This Weekend

So this weekend Sheridan and I are attending two Halloween parties (one called "The Beaver" - I hope we're not showing up to a swingers party!) and I'm dressing up as a pregnant cheerleader. hehehe Sheridan's going to be my hero football star hubby! I'll be sure to take photos and post here next week.

But the BIG attraction for the weekend is.......... the Madonna concert I've been waiting MONTHS (well actually, my whole LIFE) to see!! I put on one of her CDs in my car this morning to start preparing myself to sing along the entire time (sorry, hubby - I'm warning you now!) and I literally started tearing up, I'm so excited! That could be hormones, no doubt, but it's a pretty good indicator of how excited I am!!!!!! OMG, I'M SEEING MADGE IN 3 DAYS!

I hope you all have a great Halloween! Send photos next week of yourselves and your babies so I can post on The Mer Show for the world to see...

Love, Mer

Prego Says...

I love my hubby more than anything in the world, but can't wait to sleep in the middle of the bed the next three nights... (and I'm sure he is, too!)

Have a safe trip to PHX, sweetie!! Love, Wifie and Baby Mama

Capitola

So Sheridan and I got up and went to the beach this morning for a little breakfast. It was a gorgeous morning and we had a fun time... Just thought I'd share of of the snaps with my Mer Show community. :)

Love, Mer

It's Getting Closer!

Can you feel the winds of change?

Mer

Bump Watch - 23 Weeks

I'm not sure what happened in the last week, but my belly has all of a sudden SPROUTED! Sheridan looked over at me on Friday night and said "babe, we need to take a new photo"... I didn't realize that the last week has brought so much change! The baby book I've been reading did say that weeks 23-26 brings dramatic changes in the baby's weight, but apparently dramatic changes in my appearance, too.

I bought a maternity dress for our honeymoon, but it was a tent on me at that time, so I didn't actually wear it the whole time we were in The Bahamas. I finally got to wear it yesterday, and I filled out the pleats entirely! Again, what the heck happened to me in the last 7 days??!! How huge am I going to get??!!

Enjoy the new, improved baby bump photo (with Baci ball included - he wanted to be a part of the excitement)!

Love, Mer

Mer Show Turns 2!!!

Wow, I can't believe it's been two full years since the inception of my blog. There have been a lot of really cool milestones celebrated - my 30th birthday, introducing Baci into my life, falling in love with Sheridan, moving to San Jose, getting pregnant, engaged, then married... and all sorts of things in between like job changes, relationship changes, local moves and travels!!! Thanks to all my friends and family who follow my blog - A) for actually taking the time to read most of my nonsense and B) for supporting and encouraging me throughout some pretty life-changing events, particularly over the last year!

Who knows what the 3rd year is going to bring... well, I know it's going to bring a precious baby boy... but otherwise, it should be a surprising ride!!

Happy birthday Mer Show!

Love, me

TEXAS FIGHT!!!

Beat the Sooners!!!!

Texas/ OU weekend is a huge weekend of rivalry for both the Horns and Sooners - both teams converge on Dallas and meet in the Cotton Bowl for a slugfest every year. It's a huge tradition for both schools, and is called the Red River Rivalry (since the Red River separates Texas from Oklahoma). It's a weekend filled with parties, the state fair of Texas, and all kinds of fun. I have some great memories from Texas/ OU weekend and hope that I can make it to Dallas again someday for the big game... Maybe next year!

I hope my burnt orange Vince Young jersey will fit over my baby bump tomorrow!! :)

Love, Mer

Bump Watch

We're at 22 weeks - more than halfway through!! And we can't wait for the little Peanut to come... We're attending an infant care class tomorrow night - learning how to change diapers, bathe the baby, swaddle him, clean the umbilical cord, and stuff like that. Poor Sheridan had to turn away a free ticket to attend opening night to see the San Jose Sharks (hockey!) to attend class with me, so he gets a gold star for the week. Thanks for being a great husband and baby daddy, sweetie!!

Enjoy the baby bump shot. :)

Love, Mer

Random Thoughts

1. Sheridan and I registered at Macy's for our wedding, and I have been SO MAD every time something arrives packed in styrofoam packing peanuts (instead of some sort of ecologically responsible packing material)! And then this weekend we got something in the mail with different-looking peanuts, and a card stating that they have begun to use earth-friendly materials for packing. Apparently these are made of cornstarch and melt under water!! So I dumped the big box of peanuts into my kitchen sink, covered them with water, and VOILA - they melted and went right down the sink. HOW COOL IS THAT??!!! I'm so happy that a major corporation like Macy's has chosen the high road for their packing materials and hope that other companies follow suit.

