we are pregnant

Around 3:43 in the morning on January 7, I ran up the stairs in the dark, woke up Matt freaking out to tell him we are pregnant!!!  We were both so excited...I cried and Matt laughed.  It was a very long day because we wanted to tell our families but we both had to work and Matt had his masters class that night!!!  After I got off of work I went over to my doctor's office to get blood work done to confirm everything then I went to the base to get registered with tricare for pregnancy care.  After I was done with the medgroup I went over to Matt's office so we could call our parents!  It was so exciting!!!

We spent the next few weeks trying not to blurt our news to everyone!  We had our OB Orientation for tricare, got several books, and waited for our first appointment.  We finally had our appointment yesterday!  They went through all our medical history, covered some questions we had, did an exam, and had our ultrasound.  Our doctor did the ultrasound to find the heartbeat....he kept going back and forth and finally said "oh, that's a concern".  He then showed us the baby and said "here is the heartbeat...but over here, is the second baby.  Congratulations, you are having twins!"  We were shocked!!!  I had been joking with Matt all week that we could have twins and he didn't believe me...my gut feeling was correct!  We are very excited about both munchkins and to tell everyone. 

.katherine.

christmas

I just realized it is the end of January and I never finished our Christmas blog!!! 

We had a unique Christmas this year....

On the 17th we started our Christmas festivities with the Squadron Holiday Party!  As always, it was held at the Country Club and the food was great!  We got to see many of our friends, the flight commanders dressed in crazy costumes, and watch as many door prizes were won.  Overall it was a great night!

On the 18th we celebrated Christmas with the Matt and Mandy Douglas!  We went over to their house to exchange gifts then went bowling.  It was great to hang out and go bowling again.

On the 21st we celebrated with the Ehn Family!  Abbey made a wonderful ham dinner for us complete with potatoes...my favorite!  We also exchanged gifts with them...and got each other very similar gifts!  We both bought games and hang out things so we can spend time together!  

On Christmas Eve Matt had to work in the morning and Eric was on alert so Abbey, Henrik, and I made sugar cookies.  We had a ton of cookies but it was a lot of fun hanging out and decorating them...something I had never done before.  Matt even participated by enjoying them when he got home!

Later that night Matt and I made dinner...blue marlin, scallops, asparagus, and roasted potatoes!  It was great!

After dinner we went to Christmas mass.  Matt was going to be on alert on Christmas so we went to mass the night before.  After mass we exchanged stockings and one gift each.  It was a fun way to "start" Christmas.

On Christmas day I woke up with the stomach flu! Instead of going out to site to have lunch with Matt on his Christmas alert, I went back to sleep for most of the day.  That evening I went to work for a four hour shift.  I volunteered to work since Matt would already be gone.  Even though I wasn't feeling well it went by quickly!

On the 26th we celebrated Christmas!  I still wasn't feeling well so we had a relaxing day of opening gifts and spending time together.  We both got some amazing gifts...our families really know how to spoil us!  Even the dogs got some great gifts...they loved all the toys and their new bed!

We had a great Christmas this year!
.katherine.

Thanksgivingness

Hello blog-fans!

It has been months since Katherine's lazy super-busy husband actually wrote a blog post, and considering it WAS my parents who visited this time...

Let us start with the big news. While my parents were here for the Thanksgiving break, the New England Patriots won not one, but two games.  And before you start busting my chops and saying, "but Matt, that doesn't have anything to do with your parents visiting or Thanksgiving or even your adorable dogs" take a look at this picture:

Also, the Hokies won:

Ok, so obviously what I am here to blog about is the McPherson family's first trek to North Dakota.  The snow broke just in time to bring them into Minot International Airport with only a 2 hour delay.  We welcomed them to our humble house with open arms and ecstatic puppies.

We showed them all of the sites that Minot, ND has to offer:

We took them to our favorite restaurants:

We played several board and card games:

And we played copious amounts of Beatles Rock Band:

Mom even got so good she played without looking at the notes on the screen:

We did take a tour of my work offices and we tripped out to the field.  Due to a minor identification issue we were not able to go downstairs to the LCC.

There was much relaxation and plenty of napping.  Most of this part of the vacation was taken care of by the dogs:

In addition to all of the normal vacationy type o' stuff, I woke the dogs up waaaay before there normal time and started Thanksgiving dinner.

A few hours later, the rest of the cooking was under way, all according to the foreman's schedule.

Final preparations were made and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.

All said and done it was a truly wonderful visit.  Katherine and I had a blast showing off our little home and our unique lifestyle up here.  The family seemed to really enjoy seeing us and our house.  Before Katherine's family's previous visit and my family, the dogs have never seen so much or such constant attention and now think they are permanently allowed on the couches.  The weather even behaved marginally well.  As with any family visit we put my parents to work and now have freshly painted chair-rail to go into the bedroom and a finished basement bathroom ready for a coat or two of paint.  Only about a thousand pictures were taken and in true McPherson fashion there are 4 copies of each and every picture taken from a different camera at a slightly different angle. 

So, until next blog remember these few simple things: go Patriots, if you visit for a week don't plan to leave without doing some sort of home-improvement project, always give my dogs more attention than even they can handle, and it is NEVER ok to eat the next to last piece of my chocolate pie!!!!
-Matt