Name block, treadmills, and rattlesnakes...oh my!

• We still don’t have a name for the newest addition to our family…I’m beginning to worry about that.  This child is slightly neglected with our attention focused on other things.  I have yet to take a belly shot, I don’t think I’ve journaled at all about her, and she’s still no name baby girl around our house.  I feel badly, and she’ll be here in just 7 short weeks (give or take, hopefully take…)  But after this post I will be blogging on Blog, Jr. about her, so not all is lost.
• No trips or very exciting things have happened to us since our June (Oregon) and July (Chicago) trips.  Just getting ready for baby, welcoming a new niece to our extended family, trying to stay cool and making sure Maddy enjoys her time in the spotlight before she’s no longer the only child.  Yikes…mother of two…I must admit I do have moments of panic from time to time…I know it can be done, I’m just nervous for the learning curve.
• This past weekend we purchased a treadmill and disposed of a rattlesnake.  All in an Arizona afternoon…  Haha…okay I’ll elaborate...
  
  So Dan went to take the trashcan to the curb for pick up when he noticed something on our doorstep.  Thinking it was a lizard he approached it only to realize it was a snake, coiled up next to our front door mat.  Fortunately for him he had exited the house through the garage or he would have likely stepped on it, or right in striking distance of the slithery thing.  He told me about it and I rolled myself out of bed (I have to roll myself out of many places these days) to check things out, and take pictures to document the adventure.  Sure enough, it was a rattlesnake.  Granted it was a young one, maybe 14 inches long, but creepy nonetheless with its slithery tongue and rattling tail.  Not to mention after some research we think it was a Mohave rattlesnake, which is apparently a lot more poisonous than your standard western rattlesnake.  Double yikes!
  
  With shovel in hand Dan attempted to scoop it up into a bucket.  Not wanting to kill the thing…who can kill something that has real body mass to it?  Gross!  He tried to be gentle, but it soon was in attack mode, striking at the shovel, and began to escape into the rocks.  Letting it get away was NOT an option, so Dan got a little more aggressive with it and eventually got it in the bucket.  Soon enough some neighbors came out to see what exactly we were doing; they were from Michigan and had a camera ready to document their close encounter with real Arizona wildlife.  Then we walked it behind our street of houses where a large empty desert land area remains undeveloped and Dan got down in the ravine/wash area and let it loose under a bush.  All is well now, but we definitely keep our eyes more open even walking in our own yard.
• Back to the treadmill... So I'm excited for this new purchase and hope to really dedicate myself to it once the baby comes.  I have all the motivation right now, I just hope it stays through the exhaustion of having a newborn in the house.  Wish me luck!
• Our next big purchases will be a recliner (since we have no comfortable nursing seating anywhere in the house right now) and a double stroller....oh boy!