Friday, November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving on the run

This year thanksgiving went by really fast. It could've been because we had to rush from place to place or that we've just lost the concept of a minute; whatever the case maybe I've got to make this short because Elliott and I need to leave for Springfield, MO soon.
The day started off a little sluggish and I got up and took a shower and let Elliott rest a little more, because I knew once we got going there wouldn't be much rest for him. He's doing much, much better from the last time I wrote in here. He still has the occasional coughing fit, but they aren't as bad or a frequent as they have been. He stopped running a fever on Wednesday, and the wheezing isn't really there anymore, only during a really bad coughing fit. After Ell got around, we headed down to Hutch to have lunch at the Swain's (Grandma and Grandpa Swain's), and Ell's parent's, Ell's aunt, uncle, cousin, youngest brother, and Kansas (he's a foster brother) were all there. We arrived a little later than planned because we had to drop a few things off at my mom's and when we stopped at mom and Frank's Ell noticed that one of our tires was really, really low, so we went to Corwin's Corner in Sterling and aired it back up.
Before and after lunch I caught what I could of the Packers vs Lions game; before realizing we were late for heading to my mom's to help her out.
Around 3:45 we got to mom's and mom was freaking a little, but my Aunt Charlotte was a god send, she'd arrived a little before us and was in the kitchen making the stuffing. Jim, Charlotte's husband was in the living room talking with Frank and Frank's daughter Kathy, her husband; their 2 boys were upstairs with Bob. Ell and I got the folding table and chairs out of the trunk and helped set the table, cook, and all sorts of stuff so everything would be ready for dinner around 5ish. A little before dinner everyone else showed up, my Grandparents, Charlotte's 2 boys, Frank's other daughter Kelly and her family, and I'm not sure who all else was there, but it was packed.
We ate and celebrated my cousin Spencer's 18th birthday that was yesterday as well. A couple of after dinner after helping aunt Charlotte and Jim clean up (mom was fried) I recruited Rob-Bob and Spence to take the folding table and chairs to the car and after saying goodbyes Ell and I headed home.
We stopped in Great Bend to pick up a few things at Wal-Mart and it was clean! There was nothing in the aisles and everything was neat on the shelves and in it's place, we know it's all for Black Friday stuff, but it's a modern miracle if you've ever been to the Great Bend Wal-Mart. We came back checked over Rhonda (My car) to make sure she'd be ready to go today, we're taking her to MO because the brake pads on Ell's car are completely worn down and desperately needs an oil change. So we topped off a few of her fluids and I'm pretty confident she's ready to go (the other good thing about my car was the last time we went to see my dad we took her and she got 38mpg). We came inside packed up a few things and I ran a load of laundry. then we played with the cat and watched Mythbusters for a bit before heading to bed.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Bad news, Bronchitis

