Baby Blogging

Things have been going well with the baby.

For the most part, DeAnne's past the nausea.  She still has moments of it, usually triggered by strong smells, but she's not been just walking around feeling like she's going to hurl all the time.  Now if she could just shake this cold that's been hounding her for the past couple of weeks, she'd be in good shape.  

We've been taking pictures each week on Saturday but we missed this past week's because D-Now.  It's actually been kind of hard to tell if she's been getting bigger week to week in the pictures so I'm kind of curious to see what a difference two weeks makes.

We had an ultrasound last Wednesday and made an attempt at determining what we're having but the little stinker didn't want to cooperate.  We're going to try again in about a week and a half and hopefully this time we'll be able to get a definite answer.  We've got ideas about furniture and bedding and things, we just need to know what we're having so that we know which way to go with all of it.

Probably the most exciting thing is that the baby has become a pretty active little dancer.  DeAnne feels him moving pretty often now and the other day I was actually able to feel it for a brief moment.  It was probably one of the single most amazing things that's ever happened.  To know that another life is in there, moving around and just waiting to make it's debut to the world is just mind-blowing.  I really can't wait for July.  It's going to be a lot of work, but we're going to love every second of it.

--Paul

Roaring Like a Lion

What a weekend.  It was long, tiring and sometimes chaotic, but it was probably one of the coolest things I've ever been a part of.  If I tried to tell all the D-Now stories here, I would probably never finish.  Suffice it to say, it was a great weekend with hundreds of kids worshiping and learning more about the Lord.

Before Friday night, Kristian Stanfill might not have been a name that very many people in Andalusia recognized.  After the way he led worship for three sessions Friday and Saturday, I don't think anyone in Andalusia is going to stop hearing his name for a long time.  One of those rare talents that actually sounds as good live as he does on his albums, Kristian and his band were obviously sincere about why they were here and even though they're from Atlanta and didn't know what to expect from a little town like Andalusia, I think they left impressed with the way everyone responded.  They were really just down to earth, nice guys and you could really tell that they loved what they did and they loved God.

On top of the band, Ben Nobles had some great messages too.  The theme for the weekend was "What if...?" and I thought Ben did a great job of speaking to the love that God has for us and how we should return that love both to Him and to others around us.

I think both DeAnne and I are still trying to catch up on sleep that we missed, but that's okay.  It was a great weekend and I hope and pray that it impacted the kids in our youth group in a way that will set them on fire for the Lord like never before.

--Paul

What If...

That's the theme for D-Now this year.  What if...  I and probably close to 700 other people are going to hear those words a lot over the weekend.  If they make a difference in the life of just one of these kids, it'll be worth it.

We're in for a crazy weekend.  Last night's kick-off rally was awesome but it alone was pretty exhausting.  I can only imagine how tired we're going to be after going all weekend.  It's going to be great though.  Tonight we're going to be prayer-walking the church that the corporate worships are going to be held at and after that we'll be buying some supplies for the weekend.  Then everything kicks off Friday night and goes until the end of church Sunday morning.

I just feel kind of bad for our animals.  They're not going to be seeing much of us this weekend.  Emma's probably going to be a little distraught.

I'm sure I'll have some stories to tell on Tuesday.  Until then, pray for us and pray for these students that this will be a weekend that changes lives.

--Paul

One Crazy Week

This is going to be one of those weeks where you wonder how you're going to do it all but hopefully it's all worth it in the end.

I guess it really started on Saturday though.  Garrett, Bryan and I spent the morning running network cable in the sanctuary.  The projectors we use have a web interface you can get information off of if they're networked.  We're also working towards getting an internet connection to the computer so that we can download songs from Lifeway and get new backgrounds and things like that easier.  So we got that done and then Saturday night was the Valentine's Banquet.

DeAnne was off from work yesterday so I took off with her and we took the Rogue over to Enterprise to let them detail it and tint the front side windows.  They gave us a loaner car so we headed on over to Dothan to do some registering for baby stuff.  We also looked at baby furniture.  We're waiting to find out what we're having to pull the trigger, but we were able to get a plan together on what we want.  We also found a great deal on a pack and play in Burlington Coat Factory and went ahead and got that.

As for the rest of the week, it's all going to be about D-Now, the annual county-wide youth weekend.  The kick-off rally is Wednesday night, we'll be prayer walking the venue on Thursday and the Friday the rally starts and goes through Sunday.  It's going to be a long, tiring weekend, but we're praying that it's all worth it.  We've got a revival scheduled for March but I'm praying that it starts this weekend with our youth group.

