What's going on?

Well, it's been pretty crazy around the household. As you can see this blog really doesn't get updated much. But here is the TL;DR

• Started ChristianCollegeScholarships.net as a resource for homeschoolers, MK's, and Christian school kids in obtaining college scholarships. Working with my buddy Kevin, who is a guru of all things scholarship related.
• Migrated off 1and1 after being with them for a number of years. I moved valien.net to blogger so you can now check it out here.
• Busy keeping 2 boys out of mom's hair when I get home from work!

It's a Boy! Again!

Well, today I'm excited to announce that the 2nd baby V will be coming into this world come April 24, 2011 and he's all boy. :)

Pics to follow...

Ah, Summertime.

Greetings! Amazing how this summer is blowing by. As you can tell my blogging has dropped off a good bit during this time. The days are too nice to be inside on a PC! Well, on top of that trying to keep an 8 month old engaged all the time is work too! Wouldn't trade it for the world.

No new pics here. You can check out my Facebook profile and see some album pics my wife has put up of the little guy. I've been toying with Flickr but haven't spent much time there. Might utilize it more for non-family pics. Not sure yet.

Work has been going very well. Lots of solid hiring activity here in the Upstate. If you're a SharePoint, C#, or Java developer and looking to move to the Greenville, SC area then ping me. I can put you to work. Fast.

Hello Ya'll!

Hey it's mid-April already. My blogging career is grinding to a halt. Good thing I don't get paid to blog.

Twitter on the other hand...

Anyways here's a 30 second synopsis of what's new...

1. Josiah is growing like a weed! It's all that Dr. Pepper and Ice Cream! (Go go! Cookie Dough!)

2. Karen is staying super busy @ home with the little bugger

3. I'm keeping really busy at work. Can't find enough .NET developers. Know any? I can put them to work...

Oh, our new 'hobby' is now live (muahaha)...

www.clearcreekcandles.com ~ crafters of fine homemade candles. Poured with love and scent (hehe) forth to aromatize the world...er..yeah.

Check it out and buy some candles! :)

Oh, shameless plug for some great friends of ours - www.handsfulloffun.com - Kevin & Melissa have been doing balloons, puppets, and magic for a few years now. It's turned into a pretty cool business for them as well. So if you know anyone looking to have some great entertainment for their kids birthday, retirement, funeral (ok..maybe not that one) then give them a buzz. Tell 'em I sent ya!

Ok, until sometime in the summer...

(writing this @ 2343 hours. I need sleep.)

Few more pics...

Getting used to this dad role. Pretty fun I say! Gotta love digital photography too!

First pics!

Here are a couple of pics! :)

Inky foot!

I'm liking daddy!

I love my sleep!

I love my parents!

There you go! A couple of pics of baby Josiah!

Oops. Forgot to Update.

First of all - no baby yet.

Secondly it's been so crazy the last 3 months that blogging was the furthest thing from my mind.

Here is what has been going on in a nutshell:

• Karen's done with work! Yay! Nov. 7 was her last day.
• Baby is right on schedule for the 17th! Yay!
• Work for me has had it's ups and downs. Ups in that I am finally getting some contractors on billing! Woohoo! Downs in that business has really slowed down overall. So I'm working harder and faster than ever before. A 'sense of urgency' is driving me...
• I have pictures of the finished baby room that I need to get up on the blog. So yeah, it's coming.
• My laptop died completely so I have no decent system @ home to develop or utilize to write (I'll take donations please. kthx)

Next post, hopefully with some really really good news!! :D

August Already?

Hard to believe that in about 3 1/2 months I'll be a dad! Yeowzers! Talk about exciting, scary, surreal, awesome, and a whole lot more.

Karen is definitely feeling the baby move a lot more. Especially when she changes position (going from sitting or standing to laying down). At that time the baby decides he wants to do somersaults and kick and what not. It's kinda weird feeling him move around in her tummy. Strange that this beautiful baby inside belongs to us! Our God is good & the miracle of life is amazing.

Oh, keep your eyes open on this site - allenandkaren.kidmondo.com - it's like a specialty kids blog/site. Some place to put up pics and baby info for the family. It'll be private only (ie our family only most likely). The concept behind kidmondo is really neat too.

Probably will have some pics up this week since my sister and 75% of her kids will be visiting along with my parents. Full house FTW! or should that be FTL! Ask me next week...

July 4 With Family.

We spent the July 4 weekend with my wife's family up in Pennsylvania and Delaware. It was nice to get away and do nothing productive. :) Well, we did do some fun shopping at Kitchen Kettle, and some outlet stores but other than that it was eat lots of good food and chill with family.

One displeasure was that it rained most of the time while up there. Meh.

Here's a few pics of the fun and festivities...

(here we all are warming up for a competitive game of mini-golf! I came in 2nd to last...)

