Halloween

We hosted a little Halloween costume party for our friends from the team. Nina and Nixon even dressed up, much to their dismay. We enjoyed a ton of food and had a lot of fun as each family and group of friends rolled through the door in increasingly laughable costumes. Present were a safari family, Hugh and his two bunnies, GI Joe, two British rock stars, Alice in Wonderland, and several others. Enjoy our pics!

Sharing our good news

To inform our family that they were soon to be Grandparents we decided to get a little more creative than an awkward phone call. We made a label of our ultrasound pic and attached it to the back of a wine bottle and included a mysterious note simply stating "Congratulations." Then, we sat back and waited for the phone calls...

Ad & Ash + 1

The Cristman family would like to announce......we're expecting a baby!
We couldn't possibly feel more blessed or more excited. We didn't really let this cat out of the bag until the end of October when I was about 12 weeks along. This whole ride has been wonderful. I think I'm extremely lucky as I really haven't experienced any of the yucky symptoms I know so many women go through. We've had two Dr's appointments and all is as it should be -- baby Cristman is healthy and growing fast! That's all for now...I've included a photo of baby at 12 weeks and will post a few more "bump" photos as we progress.

Nina's 1st birthday

The day after Adam came home from surgery (October 4th) was Nina's first birthday! I think I was way more excited about this day than any of my own birthdays and we intended to spoil her rotten. We began the celebration by taking both pups to the Plaza on a long walk on a beautiful fall day. (On a side note, fall is absolutely beautiful here! I only wish we could go apple-picking!) We ended our morning by stopping at Nina's favorite bakery (Three Dog Bakery) and getting a few "boo tarts" and "pup cakes". The rest of the afternoon was filled with Nina's favorite things -- napping in the hammock outside, napping on Adam's lap inside, chasing Nixon, etc. For dinner, Nina enjoyed pieces of our sirloin steak (from our homemade Vietnamese pho soup) and finally, to end the celebration, she donned her birthday hat and enjoyed her first pup cake! Happy Birthday Nina bean :)

What a year for injuries...

Well, after getting over the flu, and working insanely hard to rejoin his teammates, Adam sustained another injury...this time in his abdominal region. He tried very hard to avoid surgery by going to the chiropractor about 5 times in a week and by lots of rest (believe me!), but surgery was inevitable and really what he needed. The team flew Adam to see one of the best docs for his type of injury in Philly early last week. Adam tends to talk every injury down (probably so I don't get freaked out), so I wasn't sure how serious it was, but I was pretty upset that I wouldn't be able to go with him. Luckily, his dad was able to take a train from Richmond and spent a lot of time going to doctor's appointments and keeping Adam company. I was so so thankful that Adam and his dad could spend time together and especially that Adam had someone there watching his back! Adam's surgery was Oct. 2nd and he was flown home the following day...the first few days at home, he was in a lot of pain, but it's only been a week and he seems a lot better. He's been walking a little over a mile or so everyday and that seems to be helping. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers! We're crossing our fingers that this was just a bad year of injuries and that next season will be much, much better.

September recap

So it's been a month since I've written anything on here! Reason being is that not much has happened. Our anniversary was September 1st and I wish I could say we did something fun, but unfortunately, Adam and I both came down with the flu that week! Adam started experiencing flu-like symptoms on Monday and it just progressed throughout the week...I didn't really start feeling bad until Wednesday, but it didn't take long for the full effects of the flu to hit me hard! Needless to say, we spent the entire week hunkered down in our house. On the positive side, we were together for a whole week (no work for Adam all week and no work for me for about three days)! Other than that, we've explored a few more dog parks with Nina and Nixon and that's about it! So far, we've been to Stoll (which is right down the street from us), Shawnee Mission, and our favorite, Heritage Park. If Adam were writing right now, he'd tell you that September has been uber eventful -- at least in the realms of fantasy football. Checking on available players, schedules, projected points, etc. has become a part of his daily routine! I'll admit, this drove me crazy at first. But, I spent ALL of last Sunday watching football games with him (which I've never done before...one game, yes, but not three) and I actually kinda got into it! My fantasy team kinda sucked, so now I find myself checking projections, available players, etc. so that I'm not the loser of the family. Anyway, that's about it! Hope everyone is enjoying this transition to fall :)

Fantasy Football Draft 09

It's hard to believe the summer is almost over and that football has already started! This year, Adam decided that a bunch of our family members should create a fantasy football league. So, he promptly set up the league, sent invitations for each member to participate, and scheduled a draft date for the teams. One of my uncles questioned Adam on how we'd pick the order for the draft -- how it'd be fair/how we'd document the process. So, Adam came up with the unique idea of letting our dogs choose the draft order. We wrote out all the team names on small pieces of cardstock and then tied each team to a milk bone. The cardstock pieces were placed, in random order, into a basket with the milk bones and string lined on the floor. One at a time, our dogs were released to make their pick. This was possibly the funniest process thing I've seen in a long time. Adam and I could not stop laughing. We had the NFL theme music playing in the background and Nina and Nixon were definitely taking their jobs very seriously...What was kinda funny was that they ate the milkbones in order, oh and our video camera ran out of juice so the whole draft picking thing isn't even legit! Oh, but it was so worth it :)