The Swarrell Life

Post traumatic stress disorder. Can this occur for good trauma? I am having a hard time focusing on anything today. We're having a baby! I am so excited to have a daughter. I didn't think that I cared one way or the other. I know that I would also love to have a boy. But I think that somewhere deep down I wanted to have a daughter. I remember that when we first found out that Autumn was pregnant, we both had a hunch that it was a girl. I think now that maybe it was a bias and not intuition of any sort. It doesn't really matter, but I think that it is interesting to think about why we think the things we do and why we like certain things more than others. My boss has a theory that people get the children that suits their personality the best. He has four boys and it suits him. There might be something there, but may it is just a coincidence. A friend of ours has three daughters and it suits him very well. So it goes. I am so loving this process, but there is something that b...

Holy shmoly, we made a girl! We were not going to be able to find out about the gender because insurance only allows a certain amount of ultrasound appointments. But Autumn works at a hospital...perks of the job. So we went in this afternoon and found out that we're going to have a daughter. I am soooo overwhelmed right now that I do not know which way is up. I am excited. I cried in the car on the way back to work. The pictures above are of my two girls. If there is evidence that we have a God that loves us, these two picture are my evidence. Wow.

Well, I am a little bummed because we did not find out the gender of the baby last week. Insurance only pays for so many ultrasounds and so we'll have to wait for the second one for a while longer. Oh well. What I do know is that according to the baby center the fetus is now the size of a banana. HOLY COW! This morning Autumn said that she might have felt the baby kick. That would be unreal. Ack! This whole experience is unreal. I can not believe that we're pregnant...

There have been a few surpises with this pregnancy so far but I must say one of the greatest has been prego pants! Uh, I mean maternity attire. A few weeks ago Aaron and I traveled to Portland with the primary goal of finding me some clothes that fit. At that point, I had three pairs of work pants that I could still squeeze in but it was becoming increasingly clear that they were not going to last much longer. Due to my short stature and my distaste for pants that rise above my belly button, I have a hard enough time finding pants that fit when I'm not pregnant so I was dreading the process of trying to find pants that fit my ever increasing belly. At the first store I was surprised when I found a couple of pairs of pants that fit and by the end of the day I was actually buying pants I liked, not just pants that fit! I wore my first pair of prego pants to work this week and I'm loving it. It's like wearing sweats that look nice! You don't have to worry about leaving you...

Has anyone else noticed how HUGE peppers are? Maybe it's just me...

I am excited about this week, mainly because we are probably going to find out what the gender of our child is going to be. I also get to go to Autumn's Dr appointment, which is a first for me. What a week! It turns out that we are either 18 or 19 weeks along, which means that Autumn has a baby about the size of a bell pepper or heirloom tomato in her. The cool pictures above are from www.babycenter.com . Also, our house is coming along, we are in the midst of choosing some tile can flooring options...pretty cool stuff! It looks like the financing will go through okay this time, which is a relief. They are numbers that we can live with (good thing huh?). I took a picture of our garage door, which has windows like we wanted. The funny thing was that Autumn had to point out the cool light fixtures beside the garage. I had to point out the garage door to her because she was so excited about the lights. Funny how we noticed the opposite things... The last picture above is just a remind...

I have a few seconds while my computer renders a map that I have been working on, so I thought a quick note was good. I came across this little quote a while back and really liked it. It say that we need to trust God with our circumstances, that being faithful is not always easy, and that He is with us always. But all shall be well And all things shall be well And all manner of things shall be well He did not say, "You shall know no storms, no travails, no disease," He said, "You shall not be overcome." The first part at least is attributed to Julian of Norwich , but I don't know if the whole verse above is hers. Either way, I like it a lot. It reminds me to pray when life is not easy. It reminds me to pray quite a bit. Cheers! P.S. Enjoy a few pictures of things that I love about this spring: My pregnant Wife Flowers (gardening in general) Riding my bicycle Our new house

Well, I have officially survived my first father's day. It was great! It was great mainly because of the picnic lunch that I enjoyed with my wife. The only problem was that the mosquitoes crashed the party and chewed me up. But all that aside, we had a great time, as evidenced by the photo above. The second event that made the day was the apple tree that I received, also pictured above. It is a cool little apple tree that can be grown in a pot. It is an odd little tree, you can read a little more about it here. Also here .

