Cyrus is Here!!!

It must have been some sort of fate but just an hour after the last post that I made Sue had called me at work saying that it has begun and that I need to head home soon. So that's how this week started. I went to work, got a call from Sue saying plan on it being this week because she's "got the feeling." I then made a blog post at lunch saying that Cyrus is getting closer & closer to being here, then an hour later I got another call from Sue saying that the contractions are happening often and heavier and that I need to get ready for this. Getting ready was the easy part. I finished what I was working on at the office, I got the team squared away and left my email message saying I'll be out of the office for at least a week. We called our midwives letting them know to get ready and then we called Lara. Lara watched Arianna while Sue & I were at the birth center. We could not have done this at all without the help of Lara.

--Dearest Lara, thank you so much!!--

Okay, so the birth. Cyrus gave Sue quite a struggle, especially compared to Arianna. Sue spent all evening in labor only to have her water break in the early hours of the morning. With Ari, Sue's water broke at home, we headed to the birth center, Sue went through the labor pains and then Ari was here. With Cyrus, Sue went through the labor pains for almost a day, the water broke and then that was only the half of it. After the water broke she had to go through another days worth of labor pains until Cyrus was ready to come out. Only to have Cyrus come out sunny-side up. Cyrus coming out sunny-side up was the reason for the long labor. For those that don't understand that terminology: sunny-side up just means that he was facing in the wrong direction. His head still came out first and so he wasn't breach or anything. He was just facing us when he came out rather than us seeing the back of his head which is the typical rotation of the baby. Even with that one down-side he was very alert and came to us in the water with his eyes wide open. We then got to rest with him at the birthing center for the full next day. He's super alert and seems to be such a happy & calm baby. hehehe but don't they all at the stage. His info:

Cyrus Jose Rodriguez
Born Wednesday, 08/27/2008 @ 1:45a.m.
6lbs. 6oz.
21" long
Virgo
and looks a lot like his daddy, especially with his long toes & big feet

And as an additional side note; Cyrus is the first grandson of his generation of grand-kids & great grand-kids on the Rodriguez side of the family. I too was the first grandson for my generation. As for the Dougherty side, Cyrus is just one amongst many boys in the line of grand & great-grand kids.

Okay, well I think that about wraps up the birth story. We're all at home now and working at getting some rest. Sue is very happy to not be pregnant anymore and we're all so excited to finally get to hang out with this wonderful little boy. A few friends have stopped by to check out the little man and to help us out. It's been great since we have ourselves completely tied up with a 1.5 year old and a preemie new born. It's always nice to have family & friends stop by just so that we can either run errands or take a bath or cook food or just sit and rest. To all of our family & friends in the area, please feel free to give us a buzz, see what's going on and then stop on by to hang with the family.

Here's the online Photo album dedicated to the great shots that we're taking of the little guy:
(just click on the photo to be directed to the photo album)

Cyrus Jose Rodriguez

And a little slide show for ya'lls:





Sincerely Yours, with the newest addition of Cyrus,
The Rodriguez Bunch

We're Almost There!

We are ssssoooooo close right now. Sue's cramps & contractions have NOT subsided today. Lately they've been occurring at night time, but have gone away during the day. However, they're not going away today. So I think we're within a few days/hours now.

Our weekend- Not much going on. We cleaned up around the house quite a bit, which was nice. Sue banked in about 150.00 bucks worth of books. We took in the BOXES & BOXES of books that Sue's read and now she has an almost endless account to be able to trade books for a long time. While cleaning I took the drum sets over to Brandon's house, where Jon's staying. That's right ladies & gentleman, Jon (a.k.a. Theo Decks, Convex Pontifex, hELLEBORE) is BACK in Portland. He's been on a musical adventure in Minneapolis and we're so stoked to have him back here in Portland. Keep glued for show updates and what nots.
So I've cleaned out the boxes of books, the double drum sets and some other musical equipment. Now all I got to do is make another Goodwill run of the remaining junk and soon enough you might be able to see from wall to wall of our garage. Whoohhooo.

Aight, well I'm gonna finish up my little lunchtime posting here. Because I'm gonna try to get as much $h!t done here at work before Sue's water breaks. BAAM!!! Who knows, maybe next post will be of little Cyrus Jose Rodriguez.

Happy 76th GREAT Grandma Lois!!

Grandma,
You're a wonderful person. You've lead such a great life and raised some amazing family which has allowed me the opportunity to extend the family tree with these two bundles of joy. We couldn't thank you enough. There are no words that could explain how truly grateful we all are to have you in our lives. You are such a happy spirited person and we're glad to have been blessed with that same happy spirit in our lives. We can't wait to see you soon enough Grandma. We're gonna have this baby boy and the Rodriguez Bunch is going on vacation to come and see you!!!

Grandma I tried to compress this video enough to email it to you but my attempts failed. I will now post it on here for the world to see.



Luv ya tons Grandma,
-The Rodriguez Bunch

The Heat, Hornings, the Heat, the Air Show & IT'S HOT!

Here we go again. I'd like to continue where I left off on the last post by the pictures from LoveFest 2008 (Sean & Sarah's Wedding @ Horning's Hideout) & from the International Air Show out in Hillsborro. But before we get to all of that...

