One last blog before Christmas

This past weekend I was fortunate to have my best friend Chris in town from Indianapolis with his wife and son. While he was here we got some time to go out and run errands, just the two of us and catch up. Also later that day Anna and I got to go over and watch a movie with him, his brother, dad and his son. It was really nice to get to see everyone again. We are all grown ups by day now and don't have the time that we used to have to hang out. So it was really nice to get this time with everyone. We also had the opportunity to get up too early on a Saturday morning and myself, Chris and his dad and brother went out to breakfast. We sat there for probably a couple hours just catching up and telling stories. We talked and laughed as we listened to one anothers tales of life and work and going skiing. It was really great to have this time with my friends.

I'm thankful for good friends and the times we get to catch up. I'm also thankful for the times when we can get away from grown up life and laugh at each other and ourselves for some of the crazy things we've done!

Merry Christmas

Tomorrow (Wednesday) at about noon Anna and I are heading out for St. Louis for our Christmas with the Westwoods. Anna and I alternate years for Christmas since she is from St. Louis and I'm from Goshen. So one year here and one year there. When we leave tomorrow Anna will be just about exactly one month from her due date! The doctor gave us the all clear to travel that far from home that close to the due date. We are fortunate that Anna has had great health as far as her blood pressure and recently weight gain. They have both been right on track for where she should be at this point in the pregnancy, so our doctor had no problem letting us travel.

Once we get there we will have the Westwood family Christmas on Christmas Eve at Anna's mom and dad's house. Anna's dad's whole family will be there and we do the gift exchange and spend the evening with family! Then Christmas morning we get up and have Christmas with just Anna's immediate family. We read the story of Jesus' birth out of the bible as well as read a little cloth childrens book of the story of Jesus' birth. Both are family traditions. Next day Andy and his brothers and dad, as well as Joel and I are going to play paintball at Andy's dad's house. I can not wait to get the paintball guns out and run around shooting family the day after Christmas!! December 26 is also Kerry's birthday and we'll get to go out with her for her birthday and give her her presents there too.

I am really looking forward to our Christmas holiday this year it will be nice to see all the Westwood's and spend Christmas with them!

I hope all 6 of you out there that read my blog have a wonderfully merry Christmas and a fun, but safe new year!

The world through a child's eyes.

One of the things I love most about children is their outlook on the world. I love how kids always see the good in people, and the good in the world. As adults we have a different outlook on the world and the people in it. People are cynical and wait for the bad to come out of others. We expect the worst and grumble about it when it comes. Kids on the other hand see the best in people. They seek out and define people by their goodness and good deeds. Kids kind of see the world with rose colored glasses, to be cliche. They believe that their parents are flawless perfect people and want to be just like them when they grow up. They believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy. They are innocent and the innocence of a child is a beautiful thing. They are carefree and not concerned with the National debt, the conflict in the Middle East or how we are gonig to pay the bills this month. The great thing about that is that none of those things are their concern. Their concern is playing with friends outside and what mom's going to make for lunch today. They are more concerned that the peanut butter is crunchy than where it came from or who paid for it or the long hours dad puts in to blah blah blah. Children should not be concerned with the everyday affairs of adulthood.

Unfortunatly there is going to come a time in the life of every child where a piece of that innocence in taken away from them. By someone who tells them that it's their mom and dad who put the dollar under the pillow not the tooth fairy. Or when they actually see and comprehend people hurting other people. Slowly as they grow they will lose that beautiful innocence that children posses. Some will be stripped away from them and they will chose to lose the rest. That is the truth about adulthood, as we get older our responsibilities become greater and more people depend on us. Dont get me wrong, I love adulthood and all the responsibilities that come with it. I love my wife and my life, I love everything about it. There is just something special about being a child that should be left as long as possible

So let your kids be carefree, let them run around outside all day and be responsible for nothing. Let them see the best in EVERYONE. Let them think that their dad really is a superhero and that no other dad is better than theirs. Leave your bad opinions and bad attitudes about others and the world at the door when you come home and marvel at how wonderful the life of a carefree child is.

