3D-4D Ultrasound #2

This time Rohan was a little more cooperative, but not 100%. But what do you expect from a Bacon/Syring hybrid? :)
There are several shots of "most" of his face, but he's getting so big that he's running out of room! 34 weeks is the max they'll usually do, and Mara is about 33 3/4. In most of the pictures he's snuggled up to the placenta, but you can see some features. Most notably his fat cheeks! They did some measurements and estimated him at 4lbs 11oz!!! At our last ultrasound (around Thanksgiving) he was 3lbs even. So the kid has grown 1 3/4 lbs in a month! Moooo! She guessed about a 7 1/2 lb baby in Feb...:) Bigger than both Mara (6lb 8oz) and me (5lbs 5oz).
Here is the video (~20 minutes) if you care to watch:

Yeah Winter!

Can you feel the sarcasm? It's hard to bitch about the 6" of snow that we got earlier this week when WI gets slammed with 1 foot or more every week. But we get to enjoy one thing they don't...ice. Moving to a slightly warmer climate in Missouri gave us later snow arrival, earlier & later golfing throughout the year, and December rain which turns to ice when the temp drops at night. We are supposed to get 1/2 inch of ice tonight so it should make for some interesting driving tomorrow on our way to work/school. Mara has an exam in Pharmacology and then she is done until January!
I feel sorry for the students who have to leave that were flying out of Kansas City. Sounds like they'll be shut down for a day or so to clean up after the ice hits them. One girl in Mara's class gets married on Saturday and a bunch of her family flew into KC and are now stranded! That would suck!
We are headed to Tim & Allison's this weekend to hang out with Cameron & the family. We are also going to try and get another 3D Ultrasound done, so hopefully Rohan is more cooperative this time...:)
Hope no one has to dig out of a snow storm this weekend! The Caldwells & Schmits are excluded since they're in Phoenix. A little snow would cripple those spoiled desert wanderers. We can't wait to be among them! :)

Supermassive Black Hole

After 16 years of photographing the galactic center of the Milky Way (its the galaxy we live in Michelle) scientists have proven the presence of a supermassive black hole "powering" our galaxy. The Milky Way has huge spiral arms (we are in the one called Orion) which are all rotating around the galactic center.

It's always been assumed that there was a large black hole at the center, but now there is tangible proof of existence. Since we can't SEE a black hole we can infer it's presence by looking at the stars that surround it. This was published in the Journal of Astrophysics in October if you want some dense reading...:) I heard the ESO (European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere) was going to release a time lapse video so they finally did today. I was all geeked up...:) You can see full videos at the ESO Website, but I am posting a short one here. Hope you enjoy it!

The supermassive black hole is calculated to be roughly 4 million times the mass of the sun, but in a MUCH denser package. The video zooms in from afar and shows several stars, but a star (called S2) orbiting the black hole shows the location. In the video it's located in the upper right of the central cluster of stars. It makes a sharp U-Turn and comes within 1 light day of the black hole; about 5 times the distance of Neptune & the Sun. 1 light day is the distance that light can travel in 24 hours. Quick calculation, Speed of light 299,792,458 meters per second, 31,536,000 seconds in a year. So light can travel 9,454,254,955,488,000 meters in a year (or 5.88 Trillion Miles)! It doesn't look that far in the video...:)
You can also read a little more at APOD if you want. Fun Fun!

Rohan Alexander Syring

We finally get to spill the name! Although we had to deal with Holly & Michelle both posting the name on their blogs before we got a chance to... We wanted to wait until the baby showers to tell everyone in person, and now we can tell everyone who couldn't make it! Its obviously not a family name. The name Rohan originats in India and roughly translated means "Sun/Bright". Mara's former boss Shekar named his son Rohan and ever since then, we've always loved the name. Incidentally it also has a place in Lord of the Rings, with the Riders of Rohan horsemen...:)
We spent some time trying to figure out sleeping arrangements for everyone on our way down to IA, but finally settled on an arrangement. We spent the ride to IA listening to Mara's Cardiology lectures on EKGs. We had to turn it off when it got dark because it started to put us to sleep! Mara got up at the ass crack of dawn and headed to a Starbucks in Davenport to study for 3-4 hours before the shower so she wouldn't feel like she was behind in her studying. I think that's what smart kids do...:)
We gave Jackson a gift that I hope Rohan will never inherit. The story goes that Michelle was calling me "Snack Cake" (I'm not exactly sure why), but like hell am I taking a nickname like Snack Cake! I decided to gift the name to my nephew...:) I spent a while finding pictures that I thought represented the honor of the Snack Cake name. I found Twinkie the Kid & Friends, some cupcakes, a doughnut, The Little Debbie logo, and a Swiss Cake Roll. I printed them onto transfer paper and ironed them onto a onesie. Who knew I had such skills? Mara had the best contribution of all. I had several small cupcakes I was just going to place randomly, but she said they would make a good necklace and cuff-links. They looked awesome! The best was when we put him in it just before the shower started. Jackson had a bad diaper rash and so they let him go commando to "air out". Well he took the opportunity to crap through the onesie and onto the floor! It was both disgusting and hilarious at the same time...:)
The shower itself was a lot of fun, and we were so happy to see everyone, especially those we NEVER get to see! Being busy is nice, but we sometimes feel like we neglect some of the families! We had a lot of fun with Jen's crossword puzzle, and there was only ONE person who actually guessed the name! My cousin Mary somehow came up with it. We got a lot of great gifts and a much needed break from Kirksville, even though it was only a week between breaks. Any break is a good break!
Thanks to everyone who came to both showers! We were really happy with the great gifts we got from everyone!!! Honestly Rohan could come tomorrow and we'd be pretty much set on everything. I'm sure that's just me being nieve. We'll never be 100% ready...:)
Enjoy the pictures!

The video is of Lucy begging for our food during supper. She is a perfect example of Pavlov's Dog behavior. It's gross to see the wet mark on the floor. Ewwwwww...

3D-4D Ultrasound Video

I had pasted a link below for the video, but I realized many people missed it since it was buried under the pictures from the ultrasound. Here is the video, but I'll warn you the ultrasound place added some pretty lame music to the video, but that's what the Mute button is for...:)
So without further adieu:

If you find some of your favorite pictures (or sections of video) just add a comment with the time so others can find the cool parts faster. Thanks!