2. I heard "Going Back to Cali" by LL Cool J this morning and it's been going through my head all day. Man, I remember that song SO vividly from middle school (what is that, 1988?)! How ironic is it that I fell in love with that song in Texas, and now I'm in Cali, and returning to Texas again?? (Oh yeah, I haven't made that announcement yet, but hang tight - it's coming...)

3. I'd like to see Sarah Palin debate Tina Fey. Do you think someone could help me arrange that? Petri - you could probably pull that off...

4. I saw a bluejay today! I haven't seen one of those in years... Not since I moved to the concrete jungles of downtown San Diego and San Jose! It was really pretty and made me happy. I just thought I'd share that.

That's it. Hope everyone is great!

Love, Mer

Political Haiku

My friend Petri in Houston waged a challenge on his blog - http://darbydarnit.blogspot.com - to write the best haiku in reference to our economic meltdown.

Here's his entry:

The bailout - schmailout
Two down, third time is a charm
What about my needs?

Here's mine:

What a clusterf**k!
Who even knows what's best now?
Moving to Europe.

Can any of my faithful Mer Show readers out there top those? Give it a shot!! :)

Love, Mer

Prego Says...

My child is going to LOVE egg and cheese on English muffins! I had a hankering for Egg McMuffins early in my pregnancy, and just had a cafe-made egg and cheese muffin sandwich for breakfast this morning... And both of us are in HEAVEN!!! He's kicking around like crazy and I'm wanting another one... :) I guess I better start perfecting the art of the well-made egg sandwich over the next year or two!

Mer

Baci's New Haircut

How cute am I? Love, Baci

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, so I was right all along - it is a little boy growing in my belly!! I told Hubby that the Chinese birth chart was wrong, and his response was "well, you're not Chinese"! That's so Sheridan...

MEANWHILE, how silly was I to think that the way I am carrying was indicative of the baby's gender?? I guess because it's my first baby, my tummy muscles are still in tact from my gymnastics days and they're holding on to fitness for their lives!!! And since the weight doesn't affect my tummy due to those muscles, it found other places to nest, like my boobs, arms, face, feet, hands, legs, and did I miss anything? Oh yeah, hair.

But back to Peanut!! Remember that episode of Sex and The City where someone reminds Miranda that she has a penis growing inside her?? That's all I could think about yesterday!! I giggled and beamed to the point that I was even annoying myself. I'M HAVING A SON!!!

I shouldn't be surprised, given that the father determines the gender and Peanut's daddy is one of 3 boys, his dad is one of 3 boys, his brother has a son, and in the entire Hall lineage, there's only ONE female (and I met her once; she was rather masculine). Do those Halls have ANY sperm with X chromosomes? Will my son have sons? That's cool with me - I love boys and men. Give me a whole house full of 'em!

A special apology to Lindsay, who I totally let down by not posting the baby's sex yesterday. I didn't know I *had* blog groupies!! I'm so excited!! Thanks for making my day... and thanks for keeping up with The Mer Show. xo

Love, Mer

Peanut's Gender

Is it going to be boy or girl??? We'll find out Tuesday at 11:00 a.m.!!!!

I've thought all along it was a boy, due to Sheridan's family's birth patterns, but due to the way I'm carrying, and how I feel... I'm starting to think it's a girl!! The Chinese birth chart says it's a girl.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I just can't wait ANY LONGER!!

I can't wait to post the news tomorrow... Stay tuned!

Mer

Our Wedding, Chapter One B (By Sheridan)

The day before our fateful trip was an interesting one. Meredith and I taking turns at the computer looking at weather.com and trying to come up with ideas of places to go instead of the Bahamas. From the weather reports, the trip looked to be a disaster. Should we reroute to Maui? Negative. Mexico? No bueno. South America? Are you serious?

After much deliberation and back and forth, we decided to go. Life is an adventure, we said, and our relationship has been an exciting one so far. If we have to get married in the chapel at the Miami Airport, at least it will be a good story for the kids.

5:00 am the cab picks us up, 5:20 we are at the airport wondering where all the people came from. It was as busy as 6 pm on a Friday night. We get on the plane to Phoenix, no problems. We thought we would be able to sleep on that leg, but we were both up, the plane was full. The next leg was Phoenix to Ft. Lauderdale, 4+ hours. Poor Meredith got stuck in the middle seat with some 300 pound guy in the window seat. He was spilling over the sides and slept the whole time. Amazing how he could sleep through all his snoring! I was lucky enough to get the aisle seat, getting my elbow banged ever time someone walked up and down, or the beverage cart was wheeled by me.

