Scott's Running Endeavors

Recently, Scott has been able to participate in two really fun running events. Last Sunday he did a 5k fun run at Mt Hood Community College, and on Friday he was able to run a leg of the Hood to Coast Relay. Although he didn't run any times close to what he did in college, he had a blast doing both.

The 5k fun run at MHCC was part of the Mt Hood Jazz Festival. Scott just wanted to see what he could do, and was surprised when he ran it in 18min 10sec. Before the race he was just hoping to run it under 21min. He finished fifth overall, and second in his age division. He's hoping to run more 5k's throughout the year, and hopefully improve his time. Heather was a huge support in the whole race. She brought Stanley out to watch daddy run, and she was at several of the spots during the race. Afterwards, she even gave Scott a hug despite him being all wet and sweaty. Scott was even able to talk his dad into running the 5k. The last race they did together was when Scott was in 5th grade.

His participation in the Hood to Coast relay was a surprise when our friends Jeremy and Claudette called asking if Scott would be willing to run with Claudette on one of her late night runs. She was running the leg into Portland and did not feel comfortable running that by herself. The Hood to Coast handbook even suggests that females have someone to run with on some of those late night legs. Heather again was very supportive of this, and drove Scott out to meet Jeremy and Claudette's team at 10:30pm, and picked him up at 11:30 under the Hawthorne bridge. It was a perfect night for a night run, and Scott had fun being part of the Hood to Coast.

The Long Awaited Post

Back in May we said that we would post tomorrow. Well, tomorrow turned into next week, and next week turned into next month, and next month turned into three months. Now, here we are with the long awaited post. We could probably go on for pages after pages about what’s been going on with us. Instead we thought that you’d rather get the cliff’s notes version with some pictures interspersed throughout. So here are our top ten highlights since “Tomorrow”. But before that begins:

Stanley Mac Overby

April 12, 2008

Born at 11:31pm. Weighed 7lb 3oz

And now for our summer countdown...

10. Barlow boys were the 6A Track State Champions. It was Scott’s first year as an assistant track coach, and what a first year it was! Barlow dominated State with wins in the 110 meter hurdles, 300 meter hurdles, 4x100 meter relay, discus and shot put. We were also second in the 100 meter dash, fourth in the 200 and 400 meter dash, and seventh in the 800 meter run and 4x400 meter relay. It was a great season, and the three of us (Scott, Heather and Stanley) were able to attend day 3 of the meet together. BTW: the last state championship won by Barlow was the Track championship in 1999 which Scott was part of as an athlete. (He was 18th in the 1500, but he was there.)

9. After taking financial peace university back in March, we’ve both been saying we need to pare down on some of our stuff. Last weekend we finally did with a garage sale. Matt and Elizabeth helped with it and provided some of their stuff too. It was great to see old things go, and to have less clutter. Now we are still trying to regain our garage with some of the leftover things that didn’t sell.

8. Scott took a week long class in July to help improve his teaching. The class went from 8am to 6pm Monday through Saturday. It was definitely a stretch for us having him being gone all day. Fortunately, he was able to carpool with Paul from work. They were also workout buddies for the week, running in the mornings and playing tennis, golf, or some other activity in the afternoon. The class allotted time in which we were required to do a wellness activities. From the class, Scott has some great ideas for the classroom, and it also helped him get back to running more regularly. He’s actually going to be doing a fun run this upcoming Sunday!

7. Our friends Matt and Holly Smucker visited us from Taiwan. They have been in Taiwan for 2 years now and are going to spend at least another two there. They hadn’t seen Stanley yet, so it was fun for them to meet him, and great to catch up with them. It is awesome to see how friends our age are serving God overseas, and how He is using them. We hung out at our house and got to play some Frisbee golf with them afterwards.

6. Every summer we like to go camping at least once. This year we ended up going to Timothy lake which is just east of Mt. Hood. We went with Matt and Elizabeth Reese, and it was tons of fun. Scott, on a whim, ran the 13 miles around the lake. We enjoyed some calm moments on the lake while Matt and Elizabeth watched Stanley. And Stanley got his first taste of the outdoors (not literally, we didn’t let him eat the dirt—maybe next year).

