San Diego Babymoon Day 1

Now that it's almost been a month, I figured I should recap our little "babymoon" vacation. We debated where to go. Ideally, we wanted to go to Hawaii. It's one of our favorite places to visit, it's not that long of a plane ride, and who knows when we'll be able to make it back after the baby is born.

But it was still a little nerve wracking to be so far from home at 26 weeks. Plus we were planning our vacation for spring break and it would have been more expensive to go for a couple of days than it was to go for our honeymoon.

We decided that San Diego was a perfect location for what we wanted to accomplish (relax) and what we wanted to spend (not much).

On the drive down, I asked Brian if we could stop in Temecula for a couple of hours. That's where I went with Alexis and Rachael for my bachelorette party, and I thought Brian would enjoy it there. 

I was right! We had some awesome cheeseburgers for lunch and walked up and down Old Town antique shopping. We found a gift for my brother and some awesome old Golden Books (remember those??) for 69 cents each! Baby has quite the book collection started! Then we were on our way.

It was kind of like coming full circle because our first little vacation together was in San Diego.

San Diego Zoo, April 2010

The last time we were in San Diego, we went to the zoo, Little Italy, some museums... it was awesome, but we wanted to do some different things this time around.

We decided to spend more time in the downtown area- the Gaslamp District. So that's where we stayed! We spent the first two nights at the Gaslamp Plaza Suites Hotel.

Our view

It was an awesome location, right in the middle of the downtown area, within walking distance to all kinds of restaurants and shops.

The hotel itself was a new kind of experience! It's a historical site that was built in 1913 and at 11 stories, it was the city's first skyscraper! It used to be an office building and it was converted into a hotel in the 80s. Each room is a suite with a little kitchen and living area. They served breakfast each morning on the rooftop. It was quaint and unique!

After we checked in that first day, we explored the hotel and then decided to go for a walk around the city. We made our way down past the convention center and over to Seaport Village to explore their shops. 

I got really excited when I spotted a duck and her ducklings. Motherly instinct kicking in?

 

We walked, shopped, and people watched. Some of our favorite things to do!

We walked back towards the hotel and we passed Petco Park, where the Padres play. We had tickets for later in the trip, but it was cool walking around the stadium. It's so much more fan-friendly than Dodger Stadium. (Another reason not to like the Dodgers??)

We started discussing dinner. We were both still pretty full from lunch, but we had noticed a Ghiradelli chocolate shop near our hotel. So we split a chocolate banana sundae. Perfection! By this point, it was past my bedtime after 8:00 and we were tired from walking around all day, so we decided to call it a night. 

We had an early wake up call the next day anyway... Sea World!

To Be Continued...

Week 23

This whole last week has been kind of lame. The weather's been kind of cold and crappy, work was dragging on all week, and Brian had to work a lot of overtime. Kind of the opposite of perfect. All of the down time led me to try something new- attempting to crossover to a self-hosted blog. Turns out it was a little bit more complicated than what I was expecting and my patience was just too short to try to deal with it. And for as much crap as people talk about Blogger, I've really liked it. That's kind of all that really matters. I'm sticking with this for now. Enough of that.

This is what I'm looking like now:

Pretty hefty, huh?

I think the camera may have added those 10 (or 20) pounds though. I mean, obviously I'm getting bigger, but I look like a cow in the 23 week picture. In my own defense I ate a pretty big burger for lunch and I had just downed a cup of almond milk.

Or maybe it was a bad angle.

Or maybe I'm just that effing big now. I don't know... more pictures to come soon though.

On a positive note, I managed to squeeze into my old jeans last night (which I hadn't tried in a couple of weeks, so that's a good thing, I guess).


On another positive note, the baby is definitely getting bigger and stronger. She's kicking a lot more, which is very reassuring. And now, not only can Brian feel her, but we can see her moving! It's nothing too crazy yet, but if I lay down, all of a sudden my stomach will twitch. Right now it just kind of looks like a muscle spasm, but it's neat. :)
Saturday
Brian had to work all day yesterday, so that kind of sucked, but I got to spend some time with my family, so it worked out. My mom and I went to our step class in the morning. I noticed that although my energy level is back up, my dexterity level is down. Like, if I make the wrong move in class (which happens more frequently than I'd like to admit), I can't adjust my body in time to catch up anymore, so I have to stop and figure out where the class is, and then join them again. It's kind of frustrating, but if I concentrate, I think I can manage. Or I could just look like an idiot. Either way.

