Appointments, rain, and more moving

I had an ultrasound today. That's right, I did. Of my stomach. My doctor is befuddled by my little throat problem, so he's had all sorts of tests ordered for me. I've had my blood drawn (I have a high bellirubin count), an H-Pilori test, and today I had an ultrasound of my stomach. I think he wanted to see if I had stones or something. Anyways, I did that at 7:30 in the morning and less than 2 hours later I was back at the hospital with Emily for her check-up.
Now we go to the doctors every week for Emily. Emily has started some mild contractions. The doctor checked her wall-lining (it's 70% thinned) and dilatioins (she's 1cm). Coupled with the fact that Emily herself came one month early, the doctor seemed to think that little Peanut could drop any day now. Yikes! I just say at least wait until tomorrow, when we're in our new home!
It's tough to see, but that circle in the bottom-left corner of the blue square is what 10 cm looks like. That's how much Emily had to be dilated before the 'Nut come out.
After the appointment we went over to move in some more stuff to our new place.
Emily likes to sport the cowboy hat as she moves.
Emily waiting for the doctor to show up.

Moving, moving, moving

Emily and I are still in the process of moving into our new house. Today we made a few more trips, bring most of our kitchen stuff, our pantry, and food in the fridge. Also other odds and ends like snow tires and lots of shoes.

This weekend is the picnic for all of the employee's for the State of Alaska. They have picnics in Anchorage, the Mat-Su, and Fairbanks. Of course Sarah is there to see everyone. Emily and I were thinking about going (it was today at the park strip right by our house) so Emily and the Nut could get a picture with Palin the day before she steps down. But when we drove by coming home from our first trip to our new house, there was a huge line just to get into the picnic. So we didn't go.

We made another trip in the afternoon and we decided to have our first dinner in our new house. We even brought food for Banjo. One of my co-workers is a big duck hunter even though he doesn't like to eat it. But he does bring it in for other people to eat. Sara, another DNA analyst, took some home and marinated it in oil, garlic, and other spices. She had some left over, so she brought it in to share, so I took it home. We pan fried it (tossed a little flour on the meat), for 4 minutes a side. And it was super tasty. Some of the best meat I've have in a while. We also had some rice, beats, and kiwi.Nothing like some fresh Alaskan duck. Yum.
Emily and the 'Dood sitting by the dinner table.
Our new living room. A little bear.
Little Nutley's room. Those are shower presents piled on the dresser/changing table.
Emily cooking up some duck for our first meal in our new house.

it's been a while

Well, we've been pretty busy, although I can't really think of anything too exciting to report.  We've been trying to gradually move our stuff over to our new place.  I think we've been doing pretty good.  We still have the quite a bit of stuff, but we've managed to set up most of the stuff in the Peanut's room, like his crib, changing table, and all of his loot.  (We've also had 3 baby showers:  one at Neil's work, one with my friends that kari and rachel threw (mom and grandma skyped in for the occasion), and one at my work).  I'll have to take some pictures of the house and all of the loot next time we're over there.

We also started our classes at the hospital.  Last week we had a 3 hour class on "the art of breast feeding".  It was pretty good.  The teacher was really knowledgeable.  And outside of the swim locker room I've never seen so many boobs.  

On Tuesday we had a tour of the maternity wing of the hospital where we're going.  It seemed pretty nice.  The lady who gave the tour was really nice.  They have a Jacuzzi, and the rooms are pretty nice.  They have real furniture in them, and don't look that much like a hospital room.

Tomorrow we have a baby care class, and then two birthing classes next week.  Then apparently we're officially ready.  

Happy Birthday America! (and me!)

