It's a Girl!

Woohoo! The Hipps family found out on Tuesday that, around about January 16, 2004, we will be having a baby girl! This is really pretty staggering news, since my wife and I both grew up with only brothers. Naturally, she has a bit more experience in the area of dealing with girls, having actually been a girl herself, but still, it's fairly intimidating in some ways. On the other hand, I can't wait. I have friends who have daughters and you can really tell that they are the apple of their father's eye. Another boy would have been exciting as well, but having a girl is especially exciting because we can't pretend that we've done it before. This is going to be a whole new ball game. Let the adventure begin!

One Month Later, the Hipps Blog Returns

Well, I said on Day One that I wasn't making any promises in terms of updating this thing daily. Still, I have shocked even myself with the extreme tardiness of Blog Post #3. Sorry about that.

Things are happening in the Hipps household. Well, okay, really, I guess the major thing that's happening today is that someone's coming over to appraise the condo / apartment that we live in, so that it can be rented out by a rental agency instead of the nice lady who we've been renting from for almost a year now. This is because we're moving at the end of September, when our lease runs out.

After having lived in North Carolina for almost three years, and after finally feeling like we're making some friends and becoming more rooted in our church, we believe we're being called to move back to Athens, Georgia to be involved in Mill Creek Community Church. I have accepted my old position with Connected Technologies, but other than that (and even including that), everything's different. We are looking at buying a house, maybe finally being rooted in one spot for more than a couple of years. We'll see.

Living in North Carolina is awesome. I love the barbecue, the scenery, the easy commute to work, the friends we've made, the church we've been involved with here (Raleigh Vineyard Christian Fellowship), and the convenience of our apartment to pretty much everything we could possibly need. There is a huge outdoor shopping center pretty much around the corner, the Cary Towne Center Mall around the other corner, scads of fast food and non-fast food restaurants nearby, including Cook-Out, the best fast food burger and milkshake place I've ever been to, including Sonic. We're two hours from the beach, four from the mountains. We haven't actually taken advantage of either of those facts, but I like that we could if we wanted to. Did I mention the barbecue? You just can't get that stuff in Georgia. We recently discovered a place a few blocks from our home that sells it in take-home containers. We'll probably stock up heavily on the way out of town.

Then again, living in Georgia definitely has its perks, too. We'll be an hour or less from Atlanta, the cultural center of the southeastern United States. We'll be three hours or less from our family. We have a lot of friends nearby, and we'll be involved in a church where we know the vision, know the pastor, and are excited about the possibilities. I believe that this is a move of God, having taught us whatever we needed to learn from our time here, now sending us back to live as older, wiser Christians in a community that desperately needs them, taking part in a church where we can serve non-Christians, new Christians, and younger Christians and be served by older Christians ("older" and "younger" in the sense of spiritual maturity, not necessarily years of living). It is exciting to think about what God might do in our lives in Athens.

If we ever do move back to North Carolina, though, I hope we move closer to Asheville. I love the mountains.

No Combos for Daniel

Yesterday afternoon, Angie (my wife) called me at work to tell me that Daniel (our 14-month old son) was having an allergic reaction to something he ate. This has happened many times before, as he is constantly putting whatever he can find into his mouth. We've seen it happen with actual foods, too, especially stuff with milk or cheese in it, although this has been happening less frequently lately. Usually, he gets a mild-looking rash around his mouth, occasionally stretching up to maybe his cheek. We usually give him some baby-Benadryl and he is fine almost immediately. This time, however, Angie seemed to think that we may need to take him to the hospital. Having only one car, this meant that I needed to run home and check on things, in the event that it was a real emergency. When I got home, Daniel's left eye was swelled up like he'd been in a boxing match, he seemed fairly tired, and the remains of a rash were still visible under his bottom lip. Also, his cooings and attempts at words had a distinct raspiness about them. It turns out that since he'd been having much less of a problem with dairy stuff lately, Angie figured it would be okay for him to try one of the Combos she was having with lunch, theorizing that if he did have his usual mild reaction, she would give him some Benadryl and everything would be fine. He did not have his usual mild reaction. I'm really wondering now if he didn't find something else to eat when she wasn't looking, because that was really the worst reaction I've ever seen, and he's been doing this for a couple of months now. In the end, Angie gave him a little more Benadryl than she normally does, and he cleared up in just under two hours. Which meant that I had to go back to work for the last two hours of the day after all. Still, that's better than if he'd been seriously ill. It's rough seeing your helpless one-year-old look like he's just lost a fight, knowing there's nothing you can do for him besides pray and hope he gets better. Pretty rough.

davis

Reading Material

Here it is! I finally decided that I should create a blog, mostly to pass the time when I'm done with all my work-related work but still have to sit at work and look like I'm working. Hopefully, I'll be able to come up with interesting things to say about life, my family, my friends, or myself, but I'm not making any promises at this point. I've seen a lot of blogs in my time (okay, actually, I've seen only 4 blogs in my time, but, you know, they haven't been around that long), and I know that they can start with gusto and then fizzle out as people tire of updating them, move on to other projects, get a job where they have to do actual work for 8 hours straight, etc. So, I'm not coming at this with any delusions of grandeur. All I am offering is something for you to read and, if you wish, respond to. Enjoy!

davis

P.S. There are only two truly great blogs in this world, in my opinion. They are listed here, in no particular order:
1) http://www.talkstretch.com
2) http://davebarry.blogspot.com