Well, Elliott fought a fever all yesterday and a horrible cough. I made sure he was taking Tylenol and DayQuil and he was still running a 100 some fever. Last night was a long night, neither of us could get to sleep even though we both headed to bed around 11. Around 1:30am Ell let me know he was having chills out on the air mattress, so I said screw it to being contagious and I had him get in the bed with me and bundle up again. I turned on the heater in the house for a while to warm up the bedroom and the bathroom. We finally settled into sleep a little after 2am; it didn't last long though.
At 5:15am Elliott woke up coughing, woke me up too, and couldn't catch his breath for awhile and was wheezing terribly, I knew at this point we weren't dealing with just a random cold. Elliott had several other coughing fits to the point where he became very dizzy and he said a few times like he'd blacked out. We tried resting some more, because we both knew it wasn't bad enough for a trip to the ER, but that no Doctor's office would be open for a few hours. I thumbed through my medical books and made the amature diagnosis of Bronchitis, little did I know I was right.
Elliott hadn't had any medicine since a little after 11 last night, and the fever was still there at a little over 100. I grew really hungry and at 6:25 I got up and made myself a bowl of cereal and called mom to get her opinion, since she'd recently had Bronchitis. She agreed with the fact that I needed to get Ell to the Dr, but she figured Ell had the Flu because he had a fever. I laid back down after finishing my breakfast and giving the leftover milk to Tiger, he absolutely loves this.
Elliott knew he wasn't going to get much more sleep, if any, so he decided to take a hot shower to relax and possibly break his fever. I tried to get back to sleep, because I was exhausted. Around 20 minutes later I hear, "I need help!" from the bathroom and Tiger and I rushed to see what was the matter. I found Elliott on the floor of the bathroom bent over the toilet telling me he needed water because he was dry heaving. He'd started coughing violently and it made him start heaving up what slight mucus was in his stomach in the shower, so he shut the water off and went to the toilet. It was a little after 7:30 when I decided it was time to see if anyone was at the clinic that's attached to the hospital in town. Luckily one of the receptionists had just gotten there and I got Elliott in at 11, but since he was a new patient we needed to come in a half hour early to do paperwork.
I got Elliott dressed and wrapped up in his fleece blanket and he got cozy on the couch watching backed up episodes of House on the DVR. He was nice enough to let me go back to bed and try to get a little more sleep. I've discovered in the past 2 or 3 months that I need more sleep than I used to. I had him checking his temperature every 30 minutes and keeping me updated. He had 2 readings that were slightly over 101. I got maybe 45 minutes of sleep, and at 10 I got up, dressed and ready to go.
We headed over to the clinic, checked in, did the paperwork, made copies of the insurance card and waited. A little before 11 Ell was called back and the nurse took his, temp, blood pressure, sample history, and weighed him. Then the Dr came in and did a detailed work-up on Ell, getting a detailed history, and tested all of his reflexes and listened to his chest really well. The Dr said that he heard a squeaking/wheezing sound in Ell's lung around the area where he was trying to listen to Ell's heart. So after going through a few more things, and after finding out that the Dr used teach Paramedic/EMT classes at HCC a few years ago, he came to the diagnosis of Bronchitis. He wrote Ell a prescription for a Zpac of Zithromax and told him to take the maximum dosage of Mucinex for the next few days, but that his ailment was probably viral, so he could treat the symptoms, but that he'd most likely have to wait 5 to 7 days for the virus to run it's course.
After that we headed to Wal-Mart in Great Bend to get the Prescription. After waiting around in Subway in Wal-Mart, and getting lunch for me, cause I was super hungry Ell got his medicine and we came home. Elliott is currently in bed watching backed up Storm Chaser stuff on the DVR and I'm doing laundry and taking care of him the best I can.
We're waiting until tomorrow to pass judgement on whether or not to travel all around on Thursday for Thanksgiving. and wether or not we'll be going down to Springfield, MO this weekend to see my dad, like we'd been planning for several weeks. It's not that we don't want to see and spend the holiday with family it's we don't want to get anyone else sick, or make Ell worse.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Not much excitement

You know when you're married, because you do the same thing every week. You go to the same places, you watch the same shows on TV, and you have the same routine for different things at the house and it just gets super boring. That's all that's happened these past few days; with the exception of Sunday really.
Friday, I did busy work around the house and played with Tiger. Ell came home, we watched TV for a few before going to get our biweekly groceries at Wal-Mart and Dillons, and we ate at Subway, just like always. We came home, and put the groceries away while the cat plyed with the plastic bags, this is quite humorous. then we sat around watched TV, mostly stuff backed up on the DVR and went to bed around midnight.
Saturday we slept in till 11-ish, and did pretty much nothing for a few hours, like always. Then I made and baked Oatmeal Raisin cookies to take to mom's on Sunday and Elliott went through stuff in the garage and drug out the christmas lights. He put the lights on the house while I put the clips on the strands to speed up the process. After an hour or so our job was complete and I came inside and made Spagetti. After supper we watched TV, played the Wii and played with the kitty, until a little after midnight and then we headed to bed. Ell slept on the air mattress in the living room, because he feared he was getting sick again and didn't want to get me sick again.
Sunday I got up around 10:30 took a shower played with Tiger and I let Elliott sleep until a quarter after Noon. Then I woke him up and had him shower before we ate and watched part of the Chiefs vs Steelers game. We left the house a little before 3pm right after the Chiefs tied the game up at 24 all. We went down to Sterling to spend the day with my mom, she turned 45 yesterday. Apperantly I'm the good one because other than Frank, I was the only one to remember it was mom's birthday, Robert blew it off and Nanny (my mom's mom) completely forgot about it. But seeing as she's in her 80's and has pnemonia we let her off the hook. Soon after we showed up, Rob-Bob (my brother) went to work at Dillons and mom, Frank, Ell and I watched UP. Then I helped mom make Chili for supper and we watched Wall-E. Not long after dinner, and after Bob came home from work, Ell and I headed home. The trip home lasted about 20 minutes longer because there was incredibly dense fog from Lyons through Ellinwood and Great Bend. Hoisington wasn't any better. We turned off Highway 281 onto our street, by the high school (which is 3 blocks from our house), and we couldn't even see a half a block in front of us. After coming home we watch a little more TV before going to bed. Elliott was still not feeling well and I'd developed, through the course of the day, some major back pain. Elliott was nice enough to give me a back rub before going to sleep on the air mattress again.
This morning we both got up an around at the usual 7am to discover Elliott's cough had gotten worse and he was running a fever, and my back pain was back with a headache. So we both went back to bed for a while and now I'm in the TV room on the computer typing this and Elliott is all wrapped up in the living room resting and watching South Park on the laptop, using Netflix instant or whatever. His fever came down a little while ago, but we're both gonna take it easy for today, and hope tomorrow is better.
Oh also, my brother Robert did not have the Swine Flu, he just had the seasonal flu and he's better, hence the fact that he want to work yesterday.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Thursday update

