10.26.11: Homecoming + Smudge is a....

The university where I work has a really huge Homecoming celebration. I was so excited that Chad's sisters, Traci and Amber, were able to come visit. They hadn't been to Oklahoma yet and they were also able to go to the biggest homecoming festivity of all--Walkaround. In essence, walkaround is where about 60,000 people descend upon Stillwater to view all of the stationary floats that student organizations have spent months working on. These are made of chicken wire and tiny little pieces of tissue paper. They are really amazing. Walkaround is a lot of fun. Here's a picture of me with my fabulous colleagues--many of the junior faculty.

However, before we went to Walkaround, we took Traci and Amber with us to find out the sex of the baby. Technically, my doctor wanted to wait until I was 20 weeks along to do the anatomy scan (which would include telling us the sex) but knowing that I could know a month earlier had been killing me. Chad finally agreed for us to go to a private company to find out early. My mom and sister, Kristin, thought for sure I was having a boy. My dad and friend, Ricki thought Smudge was a girl. Chad and I went back and forth. We knew that we had a slight preference for a girl (no real reason why) but thought it might be a boy. In fact, we were much more settled on a name for a boy and had been looking a bit more at boys' clothing and such. However, the day of the ultrasound, I really just thought we might be having a girl. And....we are! In addition to finding out we were having a girl, it was just so nice to have such a long ultrasound. Smudge was super active but we were able to get some great pictures!