Coming Soon to a Hospital Near You

"Epidurals are amazing." - Crystal

So, we're at Banner Gateway Medical Center, having had a really rough weekend of expecting the baby to come at any moment. We came in on Sunday after a walk got Crystal's (then weak sauce) contractions to about 5 min apart. Monday we tried to do our things (Crystal had big cleaning plans) and wait, but it was hard. We had an OB appointment and he performed a minor procedure to get things moving along more. I decided after that that I wasn't going to be able to finish my workday, and that we'd watch one episode of Psych and wait to see if the contractions got regular and hardcore. They weren't quite there at the end of the episode (you know, the Civil War reenactment one? That one's great) so I did about a half-hour more of work. By this point we were really close, so I took another little break and we sat down for a bit and very soon we were ready to go. Contractions were about 3 minutes apart and nearly bringing Crystal to tears. It was about 5:05 when we actually got out the door.

After our two false alarms, it was a relief when we were fairly instantly admitted. We were working on getting everything ready in the LD room, but no nurses came soon. Seems they were pretty busy today. By now the contractions were pretty much back to back and really painful. I did a decent job coaching breathing, but it was clearly time for the epidural, which apparently was super awesome. Crystal's just chillin' and I'm obviously updating the blog.

The Year of New Beginnings

Today marks one year since our second first date. I made a video in celebration of this event and the awesomeness that has followed. Enjoy!

How You Know You Married the Right One

So, in the past we've used a blue dry-erase marker to write notes on the mirrors of our apartment. We hadn't done this much in the last few months, but this morning I found that Crystal had written this on the bathroom mirror:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Bears eat honey,
and I eat bears.

It was awesome. I am so blessed to be married to this woman, on account of she's hilarious.

Easter Fun

We had an awesome Easter! It rained on Saturday (a rare occurrence in the Phoenix area), but our ward went ahead with the Easter egg hunt that was planned in the park. Everyone was soaked, but nobody seemed to care. The Arizona natives all seemed to agree that when it rains you must get out in it and really enjoy it. So, we did. Here is a video to prove it.

We dyed Easter eggs together for FHE. It was really fun. Then on Easter we hid each others' eggs around the apartment and spent some time searching for them. Ben replaced the light bulb in my lamp with one of my eggs and I hid one of his inside our printer. We enjoyed Easter dinner with a family in our ward and had a great time visiting and playing Catch Phrase with them after dinner. Needless to say, it was a great weekend.
The Easter egg in my tummy continues to get bigger! Here is a picture at 31 1/2 weeks (about 7 months). We are getting excited and anxious for him to join our family. This week we got a crib (thanks Amanda and Aaron!) and a little organizer with drawers for his clothes and blankets. The baby moves a lot and he still likes to kick Ben when he gets the chance.

Dateline

In which we talk about a date. Real short.

The Great Outdoors

In which I tell you about stuff we did in the desert.

Soooo, just before Crystal's birthday, we went camping near Roosevelt Lake, named for Teddy, not Franklin. It was pretty cold and turns out the ground is hard, but it was a great time. Ward campouts are fun because you get to hang out with everyone, especially our two- and three-year-old friends. This is our video.




Then we celebrated Crystal's birthday. Her greatest desire was to get the Children's Songbook.
















Then we moved next door. The week after that, we went to see a Spring Training game (A's vs. Giants at Phoenix Municipal). It was awesome. I've been a closeted A's fan for a long time (read: 1989) and it was good to see the Boys in Green kick the hineys of their crosstown rivals.
















Then today we went and hiked Camelback Mountain, on the Cholla Trail. That was wicked intense. Rough hike...I think we both thought it was going to be only relatively "strenuous", but a good quarter of the trip was pretty much bouldering. Mind you, Crystal's almost 30 weeks pregnant. Sweet deal. We of course continued to the top, and are now suffering the consequences. I think even the baby is sore. But check out the view. Righteous!


(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

Our Search for Downtown

In which my wife and I find that Phoenix is the schizo town that can't figure out where it wants the cool people to go, and we get ready for Spring Training.

Matthew Polly, in a Slate article describing the beauty of St. Petersburg, Russia, chalks a lot of the city's soul up to its decades of oppressions. He says, "Democracies, while far more pleasant, leave behind places like Phoenix." Sad, but true. I'd like to back my newly-adopted city up, though, with this thought--the Valley of the Sun has about 160 years of catching up to do.

My wife and I were struck by the awesomeness that is San Diego's Balboa Park while on a short vacation there in January. On our return, we thought, "Surely the country's fifth-largest city and fourteenth-largest metropolitan area must have a place where all the cool kids go. You know, where people play music on the street corner for money, and there are overpriced hot dogs." Perhaps I added the hot dogs myself. We're still kind of on the search, but we think we've got it nailed down. Here were our steps:

1. Actual downtown Phoenix/Copper Square. This was sorely disappointing. Copper Square is not really a destination. The science museum area is fun, and there are some people around, but all the attractions are things you have to pay mad cheddar for (the sports arenas, sci museum, other museum-type dealies). There was a monster-truck rally downtown, and a man selling bottled-water on the street, so that was kinda close.

2. Encanto Park. This is apparently one of the "Phoenix Points of Pride", which means that it's something the government pays bank to upkeep. It was alright. It pretty much just looked like a city park, though, with a mini-amusement park in the middle. We did not go to the middle, as we were not looking for mini-amusements. They did, however, have paddle boats.

3. Papago Park. This is the home of "Hole-in-the-Rock", a geological formation of rock with a hole in it. We hiked up to the top of the rock, and saw the hole. It was ten whole minutes of awesome. Then we saw a rabbit and a roadrunner and some old people having a party. Not really much to speak of, but there's a lot more of this park we didn't see.

4. Mill Avenue District. This is pretty much what we were looking for. The main drag of Tempe (home to ASU) has a bunch of hippies and artists, buskers and bums. It's got the funny-looking stores etc. It's not really well developed yet, but it's headed in the right direction.

There isn't really a central meeting point in the city, but instead of there being no city center, there appears to be multiple. Enlightened, but slightly disheartened by this information, we're going to get what we can out of life here by going to Spring Training, which apparently draws quite the crowd. Awesome.