Our Little Girl

I'm sure that you all have managed to find out we had a baby, but I thought I'd let you know a little more about what we're up to now. If you haven't seen the pictures already, you can click here to do that.

We're currently at the Seward Memorial Hospital with our little girl. Click here to watch for a picture of her on the hospital website. It's not up as I write, but it should be soon. Just so you know, Lydia Ruth (on the same page) is her cousin. So is Jolene Danae on the February page. Everything has gone super well, Jenny and little Gwen (yes, it get's shortened sometimes) are doing splendidly. Except that right now the little one is testing her lungs and vocal chords. It's all normal though.

Gwendolyn is a pretty strong little baby, she can hold her head up and look around, although she's not looking around much yet. So far, she's been very good and likes to eat pretty often. Last night we let the nurses take care of her in between feedings so that Jenny could get some sleep. Jenny didn't get as much sleep as I did (on my cot) but she's doing pretty well, and hopefully can catch a nap this afternoon.

We are planning on being released tomorrow, although Jenny would rather have gotten out of here today. Doc says that they'd like us for a 36 hour minimum, especially since it's a first baby. She followed that up by saying, "although you sure don't act like a first time mommy!" She was very happy with how things were this morning when she checked over mommy and baby, and so we expect there will be no problems with being released tomorrow.

Anyway, that's how things are going right now. We've been having lots of company (see the pictures) and it's been fun and exciting. I don't expect to have a lot of spare time to post anything once we get home, so I thought you'd all like if I said something now. Of course, we will try to keep you all updated, but don't expect a lot right away! I'd put up a picture or two, but right now I think we'll just let you click the above links to see all the pictures on picasa.

~GB

Welcoming Gwendolyn Marie Burkey

Hi all, here's a quickie to say that Gwendolyn Marie Burkey was born 3/23/10 at 5:00 pm. She scaled in at seven pounds even, and at 20" long is a definite keeper. We'll post more later, I'm sure! Here's a link to the latest photos

Waiting...

We're all ready....

Our bag is packed...

Please come soon baby!

Geese Flying North

In Nebraska, one sure herald of Spring is the arrival of hordes of migrating geese. The geese have been showing up in the last week or so, and they are usually around for a month or so as they spread out over the fields and try to fatten up before heading on north. The Sandhill Cranes don't come by where we live, but we occasionally drive west about an hour in order to observe them in the Platte River Valley. I thought you all might enjoy seeing a few geese pictures anyway. The geese are mostly snow geese (I think) although I'm pretty sure I saw some Canada geese too. We've also seen some ducks mixed into the group as well.

These geese were in the field next to our house. We tried creeping through our windbreak to get some pictures, but they're pretty sharp eyed and the whole group took off before we got to where I could get pictures on the ground. As soon as they took off, I ran to the edge (nothing to lose now) and got this and several other shots as they made their departure.

Today as Jenny and I were on our way home from the folks, we stopped when we say a bunch of geese flying overhead. When we stopped, we saw strings of geese as far as we could see in both directions, migrating overhead. We watched and I took the following pictures.

After about twenty or thirty minutes of this, we got back in the car and continued on, but we could still see geese as far as we could look in both directions. I counted a small group in one of my pictures, and based off of that count I estimate we saw around 10,000 geese fly overhead (the group was of course larger than that, they started before we got there and continued after we were gone). Iit's always kind of amazing to see that many geese fly overhead and once again it made me realize the beauty and wonder of God's creation. Well, that's it for my "goose" post, maybe one of these days I'll be posting about a new baby.....

~GB

The arrival of Spring

This year, Spring has been looked forward to eagerly by Jenny and I for several reasons. Mainly, it's a milestone in our lives as we look forward to our first child (and incidentally the cutest infant ever, in my humble opinion), but the other reason is that winter has dragged on horribly long and we are ready to see something other than dirty snow. If you would like to understand just how welcome spring is, take a look at our yard......

See? It's not pretty. Now I admit that I went out this evening with the intent of taking the ugliest picture of our yard I could find, and I think I did pretty well. I also made an effort to showcase the big water ponds and mud in a positive way also as in here:

And here.

You'd think we lived on a lake. Not so far fetched, actually.

Behold our lake! This is the field right west of our house. It's not terribly deep, but it would make a great skating rink if it freezes. I'll try not to let Jenny skate on it if it does, but that might be a little hard. She thinks it's pretty bad that she's not allowed to skate.

Well the other reason that I'm so glad to have Spring come is that I'm getting sick and tired of this quilting business....It's fine when Jenny does it. But have you ever tried to actually make that thread go into that tiny hole in a needle? It's not for the faint of heart.

I'm ready to get outdoors and find a new hobby.

What else to say? Our tomato plants are doing pretty well. In addition, Jenny has started Hollyhocks, Columbine, Butterfly flowers, English Daisies, Broccoli, and Cauliflower. I am wondering if I spelled that right. Oh well, it's all growing. We just are waiting for the snow to clear out and the ground to dry up (and warm up) enough to start planting!

~GB