On Saturday, May 26, we (the whole Shaffer clan) got to meet someone that we had quite literally been waiting for more than 9 months to meet.
Then we finally got to meet her and see the new mommy. It was great, seeing David & Erica and their new baby girl, Junia Charlotte. She was born at 12:15PM, weighing in at 8lbs 14.25oz (a lot of energy on that .25 oz's....) Needless to say, they were very taken with her and deservedly so. Both girls got to hold the baby, as did Kristie. And we took a bunch of pictures and had a few laughs.
Sometime early that morning, Allie received a text from Erica that she was going to the hospital and it was baby time. She later received a voicemail from David saying it was a girl and that they would love for us to come and visit. Kristie and I were a little hesitant to immediately jump in the car...they're dear friends, but we were pretty sure they were just being nice and that we'd visit when the time was right. So we headed out to Brian & Jeff's graduation party and I got a call from David and he repeated the invite. At that point I knew that we should get on over there...because they were going out of their way to invite us. And that was an honor to be sure.
So when there was a natural ebb in the party, we collected the girls and made an obligatory stop at Baby Gap. Luckily Kristie is good at this stuff because she informed me how uncool it would've been to show up empty handed. So we bought the little girl (still didn't know her name at this 
point) a couple of nifty little shirts, some socks and a little teddy bear (the girls lobbied for the last item...).
point) a couple of nifty little shirts, some socks and a little teddy bear (the girls lobbied for the last item...).We bopped over to Littleton Porter, commenting on how different it looked. Kristie and I remembered it from about 17 years ago when Kelly was born. We snuck our way into the baby section of the hospital (I know there's some "official" term for that...but I never remember that junk). Due to security, we had to buzz to get into the floor. They told us to wait and we did. And we waited. And waited. So when somebody left, we quickly jumped through the open doors and looked around. We were here for good so we felt that committing such a "crime" was warranted (really good parenting skills here...)
We found Erica's room and her nurse was just stepping out...she gave us the "what are you doing here?" look...apparently she was the one that we had been talking to. She nicely informed us 
that the baby was going to do a little bit of eating and her mommy needed some private time. I guess since the baby was about 6 hours old we could allow them that. We then spotted David down the hall and went a sat with him. Looking a little disheveled and a little tired, he was in great spirits. We waited for a while and had the pleasure of meeting Erica's dad, Robert Lewis. I had met her mom a while back during Butterfly and she was there too, but being a new 1st time grandma, she was in the room doing the "mom" thing. They had hopped in the car and driven to the hospital when they heard that Erica was in labor. A nice touch since they live in Davenport, Iowa and did the trip across Iowa and Nebraska in the middle of the night. But they made it there for the birth and I know that having her parents there was a comfort for both David and Erica. I also took an immediately liking to the guy since we conspired to put the babies picture and vital stats on the front page of the School's web site...a move that later got me in "trouble", and I suppose I knew I would, but I didn't care really.
that the baby was going to do a little bit of eating and her mommy needed some private time. I guess since the baby was about 6 hours old we could allow them that. We then spotted David down the hall and went a sat with him. Looking a little disheveled and a little tired, he was in great spirits. We waited for a while and had the pleasure of meeting Erica's dad, Robert Lewis. I had met her mom a while back during Butterfly and she was there too, but being a new 1st time grandma, she was in the room doing the "mom" thing. They had hopped in the car and driven to the hospital when they heard that Erica was in labor. A nice touch since they live in Davenport, Iowa and did the trip across Iowa and Nebraska in the middle of the night. But they made it there for the birth and I know that having her parents there was a comfort for both David and Erica. I also took an immediately liking to the guy since we conspired to put the babies picture and vital stats on the front page of the School's web site...a move that later got me in "trouble", and I suppose I knew I would, but I didn't care really.Then we finally got to meet her and see the new mommy. It was great, seeing David & Erica and their new baby girl, Junia Charlotte. She was born at 12:15PM, weighing in at 8lbs 14.25oz (a lot of energy on that .25 oz's....) Needless to say, they were very taken with her and deservedly so. Both girls got to hold the baby, as did Kristie. And we took a bunch of pictures and had a few laughs.And all four of us were honored to be included in such an important event. And we were glad we got to meet her...finally.