New Videos Posted

Sorry, gang, for being so slow to add new entries lately. I took two short videos this morning with my phone and just posted them on YouTube, which means they should show up here on the right fairly soon. Both are essentially the same. Zac was "talking" to his toys but when I began shooting the video, he was too absorbed in watching himself on the external monitor of my phone to do anything else. But at least y'all can get a chance to see him today.

Mom and Dad left this morning by bus to head back to Custer. We were up at 3:30am (ugh) and the bus was supposed to pick them up at this gas station/supermarket downtown at 4:55. He got there at 6:05. By the time I returned home and took the trash out, it was almost 6:30, meaning I'd been up 3 hours, which made it impossible to get back to sleep. I'm hopeful the two of them catch a few winks on the trip. As I write this, they should be on a short layover in Sioux Falls, SD, then leaving again around noon and arriving this evening shortly after 5, if everything is on time.

Katy threw me a nice surprise birthday party Saturday night, inviting several of my friends. I had an inkling something was up, but I really didn't know for sure of anything. We had a nice cookout with her parents and family and my parents and a few friends. It was good food and Katy made banana pudding, the kind Yankees don't get to eat unless they go South or know someone from the South. It's amazingly good and well worth skipping a cake for this year. She wanted to do something special for my 40th birthday and I feel very blessed to have such an amazing, beautiful woman as my wife. :)

Dedication Day

Today we had the honor of dedicating Zac to God. Both sets of grandparents were here to see the event and Aunt Mickie, Uncle Chad and the kids would've made it on time except for an unfortunate event with Mandy this morning that resulted in some cleaning up that delayed their arrival. :)

These two pics are not the greatest, but it's about all I've got to share that was salvageable. Our camera didn't handle the lighting so well this morning, for some reason. This first pic is of Zac before the dedication. You can see his cute little outfit we picked up just for the occasion and he's actually awake! We didn't know it, but apparently being awake was a rarity for him for over six hours this morning and into early afternoon. Now, if he could only do that at night!

This second pic is the best I could do with adjusting one of the pictures we had. Zac is, unfortunately, not terribly visible during this one and is sucking on a pacifier, hiding his face. The closest one I had of him during the dedication, I was blocked off by our pastor, Dave Holland. Now, Dave's a good-looking guy and all but this was supposed to focus on Zac and I didn't want him stealing the attention away. (Ssshhhhh, now that I've said this, Dave will be forever in my debt because I made him out to be so awesome.)

Baby Dedication on Mother's Day

Zac is being dedicated this Sunday at our church. I think it's neat that we're doing it on Mother's Day, too, though that is a bit unusual from a timing perspective, I'm sure. He's certainly enjoying his time this week with Grandma and Grandpa being here in Omaha with us. Grandma dotes on him constantly, which gives me extra time to take care of things around the house and job search without being constantly distracted.

Unfortunately, I think Zac is a little under the weather right now. He seems to be a bit edgy and his nose is a little stuffy. He also is getting some stuff in his eyes, so we'll just take it easy and he should be fine in a day or so. One thing we hope is that Zac isn't subject to allergies just yet like we are. Katy has to take Claritin every day and I have to take Allegra from Spring through Fall. He's gone for walks the past few days as the weather has been so nice here and that could be why he's having the sniffles a bit. :)

Travel Looking OK

Looks like travel through Nebraska should be OK after all. There is patchy snow and ice between Chadron and Alliance and just south, but mostly roads are apparently OK. This is a better option than going up through Rapid City. Apparently they saw 14 inches of snow in the storm and so the ice and snow issues on the highway near there and I-90 east of there are a bit much to handle.

My brother Dan tells me that Lead, a place northwest of Custer and further up in the hills, received 32 inches of snow and Harding, SD received 48 inches of snow. Wow! Glad we are not there! Heading for home in the next 2 hours, it looks like. Think we'll feed Zac before taking off and then be on our way.

Spring in Custer

As promised, here are a few pics of what Custer is like today, May 2nd. Sheesh. The Interstate east of Rapid City is closed for about 100 miles. Roads south of us are closed in Nebraska, so it's a good thing we aren't supposed to be heading home today. The storm hit much more of Nebraska than was forecast, so snow goes quite a bit east, meaning travel could be iffy even tomorrow, depending on how things play out. We'll be watching road conditions in the morning and making our decisions on how to hopefully get home. Here are some pics.

Snow! Oh No!!!

As I write this we are under a blizzard warning up here in Custer. That's right. It is May 1st and we are in a blizzard warning. There is something very wrong with that statement. So far, not so much snow, but apparently much, much more to come. I am personally hoping God chooses to keep the storm north in the hills and lets us get a smaller amount. Not only don't I want to deal with more winter after the extremely long winter we already had in Omaha, but I don't want to have to drive back through South Dakota on I-90 Saturday. Though that path looks to be seeing very little snow once you are east of Rapid City, it's a longer drive than going down through Nebraska and it's boring, too.

We'll see what we wake up to Friday morning and how it goes throughout the day. I hope to update this with a picture if snow indeed becomes what they say we should still get (forecast said anywhere from 6 to 20 inches). Woo...hoo.

Meeting Grandma & Grandpa

We are up in Custer, arriving this past Saturday afternoon about 2 or so. We took our time getting here, staying overnight in North Platte Friday night so we wouldn't have to do the entire trip at once and force Zac to stay in the car that long. Thought we'd just let him get used to it before we do a longer time frame in the car for him.

The big thing about being up here is that it's his first chance to meet the rest of my family. On Saturday he got to meet Grandma and Grandpa, plus his Aunt Stacy and Uncle Dan. Then on Sunday he got to meet his Aunt Lisa, Uncle Rudy, and cousins Holly, Sandra and Julie. Everyone has taken turns holding him and, well, pretty much just staring at him. He is awful cute, after all.

So today's pics are of the first times Grandma and Grandpa got to hold him. Grandpa's chance came many hours after Grandma first got a hold of Zac. When we arrived at the house, mom grabbed him and that was it for about four hours. :)

Having fun up here but the dry weather combined with the start of spring is conspiring to wreak havoc with our allergies, and we're suffering a bit for it.

Size Update

I promised you a size update and have one, but was delayed in getting to this until late tonight as I've been busy trying to semi-finish off the basement room so guests have a place to stay. Specifically, mom and dad will be here in a little over a week and will need a room, so now they have one, since I finished it around 11 tonight. Phew! Hopefully the feeling in my hands returns soon and I can actually close my hands first thing in the morning within a few days. :)

So we had Zac's 3-month checkup today. He's having monthly checkups right now just because he was so early. Now remember, he was 9 weeks early to begin with, and we were told to expect him to be at least 6 weeks behind on behavioral and learning things for the first 9-12 months, or even more. The good news is, he's finally on the charts for size and weight, even for a 3-month-old. Just for kicks, Dr. Ogden compared where he would be on the 2-month-old charts (so that's 4 weeks, not even 6 different) and while he's barely on in the 3-month charts, he'd be in the 50th percentile for height at 2 months and I think 25th percentile for weight if they took it at that level. I say that just to point out he is getting bigger and, as we thought, will likely be a pretty big boy here before his first year is out.

Now for the details. He weighed in today at 10 pounds, 2 ounces and he is now 23 inches long. Not bad for where he started! Well, we're off to Custer tomorrow (Friday) around mid-afternoon. I'll update as I can while there.