I'm recycling a really old picture here. In fact this was taken more than a year ago when, for some reason long forgotten, I was getting to work really really early. The early morning light coming across the city was just spectacular, and even better the day before.

Last night Laura and I trekked into Chestnut Hill to pick up a dresser for our nursery. Laura is saving us lots of money by finding things for sale on craigslist. We've gotten a small computer desk, a changing table, and now a dresser over the past week. I can now officially say that I've been in a house easily worth more than $1 million. In fact, every house in the neighborhood was huge, with decent sized lots. This house was 3 floors, and with a loft above that. I think they were in the process of moving, perhaps to a smaller place, as it seemed somewhat empty and there was another couple there picking up more furniture. I honestly wouldn't mind living in Boston if I could live in a house like that. Of course, that's utterly unrealistic so I'll never speak of it again.

Colors like these are officially gone. Everything is dark, dreary and brown. I actually had my window open all day at work; something I can't usually do because of the glare. At least everything isn't covered with that cold white stuff yet. I can't wait for the day when I don't have to deal with winter anymore. I don't do much skiing anymore (at all really), and I have no reason to sled for a few more years, so I just don't really see the point!

Last Wednesday I was around the corner at the pizza shop when I get out to the car and it refuses to start. Its not a dead battery as everything seems to be powered just fine. I eventually have it towed (making me late for gaming night!), and it turns out that the starter kicked it. I have no idea why. And it happened awfully suddenly. Cars are like that to me. It must be like how other people view computers. One of these days I'll have to teach myself car maintenance. We had some serious trouble picking it up when the barely-fluent gas station guy wouldn't take my money. I guess he wasn't sure if the car was ready, but I was! And then, this morning I get into the car and find out that my radio doesn't work anymore. It just says SAFE. So yeah, if anybody knows anything about that, I'd appreciate it.

We didn't think that the Kovixen had grown much in the past week. Then last night as we were strolling through the aisles of Baby's 'R' Us, (a new fad that's starting to catch on), she swears that she could feel everything stretch. I called her crazy (you're always right when you call a pregnant woman crazy), but it seems as though her belly really is bigger this week.

We started a baby registry at Baby's 'R' Us, but for some reason we're having trouble getting it activated on Amazon.com's website. Computers. Do they ever do anything right?

Today, as Laura and I arrived for our post-Thanksgiving brunch, we were greeted at the door by some rambunctious dogs. My mother tried to corrall Yeti, but was unsuccessful and exclaimed, "Don't let Yeti out!". Laura reached down, and grabbed Yeti by a finger-tip. Now, Yeti is not a huge dog, but makes up for his stature with pure muscle. One finger most certainly wasn't going to hold him anywhere. Laura yells at me to help grab him, and I lunge at the dog while losing my balance. I take two steps backwards; kicking over a pot of frozen mums, two pumpkins, and finally tumble over backwards off the front steps. I'm flying through the air for what seems like an eternity, constantly struggling to regain my balance. Luckily there's a few inches of snow on the ground to make a nice cushion for my fall. It was a good thing I answered Laura's "Are you okay?" quickly, because she was ready to start screaming hysterically. I think it probably looked much worse than it actually was. I was fine, of course. No worse for the wear other than a few scratches on my hands, and some numb fingertips. I still haven't quite figured that one out.

We enjoyed a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house up in New Hampshire this year. She cooked an awesome turkey, and Laura and I had a chance to help in the preparations. Laura even helped make some dinner rolls, although she was really afraid of measuring the flour. I think bread is a little more forgiving than other baking. For the most part you have to guess how much flour you need based on the temperature and humidity.

I didn't really get a chance to cook anything this year. That's okay though, as I'm now loaded with lots of new recipes to try in the coming months. And I'll have plenty more opportunities to perfect my pie crust techniques. I just hope I can find enough people to eat all the pies I'm going to be making!

I don't want to take anything away from the debut of Critical Gamers, but Settlers of Cataan was awesome. That's a game I wish I had learned to play a long time ago. In fact, I think Peter Phelps played it in the "Game Club" back in High School. Yes, I didn't know there was a such a thing either. And this is coming from somebody who was on the Math Team.

Everybody, say hello to Kreacher. We had our second ultrasound this morning. It went very well, and by all indications we're going to have a very healthy baby. The hospital thinks that Kreacher is already a little large for his age; 20 weeks instead of the 19 (18.5 Kovixen says) as measured at the first ultrasound. That means either we're going to have a very large baby (baby like father?), or there's an outside chance we'll have another birthday paradox in the Kovacs family. I think April 5th, 2006 has a nice ring to it (04/05/06 anyone?). However, I think we're just going to have a brute of a baby.

