Another Update

Hey everyone - just a quick update on a couple of things.

First off - Apparently, since no baby update had been posted in a few days, and we seem to be email & phone slackers with our families lately - everyone thought we had the baby. My mom called and emailed three times today, my brothers call, our hometeachers and the relief society president called...all asking if we had the baby yet.

Well, sorry we forgot to notify you all, but we actually had the baby on Monday and just forgot to tell you all.

JUST KIDDING!! Guys. Seriously. We will tell you when the baby has arrived. We PROMISE.

Second, I just wanted to let you all know that in the ourstage.com music competition I won first place for my Genre (Instrumental) for my song "Fly Away" out of 650 songs, which means I won $100. Wooh! "A Beautiful Storm" came in at 2nd place in the Solo Instrumental Genre, so it didn't win but still, it did pretty well.

(for winning #1 in Instrumental)

(for being in top 10 for Solo Instrumental -#2)

#3 Overall - May Finals Fly Away

Today, "Fly Away" competed in the Finals (click on that link to see list of top 10 winners and listen to their songs) - which meant it went up against ALL the other #1 winners from all genres including hip hop, punk, alternative rock, etc. For the entire month of May, Ourstage.com had 29,161 songs entered in the competition. I ended up winning #3 OVERALL. So, that was really cool for me. I didn't end up winning the Grand Prize though ($5,000), I would have had to come in at #1 overall. Just 2 slots away dangitt! But #3 is still pretty good and I'm proud of that.

I will be trying again next month to win - if I am lucky enough to make it into the Finals again, Will and I are thinking about throwing a pizza party-24 hour judging marathon at our place to support me. Anyone with a laptop can come over and use our wi-fi connection and just vote, vote, vote. It really did make a difference today having those of you support me with your votes.

The neat thing, as we watched the stats all day long, is "Fly Away" consistently stayed up there within the top 5 songs for almost the entire day. I was the only song that was consistent. The other 4 fluctuated and went from top slots down to the bottom - which says that more people were voting for my song as a whole rather than other artists just trying to bump themselves up (which accounts for the fluctuations).

Anyway, sorry to go on about that. I am planning to release a new album in August of 2009, and this $5,000 would pay for some of the new equipment and studio costs I am needing. So your support of my music endeavors right now is VERY much appreciated. I'm so grateful to have such great friends who would spend hours on a Saturday afternoon voting for my music on a website.

Thank you ALL!

Now, I just need to get labor started. Hopefully we will have good news in that department by the end of this week. His duedate is Sunday the 8th.

Update

Thanks to everyone who took the time to support my music and vote for me yesterday - I made it into the "Top 10" as the #1 artist for both Instrumental and Solo Instrumental genres.

If you wouldn't mind, please keep voting for me!

I am now competing against the Top 10 artists in those categories and need to hit the #1 spots again in order to make it to the Finals. This next stage of voting will be over as of 12:01am May 31st. And then the "Finals" start immediately. So keep voting for me in this round until Friday night, and then the FINALS round (if I make it) until Saturday night!

The "Finals" are where the #1 song from each genre compete against each other for the grand prize of $5,000. If I do make it, it will be tough competing against such popular genres as techno and pop. but my oh my.....with $5,000 I could get a really great start on my next album. With all of your help and voting, I just might be able to do this.

Sorry for soliciting so much for your support - but every vote counts. It means a lot to me and I really appreciate the time you take to help. Thank you everyone!

P.S. A little tip - my song only randomly comes up every so "battles" against the other artists so you have to go through a few voting rounds with other songs before mine will pop up. They require you to listen to at least 15 sec of each song, but once you have already listened to a song, you don't have to listen to it again the next time it comes up (saves you time. Oh, and my song should pop up MULTIPLE times. The more times you can vote for my song, the higher it gets bumped up in the genre. :)

Support Jenni's Music - Vote!

A couple of my songs are currently up on a site called ourstage.com, which is a competition site for indie music. Grand prize is $5000 for the top winning song for each month, and then they have smaller prizes for "channel" winners. (i.e. my 2 songs are on the "instrumental" and "solo instrumental" channels).

I just learned about this site a few weeks ago, and thought what the heck it couldn't hurt to put my music up on there. Well, apparently two of my songs made it into the quarter-finals (top 20 of hundreds on each channel) and today is the last day for judging to get my songs into the top 10 for the final round.

(These banners are not updated, but as last night both songs were in the #1 spot for their channel - Very cool!).

