Andrews Family

Me, standing in front of the mirror without my shirt on: “Wow, I think I’m starting to get a six pack”

Jenny: “Ha, I’ve got a keg!”

My favorite forward lately:

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, “What happened here today?” She again smiled and answered, “You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?” “Yes,” was his incredulous reply. She answered, “Well, today I didn’t do it.”

Just thought I’d share what I read in my Baby Center email this week:

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which she’ll need to regulate her body temperature once she’s born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you’ve been nervous about preterm labor, you’ll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.

Since it is “only” 97 and we hadn’t gotten to the mailbox in a few days and Red hadn’t had a walk in forever, I decided the girls and I would go fetch the mail and walk around the block with the double jogger - I will NEVER do that again!! I cannot explain the pain we were all in when we returned from our 15 min. excursion. It required multiple doses of popcicles followed by soda water with fresh limes to bring us back. We really do live on the surface of the sun - what was I thinking that we could survive out there??

I’ve been meaning to blog about the addition of Google Street View for Austin since they added it a couple of months ago. The way Street View works is… well you can read about it here if you don’t know or you can just try it out. Of course the first thing I did when I found out that Austin had been added was to see what our house looked like. Believe it or not, Jenny and I were actually outside. I won’t post a link to our exact house because I know there are some crazies out there, although most of the crazies that read this are relatives and already know where we live. It was also funny to look at the Duval street exit from my work which has been somewhat controversial because people make an illegal left turn. Check it out, it turns out Google caught someone. Some people have found it a little creepy though such as those in this video.

The Holy Father has already arrived in Australia for World Youth Day 2008. My baby brother Zachary, (who is 19), is one of the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims! I am so excited for him to experience this great opportunity to grow in faith, travel the world, make new friends and immerse himself in the truly “catholic” (meaning universal/global) nature of our Church. May you be blessed richly by your experiences, Zach, and may you share with all of us the gifts you receive!

For those of us back home, there is a great blog at Pope2008.com to follow along and those with EWTN can watch live (and encore) presentations of the major WYD events.

And for those unfamiliar with WYD, here is a little background (copied from the official WYD 2008 website):

World Youth Day (WYD) is the largest youth event in the world and will be held in Sydney from Tuesday 15 to Sunday 20 July 2008.

WYD is a week-long series of events attended by the Pope and hundreds of thousands of young people from all over the globe. It has become the largest single mobilization of young people in the world.

The week culminates in a Final Mass celebrated by the Pope on the last day (the actual World Youth Day). Typically, it is the largest event of the week and, overseas, has drawn millions of people.

Theme for WYD08

World Youth Day is an invitation from the Pope to the youth of the world to celebrate their faith around a particular theme. The WYD08 theme, received from Pope Benedict XVI is:

‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.’ Acts 1:8

This passage occurs after the death and resurrection of Jesus, just before his ascension to the Father. It represents the birth of the Church.

Key WYD08 Statistics

• Up to 225,000 registered pilgrims are expected to take part in WYD08 events each day, including 125,000 international visitors.
• 100,000 Australian pilgrims are expected, including 40,000 from greater Sydney
• An estimated 8,000 volunteers will assist
• An estimated 2,000 clergy will be present
• An estimated 700 Cardinals and Bishops will be present
• Between 3,000 - 5,000 media are expected to cover the event
• 3.5 million meals will be served to pilgrims
• 100,000 will sleep in 700 schools and parishes
• Up to 40,000 will be billeted as part of the HomeStay program
• Approximately 20,000 will stay in Sydney hotels. The remainder will make their own arrangements.
• Up to 500,000 people are expected to attend the Final Mass at Randwick Racecourse and Centennial Park (which is open to all)
• The four official WYD08 languages are: English, French, Italian and Spanish

So apparently, we have very modest children (at least in utero anyway - hopefully, that is always the case!). At our 20-week ultrasound, Dr. Love said he wasn’t 100% sure about the gender of the baby, but he was leaning toward a girl based on what he “did not see.” He suggested we take another peak after a few more visits to be sure. So last Friday we snuck into the ultrasound room for a few minutes to see if our little cherub was any more revealing. After an initial shock of hearing him say “well, you may have broken the mold this time” (and then later his realizing that was the umbilical cord he saw), Dr. Love finally felt confident saying that we are indeed expecting another pink blessing, another baby girl. I have to admit, I was relieved. I have been expecting a girl and dreaming about a girl and a girl just “fits.” One of the gals in our bilingual playgroup coined the phrase “Las Tres Amigas” and it kind of stuck with me. I think they will have a lot of fun being all girls so close in age. I’m sure there will be phases that are challenging, but I hope they can be friends and enjoy going through things together. We have not gotten very far with names yet, but you’ll have to wait until the big day to find out what we’ve chosen anyway. Less than 10 weeks to go (we’ll find out if Labor Day really is Labor Day)!!

What do you get a guy who’s turning 30 and has pretty much everything? That was the dilemma Jenny was faced with recently. The first thing she gave me for my birthday was an Alton Brown cook book, baking specifically. I do like baking and I like Alton’s scientific style so that was a good choice. Now some might think that is a little on the “sissy” side since one of the things I looked at last year was a motorcycle. But that is where gift #2 comes in. After running a lot this past winter and spring, Jenny knew I was looking to take a little break from running. So my second gift was a certificate for three months to a new gym, the XFC Training Center which is a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) gym. You may not be familiar with the term MMA and are more likely to know it as ultimate fighting or cage fighting. Before you get too worried though, let me explain a little bit about what it really is. MMA is just what the names says, a mix of several disciplines. I would describe it as a mix of boxing and wrestling and yes, there are rules.

