Girl's weekend

As I mentioned in my previous post, Krista and four of my most beloved friends from Austin came all the way to Nashville this past weekend. It was an epic weekend filled with laughter and tears. There are absolutely no words sufficient to describe how the weekend revitalized me after what seems like months of painstaking changes and challenges. The comfort of familiarity - of friends who know without being told - is priceless. My only complaint... the weekend came to an end.

Some highlights of the weekend:
• The SURPISE baby shower – they all carried Mary Poppins bags on the plane and brought more baby items than imaginable! It was INCREDIBLE!
• Talking into the wee hours of the morning over Kleenex and brownies
• Walking around downtown Franklin – my favorite shop was Philanthropy
• Photos alongside the brick building – watching Kim be a total goof
• Feeling Baby Weston bouncing around inside of mommy
• I think the whole weekend was a highlight for me… to be perfectly honest.

Trader Joes'Cornbread

Yeah, we're fanatics about it. 4 of my closest friends along with Krista came all the way from Austin to buy some TJ's cornbread... well, okay, and to see me. :-) It was a weekend I will treasure for the rest of my life. I am blessed to have friends so true. I will post details of the eventful weekend soon!

Joy

I have listened to George Winston since I can remember... my earliest notable memory of hearing his piano music was when Krista and I were about 7 years old, playing with our Breyer horses on the floor of the little white house in Oregon. There is one song, in particular, that I love: "Joy". I've always referred to as "my song".

Baby Mac's first photos

16 weeks:

Ultrasound

We had the first ultrasound this morning and found out that the due date is somewhere in the vicinity of January 24th (Danielle, you're such a good guesser!). We are officially 16 weeks into this adventure.

The baby was extremely active and bouncing all over... even the technician was surprised by the amount of activity. We have 2 arms, 2 legs, a very fast beating heart, a lovely spine and a shy baby face. Baby Mac kept tucking his/her face away making it difficult to see. :-) Everything looked perfectly normal! Praise God!

And last but not least, Baby Mac is weighing in at a whopping 6 oz!

We only have hard copies of the photos, so will get those scanned as soon as possible and post them.

Update on Baby Mac!

We heard the heartbeat today!!! A healthy, very fast heartbeat... and it was THRILLING! I don't think either of us have been able to wipe the smiles off our faces all day. Our first ultrasound is scheduled for tomorrow, so we will have another update then.

Another reason I love Texas

People lined the streets for over 30 miles to wish this fallen hero a last goodbye.

Change

Life is constantly full of change. I think three key components to living life fully as God intended is being willing to accept the change that inevitably comes, effectively grieving the loss that comes when leaving a season of life and nurturing the hope in what lies ahead. It’s easy to fall into the trap of neglecting one of those three things.