"Bedtime" tea and crossword puzzles....

... that's what I'm drinking and that's what she's doing. We're sitting on the couch and I decided to start this blog thing up. Ashley and I were talking over dinner at Circle Sushi tonight (super spicy udon soup = nom), and we decided we'd start one of these. With a kid on the way, and family scattered across the country, we thought It'd be a great way to allow us to share what's new in our lives with the ones we love, and some we just like a lot. Thanks also to Derek and Summer Stipe for some inspiration. Their blog is awesome. You should definitely check it out. derekandsummer.blogspot.com.
I suppose this one will be a bit longer than normal since it's our first. Here are the major updates:

• Ashley is currently 33 weeks pregnant with our first child. No, we don't know whether it's a boy or girl. We decided to wait and see for ourselves.
• We had a bit of a scare a few weeks ago when Ashley went into pre-term labor at a little over 30 weeks. We were on a little getaway to St. Augustine, Florida when Ashley started feeling what she described as "pressure and discomfort" in her tummy. After coming home a day early because of crappy weather, she called the doctor just to check on things and they wanted her to come in for a check-up. Well a few hours later we're in the hospital because those feelings of "discomfort" were contractions. We were there for 4 days and they got the contractions stopped and now she's home on bed rest and Terbutaline.
• For those of you that know her, bed rest and Ashley are kind of like oil and water. That has made things somewhat difficult on me. Not because I've got to take care of things around the house, but because I have to constantly tell her to stop doing stuff and get her rear on the couch and or bed. She's hanging in there though. I think she's gone through 2 or 3 books worth of crossword puzzles and word finds. Her vocabulary is unmatched at this point.
• I'm still working at Cox Communications here in Atlanta. I've been there for over 7 years now. I'm currently managing the database engineering and operations team in the data products and services group in IT. I recently had the opportunity to make the first of several trips to China to meet with a couple of companies that Cox is partnering with near Shanghai. The 15 hour flight was absolutely horrible, but everything else about the trip was amazing. Even the jellyfish. Well. Maybe not.
• Ashley is currently a Realtor working for Prudential Georgia Realty. She's been doing this for about a year and a half now and absolutely loves it. I love it when she gets paid

That's about it for now. Time to go to bed and get some sleep. I hear I won't get any after the baby gets here.