MEGANDAVE

The Canaanite

2010-08-01T16:08:00.000-05:00

And there we saw the giants . . . and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." (Numbers 13:33).

I'm thinking this is what the other little kids at church think once they see the Little Man and realize that he is their same age and one day they are going to be stuck in a room for two hours with him for nursery time...

Our little giant is over 21 pounds and somewhere in the neighborhood of 29 inches long, even though he is only 7 months old. Many times I take him to church and to the grocery store and see people with kids his size, but they are doing things like walking, talking, eating, etc. Most of them have teeth and a full head of hair. Usually all of that is because those kids are between 12 and 18 months old...

Despite his giant-like proportions, he is my gentle little giant. I don't think he'll be treating the other little kids like grasshoppers in nursery. If anything, we'll have to make sure he doesn't squish them while trying to give out little huggies and kissies. We'll make sure to load him up with his 9 ounces of milk and two bottles of baby food, as well as a healthy stock of his size 4 diapers to make his nursery life more comfortable.

The Perfect Pet

2010-07-03T18:58:00.000-05:00

Steve is a toad that lives in our front yard garden. Dave and I have voted him the perfect pet. He feeds himself, keeps his own room clean, makes his own home, keeps the bugs away, and puts up with us taking his picture. I'm sure you can tell from his picture that he is absolutely full of personality. Steve treats us the same way a cat would; ignores us, comes around only to have food, uses the yard as he pleases, makes weird noises when he is happy, tolerates us taking his picture, and otherwise pretends we don't exist. Last week he went on a vacation to cavort with other toads, hang with the tadpoles, drink muddy water mixed drinks, and eat fireflies. He gives a whole new meaning to being a "toad."

Megan

2009-09-27T14:40:00.013-05:00

I love taking pictures of my beautiful wife (even though she protests every time I pull out the camera). So, as my first official contribution to the megandave blog here are some pictures of her progress through the pregnancy.

My goal is to take a picture every week but unfortunately I haven't been too good at that.

Sixteen weeks

I thought this was such a nice picture of Megan I had to include it (18 weeks).

Nineteen weeks.

Twenty weeks.

Twenty one weeks.

Twenty two weeks.

Twenty five weeks.

Twenty seven weeks!

A Swish Story

2009-07-26T17:55:00.000-05:00

So here goes. We're getting a new addition to our family. We found out April 28 that we are going to have a baby. It all started when I went to work and threw up in the trash can.

I haven't thrown up since fifth grade, so I knew something was up and that it was only one thing. One trip to Walgreens and the bathroom later, we knew that we were expecting parents. It took us a while to get in to the doctor, but we were finally able to get an appointment in on May 28. During that visit we had an ultrasound and saw it for the first time. It largely resembled the Jelly Belly man; it's head the same size as its body with little arms and legs sticking out of it (really; see for yourself). While the doctor was pushing around on my stomach to make sure that there is only one in there, it kind of swished around like those water games where you push the button to make the water jets that move the rings you try to get onto little tiny pegs in the water. So, long story short, our little munchkin is now called "Swish." Swish lives in a tank (formally known as a womb) and is fed Swish food once a day. Swish is due to enter this world on December 17, 2009, but we all know it will hold out for a week and come on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. It will always be the disgruntled child that got gypped at Christmas time (we have plans to fix that, though).

We also found out on July 16 that little Swish is truly a Swish (as opposed to a Swisha...).

Dave and I both thought he would be a little boy, but there was a significant group leaning to the contrary (including most of Megan's family and Dave's sister). We love little girls, and Dave will be wrapped around the little finger of any little girl we have, but I have to admit that I am really excited we are having a little boy. I have a secret hope that he'll be just like Dave: mellow, happy, nice, adorable... I know that any little girl we bring into the world will be just like me, which means fights by age two over what she's wearing, her looking homeless until she is at least 12, and a very mischevous personality. (Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a little girl, too, I just am being realistic about what that entails . . . just ask my mom).

I did get my first maternity pants, but am hoping

that I have sufficient flowy tops to hide the little bump where Swish lives and am hoping I can avoid getting new tops for a while. On Wednesday of this week, me and Swish will be at 20 weeks, which is good news on two fronts. First, if Swish comes early, it's likely he'll be okay. Second, my pregnancy (and Swish's compressed existence in my stomach) will be halfway over. Swish, I'm sure Swish will be grateful for the freedom (he already kicks hard enough for Dave to feel him), and I can be grateful to hold little Swish, too.

Making to Move to a Private Blog...

2009-07-05T18:28:00.003-05:00

We're going to be moving to a private blog. I know we have some followers out there, so please email me if you want to be invited to continue to follow our blog. We will be making the change around the middle of this month, so let me know in the next couple weeks if you want to keep up to date on MEGANDAVE's happenings!!!

Dave's Mad Barbeque Skills

2009-07-05T18:07:00.008-05:00

Dave is a barbeque master. While we were dating, Dave always

seemed to be the one barbequeing for the family events at his house: Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day... You name it and if Dave was there he was usually involved in grilling chicken or hamburgers. Since Dave and I moved away from family, though, we haven't really barbequed much worth mentioning. Our small barbeque that I got for Dave's birthday shortly after we were married simply sat in our storage room, sad, alone, and very dusty. It had been used every now and then, but not here in Kansas.

Then, on the Fourth of July, Dave and I finally vowed to have our own barbeque extravaganza. Dave really coordinated all of it. He picked out the foods we would have, the type of meat we would barbeque, and even picked out a marinade recipe. In case you are wondering, our barbeque consisted of chicken, grapes, pasta salad, chips, and rootbeer. So, on the Fourth of July we went to the grocery store (together, even better) and got all of the ingredients for our marinade. When we asked the Wal-Mart salesperson where the "liquid smoke flavoring" was, she kind of gave us a weird look like "I didn't even know they made that stuff," but showed us to the aisle full of barbeque condiments where we found one of the last two bottles of hickory flavored smoke (I'm not making this up; I have no idea what goes into that stuff...It's definitely not something that any organic granola is going to be purchasing...). When we got home, Dave told me what to put in the marinade and we mixed it all together and came up with a great and yummy marinade. Then Dave broke out our barbeque...

Looking at this picture, I realize that I really need to get Dave a bigger barbeque. We've talked about it for a long time, but we just haven't made the plunge. While this barbeque has something like 250 square inches of grilling space, only about 75 to 100 of those inches are usable (the heating element doesn't reach to the rest; just remember that I didn't have much money to work with when I got this for him...). Dave made the best of it, though, and cooked the yummiest barbeque chicken I've had in a long time. If any of you decide you want to come visit us this summer (or fall; it's decent here through November), you'll have to make sure to ask Dave to make his Hot Man Chicken for you.

Dave's Hobbies

2009-04-19T19:27:00.002-05:00

For those of you who know Dave, you know that he is a man that has few hobbies. Being in Kansas, most of his primary hobbies, such as hiking, mountain biking, doing anything outside, really, have been completely eliminated by the lack of topography and public lands. So, since we have moved here we have been trying to find new hobbies for Dave. Enter motorcycle racing.

As many of you may have guessed (or at least suspected), Dave is an adrenaline junkie. Whether it was his sixteen year old skydiving experience or simply driving quickly with him on the freeway, you may be aware that Dave likes to have extreme experiences. First was the innocent motorcycle to save gas money while driving back and forth to school. Then there was the desire to have a motorcycle for a larger engine (that is where I should have suspected something; he told me everyone wants a bigger engine after their first bike). Then it was the internet surfing for motorcycle race tracks. Following that was more shopping for leather motorcycle gear, gauntlet gloves, and boots. Then it was the "I just want to modify my engine to give it more power..." followed by several hours in the garage working on his motorcycle. Finally, it was the outright, "I want to ride my motorcycle on the racetrack in Topeka" followed with information about every detail needed to make that happen. Dave, in his usual fashion, had researched every detail of what was needed to make his new hobby a go.

In short, Dave's hobby will include driving on a track in excess of 200 miles an hour (in a controlled environment) wearing a leather suit with interior armor on a tricked out motorcycle that he has modified himself. I'll take pictures that we can make into posters, so don't you worry about that. Overall, I'm happy that Dave found a hobby. I'm even more happy that he's found something to do that will fill his addictive need for thrills in a (somewhat) safe way. Now how is that for a cure for boredom?

Jezubel

2009-01-04T19:58:00.002-06:00

So, as many of you have already heard, Dave and I had some major vehicular difficulties while we were out in Utah for our Christmas vacation. Specifically, the day before we were going to drive home the "check engine" light came on. Dave had the car checked and the repair shop told us that the transmission was the problem.

We had to figure out pretty quickly what we wanted to do, considering that our car was the only way that we were going to be able to get home. Dave had been talking about selling the car for a while, so we figured that this was as good a time as any. We didn't really think it was worth it to us to fix the car, so we decided that we would sell it. That was kind of a painful decision, considering that over the course of the last year and a half we have replaced the wheels, tires, timing belt, other belts, oil filter, fuel filter, water pump, and spark plugs, not to mention that we also put in a premium battery the week before and recently put top of the line windshield wipers on the car, too. Dave put the car up for sale for a really low price and told the buyers what was wrong with the car and we were able to sell it within a day. Dave's sister, Liz, and her husband, Marco, helped us to sell the car and were kind enough to wash it and keep it in their garage for us.

Being without a car, we needed a replacement to drive home in. We got a little SUV crossover. While this means that we are one step closer to a mini-van (which we will never own, per MEG's instructions) and are now a sedan-free family, we really like the car. In fact, it's like a new member of our family. So much so that we named her Jezubel.

The car has a "technology package" meaning that it has a navigation system and can literally talk to you and you can talk to it. Although Megan has only seen this in the movies thus far, it is pretty cool. The only problem is that Jezubel may be a better female counterpart for Dave than Megan is. Jezubel is really techy and speaks geek, just like Dave does. She never gets lost and always listens to what Dave says (unlike Megan). She wants Dave's attention when he drives and asks him questions to be helpful when Dave tries to set up her different features. On the other hand, Megan questions what Dave is doing because she doesn't get it instead of being smart like Jezubel and helping him set up the different utilites. Also, Jezubel doesn't demand attention, she just gets it when absolutely necessary to do Dave's bidding (again, also unlike Megan...).

So, not only does Megan lose out on the tecnology, she also isn't quite as cool as Jezubel is. Jezubel is shiny, purple/gray, has sleek lines, and has this husky female voice. Her voice is always helpful, deep, and very sultry. She gives Dave directions where to go, helps him set up his cell phone, and otherwise speaks to him with her tanatlizing voice. Jezubel scolded Dave twice when he took off his seatbelt (she really does sound mad if you take off your seatbelt while you are driving), but I think Dave didn't mind because she still sounded good while she was getting after him.

Because of her superior appeal, Megan and Dave thought that Jezubel would be a good name for the car. (As a note, we thought about naming her Isabel, after the famous Book of Mormon harlot, but Jezubel has a nicer ring to it). Megan thinks that Jezubel might just be trying to steal Dave away. Because she has turbo, goes really fast, hugs the road, is nice, and gets good gas mileage, Megan might just be out of luck...

Our First Christmas Tree

2008-12-14T13:32:00.006-06:00

Until this year, Dave and I have never had a Christmas tree up on Christmas since we've been married. That means in three Christmases (this is our fourth), our house was cold, sad, and lonely and without any fun ornaments. It's a funny thing, too, because one of my family's Christmas traditions is to shop every year for an ornament for each family member. Then we put all of our ornaments on the Christmas tree. I'll admit, Dave and I haven't been the greatest at keeping up on the tradition, but the first Christmas we were married we did purchase some ornaments for our non-existent tree.

We were always sad that we didn't have a Christmas tree, and it seemed like every year we said was going to be the year that we bought a Christmas tree during the day-after Christmas clearances. Last year we finally made good on our plans and bought a pre-lit 7 1/2 foot tall Christmas tree off of Amazon.com. Even though we got it after Christmas, we put it up last year after it came in the mail. We left it up for around a week. It didn't have any ornaments (even though we had bought two ornaments two years before that).

This year we put up the Christmas tree during family night. It took us almost a week to finally begin spreading out the branches so that it looked nice. I spent an hour starting to make the branches look good, and Dave spent more time. Dave got the top part of the tree done (which is why the top part of the tree looks so much better than the rest) and then Megan decorated the tree. As said before, we didn't have very many ornaments. We were better about our tradition this year and we bought two more ornaments (for a total of four). We put our two new ornaments on the tree, but it looked really sad to say the least, so I braved the crowds on Saturday to finally buy more Christmas decorations. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the sales on Christmas ornaments. At Linens and Things I bought a bunch of "unbreakable" ribbon ornaments for the tree. (Although I don't really worry about Dave breaking the ornaments, in the future there will probably be other family members that will want to play with, eat, hit, and otherwise destruct any and all ornaments, decorations, or other items within their reach.) They were 70% off, so I got enough ornaments to decorate our tree with for a grand total of $15.00. I know, it's quite the investment, but they'll last for generations to come...

