My First Post

Well today was a busy and exciting day. We began with breakfast at LaMar's Donuts...a great local donut place we found here. After that we went to my doctor's appt. (36 weeks). The doc said things look good, I am a centimeter dilated, and the baby's head is in position. Now, I believe we are going to try induction first and see what happens. Before we were thinking c-section. Next, we went to the Flatirons Mall to Kiddie Kandids. I had a coupon for a free 8x10 maternity picture. So we figured why not take them up on the offer, plus Chas and I have not gotten any pictures taken professionally since our wedding. So they took one of me by myself and the rest were with Chas and myself. The pictures turned out awesome. We continued this afternoon running errands and then crashed for a nap before dinner.

Things are getting close to the baby's due date, only a few more weeks. We are looking forward to it. I also have only 1 more week at my summer job (Sylvan Learning Center). My dad flies out 2 weeks from tomorrow. I am looking forward to having some time off with the baby and Chas and not going back to school at the beginning of the year. It will be a nice break.

-Melissa

Finally a day where its not 9000 degrees

That's right folks, its been over 90 for it seems like forever (although I'm sure it couldn't have been for more than 4 or 5 days. Right now, according to the trusty weather channel web page it is 77 degrees at 8 o'clock in the evening and low humidity (sorry Pittsburghers). And its also supposed to rain 'sometime' today. That would be great considering my yard is on the verge of doing a 'cough, cough, wheez' and just giving up. They are saying, and by 'they' meaning the news media, that it could be the driest year Denver has ever had. I used to think that would be awesome to not worry about rain, but there are downsides to that as well. So make sure to remind me of that when I used to bitch about it raining in Pittsburgh all the time.

I'm back to work tomorrow after having my usual three days off. Sorry, I don't mean to brag but its awesome. It will be nice to get back to a full four day work week. (Sorry, I'll stop that right now.) Last week I had the now infamous shotgun class that took up 2 days right in the middle of my work week, which is Thursday-Monday. So a nice normal week without any severe bruising to parts of my body will be nice.

So during my weekend I went to the dentist. Sounds like not much fun but I like the dentist. I think its because before we moved out here and had good dental insurance I hadn't been to a dentist in YEARS. It sounds nasty but I feel like I've always taken pretty good care of my teeth. Blame it on having braces twice. Plus its amazing what has changed in the field of dentistry these days. Gone are the days of endless scraping. Now they have these things that use sonic vibrations or something like that. So sue me, I like the dentist. I get nice clean teeth and don't endure any pain.

On Wednesday Melissa and I went to her school room to get it arranged. She wanted to get it done so that she doesn't have to worry about letting her substitute do it while she is off with the baby. So we went out and did that in the morning and hung out with some friends in the evening.

After those two days, my THIRD day off (sorry) we just hung out around the house. Melissa took it easy and I caught up on my netflix movies. First was Hot Fuzz. After seeing Simon Pegg in Shaun of the Dead and thoroughly enjoying it I figured I would watch this. I must say, mindless humor is good every once in a while. I also watched Vantage Point which I really enjoyed. It was one that had you on the edge of your seat in a completely different way than most movies.

Other than that I seemed to have taken an interest in John Mayer's music. I never really paid any attention to him before. But I listened to some songs off of his new live CD and I must say I am now a fan. He does a really awesome acoustic version of Tom Petty's 'Free Fallin'. It goes on the playlist for sitting on you back porch chillin' out. Chillin' out, drinking a beer and typing your blog.

-Chas

after a short delay

Sorry its been so long, things have been busy out west for the last few months. The baby should be here in under a month and we are putting the finishing touches on getting everything ready. Here is the baby's room as it is right now. Melissa is having the art teacher at her school put a mural on the wall behind the changing table. So hopefully the ultrasound lady was right when she said it was a boy. Otherwise we'll have a lot of rearranging to do.

Melissa has been good, other than being tired quite a bit. She still seems to be trying to do too much and I keep telling her she needs to rest. Of course she is looking over my shoulder right now laughing at me. Melissa is now saying she is going to start posting things on here so maybe we might have some things worth reading.

We both seem to be missing Pittsburgh a bit more lately since the baby is coming and we won't be able to introduce him to a lot of our friends right away. This might warrant another trip home for a longer period than last time. We were thinking around Christmas time since I already have some time off scheduled. Melissa's Dad and my mother and brother will both be coming out right after the baby is born but there are still a lot of people to see.

