A Fun Filled Week

I know this post comes a day later than usual, but there was just a lot going on this week and it took a little longer than usual to get everything together.  While it was a little crazy, we definitely had a lot of fun.

Dad showed up on Tuesday night and spent Wednesday and Thursday driving Tyler around.  They went…well…wherever the road took them.  It’s a good thing Dad had his GPS otherwise we’d probably still be looking for them.    I know Tyler and Grandpa had a good time, but in all honesty I think Thesha enjoyed the break even more.

It just wouldn’t be a vacation without good food, so we had to first take Dad to Woody’s Crab House for some crab, clams, and shrimp.  And of course it just wouldn’t be dinner at a restaurant with Dad without him making an inappropriate comment to the waitress about whether or not she had a younger sister for Tyler and a good looking mom for himself.  This is why I’ll never take Dad to Hooters – not even as a joke.

Thankfully the only thing more appealing to Dad than cute waitresses is his affinity for tropical fish and sail boats.  So on Friday we went to the Baltimore National Aquarium (walking past the Hooters).  The Aquarium is located in what’s called the Inner Harbor.  We had heard about this, but never had a chance to go until now.  There was a lot to do there but way too much for one day so we just stuck with the plan of going to the aquarium.

 

If you look through all the aquarium pictures you’ll see one with a pirate ship and a big hill behind the ship with an American flag flying.  The big hill is actually Ft. McHenry.  This is where the “Star Spangled Banner” was flying during the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to pen our national anthem.  We didn’t have time to visit but it was kind of cool to see the big American flag flying on the weekend we celebrated the 4th of July.

Later Friday evening, Thesha’s dad arrived.  With two Grandpa’s in tow, we went to Turkey Point Lighthouse for a little nature walk and a view of the Chesapeake Bay.  It was a really fun time for Tyler who took turns running around with Dad, Grandpa, and Grandpa.  Afterwards we stopped by Captain Chris’ Crab Shack for some more Maryland seafood.  Even though Thesha’s dad is “not much of a connoisseur of seafood” (his words, translation = doesn’t Maryland have a Steak Shack somewhere?) he was a good sport and tried some of their incredible crab legs.  

 

In addition to all these activities, we found some time to sit and talk as well as take Tyler swimming a couple times, but the party really reached its peak when we went to the 4th of July carnival and fireworks in Havre de Grace.  The Grandpas bought a bunch of ride tickets for Tyler and he had a ball.  Thesha brought enough food to feed the entire Nicholas family so the five of us ate well, laughed loud, and stayed up late.  We even got to enjoy something new for a 4th of July celebration…a view of something besides the back of North Davis Jr. High!  Since the fireworks were shot out of a small island in the harbor, a bunch of boats pulled out into the harbor to watch the fireworks which meant we got a nice view of all of them. 

 

Even though it was hard to talk about it over the roar of Neil Diamond singing “We’re coming to America” over the loud speaker, we all enjoyed sitting under a big tree in the park, eating some sandwiches, and looking out over the Chesapeake.  Notice that I didn’t say we enjoyed watching the actual fireworks.  As it turns out, there was a reason why no one had claimed our “sweet” spot.  Much like the giant tree behind us, there was an equally obstructive tree in front of us which was specifically planted 75 years ago to stop us from actually seeing the fireworks.  I ended up walking a few yards away and holding Tyler so at least he could see what the crap we had been keeping him awake for.  At least we’ll know better for next year.

 

Then of course there was the baby blessing for Reagan.  When we first found out we were pregnant and showed up here in Maryland I thought for sure that the circle for the baby blessing would just be me and some Deacon with a microphone.  Then when I saw how small our chapel was I figured I was being overly optimistic about the need to include a microphone.  Thankfully I was able to be joined by two Dads and a cousin.  I guess technically that made us a square not a circle, but whatever.  The member of the Bishopric rounded us out enough to make it enough of a circle.

Here’s our little angel with the members of the square circle.

 

In addition to these handsome young men, Reagan was also surrounded by some beautiful young women on her special day.  Reagan truly is blessed to have such wonderful family members in her life.  Thank you to everyone who joined us that day as well as to Thesha’s mom for sacrificing a month to be with us to make sure we were taken care of when Reagan arrived.

Well, if you’ve gotten this far you’ve probably neglected your family, work, or whatever long enough but thanks for hanging in there with me.  If you want to push your luck a little farther, the names of the places we visited are a different color font because they’re actually hyperlinks to sites about those locations.  Go check them out so you get really excited about coming out to visit us.  Sorry Dad but you’ll just have to do a Google search for Hooters.