So, in celebration of our first Christmas actually having a tree up at our house, Dave and I decided to take some pictures for all to see, especially since you won't be able to see it in person. I also have taken some pictures of our ornaments that we picked out this year. I'll let you guess who picked out what ornament.

Black Friday: The Best Day of the Year

2008-11-23T14:35:00.003-06:00

I am really excited this year for Black Friday, which is my absolute favorite day of the year for many reasons. Above and beyond all of the great deals that you can find on the usual pillows, candles, cooties games, and free hot dogs and doughnuts, the Friday after Thanksgiving is the day that Dave and I went on our very first date. For those of you who don't know the details of our first date, I'll give them to you. Dave and I met at the bank, where Dave caught my eye and I though he was cute, too. Dave would always work the line by either speeding up his super service or slowing it down so that I would come to his window (I don't think I ever went to the bank without going to his window when he was there). Anyways, after a couple months of this, I gave Dave a gift certificate to the restaurant where I worked and told him to come in during a lunch shift that I was working. He came in and asked me on a date for the day after Thanksgiving. (As a side note, Dave couldn't wait and conned me into being his math tutor in the mean time even though he didn't need any help). So, the big day arrived and Dave and I went to Temple Square in Salt Lake. We wandered around looking at the lights and Dave told me a bunch of stories about when he worked there. In particular, he told me about these "tunnels" underneath Temple Square that the general authorities and others can use to access the various buildings. I thought Dave was making it all up and trying to tease me because he thought I was gullible or something. Anyways, I defiantly told him that no such tunnels existed, but that I would ask my dad whether Dave was telling the truth. After finishing up at Temple Square, we went to the ZCMI foodcourt and got hot chocolate and talked for a long time. After I got home I asked my dad about the tunnels, and, in case you are wondering, they do exist and my dad has been in them before. I can't believe that date was five years ago...

In addition to my fun first date with Dave are all the memories I have with Erica getting up way before dawn and standing in the freezing dark outside of Shopko. We had a routine every year. First, we would go to Shopko. We always tried to be the first in line, but I think we only made it once out of the six or so years we've gone. We would always go tearing through Shopko and would sometimes buy a fleece blanket, but usually we didn't buy anything. Then we would go to Smith's Marketplace and get breakfast, which consisted of doughnut holes and hot cider. One year I think I bought a large pillow while we were there. Then we would hit up Rite Aid, where we also didn't buy anything (nope, not even once). If we had time, then we would hurry over to K-Mart and then go to Target. Because Target always opened an hour later than Shopko, we usually ended up waiting in Target's line, too. Then we would go tearing through Target. After buying a couple of presents at Target, we would then go to Walgreens to stock up on the $5 videos that went up for sale at 7:30 and buy whatever lip gloss was on extreme sale. Then we'd get home pretty close to right after the sun came up and head to bed. What a day.

One of the funniest times was when we brought a video camera and began harassing the people in line by asking them stupid questions and interviewing them. We then took the video camera to Target and ran screaming through the store and video taped all the people running around. It is really crazy the things people do on the day after Thanksgiving. Usually you hear about at least one or two fist fights, but you also may be lucky enough to see people knocking over displays (like the chapstick display), dropping things (like a large bottle of oil), or generally being grumpy (who wouldn't be at 4:30 in the morning)? For those of you who have seen the movie Jingle all the Way, it really isn't that far from the truth.

This year I am going to go shopping with Samara in Austin, Texas, where they have lots of "stuff marts." We don't have these here in Wichita. Essentially, stuff marts have lots of "stuff" and it is impossible to predict exactly what they might have. Last year they had about a million different kinds of Christmas cards (maybe a million and a half, I can't be sure), a ton of 70 piece comforter and decoration sets that you can use to make your entire house match, and a bunch of other random things. I like stuff marts because I like to look around without necessarily buying anything and it's really amazing to see all the different things that there are that you can purchase. Seriously, I never knew that a lot of that stuff existed, let alone that I wanted to buy it. So, long story short, we are definitely going to be hitting those places up. I'll let you all know how it goes.

megandave are on the air

2008-11-22T19:32:00.003-06:00

Well, one year after Dave said that he would start a blog, I decided that it was high time that we actually get on up and running online. Since I'm not cool enough to speak html or any other geek language, I'm using the ready-made templates from Blogspot (at least it's a start).