Thanksgiving 2008 Road Trip

We concluded yet another 1000+ mile road trip, underscoring our desire to get out of Kirksville at any cost!
We started our trip out going to see Tim & Allison & Cameron in Des Moines, then Allison went with us to the 3D/4D Ultrasound (see post below). We then headed up across Minnesota and over to Amherst to Mara's parents where we had some relaxing times (almost too relaxing!). We ate Thanksgiving at Grandma & Grandpa Hansen's with the Aho's and Aunt Mary. It was a nice day of food & football.
Friday we had our Bacon side baby shower where we had more great food and some great gifts from everyone. There were so many little cousins running around it was crazy! But everyone had a good time and no one went hungry...:) We had so many great gifts we had to actually leave some behind and we'll have to get them when RAS is born. From the pictures you can see the dogs didn't enjoy our pack job. The first leg from Dan & Holly's the pile shifted and "buried" the puppies under a pile of gifts. Linus kind of freaked out and dug deeper into the pile. We had to open the door just to see where he was. Hilarious picture...:)
We headed to Milwaukee to see Nikki & Crawford and Austin & his family. It was great to see Tina & The Erbe's (friends from the lab) and catch up over Crawford's infamous curries & some good wine. We had a blast!
The ride home was a little iffy. We were afraid the weather wasn't going to cooperate, with lots of snow & ice forecasted, but we mostly had just wet roads and temps hovering just above freezing, but the roads stayed warm enough to not freeze.
We had a lot of time in the car, with all our gifts, and the puppies too, but it was worth it to see everyone. Next weekend is the Syring side baby shower so we'll be on the road again, but probably the last time we'll venture on such a trip before RAS comes.

3D-4D Ultrasound

We had been waiting for our 3D-4D ultrasound for quite a while. We originally scheduled the appointment at Prenatal Vision 2 months ago and the quarter couldn't get over fast enough! We stayed with Tim & Allison & Cameron the night before and Allison & Cameron were able to come with us. It was a lot of fun to see the kid in high definition ultrasound quality, but there was one problem. Like most Syring's he didn't cooperate. Most of the time he had his hands in front of his face. The tech had Mara walk around to try and get him repositioned, but when we got back he had BOTH HIS FEET crossed at the ankles, in front of his face! She did offer to give us a free screening in December since we didn't get many good photos, so we'll try to get back up there over our X-Mas break.
Here are some stills from the ultrasound. You can see quite a bit of the features, but just never a full facial photo. Enjoy!



FYI, we will post a ~40 minute video of our full appointment. I won't post it here, but I will provide a link for everyone when it's uploaded.
Here is the link to the video. It's 36 minutes of dizzying ultrasound, but hopefully you'll stay oriented. I highly recommend muting it. The music begins to grate on your nerves after about 1.4 seconds...
BABY SYRING ULTRASOUND VIDEO

Controlled Chaos

This post is going to be completely random, we've been holed up in front of books and notes and lost touch with the world outside Kirksville.
Where to start...FINALS are OVER! These last 2 weeks I had 10 exams and Mike had 3 that pretty much consumed every waking moment (and a few nightmares). Even though we left the house only for work/school/working out the time flew by!
This quarter had a few new classes for me including Neuroscience, Principles of Medicine (pretty much learn everything clinical), Pharmacology, Infectious Disease, Pathology, and continuing OTM. I really enjoyed having the variety and finally getting our feet wet with the clinical courses. It was a challenging quarter but VERY interesting topics...most of which definitely don't count as dinner conversation (mummification in pathology, anything infectious, and drug contraindications...).
Mike's been working on his research project, working, and loving Biochemistry!
We've included some study pictures, our stack of notes/notecards for the quarter (yes, that really is just this quarter), puppy study breaks and a few randoms.

We took a video of Linus test driving the frontpack, as you can see he was more than happy to just hang out.

Next week we are excited to be spending our week off traveling to Des Moines, Amherst, and Milwaukee. It will be really nice to see family and friends that we haven't seen for a long time, not to mention getting out of Kirksville:) We'll be sure to post pictures and videos of our "vacation". Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!

Study Break Fun

With Mara & I holed up in the house for the next week, we know it's important to get out and get some air, unhunch our shoulders and give our brains a brief rest.
The dogs also need to get some exercise in a little too, so we usually take them to the park across the street from our house to run. Linus found himself on the other side of the creek at the park and we called him back over. We didn't have our camera with us so the video is shot with my camera phone, so the quality sucks. You can tell by the water whether he made it or not. Comedy is comedy, despite the pixelation...:)



Lucy also found a puddle to "cool off" in. It's 45°F outside and somehow fatty is warm. This is another good video of Linus' tendency to just space out for a while. Linus is nice & warm in his polo, but it was a little wet at the park so we need to wash it. Linus jumped at the camera and splashed muddy water all over my face & coat. Luckily I cut the video just as the swearing began...:)

29 Week Ultrasound

We LOVE our baby doctor. He loves to do ultrasounds, which means we get to see R.A.S. (AKA Baby Syring) more often!
He did some tricks with the ultrasound wand and actually got a little bit of 3D depth with the shadowing of the ultrasound waves. He said he was actually pretty proud of the pictures he took; he really did seem pleased with them.
The first photo is "face-on" and you can see his lips where it looks like he's smiling. The second is like some of the others where he looks like a little alien. The ultrasound depth is a little deep, but you can see the eye orbits pretty clearly, as well as his hand by his face (under his left eye). The third is the best. It looks a little abstract, which actually reminded me of a Picasso painting called "La Lampe"...:) I labeled the photo afterwards in case you couldn't orient yourself.
All & all pretty good day. Mara had her Infectious Disease final this morning, and I took my 5th Biochemistry exam before the final next Friday. We'll pretty much be stashed away in the house or library or lab studying hard.
Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Last Post Before Finals (Probably)

Well we are headed into the "full swing" of things. I guess if you don't count the 1,000 hours of studying/week previous as not the full swing...:) This might be our last post for a week or so with all we have going on. I doubt there will be too much to update anyone on. What more can we say about studying? :)
We had a really good time with Michelle while she relaxed, did a little work, and watched the first season of The Office. She was patient enough to wait for Mara and I at the local Java Co Coffee Shop while we were at class, but then we had a chance to hang out and B.S. for the rest of the day/night. She brought some pretty crappy weather with her so she couldn't run outside as much as she wanted, but 33 miles in one week is probably good enough...:) We did find time to work out every night, which has been the norm for Mara and I for a while, and it's a GREAT way to burn off the stress! We were really glad to have Shell down since we haven't seen much of her (or anyone else for that matter) for a while.
Saturday I helped Tim & Allison (& Cameron) move into their kick ass house in Des Moines (Bondurant). Nate & Tim loaded the whole freaking 26' truck themselves in Lincoln, no to mention Tim's 7 hours of box moving from the basement by himself. I bet he had a little help from Uncle Jack though...:) We had some held from Tim's parents who also helped entertain Cameron. Tim's Mom actually slept in the closet with him since we were too loud for him otherwise...or maybe she just likes closets... We unloaded half the truck Saturday and the rest on Sunday, then I had to head back. I didn't even get a picture with Cameron! Every time I thought about it he was sleeping, and I definitely don't want to be the one responsible for waking a sleeping baby! I got two pictures of the garage after we moved the big stuff inside. We thought it was funny that all you can see are bright red Grainger boxes (where Nate & Tim work).
Shell posted a couple of pictures from this weekend on her blog, since I failed to take any while she was here. Actually I did get 2. One from the morning & one from the afternoon. Amazing what a new brush can do...:)
Mara's finals started already. She had an Infectious Disease exam this morning (hence all the studying while Shell was here) and she has another exam Wednesday, then an Infectious final on Friday. THEN finals week finally starts, so needless to say...it's going to be crazy for her! I only have a Biochem exam Friday and the comprehensive final next Friday, so compared to her, my week will be easy!
Enjoy the photos!

