Welcome!

Welcome to our baby blog! Since we have lots of family and friends spread all over the country (and the world!), we wanted to have a way for everyone to be connected as we wait for Baby McCoy's arrival at the end of May. (Thanks to Julia and Jeannie for the idea- we love checking your blogs!)

Since we haven't talked to some of you for awhile, here's a quick recap of the last (very busy) year. Dan got back from his second tour of Iraq in January of 2008. We were so thankful to have him home safe and sound! After three moves and two deployments, we decided that it was time for Dan to leave the Army and enter the civilian world. Since I moved back to Fresno during Dan's deployment- and have a great job with the MESA Schools Program at Fresno State- we decided to make Fresno our permanent home. Dan started his new job as a Supervisor at GSF Properties at the beginning of April and has been learning about the apartment rental business ever since. As if a move and a new job weren't enough, Dan also started in the MBA program at Fresno State in August. The whole program should take him about three years, and so far he's loving his classes. (By the way, he's turned into quite a good student- doing [almost] all his reading and even finishing his assignments in advance!)

About the time we found out

All of this brings us to September, when we found out that we were expecting! We kept the news to ourselves for awhile, but got to tell Laura during her visit to California in October and Maggie during her visit in November. (Of course we told both of our parents and Matt and Jeannie, too!) We're so blessed that our new little family is part of such a wonderful greater family!

Baby McCoy @ 18 Weeks

October and November passed in a blur of tiredness and queasiness for me and work and classes for Dan, though we did find the time to buy our very first house! We had been looking at houses since Dan got back from Iraq, and finally found "the one" in the beginning of November. It was a foreclosure, but it's in a great neighborhood and mostly just needed some updating (pink floral wallpaper just isn't our style, especially when it's in the family room, living room, dining room, entry way, AND master bedroom!). We moved over the Christmas holiday. Thankfully I started to feel better in time for the move, though my job was mostly just to direct- Dan, my Dad, and some of Dan's co-workers got to do all the heavy lifting.

Most of the wallpaper is now gone, and Mom, Laura, and Aunt Sue are going to be working on the last of it this weekend. Judie and Mike came out over Christmas for a "vacation," though they spent their time fixing leaks, replacing cabinets, hanging lights, putting down shelf paper, and cleaning up the yard. We would have been lost without everyone's help! We've still got lots to do, but we're starting to feel like we have a permanent home now- just in time for the baby!

Hopefully everyone's New Year is off to a great start! We can't wait to meet the new addition to our family- and to introduce him or her (we'll be as surprised as you will) to all of you.