Kris and Cindy's Blog

Well, it looks like the little bundle of joy we’re expecting in December won’t be the only infant in the house come Christmas. Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to our newest bunny, Hailey.

Ever since our beloved Sky passed away in September last year, we pretty much knew that our other rabbit Star would need to have another furry friend.  It just came down to the timing, since we loved Sky so much and he was my favorite.

For the last week or so, it almost seemed that Star looked particularly lonely, so we started talking about finding another rabbit.  Well, after a visit to my cousin’s house in Schaumburg, the conversation kinda went like this.

Kris: Was there anything else you wanted to do while we’re out this way?

Cindy: I can’t think of anything, can you?

Kris: Wow, did you just pass up an open invitation to Woodfield?

Cindy: Sure, we can do that.

Kris: Hey, the pet shop where we brought Star home from is right down the street from here. Wanna stop in?

Cindy: Okay.

And after about 20 mins debating outside of this little one’s cage, we were verbally reorganizing our living room to re-occupy one of the empty cages we still had.

Star’s Splitting Image

Besides being 25% of the size of Star, these two are almost identical twins.  The only subtle difference we’ve seen so far is that the bottom of Star’s tail is white, like the telltale cottontail rabbit. Hailey – as in the comet, sticking with the astro theme here – has a gray tail to match the rest of her backside.

Aside from that, it’s like an eerie Austin Powers “mini me” sequence whenever we step back and look at the cages side-by-side.

The interesting thing is, neither one of them probably knows that they look like each other when you stop to think about it. I mean, unlike you and I, our rabbits don’t get up an look at themselves in the mirror every morning.  If anything, they may have an early memory of what their litter mates looked like, but who knows?

The Timing

While it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to make a detour to the pet shop, we didn’t jump into this decision lightly.  Like I said, we talked about it for at least 20 minutes first.

Kidding aside, we did factor in the arrival of our first son in December, and if there was going to be a time to find Star a companion and get them acquainted and coexisting together, it would be now.  Trying to introduce a 2nd rabbit to our household after our child was born and all the chaos and learning as new parents would not have left room for much else. And seeing Star by her lonesome for at least another year would be rough.  What can I say, we have a soft spot for these little guys.

And so, once again we’re a two rabbit household.  Seeing how we’re expecting to repeat all the early bunnyhood steps with Hailey that we did with Star, we’re pretty confident that it will be only a matter of time before our new furry friend will be hopping around like she owns the place.

It’s an interesting lead-in to this post that as I’m writing this, I’m actually standing in line to get to see the Stanley Cup in person for the first time Saturday afternoon. Sure, I could have just waited until I got back to the room or after the weekend was over, but having to stand in line for about an hour gave me more than enough free time on my hands.

Every Hockey Player’s Dream

It is totally cliche to say that growing up, every kid playing hockey dreams of holding up Lord Stanely’s Cup over his head. But the reason they say that is because it’s true.

Now, normally the dream is holding it up over your head at center ice of your home team’s arena. And while the viewing session that I waiting in line for won’t actually let me touch the trophy, I’m willing to take what I can get at this point.

The ultimate goal is to be back here in ten years with my son (who’s arriving later this year). The pessimist in me is saying that if I don’t treat this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to live out something from my youth, however, it will turn into a none-in-a-lifetime chance. Now, how could I do that to little Nelly Jr. before he’s even born? And no, that’s not going to be his name.

So, here I am, inching closer and closer. Tunes on the iPod, wearing a newly signed Jack Skille Rockford Ice Hogs jersey, and typing away on my iPod Touch. By the time you actually read this post, there will be a freshly taken snapshot of the greatest trophy in professional sports attached to it, and one more thing leftover from childhood that I can cross my list.

Sorry, but I gotta go. I’m next.

For the second year in a row, Cindy and I have made our way downtown for the 3rd annual Chicago Blackhawks Convention.  It’s such a nice way to fill that painfully long gap between the Stanley Cup Finals and the preseason.  Sure, there’s the NHL Awards, and free agency, and salary cap issue; but there’s nothing like a good convention with all the true lifelong Hawks fans to take your mind off the fact that we might not have our Stanley Cup goaltender anymore by the time you read this.

So much has happened between last year’s convention, both for the team and for us, personally. I could ramble on and on about each, but I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say that we’ve been looking forward to this weekend since Game 6 ended in OT, and it’s great to be here.

Baby Update

Of course, if you cared so much about the Blackhawks, you’d be standing in these long lines with us, so let’s skip to the good stuff.

I know the blog has been lacking the baby-to-be news that seems to be the most interesting to everyone, so I’m trying to get to posting more often (at least once a week). Especially now that we’re pass the half way point and things are going to start moving a long very fast from this point on. It’s going to be baby’s first Xmas before we know it.