Not much has happened since Monday. Ell's been to the chiropractor to get his back worked on, he's got a twisted disc, and I've recovered from the cold of death. The only constant this week is the fact that the cat is really trying our patience. Last night around 1am he decided he was going to get up onto the Kitchen counter/bar and play up there, and he tipped over and broke on of our Dave and Busters pint glasses. Yes, these are easily replaceable (because Ell and I have no problem winning tickets there), but it's the fact that we were awaken to the sound of breaking glass that really sucked. I also found the little pain in the butt opening and playing the kitchen cabinets this morning, so I let Elliott know that we'll have to "Baby proof" the cabinets before the kid playing in them is an issue, because of the cat
So far this week we've linked our Wii with Kevin and Shelly's (my aunt and uncle/godparents) and Greg and Kristi's (another aunt and uncle of mine) and we've been Mario Kart racing with my cousin Diana (nicknamed "Nay-Nay"). This has been fun, but we're trying to get more people involved, so if you read this and you actually know Elliott or I we'd love to race you as well. :)
Monday and Tuesday were extremely uneventful, the only things that went down were Kart racing with Nay-Nay and house work, okay I did housework and I reminded Elliott of his chores, which I believe he only did 2. Wednesday I went down to Sterling to hang and talk with mom who is recovering from bronchitis. Mom let me know that Rob-Bob was sick, but after checking on him before dinner, we discovered he had an extremely high fever, respiratory problems and symptoms way worse than the cold of death. So, I put 2 and 2 together and asked Robert if he'd had classes with kids that've had "Swine Flu" H1N1, and he said yes, several classes with kids that have it or had it. So, I let mom know that bob should probably get to the doctor as soon as it opens in the morning.
Really our week so far has pretty uneventful; as far as Doctor appts go, I don't have another one till Dec 9th. I checked the results of all of my lab tests online and I am in great health, my glucose levels are normal, my CBC or blood screen is fine I have the normal amounts of red blood cells, white blood cells, hemoglobin, platelets, and Hematocrit. I don't have any of the following diseases: Rubella, Gonorrhea, HIV/ADIS, Chlamydia, Hepatitis B, Diabetes, Mumps, Measles, or HPV. I don't have pre-eclamsia or any of the other pregnancy disorders or diseases, so it looks like smooth sailing till January.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Not our day

