What the effleurage?!

Today Ali and I attended Pre-Birth Class. There was a lot of information, and a lot, a lot of visuals. Phew. We tried some massage techniques for "coaches" (as the fathers were referred to) to perform on the moms. I think that was Alis favorite part of the whole day. My favorite part was when we got to lay on the floor and practice breathing and helping the women to relax. It took every bit of effort not to doze off at this part of the class. Our instructor shut off all the lights and played these ocean wave sounds while we laid down. This also happened at the very end of a 7 or 8-hour class so...the tiredness was setting in something serious by then. It was the perfect storm. Don’t worry…I stayed awake and absorbed everything I need to know to be a good “coach” during the labor and delivery. All set, right? Well maybe not totally but I do feel a little more prepared than I was before.

It was interesting to be in a room full of expecting parents and see the excitement/fear on everyones face as our instructor (who seemed to love her job more than she knew how to contain) discussed epidurals, back labor, crowning, the babys’ first poop and its creosote like resemblance, and why the baby will look like a conehead/alien when it comes out. Lots to take in, you know? It was reassuring for me to know that I am not the only one freaking out a little bit.

Anyways, class is complete. Doctors appointment this past week was good, as usual. Ali and Kiki are good. I am good. Things are great.

PEACE

PS- My tattoo appointment got cancelled...bummer.

PSS- I will be working my hardest to get Ali to do the next update...I think.

Tying up loose ends...

Wow...yet again we went for a loooooong stint without an update. It's been a crazy time of life. Please accept our humblest of humble apologies. Now, let's catch up. Here we go!

FEBRUARY (post Alis birthday)

- Go Gonzaga...G-O-N-Z-A-G-A! Our Friend Tony (a.k.a. Tone Luv) came up from San Diego to visit and to take me to a Gonzaga basketball game. He had won some crazy raffle contest that gave him airfare, put him up in the sickest hotel in town, AND got him tickets to a Gonzaga game. These tickets are hard to come by...extremely hard. In the last 5 years I have lived in Spokane, I have not been to one. Tickets basically start at sold out and you have to wait outside the arena and hustle some tickets out there. Anyway, Tony was able to come up with some extra tickets so we took Sean and Danny with us.

GYEAH! Good times with good folks. Thanks Tone!

Baby shower in Minnesota: At the end of the month, Ali and I went to Minnesota. Some of the wonderful ladies in her life threw her a shower. I think the ladies just had

amazing advice and experience to share with Ali and we got some great gifts. Thank you all for your extreme generosity and for your care. It means so much to us. Anyway, the shower was an all female affair...so the boys went ice fishing. Here is Jonny and Dale drilling one of the holes.

This machine (called an auger) was burly! The ice was so thick that it took the whole bit to get through the ice. This was the view for the majority of the day.

No fish. I think I had 2 nibbles all day but other than that...nada. The silkies, the euros, the minnows, the glow in the dark lures...nothing was working. The fish were not buying it. That kettle corn next to my ice hole kept me nourished. Every now and again a quick pull of Pendleton kept us warm. It was freezing out there! The lake kept making this deep thud sound that the boys told me was the ice cracking. Not super comforting but...oh well. I'm still alive! It was sunny, and I got to hang out with my family from MN, right? The boys had a friend came with us who kept saying "That's why they call it fishing, not catching." True. Anyways, the trip was short and awesome...stellar baby shower, time with friends, Mama Nins cooking, shooting pool with Dale, meals and fishing with the boys, and of course time with Rocky and Charlie...

...just what we needed.

MARCH

-March has been crazy! We knew this was going to be crazy with me doing RA hiring and hopefully doing some job hunting...we decided to take a night off. Our good friends the McGonigals gave us a credit to a hotel they had won in a contest and were not going to use. (Thanks Keats and April!) Ali got back in town from a work day-trip to Seattle and then we spent the night downtown. Far from noisy residence hall life. The silence totally put us to sleep by like 9:30pm. But we woke up and had a MONSTER breakfast buffet that was so good.

