Berglet 2 and Misc

The holidays were lovely. Joel is enjoying his drums and toys a lot. Joel is now 2 and he is doing really well. His birthday party was fun. We had a semi-repeat of our "British New Year" party (i.e., we blew noisemakers when Big Ben struck midnight GMT/19:00 EST--then the kids could go home and sleep without feeling like they missed anything). Both parties involved inviting our child-rearing friends over so we could watch the kids chase each other around laughing. It was a lot of fun.
Joel is talking a lot. It is amazing to see how language development happens. His wonderful personality is coming in along with it.
Here are some pictures of our new kiddo from the 20 week ultrasound. The new addition is healthy and doing very well. We have no idea of the gender (yes, intentionally). We have a late May/early June due date. Everyone is well, and Anne is now noticeably "with child" and looking cuter every day.
From top, then left:
1. Head (left) with hands/feet (right)
2. Same, pretty much
3. Back--spine at bottom right, kinda, I think
4. Face--nose in middle and you can see the prominent eyebrow ridge
5. Profile of face looking to right

Ultrasound images are far more meaningful in motion. We saw Berglet 2 suck his thumb, stick out his tongue, and squirm around. It was one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen.

Randomness,
1. This place has a great pond for skating. I was out there over the weekend for some mid-winter exercise and it was the best pond ice that I have ever been on. It was quite relaxing.
2. I feel lame saying it, but I like working on the house. It is pretty fun. I added an electrical run, insulation, and paneling to the unfinished part of the basement. It felt darn nice as a break from dissertation work (which is going well, but not done yet). We also got some new doors.
3. My stint that requires me to drive up to Detroit twice a week is coming to an end in February. Soon, I will be working out of Maumee 5 days a week instead of 3. The new projects should be pretty neat. On the down side, I will miss the awesome lunchtimes spent walking around downtown Detroit and the friends I have met up there.
4. I got a simple beer-brewing kit over the break. My first batch is stuck (stopped fermenting prior to carbonization), but I don't have time to fiddle with it. More on this later.
5. We finally upgraded our phones (we had been out of contract for years) and got T-Mobile Shadows. They are pretty neat (WM6--lots of features) and work well. We have the same phone number--no changes there.
6. We are around home pretty much for the foreseeable future. Stop by and say hi.