We made it through the holidays

With both of our family's living in Minnesota the holidays usually means lots of traveling for us. Christmas we were at Cathy's parents place. It was really nice to have a few days to relax. The weekend didn't quite go as planned, grandpa ended up in the hospital for a couple days with excessive fluid build up and an ill timed snow storm kept her brothers from making it down. Fortunately grandpa just needed a couple days to get back on track and Carl was able to make it down once the storm lifted the following day. Even though pretty much nothing happened as planned it all still happened and we got plenty of time to hang out with everyone!!
After a short 3 days back in Wisconsin we headed north again for New Years/Christmas with my parents. My dad out did us all when he told us they bought a house!! It was a little weird knowing this was going to be the last holiday at the farm, but everyone is excited about them moving onto the next stage in their life. Plus they are only going to be 10 miles from us so that will help a lot with baby sitting! Monday the girls went into town to catch a movie and do some shopping and us guys borrowed some snowmobiles from my uncles and went for a ride. That night we all got cleaned up and then Leslie took us out dancing. We got there early so they taught us all some moves which helped us have a really good time that night. The next day was just relaxing and then I had to head home for work. Cathy stayed in MN for a baby shower the next day. She had a really good time seeing old friends and showing off Keenan. It got to be kinda long week but on Friday Dad brought Cathy home when he went to meet the inspector for there house. This weekend was just spent recovering from the past two weeks and embarrassing a new year!!

Swanson Fun

The past couple weeks have been so much fun! Everyday after work I can notice changes in Keenan, either he has grown or has more expressions or is looking around more. He is doing really good with sleeping at night. We usually try to keep him awake all evening and then right after his 11pm feeding get him to bed. It seems like every other night he will make it until 5-6am and the other nights he gets up around 2-3am for a little "mid-night snack".

Tonight we were playing on the bed and he was trying to copy what I was doing.

He definitely takes after Cathy on the camera!!

Cathy, Keenan, and Mercedes getting their morning beauty sleep.

Besides playing with Keenan mother nature has been keeping us plenty busy! I really don't remember having this much snow piled up this early for a long time! Oh well I like it. The snow gets me in the Christmas spirit and is fun to do winter activities.
Speaking of Christmas, this weekend we have the kids Christmas party for work and then next weekend is Christmas already!

Winter riding

All week the weather forecasters were predicting a major winter storm for this weekend. I wasn't getting my hopes up for much so when I woke up on Saturday morning and seen it snowing I figured it was just going to be a little snow and then be over. I called up Cory, met him at the Trek store before heading out to 25.5.

It wasn't until I was waiting for Cory that I realized we might be getting as much snow as they were predicing. We got to the trails and starting riding.

We only made it about 100 feet down the trail before realizing we had WAY too much air in our tires, down to 10-15psi to keep the tires under us. I love riding in the snow, it is a totally different type of riding - putting in full effort just to keep moving and at times just to stay up.

Most of the climbs were unrideable so we did a lot of hike-a-biking.

After about an 1-1.5 hours we finally got one lap done and decided to call it while we were still uninjured and only semi-frozen. Yes this picture is set up, we both tried to ride the bridge but couldn't make the corner and both ended up in the gully!

I got home, changed and then we all loaded up and headed down to the UW Stock Pavillion for the UW Forestry Club's tree fundraiser. They had a really sweet setup, we pulled right into the arena out of the snow, rain, and sleet and was able to pick out a tree and get it tied to the roof without freezing. After that we headed to the mall to kill some time, it was mostly freezing rain so our Christmas tree turned into a Christmas glacier! When we got home last night I brought in what I remember to be our tree and let it thaw in the basement. If the tree is thawed and if our basement isn't flooded I think we are going to set it up and decorate today.

