Maia Sage, First 24 hours

Maia Sage Miller

Our C-Section Delivery:

8/29/09

posted by Michael

Spaghetti Picnic in the Rose Garden

Today we decided since Michael was off that we would do something fun to pass the waiting period. Primarily I was getting tired of being in the house and needed to free my mind from focusing on when this little one is going to arrive. So we set out on our adventure with some preheated left over spaghetti and headed towards the Rose Garden here in Portland. All around and above us were darkish clouds, but it had been hot and hadn't rained in a week so we figured we'd stay dry during our little picnic. Just before leaving our adventure got a little more exciting, as I began feeling contractions a little more regular, three in a row that were about 20 minutes apart! We decided to risk being on the other side of the city from the hospital with the potential for traffic. Once we hit the gardens it started to sprinkle a little and then it rained a little more. We found a little covered map area and ate our spaghetti there. The Rose Garden was beautiful with all kinds of colors everywhere. The cloudy day made the colors jump out at you even more along with the raindrops that left their marks on the petals. So it was perfect for a photo shoot. Maybe a little more photos than we would plan, but thats what happens with digital. After we ate we met up with our friends the Huffmans and their two kiddos and enjoyed the beauty together. As we were there the contractions came down to about 15 minutes apart, and stayed that way, which made us pretty excited. We remain hopeful, but also keep in mind that they could stop as well. We had a pleasant afternoon in a beautiful garden enjoying one anothers company and the company of our friends, as we timed contractions. Afterwards, we drove together to 11th and Hawthorne, to partake of the food carts there. Contractions ranged from 10-18 minutes apart! The Huffmans followed us to our home, and came in briefly to pray for us and our baby. We have now had regular contractions for about 7 hours, and they are currently about 10 minutes apart. Getting excited!

Here are a few of the beautiful roses:

Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses!

There we are Posing with baby....come on baby we want to play with you!!!

Gifts

So Clint went to the farm (Ginya, Helen, and Joanne's) on Saturday to work on making a lean-to. He came back bearing gifts, arms laden. He had enough produce to feed us and every friend we've made since arriving in Portland, several dozen eggs, Omega-3 cereal, cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini, beets, a huge ham, and an Omega-3 filled salmon. I think Joanne wants to help this baby along, so she's feeding us Omega 3 to jumpstart those contractions. So last night, Jeanette and I cooked up our salmon. It was dee-lish!
(Michael pretty much decorated this fish! Isn't it pretty!)

On friday, we stopped by Jeff's, because he is leaving for the week to work elsewhere, and had a gift for us before the birth. I was thinking maybe a six-pack of wheat beer to help with milk production (while this may be a myth, it is certainly a good myth, so I will continue to act on the basis of it being true). Instead, we received a cherry de-pitter (because it had accidentally been in his shopping cart when he placed his amazon.com order), and a Flip Video MinoHD camcorder. Now, when you read the word 'camcorder,' don't be thinking huge thing that you lug around on your shoulder. These things have come a long way since the late 80's when we were first introduced to them. Ours is about half the size of the typical digital camera, and light enough to take backpacking. We were shocked when we opened the box. All you Grandma's out there ought to be rejoicing, because this means videos of your new granddaughter.

Finally, I got off work today late, because that one final customer at sprint wanted me to talk him through all the phones on the website. By the time I pulled my motorcycle into the garage (I like reaching into my pocket and pressing the garage door opener when I'm a block away so that when I finally come in sight, it is already open and I can ride right in), I was exhausted and ready to relax. I'm not a fan of shifts from 4:30am till 7:00pm. Anyway, right when I pulled in the garage and started taking my helmet off, our landlord Ted came out of his house and asked me to give him a call as soon as I got upstairs to our house, so that he could talk to me about something. He must have seen the look of worry/exhaustion on my face, because he hastened to add, "I have good news." When I called him, he came upstairs, and explained to Jeanette and I that someone had given them money to cover our rent and utilities for September, and that we didn't have to pay. We were shocked. I am planning on taking two weeks off of work for the birth, which is almost exactly the amount of money that rent and utilities would be. This relieved a huge load of stress about how we were going to pay our bills while taking this time off work.

