WE'RE PREGNANT!!

As if you couldn't figure it out from my easy hint on the last blog post...

... we are pregnant!!

We had our suspicions for a few weeks and Laura took a home pregnancy test two Fridays ago to confirm it. We are thrilled! It is definitely something we wanted. Mackinzie is very excited to be a big sister and the next few months are going to be great! We have a few other friends who are also expecting, so come spring, there will be a lot of new babies around. Please keep us in your prayers that this pregnancy can go just as smoothly as it did with Laura's first time with Mackinzie. We visit the doctor in two weeks to find out an approximate due date and we will continue to update the blog with pregnancy news week-to-week.

In other news, the blog has been dominated this past month with a countdown to the Jimmy Buffett concert. This past Saturday, the day finally arrived. Me and Laura, Will and Brittany, Katie, and Tana all had a great time! Our little tailgate was a great success. There was plenty of food and drink to go around, some comfortable shade under the canopy tent, lots of Buffett music!

Here are Katie and Tana relaxing in the parking lot outside the Nissan Pavilion.

Will and Brittany had a great time at their first Buffett show.

This part was so cool: Jimmy recently re-recorded three of his classic songs for the video game "Rock Band" (the songs were Margaritaville, Volcano, and Cheeseburger In Paradise). Part of the tailgate experience now includes a Rock Band Golf Cart that goes around the parking lots outside each venue with a large flat-screen television, a booming sound-system, and a Playstation 3. Me and Will got to play a few times on the customized Landshark Rock Band Guitars! (I took this picture with my cell phone camera)

It was a blast and Jimmy was awesome!!
(I took this picture with my cell phone camera too.....)
Jimmy played all the hits (of course) with some other random songs thrown in too. Some of my favorite highlights were "Mañana", "Last Mango In Paris", "A Pirate Looks at Forty", and "Fins".

We were at my parent's house yesterday for a Labor Day Office Work Picnic. Around 6pm I looked at the clock and thought, "we could get in the car now and make it to Nissan Pavilion in time to see Jimmy one more time...." but that didn't happen. I guess I'll just have to wait till next summer.

At the office picnic, my Uncle Dave passed down a family heirloom to me.

This little pin is over 50 years old. The letters EFC stand for "Expecting Fathers Club". My grandfather (Albert E. Rode, Sr.) got this pin when he and my grandmother were expecting my father (Albert E. Rode, Jr.). My Uncle Dave was born next. When he became an expecting father (with my cousin Casey), he was given this pin. Then when my dad became an expecting father (with me), Uncle Dave gave him the pin. It got passed back to Uncle Dave just before my cousin, Ryan, was born and he has had it ever since. (I think Ryan is 21 years old now). Since I am now the next Rode man to be an expecting father, the pin has been passed on to me and I will hold on to it until my brother, or my cousin Ryan become an expecting father.

Its pretty cool and I just found out about this yesterday! I never knew anything about any heirlooms or traditions like this in my family so I am honored to keep it going.
The rest of the picnic was great! There were plenty of huge crabs and steamed shrimp to go around. I took a jet ski out for a little while and some people went out on a short pontoon boat ride. Kinzie really liked feeding the ducks. There were a whole bunch of them and they all came right up to her to get some bread.

It was a great Labor Day weekend, but now it's Tuesday morning and we're all back to the grind. Laura is teaching her first day with all her Kindergarten students at once (13 kids in her class this year). Kinzie is spending the day with Gigi and I'll be working at home all day (except for a short visit to the dentist this morning)
Keep checking back to the blog for more baby news as it develops!
-Bert