Shelly's 20-week ultrasound

Last Friday, Shelly and I went to see the doctor for her 20-week appointment. Everything is going well and all the measurements were normal and no problems.

During the appointment there was also a Level 1 ultrasound. Of course a few months ago I didn't know there were levels of ultrasounds. But so far, we've had both Level 1 and Level 2. We're still pondering the Level 3 for later in the pregnancy. For some reason I'm still a little creeped out after seeing the one Mandy had of Vivian in her belly in high definition just floating around and checking things out from the inside. But I'm sure we'll probably do it.

See the pic above? Can you see how cute his little arms and hands are? Of course you can't! That darn Level 1 is like the view of earth from the space shuttle. That pic is in fact ice drifts and cloud cover in western Antarctica taken from the international space station about 4 years ago. So as the ultrasound lady was pointing things out on the screen I was nodding like I saw what she was talking about but of course I had no idea. She could have been showing a feed from NASA and I would have not known the difference. She could have pointed out the baby's leg and foot and it could have been the country of Italy for all I know.

Needless to say, we're looking forward to Level 2 appointment on July 8th. Regardless, the ultrasound lady seemed to know what she was talking about and it was nice to know all was good and he was growing on schedule.

Mike
Fort Leavenworth, KS

Not just lucky in love

So we’re off the coast of British Columbia in Canada on the last full day of our cruise. Shelly really is interested in playing bingo after breakfast that morning. We had played once and lost earlier in the week but this was the big one. The winner that day would win a free 7-day cruise to the Caribbean. Now I’m weird with money. I have no problem paying more money for nice places to stay, for great vacations, and I enjoy taking folks out and buying dinner. So I’m typically very liberal with our money. But something really turns me off about gambling and I consider bingo gambling. I mean, I’ve been to Vegas numerous times and have probably gambled a total of 8 minutes in all of those trips. So when Shelly wanted to play bingo at $20 per card I was a bit hesitant. Plus, there were an estimated 500 people playing that day so I figured we’d have no chance. But hey, we’re on vacation. And as you all know, what Shelly wants Shelly gets.

We go into the large auditorium area and I tell Shelly that I’ll save us some seats while she waits in line. Pretty good trade huh? I felt guilty for like 4 seconds that I was sitting comfortably in my seat while Shelly was like the 17th person in line to get a card. The game begins and I notice Shelly is punching like every number the guys says. We’re playing “blackout” by the way where you must punch every spot on the card to win. I look around at other people’s cards and they have like half punched out compared to Shelly’s. Shelly gets down to only 3 remaining and I start getting a little nervous. My worst fear is we’d get so close then some blue hair would stand up and shout “bingo”. Then I’d have to wrestle her to the floor for her card and would get kicked off the ship and not welcomed back in the future.

For those not familiar with bingo, when you get to where you only need one number to win, you stand up. Shelly gets down to one and she stands, drawing hushed “oohs” and “aahhs” from the crowd and what would have been a middle finger or two from a younger audience. I’ll talk more about the age difference between us and the rest of the passengers on my next post but I’d say Shelly was 30 years younger than the average person in the room. At this point I can’t even look around and just stare at the floor, still thinking someone would also stand up and bingo before Shelly. The bingo announcer recognized Shelly standing as I listened for what is now my favorite bingo number, “I-19”. As people around me kept patting my back and whispering to me, I continued to stare at the floor.

And then it happened. You’ve all seen the movie “Old School” right? You know when Will Ferrell’s character accidentally shoots himself in the neck with a tranquilizer and he speaks very slowly and everything is in slow motion? That’s what it seemed like to me as the bingo dude said, “IIIII—niiiiiiinnnneteeeeeeen”. Shelly let out a hearty, “BINGO!” followed by some sort of little squeal we still haven’t identified yet. The crowd went wild with joy and also disappointment and I got two hugs from two decent looking 85-year olds near me. After he verified her card, we were the proud owners of a certificate good for a free 7-day cruise to anywhere in the Caribbean to be used anytime in the next 18 months (yes, there were 6 prepositions in that sentence). So to the future grandparents of our son, be ready as we may need your babysitting services at some point next spring/summer. And if anyone wants to tag along with us, just let us know.

