MacBook Pro

We made the switch....

We had been talking for a while about getting a Mac. Since they are $$ - we decided this was the year for the mega-combo gift. This 15" MacBook Pro is our anniversary, Jen's birthday and our Christmas gift this year! We were a bit disappointed that we couldn't get the SSD hard drive upgrade - but since we make the chips that go into them we know how much of a hot commodity they are....figure give it 6 months for supply to catch up with the demand...and then we can upgrade on our own (for at least half price).

Next project - get our camcorder videos in order so there is room on that hard drive when baby #2 arrives in 5 weeks...this is where the Mac is going to be our BEST FRIEND!

Kid proof no longer

Look at what our almost 22 month old has figured out all on his own.

So much for "easy to remove for adults" kid proof electrical outlet covers. Time to switch back to the old fashion ones. Lets see how long it takes Zach to figure these out.

Pregnancy update

What? 32 weeks? Where did the previous 31 weeks go? This pregnancy has seriously flown by so fast. Today was Jen's 32 week appointment and things continue to look great. No high blood pressure issues so far. During the appointment today her Doctor said, "well lets schedule your delivery date...have you thought about when you want your baby born?". We have known since the start of this pregnancy it would be a scheduled C-section. My due date was January 6, 2010. My 20 week ultrasound showed baby #2 being 7 days early by size...so my doctor today decided to make my new due date January 2nd, 2010....so the big question was do we want this kid born in 2009 or 2010?

Honestly it doesn't matter. A tax break isn't a huge incentive for us (trust me....it doesn't really make a difference when you have two engineering salaries). Jen's only request was not to be in the hospital during New years Eve/Day. So that left two options - Monday, December 28th 2009 or Monday, January 4th 2010.

As of right now baby #2 is currently scheduled to make his first appearance to this world on Monday, December 28th 2009. Three days after Christmas...ironic because Jen's birthday is three days before Christmas.

Wait...that is less than 7 weeks away. Whoa...slow down there father time! Our second baby boy is going to be here in 47 days? I guess I better start getting things ready!

Under 200

How can you tell you are in a happy marriage? Weight gain. We have both been collecting the pounds.....Jen is just currently in the situation where she physically shouldn't be losing weight - you know being pregnant and all. But Dustin...we can say he has LOVED the last eight years of our marriage ;)

This past summer some of Dustin's co-workers all decided to have a weight loss competition....I think it stemmed from his boss losing weight for his daughters October wedding. So at the beginning of July the IMFT Corporate Planning weight loss challenge began - same rules as the show "the biggest loser" - the one with the highest % of weight loss wins. What were the stakes? Everyone donated $20 and at the end the winner was suppose to decide where they all go to dinner together with the $$. There were eleven people total involved. The competition ended the beginning of October - Dustin came in SECOND PLACE (only 1.3 pounds from actually winning the competition!). Between July and October Dustin lost 29 pounds (his personal goal was 30 pounds). For the past month and a half he has continued to diet and has lost an additional 14 pounds....yes DUSTIN HAS LOST 43 POUNDS!!!!

Dustin has banned me from blogging about this until now - he wanted his big reveal to the world. I got the approval once the scale showed this:

Below 200 pounds! Something we haven't seen in probably six years. If he was to lose another 10 pounds he would be back down to the weight he was at when we were first married in October 2001.

Silly us didn't think about taking formal "before" pictures....so I had to dig through our photos during the July time frame to find one that showed his "fullest figure". Dustin is the one in the red shirt - with the belly sticking out (naturally).

Here are some pictures taken today:

That belly is gone! His pants hang on him...he has drilled three new holes in his belts...and he is getting comments from everyone on his new look. Some of our favorite comments from friends/co-workers have been: "you look smaller" and "if you turn sideways I can practically seen through you".

Now the next phase is weight loss management. The same group of guys from work that did the weight loss challenge have decided to have a new challenge to see who can maintain their weight until the start of 2010...so needless to say we won't be going hog wild this holiday season with the food!

Great job Dustin - you look HOT (I can say that)....

H1N1 vaccinated

...I feel like I am an animal when I say this......but yes....we were vaccinated for the H1N1 influenza today. Yeah there has been a lot of hype over the whole thing...and us living in the highest birth rate state you can imagine all the pregnant ladies and kids out trying to find this vaccine. We want our family to be healthy and safe...especially with kid #2 on the way in 9 weeks....so not getting the vaccine to us is not an option.

