The Big One

Today my husband turned 36!  Happy birthday to the best hubby ever!  It's a little sad for us Kennedys that we cannot be together to celebrate his special day together.  Bear in mind as I type this, Carlos' birthday is today (25th), but for Carlos, his birthday was yesterday (Guam=14 hour time difference from EST).  Either way, this is a very big birthday.  I know normally it is the 21st birthday, 30th, 50th, and so on (some of you are lucky enough to celebrate your 90th!) that get all the recognition as the "special birthdays," but in this case, turning 36 for Carlos will be the year his life changes forever.  My hubby has accomplished a lot in his 36 years of life...and has sacrificed a lot in his 36 years to achieve these accomplishments.  Everything he has done he busted his butt for and lost a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and sleep along the way.  Well, this 36th year of his life will be no different!  This is the age he will be when his first born child comes into this world.  So see?  No different...still lots of blood, sweat, tears, and sleep to lose! :)

All kidding aside, he will always remember this birthday year as the year he became a daddy and I don't think it gets any more special than that.  I can't wait to see him hold our little boy/girl for the first time!  He is going to be a terrific father...for those of you who have seen him in action, he is a natural around kids!

So Carlos, I promise you I will bake your birthday brownies when I get to Guam and since you already opened your presents a couple of weeks ago (impatient, are we?) all I can do now is send you lots of birthday wishes across the world and hope that Kona at least took you out for a beer to celebrate :)  This is going to be an amazing year for us so happy 36th!!!!  I love you!

Getting over my fear of scrubbing

Thanks to a great surgical tech in Jax teaching me the ropes, my first day as scrub nurse was smooth sailing!

You can't teach an old dog new tricks, or can you?

I'm going to put that old saying to rest and say yes you can!  Chronologically speaking, I know I am not old.  31 is the new 18, right?!  However, you know when you've been in a career for quite a few years and you start to feel stale?  Kind of like if you were to all of a sudden have to learn a whole new role you think you would have a heart attack?  Well, that's how I felt when I decided to tackle the world of perioperative nursing (OR nursing).

I must admit, I was scared silly.  Here I am 9 years of being a nurse (again, I am aware that some of you may not think of this as a long time, but my 9 years have been a VERY long time), and I decided to switch up my nursing path completely.  Well, I am happy to report that I'm not as rusty as I thought I would be and am loving this new career path!  I still have 5 more weeks of training here in Jacksonville, but I actually feel like it all makes sense.  There is still a lot to learn and one can never learn it all since the OR world is constantly changing, but I am much more confident in my abilities than I thought I would be.  Granted, I still get nervous for the next day when my instructor gives me my assignments at the end of the current day, but comfort all comes with time and experience!

The true test will come when I have to work in my hubby's OR room for the first time when I get to Guam.  He's already been instructed though that if he yells at me or about anything in the room, he will not be getting dinner.  If only I had that power over all the surgeons I will work with...sigh.  :)

The big reveal...a little delayed

Ok, so I know my last post had most of you thinking that any day now we would be revealing the sex of Baby K.  Well, I hope not to disappoint anyone, but we are going to leave you hanging on for just a little while longer (about 6-7 weeks).  After talking it over, we have decided that this is a huge moment, one that we want to share together, physically together, not over an internet connection.  The envelope remains sealed and will not be opened until I arrive in Guam.  Don't worry, I doubt we'll even make it out of the airport in Guam when Carlos picks me up before ripping open the envelope :)  I know you all want to know, but trust me when I say nobody wants to know more than us so just hang in there and I promise to share the news as soon as we open the envelope!

On another note, I do want to share that I FINALLY had the moment I have been waiting for happen last night.  I finally felt Baby K move!  Correction:  I finally felt Baby K kick the crap out of me :)  I have been patiently waiting for that moment to come and when it did, I'm not sure what I thought my reaction would be, but hysterical laughter was not exactly how I thought I'd react.  However, laugh my butt off I did.  I had just finished eating Carlos' favorite flavor of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory and not even 10 minutes later, baby was kicking me as if saying "more more more!" which is exactly how Carlos reacts when he finishes all of his cheesecake :)  I immediately called Carlos to share the wonderful moment...and to pass on that he and baby now share a favorite cheesecake flavor.  It was a great way for Carlos to start his day and a perfect ending to mine!

