The Twin Cities and An Important Announcement

It has been nearly a full year since Sarah and I have seen our close friends from college.  We last seen the Danley's over the holiday season last year and same for the Mork's.  However, Sarah did see the Mork's over the summer for their son's birthday party.  But I was unable to be there due to my work schedule.  So for the most part, it has been nearly a year since we have spent any quality amount of time with either the Mork's or Danley's.  A lot has changed since then.  The Danley's have had their first child and the Mork's have added another son to their family.  I feel guilty, because the only reason Sarah and I never made the trip to the Twin Cities to visit their new additions was because of my unwillingness to sacrifice training time from my Ironman training.

With the Ironman well behind us now, this was the soonest we were able to make the nearly 5 hour trip to the greater St. Paul area and visit our friends.  Sarah and I have known both the Mork's and Danely's since our Sophomore year of college.  I actually met Erik Mork my freshman year of college when I attempted (foolishly) to play football at UW-La Crosse.  I won't go into too much detail in regards to how Dave and I met, but let's just say it involved me wearing nothing but a cowboy hat - nothing like a first impression, right?!  Sarah, knew Dana since Sarah's sophomore year of college when she was neighbors with her in their dorm hall.  Liz was a late comer to the group, but ultimately started dating Dave our senior year of college, but immediately fit right in.  One thing ultimately led to another and before you knew it Erik and Dana were married and the same with Dave and Liz and we were all grown up and moving on in life.  Erik and Dana moved down south to Georgia and Dave and Liz returned to Dave's home town near Minneapolis and Sarah and I returned home in the Fox Cities.  Since graduating college the 6 of us have remained very close friends and have been through a lot.  It's crazy to think of where we have all been together, starting as friends in college and now seeing each of us starting our own families together.

Sarah and I left for the Twin Cities on Friday after Sarah's first ultra sound appointment (more to come on that later).  We packed up the girls and were on the road around 10:30am.  The ride there was uneventful, which is always a good thing when you are traveling with a 2 and 4 year old.  After getting to Dave and Liz's place around 3:30, we got all caught up and made plans for dinner.  Saturday was a wet and dreary day, and Erik was stuck at work (a Fire Fighter for St. Paul FD).  We decided to visit Erik's fire station so the kids and see the trucks and such.  The fire station was a true "old school" fire station, complete with multiple fire poles, old hay stalls (for the horses), and many old fire rescue "tools" hanging up as antique decorations (one was an old catch net, used to catch people off of tall buildings). Even though I was expecting to see multiple fire fighters sitting around cooking, sleeping, or watching TV (joking :) ), I thought the fire station was actually pretty cool - and this is coming from a cop ;)  Plus the kids thought it was neat.  After the visit to the station, we were originally planning on going to the St. Paul Children's Museum, but it was getting late, so we brought the kids to the Mall of America to grab a late lunch and take the kids to the Lego Land Display and Amusement Park area.

Before we knew it, the weekend was over.  Although we don't get together nearly as often as any of us would like, we say the same thing every time we do get together - that no matter how long it has been since we have last seen each other, it's like we have never been apart.  The Mork's and Danley's are truly some of our closest friends and we always will be close friends, but the truth is we all have followed our lives to different parts of the Midwest.  I am thankful for the fact that we are only a 5 hour drive away, compared to being separated by the entire country as we were a couple years ago when the Danley's were in Las Vegas and the Mork's were near Atlanta.  Now, with the Danley's and Mork's both in the Twin Cities and us in Eastern Wisconsin, it should be much easier for us to get together on a more regular basis.  Having close friends like them is a true blessing.  It's real special to see all of our children interact with each other as well.

The sealed envelope...

After returning home Sunday, we had made dinner plans with both Sarah's family and my family for an important announcement.  See, on Friday, at Sarah's ultra sound appointment we made the last minute decision to find out the sex of our child.  We have not done this with either of our two previous children, but figured we would find out with #3.  We asked the ultra sound tech to not tell us verbally, but rather, write it on a piece of paper and put it into an envelope for us to reveal to our extended families all at the same time.  All weekend, I was working with Maya to learn to read "Boy" and "Girl."  Our plan was to go out to dinner on Sunday night and have Maya open the envelope and tell everyone what Baby Kohl #3 would be.  We were all pretty excited.  Was it going to be a boy and give me my son, or would it be girl number three and keep me as the lone man of the household?  Maya stood up on a chair and opened the envelope and announced to everyone that we would be having......ANOTHER GIRL!

Honestly, I am A-OK with having another girl.  Yes, I wanted my son.  I wanted another guy on my team, but at least this way, we will not have to overhaul all of our baby supplies, and all I know is baby girls, dolls, princesses, and pink and purple.  Ultimately, all I care is that the baby is healthy.  Yes, its cliche to say, but its the truth, ask any parent.  I love my daughters to death and would never ask for them to be a boy.  I know that baby #3 will be the same.  I am getting more and more excited to watch us bring yet another life into this world and teach it all the things that we love to do.  I can't wait to watch all of my kids grow up and hopefully find great friends and build relationships with other great kids.  Hopefully they will find friends as great as the ones Sarah and I are fortunate to have in our lives...