For those of you who aren't on Facebook, you may not know that there are a bunch of "applications" you can add to your account there. They can do anything from the very pointless to the very cool, and there are about a zillion of them to choose from. One of them, iThink, particularly enjoys advertising in the sidebar and I see things like this image pop up every so often. It's not always the same statement they want me to agree or disagree with, but this one is the most puzzling to me.

Where's the debate here? I was in a long-distance relationship for three years and now I am married to the man I was in that relationship with. So… it worked, right? I'm not even close to being a pioneer in this. It's been going on successfully between various couples for a long, long time. "I could never be in a long-distance relationship" is a valid statement for a lot of people. "Long-distance relationships usually don't work" may well be true; I don't have any stats about that sort of thing. But to say flat out that they just don't work means that they don't ever work, and that's obviously not true. You just need one couple to prove that wrong, and there have been many. Small percentage of the whole, probably, but that doesn't matter. Anyone who actually disagrees with the statement in that ad is just plain wrong. It's not an opinion question.

Larry Wayne Strother, III
a.k.a. "Tres"

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June 27, 2008
1:50pm CDT

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8 lbs 7.5 oz
20.5 inches

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Congrats, Wayne and Monica!

Belly pic, taken today, 30 weeks. Feel free to compare to 2.5 weeks ago.

Just because I can.

I remember sitting with my mother in Tucci Benucch in the Mall of America discussing childbirth. Perhaps it was when she had flown up to take care of me when I had my wisdom teeth removed, which might be how we got on the topic of pain, but I'm not entirely certain. But I definitely remember the conversation we had, as it was the first time I learned a number of things about my mother and about birthing.But wait! There's more!

I finally got around to uploading the pics from Odense, and which I was at it I have uploaded some new videos to the site too. These include footage from Dagmar's ultrasounds, our trip to the Berlin Zoo, our trip to the Odense Zoo, and the arrival of a new cat tree in our flat. There's also a short compilation of old, poor-quality cat footage. I hope you enjoy it!

Belly pic, taken June 8th, 27 weeks and 4 days.

Wednesday morning started out like any other day. I got out of bed and prepared for my day. I had some cheese toast for a light breakfast.

Wednesdays are Danish Conversation Group days, which are kind of a mixed bag. Sometimes it is helpful and fun, and sometimes it is painful to go. I took the S-train to Hellerup for the meeting, and was glad to see a couple of women there I hadn't seen before. Sure enough, they had come with ideas for a great meeting. One had a children's book about travelling to Skåne, and we read through it together, learning both about Danish and about Skåne. And about how whoever translated the book from Swedish to Danish was a bit sloppy, as there were still some jags and ochs in there, but we got through it. The verdict this time: Helpful and fun. We meet at a café, and during our time there I had some orange juice and a couple croissants. I do love croissants.But wait! There's more!

A white one. July 11th.

And in other news, I made another purchase for Dagmar. Namely, some awesome used-but-pristine cloth diapers (Fuzzi Buns and Imse Vimse). I feel slightly more prepared for her arrival.

We had our fourth and final ultrasound today, so all the pre-birth pictures you will ever get of Dagmar are up on this site. You may recall the crappy experience we had with ultrasound #2, and I must say #3 and 4 were amazing and wonderful. Anyone in Denmark who is thinking about doing a 3D ultrasound… Scanningsklinniken is amazing.But wait! There's more!

Yesterday morning, we had our 4D ultrasound, and there is no doubt about it now. It's a girl.

Now, it's no surprise, really, that the future grandparents were excited to get in on the fun and buy some stuff for us. Shortly after we told both sets of our parents, my mother sent us some stuff she had bought:But wait! There's more!