Introducing Stella!

Here's the email I sent out yesterday (sorry if you didn't receive it for whatever reason):

Hello Everyone!

Sarah and I are very, very proud to introduce Stella Rose Hill-Stach who made her world premiere at the Ballard Swedish Hospital at approximately 5:09pm on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008. Stella weighs in at 8lbs, 13 ounces, is approximately 20 inches long. Stella is a very happy, very healthy girl, and it quite possibly the most beautiful and wonderful thing that either of us have ever seen (though, we might be a bit biased in that judgement).

Both baby and mommy are doing well, after roughly 14 hours or labor. And we are all resting back at our house now. We look forward to introducing her to all of you personally in the coming days and weeks! Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

...now, on to the photos!

Thanks!
-Tyler and Sarah

Mom and baby the following evening, a beautiful sunset for two beautiful girls.

Dad and baby just several hours after her birth. Holding your new baby daughter is just an awesome and humbling experience.

Stella getting dressed to go home from the hospital.

The new family together.

Lions and Tigers and Hedgehogs... oh my!

Aaaannndddd, here I am! Posting again, sans-baby. I'm a big liar. But, I'm also a big liar with lots of time to burn while waiting for the tummy monkey's arrival; so I'm treating you all to another blog entry!

Anyhow, yesterday, after posting my last entry, I finished up my animal paintings, and today I got them hung up on the wall of the baby's room. So, I thought I'd share them with you now. The basic idea was that I asked each of the soon-to-be grandparents, aunts and uncles what there favorite animals were. And, then did a painting for each one.

Here they are, hanging above the changing table.

A closer picture. It's the first time I've painted in years, but I still think they turned out OK.

And, here's a picture of the whole room, so you can get a sense of the layout. If you want to see some more pictures of the baby's room, you can check them out here.

Finally, as you can probably guess (since I'm posting this), the baby has yet to arrive. But, we did take a picture of Sarah at 40 weeks!



...also featured in this picture is Buttercup, who is fighting a bit of a stomach bug. Gross! But, we are hoping that Buttercups sickness is a good sign because -from my car being stolen right before our trip to Jamaica to Sarah's mom breaking her arm on our wedding day- it seems like each good thing that happens to us seems to be preluded by an unfortunate curve-ball. So, here's hoping the sick kitty is a sign of the baby arriving soon!

Living the Liminal Lifestyle 2.0

I know that, in my last entry, I promised that the next post would be after the babies arrival. But, allow me to prove myself a liar here for a second, since in the last couple of days, I've been thinking more about this point in Sarah and mine's life, and feel it warrants a least one more entry.

Way back at the beginning of this blog, in those heady days before we left on our trip, Sarah wrote an entry called Living the Liminal Lifestyle in which she endeavored to briefly capture the feeling one has when they are about to depart on a new adventure or chapter in their life... or rather, that feeling you get when you are in that brief period of life where you are wedged between two chapters in life. That point where one chapter has closed, or is rapidly closing, but before the next great chapter begins.

And, that entry keeps coming back to me now, because that's where we are again today.

Tomorrow is Sarah's due date. Tomorrow is the day that, if everything goes according to schedule, Sarah and I are going to become parents. We are going to move from being a couple, to a a trio. A family. Now, much like world travel, pregnancy rarely goes "according to schedule." In fact, with only about 4% of babies actually born on their due date, pregnancy schedules seems to be worked out by those same people who set up the timetables for trains in India. Still, that date looms large.

Yesterday, Sarah and I were out running errands, and had several people ask her "oh, when's your due date?" And, when Sarah announced that it was on Sunday, you could see their eyes grow wide, as they made some stammering comment to the effect of "Wow, and you're still out doing things? You look so relaxed!"

The comments like that are compliments of course, and we smile and feel proud of ourselves. Proud and grateful of how easy a pregnancy Sarah's had. And, how even two days before her due date, how much poise she still has. And how relaxed and cheerful we are as a couple. But, it does beg the question: How should we feel?

People have been asking us for weeks now: "Are you excited? Are you nervous?" And, honestly, we are both. And, at this point, I'd also argue we are "eager." Eager to move on to the next step in our lives. Eager to meet the little person that has been growing within Sarah for the last nine months. Like our trip, eager to get started on the adventure.

