Cross Country

While Matt finished up his last week in the training helicopter, I made my way to Iowa (yes again). We planned to drive up together, but his training went out a week longer than expected, and I had to leave him and the dogs behind :( I flew this time though which was a nice change.

Amber picked me up from the airport and we got to hang out for the good part of a day. You can take a look at her and Ross' blog for our matching bumps.

From there I headed to CF with my parents. There were crazy storms with high speed winds overnight.We didn't lose our power that night, but the next day lightning struck our neighbor's willow tree -- one of the larger branches fell and hit the power lines so we were out of power and at the bottom of the priority list to have it fixed. I didn't take pictures, but I can't believe how many trees / telephone poles were down and how much damage there was around the city! Our plans were to head to a cabin in MN with Joe & Les (plus Conor & Shaq of course) in the morning, so we packed in the dark and made sure all the food was cleared out of our fridge / freezer.

The week up north was relaxing to say the least.


We had lots of time to read and sit around.



We also had a lot of time for some good naps. I can't for the life of me get the above picture oriented right, regardless of how I rotate it prior to posting, but Conor is too cute not to include. It's one of those things where the camera thought it was being smart, but you can never look at it right because it flips 90 degrees when you turn the camera in your hand. Darn technology!



We had lots of snacks while in MN. We thought my mom had gone overboard with everything she brought up with us, but we ate pretty much all of it.



The lake was nice and calm when I took this picture. The weather was great for a couple of days, but then it turned cold, windy, and rainy. I'm glad we got our kayaking in early on. Surprisingly, even though we have all been to / near the Boudary Waters several times, none of us had kayaked before. I love it, and can't wait to do a river float sometime.



I can't believe how fast Conor is growing -- he's getting so strong!


My family coined the most commonly said word on our trip as "ninja." My dad would "ninja snoop" on the other cabins like he owned them, and he'd do a few other things there too that I can leave unmentioned. It worked out to our advantage though because we ended up with the best grill on our side of the lake :) Like his grandpa, Conor did a lot of "ninja peeing" while were in the cabin. I'm not sure who is going to have a stranger affect on Conor -- my dad or my brother. I'd like to claim after my trip back home that I'm a lot more like my mom :) I'm sure it's a good mix of both though...

My dad also did his fair share of entertaining at Rachael & AJ's wedding. I think everyone had a great time.


Look at that pretty bride! What a great day.

Ash and I had a lot of fun getting to spend Rach's big day with her and her family getting ready.

After Sunday morning brunch with awesome burgers and leftover wedding cake, I finally got to spend some time with Matt's mom. I got to see a lot of great ladies at her house during my shower. Everyone was overly generous with gifts. I think the best part was when Ashley asked me questions about our little girl / kids / pregnancy that she had previously asked Matt. It was hilarious -- I couldn't believe how closely we actually matched with our answers :) Thanks to everyone that helped out that day. I really appreciate it!

Now that I'm back home in Alabama, we are catching up with business stuff, baby stuff etc. Yesterday we had our 4D ultrasound which was pretty amazing. It was Matt's first chance to come and see an ultrasound, so I had really been looking forward to it. They recorded the ultrasound (approx. 12 minutes) on VHS, and gave us still shots of what our little girl looks like now. She's estimated to be just under 3 lbs. now.




Some of the pictures are a little distorted, but it's crazy how good of an idea you can get of what she looks like. Her little smirk in the last picture cracks me up. She had a few pouts during the visit too...

Alabama Summer

Last December I blogged about how great it was to avoid Iowa's long cold winters. Now I wouldn't mind getting the nice Iowa summers back. Alabama's summer heat has been a bit over the top for my liking, but we're still enjoying it down here.

Typical days include the dogs' favorite past-time of chasing the big blow-up ball.Chaz looks kind of funny in the above picture, but it captures a few things. First of all, this is his absolute favorite thing to do, so he's pretty well behaved whenever we go out to play. We kick or throw the ball up the big hill and even if he can't get it back down on his own, gravity works to our advantage in keeping the game going with as little effort as possible. Notice the worker in the background -- in any other case Chaz would be going nuts over the "intruder." During this game he is completely oblivious. If you're wondering about Kaeda -- she just runs around and chases Chaz wherever he goes.

My parents came down to visit a week or two ago. We went to the military beach near Destin, FL and ate some really great food. They brought Mac-dog, so our place was pretty wild for a few days.
They look so innocent... don't let them fool you. (except for Mac -- he actually is innocent)

Ft. Rucker had fireworks on the 3rd. Our friends had us over for some excellent burgers before we headed out to see them.


Afterward we got to hang out with Aaron R. who graduated from flight school last fall. He stayed over -- it was great to catch up with him!

Matt & I are starting some baby prep these days. Thanks to our generous neighbors who are done having kids, we're getting hooked up with some of the essentials for free. We've also been keeping our eye out for good deals. One of the recent finds was a baby carrier.It seemed to be pretty sturdy :) Hopefully our little girl likes being in it more than Kaeda did...

Matt thinks some of my "nesting" is somewhat unnecessary. He teasingly said to me the other day, "Now why do all of my clothes need to be jammed into my closet right now so that our unborn daughter can have her own closet for her ONE outfit?" He has a good point... :)

Don't let him fool you either -- he's excited to get the room all ready for the little one. Those of you who know me well won't be surprised by the color choices you can see pictured above. Someday I'll branch out a bit more... I told Matt, in my defense, that it's convenient because our rooms are very complementary -- if we end up having to mix and match things when we move (which is most likely with an Army life ahead) we're just saving ourselves some headaches!

Now, for the glamor shots (right...) Feel free to avert your eyes, but I thought a few of you would enjoy these. This way those of you in Iowa won't be so shocked when you see me in the next couple of weeks!









I guess we got lazy on week 20. You may have also noticed the same gray pants in the majority of the shots. They are the most comfortable thing I own right now, and I default to wearing these most days by 6 or 7 pm. We started weekly photo shoots after Leslie (sister-in-law) got me The Belly Book and showed me her pregnant belly shots. It's kind of fun to see the change. Yesterday the little squirt felt like she was either making popcorn in my belly or grooving out at a party I didn't realize I was invited to. Just 3 months to go -- it's nuts!

We're bummed Matt can't make it back to Iowa to see family/friends and to go to Rach's wedding. He'll be stuck back home taking care of the dogs and the business while I'll be off relaxing at a cabin in MN with my family. He does get to reap the benefits of my recent "meal prep." 6 other ladies (soon to be 7?) and I just started this, and I think it's going to be brilliant. We are going to meet monthly to exchange prepped/frozen meals. Ahead of time we each shop for and cook/prep enough meals for each of our families. My meal this week was honey dijon chicken. It was a bit of a challenge to fit 28 servings of chicken on our 4 burners, but it was well worth the effort. I left tonight with 7 meals for a ridiculously low price that will be easy to make later. Plus, I don't have half-used ingredients that I would normally have thrown away eventually because of not needing them again. Hopefully Matt saves me some -- they looked pretty tasty!