Great Weekend

On Friday Sarah had a doctors appointment, the first of the weekly appointments that come at the end of the pregnancy. Sarah was 36 weeks and 5 days pregnant, and we knew we should ask the for the doctor's advice about traveling, especially since we were planning on driving two hours to East Texas for the CDR 50th Reunion. Here's how it went.

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Sarah: Is it okay if we travel at this point?

Doctor: How far away?

Sarah: 2 hours to East Texas.

Doctor: If it were me, I wouldn't do it. There are too many things that can happen.

Sarah: OK. (Doctor leaves the room.)

Sarah: She didn't say we couldn't!

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So we ignored the doctor's advice, and took off to East Texas on Friday as soon as school was out. We got to eat dinner with my parents that night, and then went to Sarah's parent's house for the two nights we were there. While we were at Sarah's parents, Sarah's good friend (and my good friend also) Terrilee showed up. She stayed the night there with us and then went out to Camp on Saturday with us.

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A large number of you who are reading this will agree with this statement: Saturday was a great day. I realize some of you are not part of the Deer Run experience, so I will explain to you the greatness that you missed. Camp Deer Run has been around for 50 years now, and we had a wonderful gathering to celebrate all of the history of camp, celebrate the success of camp, and to catch up with old friends. We took pictures based on when we camped or worked, we listened to stories from people representing 5 decades of camp, and we spent time worshipping God who has worked in such a wonderful way at camp. It was just a good time. In case you don't believe me, we took some pictures to prove what a wonderful time it was.

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There were lots and lots of babies and lots of babies in bellies. In order from left to right by due dates: Sarah, Katie, Mary, Kendra, Allison, Rachel, and Jodi.

Here is a picture of Sarah and Katie and future cousins.
Here's a picture of Terrilee being a little bit scary towards my child. I'm not real sure that I want Terrilee to hang around my son after seeing this picture.
Here's a picture of me and one of my best friend's for the past 25 years, Caleb Panter. I hadn't seen Caleb in well over a year, so it was really good to spend some time with him. In case you didn't know, Caleb's wife Addi is a TV star. On Sunday after church we got to go to Caleb's parent's new house, which is high quality. On a side note, I have no idea what is going on with my shirt on this one.
In 1992, two young men from different parts of Texas came to stay at Camp Deer Run for the first time. These two young men were Ty Ford, and at the time, Russell Smith. We were eleven years old, Nashamies, and staying in Men's 3. We both came with our own group of friends, so we didn't hang out together a whole lot. At the end of that session, the group gathered together to take our group picture, and Ty and I both ended up on the front row, with two guys standing in between us. Our group leader Tree was kneeling in the very front. It was your typical group picture. Eight years later, those two young men, Ty and now Sparky, became roommates in college, and took this picture that we were both in, and zoomed in, blew it up, and hung it in our apartment. It was one of our great treasures. In fact, I'm willing to bet no other apartment or dorm room had a picture of the roommates together when they were eleven. For years and years we dreamed of recreating this picture, only needing to get the two of us at camp at the same time as Tree. This dream came true on Saturday, and we were finally able to get our picture taken with our first group leader. I wish I could post the original picture, but Ty is the owner of said picture after I was defeated in a tough game of chess. Here is the present day picture.
This is a picture of my favorite baby Braden. Braden said he was willing to give that title up in a few weeks.
A picture of me and Sarah and the Camp Deer Run sign.
Finally, here is 37 week pregnant Sarah. I think she want's Sparky Jr. to get here.
We celebrated our Memorial Day by going and looking at houses. That's right, we are in the market for buying a house. I feel very grown-up to be doing this. We aren't sure if this is the best time to be buying a house for us, but we are going to look and see what our best options are. The most exciting news for us to come about the past few weeks is that Sarah will be able to stay home next year. This was very much an answered prayer. We didn't think she would be able to do this, but God came through big-time. Sarah is very, very excited, and I am so happy that she can spend this important time home with our son.

I'm going to pretend that it hasn't been 10 days since I last posted, and I ask the same out of you. As you can guess, we have been very busy the past week and a half, and it doesn't really seem to slow down. We are firmly in the final stages of life as just the two of us. Sparky Jr. is due on the the 16th of June, which is about 25 days away. In my limited experience with pregnancies, I have learned that the baby usually doesn't come on its due date. So from here on in, every day could be baby day in my book. And because of this thought process, everytime Sarah calls me, my heart jumps a little bit, especially when she calls me in the middle of coaching a soccer game, which she knows I am coaching. That happened last night, but she was just calling from the grocery store to see what I wanted from dinner. I had to politely remind her I was coaching and that I couldn't talk to her on the phone. Just the life of a soon-to-be-father.

