Life's adventures

There's nothing quite like cuddling up next to your spouse in the morning after your alarm clock has gone off, the last few peaceful moments before you roll out of bed and head out to the office. And there's nothing quite like doing that only to feel something that your brain doesn't fully register and have your wife turn to you and say “Honey, my water just broke.”

Chase Roderick Millar was born just over 3 hours after the above happened to us this morning. We were at the hospital for a whopping 52 minutes before he rolled out. The midwife who delivered for Sabrina gave me brief instructions on what to do in case we didn't make it to the hospital when the next one is born.

He's 19 inches long and weighed in at 7lbs 14 ounces.

Here are a few pictures. These are from right after he was born. I'll post some more tonight after I get home from the hospital.

Trying not to be jealous

My brother has called me twice today. Why? Because he's in Puerto Rico on vacation. For those of you who don't know the significance of that for me, I served a mission in PR. In fact, I got home almost exactly 6 years ago. I can't believe it's been that long! I haven't been back and I would love to. It just hasn't been in the cards yet. My bro and his wife found a killer deal on a flight there. They live in Florida, so finding a flight there for a good deal is easier than finding one from here. Anyway, they are currently shopping at a place in my last area. Earlier, he was reading me the menu from the place they were going for lunch. It is bringing back so many fabulous memories. I am totally happy they were able to take this little getaway since he'll be starting dental school in a couple of weeks and then his life will be crazy for a few years. However, it's so hard to not be jealous. They invited us to come along if we wanted to. For some reason, I just thought the timing might be off ;)

I wish I had my mission pictures scanned in so I could put a few on here, but I haven't done that project yet. I guess I'll add that to my ever growing project list. However, here's a beautiful picture I found on the Internet of San Juan.



Can you imagine living there for a year and a half and never going into that incredible ocean? See, I really need to return.

And no, no baby yet, but I've been feeling pretty good the last few days, so it's quite bearable. Thanks for asking :D

Word of warning

This is just a bit of a reminder for any and all of you out there who use a computer. Computers fail. In fact, they often fail when you least expect it. Tonight one of my good friends called to talk about a "clicking" hard drive. If you are familiar with hard drives, you'll know that "clicking" means dead. As in "only good for a doorstop" dead. If you have any data on their that you want recovered, you're talking, hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars to recover. Not ideal. Last week I had an external hard drive fail. Unlike my friend however, I had redundant backups. I didn't lose any data.

This is by no means a knock on my friend, but rather a suggestion to any and all of you out there. If you don't have an external hard drive, get one. They're not that expensive. It's worth it, especially when your hard drive starts making the "click click" sound.

Had to Pass it Along

My friend just posted this BEAUTIFUL new Radiohead song to her blog (thanks, Al!) and I couldn't help but pass it along for two reasons: First, I love Radiohead (and among many exceptional songs, this is an extremely exceptional song) and second, I hate war. It's a song they wrote in honor of Harry Patch, the last surviving (and just recently passed away) British veteran of WW1. I especially love one of the lines of the song:

"Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves"

So poignant. Much of the time, war is determined by leaders who will never see the personal devastation soldiers, their families and the victims of war have to go through. If leaders have disputes, let them work it out amongst themselves. There are plenty of us who are content to live and let live in this world. Thank you, Thom York, for expressing that so eloquently.

You can download the song, and read more about the background behind it here.

Just for the record, I am not anti-military. I am all about self / national defense, but boy have we blown that idea way out of proportion in our modern world.

Happiness

If you've never heard and / or checked the Design Mom blog, you ought to, especially if you are a mom, but that's not required. She normally posts about cute little companies that make eye-pleasing things for children. However, she's also featured how to make the cutest toddler bed, which we're so doing when we move the new little one out of our room and into the crib-turned-toddler-bed (turned back into a crib) that Adie currently occupies. This blogger also painted her piano green not too long ago and it looks rad. I'd love to see her home and that piano in it. I am sure everything she touches is beautiful. So, anyway, she doesn't normally opine on music, although occasionally on books, but she posted a link to this version (see below) of Come Thou Fount today and I just loved it, so I thought you ought to know about it too, if you don't already. It made me happy. See, I promise my life is more than complaining about political doom and gloom :)

And you thought 1984 was just a story

Words fail to describe how appalled I am at this story: Link There are so many issues with this I don't even know where to start. I think it's about as obvious as can be that politicians, when elected by an apathetic populace who unwilling to intervene, will continue to expand their own power base, believing that only they are capable of dictating what is good and right for the general populace. See also: Health Care reform Society doesn't exist for the benefit of people, people exist for the benefit of society, you knew that right?

Any Day Now!

Today I am officially 37 weeks pregnant, according to my due date. Now, due dates are pretty arbitrary since every gestation is different, every baby is different and every woman's cycle is different. Therefore, I don't put a whole lot of stock in that date. However, Adie was born the day I turned 37 weeks so, I really wanted to have pretty much everything ready to go by today, just in case, since she caught us definitely unawares and unprepared last time. I spent a lot of time last week unpacking boxes, washing baby gear and clothes, rearranging Adie's clothes, etc. I have purchased anything I didn't have and I feel very prepared this time. This probably means he won't come for another 4 weeks or so. I thought I would be fine with this, but this heat is killing me and these last few weeks have definitely seemed harder on me than what I remember from the last few weeks with Adie. In any case, we are expecting this baby to come any day this month, so we'll keep you posted!