jenny come back from california

Jenny come back from California
She said her mother's doing fine
Jenny come back from California
With a sparkle in her eye 

lyrics from a good cross canadian ragweed song called (you guessed it) "jenny come back"   my wife and daughter have arrived back in houston and are count down to launch.  t-minus four days.  i can't wait.  i also wish more than anything that i was there to help with all the craziness that is last day moving.

i am thinking of you wife.  wish i could take all the weight off of your shoulders and do everything for you.

i love you can will see you so, so soon (but not soon enough).

friday farewell dinner... sort of

my mom had us down on friday for a "farewell dinner" before i left for bishkek.  the trip down to her house was an adventure to say the least.  most of the time it takes us anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes depending on traffic.  but because i was driving the scooter (we are leaving it with deana and buddy for the year) we were forced to take backroads and the trip took an hour and a half.  that is a long time to be on a scooter!  plus we had to spot to feed olive a couple of times... so needless to say it was a long trip.

while it was nice for my mom to have us down... the whole evening was kind of strange.  no fanfare... no hurrah... no emotional parting.  we showed up late and by the time we arrived... everyone had pretty much eaten already and were busy doing their own thing.  it didn't feel like a special event and i guess it wasn't.

i love my family and this summer was great in getting to spend time with my mom, deana and company.  jen and i really appreciated the time and wouldn't have traded it for the world.  but the feeling i got during dinner was "ok... see you later".  i think i built the night up to be more than it really was or should have been.  i have spent most of my adult life living away from family.  to them... i am always on the way out the door.  so why should this time be any different?  the night was just another "he is leaving again" and i guess parting has lost it's significance. 

i am not slighting my family in any way.  they are amazing and showed jennifer, olive and myself so much kindness and generosity this summer.  what i am doing is realizing that if i want to "be closer" to my family... i need to make more of an effort to be closer.  both physically and emotionally.  otherwise to them it will always feel like i am always on my way out the door.

family meeting

in typical conover fashion... my last days in houston were hectic, busy and focused more on list making and getting stuff done than actually doing what i wanted to be doing... which was spending every second in family meetings with jennifer, olive and boone.

a "family meeting" is code for cuddling up in bed... talking, day dreaming, and napping. so pretty much the best thing to do in the whole world. i love. jenny loves it. boone REALLY loves it. and olive loves it as long as she gets to breast feed the entire time. so everyone wins.

it is amazing how much i accomplished in the last 48 hours.  makes me wonder what i could have gotten done if i has been focused all summer.  but as they say... things you postpone to the last minute... only take a minute.   thanks go out to my friend rex garver for that saying.   i felt like i was going from 600am in the morning to past midnight each day and even then... i didn't get everything done i had hoped to get done AND i missed out on family meeting times.

i am not happy to be leaving for bishkek.

monday night date night

typically monday nights are reserved for "monday night date night" with me and jen. being olive's first monday at home... of course she had to be part of the date! last monday olive entered the family so mondays mean even more to us now.

olive watched monday night football with dad (go texans!) and then the whole family (including boone) walked over to katz's deli ('it never kloses') for cheese cake, black cherry cream soda, and photos from the photo booth.

 

  

  

mark and emily

today we had lunch with our friends mark and emily. as our summer has been so crazy we haven't seen them much at all... so it was really nice to get together with them. i think that they were more interested in olive than in us. a reoccurring theme - family and friends being more interested in olive than in us. but that is ok... we feel the same way.

mark and emily teased us about coming to visit in bishkek. please come to bishkek!

last sunday in houston

yesterday was my last sunday in houston for the summer... and who knows... it might have been my last sunday in Houston (as a resident) for the foreseeable future.  we don't know what next year will bring.  we could end up staying in bishkek (if the right position at the school opens up).  we could end up staying with qsi (the organizations we work for) but teach in thailand, malta or slovakia (our top three choices right now).  we could end up in back in the states.  it is too early to tell.

if yesterday was my last sunday in houston... it makes for a sad day.  jen and i really love it here.  we love living in montrose... being in downtown... being in the museum district.  it is a wonderful place to live and would be even a better place to raise a family.

one of the things we love most about our area of town is the easy access to "cool things to do".  sunday, for instance, was the houston theatre district open house.  free performances.  a theater costume garage sale.  it was so much fun.  after laying in bed with olive for most of the morning, we spent the rest of the day hanging out downtown with our friends april/nick and rachel/phil.  olive was perfect all day and was content to hang out in the baby sling around her mom's neck.  she attended her first symphony performance and was the star of the show (at least for the folks sitting around us).

we are going to miss houston.

colton's birthday party

on saturday we celebrated colton's ninth birthday at my sister's house in friendswood. a family affair with deana, buddy, colton and brayden, my mom and stepdad bob, my aunt judy, cousins amy, wes, julie with their kids. gloria and jen's mom. great family time. later in the night my mom's longtime family friend linda jenkins showed up with her two grandkids.  deana always does such an amazing job being a host.

the grandmas spent most of their time playing with olivia but i don't think colton minded to much as he was having fun playing in the pool all afternoon.

my mom was excited to take photos and spent time playing around with emma (julie and wes' daughter) before olive's photo shoot.

rachel, jay and dana

thursday night my former co-workers rachel (my old ga) and jay (my old boss) along with his girlfriend dana came over to visit olive. no one visits us anymore... just olive.

i was fun watching them coo over our little daughter. they all came bearing gifts and food. we are pretty blessed to have such good friends.

they are all cross eyed at this age... right?

olive's first visit to the doctor

on thursday we had olive's first doctor's appointment. she got perfect scores across the board. she did so well that i am going to get a bumper sticker for the car that says "my daughter is an honor student".