5. This summer there were lots of additions to our families. Heather’s sister Beth had her third child Kade on May 25th, and Scott’s sister Sjana had her second child Makenna on June 24th. It was fun following our sister’s along the process and comparing where they were to where Heather was during the pregnancies.

4. Speaking of cousins, Beth and her family came up to Oregon in the beginning of July. It was fun hanging out with them for a week and to see how they’ve grown, and to see Kade for the first time. During their stay we had “Camp Nanapa” at Gene and Cinda’s (Cinda is called Nana and Gene is Papa Gene thus the name “Nanapa”). We spent one day at the Alpine slides, which was Scott’s first time going down the slides, and we spent a day at Trillium Lake. Cinda rented some kayaks for us. We also had a meet the baby party for Beth and Kade. Overall, it was a great time with family and we look forward to seeing them again. Maybe we’ll go down to Arizona after Christmas again.

3. For Stanley’s four month birthday (yes he is already that old) we decided to go to the zoo on two dollar Tuesday. It was a great idea, unfortunately everyone else and their mother had the same idea. Traffic was great until we got through the tunnel and the right lane suddenly came to a stop about a mile from the zoo. We waited, and waited, and soon realized that it was stopped because of the zoo. We waited for about 30 minutes and then had to get off because Stanley was starting to wake up from his nap and he wanted to eat. During those 30 minutes we moved MAYBE a quarter mile. People kept zipping forward in “the line.” After we fed Stanley we decided to check out a zoo shuttle that ran from the Nazarene church at the Sylvan exit (that’s where we got off to feed him). Unfortunately that was also crazy busy. I guess the zoo parking lot just filled up. At that point we thought we’d just go find a park to rest at and enjoy our picnic lunch. After lunch we had Stanley’s four month photos taken at Portrait Innovations. When we finished there it was about 2:30, and we knew traffic getting home could be horrendous, and Scott had a great idea, why don’t we try to the zoo again! This time it was easy to get to the zoo, but it was still crazy the number of people still arriving. We had to wait in line for 20 minutes to get our tickets. But it was worth the money. For $6, we got to spend 3 ½ hours at the zoo which was plenty of time. On our way home we heard I-84 East was backed up so we stopped at Lloyd Center for dinner. It was a great four month birthday for Stanley. He seemed to enjoy it, although he’ll enjoy anything as long as he stays well fed.

2. We celebrated our four year anniversary this summer. For our anniversary Heather was surprised with a trip out to Club Sports in Tualatin and dinner at Stanford’s. Sue watched Stanley so we got a day to ourselves. That in and of itself would have made a great anniversary. At club sports we rock climbed, lifted weights, and used the hot tub, elliptical, saunas and steam rooms. When you walk into Club Sports, it feels as if you’re walking into a hotel. It is super nice. Scott received a free week family membership during the class he took in July. Unfortunately, we were only able to use that week membership that one day. After our time at the gym we headed up to Portland for dinner. We had an incredible dinner at Stanford’s. If you haven’t been there, you need to go. The food is incredible, but the company was much better. It was a great four year anniversary for us, and we are looking forward to the years ahead.

1. Our highlight of the summer was that Scott didn’t have to work and that we didn’t have to move. We were able to just relax and enjoy our time together and with Stanley. We’ve spent the majority of our summer around home, watching movies, cleaning, organizing, and just being together as a family. During the school year, teaching is a really demanding job. Without summers, teachers couldn’t maintain the level of intensity that they need to do their job. We also decided that we need to have all our babies in the spring so that Scott can be around during the summer to help with those first couple of months. However, we know that we can plan, but ultimately that is in God’s hands. It has also been fun to be around and see the changes in Stanley. He is growing bigger and bigger every day. He can now hold his head up easily. He is vocalizing a lot, but it’s still mostly “ahhs” and “oohs”. By just being home we have been able to cherish and enjoy every moment. The summer has been a true blessing.

So there’s a little recap of our summer. It has been a great time. We also want to give a shout out and congratulations to a few of our friends who have accomplished great things this summer.

James Furlo and Jessi Christian, friends from Willamette, got married this summer.

Dave completed basic academy to join the Portland Police force.

Matt Reese earned his private pilot’s license, and instrument license and is on his way to be a commercial pilot.

PS. If you've made it all the way through this post please let us know leaving a comment.

