Seattle

Remember when I talked about my head being somewhere else lately?  I'm so excited to be able to write about it now.

We're relocating temporarily to Seattle.  For five months.  Leaving in a matter of weeks.  As in, Daniel's leaving in two weeks, and Hollie and I will follow a week or so after that.

Yeah, we first heard of this great opportunity for Daniel's career only a few weeks ago.  We're feeling spontaneous, adventurous...  definitely more excited than stressed at this point (i.e.- it hasn't hit yet).  I'm expecting panic to arrive any minute now.  :)  If at all, really.  You might remember that we relocated about two months before Hollie was born, too...and that was a permanent move!  It's just how we do it.  When I get pregnant again, you can all start putting in your votes for where we go next!

We're so lucky that Daniel's company provides a nice relocation package for this kind of temporary move...flights (for all of us), furnished housing, a rental car, etc.  It would certainly not be possible without that kind of help.  The only part I'm kind of stressing about is finding a new OB.  They all want to see your medical records before they decide how soon they'll be able to get you in, and if they'll see you at all.  Already got the ball rolling on that though, so there's no reason that won't be squared away well before we arrive.

So...now there's forwarding addresses to provide, medical releases to sign, baby clothes and gear to pack up (nesting on a grand scale here!), utility turn-offs to schedule, yard work to hire out, and so on...

Speaking of yard work...

We have a new tree, and I'm proud to say it's doing beautifully!  A Shumard Oak, if you were wondering.

Also, we finally started our garden a few days ago.  Soon we will have onions, carrots and lettuce...we hope our neighbors thoroughly enjoy them while we're 1,800 miles away.  Yeeeeah, we didn't really think that one through, did we?

Today, I saw my OB here in Wichita for my 30 week check-up, and broke the sad news that I won't be delivering here.  He said I'm the second one this week to tell him that!  Everything looks normal and right on schedule.  I will see him again in two weeks...probably the last time.  :(  It figures...just when I find an OB I really like...!

I'm pretty sure baby's lying diagonally.  I'm feeling the kicks on the right side under my ribs, and around my left hip.  So silly.  Big kicks, too...holy moly, this baby's trying to break free!

Two new belly pictures up!  29 weeks and 30 weeks.

Updates might be few and far between for awhile...but you're used to that by now, huh?  I'll do my best.

Crazy dream...

Two, actually.  Pregnancy hormones are great.

I had another dream that the baby's a boy, but I think the idea was already in my head from that other dream.  It was pretty funny...long story short: I found myself going into labor all alone, in an empty room.  I sat down and after about three [painless] pushes, delivered a baby.  My first thought was that Daniel would be so disappointed that he had missed it, so without giving a second thought to my baby I jumped up and ran out.  When I found him, I told him "Guess what, I had the baby!  We have to get to the hospital."  Someone had taken the baby to the hospital, and by the time we got there my whole family was there, too.  My little brother actually brought the baby out to meet us, all swaddled up, and I asked,

"Is it a boy or a girl?!"

"Boy!"

What's his name?"

I can't tell you his answer, because it's actually a name we've talked about using!

Last night was the other really weird one.  Evidently, we were living somewhere that had bears, because I looked out our front window early one morning and saw an enormous bear walking down the street.  It was huge.  I turned to Daniel and said, "Wow, look at that bear!  Hey, we better call animal control or something."  Then I looked out again, and it had started attacking a woman!  Just tossing her around like a toy.  I yelled to Daniel to call 911 and saw that he was already on the phone.  I started putting on a jacket, knowing that it was stupid to try to do anything and I'd probably get killed myself, but I couldn't just stay inside and do nothing.  I ran to the door and stuck my head out, and was surprised to find that the bear had disappeared.  The woman was knocking on her neighbor's door, apparently unhurt, looking around nervously.  Her husband was with her.  These were NOT people I actually know, by the way.  It wasn't even our real street.  Anyways, I'm still almost in tears because I thought I just saw this woman being killed, so I ran over and said, "Get in my house!  Get inside!  Where did it go?  Are you okay?!"  Before she could say anything, this other woman pops up, and she's apparently some kind of bear expert.  She starts going on about how exciting this is, because, she says, that wasn't a normal grizzly.  It was a lehara, a really rare subspecies, or something like that.  Don't bother googling that; it's an entirely hormonal fabrication.  She's going on and on about the differences between it and a grizzly, and I had to interrupt her: "Where. Did. It. GO?!"

At that point I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, and absolutely terrified!  Took forever to get back to sleep.  I've had very few dreams that were as realistic as that one.

Other than that...well, we've been busy!  We bought a new tree for the front yard (the last ones didn't make it) and some damaged (but repairable) sections of fence that we found at a huge discount.  Also working on a veggie garden for the front yard, now that the weather's nice and we're not going below freezing at night anymore.

I turned 24 (yikes!) last week and my dad flew in for my birthday - a complete surprise!...for me (he and Daniel were in cahoots).  It was great.  He arrived not twenty-four hours after Uncle Chris left, so Hollie's adoration went seamlessly from one visitor to the next, and they hit it off immediately.  A trip to the zoo (for a friend's son's birthday, ironically!) and some gyros made it a perfect birthday weekend.  :)

Yesterday was the first day of my third trimester!  I'm feeling some biiiig kicks in there.  This baby's anxious to get out, I think!  New photo is up...  

Can I use the same excuse as last time?

We've been busy?

Daniel has been having a crazy time at work (he had to work this past weekend, and one day earlier this week he worked like eleven hours).

So, if I were to fill you in on life, it would be the little things like...

...Hollie's new fascination with armpits.

...Hollie's unwavering conviction that if her teeth have to get brushed at bedtime, so do Mommy's.

...Hollie chasing the ducks at the park yelling, "Quack-quack-quack!" and doing the sign for "duck" with both hands.

...Hollie moving all of her dinner from her plate to the table, smiling, and signing "all done".

...Hollie bringing me her cup to hold while she drinks out of it.

...Our new hole in the basement ceiling.  The ceiling (which we put up ourselves just a few months ago) was sagging a little, so rather than wait a few years until it's sagging a lot and there's furniture and stuff in there, Daniel decided to just fix it now...by removing a big ol' chunk, installing reinforcements, and putting it back up.

A work in progress

...The new Panda Express, the first in Wichita, will be opening right near our house.  That's one of those places we miss from Arizona.  Bye-bye, healthy eating.  :(

...Hollie's growing vocabulary.  She says doggie really well, and she sometimes calls me Mommy (which came out of the blue...I didn't teach her that!), and also
    shoes - shoosh
    juice - 'oosh
    snack - 'nack
    cheese - random consonant followed by -eesh
No sentences yet.  And she still just babbles a lot.   Even with all the new words she's learning I still only understand about 2% of what she says. 

...Hollie tempting fate and raising Mommy's heart rate by learning to jump on her bed. 

...Mommy-daughter dance parties.

...Hollie laying a diaper out on the floor, sitting on it, and trying to put it on herself.

...Hollie pulling her arm into the sleeve of her long-sleeved shirt and saying "Uh-oh!"

...Hollie locking the bathroom door from the inside.  She wasn't inside herself (thank goodness), which makes it all the more baffling because that door swings inward, so she had to pull it closed from the outside.  Never would have thought she could do that.  Then the next day she does it again with her bedroom door.

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I think there may have been one or two things in there that didn't have to do with her.  That's good, right?

Not to mention, we just got back from a trip to see my family in Phoenix for our ASU homecoming game, and also Halloween!

Daniel and I were in the ASU marching band (that's how we met! Cue: awww), so along with 100 or so other band alums we participated in the pregame show alongside the current band.  Always a good time.  Getting free tickets to the game doesn't hurt either, even if they are nose-bleeds and we're technically "on the clock" and have to play occasionally throughout the game.

Hollie-bear tagged along to the rehearsal...

She's checking out my mellophone (Daniel played trombone).

