Sweet Jesus

It is easy to forget about this thing. Here comes the quick catch-up bulleted list!

• went to Seattle for Spring Break. Yeah, it was great. If you want the rest of the story from below, call me already.
• We spent most of April house hunting. It has been decided that in lieu of the Ph.D. that I had my heart set on, an MBA is my ticket out of teaching high school. So we are sticking around and I am applying to the MBA-PM program at the UI--they do evening classes in Cedar Rapids.
• We found said house the first week of May. It is a townhouse built in 2006 in Marion. 3 bedrooms, all upstairs, 3.5 bathrooms, 2 car attahced garage and finished basement--complete with full bar. We love it and are excited to move in July!
• Ben is now crawling everywhere and pulls himself up to everything. Eight teeth and all kinds of food--sweet potatoes, squash, prunes, pears, peas, peaches, apples, bananas--he looooves bananas. He is getting to be such a big boy.
• I leave for Spain on June 10. My friend Jackie is taking a group from Xavier and needed another chaperone--so I am going! Yippee! I get back on June 25.
• this school year is never going to end. ever. guh.

Seattle--Part Two

OK, so after a short delay, here is more from Seattle:
We spent the second day at Seattle Center, up to the top of the Space Needle. The first picture is another from Pike Place Market, followed by the Space Needle one.

After the Space Needle, our handy Seattle Pass included admission to the Pacific Science Center, so we checked out the exhibits there. Ben liked the dinosaurs, especially when we put him inside the dino footprint model:
On Tuesday, we ventured out to the Zoo in the morning. It was a pretty chilly morning, and not only were we a little frostbitten, the weather apparently had its effects on the animals as well. Most were hiding somewhere in their ultra-realistic enclosures (which made it too easy for them to hide from view, in my opinion). And then we came upon the sleepy wallabys:
There were about 6 of them all in this enclosure, and I think we got a picture of the peppy one. We cut the zoo short, after dodging all kinds of unruly kids (gotta love vacation during Spring Break). On the walk back to Erin's apartment, we stopped for sandwiches at Paseo, a place so cool and local that it doesn't even have a sign outside. The sammies (as RR would say) were out of this world. Roast pork, banana peppers, spicy mayo, on a toasted roll--amazing! We kicked it at Erin's place for most of Tuesday, giving Ben (and us) a much-needed rest!

Seattle--Part One

Over Spring Break, we took our first family vacation to Seattle to visit Colleen's older sister, Erin. Here are some pictures from the first couple of days of the trip.

Ben and I wait for the shuttle bus at O'Hare. We parked at the long-term parking lot, then somehow managed to get on and off the shuttle bus, onto the tram to the terminal and then through security to the gate. Colleen carried the stroller and Ben and I had all four suitcases.

Colleen's sister, Erin, and her boyfriend Dustin met us at the airport in Seattle. We were the first ones in the family to get to meet Dustin, so we took copious notes to share once we returned :)

Our first full day in Seattle was Sunday. We spent the day exploring Pike Place Market, watching the fish throwers and enjoying a cup of coffee from the very first Starbucks ever.

mmmMMMmmm...crabs.

More pictures to come later, including our adventures at the zoo and Ben's first Major League Baseball game!

Five hundred twenty-five thousand...

Instead of buying each other presents for our first anniversary, Colleen and I decided that we would get tickets to see Rent when it comes to Cedar Rapids on May 1. Colleen hasn't seen it in several years and I haven't seen it since I was in London in 1999. I'm pretty excited to see it on stage again, although part of me inside keeps saying "What kind of cast do they send to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a one-night only performance?"
Oh well, if it isn't good, it won't take much to convince Colleen to head to Chicago for a day this summer to see Wicked again to get my good theater fix.

6 months already?!

Last week, we celebrated Ben turning 6 months old. Well, we didn't really "celebrate". But we are amazed at how fast he has grown. It is unreal how much has happened in the past 6 months.
Friday, we went to visit my parents and on Saturday morning, we went to have his picture taken. I was planning on a few pics for family and Ben's scrapbook. But we walked out of the place with a ridiculous amount of pictures. I will post some here below.
Easter Sunday was a nice, quiet day with just the three of us. We went to mass at Saint Patrick's, then came home and had a big Easter dinner. Colleen made ham with a cranberry-bourbon glaze, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, and an angel food Butterfinger dessert. It was awesome.
Next week we are heading to Seattle for Spring Break to visit Colleen's sister. We plan on taking in a Mariner's game and touring the Nintendo facilities, where we are going to get a Wii. Fun, fun, fun!!
Here are the pictures. Go Hawks!

GO HAWKS!

We celebrated Valentine's Day by taking Ben to his very first Hawkeye game. Unfortunately, the men's basketball team lost to Michigan. Maybe we should have taken him to a wrestling meet first.
He loved Carver. He just kept looking around and would get mad when Colleen turned him to face away from the court. He was so tired, but kept fighting sleep. Eventually, he caved in and fell asleep--much like the Hawks

I'm fucking Matt Damon

No explanation needed. Just soooooo damn funny.
To Jeff, Wendy, and Jenniffer: yes, this induced the silent laugh.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KUowJzpgxs

R.I.P. Mike the Mouse

Over Christmas, we had a furry little house guest. Word to the wise: don't use poison to kill mice. They die under couches, leaving a stank you wouldn't believe. We pulled out the couch, and there he was, in all his decomposing glory. We promptly disposed of him. He is now resting in a Target bag coffin at the Cedar Rapids landfill

Ben's First Christmas (and Colleen's big 3-0)

I won't bore you with thousands of tales and pictures of the first Navidad. Suffice to say it was a nice holiday and for the most part, the families respected our reuqest to not go apeshit with presents for a baby who will not give two shits or even know what is going on.



Here is a nice picture of us before we went to Midnight Mass:

I am feeling the effects of quite a bit of wine in this picture. I was a bit drunk as we went to mass, as was Colleen's younger sister, Megan.

We really enjoyed spending time with Ben, since we really don't see him during the day while we are at work.

The whole Christmas extravaganza got off to a great start with Colleen's 30th birthday the week before. Her older sister, Erin, flew in from Seattle to surprise her. Of course, I knew about this and arranged for her to be at our house when we got home from work. Colleen was complaining about how uneventful her birthday had been up to that point and when we got to the front door she demanded that I open the door. I told her to do it, since I had my hands full of packages and things from work. As we argued over who was going to open the door, I finally had to give in and admit that I didn't have my keys. At that point, Erin heard us arguing and came to the door--and my rescue. Screaming and general giddiness ensued. We all went out for a nice dinner that night and then came home to enjoy some delicious lemon-raspberry cake from a local bakery, ice cream and champagne. Good times.

There are more posts to come, including the tale of another furry house guest, but for now, I will just post my favorite picture of Ben from over the Christmas break. Happy New Year!

Way too long

Holy crap--I knew it had been a long time since my last post, but I didn't realize it had been this long.
Holidays, work, shopping, etc. It is all a blur.
Ben is doing great. This week he has dropped his 4am feeding, which means that he now is sleeping straight through from 8 or so at night until we get up at 6am. We actually have to wake him up in the morning to get him ready for day care. It is so funny to watch him stretch and rub his eyes as he wakes up. Then when he sees us standing there, he gets a big smile on his face before he realizes that he is awake and hungry, when he starts to frown and then grunt and whine a bit as we put him on the changing table to get him dressed for the day. He doesn't launch into a full-blown cry until after he is changed and we pick him up off the changing table.
We didn't make it up to Spirit Lake this year for the Kollasch family Christmas due to the crappy weather. It seems like we are getting a snow or ice storm once a week around here. So we met my parents in the Amanas last weekend for dinner to celebrate my mom's and Colleen's birthdays.
Colleen turned thirty on Monday, so there was much rejoicing :)
We went out to dinner at Atlas with friends last Saturday and then spent some time in the Atlas lounge downstairs before moving on to Mickey's for a while. It was finals week, so downtown was pretty dead. On Monday, Colleen's sister Erin surprised her by flying home early. I organized it so that when we got home from work, Erin was there waiting and Colleen freaked out. It was lots of fun. We went out for dinner with Erin and Colleen's parents and then some people came over for cake and ice cream afterwards. I got an awesome lemon-raspberry swirl cake from a local bakery that Colleen loves. Yum-o. And then we opened the little bottles of champagne that I brought back from Spain this summer. The little bottles are called "Benjamin" in Spanish, so it was fitting.
So this week, we are enjoying having Colleen's sisters spend some time at our house (Megan flew in yesterday). The sisters volunteered to hang with Ben today, so we'll see how they handle him. Now that he is sleeping at night, he is awake for most of the day.
We are heading to Clinton on Friday for Christmas, and then we'll spend next weekend inColfax with my family.
We hope everyone has a great Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

Random photos

Ben in his Gap t-shirt and jeans. Looking pretty f***ing smooth.
Notice how we were very matchy-match that day. I love the fall long-sleeve-t-shirt-under-a-short-sleeve-t-shirt look.

