And the next American Idol is.....

Hailing from Kansas City, Missouri the hometown of previous winner David Cook. Our next American Idol is RYAN KINGSBURY wooohoooo!!!

It's about time

So Jessi and I got a bit tired of using card tables as office furniture. We decided it was time to make the leap to ..... Actual Desks! ...... Wow. We also thought it might be nice to have access to our office while we watched Ryan instead of only when he's napping. So we headed to Nebraska Furniture Mart and barely got out with our lives.... and wallets..

Hmm looks kind of empty in here.....

Every desk we looked at I carefully asked the sales person, "They don't have this item in clearance do they?". I asked for two important reasons, 1. NBFM tends to place perfectly good furniture in clearance when they get new display pieces in. and 2. Because if we travel to the clearance area we are bound to buy something.

Guess what! A new matching kitchen table! It's actually beautiful and I love it. Our old table now graces the Ransoms house where it looks magnificent in their dining area.

The Greatest Trick..

The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn't exist.. Verbal Kint - Usual Suspects.

The greatest trick I've ever seen "played" in a firestation happened tonight. And I've seen my share.

We realized today that one of our fellow stationmates Matt Vela had taken 4 work days off in a row (approx 2 weeks). We thought this was strange as he hadn't mentioned any vacation plans.

As an entire station we tried and tried to think of what he could be doing. Our imaginations are often much better than the truth, so after much deliberation we decided that we would probably see him on the side of the road picking up trash in an orange jumpsuit paying his debt to society over the next 2 weeks.

That settled, one of the guys gave him a call to rub it in and see if we could come take pictures. He told us that he was just taking a few days off and was going to stop by the station later that evening.

Imagine the suprise on our faces when he walked in with a 3 day old baby. 3 DAYS OLD. Not only 3 days old but actually 9 months + 3 days if you include tummy time.

Matt Vela had played the greatest trick of all time. He had kept the fact that his wife Beth was pregnant from the entire Fire Department for 9 months. We had no idea, we were completely speechless. Nobody believed him at first. Then we realized that nobody in their right minds would let him out of the door with their 3 day old.

Here is a picture of the beautiful baby girl he brought to see us. Lily Rhea Vela - 8lbs 3oz - 21"

Born January 25th at 5:09 am

Stranger in my house

You think you know someone. You give them almost 10 years of your life and in return you hope that... actually you expect that they have revealed to you the whole of their person. There shouldn't be any secrets, no skeletons waiting in the closets, no mysteries yet to be unveiled.

Marraige is supposed to be like Christmas. Your excited about unwrapping the presents but you pretty much already know what your going to get.

That being said I had no idea my wife had a secret.

A secret so dark, so repressed, soooo crafty.... Yes I said it, "crafty".

I came home one day to find paint in my house. Not the kind that you occasionally roll on a wall to keep your house looking like a pottery barn catalogue. Noooo not that kind. The kind of paint that comes in tubes and little bottles. The type that is applied with precision and little brushes.

"This must be some kind of mistake" I thought. Maybe she had a friend over while I was at work and it had fallen out of her bag. Yeah that's it!

That's when the secret side trips to Hobby Lobby started.

The whispered phone conversations .....acrylics....oils......

I knew the end was near....

Now I sit here surrounded by soiled newspaper splattered with various colors of paint, canvas's waiting for the grace of a paint filled brush, block lettering with gaily colored polka dots spelling out my yet unborn sons name.

Who is this woman I married?

I have a stranger in my house.

Seriously

I asked Ryan what he wanted for breakfast. He told me he'd make eggs
if I'd make toast.

Sleeeeeepy

Ugh I don't want to get up :(

Inauguration 2009

Some people weren't as enthused as I about the inauguration.

Snow

Ugh, I look outside and once again there is this white crap all over my yard. It doesn't look like it's going to be much of anything but it reminds me that lurking outside my climate controlled 73 degree utopia is coldness. Chilly to the bone, nasty windy, make your cheeks burn and turn red coldness.