Speeches

If you have some spare time (and haven't heard these yet) I would take the time to listen to Obama & McCain's speeches after the election. I was very impressed with Obama's amazing speech, but also with McCain's concession speech. They were both very respectful (except for the McCain crowd at a few points), and both did an EXCELLENT job.

Obama's:


McCain's:

Happy Voting!!!!

We'll give you a hint...

Wtih about 3 months until baby Syring makes his entrance we decided to give everyone something to talk about. We have a first name picked out but we're going back-n-forth with a couple of middle names. So, for your entertainment the initials will be R.O.S. or R.A.S.
Feel free to guess what the name is, we may even let you know if you're right:)
Here are a few recent pictures, mostly kitty:

One More Winter For Us!

We just found out Wednesday night that Mara will be doing her clinical rotations (for the next 2 years) in Phoenix, Arizona!
We are really excited since it was our #1 choice. Colorado was #1 for a long time, but we found out they have 3 "out rotations" that each take a month, so Mara would be gone for 3 months out of the year next year, which didn't sound that appealing for either of us. Especially with the kid on the way!
We are just speculating right now, but I think we'll be moving the last weekend in May so we can start our lease June 1 there and avoid paying two rents. Hopefully the 24 drive time in the U-Haul won't be too terrible...but I can't sugar coat that one...:)
We are looking for places to live, daycare, and school/work for me. Not sure if starting a PhD program is the best idea if we are only guaranteed to be there for 2 years. I would have to leave in the middle of it, so it might be best for me to work for 2 years. I still have to see if I can find a program that will work with me in that area.
We are also REALLY happy that so many of our friends got their #1 choice as well. Our friends Brian & Jenny, Sasha, and Jackie are all coming to Phoenix with us as well so we are going to have some great times (when everyone isn't in the clinic!). Our friends Greg & Nicole live there as well, as does Mara's Aunt Heather & her family so we have people to show us around as well!
We are also happy to be out of Kirksville, and be somewhere with mountains, hiking trails, and places to shop other than Wal-Mart! Not to mention the lack of a winter...:) Greg had said that the Midwest has 4 months where you can't do much (winter) whereas the Southwest has 4 different months (summer) where it's too hot to do much. But the high the rest of the year is between 65-80! Perfect golfing weather...:) Here is an idea of the weather spread for the year in Phoenix. It shows record highs & lows, and the average high & low for each month:

Well, back to studying. Mara has Pharmacology and I have Biochemistry exams on Monday. Woo-hoo!

Baby Syring Update

We had another appointment today and he is growing just like he should. His heart rate was in the 160's and he was moving all over the place! The video Mike posted just doesn't do his acrobatics justice, he rolls around all the time.
Nothing else too new with us. I am knee, um, no elbow deep in exams and we are on two exams a week for the next few weeks. Finals are only 5 weeks away!
Well, sorry it's so brief but I have an exam at 8am tomorrow and then a pharmacology exercise where we have a very expensive mannequin that we need to keep alive as we go through a clinical case. (Yes, there have been groups that have "killed" their mannequin by making an inappropriate drug choice!)

My Cat's Name Is Mittens

I came across an old quiz I had taken at UNI. The class was Statistics, which never really made any sense until recently for me, as evident by my answer. I had most of the question answered but I just couldn't get the standard deviation (σ), nor could I get the z-score. I was close though, but just couldn't get it in time before the quiz was over. Before I handed it in I did have a nice quote from the Simpson's to add. From Ralph Wiggum: "My Cat's Name Is Mittens". Turns out my professor was a huge Simpson's fan too and actually wrote the name of the character who said it AND to top it off gave me a smiley face sticker and drew whiskers & cat ears on it, and gave me 9 out of 10...Classic...:) By the way the Std Dev. is correct, but the z-score is -2.88, a significance of 0.002. I finally understand statistics!



And just in case you are wondering...here is the clip from the Simpson's:

Wanna See The Baby Move?

Stuff

FINALLY a small break, at least for one of us...:) I just took a Biochemistry exam on Friday which had some teeth, but nothing 30 hours of studying last week couldn't cure. Mara has been buried in her Pathology, Principals of Medicine and Neuro Anatomy; not to mention OTM, Infectious Disease, Pharmacology, and D.O.! Shit. That makes my Biochem test seem minor. I honestly have no idea how she does it! Oh right...she's a brainiac...:)
We had a great visit with Josh, Debora and Thomas on Thursday night. We were really glad to see them one more time before they left for Germany (in 3 days!). Thomas was such a blast to see too. He was so playful and expressive, he was cracking us up. He was really interested in the cat & dogs, and vice versa. Josh & Debora were VERY kind to us poor college kids and gave us their washer & dryer, and just in time too! Our dryer was really taking a long time to dry our clothes and our washer damn near shakes itself apart on the spin cycle. They also had their cleaning supplies and freezer food they couldn't take so we are set for a while in both of those categories. I have to learn how to cook a 5lb leg of lamb now...:)
We also had a nice weekend last weekend when we went to St. Louis for a night. We had some friends check on the dogs, as well as Sasha's dog, Abby, while she took the train to Chicago. We left about 5:30am so we could enjoy as much time out of Kirksville as possible. We stayed close to Forest Park, which is actually larger than Central Park in NYC. If you ever go to StL it's a great place to walk, bike, run, or anything else outside. We brought our bikes and rode their 6.2 miles of trails twice and also rode back into some really nice neighborhoods, so all in all about 15 miles of riding in absolutely gorgeous weather (75°F & sunny). We then went and walked a round a large outlet mall and checked out stores that we don't see in the 'ville. Afterwards we went to downtown StL, parked near Busch Stadium (where the Cardinals play baseball) and where we did the half marathon in April. We walked for about an hour and then found a nice restaurant (Mike Shannon's Steakhouse). They had the BEST lobster tail I have ever had. It was the size of a small dog! We got seated in a GREAT spot where we had our own HDTV showing the Brewers/Phillies game, and watched the Brewers win the only game they won this post season, and it was at Miller Park, so it was very familiar to us. The Brewers didn't make it far, but they at least made it farther than the Cubs...and didn't get swept! :)
Here are several (albeit random) pictures from the last few weeks. Sorry for the long read, we'll try and post more often...:) Or I could just keep typing. That way you have to keep reading. OK, I have to get back to studying. STOP READING! :P

If You Haven't Seen These...

