Dana Downer and Bryan Bummer

This speaks for itself. Enjoy!

If you have not seen the original Debbie Downer, Click Here.





If you are curious how this whole video came about, it all started at the European Street Café, our favorite eatery. I was giving Dana a hard time about her blog writing, stating that she was not a very humorous writer. We then started talking about blog topics and what she would be able to write about.

After eating, I ordered an extra glass of, ahem, dessert, and we got to talking about the funny things people have said about Dana’s pregnancy. Dana caught fire ripping off comment after comment and making the Debbie Downer face. I built on that and we were on our way. We were laughing hysterically in the restaurant.

On our way home, we scribbled down notes about what we had just talked about and used that to film the video. Once home, we did three takes, each one from a different angle. The total film time took 20 minutes. It should have taken only 3-4 minutes, but I couldn’t remember my lines (I only had 3 of them.)

Dana went to work on the video editing which she was really excited about it. She was an A/V dork at school and was pumped to get her hands on a new project. How did I marry her? Whenever I would ask her about the status of the video, I felt obligated to use my Neil Goldman from Family Guy voice.

“So, did you save the script to the S Drive.”

In our own weird way, we thought this was funny and hope you find some humor in it too.

Recent Photos

Here are some recent pictures from the past few weeks.


Week 32


Week 33

Week 34

Oscar using the baby as a pillow


Mom and Dana at the Shrimp Festival


Bryan and Dad at the Shrimp Festival

Bryan and Oscar at the beach


Dana and Oscar at the beach

Babymoon Weekend

Dana and I took a couple of days off and had a ‘babymoon.’ Kind of like a honeymoon, but before the baby arrives. I don’t care what you call it; a 4 day weekend is a 4 day weekend.

Editor's Note:The Wikipedia definition of a babymoon is a period of time that parents spend bonding with a recently-born baby. Our definition is a period of time relaxing before the baby is born.

I wish we had some exciting stories to tell, but we ended up staying around town doing a lot of relaxing. Dana had come up with a list of things for me to do, and I threatened to take us out of town if she was going to make me do it. Also, if I caught her in the baby’s room organizing things (this is what she does… a lot!) I would yank her out of town as well. This weekend was all about relaxation.

I am not very good at relaxing, but I found the off switch very quickly. I even was on good behavior as we went shopping. Dana usually asks me when we go shopping, “How much more good behavior do you have?” I will give her a gauge of how much time (it’s usually in minutes.) Now that she is pregnant, I can ask her the same question about her appetite. When she tells me, ‘I have about 15 minutes before I will get cranky,’ it means ‘you’ve got 5 minutes to find a Dunkin Donuts.’

Oscar got a haircut on Sunday. The only reason I bring this up is because whenever he comes back, he ends up looking just like Falcor from, The Never Ending Story. This look always seems to prompt my pathetic Falcor impression, which, in reality, sounds more like “The Voice” on Seinfeld (“Heellooo! Come ride on meeeee! La, la, la.”)

"Come ride meeee! La, la, la."

Speaking of Oscar, he hovers over the baby like it’s his. I am going to bring him on the Maury Povich show. “The paternity test is in and, Oscar…you are NOT the father.” I don’t have the heart to do that, so he can keep on believing that.

Like I said, not a very eventful weekend.

Baby Shower!

This past weekend was the Baby Shower and it was so much fun! Special thanks to Erika, Rachel and my Mom for putting it on. I could not have asked for a better shower or better friends to share it with.

We held it at Celebration Church in one of the classrooms and had lots of yummy goodies - desserts only! My Mom made her special buttermilk sugar cookies, Erika prepared chocolate fondue and we ordered gourmet cupcakes from Cami Cakes - so good.

Everyone there first offered a word of advice to help me as a new mommy. I think Bryan bribed everyone to say "Take care of Bryan" because a good percentage of people mentioned that. We then played "Measure the Belly" where we passed around a ribbon and everyone had to guess how big my belly is. About 90% of the ribbons were double the size of what my belly actually measures - do I really look that big??? And finally, we played some Baby Trivia. Here are a few scary facts that we learned:

• The average cost of raising a baby in its first year - $7,000


• The number of loads of laundry a mom does in 1 year - 330


• The number of diaper changes in the first two years of a child's life - 7,300

Of course, we wrapped up the shower with opening gifts. The outpouring of love, generosity and thoughtfulness was unbelievable. Bryan and I are still baffled at all of the gifts. Thank you so much - we feel so blessed beyond belief! Here are just a few photos:

Cute stuffed animals!

The Clockwork Markeitng team

So many gifts!
Toys and socks!

Candid group photo

Can't live without a bouncy seat

Mom and me

Baby shower weekend is upon us and we (Dana) are excited. Actually, it will be a great time for me to go golfing with my father-in-law, so we all win. Dana initially wanted me to be a part of the festivities because I came up with some good party ideas. After politely, yet adamantly declining, she wanted me to wear my tuxedo tee shirt and be the valet parking attendant. I was not as polite declining that. (Okay, so I do own a tuxedo tee shirt and I wear it more than a 28 year ever should. Dana got rid of my ‘Danger; toxic gas in rear’ tee shirt a couple of years ago, so I am making progress.)

Trivia night on Wednesday brought us our second victory in a row. Our team, Trivia Newton John, is now a force to be reckoned with. I, however, almost blew the game this week.

The trivia master posts a free answer on MySpace each week and it is my role to remember to look it up. I came through this week and got the answer: ‘reading.’ I explained to Dana beforehand that I did not want to share the answer out of fear that I would ‘narrow her thought process.’ I added that, “I want her to keep an open mind and I will chime in when the proper time comes. I am doing this for your own good.” I repeated this same conversation to both of the other couples on separate occasions and refused to share the answer with anyone. I found a way, as I have a tendency of doing, to say this very obnoxiously.

So, the question comes, “according to a 2007 study, what family past time became more popular than watching television?”

We sat there for a little while and someone mentioned, surfing the Internet. Without a thought, I immediately concurred. It made perfect sense. We thought about it some more and settled on ‘surf the Internet.’ Right before handing in our answer, Mike asked me if this happened to be the free answer. I grabbed the paper, scribbled down ‘reading,’ and was saved from years of disgrace and a long walk home. We got 6 points from that answer and ended up winning by 5. Whew.

The moral of the story: I am an obnoxious idiot. (I can see Dana proof reading this nodding her head in approval.)

After that incident, the group learned about my staged backyard wrestling name, Dan Mysterious, and found out that I frequently attended numerous underground wrestling events in the Grand Rapids area until I was 18 years old. Kevin was intrigued and wanted to know my theme music and finishing move. (Kevin, my brother is sending me the VHS tape. It will be an instant viral sensation.)
Dana, and the other hand, was not so impressed. Her reaction was:

Dana: How old were you when we met?
Bryan: 18.
Dana: So were you doing
this while we were dating?
Bryan: Hmmm. You know, I think I did.
Dana: Yuck. (shuttering and moving as far away from me as possible.)

I could have told her that I made out with the whole cheerleading team* when I was 18 and her body language would have been more endearing. Just 24 hours earlier, I was driving her wild with my total house cleaning maneuvers. That didn’t help me this night.

* Since we are in the middle of a marriage series at church, I did not make out with any cheerleaders.

Thankfully I was still able to sleep in my own bed. After all, we still won.