November & Early December 2004

Here she is, a couple of months pregnant and enjoying the good life, motorcycling in the Moab desert, taking the baby out for some great views of the Green River.

You've been wondering and wondering if Stace and I were ever going to get around to it and . . . well . . . we did! Stacey and I (mostly Stacey, of course) are pregnant! We're due on May 4th--Stacey's well into her second trimester now as we move into the beginning of December. As near as we can figure, it took us all of a week to get pregnant once we stopped not trying, so we feel pretty lucky. We held off on telling our family and friends until we were out of the first trimester just to make sure that things were going to go okay with it all.

I remember when her tummy used to look like this . . .

This was about two and half months, I think . . .

And into the fourth month there's no doubt that she's building a baby!

Stacey's been doing great with the pregnancy. While a little nauseous and headachy from time-to-time, she's kept ahead of the morning sickness impressively. She water-skied, mountain biked and dirt biked right through it all. She has, of course, begun curtailing those activities, but is looking forward to staying safely active throughout the pregnancy. Hopefully things work out so that she can do so. In the mean time, she's been eating like a horse and sleeping like a log. Most evenings, I find myself the only one awake if it's much past eight. I guess I had better enjoy the peace and quiet . . . we just signed up for many years of anything but. And we couldn't be more excited!

We're getting lots of hand-me-downs from friends who are sending their old baby-building clothes our way.

We have a doctor in Gunnison--Stacey's seen him three or four times now. He says that she's having a "textbook" pregnancy so far, which is wonderful to know. We got to hear the heartbeat back in October and it was amazing! When he positioned the stethoscope just right, there was a swishing, pulsing sound that announced, "here I am!" It was pumping away at 168 beats per minute, so good and healthy. That led the doc to think that it's a girl. I don't think we're going to find out if it's a boy or a girl--we're going to surprise ourselves around May fourth. And if you ask us what we're going to name it, we'll probably tell you we're going to name it after you. So Stacey and I are in for some big changes in the coming months and looking forward to them.

Here's a shot of Vern up on the ski hill at the old Paradise midway. That's about as high as we got up the mountain that morning.

My dad was our big visitor for the month of November. He stayed with us for a couple of nights, helped me get the garage squared away so that we could fit all of our toys, plus two cars in, and then headed for Moab. I joined him there for a weekend of riding, and another friend from Wisconsin--good fun!
Here's a herd of elk that we saw the same morning that we went driving up on the ski hill. You can how there is considerably less snow, here, on the valley floor, than there is at the ski resort.

This is Dad and I smiling after our garage rearrange was complete. Getting the boat wedged in with the cars tucked in around it was a major coup!

A friendly (?) game of Rumikub . . .

Spinning across the Dubinky Dunes in Utah.

Dad and Bob checking out some 'glyphs left by ancient inhabitants.

Lunch stop on the ride . . .

. . . where we enjoyed Dad's specialty, PB & J tortilla roll-ups!

consin joined us to make for some adventuring in the desert. Things were a little chilly in the mornings as we cruised the back country roads, enjoying the views and checking out the 'glyphs and ruins from some of the earlier inhabitants of the land, but the days usually warmed up nicely.

This is what makes riding in Utah so cool. The views are staggering and the roads take you right to excellent overlooks. Some times the roads even make you a part of the view. You can see Dad and Bob riding the jeep road that has some significant consequences if you veer to far to the left.

Before Dad was here, I was just in Houston for a week of electrical training for work. It was a good class and well worth the time spent to go. The hotel I stayed at for the course was just a couple of miles from NASA, so there were (no joke) lots of rocket scientists staying there, as well. I felt like a pretty dim bulb in that high-wattage company.

The ski area opened November 20th, so the ski season's underway for Crested Butte. Getting ready for opening day took the usual push and pain around the office, but it was just nice to actually open so that folks would stop stressing about it. We were hammered with snow over the Thanksgiving weekend . . . I think our snow total was just over 50 inches at the resort. It was between knee and waist deep around our house. Since then, temps have dropped and we're close to 20 below zero most mornings. So we're into winter and things are looking good!

Check out the snow on the Sierra! Stacey's sampling a bit of the powder.

Since I can't seem to post this page and be done with this, you get an added bonus! Stace and I were lucky enough to be invited by friends of ours, Bobby and Sarah, to go out and cut a Christmas tree! Bobby's dad owns a snowmobile rental outfit on the other side of Monarch pass, so we borrowed a couple of machines, snowmobiled out into the backcountry and cut our own Christmas tree. It sure beat picking one up at City Market! Ha.

Here are Bobby and Sarah working on their tree. While it wasn't a very clear day, you can just make out the mountain peaks way up there in the background.

Stacey cracking herself up, dragging our great, big, beautiful tree back to the snowmobiles.

Loading the trees onto the toboggan.

We made some time just to play around on the sleds, as well. Bobby grew up riding and could some amazing things on this high-performance mountain sled.

I guess you call it baby's first snowmobile ride . . . both mom and baby did just fine out there. Except I don't think that mom's snow pants zip all the way up any more . . .

That's about it for now . . . we hope you're looking forward to a great holiday season! Drop us a line when you get the chance!