So that's the build up for the week.  Maybe by next Tuesday I'll have recovered enough to let you know how it went.  See you Thursday.

--Paul

In Flux

I know that I usually talk about weekend plans, but at the moment everything is kind of in flux.  All I really know at this point is that I'm going to be in town this weekend.  DeAnne, that's the up in the air part.

I do know that I'll be running network cable at the church on Saturday morning.  I've got a plan to extend our internet connection to the sanctuary so that we can download new backgrounds, move files around and just in general make life easier for us in the back but it requires running cable through the attic.  Garrett and I took an initial shot at it a couple of weeks ago and didn't accomplish much.  I think we're better prepared this time though.  For one, we know what we're getting in to this time.  The last time around we spent a good bit of time just figuring out how to get around in the attic.  Now we know where we're going and how to get there.  We're also going to have more help.  Bryan's going to give us a hand and we may even have one or two more helping out.  Should be fun times.

Other than that, we're waiting to hear funeral arrangements for one of Courtney's uncles.  She sent us a message yesterday saying that he had passed away.  He was incredibly young and it's incredibly sad.  He was always smiling and always kind.  It's a real shock for him to be gone.  If you will, join us in praying for Courtney's family today.

Have a good weekend.

--Paul

Sick Again

DeAnne's sinuses have kicked into high gear and after being miserable most of the day Sunday, she went to the doctor and got some antibiotics yesterday.  Hopefully they'll knock this mess out and get her feeling better.

Saturday we went up to Montgomery to see my Mom and Sid and help them out with a few things around the house.  Sid looked really good and seems to have made some great improvements since the last time we saw him.  He's got a long way to go before he's fully recovered from his stroke, but if he keeps making progress like what DeAnne and I have seen between the visits we've made then it shouldn't be too long.

We also spent some time with my Memaw Friday night.  She's got a long recovery ahead of her too but her foot seems to be doing pretty well.  My Dad said that she's had some pain but other than that, it's healing well and as long as she stays off of it for the right amount of time, she should be fine.

So that's about all I've got.  Not the happiest post with three paragraphs about different sick people, but that's what I've got for you today.  Maybe Thursday will be better.

--Paul

Shades of Things to Come

In what I view as a glimpse of the future, Emma, and now it appears one of the cats, has had the pet version of the stomach virus this week.  We took Emma to the vet on Tuesday and she was running a small fever so we got her some antibiotics.  She seems to be improving.  She hasn't had an accident since yesterday morning but we're still being cautious.  Just when we were beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel with Emma, last night we returned home from church to find one of the cats had been sick all over the office.  It was not pretty.

I look at this as just the beginning though.  A little pre-baby training via animal testing if you will.  It's just the animals testing us instead of the other way around.  I guess the hippie-libs out there will love that.

So that's been this week's adventure.  

I began work on our taxes yesterday.  That's always a pile of fun too.  Fortunately, software is getting good enough now that it's not much more than coping numbers exactly as they show up on the forms.  If we had some kind of business I probably wouldn't do them myself, but no more than we have to deal with, it's just a matter of getting everything punched in.

--Paul

Rollin'

We took another step on our journey toward parenthood this past Saturday.  We bought a new vehicle.  We got a 2011 Nissan Rogue.  It's Nissan's mid-sized crossover.  I really wasn't planning on buying it on Saturday but I guess with it being the next to last sales day of the month, they were looking to get something sold and we were able to hammer out a deal that I was pretty happy with.

We didn't trade either of our cars in, so now not only have we bought a new car, we have a car for sale.  We're actually willing to sell either one of our cars.  They're in about the same shape, have about the same miles on them and are only a model year apart from each other.  I guess it really depends on if someone wants white (with a scratch down the side) or green (with paint fading on the trunk).

So that was our morning Saturday.  After we finished with the car dealer, DeAnne took off to Dothan with her Mom to pick up some maternity clothes.  She's gotten a lot of stuff from different people, but there were a few things she needed to round it out and get her through the week.  I came back to Andalusia, picked up Trey and we headed down to Crestview for the pre-release tournament for the newest Magic set.  This was the third pre-release I had been to and Trey's first.  The level of geek was pretty high but after doing just okay the past two tournaments, I managed to finish third in this one.  I was pretty happy with how I did although I think a lot of it was me getting lucky in the pairings.  Whatever it was, I finished 4-1 and couldn't be happier with how I did.  Trey had a good time too although he didn't have quite the success that I had.

So that was the weekend basically.  We had a crazy Saturday and then Sunday was it's usual self.  February is shaping up to be a pretty crazy month though, so I guess this past weekend was just the start.

--Paul