My first baby shower

Monday night I hop in the car with a couple friends to meet some other ladies for a "girls' night" while Andy went with his friends for a "guys' night," one last hoo-rah before we move this weekend. We get to one of my favorite restaurants in town (a unique old-style restaurant that used to be used as a brewery) and once inside I discovered that this "girls' night" is actually in fact a baby shower for me! A total surprise, I had no idea. Who typically gets a baby shower at only 13 weeks along? I felt so loved and so honored that they did that for me. My friends said they wanted to do something since I was leaving, they've been praying for this baby almost as much as I have been- so I know they're disappointed not to be able to see it when it arrives and see me get big and pregnant! It was such a blessing and a fun night.

I felt so special. :)

My friends here are great. I am truly going to miss life here and the people most of all. Can't I just pack them up with me and take them along? ;)

Baby Bump 13 weeks!

Garage Moving Sale

I am having a moving sale right now, its the first sale I've ever done by myself. Its a little tricky to attend to the stream of people coming to shop at the sale and try to do necessity things like use the bathroom, or eat. On top of that with being pregnant I get really sick when I get too hungry and I of course make more frequent trips to the bathroom. So much fun.

I'm typically a huge fan of garage/yard/moving sales. Scoring deals on things like kids clothes for instance: people sell things for 25cents, things their kids only wore once or twice and grew out of. I love buying basically brand new things for a fraction of its original cost. Granted, you do have to do some searching and there are a lot of junk thing and sales.

I've put on four garage sales in the last five years. Its a lot of work to put together, organize and price things, but it has always been worth it, walking away with profits of hundreds of dollars for getting rid of things that you never used anyway. I've always gotten good reviews from the garage sales I've participated in, comments like "Oh! This is nice stuff!" or "Wow, you sell really cheap." Or "I need to tell my friend about this sale!" That makes me feel good, not only because I'm getting rid of things and making money but because it appears to be helping and making someone's day because they scored a deal. I know I love it when I score deals- I'm glad I can do that for someone else.

However, this particular sale has been rather exhausting, boring, frustrating and not as pleasant as previous ones. I find myself more and more irritated with some people.

• Like when someone switches tags on your items, taking off the $1 sticker and putting on the 25 cent one from something else. Just ask if I'd take less... don't be dishonest about it.
• Or when someone asks if you'll take less and you say no or counter offer and they get pissed about it and walk off in a huff.
• Or when someone offers you $5 for an item that was $15 and you counter offer and then they turn around and counter that offer with "How about $6?" Umm...if I didn't take $5 why do you think I'd take $6. Seriously.
• Or how about when you total someone's purchase "It'll be $5 please," and they scrounge through their purse trying to come up with the amount and give you $3.50 claiming that's all they have and expect you to say "Okay, that's fine." Whatever, its just stuff, I gave them the deal.
• Or when that very person comes back that same day and buys more things. Hmm, maybe they have a Mary Poppins purse and money just magically appears in random amounts. No, she didn't offer to pay for the stuff I let her take.

Sigh. Don't you just love garage sales. :) Typically I do. But not today. I'm so ready for four o'clock to come.

News and a Story

Okay, first let me explain why I haven't blogged in awhile. My life has taken the turn for some life altering changes, one of which we were trying to keep a secret for awhile and the other because we weren't certain on yet. So every time I wanted to blog it involved either of the two things going on in my life- thus explains my absence.

Now, I'm back.

And I'm pregnant! (if you haven't heard yet)

We've wanted a baby for a long time (that's another whole story) and were surprised and thrilled to finally get a positive test result! I wanted to tell everyone right away but we really wanted to tell our families in person so we waited five long weeks for our scheduled trip back home and it was worth the wait to see everyones faces! So now that they know, everyone gets to know!

The other big news.... we're moving! My husband got promoted to run an office in Minnesota - which of course he is very excited about - they actually created the job for him so we were both completely blown away and thrilled. We always intended to move back to MN but didn't think everything would happen so suddenly and fall into place like it has. We are excited, though nervous, and I'm especially nervous because we're moving in less than three weeks! We just found out that they want him there earlier than we expected (we thought we'd have six weeks or so) but nope...only three! I'm slightly freaking out about everything that needs to get done in this short amount of time. This week especially is so incredibly busy I can hardly think. I'm consciously trying not to get stressed and to take it easy, and I keep telling myself that it's okay if not everything gets done. :)

So because of all this talk about moving I debated whether or not to go to the doctor/midwive here or wait until we move. When I first found out I was pregnant there was a possibility of us moving so I wanted to wait until it was more definite before I made a decision about going in. Mainly because I'm not on insurance and I'd have to go through the hassle of getting on state insurance just for one doctors visit only to move and try to get on insurance again. So I called up the hospital here and talked to a nurse and asked her if she could give me an honest opinion, I told her my situation and she said that if it were her she'd wait to see the doctor/midwife until she moved. If I was high risk or used some method to get pregnant I would've gone in in a heartbeat, but since I'm not and we didn't, we both felt comfortable waiting.

