An Amusing Ride

It has been said that God has a sense of humor.

Well, we are not only realizing this little side more and more, but we are also being constantly amazed by His grace!

Where am I going with this?

Some of you may be familiar with "our little plan" concerning the prospect of parenthood. For those of you who aren't, here it is:

For the past couple of years now, I have dreamed of getting pregnant right around, well, now actually, as in Sept-Oct so that our little bundle of joy might arrive close to July of 2010. Ahh, July. That blissful month seemed so perfect to me in my little dream. I would be completely done with school and all its requirements and obligations, my mom would be on her summer break and able to spend a large chunk of time with the new parents, Steve would be closer to completion of his current phase of work, etc, etc...

Well, God had another idea. But we are oh so thankful for it!

Also part of our "plan" was to hit Six Flags at the end of August as part of our Summer List of 2009 . (It was also part of the list to take a really long bike ride, but at this point, that probably won't be happening for a while either...) This little trip to an amusement park was brought to a screeching halt that morning of 8/21/09 as we got the biggest news yet of our lives:

And since we idiotically hadn't figured out which line meant what, we had to be sure:

While we hadn't actually begun "trying" yet (I know, TMI, sorry...), we did think we were "safe."

Apparently, we weren't.

Ok, so it may only be off by a couple of months, but God is still showing us that He can take our most well thought out "plans" and throw them out the window! There was a part of me that always knew God had His own plan in mind despite our best efforts, and I prayed over the possibility that His plan just might include several Julys (or Januarys, Februarys, Marchs, etc) from 2010 and I asked that I would just have peace and joy over whatever HIS timing might be. I sure didn't think His timing would be earlier than ours, though!!! But, He decided a mid-April baby was much better for us than a July baby anyway, and we are enjoying every minute of this journey that reveals His miracles and mercies more and more each day!

Ok, I know, so what I'm sure some of you really want to see...

My parent's reaction.

Now remember, we had been convincing my dear folks for the past 6 plus years (my dear folks who have been completely itching for a grand-baby since we got married...) that children were still several years away for us, so this was not at all on their radar. They thought they were coming up for the weekend to attend the Lecture Recital I was giving that coming Monday, and they thought the card we were presenting them was simply a belated "Anniversary Card" with two cute pugs on the front. Well, it wasn't.

Here's what it looked like:

Outside





Inside






Inside and flipped

And here's their response...

I knew my mom's first words would be "Wha-aat, Wha-aat???" But I pictured ecstatic screaming, not sweet tears :). It was very fun. Then the excitement really hit with squeals of "I can't stand it, I can't stand it!" All the while, my dad is just laughing giddy-ly.

Wasn't the video camera a little obvious, you may ask? Well, we had wanted my recital to be taped, so we just played it off like we were testing it out before the big day. I couldn't resist. I wanted this moment to be captured and a video seemed like the best way. My parents crack me up and I do love them for it. They could quite possibly be just as excited about our little one as we are- they're gonna be awesome grandparents:). Both sets of soon-to-be grandparents are quite thrilled and anxious!

And just a couple more pictures:

Our "little strawberry" at ~ 9 1/2 wks

(The give-away picture in the above card flipped over so they couldn't see at first)

Our "little plum" at ~ 11 1/2 wks

Belly shots will come when there's actually a belly from a baby, and not just from bloat or the cupcakes I devoured. Here's the most recent shot of us if you want a bit of a starting point.

At the zoo, around 11 wks along.

Not much "baby bump" yet, but I did recently enjoy a small shopping spree of peasant/empire waist-style-long tops to hide the soon-to-be "just chubby" looking look.:) I'm right about 14 weeks now, the beginning of the 2nd trimester, so clothes will start feeling snug any day. You'll see many pictures soon to come after our upcoming 9 day trip to France which we leave for on Sunday!

So, school will undoubtedly be a bit more stressful, trying to work out how I will get in the required hours of teaching I owe, giving a final recital while very pregnant and breathing with difficulty, not to mention all of the other requirements that come along with finishing this degree much earlier than usual. And my mom won't be able to stay quite as long as I had originally envisioned, and we might not have quite as much time/money/space as we would've liked...

But, there could always be more time/money/space and all of the above so we are definitely not complaining and we are sooo excited for this little miracle that God has blessed us with. We realize that we are completely at His mercy in this and God continues to work in me in letting go of control- what a lesson it has already been!

Please keep our "little peach" (the term he/she is affectionately referred to this week) in your prayers for continued good health and development, and check back for more updates! I will do my best to be more regular with these posts now that we have some much more worthy news to be posting about!

Art, Academia, and Animals

October. Really? Already??? Not sure how that happened, so this post will just be a quick summary of what happened in September, beginning with the completion (well, almost, but that's for the next post...) of the Summer List of 2009 , and No. 14:

Vist the Guggenheim Museum.

Back in September, we took in a small portion of the Guggenheim Musuem with some good friends, Lauren and Nate Minchen. A bit of it was closed due to some renovations, and it was pretty crowded (Saturdays nights are pay-as-you-like), so it was a brisk tour through each level. Some pretty cool stuff, but we'll need to take it in another time once all of the new exhibits are completed and it's not so cramped...

Pretty cool architecture, though...

September also brought the return of school. Sigh...

But I won't complain too much as I'm done with classes, and for the most part, I'm only going out one day a week to teach. I gave my lecture recital back on the 21st so the prep for that was quite exhausting and called for some extra outings out to the Island, but the next two weeks will just be one day each week. Can I get an Amen? Yeah, I'm enjoying this year A LOT more.

What's a lecture recital, you might ask? Well, you basically lecture on a piece, then play it. So, I chose a piece that a professor from my undergrad wrote- I met with him over the summer for an interview and coaching, and he and his wife decided they even wanted to come! It was quite a treat to have the composer there in the flesh and the recital went well, but I am oh-so-glad that it's done with!!! My parents even came up for the weekend and recital as well, so that was super fun, and will be elaborated on more in the next post ;)

Dinner with the folks after a very happy Saturday :)

With the composer, Stuart Saunders Smith, and his wife, Sylvia after the recital.

With my ever supporting and AMAZING family (above and below!)
(Yeah, I know, there I go with the winking again.... Sigh)

September really flew by, but I almost cringe at the coming months... All (or at least, mainly) good stuff, just crazy:

* we leave for a ten day trip to France in two weeks (another one of Steve's conferences- no, I'm not complaining)
* followed by an "orchestra week" at Stony Brook where I'll have daily rehearsals out there (yes, I am complaining)
* followed by my next recital
* followed by a move!!!

Man, I'm looking forward to the holidays.

Did I mention I'll probably be quitting my LC job by Nov, too? That's a whole story in and of itself, but, let's just say, it's time. It's been time for a while now, but too much ridiculousness has started happening there that it's just no longer worth the lousy pay. Here's one word to give you a very brief description of my biggest reason for leaving- Telefunding. Yeah, it's as lame as it sounds.

I've said all along that one of the main things I love about that job is that it allows enough free time for me to get my own work done, and well, that's definitely not so much the case anymore, so time to re-evaluate...

But, I digress.

Back to a lighter note and the completion of No. 15 on the list:

Go to the Bronx Zoo!!!

We took in this gem last weekend and had an awesome time! Below are pics of some of our faves:

It was a great day and we will definitely be returning. We almost got every item off the list, but we're not sweating the ones we missed. Stay tuned for some further explanations ;)