But, at the same point, its interesting how easily we distract ourselves. That's not to say we are ignoring the babies eminent arrival, but instead we focus on the little details, to keep from being overwhelmed by the big picture. Focus on painting little animal cartoons to hang in the babies room. Focus on starting a new quilt. Focus on the never ending "to do" list. Focus on cleaning the house. You hear a lot about the "nesting instinct" and how it's a sign the baby is coming soon. But, it might also just be a coping strategy. A way to avoid looking at the big picture.

Because the big picture is BIG.

Bolded with capital letters big. Quaking eyes, clenched throat, pounding heart, sweaty palm, tidal wave of emotions big. And while that I'm sure that Sarah and I will be swimming in those emotions during her labor and after the babies birth; and while we like to dip our toes in it even now, to see how it feels, it's scary. Good scary. Amazing, I-can't-believe-how-wonderful-this-world-is-and-now-we-are-bringing-someone-into-it scary. We are bringing someone new into the world.

The little person that is sitting in her belly right now is coming out soon. We anticipate it, and joke about it ("OK, baby, time to come out now! I know you are squished in there, and there's more room out here!"), and its pretty incredible. This little person will feel confusion and fear, but also unconditional love and joy. His or her relationship with us will grown and become that wonderful, complex lattice of love, friendship, respect and, yes, even frustration that Sarah and I share with our own parents. He or she will play games and hear stories that will capture their imagination. See and learn things that challenge and intrigue them. He or she will grow and discover how strong they really are. Make friendships. Have their heart broken but also fall in love with another little boy or girl who may not even born yet themselves. All of this lies ahead of him or her. And, for each thing that I speculate about, each future I imagine for our coming child, I am sure there are a million that I haven't even thought of. A million curve balls and surprises, good and bad, that I can never even imagine.

But, that's life. That's what we are creating and giving to our child.

And, that's the thing. If nothing else, I hope that our child will enjoy and marvel in his or her life. That he or she will embrace this world in all its wonder and complexity. That they will see and do things that move them. And that, ultimately, their life will be happy and fulfilled. If nothing else I want the little baby in Sarah's belly to be happy. Have good life.

I know that my life has been wonderful so far. And, I predict it is only going to get better in the coming days (lack of sleep aside). Life is an amazing thing. A challenging thing but also something to be embraced.

All the baby needs to do now is come out and embrace it. And we will be here for it.

...ahem...

Sorry, maybe I'm dipping my toe in that pool of emotion I mentioned earlier. It's potent stuff, if maybe a bit cliched. And, now that I've sent a message out into the interweb, asking my still-unborn child to embrace life, I think it's probably time to distract myself a little bit. There are animal paintings to finish. But, I will say one final thing:

I love Sarah. And I love my parents. I love my brother and his wife. I love all my family, and Sarah's too. I love my circle of friends, and I'm grateful for you all. I read something recently where the author argued that people don't say "thank you" enough, and I think he had a point. So, I'm going to jump the gun on next weeks holiday (since I might be busy anyhow) and say: Thank you. You've helped make my world a wonderful place, and I look forward to introducing mine and Sarah's child to it.

Thanks!

Maybe baby?

Over the last couple of days, we've begun getting phone calls from friends and family. And, while some people were calling to wish us luck over the next couple of days and weeks, a few of been calling just to make sure we hadn't had the baby yet, and not told them. And, while I'm sure there are a number of reasons people suspect that... I think that the fact that I haven't bothered posting here since October 26th is probably one of the major reasons.

But, even though Sarah and I are both eagerly awaiting its arrival, the tummy monkey is still safe and sound inside Sarah. But, who knows how long that will last? ...though our butcher said he thinks she will have it on the 22nd, and claims "I tend to be pretty good predicting things like that." So, there ya go.

Anyhow, let's check in on Sarah!

Sarah at Week 37!

Sarah at Week 38!

Sarah at Week 39! (With a cameo by me and my dad.)

Now, looking at these photos, you might notice something: Sarah's rapidly running out of clothes that fit her. Now, not to worry, I promise she has more than one outfit left that fits, but not many! One of the many reasons Sarah is excited to have the baby soon.

