Our Adjusted Life–Month #1

Our first walk with Joshua (10 days old)

So it’s been a month since the most recent life changing event in our lives.    It’s been that strange combination of fast and slow, wonderful and not so wonderful, exciting and scary… We really couldn’t have asked for a better labor and delivery nor a more pleasant stay in the hospital. We brought home the most wonderful baby boy one month ago.  He has certainly been a blessing.  It’s hard to imagine that we could love someone who does nothing more that eat, sleep, poop and occasionally wakes up and looks around!  Joshua has changed some aspects of our lives, but our passions and hobbies remain unchanged.  We still love to run, although I am still waiting on the green light from the Doctor to resume that activity and Jason just had his all-time lowest mileage total during the month of July.  Thankfully, the doctor said I could do other cardio activities such as walk, elliptical trainer, recumbent bike, StairMaster, etc.  All of which I have been happily doing since giving birth.  Exercise is so great for the mind and body and for holding post-pardom depression at bay.  I have missed enjoying these things with Jason since we now find it necessary to exercise in shifts most of the time, at least until Joshua gets a little older and we can utilize the day care at the gym. 🙂 

Joshua’s first ride the the jogging stroller–May this be the start of many great rides to come!

We won’t be running with Joshua in the jogging stroller until he gets a little older and fits into the harness better and can hold his head up.  He does love to ride in it for long walks with Mommy.  Unfortunately, it’s been very hot and humid (as one would expect for July in South Alabama) so we haven’t gone out as much as I would like.

I’ll leave you with this great picture of Jason and Joshua. 

So here’s to new life!  May we learn new activities and resume old activities with passion and excitement!

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Baby Joshua

Jason and Lisa are now the proud parents of Joshua Calvin Miller. He was born at 11:25 pm on 7/7/09. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 5 oz. and was 21″ long. Here are a few pictures, but I am sure more will follow.

Shrimp Boil!

Last Saturday Lisa and I went to our first southern shrimp boil. We have lived in Alabama now for nearly 3 years and had never been to one. It was for a customer that I work with some so we decided to go check it out. It was a pretty rainy day and so we almost didn’t go but he had told me that he had bought over 200#’s of shrimp so we couldn’t resist. When we got there, we were amazed at all the food: there was boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, fried chicken, smoked pork, hot dogs (who would want to eat a hot dog with the rest of this food) potatoes, corn on the cob, and lastly 3 or 4 huge coolers full of crawfish. Neither Lisa nor I had ever eaten crawfish before but we decided to try it out. I put maybe 2 or 3 on my plate the first time. We went and sat down and I noticed the couple beside me had their plates completely LOADED with these things. Obviously, I’m a newby at this. We kinda kept eyeing this couple to see how to eat them and we pretty much figured it out. We went back and this time loaded our plates with crawfish. We starting talking to them about how we were “virgin” crawfish eaters and they asked, “are you sucking the heads?” The look on our faces must have been priceless because they busted up laughing at our lack of response. A little bit later they saw Lisa wiping the poop off of the meat before she ate it….another mistake evidently. They said that is too much work you just eat it all. Ok. Overall we both enjoyed the shrimp boil very much and next time we’ll be prepared on how to eat the crawfish too.

A long overdue update

(Ironically, Jason and I were both posting blogs about our trip at the same time today without knowing it.  Here is my version and the next one is his version.  I would say they show the differences in our personalities quite a bit. 🙂   )

It’s been a long time…ten weeks, actually, since I last updated our blog.  A lot has happened since then, of course, and so I will just grace you with the highlights.  Our lives have been a little hectic in the last month, but we still have much to be grateful for. 

I’ll start with the pregnancy…31 weeks down…9 to go.  He still appears to be doing great and is moving very much.  Nothing like a few swift kicks to the ribs to wake you up in the morning! 🙂  We just had a baby shower yesterday and got lots of nice things.  I don’t have pictures yet, but I may post them later.

Now we’ll go back to when the hectic schedule really got hectic…

My Grandpa Weber passed away April 18.  The timing of his death came as a surprise to us.  We found out just before Christmas last year that he had a terminal illness, but we didn’t think it would take him this soon.  He fell on Good Friday and hit his head, which made him digress much quicker than he had previously digressed.  It is very hard to think of him being gone, but it was also terrible to see him laying there so helpless and unresponsive.  He was so full of life with an opinion or response to everything.  I’m sure the finality of his death will continue to set in over the next months, especially when the baby comes.

Grandpa’s funeral was April 21.  We left for our last childless get-a-way trips to California to run Big Sur on April 23.

California was beautiful!  We spent two days in Napa Valley.  We had a wonderful and relaxing time there.  We toured a local winery and went to a beautiful redwoods forest and just enjoyed the sights and sounds of Napa Valley.   

Robert Mandovi Winery

 

The courtyard of our motel in Rutherford, CA (Napa Valley)

Our  room in Rutherford, CA

After that we drove to Monterrey, CA were we picked up our race packets.  Jason ran the Big Sur International Marathon which is an extremely beautiful, but difficult 26.2 miles along Route 1 from Big Sur, CA to Carmel, CA.  The scenery was outstanding and the weather, aside from a stiff wind whipping off the Pacific, was good for running (cold and overcast).  They said to add 20 min. to your projected finish time because of the degree of difficulty of the course, so Jason was prepared not to PR this race.  He ended up finishing in 4:01 which was less than 10 min slower than last year.  He said he felt great aerobically the whole race, but his knees hurt pretty bad on the downhills by the last 3 miles or so.  All in all, he was very happy with him time and the race effort in general.

