IT'S A BOY!!!! Carter James Herman

Yesterday, never before was I so thrilled at watching a black and white TV. Mindy laying on the exam table- belly covered with goo, me off to the side watching the TV screen, we anxiously listened to the nurse describe the different parts of the baby we were seeing. She started with the head, taking measurements and printing various angles. Slowly we moved from head to toe. We saw the heart beat at 152 bpm, his hand waiving at us, as if to say "Hello Mommy and Daddy." Being a Herman, he had to be difficult by crossing his legs. The nurse gently "poked" at him to encourage him to move around. And then......it was confirmed, "Most definitely, you are having a boy" said the nurse.

Of course in reality it really didn't matter, but we were definitely hoping for a boy. If you want to see the rest of our ultrasound pictures visit our gallery. Without further ado, we are proud for everyone to see Carter James Herman.

From Carter James ...

Majorly late update... sorry

Well, here’s an all time low for us- 5 months without a blog. We sincerely apologize. For those who haven’t heard the news yet, we are expecting an addition to our family this coming March. We’ll find out in about a week if that addition will be a boy or a girl. We are really excited.

Also since our last post, we’ve both changed work positions. Ryan became a student finance counselor for Southern back at the end of May. I quit my job with Life Care back on June 1, because I had finally had enough of my boss and the social environment of the office was just depressing in general. I now work as a floater for Southern, filling in for offices when employees are out for vacation or medical reasons.

Most recently we took our first real vacation in our 3 years of marriage. We took a 5 night cruise to the western Caribbean, stopping in Grand Cayman and Cozumel. We highly recommend cruises as a vacation. Everything is provided and there’s always something to do, but you can also just veg if that’s your choice. However, be prepared to be restricted on the excursions you can participate in if you’re pregnant, but you can still find fun things to do. To bad we probably won’t get to go again for a while, or at least until the baby’s old enough to leave with the grandparents.

I’m sure there’s more to update on from the past 5 months, but those are the biggies I can think of right off. We will try to get updates posted more regularly, but as you can see, we’re somewhat slackers on our efforts, so no promises. But we WILL TRY.

Special News ALERT

I'll start with what's been happening most recently. On April 28 Mindy and I started our journey to Logansport, IN. Why where we going? Besides the fact that is where Mindy's family lives we were going up to celebrate Kevin (Mindy's brother) and Trista's wedding. We want both of them to know we wish them all the best as they start their life together. Also, we're so glad you got your own place :).

We love you both.

Blogging apprently not my strong point

Well I have come to the conclusion that blogging isn't my strong point. While I want to keep others informed I don't always want to take the time. Yeah, it's counter productive. However, I am determined to update more frequently. And if Mindy would post here sometimes it would help as well. She just needs to take a break from her MySpace account and post here. (Love you Dear :) ).

The last 2 1/2 months have proven to be quite busy. From my last post to the end of April, if my memory is correct we were home 2 weekends. Things have slowed down a bit and last weekend we enjoyed time with friends grilling some nice looking steaks.

We will try to post more info of what's been taking place over the last 2.5 months later this week. Tonight however, we will be out in town.

Congradulations!!

We just want to send a congrads to Morgan Kochenower for his engagement. We are most happy for him and wish him the best.

The rest of the story

The following Sunday, we noticed that the linoleum was starting to bubble in front of the fridge. We didn't think much about it at first. Figured it was an air pocket after moving the fridge. Well on Monday when Mindy got home from work it had enlarged considerably. We poked it with a sick-pin and a little bit of water started coming our. Not good news. It was then we realized what was happening. We moved the fridge away from the wall again, and sure enough the value was slowly dripping.

Instead of dripping on top of the flooring, it was dripping behind the drywall onto the plywood and then rolling under the linoleum. You might not think a slow drip could push up the flooring, but we are now a believer. We cut a larger piece out of the linoleum and started pushing and vacuuming the water out. In total we probably had at least one gallon of water in the wet/dry vac when done.

If there was any bright side of the story, we didn't have to pull up the flooring as we were able to re-lay the linoleum under the fridge and the rest is no longer bubbling.

A couple of days later, we pushed the fridge back into place and though all was finished. You guessed it, it wasn't. That evening we started smelling something hot. We quickly suspected the fridge but couldn't figure it out. After a little bit of time we realized the cooling fan was not running. GREAT!

The next day I was able to buy a replacement fan and started to install it. However, pulling the fridge back out and upon closer inspection there was a packing peanut stuck in the fan blades. Once removed and plugged back in, the fan started without a problem.

Finally some good news, the fridge was fine.

So something as simple as the cat spilling his own water cause a leak and a scare of the cooling fan dying. Let's just say we are happy it's over.

The Past Month

It turns out a lot has happened this past month and I didn't have time to write about all of it this weekend. We definitely had a great time in NC over the New Year weekend. The whole Herman side of the family was able to make the trek to my parent's house. It was a full house with 15 from my parents to siblings to nephews and nieces, plus the four grandparents, for a total of 19, definitely full

While we enjoyed our time together, there were some low points from some of us getting sick. I suppose it started with Sarah (Mike and Julie's daughter). She had been sick while they traveled. Once in NC Sarah seemed to be better, but then Saturday Julie was sick followed that night by Mike. We tell Mike he brought it upon himself when that evening he said he never gets sick, yeah right.

While nobody else got sick that weekend, it continued to spread the next week. Both Mindy and I succumbed to the flu the next week. Mindy had it a little worse, getting sick on Tuesday feeling a little better the next two days but then relapsed on Friday. I was sick on Wednesday mostly healthy on Thursday and felt mostly normal on Friday. Since then we have gotten back to a normal schedule.

The other "major" even during January was trouble we had at the house and I have to blame it on our cat, Tippin. It started when Mindy arrived home from work one evening and found a puddle of water in front of the refrigerator. When I got home I investigated but could not figure out where it had come from. I cleaned it up and moved on. However, while I was looking under the fridge I realized that it probably hadn't been cleaned since it as purchased. So I decided I would clean it. The reason I blame the cat at this point is because the next day when I went home for lunch there was water on the flow again. However, this time there was a slight trail of water from Tippin's water bowl to the puddle on the floor. He had some how tipped his bowl just enough to spill his water on the floor.

That evening I and bought a fridge brush and started to clean. It was extremely full of dust and other items, some of them being a batteries, a calculator, markers and pens, plastic wrapping from food containers, and empty food boxes (similar to Mac & Cheese boxes). Making sure I cleaned thoroughly I moved the fridge away from the wall. Needless to say this is when the problem occurred. What we wouldn't realize was a small drip of water was now coming from the valve behind the fridge.

To be continued...

Long time, no post

Its been over a month since our last update and there definately has been a lot happening in January. We are heading to NC this weekend for a special project. While I don't have time to detail what has happened last month, this weekend I plan to take the time and update it. This update will also include more photos from our New Years weekend with our family.