Happy New Year

REST IN PEACE GRANDPA FREI

When you are thankful of something, that is because someone gave you a reason to be thankful. Which means they were giving you thanks, making you “thank full”….. thus the term Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving many people take their time to reflect on what they are thankful for and it is a compilation of everything everyone has given to them since last Thanksgiving. One day of an entire year is when this happens. It should be more than that. When someone gives you a reason to be thankful, thank them then, and when an opportunity presents itself where you can give them a reason to be thankful for something you have given them, do not hesitate. Do it! It becomes and endless cycle of thanks giving, and the world becomes a better place.

To everyone and everything I am thankful for this Thanksgiving, I hope I have been able to give something back to you to be thankful for. As well, I make a promise to you that I won’t just let you know how much I appreciate you and everything you have done for me on just one day of the year, but when you have given me a reason to thank you, thus continuing the cycle of Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Now that things have settled down a bit more we have started cleaning up and preparing for the little ones arrival. We started cleaning out the spare bedroom which will soon be the little kids room as well as started to organize and throw away crap which we don’t need. Trying to optimize our processes just a little. So far, being a dad is pretty fun. I get to take care of Jackie and get her everything she wants, which in turn helps out my little ones who don’t even know I exist yet. They will, once they get ears I will be talking with them.. Maybe while Jackie is sleeping.

I was scheduled to go back to work today. I sent them an email stating I would not make it back in today. We stopped off at Taco Bell because Jackie had a craving and we both just needed to calm down.. I know.. not exactly the place you go to make your body calm down, but none the less, it worked. When we walked in we were just chatting and chatting and chatting, we were very emotional. We were all over the board. I had settled a little bit more than Jackie did and I knew she was very nervous. I said I wanted to tell everyone immediately. Everyone we already told we were having one, we then needed to tell everyone we were having two. That was the funniest part.

We used the same routine on everyone, except Rick, he beat me to the punch.. more on that in a minute. We went and called everyone and said we wanted to come over and show them the ultrasound. We showed them the picture of the the baby and explained here it is and here is the heart beat and here’s how big it is aaaand here’s the other one. We started off with Jackie’s mom, then here sister, then my parents, then Rick and Sarah, then Jackie’s other sister, then back to Jackie’s parent to tell her Dad. I had to call Mike again and Aletha the next day because they were both busy that day. But sharing the news was the best thing we could have done. You could really tell it helped settle everything in and made it more real. That night we started referring to them as Number 1 and Number 2. We are now a family of 6 (we have 2 cats.. yes they count!)

Unfortunately the celebration was short lived that morning.. we both had to go to work. It was probably my least productive day every. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Everything I thought I knew and prepared myself for, for this exact moment suddenly made no sense. I started crunching numbers, wondering if we make enough, if we were going to have enough room, what kind of father would I be, what if they get sick, how big are they now, are they gonna play football, basketball, baseball or hockey. Will they live healthy lives. The list went on and on.

As the day went on, Jackie and I shared emails talking about just how wonderful it it. We couldn’t believe we were going to be parents. When I was on my way home, Jackie sent me a text message stating she wanted to tell her family now. So we made the rounds around her family and told them. This was really good for Jackie because she needed someone to talk to about the pregnancy, things I just wouldn’t be able to answer. I started to think how I was going to tell my family.

I always thought I had the perfect idea, but with Aletha moving to Peoria, and I found out my brother was dropping their kids off at my parents house to go out with Sarah, I thought I wouldn’t be able to tell them and I just simply couldn’t wait any longer. Luckily my mom didn’t catch on and said she would just bring the girls with. Well we ate dinner the next weekend and I cooked Baby Back ribs (yes 10 hours over the smoker.. this was a big deal), baby red skin potatoes, baby lettuce, baby cucumbers and baby carrots. We had babies breath on the table and we thought it would be obvious. It wasn’t. I asked them if they picked up on the theme. I listed off all the food and my mom was like “Oh.. yep.. a baby theme”, then Ron says “O.. My …. God!!” and my mom followed with “Oh oh oh!! Congratulations!!”

The next day we stopped by Rick and Sarah’s house and told them, then I called Mike, because he is too busy as a college student now, I called Aletha then Tonya to spread the news. We told everyone we told not to tell anyone because we weren’t ready to tell everyone else, we wanted to wait.. we had only known for 2 weeks. It was still early. With the still chance of a miscarriage, we didn’t want to have to spread the possible “bad” news to everyone as well.

Right now… we are very happy. Couldn’t be happier.

As part of an initiative at work fro exploring some of the “Latest Technologies” I am starting my downloading, installing of applications and signing up for everything on the internet. I have already setup a twitter account.. which so far I find useless and already had a couple people I dont know, nor care for following me.. kinda creepy.. Ill prolly get rid of that..

So anyways.. I’ll try to keep you all updated.

Detroit Photo Shoot March 22, 2009

So, I want to take this time to re-phrase the comment. Next time say “I wish I had YOUR DETERMINATION because I just can’t seem to MOTIVATE MYSELF to get healthy the way YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO”

When I became a fat blob of a person I decided I was going to do something about it, and I did it. I am proud of my accomplishment and I hate that people try to discredit my accomplishments because they think I have found the secret fountain of magical metabolism.

A healthy lifestyle is hard work and it’s apparent you haven’t been working very hard.

F@CK!!!