Chris & Maria's Blog

At this time of year, I suppose it’s natural for everyone to look back at the past year and start looking ahead at the one to come.  It struck me as we were going through the holidays this month, as well as my birthday, that this would be the last year that Maria and I would be celebrating them with just the two of us.  You may be thinking, “Well, DUH!”  but the revelation of that struck me as we sat opening presents on Christmas morning.  I’m not complaining, mind you.  Quite the contrary.  I’m looking forward to Christmas even more now.  I want to see the look on my son’s face the first time he sees the Christmas tree light up.  The only other family we have had to share that with the last few years has been our dogs, and I think the experience is just lost on them.

This coming year will be a busy one, however.  We’re heading to Las Vegas next week.  I’m going for a trade show and Maria is coming with me.  It will probably be our last trip together before the baby.  When we get back, we’re suppose to close on our house (God willing and all goes well).  I’m also going to have a busy year with work.  There is another World Tour scheduled and I’ve been asked to go.  That starts at the end of January and includes Rio, Uruguay, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Australia, India, Africa, Las Vegas, Tucson and who knows where else.  There are at least three months I’ve told them I will not travel.  And honestly, I don’t know that I want to go too far away at any point during those other nine months.  I’ve worked at this place for going on 7 years now and I know that nothing is set in stone until it happens, so I’m not going to worry.  I’m training two other people to do these tasks just in case, though.

Last, but certainly not least, will be the birth of our son Danger Dotson sometime around April.  You’re either groaning or laughing right now, but I really dig that name.  Maria swears it’s not going to happen, but I’m really hoping the doctor gives her lots of happy meds during or right after the delivery so I can sneak it into the birth certificate.  I would be happy with it being a middle name.  It doesn’t have to be the first name.  And son, in the event I don’t get that name worked in, blame your mother.

While not technically his first photo, it is the first one where he doesn’t look like a tadpole.  He’s facing the camera and laying on his right side.  This was the first picture the ultrasound technician took today.  Not even born yet and already a show off.  I’ve NO idea who he gets that from.

So many people we’ve talked to say they knew that their baby was a boy or a girl before this stage.  Honestly, we had no clue.  I have occasionally slipped and said “he” instead of “it”, but I wouldn’t have bet one way or the other.

The good news is that everything looks fine.  He has all of the appendages he should have and nothing more or less.  They did say he was a little chubby, and in the 90% percentile as far as size goes.  Maria and I were both fat little babies, so I don’t see any reason he won’t be too (sorry, Maria).

We don’t have a name yet.  We’ve bounced around several of them and not settled on anything.  You think I’m joking when I say I want “Danger” to be his middle name.  When push comes to shove (labor pun intended), I’m not sure Maria will let that one pass.  Still, I can lobby for it!

Maria has been able to feel the baby moving for several weeks now.  But last night was the first that I have been able to feel it.  I’ve put my hand on her belly several times when she said it was moving around, but I could never feel anything.  It seems like every time she eats something or whenever she first comes to bed that the baby starts to move around.  Last night, she came to bed and, like clockwork, the baby started to move.  I put my hand on her belly and, to my great surprise and delight, I could actually feel it moving!

I find it fascinating and odd all at the same time.  I can only imagine how Maria must feel.  It was the smallest of thumps under my hand, but it was definitely moving about.  I hear stories of people seeing distinct hand or foot shaped prints pressing outwards on the belly, but we’re months away from that.  While mind blowing-ly amazing, this would freak me right out!  It doesn’t help that today I awoke with a headache and came downstairs bright and early to find Alien playing on television.

If you are reading this, then you are either friend or family since I have made the blog private. I know blogs are SO old school (everybody Tweets or is on Facebook), but with the baby on the way I wanted a place to log what is going on with that. Thus the security changes.

Since it’s a hassle to have to register and log in to read our ramblings, doing so tells me that you care.  That, or you’re a voyeur.  In either case, thanks for being so interested.  I’m hopeful that one day, assuming there isn’t a server crash, that our child will be able to read these words and understand what life was like prior to his/her birth.  It will also serve to remind me, as I’m sure to be senile in my old age (i.e. a year or two from today).

Wow, I knew it had been a while since either of us had used this blog, but I didn’t think it had been nearly half a year. Well, I’m not counting certain entries that had to be removed, of course (love you, ND).

So why now? Why dust it off after such a long time? Well, maybe I have things I want to talk about. Maybe Twitter and Facebook leave a little something to be desired in my need to be self aggrandizing. Maybe I have ADD. In actuality, it’s probably a little of all of the above. Who knows. I was just struck with the notion to look at the blog again this morning. I’ll give it, say, six weeks and see if there’s anything worth talking about at that point.

Does anyone even still read this?

We’ve been back in Tennessee for 2 days now and are both a bit run-down with sore throats. We also had to have a long doctor’s appointment (Chris) and more dental work (Maria) yesterday so it’s a of a struggle re-adjusting.

Overall we had a wonderful time in England and Ireland. Didn’t make it to Paris this time, but we’re hoping we can go back over there soon, maybe even at Christmas, so hopefully that’ll happen next time. My pictures from the trip are here and Chris’s are here and also on facebook, if you’re a friend on there.