After class, we went to Joann Fabric to get some quilting supplies so we can finally begin our project. While I was there, I got a canvas to I could make an art project...

A Kevin silhouette for the nursery! I'll post a tutorial tomorrow- it's super easy. And Kevin-approved!

That night after Brian got home, we went over to our friend Rachael's house for some corned beef and cabbage. It was St. Patrick's day, after all! It was nice to get to spend good quality time with our buddies.

Sunday
Today was a good day. We rounded up the moms and went to Buy Buy Baby to start our gift registry! Buy Buy Baby is affiliated with Bed Bath and Beyond and it's basically laid out the exact same way- a huge store filled with baby stuff. We've been in there 4 or 5 times now and each time, I get super overwhelmed. Like, I don't even know where to begin to shop for things.

Brian put up with me pretty well because I was kind of being a jerk. Not to him, but in general. The long week caught up with me, I was exhausted, and being in a huge store and not knowing what's what was making me feel like a pretty inadequate mom-to-be. But the moms were patient with me and Brian calmed me down. So between us, the moms, and a very helpful saleswoman, I think we made some pretty good decisions about what we want to get for the baby. Oh, and we bought a crib, so that was pretty exciting! Things are starting to come together and I'm feeling a lot better. And I got to spend more time with this guy today,

and what could be better than that? :)

Soooo... I'm supposed to be working on my thesis right now. I gave myself a goal for the weekend to finish all of the edits my adviser has given me so far. It's been difficult to focus recently, but I put off finishing my degree last year because of the wedding, and I definitely want to be done with now so I don't have to worry about it once the baby is born. There is so much that I have going on right now- exciting, fun things that I'm actually looking forward to doing, so I decided to do a thesis-writing break to write an exciting-things-post...

Short Term

• A nice, quiet night at home cuddling my boys and watching some Netflix.
• Step class tomorrow morning- I've been feeling pretty good during workouts lately. Definitely not working out as hard as I used to, but I'm feeling pretty good when I consider my new size. (belly is currently having over the lap top, BTW. That would be it to your right!)
• Picking up the guys right after class and heading over to watch my old softball girls play a game. I miss them and I miss watching them play, so it will be nice.
• Date night (I think Friends with Kids- I have high hopes since Bridesmaids!)
• Working on projects with my mom and dad... my mom and I need to get some supplies for our quilt and my dad and I are putting the finishing trim on the bookcase, then sanding, then painting! :)

Trim!

 Long Term

• We're planning a Babymoon... spring break is coming up in 3 weeks, and I'll be about 26 weeks along, so it would be perfect timing because I won't be huge and I'll still feel comfortable walking around. We're planning on going to San Diego. Not too far, but relaxing and fun!

 Which brings me to...

• Spring Break! Who wouldn't look forward to a week of no work?!
• I want to sign up for a short race while I still can. Just because I want to try. Not to PR, obviously. Just to say that I did. I found this one...

 Proceeds go towards victims of abuse (it has nothing to do with cats) and it's like, 20 minutes from my house. win-win.

•  I signed up for two online classes yesterday through mu old community college. They're six weeks long and I'm pretty stoked about them- a photography class based on how to shoot human subjects and a photoshop class. Photography has always been interesting to me. And photographers are so expensive these days, I figure if I learn more about this art, I can take my own portraits of the baby on a regular basis... something like that!
• A possible role change at work, but it's still hush-hush so that's all I'll say for now!
• I'm having a baby, duh!

There's probably more, but those are the big things on my mind lately. Time to get back to work before Brian gets home so I can enjoy more weekend fun-time with him! :)

Have a great weekend!

Passing on my inner nerd...

I always enjoyed reading while I was growing up. My parents have a picture in of me that is still hanging in their hallway from when I was like a year old, fast asleep with a book opened up and resting on my chest. My mom used to continues to tell people that I brought a book to my first Dodger game. Before I got a TV in my room, I used to put myself to sleep with a book every night. I still have my huge collection of Baby Sitters Club books hidden away in a closet, and you know I've read each one at least twice.