So, what have we been up to? Well, in the days after the last entry, Sarah and I attended a couple of costume parties for Halloween. First up was a party on Halloween night at our friends Ambika and Ben's apartment. In addition to possibly seeing a lot of our friends for the last time pre-baby, this party was notable because, as Sarah put it, "it was difficult to talk to half the people because their costumes were so creepy." We had the backwoods hick, the skeevy club dude, Dog the Bounty Hunter and a number of subtly disturbing outfits that we horrifying in a non-traditional manner.

Our costumes at the party. Sarah was a Magic 8-Ball, and I was a Costume Cop, with tickets to write up people with offending (or offensive) costumes.

The next evening it was another Halloween party or, more specifically, a Day of the Dead party. Our friends, Austin and Patty, were married on Halloween several years ago, and since then have celebrated with a big Halloween blow-out each year. Each year is a different them and this year it was the Mexican Day of the Dead.

The Hosts with the mosts! (Or should that be ghosts?)

Our friends Jason and Diana dress up as Baron Samedi and a gypsy fortune teller

Halloween Party? Or Richard Simmons and a leprechaun grabbing a drink at an undead canteen south of the border? You make the call!

All our Halloween Party photos.

Speaking of scary: Our basement flooded last week. About a month and a half ago, we had the water line in our front yard replaced. But, when they drilled the new water line into the foundation, they didn't cap off the old one. So, when the November rains (not just a Guns and Roses song) hit, ground water seeped into the old broken pipe, and began draining through it and into our basement. Luckily, the plumbers came out for free and repaired it. And, even more luckily, we convinced them to pay to have a cleaning crew come out and dry our wet carpets.

(As a side note: It's nice that I have a deep voice, and that the manager on duty at the plumber company couldn't tell over the phone that I am a 145 lbs, pacifist, art-major type... or else, it might have been harder to convince them they should send out the clean up crew.)

Anyhow, we ended up spending a week with giant blow dryers and dehumidifiers in our basement... a fact that kept the kitties living in terror of the basement for several days.

Beyond that, for Sarah and I, its mainly been a manner of finishing up at work, and now getting our "ducks in a row" for the baby's arrival. The baby room is coming along nicely, and if the baby can hold out for another day or two, we should be as ready as we'll ever be.

Here's a couple of quick pics of the baby room:

The crib and dresser.

The glider which one of Sarah's coworkers gave us and the bookshelf with some books, stuffed animals and the new lamp on it.

OK folks! This is it! Next time I post here, it will probably be to announce the birth of our baby! It's been a long and crazy ride so far, but I have a suspicion it's only going to get craziner over the next couple of days. We're very excited, but wish us luck!

"Love, Music, Wine and Revolution..."

Actually, there is very little music and revolution for us these days. And, Sarah's still steering clear of the wine. But, heck, I like that song* by Magnetic Fields, and that title sounds cooler than what we've been up to, which is more along the lines of Love, Scooters, Wine and an Auction.

Love
It's been a couple of weeks since I posted here. So, I'm a bit behind on the pictures of pregnant Sarah. So, let's get you all caught up on my wonderful wife and the tummy monkey.

Sarah at 34 weeks!

Sarah at 35 weeks, all dressed up to go to the auction (see below).

Sarah at 36 weeks. We are really in the homestretch now. At this point, the tot is basically ready to go, and is just filling out and putting on weight. Egad!

Scooter
Since moving into our house, we've noticed that just having the one car is occasionally problematic. We also knew that it would become even more difficult to have just one car, once the baby arrived. But, at the same time, we knew that we didn't want to get stuck with all the costs related to buying a second car (payments, insurance, gas, etc). so, we decided to look into getting a scooter.

After several months of browsing Craigslist, we finally settled on this '06 Honda Metropolitan.

I strike a "dashing" pose in our driveway. Me = Awesome Hip.

Wine
Last weekend was the start of another year of wine making. The '07 "Ranger Rick Red" has been bottled (and is quite good, I might add), and the crush is the big event starting off another batch off grapes on their way to becoming wine.

