Farm Livin

Today Erin and I ventured out in the wild blue yonder (a.k.a. far west Alabama) for some fun on the farm. One of our running buddies and his wife bought a ton of land complete with a house, barn, barn cat, and is only 2 hours from Bham. It was also a great chance to wear our dogs out real good. It wasn't easy getting them in the car, but once we did, it was smooth sailing. 

Beau & Bentley

Mac & Mia

Pretending like they are angels

Red Barn!

View from the barn

One of the reasons we love these people

While Erin and John went for a 4-wheeler ride with all 5 dogs following (they have a dog as well), I chilled and enjoyed the scenery. I assumed 4-wheeling wasnt an acceptable pregnancy activity. 

Guns are acceptable. 

(I didn't shoot it, calm down people)

Dont mess with us.

We successfully wore these dogs out. The car ride home was very quiet. 

Thanks to John and Leslie for such a fun afternoon in the great outdoors. Thanks to Erin for driving to east budda Alabama. 

Tide vs Hogs

This past weekend we headed down to good ole t-town to see the Bama's SEC season opener against the Razorbacks. Last year we met Jordan's family in Arkansas for this same game, so this year Jordan's cousin Andrew and his girlfriend Lindsey flew in from Dallas to visit us. We had a great time showing them around campus, and introducing them to our friends at different tailgates. I was really worried about how I was going to physically make it, but despite getting quite winded getting to our seats, the walking around wasnt that bad. In fact, I think the boys enjoyed the game as much as I did. They were rolling around the whole time. Bryant Denny certainly made a loud impression on them. After the game we headed straight home, scarfed down pizza at my parent's house, and then went home to crash. Long, but very fun day. I doubt I'll be able to make any more games this season because its getting harder and harder to walk around, but I will def be cheering on the Tide just as loud as if I were there.

Baby Shower

(post from my baby blog)

Last weekend my amazing friends and family threw us the most gorgeous baby shower I have ever seen. Also, clearly from these pics you will see we have names!

Graham Bailey Gaston & Hayes Samuel Gaston

(here's hoping those dont change at this point...you never know with us)

Hosts: 

Brenda Hackney 

Olivia Reed

Kimberly Jones

Taylor Burns

Emily Eversull

Erin Hinote

Rebecca Wise

Laura Ellis

Ashley Hulsey

Haley Hazelrig

Also major props go to Jessica Caver for offering to take pics at the shower. See more pics at her blog.

The boys got so much amazing stuff, and all will be so helpful as we jump into this world of baby. And ive discovered that babies need alot of stuff! Especially when you double it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all involved. I cant wait for the boys to meet all the amazing people in our lives!

Maternity Leave Woes

Over the past few weeks I have been researching exactly what my benefits look like once these boys arrive. I work for a Fortune 500 company, so I was expecting some pretty decent benefits. I was sadly mistaken. Not only does my company not have so called "maternity benefits" they also have quite a crap system for non salary employees. Basically, I will be on short term disability from weeks 2-8 of my leave (with a c-section). And then can go on 4 more weeks on FMLA (baby bonding they called it) completely unpaid leave. Also, since I work on a mostly commission basis, the paid portion of my leave (although it is 100% for 6 weeks), is based on my base pay, which is not really an income. So, the system was not designed for non-salary employees. After some research by lawyer husband, we discovered that this level of benefit is the absolute minimum required by the state of Alabama. Interesting...

So, what companies are maternity friendly? Lets look at comparable financial firms*:

Best of them:
-Bank of America (not sure if this includes Merrill Lynch)- 12 weeks 100% pay  (60% of employees are women, fun fact)
-American Express- 10 weeks 100% pay (my company spun off of Amex 6 years ago...I guess their benefits weren't duplicated in the spinoff)
-Citigroup- 13 weeks 100% pay
-FINRA (financial regulatory body)- 13 weeks 100% pay
-Goldman Sachs- 16 weeks 100% pay

Now there are several that have little to no benefits, such as:
-New York Life
-Mass Mutual Financial Group
-Capital One Financial
-Marriott (zero-not a financial firm, but quite a well known brand to have such crap benefits

*All information is from the 2011 benefits survey of Sociey for Human Resources Management members 

Hmm, looks like some companys are on the ball and others are not. From this list, it is overwhelmingly the financial industry that is lagging in benefits. Maybe they arnt use to catering to a female workforce. Regardless, it is wrong and I plan on trying to do my part to help. Currently working on a memo to our CEO. Will keep ya updated. If you see me in the hospital with my laptop, you know why.

The Kids are (not) all Right

This article brings up some pretty interesting questions related to sperm donation and reproduction. Such as:  How many children spawned by one donor is too many? One donor suggested 10, and found out he had 150 children out there. He had to start an excel spreadsheet. How do you monitor and regulate fertility and donation clinics? The whole Octo-mom situation brought this question into the lime light. Although, Id be more worried I would start dating this great guy in college that turned out to be my half brother. As I read more about fertility, infertility, reproduction, and this whole process in general, I become further intrigued by the world of reproduction, however it occurs.

Mac wanted to say hey

Hey Mac. 

Hurricane Tracker

My new favorite website for all things weather. I had to get one of our tech guys (located in West Virginia oddly) to log into my computer to fix some problems today, and he suggested I take a look at it. These guys in the tech department are always interesting cats. A few months back, I talked to one guy who was a (semi) professional ghost hunter in his spare times. We had a very interesting conversation to say the least. Gotta love a good hobby...or obsession.

Btw, I gave the blog a face lift. I was bored with brown.