We're having a lima bean!!!

That's right, it's a bean...I mean, baby! At least that's what all the books tell us it's going to be. Rebecca and I got our first ultrasound in October and received the below picture; supposedly you can see the head, arm and leg buds, umbilical cord, eye socket...and a sail boat if you let your eyes go cross-eyed. I'm not sure that I see all that...this could have just been bad reception of the Cowboys/Redskins football game for all I know. However, it's supposedly a textbook fetus (it figures that our baby would already be into studying...that thing's gotta get a life).

It's crazy to think that our baby is only an inch long in the above picture. However, it's 65% head (again, another sign that it's taking after its father). It's so tiny, yet it's making its presence known all the time. Rebecca has felt pretty lousy lately, but thankfully she's almost out of her first trimester. Here I was looking forward to all the fun food cravings that I was going to get to join in on, and to the empathy weight that I would get to put on (I'm nothing if not empathetic). However, food has recently been the last thing that Rebecca wants to see (that, and my mouth full of pickles and ice cream).

We had no idea it would be like this. It's like there's some secret society of moms whose main purpose is to cover up the unpleasantness of pregnancy so that people will keep having babies...for survival of the species, I guess. Apparently there is also a hormone that causes women to forget about the pain of child-bearing. All I know is that I would like to have lots of kids (12 seems like a good number), so I'll play dumb in the future when Rebecca asks me how difficult her first trimester was...I'll have to figure out how to delete this post before then...

3 Down, 3 to go!

I'm so excited!  I just finished the last of the three classes that I was taking this semester.  I now only have 3 more classes until I finish!  Yeah!!!
I'm really dreading the final class that I'll take next semester.  It involves planning and implementing professional development for teachers.  Now, there's one rule that most all teachers go by:  Professional Development= Bad.  It usually takes about 4 extra hours to plan for a sub that day, you may return to a classroom that looks like a natural disaster hit it, you might be bored out of your mind, or feel that whatever the training was about was not applicable to your teaching situation or just overwhelmed you with useless info.  There have been some great professional development that I've been to (none in New Mexico), but they're so few and far between that teachers have come to hate them.  So, now I'm the one who has to do professional development for teachers.  And, I don't even work in a school right now.  "Hi, you don't know me, but I'm going to make you work an extra 4 hours this week planning for a sub, and possibly waste a couple of hours of your 45++ hour work week in training.  Sound good?"  I've been dreading this ever since I entered the program, but it just can't be avoided....
But, right now I'm finished with classes until January!  Oh joy!

Bust Potential

So there are a few wonderful things about the news here in Albuquerque. First of all, we are lucky to have the news that won the New Mexico Broadcasters award for the best morning show, the best evening news show, the best weather forecast, and the best sportscast. This information is given to us before each newscast. What they don't mention though, is New Mexico only has one news channel. Details!

I think the reason the weather forecast won the award is for this thing called the bust potential. So, after each forecast the weatherman gives a "bust potential" percentage which tells us what chance there is that his prediction is wrong. This weekend, his forecast called for a snow storm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But this forecast had a bust potential of 60%. Mmmmm.... I think I would have gone for, a rain forecast with a 40% bust potential. But what do I know, I'm not a professional.

This ain't no New Mexico that I know

Hey folks...the male side of the "Tucker & Rebecca dynamic duo" here. For those of you on the "gramma' train", I realize that my post title is poorly written. There should probably be a comma or question mark somewhere in there. But the things that we saw this past weekend have caused in me a momentary lapse in proper syntax, as I'm just blown away by the beautiful part of the country we live in.

What's that you're saying? "How can scrubby deserts and DWI checkpoints be beautiful?" Well, mythical inquisitive naysayer, say nay no more! We have discovered an oasis in the desert, a place free of red-light cameras and Val Kilmer (sorry ladies): a campground full of maples that were changing into all sorts of golds and brilliant reds. It took some effort to get to, however. I planned a little excursion for Rebecca and I, a 30-minute jaunt to a park that would be so close and so easy to find, that I wouldn't even need to print out directions or plan ahead in any way! I know what you're thinking: "But Tucker, traveling whilst unprepared is dangerous!" Man, my little rhetorical device is a real downer.

So I threw caution to the wind and just drove, my wife and a bag of almonds at my side. We finally called some friends for directions after we'd been lost and driving around for an hour. Preparedness: 1, Tucker: 0. But, armed with new directions and about 2 gallons of gas, we forged again into the byways of New Mexico, thinking that one of the many small little towns along the way would have this new-fangled invention called a gas station. Au contraire, mon frère. We drove for a little less than half the distance our remaining gas could take us (thinking that, if we couldn't find gas, we'd at least have enough to backtrack and get gas back in our hometown). Preparedness: 2, Tucker: 0. Still not finding a gas station that had been occupied since 1970, we pulled out our trusty Garmin to guide us to the nearest gas station. Just as soon as the coveted directions to the nearest gas station appeared (only 6 miles away on some convoluted side roads), our Garmin beeped "Out of Battery...Powering Down...In Your Face!" (okay, I added the last part). Preparedness: 3, Tucker: 0 (shouldn't there be some kind of mercy rule in the game of Life?).