I was riding home today in this super HOT heat that we're feeling right now and the first thing I did when I got home was take off my gear and head to the bedroom to change clothes. Also, our bedroom is the only room in the house with a window fan and so that's usually the coolest spot in the house. However, here's what I came into as I entered the room:

Not sure if you can read those numbers or not but the clock says 6:45 and the thermometer on the fan is reading 97.

Then just one minute later...

And we're at 99 DEGREES! That's right folks, we're gettin' hotter & hotter by the minute out here in Portland.

And now on to what you've all been waiting for. LOVEFEST 2008!!! I can't say enough good things about LoveFest. Sean & Sarah were absolutely gorgeous, they brought in such an awesome gathering of family & friends. For the most part the weather held out for us (we did get hit with some rain on Friday night & randomly throughout Saturday - but hey, we live in Oregon & that's only to be expected. Even in August), the ceremony was harmonious, Saturday was jammed packed with wonderful festivities to keep everyone busy, we blew the roof off of an outdoor event on Saturday night, the band rocked it on Friday night, the food was deliciously endless throughout the weekend, and well, we just had a blast. Sue was able to put on a smile while she had to grin n' bear it because she's 8.5 months pregnant. Sleeping on the air mattress surely was tough for her. There were only 3 downsides to the whole weekend-long festival. 1.) the rain on Friday wreaked havoc on Sean & Sarah's guest book, 2.) Sue wasn't able to lounge all that much or get any "quality" sleep because of little Cyrus inside of her & 3.) one of the highlights of the weekend was the frolfing, a.k.a. Disc Golf, games going on & I didn't partake. I was so amped on the days prior to the LoveFest Frolfing Games but I ended up taking a 2 hour long nap with Sue & Ari on Saturday, and it was raining for other parts of the day (not that that would hold me back from Frolfin). So I didn't end up frolfin with the rest of them, but that's okay. The sleep we got was MUCH NEEDED and irreplaceable. Everything else came together so well for Sean & Sarah's wedding. That pretty much wraps up LoveFest from my end. Sean & Sarah we couldn't thank you enough for being so beautiful, having such wonderful family & friends, and being such out-going & happy-spirited people. We hope that you two got to enjoy it as much as the rest of us did!
Below are a few that wrap up the weekend and you can got to the LoveFest 2008 album of photos that we posted. -I was trying some night time settings on our camera and so we didn't get the best shots of all of the partying.

... And thenthe AIR SHOW. The best part about the Air Show was that Sue & Ari had a good time. Once again, as good as could be expected for carrying around that baby boy that seems to just be nesting away in there. But this was each of theirs first Air Show and Hillsboro threw a pretty darn good show. I was hoping to see a B1 or some sort big C1 or C17 cargo plane that we could walk through. They didn't have any of them but they did have "Rides in Monster Trucks!" That looked like a fun little cookie-spinning session in a monster truck. Ari was a little bit crabby from not napping, but was super into checking all the planes out. She's been absolutely fascinated with planes the past few months. All day long she was "Oooo'ing & Aahhh'ing" & pointing up in the sky as all the planes flew by. There was great aeronautical maneuvering by both foreign and American planes alike (there was a great father and son team flying Russian Yaks) . They had a Red Bull plane that after his show, as he taxied in front of the crowd, they blew off this enormous rocketing set of flames that startled us all. It was a like a huge bomb right behind the plane on the other side of the run way. But the flames were big enough that we could feel the heat from out seat.
The Rodriguez Bunch had a blast at the Air Show. We're certain that little man Cyrus will enjoy the future air shows that we venture to.

So, that about wrapped up our weekend. I hope you all enjoyed the experience as we, The Rodriguez Bunch, did! You can also check out other photos from the weekend in our Photo Albums.

LoveFest 2008

Hillsborro International Air Show 2008

- The Rodriguez Bunch is signing out.

A busy few weeks behind us... And Plenty more to come.

We've had ourselves a pretty jam-packed couple of weeks lately. We've been trying to get as much stuff done around the house & at work so that we're a bit more "prepared" for when the little guy comes. As if one could truly be prepared for the celebration of life. We are all very excited to meet this new little bundle of joy (of soccer kicking joy) that Sue's nesting inside of her and I'm sure that he's excited to meet each and everyone of you.

Okay, well let's move onto trying to get everyone updated as to what's been keeping us busy:
It's been rather hot here, which Sue has been feeling the effects of. She didn't have to experience this kind of heat late in Ari's pregnancy because Ari came in the winter time. Ari's been enjoying her pool time on the back deck.
<---!!!!!




To get out of the house and a bit out of the heat (it's usually hotter in our house than outside, BLAH!) we went on a simple hike that's mostly in the shade with some great water spots.






On the trail into Wahclella Falls







The fam kicking by the river.









And there's Wahclella Falls.

A few days later, we threw a little baby shower to help bless Sue & the boy with some great gifts and a good time. It was so awesome to get such a wonderful bunch of family & friends together. The kids all had a blast and it sounds like they'll be a bunch more play dates like this in the near future.

So there's a few things keeping us busy around here. We had a BLAST last weekend as well at LoveFest 2008 & the International Air Show in Hillsboro. I'll throw up some pictures and words about that in the next post.

I've added a bunch more pictures from the above mentioned events on my Web Albums. Take a look and leave us some comments. Here's the link: My Web Albums

-Till then, Love ya tons.Joser