Noah Tyson Lee

I lied. I didn't get pictures up yesterday, so I'm putting them up today. I started the day off on Tuesday by giving Kennedy breakfast and one last bath before heading to the hospital with my mom at 9:45. I checked in and got hooked up to all kinds of things while waiting for the doctor. The nurse went through my vein on the first try with the IV (which has resulted in a nasty bruise) so she had to try again on my right hand. Then came the epidural. Compared to last time it was a nightmare. The anesthetist kept pinching a nerve which sent a very painful electric shock down my right leg. Needless to say, I was getting very antsy to get this baby out!

The doctor was (of course, most doctors are) about 40 minutes later than expected, but that turned out to be a good thing because the epidural took way longer than it should have to take effect. The anesthetist kept pinching me, and until we got into the operating room, I could feel it every time. But eventually, I was laying on the table, the curtain was up, and I couldn't feel a thing. Then, at 1:03 pm on March 23, I heard the little screams of my son being born.

It is a weird sensation to have a baby pulled out of your tummy. I felt like everything from my lungs and below was being stretched and pulled out. But then again, Brett and I make big babies. Noah weighed in at 8 pounds 9 ounces and measured 21 inches long. He was even bigger than Kennedy was! He was (and is) extremely healthy and a very welcome addition to our family. He is so good natured and is a wonderful eater and sleeper.

Kennedy wasn't sure how to react at first, so she opted for ignoring me and Noah the first time she came to the hospital. She warmed up quickly though and now is the little helper I knew she would be. A special thank you to my parents: mom for staying with me in the operating room and in the hospital and dad for taking Kennedy while I was in the hospital for 3 days. Thankfully, the day I came home from the hospital was the same day that Brett graduated from boot camp and got to come home! Noah and I met him at the airport (don't worry, my dad drove) and he was able to get Kennedy out of bed this morning. We are all so happy that he is home! You'll have to excuse the bad picture, I am puffy from having a baby and being in the hospital, and it's painful for Brett to smile with his mouth open since the Coast Guard has been doing so much dental work on him.

The bad news is that Brett has to have more dental work done than expected. He opted to come home for a week, but on April 4 he has to go back to New Jersey for 2 weeks to finish up that dental work, so our moving plans are on hold. We don't know exactly when he'll be back, but it's pretty much guaranteed that he will have to miss everyone's birthday. The good thing is that he won't be in boot camp anymore, he will be a base employee, so he will be able to call us everyday. We'll be moving to Oregon as soon as he gets back.

We are so happy to have him home with us for this next week and I know that that 2 weeks will go by much faster than the last 8 have. We are looking forward to starting our adventure with the Coast Guard for real in a few weeks!

The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Two Hours...Then We Came Home With a Wii

WARNING: Please excuse the length of this blog. You will understand when you reach the bottom.

Brett came home from work before our trip to Texas and told me that he had won his choice of a Playstation 3, X-Box 360, or Wii in a raffle at work. I was so excited because I have been wanting a Wii, but I knew that we couldn't splurge on it. Plus they are so dang hard to find. So he came home with a Playstation yesterday and we decided that we would get a Wii instead.

Knowing that his boss had gotten it at Wal-Mart, and knowing that their return policy includes everything and their dog, we headed on down there to return it. I called Best Buy on the way on a whim, and they had 10 Wiis in stock! We hauled it to Wal-Mart and while Brett went to Customer Service, I headed to the back to see if they had any systems and how much the games were.
Almost immediately I was trapped by an employee. "Can I help you find anything?" I was in a hurry, and it was obvious that they didn't have any systems, so I said no thank you, just looking. "Are you looking for anything in particular?" No. Go away. I have to get to Best Buy before those Wiis are gone. "Just so you know, if you're looking for a Wii system, a Wii Fit, or MarioKart, we're sold out." I thought this was the end of the conversation and tried to walk away, but I could not have been more wrong. I made the mistake of telling him that I knew Best Buy had some and he told me that I should get there right now. After this warning he proceeds to give me a friendly "heads up". He walks me over to Rock Band and taps it and looks at me. Without saying anything. I'm looking at him and he finally says, "This is Rock Band." Yes, I see that. He then tells me that if I buy Rock Band that I have to go directly to the manufacturer if anything goes wrong. I don't understand why he decided that it was important to tell me that when I had no interest in that game. He then started telling me how bad Best Buy's return policy was. Finally, I just said thank you and walked away before he had a chance to snare me with any other friendly advice.

I got to customer service, and it turns out that they wouldn't take the Playstation back without a reciept. So we called Brett's boss and asked for a copy of it. All this while I am imagining Wiis flying off the shelf at an unimaginable rate. We drove all the way down to where he works to pick it up, and on the way we almost got plowed over by a huge black truck that had wheels so big they should be illegal. When we finally got back to Wal-Mart, Brett was told that they would not take copies of the reciept, only the real one. But he had already been told otherwise, so they went and got manager approval and sent him back to electronics.

Yes, you guessed it. The same friendly employee who helped me without being asked ended up helping Brett. He told him that they didn't take copies of reciepts. Brett argued. 15 minutes later he comes back with manager approval and sends him back, yet again, to customer service. They tell him they can't take a copy of a reciept. Seriously. He argues again and is then told that we can't get cash, only store credit or refund to the credit card. At least we got a refund. Well, since it wasn't our credit card that it was bought with, we took our only option. But now, we can't go to Best Buy.

Apparently the people at Nintendo have a lot of fun messing with people because they don't tell any of their stores when shipments are coming in or how many they are getting. Brett proceeded to call every Wal-Mart from Payson to Midvale with each one saying that the next store had a few Wiis. Unfortunately none of them actually had a Wii, and one said that they come in every 6 weeks and one said they come in every week. At this point I was desperate so I made a deal with the devil.

Anyone who knows how much I hate Wal-Mart in the first place, even before this ordeal, will know the sacrifices that I have made. I told Brett that if we could just go get one now while we knew that Best Buy had some, I would be willing to buy groceries only at Wal-Mart until our $450 gift card was gone. I know. Tell me about it.
At this point we realized that we had forgotten that we told a girl that she could come look at our guitar, and hopefully buy it, in about 10 minutes. We were 10 minutes away from the house as it was and had no intention of returning without a Wii. We flew to Best Buy, ran in, and grabbed a Wii before it could be snatched up by anyone else. We frantically chose games and ran to the check out. She called on the way home and we apologized profusely and gave her a small discount on the guitar which she bought even though we were such flakes.

We did come home and make some money on that guitar and even though he won Mario Party, I proceeded to whoop Brett on Wii Play. Even on fishing. Boo yah.