Boy or Girl?

Tomorrow we go in for the Week 20 ultrasound to find out the gender of the baby.  Jody and I are both on pins and needles.  We've got our own slight preferences, but ultimately we just want to have a healthy baby.  Nevertheless, we want to have some fun with the big reveal.  Next week we head back to Arkansas for Christmas with our families and will reveal the news at that time.  In the meantime we wanted to get your guesses about what you think it is.  Also, for those that have children, did you do anything fun when you revealed the gender to your family and friends?  Or was it a surprise?

Stay tuned for the big reveal.  Don't forget to take the poll on the right side of the blog to cast your vote!

Thanksgiving in New York City

With the high cost of airline tickets to travel home for Thanksgiving, Jody and I decided that we'd make the most of the holiday on our own this year.  One of the things on our "to do list" while in the Northeast was to attend the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Since Jody is 4 months pregnant we came to realization that next year would be practically impossible to attend the parade since we'll have a 6 month old baby.  The stars sort of aligned as we found a good deal on a nice hotel right on Central Park South, which is right by the parade's route.  From the hotel we could easily get a front row seat on the parade route and get back to the hotel and out of the city afterward.

Wednesday night we headed to the city after Cace got off work and we had dinner at this fantastic restaurant called Buddakan, which came as a recommendation from one of my co-workers.  The restaurant was beautiful and the food was amazing!

Afterward dinner Cace's co-worker suggested we head next door to the Chelsea Market for a milkshake at The Milk Bar.  We gave it a shot and were pleasantly surprised...the milkshakes were awesome!!

The Chelsea Market is this really cool, funky little grocery market with a bunch of bakeries and grocery outlets.

After dinner and dessert we headed uptown to check out the inflating of the parade balloons.  We had higher expectations that what we actually saw.  They inflate and store the balloons on two streets (81st and 79th), which is on the North and South sides of the Museum of Natural History.  By the time we got there all the balloons had been inflated.  The streets were packed, as you can see in the pictures.

Thursday morning we headed down to get our seats at 6 am (yes, that's 3 hours before the parade began).  There was already a crowd gathering on every street so we had to get a spot quickly.  Jody held down a spot behind a really nice family from Queens while I ran into Starbucks for a Hot Chocolate run.  It was a brisk, cold morning but we had a great time watching the parade.  It really was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and is one that we'll always remember.  If you ever get the chance we highly recommend you take the family to the parade, as it is quite different watching it in person.

The Muppets made an apperarance...

...even Oscar popped in!

Ingrid Michaelson

Scotty McCreery

The one and only Neil Diamond.  His float stopped right in front of us as they started playing "Sweet Caroline".  I swear he looked right at me when we sang "Sweet Caroline...bah bah bah"!

NYPD Mounted Unit (the guys on pooper scooper duty behind them got huge applause)

The below video might have been the best part of the entire parade!!

A bunch of dudes dressed up like fairies

And, last but not least, Santa and Mrs. Clause wrapped up the parade.

It was a ton of fun.  Now onward to Christmas!!

Our first snow in New Jersey

Well, technically speaking, this isn't our first snow since we moved to New Jersey.  We actually got about a foot and half the night that we moved into our new house back at the end of March.  All summer we've been enjoying the pleasant climate in the Northeast compared to the hot, humid Arkansas summers.  But, all along, we knew that the winter here would be more severe than anything we ever experienced back in Arkansas.  Everyone has told us all along not to worry as we usually don't get "serious snow" up here until December or January.  So, when we heard the news that we were suppose to get some snow on the Friday before Halloween we kind of shrugged it off as "oh, we'll probably only get a light dusting...maybe 1 or 2 inches".  To our surprise, though, the snow started on Friday and didn't stop until Saturday morning.  Overall we estimate that we got somewhere around 14-18 inches!!  Fortunately we didn't lose power at all, but thousands of people in this part of NJ weren't so lucky.  And, thankfully, we stopped in to Lowe's on Thursday to pick up some salt and a nice quality snow shovel, which Cace put to good use.  One of the things we learned through all of this is 1) to always be prepared for the worst and 2) that the weather man up here actually knows what they are talking about (something we aren't use to coming from Arkansas).

Here are some pics of the aftermath on Saturday morning...

Out little tree in the front garden was bent over pretty far as it got weighed down by the snow on the leaves that haven't completely fallen off yet.  This was the reason for the power outages across the state.

We are so lucky in our subdivision as a professional snow plow comes through on the morning following a snow storm and clears the majority of our shared driveway.  We only end up having to clear a relatively small area in front of the garage.

Jody's car was buried under about 2 feet of snow!

Once Cace got done clearing the driveway there was plenty of snow to make a massive snowman!

It's official!!

Anyone who knows us knows the love we have for children.  Our nieces and nephews are such a joy to us and we have been so blessed to watch them grow up over the past several years.  Jody and I have always wanted to be parents and for the past 6 years we have tried fervently to get pregnant and start our family.  Sometimes, though, the good Lord works on a very different schedule than we do.  All we can do is exercise patience and strive to understand the lessons He is teaching us during our trials.  This has been a very difficult journey and has tried our patience in the process.  Yet we have remained strong in our faith and testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Cace received the job offer to move to New Jersey we weren't terribly excited about the prospect of moving to that particular part of the country, not to mention so far from our family and friends.  Yet we felt peace when we prayed about this opportunity and decided to go forward in faith that the Lord would take care of us.  Shortly after relocating we discovered that Cace's insurance covered up to $20,000 in IVF treatments, which is very uncommon to see in any insurance plan. We wanted to take full advantage of this benefit and found a highly experienced clinic in Morristown, NJ and started the process.