I am so out!

Once again I wonder how I got stuck in this town that isn't a balmy 80 degrees in January. Right now I could be making decisions such as, "should i bike to work or roller skate?", "What brand of sunscreen should I buy this month?", "when does the shoe store open up I've worn out my Teva's". But alas I get to warm up cars and put on heavy coats and listen to my toddler say BRRRRRrrrrrr.



Well I hoped by looking up pictures of palm trees I could deceive myself into thinking it was warm and sunny outside but I failed miserably. I really need to buy some curtains for these windows.

It's sad that my son's limited baby vocabulary already includes the word " Snow".

It's sad that I left town during 2 months of our summertime.

It's sad that I missed my family and friends so much during that time that I'll probably never be able to move 20 hours away to the land of eternal sunshine and happiness.

Honestly I don't even mind hurricanes.

Do you have what it takes?

Here is a little posting for anyone who has ever considered being a fireman. We are hiring again (We only accept applications every 2 years) so if you know any mens 19-29 who live in Kansas City and who would be interested in an awesome job opportunity read on.

The Kansas City, Missouri Fire Department will be hosting Job Application Fairs throughout the metropolitan area during its 2009 Recruitment Drive. These events will commence on February 4, 2009, and conclude on February 28, 2009. The Human Resources Department for the City of Kansas City will start to take applications for the position of Firefighter Cadet starting on Sunday, January 18, 2009, and the application deadline will be Monday, March 2, 2009.

Applicants may visit the Human Resources Department, located on the 12th Floor of City Hall, located at 414 E. 12th Street, KCMO, 64106. Applications will also be available at the Recruitment Fairs (see times and locations on attached document), or applications may be filled out online by visiting the KCFD website. If you would like more information you may call 816-784-9999 and press 2.

Job Application Fair will be held in the following locations:

→ Guadalupe Center, 1015 Cesar E. Chavez Drive
→ Century Towers, 635 Woodland, Suite 2106
→ Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, 3116 Prospect
→ Mattie Rhodes Center, 148 N. Topping Ave.

If you are interested and need dates or times just comment with your email addy and I'll send you a PDF with the information.

I know Kungfu.....

(For the record: Not a pic of Jessi)


Last night was a pinnacle in the life of our newest baby. While Jessi was trying to get to sleep little baby K started kicking away inside her womb. How cool is that!

IT'S A .....

Boy yay!

Ryan is going to have a brother!

We get to use all those clothes that Ryan grew out of before he even wore them once Yay Yay!

Nothing in my house will be pink for at least a few more years Yay Yay Yay!

And for those who were wondering. The Chinese Lunar calendar was correct yet again.

Today (Monday) at 5pm

We have an appointment scheduled today at 5pm to find out the sex of our baby. We are literally going on the first day they will even do a sonogram to see so cross your fingers.

I had a dream yesterday afternoon that showed Jessi in bed with Ryan on the right and a little girl who looked a lot like my sister with blondish brown hair on her left (I was looking down on them). Sooo we shall see hehe

I'll update this as soon as we know!

The day has come

We've done it. We've admitted defeat. We fought the battle long and hard and just as it looked like we might pull through as victors we were crushed.

Our young adult lives are over forever. No more sporty Cougars, Mustangs, or Eclipses will grace our driveway. We are now Mini-Van owners.

I don't know if it was the reclining rear seats, the DVD player, or the tri-zone automatic temperature control and heated seats that did it. It could have been the 18 cup holders or the fold-down console between the driver and passenger seats that fits a large purse perfectly. It might have been the 5 star crash rating and side curtain airbags or even the remote controlled sliding doors and trunk. All at a touch of a button. Right there beckoning to be bought and driven and parked in the garage.

"Why us?" Jessi said on the way home. "I never expected that I'd own a mini-van some day. And I definitely never thought I'd be happy about it."

"What's that?" I said, too busy playing with the in-dash GPS navigation system to notice.