...Take a few minutes and watch. They are Hilarious! Tina Fey rocketed into my favorite SNL comedians.
They are skits from SNL doin parodies of Sara Palin/Hilary Clinton, Palin's Interview with Katie Couric, and the recent VP debates. If for some reason you can't see the videos, you may need to download ADOBE FLASH. If you still cannot see them you can see the videos HERE. They are the first 3 listed.
Her dead-on Palin impersonation is amazin'...:)

Cute needy pets

We've been as busy as ever just lately and haven't done much other than school/work, study, workout and eat...usually in that order. At the end of the night we usually take some time to hang out and play with the cat and dogs. Lucy has finally lost her "oh my god we have a cat" neurosis and is happily chasing her ball again; she wouldn't play with it for the first 3 weeks after we got Toquinho...can't wait to see what a new baby does to her:) I don't have any pictures of Lucy playing but picture a gigantic black blur running after a slobber soaked faded tennis ball and that would be what she looks like! Linus & Toqo are a bit more laid back and just enjoy some attention as you'll see in the pictures. Lucy enjoys some snuggle time too she just has to be worn out a bit more before she's calm enough for that:)
(Toqo is NOT like Linus...he doesn't like to "dance" when he's sleepy!)

Say Hi...

...to Cameron Asher Peet! Tim & Allison sent us some pictures of the little guy, and he is ADORABLE! The official stats are that he was born September 18th at 1:53AM, weighing 6 pounds 8 ounces, and was 19 1/4 inches long. The call by Tim is that he did have spiky hair as well...:)
We spoke with them and they said the whole family is doing great, which everyone knew they would. Cameron was a little jaundiced and instead of getting the blanket to break down the bilirubin, they got a belt with fiber optic cables which break it down. Tim said the green belt reminded him of the Green Lantern...:) Classic Tim...
Can't wait to meet him! Here are some of our favorite pictures from them:

Cat Toy

We are figuring out that cats don't quite play the same way dogs do. Toquinho has some rolled up foil balls he knocks around, but usually plays by himself. We went to the great Mart of Kirksville (Wal-Mart) and bought a jingley-ball-on-a-fishing-pole toy to see if he liked it.
So far he won't leave it alone, but it also gives us a way to play with the cat, even if he is just stalking and hunting a jingle ball.
Toquinho is getting better at tolerating the dogs. He doesn't swat them in the face whenever he sees them anymore, and will actually walk past Lucy without incident! Baby steps... I think Lucy is more curious than Toquinho. She follows him everywhere, then just lays down and stares at him. Not in the hunting/stalking stare, but more of a blank look stare (Like Michelle's Dog Gabby).
Here is a short video of Toquinho hunting his toy:

I normally just swing the toy along the ground and Toquinho will chase it all around me, but that game isn't very "camera friendly"...:)

Congratulations, Tim & Allison!

We received a text message this morning that Tim & Allison welcomed Cameron Asher Peet early this morning. We are very excited for them and look forward to meeting the newest Peet!

Our New Addition!

You may have noticed the Syring Stick Family at the top of our blog has a new character...Toquinho! Linus & Lucy are still getting used to him, but they are getting better at tolerating each other every day!
We learned in July that Josh, Debora, & Thomas were moving to Germany, and even then we had talked about possibly getting a cat, but we didn't want a kitten to train. Turns out, Josh & Debora were not taking their two cats (Toquinho & Catita) to Germany with them. When we went to visit them last weekend we noticed a flyer Debora had made for the cats, offering them to a good home. Well, we REALLY like Toquinho, his look, attitude, and he's great with Thomas! Catita is pretty standoffish, and lately had been using their house as a bathroom. We asked Debora if we could take Toquinho when they went to Germany, but we weren't really sold on Catita. Luckily Debora was OK with us taking Toquinho in. It turns out we weren't the only one... Holly called during supper and said Toquinho could come with her, but we had already put our hat in the ring...sorry Holly! Debora said they tried to call a shelter in Ottumwa for Catita, but they were not taking any cats. We said we could take Catita to the shelter here, which has a great cat section (like a store).
Turns out, since Josh & Debora were heading to Germany & Brazil, respectively, they said we could take them that night, and they hooked us up with EVERYTHING the cats had! We absolutely loaded our RAV4 down with kitty stuff! Debora was really sad to see Toquinho go, but she knew he was going to a good home, it made it (a little) easier. Like she said, before Thomas, Toquinho was her kid, kind of like us with Linus & Lucy, with Baby Syring on the way...:)
We got home, and to make sure they cats got used to the place (especially Toquinho) we left them in the garage. We went out the next day and couldn't find them. Turns out (as you'll see in the pictures) they were huddled under the hood of the RAV4 keeping warm. It was pretty cute. We let Toquinho inside, but let Catita roam outside for a day until the shelter opened. When Mara took her in there were people there looking for cats, and actually took a liking to Catita. They had to keep her for 5 days to make sure no one claimed her, but by now, she probably is happy at home with that family.
Toquinho has been getting used to Linus & Lucy, and vice-versa, but they are really starting to tolerate one another now. Soon we'll have Linus & Toquinho napping together & hopefully ganging up on Lucy to bring her down a peg...:)
Also just for fun we dressed Linus & Lucy up in some of the clothes Grandma Debbie sent. Of course, Lucy only fit in the bib, and Linus wore the girl clothes rather than the boy...:) Grandma sent both just in case, since she didn't know the sex before hand.
Enjoy the pictures!

It's A...

Mara had her 20 Week ultrasound to check out the organs, bones, and of course, the sex of the baby.  We were going to make everyone view the videos and pictures, then vote, but we were too excited!  IT'S A BOAT (burn on Kaylee...)...I MEAN BOY!

The video below shows the heart rate, frontal view, arms, face & arms, hands & face, spine, face & hands, beating heart (very cool!), face (including the lens of the eye), and ending with a profile view.

We also had several still images.  The cooler ones are first.  Of course, the boy shot (not shy), then the color one is the vein & artery of the umbilical cord.  Most of the rest are labeled, ENJOY!

We Didn't Die!

Anyone following particle physics? No?  Well let me catch you up on how we all almost died.

First of all we didn't almost die.  The newest ($8 Billion) particle accelerator was just switch on for it's first test run yesterday.  The Large Haldron Collider (LHC or CERN by the French acronym) sent it's first beam of protons around the 27 KM (16.7 Mile) magnetic loop that lies beneath the France/Swiss border.  It's job will be to discern some of the most pressing questions in particle physics such as what antimatter is, and try to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson, also called the "God Particle" (a subatomic particle thought to exist but never seen...yet).  It's exciting to be around when new particles are discovered and postulated, as well as to see some of Newton's & Einstein's theorems put to the test in a way that was never possible before.  It puts FermiLab (In Batavia, IL, USA) to shame which used to be the biggest particle accelerator at 6.4 KM (4 Miles).