The Utah health department has not released the H1N1 vaccine to any doctors office - anyone that gets the shot for now has to go to the health department for it. This week was round #3 of H1N1 availability...here is how the first two rounds went:

Round #1 - 10/24/09 Saturday shot clinic in Salt Lake county...apparently completely insane. People double/triple parked around the health department to find out that 7,000 doses "spoken for" with people in line in only 30 minutes!.

Round #2 - 10/27/09 Tuesday shot clinic in Utah County. We had a close friend go at 8am when they opened the doors. She said there were 2,000 people in line in front of her and she waited FIVE HOURS to make it to the front and get her shot. Did I mention it was SNOWING outside with a high of 35 degrees on this day?

Then the health department got a bit smarter for round #3...and that is where we came in ;)

On Monday at 8am the Utah county health department started handing out priority tickets for H1N1 vaccines. Jen, Zach and Glen are on the priority list...Dustin is technically not. Jen headed down to the health department - arriving at 11am (couldn't get out of work earlier than that!). She only had to wait in line for 2 minutes to get four "tickets". Our "tickets" were to come back today at 2pm for the shot. By the time Jen got back to work on Monday the Utah County health department had already posted on their website they were out of tickets. Jen must have been cutting it close!

So today all four of us - Jen, Dustin, Zach and Glen (Dustin's dad) arrived at the Utah County Health department about 10 minutes before 2pm. There was a line forming at the door - we were probably #25 in line. At 2pm they opened the doors - in 5 minutes we were at the front having someone review our paperwork. Then we went into another room where they had 10 different lines of people administering the vaccine. In another 15 minutes we were done and on our way. Overall I thought the whole process went fine - no long waits. They had cool band-aids and stickers for the kids.

A few other thoughts....that shot HURT way more than the normal influenza shot. It burned going in. Zach actually didn't fuss too much with his shot. All the other kids in the room were crying - they all knew they were getting shots and all the parents just kind of looked at each other because what can you do? Pregnant women don't need a second dose of the H1N1 vaccine anymore, but kids under the age of 10 do...so in a month we are going to be looking for another shot for Zach...hopefully by then the supply can meet the demand.

Trick or Treat! (Tri-Tree!)

Halloween 2009 was memorable for us because this was Zach's first year actually being able to run from house to house saying trick or treat and getting candy in return! We were also lucky to be able to spend Halloween with Jen's Mom and Dustin's Dad. After carving pumpkins we threw on Zach's costume (a quirky little three eyed alien) an hit the streets to see what kind of goodies we could score.

Thats a lot of pumpkins huh! 5 Large / 3 Small.. and we carved all but one! Dustin saved one so he can impress Jen with his home made pumpkin pie making skills.. We'll see.. ;)

Zach already speaks "alien" quiet well, so this was a perfect outfit for him. He loved it and would giggle every time he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror.

Hard to tell, but he actually has 4 arms! Quite handy if you ask me!

Zach ran from door to door.. hardly skipping a beat. He started out a bit shy, but by the end of the night he was saying "Tri-Tree!!" (Translation: Trick or Treat!).. then he would pick out his candy and say "THAY" (Translation: Thank you very much kind sir or mam! This is my favorite candy!)

Along the way we came across a Bobcat.. Zach absolutely loves tractors.. He started saying "Tractor" months ago and now says it any time he catches a glimpse of a tractor of any kind.. pretty funny.. Well after about 10 minutes of him running around checking out the tractor, we headed to the next house.

These were Zach's favorite houses because he could take his time to pick out the perfect piece of candy.. The only problem is that once you pick out the perfect candy, you really don't want to have to put it back into your bucket.. you want to eat it! But after eating a few suckers he figured it was ok to part with a few candies after visiting the candy buckets.

Once we made it home, Zach proudly showed us all of his prize candies and toys he had collected.

Zach was pooped out, but only until his next sugar rush. :)

Even Dustin's Dad got into the fun while walking Zach around.. Doesn't he make a great Homer? We think so.

Well, even though Halloween came and went way to quickly this year, we had a blast taking him around the neighborhood, and we know for sure that Zach is already planning out which candies to collect next year. And Dustin has noted each and every house that gave out full sized candy bars, so we won't accidentally miss them. :)

Pumpkin Carving at the Grays!

This year we ended up with 8 pumpkins.. which is nearly 3 times as many as we usually get. Since Dustin's Dad and Jen's Mom were going to spend Halloween with us, we figured, we could all carve one or two and have one or two left over for pumpkin pie!

Zach was really excited to help with the pumpkins.. First we washed the pumpkins off!

Then we washed the floor off! Yes as you can see from this picture.. the pumpkin wasn't the only thing to get washed.. heh heh

After the pumpkins were all clean, we put them on the kitchen table to let everyone pick out their favorites and start thinking of what they would carve on them.

