Category Archives: Family

The Boxes Report a Diversion

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Holland America, despite what they originally told our travel agent, actually doesn’t allow prego women to sail past their 24th week. Since we’ll be at 24.5 weeks, we can’t go. They did, however, take our money and refuse to give it back. Our options are to cancel the trip and pay a cancellation penalty or reschedule for earlier (impossible) or later (either waiting 6 months after BB is born and taking him with us, or leaving him behind for 5 days). I just wrote up a nice dispute letter for my credit card company. Think twice before cruising with Holland America. Their ships and itineraries are nice, but their customer service isn’t.

As always, though, God has added a silver lining. First, we discovered the problem ahead of time instead of flying to San Diego and getting sent home. I might have gotten a bit ugly. And used some colorful language. Second, we’ve decided to use that vacation time to stay home and relax. No overtime for me, no appointments with other people, no problems. As far as you’re concerned, we are gone! We hope to work on BB’s room and the apartment, get lots of rest, maybe stay a night in a nearby hotel, watch movies, play video games, or whatever else we feel like doing.

I am also sad to report that my mom finally put our old white and brown chihuahua to sleep yesterday. His official name was Mickey, but we called him Mick or Mee-Mee. Mom took great care of him all his life, and he was around 15 years old, which is like 200 in dog years. After seeing his poor body slowly shutting down over the last several months, we finally all decided it was time to end his suffering. May he rest in peace.

In happier news, Sunday is Jenny’s 32nd birthday! We’re getting the family together Saturday night for dinner at Grand Luxe Cafe in the Galleria. I love how Jenny doesn’t whine about her age every time a birthday rolls around. She’s happy for an excuse to spend time with friends and family and enjoy cake and presents.

March Already?

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Wow, it’s already March! Jenny is at 18 weeks now, so check the Baby Box page for the latest in his development. And don’t forget to vote for his name. =) I had an unexpectedly busy weekend, working three overtime shifts on the assistant desk at work, a nice surprise. Jenny and Lisa went to Canton on Sunday, where pregnant Lisa apparently devoured an entire store’s supply of fried pies.

We had three CARES events last week. First was Coffee and Pie Night, where we provided 4 different kinds of pie and had great conversations with several of our residents. Our eagerly awaited International Potluck Dinner, a resident’s suggestion, turned out to be a flop when not one person brought a dish and only a few came to eat what we had brought. But we made up for it on Saturday with brunch, aided by an army of volunteers from the Thrive class at IBC. They did a great job cooking and hanging out with the residents and were a huge help. We hope they’ll come back to future events. Around 35 people came, our best turnout in some time. I posted our March events calendar on the CARES page.

Our project for this week is going through our stuff and finding as many items as possible to donate to Jenny’s mom’s upcoming garage sale. BB’s room is currently full of all kinds of stuff – some junk, some good things in need of a good home, such as a nice TV. I also have recurrent training at work Wed-Fri, which means I’m working 7:00-4:00 each day. This might be the last chance Jenny and I have to carpool to Southwest. It’s weird to think that we’re almost at the halfway mark, and in about 5 months Jenny should be retired and home with the baby. We have a lot of work to do!

I’m Gonna Be an Uncle!

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I’ve been dying to put this news on here but waited until my sister Lisa gave me the green light: she and Phillip are pregnant! She’s due about 6 weeks after we are, and we are all thrilled to be on this journey together. Theirs will be the first grandbaby on Phillip’s side and just barely the second on our side, so 2008 looks to be a HUGE year for several different families. Lisa and Jenny have already talked several times about how they’re feeling and what’s going on. I’m sure they’ll have fun shopping for baby things together later on. We’re also thankful that we relatively close to each other so that the new cousins can grow up together. I got to see my cousins fairly often growing up – not as often as I’d like, but enough that they are still dear to me. We hope to continue that heritage.

In other news, the TV of Greatness has arrived, and we love it! I brought Mom over to watch the Australian Open in HD, and I might have convinced her to get on board. We’re having a great time with it watching tennis, a few HD channels, and a couple of movies using our new upconverting DVD player that came free with the TV. Unfortunately, it’s also tempting us to upgrade other parts of our home theater system. My huge Klipsch center channel is too big and heavy to fit on top, so I did order a smaller one by Polk from Amazon. But I’m trying to be patient on the other elements, or at least be smart about them and not blow all our money on toys. Jenny’s mom is having a garage sale this spring, which would be a great time to sell our old TV and some speakers instead of Craigslisting them. Maybe we’ll win that Best Buy gift card from Southwest’s employee drawing and take home those magnificent Martin Logan tower speakers I heard the other day. (ha!) For the record, I have the coolest wife in the world. She basically told me that home audio is my department and to do whatever I think is best. I love you, baby!