My son...

I spend a lot of time thinking about my son. Anna and I talk all the time about what we think he'll look like, what traits he'll get from me and what he'll get from her. Is he going to have my nose and her eyes? Is he going to have her apporach toward schooling? (I really hope he has her approach towards school!) Is he going to have my work ethic? There are tons of strengths and weaknesses on both sides. I wonder what kind of child he'll be. Will he be a child like I was? I was quiet, a little shy and when I was told something that was the law and I did it. Or will he be a child like my little brother was? Steven was and still is very head strong and set in his own way of doing things. Steven was always looking to make a deal. If you asked something of him many times he would respond to you by saying "lets make a deal."

Anna and I really look forward to seeing our son for the first time next month and then seeing him grow. Every morning when I wake up at 4:00 am for work I get my clothes around and go out to the living room to get dressed. When it's time for me to leave I give myself a few extra minutes and go back into my bedroom and I pray over my wife and son as she sleeps and hes in the womb. I pray for Anna's health and safety for the day, that she has a good experience and work and that she makes it home safely to me in the afternoon. Now I dont know my son so there is so much to pray for. I pray for his health and safety also. I pray that he continues to grow and develope perfectly until the delievery and everything go off without any complications. I pray for his future, I pray that he grows big and strong and is a fearless leader in whatever endevours he chooses in this life. I pray that he grows up and plays football for The Ohio State University! I also pray for his future wife, that somewhere God is already preparing the perfect compliment for him.

Anna and I are totally thrilled with the potential that our son has and can not wait to walk the journey with him starting next month! Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers that everyone has given so far, and please continue to keep Anna and our son in your thoughts and prayers for the next six weeks or so!

What kind of parent will I be?

So it's close, Anna is going to have the baby in like six weeks (according to the due date) and I have all kinds of questions about being a father that I don't have answered yet. One that pops into my head is "what kind of father am I going to be?" Am I going to be a strong leader, am I going to be a push over that the kids always come to because they know Ill give in? Am I going to be the one who hands out the punishments? Will I be the cool parent or will my kids be embarrassed of me? I think Im going to be a fun parent, I think my kids will think Im funny and love to be around me. You know, like when my kid wants to feed the raccoon, Ill lower him down so he can hand feed it. Seems like a good idea right? Anna's a natural and I know shes going to be great, but I can be a real dork so I worry about me.

I know all of that doesnt really matter what matters is that Im there and I love them even when they are hard to love. I have tremendous examples to look up to on both sides of our family now. All of the good qualities I find in myself I can identify where they came from and how they were instilled into me. Hopefully Im just as effective at passing on traits and qualities as my own parents were. I also hope that the bad qualities I see in me stay here and I dont pass those on to my children. I also have the examples of my three best friends Chris, Josh and Travis all have sons within two years of each other and now mine will be the fourth! So I can see at each stage how my friends parent and draw from them as well. And yes you heard me correctly Chris Pestow, Josh Dull, Travis Cameron and myself will all have sons within a couple years of each other in age! Thank goodness we live in different states, I dont know if one region of the U.S. could handle those four boys together! We're going to call them the fearsome foursome and you really should keep your distance. All joking aside they are wonderful fathers and husbands who are doing a great job and I cant wait to join the group!

Anna had another doctors appointment last week and everything went great, again. She is measuring just right and looking wonderful. We have another appointment next week and then they start going weekly! We took a birthing class at the hospital this past Saturday and I am now informed and ready for the birthing process. It was very informative and helpful with answering a lot of the questions that we have had and know we will come across in the labor. So now we've done that and we've taken the infant first aid and CPR class all there is now is the acutal birth. And did I mention that it's getting close?!!? Next month and Ill be a dad!!!

Please continue to pray for Anna and our son as he grows and developes in this final stage of pregnancy.

