More Nesting

First of all, Happy New Year everyone! We decided to kick off the new year by doing a little more nesting. This weekend we hope to conquer the basement and garage. Karen has decided she needs more room for her new car (more details to follow). Cleaning the basement includes sorting through all of the stuff in my man-room, because as Karen puts it, I now have an 1,800+ sq. ft. man-room also referred to as the shop. As I cleaned out the man-room, I came across several pictures from my teenage years. Some are funny, some nostalgic. The following is a short list of ten pics. Of course there are the sports photos, including this one from the 1994 state wrestling championships, a few minutes after I tore the ACL in my right knee (note the supportive tape provided by the "expert" sports medicine providers). My only satisfaction in this match is that I was still able to beat the MFer.
Some of you may not know that I have a criminal record. The following pic was presented as evidence that I stole a blanket, cooler, some medals and a hair piece in the same incident..
Here I am during the pig farming days with Erik:
Here I am just chillin' with Brian and our pigeons on the couch....WTF?
You can appreciate my bulging muscles in the next pic (what the hell was I thinking?)



One of my first "wilderness" deer hunts. Let's see... Stay in a hotel room on a hunting trip. Check. Shoot your deer as close to the road as possible. Check. Why have I decided to make it so much more complicated?
The next horse whisperer (or not!). Pic with Stash circa 1994.
This pic documents my introduction to hatchery trout, as evidenced by the lack of fins on this fine specimen. This picture was taken moments before "The Pukemobile" got its name, but that's another story.
It seems like I've always been chasing the dream...
Well, the next picture requires a bit of explaining. First of all, I would like to state that I was a naive kid from a small town in Idaho. I was understandable nervous to meet someone this important, so some of my nervous tendencies took over. How was I to know that he would climb under the desk when I nervously tapped my foot? (If you don't get the reference, enlarge the photo)
Happy New Year Everyone!

Ten Closets

Most of you who are reading this know we are expecting a child in March. Some of my friends warned be about the "nesting" stage. I dismissed their advice. Karen is much too rational of a person to succumb to hormones. A description of nesting in Women fromWikipedia is:

"It is commonly characterized by a strong urge to clean and organize one's home^[6], and is one reason why couples who are expecting a baby often reorganize, arrange, and clean the house and surroundings. This behavior is colloquially known as "straightening out", "clearing the road", or "clearing the coast".

Now, it wouldn't be fair to say that Karen is "nesting." I should mention, however, that we have been taken on quite a few cleaning projects lately. For instance, I now know that we have 10 closets on the main floor of home alone. I know this now because each closet has been painstakingly cleaned, cataloged, and re-organized. Below you can see our Youth Ranch contributions from 10 closets (Guinness was polite enough to stand next to the pile for scale)

Unfortunately for Karen, we burned all of our twigs today, so she will need to find another material to build her nest!

I'm supposed to look pregnant, not fat!

Well, this is the first entry in the Bean Family Blog. You will soon find that my writing and photography skills leave much to be desired. However, if you want to follow the story of our Beansprout, you're pretty much stuck. My photography skills are documented here, during Karen's 28th week of pregnancy, trying to catch her "looking pregnant, not fat." Now, I thought it was impressive that I was able to hide an entire horse behind her, but she didn't appreciate my efforts...
I don't want to be one of those annoyingly proud fathers, I really don't. Only I know I will be. So I figure I can put updates on this site and allow our friends to feign interest. It's better than clogging your inboxes with pics, right? The next few months will allow me to practice my blogging and also provide reference for how much our lives change in the coming months.