We really made the most of our time and I don’t think I can remember everything so I’ll just list some highlights:

• The house we stayed in in Ireland was stunning – 5 bedrooms, two living rooms, games room, enormous kitchen, hot tub etc. Such a great find!
• Climbing  a mountain near Kiltealy. Chris made it the furthest!
• Huge family reunion / birthday party at my cousin’s house.
• Day trip to Dublin.
• Great day at the beach at Curracloe.
• Set tour of ‘Deathly Hallows’ at Leavesden Studios.
• Leaky meet-up in London, including delicious food in Chinatown.
• Family barbecue where Chris got to meet the rest of the family.
• Fun afternoon at Hastings with great friends.
• Catching up with an old friend and her new baby!
• Seeing the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London.
• Exploring Rochester castle and cathedral.
• Eating fish and chips several times and bringing back piles of chocolate!

And of course there were more things that we didn’t get around to doing that we wanted to, so bring on the next trip!

In what can only be the cheesiest thought I’ve had in months, I have the song “The Final Countdown” by (strangely enough) Europe, running through my head as I write this.  So to share, I went to YouTube and found the music video for your enjoyment.  Here you go. To get the full effect, play that in the background as you read this.  While they are heading to Venus, we are adding those last minute things to our bags and going over and over the house for anything we think we might need that’s not already in our bags for our trip to England.

The Retro-Moderns are taking care of the dogs.  We’ll say goodbye to the dogs later today (Maria would like to take them with us, but Ginny would certainly get us thrown out of the country and banned for life… regardless of the fact that Maria is English).  I’ve got to run around town and collect some last minute things, but there isn’t a whole lot left to do today.

We will certainly blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr all of the excitement that is England and Ireland.  You just never know what kind of trouble we will get into while we’re over there, so if this is your first time to this blog then bookmark it or add the RSS to your feed.  “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K”.   😉

The clever countdown thingy that Chris put up over there  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<  is down to seven and that means we only have just over a week ’til we leave for the UK. We’re both very excited and as I’m at the stage of starting to make lists and packing I thought I would list the things that I’m most looking forward to about the trip:

• Seeing and spending time with our family and friends. Although it will be a squash, we can’t wait to see our parents, sisters, brothers, nephews, granny, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and a couple of new babies!
• A week in Ireland; it’s been at least 6 years since I last went and I’m looking forward to going back, but more importantly, to Chris’s first visit there – hope he likes it!
• A day in Paris for our 1.5 year ‘anniversary’. Although neither of us has been there before, we’re not going to exhaust ourselves by trying to see everything but will just have fun wandering, taking pictures, and taking in the atmosphere (and the pain au chocolat!)
• Which brings me to chocolate – sad that it’s on this list but it is.  American chocolate just isn’t the same for me and my mouth is watering thinking of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, Galaxy Ripple, Yorkies, Boosts, Toffee Crisp, Lion Bars etc etc. I just hope we’ve got enough room in the suitcase to bring it all back.
• Bringing back some more of my clothes and shoes! I’m slowly getting my wardrobe back – yay!
• Spending time in London – I miss it, and again we haven’t made that many specific plans, we just want to relax and wander and see where the wind (or, more likely, rain) takes us.
• Fish and chips – I was craving this so badly the other day that we went to Long John Silver’s. You would have to pay me a LOT to eat there again. I want the traditional stuff,  wrapped in paper, smothered in salt and vinegar, and preferably eaten on the seafront.
• Hopefully seeing the coast for a day. I’d like Chris to see where my dad grew up and to experience the weird mixture of eerie desolation and faded grandeur that is the Kent coast.

Also, this is a general call out for anyone who would like us to bring them back something specific from England or Ireland to please let us know, and we’ll do our best to get it. Although you should know that space in the suitcases will be given to chocolate as a first priority. 😛

I have no excuse.  I’m such a slacker.  Actually, I’ve just been very busy.  In addition to my day job, I’ve been doing some consulting for a local post production company.  I’ve also been busy with another business venture.

More on that as I can say, but it’s very cool stuff!  I just wanted to make a quick, short post so that you know we’ve not forgotten we have this blog.  I know you were losing sleep over that, so now you can rest.

With only two weeks left till Easter, yesterday Chris and I decided to hunt for Easter Eggs. Not those 2-inch long, not-worth-the-weightwatchers-points eggs, but a proper, big, eat-till-you-feel-sick, real chocolate Easter Egg. The type that is made with chocolate that actually tastes good – i.e. Cadbury’s, Nestle or Mars  and definitely NOT Hersheys. They’re big, huge sometimes, and come with mini bags of Quality Street inside, or two packets of Maltesers, or a couple of Snickers bars also included in the box. They have overly-bright  and overly-large packaging and, if you’re lucky, a hideous Easter Bunny moulded onto the egg itself. These are stacked high and deep on supermarket shelves in England at this time of year, there is a huge abundance of choice, and best of all, they’re so over-stocked, that you can buy all the Chocolate Buttons ones that nobody chooses for half-price the week after Easter!

We thought that World Market in West Knoxville would be our best bet, but alas, although they had some cute Easter products, nothing like what I was looking for. I did manage to find a few online, but they are expensive, as is the shipping. And a lot of the fun of Easter Eggs is the temptation of seeing them sitting on the shelf for a week or two beforehand. I did manage to find some Penguins and Milka there, though, which was cool,  and when we went to the counter to pay the lady asked whether we found what we were looking for. I explained what I’d been looking for and was met with a couple of minutes of silence and a blank stare, followed by the usual ‘I went to England once’ and a question about the Royal Lord London Mayor of Westminster’s New Year’s Day celebrations.  I’m sure it was a great party, but unfortunately, there is no such person.

So we didn’t get our Easter Eggs, and I’m consoling myself with Milka, the knowledge that my diet will be much more successful without them,  and these words of wisdom from the incomparable Bill Bryson:

“..when you move from one country to another you have to accept that there are some things that are better and some things that are worse, and there is nothing you can do about it.”