Finally some more pictures of Reagan

I’m not going to give excuses for taking so long to post some more pictures because I’m assuming that everyone can understand that it’s been a little tough to find time over the last few weeks.

With that said, here are a few pictures:

 

Unfortunately for everyone out there Reagan is growing and changing every day, so these pictures are already a bit outdated.  Fortunately for everyone out there we’ve got some great picture-taking opportunities coming up this weekend.  My Dad and Thesha’s Dad are coming out to see their new granddaughter and assist in her baby blessing.   It will be interesting to see how this works in our tiny meeting house.  We just became a ward but we’re still in a branch-sized meeting house.  It’s a good thing the whole family isn’t here – the family would outnumber our whole ward. 

There haven’t been too many funny things happen lately to blog about (partially because Thesha told me that getting pooped on WASN’T funny) but the funny stories are what keep everyone coming back to check the blog.  So, at the risk of detracting from Reagan’s attention, I’ll just add a little something based on something you may have noticed was missing from the pictures – my goatee.  Yes, I finally followed my Mission President’s advice to keep a clean shaven face.

People have asked me why and there are a lot of reasons, really.  Here are my top ten – mostly fake – reasons for shaving off my goatee:

10. I’ve been trying to lose some weight and figured I’d start with the easy stuff first. 

9. With a new baby I just couldn’t afford it.

8. The aerodynamic drag was keeping me from realizing my Olympic swimming dreams.  Yep, that’s all that was holding me back.

7. I’m finally having to say good bye to my rebel 20’s – next on the to do list, buy a mini van…not.

6. I was so tired from sleepless nights that I accidentally shaved off the right side and had to lose the rest of it just to cover up my mistake.

5. Bringing a new baby home wasn’t traumatic enough for Tyler.

4. I finally got rid of that zit I’ve been using my goatee to cover up for the past 6 years.

3. The red in my goatee clashed with all the pink crap around the house.

2. Let’s face it, facial hair is a lot of work if you want it to look nice and I’m getting way too lazy for all that upkeep.

1. It’s 2010…Goatees are so 2000’s…time get with it.

Our New Addition

There will obviously be plenty more to come, but I wanted to make the quick update to the blog while everyone else was napping.

On Thursday, 3 June 2010 at 12:59 PM (Eastern time) Reagan Nicole Choate arrived weighing in at 6 pounds 12.6 ounces and 19 1/2 inches.  Everything went great (with the exception of having to get the epidural re-done) and Thesha and Reagan are doing fine.  We expect to come home on Saturday.

Here are a couple quick pictures…

Here’s Reagan all bundled up like a burrito.

Here’s one without the covers as we were checking all ten toes, then fingers, and ten inches of hair (ok, not quite that much, but still…)

And here’s one with both Tyler and Reagan.  As you can tell from Tyler’s posture, he still isn’t quite sure what to do with this little lady.

We’ll have more stories later, but needless to say we’re all pretty happy with our new arrival.  If you had told me about four years ago that we would not only have one kid but two kids by now I’d have told you that you were crazy.  If you had told me that one of those kids was going to be born in Newark, Delaware I would have rolled my eyes and told you to stop making up crazy stories that just aren’t true and could never be true.  It’s amazing what all can happen in just a few short years.

Off to the Races

Well, yet another week has gone by and still no Reagan.  This little girl is bound and determined to remind us that she operates on her own schedule.  While our obvious preference would have been to spend Memorial Day weekend in a labor and delivery recovery room, we ended up making the best of the situation by going to the local horse race track.

Not that I think there are any horse racing aficionados that read our blog and would make an assumption about what race we went to, but I’m not referring to the Preakness horse races (one of the races in the Triple Crown – a pretty big deal, apparently, in horse racing).  No, I’m just referring to a local track called the Fair Hill Racetrack.  It was really fun to go and see our very first horse race.  I remember going to the rodeo as a kid over the 24th of July and wanting to be a cowboy.  I wonder if Tyler will grow up and want to be a jockey?   If so, he better take after Thesha’s side of the family or he’s going to be one pudgy jockey.  (Yes, pudgy – not fat.  I’m still holding on to pudgy.)

Here are some pictures and stories from our Fair Hill adventure.

Tyler took his first pony ride.  He was a little nervous at first, but once the pony started moving he just held on to the saddle and rode like a pro.  We didn’t really know if he was having fun because he kept a very serious face the whole time.  Once he got off and was back on the ground, however, he was laughing and smiling so we assume he enjoyed himself. 

