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I previously had themachamers.com on our mediacom server, but since it was such a pain to update, I decided to just use my blogger account for the website. I think I update the baby blog more frequently anyway, but I like to keep this one going for a log of all our trips and photos.

Highlights:
3 Trips to Texas
Cruise to Cozumel (with 15 friends)
Work trip to Albuquerque, NM
Beale St Music Festival
Conference Trip to Chicago
Alaskan Cruise with the family
California for a friends wedding
Kayaking and camping
3rd anniversary trip to the Biltmore
Thanksgiving in Florida
Turned 7 months pregnant on Christmas

We had a nice quiet Christmas this year broken up with a few bits of noisiness that I was thankful for. Heather and Chad invited us to their family Christmas Eve gathering that included a big loud family, lots of kids and a dirty santa game that involved alot of shots. (I think I would have been more homesick without being a part of a big family - so thanks!) Very fun night till about 11pm when I was trying to sleep and realized I ate to much and my stomach did not have room for it. Christmas day was back to quiet with just Jeff and I. We got to eat a Honey Baked Ham turkey dinner my dad sent. (yeah, no cooking). I was a bit sad not to see any of my family for Christmas, but so it goes. I guess next year we'll figure out what traveling with a baby is really like.
Friday morning I headed out to Penney's and the mega sale. I finally got some towels and guest sheets. I even picked up a couple baby girl dresses. Then I went to Pier 1 and got wrapping paper for next year.

Friday afternoon, we drove to Bham to see Jeff's family. We exchanged gifts, and I was excited about the gifts I got (impressed since I didn't really help people for ideas). Then Jeff's parents treated us by going out for an Italian dinner. Very good food, though I missed out on the wine and a couple good appetizers that were not pregnancy friendly. I think I've determined everyplace in Bham is small, crowded and loud, but it was a change from Hsv that is full of mostly chain restaurants. The next morning we had bagels from Panera - again no cooking :)
Saturday we headed back home, so I could meet up with some friends from highschool - a range of people were meeting at Monaco. I kind of forced myself to go since I was not really in a mood to converse with people I only see every few years or not even in 14 years. But I was glad to catch up with a couple people. (hopefully I didn't come across as a snob, but I'm not the best at putting on a false smile) And while they were all drinking I got a big fat ice cream cone (luckily it was a warm night).

I am wondering now if Jeff will go into gadget withdrawal. In the last week or so we've acquired several new gadgets and things he's had to put together or figure out: Garmin GPS (company present), HD video camera, PC tablet (for me), smoker/grill (from his parents), garage code key for door, new computer ram, and something else I'm not remembering now.

Hope everyone had a great holiday.

This past weekend we had Jeff's company Christmas party. He got a new Garmin GPS and I won the door prize - the flowers :)

We also played with the new video camera. I have alot of learning to do. I will say that I love being married to a smart geek that loves new technology. He picks stuff up faster than me, including the editing software. I started trying to film the nursery, but static rooms just aren't exciting. Maybe we'll take it to a party Wednesday or New Years for some action shots.

Last night we got our video camera in so Jeff has a new gadget to play with. I was going to hold off till after the baby came, but I figured now may be best when I may actually have time to learn how to use it and the editing software. I'm open to ideas if anyone has anything that we can go shoot this weekend. (At a minimum I may have to buy some catnip for the kitties and see what happens in our house.) I'm hoping I figure out how to add songs and music over it too. I'm not about to take it to an Adobe Premier level like some friends, but I'd like to know some cool editing stuff. And for those interested we got a Canon Vixia that records in HD.

Yesterday was a little news worthy with the weather. It snowed 4" on the Vegas strip. And North Alabama is finally out of the drought. It does seem like years since we've had so much continuous rain and I'm sick of it. Rain can just bring down your mood. I was thankful to have some girlfriends over last night for a wrapping party to help alleviate some of my gloomy mood from the constant mist. We just sprawled out on the floor and wrapped our own gifts and shared paper. Angie was thankful for the help and I think Heather was glad to have another person writing name tags 'from Santa' since her kids know her handwriting. Yes I took a mental note for future years :)

Now we have Jeff's Christmas party this weekend and then it'll be a slow week at work before Christmas.

I wish I had found this a few weeks ago before all the dirty santa gift exchanges. These soy candles are supposedly better for the environment and air quality than paraffin wax. Scent of a Scandal - has very creative names like: ‘Me So Thorny’, ‘Santa’s Pole’, ‘Hanukkah Bush’, 'Ho Ho Homo' and ‘Challahback Girl’.