The '06 Round the World Red, '07 Ranger Rick Red and some grapes we found growing along the back fence in our yard.

The crush involves bringing a couple of tons of grapes back from Eastern Washington to our friends garage, where we crush them (sadly, not with our feet), de-stem them and begin the fermentation process.

I load grapes out of the back of the truck, and down a chute to where they are crushed. I'm quite fierce.

All the grape crush photos.

...and an Auction
Sadly, on the same day as the grape crush, it was also the Annual U-District Foodbank Auction. This is usually one of our favorite events of the year, which is why it was a bit of a bummer to have to juggle this and the crush (one of our other favs). Still it was a great time, hanging out with a table of friends and making bigs on a number of items.

Before the event, our friends Mike and Lane and us had decided we were going to go all in on the wine collection. But, the wind was taken out of our sails when a woman selected it as her door prize. D'oh! Still we ended up winning a Farmers Market Basket, and almost spent $1600 on a trip to Sri Lanka... until we realized that might not be the more practical thing to have when Sarah's just weeks from giving birth. Maybe next year.

Bonus: Haunted Georgetown Tour
On Friday, we decided to get into the Halloween spirit and a group of us went on the Haunted Georgetown Walking Tour. The tour itself, and our tour guide, were a bit -shall we say- uneven. But, it was still fun to walk through Georgetown at night. And gave us another chance to check out the haunted Georgetown Castle.

The tour group outside a corner store that used to serve as a brothel.

After the tour, we also did the Georgetown Brewery Tour, which was much more amazing. Featuring performances by the Circus Contraption crew (who I've raved about before, and who were even the inspiration for this blogs title), it was alternately creepy, fun and cool. Drunken ghosts, sword swallowers, atmospheric music and glow-in-the-dark gymnastic ghost... who could ask for more?

A creepy zombie woman poses on the beautiful spiral staircase of the brwery. A goth kid would love to have this image on her wall.

The gymnastic skeletons photographed using a 15 second exposure. Pretty cool visually... even more cool in real life.

All the haunted Georgetwon Photos.

As I mentioned earlier, Sarah's getting really close to her due date (less than a month to go). So, who knows if I'll get another chance to post between now and then. Both Sarah and I are set to begin our leave on November 14th, so if we are both sitting home bored, waiting for the contractions to start, who knows... maybe one or both of us will be inspired to post. But if the baby decides to show early, and we don't get a chance to post again, as Sarah says I'm too fond of saying: See you on the other side.

*EDIT: Not sure about that You Tube video... it was just the only place I could find Magnetic Fields "World Love" online.

Cribs and kitties.

Early on, while my mom set about planning Sarah's baby shower, I hit on the idea of having a bunch of guys over for a Men's Baby Shower. The idea would be that I would tempt them over with burgers and beer, and then put them to work painting the baby room and assembling baby furniture.

My friends Zeke and Chris work on putting the baby swing together while, in the foreground, my dad does some really hard work.

And, while my friend Bazor got stuck with the lion-share of the painting, I think it worked like a charm. Thanks to his work, and those of my friends and family, Sarah and I now have a painted baby room, and assembled crib, an assembled baby swing... and I even scored an X-Box out of the deal (thanks Ben, Luke and Bazor for that)!

The baby room so far. It still needs a lot of stuff, but at least the walls and crib are taken care of.

Meanwhile, across Lake Washington, at my Aunt's house, Sarah was quite literally being showered in gifts. By the time her and her mom returned home with everything, the pile of gifts was so large that it looked like a baby bomb went off in our living room. If nothing else, the tummy monkey will be well dressed for the first half dozen months of its life. You can check out a selection of pictures here and here.

Sarah holds up the wonderful baby quilt my mom made. One of the many gifts she opened (notice the pile in the lower right.)

In addition to the new clothes and furniture for the babies, we've also got two new additions to our house hold: Wesley and Buttercup!

Wesley. For some reason he likes to lay spread out on his belly like that, with his legs behind him. It makes him look really goofy, especially when he's also trying to look fierce.

Buttercup... still hiding shortly after arriving. I also just realized, we need to sweep the floor under our bed.