I'm running out of time

Anna had her first baby shower this past weekend in St. Louis with her family and friends. It was an incredible reminder of how loving and generous our friends and family are. Our spare bedroom/nursery has turned into somewhat of a staging area for all the things we have acquired so far. There is normal bedroom furniture in there now, since it was our spare room. There is also baby furniture that is waiting to be set up in there, and all the presents we have been given so far. I'm in the process of finishing our basement and then the bedroom furniture can go down there and I can get working on setting up the nursery. Today Anna and I are going over her lunch break to get a quote for carpet in the basement and set up a time to have in installed! Its all happening so fast and I'm running out of time. She is less than two months from her due date now and we have a lot to do. It is such an exciting time for us. Ill be putting the crib and bassinet together soon as well as, with Anna's help, decorating the nursery.


We had another doctors appointment yesterday and everything went well. The doctor said her weight gain and belly size are right on for where they should be at this stage. His heart rate was in the 140's and strong. As he is growing lately he is spending most of his time in his mothers ribs and making mildly uncomfortable for her to stand, sit or lay down. He punches and kicks and we can even see an elbow once in a while. I'm so proud of my son, hes still two months from being introduced to the world and is working on his mixed martial arts! Seriously though Anna, our son and I have been incredibly blessed by most of all God, and our friends and family during this pregnancy. We can not thank our friends and family enough for all the support and advice that they have given us during the past months. And we cant thank our family enough for their incredible support and generosity. Please keep Anna and the baby in your prayers and Ill update everyone soon!

Just a little side note, I am listening to the Ray Charles Christmas CD right now and I just heard the song "The Spirit of Christmas" and it made me think of the scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when Clark gets stuck in the attic and is watching the old projector and this song is playing... Then his family gets home and pulls the attic door open and he falls out of the attic. Im actually laughing out loud, thinking about it...

It's been a while...

I know it has been forever since I have posted anything on here and I have a totally legitimate reason for that and Ill explain it to you...


I was on holiday in South America kayaking unchartered rivers and their tributaries for two weeks when I was ambushed and taken hostage by pigmes! These were not your average South American pigmes, there were a very hostile bunch of Southern South American sprinting pigmes. They are very fast, so even though I can move at a pretty incredible pace I stood no chance when these little svages cornered me as I went ashore to clean up and grab a bite to eat. I fought with incredible tenacity but in the end there were just too many of them and they overcame me. I was hog tied and dragged back to their camp where I was caged up on display like a side of beef. It was very clear early on that I was going to be dinner for these half starved little savages. I needed to concoct a plan to get out unnoticed and get back to my kayak so that I could make a clean get away. Fortunatly for me I recognized that these particular group of Southern South American sprinting pigmes were descended from an ancient tribe of Argentinian pigmes. In my previous travels I had spent a month there one day so I was familiar with their language as well as physical set backs, mostly that they can not swim. I knew that if I was able to get to my kayak and get back on the water I was home free. After all of my captors had eaten and drank themselves to sleep I made a key for the lock to my cage out of a feather and some bat guano that were within reaching distance of my enclosure. I quietly picked the lock and let myself out. Quickly I located my trusty old kayak and made haste for the water. About two hundred yards away from the shore I heard footsteps barrelling down on me as I made my escape. It was then that I realized that I had startled a couple of them as I was taking leave from their and I was now in a foot race with these pigmes for the shore. I ran like I had never ran before and to my surprise I hit the water running a full two steps before my attackers. I quickly got situated into my seat and paddled out to the middle of the river where I was safe and sound.


That is the 100% true story of how I outran two Southern South American sprinting pigmes and saved my own life!


In all honesty Im just a terrible blogger. In the future I assure you that I will do a better job keeping everyone up to date on how Anna, myself and our future son are doing. As of now Anna is over seven months pregnant and as beautiful as ever! Everything has gone splendidly with the doctors appointments her and the baby are developing perfectly. We just got back into town from a great Thanksgiving in St. Louis with Anna's family and we are already looking forward to going back in about a month for Christmas! Please remember to keep Anna and our son in your prayers and I will write again soon!