Noah Has Arrived!!!

Today we brought Noah home from the hospital. He is SO SMALL! Ammon hasn't gotten home yet from my mom's house, so we are anxious to see how he reacts to having someone else to compete with for our attention...

Sunday night we got home from Maple Valley with my sister in law Tasha at about 11:00pm. Rachel went to bed about as soon a we got home, but Tasha and I sat up talking for a while afterwards. Rachel got us both up at about 1am Monday morning and said that it was time to get ready to go to the hospital, and so we didn't get much sleep. We called the midwives that Rachel has been seeing and they said to wait for a while before going to the hospital until the contractions were more regular and stronger. My mom got to our house at about 3am and when she arrived, I went back to sleep. They all got me up to go to the hospital at about 4am and we got there at 4:30. Real big contractions started at about 6:30 and Noah arrived at 7:54 am Monday morning. He arrived in good health, which is a blessing. He came out with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, but it ended up not being a problem. He also came out face down, which is normal, and also a surprise since he was face up when we got to the hospital. The contractions must have moved him around, I suppose. He came out at 6lbs 5oz and 19.5 inches long. Not a very big baby, by Alldredge standards, but he had ten fingers and ten toes (five to each appendage), and everything else in the right places.
He kind of looks like a little old man.

Anyway, we are very excited to finally have him here in our home after nine months of waiting. Also, just so you know, we decided to name him Noah Benjamin Alldredge.

Time for another post

I have deemed that it is once again time to grace the internet with another blog post. This time I am feeling political. We have a primary election coming up here in Washington state in a week or so, and I just got my absentee ballot in the mail. We have come up with yet another way to make things interesting in this state when it comes to the election process. In the last election, I had to declare my party preference (Republican) in order to vote, and then I had to only vote for the party I declared. I never thought that that was a fair way of doing things, because what if, on some remote, unlikely, improbable chance there happened to be a guy on the OTHER SIDE that I thought was a better candidate? I wouldn't have been able to vote for that person! It just didn't seem very fair. On the other hand, it did prevent the OTHER SIDE from coming over to our side and racking up a lot of votes for a person who couldn't win. Which I think we tried to do a while ago to the OTHER SIDE, and it back-fired in our faces (i.e. Maria Cant(think)well)... Anyway, this year they have come up with another way to make things interesting. I got my ballot and opened it up and read that I could vote for whomever I wanted! Hooray! But then as I read further, I saw that we have what is called a "top two" primary. This means that the top two vote getters from the primary will advance on into the general election. That means that we could potentially have two candidates from the OTHER SIDE in the general election, and no one from our side to vote for. I think that I will enjoy seeing how this will play out. PS, just so you know, I voted for Dino Rossi. Again. Lets hope that he doesn't have the job stolen from him like last year. All you OTHER SIDErs in King County, just remember that the Primary election is on August 20th and the General election this year is on November 5th. Don't forget to VOTE!!!

You know what?

This blog entry is not going to be very informative, at least not in the sense that I will be relaying any useful information. Mostly tonight I will be babbling I think. I don't really have a specific subject right now, I just felt the need to get on the computer and write. I think that writing is very therapeutic for me. I enjoy the opportunity to express myself and perhaps even discover something new about myself in the process of blogging. So tonight it's all about me. I guess I'll start with work. I'm starting to get bored. I need a new challenge, but FedEx is making it pretty hard right now to climb the ladder, so to speak. Right now I am a swing driver, which means that I fill in for other people when they call in sick, or are on vacation. This is a pretty good job, in the sense that it pays well and that it keeps you doing a different route every day. But it gets to the point where you know the ins and the outs of each route and the challenge is lost. So a while ago I decided to start looking at applying for a management position. I found out that in order to be a manager at FedEx, I need to attend training classes. These classes are taught by other managers, on their own time, and on our own time too. So you can tell how excited most of them would be to spend a Saturday teaching other people how to compete for the jobs that they might want to apply for themselves. Anyway, out of the list of classes, I have been to one. It's like pulling teeth just to get any information out of these guys. But I will keep pressing on, because I'm stubborn like that.
Then there is life at home. Life at home is great, for the most part. I got into trouble a few nights ago, because I was staying up too late for my own good. The problem is that at night , after Ammon and Rachel have gone to bed, is the only time I have for myself. If you look at the timestamps on most of these postings (this one included) they mostly occur around midnight. It's the only time when there is real peace and quiet in the house. But I understand Rachel's concerns, so we made a deal: I have up to one hour after she goes to bed to do what I want to do on the computer. Then I have to turn it off and come to bed. That's a fair deal I think, and it's not like I'm up every night... I just happen to be a night owl, and don't necessarily get tired at 10pm like Rachel does. For most of my life, I have been in bed late, like around 12-1am. It's just how I grew up. On my mission, it was really hard for me to go to bed and have lights out by 10:30... I never really got used to it, but after working hard every day in the hot hot sun, it felt good to lay down and rest. I didn't necessarily fall asleep, but I did rest.
Then there is the problem of picking out a middle name for Noah. I not a real big fan of the names on Rachel's side, and Rachel isn't a huge fan of the names on my side either. Not that there is much to choose from on my side. John, William, and David, three names between my dad, and my grandfathers. About half as many as one might expect. I think that Alexander and James are our current acceptable choices now, but we are not enthusiastic about either of them, not at all like we were for Ammon. Oh well, the name will come to us eventually.
You know what? I think that's it for now. I've satisfied my blogging bug for now. Bye Bye.

My 10 Year High School Reunion

This last weekend I attended my first high school reunion, and let me just say, it was "Great!" Ok, it wasn't horrible, but it definitely was not great. Just so you know, I went to Tahoma High School in Maple Valley where I grew up. I graduated in 1998, and we had a pretty big graduating class. I want to say that if any of the people who planned it ever read this I don't begrudge you for my not having a great time. Unfortunately, being a fairly "by the book" Mormon, I don't consume alcohol, don't smoke, and don't have much fun when I'm placed in situations where people do that stuff to excess. I guess I will never understand the draw of getting drunk, losing your inhibitions, being an idiot and then not being able to remember most of it the next day AND having a big headache after the "buzz" wears off. That and none of my close high school friends were there. But that is ok, since I see most of them on a semi-regular basis anyway. I did notice (just like anyone else who has gone to a high school reunion) that there are three groups of people. The first group consist of people who haven't grown up at all since high school. The only difference is that they can now drink legally. Then there are the people who look at that first group and wish they could go back to that life. They may have gotten married/real jobs/mortgage (see RESPONSIBILITY) but don't appreciate what they have. And then there are the adults in the third group. They are the ones who have started families, finished (or are mostly finished) with college, out in the real world having a good time being adults. They don't long for the "glory days" of high school. They are glad to be moving on to new challenges, to bigger and better (and ultimately more rewarding) things.
And to be completely honest, it takes a high school reunion to put things like that into perspective. I can comfortably and happily say that I fit nicely into the third group.