Okay, so here is the house with it's new paint job! The designer had chosen a light tan color for the house (which would have looked nice too) but we were really hoping for a green shade for the exterior. Aaron was out of town and the realtor called me during lunch and said we still had time to change the exterior color but we had to decide by the next morning! I spent the rest of my lunch hour looking at paint samples and then that evening Aaron and I talked over the phone as we simultaneously browsed paint colors on-line trying to finalize our decision--thank goodness for cell phones and the internet!

So, here is the first picture of our new house. This picture was taken just over a week ago and it has since been painted but I don't have time to add that picture right now. Maybe during lunch.

Is the tide still going out?

It is going to be 80 degrees today. It snowed earlier this week. What gives? Eastern Oregon, I guess. The biker rally is this weekend, so I am going to play with the drum corp here in town. We'll probably put in an appearance at the beer garden and on main street, where all the bikes are. It should be a good time. We are going to Nampa, Idaho to pick up our flooring. We saved a ton on the stuff from Costco, but we need to go pick it up. The $70.00 is diesel will be offset by the $1500 savings in building materials. Also, we decided to stick with the natural hickory cabinets instead of having them refinished with a dark stain. It turns out that hickory does not take stain very well. We both wanted darker cabinets, but even refinishing won't get us what we want. Either way it will be nice. My dad had a relapse in Africa, he tested positive for both Malaria and Typhoid. He has had both before. This time was a little scary for me, I think maybe because he needs to see his first gra...

An august swelter Music falls like cool wet rain Bumbershoot soaks me

I decided that I am a little jealous of all the attention that Autumn is getting these days, so I am getting in on a little bit of it. We are starting to take pictures of Autumn's pregnant belly to keep track of growth. My own version is this: I am going to keep track of my receding hair line. First entry is above. Gotta love camera phones.

As crazy as it sounds, there was snow here yesterday, the 10th of June! Here are a few pics I took with my phone to capture the unbelievable. I am a little concerned about my garden, but I think most of it will be fine. Decisions continue on our new house. I think that Autumn will be posting soon with pics on the house. We were lucky to be able to choose a few of the finishes. Fun!

So we are at 17 weeks, I think. I have signed up for two newsletters that give you a week-by-week update on the status of the baby, things to expect, etc. The picture above is what our baby looks like, sort of. I stole the picture from here . I just love that we are pregnant. I talked to my sister the other day and she called me Daddy-o. I thought that was cool. Autumn doesn't like it when I call her "baby mama". She also does not like my particular brand of pregnancy jokes in general. So it goes. I don't blame her, I make bad jokes...frequently. At least I make me laugh! It looks like the house debacle is over. We just put in an offer on a house and it was accepted. the financing on the house we were trying to build just was not going through so we cut our losses. This feels better too. The cool thing is that it is not even finished yet so we get the best of both worlds; we get to pick the finishes but no construction loan hassles! Woohoo! Okay, I was in a pick-up f...

Now that Barack Obama has secured the nomination through delegate count, I can not resist the urge to mention that I registered this year as a Democrat. I have never been affiliated with a political party officially, but I have finally had enough. I have not voted for a presidential candidate since Ross Perot in 1992. I was 18 years old and sick of the party system. I then spent the better part of 16 years ignoring politics and thinking that there was never going to be a good choice at the national level. I believed then, and still do, that a person has to make serious compromises to reach power at that level. Only violent sociopath dictators make it that far without compromise. But I have also learned that life mainly consists of one compromise after another and the path to becoming president is no different. What I like about Obama is his insistence on hope, because hope is a wonderful thing. Bill Clinton has major character flaws, yet he led the government out of debt. Which is more...

A) That I am going to be a father B) That my wonderful wife Autumn has a human being growing inside of her C) That the fetus (named Happy Feet for now) is about as big as an apple No wonder Autumn is feeling pregnant! The image above was taken from here .

It has been a little while since the last post and I think that regular postings here will be more frequent. There is so much going on now that would be nice to have recorded. The irony is that I feel too busy to type it up. But here we go... We are in week 16 or 17 of the pregnancy and Autumn is starting to look pregnant. I am not sure if it is good that I say that to her, but it is true and she is every bit as beautiful as the day I met her. Pregnancy does add something that has nothing to do with weight, shape or size. Okay, the shape may have a little to do with it. Nevertheless, Autumn looks great pregnant! We are starting a photo record of her expanding belly, shown above. The house business has taken a turn since the lender is causing such headaches. We are beginning to wonder if building is such a good idea after all. We are both feeling that the financial aspects of building might be bad for the future and might make it an unwise use of money. There is so much more to life tha...