I was looking out my office window and realized I was missing a very nice sunrise. I jumped outside and snapped the photo on the left. As I was coming back inside I heard loud noises coming from behind our hangar. To clarify, I work in a normal office that happens to have an airplane hangar in the back.

I went behind the hangar and realized the noise was the blackhawk helicopter you see on the right! Pretty cool, huh? Anyways, I thought you might enjoy.

Take Care,
B.J.

We've settled quite nicely into our new house. We've got all the furniture in place, pots and pans put away, and boxes emptied. It's so nice to have some extra room! The spare bedroom is empty and awaiting its new tenant. We added some extra shelving in the garage and bedrooms, and new door locks on (no one had keys to the old ones). We couldn't be happier with our new digs.

We got the majority of our shopping done during black Friday after Thanksgiving and the following weekend in Anchorage. B.J. passed his test that weekend and we were able to fend off the crowds to get a lot of the shopping done. This weekend we mailed out our Christmas cards, so be looking for them soon.

We leave in 5 days for Nebraska, we are so excited! Packing is underway and we're finishing up last minute items before we leave. We had a very nice time at Nate & Sarah's Christmas party on Saturday. We met several other young engineer couples in town. The food, drinks, and company was great.

See you all soon! Love, Ashley, B.J. & Baby.

P.S. We updated our photo on the right. Look how much Ashley is showing at 17 weeks!

We were heading out the other day and noticed a bunch of birds in a neighboring tree. A closer look revealed 7 black birds and one bald eagle (eagle in the red circle on the left). The black birds were all eyeing the eagle, probably trying to protect their nests in the area.

Well, we are working hard on transitioning to the new house. We've got about 50% of the boxes moved over and hope to finish them up today. Saturday/Sunday B.J. will get help from Nate to move the furniture over. If all goes well we will be sleeping in our new rental house by Sunday!

On the pregnancy front all goes well! Ashley is doing great, today starting her 14th week. As we had hoped her morning (and afternoon, and night) sickness is completely gone and her appetite has returned. We had a great time with Nate and Sarah's family yesterday for Thanksgiving. We also had a chance to "web chat" with Ashley's side of the family for awhile which was great.

We hope everyone has a great holiday weekend. Love, Ashley, B.J. & Baby

Nieces & Nephews...

Here are the promised photos of *our* other three kids. Jaycee on the left is a princess, Brody in the middle is a puppy dog, and Shelby is a 50's Bee-Bop Girl. What cute kids! We really wish we could've been there for Halloween.

Yesterday we had some exciting news. We've found a bigger and more spacious place to call home. It's a small house with a garage and enough space for baby, the skiff, and all of our stuff. We'll update the site with photos as we move in the next few weeks.

Snow Starting to Fall...

We just got Halloween photos of our niece Claire. She is so cute and is getting so big! We are waiting for Halloween photos of our other nieces and nephews. Halloween here in Juneau was cold and rainy (imagine that) so it wasn't too exciting. In fact, I think we had under 10 trick-or-treaters...

We took this photo earlier today outside our house. The sun came out and we noticed the powder on Thunder Mountain. It's very exciting to see the snow! October has been nothing but rain so it's nice to see change of weather. We missed the ski swap this year, and aren't going to get ski passes since Ashley can't ski in her "condition". We're planning on going to Anchorage on Friday December 7th for Brian's LEED testing. We hope to make a three day weekend out of it and swim at the hotel, and go shopping for Christmas presents.

Late October Update

Hello everyone! This ultrasound was taken on October 25th. The baby is between the two crosshairs. If you look close at the bottom half you can see what we think could be legs. Everything is still on track and we're as excited as ever. The baby is just about one inch long

Ashley is slowly getting over the morning sickness. She gets through the work day only getting sick two or three times, rather than five or six times so that is good progress. She's also starting to get her appetite back.

Brian has been busy taking care of Ashley and studying for his LEED certification exam in December. Work is steady, he's been busy with the electrical design (power & security systems) for a new loading dock out by the ferry terminal and is just starting a large commercial building renovation project downtown.

We are so excited to be coming back to Nebraska for Christmas, and are looking forward to seeing all our family and friends. We will be in Nebraska from the 22nd of December to the 2nd of January.
Keep in touch and we'll continue posting baby updates.

Check out our Alaska photos...

Here is our first ultrasound on 10/09/07. The two crosshairs shown on the image are the head to rump of the baby (black area is the amniotic sac)

We're 7 weeks along!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone! We noticed our friends and family all had blogs going, so we'd thought we'd join in the fun. As the title suggests, we have finally gotten pregnant! It was three years in the making but definitely worth the wait. We have a doctor's appointment Tuesday and may have our first ultra sound. Our due date is May 24. We are over the moon!!!

We're both doing well here in Juneau. Ashley is working for Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield as a Marketing Liaison (customer support & problem solver). BJ is still at Morris Engineering doing the electrical engineering thing. He plans to test for his P.E. (professional engineer) registration next October. Our tentative plan is to move back to the Midwest in the Spring of 2009.

We'll post a bunch of Alaska photos as well as keep everyone updated on the pregnancy progress through this blog. Please be patient as we get used to this blog thing.

Sincerely,
Ashley & BJ