Anatomical Ultrasound Today

...maybe! I'm now 18 weeks along, and this morning I went for my big ultrasound. The baby looked really good and healthy. But its legs were crossed. Bummer! The ultrasound tech did say he thought he saw girl parts, he just couldn't be sure. He apparently has a good track record for identifying a baby's gender, however. While we're not painting the nursery pink quite yet, we are mentally gearing up for a girl. Whatever that means =)

Memorial Day BBQ

For the first time I made baby back ribs on the grill. Overall, they turned out pretty good. But there are so many different combinations of cooking time, temp, bbq sauce, dry rub, etc. that I think it will take me quite a while to perfect.

Criss-Crossing the US

Well, time to hit the road again. Not as nice as my "business trip" to Hawaii, but still not bad. And technically I am only driving to one location: San Francisco, which is only an hour away. Everywhere else is from one airplane to another.

Fortunately, Robyn and the boys will be able to stay in Buffalo with the grandparents and I will be back there in between my trips. Let me know if you are in town any of these places, because I'd like to drop by (if there is time). Most of these places I will only be in for a day...

May 28 - San Francisco
May 29 - Los Angeles

May 31-June 3 - Buffalo
June 3-4 - Boston
June 5 - Richmond, VA
June 6-7 - New York City

June 8-9 - back in Buffalo
June 10 - Kansas City, KS
June 11 - Chicago
June 12 - Detroit
June 13 - Minneapolis

June 14-16 - back in Buffalo
June 17 - Atlanta
June 18 - Ft Lauderdale
June 19 - Dallas
June 20 - Charlotte

June 21 - back to good 'ole San Jose

I might be skipping Atlanta and Charlotte during the last week, just to take a break. I will really miss Robyn and the boys, but at least I know they will be having fun at the Ceroky and Eubanks grandparents' houses. And being June, hopefully it is safe to assume they will be able to play outside, but hard to say being Buffalo ;-)

The one good thing is that this secures me for Premier status on United again, now through the end of 2009. The benefits are so good, including auto upgrades to Economy Plus and First Class, plus priority check-in. But it sure takes a lot of miles to get there (25,000 flown in one calendar year).

Baby Kicks!

At least I think so. They are so small right now that I've only noticed them when I'm resting and not distracted by anything else going on around me (a rarity around here, as you can imagine). I expect to be more certain of it in another week or so. For now I look forward to the few moments in a day when I can feel them. Yay for a growing baby!

Hopefully, I'm not just reporting gas pains to the world...

Hayden at 15 months

Today I took Hayden to the doctor for his 15 month check-up. He's holding steady in the >95 percentile for height (34 in), and has slimmed down to the 80th percentile for weight at 27lbs 8 oz. Hayden is slowly adding more words to his vocabulary and currently he says Hello, Bye, Uh-Oh, Cheese, and No fairly clearly, with several other words that are only recognizable by their context ("thank you", "there it is"). (He learned to say cheese in Hawaii when we were taking so many pictures!) Caleb and Hayden actually sometimes both wear 3T shirts. Caleb wears the 3T brands that run big and Hayden just started wearing the 3Ts that run small! It's amazing how much sizes can vary between brands.

Hayden continues his monkey antics around the house and wherever we go- climbing and pulling up on anything, with no fear of falling. He's been very creative in finding objects to use at stools. I don't know how many times a day I say, "Hayden, the chairs stay at the table!" It's tiring trying to keep up with him! The fun part is watching his verbal comprehension grow exponentially... like the other day when he was whining at the kitchen sink, and I said, "You don't need to wash your hands right now" and he then threw a tantrum right after I said it. =)