Meanwhile the suspense builds and the Secret Countdown continues: 3 MORE DAYS!!!

It’s Monday or bust (maybe literally).

Short story long, there was a strange mistake in the computers with the true due date of Noah, and due to perhaps conflicting reports from two separate doctors, there was a slight (1 and 1/2 week) discrepancy as to exactly when Shanna would reach the 40 weeks full term. The Cardiologist originally recommended Shanna’s induction at the beginning of 39 weeks (which according to one model would have been on Thursday), but to be safe, the OB ordered the induction be delayed until the later possible model date.

This made us all REALLY sad. I mean… super. Sad. It was essentially 9 months of building anticipation, only to find out that we still need to wait another week (translated in waiting terms as – another decade).

BUT the good news is Noah is not only healthy, but very happy, and moving with much frequency. He was and is in a great position, and is pretty much ready to go. Essentially we got a free full checkup on Noah, and the results were excellent.

Therefore! The new date of induction has been officially set for Monday, July 26th, at 7:00 AM. May the countdown begin… again.

While we’re in countdown mode, I might as well say a brief word or two about our dear hospital: Johns Hopkins Hospital, located in North East Baltimore, MD.

Just in case you haven’t been around the past two decades, Johns Hopkins is essentially the king of all hospitals in the United States.

In their much anticipated annual report, US News has ranked Hopkins as the #1 hospital in the country… for the 20th consecutive year in a row.

The hospital is distinguished in specifically 9 pediatric and a staggering 16 adult specialties. Within the adult specialties, all but one land in the top 5 in the country. Hopkins lands #1 in the specialties of Gynecology, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Ear, Nose & Throat, and Rheumatology. Statistically, it leaves an incredible number of nearly 5,000 respected US hospitals in the dust including UCLA Medical, Barnes Jewish, Duke U Medical, Mass General, and NY-Pres of Columbia and Cornell (all of which made Top 14 Honor Roll).

Walking onto the campus causes one to imagine that he or she has entered the grounds of a self-sufficient city. Within the main campus, the hospital boasts such desirable amenities such as flower and gift shops, patient family housing, Metro station, a luxury wings, bank, farmers market, day care, gardens, cafes, restaurants, chapels, post office, workout center for employees, and a large International center that accommodates patients arriving from outside the country (Hopkins is not only one of the finest in the country, it’s easily one of the finest in the world).

vs.

=

Well, now, take down your fishin’ pole and meet me at The Fishin’ Hole,
We may not get a bite all day, but don’t you rush away.

What a great place to rest your bones and mighty fine for skippin’ stones,
You’ll feel fresh as a lemonade, a-settin’ in the shade.

Whether it’s hot, whether it’s cool, oh what a spot for whistlin’ like a fool.

What a fine day to take a stroll and wander by The Fishin’ Hole,
I can’t think of a better way to pass the time o’ day.

We’ll have no need to call the roll when we get to The Fishin’ Hole,
There’ll be you, me, and Old Dog Trey, to doodle time away.

If we don’t hook a perch or bass, we’ll cool our toes in dewy grass,
Or else pull up a weed to chaw, and maybe set and jaw.

Hangin’ around, takin’ our ease, watchin’ that hound a-scratchin’ at his fleas.

Come on, take down your fishin’ pole and meet me at The Fishin’ Hole,
I can’t think of a better way to pass the time o’ day.

And now for something completely different: A creepy Russian singing a cowboy song (click here).

Random, eh? Oh yeah?

I don’t know if you can get much more pregnant (or READY) than this.

Fortunately for us, there’s the famous DC/East Falls Church favorite – The Lost Dog Cafe. Great sandwiches if I say so myself.

Passing the time away the best we can.

Meanwhile, this week I say goodbye to a few more students *tear*

Good luck, students!

~ C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

How Pugsy celebrates our nation’s Independence.

Good luck to you all, and thanks for the wonderful memories!

Ok, maybe I won’t miss this:

~ C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

We have reached and passed our goal of 37 weeks. Now we are well inside 9 months, baby Noah is essentially fully developed and simply gaining weight, and now we play the waiting game.

Due to health complications, the OB has scheduled an induction for the mark of 39 weeks… in just 10 days! However, due to the complications they may recommend that wife be induced even sooner. We are so very close! On top of that, wife has been having regular (albeit milder) contractions, and we are getting the feeling that Noah could arrive on his own any day now.

What a beautiful gift from God our dear Noah has been. I say this with all honesty that I absolutely cannot wait for him to be here. I will also say without hesitation that my wife has never been more beautiful than she is now. What a strange and remarkable thing it is to be reawakened by the miracle of life. These past couple weeks have been filled with some intense anxiety, but I have no doubt that this wait will be well worth it. I praise God for the bounty he has bestowed on our family.

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton