Been a long time since last posting.. again.

So here we are. Things are going pretty well I must say.

We found out we're pregnant:

We're due on Jan. 30th! We find out if it's a boy or a girl on the 10th of Sept. (that's like a week and a half!) I'm really pretty excited for confirmation that it is in fact a boy... as that's what I fully believe it is. A lot of people keep asking "When are you gonna find out what gender it is... Or are you going to?"  They always add the 'are you going to' part. Don't mean to offend anyone... but that's foolish. Why wouldn't we want to find out? I'm a pretty practical man, and I think it's absolutely foolish to not find out.

In other news, we got that nasty stump out of the front of our yard! When we moved into this house, everything on the inside was completely remodeled, so we didn't have much to do on the inside... but the yards were a mess. They've been a work in progress since then. The backyard looked like this:

And the front yard had this ugly palm tree in it:

So we mowed all the weeds away and started pulling out all the ugly brick lining/pavers:

And then we cut down the tree:

And then summer came and it got too hot to do anything, so the stump and the backyard just sat all summer long. (Here's the tree 3 months later):

Finally, a couple weeks ago, we broke down and hired a guy to come with a tractor and take out the stump as well as haul away a ton  (actually about ten tons) of rock/gravel from the backyard. We just want it all to be grass. So, currently, the front and the back are all just dirt and we're (I'm) working on the sprinkler system so it can be ready and then we can prep for and plant grass. I'm pretty excited that things are finally moving along. Though all the rain lately is slowing down work on the sprinklers... too much mud. And that's that!

To change the subject, Shirley and I have been trying to go on a lot of vacations, or just do fun things, since once the baby comes, we anticipate such activities being limited. The picture above is from an awesome camping trip we took a few weeks ago. This summer we also went to San Diego for the 4th of July, we went up to Shirley's family cabin a few times, we hiked 4 Peaks again (I really like this hike), we went to St. John's for the 24th of July celebrations, and we've just generally had a good time.

And that's it for now.