Our black night....

Ty and I at the Yankees vs. Astros spring training

Ty and his new employee, Chris and his girlfriend (team building)



A pic of our digs in Tampa

The living room (it's fully furnished!!)

Hey everybody!! I know you are all waiting for an update from Tampa. I've been so busy looking at houses with our realtor, that I've failed to post in a while. Sorry! Our awesome realtor, Tamara, has been showing me all around town, trying to nail down the perfect house for our growing family. The homes here are SO different than ones in Texas! Most of them have this funky formal sitting room right in the entrance and they are mostly stucco also.. yuck! :) But most of the homes here have pools... so that will be fun (not to maintain, but to swim in!)

Ty and I and his new employee went to an Astros spring training game last night. They kicked some Yankee butt! It was fun to heckle all the Yankee's fans. It's sad when you have a home team (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) but there are more fans for the team that only spring trains in your state for one month of the year (Yankees)!! Maybe the Devil Rays will improve one of these days so we can have somebody to cheer for.

Also, our power went out yesterday :( Our landlord had paid the bill, but the electric company applied the bill toward her home address and not the rental property. So all the food in our fridge has spoiled and I just went grocery shopping!! The landlord is really nice and is going to reimburse me for the cost of food. We had to go to our neighbor's house at 11pm when we got home from the b-ball game to borrow candles so we could see. I guess that's one excuse to meet the neighbors!

Other than that, we've been having fun. We visited Christ Community Church on Sunday and will visit somewhere else this weekend. We take Molly to the pet park twice a day.. which she loves. It's a good excuse for me to work on my tan! You can't live in Florida and be as pale as I normally am! The baby seems to be doing well.... he sure does kick alot! I started taking a Bradley method birthing course... which seems like it will be very interesting... very, well, natural. :) More on that later... Until then, Charis

Tampa or Bust!

Ty and I pulled into our new home in Tampa Sunday evening. We had a very long trip from Austin to Houston (to say bye to Ty's family) to Pensacola (to stay with my cousin Sarah - thank you!! ) then to Tampa. It was about 22 hours in all (it didn't help that I had to pee every hour or two). Our "villa" in Tampa is very nice and cozy. It's fully furnished, which made moving in very easy. Molly has discovered the pet park and LOVES it! It is huge and she is able to run around freely like she never has before (except when running from us around the neighborhood after escaping)! Today I went to my new Obgyn. Everything looked great and they are all really friendly. I won't necessarily have my MD at delivery... it'll be whoever is on call that day. So for my next appt I will visit with another MD so I can become familiar with all of them in the practice. Next time (at 28 weeks) they want to do a sonogram (because they haven't seen the baby before with their own eyes... guess they don't trust TX doctors :) and I'll have the much dreaded blood glucose test. Tomorrow I meet with the realtor to begin looking for more permanent dwellings. Ty has been busy at his work getting the phones and computers set up and making Home Depot runs to get office supplies. Last night we met our next door neighbor, who was throwing a wild party/BBQ. They were nice and invited us over for dinner and "beer pong." They BBQ every Sunday night... guess I should buy ear plugs!

Update!

Andrew and me finalizing the deal on my new Expedition!
Andrew has a bumpy ride back to Abilene in my old Mazda!
New porch at Meem's
The insulated roof is supposed to make it cooler in the summer!
Ty and I at a UT baseball game. Hook 'em horns!

So, I'm still getting used to this blogging thing and sometimes forget to update it!!! Just so yall know, our move date got pushed back to March 15th, so the movers didn't come on Feb 28th. It's kinda nice b/c now I have more time to pack and sort through things. It's fun going through all of our photo albums and childhood keepsakes. I've looked through Learning to Lead and Kadesh photos and notes (which is fun cause there are pics of lots of yall in elementary school, etc).

So the latest in our lives is that we got a new car! Well, actually it feels like a huge ship to me! I went from a small Mazda 626 to a HUGE Ford Expedition! I'm still getting used to parking the thing! I'm getting lots of exercise by parking at the back of the parking lot. I've posted pics of my brother (the car salesman) when he drove to Lampassas to do the whole car exchange. For those of you in Abilene, he is working at the Chrystler/Jeep lot on South 1st. Go look him up if you want a new car! He won't try to sell you something you don't want/ can't afford! Congrats to him as he just got a promotion and will be the assistant manager at a new lot opening up in Abilene!!