For the 4th of July this year Emily and I took it pretty easy. We went and saw the new Transformer movie in the morning (maybe 'saw' is the wrong verb for Emily, since she slept through most of it. Maybe a better word would be 'accompanied'). When we came home we prepared our picnic lunch for the look-out loop at Flattop and Emily made me birthday cupcakes. Then we had our picnic and took a little walk on Powerline Trail. And let me tell you, it H-O-T hot! Probably the hottest I've ever been in Alaska.
When we got home from Flattop I talked to my Mom, Dad, and Scott who were up on The Juan. My Dad said that in 6 years he wants to have a three-generations of Hoff's compete in the doughnut eating contest they have at Roache Harbor. I said I'd be game.
After that I opened up presents and had some birthday cupcake. Ruth got me a fancy Sounders FC scarf, while Jeane sent me $29 dollars and scored me two tickets for a Mariners/Yankees game in September, when we'll hopefully be down. Emily got me some sleep shorts, some biking shorts, and the third season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And Banjo got me a new wallet, since he was sorry he chewed up my old one.
After that we walked over to the catch the Anchorage Bucs (black) battle the Anchorage Glacier Pilots (grey). They play in the Alaska Baseball League, which is summer league that college kids play. These teams had players from Gonzaga, Oregon, California-Riverside, and LSU. It's cool because the stadium is about a 15 minute walk from our house. They were playing a double-header on the 4th, with fireworks following the last game at midnight (they only played 7 inning game due to the festiviteis). We just stayed for the first game, which the Pilots won 9-7.

Emily and Banjo enjoying a 4th of July picnic on Flattop.
It was a really sunny day, but still a little hazy. Anchorage is down in the background.

Me and the 'Dood out for a birthday hike. Not only was it my 29th birthday, but Banjo turned 21 (months that is)! How cool that we have the same birthday?Now I can support the Sounders FC in style. Hopefully Cam can hook me up with a ticket when I'm down in September.We were pretty close to the action in the bleacher. So close that a lady got hit by an errant ball right in the shin during warm-ups. Ouch!
What's more American than enjoying a game of baseball on July 4th? How about seeing a kid jack a Grand Slam in the first inning, which a player on the Pilots did. They scored 5 runs in the top of the first before the poor Bucs pitcher could get an out (he ended up leaveing before he even recorded one out - rought start). But then the Bucs came back in the bottom of the First and put up 6 runs themselves. The Pilots took the lead again with a 2-run homer in the top of the Second, and held it for the rest of game.
Things got a little testy in the later innings when the manager of the Bucs started jawing with the Pilot's pitcher. The benches cleared, and the manager was ejected, although there wasn't a fight. I forgot to take a picture until both sides started going back into the dugout.

How do you celebrate 2 days before your birthday?

You have a potluck with your co-workers and then sing "Yoda" at one of the two gay bars in Anchorage.  That's how you rock it out before you turn 29.

My co-workers like to get together every once in a while (we had a potluck at my supervisor's house back in February), and since Sara, one of our new Casework analysts, just moved a few months ago she wanted to have everyone over.  So that's what we did.  And since my birthday was a few days away, Cheryl made a super-delicious chocolate-peanut butter mouse cake.  Kim bought the corn hole (it's a lawn game - really), which Emily and I won.  Emily came for the food part, but didn't want to go sing karaoke with us.  We had fun in the bar - some of my co-workers can really belt them out.  I think I surprised everyone with my song selection and rendition.  I had fun.  It was the first time I ever sang a song at a bar by myself (I remember doing 'Baby Got Back' at Barnaby's in Walla Walla with a bunch of people on John Bennet's 21st birthday, and of course rockin' out the karaoke at Mary's parent's house in Spokane during Thanksgiving before Jimmy had to head off to Iraq).  I feel I may be rambling, so I'll stop.

But speaking of rambling, did anyone catch Ex-Governor Palin's farewell speech today?  That lady can't string two coherent sentences together if her life depended on it.  If you want to check it out, go to adn.com.  Good news for Alaska, potentially horrible news for the rest of the US.  Now Palin will be unleashed upon the rest of this fine nation's citizenry.  And did you catch the little dig she made at global warming?  She's unbelievable!