Earlier this week, our friends, Shahaf and Pnina, departed on their own Round the World Adventure. And, just to one-up us, they're going for a full year! Very exciting for them. Wanting to help support fellow travelers, Sarah and I offered to watch their two cats in the absence. We can understand the fears and hassles that come with leaving your life behind while you travel for an extended period of time. So, we were happy to watch the kitties while they were gone so that they hopefully don't have to worry about them while they are exploring the Tanzania, Jordan, Nepal or any of the countless places we are jealous that they are going to visit.

If you are interested in following their adventures, you should check out their travel blog: Honeysun. "What does 'honeysun' mean?" you ask. Well, check out their blog, Shahaf explains in their first entry and Sarah and I both agree it's a great idea for a travel blog name. Best of luck on your adventures, Shahaf and Pnina!

But, back to the cats. It's been great having them around so far! The male, Wesley, was a little freaked out at first, and spent the better part of the first 24 hours hiding under the couch... or in a corner... or under the bed, but he seems pretty content now. Buttercup, on the other hand, is more daring, and is already finding new ways to explore the house and create kitty chaos. I think it will be fun having them around!

Oh, and just to keep the record going...

Sarah at 32 Weeks!

Sarah at 33 Weeks! ...less than two months left!

Falling just a bit closer

I really have no idea what that title means, except it sounds dramatic. And, well, not only is Fall upon us... but the number if days between now and Sarah's due date are getting smaller and smaller. (Then, again, it sounds omnious, which definitely doesn't match our mood these days. Which is somewhere between giddy and overwelmed.)

Speaking of which, let's skip straight to some Sarah pictures, since I haven't posted any of those in a couple of weeks.

Sarah at Week 28. This was actually the picture taken at her mom's place. She's actually facing the other direction, but I flipped it to keep the direction the same as the others.

Week 29. Who's that in the mirror?

Week 30. At Sarah's brother's apartment in Berkley.

...and Week 31. Can you beleive we are at week 31?!

And what have we been up to? A little of this, and a little of that. Probably the biggest event was our trip down to Berkley to see Sarah's brother, Tim, and sis-in-law, Jeanne. Even though Sarah is actually off to Baltimore as I type this, that was most likely our last real trip before the baby's arrival.

Since we were only in the Bay Area for a couple of days, it was quite a whirlwind trip. One of the definite highlights was visiting the Muir Woods National Monument. Despite the crowds, it was nice to get the opportunity to wander through the redwoods (I beleive the first I've ever seen). Here's a picture or two...

Tim and I at the base of a tree, giving you a sense of size. Even as someone who has grown up in Washington, I had to admit these were some big trees.

While staging this picture, a group of people started to surround us. Feeling awkward and holding my camera, I had no choice but to loudly state the obvious to everyone around: "Look everyone! A pregnant girl in a tree!"

The Muir Woods were also interesting in that they not only did they host the delegates which drafted and signed the UN charter, but also were an early gathering place for the exclusive and secretive Bohemian Club. Here are some more Muir Woods' pictures, if you are into pictures of trees.

In addition to visiting Muir Woods, we also visited San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. And went to Vik's Chaat, and amazing India restaurant housed in a large warehouse. With is buslting crowd, blaring Bollywood music, delicious India food and crazy casual atmosphere, Sarah and I agreed that it was probably the closest we'd felt to being in India since we left over a year ago. I'd ramble about it more, but you can just read my review of it here.

Speaking of our trip, it's worth mentioning that, as of September 12th, we've now been back home for over a year. Strange. So, while the title of this entry is "falling just a bit closer," I supposed it could just as easly be "falling just a bit farther away."

EDIT: As a side note, I've recently been making more of an effort to up date my other blog General Admission more often. As I've probably explained before, it's more just my random thougths and interests, and not so much about Sarah and myself, but check it out if you are interested.

EDIT 2.0: I made two corrections to the above entry. First, in the final picture of Sarah, she is only 31 weeks pregnant, not 32 like originally captioned. In addition, several people freaked when they saw reference to "babies." Sorry, that was supposed to read "baby's" ...why might not know the sex of the tummy monkey. But we know there is only one tummy monkey in Sarah's belly.