"Ground to a halt" or "Busy as a beaver"

I was impressed by Dan's prolific blogging in November when he took part in something called NaBloPoMo and posted everyday for a month. I was on the opposite end of the spectrum and only posted a few times all year. I wanted to change things around in December and started strong with 4 posts in a row but the world conspired against me. I had a 19-hour shift at work on Wednesday, a supper on Thursday, Rivermen hockey on Friday, and Saturday was packed with gymnastics, paying bills, a little work, and finally another hockey game. I thought I'd squeeze a post in before going in to work a little bit today.

The Pregnancy

As soon as we knew that Raquel was pregnant, we told Lourdes that she was going to be a big sister and that mommy has a "baby belly". She has been quite excited and wants a little sister, but she knows mommy wants a little boy. The day we went in for the sonogram, Lourdes told Raquel that there were two babies: a little girl for Lourdes and a little boy for Raquel. We took Lourdes with us to the appointment for the sonogram and she thought it was really neat to hear the heartbeat despite the strange sound. The two baby theory went out the window with the single beating heart. If anybody asks Lourdes if she wants a brother or a sister, she says there's only one baby and she knows that it is a sister. We'll see what the next sonograms reveal.

Work, work, work

I've been very busy at work lately. We're in the midst of some projects and also trying to prep for an inspection. One huge project that I've been heavily involved in has been the upgrade of our data network infrastructure. There are so many details to take in to account and a lot of prep work. I got so much help from so many people, I could do one of those endless award thank you speeches where they start playing the music in an effort to wrap it up. There's a lot of work remaining to complete this phase so I'll be busy for a while longer.

Rivermen woes
The Rivermen lost back-to-back home games against a team they have dominated. They really should have won. You hate to blame a loss on a referee who makes a questionable or outright bad call. A team should play with intensity for the whole game so that one call is not the reason for success or failure. However, an endless series of bad calls can easily be blamed for a loss, or back-to-back losses in our case. This particular ref was officiating youth league hockey last year. This year he's in the AHL and we had him Friday and Saturday. He didn't get any better as the games went on. Hopefully, some review process will get him the feedback he needs to be an official at this level or send him packing.


Well I need to get ready to go in to work for a little bit today. Tomorrow we have another appointment and another sonogram. Will try to post tomorrow.

Bun in the oven...

That's right. Raquel is expecting and here's the proof:

There's a 1.45 cm little person growing there. Of course the picture is about 3 weeks old so I'm sure it's much bigger already. We go in again really soon for another sonogram so we'll see how our little person is growing. By the way, the due date is 29 June 2008. And in case you are wondering, this is quite unexpected but very much welcome.

It's kind of funny because I blogged back in July about Lourdes needing a playmate but not a sibling. Look at me now.

Santa Photo as promised

We hope to go see Santa at the mall soon and get some proper pictures taken.

She's such a girl!!

We were shopping for a Christmas outfit for Lourdes the other day. We found her a pretty dress and boots to wear to see Santa. Her shopping genes kicked in and she said she needed a new purse to go with her new outfit. How can I resist a pretty girl?

Later I noticed that on her new boots there are some decorative pendants (I don't know how else to describe them) and they say "I LOVE SHOPPING". Folks, she's only 3 years old. I'm in trouble!!

Her visit with Santa at the base went really well. She was very happy to see him, was not shy, and talked to him a little. Santa rewarded her with some girlie walkie talkies. Thanks to Greg and Dan for the gift idea.

Look for Santa pics soon!!

Cursing like a sailor

We had a bit of an ice storm today. I was at the base this morning when it started and my truck got covered in ice. In the afternoon I went home to pick up Raquel and Lourdes to bring them to the base for a Christmas party. When I got there, Lourdes was looking at all the ice on the truck and said "What the hell is wrong with the window?"