California Lovin

California Lovin
How it all gets started...

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Father's Day


Hello there friends,

I just realized I am really behind in my blogging! All of the extra sleep I have been needing has severely slowed down my productivity. Sorry, here's an update for you guys...

Don and I celebrated his first fathers day on June 20. What a blast we had. I had a big surprise up my sleeve for Don--which ended up forcing me to act like a crazy, moody, pregnant, maniac, but it all worked out for the best in the end. The end result was a 42" flat screen TV. We have been without a TV entirely for nearly two years. I have been secretly saving little by little to get Don the TV that he really wanted, so of course I wanted it to be a big surprise for him! Anyway, I had it all worked out. I was going to take him on a date to the bookstore for Father's Day, and let him spend my 6 month old $25 gift card (so generous, I know). Being the easy-going Canadian that he is, he was thrilled with that, saying things like, "I am so lucky to have you for a wife. I love going to the bookstore. Thanks so much for thinking of me in this way." I couldn't believe how happy he was for a bookstore date and a $25 gift card, you can imagine how excited I was to give him his "real" Father's day present. Anyway, we were supposed to be out of the house by 10 am so that my friends could come over and set up the TV for me. I was supposed to text my friend as we were leaving, but just as we are ready to leave, I realize my phone is lost. Now, you have to understand that earlier that morning, we discovered my GPS had been stolen out of my car, and about two years ago my phone was stolen out of our house, so you can imagine we were a little worried. Needless to say, I was trying to play it cool, so that we could just leave the house before they got there. Don however had different plans. He adamantly said that he didn't want to leave the house until we had peace of mind about my phone. This is when I started to panic, and decided to through a small hissy fit. After about 15 minutes (it's 10:15 now) I whine to Don that having a nice date with him at Border's is really important to me, and that I don't want my stupid phone to ruin our father's day date. He still insists on searching for the phone, so at this point I am stomping around looking for my phone, slamming things around until he finally catches on that I am actually irritated and really want to go. Finally, Don decides we can go, and forget about the phone. It's now 10:30, meaning we are 30 minutes behind schedule, and Ty and Danielle are most likely going to be at our house within minutes. Sure enough, just as we are about to drive away, they pull up to the house and the conversation starts going something like this:

Don: "Hey, Ty and Danielle are here."
Rachel: "Who cares! Can we please just go before they see us?"
Don: (Bewildered) "They are our friends, why would we do that?"
Rachel: "Because I just want to go on a father's day date with you!"
Don: "Can't we go to Borders after we see what they need?"
Rachel: "Fine!" (Eye Roll)

Rachel stomps out of the car, and goes up to Ty and Danielle's car.

Rachel: "What are you guys doing here?" (wink, wink)
Danielle: (Slightly panicked, but playing it cool) "Um, we were just in the neighborhood (they live 20+ minutes away) and we have been trying to call to ask you what you are bringing to the father's day bbq, but you didn't answer, so we thought we would come by and ask."
Rachel: (Thinking to herself, this girl is good at fabricating stories!) "I am bringing corn."
Don: "Did you guys need anything else?"
Ty: "No, we are going to go to the store now to get the rest of the stuff for the bbq now that we know you guys are bringing corn."
Don: "Ok, see ya soon!"

Ty and Danielle drive off fast and I think at this point Ty runs a red light because he is so nervous about the surprise nearly being ruined.

Don and Rachel get back in the car, and I decide to throw a little bit more of a fuss just to keep Don from thinking too hard about how it doesn't make sense at all for Ty and Danielle to just be in the neighborhood. I say, "Can you believe our friends? They shouldn't just stop by without asking, how rude!" Poor Don at this point just thinks he married a very high maintenance woman, nevertheless, he just kind of nods in a confused way, and off we are on our very important Father's Day Date.

Things calm down at Borders and we have a great time. Afterward, we make our way to our friends house for a BBQ, and find out another person in our circle is pregnant. Yeah! Looks like my baby will have a friend to play with about 7 months after he is born!

Anyway, the whole thing ended with Don walking through the front door, and saying "Wow, someone's been in our house, and they stole your phone, but brought us a TV!" I laughed so hard. Once he figured out it was his, I laughed even harder because he asked who on earth brought over the TV. Ty and Danielle of course!

It was fun to surprise Don. If his husband skills are at all indicative of his fathering skills, he is going to be one heck of a dad, and I am so happy my baby gets to have him for a daddy.

Missed all of the dads and grandpa's in Reno and B.C. Happy late father's day to all dad's around!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Owen Eric Speedie

A name...FINALLY! It's true, we are naming him Owen after well nobody, we just thought it sounded cool, and Eric, after my grandpa Eric....who is the worlds GREATEST grandpa ever! I had a 30.5 week ultrasound a few days ago and little Owen is looking not quite so little anymore. He is about 3.5 lbs. and he has his head down and arms tucked like he is ready for take off. He is so big now that he doesn't really fit on the ultrasound image, so she gave me three photos of him, one of his spinal chord, one of his VERY large foot, and one of his hem hem, scrotum. So, yep, there you have it, he's definitely a he.

Don has been such a trooper these last few weeks. He has been spending weekends refinishing/painting nursery furniture. It's looking amazingly beautiful and I am once again reminded of how thankful I am that I married a man whom I find both handsome and handy. I promise to post pictures as soon as the whole thing is finished.

Besides some stiffness in my legs, I am feeling GREAT! Can you believe it? Tomorrow I will be 31 weeks pregnant and I feel amazing! A few weeks ago, when my brother in law was visiting, I felt terrible! Overly emotional and achy all over, but that seems to have passed. If there's one thing about pregnancy that I have learned, you just have to remember to relax and think to yourself , this too shall pass. At least for me, the uncomfortable symptoms have only seemed to last for a week or so, and then it's on to something different--which is so manageable. Like, at least they aren't all snowballing on each other, eh?

Baby shower last weekend in Reno was so wonderful. The whole trip was amazing actually. I had two nine hour dates in the truck with my husband...which was fun, and I got to see everyone I love and miss--even Marley got to reconnect with her best buddy Stella. There were close to 30 people at the shower, and it consisted of family, old friends, and former clients. My little students have grown up so much this last year! It was terrific seeing them. I was literally overwhelmed by everyone's love and generosity. Thank you so much to all who came. I loved every minute of that trip, my favorite part though was putting my niece Audrey and my nephew Greyson to bed. It just got me so excited to have a little guy of my own to take care of.

As the weeks count down I am trying really hard to give Don extra love and attention, as I know we will be a little distracted right after Owen arrives. Please pray for us, that God would unite us more than ever and prepare our hearts for our new son.

Love you guys!