Dawn & Zac

This past week, Zac and I went to a place in Bowie, MD that does elective ultrasounds, in hopes of finding out the gender of our little bun. We were just about 17 weeks along, and happily, the very first image the technician saw was of her little legs and she was able to tell us right away that we were having a girl!

Here she is!

Zac predicted that our first child would be a girl even before we were pregnant, and after predicting our nephew’s being a boy, Zac is now two for two in gender prediction!

In preparation for her end of May arrival, we’ve been discussing names, looking at cribs and we went today to register at Babies R Us.  For anyone interested in seeing what we’ve registered for, here’s the link!  We’re also planning to primarily use g diapers, which are a cross between disposable and cloth diapers, with a washable outer cover and liner, but flushable and biodegradable inserts that you buy for refills.

We’re looking forward to the arrival of our little one, in the next four and a half months!

We’ve had a pretty adventurous time since moving across the country a month ago. We spent a few days getting things unpacked (we’re still finishing that up at this point, as well), got away to visit Cindy, Joe and the beach in Delaware for a weekend, went to the Smithsonian Natural History museum and I started school. I had two days of new teacher orientation, starting on the 13th of August, and a week of inservice to follow. The first day of school was August 24th. Luckily, I had Zac’s help in setting up my classroom– it was pretty unusable in its state before his arrival.

There has been both good and bad following our move– we love the apartment and the area. Being between two big cities is amazing, and we’re so near so many big cities here. We visited my mom for dinner when she she was in Philadelphia for a convention, which was wonderful. The downsides so far have been that it’s harder than I imagined to work with inner city students, and that we’ve had issues with our car being broken into in our apartment parking lot. I’m fairly confident that everything will get better on both of those fronts. (Or maybe just hopeful.)

Our day at the Smithsonian was action-packed– we made it through the entire first floor, with the dinosaurs, the ocean, a special exhibit on the secret life of ants, the ice age, early mammals and I can’t even remember what else.  We had a blast, but by the time we were ready to really delve into the 2nd floor, it was packed.  After starting the section on gems and minerals, we gave up fighting the crowd and resolved to return another day.  We still have a lot of museums to hit, and a lot of weekends to do it!

My classroom was very haggard when I first got in there– there were no desks, as it hadn’t been a classroom last year, there was paper covering a lot of the windows, it was very dirty and just not ready to be used by anyone.

And that’s… it for now.  I finished my first week of school, which was full of some ups and many downs, and Zac started a part-time job at Ikea this past week and is feeling confident that something full-time with another company should fall into place soon.  It’s been quite a month.

Well, we made it.   It was an eventful journey, taking about 6 hours longer than we’d anticipated, which turned out quick 14 hour drive into a grueling 20 hour one.  With stops to refuel and rest and to say goodbye to Dawn’s family, we figured out that the cats had been in the car for a full 24 hours.

The cats were true troopers, and after a few hours of meowing, they settled in for a long trip, without a single bathroom incident or stomach upset. They came out of the carriers a few times (as you can see to the left) and we provided them with some food and water and a litter box at that point.  Whew.  They did not enjoy being put back in the carriers after being free for awhile.

From the start of throughout the entire journey thereafter, we ran into construction on every interstate, which contributed to our significant delays.  Somewhere in Ohio, we ran into the worst rain Zac and I had ever driven through, made all the more terrifying by the fact that we were both feeling drowsy by that point, and that Zac was driving a 16′ moving truck through unfamiliar territory.  Pennsylvania was long and hilly, and we rejoiced when we finally reached Maryland.  I recall telling Zac that we’d reached “the final leg!!” of our journey, but really we still had hours left to go.

There was much rejoicing when we finally reached DC, but we were so close but yet so far, as we had arrived during the height of Friday evening’s rush hour traffic.  We had 12 miles left to go, and it took us just over an hour.  We wished that Veronica had had a less eventful, and more happy birthday, but we figured that a slightly larger home would be happier for her in the long run.

We were so lucky to have so many wonderful people waiting for us when we arrived!  Al, Robbie, Cindy and Jennifer helped us move everything into our 14th floor apartment, and gave Zac and I a chance to catch our breath.  Cindy also brought sandwich fixings, which was MUCH appreciated, as we hadn’t eaten since Ohio.  Robbie and I returned the

Budget truck to a creepy rental center in the city, and after eating some pizza, we all took a well-deserved rest.

Saturday morning, Zac and I began the unpacking process, which had been slightly hindered by the terrible ickiness I’ve come down with (allergies?  sinuses? a cold?).  Despite the setback, we’ve come quite far in setting up the apartment.  As of Sunday night, we had a fully functional kitchen and by Monday morning, the bathroom was put into order and the computers are up and running.  As of right now, it’s a matter of sorting through the boxes of things that go onto shelves and eventually purchasing some new furniture– we got rid of our computer desks and media storage while in Madison, and at some point we will need to replace them.

