Sports wise- Vikes are 4-0- Favre is doing his job. The Twins managed to scrape together enough wins to make the season extend by one game in a playoff. I’ll be paying attention!

Dad’s Birthday today! Happy B-Day Dad! Belle will be calling!

Now to other dreary stuff: Another bad contractor we hired in. All we wanted were the walls painted, new crown/baseboard/casing, and the closet doors installed. Instead, we get overpaiting in the closet resulting in sagging wall paint, unfinished painting on the trim and around the windows, a spill of paint in the closet, and an extremely upset wife. That’s tons of fun. Don’t hire contractors named Kurt. Two in a row. The latest guy at least sounded like he knew what he was doing. I guess not. His painting left a lot be desired – I could have done a better job and I hate painting. I think the only thing I couldn’t have done was put up the trim. only because I don’t have the tools. I lost sleep over this. Crappy. Plus he didn’t caulk the gaps in the trim – anywhere! I thought he did, but I really don’t think he did the job right. And he may have used our new paintbrush and kept it ($15). it’s CRAP.

So thought I’d start blogging again. Nice way to remember things! Let’s see: it’s been a year, so where to start. Let’s start with the important stuff: Isabelle! 21 months of pure fun right now!

She’s been such a joy. Starting to talk a ton – including talking back – a little. Lots of “mine”, “mommy”, and “daddy”. She also squeeks out the “I love you!” too. It’s great!

Band is still rocking – Rhino has passed it’s fourth state fair and only swapped one member – not bad!

Work is great, I’ve been moved to “Lead Test Publisher” which pretty much just means “do what you did before PLUS some management stuff (documentation, etc.)”. I still love it!

…and Beth is pregnant again! :)

Isabelle is now 19 months old. It’s rediculous.

We’ll see if I keep doing this here…

Isabelle Elizabeth Wurtzberger, born 12/3/07 – 5 lbs. 15 oz.; 20 in.

and she’s beautiful!

There’s more pics up on my real homepage www.wurtzberger.com.

 The excitement builds! I can’t wait! It’s going to be awesome! I hope we have everything we need. I have the daunting task of installing the car seat – hopefully it’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

All this news along with the fact that our furnace was red tragged after our maintenance checkup. Not good. The flue (sp) was pusing out 3000 Parts Per Million (PPM) of CO2. The limit is supposed to be 100 PPM. Good thing nothing bad happenned in the meantime. That’s being installed today as I work from home. Tons of fun. Turns out our installer was in Rhino for a quick stint (long story) and he’s from New Ulm! Start singing “it’s a small world” and suffer.

Plus my date was HOT!

We finished the night heading over to the MN Music Cafe – The Good, The Bad, and the Funky were playing – my neighbor Ronny plays in that group – saxaphone – not bad – no smoking, but super hot and no place to sit. We stuck around for about a set and called it a night.

Only 10 weeks to go. We found out B has gestational diabetes last week, so we’ve been trying to take that challenge on. Her BG (Blood Glucose) is dropping, but probably not as fast as they like. She’s on a pill, not insulin, for now. Hopefully that doesn’t change. So we’re thinking the baby’s probably going to pop out a little early, like late November, early December. What an Xmas present!

Had the weekend off from the band. Not the worst thing – back into it hard and strong starting next weekend.

I have a new video of Norm doing his tricks:

Other than that, all is well. Some medical problems going on with my Dad’s side of the family (Linda had a small heart attack and Dale has cancer – both doing pretty well though) and Grandma Stueber had a stroke too. I really need to visit them, for my sake more than anything. And my Mom’s. I’d LOVE to show Grandpa the pics from the Maldives. I guess he gets all whipped up when he finds that out.

Alright! TTFN!

Very exciting time! Less than 3 months away from the arrival of the newest Wurtzberger!  We have the crib, dresser, bassinet, and some clothes – and diapers. For some reason Beth seems to think the stores will run out after we give birth. Or she’s stocking up. ;) It’s probably a good idea, I’m sure the costs will come raining in once the little peanut is here. Uncle Bob Berger wants to know how the little nephew is doing… I think he’ll be disappointed.