Dustin's Dad picked his using the Homer Test. If his Homer mask fit on it, then that was his. LOL!

Janice showed off her skills by making a pumpkin say "BOO!"

Zach helped us by pulling the seeds and stringy stuff out of the pumpkins

It was pretty funny to watch him try to fix the pumpkins.. When we would cut out parts for the faces, he would try and fit them back in place.

Zach finally gave this pumpkin his seal of approval.. Good job Mom!

As you can see, they were very happy and worked well as a team. They even came up with the same pose for the camera! Cute!

Another shot of their team accomplishment

Dustin's Dad called this pumpkin "Batman!"

As Glen started working on his next pumpkin, we caught Dustin clowning around with his pumpkin saying.. "This is what I want mine to look like"

Here is Dustin carving away at his skeleton head

Dustin's Dad is quite the pumpkin artist. What do you think of his Pumpkin King?

Dustin's Skeleton lit up for the Trick or Treaters to enjoy

Janice's happy pumpkin in the background, and Glen's Pumpkin King

Jen and Zach's Big Eyes pumpkin, Glen's Batman pumpkin, and Jen's crazy pumpkin.

Not bad huh? We had a lot of fun carving these. Hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as we enjoyed carving them!

Utah Jazz

Dustin has some co-workers with season tickets to the Utah Jazz. They apparently couldn't attend tonight's season opening home game so Dustin seized the opportunity to attend with his Dad.



They had a great time - the Jazz beat the Clippers 111-98

Croup

We knew something was up - Zach has been a bit cranky the past two evenings. This morning he woke up at this normal time with that nasty croup cough....yes the barking seal noise. We checked his temperature - 100 degrees. No babysitter for him the rest of this week!

We took turns staying home with him...for the most part he acted his normal happy self - when he was drugged with Tylenol or Motrin. The cough was just horrible though - he barked like a seal for almost THREE DAYS. Friday afternoon he finally started sounding normal and his fever went away.

Lucky for us he actually slept well at night...humidifier worked its charm.

Our first snow

We had our first official "snow storm" today...yes it is still OCTOBER!! We dressed Zach up in his snow gear and let him have at it. He just wanted to eat the snow...not much playing this time. We only had a few inches on our lawn....no shoveling required ;)


We sure hope this isn't a sign of an early LONG winter!

Piggy Piggy

Ever since Zach was born we have been filling one of his piggy banks with coins...mostly the extra change Dustin has in his pockets and coins Zach finds lying around the house. I think Zach even smooched coins off his grandpa's when they come visit! As soon as Zach finds a coin he goes RUNNING to his piggy bank and put the coin in the slot.

After 21 months - the piggy bank is FULL! We couldn't cram any more coins into it. So we decided to go "cash in" the coins to empty the pig.

That piggy bank held $82.00 all in COINS! Not bad for spare change for almost two years. The money is going into Zach's savings account...and now his piggy bank is empty and can start taking spare change donations again!

Pumpkin Patchin...

Today we went pumpkin patchin.....we found this place in South Jordan (Maybey's pumpkin patch) last year and decided to go back again this year. The weather wasn't cooperating very well with us (ending up being a windy rain storm when we left)...but we did pick out our pumpkin haul rather quickly, it seemed like there were a lot of "perfect pumpkins" to choose from this year.

Zach was excited to see all the pumpkins, ride in the wagon and play with will the dried up pumpkin vines. He didn't even mind the few rain sprinkles here and there. We ended up picking out FIVE larger pumpkins for carving (one for Dustin, Jen, Zach, Dustin's Dad, Jen's Mom) and three smaller pumpkins for decorations.

Now we need to start thinking of how we are going to carve these things next weekend!

All hands...

Zachary has reached the height now that he can grab ANYTHING off the top of counters if it is six inches from the edge. He also likes to get into ANYTHING that looks like it is hiding something inside. Right now we are just laughing a these things...but I am sure that will change. These pictures are from this week alone.

Bust #1 for the week - our Halloween decorations. They were nicely sitting inside Tupperware tubs....until Zach got a hold of them. He got a kick out of these in our Halloween costume stash:

Dustin Says that in this picture Zach looks a little bit like Sid the Sloth from Ice Age.. hah!

Bust #2 for the week - kitchen drawers. For some reason he just likes to empty them out and then play with the gadgets on the floor.

Bust #3 for the week - a shoebox full of old makeup/lotions on a shelf in our master closet. This one actually kept him entertained the longest...and surprisingly none of the containers got opened!

The joys of parenthood...