Anyway - anyone can vote. If you listen to music while you work or at home anyway, this would be really fun. Just follow the instructions above on each respective banner to start judging. Right now, I'm being judged against the other top 19 artists for my channels. Quarter Finals end at midnight May 28th, but that's just to get me into the top 5. If I make that, then the idea would be to keep voting for me afterwards too - so I can hopefully win the channel prize as well. Thanks everyone! Your support is appreciated!

Baby Poll

Okay family and friends. We are just curious when you all think our little snuggly bundle of love will arrive and how much you think he will weigh. Here is some info to help you.

- Jenni's duedate is Sunday, June 8, 2008

- She is measuring exactly where she should be

- She's had no contractions, but as of last Monday she was 70% effaced

- Jenni's older brother (her mother's first baby) was 2 weeks early, and Jenni came 1 week early

- Jenni was 8 lbs (?oz) when she was born (and her brothers were all between 9 - 10 lbs)

- Will was 6 lbs (?oz) when he was born (and his siblings were all between 5 - 10 lb)

- Jenni's Dr estimates the baby to be somewhere around 7 lbs, but these estimations have been known to be off by (+) or (-) 2 lbs.

The person with the closest guess wins!

Weekend Update

Just a quickie on us:

First of all, this has got to be the most boring Memorial Day Weekend we can remember. Years past involved either camping, Vegas, kayaking, moving, or at least something. Not this year.

What we were able to accomplish this weekend:

- Installing the carseat into the car. Whoo.

- Figuring out how to use our stroller. Well, Will figured it out. I watched.

- Will figuring out how to use a Baby Bjorn.

- Will found a HUGE bullfrog in our driveway and I waddled my way up the driveway to take a look hoping that all the walking would induce me. I think we might even have a picture of the amphibian...hold on. Ah yes, here's one. That's Will's hat next to it to show you how big he was. (Just fyi we've never seen a frog this big in Washington state before).

- I tried like a bajillion self-inducement techniques to inspire the little one to come early, but to absolutely NO AVAIL. Ugh.

- The weather was super nice (Sunny, 75, and no clouds) here even though the forecast called for thundershowers.

- We both went out on probably our "last" babyless datenight together for a while, which consisted of driving around Issaquah trying to decide what we wanted to eat - only to realize that I wanted General Tso's Chicken from Safeway. We went to two different Safeways and cleaned them out. It was an adventure. (Spicy food is supposed to induce labor, which it did not). We ate so much spicy Gen. Tso's Chicken that both of us felt sick the next day. Blah. All that it did for labor, besides nothing, was make the baby go CRAZY and kick me for 2 hours. "Ugh what kind of flavor is this amniotic fluid mom????? Gross!"

- The eviction date that I gave Preston came and went. It was 11am Saturday the 24th. He's still snug as a bug in a...

- Will played church basketball Saturday morning AND is going to Monday morning. Go church ball.

- We tried to go on a picnic on Saturday but apparently everyone else had the same idea. We went to 3 different lakes and 4 different parks but they were all jampacked. We probably wasted about $50 in gas.

- Speaking of Gas, prices are now $4.10 per gallon here in Seattle.

Other than that, we are just fat and happy waiting...and waiting, and I mean WAITING for this baby to come. We have officialy 13 days left until the duedate. But duedate schmoodate. I feel like my pelvis is ripping in half and even walking hurts, Will's been overused on the back massages and dish duty. But so far, not even a single contraction has happened. Last doctor appointment (Mon the 19th) I was 70% effaced but not dialated at all. We'll see if any progress has happened at my next appointment on Wed the 28th.

Hopefully next update will be a baby update - OUTSIDE the womb. This momma is through being prego.

Paparazzi Newsflash!

This is Jenni. So, for the past couple of days I can't help reading in celebrity news about all of the celebrity baby bumps happening out there. Recent headlines I've read include "Pregnant Jessica Alba and Cash Warren Marry!", "Ashlee Simpson weds and confirms pregnancy to her guests!", "Nicole Kidman's maternity style!"...and it goes on and on from Gwen Stefani to supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio to Minnie Driver.

I'm feeling sort of left out here LOL. So I thought it would be funny to post our own "Paparazzi" blog about Will and I. Enjoy!

Thomas Baby Expected Any Day Now!!

May 20, 2008 - Family Gossip Column

It has been reported that Jenni Thomas (30), musician wife of famed runner Will Thomas (29), is expected to give birth any day now, who's duedate is said to be in early June.

It has been rumored that the baby is to be a boy and the couple are planning to name him "Preston", after the town in England.

