videos

Here are the videos that I promised...

Garrison discovers elephants



This video is of a polar bear "attacking" a little girl that was hanging out by the polar bear exhibit. Garrison and Thomas are sitting to the right of where I'm video taping. I really wanted Garrison to go down by the window, but after a few minutes of the polar bear doing this I was glad that he wasn't because it was getting really spooky.


Garrison did great while at the zoo. He didn't get crabby until the very, very end. Who could blame him since we'd been there for 3 hours and during his afternoon nap? When we got in the car I gave him a rice crispy treat, but he was too tired to enjoy it.

...and we we're walking in Memphis....

We took a VACATION and it wasn't to see family. (not that seeing family is a bad thing) We went down to Hernando, MS to visit with our friends James Alan and Whitney and their beautiful daughter Isabel (who is only 4 months younger than Garrison).

Here are pictures from our trip.... (warning: this is a long post with lots of pictures)

Garrison is all ready to start the trip in our rental car (Thursday, May 7)

We drove the first day for 9 hours and stopped at a hotel in Bloomington, IL to spend the night. Garrison ran around the room trying to release all the energy from being couped up all day before crashing for the night.

Day 2 we drove for 7 hours through horrible storms, but finally arrived at our friends house at around 5 pm. We hung out and let Garrison and Isabel play for awhile (Thomas and James Alan have an arranged marriage all set up between these two.) Then they took us out to a nice Mexican restaurant. We wanted to go out to eat at places that we don't have here. It was really good food. Then we went back to their house, put the kids to bed and watched a movie.

Day 3 we headed off to Memphis...

Us at Mud Island

James Alan, Whitney and Isabel at Mud Island

These are two of my favorite pictures from Mud Island

After we hung out at Mud Island for awhile we went and took the monorail back over to Memphis and hopped on a trolley to go tour the Peabody Hotel. Our first trolley ride...

The Peabody Hotel is an incredible hotel, one you would see in a movie. For one night your room can cost anywhere from $209 to $345. In their lobby, however, there is a big marble fountain with live ducks. Everyday at two specific times they pull out a red carpet and the ducks "march". We didn't stay long enough to see the ducks "march", but Garrison was able to go stand by the fountain and watch the ducks swim around. He had a great time pointing and "uh-uhing" at them. (uh-uh is Garrisons language for anything that he can't express with words. Since he doesn't use his words yet, that's pretty much what he does for everything.)

Day 4 was Sunday, May 10... MOTHER'S DAY!! We went to James Alan and Whitney's church. After the service, Whitney and I were pampered with massages (back and hand), neck wraps and food as a special thanks to women from their church. It was awesome!

Monday was our last day in Memphis and we all planned to go to the zoo, but Isabel ended up getting really sick on Sunday and into Monday so it ended up being just us three. This was Garrison's second time at a zoo. The first time we just took him to the Duluth zoo for his first birthday. He wasn't that thrilled, but this time around he seemed to love it.

Sorry to stop my post suddenly, but my YouTube account isn't working. Therefore, I won't be able to post any videos right now. I'll try again tomorrow and hopefully I can add some videos. Stay tuned...

It's a boy!

I had my 5 month ultrasound today and we were able to determine that we are having another boy. Yep, that's right a boy! (we have very distinct pictures of this, but will not be embarrassing the poor guy before he's even born)

This baby was a little more stubborn than Garrison was during the ultrasound. (I'm trying not to compare the two kids so I'll stop with that comment.) I drank a Coke before I went into the ultrasound so that the baby would be a little more jittery and move around more. (That sounds bad). Didn't work. He just curled up into the lower right side of my uterus and hung out there the entire time. We were only able to see his face once. Other than that he was curled up and had his head turned away from us. (see second picture) The ultrasound lady tried everything to get him to move into a better position so that we could get some good pictures, but he never cooperated. Luckily, she was able to still get all the measurements that were needed. We just don't have that many great pictures. Which I'm ok with because my biggest thing was wanting to know what we were having and he definitely let us see that part.

His measurements all came out good. He's healthy and growing like he should be. He weighs 11 oz which puts him one day off from the due date, but the doctors don't really care about that. If he was off by a week then they would go ahead and change the date, but a day or two isn't going to matter.

I, on the other hand, am not growing as much. Hallelujah! Here are my measurements...

month one (8 wks prego): Garrison :109 (I had already gained 5 lbs) baby #2: 108

month two (12 wks prego): Garrison: 113 baby #2: 110

month three (16 wks prego): Garrison: 121 baby #2: 112

month four (20 wks prego): Garrison: 130 baby #2: 118

month nine (ready to explode): Garrison: 167 baby #2: Hopefully not that big, but even if I do I'll have my handsome second son and that's all I care about.