It's A . . .

Boy! We're really excited and now can starting thinking of names over the next 20 weeks! Well, maybe we'll try to get one picked before that just in case! We got back from Kansas late, late, late last night, but our short sleep time was easier to ignore since we knew we were getting up to see baby pictures! Thanks to Baby's Christmas presents and the maternity clothes that I borrowed from two friends, we came home with two more suitcases than we left with on Wednesday! :-)

The Kids at Christmas

Lucy, Jason, Lisa, Libby, and Ryan
(Pregnancy belly: 19 weeks)

Christmas in Kansas

We concluded our long day of travel to Kansas with this adorable surprise awaiting us:

Christmas Corgi Libby

Two Christmases ago we surprised my dad with Christmas Corgi Lucy. Her little sister was waiting for us to see when we arrived home yesterday. Lucy is a good big sister and my parents are thrilled with both of their puppies. Here are a few more pictures:

Lucy watching over her sister

Libby exhausted from being watched

We had a delicious Christmas Eve feast of chicken enchiladas, soup, and fresh eggnog (thanks to Martha Stewart's recipe and Ryan's prep work - I didn't get to try it due to the eggs and rum, but it looked awesome!) before exchanging presents. Everyone was very happy with the well thought out gifts that were given and received!

Smithsonian American History Museum

The wait is over! The SAHM reopened last month after its nearly 3 year closure for remodeling. The centerpiece of the museum is the Star-Spangled Banner, which has been restored (again) and is housed in a magnificent display illuminated by "candlelight" (really, some sort of fancy lighting, but it's quite dim). We also saw the only copy of the Gettysburg Address that was handwritten, titled, signed and dated by Abraham Lincoln. It is on loan through January from the White House where it's housed in the Lincoln Bedroom.

We got a late start to the day, so we just checked out the highlights before the museum closed. Then we walked to the Downtown Holiday Market at the Portrait Gallery to look through the booths. Dozens of artists and craftmen have tents with their works for sale. We had a fun time browsing and then enjoyed dinner at Asia Nine.

Inauguration Progress

I was out running errands during lunch today and had two stops on Pennsylvania Avenue. I was surprised to see inauguration viewing stands already being built! There was also a giant deck being built on the front of the mayor's offices, which I assume is inauguration related but hard to tell. Unfortunately, I don't carry my camera all the time anymore, so I'll go with this picture of the Obamas visiting the Bushes at the White House. I wish I did have my camera today though, because the Christmas decorations on the outside of the Willard Hotel were awesome! Christmas time in the city is so gorgeous!

Name Game

No, this isn't a name the baby game (although as soon as we know the gender - next week maybe?! - I'll entertain suggestions)! I got this game off a blog by Lesley's friend, Kimberly, in Hawaii. Thank goodness for blog rolls, right, so we can keep up with strangers?! :-)

My favorite is #4, although #7 sounds interesting, too:

1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names):
Lynn Lee

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad):
John Raymond

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name):
Shlisa

4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal):
Red Dog

5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live):
Marie Alexandria

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add “THE” to the beginning):
The Purple Margarita (I think it sounds very cool, actually!)

7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name):
Lish

8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):
Cookies ‘n Cream Chocolate Chip (that’s not very authentic sounding. . .the ice cream actually makes me confess that after all my years with Jason, I have embraced his favorite flavor as my own. Sorry chocolate chip cookie dough, but you’re just not consistent enough!)

9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet’s name, current street name):
Rachel Midtown

Hopefully some of you will do a similar post on your blogs that I'll read about!

Capitol Steps

We had a lovely date night downtown this evening with tickets to The Capitol Steps (thanks Ed and Hilary for a great Christmas present) and a pre-theatre dinner at Aria Trattoria. Both are downtown at the Ronald Reagan Building, which is where we had an awesome company Christmas party last year (see December 2007's Spam and Sushi post). It was fun to get dressed up and go out again! We haven't been doing that much in the past 3 months due to work travel and my fatigue and inconsistent stomach.

The show had scripted songs (changing the words to popular tunes) and skits about current (mostly political) events. My favorite song was "In the Metro" sung to Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto." It was particularly hilarious because just Thursday I was thinking to myself whether homeless people rode the train all day when it rained. I was heading into work late that morning due to my late arrival home from Scottsdale and it was just me and the (seemingly) homeless men at 10:45 a.m. on a cold and rainy day. One of the performers did awesome impressions of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton. He was hilarious as each of them! There were also skits about the auto bailout, the stock market, Putin, Obama, Hillary, Palin, and the aging liberal justices on the Supreme Court.