The people who provided the pony rides have a children’s horse/pony riding camp each summer.  When the cousins get a little older we’ll have to have a pony party when you all come out to visit (hint, hint).

In addition to the horse races, they had Jack Russell Terrier (dog) races as well.  They would stick 4 – 6 dogs in a starting gate and get them riled up with a rag tied to the end of a string then let them go as they pulled the string down the course.

Man, these little guys can really fly.  It was a good thing we brought our good camera to take some quick pictures.

After a couple sprint races, they moved the jumps in to place.  I thought it was impressive that they could run so fast and jump over the pipes, but then one jumped all the way over one of the little fences.  Not only are they fast, but those little suckers can jump too.

At the end of the track they have to put a couple bails of hay.  When they did this it seemed a little strange to us.  It only took one race to realize why they were there.  As you can see from the picture below, the bails of hay are the only things that stopped the dogs.  Here you can see about 4 of them all bunched up in the hay after racing after the rag.  The trainers had to wrestle them out because they were still doing every thing they could to get that rag.

Once all the big dogs (well, relatively big dogs) were done, they took one round for some puppy training.  It took a while for the little guy to figure things out, but he eventually picked it up.  You know this guy was just brining out the cute puppy to try and pick up some chicks – yeah, I’m on to you dork wad. :)

In addition to the races, they had a couple displays and stuff.  Here Tyler takes a seat in a new tractor.  I’ll give you three seconds to find Reagan…Three… Two… oh, you already see her.  Yeah, she was kind of hard to miss that day.

Tyler loved this thing.  He has a little puzzle with some farm animals and a tractor.  When he puts the tractor piece in the puzzle he makes the “brumm, brumm” sound.  When we sat him up there and starting making the sound he figured out that he was on the machine from his puzzle and started “brumm, brumm-ing” with us and turning the wheel and laughing.  Something tells me I’m going to have to keep an eye on the car keys a little sooner than I anticipated.

Although Tyler was a little young for this next event, I couldn’t help but take a few pictures.  They had a stand where the kids could pick out a stick with a blank horse head and then use stuff (glitter, construction paper, etc.) to personalize the horses face.  Once they had their stick horses ready to go, they had stick horse races for each age group.  You can imagine how fun this was to watch and I can’t wait until Tyler’s old enough to do this.  I especially liked this picture because if you look just to the right of the goofy guy in the orange shirt and sombrero you’ll see that one poor little girl has fallen down and another girl is running over the top of her to try and win the race.  Classic.  Like her Daddy taught her, if you’re not runnin’ over someone, you’re not racing.  Click on the picture to see a bigger version of the picture.

It was pretty hot and Tyler was still a little young to enjoy it, but we stuck around to watch at least one of the races.   You can see from all the people that this was a pretty popular place to be.  Here are the horses coming down the final stretch.

It looked like one horse was going to win without a fight, but towards the end another one at least made for a good show.  Here they are sprinting towards the finish. 

Needless to say, it wasn’t quite the same as the rodeo, but we all got to have some fun and Tyler got to be around a bunch of horses with his Grandma – an experience that I’m sure is just the first of many.  While we were waiting for the terrier races, one of the horse handlers was walking one of the races horses back to the stables and stopped to let Tyler get a close look and pet its nose.  He didn’t even flinch, so he definitely has what it takes to be around the horses. 

Lastly, in case you didn’t figure it out, Reagan still hasn’t made her debut.  We’ve done everything except throw Thesha up on the back of that freakin’ pony and nothing seems to be enough to induce labor.  All in good time, I suppose.

Plumpton Park Zoo

Well, since Reagan still hasn’t decided to make her grand appearance, we decided we’d try to encourage her along by walking around the local zoo on Saturday.  Now, when I say zoo you may be conjuring up images of Hogle Zoo or San Diego Zoo or something.  Well out her we have the Plumpton Park Zoo.  This is more like the back yard of an old house where the people who inherited it decided the tax write off for donating it as a shelter for a few animals would actually be more lucrative than trying to actually sell the old house and barn.  With your expectations set appropriately, it was actually a really fun place to go visit.

Up until now, most of Tyler’s experiences with animals came from story books and farm puzzles.  It was really fun to have him see the real thing.  To our surprise, he knew to say “Qua, Qua” (Quack, Quack) when he saw the ducks.  Of course he also said “Qua, Qua” to the Ostrich’s, the Swan’s, and pretty much anything else with a beak.  I was going to correct him, but I couldn’t really figure out what the appropriate noise was for an Ostrich so we just went along with it.