This weekend was relatively uneventful, however Sunday was semi-interesting. I should warn you this might be a little weird, because I'm attempting to type on the laptop and Tiger is being a cuddle hog and is laying on my chest/stomach.
Saturday was a really lazy day we didn't do much of anything except play with Tiger, watch TV and relax. in the later half of Saturday night I knew I was getting increasingly congested and I had increasing pressure in my head/sinuses. We went to bed around midnight after I took Sutafed and DayQuil (I'm not allowed to take NyQuil because it has alcohol in it).
Sunday I awoke with the cold of death and a slightly elevated temp, which was quickly brought back to normal with Tylenol. Elliott in his running around the house getting me medicine to take and orange juice; he spun around too quickly in the bedroom doorway became dizzy and fell over, whacking his knee on the way down. After both of us rested our aching bodies watching football for several hours, Ell kept tabs on the approaching winter storm and remembered that the snow shovel was broken. We bundled up and headed to Wal-Mart. Ell's knee had regained it's ability to support his weight and I felt immensely better. We picked up a 20" shovel and approx 50lb bag of ice melt, because I checked in the garage and we had less than a pound left.
After leaving Wal-Mart, we went to KFC, Elliott has been craving fried chicken and biscuits for sometime now. We ate and people watched for around 45 minutes. After eating we walked outside to find sleet falling from the sky, but it was light enough and not cold enough that it melted on the ground. We got in the car and Elliott hacked up some mucus and kept the door oppen to spit it out into the parking lot. He then shut the door put his keys in hte ignition, and then opened the door to do it again, or so I thought. He shut the door and informed me he threw up a little. After being slightly grossed out and worried about him doing it again, he assured me that he was fine and that it was just super weird. We then carefully drove home and I immediately checked the score of the Cowboys vs Green Bay game that was on earlier. Elliott said he would put the shovel away and put out a little bit of rock salt to ensure that he wouldn't have any problems getting to his car in the morning for work. After a few he came in complaining of severe back pain and informed me that he'd messed up his lower back cause he lifted the 50lb bag of salt incorrectly and that he was now paying the price.
We got the heating pad set on his lower back and I called my mom to give her crap about her precious Cowboys losing (Evil chuckle). After Ell and I watched the Patriots lose to the Colts (Evil chuckle) we watched a few shows on TV before heading to bed around midnight. Sleep was still a few hours away for both of us. My runny nose kicked into high gear and Elliott was extremely uncomfortable so we ended up watching Cheaper by the Dozen on TBS in the bedroom. Around 2 something in the morning I blew my nose only to pull the Kleenex away stained blood red and my nose was still dripping blood. After 10 more tissues and 2 different ways of holding my head/nose I got it under control/stopped. I'm not sure how long it was after that, when Elliott and I finally fell asleep but I woke up at around 6 am to Saved by the Bell on the TV, Tiger whining at the door and my nose running. Ell's alarms went off 30 minutes later and I helped him get up and round for work before taking more medicine because once again I felt like crap. Elliott left for work and I went back to bed.
I got up after sleeping for a few hours and Elliott informed me he took off from work for a little while to go to the Chiropractor, to get his back taken care of. Sunday was not our day; and I've got a chapped nose and Elliott has a bad back to prove it.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Veterans day.


