Baby Things

Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending a girly weekend with my Mom - she flew in Thursday night and left Monday morning. In between, we shopped until we dropped, attended a wonderful baby shower thrown by my co-workers, and had laughed until our sides hurt. Every morning and at least once during the day, Mom would stop, look at my belly and exclaim, "You look so pregnant!" Uh, I am....

This is a photo of the table centerpiece at the shower - Carley is super creative and now we have diapers and a fuzzy, green frog!


Unfortunately, so much running around wore me out and I came down with a head cold shortly after Mom left....which I have been battling since. Last week was the worst and I'm getting over it. I have not been able to taste my food for many days due to nose congestion; I tease Chadwick that since this pregnancy has taken my ability to sleep well at night (which I love to do) my other joy was eating. That, too, has been diminished because what's the fun if you can't taste the flavor?? He pointed out that he should be one of my joys in life and that all is not lost. He's right!!

This afternoon my joy and I spent a long time cutting tags off baby items and getting the nursery organized. It now looks like a functional room instead of this chaos.

I am 35 weeks and going strong. We're looking forward to being parents and Chadwick has been such a help in getting through my round-ness. We still don't have a clearer idea of the gender of the baby based on dreams and wives-tales. We'll just have to wait and see!

Miss Neds Says, "Happy New Year!"

It's about time to introduce you to Miss Neds, the skeleton dog living in our office that Chadwick pieced together during vet school. She was a female Labrador in life and has been fun to have in the house. She's the perfect dog!

Christmas was wonderful for us - we stayed in Boise and had a relaxing day, ate tons of good food and spent time with one another and Chadwick's family. Gifts received included a lovely little mouse for our Cleo (which she loves), a Garmin GPS, several ties, a sport coat, books, clothes, a portable Shop Vac, and several items for baby: crib bedding, a changing table, and a fabulous rocker glider.


Now we're pretty much set as far as the "big" items are concerned, minus Baby of course!





And did I mention that I chopped off my hair several weeks ago? It seems as though hormones kicked in; I've talked with several ladies who had drastic hair cuts during pregnancy. Belly goes out, hair gets chopped. I don't understand the connection, but this is about week 31. We also got a tripod for our camera, which we tried out for the following photo.





We hope that you had a great Christmas and a fun-filled upcoming year. It was certainly be a year of change for us!

December?!

Where has the time gone?? I know where October went, but November and most of December have come and gone without me knowing where exactly the days have gone.

The quickie version of what we have been up to: Julie's dad came up for the week of Thanksgiving - we relaxed, ate lots of turkey, and I put the guys to work stripping wallpaper and painting the room where baby will live after birth. The final product looks amazing!









For our Christmas present, Dad bought us a live tree! I was so excited; I haven't had a real tree since leaving for college. Turns out dorm and apartment life aren't conducive to the real deal. We were on the way home from the gym and saw the tree stand...I was driving the Echo so we strapped the little tree into the trunk and home we went! During that we we also had the chance to spend time with some good friends from our Pullman days, Jessica, her baby, and husband Chad. She gave me some pointers on being a new mom and we got a kick out of watching Cleo try and figure out what exactly a baby was all about. She wasn't real impressed with the baby herself, but thought the rattle toys were pretty nifty. Here is our little tree, and Cleo hiding underneath.


I made a trip to busy Las Vegas at the beginning of December to attend the American Association of Equine Practitioners conference - some of the seminars were great, I got to see old friends, and I now remember why I am glad not to be in school anymore (sitting in lectures all day can be so boring!). In addition to the several thousand of us horse vets, there were 27,000 marathon runners plus additional supporters, two other conferences, and the National Finals Rodeo crowd in town. It was a crowded place!!

And as a baby gender update - we have done several "old wives" tests to determine the gender of Baby Hunt....so far we're running 8 for a boy, 7 for a girl. It's a close race! Just to remind everyone, we are accepting guesses through February! Overall, it seems split as to whether people think boy or girl. Only time will tell! My latest profile last week at 28 weeks:

We're staying put for the holidays this year. We hope that everyone has a great Christmas and a happy new year!

Boo Day and a Trip to the Capital

Happy Halloween one day late!

Chadwick and I both had to work a half day yesterday, so we decided to add a little flair for the holiday. He wore his black afro wig with his white coat and I squeezed into an old camo suit from his marine corps days. I say squeeze because, when the pants were pulled up all the way, I couldn't button the top button; my belly is bigger than his!!



For dinner that night, we had eyeballs, witch's stew, bones, brains, and a delightful artichoke-parmesean dip. To be washed down with a blood drink (not pictured).




Last weekend I spent about 4 days in Washington DC with my best friend from college, Dessa, and her boyfriend, Victor. We've been trying to plan a weekend together for many years and finally got it together. We were rained on Saturday and Tuesday (when I left) and had perfect weather Sunday and Monday. We managed to fit a lot into those days without going crazy. Following is a few pictures from the trip:


Dessa in her little apartment in Du Pont Circle.