Maternity fashion boundaries have been taken to new standards this year by Jenni's style. Word has it that her ultra popular line of maternity sweats and flipflops are set to hit runways this fall.

"I just want pregnant women all over the world to feel as comfortable as I have been," Mrs. Thomas was quoted at Fashion Week. "It's the least I can do to contribute."

It has also been reported that Thomas has started a new trend with her "healthy" weightgain. Pregnant women across the nation are now sporting tshirts that say "Yes I gained 50 lbs to have this baby, what of it?". Watch out Angelina, the prego waif look is on the out!

Sources also claim that father-to-be, Will, has started ultra-nesting by picking up designer baby camping gear such as babypacks, outdoor sports strollers, just to name a few. Close friends say that Will has been heard stating that he "Just wants his son to come into the world soon so he can take him on his first outdoor adventure. He's already planning a father-son kayaking trip this summer, but he doesn't want his wife to find out."

Of course the big question everyone is asking is who is getting the first photo-ops of Baby Thomas? And how much are they paying?

Camp Thomas has already confirmed that a friend of the family will be taking these shots. This "friend" is rumored to be Jenni' father, who also photographed their famed engagement photos that were leaked to the media in Feb of 2005. The couple is said to be taking precautionary steps to be sure this doesn't happen again with the photos of their new arrival.

The happy couple is believed to have started dating sometime in 2003 after a chance meeting on the internet. They were married in March 2005, and announced in October 2007 that they were expecting. This will be the first child for both Will and Jenni.

Will's 12 hour Trail Race - Redmond Watershed Preserve

Well, it's been an active week for me. I recovered from my 1st adventure race on Wednesday and rested up the rest of the week for this 12 hour race on Saturday. We had a hot spell come over us and it ended up breaking a 50 year heat record for the day as it blasted into the 90's. That may not sound too hot, but considering it had been raining and in the 50's & 60's the past few weeks it came as quite a shock to us living up here.

I really didn't know how far I was going to be able to go today. I had completed my first ultra marathon last fall. That was a 50k (31 miles). I was hoping to get further than that. 40 miles was the goal I had in the back of my mind.

The course consisted of a 5.375 mile loop (455 feet of elevation gain/loss) through the Redmond Watershed Preserve for the 1st 10 hours, then for the last 2 hours we all joined up on a small .72 mile loop (80 feet of elevation gain/loss) I ended up logging 46.25 miles and 4150 ft of elevation change.

Jenni & her parents came to cheer me on for the last 2 hours. I think I had the largest & most supportive cheering section.

Jenni made cute little signs to cheer me on.



This is my niece's school project joining me on the run.
I didn't get the full scoop on him except that we was
supposed to get his picture taken doing different things.
This is him running with me.

We started the day with about 80 people but I think only about 20+ made it through all 12 hours. With the hot temperature it seemed people started dropping off once it got uncomfortably hot. I ended up drinking over 2 gallons of water & gatorade throughout the day.

I ended up getting just 2 small blisters. One I lanced and slapped duct tape on about 8 hours into the race the other I didn't even notice until today (Sunday). I just finished drilling holes into two of my toenails to relieve some pressure so I don't think I will lose them.

All in all I had a great day and felt pretty good throughout the entire day. It got a little tough around mile 20 and again at mile 35, but with my cheering section for the last two hours I was able to stay strong for hours 10-12 and pull down another 9 miles. Jenni even pushed me a bit harder for the last 30 minutes due to a simple math error. She mentioned unless I completed 3 more laps instead of 2 I would only end up with 44.825, just shy of 45 miles, so I had to turn it into high gear and in the last 25 minutes completed 10 minute miles (2.5 miles). Which is quite the push considering I averaged 15:30 minute miles the 1st 11 1/2 hours.

I'm not sure how I stacked up against the competetion, but I'm pretty satisfied with my race. They will post results here sometime in the near future.

Here's a video if you want to see the play by play:



Update 5/23/08:
Just got my results from my 12 hour race. Overall I took 22nd out of the 73 the showed up (there were 81 registred). That put me in the top 1/3. I was not beat by anybody that did not stay for all 12 hours. 33 people stayed for all 12 hours, 40 dropped through out the day, 8 did not show up to race. Out of the 54 Men, I took 21st place putting me in the top half. I took 5th place out of 13 in the Male Open Class (under 40) & I took 2nd place out of 4 in the under 30 age group only losing out to Sam Thompson (who is profesional and sponsered by The North Face).