I've always experienced Veterans Day with a sense of pride. At Sterling they usually had a Veterans day assembly and the band would play the different songs of the branches of the Military, I later joined them, and the choir would sing Battle hymn of the Republic. Papa Klein was always there dressed in his dress whites and I always felt lucky that I could thank my own grandfather for being able to live in this great nation we do today.
This year was different, I didn't get to thank him this year. I didn't play Anchors Aweigh on my sax. I didn't outwardly celebrate the men and women that put their lives on the line for our safety. A thank you to Sam and Kim (Elliott's younger brother and his wife) for their dedication to our country; they were in Iraq last year and they are currently in Egypt making frequent trips to Israel.
This year I got up got around for the day. I played with Tiger for a while before Elliott came home around lunch. We ate and watched Jeopardy on the game show network, before leaving for Hutch. We drove down to the Hutchinson Clinic, encountering almost every slow driver on the planet.
We had to report to the lab first so I could get a "sugar drink" so in an hour the vampires could take my blood and measure my glucose levels. (I drink Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew I know that they've got to be high) I choked down the sugar drink and we hustled up to OB/GYN. After waiting a few minutes and playing around with the timer the gal in Lab gave me. The ultrasound tech called us back. We walked all the way to the back of the department into a dimly lit room. At first when I walked in I noticed the monitor on the ultrasound thingy was only a 17" or maybe 19" and I was kinda bummed cause it'd look really small, then the gal told me to hop up onto this reclined table and not 8' in front of me hanging on the wall was a 48" flat screen that was hooked into the system...this was gonna be cool.
Elliott tossed my bag onto one of the chairs and stood beside me at the gal started looking around for the baby. She found it and determined that the head was down and the kid had it's butt up by my rib cage, leave it to my kid to be a goofball. The tech then went through and identified the different parts of the brain, how big around the head was, the heart, the stomach, the kidneys, hands, feet and the pelvis. She then asked if we wanted to know the sex and Ell and I both answered "yes." She looked around the front side of the pelvis and was able to clearly identify it was a girl. Well, I didn't get my linebacker, but I know that we currently have a very healthy and well developed little girl.
*Note to all friends, Family, or random people who want to give us stuff. NO PINK STUFF! Even though we'll be having a girl she's gonna watch football, play sports and hardly ever wear dresses. I know that it's somewhat challenging to find stuff for girls that isn't pink, but other stuff is out there. If in the future she decides she likes pink you can go hog wild with the pink, but until she decides the no pink rule stands.
Okay, back to ultrasound story. After learning it was a girl we then went back to the heart and other organs and it's the coolest thing ever to see a tiny heart beating seeing all 4 chambers doing their job in unison beating at 148 beats per minute is just awesome! We listen to the heart beat for just a few seconds; and then we looked at the blood flow from the umbilical cord in a different view that lit up the blood like neon and that was just as cool. The tech then tried to get different shapshots so we could have something to take with us and show everyone. Trying to get a profile shot in the 4D view showed the kid's stubborn side she didn't really want us to have a good profile shot, but we got on that does show the cheek, nose, left eye, and lips pretty well. After we were through the tech started printing out a few pictures and put several others on a CD for us and we discovered that she was a Cowboys fan. While the CD was being burnt Ell and went down to the little waiting room in the OB/GYN dept and waited on the CD and to see the Doctor.
After a few minutes the ultrasound tech brought us the pictures and the CD, and an other minute later we were called back into a room. The nurse took my blood pressure and asked a few questions before leaving to go pass the information onto the Dr. Elliott and amused ourselves by measuring our height and playing with the slide thingy that predicts your due date. The Dr came in and we had a short chat about my health overall, he was impressed that everything was where it should be and that the ultrasound showed a healthy 2lb 2oz little girl. He asked us if we'd thought about a birthing class and said that one of his nurses, Jan, does a great one. It's only 3 hours, but it's very informative and to the point. He said that he attended it 3 times with his wife, that even though he was a board certified OB his wife made him go to it. he said we didn't need to come in for a month because things were excellent, but to give the office a call if any problems did arise.
We then went down the hall and got the information for the birthing class, and went to the front desk to schedule our next appt which will be on Dec 9th and we also got signed up for the January 5th birthing class. Then we had to hustle down to the lab cause the hour was up. the gal taking my blood finally hit my vein after wiggling the needle around for 30 seconds in my arm, not fun.
Elliott and I left and we visited Nancy at work for a few and showed her the ultrasound shots; and then we left for Sterling and on the way down I called Dad and Shelly to let them know what was going down. then we went to mom's and played with Jackson and Sambo before mom got home from school. then after making a trip to Dillon's in town to get Mountain Dew and see Rob-Bob at work mom had homemade chicken and noodles for supper, I did help de-bone the chicken. A little after dinner Ell and I headed home and Tiger was anxious to see us and he decided that our attention needed to be all on him. We watched TV for a while before heading to bed around 11:30ish.

