Countdown to Ultrasound

I am so excited to know what we are having! Now I finally know when we will find out! I will be having an ultrasound on January 14. We have decided to tell our friends and family what we will be having, but we will be keeping his or her name a secret until he or she comes. I am open to suggestions though...although so far everyone just wants me to name the baby after themselves (this can get tricky - I don't want a boy named Kristin or a girl named Roy). Merry Christmas to all!

Cravings

I thought that I would make a list of foods that I have had cravings for:

Captain Sundae Sand Dune
blueberry waffles
Jello Pudding Pops
hot chocolate
Mike & Ikes

and the thing that I have had the most cravings for...

macaroni & cheese

Apparently this kid is going to love macaroni! :)

HC State Football Championship Game

We went with a large number of Holland Christian fans to watch the Maroons play against Detroit Country Day in the State Championship game this past Friday night.

We spent most of the game with Jer's brother Rod, and nephew Luke:

And our sister-in-law Kerri

I got to annoy her with my wealth of football knowledge (and make stuff up if I wasn't sure...)

The final score was HC 35, DCD 20.

We all traveled by bus to the game...somehow I did not get a picture of Jenna all night, but she and Shane came along too, but abandoned the adults for their friends.

Somehow I am always the one leaning in and too close in these pictures...oh well :)

It was a fun time. I am glad we went...and who knows when a Holland team will go back to a State championship game?

Pregnancy Week 12

I am feeling much better lately. I think I am getting over the 1st trimester hump pretty soon and will be feeling even better - or so the books say. Week 11 had a bit of a scare, we thought we might lose the baby because I had some bleeding, but everything is ok now. We heard the heartbeat and everything seems to be on track. I have an appointment tomorrow morning and Jeremy is coming along for this one to hear the heartbeat too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pregnancy Week 9

Well, I am currently 9 weeks pregnant. I have not had to vomit yet, and am quite happy about that feat. I have been queasy/nauseas for the last 3-4 weeks with it getting progressively more often. The last 3 days I have been pretty much feeling ill all day long. It makes it tougher to concentrate at work, and since I already have pregnancy brain (if you did not know, you have a much harder time keeping a train of thought, and just do absent-minded things more often while you are pregnant), I am screwing things up much more often than my usually anal self would ever allow.
I just know that the end result will be worth it :)

First Baby Picture

Ok, I did not think that I was one of those people. One of those people who proudly displayed their ultrasound picture, even though it is just a blob. Apparently I am one of those people. I can't believe there is a little person growing in my belly! And now I have photographic proof! So, yeah, I am showing the world my ultrasound blob baby :) He or she is the small grape-looking thing in the middle.

Big News

I am happy to announce that I am pregnant! I am due June 1. Today I got to see an ultrasound image of the baby and even though it is just a blob yet, it was really cool to see!

da UP Vacation Recap

I keep meaning to do a vacation post, but I have not gotten a chance to do it until now.

Our first stop in the UP was in Munising, near Pictured Rocks. Jer thought he saw a mountain goat on this hill, but it turned out to be a large white dog...too bad!



This is Miner's Castle.


In the background is Grand Island, in Munising Bay.We took a hike near Miner's Castle to see Miner's Falls. This was the view on the way.

Here we are, checking out the falls:

We went on an accidental boat tour of Pictured Rocks - we thought we were going to take a glass-bottom shipwreck tour. It was still beautiful! :)



Hanging out with the cap'n.

We stayed in Newberry one night - which is the Moose capital of Michigan, but this is the only one we saw.


After looking for Moose in Newberry, we went to Tahquamenon Falls, below are the Upper Falls. We started to hike the trail to the Lower Falls, but it was 8 miles round trip, so we did a couple miles and turned around, then drove to the Lower Falls.

Here are the Lower Falls. The boats were no longer running, so this is as close as we got to them.

After Tahquamenon Falls, we went to Whitefish Point and the Soo Locks, then stayed in St. Ignace for the night. Thankfully we made it back to civilization because our car decided it was time to break a pulley and so that the serpentine belt could fall off. We were able to get the car to a service station and still take the ferry to Mackinac Island for the day. Except for being worried about the car, and really cold, we had a good time at the Island. Below is a view of the Mackinac Bridge from the Arnold Ferry.

This is the famous Arch Rock.