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Speaking of which, this past weekend I got to make my favorite car trip. That's right, a round trip to Abilene in a single day. Ok, not a fun trip, but it was a good day. While in college, Sarah developed a close relationship with Debbie Riggs, and the two have stayed close to this day. Debbie was basically Sarah's college mother, and today she is a very talented photographer. She did our engagement and wedding photos. So it only made sense that we would get Debbie to do some maternity pictures for us. We started out the day with Debbie and her assistant Mark, also known as her husband, taking us out to eat at their favorite restaurant, The Beehive. We then walked around downtown Abilene a little to certain spots Debbie knew would be great for picture taking. After spending an hour there, we went out to a house that backed up to the lake and took some pictures by the water. If you click on Debbie's name under the "friends and family" links you can see how some of them turned out.

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Sarah has been preparing her choir for their Spring concert all week. Tomorrow is the big show, and she has been a little frazzled about it. But today she proclaimed that they were ready and were going to do a great job. I will report back with a full review at a later time. As most of you who read this know, this is weekend is the 50th anniversary at dear ol' Deer Run. Hopefully Sarah's doctor will grant us permission to travel on Friday, because this promises to be a great final trip for us to make before the baby arrives. I am sure we will see many of you there.

Here is a picture taken about 10 days ago when Sarah was a mere 35 weeks pregnant. We didn't get around to taking a 36 week picture, but many of you can see her and her belly on Saturday. Sarah wanted me to ask for any advice about what to pack into her hospital bag. You can post your thoughts here, or just tell her this weekend. Talk to you soon.

Weekend at Home

I don't know why it is, but me and Sarah seem to always be going somewhere on the weekends. Its great to be able to go see people, or be busy during our time off, but man it feels nice to just stay home for a couple of days. I tried real hard to enjoy it, because we have things planned the next two weekends.

Sarah had really been wanting to go to a Rangers game before Sparky Jr. is born. Since we were going to be home this weekend, I decided to get us tickets for this past Friday. I grew up going to Rangers games, and will go anytime I get a chance. Now, one of the greatest suprises of our marriage is the fact that Sarah really enjoys going to the ballpark as well. We try to make it to a few games every summer, which of course probably will change this summer, seeing how we have other plans set in stone. I love going to the ballpark to watch the baseball, whereas I'm pretty sure Sarah likes going for the food. And she decided to play up the whole pregnancy and strange food angle by getting garlic fries and a cup of fruit. Yep, that was my baby momma's dinner. She had a fatboy(ice cream sandwich with chocolate chip cookies) for desert. I think she enjoys being pregnant. Even though we go to several games a summer, Sarah insists we take several pictures every time, usually the exact same pictures that were taken at all the other games. So here's picture of me and Sarah in front of our seats.

And here is a picture of the video board during the great dot race, which red won by the way.
And finally here is a picture of the view from behind home plate towards the outfield. I do love going to the game and looking out at that view.
After the Rangers game it sure was nice to be able to come home sleep late on Saturday morning in my own bed. I don't really know when the last time was I was able to do that. I realize that those days are probably going to come to an end very quickly, but I will enjoy them while possible.

Part of the reason for staying home this weekend was to try and get some stuff done on the baby's room. Much to my dismay, this meant I had to clean my closet. This may come to a suprise to some, but I am not the cleanest person in the world. I tend to just throw stuff down on the floor of my closet. I am proud to announce that my that my cleaning job passed Sarah's inspection, and our baby now has a clean closet. Sarah spent her time working on putting all of the bedding together so that our child has a cute place to sleep when he gets here. Sarah is super proud of it, so here are some pictures of our son's bedding.

Well, we are only 5 weeks away from D-day. Everything is starting to come together, and we are getting pretty excited. I'll post again in a day or two with a picture of Sarah and her 35 week pregnant belly. Until then.

Alright, again I apologize for my lack of blogging. When I decided to take over the blogging responsibilities, I full of excitement and zeal and just knew I was good for atleast 5 posts a week. I guess I forgot about the life that I have to live. So, I have not allowed myself to be fully thrown into the world of a true blogger. But I promise to improve.

