This is a great little picture of Ash in our room at Piedmont Baptist College in NC for Stephanie’s wedding on May 10th, 2008. Ashley is 5 months along! We’ll have more pictures and videos when we return.
It’s a Boy!
For all of you who have been placing bets on the gender of our baby, it’s time to collect. Or pay up if you’d put your money on a girl. We had an ultrasound yesterday and saw that it is a boy - no mistaking it. We also were able to see that he has four chambers in his heart, a stomach, and kidneys. All good things to have.
Next on the agenda is finding a name. That should be an interesting task. We’ve had thoughts of names in the past but we’re not decided on anything yet, so we’ll let everyone know when we’ve made our final decision. If anyone wants to submit suggestions feel free to leave us comments. I suggested to Nate on Sunday that we name our baby Pastor Scott. That way when we’re late for church we can say, “So sorry we’re late, but we had to change Pastor Scott.” That would be funny.
Powdered Drano and Pee
The other day a friend of ours told me about an old wives tale for finding out the gender of your baby. We’re planning on finding out the gender, but when I heard the test I laughed and told Nate that we should do it so we could post about it on the blog…so here’s the post.
The test is that you get powdered Drano and mix it with the urine of the pregnant woman in question, and the gender of the baby is determined by the color of the mixture. Warm colors like red, yellow, orange and brown indicate a boy and cool colors such as blue, green or purple indicate a girl.
So we got some powdered Drano (who knew that even existed), and mixed it in a small bowl with some of my urine. The mixture immediately started to smoke and give off these horrible fumes. It was sputtering and fizzing and Nate was saying, “Ashley! Don’t breathe that!!” We took the bowl outside and opened all the doors and windows, turned on the fans and waited for the lightheadedness to go away. After a few minutes we took a look at the mixture and the color was a brownish-greenish color. So we’ve conclusively decided that we’re having a boy… or a girl.
As a side note, we’d like to add that the test really should never be done since you are in essence mixing bleach and ammonia which is a toxic combination (pdf). So leave it to the professionals - like us.
We didn’t really want to post a picture of the test on the blog because let’s face it, that’s just gross. So here’s a picture of my growing belly (17 weeks) instead.
Mat’s Haiku
I just wanted to point out that our friend Mat has been producing some great Haiku’s over at his Haiku Blog. The above picture is the cover of his recent paper Zine.
Here’s a favorite of mine:
an ugly poodle
glances back after crossing
five lanes of traffic
All right Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close up
We have our first ultrasound pictures!
I know it looks like a black blob, but when we were there we could see him/her kicking and moving around. We were glad to see that
- the heart was beating strongly
- no arms were sticking out of any heads
- there was only one baby
See the whole photo set here.
UPDATE
Ashley had another ultrasound at the SCV Pregnancy Center’s new sonogram. These pictures came out better than before and are recommended if this is the type of thing that interests you.
Dad’s Motorcycle Accident
A week ago Sunday, dad was in a motorcycle accident. Though he came off the bike at about 50 MPH he didn’t break a single bone. We’re praising God for that. Here’s what happened:
Dad was on his way to church in Hollywood. It was a two lane exit, Dad was in the left lane and the other car was in the right. As they were exiting the car changed his mind and cut in front of Dad. I don’t think they hit, but Dad had to slam on the front break and lean back to the left.
The bike went out from under him and he fell on his left hand. He wasn’t wearing gloves, but thankfully he was wearing a leather jacket. Next he hit is face and the helmet came up a bit and he scraped his chin. Then he started skidding on his back-end and tried to slow himself down so he put down his foot and immediately lost his shoe. Slowly the bike slide away from him and he stopped in the white exit triangle, out of the way of traffic.
His computer and Bible came out of the saddle bags and papers started blowing down the freeway. He picked up his Bible and called my mom. The message went something like this: “Uh, accident on the motorcycle. I’m okay. Blood… I’m getting blood on my Bible! I’ve got to go. *click*”. There was an off-duty cop from another state who watched the whole thing. He pulled over and called the ambulance. The car that cut him off never stopped.