The picture above has nothing to do with the bingo game, but it’s the closest resemblance to the grin Shelly had when she came back to her seat with the free cruise certificate in hand. That pic was from the lifeboat drill on the first day.

My next post will be about how I almost burned the ship down by singing karaoke on the last night of the cruise. Quite a memorable day as it was the same day Shelly won bingo.

Mike
Kansas City, MO

Back to the real world

We all arrived back home Monday after a little travel hiccup on the way back from our Alaska cruise. We disembarked our ship early Sunday morning then went to the Vancouver Aquarium. Had about 6 hours to kill and decided not to spend any more time in the airport than we had to. Very nice place and a great opportunity to see sharks, sea lions, otters, and whales up close and personal. We had seen all of those on our cruise but none this close. Anyway, we arrived at the Vancouver, Canada airport and were informed our flight was delayed for almost 4 hours. I asked the lady how that would affect our connection in Denver. She pretty much said we had two options—stay the night in Vancouver or stay the night in Denver. After polling the group, we thought it best to at least make it to Denver, allowing for a short flight the next day to Kansas City for us and Tulsa for my parents. So after a long delay and a late arrival to our hotel in Denver, we went to bed around midnight and flew out mid-morning on Monday.

The cruise with our parents was awesome. All six of us had a great time. The ship was beautiful, the scenery was gorgeous, and the food was unbelievable. I highly recommend taking an Alaskan cruise.

In order to prevent being that person who forces folks to endure too many vacation stories and photos, I’ll skip that part but will answer any questions there may be on cruising, Alaska, flying, or traveling with parents and in-laws. But I will relay a couple of very interesting things that happened in a blog entry a little later today.

The pictures above are of Shelly's parents on one of the back decks, showing the typical scenery we saw each day during the cruise and the other is our dinner table on one of the formal nights. The curtains were pulled in the pic due to sunlight coming in but we had an awesome view out our window each night off the back of the ship.

More in a bit.

Mike
Kansas City, MO

Eskimo Essary's

Greetings from Alaska! We are on day 4 of our 7-day Alaskan cruise and having a great time. Arrived with all of our parents late Saturday night, caught a train early the next morning for a scenic 4-hour train ride to the port city of Seward where we boarded our ship, the very beautiful ms Volendam of the Holland America fleet.

It's been a very relaxing trip and we've seen sights you just can't see in the center of the U.S. Many mountain goats, whales, bald eagles, and sea lions. We're in Juneau now in fact and preparing to board a small vessel for a whale watching adventure and will visit one of the largest glaciers in Alaska.

Everything so far has gone very well. Probably the only thing that hasn't is me almost falling into the ocean yesterday. Shelly and I were in Haines, Alaska yesterday and walking along the shore looking for shells and interesting rocks. Shelly was searching for sea shells on the sea shore. Go ahead and say that 3 times quickly. I reached down to check out a rock and lost my balance. Trying to maintain my cool, I took a large step to re-gain my balance. The result was my left food stomping down on a large pool of water near the coast. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day walking around with my left leg soaked from my shin down. Made squishing noises every time I took a step. But what Shelly wants Shelly gets right?

Better head back to the ship and begin our search for whales. We'll make sure Shelly has the camera ready in case I get to jump on and ride one.

Mike
Juneau, Alaska

My date with The Black Widows

Okay, over Memorial Day weekend I accompanied Shelly back to her hometown of Wakeeney, Kansas for her 20-year high school. I had met several of her friends before at our wedding and other times when they came to visit or when we were in Wakeeney. So I was familiar with the husbands of her friends and figured I'd enjoy a little time with them talking guy stuff while all the girls caught up and gossiped. By the way, I met the Kansas version of my sister, Marcy. Michelle Wilson knows everything about everyone in town and surrounding towns. And she seems offended when another girl offers up some news she was unaware of. So you can imagine after several hours around Michelle even I was pretty caught up on gossip and was ready to offer some up if anyone asked.