The unfortunate side of this story so far is that we’ve run into a few maintenance hiccups–  Jennifer discovered some nails slightly protruding from the carpet just outside of the bathroom, which are an unpleasant surprise if you are walking barefooted; we found that our balcony door does not seal and close completely, which makes the room feel warm even when the a/c is running, and most unfortunately, we discovered a patch of mold growing in our bedroom closet.  Oh boy.  This morning, we woke up and couldn’t get our dishwasher to run.   However, we’d heard great things about maintenance in this complex and were not disappointed.

The maintenance man showed up this afternoon (around the same time as the installer from Comcast) and quickly grabbed a hammer to pound down the nails that were sticking up.  Problem solved!  He showed us the (not so) secret switch that provided power to the dishwasher, and we were overjoyed.  He assured us that the door would be fixed (though Zac did a good job of bumping it into place for the meantime, which keeps the room much cooler with the air on), but that it was something that would be more involved than there was time for today.  And last, but not least– the mold.  After touching the spot where the mold was, the maintenance man (who was really cool, and also happens to live in the building!) noticed that the spot was wet.  He did some investigating and discovered a leak from the bathroom pipes two floors above us that had been dripping down.  The 15th floor, right above us, also has mold in the same spot.  They’re going to fix the leak and then replace the drywall in the moldy bits.  We’re very impressed with maintenance so far! (We told him about the adventures we had at our last apartment and he was shocked about the overflowing washer, hornets nest in the bedroom and our neighbor’s unfortunate interactions with the police.)

Zac and I set up a bank account tonight, and also bought phones to hook up to our new phone line (ask us for the number!!), but unfortunately, I now realize that I forgot to purchase some more Robitussin from the store.  Wish my sinuses luck for the evening.  Tomorrow, I meet with HR at DC Public Schools to get paperwork in order and on Wednesday, I’m hoping to go to my new school to poke around before Zac has a job interview in the evening.  Exciting stuff.  We’ll keep everyone updated.

And now, messy apartment photos:

Zac will be picking up the truck on Thursday morning, and we’re planning to leave Madison that evening.  There’s a stop planned in Milwaukee to drop off a few things,  and then we’ll be driving straight on through to College Park, MD.

Thank you everyone for coming to share such a wonderful day with us! We had a blast seeing everyone and hope that everyone had a wonderful time. We’ll post pictures later, so be on the lookout for those.
We’ll also get our new address for Washington DC up here, so everyone will know how to reach us after August 1st.

It looks like we should be having beautiful weather on Saturday and shouldn’t have to worry about a rain location. Phew! Unlike most July days, it looks like it will be very comfortable outside as well.

As an aside, Dawn just accepted a teaching position at a school in Washington DC! After a year and a half of job searching, everything has finally come to fruition. We will be moving to the Maryland suburbs of DC at the end of July, and we are especially happy for the opportunity to visit with family and friends that we won’t be able to see as often as we’d like so soon before we leave.

We are very much into the final planning stages for the wedding, which is sneaking up very quickly! Zac is working on the reception playlist, while Dawn is busy tying up odds and ends with the baker and other vendors. (Did I really just refer to myself in the third person?) We both have been working on completing our very exclusive wedding favors, which you are certain to not find anywhere else.

If you haven’t already checked out the exact location of the ceremony, be sure to look at our “Location” tab along the top side bar. There is a Google Map that has pins at the locations for parking, alternative parking, and the ceremony. We’re almost at the point where we will be able to watch the forecast for the 18th, and do some anti-rain dances. In the unfortunate (and unlikely!) event of a rainy day, we will be holding the ceremony at the reception site, whose location is also pinpointed on the same map.

Other last minute details to know:
- For our vegetarian friends and family: dinner will be a buffet with some lovely meat-y choices.  But don’t be alarmed– there is indeed a vegetarian choice.  According to our caterer, they keep the vegetarian choice off of the main buffet to make sure that there is some left for vegetarians at the end of the line.  If you do not see the vegetarian option on the buffet, do not hesitate to ask the server.

- Although dinner officially begins at 5 o’clock, make sure to get to the community center early (as early as 4!) to enjoy some hors d’ourves and to mingle.  Just don’t forget that you will have much easier access to the reception site if you park in the back of the community center.

We are very much looking forward to seeing all of our family and friends who are coming to celebrate this momentous occasion with us!  It will be a day to remember.

This isn’t quite wedding-related, but Zac and I, along with Sean Corse and Keith Everson, will be performing in our Rock Band band on local access television tonight at 8 o’clock. If you’re in the Madison area, you can watch on channel 95 (or 991), and if not, it can be seen streaming live through www.wyou.com. We’ve been practicing with the band, getting ready for our performance as the band The Recession.

We’re happy to report that we’ve chosen a location within the park for the ceremony. On the first day of spring, we headed over to the park in the evening, walked around a bit and chose a location that should be picturesque in summer. Check out the “Location” page for an overhead view of the ceremony site.

In addition to choosing the ceremony site, we have been working on planning the ceremony itself. Our officiant Roy provided us with a packet to guide us in planning, and we’ve gotten to work planning something beautiful.