All in all, it was a fun vacation, despite the lack of planning and car mishap! :)

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This post had ended just above here, but my husband reminded me that we were done at Mackinac Island on Tuesday, and did not finish our trip until Friday, so I may have missed some of the details. I think that he is right, so I will add on to the end of this post. :) So, part of the car mishap story is that in fixing the pulley that broke, they managed to break the power steering fluid reservoir, and were unable to find a replacement part, so they GLUED it back together. You read that right. Glue was holding part of our car together. We considered ending our trip then and there, but there was a non-refundable hotel reservation for Thursday and we were too cheap to pay without staying. So we decided to drive through Petoskey and Charlevoix on our way to Traverse City. Unfortunately, it was raining, and we were crabby from having the car issue, so we had lunch in Petoskey and then kept driving, but instead of continuing on US 31, we managed to get on US 131. We still wanted to go to Charlevoix, so we had to cut over on some smaller roads. We passed through Boyne City and stopped in downtown Charlevoix and shopped for a while as it drizzled. After we got as far away from the car as possible, it started to rain harder, so we quickly got back on the road after getting a bit wet. We drove through Traverse City, trying to decide what we would want to do the next day and figuring out where to stay that night. After we found a hotel, we went to the Mall and out for dinner, then back to the hotel to watch the ALCS, unfortunately, our Red Sox did not ultimately pull out a victory. The next day we shopped at the outlet mall and downtown Traverse. We ate dinner at a brewery. The next morning we got on the road right away so that we could pick up Molly during their morning office hours instead of at 6PM, since we wanted to go to the HC football game that night. Poor Molly picked up pink eye at the kennel and had to go to the vet and take eye drops for a week, so I don't think she enjoyed the vacation as much as we did.

Vacation

I am getting excited to go on vacation. We have not planned this one out very well ahead of time. We know which cities we are going to and have a few hotels booked, but that is about it. We do not have tours planned or even things to do in some of the cities we will be visiting. We will see if the "fly by the seat of your pants" vacation is good for us or not. We are usually such planners, but neither of us really took the initiative this time. I think it was probably supposed to me my job since I chose going to the UP and Mackinac Island as our vacation this year, but for some reason every time I sat down and googled the places we were going I always figured I would do more planning later. And now our vacation begins in two days, and the planning never got done! I also know that we are cutting it a bit close on the end of tourist season up there. One of the times that I was thinking about planning, I decided I wanted to go on a glass bottom boat tour near Pictured Rocks, but found out their last tour is the day before we arrive. So hopefully we can still have a good time up there!

It snot fun

I hate being sick. I have a cold right now and I can hardly breathe. My throat is sore, my nose is stuffed, my head is aching. Yuck. Just thought I'd share :)

Every Young Boy's Dream

We went to Shipshewana with Jer's parents today - they needed to get some church mints.

You read that right. I think that was just an excuse, they really love to go and visit the Amish and soak up the countryside and see the "horse doughnuts" littering the sides of the road.

We started the day with breakfast with Aunt Sue, mom & dad, Ken & Sue, Lindsey, and Drew at Russ' Southtown (a summer holiday tradition in the their family). Then we let the dog out for one last potty break and headed South. We started our Shipshewana adventure at - where else? - the flea market. Mom wanted to find a blanket for Drew for Christmas and some purses for the granddaughters. Jer and I wandered on our own but did not find anything to buy despite trying on a bunch of designer imposter sunglasses and looking at fake designer purses.

Then we were on to lunch at the Daily Bread diner on top of the Davis Mercantile building. I tried a grilled PB&J sandwich and it was pretty good. Mom ate a "crouton" off from dad's chicken salad and thought it tasted a lot like meat :)

Then we went to E & S Sales for the aforementioned church mints and we got some apples. Then we went for a drive through the countryside and actually saw a horse pulling a buggy pulling a boat. We think they were going fishing on an inland lake, but it was just really funny to see. We also saw some miniature horses and lots of clothes hanging on the line. Mom was amazed that they even hung their underwear on the line for us to gawk at :) Lastly we stopped for some ice cream on the way home.

Red Sox Game!

We finally made it to a live game! On Sunday we drove to Chicago to see the Red Sox play the White Sox. It was a fun time, too bad Boston lost! Our seats were in the upper deck, but we were right behind home plate, so we had a great view!

