Our Baby Shower

Though I DID write this, it is shamelessly stolen from the blog Angela and I have been keeping about her pregnancy and our daughter's soon-to-be birth. If you're interested in that blog go to: http://truerthantrue.blogspot.com

Yesterday we had our Boise baby shower, hosted by Tiffany and Bjorn, and put on by Jen, Kathy and Tiffany all in conjunction. It was AWESOME! To give the out of towners an idea of how the place looked, I'll walk you through the house as if you were coming yourself (this is my first shower...well, my first one with women. George threw a man-shower for me, but that was more like a bachelor party. Anyway, if this is all standard, forgive me):

As you drove up to the place, there were several large signs with balloons that not only told you where to park, but directed you to the house itself (Thanks Janessa and Carstensen clan for helping out!). As folks walked in, there was a little box to write a note to Eleanor for her 2nd birthday. I thought that was a really fun idea, since we will be able to share with our daughter how loved she was before she was even born! Then you walk into TnB's pad, through the living room set up for lots and lots of folks to sit in, into the kitchen... Or should I say, the food lover's paradise! There was so much food, and it was all SO good, that I think I may have to start crashing baby showers. We took a bunch home, and that may just be the best gift we got (at least, that's what my tummy tells me). Speaking of gifts, I won't go into all of them, but we were awed by the fact that our friends are ALL good at gift giving. Not once did we have to fake smile and murmer about taking things back. Give yourselves a hand! Oh, and one last thing about gifts. Thank you to Tricia for finishing the quilts that Angela's Grandma Betty started, but was unable to finish. That we will be able to have a physical token of her love that we can share with Eleanor means more than I can say. That Betty was so sick, and yet would work on this gift regardless of the pain, and that you would then finish that gift for her means a very great deal to both of us, and especially to Angela. Thank you.

This was a co-ed shower, and nearly all of our local friends and relatives were there to make it a very special day. It isn't often that we get to gather together with folks from so many different areas of our lives. When I look back on our wedding, what made it so overwhelmingly meaningful (beyond binding Angela and I together) was the fact that we were surrounded by so much love and well wishing from people from every circle and corner in our world. This shower was very much like that. With the exception of my family (who live too far away, and so threw us another super cool shower of their own! We really lucked out on having great families), we were surrounded by almost everyone who loves us. It was humbling to have this new chapter in our lives be welcomed in with love by our own personal community. I have to admit that I teared up a little when trying to thank everyone for coming and for all their kindness. Thank you Jen. Thank you Kathy. Thank you Tiffany (and Bjorn too). You three not only put on a very successful event, but you've given us an experience that will forever shine with love and fondess in our hearts. What better way to bring a life into this world can there be?

My Exercise / Nutrition Program

So, since January 12th, I've been a part of the Ultimate Body Challenge program at the Academy of World Taekwondo. I began this program because I found myself putting on sympathy weight during Angela's pregnancy and, unlike her, I won't lose most of mine in one big birthing experience. We work out for one hour each morning, six days a week, and have a nutritional component as well.
Three of the workouts each week are Thai-robics (similar to Tae Bo). These are a sweat pouring, high kicking, hard punching aerobic hell. In other words, I love it. The other three days a week, we do a sport fusion class. Each week the sport changes so that we don't get bored. So far we've done Karate, skiing, track, boxing and uh...something I can't remember. These tend to be more muscle building exercises, but they certainly do get a sweat up and have aerobic qualities too.
Finally, we eat five meals per day, and at each meal we eat one palm-sized portion of protein and one palm sized portion of carbohydrates. I've chosen on my own to increase the difficulty by cutting out breads and pasta as Carbs and get mine almost exclusively from vegetables. Oh, and we drink a LOT of water.
As some of you know, if you read my facebook updates, I've been sore, tired and generally beat up since I started. But I have also made progres. This morning we had our mid-term testing, and I did 10 more pushups than a month ago, my flexibility increased from 14.75 to 20, am down 7 lbs of fat, and have lost 3.06% body fat (I'm now at 11%).
I've still got 5 weeks to go, and I'm hoping to lose another 3% and at LEAST want to break into the less than 10% body fat group. My plan at this point is to repeat the 10 week program again before summer and get into the best shape of my life. I'm not quite there yet (when I came back from Oman in 2002 was probably my peak), but I'll keep y'all updated.