So, we drove all the way back home, got gas, and had a few tense moments. But, being the stubborn man that I can be at times, I refused to let many, many setbacks ruin our fun, spontaneous little excursion, even if it killed me, dang it!!! (pardon my French). We headed back...again, passing the same little towns...again. But we finally found it, the view that we had been waiting for all along:


Okay, maybe this isn't exactly what we saw, but it's pretty close. I later learned that a forest fire had ravaged the area we were going to just months before. Needless to say, I burst out in joyous laughter and excitement (or was it terrible sorrow and depression...I can't remember). But, since we had come this far, I just wanted to see what the actual campground looked like. To our amazement (and I'm sure to Val Kilmer's as well, though he wasn't there), the park hadn't been touched by the fire (except for the fire of awesomeness!). Check out some of the sights that we saw:





I heard one kid say to his mother, "Mom, this is the prettiest hike that I've ever been on!" Doesn't that make you want to do the thing where water comes out of your eyes (being a man, I don't know what they call that crazy process). Here are some more pics:


At the end of a long, though successful, day:


Though it was a tough day, this is all the reward I need:

A LONG WAY GONE
Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

By Ishmael Beah

I just finished reading this book last week. It's a memoir written by Ishmael Beah about his childhood in Sierra Leone. It's a powerfully written book that really opens your eyes to the horrific reality of many children around the world. At times it can be a little hard to read, but there are little breaks that allow the reader to "breathe." This book helped me understand the path of desperation, manipulation, and hopelessness that causes people to commit horrific acts of violence against mothers, children, and fathers. Ishmael is a gifted writer. He has a way of beautifully describing his life, although it was a nightmarish fight for survival.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

When I was very little, my father used to say, "If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die." I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn't know where I was going. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive....

Many times during our journey we were surrounded by muscular men with machetes who almost killed us before they realized that we were just children running away from the war....

Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I close my eyes and wait for death. Even though I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die and all that will be left is my empty body walking with you...

Sometimes night has a way of speaking to us, but we almost never listen...

Gasemu began to cry like a child. It always made me afraid when such things happened. In my younger years I had learned that grown men cry only when they have no other choice....

We left New York City on November 15, 1996.... throughout the flight back home I still felt as if I was dreaming, a dream that I didn't want to wake up from. I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.

Williams party...

So, Friday night we were meeting friends at Olive Garden for a surprise birthday dinner for one of our friends. The plan was to meet at 5:30 at Olive Garden. Adam (the friend's husband) made reservations, and we were supposed to go ahead and sit down and wait for them to come. Surprise! He gave us specific instructions that if we arrived after 5:30 to wait until 5:45 to come in, so we wouldn't ruin the surprise.
We got to OG at 5:28, and didn't see anyone there yet. I asked the hostess if there was a Adam Williams reservation for 5:30. She looked at the list and said, "Yep, I've got a Williams reservation for 20 at 5:30. But, you're the first ones here."
We went ahead and sat at the table, and waited. Tucker kept saying, "You know how I felt when I thought we shouldn't sit at that table at McAllister's [that's another story]. Well, that's how I feel now. I just have a feeling that this isn't right. I can't believe no one else is here."
I of course, thought he was being paranoid. It's a Williams reservation for 20 at 5:30, everything fits. Every one else has kids so I wasn't surprised that they were running late. I was a little nervous though about us being the only ones at the table when the birthday girl arrived. Surprise! It's only 2 of us, at a table for 20!
We waited until 5:45, with Tucker saying it didn't feel right for the whole time. Then, finally a family arrived. They looked at us strange, and we introduced ourselves. We didn't really know any of the friends that were coming because we go to a different church than the Williams. The family started to sit down, and were still looking at us weird. "Are you here for the Williams party?" I asked.
The lady looked at me with raised eyebrows, "Yes, William Mahgur."
"William Mahgur! No, Adam Williams."
So apparently the waitress hadn't really listened to the party we were asking for. Also, the email about the birthday party didn't specify which Olive Garden. We were at the wrong OG, at the wrong "Williams party."
We got to the right one about 30 minutes late. I guess I should pay more attention to my husband's intuition!

No AC!

So, the weather has gotten so nice here the past few weeks. It usually gets stormy in the afternoons. Some days it rains, some days it doesn't. The evenings can be pretty chilly. We just open our windows, and when we wake up there's a fresh, cool breeze blowing through our room. It cools our room down to 68 degrees during the night. What's been so great about this is that we've been able to shut off the air conditioning. It sometimes gets a little warm (74-75 degrees) in the heat of the day, but cools off when the stormy weather starts. I can't wait to see our new and improved electric bill this month!