Also, as I mentioned, Halloween!  Hollie was a ballerina.  It was the only thing we could do without buying anything (even though I ended up buying some ballet shoes) and also because she loves wearing this tutu that she got from Daniel's parents for her birthday (eight-ish months ago?  Can't believe it still fits), so we didn't have to worry about her taking it off.

Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures except these, of her eating dinner and faithful old Duke waiting patiently for the inevitable fistfuls of broccoli to come down at his feet.   

I do have some other great photos that I've taken since we've been back, but this post has gotten too long already, so I'll get those up later.  Hopefully this week.

Happy Friday-eve!

Feeling artsy

So, both of Daniel's parents have come and gone.  We already miss them.
:(
We miss the free babysitting.
Hollie misses Abuelita's lotion - perfect for window painting...

[whatcha think, mama?]

 In unrelated news, we got the mirror installed in our newly-themed maroon and gold bathroom in the basement.  It's not all done yet, but here's a sneak peek...

 [ps - go devils]

Who ya gonna call?

...to install your fiberglass insulation?

The "down low" on the basement

Hahahaa...get it?

Hollie likes to edit Daniel's basement floor plans.
It's going to be her bedroom someday, after all.

We've been making great progress lately!  The electrician has been in to help complete our wiring, and the plumber came (on the same morning...both unexpectedly...mere minutes after getting phone calls from both of them saying that they were on their way...it was crazy) to run water to the bathroom and install the tub/shower.

Between the two of us, Daniel and I have nearly finished framing in the new bedroom closet (moved from one wall to another), new hall closet (which did not previously exist, but does now, as a result of the new bedroom closet location) (are you bored with this yet?), and built-in bathroom cabinet!  Things have not always fit together the way they should, but we've found that if you hit a 2x4 with a mallet enough times...it'll fit.  :)

By the way, did you catch that?... built-in bathroom cabinet?  I am soooo jealous.  I want one in our bathroom, too.  :(

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Also, speaking of Lawn/Home Maintenance, remember that front lawn drainage fiasco we kind of forgot about for a while?  Well, it's finally getting dealt with next week.  Woohoo!    

Nerds and power tools

Daniel is good at bowling.  Really good - he bowled for his high school varsity bowling team and he was kind of the team captain.  He knows about lane patterns and finger grips and he can make the ball do that magic curve halfway down the lane like a pro. 

I, on the other hand, took bowling as a summer class in high school to get out of regular phys-ed.  I'm not what you'd call...good at sports.  Or anything requiring more coordination than showering.  But I figured, hey, bowling is inside in the air-conditioning, and mostly based on luck anyways, right?  Plus any class that lasts six weeks rather than a whole semester is fine by me.  I finished that class satisfied that I had dodged the PE requirement, and certain that I would never bowl again for the rest of my life.  Seriously.  Most awkward sport ever.

Ever since he and I met, I have not been able to give up teasing him for his choice of nerdy, awkward hobby (never mind the fact that we were both in college marching band).  This hasn't been enough to keep him from doing bowling leagues and weekend tournaments because apparently there are a LOT of people in Wichita who love bowling (need more proof there's nothing to do in Wichita?).

Anyways.  This weekend was another such one-day tournament.  I would have gone to watch, but Hollie wanted a nap instead, and refused to be reasoned with (I admit I didn't try very hard).

Out of 37 participants, Daniel came in...

FIFTH!!!

I've abruptly gone from teasing to the proudest wife in history.  This is so cool!!!  It doesn't hurt that he won a little money, too.  But that's beside the point.  :)

Honestly, though, it's nothing less than I expected.  ;)

You're wondering, what does this have to do with power tools?  Nothing, but I do have something to say about them.  Daniel did something cool this weekend, and so did I.

Back story - We're in the process of finishing our basement.  When we moved in, there were walls framed in, and some of the electrical work was done, but that was it.  We're going to have a contractor help us out with the bathroom and installing some carpet, but we are doing a lot ourselves.