Also, Ty's grandma (Meem) got a new patio cover put on her lake house in Marble Falls. I posted a pic for the family so you can see the new improvement! Are the Bubbies and wives still up for Labor Day (perhaps in Marble Falls) this year??

Half way there! 20 weeks

Baby boy's profile (see his head on the left? His hand is by his nose!)
Baby's foot - he has 5 toes!
This is the baby's face looking right at the camera. The doctor said it looks normal for 20 weeks but she kept calling it a Halloween mask! How rude! :)

The 20 week sonogram today confirmed that we are having a boy! He is very healthy. We got to see the 4 chambers of his heart and a healthy brain. We also got to see his kidneys, stomach, spine, and leg bones! The only problem was he was so active that he wouldn't give us a good, clear profile picture to print out. I told him he better not be all squirmy like his dad and make funny faces in all of his pictures! I've started feeling the baby kick more lately. Ty gets jealous and excited and always wants to feel it too! At Sing Song this weekend, we sat near a huge speaker and all of our chairs vibrated. The baby started kicking like crazy whenever there was a loud song or lots of vibrations :)

Also, I've gained 9 pounds in the last month!! Yikes!! I think I've been eating too much junk food and not exercising enough. Our wonderful friends have been throwing us all sorts of going away dinners which have been good on the taste buds, but not kind to the wasteline! Now that I'm not working (I quit my job a few weeks early to pack before we move to Tampa) I can focus on exercising daily and trying to only gain the recommended one pound a week.

We went to Abilene this weekend and had a fun time with my family and the Purcells. We also saw Ally and her beautiful daughter Camden. I think we won't go back to anymore Sing Song's until the Kojies decide they want to beat the Siggies or the Moonies beat the Gammas. :) Too bad we didn't get any pics of the weekend!

Moving update

Not much going on here these days, except getting ready for the move to Tampa. We have a moving company scheduled to come pack our house on Feb. 28th! Yikes... that's soon! My last day of work is next week (Feb 15th), so I'll have a few days to pack the house before the movers come. We are still working on finding a place to live in Tampa... but hopefully we'll nail that down next week. Our friends have already started planning us going away dinners.... which have been really good food, but sad to think of leaving all our wonderful friends behind! Please pray for God to provide a supportive community in FL to help us raise this baby!! Btw, my next ultra sound is the Tuesday after Valentines, so stay posted for a pic.

First belly picture

Okay, so now that I am 17 weeks along and had to buy my first maternity pants, I figure it's time to post the much asked about first belly pic. I recently went to JCPenny and bought 2 pairs of maternity jeans and a pair of black pants. Then I went to Ross and bought 2 shirts and a dress. The problem I've encountered so far, is that few stores carry maternity clothes, and when they do, there are only a few racks of clothing to choose from. I mistakenly went into Mimi Maternity for the first store and LOVED their clothes. But since I don't want to pay over $100 for a pair of jeans I'll wear 6 months, I am out of luck shopping there. However, their shirts are much cuter than anything else I've found, so I may have to venture back there soon.

I've also attached some pics of our weekend adventure to Mt. Bonnell with Molly while some perspective buyers were looking at our house. We are trying to hit a few of the Austin hot spots we've missed out on before we leave in 4 short weeks!

Florida bound

Well, we are moving to Florida! Pretty crazy, we know. Ty's job has presented him with an opportunity to open a new warehouse in Tampa and it was too good to pass up. We flew to Tampa last weekend to check it out (since it's hard to commit to moving somewhere you've never been). We liked it okay, except for the 3 alligators we saw on the way to the first house we looked at! Otherwise, it was all smooth sailing. We are excited and nervous at the same time. Excited for the opportunity... nervous to be moving somewhere that we know NO one 4 months before we are supposed to have our first kid!! So, please keep us in your prayers as we are simultaneously experiencing 2 of life's most stressful experiences: pregnancy and moving. But keep in mind that we will only be an hour from Disney and 20 minutes from the beach... so come visit frequently!