Needless to say, I like getting lost in a good book and I believe all the reading I did as a child helped me immensely in school and broadened the range of my imagination. I want my daughter to enjoy reading as much as I do, so like I discussed in my last post, I want to create a reading area in her room from the get-go.

Over the weekend, my dad and I started working on a book case. My dad's pretty awesome- as soon as I told him what I wanted to do, he sprang into action by creating plans and drawing out dimensions of shelves. We went shopping for a bunch of lumber and started construction on Saturday morning.

A couple of hours in, Brian came over and jumped right in to help. Why wasn't he there from the beginning, you ask? It's because he's the best husband ever! He stayed home to vacuum and do dishes while I went to go play with power tools. He's awesome! ♥

But like I said, as soon as he got there, he jumped right in, so this piece of furniture is really going to be a collaboration of love for this little girl! We're still not done yet. We still have some trim to add and then some sanding and painting to do, but it's looking good!

One of the highlights of my week was coming home to one of my first purchases for the baby... books!!!

Sure, they're well beyond the reading comprehension level of a baby-toddler-young child, but they're classic stories (that I want to read/reread myself), so I'm going to start young! I felt kind of silly at first, but I'm looking forward to diving into some of these stories with her. Plus, Brian and I found a bunch of Golden Books (remember those?) and Disney books that we'll read to her too.

I'm so excited for it all! These books are really cool too- leather bound with shimmery pages and even some very pretty illustrations.

Purdy!

And for anyone keeping track, I've moved into my 22nd week, so here's last week's picture:

And compared to the previous weeks':

Starting to get bigger! The cool thing is, aside from the occasional heartburn (which is bad when it hits), I'm feeling pretty darn good. I'm staying awake later, I have more energy, and I'm starting to look pregnant in clothes and not just fat and frumpy. I've been feeling good at the gym each morning and the ladies there have been very sweet and complimentary, which has been making me feel good too. I'm also starting to feel her kick (Jab? Upper cut? Swing a bat? Not sure but she's getting stronger!) and that's been very reassuring. It's been a good week!

More to come soon!

Wicked Awesome

Wicked
Apparently I was the only person on earth (or at least in LA) to have never seen the musical Wicked. Well as of Saturday, that's all changed!

Brian got tickets for me for my birthday- which was October 6th... December 17th was the first available show, tickets were scarce, and he ordered them almost right when they became available. No joke, this show is popular. (No pun intended. Really.)

Well, no wonder! The show is so cute, the characters are adorable, the songs are catchy, and I really like how they incorporate the actual Wizard of Oz story into the plot. Oh, and this will probably make me sound like a total dork, but I loved the set- how the scenery moved and the lighting changed. It actually distracted me a little bit because I was watching the scenes change and thinking about the props more than I was watching the actors. Maybe I missed my calling as a stage hand? Set designer? It was an all-around fun show and it actually had a deeper message than I was expecting. I'd see it again in a heart beat. (No wonder Alexis has seen it like, 86 times. Ok, maybe only 3.)

I only took 2 pictures though...
One outside the theater...

And one inside the theater...

Sorry for the crappy picture quality... I took them with my phone. Maybe Santa will bring me a new camera...


Wickedly Delicious
Soooo this whole pregnancy thing... is silly.

I've never needed to gain weight. That has never been a problem for me. In fact, for most of my life, I have struggled with my weight. Prior to becoming pregnant, I weighed the most I ever have in my entire life. Once I found out I was pregnant, I was concerned about being on the heftier side. You know, things like gestational diabetes and other various complications can occur the higher your BMI is. The average women gains 2-5 pounds in the first trimester, but I've read stories about people that have gained 13 pounds right away because they're "eating for two" now. I was worried that I might face that scenario just because, let's face it, I love to eat. Add in a couple of holidays where you engorge yourself with calories upon calories, I was nervous.

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning. My weight is exactly the same. This is where I am conflicted and feel silly- On one hand I'm glad that I haven't gained weight, but on the other hand, I actually want to start gaining weight. Not just to gain it, that's not my style. But I would love to see this little baby bump start to come in for some reassurance. I don't really feel pregnant yet, and sometimes that scares me just a little. Other than being tired and lacking a period, (and a couple of positive pregnancy tests) I don't really have any symptoms.