Actually, Daniel is doing a lot of it himself.  So far my only contribution has been going to Lowe's with him a few times.  I felt really bad about this, because when he's home he's rather be relaxing, and here I am itching to help out.  But he's the one who knows how to use tools and what kind of wood we need and which walls are load-bearing and all of that, and for most tasks it would take just as long to explain to me as it would to just do it himself.

This weekend I finally got to do something.  And yes, it involved power tools.  I got to measure eleven (11!) two-by-fours to various lengths and cut them using a circular saw.  Oh my goodness, it was fun!

Never mind that this afternoon I realized I had measured three of them incorrectly and cut them too short.  I called Daniel at work and told him my mistake, but he said he could fix it.

Honestly, though, it's nothing less than I expected.  ;)  

When ordinary chores turn into the most fun she's ever had...

[airplane passing overhead]

The apple trees aren't doing great. But we keep watering and fertilizing and hoping...

You know its been a good day when it ends like this...

But wait, there's more!

The "lawn" and short of it [pt. 3]

I briefly tried to come up with an even wittier title for this series of posts, but I've got nuthin'.  We are open to suggestions...

On a whim, last Friday (wow, spontaneity is becoming our thing) we decided to plant some trees in the front yard.  Being the only house on the street without a single tree, we were getting self-conscious.

We went shopping without any particular kind of tree in mind, other than something, well...cheap.  Ended up coming home with two apple trees - a MacIntosh and a Golden Delicious.

We took turns digging and following Hollie up and down the street.

Here she is, a true Kansan (?), testing the wind direction and speed (using the neighbor's grass trimmings).  Look at those pink cheeks!

One down...

...one to go.

Someone had waaay too much fun with the empty buckets!

All done!

In case you can't distinguish our little toothpicks (I mean trees), there's one on either side of the driveway.

As for that drainage problem I mentioned awhile ago, we're scheduling that for sometime in the next few weeks, so I'll post something about that soon. 

The "lawn" and short of it [pt. 2]

I came up with this new title for our lawn improvement saga.  I like it better, don't you?

So the grass-seeding and weed-killing are really starting to take effect.  The yard is officially dandelion-free!  We've been watching the tiny green shoots come up out of the bare spots a little more every day.

I can't wait to to something with the flower patch under the front window.  This picture doesn't do those blue flowers justice...they're gorgeous (and I wish I knew what kind they are)!  However, with the big empty spots, and the ugly black rubber divider (lower left corner) and the grass growing over it, the whole thing is kind of an eye sore.  Anyways, here's a good "before" picture:

I don't know when the "after" picture will be, because we now have our yard budget tied up in a slightly more important issue...

We have a drainage problem, which we knew when we bought the house.  It's not really a problem at the moment, but it could be in the future.  There are a few spots where the ground slopes down toward the house.  No bueno.

We got a quote from a guy, and the price tag was a liiiiittle higher than we were expecting.  Unfortunately, this is really the only reputable guy in our area who does yard drainage work.  After some deliberation we responded in the negative (thinking we'd put it off, and save up), but he countered with a payment plan that would work for us, so I think we're gonna go for it.

We'll keep you posted...

"Sprucing" up [pt. 1]

So, our yard was a mess. When we moved in, back in December, it was in bad shape, but we didn't do anything with it because it was going to spend the next few months under the snow anyway.

But these last few weeks as the weather has warmed up, we've been able to see just how bad it is...the grass is patchy at best, covered with dandelions (which, to be honest, were kind of pretty), and the little spot under the front window has a few flowers but mostly just looks neglected.

Finally, it was time. We bought our first ever lawnmower, as well as some various weed killers and grass seed and other stuff like that.

Dad pretty much took care of all of this, while Hollie and I watched from the windows. What would we do without him?

A little wave!

This video was taken in the dining room, while he was going up and down the side yard. I love the little wave at the end!

Well, the yard looks a million times better than it did, despite becoming a jungle of dead dandelions (not kidding. it's crazy!). We have plans in the works, so as always, we'll keep you posted...

To be continued...