2008 - A Crazy Year

Obviously this blog will mostly be about our precious little guy, Sawyer, but I thought I would start this blog by providing a quick summary of 2008. This essentially is also a quick recap of my pregnancy. Little did Clint and I know that 2008 would be a roller coaster of a year.

2008 started with a typical New Years celebration. Clint and I don't make New Years resolutions, we make a New Years motto. The motto for 2008 is "Live in the moment". This actually has been quite challenging given the year we have had. Clint ran the Houston Marathon without training on January 13th. He finished in under 4 hours, but he nearly crossed the finish line on his hands and knees. The look in Clint's face is total fear about what he got himself into. The look in my face is total fear because this is the day I realized I might be pregnant. I think I made the right decision to wait until after the race to tell Clint.

Shortly after confirming that we were indeed expecting, Clint ended up in the hospital with a serious bug. Was he really sick? Did the marathon push him to his limits? Or did the fear of fatherhood force him into the hospital? We will never know.

February and March were fairly uneventful months. I slept a lot being in the first trimester of my pregnancy, and surprisingly Clint was experiencing fatigue too (sympathy pains). So he slept a lot too.

In April we went on a cruise with my family and some close family friends, the Barnett's. It was a great time and we made a lot of memories.

In May my girlfriends in AR threw me a baby shower and we went to the lake for memorial day weekend. It was great to see everyone. My childhood friends have all turned out to be beautiful, successful women. Clint and I went through baby boot camp with my niece and nephew at the lake. They are precious, but I am glad babies don't start out at two and four.

June was a quiet month getting ready for our trip to Colorado. Clint did celebrate his 27th birthday. All he wanted for his birthday (not including the long list of expensive toys) was stuffed crust pizza and an oatmeal cream pie cake. Pizza hut took care of the first, but I had to be creative for the latter.

The end of June approached as did our big trip. We loaded up the jeep and made the 20 hour drive to Colorado. It should be noted that there is no A/C in the jeep and I was 7 months pregnant. We had a great time on the road trip and were very happy to get to Colorado.

Once we got to Colorado, Clint had a prenatal massage waiting for me. We had a great week with the Aichele clan at Clint's parent's cabin hanging out, celebrating my birthday, celebrating 4th of July, fishing, and going on a boat trip. Everyone was very supportive to modify the activities to accommodate my growing gut.

After our week was up, Clint and I drove to Denver where we flew to Seattle. We spent a night in Seattle then caught the scenic train to Vancouver, BC. Clint had a conference in Vancouver and I just went along for the ride. We spent one afternoon driving through the mountains and eventually ended up in Whistler. I spent the other days of the conference exploring the city of Vancouver. We had a great time, but probably our lingering memory of Vancouver will be coffee and pizza (we consumed a lot of both).

I flew home from Vancouver and Clint flew to Colorado to work on our cabin for the next 3 1/2 weeks. I don't know how it worked out that the pregnant lady had to go back to Houston alone to bring in the bacon (and yes my car broke down the first day I got back to H-town) and Clint got to go play in Colorado for 3 weeks.