity to crawl under the house and finish installing cable into Justin's room as a surprise for when he got home. Last week I bought an 18" drill bit to drill a hole from Justin's wall into the crawlspace beneath the house. By the time I was finished I'd drilled three holes: one into a space which was inaccessible without a fishing cable, the next, being flustered, I went straight into a stud, and third finally successful. In total I'd crawled under the house, completely to the other side six times before I had working cable installed.

I'll still need one more trip under to get the extra cable off the ground and secured to the floor supports. I also have a bit of spackling and painting to cover the other two holes I created.

After the install Lisa called and we went to Mazatlan for some fine Mexican dining, then later finished the day watching 'Wonderland' which we Netflixed.

Sunday

Sunday we went to church, then drove to Costco in Elk Grove where we met back up with Alex. He wanted to use our membership to buy some Christmas gifts for his girls. Lisa and I bought a bunch of gift baskets and stuff as well. Afterwards we left and came home and watched 'Transsiberian' which we also Netflixed. Justin was dropped off early so we got to show him his new cable TV which he was excited about. Alex stopped by later that evening to pick-up a DVD burn of his black belt promotion video. We hung out for about and hour and BS'ed.

And that was basically our weekend.

Cables, Dogs and Holiday Parties

Saturday

As I reported earlier, Marley chewed through the last two, dog-level, exposed wires in the back yard last week so we've had limited, fuzzy, no-on-demand cable in our bedroom for about a week. The line to the nursery wasn't being used but was obliterated none the less.

So Saturday I set out to remedy this and additionally run a cable line to Justin's room. I went to Lowe's and picked up 30' of 1" PVC, 10' of 3/4' PVC, a spool of 500' of Coax and all the other incidentals. By the end of the day I'd cut and mounted the PVC, cut three coax lines, and had them all running from the Comcast line-drop, through the PVC and into junction boxes.

Sunday

Sunday Lisa had a Dermal Clinic holiday party up in the foot hills, and Justin and I got to hang out for the day. I raked the front while he played video games and worked a bit more on the cable lined until about 1pm or so. Then we got dressed and headed to Lowe's again.

Justin and I at Juice It Up
Originally uploaded by davidremerson

I needed a couple coax wall plates for Justin and Andrew's rooms, and some F-Type compression fittings. Afterwards he and I headed to In-N-Out for burgers and Juice It Up for a couple Lava Flows.

By the time Lisa got home I had the three cable lines connected to the splitter at the line-drop, and had finished the installation for Andrew room and our room. A quick test and all the channels were working, as was On Demand.

Though I still had a couple hours of daylight, Sunday was a helluva cold day and finishing the install for Justin's room would require spelunking under the house, stapling the cable to the supports and fishing it up the wall into his room. Not how I was planning on spending the end of my weekend, so he'll have to wait another week. :o)

Anyways, Justin and I played Halo 3 for a couple hours until mom got home. We had a nice evening and she and I finished the night watching Leaving Las Vegas OnDemand; a cool flick I hadn't seen before.

Crazy Thanksgiving Weekend...

 

Wednesday

I took Wednesday off work and Lisa, Justin and I took a trip to the Roseville Galleria for Lisa's birthday. I got her a pink 8Gb iPod nano with a car charger. Justin and I shopped around for games while she looked at clothes and baby stuff. We found a couple games for Justin for Christmas which we bought in stealth; meanwhile we gave Justin $20 to spend as he saw fit. He ended up selecting a zombie shooter called Dead Rising which was a blast.

Thursday

The next day we had to endure, count em, three Thanksgivings. First to Lisa's grandma's in Morada for dinner with her dad. Then to Papapavlo's in Stockton for some fine Mediteranian dining with my family; including my mom, grandparents, Eddie, Mike, Jen, Bella, Alex and Betsy. Afterwards we had to drop Justin off at his dads while we headed to Manteca for Thanksgiving with Lisa's step-mom and her family and friends at the Tiago's.

Friday

If that's not bad enough we decided to fight the crowds on Black Friday. Lisa and I got up at 3:30 am (sans Justin still), and headed to Sears in Stockton for a new toolbox. We got there at about 4:20 but then realized they didn't open until five. We got in a were able to get a new black Craftsman toolbox, a set of 25 screwdrivers and a 5hp wet/dry shopvac all saving us about $250 over retail. Not bad. Afterwards we headed to Baby's R Us where Lisa got a high chair and tub for the baby. Then back to home around 7:30am where I unloaded to car and and we went back to bed.

That evening, after a morning which made for a very weird feeling day, we headed to Galt to spend some time with her dad, Olaya, Susie and David. Susie also being preggerz we all had a great time. Olaya made a great artichoke dip, and dinner while we bsed, then we played some pool and darts upstairs for a few hours before settling down to a nice quaint movie: Tropic Thunder. lol not all the quaint, and quite crude but nonetheless one helluva funny movie.

Saturday

Man, how do I remember all this crap... Saturday, Saturday... Ah yes, the baby shower. So Saturday morning Lisa's step-mom and their family had a baby shower for Lisa and Susie in a cool rec. hall adjacent to their home in Manteca. This is where we got Marley from, so we took him along to play with his mom, siblings and friends (there were about six labs there; he had a BLAST!) So the shower: It was basically a bar, with a bunch of tables setup; there was also a pool table, foozball and air hockey. This gave the boys some fun while the girls talked. After snacks and a few rediculous games, Lisa and Sooz started opening presents; Justin and I were mom's wingmen helping with opening presents, sorting gifts and such. We got a ton of clothes, pampers, a bouncer, etc. Afterwards we headed up to her aunt Cheryl's place where Marley was at and hung out for a couple hours. Lisa and Sooz sorted through their loot and traded baby outfits while Justin and I played with the dogs outside. Mike's van, which Cathy, Susie and David came in from Nevada had the started go out and a few of the guys out at the ranch were able to help him replace the starter and get it running again.

Sunday

Yes. I know. There's more?! There couldn't possibly be.... that's what WE thought.

The Last Surviving Cable Line
Originally uploaded by davidremerson

Lisa and I slept in and had fun just cleaning the house most of the morning. I discovered that Marley chewed throught the cable line running to our room this morning. This after he's already gone through two other cable lines which I had to repair and the AC line which I repaired. I said eff it, and didn't bother fixing it today. We had enough on our hands just dealing with going through the presents and getting Andrews room setup. We got hungry around 3pm or so and headed out to Applebee's for lunch. During lunch we organized our gift cards and how we were going to use them, and Lisa started organizing her calendar of stuff to do when she gasped, "Oh my god! We're supposed to be at Jennifers for Thanksgiving and Alex's birthday!" We paid and left Applebee's; I saw that I had a text on my phone from Mike so I called and explained. We went over and had a great time. My mom was there. We had a great dinner and a coldstone cake before heading home.

I can't wait to go back to work. :o)