Dad was able to come home from the hospital that night. He was in good spirits at the hospital and made plenty of jokes to the E.R. staff. Ashley and I were in Oklahoma at the time so we weren’t able to help them. Thankfully this opened up an opportunity for a couple of members of their church to help out. One in particular was Dante who graciously drove my parents to five different pharmacies to get the drugs Dad was prescribed.
Dad is now beat up and bandaged but the bruises are healing and, like I said, not a bone was broken. We’re so thankful for that. Here are some pictures.
Baby Toys 101
Nate and I have some very specific ideas about the kinds of toys that we would like our children to have. While some of this is based only on preference, some of it comes from having 700 sq.ft. in our condo and knowing that we have no place to put 3′x3′ baby gym. That’s 9 sq.ft. of precious floor space! We were walking through Target tonight and saw things like Lincoln Logs and said, “We should totally get these for the kids someday.” We also came across the battery operated dragon that roars, moves it’s head and “breathes fire” and said, “No way.” We both have a traditional view of toys and have seen dozens of kids set aside the flashy new toy and play contentedly with the box it came in. While we do appreciate the strides that mankind has made to improve early childhood development, we are confident that this can be made without the crib mounted remote control aquatic sounds simulator that we saw on the shelves tonight. So here are some examples of things that if we receive as gifts we will be returning if possible or that may find their way over to grandma and grandpas living room:
Here are some toys that we love:
Nate’s going to create a Baby Murray Gift Buying Guide Flowchart for the interested gift buyers out there. Stay tuned, it should be interesting.
I’m off to Oklahoma
I leave today for Oklahoma until next Wednesday. Ashley’s mom is getting married! It will be great because we’re going to be able to see Rodney and Erin and the kids.
It’s been a while since I’ve flown and I’m looking forward to have a few hours to sit and read and work on my Linear Algebra.
Here’s what I’ll be reading on the plane:
Van Til’s Apologetic
Godel, Escher, Bach
Introduction to Linear Algebra
Internet Videos Channel?
I have to admit: I love YouTube. YouTube is the new “America’s Funniest Home Videos” only without the annoying Bob Sagat commentary.
AFHV got one thing right and that is that regular people can provide some of the most enjoyable entertainment. Let me show you a few examples of what I mean:
Heather Martin sings “When are you coming home Sean?“
Young Hero sings “Hey Jude“
(at the wii)
These are some of my all-time favorites. I often think about posting these kinds of videos here, but I wonder if people would find
them enjoyable or just annoying. So I am taking a poll. Do you think more posts like the videos above would be interesting?
Would you be interested in seeing links to more videos like these?
family update
Not much new to report here at the Murray’s. We got a new piano. Gary was kind enough to help us move it and let us use his truck. My dad, Mike and Greg provided the muscle necessary to push it up the stairs. Gary quickly learned that it’s good to have friends “owe you one” when it comes to moving large instruments: He got a piano the very next weekend so I helped him move it.
Our baby is still growing quickly. Ashley’s tummy is doing the watusi but overall she is able to function. We’re changing Dr’s so hopefully we will be able to have the baby close to my work.
The Spanglers recently introduced us to the amazing BBC documentary Planet Earth. If you haven’t seen it I would highly recommend it. I thought I had seen nearly all of the wildlife programs that TV had to offer but nearly every episode provides phenomenal examples of creation that I had never seen before.
That’s pretty much all for now. Shay has convinced me to use Twitter. I don’t think I really get it. But I’m going to try for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. If you’re a twitter person, you can follow me here.
Blog Redesign
Hey All, I’ve redesigned our blog. Hope you like it. Let me know if you hit any snags or bugs.
Ashley’s Blog
It’s Saturday night and I took a two hour nap this afternoon trying to sleep off morning sickness so now I’m wide awake and Nate is asleep. He worked some really late nights this past week and then we were out to dinner with his work people until almosst midnight last night. Not too bad for me because these days I have a very strict regimine of napping, sleeping and resting. Nate’s worn out though.