Band’s doing pretty well, although we’re a little overbooked in November. No matter. I’ll take the income and it’s actually pretty fun right now. We have a TON of good shows coming up including Babe’s in Lakeville, Jersey’s bar is having their 6th anniversary, plus Dibbo’s, Dugout, Black Dawg, and Diamond’s coming up in “Rock”tober.

NORM! Norman has the luxury of running about outside with no leash! Invisible fencing was installed for the guy, and I think he loves it. Hegot usd to it pretty fast. The zapper on his neck goes from 1 (beeping) to 5 (strong zap). I tried walking across the line with the thing on 2 (in my hand, not around my neck, mind you) and it jolted pretty good. He ran across the line on 3, so it’s on 4… when he gets close, it beeps, then when he’s on top of the line he gets a good jolt. Hasn’t run off since! Likes to bark at Mojo – our neighbor’s doggie. He’s a cutie too. I’ve been meaning to put Norm’s trick up somewhere… must find video.

Work’s nuts. One of the TP’s is leaving – Joe. He had the company’s biggest client which has since been handed to *dah-dah-dAHHHH* ME! Nice. I love a challenge, but I also inherited another client from him – what a pain they can be. I was going to type them in, but then decided that I may get dinged for that… the world is a little too small these days.

Other than that, not much to report on besides bad health. Uncle Dale has cancer, Aunt Linda had angioplasty done, Great Aunt Irene just passed away, Grandma Stueber had a small stroke ( I really need to visit them…). Yikes!!! I better start keeping better care of myself!

Check ‘em out!

I suppose I could describe our trip!

We started off driving to New Ulm, back to the farm, to drop off Normie. Thought he could use some exercise for a few days. I don’t think he was much of a problem for my folks. There was the cat incident, however… We started off on a Saturday morning, making it through all the way to Rapid City by Saturday night. We even made it through the Badlands with a short stop at the prairie dog farm after a horrible lunch at the Cactus Cafe (I ordered a turkey commercial, I think it was ham…). We managed to get a hotel as well.

Next morning was a little chilly as we started off. We must have hit every touristy thing you could think of in Rapid City. First stop: Reptile Gardens. I loved it. Pretty fun!!! Piglet (nickname for our baby for now) approved! I believe our next stop was Bear Country, USA. Then we headed for the scenic route, which included FEE (not FREE, as we thought) parking! Next was a scenic drive on 14A – I can’t come up with the name right now, but it had lots of “pigtail” switchbacks. That was awesome! Better views of Rushmore from here! After a visit with some friendly donkeys, who we feed prairie dog “approved” food to (um, yeah, just bring some unsalted peanuts and you’re fine…), we hit the needles highway (Custer?). Our journey ended in Deadwood where we stayed at “Cadillac Jack’s” for the night. Had a nice dinner, stayed in a nice (and cheapest) room on the trip.

We hit up the Franklin the next morning to try our luck… lost some quick money at the Blackjack table, but made most of it back playing a Star Wars machine!!! Sweet! When in Deadwood, you must visit the grave of “Wild Bill” and “Calamity Jane”! That was about the cheapest thing we did ($1). Breakfast was lovely – garlic toast for breakfast, anyone?

We swung by a trout fishery in Silver Bay (?) and then started heading West – Devil’s Tower! That think was pretty sweet! Poor B had some tired tootsies so she wasn’t able to get up and walk around the base, but it was cool non the less.

We started heading back Monday night – made it to Chamberlain (should have stopped sooner). What a view that was on the way in. What a crappy Days Inn hotel. Oh well, it had a bed.

Picked up our cocklebur ridden pooch from Grandma Rose and Grandpa Stan’s on the way back through and visited for a while, and took our poor pooch back home and slept like babies!

All in all it was a great trip!!! It’s definitely family oriented and will be awesome when ours begins!!!

Well, next discussion should be our quick trip out to South Dakota (excellent time!), some baby updates, and probably some new pics of Beth in all her round glory! ;) The nursery also got a shelf and a closet door. It’s startin to shape up! Grandma Sandy bought a cute little hutch for piglet too.

We’re finally getting some rain. Probably too little too late for my folks, but it’s something. I mowed for the first time in forever before I left for our trip, then had to mow the lawn again last weekend. That’s enough now! I’ll probably post more tonight.