Tomorrow...

Thank you all for your patience as we have not posted in a while. We'll share the exciting news and pictures ASAP. We plan on going private tomorrow so please email us if you have not done so already. (You must email me so I can send you the information to gain access)

A little overdue Overby...

So, Overby babies are notorious for being late and I (Heather) thought for sure that my babies would not be late because I was not born an Overby. But apparently I was mistaken. I don't think it is about genetics as much as this: "babies don't know due dates". That much is true and inconvenient as we wait for the arrival of Stanley who isn't in a hurry to make his appearance. The encouragement of friends and family has been a blessing as we wait. Rachel even made this great poster for the little man.

We agree completely with Rachel's sign. So give us your ideas (practical or hilarious) on how we can get this little guy to come out. Just keep it family friendly.

Here are a few more recent belly photos.

Going Private

We wanted to give all of our faithful readers a heads up that our blog will be going private. After talking to some friends and family we've realized with the upcoming arrival of Stanley and some of the personal information posted here it would be wise to make our blog private. But don't worry, it won't be hard to view our blog once we go private, there will just be some things you'll have to do one time and then you'll be good. Just email us letting us know that you'll want to still have access to our blog, and then we'll grant you access, and you'll be done. What this does mean is that those of you who like to look at our blog in secret will need to come forward so you can continue to look at our blog and see what's going on in our lives. So, please email us at scott.heather.overby@gmail.com and let us know you want to have access to our blog. We'll probably go private with details of Stanley's birth so that's about how long you will have until you'll have to sign in. All of you are welcome here so just email us ASAP.

Still Waiting...

For those of you who have been wondering, Stanley still hasn't arrived. We are in the waiting game of when will it happen. He dropped about 3 1/2 weeks ago, and at that point we had read that when the baby drops he usually comes within 7-10 days. Since then we've read 2-3 weeks, and later about a baby dropping 4 weeks before the due date and being 2 weeks late. So, who knows when Stanley will make his arrival. (well, God knows)

In all this waiting we've been enjoying Spring Break. It has been nice to watch movies, hangout, and just relax. Scott has been putting in some running which he's been longing to do but just hasn't had time for. Over the course of the week we've both been sort of just waiting for the baby's arrival, and we've been able to with the break, but now as we are nearing the end of the week we are going to try to get back into the swing of normal life instead of just waiting for Stanley. Once he arrives though, "normal" will never be the same. Then we can make the leap into parenthood, which we are both excited for.

Weird Weather

This morning we got a nice treat, SNOW!!! There was actually a thin layer of snow on the ground on March 28th! The weather in Oregon recently has been going back and forth. One minute it's sunny and beautiful, and next thing you know it's cloudy and raining. But give us Oregon sunshine (rain) any day over Arizona summer heat, Midwest Thunderstorms and Tornadoes, and Florida hurricanes. We know that those who live in Arizona, Florida, or the Midwest love it where they are and couldn't imagine living in a place where it rains over half the year. That's the beauty of America and all the different climate zones for different people.

When it rains, it pours...

Hi everyone,

This is Heather reporting to you live from the Overby home. It's been a busy last few days here with a lot going on. We have finally purchased all the things we need to have before the baby arrives. This weekend we used return money/store credit to buy a crib mattress, carseat/infant carrier, and jogging stroller (great Craigslist find, Thank You Lord), and this week I bought the mattress pad, changing table pad and cover, and more. The big and little things have been taken care of with baby money to spare. There's more, too like the blessing of free bottles from Amy and a breast pump from my aunt. Exactly what we needed. We're very thankful that this baby is going to be well equipped for life outside the womb.

Speaking of Stanley Mac, I had a prenatal appointment yesterday and baby has completely dropped into the pelvis. So much so that all my midwife could feel was head down there. (I don't want to go into detail here with graphic descriptions and words but I'll tell you we're well on the way. If you want to know more, I would love to share, you just need to call or email me.) So, he actually dropped over a week ago when I was in Welches. Talk about breathing room and less pain in the rib cage. My midwife was very pleased with his size and position and said she thought he was already 6 1/2 or 7 lbs. at 37 weeks. That's good news because I am definitely ready for him to make his entrance into the world.

