Daddy and I sat down and watched my first Husker game tonight. I think I might like it more when I am older, though.
The Huskers lost, but daddy thinks they are getting better. Finally.
Mommy is doing such a good job. I know she gets frustrated trying to figure out what I need, but she really is doing quite well. I only wish I could tell her everything I am thinking!
I don’t like baths very much, but I do like getting my hair washed. Go to daddy’s Flickr account to see more from our bath time.
So, our plan became to eliminate all of our debts so that Amy could stay home when we had children. We thought this might take 3-4 years and we were fine with that. We did want to have some time together before having kids.
Our debts were pretty stubborn. I had been pretty stupid with money before meeting Amy and had racked up some serious credit card debt on top of school loans. She had some school loans, too, but nothing like what I brought to the table.
It seemed for years that we took two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes three steps back. And the cycle continued such that we never really made any headway. We prayed about it and did all we could. Still we made some dumb decisions, too.
Finally, I got the opportunity to leave Bandag to pursue my hobby and ministry full-time. I became the Technical Arts Director at our church. I had been doing this for years in my spare time and it became the right time for both the church and I to take the plunge. Even though we sacrificed significant income to do this, we were able to cash in my Bandag pension and 401(k) to eliminate all of our debts asside from one school loan and our home loan. Everything else was paid for. Our vehicles, credit cards, everything!
We have to start over with saving for retirement, but we are out of that “bad” debt that was weighing us down. And finally, we could make it on my check alone. We could start a family the way we had been dreaming of for, at the time, seven years!
We were able to get pregnant right away in June of 2005. Unfortunately, that pregnancy ended about as quickly as it started with a miscarriage that August. This was very devastating to us. However, it was amazing how many people came out of the woodwork to encourage us by saying they too had been through miscarriages and went on to have many children. Some women had as many miscarriages as they had children! How terrible this reality is!
We carried on and were pregnant again by November. This time it all worked! The pregancy was rather gruelling for Amy. She was sick just about every day. We also made about five trips to the hospital for kidney stones during the pregnancy. All of that on top of worries that something was going to go wrong after losing our first baby. In the end, though, it all was worth it.
Our baby boy, Harrison Dean Gubser, was born August 19, 2006!
This provides the backdrop for our blog. We want to use it to help folks we know all over the world to keep up with our family if they wish. Particularly Harrison’s granparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But also our many friends here locally, back home in Lincoln, and those that have moved on to places all over the globe.
Please comment on our postings as a way to interract if you would like. We will keep things updated here as best we can, too. That way whenever you visit, there will always be something new!
I know that getting engaged after knowing each other is a stretch for most people to consider. People had always told me that, “when you meet the right one, you’ll know.” That really was the case with Amy. I just knew. And so did she.
(We’ll have to be real strategic about how we share this bit of history with our kids.)
Anyway, after dating six weeks before getting engaged, we decided to wait about nine months to get married. We set the date for June 27, 1998. This happened to be the weekend of the one year anniversary for my best friend which kind of kicked things off for Amy and I. (Brian and Dawn were married June 28th a year earlier.)
In the meantime, we were trying to figure out where we would live and what we would do after the wedding. I think we were planning on renting an apartment and starting there. I had just started an engineering job after graduating from UNL (go Huskers!) in May of 1997. The big dot com boom was hitting about then and my resume was out on several websites from when I was looking for work.
In February of 1998, a headhunter working for Bandag found me. Keep in mind this is just a few months before we were to get married. I traveled to Muscatine to interview and look around. They offered me the job and about $9000 more a year than I was making in Lincoln! Having just come out of college in some significant debt and about to get married, I set about convincing Amy. After a lot of prayer and talking, I ended up moving to Muscatine in March of 1998.
Every weekend except a few, I travelled back to Lincoln (a six hour drive one way) to see Amy. Amy was still in school finishing up her elementary education degree.
Finally, June came. We were married and went to Colorado for our week-long honeymoon. When we returned, Amy moved to Muscatine and was there for two weeks before returning to Lincoln for five weeks of summer school! This time, we split the driving on the weekends! But we were married and starting that life together.
Amy and I met on a blind date July 26, 1997. I had been in my best friend’s wedding that June. One of the other groomsmen (another good friend of mine, Mike) had spent some time talking with a bridesmaid (one of Amy’s roommates, Destiny) and the two of them decided that Amy and I should meet.
They convinced me to call Amy by telling me that they had shown her a picture of me and told her a bit about me. They said that she wanted to go out on a date with me.
So, after I got up some major nerve, I called her up and, in my smoothest of lines, said, “So, I hear you wanna go on a date with me.” Amy was like, “….uh…sure.”
As ackward as that was, we really hit it off on our first date. Both of us had really strong feelings after that first night that we had just met “the right one.”
Six weeks later, I presented Amy with her engagement ring and she said yes. I remember she was grinning so much that evening that her cheeks started to hurt.
And I got to feed it to him! I am more excited about it than I look, too. (I think I probably always look that way.)
Anyway, he took right to it and downed two 2 oz. bottles. We don’t really know what he normally gets, but 4 oz. sounds like enough for a little fella.
Oh yeah, yesterday we took him in to find out his weight and he had gained exactly one pound since birth. Pretty good in 3 1/2 weeks time?!
More pictures up in Flickr!
Amy passed these bad boys last night. The smaller one is considered huge
as kidney stones go. The larger one is over 1/4 inch in diameter. She has
been feeling yucky the last several days, so hopefully these were the cause!
A fitting oxymoron.
Harrison and I are here at the house alone as Troy and the boys went home last night, Amy’s parents went home this morning (after a VERY helpful two weeks), and Amy is off to Walmart.
So, we are just hanging out. Harry’s in the swing taking it easy and I am…well…typing this.
So far, so good.
Tonight will be our first night as the new family by ourselves. I think we can do that alright. Amy is worried about being home alone all day with Harrison tomorrow while I am at work. She will do fine, I am sure. She is a good mommy.
Uncle Troy made a quick trip over with Skyler & Dusty. their first visit in many years, we hope the whole family can make it soon. We miss you Aunt Martina and cousins Justin and Jessica!