As for me, everything is still good at work. Its getting a little rough working EVERY SINGLE FRIGGIN' WEEKEND. Of course, once the baby is here we won't have to worry about much daycare since I am home 3 days a week. I got the pleasure of going through shotgun training for the last 2 days. I'll leave you with a nice picture of the joy that it brought me.

FUN HUH??

-CHAS

Survey Says..........????????

See if you can tell by this picture...........

Well, neither could the ultrasound lady.....from that picture. After several minutes of searching and one prediction of a girl......she was finally able to find the infamous boy parts. So we are having a boy.......a son.....so what did we do to celebrate?? We went and spent way too much money on clothes for the baby. Plus we registered at Babies R' Us. The store was really confusing at first but it better once I remembered to take deep breaths. I tell you on thing, that kid is going to be spoiled.

In other news........the trip home was nice. It was of course way to short and we didn't get to see everyone we wanted to (sorry Lyker's we really wanted to meet Maggie). It made us miss everyone a lot when we had to leave after only seeing them for a couple hours. One thing I didn't really miss is the Pittsburgh winter weather. I know it's technically Spring but the weather is still Winter. That damp, cloudy cold was starting to wear on me after only a few days. It makes me appreciate how good we have it out here with all the sunshine and dry air.

I did get my fill of two things that I missed the most during my first year away from the 'burgh......Primanti's and Yuengling Lager. Boy they both tasted good too. They both need to think about expanding out west. Of course when I was hanging out with a buddy of mine I had to drink a Coors Light with the comment, "It tastes fresher out there", even though it tastes exactly the same.

Well I'm sitting here watching tv and trying to think of things to say, but not getting too far. So I'm gonna cut this post off.

Catch you all later.

Home Again

So, in the first time in over a year, Melissa are heading back to Pennsylvania for a visit. We had been debating on whether or not to go for a few months now. I kept checking airfares and there was never any good fares except for the flight that lasted 12 hours with a layover. The all of the sudden a good fare came up so we took it. The return flight has two layovers but it doesn't take too long, so we can deal with that. Especially since we probably won't be able to make it back again for a long time. Our flight gets into the 'burgh on Tuesday March 25 early in the afternoon and we leave then on Sunday the 30th. Melissa and I are both looking forward to seeing some friends and family that we haven't seen in over a year.

Other than that, everything else is going well, Melissa has been feeling great and has no more morning sickness, or all day sickness as it was in her case. The baby is doing well too, we got the heartbeat again last time at the doctor's and it was good and strong.

Not much more than that going on, life has been pretty boring lately. Hopefully will have more to write here in the next few weeks.

Lag time

Hello all, I hope this new post finds everyone doing well. Its been a while since I have been able to think of anything to write about. Of course that must mean how boring our lives are at this moment right now. Aside from all the baby stuff things have just been pretty stagnant. The weather has been pretty cold most of the time. It gets nice for a day here and there but the motivation to get out and enjoy it usually isn't. Plus I'm usually working on the nice days of course.

The job is going really well. Its nice to have a job when you can wake up every day and not feel miserable about going to work. Sure my line of work can have some high stress situations but it is always fun. Plus it makes me feel like I'm helping other people, although some may not think so!

As for the baby, Melissa is almost at 15 weeks. 5 more and we figure out if we are having a boy or girl. Scary huh? Time is going so fast. And there is so much left to get ready. Lucky enough that we have some AWESOME friends that have given us some essential baby items (high chair, car seat, etc.) Now all I have to do is remodel a basement, and move two rooms around. Should be easy right? Done by August?

That's my new source of motivation. :-)

Lame joke: A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. They both get pissed. The giraffe falls over. The man goes to leave and the bartender says, "Oi. You can't leave that lyin' there." And the man says, "No. It's not a lion. It's a giraffe."

Keep dreaming Pittsburgh

OK, I still love Pittsburgh but I had to make the move out here. Things are very different here and the overall quality of our lives have improved since we moved out here.



SOOOOO, even though something like this happens here.....

The Denver area roads are a million times better than the roads in Pittsburgh.

Now that I've got that out of my system, I can go on in life.

The last few days have been interesting with the pregnancy. Melissa got the flu at the end of the last week. Notice how I don't capitalize the 'f' in flu. I know you don't have to but I am definitely not going to give it the dignitity of standing on its own. The flu has been the bane of my existence in the last few days. It created havoc in Melissa and made her spend two evenings in the hospital for dehydration. But today it seems like she has kicked it in the rear and all is well. I hope this keeps going for the better and damn you flu if I ever see you again.

-Angry