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...