Chadwick's good friend, Phil and his wife, Melanie, at the National Arboretum. They live in DC with their baby boy and we were able to meet up for a while!




Sunday morning was spent walking through the giant National Zoo. We were there for several hours and still didn't see all of the exhibits! The weather was perfect and the trees turning colors. We saw cheetas, an elephant, panda, mom and baby gorilla, the biggest crab ever, and several displays of pumpkin people and skeletons doing various activites (like playing pool).


One of our favorite animals was this little muskrat. If you click on the picture to make it big, look at the little guy on the far right. In his hands you can just make out two little pebbles. He had one in each paw, laying on his back, and was juggling those pebbles! When one would drop, he'd pick it back up and continue his show. It was hysterical! He finally lost one of the rocks, searched frantically for several seconds, than gave up and proceeded to wake up the rest of his family since his source of entertainment was missing. Cute!

We went on a night tour of the memorials - FDR, Lincoln, Washington Monument, WWII, and Korean. Most of my pictures didn't turn out for lack of a tri-pod, but this is one from the WWII Memorial. At each end is a half-circle with pillars listing the names of all 50 states and several US territories. The center has the large fountain. It was very impressive.



Dessa and I spent Monday wandering around a few of the museums and the mall area. Behind us is the Capital building.
Such a fun trip!!

Where Are My Feet?

I looked down the other afternoon and realized that my feet were completely missing from my view, and that the view has been replaced by my ever-expanding mid-section. Those in my family who do not live in Boise have a hard time believing this statement, so I took the liberty of obtaining a picture from my point of view. The camera was placed just under my chin.....does any one else see my feet?
I didn't think so.

Yesterday afternoon, Chadwick and I rode the Thunder Mountain Line, a train which lives in Horseshoe Bend (north of Boise about 35 minutes). The special of this time of year: the pumpkin liner. Along with many noisy, some screaming children and their parents, we loaded up on a rickety train and traveled an hour north to Banks to a small area where they had tons of pumpkins lined up, ready to be chosen. Ice cream and apple cobbler was available for $1 (too bad we weren't carrying any cash, I was hungry) and the weather was perfect! We had 30 minutes to choose the perfect pumpkin before we loaded up and came home. It was super fun! I decided we will start a tradition of going to pick a pumpkin somewhere other than the store each year.


It was hard to choose just one pumpkin, but managed to find the perfect one. Chadwick took home a large, round one with a great side for carving. I chose a small, fat, round one that I could easily carry back on the train. It was a riot to watch these parents with multiple kids, who of course wanted the largest pumpkin possible but weren't big enough to carry the thing. It was entertaining!

I also have to update my pregnancy profile, per request of my Bop-bop. In honor of the season, Chadwick participated as well:

His belly is a bit bigger than mine. =)




And here is a picture of the cat, since she posed so nicely for me this afternoon. It's a rough life!

To Make a Room

I've decided that in most cases, to clean a mess, sometimes you have to create one first. In my case, Chadwick and I are starting the process of creating a room for the baby. In order to do so, the office must be dismantled, moved downstairs, set up again, and the baby room started. Our closet in the office is typical - a hiding spot for things that I don't know what to do with, a spot for old yearbooks, journals, toys from college (i.e. my WSU Barbie cheerleader given to me by a good friend), and more pages of notes from vet school than I care to count. Plus some other miscellaneous items. This is turning into something of a process, but it is a needed "purging." I am grateful for recycling....makes us feel less guilty about getting rid of so much paper. And what to do with all of our textbooks??

I am excited to be starting the process of making a nursery! Tomorrow, Oct. 13, we go in for our 19 week ultrasound.....more on that at a later date. =)

Happy Birthday, Julie Schmoolie

Twenty-nine years ago yesterday, I was born in Albuquerque, NM in the midst of the balloon fiesta. Mom said she could see the balloons from her hospital window....

My morning started out with a fabulous scrambled eggs, potatoes, and toast breakfast, made special by my wonderful husband. Work was super hectic; three of the six doctors were out of town for a mini-conference in Sun Valley, ID, leaving two of us in the clinic and one running around taking care of cut and sick horses. We were also short-staffed! Usually, our morning appointments end around 12:15.....yesterday we finally caught up with the morning at 1:00 pm. That left little time to eat, finish some things, and prepare for the afternoon appointments! But, as Dr. Kayla says, "We'll get it done." And we did, with most of our hair intact and not pulled out. We have a great staff! The pumpkin pie we had in the clinic for my birthday gave us some necessary sugar to power us through the day as well.

The flowers pictured above were a delivery gift from Chadwick - I love flowers! However, I hate the nickname "Julie Schmoolie," which is what was written on the card attached to said flowers. Chadwick came up with the nickname early in our relationship when we were coming up with pet names for one another. Luckily, I don't hear it very often! =)

After work, we went out to the Cheesecake Factory with my in-laws for dinner. Lots of garlic in that food! We rolled out of there with leftovers in our hands. Overall, not a bad day. And I got lots of phone calls from family and friends. I'm lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life!!