Five Years!

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On Friday, January 4, Jenny and I will celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. Forgive the cliche, but it’s hard to believe it’s been five years already. Time flies when you’re married to your best friend. To celebrate the day, we’re staying at the Gaylord Texan, which is still decorated with over a million lights, a 40-foot Christmas tree, and a great exhibit called ICE that’s made of, well, very large amounts of ice. Guess I need to talk to Mom about dogsitting…=)

We were 24 and 26 when we got married. I worked in Technology at SWA, Jenny as an admin at Camden. We lived in a great apartment in Euless overlooking a beautiful park. I drove my beloved Dodge Avenger from high school, Jenny a Hyundai Accent named Joey. I’d just received my dispatcher’s certificate. Jenny was finishing up her degree at Dallas Baptist. We had some goals and expectations about where we would be a few years later, but we had no way to know exactly where we would be at the five-year mark. Since then we’ve come a long way, over smooth stretches of road and bumpy. I’m so grateful to be on this wild journey with her.

Baby Box, one of the goals of the journey, is growing nicely. We met our new OB on Wednesday, so check BB’s page for the latest news.

Christmas Happenings and Handel’s Messiah

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So far we’ve had the privilege of celebrating Christmas with two parts of my family. On Saturday we went down to Midlothian to see Jenny’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law. We mixed it up with a Mexican Christmas. Well, I suppose only the food was Mexican, because we were still white as snow, and Jim’s attempt at praying in Spanish didn’t quite work. The food was great, though – enchiladas, tamales, homemade salsa, rice and beans, and Jenny’s sopapilla cheesecake. Sunday we had Christmas lunch with my dad’s side of the family. My cousins Jeff and Lisa just welcomed a new daughter, so we stopped to see them beforehand. After lunch we did a Chinese gift exchange (why is it called Chinese, anyway?) and played 80s Trivial Pursuit and family favorite Taboo. FYI, never play Taboo against Lisa. We plan to spend Christmas Eve at church and having dinner with friends and then Christmas Day with my parents, sis, bro-in-law, and mom’s parents.

Right now my car’s CD player is pumping the London Philharmonic’s magnificent recording of Handel’s Messiah. Many of you know my enthusiasm for and history with “Hallelujah,” its most famous song. But the entire 2+ hour work is a true masterpiece and a great soundtrack for this Christmas season. It tells the story of the predictions of Jesus, the state of man, Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection, and finally the glory of his eternal reign. Although often sung at Christmastime, “Hallelujah” is actually in the resurrection/eternal reign section. Messiah requires an orchestra, a large four-part choir, and four strong soloists, generally soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. I saw one performance that replaced the tenor with a countertenor (higher than a regular tenor), which actually worked quite well. The songs are not easy to sing and require great agility, range, and control. I’ve been trying to sing along in the car, which just made me appreciate the soloists’ skill even more.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

November Rants and Raves

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  • Rave: MovieQuotes.com. If you need a good way to kill some time and love movie quotes like I do, try the quote game. My sister and I interact exclusively through quotes from ten 1980s movies. OK, not quite, but close.
  • Rant: Fog in Islip. Why can’t they add a CAT III approach at KISP (Long Island-MacArthur near Islip, New York)? Southwest had to cancel several flights yesterday due to thick fog, while we could have landed safely at several other airports in the northeast under the same conditions. With a CAT III approach, we can land safely with as little as 700 feet of visibility. To be fair, there might be a technical reason preventing such an approach, such as an obstacle or lack of room for the required lighting system.
  • Rave: Smartphone Syncing. I like my new Blackjack. I loaded my Dec work schedule and events into it and synced it with my home PC. Then I reversed the process, loading my Jan and Feb work schedule into the PC, and then syncing it into my phone. That rocks.
  • Rant: Ethanol. The government has apparently decided that ethanol is one of the best answers to our dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, ethanol is inefficient and expensive to produce and difficult to distribute, and it is driving up the price of many items that use corn during production (milk, for example). Adding ethanol to gasoline actually reduces your fuel economy. For more info, check out this article. I’m no energy expert, and I realize there’s no easy answer to our energy problems, but I don’t think ethanol is going to save us. Think hydrogen, people!
  • Rave: My Family After getting to see most members of my extended family and in-laws over the Thanksgiving week, I must say how thankful I am for all of them. My family is no more perfect than any other, and we have plenty of interesting stories, but they’re overall good folks, and somehow we all manage to get along and have a good time together despite all of our little quirks and differences in personality. I actually look forward to seeing my family during the holidays.