Have you flown US Air recently? Don’t. They suck. The seats are small and you have to pay for EVERYTHING!!! Want some water, 2 bucks please. Coffee! A bargain at $1.00 per cup. Meredith and I were starving so we decided to buck up and drop 10 bucks on some snacks. I wait patiently as the Stewardess wheels her cart to my isle, I get my crisp 20 ready and hold it out like I am at a bar trying to get the bartenders attention. She asks the lady across from me if she wants something and the lady goes off about how she paid extra for the exit row and someone else is there. Grrreeeaaattt!! I am starving and my pregnant fiancé is starting to nibble on the arm rest and this lady decides an hour into the flight is a good time to raise a concern??? I thought about grabbing a snack when she wasn’t looking, but changed my mind when I realized I had no exit route. So what if I could out run the Stewardess, I wasn’t about to go D.B Cooper over a sandwich. I hear pay toilets are around the corner. Anyone got change for a dollar?????

Enough about the flight. We get to Ft. Lauderdale and go to Bahama Air for our flight to the island. We go up to the counter to ask the lady working it a question and we have to show her our boarding pass to get her to look at us. What attitude!!! I thought island people were supposed to be happy. Once we showed her our boarding pass and really weren’t wasting her precious flirtation time with the baggage handler, she politely told us we could not have the exit row. Awesome!

We get on the flight, the crew is speaking island language that I can barely understand and we get to Nassau! Mission accomplished. Almost. At this point Meredith tells me that the bus drivers do not work for the hotel and we may have to wait while they try to get other people from the airport to ride the bus. Ok, I think, how long will this take. It can’t be that bad, right? We wait on the bus for half an hour!!! Is there anything worse than spending 10 hours on a plane to get to your dream vacation, only to sit on a bus for 30 minutes waiting to get to the hotel? I think not.

Finally, we get to the hotel! I can finally say Mission Accomplished!!! We, we have to check in. The Bahamas is a little different. Employees walk around the hotel flirting with each other, calling each other “Baby”, “Sweetie”…no sexual harassment laws there. So we are meeting with the “check in lady”, getting our map, all our documents, our wedding binder (in between her taking personal calls)…at this point all I want is the room key and directions to the free bar.

We get our room keys, the bags will be brought up, and we are on our way to the room. Our room is in a building on the other side of the compound so we walk around the two pools and oooh and awww them. We can’t wait to get the vacation started!

We make it to the room and there is the fully stocked bar!! We have arrived. I ask Meredith one more time, “we can drink this stuff, right? It’s free?”

“Yes, baby, it is free”. Awesome!! Where’s the ice?????

Bump Watch

Well, I'm 19 weeks now and things are really progressing. The baby is moving like crazy, and I feel the movements constantly... We're definitely having an active one! I think the baby must like tomatoes, because when I've had tomato soup this week and spaghetti and meat sauce, I felt TONS of movement! I also had a bit of caffeine today, and the kid was dancing, dancing, dancing! I guess s/he's getting ready for the Madonna concert soon... haha

Meanwhile, here's a recent picture of the baby bump. It's started poking out, but you can't see so much in this photo. I think the next time we photograph the belly, it's really going to look different - it's growing pretty rapidly (yay!) and I'm starting to pack on pounds (ugh).

So that's the baby update. Next week we'll find out the sex, so stay tuned for that huge news!!

Love, Mer

Our Wedding, Chapter One

So right before we left for our weddingmoon to The Bahamas, I accepted a job to start with Cisco as a recruiting consultant, and went into the trip feeling relaxed because I crossed a huge burden off my personal to do list - FIND JOB- so now I could GET MARRIED! I had a week or so to take my time preparing for the wedding and picking up last-minute things that I had hadn't found yet, like bridal jewelry and “resort wear” outfits for Sheridan (those aren’t supposed to be last-minute items, but for me, they were). And it gave me some time to switch gears and start preparing for our amazing week!!

Unfortunately, it also gave me time to obsess about the impending Hurricane/ Tropical Storm Hanna and watch The Weather Channel obsessively to see if it was going to ruin our wedding! Was it going to hit Nassau, avoid it, and was it going to be a storm or hurricane? Crap!!!

The day before we left, we realized that Hanna was indeed going to hit Nassau almost directly, and debated on whether or not to cancel - we bought trip insurance just in case my pregnancy didn't cooperate with our trip - but decided that we were going to take our chances, go get married, and make the most of it, no matter what came our way!!