It’s pouring rain here right now and I love that. I think that I probably like the first few months of the year the best in Sothern California because that’s when it rains. Nate and I bought a CD of rain and thunder and used to play it most nights as we went to sleep. I remember a few times also playing it while it was actually raining that way we felt like it was thundering too. But that just got confusing. “Was that real thunder or the CD?” So we stopped.
I’m 7 weeks pregnant on Mon. and counting down the days hoping that morning sickness will wane in a month or two. I was thinking that we should find out the gender of the baby, but not tell anyone that way we don’t get flooded with pink or blue things. Maybe I’ll just tell everyone to just stick to greens and browns and neutrals regardless of gender. I have a sinking feeling that wouldn’t really work though. So much to ponder.
Sunday Afternoon
Last night we made our own sushi for the first time. I can’t eat raw fish these days, but have been craving sushi so we got some imitation crab and made california rolls that were actually quite good. Nate also wanted to make a fresh fruit danish similar to the ones from Porto’s (which if you haven’t tried we strongly recommend.) The danishes turned our to be more like orange flavored custard cups and we agreed that we did not want to eat them again. So Nate got the great idea to take them to our sunday school class as our donation to the snack table. He was happy to report that by the end of class all the custard cups had been taken and we didn’t see any half eaten ones in the trash. I’ve decided that I don’t like anything made with orange zest as am ain ingredient and I think it all started with some orange chicken from my childhood.
Tomorrow is Nate’s birthday. He’ll be 25. It will be low key this year - hanging out with family and eating some pie. Several months ago we bought some tickets to see Wynton Marsalis at the Disney Center on Feb. 1 and that’s kind of a late birthday/ early Valentines Day thing that we’ll be doing.
I’ve been really starting to feel the early pregnancy nausea lately. It usually hits early afternoon and lasts the rest of the day. I have found that so far it feels as if I’ve been in the back seat of a crowded car with hot stale air during a winding drive up the side of a mountain. Bleh. But we’re happy that things are progressing and Nate reminds me daily, “A sick mommy means a healthy baby.” It helps get me through.
Our friend Beckah is coming today to visit today and we’re very excited. We haven’t seen her since we bought our puppies so we’re really looking forward to catching up.
Murray Baby Stats
Due Date: September 17, 2008
Current Size: Grain of Rice
Gender: Unknown (Nate thinks it’s a boy)
Hometown: Ashley’s Uterus
Habitat: A dark world punctuated by sounds of digestion
Favorite Foods: Cucumbers and Ice Cream
Hobbies: Listening to dad play the upright bass, sleeping, growing a head
Thing Most Looked Forward to After Birth: Being read to, being the final member of dad’s jazz trio, long walks on the beach
Erin and Nate playing Christmas Songs
Erin came over the other night and we practiced our Christmas songs. I still need a lot of work on the bass but it’s still a fun first bass video. Thanks for coming over and playing, Erin!
God Bless Us, Every One!
Last weekend we bought our Christmas tree. After some price comparison shopping we decided that this years tree would be bought at Lowes. We were looking through their 6′-7′ trees and pulled out one that looked a little taller the rest. We held it up and looked at it and said, “That’s got to be taller than 7 feet.” We bought the tree, tied it to the car brought it home and as it was lying in the living room floor before we put it in the stand we decided to measure it. We were surprised and I was elated to discover that the tree was 9′ tall. I was so happy!! 
The 9′ trees were $40 more than we spent on our “6′-7′.” Thankfully we have high ceilings in our condo so a 9 footer isn’t a problem. So here’s a picture of our wonderful mis-priced tree.