In preparation for his impending arrival we spent a long time last night packing the hospital bag, finishing some laundry, and putting things away. When we come home from the hospital we would like to be able to walk into a clean home. I know people say at this point you need to be getting all the sleep you can, but with Scott's work, my growing belly, and getting ready for a new baby, we haven't gotten the sleep we need.

Some other stresses we've had are that our garbage can step pedal broke recently, and we had a bloody mess with a package of meat in the fridge. Added to this, our hot water heater stopped working last night. We didn't realize it until this morning when Scott went to take his shower, because last night when there was no hot water for the dishes or hand washing we didn't put 2 and 2 together. Due to the stress of these little things, lack of sleep, hormones, and the plain busyness of life we had a little blow up this morning. Fortunately, we both feel we're growing and were able to say we're sorry and come back together. What we are learning is that what matters, and what reveals our true character, is how we respond in stressful situations. A couple of years ago it might have taken longer to resolve these issues. We know that in the upcoming months there will just be more stresses, less sleep, and life is not going to slow down. God doesn't refine us through the easy times, but the stressful. We hope and pray that we are becoming the couple (and soon family) that He wants us to be. Please pray for us.

Happy Pi Day

Today 3/14 is Pi day, in honor of the wonderful number pi (3.14159265...). For those of you who are mathaphobes, Pi is just a ratio of the Circumference of a circle to the Diameter (the distance around a circle divided by the distance across). Euler popularized the number, and it comes from the greek work for perimeter. I won't bore you with too many details, but I will give you some fun Pi sites to look at and enjoy. Happy Pi Day!!!

Wikipedia on Pi

Find your phone number or birthday in Pi

Pi Land

The first million digits of Pi

Still Waiting and other News of Note

The days are counting down. The wait is on for little Stanley's arrival. Heather is past the cute and wonderful stage and is now feeling awkward and ready to be done being pregnant. It has been a wonderful pregnancy, and now it is coming to a close. We have less than a month left!!! (a little more if he's late) We have definitely been blessed with baby showers from friends and family. Now, from the money we received from the showers and a few returns (we got two Diaper Champs!) we have started to shop around for some of those bigger items (car seat, stroller and crib mattress) as well as some smaller ones (mattress pad, changing table pad, Bumbo tray, and Boppie cover). It is such a blessing how little we need to buy at this point. I do have to say that Stanley will be the best dressed little man! We have so many cute outfits from 0 to 12 months. We might post photos of some of the outfits, but most likely you'll have to wait until his arrival and then we we'll have to rename this blog "The Stanley Show" because a lot of the posts will be about him!

But to keep that from happening too soon, here are some things that have been going on outside of the pregnancy (is there such a thing?). Scott started Track just after President's Day. He is only coaching part time, so he's only out 3 days a week. Yes 3 out of 5 is more than half, but he loves it. Their first meet is this Thursday at Tualatin High School, and then again next Thursday at Sunset High School.

Scott has also picked up some math tutoring. Since Heather has paused her music therapy contracts and is officially on maternity leave, it was nice for Scott to pick up a few hours tutoring. It is neat how God provides what you need when you need it. Also with track, we didn't know this would be an option, but Scott is able to receive part of his stipend for that work in each monthly paycheck rather than a lump sum at the end. This provides us with the little extra we need each month. It has been neat working through Financial Peace University and learning how to live on a budget and sticking to it. Most of the stuff as far as "tightening the belt" goes we were already good at. This has given us a formalized system to live within. It also helps us with the mindset "no we are not going to use the credit card." We finished paying that off, and next month will be the first month with no credit card payment!!! Now we just need to get the car loan and student loans paid off.

No this will not go on forever, but one last amazing blessing! Over a year ago our laptop computer crashed. On it were our Europe photos, wedding photos (we did have copies of these), our huge address database, and other important files. It was a major bummer. Last fall, Matt Reese told us he had a similar problem, but his friend was able to retrieve the information by getting a device that the hard-drive plugs into. Since his laptop is identical to ours, he tried using that with our hard-drive, but with no success. Well, a couple weeks ago, someone from church told us we should go to the computer store that is just down the street from us. We went there and for $30 plus a $5 cable they were able get everything off the hard-drive!!! Not one picture was lost!!! We were excited to find other pictures that we didn't even know we lost such as our Mexico trip for Heather's sister Beth's wedding.This is a huge answered prayer. Now Heather can scrapbook the last three and a half years of our marriage. We were sort of waiting to retrieve those pictures before trying to sell the laptop to work towards our $1000 emergency fund (baby step number one in Financial Peace University). A lot of cool things happening for us. Thank you to all of you who are praying for us.