The night before we left, we did last-minute packing, bought snacks for our long journey, and dropped the doggie off at Pet Villa for the week. He didn't even look back at me - he hit the front door, ran for his favorite caretaker, John, jumped in his lap, and that was that... I would imagine it's like dropping your kid off at daycare and the kid not being particularly upset that you're leaving them. Guess I might want to get used to that idea! But Baci did leave us a little surprise when we got home - we found a dog cookie in Sheridan's suitcase as we were wrapping up his packing. He does love us, after all!!! Yay!

The next day, we got up at 4:00 a.m. for our 6:15 a.m. flight to Phoenix, and couldn't believe how busy the airport was! We got out safely, flew through Phoenix to get to Fort Lauderdale (most miserable flight of my life - I sat next to a fat, hairy, snoring beast on one side, and my broad-shouldered beau on the other, in the smallest seat imaginable, for 4.5 hours!!!), and eventually got to Nassau after a long 9 hour journey!

We arrived to Nassau and I could tell that Sheridan was thinking "where on earth has this woman brought me?" because looking around, downtown Nassau is pretty poor. They drive on the left side of the road and everything's on "island time", meaning everything takes FOREVER, including our shuttle from the airport to the hotel... it's like another planet! I assured Sheridan that it was going to be a fabulous resort and I could tell he was a little skeptical... (and I got a little nervous!) Not to mention, it was starting to get *pretty* windy…

We finally arrived to Sandals around 8:00 p.m. and had a lovely VIP check-in, checked into our room, and got ready for our first night in the resort. We got dressed and hit our first restaurant, Kimono's, the hibachi-style restaurant, and sat with 2 other honeymooning couples, both from the East Coast. We instantly hit it off with our new buddies Matt and Tonya from Washington State… great people!! We all felt a little bit weird about leaving right after our fabulous dinner without paying, but I guess that’s the beautiful part of all-inclusive packages!

After dinner, and after a couple of drinks at the bar (and a junkanoo parade through the bar - junkanoo is a Bahamian cultural tradition, like Mardi Gras for The Bahamas), it was time to call it a night and get some rest. We were looking forward to seeing what this adventure would bring us!

Just Married!

Well folks, we did it!!! We're MARRIED!!! As in FOREVER! Wow! :)

Tales from the Caribbean and corresponding photos are forthcoming. I started my new job today and have a busy week planned, but I plan to start documenting the greatest week of The Mer Show EVER very soon... stay tuned!

Love, Mer

Last Blog Post as a Single Woman

Well peeps, Hanna or not - Sheridan and I are headed to The Bahamas on Monday to get hitched. It might be a rainy wedding, but I figure it's like Charlotte's wedding on Sex and the City - "the worse the wedding, the better the marriage". hahaha No matter if we have to get married inside in the middle of a hurricane, it doesn't change how much we love each other, and want to marry each other. So take THAT, Hanna!!! ;)

Meanwhile, I'll be sure to post when we get back and give all the scoop, plus pictures!

But I do have some commentary before I go:

1. The DNC convention has left me inspired and excited!! Hillary's "Twin Cities" joke made my week (it makes sense that McCain and Bush are meeting in the Twin Cities this week, since it's hard to tell them apart), as did the comment by Barney Smith of Marion, Indiana - "I need a president that puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney". Classic!!! Can't wait to see how the Republican convention goes and what they have to say that might be meaningful other than "Barack Obama is going to raise your taxes!!!" - zzzzzzzzzz. I would like to see them make some good points, even though I hope McCain loses miserably in this election.

2. There's been a lot of criticism this week about Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate choice - that if she was chosen to help garner the vote of Clinton's pantsuit army, it was a bad idea since she's so opposed to reproductive rights; that she only has 2 years of experience as a governor of a state that has a smaller population than the city in which I live right now; and that she isn't even sure what a VP does... but here's MY criticism. Ready? GIRLFRIEND NEEDS A NEW HAIRDO!!! That ponytail flop thing with the butterfly clip and bangs was tragic even in 1990... When is Jose Ebert coming to the rescue?

OK, that's it from command central. I'll see y'all when I get back from the Caribbean!

Love, Mer The Single Girl

p.s. Let's hope Gustav escapes my friends and family in Houston!!!!!!!!!! Bug off, Swedish nuisance!

Tropical Storm Hanna

Everyone cross your fingers that this stupid storm bypasses The Bahamas and that it doesn't completely ruin our wedding and honeymoon next week. It's not looking good... :( Everyone do a reverse rain dance for us!!!

HANNA, GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE????????

Mer