We decided to not determine the baby's gender. So even though I call Kreacher a he, I have absolutely no evidence of that fact. Laura insists that its a boy, but so did the couple with the 5 week old girl we met last night. Frankly, all be happy with either. No, ecstatic!

Behold. This is my first ever pie. I made the whole thing from scratch (well, I used canned pumpkin, since finding sugar pumpkin at the supermarket isn't too likely) including the pie crust. I definitely need to work on my technique a little more. Alton wants me to roll it out inside a zip lock bag, but that didn't work so well. I ended up re-rolling it out on the board with a little extra flour. So the crust was probably a little tougher than it needed to be. Also, I may have taken it out of the oven a little early, as I didn't think the bottom of the crust was completely cooked. Everybody at the Beauchamps fabulous feast seemed to like it, even if they were just humoring me.

The Kovixen seems abnormally large, and she's not even halfway through the preganancy. Its hard to imagine the belly getting much larger, but it will! We've got our second ultrasound tomorrow, and we'll be able to bring home some pictures from this one. Tomorrow will hopefully be Kreacher's blog debut! So everybody be nice and welcoming.

I'm starting to get comfortable with my new role at work as a Principal Engineer at work, yet somehow I still have time to take silly pictures of myself.

I got pulled over for the very first time on my way home from Florida. Turns out that South Carolina is notorious for speed traps, and I got caught in one. I don't remember going much faster than everybody else on the road, but nobody was really around me when I went past the policeman. There was a little hiccup with my registration. See, in Massachusetts you don't get a seperate proof-of-insurance card, because you have to have insurance in order to register your car. So that information is printed right on your registration. But I guess the cop didn't like that, and combined with my nervousness of being pulled over, I didn't explain it very well.

I guess a weekend of taking pictures got me reinspired. So here it is. A picture of Laura's Shirley Temple. I think Laura secretly loves being preggers just so she can order this drink without feeling silly. Honestly I don't blame her. I used to get these during Happy Hour at the Embassy Suites back when my family would take annual trips to Boston. Of course, I called them Roy Rogers instead.

This is Laura's ever-growing belly. It was not nearly this large even a few days ago. Its going to be enormous. She's only 18 weeks at this point!

In other belly news, I felt the baby kick last night. Its unusual because Laura doesn't really feel kicks too often. But there was absolutely no doubting this. It felt like a soft punch. Laura even jumped a little; she was so surprised by the force.

Laura and I spent our 4th weekend in a row away from home. This time we spent a little time on Cape Cod, visiting with my parents. Being November, it was a little chilly. We still haven't gotten out the winter coats from storage, so I was wearing a windbreaker with a down vest on top and Laura's freshly made mittens on my hands.

We spent a little time at the Visitor's Center of the National Seashore (where this picture was taken). We watched some short movies about how the Cape was formed when the Ice Age ended. It was really neat, and you can see the evidence all over the place. Also, I found out that George's Bank was an enormous island until about 6000 years ago. Its possible that there were even people living on it! (Although certainly there's no evidence of that.)

... And all I got was some cold showers.

The Kovixen and I made do with some unfortunate timing and arrived here in Florida just as the first hurricane blown sun showers started to come down. We were expecting a small and quick tropical storm to pass through on Monday, but instead we were treated to a full fledged category two hurricane. I've got the pictures to prove it!

In the hours before the hurricane hit, there was certainly some rain and wind, but hardly anything to be worried about. The house had already been boarded up except for this one sliding glass door.

Things didn't get really exciting until after the eye had passed. There was one band of particularly vicious rain and wind. And, of course, due to the rotation and movement of the storm, Port St. Lucie was stuck in this band the longest -- for about 90 minutes. By this time we had finally lost power (not to be regained for another 6 days) so we were listening to the storms progress via radio. The plywood shutters were rattling, one was even ripped away from its cement-anchored bolts. (Luckily not in the room we were in!) I managed to take a little video with my camera, so check it out.

Once that had passed the storm was basically spent. It was moving remarkably fast, about 24 MPH to the north east, and so it was done in a few hours giving us the opportunity to clean up and get the generator started while there was still plenty of daylight. There is definitely something to be said about having a generator in such a situation. It really turned what would've been a disaster of a vacation into something a little more routine. The only things that we really missed were hot showers and a fan at night.

Now that we've got our power back, things are finally returning to normal. The Kovixen and I are seeing lots of movies, reading lots of books, and doing all the things you'd expect on a Kovacs Florida Vacation.