We'll try to keep you updated on what is happening in our life. Please keep us up to date as well through phone, email or blog.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is from St. Valentine who, during the Roman Empire officiated weddings even when Claudius II banned marriages, and aiding persecuted Christians. Valentine was later beheaded when he did not renounce Christ. One legend says that before his death he restored sight to the jailer's daughter (by the power of God), and he wrote her a note and signed it "From your Valentine." He was beheaded February 14th. (Source for this was Focus on the Family's Adventures in Odyssey episode on St. Valentine, and Wikipedia states that this idea of St. Valentine was from the book Golden Legend although Claudius banning marriage is not stated. The website roman-emporers.org does say that Claudius was very strict towards his soldiers. Catholic.org mentions the letter and the jailer's daughter). It was Chaucer who is believed to popularize the romantic love associated with Valentine's day. Anyways, the purpose of this little history lesson (and it was really neat to research it), is that Valentine's day has become so hyped up by our culture it is rediculous. It is said to be the "Black Friday" for the floral business, with sales reaching $80,000. Some of my friends from Willamette use to deliver flowers and they can attest to how busy and crazy Valentine's day can be. When I went to pick up the freezer on Valentine's day (see previous posts) there were many Valentine's vendors along the street trying to make a quick buck. This year, Heather and I decided to not celebrate Valentine's day on Valentine's day but the day after. So on Friday morning, February 15th, I went to Fred Meyer before work to pick up some roses and chocolates for Heather. The roses were 75% off, and the chocolates were 50% off! After work, we had reservations at McCormick and Schmick's Harborside. We had received a $25 gift certificate from Alaska Airlines, and by splitting an appetizer and a meal we were able to only spend $10 plus $3.50 for parking. Afterwards were were going to rent a movie from Red Box (for free with coupon), but unfortunately it did not have Becoming Jane or No Reservations. We had a wonderful Valentine's day on February 15th and are really enjoying dates on a budget.

Pre-Spring Clean-up

If you read the next post, you will learn the story behind our new freezer. Today, I (Scott) was faced with the issue of making room for the freezer in the garage. I had organized the garage fairly well last fall. However, once we started to put together the nursery, everything that was in that room went out to the garage and the garage was messy again. Here are some before and after pictures of the garage.

Blessings

Recently God has blessed us in a huge way! We have been wanting an upright freezer for the garage for a while now, although we haven't had the money to buy one. Well, a few weeks ago we were going to Goodwill to find Scott a pair of jeans. As we were pulling up we saw a pickup with 2 upright freezers heading towards the donation center. We quickly pulled over and ran to the pickup as the donation person at Goodwill was telling them they don't take freezers. Unfortunately, they were trying to donate a yellow refrigerator, not a freezer, and they were keeping the upright freezer. We talked a little, and found that they go to Easthill Church (another great church similar to Good Shepherd in Gresham). We talked about FPU (they also had gone through Financial Peace University), our baby Stanely, their kids, and we gave them our number incase they ended up not needing the freezer.

Well, a couple weeks later Heather got a phone call from the lady simply stating, "Call me about a freezer." We called, and they wanted to GIVE us the freezer! Turns out, they were hoping to use it as a second refrigerator but it was too cold (it was built to freeze things which it did). What a huge blessing, God knew what we needed, and He provided. This was a big answered prayer.

That was blessing number one. Blessing number two was getting the freezer. We have a Toyota Camry, and a VW Jetta. Both are not made for transporting freezers. Once we found that we had a freezer, we had to find a way to transport it. Heather first called her dad, who was more than willing to help us, but he is up in Welches, and the freezer was out past 181st. Then we thought of our friends from Bible study. Matt works in construction and has a pick-up. The problem was that he has night classes most weekdays. Scott called him, and he was more than willing to come out and help!

