It's a BOY!!!

James Douglas Kroetch was born early this morning at 5:12 am. He weighs 7 pounds, 5 ounces and is 20 inches long. We are all three doing great. I love having him here outside of my once enormous belly. He is a blessing and a joy already.

New Carpet

I realize for most readers this will probably be a very boring blog post however it was a very exciting event in my life! We got new carpet in our house this past week and I could not be happier with the way it turned out. I love the way it looks and feels. Here are some pictures of the whole house.

The living room

One set of stairs (I was trying to get a close-up of what it looks like.)

Our bedroom

The baby's room

The spare bedroom (for anyone who wants to visit us anytime!)

A Baby Shower and Some Mini-Golf

Last weekend, my good friends Mandi and Stacie hosted a baby shower for me. I had worked with Mandi and Stacie at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and alot of people from the laboratory came to the shower. My friend Rekka was also able to fly in from Dallas for the occasion! The shower was a good time of visiting and eating as well as oohing and ahhing over the super cute baby gifts we received.

Mandi, Stacie, and I

Mandi and I admiring all of the gifts. The little man is Stacie's son, Brayden.

And the cake - made by Stacie and it was delicious!

After the baby shower, Rekka and I met up with Cory, Jamie, and Kaylynn for a rousing game of mini-golf. Kaylynn was so excited!! It was her idea to play mini-golf on Cory's last weekend in Colorado for awhile. He is in Guam for work for the next 3 weeks. For updates on his trip check out The Yestertime Blog.

Cory, Jamie, and Rekka all showing off their mini-golfing skills.

At first this gorilla was "kind of scary" according to Kaylynn but then she decided to get close enough to pose for a quick picture.

North to Alaska

Doug just got back from a 10-day fishing trip to Alaska. One of his buddies, John, lives near Kenai, AK and has wanted Doug to come fishing for years. He finally got the chance this summer and want a opportunity! Here are some pictures from his trip. He took so many that I had to make a few executive decisions about which ones made the blog.

This is Doug and John by the fishing boat. It doesn't have a motor so the only way to make it "go" was by oars or just going with the current of the river. If they caught a fish from the boat, they had to go to shore to bring it in. The fish were too big to reel in from the boat!

Doug showcasing a few of his catches - I was impressed!

And after the catch, comes cleaning and filleting the fish. This is from just one salmon.

Doug learned a few new methods of fishing as well. This is called "dip-netting".

Doug "dip-netting" off the side of the boat.

And this is called "combat fishing" simply from the volume of people who are competing for the fish along the shore.

They also went clamming. This involved using a "clam sucker" to suck the clams out of the dirt. Doug said he got pretty good at it!

And these are what the clams look like after the catch.

Some of the wildlife Doug saw while he was there. The moose picture was taken from John's garage.

A bald eagle And finally...the scenery is amazing!

Kristi's Wedding

I traveled to Montana to visit Mom, Dad, and Pete at the end of July and also got to go to my friend's Kristi's wedding in Bozeman. It was beautiful! Not only was the bride stunning, the location was perfect for a wedding. It was in the mountains about 10 miles outside of Bozeman.

My mom, Paula and I all dressed up for the wedding.

It's rare that my group of friends from high school gets together but here we all are!

Carolyn (with her son Wyatt), Linzy, Charity, me, Kristi, and Paula.

And a side shot of me 8 months pregnant...for those of you who want to know what I look like these days. I'm getting pretty BIG!