On to our previous weekend. Since Sarah is on the home stretch of the pregnancy, we decided to take a trip to show off her belly to my grandparents. I'm not sure I had seen any of them since Christmas, so it was way past time to see them again. Sarah came and picked me up at school on Friday, and we headed north to Collinsville to see my Grandmother. It was the first time for us to visit her since she bought lots of new furniture. I think she was very excited to show it off to us. When we got to her house, there was a gift bag on our bed that was addressed to Russell, and Future Great-Grandson. Now, you have to understand that my Grandmother is the only person I know who loves the Texas Rangers as much as I do. So in this bag were all kinds of Texas Rangers baby outfits. They were all super cute, and I'm hoping that Sparky Jr. can wear one of the outfits to the ballpark later this summer. It was the perfect gift from her. In case you were needing to put a face with a name, here are a couple of pictures of me and Sarah with Grandmother.

After lunch on Saturday, we hoped on highway 82 and headed east to Paris, Texas...not Tennessee, and for sure not France. The Woodall Ranch is always one of my favorite places to visit, especially when Sarah and I get a chance to spend time with Grandma and Granddad on our own. My grandparents live about 10 miles outside of Paris on a good size ranch with cattle and horses and the barns and all the things that go with a ranch. They have just recently bought some land not too far from where they live right now, and we got in the car and drove down the road to see it. It was a real pretty piece of property that was fun to walk around on. To me, the best part of the visit with them was being able to sit out on their back porch and eat dinner outside. It was such a gorgeous night and we were able to enjoy a wonderful dinner. Here is a picture of us enjoying our time outside during the perfect night.

Now, on to the rest of our life. My life right now includes soccer, which I am coaching for the first time. It is a lot of fun, although I'm pretty sure I'm not going into the coaching hall of fame because of my work. I have a lot of boys who are really good soccer players, and know way more about it than I do. Because of that, I just roll the ball out and let them play. Its worked so far. Here is a picture of my 8th graders winning 6-0.

I'm sure you all can guess what is going on in Sarah's life. She is now less than 40 days from her due date. She is still doing great, maybe getting tired a little more easily, but nothing too horrible.

We actually get to stay home this weekend, which is welcomed news. We are going to our first Rangers game tomorrow, and then spending all day Saturday preparing for Sparky Jr. to arrive. I have to clean out my closet, which I am not real excited about, because it is very messy. But I will do anything for my son's arrival home to be as great as possible. Well, that's all for now. Hopefully I will be writing again shortly.

Fun Weekend!

Alright, first things first, I apologize. I stated from the beginning that I would write several times a week, and I have failed miserably. But I think that will change now. We have a new computer setup at home and I feel more willing to write. Ok, now that that's over, on to what has been going on in our lives, mainly focusing on our weekend.

On Friday, we left school as soon as possible, and headed to Tyler for a choir concert. Sarah's dad joined a choir in Tyler and had a concert this past Friday. Sarah figures her dad has seen over 30 concerts in which she has performed, so she really wanted to be able to attend a concert where he performed. Now, choir concerts are not my cup of tea, but I honestly enjoyed the times that Billy Ray was on stage. Unfortunately, that was only about half the concert. I could have done without the half-hour solo tribute to Nat "King" Cole. The guy doing it thought he was in a Las Vegas lounge. Hopefully next time, Billy Ray will have a solo.

As soon as the show was over we split and headed to my favorite place in the world, Camp Deer Run. We had a Young Marrieds class retreat out at camp and had a wonderful time. There were eleven couples make the long 2 hour voyage to camp on Friday, where lots of basketball was played by the men, horseshoes were thrown by both men and women, and fellowship was enjoyed by all. Since my wife is over seven months pregnant, we decided to skip out on the bunk beds, and stay in the nurses cabin. Great call! It was nice to have a our own bathroom, and not have to worry about loud snoring. Plus, I feel that I've put in my time in the cabins. I vow to never sleep in one again.

Part of the camp experience is a sweet cookout. The plan was to go up the Red Buzzard, but there was a silent rebellion, and we ended up having a "cookout" at the All-Night-Prayer Pit. It was fun though. About the time we needed to get a fire started, I had to run and find a lighter. When I came back I found some logs assembled in what was supposed to be a fire. But it was never going to work. I let the fire builder try out his way, but after 10 paper towels, I had to ask if I could tear it down and start over. It was really funny watching a bunch of city boys try to build a fire with wet wood, and then have to come in a fix it. I guess that's just one of those things you learn at camp, and is fun to show off from time to time. We cooked some hot dogs, and even had some smores. It just feels so right to be around a fire at camp. It was great to be home.
Well, we are in the middle of week 33 on the baby watch. We have another fun weekend ahead, but I will save that for the next post. Here is the latest belly picture. I'm signing off to watch the greatest show ever...LOST!!