(At Uncle Ray's trailer on the beach in Delaware. We just mostly hung out and ate food and talked. It was cloudy and rained a bit so we couldn't go out on the boats too much.)

It's a Boy!

Today was the day our baby became a boy. :) We had our 1st (well, my wife did) ultrasound and we have a 20 minute DVD of the whole thing! Talk about cooool. Baby V was quite active and kept squirming around mommy's tummy.

I captured a few images off the DVD. Here's one of the pics of Baby V! The arrow you see in the picture is pointing to his tiny heart. :)


Later on he decided to do a flip and stretch his legs. Here's a pic of that event as well (not as clear though).


He kinda looks funky. Like some quasi-alien-human-thingy. :D But he's got all the human parts necessary to function. It was amazing seeing his heart and watching all 4 chambers operate. Got to see his kidneys, stomach, umbilical cord, spine, legs, arms, ear, nose, mouth, etc.

The creation of life is absolutely amazing. All this designed by our Heavenly Father. That's what blows me away. Praise be to Him!

I'm going to try to get some video uploaded this week as well. Gotta share the good news!

Now taking name suggestions... ;)

Second Dr. Visit.

My wife and I went to the Dr. for a 2nd visit on Tuesday. We were able to hear the heartbeat again. It's a lot stronger this time! Even heard the baby move a little (at least that's what the Dr. said). Wow!

We also got an official due date - November 17. So possibly he/she won't be a Thanksgiving baby (unlike her mom and dad...) Yay!!

Our next visit is for the ultrasound and that will be in about 2 weeks. Cannot wait! First pics of the baby! Wee!!

We decided to do a little window shopping at Target the other day and looked at some baby stuff. Still seems kinda surreal but it was fun nonetheless. Karen's dad bought us a nice web cam so we can chat with them and show the progress as the baby develops. That's been fun to do as well.

The baby closet is all cleared out of games but we probably won't be doing anything major to the room until after September (since my parents will be coming into town before they fly out to visit).

Ah, the great excitement of the whole journey! :)

Great News!

Hi everyone. My once in a lunar cycle of updating this blog. Most everyone knows but wanted to post it here as well (for official record?!?!)

My wife and I are expecting our 1st child come mid-November. Yay! We're ecstatic and at the same time scared to death! At the doctor's last week we were able to hear the heartbeat for the 1st time. That was way too cool. In a few weeks we'll be going in to get a sonogram and I imagine it will really sink in then!

Karen has been feeling pretty good so far, which has been a big blessing. We're just praying that we'll have a healthy baby. :)

Other than that big news, nothing much else too exciting going on. I'm updating my other blog with most of my work related info - www.valien.net - so feel free to visit that one and see what's happening.

Yay for parenthood! Eek! hehe :D

Hello!

Hi! A bit dusty in here since I've not posted in a while. I finally did get rid of my game. Karen ended up taking it to Wal-Mart and getting a gift card. Yay!

Spring is finally...I think...in full force down here. So welcome the nice yellow pollinated cars! The itchy eyes! Stuffy nose! Pains of getting old. :( hehe

Everyone is doing pretty good. I'm really enjoying my work at FGP (make sure you check out my other blog for work details and updates) and Karen is busy as ever at Heritage. Our plants are starting to bud and flower. I need to take some pics and post 'em here.

Well, lunch is over and I need to get back to work. Later!

Bummer.

Well, my game didn't sell on eBay. So I'm putting it on Craigslist instead. You can check it out here.

Hopefully it will sell this time. I need the moola! hehe

In other news, everyone is doing well. Karen's been working a good number of hours at HBC and still enjoying it. I'm coming up to a month now at FGP and am really enjoying it. Hopefully I'll be able to place some candidates soon! Got a few lined up for some interviews so we'll see what happens...

Oh, if you visit the FGP website you can see my bio. :D No pic, but just some blurbage that Karen and put together.

Again, visit my other site for regular updates on my work, tech, and everything else non-personal. :)

This weekend is our monthly gameday at one of the local game stores. Hopefully we'll have a good turnout! Wee for board games! I've not played any games in a good while and am having withdrawals. *twitch*

Update on Karen's Mom

Some of you know that Karen's mom was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks ago. Well, she has undergone surgery and the bad lymph nodes have been removed and the results are pretty good so far. Not all the nodes were cancerous and the doctors are pretty positive that with chemotherapy and other stuff that she will have a full recovery.

Karen and I are grateful for the news (so is Mom!) and encouraged by God's goodness in taking care of her and everyone else. We've had a great sense of peace throughout the whole thing and we know that the Lord is in control. For that we're encouraged.

This week Karen is actually up in PA helping out her mom with different things. She's been enjoying the time up there and says it's really cold. Good thing it's sunny and semi-warm here in SC!

Thanks for the prayers and I'll try to get more updates as I can post them.