Anyway, we get to the restaurant where everyone was meeting up. One by one came the arrival of each of Shelly's girlfriends (Sandy, Michelle, and Lisa), formerly known as The Black Widows I later learned. Each girl would come in without their husband and I just thought they were doing the gentlemanly thing of dropping them off at the door and the husband would be in shortly. Nope, each girl offered some lame excuse about where their husband was and that he likely wouldn't make it or would come later. At first I felt sorry that their husband was busy and could not make it until it hit me. These girls purposely came alone so they could spend time with me!

We left the senior class reunion and headed downtown. What was supposed to be three other couples having dinner with Shelly and me at the Western Kansas Saloon and Grill ended up being me with four hot girls. Even being a married man, I can still appreciate feeling like I'm The Bachelor. Fortunately, no one broke their collar bone, pointed out lice on any of their classmates, and none of the girls peed their pants that I'm aware of.

And yes, the pic above is Shelly's senior picture taken during her 1987-1988 senior year. Pretty cool collar huh? What you can't see are likely the twist beads and the jellies. Ah, the good ole days.

Back to KC tomorrow.

Mike
Chesapeake, VA

A junior Mike Essary...Imagine that?!

So it's been almost a week now since I found out I am going to be a father of a SON! To be honest, I really had no preference. Shelly and I sat in the waiting room within 10 minutes of finding out and I asked her what her preference was. Neither she nor I had a preference at all. I think we have both been too excited about being parents to focus on one or the other. So it was a win win situation going into that room that day. Now once again as in almost every other time, I'm in uniform since I typically need to go to my office soon afterwards. And keeping with tradition, the doctor seems to not even know I'm there. Sure, the Army went to a new camouflage pattern about 3 years ago but c'mon, I'm standing 3 feet from the woman! Surely she saw me right?

The doc (a female) comes in and is really nice to Shelly. Asking her about her pregnancy, her lifestyle, eating habits, etc. And I'll agree those are questions Shelly should answer. But when it came to questions about things she sees on the ultrasound and whether Shelly wants to know the sex I believe I should have been acknowledged at some point. So when the doc asked, "Do you want to know the sex?", I replied, "Yes, we'd like to know". The doc looked at me like, "What in the %@%!* are you doing in here?!" Only after Shelly verbally acknowledged she wanted to know the sex did the doc say, "It looks like a boy!"

Regardless of whether the doctor liked me or even saw me my mind went a thousand directions when she said it was a boy. I thought of being really proud and telling people I had a son. I thought of my papa hitting me baseballs when I was really little and teaching me to drive a 5 speed car when I was only 14. I thought of my dad and I making my car for the Cub Scouts pinewood derby and him buying me my first 3-wheeler. And of course I thought of myself driving my red convertible to an OU football game 20 years from now with my son as the starting QB. Okay, that one didn't cross my mind. But don't rule it out my friends. You just wait!

Anyway, I've been extremely busy the past week and really haven't had the chance to just sit and let it sink in that I'm having a son. My 3-hour plane ride to DC yesterday was probably the closest I've come to just sitting and digesting all that is going on right now. But I can see and feel that coming as I'm on my last trip away from home right now without Shelly and I'm looking forward to getting to our cruise in Alaska this weekend. I'm in Virginia this week but will be home late Thursday night before Shelly's parents get to our house in KC Friday and my mom and dad arrive Saturday morning before our afternoon flight to Anchorage.

After 56 trips and over 600 days away from home since I met Shelly, I am so looking forward to having a little more stability and spending much more time with my beautiful wife. You guys who haven't seen her lately are missing out. She is so pretty and pregnant these days! I'll write more about that later.

So, you're probably wondering what the picture is above. Well, I typed "what will my baby look like" into Google. It asks to enter you and your partners' first and last names and out comes the pic. Pretty scientific right? Well, it's not like this little dude won't look like us. I think this was my exact position today here in Virginia as I listened to 9 straight hours of briefings.

More tomorrow. I must tell you all about my experience at Shelly's 20-year high school reunion last weekend. Let's just say the title will be called "Girls gone wild Wakeeney, Kansas". Goodnight.

Mike
Chesapeake, Virginia