Since this is the most powerful beam of energy ever produced (7 TeV = 7 Billion = 7,000,000,000 Volts!) some people (uninformed) thought this would be the "End of Days" cataclysmic end by creation of a black hole that would engulf the Earth.  All the energy this planet has wouldn't be enough to create a black hole.  Our sun barely has that much.

Anyway, it's a cool project the Europeans have and hopefully it will provide some exciting research in the years to come.

Here are a couple of cool images:

1.) The magnetic tunnel that propels the proton beams around the 27 KM path:

2.) Results of smashing protons together.  The little circles & lines are paths of specific subatomic elementary particles in whats called a Bubble Chamber:

3.) A list of elementary subatomic particles for your future reference:

Enough Nerd For Today...:)

RMNP Panoramas

I've been messing around with some panorama software that will "stitch" photos together, so I made some nice panoramas with our RMNP photos. Click on the photos for the full image. Just FYI, they are larger files, anywhere from 1-6 MB, so they may take a few minutes to load on a slower connection. I did have to cut the resolution down since Blogger has a 8 MB limit on photos, but if you ever want a full copy of one of these we can send one to you. We may have to put one of these over the baby's crib. It's either these or our Metabolic Pathways poster...:)
Hope you like them!

Black Lake (Can You Find Mara?)


Cub Lake From Lake Side & Above




Rocky Mountain Scenery








Mike & His Tall Tree

Labor Day Getaway

Since we never really got to take a nice vacation this summer we decided to take some time over our 4 day Labor Day break. With me in the lab all summer, we couldn't take advantage of Mara's time off for more than just short weekend trips. Mara came up with the idea of visiting our friend Steph in Fort Collins, CO and getting in some hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. We decided to drive through Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming to reach Colorado, then come back through Kansas. Here is our map of the nearly 28 hours we spent in the car. But as you'll see from our photos...it was worth every minute!!!

Our trip out was very uneventful. We left after Mara's last final (Pathology) on Friday around 10am. We swung by Lincoln, NE to see Tim & Allison for two reasons. First, they are moving to Des Moines for Tim's promotion to Top Dog at Grainger in Des Moines, and second, because Allison is due in like 3 minutes so we wanted to see how she was doing. They were both really excited for Baby Beaker/Timmy Pizza and the move. It was a really good idea to break up the trip too since we still had ~8.5 hours left until Steph's. Mara did get to witness the pain of driving across Nebraska for the first time, and I was reminded about how boring that state really is. It's still not the most boring...we'll get to that in a minute.
We stopped in Wyoming about 10:30pm CST, 11:30 MT, and checked out the stars. They were some of the most amazing stars we have ever seen! The Milky Way was very prominent and impressive. We wish we had a camera that could capture it, but you should see it for yourself.
We arrived under the cover of darkness in Fort Collins, which sucked because we couldn't even see the damn mountains! After all that driving we had to wait a whole night to see them...:(
We got up bright and early to head out to the park. Steph, unfortunatly, had to work the whole weekend we were there, but that's the life of a retail manager during a holiday weekend. We'll plan better next time Steph, we promise! Steph helped us map out a trail to take us to Black Lake (one of her favorite views in the park). All in all it was about a 10.8 mile hike from 8200-10,630 feet, so we were sure to take it slow. Let me preface that with the fact that we already spoke to our physician and he said the altitude & hiking was in no way endagering the baby. Just to be safe Mara had a heart rate monitor on just so we could keep track of it, and slowed down when we needed to. That wasn't a hard thing to do because the views were so amazing! We hiked to Alberta Falls, Mills Lake, Jewel Lake, and Black Lake over the course of about 6 hours. The weather was absolutly beautiful! Mara did take a litte spill coming down from Black Lake, but only suffered some scratches on her knees, elbows, arms, knuckles, and a bruised ego...:)
After our hike Steph took us on a tour of "Fort Fun" as she calls it. We ate at a restaurant called Fish (guess what they serve). It was spectacular. The menu actually said for our steamed mussles & scampi "more butter than you want to know about"...:) Needless to say we slept very well that night. Here are some pictures from the first day:

The second day was a shorter hike (only 6.8 for Mara, and 7.8 for me, more on that in a second). We started from the Cub Lake Trailhead and checked out Cub Lake, The Pool, and Fern Falls. About 2 miles in Mara took yet another spill on the mountain, but this time twisted her ankle pretty good. She was a trooper and finished the hike. From where she fell to Fern Falls was about a 1000 foot gain in elevation, so it was like doing the stairclimber for 3 hours. Fun! When we got back to the Fern Lake Trailhead Mara noticed her ankle was swelling up to about the size of an apple...shit. With our car still a mile away I jogged back to get it. The high altitude and the fact that we had just hiked so much made it a tough jog, but the scenery was so nice to look at, and the adrenaline from Mara's ankle was pushing me along. She looked at her ankle and decided that it would be best to get it looked at and make sure it wasn't broken or torn ligiments. We got to check out the Estes Park ER for about an hour while they took an X-Ray to determine that it was just a bad sprain and some ice and a brace for a couple of days should take care of it. The ER did check the baby's heart beat and everything was just fine, which we assumed already. The Doctor did suggest no more hiking for a few days, but that wasn't a problem since we still had a 12 hour drive ahead of us tomorrow.
We got back to Steph's and made Stir Fry and Pot Stickers for Steph since she was such a great host for us! We filled up on Mara's amazing Pot Stickers first, so Steph has a lot of Stir Fry to take to work the next few days...:) We had some corn starch & water left over from making the Pot Stickers so we introduced Steph the our favorite Non-Newtonian Fluid, OOBLECK! We capped the night off with some ice cream and wine for Steph & I, and a relaxing tub followed by ice cream for Mara. Here are some pictures from our second hike:

Monday morning Steph headed to work @ 5:30 and Mara and I slept in until 7 then picked up Steph's apartment that we had destroyed from cooking and hiking gear we had borrowed from her. Around 9 we met Steph for breakfast at McCoy's Morning Glory and had some AWESOME french toast and quiche. We couldn't get this kind of food in Kirksville if we tried! After saying goodbye to Steph we were on the road. We decided to drive down through Denver and across Kansas so we didn't take the same way home that we came. Bad idea. Let me get to the point...Kansas blows. We were on I-70 for 710 freakin' miles, ~500 of it was on the straightest stretch of road in this world. We could see for probably 30 miles in each direction for about 400 miles of Kansas. At least we're good at keeping each other company! We rolled in to Kirksville around 12:30 on Tuesday morning and crashed until about 10 this morning.
We are still a little sore from so much time in the car, but it was worth every minute! Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Here is a little video of some of the wildlife we saw and (illegally) fed. Apparently Toasted Seseame Sticks & Yogurt Covered Pretzels are like crack to little forest critters:

I've also been messing around with Google Earth and drawing maps & such so here is an overlay of our hiking trials in Google Maps:

View Larger Map

Fetal Nebulae

If you look hard enough for something in nature, you'll find it. Whether it's numbers, symbols, shapes, or facsimiles, there is enough randomness about to catch your eye.
This was on Astronomy Picture of The Day for 08/25/08:

It's called NGC 7008, but it's also known as the Fetus Nebula. I thought it was a cool picture given our situation (as well as Allison having ~30 days left!). Of course, the scientific explanation isn't that this is a galaxy being born, it's actually the death throws of an ancient star similar to our sun. Sometimes the reality isn't quite what you'd expect...:)
Here is the caption explaining the photo if you didn't go to the website:
Compact and round, NGC 7008 is recognized as a planetary nebula about 2,800 light-years distant in the nebula rich constellation of Cygnus. This impressive telescopic view shows off NGC 7008's remarkable colors and details by the skillfull combination of broad band and narrow band images from two different telescopes with about 12 hours of total exposure time. The intriguing assortment of features within the nebula's approximately 1 light-year diameter suggest its popular name, the Fetus Nebula, but planetary nebulae are not associated with star birth. Instead, nebulae like NGC 7008 are produced during a brief phase that sun-like stars pass through toward the end of their lives. Ejecting their outer layers, the stars cool to eventually become white dwarf stars, like the star seen near the center of NGC 7008. This colorful image also includes an unrelated but still lovely gold and blue binary star system just below NGC 7008.

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Jen!

Sorry we missed your birthday. Hope you had a wonderful day!
(Shell posted that Jen hadn't changed since her wedding day, so thought we'd post a picture to prove it.)

New Crib

Mara, being the cheap shopper she is, found the crib we had registered for on Craigslist for a 30% discount, and it included a mattress. Apparently it didn't match their kids' new bedroom so they were selling it. Boo Hoo.
After I got back from my trip to Milwaukee (8+ hours in the car) we headed to Shelbina, MO, about 1 hour away. We were expecting a nice house, snobby, interior-designer owners. Instead we found a white trash family that had a crib for sale. We aren't quite sure what part of the kid's room didn't match the crib. Was it the Kool-Aid stains, the trash scattered about, or was it just the cigarette haze that clashed? Either way, we got a cheap bed & decent mattress. And "No", the mattress didn't smell like smoke, and all the crib needed was a few screws tightened. We were glad to have the RAV4. The crib fit on it's side without taking it apart! Never would have happened in the Camry. The dogs had to do a test drive for us, just to make sure it's up to par...:) We also found a cool, non-diaper-bag-looking diaper bag. We were looking at an outdoor shop in Columbia a few weeks ago and found a North Face Yavapai backpack that has a TON of pockets, zippers, and a cool brown color. We'll fit a changing mat and bottle insulator to it and...TADA...a diaper bag! We didn't want one with flowers, storks, or bubbles on it, and that seemed to be all we could find in the backpack type diaper bags at the stores. This one looks pretty cool, and had a chest & waist strap if we need to take the weight off our shoulders, something the other diaper backpacks never had. It will also be nice to use it as a Daypack (it's intended purpose) so we can change the kid right on the hiking trial...:)

Happy Anniversaries!

Happy 38th Anniversary Larry & Deb!

Happy 32nd Anniversary Dan & Holly!

Happy 3rd Anniversary to US!

I hope you all had a wonderful anniversary! Mike & I had a pretty uneventful day, classes for both of us and a night of studying yet to come:) We did have a Dr.'s appointment this afternoon. Babies heart rate was 142-153bpm, so right where it should be.

What?

That was the buzz word from this last weekend. Apparently Michelle got water in her ears when she was swimming and couldn't hear anyone. She kept saying "What?", "Huh?", or just staring off into space because she had no idea anyone was talking to her. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me preface this blog with this video:

Michelle did a great job getting our room bumped up to a nice executive boardroom suite, Room 146. We beat Shell there and told her it was room 147, the held the camera up to the peephole and watched her struggle. We were hoping someone was staying in that room because that would have been the "cherry on top" of that video. Michelle is constant entertainment...:) Sorry for the small video, and "Stalker-Cam" appearance.
After we stopped laughing we headed to Austin's to bring him his 5 year old birthday presents! It's crazy to think he's 5! He really wanted to see Mara, but I promised him I'll bring her next time...:)
We headed to Jean Pierre's Cafe in Shorewood for lunch, then off to Alterra (of course) for post-lunch coffee, then walked a few miles around the lakefront. It was gorgeous outside, and it was nice to hang out with the sisters. We headed to another Alterra and then to Whole Foods and picked up some wine & cheese. We headed back to the hotel to relax, watch the olympics, look through some old photos, and just enjoy the night.
I had a lot of fun, and can't wait to do it again!

Happy 51st Birthday Mom!

We hope you have a fantastic birthday! Enjoy your day and try to find some time to rest and relax. Hopefully you won't have to work to hard on your birthday.
I couldn't find a recent picture that I could crop just Holly so I figured I might as well get her doing her favorite role as grandma:)

It's a...

Just to further dispell any fetal sex predictions based on heartrate, here are a couple of articles that may interest you:

Gender-Related Differences in Fetal Heart Rate during First Trimester D.S. McKenna, G. Ventolini, R. Neiger, C. Downing; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, USA; Fetal Diagn Ther 2006;21:144-147

This study showed that there was no correlation between heart rate and fetal sex.

Prediction from Human Fetal Measures Jack Bernard; Child Development, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Dec., 1964), pp. 1243-1248

This was a significantly older study that showed the same thing...funny how the old wives tale has survived even with sound evidence that it is incorrect:)

Just for fun, here are a few websites that will predict the babies sex amongst other things: Baby Gender Prediction, Chinese Fortune Calendar, and IntelliGender. I find it quite funny that these websites will charge you for a "prediction" when you could find out accurately with a little patience (ok, it would take a lot of patience to wait until February, we'll see if we have that kind of patience).

The Many Moods & Faces Of Michelle Stokes...