Then today, while doing some holiday baking, I had an epiphany. Usually, I am a sucker for anything sweet, especially chocolate. Well while I was knee deep in sugary goodness, I couldn't stand the smell of any of the treats I was working with.

Sugar cookies and fudge? Gross. Wait- what??

I haven't been feeling sick at all. But there has definitely been some changes in my eating habits. First, I can't eat nearly the portions I used to eat. Second, the deliciousness with which I once had no self-control now grosses me out. Like, there has been an opened bag of chocolate chips in my fridge, untouched for a couple of weeks now. That would have been unheard of a couple of months ago.

So that makes me feel better. It still makes me chuckle that I am looking forward to gaining weight though. It's definitely a new way of thinking for me. But there will be a lot of transitions and thing to look forward to in the next 29 weeks!

PS... 29 weeks?!?! Why does that sound so soon??

Kevin goes shopping

I went to step class with my mom this morning and I made it through the whole class and my knee felt fine! It was the first time I haven't had to worry about it in two weeks. It feels good to be back to normal!

After class I got some coffee with the mother and we had a nice, relaxing time. I asked her if she wanted to help me find a costume for Kevin and the pooch parade I want to do next weekend at Howl-O-Ween but she couldn't because her and my dad have to run some errands today. Then I made the mistake of telling her that I made that preliminary thesis appointment. Oh boy. I got the lecture of the century.

"How can you even think about entering your dog in a parade when you need to be writing. You shouldn't be doing anything else for the next two weeks until you get that thesis done. This isn't some high school paper that you can write in one night..."

And so on.
Whoops. I assured her that I will get it done, and that I don't need to be working on it 24/7. Luckily she dropped it, but I don't think that's the last I'll hear.

Anyway, when I got home, I decided Kevin and I should go find him something, so off we went. This dog loves riding in the car. It's actually when he's the most well-behaved.

Into Pet Co we went. Aside from a pooping incident, the shopping excursion went well!

The goods:

Some raw hide bones, balls of all shapes and sizes, a little meat stick that the checker threw in for him (there are perks to being cute, I guess), and a rain coat.
Now, we don't need the rain coat yet- it's cloudless and about 80* today:

But we've talked about it before and as we head into fall, I know this is going to come in handy. Kevin loves being outside and he loves water. Rainy days are not fun for the humans in this house...
Anyway, we practiced playing fetch and Kevin was very pleased with his toys.

And now he looks like this:

That is what success looks like!

Did you notice we didn't get a costume? They didn't have a very big selection. There was a devil costume that would fit him, so I decided to keep it in mind. But then when I came home I started watching Problem Child on Netflix (my brother and I used to watch that movie all the time when we were little) and I was reminded about this little guy:

Devil costume, out. I thought with the new rain coat, he could be the man in the yellow hat and I could be Curious George

See the resemblance?

But how am I going to make a yellow hat? Better yet, would he even were a yellow hat? Probably not.

I have another idea up my sleeve... Let you know if it works!
To be continued...

Mike vs Wood, Rachael vs Fire, Rock Beats Scissors

We went camping this last weekend with some of my favorite people that you may recognize... Rachael (bridesmaid), Human Kevin (best man), Mike (groomsman), and Dog Kevin (whom I wanted to be the ring bearer, but I was out voted). We went up the coast to San Simeon State Park.

Rach waited for Human Kevin to get off of work on Friday, but Bri, Mike, Dog Kevin, and I went up earlier to secure a good spot. We had an extremely full car and Mike was crammed into the backseat with Dog Kevin.

But I kept Mike's mind off of his confined area by yacking his ear off the whole way up. (It was about a 4 hour drive.) And Dog Kevin does really well in the car, but even he was a little freaked out with his own lack of space. He wouldn't lay down and at one point, he even fell asleep sitting up. But the time in the car seemed to pass easily and once we got there, it was all business.

It was a little after 4:00 when we arrived and we went right to work finding a campsite that would fit all 3 of our tents. Once we found the perfect spot, Mike helped us set up our tent, then we helped him with his, and we left a spot for Human Kevin and Rachael in the middle. We were figuring it would be dark- or at least darn close to it- by the time they got there, so we also set up a canopy and rigged a lantern to the top of it. Then we busted out our new camp stove (wedding gift from Mike!) and got to making some carne asada tacos... I wouldn't camp any other way!