Here’s some pictures from our little adventure…

Insert donkey (ass) joke here…

Grandma made sure Tyler saw the kind of things he would see in Utah.

There’s a Turtle in one of Tyler’s books but it’s all multi-colored and has a big smiley face.  It was good to see Tyler learn what a real turtle looks like.

The timing worked out pretty well so that by the time Tyler was tired enough that I started carrying him on my shoulders he was held high enough to be able to get a closer view of the Giraffe.

It only took Tyler a little while to warm up to being so close to the animals.  He did really good to hold the food pellets and let the animals eat it out of his hand.  To my amazement, he never cried even when he was a little nervous.  Here he’s showing Mom his new goat friends.

Now time to show Grandma.

Surprisingly Tyler was fine getting right up close to the Goats and letting them eat out of his hand.

Too close…Too Close…

Last but not least, my favorite picture from the whole trip.  What a cute little monkey.

It really was a fun trip and Tyler was such a good boy with all the animals.  Unfortunately in spite of all the walking there was no unusual activity for Reagan so we’re still anxiously standing by.  I’m sure it won’t be too much longer though.  I can say that because it’s not me that’s getting punched in the bladder. 

Hear Ye, Hear Ye…

Ok so I was going to try and write something clever in the whole medieval/renaissance form of writing but that was way too much of a hassle for what it’s worth.

We’ve been looking for ways to get out of the house and stumbled onto a medieval encampment at one of the local museums.  They had demonstrations, sword fights, medieval pipe music, etc.  It was really cool and it was such a beautiful day to be out walking around on the nice green grass.  Here’s some pictures of us enjoying the festivities…

Tyler, Mom, Grandma, and some swordsmen

Here’s a close up of the sword fighting – Medieval Ultimate Fighting Championship (with foam swords)

We found the perfect store for Dad …… look for it…

If you didn’t get the joke, I’ll give you a hint.  It has nothing to do with what’s beneath the sign.

Here’s a nice picture of the family on the rock retaining wall. 

Say what you will about Maryland, they do have some pretty country side.  We can’t wait to see it in the Fall.

One of the goals of the festival was to use the costumes and demonstrations to teach kids about how things were hundreds of years ago.  What I learned is that there’s a fine line between teaching your kids about history and encouraging them to be one of those weird-o’s at a medieval festival.  I guess we’ll find out if we left on time in about 20 years if Tyler ends up like this guy…

Aside from the medieval festival, we’re spending our time waiting for baby Reagan to make her big debut.  Everything’s in place now if we could just convince Reagan to cooperate.  All in good time, I suppose.  We got some way cute blankets from Ali and Thesha’s mom has been staying with us ever since we left the hospital a few weeks ago.  Sorry to everyone who was hoping to see her on Mother’s Day.  I know it’s pretty selfish, but it sure was nice to have her with us.  We went to a local restaurant called Mamie’s to celebrate.  Yes, we celebrated Mamie’s Day with Mamie at Mamie’s.  The Maryland Cream of Crab Soup was awesome.

Tyler’s been really good with all the arrangements for Reagan.  In addition to touching Thesha’s belly and saying “bebe” he now says “Wreee” when we try to get him to say Reagan (kind of like how Chadli said “Is Wrobby Thewre?”).  It’ll be interesting to see how he is with her when she arrives.  Thesha was talking to him the other day about holding his baby sister in his arms and he said “Uh oh.”  Uh oh in deed, little man.

Practice Round

It just wouldn’t be a pregnancy in our house if we didn’t have a couple challenges along the way.  For the past little while Thesha had been having some contractions, but last Wednesday they really started to intensify and get pretty regular.  The doctor told us to go ahead and go to the Maternity Triage center and they would evaluate things there.  Thankfully we have a couple in our ward (yes, we’re a ward now) who have a couple boys around Tyler’s age so they picked up Tyler and we headed out to the hospital for what we thought would be just a quick evaluation and some advice on how to get the contractions to subside.  Five days later, we finally came back home.

So we showed up at the hospital and started through all the same old procedures with the nurse.  Then, all the sudden, in walks the doctor and Thesha and I were both totally caught off guard by what we saw.  The doctor looked just like Chadli.  She had the same style of glasses, the same hair color (I don’t know if it’s the same brand, but it was the same color), similar personalities, about the same age, even similar hand gestures.   It was kind of crazy.  That is, until the doctor said, “Alright, let’s take a look.”  Then it just got really weird, really fast.  It’s one thing to have a stranger checking you out, but when the stranger looks like your sister-in-law, it just crosses the line, ya’ know.  Nothing personal Cha, but if someone that looked just like one of Travis’ sisters put on a rubber glove with KY jelly on it and started walking towards you’d probably be a little freaked out too.  Thankfully she was just the triage doctor and once she saw (and unfortunately felt) what was going on they sent us over to labor and delivery (just in case) where Thesha was then seen by her regular doctors.