It was sunny out. Beautiful morning. Wonderful wife. Life was yummy. I mean, good. The rest of March is kind of a blur to be totally honest. This is probably the most crazy month of the whole academic year for me. There was March 17...

The best St. Paddy's days greeting ever. Sent by none other than Sir Paddy Mulcahy. So good! We had an amazing dinner with the McGonigals and the Mulcahys that was so needed. Hiring was done (for the most part), we were a few days away from spring break (and closing the buildings), and we needed to toast to those things. Keatser gave a blessing before the meal that reminded me of what a special time and place we are in. It's going to be a crazy time of transition with Kiki coming, moving out of the place I have been living in for the last 5 years, and having to find a new job but we are going to make it. We are blessed to have amazing friends (who are more like our family) here. Thanks for everything!

On that note, thanks to everybody for taking such good care of us and for being a part of our lives. It's so important to have community. If I have learned nothing from travelling, from life, and from my work...it's that we need people. Thanks to all who have been blessings to Ali and myself (even to Kiki). We appreciate all of you...for real.

That's about it for now. Thanks for sticking with us and these slow updates. Ali will be getting into the rotation any second now...right, my dear?

IN THE NEXT EPISODE (a.k.a. things that haven't happened yet but are on the immediate horizon)...

-Ali and Tyler go to birthing class

-New tattoo for Tyler...really?

Stay tuned folks.

PEACE,

Tyler (pre-papa)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALISON!

Today is Ali's birthday! WOO HOO!

I love this woman with all my heart. My world is a better place because she is in it. She is indeed my better half. The best wife ever. Soon to be the mother of my child. I don't always get why she puts up with me but she does. And I am thankful for that.

Here's to a blessed day birthday girl...and to many more years learning to love you more than I do today.

Happy birthday Alison!

PEACE,
Tyler (a.k.a. Husband a.k.a. Pre-Papa)

PS- Red velvet cake, anyone?

Pictures: Round 1

Here are some pics from our Christmas break. We will add more later.

Ali and I en route to Hawaii...leaving the cold.

Ali and I landing in Hawaii...our luggage in SFO or Las Vegas. Still smiling...

Ali with a gingerbread man and a piece of pineapple on the beach Christmas eve.

Ali and I on top of Diamond Head Christmas morning.

More to come...

PEACE!

Another dry spell...

Well, in attempts to keep the new years resolution of updating more....here I am almost a month later updating. The delay? I was trying to get Ali to do an update (finally). But, alas, I failed. Maybe next time?

In any case, here's whats going on in the life of the Paus...

We had an awesome time in Hawaii for the holidays. We made it to Hawaii to see the fam. Having a warm, warm Christmas was really refreshing. Things were getting a little dreary around these parts and we needed some sun. We went to the turtle beach on Christmas eve. Brought a little lunch with us and sat and watched turtles in the water. So cool. Christmas morning we hiked Diamond Head. Ali has wanted to do this every time we have been in Hawaii but we never got around to it. So this time she was getting it done. It was a perfect temperature. We hung out with my parents a lot which was good and reminded me of the parent I hope to be to Kiki. We also spent a lot of time with friends and their little ones, getting advice and making lists filled with the items that folks said would make parenting that much easier. My Brest Friend (that is a real name...), Itzbeen, and an Elmo DVD. Noted. Hawaii was awesome. Friends were awesome. Family was awesome. Being there with my wife was the most awesome.

We came back to Spokane for new years eve. It was a pretty uneventful day...baby doctor appointment (all things look great!), some laundry over at the McGonigals, and watching the Survivor finale on On Demand (PS- Russel deserved to win, I don't care what anyone says). Ali was falling asleep by 10pm so I woke her up at 12 and we celebrated for a a minute, then she went back to bed. We are getting old.

