Iverson Year in Review

Welcome to many of you at our blog for the first time prompted to come to this site by that adorable Iverson Christmas postcard which recently arrived in your mailbox. I promised a full year in review and you'll get it. Feel free after you are done to roam around our blog, check out past months posts for snapshots from our year. And there are always the lovely "how big is Katie's stomach now?" pictures as I document my pregnancy.

So I guess we will this year start with the youngest member of the family. Baby Iverson is due on April 20th. Today we found that baby is a boy! That is thrilling news #1. Thrilling news #2 is that we are finally cleaning out our junk/bonus room for baby and actually sorting through years of stuff we have collected. Nothing like a new family member coming home to promote a little cleaning; I think the appropriate term is nesting. Bill can hardly believe he is starting over having a baby when his kids are 12 and 14. The only emotion he can share when asked about it, "I tired" he'll say. I can't really believe I am someone's mom. The bigger my belly gets, the more real it becomes. Feel free to check back to the blog for more belly pics and then finally baby pictures.

Nile turned 12 in June. He is in the 7th grade. He continues to be the consummate athlete playing soccer, baseball, football and basketball. He joined a private more elite soccer club this fall and his skills have really improved. He enjoys all sports and likes being active. Contrary to what I thought two years ago, he continues to play the trumpet and really likes that as well. He has made the transition from elementary to junior high smoothly academically and advanced two years in math. Some of Gabby's friends are in his math class which I think drives her a bit crazy which, of course, makes him delighted.

Gabby is now 14 and a freshman in high school. She will say "school is school", however, she is doing really well and enjoying herself socially. She had her first formal dance this fall which was kind a dud because of her date which is a long complicated story with all the drama of a 14 year old so I won't go into it. She looked beautiful beyond her years and it will be a funny story to tell years from now as all our high school dance stories have become. She ran cross country this fall but was injured for about 1/2 of the season. She has decided against track in the spring in lieu of soccer which she has never really played. We'll see how that goes. Unlike her brother, Gabby is not competitive in sports and really just wants to be on the team and hang out with her friends.

Next comes me, oh yeah I'm knocked up and getting fatter by the hour :-) But enough of that. Here is some non pregnancy news. I continue to work at the Emergency Room which I really like. My 12 hour shifts are long, but 4 days off are heavenly. I will continue to work after my maternity leave and we hope Bill can stay home 1-2 days with baby and we'll have child care in home for the other day I'll work (hopefully). I had just started running last year when I wrote the Christmas letter and have gotten in some semblance of good shape. Bill and I have run a bunch of 5Ks throughout the year. He is way faster than I am but we have enjoyed the time together going to and from these small town races on Saturday mornings. I even won two medals. They say I can run pregnant as long as I want as long as I don't get too overheated or tired. I have been trying to run a few days a week and now I'm indoors due to potential icy sidewalks because I'm a lopsided fall risk. I did also start swimming with a friend of mine a few weeks ago and that is a great workout and so much easier on my expanding body.

Bill continues his work; not much change from last year. He is still the director of the first semester medical school class and runs the outpatient resident clinic at the VA. This summer a medical professor from Cambridge University came over to have a week workshop on teaching communication skills which is done very differently in British medical schools. This concept has really jazzed up Bill and he is now spearheading an entire change in how communication skills are taught to Iowa Medical students. We will be going to England the first week of February so Bill can learn more from him and we can have one last vacation before little one arrives. His running has really progressed this year which you can tell by the number of shoes he has gone through as you should replace them every 300-400 miles. His 5k is competitive in his age group and he has racked up the medals and trophies. He even won a whole race in September. He said it was so weird being at the total front of the pack that he didn't know what to do. I said "just run like you're being chased".

Our big family trip was to Tybee Island in Georgia in July. We went with Bill's sister's family; her daughter Megan is 13 and son Drake is 8. My folks also met us in Georgia and it was a really fun relaxing time. This was the height of our running insanity as we willingly got up at 5 am on vacation to run because it was just too hot if you waited even until 6 or 7 am. Plenty of pictures from our vacation in our past blog postings from July.

Bill and I went to Puerto Rico in February and had a nice trip just the two of us. We continue our work in Mexico and had three successful trips this year. We head back for another week on New Year's Eve. I will miss the spring trip due to baby, but will be back for the fall trip. We look forward to having our Mexico Mission trips be part of our new little one's life experience.

It is another good year to be a Hawkeye; let's be honest I say that every year but I really mean it. We have enjoyed watching our football team rise like a phoenix from the ashes. My Aunt Mary and her family purchased the four tickets in front of us and it has been really great going to the home games with them. I don't have any other family close so it is really a blessing. And my Uncle Rob is just a crazy and loud and vocal about the Hawks so he and Bill get along great. We added Michigan State to our "Iverson Big 10 Stadium Tour" this year going to East Lansing to watch the Hawks unfortunately lose in October. We went with our friends, Amy and Brian Boelk, and my folks met us there. We have also tried to go to several other non football events to cheer on our Hawks; we have been to gymnastics, volleyball, field hockey and basketball. We are going to hit wrestling and indoor track this winter and hope to catch baseball and softball in the spring. We have been throwing around Hawkeye names for our baby... we'll see what concoction of crazy Hawkeye devotion we can come up with that is still somewhat normal.

With 2009 right around the corner we have plenty of things to look forward to. Bill will jump the pond for the first time as we go to England in February. Bill and the kids will be going on a cruise just the three of them in March for Spring Break. Initially I was going and my folks were as well but I'll be 36 weeks so Bill is taking just the kids and my folks are coming here in case baby comes early. I think Bill is really looking forward to the time alone with just them before our newest member arrives. Baby is due in April. We will have a fun summer trip with the kids in July. And by then it is almost football season again :-) How quickly everything comes back to the Hawkeyes.

It is amazing how much more verbose than usual I am when I don't have to get the Christmas letter short enough to fit on the paper. Thanks for reading my ramblings of another fun filled Iverson year. I hope this holiday finds you safe and happy and warm. Having you in our life is a blessing. Thanks for your friendship.