Can he possibly be 31 already?

Yes, John officially turned 31 yesterday. Yes, I know, some of you already thought he was older than that.... He started off the day by waking up at 5:30am to go play 36 rounds of golf in Scottsdale with Steven. I can only imagine how he lasted until the end of the day seeing as it ended up in the mid to high 90's by the end of the day.

As for presents for the birthday boy, this was my easiest year ever. Normally, I find John difficult to buy for, but this year he made it easy on me by buying all of his own presents on Ebay. He bought himself two signed baseball pictures for the memoriabilia room, some police patches to add to his collection and a book called "1000 Places to See Before You Die". Unfortunately, the book has not arrived yet, but we are anxious to check it out when it gets here. Now, before you all think I am heartless by not buying John anything myself, I did track down a gift for him from the baby (but really for the baby), which is shown in the picture above. I thought it was hilarious and had to buy it for him.

We went to Benihana's with the usual crew for dinner because that is the only place that John will go for his birthday. He believes that every occasion should be celebrated there. (He even took me there one year for my birthday after I specifically told him that I wanted to go to Uncle Sal's.) We were kind enough to tell our waiter that it was John's birthday and Steven's the next day, so they sang "Happy Birthday" to them both in English and Japanese, which they were thrilled about. They took some excellent polaroid pictures of them as well. As you can see, John and Steven did their trademark "Siamese Twins" pose where they pretend they are joined together at the head. It is quite a sight to see, especially in public. And remember, these are two grown men who turned 31 yesterday and today.

Back to the Midwest

Over Memorial Day weekend, John went back to Chicago for two reasons. The first being attending Mike Weis's wedding. He had a great time seeing a lot of his friends from college. From what I understand (even though they are all grown men with children and/or babies on the way) they even pretended like they were back in the frat house with John and Jesse banging on Billy's door at 1am so that they can drink beers. On behalf of John, I would like to apologize to Billy's sleeping wife, Karen. Apparently, they even managed to stay up until the wee hours of the morning, just like the old days. When John called me the next morning he complained that he was a little hungover and I had to remind him that he is over 30 and just can't party like he used to.

And of course, what trip for John would be complete without baseball?? The day after the wedding, the baseball partner in crime Steve showed up at O'Hare. Steve hadn't seen either Wrigley, Comiskey (sorry, US Cellular) or Brewers stadiums. Of course, John was more than willing to visit all of these stadiums again. What a hardship for him, I am sure. John was classy enough to wear his "Sox Suck" t-shirt to the White Sox game and apparently he, Tim and Bill thought it would be awesome to wear matching jerseys to the Cubs game. I pray that this was accidental. Even though the Cubbies won, Steve was apparently unimpressed with the traditonal playing of "Go Cubs Go", but you have to excuse him, because he is a Yankees fan and just doesn't know any better. While at the Cubs game, John even picked up the baby's first Cubs gear; thank you Grandma Laura.

I also had my own adventure while John was gone with the breaking of our hot water heater. It started with a small amount of water in our garage one day and then water running out of our hallway closet the next. You know what is bad business practice? Taking advantage of a pregnant woman who is about to be forced to take a freezing cold shower by trying to charge her $1400 to install a new hot water heater! Even though I had an emotional meltdown on the phone with John twice, he did manage to get it taken care from 1500 miles away in Chicago. With the kindness of his buddy Joe from work, we were able to get a new water heater installed for about $1000 less than "Take Advantage of Pregnant Woman Plumbing". Ah the joys of being a homeowner...

100% Positive

Thanks to everyone who voted in our poll. Apparently, our online poll has scientific backing because baby Lindqvist is 100% a boy! The proof is in the picture. John is very impressed with his "Y" chromosomes ability to swim and is already looking forward to the little man's first Cubs game. And a special thanks to Rolf's statistical analysis of the Lindqvist family's ability to produce boys. This will be the 21st boy out of the last 28 Lindqvist babies born. We are pleased that our little guy will carry on the family name. Fortunately for the baby, we will not be utilizing my Polish heritage to name him Stas. We actually have already picked out the name: Cole Urban. We both liked the name Cole and Urban is both John's middle name and his father's name. We can't wait for you all to meet our little guy!

Trip to DC

Two weeks ago, John and I took a trip to DC. I'd like to say that we went because we are interested in learning about our nation's capital, but that would not be the whole truth. The fact is, we went all the way across the country to DC to see the Washington National's new baseball stadium. For those of you not aware, John is on a mission to see every ballpark in the MLB. I am actually pleased to say that he "technically" only has three more stadiums to go: Florida Marlins, NY Mets and Atlanta Braves. But alas, he is a good friend and will be traveling to extra stadiums with his partner in crime to see all the stadiums that Steve hasn't already seen that John has. He has promised me that he will be all done with the stadiums before the baby arrives in October. However, the real baseball/baby issue will present itself when it is determined whether or not the Cubs will actually make it to the playoffs. I'd like to say that John would rather see the birth of his first child than see the Cubbies go to the World Series, but as John puts it "we can always have another baby, but the Cubs might not go to the World Series again in our lifetime." Unfortunately, this is a painful truth for all you Cub fans out there.

But I digress. The trip to DC was amazing. It was such an awesome experience to see all these great buildings and monuments, such as the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and of course, the White House. We even got to take a tour of the Capital building, which was fantastic. All I kept thinking was that "this is where stuff happens, this is where laws get passed". My phrase of the weekend as we went around was "this is very impressive" and it was. Everything we saw was impressive. Being able to see something like the original document of the Declaration of Independence was amazing.

Very first blog

So, I finally got with 2008 and decided to create a blog. Since so many of our friends and family are back in Chicago, this seems like the easiest way for everyone to see what we are up to. Especially my mother, who hasn't seen me in about 5 or 6 weeks and wants to see how big I am with the baby growing. I will be 19 weeks tomorrow, so we are almost half way done, which seems crazy, since it seems like just yesterday we found out that we are expecting our first 2-legged, non-fur covered child in October. We find out next Tuesday whether it will be a boy or a girl, so we are very excited about that.

I hope that you all enjoy our new blog!