He was working that day out in SW Portland, so he met Scott and the family with the freezer's house, and Matt was the right person to ask. He had all the equipment and know how. We got it into his truck, he had the straps to tie it down, and we got it back to our house no problem. When we got it home, Scott was going to plug it in, but Matt wanted to look at the wiring. The lady had mentioned that there was a problem with the wire, but she used some electrical tape, and it was working fine. Matt took one look at it and told Scott not to plug it in until it was fixed. The hot, cold, and ground wires were all cut and while some electricity could make it through when held together it was the type of problem that starts those "electrical fires" you hear about on the news. Again, what a blessing that Matt was the one we called, because we would have had no idea that the wires needed to be fixed to avoid a house fire. God is good.

Our three blessings.

1. The refrigerator

2. Matt helping and seeing the electrical problem

3. The day we met the people at Goodwill we also found Scott a $9 pair of brand new Levi Jeans that would cost $50 retail.

Wow.

Still growing...

Hey Everyone, It's been really busy around here lately with work, preparing for Stanley's arrival, more work, trying to stay on top of housework, juggling finances (bills), different Bible studies and classes, rehearsals and concerts, spending time with friends, and more work. I guess this is what life is like after graduation. We're so thankful for this new leg of our journey together and we are learning more every day. We're also growing in another area (mostly Heather) and that is around the middle. Stanley is often very active in his growth and development and it's fun to feel (and see) it. It is so exciting! We have less than eight weeks until his due date and we are getting more eager for his arrival every day. We hope and pray that all of you are doing well. Please drop us a line and tell us how things are going for you. P.S. What fun things are you all doing for Valentine's Day? Any ideas?

Breaking the Silence...

Hello Friends and family! Do you think it is about time for us to blog again? We sure do. It's been on the "To Do" list for almost two months now and I (Heather) am finally getting a chance to update. I finally went through our pictures on picasa and thought I would share a sampling of them with you. Find many more pictures here.

A picture from the hospital when we discovered that we were expecting a little boy named Stanley!

"Oh Christmas Tree"

Our Little Nursery-with many thanks to Ginny!

We had a wonderful family Christmas! After Good Shepherd's church service on Christmas Eve everyone came to our house for dinner and a gift card exchange. It was so fun and each person went home with something they could really use. On Christmas day we headed out to be with the Overbys, MacSwans, and Mills and had a great time. Watching snow fall outside was a real Christmas blessing!

On the afternoon of Christmas, Scott and I drove up to Welches to be with my mom and dad. We had a traditional Swiss Raclette dinner and a lot of Pinochle.

We also got "snowed in" and enjoyed a winter retreat in the snow country.

This Belly has grown!!! Oh, how I've been growing over the last few months. I really popped out over the holidays! Could it be all the marvelous food?

We had a wonderful New Years trip to Arizona to visit my sister and her family. It was so fun to spend time with them-especially my niece and nephew.

A few more pictures...

My sister Beth sent me these pictures of our family.

Here's the fun news though-she's expecting a baby two months after me.

So make note of the pregnant sister picture.

The Results are in...

We just got home from the hospital and the results are in. The visit went well. We got to see our baby's spine, head, hands, feet, heart, brain, and all those things that you want to see on a baby. We also were able to see whether the baby was a boy or a girl. The technician reminded us that nothing was guaranteed, but the results seemed pretty clear. We're going to have a BOY!!! This is contrary to most polls that we took. When we talked to family we asked them what they thought and most people said a girl. Only Gene Tilgner, and Sarah Overby said a boy. On our blog poll the vote was 7 for girl, 3 for boy. So only 30% of the people guessed correctly. We are so excited about little Stanley. We appreciate all the excitement and support from you. Stay tuned for more news regarding our little one.

Early Vacation, sort of...

Today has been an interesting day at work for me (Scott). Soon into the first class of the day an announcement was made about a power outage and that students need to stay in the classrooms. My classroom still had power, although my computer screen was doing something weird. Soon after that the fire alarm went off and we all filed outside into the parking lot, in the rain. We stood around for a long time until someone let us back in only to herd the mob into the gym. Turns out there was an electrical issue, most likely from rain seeping through the roof (it's an old school), and they eventually shut the power down to avoid a bigger problem which shut down the power in the surrounding area. Well, after standing around in the gym, going back outside after some kid pulled the fire alarm, and back to the gym, they finally told the kids who have cars to go home and the rest of the students to wait for the buses. By the time the buses came it was about 10:15. It then took an hour and a half to finally release the staff to go home. Kind of crazy. Lesson plans are shot. But now I get the afternoon off, and later we get to find out whether we're going to have a boy or a girl!!! Vote now if you haven't voted yet. That includes you mystery bloggers who never post. It is a completely anonymous poll. Hopefully we'll post later today.

