I K E A !

Malia and I decided to make the trek down to Ikea this morning to try and find some stuff for the baby's nursery.  I know what you're thinking: "Ikea on a Saturday...are you stupid or something?" Well, if you have to ask that question, then you obviously don't know us that well.

"I see you've chosen the Ektorp"

Before I continue, I should explain what Ikea is. Some of our relatives don't live close to one, so they may not have heard of it before. It's basically a Swedish Wal-Mart, only just for home furnishings.  They have tons of stuff with awesome names like the Bjorn table and the Linnarp TV stand. Silly Swedes!.  Most of their stuff is designed by semi-famous designers so its pretty, and cheap too.

Well, this place is famous for being a complete zoo when all the mouth-breathers descend upon the store on the weekends.  We were pretty surprised when we found that it wasn't that bad.  It was crowded, but nothing too bad.  We found some really cute stuff.  I never thought that I'd get excited buying ladybug lamps and animal print curtains, but it was a lot of fun.  I think that we have finally figured out how we ant to decorate her room now.  Between the cute Ikea stuff and these really cool prints from a local artist, Noelle Dass; I think that we'll have a pretty cool room for her.

Quit playin' with yer dingy!

I've got to sand and refinish the upper part of her crib soon.  Its got some paint on it that will be right at mouth level once she gets to standing up and I'm not too sure about the paint.  I'd rather sand it off and refinish it with stuff I know is safe.  We don't want her ending up like Tommy Callahan.

We got our "Travel System" the other day as well.  A Graco carseat, stroller and two bases for both the cars.  The cute girly print that we wanted wasn't available anymore so we had to go with a more neutral pattern. Man, babies need lots of stuff.  Needy little wankers, aren't they? :)

Here are some pictures of our nursery in progress.  We still need to get the mattress into storage and pick a paint color, but I think it's coming along nicely!

Cool Sun light fixture

Ladybug & Flower lamps

Dog butt coat-hangers

It's a girl!

My little girl

Wow, what an awesome day today has turned out to be!  I got my official offer letter from Boeing, we found out that we are having a little baby girl and the freaking sun was shining...  I don't know how today could get much better.

Malia and I made it to the hospital way too early, but turned out to be a good thing.  We were told to go and check in with the main admitting office on the 1st floor, but they immediately sent us to another check-in office on another floor who, of course, sent us to another office on another floor to finally get the ultrasound done.  No wonder healthcare costs so much.

In Russia, baby take own pictures

Anyway, once we met our tech, a nice strong Russian lady named Olga (not kidding), she took us right back and got right down to business.  She found the baby in no time flat and began making all of the necessary measurements for the scan.  It was becoming difficult for her to do her job between Malia's continuously filling bladder and the fact that our little girl is quite fidgety...just like her Mom already.

Boy, this ultrasound was quite different  from the last one.  Last time, we had to have the doctor point out was the hell we were looking at, but not this time!  Most everything was pretty obvious; arms, legs...even little toes and fingers!  She was pretty damn active, too. In the span of about an hour, she flipped end-over-end at least three times that I counted and even waved at us a couple of times.  The pictures don't do the scan justice.  Olga seemed to pick the worst views to snap a picture for us.  I was going to ask for a better one, but I was afraid she might hurt me.

The Doc came in after Olga was done and took a look for himself.  He looked at us and said, "Well, you're definitely pregnant..." with a big grin.  He said that it looked like we had a really healthy baby.  He also said that we looked to be about 17 weeks and not the 18 weeks that our OB doc thought we were at.  Looks like we'll have to do another 18 week belly pic again for next Monday.

The really weird part about that is that being at 17 weeks pushes our due date to close to the end of July.  July 21st just happens to be the 10 year anniversary of our "first date".  Wouldn't that be weird?

The other awesome thing for today is my offer letter from Boeing...  I got an email today with the offer letter and immediately opened it up.  I was really very anxious to see whether or not they were going to put me in for the level 2 or level 3 position since the job listing was for a level 2/3.  I was slightly disappointed to see that they offered me the level 2 position, but I was floored when I saw what the pay was.  It was WAAAAAAAAAAAY more than I was expecting.  It was quite a bit higher than my highest estimate of what they would pay.  Maybe now we can actually afford daycare for our new little girl!

This will be my first purchase with my new, huge, paycheck

Almost halfway!

Almost halfway!

Here we are at 18 weeks!  She's still not too happy that she's getting her picture taken every week:

Me: "Hey it's Monday, time to take another picture."
Her: "Sigh... Ah man, I was hoping that you forgot."
Me: "Na, I set a reminder in my phone so I wouldn't."
Her: "I hate your phone."


We're really excited about our ultrasound appointment tomorrow because we'll hopefully get to learn if its a little boy or girl.  Hopefully the little one cooperates and shows us the goods, or lack thereof. :)

Nothing else going on so I'll keep this one short.  Look for a longer post tomorrow with some goodies from the doctor!

Off to study Differential Equations!

This is funny... Really, I promise.

Good News!

I got a call from Boeing today, and I got the job!!!  

Baby Zack is disappointed in Adult Zack.

The phone rang just as I was finishing my sandwich and I ran to get it thinking that it was just Malia, bored at work.  My heart jumped up into my throat when I saw "The Boeing Company" on the caller-id.  It was my new boss, Bill, with the good news!  He said that the HR Department was completing an offer of employment and they should be emailing it to me with pay rate and all the corporate goodies in a couple of days or so.  I never thought that I would be so excited about corporate heath benefits...  If my childhood self saw me now, he'd probably kick me in the balls for being so lame.

Man, I am soooooooooo relieved to get this job.  My VA benefits for school, which is a large chunk of what we've been living on, were going to run out by the end of the year and I was getting pretty damn nervous about being able to financially take care of a new baby.  Well, I'm still pretty worried about that, but to a much lesser degree now : )

I made some changes to the blog recently. I fixed the email subscription box on the right, so it should be working now in case you want to subscribe.  I also added a Facebook and Twitter button for those times when you feel compelled to share my my literary genius with the world, which is almost always, right?. Almost? :)

787 Zackliner - Sounds good right?
I'll have to propose that to the new boss.