Happy Holidays from the Lasselles

It's time for the annual Lasselle MySpace Xmas letter! Hard to believe it's already been a year. 2007 was a year dominated by one thing...babies. Of course Jonah was born on Halloween, but we found out Rachel was pregnant in early March and spent the rest of the year planning, preparing, taking classes, and doing everything else that comes along with pregnancy. I learned more about the birthing process than I ever wanted to know. Having very little baby experience, the last few months have been a lot of trial and error for this first time father. I'm improving my diaper changing skills, getting better at understanding why he's upset and what calms him down, and perhaps best of all, I'm learning how to make him smile. Of course, everytime I figure something out, I realize that Rachel figured it out 4 or 5 days ago. She's a fantastic mom, and I feel pretty lucky.


There were a few vacations, including a return to Colorado in the summer. Having not been back since 2001, it was fun to see what had changed and what had stayed the same. I got to see a few friends that I hadn't seen in 6 years, and Rachel's family met us there for a relaxing week. The car ride was rough on Rachel, but I truly believe that the western United States exist soley for the purpose of road tripping across them. The scenery is jaw-dropping, and the speed limit is more of a suggestion than a law in states like Wyoming and Nevada!

I'm still plugging away on this school thing. I feel like I'm treading water rather than making any headway toward a certificate of accounting, but I can credit that more to my undergraduate misadventures than my current scholastic aptitude. Since going back to school, I've maintained a 3.09 GPA.....a pretty big improvement from the 2.26 I graduated with.

Speaking of school, in August I was able to attend my 10 year high school reunion. Having helped organize it, I was much more stressed out about the whole situation than I should have been, but it turned out pretty well. I still am in shock that one of my classmates actually said "I tried to join the Navy SEALs, but apparently they don't take felons." That sentence right there is the 1 reason you should never pass up a chance to reconnect with people from your past.

Looking forward to 2008, I'm looking forward to a year without any major life changes. The last two years have been dominated by weddings, purchasing a car, a house, and starting a family. It will be nice to settle in for a year of watching Jonah grow and just enjoy the ride. We have a few trips planned - to Wisconsin in February to get Jonah baptized, and a family trip to Hawaii in August. We have a few friends expecting babies next year, and we look forward to scheduling play dates and discussing the joys and drawbacks of parenting with other first-time parents.

Here's hoping that your 2007 was as wonderful as mine, and to getting together with all of you at sometime during 2008!

Happy holidays,

The Lasselles

Shocking

So here's a sample of what I deal with at work:


Coworker A spends a lot of time surfing online dating sites. She met a guy, invited him over for the weekend, and he ended up staying a few extra days. I might mention that the guy has no car, no job, and lives with his sister. She felt the need to not only tell people at work that "he was the biggest she's ever seen," but also draw a detailed picture. I don't care if you work with your best friends, some things shouldn't be done in the office.

Coworker B has been given the job of scanning documents and uploading them so our gift agreements can be easily searched for. Granted it's a lot of scanning, but she has flat out refused to scan anymore because she's "developed tendonitis in her elbow" and I heard her talking about how she gets stressed out every time she even thinks about scanning.

If the most stressful part of your job is scanning documents into a computer, consider yourself lucky.

How many days til the weekend?

Scariest dream ever

The last two nights I have had the worst dreams. Sunday night I dreamt that I left Jonah at daycare on his first day there. Just drove to Portland and forgot about him. Once I realized, I called Rachel. That was the real terrifying part. She laid into me about how I don't care about our son and all this stuff, and I really had no comeback.


Last night I dreamt that I was at my grandparents house. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and I look in the mirror and there's a second me in the reflection. Like there was my reflection, and then a second Andy behind me that wasn't my reflection. It was so creepy. I screamed and ran and got someone else. Of course they couldn't see it. So I decided I wasn't feeling well and would go home. I get in the car and check my rear view mirror. There I am in the back seat giving myself the crazy eyes. It was terrifying.