Monday, November 9, 2009

The Weekend

This weekend was moderately busy for us. We did our grocery shopping for 2 weeks at Wal-Mart and Dillons Friday night. While we were in Wal-Mart Elliott picked out a pair of newborn shoes that says "Dad's team" on the side, he wanted to get them to hang on his rear view mirror and then be first shoes on our son or daughter. After spending over $150 and 2 hours later we came home put all the food away and picked-up the living room. Tiger was glued to the front door meowing at the neighbor's cat that frequently comes over and sits on our front step and talks with Tiger.
Saturday we got up and we had several things to take to the garage that I'd gone through on Friday. Elliott also wanted to work on our Kelliott website and I vacuumed out our cars. Who knew we'd have perfect weather in November?!? Anywho, after I was finished I put the shop vac away and played Guitar Hero in our garage/Elliott's man cave. My Dad and Chris came over at around 5pm and they'd gotten us our very first installment of baby items. They'd found some really awesome Kansas City Chiefs items: A Chiefs onesie with a bib and sweatpants, 6-pack of red washcloths with the KC arrowhead logo on them and they also found a really soft teddy bear in a chiefs jersey that came with a fleece blanket. Dad and Chris also got the kiddo it's first bib overalls, it's a redneck/Ozark hillbilly thing, and a red onesie that says I heart my mommy. Dad and Christ treated us to dinner at The Rack in Great Bend and before they left to head back to Lindsborg, to pick-up Chris' grandson Scott. We showed them the "Man Cave." Ell and I relaxed in front of the TV for a while, watching stuff on our DVR from earlier this week, before heading to bed.
Sunday morning we awoke to the sound of Tiger scratching and meowing quite loudly at our bedroom door at 6:30! After an hour of laziness and smacking the snooze alarm every 9 minutes we got around and took showers and prepared to go meet the family at the Cafe in Sterling. Elliott and I arrived at the cafe around 9:30 and everyone was already there: Papa Klein, Grandma (Granny Goose), Dad, Chris, Greg (Uncle Bubba), Aunt Kristi, Rob-bob (my brother Robert), Lindsey (my cousin), Tuffy (My cousin Christopher), and Scott. Elliott, myself and our soon addition were the subject of several conversations over breakfast. Greg and Kristi had saved my cousin's crib and offered it to us to have, which I greatly appreciated, that's one less thing to buy. Chris and Kristi also decided to throw Elliott and I a baby shower, so that we won't have to buy everything.
After breakfast we met Dad and Chris down at the lake where they had stayed the night before in their camper. They took off after packing up and letting their 2 dogs, Jack and Scruffy, get some exercise. So around 1:30 we stopped by Mom and Frank's to find mom on a crusade to redo the main bathroom and Frank watching the Chiefs game. "Action" Jackson and Sambo "Rambo", mom and Frank's dogs, were delighted as always that we'd come over. We accompanied my mom to Hutch on her quest for new towels, flowers and a shower curtain. She found towels at Wal-Mart, called my Aunt Charlotte to put together a floral arrangement, and gave up on finding the right shower curtain after going through most of the stores in the mall. Elliott and I ate a late lunch in the mall and went shoe shopping for Elliott. After trying on a few pairs in Famous Footwear Ell found a pair he liked that was marked down $20 (Bonus!).
After coming back to Sterling and chatting for a few Elliott and I decided to journey home before it got too late and the dear were out running amuck. Sunday night football was on and we made dinner and watched the football game. Through out the evening Elliott kept making comments on how his head kept feeling worse and worse and how his stomach might have turned on him, but he took some NyQuil and we went to bed around 11:30. This morning when I got up I was surprised to find Elliott laying on the couch in TV room. He's got a head cold and his sense of balance is gone, so he's home resting today. I'm going to go warm him up some Chicken and Noodle soup and continue on the laundry I started before I sat down to write this. I'm also going to put Tiger in timeout, because he keeps tearing around the house destroying stuff.

Elliott and I loosely made up a registy on Wal-Mart.com. 99% of the items we like are avalible to be sent to the store of your choice with FREE shipping through "Site to Store" (it's in the back of the store, what used to be layaway) he's our link: https://www.walmart.com/giftregistry/gr_detail.do?registry_id=80513069098

Friday, November 6, 2009

A quick summary

I figured I'd start a blog so that everyone could know what was going on to some detail. Yes, Elliott and I both use Twitter, but 140 characters doesn't always give everyone the details they want.

So far this year, Elliott I got married on January 24Th. Took an amazing cruise to the Bahamas. I've been job hunting for months and we adopted a kitty (Tiger) in early August. Since then our lives have pretty much revolved around Tiger, playing with him several hours a day, laughing at his comical sleeping positions and getting him a Halloween costume.

I took on a project a week ago to carve a really cool pumpkin for Halloween and I almost bit off more than what I could handle (I didn't get an "A" in art in high school). However, after some work I created a really cool Puss 'n Boots Jack o' Lantern as my pumpkin and I created a design and cut out Toad (it's a Nintendo character) for Elliott's pumpkin.

Last week Elliott and I also made a trip to Hutch to run some errands and go to the doctor. We received the news that we were going to be parents, which was shocking to us because there really hadn't been any red flags that indicated I was, except that I no longer have a 27 inch waist and I've gained almost 20 pounds since March. At this juncture we're assuming I'm 27 weeks along, but we'll know exactly how far, what gender the baby is, and a semi-solid due date after our sonogram next Wednesday (November 11Th, Veterans Day).

You can feel free to follow Elliott and I on Twitter, Facebook or wait for post on here (they won't be everyday).