Will's 1st Adventure Race

Hi there, this is Will reporting with his far & few between blogs. I have my wife to thank for keeping everyone abreast on our lives. When it comes to my races, I actually attempt to put forth the effort to try and get a blog out.

I attempted my 1st Adventure Race Wednesday night. It was one of those spur of the moment races. Tuesday I found out that I didn't need to meet with my 11-year scout troop on Wednesday night, so I thought it over through out the day and Tuesday night decided to give it a try and sign-up.

I was a bit nervous going into this race as I have never done one before I really didn't know how it was going to go.

Unlike most races, you know the course and what you are going to be doing and how far you will be going, but not with Adventure Racing. They just stated to bring a mountain bike, trail running shoes, and a life jacket and mentioned that we would probably do about 7-10 miles on the bike and about 3-6 mile on foot and their might be a water section involved as well.

You'll have to watch the little video to see how it went:




Results will be posted here (beast race #2, May 14th, Renton) or here when they are available. I won't be surprised to see my name in last place, but it was a lot of fun.

Here's a little souvenir from the bottom of a creek bed.

P.S. Men's Retreat

I went with the guys from my church to Ensign Ranch a few weeks ago. We had a lot of fun. There was Mt. Biking at night, MRE's for dinner, capture the flag, shuffle board, lot's of card games, and here is a video clip of Ultimate Ping Pong:

P.P.S: 12 Hour Race Tomorrow

I have my 12 hour trail race tomorrow. Wish me luck I hope to survive and tackle about 40 miles tomorrow. If you don't hear from me, then somebody start a search party please.

Project Back-Blogging Coming Along

If there is any good way to take your mind off of how many days/hours you have left until your duedate, it's to get projects done.

For the past couple of weeks I have been working hard on back-blogging our lives together since we met in 2003 (for the purpose of getting our blog published into hardcopy form for our family history at the end of this year).

I'm really excited to say that I've finally finished 2003 and 2004. It took me FOREVER to do. And that was even back when we weren't taking that many pictures - ha.

If you're bored, feel free to take a browse through my project. Just go to the archived entries on the side, click on "2003" or "2004". If you've known us that long, odds are that you are in some of these entries.

Now I've got to start working on 2005, and 2006. Think I can get it done before I go into labor? :)

9 Months

Well, here it is. The 9 month picture. Just when I don't think I could possibly get any bigger, I do. LOL

As you can tell from the expression on my face, it is getting harder and harder to pretend that I am enjoying this pregnancy thing. Wait, not that I ever pretended to like it in the first place - haha.

Maybe this next picture is a better depiction of how I feel.

Here is also the belly progression so you can compare (click to enlarge)

Had my 36 week appointment today. Haven't started to dialate yet. Blah. Had a great Mothers Day though. I love my husband. :)

See Prego blog for details: http://bellydiaries.blogspot.com/

Happy Mother's Day!

These are our moms. :)

Happy Mother's Day you two! We love you!

(They look like they could be sisters, right? Will's mom is on the left, mine is on the right)

Exactly One Month

Today marks the official one-month countdown until my duedate. Today is May 8th, and I am due June 8th.

Just a little update on us:

Jenni

I am really looking forward to having the baby. I haven't had any signs of early labor yet though. I go in on Monday to get checked to see if anything has started down there yet. But like I've been saying, Preston has just been as snug as a bug in a rug- which is fine since he still needs to cook in the oven a little longer. But any signs of something happening would be welcomed so that I might have hope he will come a little bit early.

The worst thing I've had is feeling like all of my internal organs are getting pressed against and sometimes that makes me double over in pain. And walking is harder too. I think I've definitely gotten to that "uncomfortable" stage. But I'll be 36 weeks this Saturday. As soon as he hits 37 weeks, he will be considered "Full term" and can come on out and meet his parents any time after that.

Both Will and I think that Memorial Day weekend would be perfect to have the baby. He has an extra day off of work, and it is 1 week early from my duedate. So that would be in another 2 and 1/2 weeks almost.

Will

Will is running an ultramarathon on May 17th though (so he says I can't have the baby then. But if I do, he'll have his cellphone on and come right home. Haha). It's not technically called an ultra-marathon (which is usually between 50K and 70K), but it is called a "12 hour race". Basically he is going to run for 12 hours. His goal is 40 miles. He has actually been training really good this time though -usually he just wakes up and decides to run these things. So I'm glad he has been training - about 5 days a week.