Well, Michelle put together quite a slide show of, self-admitted, the most awkward years a boy could ever ask for... Well she left out the other half of the twin team, my equally awkward turtle-like sister. Sheilded from the outside, she struggles to understand the world around her, but with the help of Chris, had acheived more than anyone could have dreamed for her.
Some of Michelles best work:

Funny/Nerdy Infant Onesies

Mara had some friends at school tell her about some nerdy onsies for kids. I think some of these are VERY applicable...:)

Baby Furniture

We just can't justify spending half our rent on a changing table. My god, they are like $250! Well, thanks to our cheapo ways, we found a pretty good replacement...and old desk salvaged from the Salvation Army for $8. Our friends Tim & Allison refinished an old hutch from a relative and it looks amazing! They posted pictures on their blog. This project was not quite the same. The top on this was badly damaged (water, stains, etc), but it's really sturdy, lots of drawer space, and plenty wide for a changing table wedge. With the $8 price tag we sure as hell weren't going to refinish like Tim & Allison did, so we just slapped $5 worth of contact paper and called it good. They must love their kid more than we do...:)
In the picture there is a pig Sally sent us this week. It's super soft, but the color is something to be desired... Hopefully the dogs don't get a hold of it before the kid sees it!
I also included a picture of our glider we bought off a 3rd year med student who was moving. It costs us $15, and is hideous, but at 3am we aren't going to notice...:) We are still on the lookout for a 4-in-1 crib, but those seem to be more reasonably priced and we may just end up picking one of those up. Of course it will have to be on one of our road trips because the closest Babies 'R Us is 200 miles away!
Not a whole lot else happening with us. Mara is feeling good with classes starting, just taking a nap once a day to recharge for the late night studying. I'm just working in the lab as usual, just waiting to start classes on the 18th of August. The dogs are still idiots, with no signs of slowing down for when the kid comes...

At Home Doppler

Mara found a REALLY good place to rent an at-home, hand-held Doppler so we can hear the kid's heart beat (BabyFM.com). We've been pretty fascinated by it so far, but we've only had it a few days. We got some audio of the kid's heart beat using our camera and set it to some ultrasound pictures just for fun (I have time before my classes start in 2 weeks). From our calculations the heart rate is around 174 beats per minute, which is slightly faster than the 170 beats used by the widget on the left, but who's counting? The kid must have been moving around all over the place because we could never get a heart beat for more than 5 seconds in one spot, but we finally got the kid in one spot and got about 40 good seconds. In lieu of belly pics we'll just post the audio...:)

BBBQ

Well, the old flame broiler finally died on us this afternoon. We've been having problems with the gas knobs not catching the valve and not allowing gas to the burners, thus...no fire...no BBQ. And we even picked up fresh sweet corn at the farmer's market!
If you haven't had the pleasure of Mara cooking for you on the grill, you are missing out! We've taken to cooking pizzas, flat-breads, fruit, and whatever else you can think of, on our grill. We ran ALL OVER town today. It took us 30 minutes to go to ACE Hardware, Home Depot, & Wal-Mart before we FINALLY got our grill...:) It took me about 2 hours to assemble it in our living room (I took advantage of the A/C), but I had the Brewers game to keep my mind occupied. I only had to tear it down and restart once because I didn't put the right angled beam thingy with the right upright support dohicky, but after all that, the girl lit right up and didn't burn our house down.
The old grill will have to be scraped, but it's lasted us 5+ years, 4 moves, and 2 states. Not too bad for a $100 grill, and we've only had to replace the burner once! I think $20/year is pretty good for a grill...:) Here are pictures of the new & old grills. You can tell it was time to put the old one down...


You may also be wondering what the extra B in the title is for (did you even notice?). Well, like most things in life, you can relate this post to a Simpson's Episode. For you viewing pleasure:

Your Monday Nerd Quota

These are SO COOL! Einstein predicted (70+ years ago) that the gravity around a large galaxy has the ability to bend light from another galaxy, if the gravitational force is large enough. Einstein theorized this after publishing his theory of general relativity (which relates to gravity). NASA telescopes proved this theory 1979, but there have been some really neat pictures since this.
Here is the latest one from NASA. The bright "star" in the middle is a galaxy (SDSSJ1430 to be exact), and the blue ring around it is actually a magnified galaxy behind it! They were even able to reconstruct the image to see what the blue galaxy looked like (top right).

For a cool demo of gravitational lensing, check this site out:
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/Bolton7-08/lensing_animation.html

Hope that quenches your thirst for random info...:)

Torrential Rains

Kirksville was in the path of one bad ass storm cell, well...several cells. It just kept coming! After we had A LOT of rain on Monday, this hits and hasn't let up for 4 hours now. The creek next to our house is about the flood the neighbors apartments, and the bridge to their complex is almost under water! We met our neighbor (Chuck) who couldn't cross the bridge (or dare to) so we let him park in our driveway for the night. They walked to their apartment with water up to their knees!
The lightening has been a great show though so far! Not enough for some of the pictures to turn out better, but we got them lightened up as best we can. Some look a little blue to get the picture to develop, but what can you ask for at midnight? :)
Hopefully we don't wake up wet! :)

OH! Holly brought up a great story in her comment. I DID actually let Lucy outside to play in the rain. First thing she did was run into the creek and start sniffing around the tree that's a foot under water! It was really dark so I could only see her when the lightening lit up the area. I started calling her to come back and there was nothing. Lightening lit up the ground and I couldn't see her anymore. $h!T! I ran back inside to get a flashlight and umbrella thinking I am going to hunt for her downstream...and who is looking at me from the back porch...Lucy... I could have been mad but she was looking so ridiculous it was just funny instead...:)

12 Week Ultrasound

Yesterday we went to Mara's 12 week baby appointment. We were not sure if Dr. Carr would do an ultrasound, but he ended up using doing one instead of the Doppler. It was my first time going for the ultrasound, and it was AWESOME! I really wish they would have had video of the ultrasound. The kid was standing on it's head and was moving ALL over the place. Arms, legs, everything was moving. We could see the hands & feet were much more defined now.
The photos we did get show mostly frontal shots. The head (still alien-like) shows the eyes & mouth too, and in the last picture Dr. Carr thought you could see part of the spine forming (bright spot).
It was pretty cool to see (and hear) the heart beat too! 172 bpm so it was flying! With all the moving around the kid was doing, he wasn't sure if he would get it, but the kid stopped long enough for him to get it.
I was really glad I finally got a chance to see & hear the kid, especially since it was so active! I wasn't expecting so much movement. Enjoy the pictures!

2 VERY Differnt Dogs

So Monday we had some pretty strong storms come out of nowhere. On minute it was 95 & muggy, the next 70~ish and hail with 60 mph wind!
We heard it coming by the VERY loud crack of thunder. Linus, of course, took off like a bolt of lightening and hid behind the toilet, then under the bed. Lucy, however, came outside with us to watch the lightening storm. I tried to get the lightening on video, but we need a better camera for that. The storm just dumped a bunch of rain on us, and the wind just blew it like sheets across the backyard. Lucy wasn't phased by any of it. While she was out enjoying the rain/wind storm the wind died down and it started to hail penny size ice balls. She thought they were treats from Jebus & started trying to eat each one; it was hilarious!
From the pictures/video you can tell we have 2 very different dogs...:)

What we've been up to...