I'm not liking this waking up every morning with an upset stomach because I'm scared to death. Maybe i need to cease and desist with the cookies and milk right before bedtime.

Nothing like shopping to kill the holiday spirit

Yesterday Rachel and I went shopping. After receiving our kicker refund check, we decided to go out and get a new laptop....you know, to keep up with the times. Plus, we figured we needed one with a webcam so Jonah's grandparents in wisconsin could see him grow. So we did a little browsing and finally settled on a nice computer from Circuit City. That's when the real fun began.

Circuit City has this ridiculous group of tech support people called "Firedog." It's basically their answer to Best Buy's "Geek Squad." Firedog will give your computer all the latest updates and remove all the ads that come bundled with your computer for $40. Sounds like a plan to me. As luck would have it, they had just done this work on our model of computer, so we wouldn't have to wait two hours while they worked on it before taking it home. At this point, I'm thinking Firedog is awesome, and I'd like build it a doghouse in our backyard.

Then we got home.

I broke out the computer and start fiddling around with it. After I connected to the internet and set up some anti-virus software, I all of a sudden noticed that something's missing: The built in webcam is not built in. A quick examination reveals that firedog put the wrong model computer in our box. So we load the computer and Jonah back into the car and headed on up to Salem for the second time.

We got to the store and explained what happened and this Fire-puppy guy came out and said "oh I bet I know what happened, I'm just not sure how it happened. Hold on." and he went back in the back and emerged with a box that looked just like ours. "Yep," he said. "What happened was we had these two computers out that look identical out working on them on the same time and we put them in the wrong boxes. Sorry about that." He then proceeded to swap the computers out and take all of our accessories that came with the computer. Rachel's like "ummmm does our computer not come with that stuff?" The guy says "oh, ummm yeah hold on." and gives us all the stuff that was in with the other computer. I said "So you're sure that the remote (yes our laptop has a remote, it's awesome) you're giving is us is for this computer and not the other model?" He replied "oh yeah, they work with any model, so you should just need the one that you already had. I look, and he's handing me a new remote that I haven't opened yet. "This is not the remote we had. I already put the battery in that one and this one is unopened. You're sure this works with either computer?" and he said "Well, just in case, I'll give you the first one."

Just in case? You're Firedog! People come to you because we know nothing about computers! You're supposed to have the answers. Furthermore, if they "update" the computers for you, how come when I got home and connected to the internet, the first thing my computer said was "there are updates ready to install?" Bottom line, I was totally unimpressed with Firedog and Circuit City on the whole. However, I am a fan of this HP computer we ended up with. I could ramble on about how customer service is an outdated term and how people are getting stupider and american companies pay the people with the important jobs far too little for them to care about doing a good job or to even hire competent people, but that's for another blog.

Happy holidays!

A quick list

Reasons being a dad is awesome

- Watching Jonah learn new stuff all the time.

- The way he freaks out the instant you put him in the tub before remembering that "oh yeah, I like baths!"

- The funny noises he makes

- Seeing how happy he makes Rachel

- It gives me an excuse to read "The Poky Little Puppy" again

- The way he can only control his head for a few seconds before it starts freaking out like a bobblehead in an earthquake.

- Looking at him and wondering what he's going to like and do and be when he gets older.

Reasons being a dad is not so awesome.

- Grunting for 6 straight hours at night

- The way he only seems to cry during the tv shows I really want to watch

- When he gets that drunk look and you know some projectile spit-up is coming and you don't have a burp rag on you so you just have to take a fountain of regurgitated milk off the shirt you were planning on wearing to work that morning. (Yes, this one happened to me today.)

- Dirty diapers

- The constant fear that I'm going to break his fingers off every time I change his shirt.

- When he cries so hard he forgets to breathe, and you don't know how to calm him down.

Trust me though, the pros FAR outweigh the cons!