the 1st shower: Mike's thoughts

Couple quick thoughts on the first baby shower in Iowa this weekend:

1) It was a great time! We got some great, useful things for little guy, and got to see pretty much the entire Campbell clan (plus surrogates) -- except Bob and Lindsey (doh!). There were, of course, lots of family pictures, lots of barbecued meat, and lots of Campbell-ing (I'm not quite sure what that is, but it happens when the Campbells get together, that's for sure. Usually it involves singing Christmas carols and taking pictures of people's butts, but these seem to have mostly slipped by during this August get-together).
2) Still a large reluctance for Campbell men to participate in a baby shower (the realm of women, right?). Big shout out to Will-i-am Campbell, and Grandpa-to-be John, for both breaking the barrier and joining us to open gifts with the ladies. And Wil's card to me even brought to light another gender stereotype, because he COULD NOT find a baby shower card addressed to a man/dad (so he made a note of that on a non-gender-specific card) -- another travesty easy to let slide, but very interesting to notice. Thanks for being aware of these issues, Wil!

3) While Bryna and I are so thrilled to be getting such nice things from family and friends, we're still learning so much about what we are going to need to prepare for the arrival of the pumpkin baby. We made plenty of faces while opening gifts that probably looked something like "oh, thanks, this is GREAT . . . wait, what do we do with it?" Yet I'm positive Grandpa-to-be John made this face many more times than we did.
4) Even for someone who has been to Iowa in the summer countless times, I still think that Iowa is beautiful. The weather was amazing for this trip, and the light was really nice as we all finished our dinner, watched the kids (mostly Scott and Joel) play wiffle-ball homerun derby, and took family pictures.

Overall, excellent first shower! Thanks Campbell clan and Iowa!