If anyone is coming to visit us in the spring, we'd be up for another show! They play every weekend and since the skits are so current, they will be all be new by then.

Post script: I forgot to mention this when originally posting: my "going out" outfit was complete because I finally got my black boots back from the repair shop. It took 3 weeks of "they'll be ready next week" for my heel to finally make it up their to do list and be replaced. Last time I wore those boots - to work sometime in November - Rachel took advantage of the fact they were lazily deposited on the bedroom floor after removal and used the heel as a chew toy! Once she had devoured the black coating off the outside, the inside did closely resemble one of her old favorite toys, Dino the nylabone. . . .in fact, that's what Jason thought he heard her chewing on as we watched a movie in the other room. I didn't hear anything at the time. But Dino got the trash treatment two months prior since it was eaten down so small that I thought she might choke on it. Guess she found a substitute! That was the one and only time the boots were not returned to their box high in the closet. I learned my lesson on that one!

Sunny Scottsdale

I think Mandi and I are in a contest to see how many states we can take our kids to - somewhat luckily for me, mine is easier to travel with right now, since I don't have to pack a car seat or stroller or wrestle with a wiggly infant.

Baby is well on his/her way to 10,000 frequent flyer miles for 2008. We've already had 3 trips to/from O'Hare and are mid-trip in Scottsdale, Arizona currently. Luckily we have had or will have aisle seats on all of our trips except for an unlucky window seat on a full plane to Phoenix on Sunday. (Since not everyone is an accountant, let me do the math for you: 5 hours + 1 baby in utero + 3 bathroom breaks = 2 annoyed seat mates.)

I'm in Scottsdale this week to teach at national training for the firm's 3rd and 4th year tax professionals (i.e. seniors). I really enjoy teaching and the students seem interested in the topic (financial instruments).

Not to be my Grandma Leona, whose farm instincts required her to record the weather conditions daily in her journal, but I would like to discuss the temperature: I spent last week working on a client project in Cold Chicago, so Sunny Scottsdale is a real treat! The average temperature last week was in the teens due to the snow and wind, so the gorgeous 70 degree weather here is almost unbelievable! (It was 35 and rainy in Washington when I was there on Saturday, so not a great compromise. . . .although being home with Jason and Rachel is worth at least 10 degrees! :-))

(To clarify, the picture is from a Scottsdale tourism website since I didn't pack my camera, but I did see similar views from the resort and to/from the airport.)

Best Souvenir Ever!

Last year as the 2007 holiday season approached, I was trying to find the perfect Washington D.C. gift - something that we would only get here and could really represent this special time in our lives. It wasn't as easy to come up with as getting college sweatshirts during freshman year. I finally settled on the official 2007 White House Christmas ornament. And I fully intend to head over to the White House Visitor's Center in the next few weeks to pick up the official 2008 ornament as well. However, Jason and I have an unique souvenir in the works this year that we're excited to reveal. . .Rachel is getting a baby brother or sister in May!

To answer the most asked questions:
1. "Are you joking? I thought you weren't ever going to get around to having kid!" Nope, it's for real. We're 16 weeks into the 40 weeks of pregnancy.
2. "How are you feeling?" Pretty good now. Normal first trimester nausea has passed, and not too many meals were lost.
3. "Isn't May when you're moving again?" Yes, at least it was. Now we'll probably stay here in D.C. for an extra month or so. Hopefully we can get a house hunting trip in before the baby arrives and will be in the closing process during May and be able to move in late June or early July at the latest.
4. "Do you know what it is yet?" Yes, it's one baby! We've seen that for sure. In another 3-4 weeks we'll have another sonogram and hopefully the baby will be cooperative in revealing his/her gender.
5. "Have you thought of names yet?" Not really. We're waiting on the answer to #4 so we can eliminate 50% of the potential choices.
6. "Will you still blog about your travels once you have a kid?" No, probably not! If we aren't traveling anywhere, I won't really have much to blog about! But, I'm sure we'll have plenty of blog fodder about life in our new home with the new baby. And, we've still got a few months of travels before baby arrives. . . .