Where are we?

Sorry I've been slack on posts lately. I have some pictures from Chicago uploaded, but I haven't gotten around to posting them either. I've been in an Aircraft Battle Damage Repair class since last week and it continues this week. It's been a good class so far. I'm actually having to use some of my engineering equations and design repairs for this class. It has been pretty demanding in terms of time so I haven't been wanting to post when I get home. Hopefully I'll be posting more this coming week than I did the previous 1-2 weeks.

Christi has been busy working on things for her classroom. They start back next week! Crazy that time has been moving so fast this summer. Christi is going to be very busy this year for several reasons. First, the obvious, she's pregnant. Moving around all day is going to be tough, especially as the year goes on. Then she will have to come back to school after being off for 6-8 weeks and get her kids prepared for the CRCT. Second, she was made the 1st grade team leader (after only 1 year there!) so she's in charge of leading her fellow 1st grade teachers and has a lot of standards and action items that she has to make sure get done throughout the year. Third, they increased the maximum allowable class size as part of budget cuts (so as not to hire more teachers.) She can have up to 24 kids; she had 22 last year. Fourth, there is a new teacher from another school that she will have to help get acquainted to the school. And to make things even easier for the teachers, the state of Georgia has furloughed teachers for 3 days this year (since they make so much money - how about they get rid of a lot of the dead weight board members and front office do-nothings?!?!) 2 of those days were this upcoming Thursday and Friday (the 30th and 31st). Those 2 days were planning days for teachers, which doesn't sounds like a big deal, except that they now have 3 days instead of 5 to get ready for the students. Any of you who had teaching parents or spouses or are a teacher yourself know that the teachers do a lot of work on those days because there is a lot of things they have to do in order to be prepared for the kids. Genius idea.

On a side note, a school system in middle Georgia has decided to go to a 4-day school week in order to save money. Do you all think that is a good idea? I say no. It's hard enough for kids to remember things on Monday they did on Friday. How are they going to remember on Tuesday? Plus, all the homework in 5 days is now condensed into 4 days. Anyone who has taken a long college lecture or any class in general knows there is only so much you can absorb in 1 day. Repetition is needed, especially on the basic concept. I really think they are setting up this kids to fail with that decision. Yeah, you can meet the required hourly school hours for the year, but will they learn anything? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's stupid.

Have to go. Here's a quick picture of one of Landon's blankets we bought him. It's awesome. More to follow eventually.

New Developments

Christi felt Landon kick first the first time! He woke her up at 3:45 yesterday morning with 3 kicks. Too bad I was asleep to feel it, but nonetheless it is a big milestone I think.


Other news: Christi is extremely tired! The last week she's been out doing more getting ready for school as well as taking a teacher's class this week. I think she's a little surprised how tired she gets and how fast it happens. I guess being a baby making machine takes most of your energy ;) She's resting on the couch right now - and by resting I mean she's snoozing.


We've bought some more clothes and our friends Jessica and Jody who just had a little boy in March were kind enough to give us a lot of clothes Kaden has outgrown as well as some other items we might can use. Very generous of them and we are excited about it. I uploaded some pictures of baby stuff (as well as our St Simons trip and Chicago trip) that I should put on the blog by Friday.


Next week is the big week for doctor visits. It's the 20 week checkup and they told us to bring a recordable DVD. I'm not sure what they will record but I'm assuming it's going to be the entire sonogram so looks for that next week! They will be giving Landon the full checkup that week - heart, lungs, features, etc. It will be the last big checkup for a while for him. I hope everything goes well.


Other random baby notes: Landon does not like french fries or thin crust pizza. He does like regular crust pizza, just like his dad. He does enjoy a good belly rub and he's at the point where he can differentiate voices - i.e., he can tell if me or Christi is talking to him. Very cool.


I'll keep you posted on any more baby updates. That's all for tonight.

Back from Chicago

I'm back from my trip to Chicago. My training class went really well and will help me out in my job a lot. The flights there and back were good and we made it through O'Hare alright, although finding the rental car place was a little confusing since the signage in O'Hare sucked. I think ATL's airport is nicer, easier to get around, and overall better laid out that O'Hare, but that's just my opinion.


We had a PT Cruiser as a rental car. It sucked tremendously, even worse than the Ford Focus we had in Ohio. It was a 4-cylinder and got a robust 18mpg on our trip. No, really.


Driving in the Chicago area wasn't that bad. They had construction everywhere so that made traffic bad in some areas, but coming from a former Atlanta commuter it was comparable traffic, but ATL was worse. Thankfully our hotel was connected to the conference center where our training class was held, so we didn't have to drive back and forth to the class. They have toll roads everywhere so make sure you know which way you are going or else a wrong turn could cost you a couple $ - literally. Downtown Chicago was pretty easy to get around, I thought. Parking was another story, however. There were a lot of places to park but you were going to pay for it. Several lots were $16+ for 30 minutes and about $30 a day; we lucked out and found a parking garage that was $8 for the whole night.