Jason nearing the finish line (Jason wanted me to explain that the walkers next to him were in a different race and he was actually running in this picture and NOT walking.)

 

After the race

Pebble Beach Golf Course

The courtyard of our motel in Carmel, CA (the room with the half open door is ours)

Our motel in Carmel, CA

The top of a 2 mile long hill that Jason ran up around mile 15 (I think)

Pacific Ocean

I ran the 9 miler ( I know, I’m a pansy).  I had a great race as well.  I have continued to run throughout this pregnancy.  I’ve even run long (8+ miles) at least once a week and tried to keep my weekly mileage around 15 mi/wk. I’ve been really slow, however, with more frequent walk/bathroom breaks. 🙂  I just hoped to do it in at least 2 hrs.  I ended up running it in 1:37!  I was thrilled with this time even though it was still a 10:45 pace.  I felt great and I got to run along the Pacific too.  The baby only complained near the tops of a few of the hills. . .

The happiest I’ve been since I’ve been pregnant

We finished our vacation in San Fransisco with a brief evening and morning stay.  We saw the Golden Gate Bridge and road a Trolley car and experienced the city a bit. 

The view from our room in San Fransisco

Our room in San Fransisco

San Fransisco Bay

While we were there we found out that Jason’s dad had a 100% blockage in the main artery to his heart and a 40% blockage in another one.  The doctor wasn’t sure initially if it could be repaired/bypassed or not so that was a hard blow.  By Tuesday, when we were flying back home anyway, the doctors had decided they thought they could fix it and scheduled his open heart surgery for Wednesday morning.  Jason decided to fly to Illinois from San Fransisco  and I flew home alone.  This made for a stressful, emotional, exhausting, day on so many levels.

Jason’s dad had a very successful surgery on Wednesday morning and was able to go home this past Saturday!  We were so happy for that and Jason was glad he was able to be with his family during that scary time.

Jason flew home on Thursday night and I got sick with the flu on Friday.  My entire extended family, who attended the funeral, has been getting this bug since then.  I was just glad we didn’t get sick on our vacation or in Illinois.  I am feeling better now, but still not 100%.  Jason hasn’t officially gotten sick, but seems to be fighting it pretty hard.  We’ve been getting lots of sleep trying to kick this thing and get back to normal.

So, there you have it, the long, but short, version of the last 10 weeks!  Maybe it won’t take me so long next time to keep you updated. 🙂

Big Sur

The last weekend in April Lisa and I made a trip to California for a couple of reasons. One, we wanted to get away one last time before the baby comes and two it was time for me to run another marathon. We found decent airfare to San Francisco and we had heard really good things about the Big Sur Marathon and there were still a few spots open so we made the decision to do it ( not really like us to do it, but we did). On Sunday morning I got up at 3:00 am in order to catch a bus at 3:45 to shuttle me to the starting line. Once I got to the starting line, I then waited for an hour and a half in 45 Degree weather for the race to start. Sounds like how most people want to start their Sunday. It gets better though, because after that I got to run 26.2 miles to where I started from at 3:45am. Actually, I enjoyed the run up there more than I did the ride on the bus. I was almost sick because of the winding roads. The run was along scenic highway 1 between Big Sur and Carmel California. The scenery was absolutely beautiful. However, the course was very difficult (windy + hilly = difficult). From mile 10 to mile 12 it was all up hill. At the top of that hill was a place called hurricane point. There was a shirt at the race expo that said “I survived Hurricane Point”. I was feeling pretty good when I got to the top of it. But the hills didn’t stop there. It was like each additional hill took just a little more out of you. By mile 22/23 my knees felt pretty unstable and it felt like on every downhill I might fall. So I decided to walk the downhills and run the uphills (seems backwards I know). I finished in 4:01 which is about 6-7 minutes slower than my last marathon but I think overall I felt better after it and I am definitely recovering quicker. I didn’t really “hit a wall” in this one like I did in Nashville at mile 20 so that is progress as well. I will post some pictures later and I’m sure Lisa will updat the rest of the trip.

And the ultrasound concludes. . .

Today Jason and I were excited to find out if we are going to be parents of a boy or girl. Time is going so fast. I am 21 weeks now and over half way through this pregnancy! I thought I would add a few pictures of me during this pregnancy since I have been pretty silent in the blog world for a while.

Here I am at 20 weeks

( Not the best picture of me but you get the idea.)

 

 Before the ultrasound today

 

Jason was a little freaked out at the stirrups . . . and very relieved to know that we wouldn’t be needing them today! 🙂

  

 In general, Jason was a little freaked out and “out of his element” sitting in the “girly” patient room. 🙂

 

Snowmobiling!!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go out to Island Park, Idaho and go snowmobiling for 3 days. I had gone out there once before with my former boss, Nate Hochstetler, when Lisa and I lived in Indiana. He called me up last November and asked if I wanted to go out there again…and I couldn’t turn it down. We had a great time and the weather and scenery were awesome. There were 7 of us that met up out there and we only ran one sled into a tree. Although 2 other sleds had “minor” damages including the one that I rode. Here are some pictures from the weekend.