After a period of medication and hormone treatment we were ready to go in for the egg extraction.  We really hoped they would extract several eggs so we could potentially repeat the IVF should the first time not work out successfully.  To our surprise they extracted 32 eggs!!  24 of those eggs were fertilized successfully and, in the end, only 10 of them survived and were saved for the IVF transfer.  2 of the highest quality embryos were implanted and the remaining 8 were frozen for future procedures (if necessary).

Jody getting ready to go in for the egg extraction procedure.  The anesthetics knocked her out pretty good!

Jody getting ready to go in for the embryo implant procedure.  All smiles as this procedure is much less painful than the extraction.

Dr. Cace all dressed up to go in to observe the implant procedure.

Here are the two embryos that were selected for the first implant procedure.

We now had to wait a week after the implant before we could find out if it was successful.  We were on egg shells during the next 7 days.  Finally we got the good news that one of the two embryos successfully survived the procedure.  After 6 long years we could sit back and declare to each other that we were pregnant!!

We are now 12 weeks along and mother and child are doing very well.  Jody is due on May 5th (Cinco de Mayo!!!).  It will still be a few weeks before we find out the gender of the baby.  Regardless of the gender, though, we are so excited and thankful for this wonderful blessing.  This experience has reinforced the lesson of patience and faith for both of us.  The Lord fulfills all his promised blessings but does so according to his own due time.

Below are some of the ultrasounds pics from the past several weeks.

At week 5 we got to see the yolk sack and the tiny little speck that is our baby.  About the size of an apple seed at this point in time.  The baby is still too small to hear the heart beat but you could see it on the ultrasound - like a flickering light.

Now at week 8 the baby is the size of a jelly bean and we can begin to detect the heart beat (the lines on the lower portion of the ultrasound).

Now at week 9 the baby is the size of a grape and the heart beat is more easily detected.  The last picture shows them focusing in on the heart and monitoring the beats per minute.  This was the first time we got to see the baby in motion.  In fact while we were watching it started sucking on its hand.

The above pictures are the most recent week 12 ultrasound pictures where we can now start to see much more definition in the body (arms, feet, spinal cord, etc.).  We even got to watch the baby roll around, move its hands and feet, and even suck on one of its hands.

Labor Day in Washington DC

For Labor Day weekend we decided to road trip down to our nation's capital to spend a few days checking out the sights.

Disclaimer:  As is quite common with us we realized 2 hours into the road trip that we had left our camera at home.  So, I'll apologize now for the low quality pictures as we had to rely on the use of our iPhones.

One of the gates you see as you enter China Town.  Our hotel was actually in China Town.  Our first night in the city we ate at this great restaurant called Matchbox.

Matchbox is best known for their pizzas but their sliders were also incredibly delicious.  Each slider was unique and they covered them with onion straws.  YUMMY!!

We spent Saturday checking out as many of the amazing sights throughout DC as possible.  Here is the front entrance to the Treasury Department.

Here we are in front of the White House.  The grounds are simply impressive.

In the background you can see the Congressional Administration Office.  The picture doesn't do justice to just how massive this building is.  The architecture is beautiful and is currently undergoing an exterior renovation, so this was about as close as we could get.  The monument in the front was built to honor the US Army.

We made our way down to the WWII Memorial but had to take cover for a short while as it started to rain.

Once the rain subsided we made our way down to the Lincoln Memorial.  We struck out this weekend as the famous Reflecting Pool was completely drained and is undergoing renovations.

Next we stopped by the Vietnam War Memorial.

The Washington Monument was closed off due to the damage that occurred from the recent earthquake on the East coast.

Saturday evening concluded with a ball game at Nationals stadium.  Our ticket included a free concert by Lifehouse after the game.  These guys rocked!  A great end to a fun filled day.

On Sunday we headed to a couple of the Smithsonian Museums.  First up was the Air & Space museum.

This is a replica of the plane first flown by the Wright Brothers.

Another replica of the Wright Brothers plane. 

The Smithsonian Museums are sprinkled around the National Mall, which divides the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial.  It's a beautiful area and we were blessed with great weather on Sunday.  A lot of people were out and about with their families enjoying the day.  Here is a shot of the Capitol building from the National Mall yard.

For lunch we went to this great Italian restaurant called Carmine's.  Like most traditional Italian restaurants the food is served "Family Style".  We ordered a 4-entree plate that had lasagna, ravioli, pesto penne, and bowtie pasta with meat sauce.  Needless to say it was amazing!!  We couldn't finish it all but we enjoyed every bite.

We concluded Sunday evening with a free concert on the steps of the US Capital building.  The National Symphony Orchestra performed many traditional patriotic songs.  A really nice end to another great day.

On Monday morning we headed over the Potomac to Alexandria, Virginia.  One of my co-workers recommended a restaurant called Jackson 20 for brunch.  We gave it a shot and this place is now one of our favorite restaurants.  We started brunch with biscuits & gravy.  A bit different than the southern style biscuits & gravy we grew up with but they were delicious nonetheless.

Jody ordered the Eggs Benedict and hashbrowns.

Cace ordered Jackson 20's signature plate - Eggs Chesapeake (poached eggs, virginia crab cakes, and old bay hollandaise) with hashbrowns.  This was the most amazing breakfast I've ever had and I look forward to going back someday (hopefully soon).

We ended our time in Alexandria with a walk on the Chesapeake Bay and stopped in to a local bakery for some cupcakes.  The weekend together in Washington DC was a lot of fun.  We didn't get to see nearly all of the sights and museums this city has to offer but we will likely go back to DC as it's only a few hours from New Jersey.

Seeing the history and monuments throughout the city really brought home the rich history laid by our forefathers.  I'm so grateful to live in this great country and am deeply indebted to the lives lost to provide and protect our freedoms.  If you have the opportunity to spend time in Washington DC I would highly recommend you do so with your family.