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I’ll update this post as I have news:

6:05am - Eric and Renee are at the hospital… the baby might be coming today! They should know more by around 8am. Stay tuned!

9:26am - The baby is coming today! Renee’s water just broke!

1:12pm - I haven’t heard any updates for a while, but I thought I would add the photo above to the post. That’s an ultrasound of what baby Gookin looked like at 16 weeks, on August 2nd, 2007. Click for a larger version.

2:28pm - Eric reports that Renee is on an epidural and feeling just fine. :) She’s currently dilated between 3 and 4 centimeters.

For those readers who aren’t sure who Eric and Renee are, Eric has been my best friend since 1st grade, which means we’re somewhere into our 20th year of friendship (here we are around year 10). He and Renee married in September of 2004 (here’s a cute photo my mom captured). I got to be the best man (terrible photo here). This is their first child, and I’m very much looking forward to being an uncle twice over. :)

3:15pm - Renee is at 5 centimeters! Whatever the hell that means! :)

3:16pm - Eric has explained that 10cm is the goal, if you’re following along at home. So we’re halfway there, I guess.

3:20pm - Renee is very near 6cm now. That’s a quick change… I blame inflation.

4:35pm - Renee is at 9cm! I find myself wondering if that is radius, diameter, circumference, or area. I also find myself wondering if I really want to know the answer.

4:55pm - Sorry folks, but I’m going to be out for a lot of time this evening. I’ll update if/when I can, but you’re not getting up-to-the-minute updates any more this afternoon. :)

6:05pm - It’s a girl! Baby Gookin is now Caitlyn Veronica Gookin, weighing in at 7lb 10oz and a whopping 19.5″ tall. ;)

8:10pm - I got to hold her for the first time. :) I’ll post one photo here — for additional photos, see my mom’s post.

It occurs to me that I haven’t written a blog post in a long time – over a month now, I’m sure. So I figured I’d catch everyone up. Since there’s been a lot going on recently, I’m not going to spend any time focusing on any one thing. Consider this the lightning round of Robby’s Life, and in no particular order. :)

I caucused last week for the first time. I went with Obama. I even managed to convince Amanda to go Obama’s way, too, although she did nearly go to Biden’s camp at the last second. I dubbed her “Most Likely to Secede.” Luckily for our continued relationship-al bliss, Biden got enough people from the Obama camp to be viable before Amanda headed that way. ;) It was a purposeful and tactical move – we still had enough people for two delegates, and it ensured that a certain other candidate only received one.

Since it’s the new year and all, here are a few “resolutions” (in that, I resolve to give ‘em a shot, at least):

• Work out at least once a week (but preferably more).
• Either take or teach a class this year.
• Speak better Spanish at the end of the year than I did at the beginning (I believe I managed a drunken “Feliz año nuevo” with Hannah’s help).
• Umm… blog more?

Eric and Renee should be having their little one any day now. When I know, I’ll let you know. Very sadly, it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen the two of them. Probably around nine months, I’d wager.

Amanda and I spent the weekend before Christmas through Christmas Morning with her family in Minnesota. I’m proud to say that the Wurzingers could handle the Stowers side of my family any ol’ day. And the Welsh side of her family and the Glazebrook side of mine would both be very polite to one another. ;) We drove down to southern Iowa Christmas day to spend the rest of the holiday with my family. It was a good time in both places. The best part? Being old enough to buy toys for my younger cousins and niece.

I have not won the lottery. Yet.

Amanda and I are going to Europe this spring! Our very dear friend Anne moved to Amsterdam on New Year’s Eve, and we’re using that as a very justifiable excuse to head euroward. We’ll be flying in to Paris on April 12th and making our way northeast to Amsterdam from there. We’re also probably going to end up in Germany at some point, but we don’t really have all the details worked out yet. We fly back out of Paris on April 25th, stay in the air for a really long time, and somehow land in Minneapolis shortly after takeoff. Now I just need to get my passport as soon as humanly freaking possible.