Tyler was apparently having a pretty good time, but our friends, Brittany and Mike, could tell that he was missing his mom, dad, and home.  She told us that Mike came home and her two boys ran to the door yelling “Daddy” and Tyler followed them along thinking he was going to see his Daddy too.  When Mike walked in the door, it stopped him in his tracks and he got all sad and just hugged Brittany for a while.  He eventually warmed up to him, but things were just not right in his world.

Thankfully on Friday night Thesha’s mom was able to fly in to take care of Tyler for us.  What a life saver!  Because the flight came in so late, I went over to pick him up and take him home on Saturday morning.  When I walked through the door Tyler just stood there for a second to make sure I was real.  Then he ran towards me but stopped just in front of me and just stared at me for a second.  I wasn’t sure if he was mad at me or what, but once he realized I was in fact his dad he gave me a big hug and just latched on as tight as he could.  When I tried to pull him away to change his clothes and get him ready to go he pulled me in closer and grabbed at my shirt so I wouldn’t put him down.  I felt bad that we had put him through all this, but I was glad to see that he wasn’t too mad at me.

Unfortunately the initial reception for Thesha wasn’t quite as satisfying.  To this day I still remember walking in to the hospital room where my dad was laying on the bed after he had hurt his eye.  I remember that it was him but that I was scared to death of him.  Tyler had this experience going to see Thesha.  As we walked towards the door we said, “Are you ready to see Mom?” and he excitedly replied, “Ma ma, Ma ma.” but just a few steps in to the room and he stopped dead in his tracks and demanded to be picked up and held.  As we walked towards Thesha’s bed he got the sad face with the pushed out lower lip and he pulled himself as close as he could to me.  It was soooo sad.  Thesha was so excited to see him but she understood why he was scared.  He eventually calmed down and was able to sit by her for a little while, but he never really warmed up to the idea that this was really his Ma ma.  Thankfully as we walked in the door at home today Thesha got the reaction she was hoping for.  He latched on to her as tight as he had latched on to me and just hugged her for about 5 minutes.  Finally, Mom and Dad were home and we could all be normal again.  It will be interesting to see how he reacts when it’s not a practice round but the real deal and now it’s Mom, Dad, and a new baby Reagan coming in the door.

Here’s a picture of Thesha and Tyler in the hospital room.  Notice that we had to distract Tyler with a cell phone for him to calm down and sit with Mom for a little while.

So, you’re probably wondering, “What’s the deal, then?  Is Reagan alright?”  She is doing fine.  Throughout the whole ordeal she looked just fine on all the monitors.  When it looked like things might be headed towards an early delivery, Dad suggested that maybe an ultrasound might help us know if she was well enough to be born without any problems.  At first the doctor said no, but then she came back and said that it might be a good idea to do one to make sure there was still plenty of amniotic fluid.  (Thanks for the suggestion, Dad!)  So for all our troubles, at least we got another ultrasound.  Thankfully Reagan was willing to cooperate this time as well so we could get a good picture of her.  In our prior ultrasound, she had her face buried in the placenta which made it hard to see her face.  As you can see from the picture below, she has a beautiful face (assuming there’s nothing freaky behind the umbilical cord that she’s holding over her right eye).

The technician performing the ultrasound also said that she could see that she would probably have a bit of hair as well.  It never ceases to amaze me that they can get images and information like this.

Getting a closer glimpse of our baby girl has us so excited to have her.  It just makes it that much more real when you see how developed they are and can start to put a face to the name and belly movements.  Of course, we still have a bunch of stuff we need to get, so hopefully she gives a little more time to prepare.  Not to mention poor Ali who is freaking out because she’s trying to make some blankets for us and what was supposed to be 6 weeks to be able to finish them seemed like it was going to shrink to 6 days or even 6 hours.   I doubt it will be 6 more weeks, but hopefully we have at least a couple more weeks to make all the final preparations.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

We’ve already had our practice round, so hopefully the next time things act up it will be for real.  At least now we know right where to go.  Although next time we may ask if there’s another doctor available that doesn’t look like one of our siblings.