Don't yell at me. :) I know some would frown on that decision. But I feel comfortable about it and think I'm knowledgeable enough on prenatal care to be safe.

So I was talking to my boss yesterday about all of this (I work for a couple that are in the medical profession) and she didn't disagree with my decision, instead she made a startling offer and I was crossing my fingers in hopes that it would work out. She suggested that since she was supervisor that night at the hospital she could "sneak" me in and use the doppler on me to hear the heartbeat - though we weren't sure if we'd actually hear it since I'm only twelve weeks along. But I hoped!

I got the call that we could come in and try just as I was getting ready to go to bed (okay, it was only nine, but I had to get up at 4:45 this morning so I was trying to call it an early night.) We get there and a nurse pulls out the doppler and tries to search for the heartbeat, she told me if we couldn't find it not to worry, it didn't mean something was wrong it could just simply be too early to hear it. She rubbed that thing all over my tummy and my heart sunk when I realized we weren't finding anything. Then all of the sudden you could hear its speedy little heart racing its beat - it was amazing! Of course I knew and believed I was pregnant this whole time, but actually hearing your baby inside makes it so much more real! The nurse turned off the doppler and said, "Okay, now that I've heard that lets do an ultrasound." Andy almost freaked, just on the way in he said that it would be awesome if we could get an ultrasound done. I told him that it wasn't going to happen, my boss was pulling enough strings for me just to hear the heartbeat. So to our utter surprise when she announced that and pulls in this old ultrasound machine it was like Christmas morning! Seeing the baby was so amazing, I can't even describe it. There's actually a little life growing inside of me...wow. The baby never stopped moving, it was kicking its legs and arms everywhere and bouncing around. The nurse kept saying "Oh wow, that's a good shot" I guess our little baby was putting on a show for us and making sure we got to see its little arms and legs and freaky alien eyes. :) We got a few pictures, though they're not very good, she said the machine was old and didn't even know if the printer would work. But we got a couple shots nonetheless!

I was blown away. Totally unexpected and very very generous of my employer to do that for us. It was so exciting, not only because we got to see our baby, but because we weren't expecting it at all. I am so thankful to her for doing that for us, free! Wow, I feel truly blessed right now.

Camping

I grew up going camping every year with my family. It was a yearly family tradition and in general I loved it. The only thing I didn't love were the endless hours of fishing. I'm not talking about just a couple of hours on the boat...it was all day event, everyday. We came back to eat and that was about it. I still remember peeing in a bucket and pouring it over the side of the boat. My sisters and I would read through book after book trying to be quiet so as to not scare the fish away while our parents and brothers fished. I never really liked that part much when I was younger. However, as an adult I can honestly say I enjoy every part of camping- except the bugs. I do enjoy fishing now, as long as it's in moderation. I love, love, love being on the lake- especially at sunset and sunrise if I'm ambitious enough to get up early to go fishing with my dad and brothers, (this year I wasn't so ambitious.) I love lounging, relaxing and having no agenda. Campfires is a must, especially with s'mores.

Oh, and let me make one quick note about our family camping: we don't rough it. Sure, some of us sleep in tents, but my parents drive their RV and park it, so we've got a place to store lots of yummy food and supplies. We cook over a grill, not a campfire (even though I love the taste of campfire cooked food) we have pancakes and sausage for breakfast, and enjoy an endless supplies of snacks. We also have bathroom facilities and showers where we camp. Some say that's not true camping, but I choose to differ. I've done both types of camping and yes they are different experience, in my opinion it's all camping just the same!

Here are some pretty pictures I took on the boat:

And these are my adorable nephews. I had so much fun camping with them, they had a blast!

This is fearless Tyvan. He loved playing at the beach and tried to catch the duck that kept hanging around. When I say fearless, I mean fearless. Tyvie's first swimming experience was a face plant into the water- a minute later he was in the water and loving it. He had no fear looking over the edge of the boat- if someone hadn't been holding onto his life jacket at all times he probably would've went for a dip!

This is prince Brendyn with the prince crown I made out of flowers. He loved fishing, we were on the boat for three hours one night and he enjoyed every second of it. Could be because he caught five fish! He caught more than anyone that night. He loved reeling them in but didn't want to touch them.

Andy didn't have too much luck fishing- he was getting so frustrated not catching anything so he decided to use Brendyn's kiddie pole since Brendyn had so much luck. Haha! This makes me laugh. :) He ended up catching a few throughout the whole trip.

All in all, camping was a blast. We went home utterly exhausted. Inconsistent sleep, being outside 24/7 and weather changes from cold to hot definitely wears a person out. I got home, laid in bed just to catch my breath from bringing in luggage and was out within twenty seconds! I'm still recovering. :)