Jenny’s present was to let me try it at least until the new baby comes. The gym actually lets you sign up for a free 30 day trial so for the past month I’ve been going to Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes. My only prior experience is wrestling in high school and a semester of Shotokan Karate in college. (I’m not counting my Kung Fu stint in Little Kid wrestling when I was five which my family still makes fun of me for.) I’m not planning on fighting competitively, but I’m more interested in the conditioning. The first class I went to was Muay Thai, which is like kick boxing except you can throw elbows and knees. I really like the class format which is warming up doing some technique drills for the first 15 minutes then doing drills with a partner such as taking turns throwing kicks while the other guy blocks it with his shin. We do where gloves and shin pads but it still hurts. Then the last 15-20 minutes is sparring at 20% (or whatever you and your partner are comfortable at, the coach says no broken noses). I thought I was picking it up pretty quick when we were doing the kicking drills, but it was a whole different ball game when it was live and you could throw kicks and punches. Needless to say, I ate a few punches, and a few kicks, but I survived the first class without major injury. My shins were a little bruised from kicking and blocking kicks, but by far the worst pain was from my feet. Bare feet on the rubber mats with all the kicking and twisting left me with blisters ripped open. Next was the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class, which is like wresting where you use joint locks and choke holds to submit your opponent. It was a similar format of class and I felt more at home there with my wrestling background. I felt pretty good until it was time to go home and I was so exhausted I could have used a designated driver. This week I rolled with one of the coaches during sparring and I learned I’ve got a lot to learn about Jiu-Jitsu, but I left with all my limbs attached.

I’ve really enjoyed it and it is an excellent workout. It is cool to learn new stuff and then actually get to use it in live sparring instead of just doing technique drills. The gym is also a good atmosphere of guys looking for a good workout and helping each other learn; not just a fight club. So Mom, don’t worry and remember, it was Jenny’s idea.

I haven’t posted for a while but I did want to write a post to catch up on the Lincoln Half Marathon that I ran while we were up in Nebraska back in May. For us, the event started the night before because we got a room at the Embassy Suites right by campus. The night before the race there was a Pasta-Thon, a free pasta dinner, for racers and family at the Champions Club by the stadium. So we walked a couple blocks from the hotel to the dinner and met up with Russ, Carleen (also running the half), and Nikolas Barger for some grub. It was a good family event and they even had a clown making balloons for the kids. Livy didn’t understand that dragging her balloon on the sidewalk was a bad idea, but luckily Nikolas was in tight with the clown and had a pocket full of spare balloons. Before bedtime we headed down to the hotel swimming pool where both Livy and Molly had a great time. Livy put on her best Sea World performance swimming and jumping out of the water like a dolphin. The race is the National Guard Marathon Trials so there were lots of runners from different units across the country which made it a cool atmosphere. But before long it was time to try to get a good night’s rest. I had planned on getting up early and I didn’t have any trouble because when both girls woke up crying, Jenny handed me Molly. It was all good, though, and after the girls calmed down I got dressed and jogged over to the start/finish line in front of the stadium. I ran into Jenny Andel, a high school classmate, in the crowd before the race which was cool. Before I knew it, it was time to go. Maybe it’s just me, but after the gun fires and you’re shuffling your way to the line the thought goes through your head of, “Am I really going to do this?”

The start of the race was the old stomping grounds. We ran down to the engineering buildings and then took a turn past good old Neihardt (the dorm where Jenny and I met and lived for four years). Then past the State Capitol and down Sheridan Blvd. I figured if I was gonna go, I was gonna go big. So using my GPS watch I set a personal best pace. I knew that would be tough since the 3M course in Austin was really downhill, and I just came off an achilles tendon injury. But the first half of the race felt great and I was on pace with a guy who was running effortlessly and talking to everyone along the course like he wasn’t even breaking a sweat. After he pumped them up they would all cheer so I positioned myself about 10 yards behind him. It made for a great course and kept me pumped up. About mile 5 or so I ran past my fan club of Jo & Brett, Patti & Joel, Uncle Nathan, and Jenny and the girls (except for Red). A couple of miles later, things weren’t going so well anymore. I decided to pull back on the pace for a bit and then hit the end hard. Before I knew it, I was going by the fan club again and I was pumped up to push it hard those last three miles. That lasted until I turned the corner to head up 10th street and it was all uphill from there. The drive up from Texas two days before was taking its toll and my lower back and core seemed like it was falling apart.  I revised my strategy to just not walk as I watched the mother/daughter teams truck past me. I held on though, even if my “kick” was just around the loop in front of the stadium. It felt rough, but I ended up running a 1:45:46, which is about 8 minutes per mile. It was about 2:30 slower than my 3M race time so it was actually pretty good for me. The 3M race here in Austin was fun and I was energetic at the end; this race I describe as hard work. After the race Nathan walked with me back to the hotel for a cool down and we met up with Jenny in time to cheer on Carleen as she went by. Then it was into the hotel for a cooked to order breakfast before showering and checking out. The race was fun and I recommend it for anyone considering a half, especially if you stay at the Embassy Suites. I was happy with my time, but I don’t think my nephew Alex is going to let me forget that his kindergarden teacher beat me. She, yes she, beat me by a couple of minutes. So if you are considering your first half, don’t forget that it takes a bit of humility along with a lot of miles.

How is it that when Molly finally manages to sleep the whole night through, I end up waking up every 2 hrs to go to the bathroom . . . and yet somehow still feel more rested . . . ?

Please, God, let this be the first of many sleepful nights for her - for all of us!