Temptation at its finest

Before me sits an envelope.  Standard white business envelope.  The type of envelope that goes in and out of mailboxes every day.  The kind that when you see you don't particularly pay too much attention to because after all, it is just an envelope.  However, the envelope that is laying on the table staring back at me (taunting me) contains a piece of information that I am dying to find out.  Inside this tease of an envelope is a piece of paper that contains either a 4-letter word...girl, or a 3-letter word...boy.

Yes folks, this envelope contains none other than the gender of my baby.  I had an ultrasound a couple of hours ago and I asked the technician to please write down the gender, if she could tell, and SEAL the envelope back up.  So not only did she write it down when I stepped out of the room to use the little girls room, she also sealed up 3 pictures in the envelope that may or may not have given me an idea.  To make me even more curious, she gave her disclaimer that they all must give (there is a 1% chance that she could be wrong), but when I pressed her further and said, "I understand the need for the disclaimer, but lets talk about this baby...are you 1% or less than 1% of your certainty."  She smiled and said "I'm 99.9% comfortable with what I wrote down."  OH MAN!  Talk about wanting to rip open the envelope!

Some of you know why this info is sealed up, but for those who don't, here is why:  when Carlos and I discussed finding out the gender vs. not finding out, we agreed to find out...he wanted to more than me and well, I can give him this one :)  However, for me it was important that we find out together since he was the one who really wanted to find out anyway.  Well, it's quite a pickle with him being in Guam and me and my pregnant belly being in Jacksonville.  So thanks to a suggestion of having it written down and sealed up, and thanks to Skype, we can now find out together!  The problem is I just have to find the patience within me to wait until we can video Skype (hopefully tomorrow morning).  IT'S KILLING ME!  This envelope is certainly a test, but one that I will pass with flying colors because it's too important to me that Carlos and I do this together.  There is nothing better than seeing each other's reactions.

So stay tuned and you may just find out real soon whether we have Baby Boy K or Baby Girl K debuting in February!

Sorry no ultrasound pics attached.  I don't have the means to scan right now and when I tried to take a picture of a picture, it turned out way too blurry.  I'll see what I can do to get one on here!

Learning from Gilligan

Hi everyone!  After much thought and debate about whether or not I could be a blogger, or would want to be a blogger, I have decided to give it a whirl.  I figure one of three things will happen...1. I will surprise myself and find that I enjoy doing this and keep at it; 2. I will grow bored (or just forgetful) and will stop posting on the blog; or 3. you will all have zero desire to follow my blog and therefore by default it will come to an end!  I hope you will at least visit my site from time to time to stay tuned in.  Since my husband likes to tell me that I talk...a lot...this actually could turn out to be a pretty good thing for me to do!

I thought this would be the easiest way to keep everyone up-to-date on the Kennedys of Guam.  Some of you do Facebook, some do not.  Some check email, some do not.  Pictures end up everywhere in the hopes that I hit the majority of people, so consider this my way to maintain the chaos and giving all of YOU the decision on how much or how little you want to know what is going on.

Carlos and I decided to just throw two big life changing events at ourselves at once.  Along with moving half a world away and all the adventures that will bring, we also decided it was time to challenge ourselves with that non-stop, sleep-deprived, ever chaotic entry into parenthood.  As most of you know, Baby K (this is the temporary name assigned until Baby K is born...mostly because I predict agreeing on a name is going to be a looooooong process :) ) is due February 26th.  I want to use this blog to keep our family and friends as updated as possible on all the joys Baby K is bringing his mommy and daddy...from pregnancy, birth, and beyond!  It does make me sad that Baby K won't get to meet a lot of you until he/she is a toddler, but hopefully if I can stay on top of this blog, I will be able to share all the wonderful moments we are having with him/her.

Island life is sure to be a lot of fun for us and I hope to be able to share just how wonderful Guam is with all of you.  Unlike Gilligan who went out for a 3 hour tour, the Kennedys' will most likely be gone for roughly a 3 YEAR tour, but at least we went more prepared...clothing, shelter, our dog, cars, and most important...a way to communicate with the outside world!

On that note, I will wind up this first post and clue you all in to its existence!