Bengals Mania (Eric coming into his manhood)

So Monday night, Mel and I got the chance to go to Paul Brown Stadium and tour the facilities, including the players locker rooms. It was amazing to see. I'll share a few pictures. A few stats:

The Box suites start at a minimum $50,000, and go close to $100,000 the closer it is the the 50 yard line. That doesn't include tickets or food. (view from the box)

Mel and I were pretty amazed as well to see Bible's in several of the players locker spaces.

Willie Anderson has the Largest size foot in the NFL Franchise (19 EEE) You can almost fit both of Mel's feet in one of his shoes.
How did the game go tonight, coach Riggs?

For those of you that know me even a little, your probably understanding a little about the subtitle of this blog. Even as little as a year ago, my first choice on TV probably wouldn't have been to watch sports. This season, I am addicted. I have found myself listening to every game of the American League Championship series on ESPN radio and 700 WLW, and watching more college and pro football than I ever did in the past. Maybe it came with the advent of Satellite TV in our house, but I am actually interested in ESPN news. I am coming into my manhood, at a late stage, but it is good. Go Bengals!! (And Redhawks!!)

- Papa E

What's one foot long and weighs two pounds?

lots of things. Carnival Hot Dogs are sometimes a foot long. Grocery store tiles as well. A Wii is three inches short. A barbell isn't even up to snuff. An acorn squash is about two pounds but isn't as long. A bottle of diet coke is almost the same weight. A small puppy could be both one foot long and two pounds, but zoey is about twice as long and closer to 9 pounds.

In case you haven't caught on yet, my unborn baby daughter has reached a new stage. She can now smell, hear, and distinguish light from dark. And she is around a foot long and two pounds. She is actually developing likes and dislikes in food.

And one day soon, she'll be graduating high school. It's just strange that we are having this baby that seems so small, and helpless, and she is going to be just like us one day. It's completely mind-boggling.

And I can feel her kick like crazy right now. Are soccer games in our future?

More to come soon.

For now I leave you with this.


- Papa E

New Ride

I know you can't see the baby bump as well in this picture, but you can see the new ride to tote Cate around. :-) We came to the realization that in both of our other cars, not much fit once you had both of us, a carseat, and a stroller. Not to mention the other things we're going to need to haul around when we're taking Cate to Hudson and later to Atlanta to visit to my parents. So we traded in our Saturn Ion Coupe and got a Dodge Caliber. It's not a ton bigger, but all the baby stuff will fit in the trunk and it sits up just a bit higher.

As for the WILD THINGS shirt and lovely spandex pants-- it was finally cool enough to go for a bike ride, so this is me pre-ride. I haven't been on my bike since we got back from Hilton Head since I had to watch the whole dehydration thing. In fact, I really couldn't do much of anything when it was hot out. So now that the temperature is down, I can finally get back out on the bike a little (running is out at this point since it makes me uncomfortable, but I usually get a walk in every day if it's not too hot). Thank goodness bike clothes are stretchy and I'm not too big yet. We went down to Lunken Playfield and rode the flat path around the airport (it's about 5.5 miles). It was absolutely wonderful to do something semi-active (we didn't ride that fast or far) outside again. I love that fall has finally come!

~Melody

She's popped!

Maybe it was the music of last week's Pat McGee Band/Josh Kelley concert (which was awesome by the way) that made her dance a little farther out. Or maybe it was our relaxing trip to spend time with Melody's family in Hudson that encouraged her to somersault forward. Whatever it was...Mel has a pregnant belly now.



This is the belly at 23.5 weeks. At our doctor's appointment on Monday we were told Cate is measuring right where she should be and Melody's gaining just the right amount of weight.

We also are most of the way done with the nursery. There are still some finishing touches to add, but we thought we'd share a few pictures.


We still have a few things to do, but you get the idea. It's all ABC and animal theme with primary colors. We figure she'll be wearing enough pink that she doesn't need it in her room.

So we're at about 3 months and 3 weeks until the due date. Things are definitely falling into place. Keep praying that both Mel and Cate stay as healthy as they've been so far.

~Eric and Melody