Thanks God, for your constant provision and blessings. We have certainly seen your goodness at work, and this is but the tiniest bit of what we've seen. Just in the area of gifts to us alone, I've barely scratched the surface (how to write about all the many items our baby is already provided with from many sources!). Forgive me, for my typical failure to speak of the amazing things You do in our life, and for contributing to the feeling that the problems of this world are so vast, concerted, and prolific, that they overshadow the tiny bit of good that is being done.

written by Michael

Housemates! ! !

Yes it has finally happened, our housemates have arrived!!! They rolled in last wednesday and have been settling in. We are happy to have them here and it has been fun having friends around. We anticipate a good experience with them filled with many learning curves. Both of us couples are all in the waiting phase as they await school to start and we await a baby to arrive. (I keep waiting for the stork to ring our doorbell. Thats how its done right??) We feel like we can all play right now since business (except for Michael working) has not taken over our lives yet. Also, it is nice to have a big house filled up!

Death and Snickers

http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?trailname=8146

written by Michael

A Year Ago Today...Summitting Mt. Whitney

"Mt Whitney equals Hell." That was someones comment written in the hut on the top of Mt. Whitney. I agreed with that statement only until I realized what we conquered and what we got to see. A year ago marks the day that Michael and I did a 15 mile loop to the top of Mt. Whitney and back to our camp on our backpacking trip. What a day! I remember leaving in the dark at around 4 am and watching dawn break. I remember the beauty of the massive peaks that surrounded us as we began the switchbacks to the top. I think about the agony of being out of shape and not very acclimated to the elevation and thinking to myself, "Why am I out here? Who talked me into this insane trip?" We kept going and we would break and then go again. We came across some false peaks where we thought we were so close and then realized we still had quite the distance to go. My hands swelled up like balloons and my lungs just could not keep up it seemed. We had a few people pass us. Some with full on packs and others just going so fast I don't think they needed to stop and take a break, in fact one guy who passed us going up passed us again on his way down as we were still trying to make our way up. I remember thinking as I watched those who were on their way down and lightly walking with smiles on their faces, "Thats going to be me soon." What a feeling to reach the top, to finally take those last hard steps and be done with the agony. It was so amazing to see the views, to be on the top! I do not think it could equal Hell because there was something too good at the top. The pain and agony ended and we were able to say we conquered what we set out to do. We also had smiles on our faces when we made our way down the Mountain. What a good memory! Maybe someday we will be back with our children and maybe we will be more in shape. I can dream right???

This photo is of some peaks before we began the switchbacks up. Also this was our last source of water until we got back down again.

The terrain and switchbacks going to the top.



My very swollen hands.

Second Year Anniversary

Thats right! Michael and I celebrated number 2 a couple weeks ago on the 4th. Michael took the initiative to plan something special for us to do to celebrate. In the little time that we had together that day in between his two jobs we were able to go get lunch at a great rib joint called Cannons. It was perfect because I was wanting some meat and ribs just hit the spot. So after we ordered and picked up our deliciousness we headed to a nearby park and had a pinic with some good old southern food. We had a rack of ribs, mixed greens, and corn muffins. We reminised about the past year and the many adventures we took. We are grateful for all the trips and experiences we were able to have in our second year, from backpacking the John Muir Trail to making our move out to Portland. We felt that this past year has been a year of learning how to accept hospitality from others. Its easy to want to be the ones who are hospitible, but it can be hard to accept. What a great humbling experience; it only makes us want to be even better givers to those who are in need. We both continue to learn to put our trust in our Heavenly Father who is constantly watching out for us. The funny thing was at our 2nd year anniversary we were going to bring up the conversation about having children. Sometimes you cannot quite plan those things and so we just avoided the conversation by having a kiddo around our 2nd year anniversary. We are so excited to meet this little girl!






After Michael got home from work I had baked us our own rendition of a pazookie. Michael often gets cravings for one of these from BJ's Brewery, but since we are not close to one I thought I would just make my own. I was going to try to top the cookie with the scoops of icecream like they do at the restaurant, but figured we probably should not eat it all at once. It was delicious and a good way to end our day!