Sleepless nights

Well it has been a week since we brought Keenan home. Sleeping has been really hit or miss (more misses than hits I think), some nights he sleeps good and others we are up all night. I think we have a system down and if we can get through this week we should be set. We are all getting adjusted and so far it has been more fun than work.
With all the extra work around the house and due to cold or wet weather the bikes haven't been seeing much outside the garage.
Now that Thanksgiving has passed Christmas lights are popping up all over the neighborhood. This weekend is forcast to be cold, and either rain or snow...perfect weather for me to freeze while putting up lights!

Baby Pictures

Yep that is right we have baby pictures!!
On Sunday morning at 1am Cathy got up to use the bathroom and came back to bed with some cramping, then all of the sudden they went away - hmmmmm. We stayed up and thought we would time them just in case it was a contraction. Sure enough it happened again, about 17 minutes later. After that we started timing them and they got really close FAST - 17 minutes, 15, 10, 7, and then 5. At this point we realized this was the real deal. We got up loaded the car and got ready to go. The contractions slowed to 6-7 minutes so we put in a movie to kill some time. When that got over Cathy was starting to hurt so we decided to just head in and see what they had to say. At 5am the main doors weren't open yet so we headed to the ER.

They checked us in, took us to Triage, and checked out Cathy to see how far dilated she was...only 3cm! She was really bumming because the contractions were constantly 4-5 minutes. We sat in there for about 1.5 hours to see how things progressed at about 7am her water broke so the nurse told us we weren't going home at this point and got a room ready. Cathy was doubling over in pain with each contraction at this point and was getting them ever 2-3 minutes. At 8:30am we got into the room and the doctor got an Epidural started. After that he pain subsided enough that Cathy was able to get a little rest.

A couple hours pass and family starts to arrive, they stopped in to say good luck and then congregated in the waiting room. At 2:30pm Cathy was set and ready to push. Things started happening fast at this point, doctors were coming and going and pulling in equipment as the baby was getting close. Finally a head, a couple pushes later the shoulder and arms, then with a good push from Cathy and a pull from the doctor and at 3:30pm Keenan C Swanson was born!!

He is bigger than we were expecting at 8lbs 4oz and coming it at 19.5" long. He has a full head of hair already and I am afraid he has my hairline...I was afraid that was going to happen.

We stayed in the hospital for a couple days and then today at around noon they let us take him home. He is super cute although that could be just the sleep deprived me talking. Cathy is off work for 12 weeks and I am taking this week off and will probably only work half days at best next week.

Well Keenan is sleeping right now so I am going to close my eyes for a bit as well while I can.
Thanks to everyone for all the support and encouragement you have given us, we can't wait to show him off to all of you.

Out of touch with blogging

Wow I have been worse than ever on keeping this updated. If anyone is still checking this site you really need to get a life!!
Cathy is ready to pop any day now her official due date is monday the 12th but she is hoping it won't take that long. I think we have everything ready, car seat - check, crib - check, lots of stuffed toys - check, and a changing table. That should be it I am guessing...YEAH RIGHT!! I think we are going to use cloth diapers so if anyone has any ideas about this or were to find good inexpensive ones on line let me know.
After our cross race I decided to build up my Devinci frame that I had hanging in the garage. My brother and sister in law are staying with us for a month and we were going to do the cross race but I got into some seriously bad hamburger, I guess hamburger doesn't age as well as cheese. Anyway that laid me up for the entire weekend. Depending on what the baby desides to do we might head out to Stoughton for the race this weekend.
That's all for now, keep checking and maybe I will keep this more updated once we have someone else to write about.

Gibbs Lake 75% Payout!!!

We were out at the course this weekend and I think it is going to be really good. Hopefully we won't get any rain or snow this year, although that made for a fun race it was pretty bad setting up or tearing down.
We changed up a couple things this year and I think we are going to have a good course, there is a little of everything, fast, rough, tight, and sweeping. We are doing a 75% entry fee payout, which means the more people that show up the larger the purse will be!!
We haven't had the flyer posted for long so pass this on to as many people as you can.
See ya this weekend!!