He looks a little high in this one, but this was his Halloween outfit. We didn't go trick-or-treating, but we did get a nice bag of candy from day care. Score!

Rubbing elbows

We spent the past weekend in Clinton. Our friends Gus and Courtney got married in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago and they had a reception in Clinton for their Iowa friends who couldn't make the trip to the tropics. It was Ben's first time spending the night away from home and he did very well. The loud music at the reception didn't bother him and he slept most of the time.

Sunday we went to a Hillary Clinton appearance in Clinton. Colleen's cousin works for her campaign and we had seats in the front right by the podium. Ben was great again, which was especially crucial since the Secret Service had blocked all of our crying baby escape routes. Luckily, there was no crying baby. After she spoke, Hillary came around shaking hands, signing autographs, etc. , and we found ourselves being "those" parents.

Me: "Senator Clinton, will you take a picture with our son?"

Hillary: "Sure!"

*Colleen thrusts baby at Hillary*

The doofus sticking his head in the picture in the back is Colleen's uncle. Needless to say, we're working on the photoshop version of this picture for Ben's collection.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Babies, bad football, and sleep deprivation

That pretty much sums up the last few weeks.
Ben is now a month old and has new friends showing up left and right. Congrats Donor and Jenniffer!
The Hawks need some help. Fast. Although it was nice to be able to witness the Illinois game in person (thanks, Donor). But keep in mind, it could be worse. We could be Nebraska, Iowa State, or Notre Dame.
I am getting used to the little 2 hour naps I get through the night. Colleen and I try to take shifts, so we each have a chance at a good chunk of sleep. My students sometimes feel the brunt of my sleep issues, though. I try to stay cheerful, I really do.

Homecoming

Yes, the annual "how's your liver" weekend is upon us. Although I may not get to stick around for the full beer band circuit, I am scheduled to appear in all Homecoming activities. So tell the bartender at Gabe's/The Picador/Whatever the hell it is now to get the lemon drops ready!!
And the little guy will be joining us at The Vine on Thursday and will also get to watch his first ever Homecoming Parade! Here's a pic from us watching his first Hawkeye game together:

I'm a Dad!

This morning at 12:29am, the little guy finally decided to enter the world. We went ot the hospital to induce labor at 7:30am on Saturday, broke the water aroun 8:30 and sat around contracting, dilating, and shitting away another game to ISU in Lames. Finally, around 9pm the doctor announced that we were at 10 centimeters dilated and could start pushing. So we pushed. And pushed. And pushed. At 11:30, the doctor could still feel the baby's head, with little progress since the last check. So it was determined that his head just was too big to fit through the birth canal and all she was feeling was the top of his skull, which had been pushed into a little cone.
Off to the OR we went, with a quick change into scrubs and a big extra dose into the epidural. Sure enough, he had been pushed into the birth canal and was wedged right into the pelvic bone. He was literally stuck in there, and it took the doctor pulling him from the chest side and a nurse reaching in from below pushing his head to get him unstuck and out of there.
So it goes without saying that the little dude was pretty stressed out when he came out and it took a little bit to get him to come around and perk up for us (scary moments). But after a few moments, he was on his way and I got to hold him in recoevery while Colleen was being stiched up. His breathing was faster than normal, so we had to take it easy this morning, but his last few checks are starting to even out and everything looks perfect. Colleen is pretty sore and very, very exhausted. After all, she did all the work of a vaginal birth and also had to endure the C-section surgery.
All is well and we look forward to coming home in a few days with the new guy!

Baby Watch 2007

So the due date has come and gone and we are still waiting. If he doesn't decide to join us today, we are heading to the hospital and they will induce labor on Saturday morning. Does anyone know if Mercy Hospital gets the Vs. channel in their cable lineup?

And btw, it's 11:11 and Iowa State STILL SUCKS!! (And apparently, this year, much more than usual)

GO HAWKS!

Another quiz

Again, stolen from Wendy. I wouldn't post it, except, well, I did better than she did :)

80%The Movie Quiz

FilmCritic.com - Movie Reviews

Waiting Game

Still no baby yet. This kid seems to have a Spanish sense of time. Yesterday was the due date. We have another doctor's appointment this afternoon, so hopefully we will get some idea of how things are going and what the plan is for if he decides to keep hiding out for a while.

Fun Quiz

Blantantly stolen from Wendy. But I thought it turned out fairly accurate. Enjoy.

My personalDNA Report