He also went to a sports clinic and got his first physical since his mission. He is one healthy boy! So that is good. I kept seeing all these fatalities in marathons last year where guys as young as 27 and 28 years old were killing over in the middle of a race. So I asked Will to promise me that before he runs another long race that he would go get a full physical done.

Will is also now working with the 11 year old cubscouts at church. So he goes to Mutual every Wednesday nights now.

Work has been keeping Will pretty busy too. Even though Seattle still has one of the best housing markets in the country, it has been doing worse than last year for our area. And so his company had to lay off several from his department last year. Basically, he was one of the only estimators left and has been swamped. He does about 3 to 4 times the workload now. Last night he was at his office until 3:30am finishing a project that was due at 9am. He is a very hard worker, and a very valuable asset to his company.

We sold one of our cars earlier this week, so that is good. We had 3 cars, now we have 2. :) Haha. (we had 2 identical green Kia Sophia's and 1 VW Jetta. We sold one the older Kia).

So anyway I think that is about all for us. We haven't really had the chance to do as many fun activities lately just because I'm basically too uncomfortable to do anything. So we're really looking forward to this summer when I'm not pregnant anymore and we'll have fun with our little baby. We want to take him all over the northwest and show him the things that his mommy and daddy love to do. :)

The weather here in Seattle has been great lately - nice and warm. I am looking forward to going on walks with the stroller this summer. Seeing the sunshine and the flowers in bloom reminds me that the time is getting close for our baby to come! Yay!!

Nursury Progress

Well we've finally made some progress on our nursury. Granted, it still has some more organization to go through though.


My parents came to visit this weekend, and while my dad and Will indulged themselves in various "guy topics" (sports, photography, mountain biking, etc.), my mom and I spent most of the afternoon in the office-slash-nursury getting it organized.

This is a picture of what the nursury has looked like for the past little while before we finally got it organized.

Its been getting harder and harder for me to do even simple tasks like picking stuff up off the floor. Mannn I had no idea all this belly weight created such backaches!

So I finally had to ask for some help - which is where my mom came in. Don't get me wrong, I have a wonderful husband who has already done SO so so so much to help me, but with this I really wanted my mom to be there with me. I am really clueless when it comes to which baby stuff is used for what, which outfits are for what. I didn't even know the difference between onesies and pajamas. I learned that pajamas have built-in footsies. Duh, yeah I should have known that right?

She helped me pick up everything off the floor and go through all the baby clothes and de-tag them and fold them into piles depending on what size they were, if they were onesies or pjs or clothes or whatnot. We got everything folded and put away into the dresser.

My mom's great folding/organization job on the dresser

Next our friends came and delivered the wonderful crib that they donated to us. We originally had set some money aside to purchase a crib, but when our friends said that they had one in storage that they didn't want anymore and that it was a convertable one (converts to a toddler bed), we took them up on their offer to take it - no questions asked. This saved us hundreds of dollars which we are grateful for since preparing for a baby has come as quite a shock at how expensive it can be.



Will and my Dad helped to hang the valance above the window and all the pictures and hard-to-reach objects.



All we have left to do is to buy a mattress for the crib, wash all of the bedding, and get a changing pad to put ontop of the dresser and then I think we are set. This is a huge relief to me since I am getting so close to the duedate and have been anxious to finally get this all complete.


We both sat in the "nursury" last night and felt like it was really "real" that someone new was coming into our home. Setting up an entire bedroom for another person certainly helped us to further grasp the reality that we really are going to be parents soon. I still don't feel like a mom yet, but at least I feel a little more prepared. :)

Back Blogging Project

Many of you have probably seen that you can now have your blogs printed into "scrapbook" form, or like a coffee table book. This is something that Will and I would like to do with our blog at the end of this year - since it has been such a fantastic way to journal our little adventures together.

I used to be really good at scrapbooking, but the last time I actually scrapbooked was....well I can't even remember. I gave up a long time ago. Especially once all of our photos became digital. So this will be a great way to keep our family albums and journals.

Since we didn't start blogging until July of 2007, I'm actually going to go back and start back-blogging to when we first met. This will be a huge project for me and will take a while, but I think it will be worth it to get all of the memories from 2003 - 2006 in our little printed book as well.

So if you start seeing entries pop up from other years - that is why. I also hope to add more pictures too - that way they will also all go into our book.

Oh and if anyone is interested in the website that prints these books, it is: http://www.blurb.com/

The Countdown

Happy May 1st everyone! Do you know what this means?????

It means we can finally say our due date is NEXT month. And if he comes a week or two early - he will be born at the end of this month.

We're ecstatic. Just had to share.