What We Did Tonight
Tonight we went to dinner at Maru Sushi in the Valencia Towncenter. They have some of the best sushi in town, we think. After sushi we went to Target and I bought a cream pashmina to wear to Nate’s work Christmas party and looked for a few straggling Christmas gifts we haven’t yet bought. We decided while we were there that we wanted some ice cream. We looked in their freezer section and decided that we could find ice cream in a grocery store for cheaper. We headed to Ralph’s and looked, then on to Vons thinking that there had to be better sales on ice cream. In Vons we looked over the sales and then decided on some store brand ice cream that was the cheapest one. We left the store and on the way home saw a stretch hummer coming off the freeway. The back windows were rolled down and three girls, no older than 15, were hanging their heads out screaming at every car they passed. I said to Nate, “You know, I’m always curious where those things are going. Is it a school dance or prom or something or are they actually going someplace cool.” So Nate said, “Well, let’s follow it and see.” So we started following the stretch hummer with the screaming girls. We followed it as it cruised through the towncenter and then headed back to the freeway. We decided that the girls for some reason were just out for a nightly drive in a stretch hummer and that it was time for us to go home and eat our ice cream. Once at home, we dished up the ice cream, sat down and took a bite. It was disgusting. The ice cream was crunchy, and the bits of waffle cone in it were stale. So we headed back out to Vons, returned the box of nastiness and bought the ice cream that we’d wanted in the first place. So now we’re watching Ratatouille with the taste of Breyer’s Cookies and Cream in our mouth, and our curiosity about the destination of adolescent filled stretch hummers salved.
Ashley’s Birthday
This weekend was Ashley’s Birthday. I decided to take her to San Diego. We usually like to stay at the Lafayette Hotel on El Cajon Blvd., but because we’re on one income we opted for the Good Nite Inn, San Diego.
There’s a photo booth we really love at the Balboa Park Museum of Photographic Arts. We visited the booth last year and we’re trying to make it a tradition.
2 Days Before Thanksgiving
Just wanted to say hi. I’ve been sick for the past few days, so I haven’t been outside the house much. Actually yesterday I didn’t go outside at all and today I only went out to do the laundry and take out the trash. I don’t mind it as much as one would think. I can find alot to do in our 720 sq.ft. of space. I did 5 loads of laundry and some filing today and made chicken and biscuits and broccoli for dinner. Now I’m using up time until Nate gets home and we can eat. For Thanksgiving we’re going over the Courtyard and hanging out with family. I’m making a turkey, stuffing, gravy, asparagus and apple pie. Sounds like enough to be a whole meal in itself, but we’re actually adding that to an already full menu that Nate’s mom is making. We should take a wagon with us so that Nate can wheel me out to the car after dinner is over. It doesn’t feel like the holidays to me. I just realized the other day that Christmas is only a few weeks away. One of my favorite things to do is to go pick out and buy a Christmas tree. I’ll have to write a post about that this year when we do that.
better than one
Pre-teen mutant ninja turtle
Well you are in for a treat today. My parents have digitized a gang of photos from my childhood. I have uploaded them to flickr and you can view the set here (slideshow).
another halloween memory
Here’s a photo of Mat, Melissa, me, and Steph from a Halloween years ago.
Halloween Memories
Nate:
When I was a kid the towns in our area would each host trick-or-treating on a different night of halloween week. Each night my parents would drive us around to whichever town was having it’s trick-or-treat night and we would fill a pillow case with candy. By the end of halloween week we had enough candy to last us until Easter, the next big candy holiday. By the time Easter came around I would be down to the dregs - butterscotch and tootsie rolls, but at least it was candy.
Ashley:
We didn’t celebrate Halloween and not once growing up did I go trick-or-treating. To this day I have not been trick-or-treating. The day after Halloween we would walk through the neighborhood and pick up the candy that had fallen out of the other kids bags. Usually this consisted of Laffy Taffys, Now and Laters, and if we were lucky a miniature candy bar - a snickers maybe that had fallen in the shade and had not been melted by the sun yet. I would walk around with the front of my shirt turned up to make a little pocket and would use that to hold the candy. We tried to get out there pretty early the next morning before the candy on the sidewalks got stepped on.