If you’re not following along with us on Facebook, then it will be news to you that last week we found out our little one is going to be (or technically, already is) a boy. Well, that takes care of a few of our 20 questions. While not the little princess we were shooting for, my fatherly intuition is kicking into overdrive now and the prospect of having a little Nelly is starting to get to me more than I had imagined. Visions and goals for the future are coming fast and furious; the latest being thoughts of having a home up in northern Wisconsin with a backyard that, starting in about five years, will be flooded each winter. That’s a longer story, but I’ll get into it someday.

Being here at the convention this weekend – baby bump’s first hockey memories – has really put things into perspective as to how much fuller our lives are about to become.  And when I say fuller, I don’t mean busier, I mean complete. I’m not going to get all sappy, but just know that I could.

Hello August

It’s hard to believe that summer’s almost gone, but it is.

We have a few fun things coming up in August before things with mommy and baby get really intense. In a few weeks, we’ll be having dinner with tigers, and the weekend after that, we’re hoping to be heading back to Door County (finally) for the first time since January. Also the first time to Door County during a month that didn’t fall between September and April.

Of course, August was supposed to be the month we had hoped to spend entirely on Maui, as well as attending the ’10 Maui Photo Festival with all the great folks we met at last year’s event.  Obviously we have chosen to take a much different path with our lives since this time last year, but you’re not going to hear a single complaint from either of us.  A few years down the line, when we finally return to the island we love with keiki in tow, you might hear “holy cow, I can’t believe we’ve waited this long to come back” out of either one of us, but it won’t be a complaint, that’s for sure.

– Kris

Just about this time last year, Cindy’s sister was being released from the ICU at Mercy Hospital in Des Moines, IA after emergency heart surgery. We had made two road trips to visit her there last June, and we’re happy to say that she is doing very well.

While in Des Moines for a total of seven days between the two trips, we spent maybe 4 hours outside of the hospital itself. What little we did see seemed nice, so we thought we’d make a point of returning on better terms.

So, on the books for the weekend, we’re taking a 2nd three-day weekend for the road trip west. The plan will be for us leave Friday morning and spend a good part of the day in or near the downtown area. Cindy’s family, who live about an hour north of Des Moines will be meeting up with us Friday night and staying the weekend as well.

Then, we’ll have all day Saturday to explore the town together and even pick up a little baseball at the Iowa Cubs game Saturday night. We’ll all be staying in the same hotel downtown, so that works out rather nicely.

With all that’s going around here with BBQ’s and the baby, we haven’t had much time to just sit back and relax. This has turned into a much different year than we had anticipated after our trip to Door County at the beginning of the year. Some of our friends from the Maui Photo Festival last year just wrapped up an amazing week of Paradise Bootcamp on the island, wish I was totally interested in when I first heard about it in February.

And with our little one on the way and building up our baby war chest, we scrapped plans to return to Maui for the 2nd annual photo festival event. After all is said and done, we knew what we were getting into and are very, very excited with where this year is going to end, but it’s nice to still have these little weekends to look forward to.

Let’s only hope it will turn out better than our trip to Lake Geneva in April.

Cindy had her monthly check up today and everything seems to be in order. That is, except, for the ridiculous wait we had while we were at the office. 

According to one of the others in the packed waiting room, someone earlier was 20 minutes late and backed everyone up for the rest of the afternoon.  Personally, I wasn’t buying it because we were on-time for our 1pm appointment, but there were people that arrived after us and were seen before us.  My only guess is that they might have had other doctors, but still.

Time Machine

Anyway, aside from being a little frustrated with spending 45 minutes in the waiting room (and another 30 minutes waiting in the examination room) it was an interesting chance to see what’s in store for us.

It was pretty crowded as I mentioned, and there were mothers-to-be that were just seeing their first sonogram photo to another that was probably around 32 weeks, and another family with 3 little rugrats that left the office each carrying an ultrasound photo of their expected new brother or sister.  At the time, all the extra noise and chaos was just more aggravating, but looking back now it was kinda neat.

By The Numbers

Okay, enough with the philosophical stuff.  This afternoon’s visit puts Cindy at 16 weeks on her 40 week journey to motherhood.  She’s still down 7 lbs from the first visit, but she’s done with the morning sickness and gaining weight again. In fact, she even finished an entire Chipotle burrito for the first time a few years.

At next visit, she’ll be 20 weeks and by then they’ll be able to determine if we’re having a little princess or another Nelly.  The doctor this visit (all 5 minutes we saw him) said sometime between now and 20 weeks is when Cindy should be able to feel the little one starting to move inside her belly.  You know you’ll all hear about that when it happens for the first time.

Well, until next time.
  – Kris