We could even see into the dugout sort of - here is a picture of Crisp, Youkilis, and Ortiz:

Here is Jer's favorite player up to bat - Jacoby Ellsbury:

And here is my favorite player up to bat - Dustin Pedroia:

All in all we had a great time!

We even had a great view of Chicago's skyline as we left the ballpark:

Our Little Escape Artist

Molly's "escape"ades:
At our old house, we tied her out on a stake that screws into the ground. She loved running in circles. Eventually the rope part would get stuck and her circular jogs would unscrew the stake and she would be free to roam with a 20 foot tie out trailing behind her. We found her stuck in a neighbor's bushes that morning. Another time, the hook part of the tie out failed and she was loose without any rope trailing her to get her stuck. We found her a couple of blocks away barking a squirrel up a tree. Another time she was so excited by a dog walking by that she shattered the plastic clip that held her collar together and chased it down the street. Luckily our neighbor saw it happen and talked her into following her back to our house...we could have lost her for good that time - she was not even wearing a collar since she broke it! Last night a neighbor rang our doorbell and returned our dog with half of her tie out - she had broken it in half! So now I need to go out and buy a new super-duty tie out after work...we will see how long it takes before she is off again.

Why I hate self-checkouts

Last week when I was getting groceries, I decided to use the self-checkout because there was no one in that line, and the cashier lines had at least one person waiting in each line. I have already had bad experiences with the self-checkout machines in the past, but I decided to go for it. It started out really well - a lady started bagging my groceries for me in my reusable bags (this is one thing that is easy for me to do for the environment). I then had to get her attention for my coupons. I thought I would need her clearance, because I am pretty sure I did the last time I used one of these new fangled contraptions, but she assured me in a superior tone that I could do it myself...except my third coupon did require her services. By this time there is a woman waiting behind me and the lady left my groceries 1/3 bagged. I quickly paid, carefully selecting my payment method of debit card, using the separate card pad, and then I grabbed my receipt. I then hurried to shove all of my groceries into my bags so the next lady could start processing her order. She gave me a smile and I left. After I got home, I started to put away all of my purchases, and Jer was writing the amount in the checkbook and yelled to me from the other room, "Why did you get $100 cash back?" So I ran back to look at the receipt and sure enough it said $100 cash back. Well, I didn't get any cash back...maybe that was why the woman smiled at me?!?!? Jer said I needed to go back to the store and see if they could do anything about it. I didn't really think they would do anything, but I figured that it would be worth it to at least try for $100. So I ran back and got into my car and started driving back to Family Fare. As I was on my way, I looked a little bit better at the receipt, and noticed that I had not bought the items that were on it...and the total was different from what I remembered...and it dawned on me that it was the previous customer's receipt, not mine. I did not accidentally hit the cash back button. So I sighed in relief and drove around the block...and vowed never to use the self-checkout again. Although I was tempted tonight when the lines for the cashiers were going into the food aisles.

Grand Haven Coast Guard 10k

Well, it went really well! We both met our goals time-wise and running-wise. We both wanted to do it without walking, and succeeded. Jer's time goal was 55 minutes, and he finished with a time of 52:27. I wanted to be just over an hour, and I finished in 1:00:54. Jer is already talking about the next race, but I am ready for a little break. We are at least taking this week off, we will see if he can convince me to do another 10k this summer/fall.

Running

About a year ago our friends Dan and Misti got Jer and I to run a 5k with them in Grandville for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. And wouldn't you know it we got hooked! A friend of mine called training the thrill of anticipation for the races...I don't know if I am THAT into it, but it has been a great way to get into and stay in shape. Tomorrow, for Jer's 30th birthday, we are going to be running the 10k in Grand Haven at the Coast Guard Festival...that is 6.2 miles! I can hardly believe I signed up for that...training was a lot of work, and I am looking forward to a break after the race :) I don't think that I would want to mark my birthday with a long race like this :)

Home Improvement Before & Afters

Here are some of the projects before & after shots since we bought our current house last year.

The office
BEFORE:AFTER:
The empty bedroom:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
The bathroom/laundry room:
BEFORE:


AFTER:Master bedroom/bathroom:
BEFORE:

AFTER:

Joining the Fun

I decided to join the blogging bandwagon. It seems like it is a fun thing to do. I hadn't done it before because I figured that we led pretty boring lives, but that just means I don't have to post as often :)