Make Your Predictions Heard

We're finding that everyone wants to add their input into what gender our baby will be. At this point if someone asks "What are you having." Our only honest answer is, "A baby." That or "We're having chicken (tonight for dinner)." Anyways, let your opinion be heard. We have our ultrasound Monday to hopefully find out what gender our baby will be. Make your predictions by then (see poll in the right column), and we'll see if more people are thinking we're having a boy or a girl. I put twins in there for the fun of it, no ultrasound (of the two) showed any hint of twins, but that will be your million to one odds guess.

Hilarious Site

Tonight I (Scott) was working on my lesson plans for tomorrow, and Heather was looking at blogs. We found a link from Amy's blog of a youtube video, and that led us to a new web site. It is RhettandLink.com. Now, we cannot say that everything they do is clean and appropriate because we haven't watched all of their videos (yet), but all the videos we saw were absolutely HILARIOUS and clean! Two of our favorites were the Healthy Fast Food Rap and the Invisible Bed Fence. We had to pull ourselves away because we were laughing too much and we had to get to bed. But we thought we'd share it with you first. Tom and Dan, we thought of you two when we saw some of their videos and thought you should make some of your own "randomness videos." PS. The videos seemed to work better on youtube, but that could just be our slow computer.

Red Boot Duo Performance

The next Red Boot Duo performance featuring Heather on Oboe, Rhythm and Vocals and Cinda on Guitar and Vocals is this Friday night. The performance goes from 7-10 at the Mt. Hood Roasters in Welches. Come enjoy dinner, live music, and a fun and relaxed atmosphere. Hope to see you there!

What Pregnant Women Get Away With

Have you ever stopped to realize what pregnant women get away with? All the time they are able to excuse themselves, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m pregnant.” Could you imagine a guy trying to get away with that, “I’m sorry I blurted out like that, I’m male.” It wouldn’t work. Take a couple of examples Heather and I dealt with recently (and I share these with Heather’s permission and we are able to laugh at these…now). Case one, we are talking on the phone and I did or said something that rightfully upset Heather. Her response, she hung up on me. Well, I called her back, and when I got a hold of her I said, “You hung up on me, how rude.” Then I returned the favor and hung up on her. Men, do not try that at home. The results were not pleasant and although I did not spend the night on the couch I had to go into a serious apology mode. While she was able to hang up on me, I was by no means justified or allowed to hang up on her. Why might you ask Heather was able to get away with that? Because she’s pregnant. Case two: we had an extremely fun and goofy night last night. It was one of those nights where everything we said or did was funny. Well, Heather was playing with a rubber band, and I told her not to shoot it at me or else I’ll have to return the gesture. (And no, it’s not quite going where you think it is). A few minutes later, I was looking in the fridge trying to make my lunch for the next day. Out of no where I get pelted with a…banana peel! That’s right; Heather threw a banana peel at me! Her excuse was she was trying to throw it away, although I was not even close to the garbage can. So I mimic a throw to the garbage can and throw the banana peel back at Heather. Fortunately we did not have the same type of blowup with the phone call incident, but I did get hit again with the banana peel, and I was close to being in the dog house. Anyways, the moral of the story is that pregnant women get away with almost anything. If they forget something, blunder their words, or even throw banana peels at their husbands it is dismissed as the hormones raging in their bodies. If I forget something or make a mistake while teaching (which unfortunately happens too often) my only excuse is that I’ve been working too much with dry erase markers. Oh well. On a serious note, we love this journey of pregnancy, although the hormones do tend to flare up, and Heather’s body is constantly sore as it grows. Take care friends, and hopefully we’ll post again soon.