spent some time talking to the doctor about "overseas considerations" such as what shots to get, when it is safe to take olive to central asia, etc. all signs point right now to the day after her six week (yes... i said SIX WEEK) check up. not a happy time at the conover household.

i leave this coming saturday, september 5. six weeks means jen won't leave until after october 8. i can't imagine how we are going to be apart from each other. i am miserable being away from jennifer for any short period of time. can't imagine not seeing her for weeks and also being away from olive. we are pretending that it isn't going to happen.

olive's first days

it is odd having a first child. nine months of build up to being parents. nine months of conversations and day dreams about his hypothetical little person. but nothing really prepares you for the reality of it.

a night in the hospital and seven hours of labor later... we are left with another human being. our family of three (counting boone of course) has just now become a family of four. all of the sudden we are "parents" and responsible for another person. i am not saying that in a "omg what have we done" kind of way... because already, three short days in... i can't imagine not being a parent. olive has changed everything. jen and i feel like we now have a greater purpose other than just ourselves. WE ARE PARENTS!

on top of that... olive is the most precious, lovely, perfect gift in the whole world. i keep thanking jennifer for giving us olive. she tries to thank me in turn but 15 minutes of work on my part vs 9 months of work on her part... she really does deserve all the credit.

these first couple of days we have found ourselves just sitting and looking at her. watching quietly as she sleeps (she looks like an angel i tell you) and waiting in anticipation for those moments when she scrunches up her little face, yawns, and opens her little eyes.

one of my favorite moments already was during our first night at home. olive was sleeping in between us in bed (i know... we are breaking all the parenting/sleep rules already) and jen and i were laying down on either side of her looking at each other. olive was on her back. we were on our sides with our heads flat on the bed. we normally end our days like this... laying in bed looking at each other and talking. only this time it was different. our daughter was laying down in between us. the normal unobstructed view we have of each is now graced with the profile of this tiny new addition to our family. we just laid there and studied her forehead, her eyes, her cute button nose, her (momma's) lips, her round little chin. and every so often we would look past olive and make eye contact with each other.  i can't imagne anything better.

below are some photos from olive's first days.  checking in to the hospital, the labor and delivery (we exclude all the vagina shots that our moms somehow managed to get without us realizing it), as well as visits from our family and our friends nick and april.

one day old

welcome olive

olivia annmarie conover was born yesterday afternoon at 215pm. as a new parent i am obligated to talk about her stats (seven pounds two ounces and nineteen and a quarter inches long), the process of labor (there are some pretty funny stories) and tell you how cute she is (seriously... olive is already on the path to stardom as a child actor and model... she is that cute). i will expound on those things in coming posts. but for right now let me just leave you with this.

it is the middle of the night and jen and i are both up. not because we can't sleep... but why would we want to sleep? we have been blessed with the most beautiful, lovely, amazing little girl. we just take turns holding her. talking to her. cuddling with her. it seems surreal that all the sudden another person has joined our life... our family.

a couple of pushes and grunts (jen would say it was a bit more than that) and "wa la"... welcome olive!

i don't see us going to back to sleep tonight. why would we? olive is better than sleep (check back with me soon to see if i still feel that way)!

we are just waiting for you

the last supper

my mom had us down for our last "life before olive" supper on sunday afternoon before we headed to the hospital. the dinner was crazy and rushed but lovely and great at the same time. my mom always out does herself... she is a modern day julia child. grilled pork chops. sweet potatoes. asparagus. good stuff. i am pretty sure she is the one responsible for my lack of weight loss (aka "weight gain") this summer. it was good family time as nancy, bobby, deana and buddy were there also. my mom also got me a small digital photo frame so i could take images of olive with me back to bishkek when i leave. sigh.

thanks for a great dinner mom.

our last day without a child

tonight we are scheduled (at 700pm) to go into the hospital to induce labor. the actual labor won't happen until monday morning... tonight is all about ripening and such!

odd, scary and exciting to think that today is our last day without a child. by this time tomorrow olive will be kicking and screaming her way into the world.

i can' wait.

nothing says maternity photos like sears

about two weeks ago we felt "inspired" to go and get maternity photos at our local sears store. we felt like supermodels... like brad and angelina. we also felt pretty cheesy but we are glad we did them.

day five

five days overdue and still no sign of olive. well... there are plenty of signs. she kicks and twists and turns all the time but alas... our daughter is not very bright it seems. she can't find the exit.

three days

olive is three days overdue. we just returned from dr. woolfolk (jen, her mom and myself) and were told that the baby still isn't ready to come out. she looks "beautiful" in the words of the doctor but still "cooking".

jen had some false contractions last night for about an hour and a half and then one "real" contraction in the middle of the night... but that has been it so far. the doctor wanted to induce tonight since we are at 40 weeks plus but we scheduled for sunday night/monday morning instead as we really want to do all natural with minimal to no inductions. dr. woolfolk said she believe that olive will come before then but just to help things along... we should walk alot and have sex alot. that was fun to talk about in front of jen's mom. even more fun after we left the doctor's office and jen's mom came up with a schedule of when she would walk with jennifer and when i would "do her". good times!

Anniversary Trip

from jen's blog...

Anniversary Trip

David and I ventured out far from home to celebrate our one year anniversary. We went to a little island (we had to take a ferry even) of Port Aransas here in Texas. Texas has an island? Yes. David's mom and stepdad, Bob, run a fishing tournament down there every year so that was great to see all of their work and how it all came together. There were huge boats and big fish.
David almost got into a fight with an old drunk fisherman. I had my camera ready.

We went to the beach on Saturday with David's mom, Janice. It was a great time (minus David's sunburn--he never lets me put sunscreen on him). When we got home on our real anniversary date David got bit by our neighbors dog so and couldn't walk around so we are going to celebrate our real anniversary today/tonight.