A few days later we went back to work and then had an ultrasound to find out the Kikis gender. WOO HOO! The ultrasound tech was super hospitable and answered a lot of questions. She took a lot of pictures and measurements and told us that the baby was growing nicely. Lots of pictures of feet and hands. You could see bones this time which was cool and weird at the same time. You could see the 4 chambers of the heart, kidneys, brains...it was crazy! So all of that was awesome news. Then on to the gender...(drumroll)

Kiki is a....modest baby.

The baby was not cooperating and did not show off their "business". So we couldnt tell if it was a boy or a girl. Bummer. The baby was moving a ton because Ali just had breakfast but just would not roll over in a way that we could tell. Oh well, the most important thing is that the baby is healthy and so is mama.

Ali is starting to show...yet another step of this makes it more real.

I think that is it for now. Hopefully next time you will hear from my better half. Fingers crossed.

Blessings in 2010.

Long time no blog...

Alright…so the wife and I are horrible about keeping this updated. Early new years resolution…regular blog updates. ESPECIALLY since we have so much to update ya’all on. I am going to try and keep them somewhat chronological.

A) First, and definitely biggest news we have…WE ARE PREGNANT! I contemplated changing the blog name from “Tyler and Ali are finally hitched” to “Tyler and Ali are expecting” and seeing how many people would’ve noticed. It’s awesome news. Here is a picture of the little Pau.

Let me try and answer some of the FAQs that we have gotten thus far...

1) Nope. We were not trying but feel extremely blessed.
2) We are due in May. Crazy time of closing a building, ending my contract, and bringing a little Pau into the world.
3) We don’t know gender yet. We are still debating (read: discussing) if we will find out in a few weeks.

I am sure we will have more updates in the near future. We are just over 18.5 weeks. Ali’s morning sickness (that actually came at night) is pretty much gone. Since we don’t know the babys gender, we have been calling him/her “Kiki” instead of saying “it.” It was a trip to hear the babys heartbeat at every doctors appointment. Keep us in you thoughts and prayers. We are excited and scared out of our minds at the same time.

B) Bonnie and Dale (Ali’s parents) came out to visit us. It was a great time with them. Bonnie cooked us an amazing dinner one night and we sat around for hours (chatting about life, Dale’s new iPhone application called “LifeTrack”, sharing about Ali and my new married life, and then taking all the advice we could about parenting) and laughed a lot. We were so happy to have some family come visit us out here. Thanks Bonnie and Dale! Also, Bonnie got a tattoo while she was here. Buck hooked her up with a cool Picasso dove. Maybe Dale is next???

C) Ali and I went over to see my brother and his family in Federal Way for Thanksgiving. SO awesome on a couple levels. Level 1…it was so good to be with my brothers family. Level 2…my nephew Chance was there! I hadn’t seen him since my brothers wedding, two years ago. Level 3…food was amazing. Felicity even made baked beans with my moms recipe. She did awesome. Level 4…We found a Thursday paper laying in the road that had all the Black Friday advertisements in it. Score. Level 5…my brother now has a Wii and a Playstation 3. It was a good time for Ali and I to get away and we had a good time on our drives to and from the westside. Mathyus was tired enough to let us put this on him in Target.

D) Ali and I are packing to fly out to Hawaii for Christmas. YES! Spokane is looking like this…

We could use the warmth. It will be good to go visit some of the places from the wedding. Haleiwa Joes. Dukes. Ali even wants to do Diamond Head. We might even eat the top cake from the wedding. Lemon lilikoi? Mmmm. We will make sure to take a lot of pictures to post on the blog.

That’s about it for now. Apologies for the long delay. Keep checking in, we aim to get better. Enjoy the holidays and time with folks you love.

Seasons Greetings,
Tyler

Welcome, Padraic!

Padraic Edward Mulcahy joined the crew on Sunday, October 18. He was a big boy at 9 lbs., 1 oz. and a lengthy 21.5". His proud parents, Sean and Grace, had been waiting a while for him to get here. Grace did great, Sean didn't faint...and the little Mulcahy was born.

He is such a blessing. Welcome to the crew, little buddy