New Roof

We had some wind damage from the wind storm a couple of months ago. We finally picked a roofer and had the roof replaced. Seemed pretty cut and dry until the roofers started stripping off the old shingles. They found lots of damaged boards and had to replace a whole lot of them. Of course, at an additional cost above and beyond what the insurance would cover. Urg.

The job took them about 10 hours to finish which made for a stressful day. Hammering for 10 hours is pure torture.
But I think the end result looks pretty good. We needed a new roof pretty bad before the wind storm so we are glad the insurance at least paid for most of the cost.

30 Weeks

I had an ultrasound this morning and everything is looking great. 

 
They estimate he weighs 3 pounds and 13 ounces, which is in the 70th percentile. A little bigger than I expected, the tech said if he continues this rate of growth until my due date he could weigh about 9 pounds. That's only a estimate though and she said every baby is different. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

29 Weeks, Hello 3rd Trimester

So only plus or minus 11 weeks to go. We are slowly but surely getting everything ready including the nursery. This is our work in progress pictures - it is not done but I thought I'd give everyone a sneak peak. We still need some wall hangings and a chair to finish it up.

Not much else to report - I'm still feeling fine and Evan is kicking up a storm. I have an ultrasound on Friday to make sure everything is still on track. I'll post the pics of course. Until then, here's the dreaded belly pic.

26 Weeks....Drumroll Please....

Yay - we have a name! Finally. After much debate and so many possibilities we've chosen Evan David. Todd saw the name Evan in a baby book and it was love at first sight. I loved it too and it just sounded right. David is of course after my dad, who is the greatest man on the planet and I've known since I was little that if I had a son I would name him after my dad. 

So, one decision down in the life of our little Evan and about a billion to go. We're taking it one step at a time but even still I'm sometimes overwhelmed with everything. Thank God I have amazing friends and family to keep me sane! Oh and Todd too. He really has been great about my hysterics over which car seat to get or my constant whining about not having the nursery completely done 4 months before the baby is here. 

As far as how I'm feeling and how the baby is doing (which are my most often asked questions), everybody is great. I feel amazing. But I'm not going to lie and tell you it's all been wonderful and I'm not one of those woman that say they just loooove to be pregnant. Sleeping has been quite the challenge since I was a total back sleeper before. Plus the 5-6 trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night can bust up the sleep. And the crying. Good grief.  I can't watch anything on tv without crying. And I can't count the number or times I've had to take a walk at work so I wouldn't slap someone in the face for saying something I didn't agree with. I'm surviving though, I know I still have about 100 days to go so I'm trying to take this all in and get ready for our little Evan. 

And, since I'm keeping it real, here's the belly pic. Urg, I'm not too happy about it and I don't know how many more you'll see but this time next year I'm sure I'll look back and laugh. Right?

23 Weeks

Time is flying by and I'm over halfway through the pregnancy. I expected it to go relatively fast but this has been a crazy fast 23 weeks.

I'm starting to feel little kicks and it's so wild! According to my pregnancy books he is a little over a pound and about the size of a large mango.

Picking a name has been quite the ordeal. We have one in mind but we are not positive yet so right now I'm keeping it under wraps.

We were in Old Navy and saw this adorable little shirt. I couldn't resist getting it - every name we come up with I always add "Dr." in front of it to make sure it sounds right. And anything with the word "poop" in it cracks me up.
Other than the crib we haven't done too much shopping for baby. My mom bought me this adorable bedding though.

I did add this element to my photography arsenal last week. I knew I'd need a serious tripod for the thousands of pictures I will take after he gets here.

That's all for now, sorry it's not more exciting.

Snowmageddon

I hate to wish my life away but I can't wait until Spring. After 4 days of snow, ice, power outages and treacherous driving conditions I'm so over this Winter crap.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning I pretty much decided that I needed to call into work, we already had a few inches of snow and the forecast was calling for more snow and ice. I can drive in snow but ice, forget about it. Todd went to work but came home early as it became more dangerous to drive in.  

On Wednesday morning we woke up at 2 AM when the power went out. The next 4 hours we would listen to the ice storm and the havoc is was doing outside to our trees. It looked and sounded like a war zone, tree limbs breaking off from the weight of the ice and bright flashes of light from the transformers all over the city blowing up. I tried to fall back asleep but as soon as I would get close a huge limb would crash to the ground and wake me up. 

When the sun came up we saw this in front of our house. A nice tree had broken off and partially blocked our road. 
I will say it was all so pretty to look at. I just love snow - but only on the weekends when I don't have to drive anywhere.
So still without power and Todd home from work I got the brilliant idea to go into work. Todd drove me and about a mile down the road we encountered this lovely power line down blocking the road.
So work would have to wait. I did eventually make it in, about 4 hours later after it stopped snowing and we were able to drive around the downed wire without getting stuck. I'm glad I went in, if for nothing else than to be warm for a few hours, our house was freezing. 

After work we decided below 50 degrees in our house was too cold so we built a fire in the fireplace and blocked off the other rooms of the house. It got warm but we were dangerously low on firewood. We had to use it sparingly to make it through the night. We slept in the family room and fed the fire all night. It was probably the worst nights sleep I've had in a long time. It was still really cold and just plain uncomfortable. At about 3 AM we put some of the last pieces of firewood on the fire. Luckily at 4 AM the electric came back on. Hallelujah! 

We still had to deal with the freezing cold temperatures until the house heated back up but I was so grateful to those hardworking electrical workers. 

Thursday came and went with no additional snow or ice but there was still the bitter cold. Friday morning I woke up to 1 inch of additional snow. Enough already!

But by Friday afternoon the sun was out and all that ice had started to melt. But even better than the melting was how gorgeous all the trees were when the sun hit them. I was dying to get my camera and get some pictures. I was only able to get a few when I got home from work before the sun went down. 


Of course Lilly had to have her fun in the snow too. 

I really hope that the forecast I've heard about a new storm headed our way for Monday is wrong. Please, please, please be wrong!!!

The Backpack Incident

While in Hawaii last Spring we had an incident involving our rental Jeep. When we received this letter yesterday Todd and I could not help but laugh. 

The crime rate in Kauai is almost nonexistent which is why I was so surprised that this happened to us. The cop that came to help us was VERY thorough and so nice. He asked us descriptions and took lots of pictures of the Jeep. You can really tell they take any crime, no matter how small, very seriously there. 

I expected that these kids who did minor damage to our glove compartment and didn't actually steal anything (except of course the soda from our cooler) would be long gone and the cops would never find them. I also suspected we would be forced to pay the damages on our rental. We filed the claim with Alamo and once arriving home I waited to get a bill. Months went by and after following up I found out the file was closed since they never received a cost estimate from the repair shop. So really other than ruining our nice day at the waterfall, no harm was done. 

Back in August I received a call from a police detective in Kauai and he informed me that they caught the juveniles the day of the break in. I was shocked. They were caught at a beach near by surfing. He told us that one of the boys confessed and was admitted to a juvenile drug rehabilitation center. He asked if we had incurred any charges from the rental company so the boy could pay us back. I told him they were not charging us so he thanked me and apologized for the whole ordeal. Again, so nice. 

I can't say enough about how great the Kauai (Lihue) police handled the whole situation. And receiving this letter yesterday reinforced the fact that it would be an amazing place to live and definitely retire someday.