So here's the fun thing about the camp stove. On side is a burner (hence, stove) the other side is a grill. You are not supposed to use pots or pans over the grill because it could damage the grill. We should have read that sooner.


It was fine the first night, but when we tried to use the grill side to cook pancakes on in the morning, the grate heated up so much that it melted into itself. FAIL.

We still managed to use it the whole time anyway (just more carefully) and it should be good as new once we order a new grate!

Anyway, once Kevin and Rachael got there, the fun really started. I finally had some extra estrogen around to balance out all of the testosterone  We got the fire raging, popped open a couple of beers, and had a deep conversation about the String Theory... which I intend to do more research on (because one day, I will be able to explain what I was trying to that Friday night)!

Camping nighttime is always a great time. I love the smell of campfire, I love laughing with my friends under the stars, and I love licking melted marshmallow and chocolate off of my dirty camping hands.
*Side story... While Rachael (I love you Rach!) was roasting one of her 'mallows, it accidentally caught on fire. Like Marshmallow fireball from hell. She was kind of like, "Whoa!" and flung her roasting stick. (It's all in the wrist, baby.) Fireball from Hell landed on Rachael's leg. As I watched a ball of fire sitting on my friend's thigh for what felt like forever, a million thoughts rushed through my head. It seemed like everyone was in slow motion. She finally flung it off, but she did suffer some minor burns on her fingers and her pants were ruined. I think we were all in shock.


That was towards the beginning of the first night, but Rachael is a trooper and she shook it off and was able to have fun despite her blisters. :(  While the nights were exciting (we didn't go to bed til 1:00 both nights- that's like, 4 hours past our bedtime!) the days were very relaxing...

Rachael and I mostly just hung out and relaxed. The boys played some cards games and then tried to light things on fire. Their inner 5 year old pyromaniacs came out to play. It took all I could to keep my inner mother from coming out, but I'm pretty sure I may have handed out a couple of lectures here and there. (Sorry guys.)


I gotta say, the only misbehavior I was actually expecting was from Dog Kevin, and he was GREAT!!! I told Brian we should always live outside because he behaved better camping than he does at home. He was so cute and he just chilled out on his blanket for most of the trip! And at night he had his little own area in the tent, although he did come cuddle with us for part of the night on Friday. :)

One of the best parts of our day on Saturday was when the boys attempted to break a large piece of wood that they found into several smaller pieces of wood. We had a little camping axe that Mike tried on it. The wood was so strong that the kickback almost made Mike hit himself in the face. Which wasn't funny at all.

So Kevin decided he would do something about this wood problem...

It was definitely valiant effort, but unfortunately, still not strong enough. Luckily for our boys (who were driving themselves crazy over this log), once the guys across the way were done laughing, they came over with a life-size axe and a wedge and offered these tools for our use.

It still took Mike almost 10 minutes to split this piece of wood. About halfway through, I decided I should probably be documenting this, so I busted out the recorder. The following video is my first attempt at editing a video on iMovie. It's not quite ready for Hollywood yet, but it cracks me up every time I see it...

It was pretty exciting. :)


We had a really fun trip. The next time I'm up there, I would like to explore a little bit more. This trip was really more about relaxing, and that's always nice, but my ADD starts to kick in and there were a lot of antique stores up there... that's all I'm saying. :)


We stopped in Ventura on the way home for some fish 'n chips- always delicious. And that was that! I already miss the smokey smell on my clothes and roasting marshmallows. (Not the flaming ball from hell kind, just the normal ones.) I can't wait for the next adventure! ;-)

30 Day Challenge: Day 8

Short term goals for this month and why...

When I first read this prompt, my initial thought was work out more, duh. But that's more of a long term goal. Then I looked up from my computer and saw this staring back at me:

We have a huge pile of wedding presents still taking up prime real estate in our living room. We've been slowly finding places for our new toys and putting them away, but there is (obviously) some stuff that still needs to find a home. So that is July goal 1.


July goal 2 is to clean up, organize, and clear out the madness that is our guest room:

 This room has a combination of old furniture, about 10 boxes of wedding stuff, our luggage, and some paperwork. Oh yeah, and a Bowflex that we will find and use after our archaeological excavation. We're planning on tackling that this weekend... updates to follow!