Found this cool website:
http://howmanyofme.com/.
There used to be 69 people with my name (maiden name) but now there is only one me in the US. yeah for unique last names :)

Story background:
I work in an old building for a very safety conscious gov't agency. An average of about 4 times a month they will have an asbestos outage at 6pm where no on is allowed in the building till the next morning. (they're doing work in the walls or ceiling and may release some asbestos)
There has been an on-going saga with the ladies bathroom on my floor for about a year. When they couldn't fix the clogged sink, they removed it, busted the tile, and then duck-taped cardboard over the gaping 3 foot+ hole. I've heard the old 50's blue tile is on order - for at least 6 months now. The other day I was fed up with seeing the gross pipes behind the wall, revealed by the loosening duck-tape. I decided to send an email to a new person stressing my concerns of being pregnant and asbestos. Well there were 4 guys working on it this morning. Guess a pregnant lady has more of a voice than the long time employee that has been working the issue for a year. Now I'm still concerned that I've been exposed to some dangerous stuff for so long.

I came across an article that mentioned a few free money tracking/budgeting websites. I decided to try one out (Expensr), so in my down time at work yesterday I went through last months credit card and debit card transactions and put them in (gotta love online banking - have everything at your fingertips). I hope I can keep up with putting in my purchases everyday b/c it is pretty cool to see where the money goes. You also put in your deposits, so it shows you a green or red balance number, then you can break it into categories that shows you a pie chart of where you're spending the most money. So far I'm doing good with a green balance and the biggest chunks going to food, bills and savings. I even got Jeff to start it last night. Again we'll see how long we stay motivated to keep inputting the numbers :)

I saw snow for a few minutes today, but the white ground didn't stay more than another 5 minutes. oh well. It was a bit of a shock after wearing flip flops on the beach all weekend. I do love the beach, but it's not quite as much fun when it's too cold and/or rainy to get in the water. Still, it was a fun family weekend.

I ordered my Christmas cards tonight but I may have accidentally checked for slow shipping, so I'll be sending those out the week before :)

I saw a friend wearing a shirt the other weekend that said save the ta ta's. I just thought it was a funny shirt. then today I saw a network with that name on a friend's facebook page. Save the ta ta's is promoting breast cancer awareness and donates to the cause. Kinda cool with a catchy name. check it out: www.savethetatas.com

My view of the bright orange leaves is diminishing. Twice today we had a gust of wind that blew the leaves upward and in a circle - it was an amazing, beautiful site!

Saturday night we went to the UAH hockey game against Bemidji. They started a new tradition - to introduce the parents that traveled to see their kids play (most of our players are from up north and Canada). All the parents were sitting in 2 sections of the box seats and they did make it to Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn who stood up and waved (Wyatt Russell is our goalie). I've heard they try to be normal parents and attend all their kids functions - pretty cool. We were sitting across the ice from them and I saw at least 3 people with digital cameras with bit zoom lenses taking photos of them :) After the game I called my father-in-law and got to mess with him - he loves Goldie. I think they'll be coming again this year for a hockey game :)

Wow, haven't written on here in a long time.

We went to the Biltmore in Asheville, NC for our 3rd anniversary. Had a great trip and gorgeous weather including seeing the fall foliage, which we took the long way back so we could drive part of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Obama was elected president with about 52% of the popular vote. I think it's great but a few friends think it's the beginning of the end for this country. I teased them that they sounded more emotional that me -a pregnant woman :)
Now stories are coming out about how horrible Sarah Palin is, throwing temper tantrums, calling Africa a country, etc. I think it's funny. I agree with so many others that if McCain really wanted to win he (an old man) would have picked someone with more experience to be his second in command. I won't complain anymore, just hope Obama is full of the greatness we believe and can change the minds of the other voters.

Everyday life is still the same. So far having a healthy, non-eventful pregnancy which is good. Work is the same. Though the view outside my window is absolutely beautiful. Whatever kind of tree is just inches from my window now has bright orange/red leaves, and I can see all the fall colors in the hill in the distance. Even with fog and rain, it's still pretty today. My officemate is weeks away from getting moved to a cube-farm, so I keep teasing him to enjoy the view.

Holiday planning has begun with my sister-in-law. So nice to have another female in the family to help out with that sort of thing (and other things that don't occur to the men). I've got alot of Christmas shopping done - yeah - I hate the crowds and I refuse to go to the mall after dark, which is now very early.

This is a snippet of conversation I heard from a group of ladies walking to the next building:

"She said she was channeled and that the aliens are coming on Oct 14 and will be hovering over Alabama..."

Then it trailed off and I was too far to hear. I was tempted to follow them - I mean, I did hear it at NASA, so she could it be a legit source, right? haha :)
I then had a huge smile on my face for the next few minutes and passed a few people that gave me strange looks. Though they smiled back - ah the pleasantries of living in the south.

The latest McCain ad using the Ayers controversy pisses me off. They are saying Obama's character is corrupt because of something someone did when Obama was a kid. Here's the timeline:

* Bill Ayers - active in the 60s and 70s with the weatherman group and tied to some bombings - did some damage, but no injuries and he was never convicted (Obama was a kid then).
* Bill had kids in 77 and 80. Then he got involved with education. (I'm guessing grew up and is becoming a responsible adult)
* Ayers and Obama were on the same board for an anti-poverty foundation in the late 90s and lived in the same neighborhood.
* sometime in there Ayers contributed a whooping $200 to Obama's campaign.
* Currently Ayers is a distinguished professor at U of Illinois-Chicago.

In February 2008 (when Hilary brought up the issue), Obama spokesman Bill Burton released a statement from the senator about the relationship between the two: "Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous." More on wikipedia

Wow, just checked my 401K balance and it's down $14k for the year. And I know my balance is small compared to people close to retirement. I'd be freakin out if I was about 50+ years old right now. I keep hearing it's great for me (and other relatively young people), it's like the market is having a big sale, but it doesn't really help calm fears.
I found this comic yesterday - Damn it feels good to be a banksta. I immediately thought of the movie Office Space where the white guy is sitting in traffic in his beige Corolla with the song 'Damn it feels good to be a Gangsta' just blaring loud. So anyway, I found this comic hilarious. Thinking of the song also brought back a memory of driving through Nashville with some guy friends (white) while they too blared some gansta rap music with the windows down. I felt a bit silly but was laughing most of the time.

My friend Jon got married, so Jeff and I went to Austin for his wedding. We got there early on Friday and since it was so hot (about 92) we didn't walk around as much as I'd like, but we did take the Austin Overatures tour - a van ride for 90 minutes. I liked our guide (kinda reminded me of my friend Liz) and I saw more of the city that I ever had. The Austin City Limits Music Fest was that weekend, and we had to deal with some traffic, so after our tour, we tried to avoid downtown. I still love Austin and it is on a top place of mine to live one day, but I think I'm becoming more of a wuss to the heat. Or maybe I can blame the lack of tolerance on my pregnancy ? :) Jon didn't have people over to his house till 7pm Friday, so we still had a few hours to kill. Near our hotel was a place called Central market. A gourmet grocery store. Man, I wish we had one here. They had an olive bar that was at least 18 feet long, a salsa/dips bar, an entire aisle of cheeses, and then half an aisle for already prepared food ready to take home. The rehearsal dinner was a small gathering of friends and family, so that was nice.

Saturday morning we met my long time friend Maya for brunch. It's been about 7 years since I last saw her and another 7 or so before that (we grew up together). We had fun catching up then went to check out the huge costume store nearby on Congress St. I was about to take a photo, but Jeff stopped me and pointed to a sign prohibiting it - too bad. that place was huge and had thousands of costumes. We parted ways with Maya and her boyfriend, and Jeff and I continued to stroll the funky shops. It was hot again, so you had to keep going in shops for the A/C. We bought our first baby clothing purchase. They had several cute ones to choose from, but this one made me laugh most.

We made our way to the wedding location, a simple but pretty park in Austin. I think their wedding was as short as ours, and they were also married by a lady. They had a mariachi band for entertainment and Schlotsky's afterward. We were on the road headed to my dads about 4pm. The family visit was pretty uneventful and relaxing. I brought home a few more things of my grandma's including my dad's baby quilt she made, so that is neat.

Oh, I do hope that is my last plane ride till after the kid is born. I couldn't take cold medicine to help open my ears, so the plane descent was more painful that I remember before. Though, I found out Tuesday is a good day to fly - neither plane was full.
(pictures to be posted on picasa tonight)

Fast way to kill your day at work:
have a co-worker tell you she's about to go to New Zealand on an active vacation. The website: www.activenewzealand.com - has some amazing photo galleries. Especially the photo for kayaking Milford Sound. I want to go now! oh wait, I have baby duties coming up. I can still dream for one day :)