Keeping a Clean Home

How many of you find it difficult to keep a clean house? Why is that? Heather and I were talking about it the other day and were wondering if it was because of a lack of time or a lack of motivation. Well, who doesn't like a clean home? It feels good, you can find things easily, and it's less stressful. The obvious answer then is our home gets messy because we don't have the time to clean it up. The conversation started for us when the statement was said, "If only we had a week at home with nothing else to do, then we would have a clean home." But having a clean home is more than just cleaning everything once, it's keeping it clean. For us younger generation, we get going so fast that we start to take short cuts (don't put away the clothes at the end of the day, don't load that dish into the dish washer, drop the mail on the desk) and those little "short cuts" lead us "have to have" a week to clean up. Heather has really enjoyed a website called "Flylady" and it's all about routines to declutter and keep things clean one little step at a time so you don't need to do those big deep cleans as often. What we need to do is get in those habits of not taking "short cuts" and put that shirt away when you head to bed in the evening. And remember that there needs to be a place for everything and everything in its place. Any thoughts on this? ~Scott PS. Anyone know of a good system to clean the shower and not let that soapscum build up?

Oh How Time Slips Away

We apologize for the long delay between posts. We find it disappointing when you go to someone's blog time and time again and find it unchanged for a long time. Now here we are having more than a month since our last post, especially with everything that is going on.

The biggest and most exciting thing which we have not posted about is our upcoming edition to our family. For those of you who haven't heard we are expecting our first child in April! We found out the beginning of August. The day before we moved and the day of Josh and Shannon Andrews' (Edson) wedding. We didn't tell anyone (except one or two people) until our first housewarming where we told our family. Then we announced it to our friends at our second housewarming. We are really excited about it and are looking forward to the new adventures it will bring.

Other news, on the day of our first doctor's appointment Heather was in a car accident. She was rear ended and it totally mangled our bumper and the side of our car. Fortunately, Heather and the baby were not seriously hurt. Unfortunately, she has been having back pain (and sciatica) since then. Fortunately, she is able to get physical therapy, and massage therapy through the insurance. Unfortunately, we get to go through the hassel of insurance claims again. Fortunately, our car got a new bumper, it was stratched when we bought it and now we have a new bumper.

Scott has now started work at Barlow and is loving it there. He teaches Algebra, Geometry and Algebra 2. It is fun to work with some of his old teachers and he has some really great students this year. With teaching he is now super busy again and we are trying to find that balance between doing a good job at work, and not spending too much time outside of work planning lessons and grading papers.

Enjoy reading the rest of our posts. We have our trip to Portland, the Red Boot Duo, and our move from McMinnville to Gresham. Hopefully our next post won't be delayed until mid November. Enjoy.

The Red Boot Duo

Heather and her mom Cinda have combined their musical abilities and are now known as the Red Boot Duo. Cinda plays harmonica, guitar, and does vocals. Heather plays the oboe, rhythm instruments, and also does vocals. Together they are a great pair (get it pair of boots, Red Boot Duo...never mind). Anyways, they played at the Mt Hood Roasters in Welches, and while the crowd was not the size they had hoped for, it was a great evening. Enjoy the pictures and some of their music.

See more pictures of the Duo

Tourists in Portland

On Labor Day Weekend we thought it would be fun to spend a day in Portland as tourists. We set out to start at Lloyd Center, take the Max into downtown Portland, take the street car into the Pearl District and enjoy lunch at a nice cafe, and then tour the city and end up at the Portland City Grill for dinner during happy hour. Unfortunately, it was not as glamorous as we had hoped. Don't get me wrong, we had a blast and it was a neat and fun experience. But things didn't go quite as planned. First of all, we toured around the Convention Center and the Rose Garden a little, and then Scott had the fun idea to walk across the Steel Bridge (it has a cool bike/pedestrian path near the water). Well, that was a lot of walking, and by the time we actually got into downtown Portland, we were already hot, tired, and sweaty. We forgot that last summer when we were visiting different cities in Europe that you get hot, tired, and sweaty! Anyways, we still had a lot of fun with the day. We had lunch at Manzana which was absolutely amazing, and we split a meal which saved us money. Because it was a holiday, a lot of the small stores that we wanted to visit were closed, such as a ribbon and button store that Heather wanted to look at. We did get a lot of fun pictures, and did enjoy dinner at the Portland City Grill. A fun day, but we think we've had enough walking for awhile.

We're no professionals, but check out our Pictures of Portland.