I had no idea how nice the skyline in Chicago was. There were tons of places to go and see downtown. I wish we had more time to explore the city more. I wanted to go up Sears tower but they just opened a new attraction called the skydeck. Basically, off the 103rd floor they have 3 glass boxes that extend from the building onto the sidewalk and you can see straight down and out. It looked like it was going to be a cool experience but since it had just opened this summer there were tons of people. The wait in line to get tickets was over an hour, plus waiting in line for the elevator, then over 30 minutes for the elevator back down. That was going to eat up the majority of our time there so we decided it would be better for us to explore than wait in line all night. We also went to Navy Pier, Millennium Park, saw Soldier Field (Bears Stadium), and many other places around town. It was beautiful weather the whole week and there were tons of people out on the streets and on sidewalk restaurants enjoying the day. There were also tons of people on Lake Michigan boating and skiing. I had no idea how much water front Chicago had, but it was cool.Shopping was also a big attraction in Chicago. There tons of big-name and high-end stores everywhere. Down the road from where we stayed there were Porsche and Lamborghini dealerships. Impressive.


The food was amazing. They had the best bratwurst I've ever tasted. I had some authentic Chicago style pizza and it was good. The place that was supposed to be the best was Uno's, but honestly I wasn't that impressed. The toppings were scarce and the quality wasn't that great. The atmosphere was a lot of fun but overall it wasn't my favorite. What was my favorite place you ask? Giordano's. There pizza was the best I had that week - tons of toppings, had a great taste, and cooked to perfection. If you've never been to Chicago and had one of their pizza's, they make them "backwards" - at least, all of the places we went did. They put the toppings on the dough, then the cheese, then the sauce (so the sauce is on top and what you see when they bring it out.) Uno's did cheese, sauce, toppings. We thought they put some extra toppings on top, but turns out they didn't. Just a few scattered toppings and that was it. They specialize in deep-dish pizza and it was great. I love a thicker style pizza (not a fan of thin-crust - it's taste like cardboard most of the time and there is a tiny amount of cheese and topping.) I have had some not-so-good thick pizza though, but this was perfect. The crust was actually very thin, as thin as a normal thin crust pizza, except the lip was about 3 inches high and they filled it with tons of toppings and cheese. Very tasty. It takes a LONG time to cook (about 45min-1hour) but it was worth it.


My favorite place to eat was probably a place called Portillo's. They had an Italian beef sandwich that was AMAZING. They also had great bratwurst, hotdogs, and burgers. They also had other salads and sandwiches, but I didn't try them. They were always crowded (even at 10pm when I made a late-night dinner run) and it was always good (we had it 3 times that week). Overall I was very impressed with the quality of food. They love 3 things in Chicago - beer, food, and sports. I sampled all 3 and have to saw I enjoyed all of it.


I was fortunate enough to go to Wrigley Field while I was in Chicago. It was truly an experience. I wish Braves fans were as passionate as the Cubs fans were. Then again, as I learned while I was there, a lot of the fans don't know much about baseball except that they want the Cubs to win and they are there more for the social experience than the actual game. However, in key moments they all got behind their team and were an overall good crowd. It was impressive. I was planning on seeing a game at Wrigley whether no matter who happened to be playing them. As fate would have it - it was my Braves! It was a close game with a lot of missed opportunities on both sides, but thankfully the Braves pulled out a win while I was there thanks to some great pitching my Javier Vazquez and clutch hitting my Brian McCann. The crowd was a sell-out and I think they let in more fans than they can sit because the stands looked completely full yet if you went to get some food or use the bathroom it was packed walkways and long lines everywhere. Overall it was very cool to see a game at such a historic ballpark and I was very pleased with the experience.


I could write a lot more, but that's enough for now. I had a great time in Chicago but I'm glad to be back. It is a city I wouldn't mind staying there for a few weeks to explore and experience a lot of the things to do, but I don't think I would want to live there. I'm glad to be back home and be able to spend the day with my lovely wife and my little boy (who can apparently hear my voice now! How cool it that!?!?!)


Check back later for more updates. I took some pictures with a disposable camera so hopefully they turned out alright (didn't want to carry around our expensive camera out of fear of breaking or losing it to/from Chicago). I'll post them if they turn out ok.

Going to Chicago

I'll be out for the week. I might be able to update from the hotel, I'm not sure. I was going to bring a work laptop with me but it's not letting me log in, so there's no point in me brining a laptop that I can't use.


I'm going to be be sad to leave Christi and Landon for another week. Hopefully this is the last time for a long time that I have to leave them. While I am very sad to go, I am excited to see Chicago, take in a game at Wrigley Field (being that it's the Braves is icing on the cake), try some legendary Chicago-style pizza, and hopefully learn some more things in this class since the first one was very helpful.


I hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend. Christi and I went over to her parent's house and cooked out for lunch. We ended up staying there the majority of the day and had a great time hanging out with her parents, Jason, and her grandmother who came over later.


Have a good week

It's a... BOY!!!!

It's going to be a boy! Everyone, meet Landon Ryan Patterson. Here are the 16 week sonogram pictures.

Landon



You can see his nose and mouth!



Look above his mouth and you see his fingers. They are making an "L" shape. Probably sucking his thumb



Landon waving hello



Looks like an alien!



Heart rate is a solid 149 bpm



It's a boy! (Look above where it says that. See the 2 dots? Now you know.)



Feet



One last look at Landon. See you again in 3 weeks!

That's all for now! Hope you enjoyed them. Of course I'm extremely excited to be having a little boy. Christi is too, but she's a little sad that she won't get to dress her little girl in bows and dresses. That and the fact that there are not any cute boy outfits (I agree, hard to find.) Other than clothing issues, we are happy to know what it is going to be and the reality is beginning to set in because now we can pick out clothes, bedding, room colors, etc. It's going to be busy from here on out. Don't worry, I'll tell you everything that goes on so you won't miss out on anything.