JohnCStark’s posterous

Today Jayne and I went to the doctor to have an ultrasound done to check out our baby due on November 3. While we've never had a chance to find out the sex of our baby before it was born in the past, this time around we really wanted to know. For weeks, months, people have asked both Jayne and I if we were going to find out the sex of the baby. Today, we found out.  The doctor had to tell us twice before it really sunk in. With God blessing us already with two boys we both were hoping for a girl. On November 3 the doctor is 99% sure we'll be having a girl. Today she weighed 13 oz (don't ask me how they can determine that). In a few months she'll be a lot bigger. I've already had several people asking me if we'll be naming our next child with a vowel again. I'm pretty sure we won't be telling anyone in advance what we are naming her until she arrives, but I can tell you that it probably will be with a vowel. We already had some girl names picked out in the past so now we can dust those names off and consider a bunch more. I think Jayne deserves to have a pink party sometime. She is pretty excited and so am I. If you get a chance be sure to drop a line to Jayne to congratulate her. I don't think she'll tire of talking about this particular bit of news.

The boys had a good ol time at the Motor Fest rally at First Federated Church on Sunday. The rally involved a lot of cars, motorcycles, a couple tractors, a boat, and a drag car. Jayne said Evan could wait to get into the bounce house. Both boys really enjoyed jumping around. Dad was busy taking photos of the rally and making sure things were running smoothly. If you look at all the photos you'll see a few where dad was given a card and a present (the book "The Bourne Ultimatum" by Robert Ludlum). Being the father of two boys is still pretty new to me. Less than eight years ago I was single! It is a challange living up to the standard my boys deserve in a father. Perhaps on this Father's Day and in Father's Days to come I'll use that day to spur me on to being a better dad.

At Evan's birthday party on Friday, April 20, we annouced to the family that a new baby Stark is expected to arrive on November 4, 2007. We had Evan open up a present with this doll inside. We attached a little note to the doll annoucing the news. Not only was everyone excited about the news, we caught everyone by surprise. We really had hoped Joe and Jennifer could have been at the party to hear the news with everyone else. We've known for over a month this particular bit of news; however, we waited until our families were together at the party to break the news.

Our family celebrated Evan's second birthday last night. His birthday is actually April 18th; however, we couldn't schedule the party until Friday, April 20.

Traditionally, we've invited our immediate families to the birthday parties. This time around only our parents and Justine were able to make it. Aunt Judith, Aunt Joann, and Uncle James all live out of town. No one knew for sure where uncle Joe was. Aunt Jennifer was at a conference, but she came by the house on Thursday night to see the boys.

Both of the boys really get excited for birthdays now. Ean just couldn't contain his enthusiasm. I think Evan will be that way next year.

If you click on the photo (or here) you'll be able to see all the photos we took along with some commentary. Enjoy!

The boys had a lot of fun celebrating Easter this year. Not only did they learn about the resurrection of Jesus they also spent time with their extended family.

This year the day started off at church with a special fellowship time where the boys got to see some puppets, eat some yummy donuts, and see a lot of people. We then had a great lunch at grandma Mary and grandpa Terry's place. My mom made my favorite meal (noodles, mash potatos, green peas, sliced ham, and biscuts) and the boys were entertained by learning how to find easter eggs, getting an easter basket, a new car movie, some new toys and a bunch of candy.

Later in the afternoon we drove to Winterset to visit Jayne's extended family at the Frey farm. Jayne's entire family (except her dad) was their including her grandpa, aunt, and cousin Tim. We all did the tradition easter egg hunt outdoors. The eggs not only have candy inside but some of that really fun stuff called "money."

You can check out all the photos on Flickr.

Jayne's sister Judith had her Junior Recital on April 1, 2007 in Sioux City, IA at Morningside College. Our whole family took the three hour trip to see her play the violin. Judy has gotton pretty talented playing this particular instrument so it was fun hearing her play a wide variety of song. One song she even did memorized which seemed to be pretty complicated to me. Following the recital Judith held a reception with really cool food which seemed to be a huge hit with everyone. I was the official photographer so I didn't get much of a chance to make a list of the food items. Following the reception we all went to the Olive Garden which opened in the last year in Sioux City. The boys behaved great on the entire trip. All of us were a little tired when we finally got home late that night. The only bad thing about the entire trip was the high pollen count that weekend which really got my allergies reacting in full swing. I recovered a couple days later. You can check out all the photos I took from the event on Flickr. We also video taped the recital for Judith who now has a pretty cool DVD made to remember the occasion. Ask Judy to play it for you sometime (if you know her!).

If anyone has been to our place in Ankeny then you know we don't have room for our nice pool table. Friends of ours had it set-up in their basement until they recently decided to remodel. The table is now in storage. We don't anticipate buying a new home anytime in the near future so if someone is willing to pay $2200 for all the pool table stuff (including the ping pong top and a bunch of accessories) then we'd let it go. If we don't get any good offers we may end up keeping everything. We really liked having the pool table around. Plus, we know our boys would love it when they get a little older. You can get more information about the table either at: Craigslist | Pool Table If you are interested... send me an email.

My parents and sister sang a special number at the Federated Family Christmas last Sunday, December 17. The program also included songs by children, bell choir, band, and the choir. If you click on the photo then it will take you to a bunch of photos that were taken that night. Be sure to check out the other sets on the site. Federated Family Christmas Rehearsal Photos Ean sang for the first time in our church during the service in the morning. While the photos we took at the rehearsal don't show Ean having a good time. If you had seen him during the service then you'd have seen him dancing next to his buddy Carter. Christmas Ingathering & Fellowship

I got the following information emailed to me today from the Beaverdale Neighborhood Association. It was so full of great information that I couldn't resist sharing it with others. We spend a lot of time thinking about the great things surrounding Christmas but seldom think about the darker side lingering in the shadows. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas! John Stark Happy Holidays from The Des Moines Police Department! During the year-end holidays, people are often busy, excited and sometimes a little bit careless. The following holiday crime prevention tips should be shared with others: At Home:

• Be extra cautious about locking doors and windows when you leave your house or apartment, even for a few minutes.
• Lock garage doors and windows.
• Don’t display holiday gifts where they can be seen from a window or doorway. Store gifts before you go away on a holiday

Today I finally got around to doing a little maintenance on this website. It has been several weeks since I event posted another entry but I regularly visit the homepage for access to the sidebar links. I'm still using Wordpress to manage the website so keeping the software up-to-date requires some attention every couples months as enhancement and security issues are addressed. I've gotten pretty comfortable with upgrading the software which Wordpress has made pretty simple. It also has become the time I back everything up off the server in case something goes wrong with the upgrade. Today I also worked on implementing a plug-in which will automatically update my sidebar links from a RSS feed coming from my del.icio.us account. While it took a bit of work to organize the links into del.icio.us, keeping the links updated will be a lot easier since they are directly tied into del.icio.us. Basically, whenever I bookmark a webpage with a specific tag that link will automatically show up on the sidebar. I also added a plugin to create a sitemap specifically designed to work with Google. I registered the website with Google and provided them the link to the sitemap for them to utilize when indexing my website. It was interesting to look at the information Google provides to those who register their site with them. If you maintain your website then I'd highly recommend you check it out. There were other things I checked out today. I learned that I can automatically publish to this blog from Google's document editor after configuring it properly. Anyway, the worldwide web is pretty amazing. I'm continually amazed how far technology has come since the late 70s when I first played with one of those early Apple IIe machines.