The last two weeks have flown by! I had my preceptorship, where I work with a doctor in their practice doing as much as they are comfortable and I'm capable. My first week in Milan, MO (45 minutes away, Pop. ~5000) was interesting...I ended up not returning for the second week due to the physician I was following getting fired. Overall I enjoyed working with the patients, and the other physician and nurse practitioner were great and very willing to have a student around. I spent one afternoon with the nurse practitioner doing well baby checkups at the local health department which I really enjoyed but it was also sad since the majority of the kids are living in less than desireable conditions to put it mildly.
Then for the second week of my preceptorship they scrambled to find a place for me and I ended up working with two of my professors at their clinic in town (only 1/4 mile away!). They were terrific! I was able to practice all of the physical examination skills and many other skills that we learned over the last few months. The patients ranged in age from 6 days to 98 years old! It was interesting working in their practice where I actually knew a few of the patients, I saw what a small(ish) town practice is like. KCOM is one of a few schools that offers first (soon to be second) year students the opportunity to get hands on clinical experience so early in their medical school career, quite often they have to wait until third year. I enjoyed my clinical experience and as silly as this may sound I look forward to classes starting up next week:)
Since the last couple weeks have been so busy trying to squeeze in workouts, puppy walks, and relaxation at the end of long days we decided to take it easy on Friday night. After a quick dinner at home, Mike and I went to go to see the movie Wall-E. We had heard it was
a pretty good movie even though there is no dialogue for the first 20 minutes. It was really cute and since it is Disney it was the perfect movie to watch after a hectic week!
Saturday morning we slept in until 730 and then headed down to Columbia for the day. We had to take the RAV4 back to the dealership, nothing major, we wanted to change some factory settings and the radio had been acting up. It took about 20 minutes for them to change the settings and let us know they were going to order a new radio and we can come back down (again) when it comes in for installation. Since we were in Columbia we hit the mall, Target, Linens'n'Things, Old Navy, an indian restaurant, a cool sporting goods store, and a bike shop. After a big indian meal we HAD to go for a walk, we walked around to a few shops (wine & coffee, of course!) and then ended up at a hidden outdoor patio of a restaurant for iced tea and a beer. When we got back home we changed into swimsuits and took the dogs out to the lake, even though it was 6pm it was still 86 out and humid. Lucy as usual LOVED it and Linus tolerated us dragging him in and letting him swim back, twice. We swam for about an hour then came home, had dinner, and went on a 3-4 mile walk with the dogs.
Sunday was another busy day, we were out the door by 8am headed to Des Moines for a Iowa Cubs v. Nashville Sounds AAA baseball game. The I-Cubs are the Chicago Cubs AAA team and the Nashville Sounds are the Brewer's AAA team. We hit Jimmy John's for lunch (not a huge fan of stadium food...) and then killed some time by walking around Drake University campus. We didn't waste quite enough time so when we got to Prinicpal Stadium and parked we had over an hour before game time, a quick check of the GPS and we headed to a coffee shop a little over half a mile away. A delicious iced decaf coffee (me) and an espresso malt (Mike) helped keep us cool briefly in the sweltering heat. We even hit the Science museum giftshop on the way back to the park. We got back in time to see George & Vel (Mike's grandma's sister) on the screen during one of the fan cam moments! We had great seats five rows up by the Sounds bullpen along the first base line. We recognized a few names Tony Gwynn, Jr, Derrick Turnbow, and a few other less known but most hadn't been called up to the majors yet so we didn't recognize the names. It was a really fun atmosphere and they have a ton of fan giveaways and ways for the fans to be involved. It was HOT and just sitting still the sweat dripped off of you, we had to reapply sunscreen a few times, but we each still burnt one shoulder. The I-Cubs started the game off with a homerun and the Sounds never caught up, although it wasn't a real high scoring game with the I-Cubs winning 2-1. During the 6th inning we walked around looking to see if George & Vel were still there, they weren't, probably headed out due to the heat, smart! We were half way to the car when Mike says "Do you have my phone?", um no, you do...yup, he left it sitting in the cup holder of our seats and it was still there when he went back, lucky boy!
After the game we ran over to Babies'R'Us to look at a few things, ok a LOT of things:) Then had some supper and headed back to Kirksville...not quite the end of the night, we took the dogs for a walk to Mike's work so he could get a few things started for Monday.
All-in-all a really great weekend and it even felt like a long weekend!
As you may have guessed by our lack of pictures we didn't have our camera along at all this weekend, kind of felt naked without it:)

Earth-Moon Transit

NASA just released a really cool video of and earth-moon transit. A transit is when something passed in front of an object, usually a moon passing in front of a planet or star (like the sun). Some more recent transits have been Mecury & Venus transiting the sun:


NASA has a spacecraft called Deep Impact that is "comet hopping" and in May they trained it to look back at the Earth as the moon was passing between the two. It took a really cool video from 31 million miles away! They superimposed a model of the Earth so you can see what continents are passing by. When Africa comes into view is when the moon flies by. A quick video, but it's the first time anyone as imaged this phenomenon!

Retrograde Auto Trade

After the Camry's 1220 mile trip last weekend we decided the old (2007) girl has been with us long enough. We traded the Camry in for a 2006 RAV4. It's something we've been contemplating for a while since the Camry wasn't really camping friendly, and it definitely doesn't have a good dog::kid barrier.
We checked out Joe Machen's Toyota last Saturday and they only had 1 used RAV4 in stock. People don't usually give them up so quickly. Since our car was still so new, and they would have no problem getting rid of it, we got a really nice deal for theirs and ours. The Camry was a year newer, but the RAV4 is higher in price, so they offset one another for an even trade. We put a little money down just so we can drop our payments quite a bit more to save a little more every month. ESPECIALLY with the house being gone. We had looked in March/April at a few RAV4's but with the house still on the market it was hard to spend any money.
We headed down to Columbia after work & picked it up. The people were really good there, and we were in and out in under an hour! It took several trips, at 2-3 hours each, when we bought the Camry in Milwaukee since their employee's had no idea what they were doing.
We got back to Kirksville and took the puppies for a quick ride. They were a little confused, but they didn't seem to mind the "Way-Back". They are going to have to get used to it when little Baby Syring comes along! :)

Misc. Stuff

Thought we'd share some miscellaneous pictures from the last week or so.
I should explain the last photos...When we first moved here we wanted the desk in one room on the other side of where the cable (for cable Internet) came up. Mara was the brave one (of course) and went into the crawl space to hand me up the cable when I drilled down. Needless to say, I f'd it up and she waited under the house for probably 10 minutes. That's a long time, especially after she saw a dead snake and crawled through all the spider webs & what not. We rearranged a few things in the house for the kid and we had to move another cable. Chivalry is NOT dead, and I couldn't let preggers go under the house again. So I donned every long piece of clothing, rubber bands around my shirt cuffs, head lamp, a face mask from our winter collection, hat, latex gloves, racquetball goggles, and socks pulled over my pants. Sexy huh? Well tard-look aside, no spider was getting close to me! We pre-drilled the hole this time, and I was in and out in under 90 seconds. It was wet, webby, and hot as HELL under there, but we got our desk moved to the living room to make room for baby stuff in the spare room. Oh, we even found a glider from a med student that was moving for $15! Pretty sweet deal.