Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

There really hasn’t been too much of interest over here. Pregnancy is going well. I’ve had two appointments since my last update, both of which are fairly uneventful. My strep test came back negative, thankfully. Nothing’s really “happening” yet. We hired our Bradley instructor as our doula. She’s on call for us exclusively since last Friday until Baby is born. The doctor didn’t seem thrilled about our plans, but she doesn’t work for him. Plus, she’ll be spending time with us at home from the time that I start labor, if I like, until a few hours after Baby has arrived. It will be nice for Matt to have some extra support, to have another person “on our side”, and to have someone with us before we head down to Santa Barbara. I’m feeling more confident about the whole experience and am now just getting a little anxious! I don’t mind being late, I just don’t want my doctor to start pressuring us into induction or for things to run too late that getting all our PCS paperwork finished in time becomes too stressful.

The ladies from our Bible study are planning a second baby shower for us, though it will be after Baby is born. I thought it would be nice to plan around when my mom is visiting, but that is so up in the air it would be impossible to plan around. I set it for March 2nd, the weekend that Matt’s parents are visiting, so that will be really nice to attend with his mom. We’re going to do a dedication at the church also, so I picked February 24th (I sure do hope Baby is here by then!) and maybe my mom will be out for that! She sent us some really cute knitted and crocheted christening outfits a little while ago (I’m not sure if she wore them as a baby or if we did) that would be perfect for the occasion.

We had plans last break (Mon-Wed) to visit with our friends Denna and Adam in Ventura then head down to LA to spend some time with Jen. Well, Matt’s monthly training came up on Tuesday, so we weren’t able to make it down to LA on Monday. We did go hang out with Denna, Adam and their son Tyler during the day for chatting, shopping, and dinner before heading back home Monday evening. Then after Matt’s morning training on Tuesday we made the drive down to LA. The weather has been really rainy and crummy out here, so driving 3 hours in the pouring rain was sort of a bummer. Jen’s been out here for a while, but whenever we get together she usually wants to escape the city and visit with us, so we had never been down to see her place! We relaxed at her apartment, ate cookies, met her roommates, and watched some movies. It was nice to just veg and chat with her. Wednesday morning we went to the Apple store to pick up an FM transmitter for our iPod for listening in the car and had lunch at the farmer’s market. I wish we could have spent more time, and this will probably be our last opportunity to go down there, but it was really great to spend some time with Jen. The drive back wasn’t so terrible at first. It was still raining like crazy, but traffic wasn’t bad and we were making really good time until we got just north of Santa Barbara, almost home. We were then sitting at a stand-still for over 2 hours over an accident. Matt took a nap and we watched some Invasion on the iPod and got progressively grumpier. It was a long drive home and we didn’t make it to our Bradley class (Barbara said it’s the most important one, too!). We have our 12th, final class this Wednesday so we should be able to catch up a little. It was a long trip home, but we were safe, just tired.

I’ve been working on school, trying to get as much finished as possible before all my time is taken up with Baby and moving stuff. The term goes until the middle of April, but I don’t expect to get too much finished in March. We have 3 times that relatives will be visiting, will have to take care of all the paperwork for Matt to get his orders and Baby to travel with us, and will be dealing with packing and moving issues on top of recovering and getting used to Baby. I’m really looking forward to it, but I know schoolwork will be the least of my concerns. It’s going kind of slowly, though. I’m doing a big critical thinking paper on obesity in the U.S. and have a handful of calculus papers that I’m thinking about working on. I am just not so motivated right now and it’s not exactly fun stuff for me. My mentor wants me to knock the 3 classes I’m taking out early so I can pick up another before the term is over, but that just isn’t realistic. Once we’re in Japan I’m hoping I can burn through them more quickly, but right now it’s just not going to happen.

The February Due Date Club is having a cyber baby shower for secret shower buddies. I got a girl who is stationed at Rammstein and have had a blast shopping for her! It’s her first baby and she’s having a boy and I got all sorts of cute things from the store (fun clothes, a very soft bear hooded blanket, baby bath gift set) and off her registry! I’ve been wrapping them up and will be sending out the box this week. Then when we all receive our gifts we open them at the same time and have a little shower! It’ll be fun.

I have also been shopping for Andrea. She just had her shower in Virginia earlier this week and it sounded like a terrific time! She’ll be posting photos when her schedule calms down and I can’t wait to see! It’s a shame that we can’t have showers with our families, I would love to have been there and I know Mama would have too. I’ve been enjoying shopping for other girls; it keeps my mind off shopping for our own baby. I’ve been good and haven’t gotten anything else, but I have been “window shopping” online. I put together two online registries at Target & Babies”R”Us. I’m not sure if I’ll have a shower or not or if anyone will even use the registries, but it’s at least a place for me to keep a list of things I’d like so I can buy things off there when baby arrives. Plus, it’s just fun to look at cute things!

I was starting to get anxious as I’ve been reading about a bunch of ladies in my Due Date Club feeling movement for many weeks now. I was thinking maybe I was feeling it and just didn’t recognize movement? I am absolutely positive I felt it just half an hour ago (about 6:45 PM), though! My doctor said it would feel like butterflies in my tummy. I can kind of understand that because it felt sort of fluttery, but more like bubbles to me. I know it wasn’t gas bubbles, though!! It’s not that this pregnancy hasn’t seemed real to me or anything, but each time we hit another milestone it seems more and more real and I’m just amazed at it hits me again that there’s really life in there! It’s so great!

I went to the BX today and picked up a few things. I never knew there was any sort of baby section at our BX! I got a Boppy pillow slipcover (Safari) because they were so much cheaper at the BX than on Amazon. I didn’t grab a pillow, but I know I’ll probably need two slipcovers, so I thought I’d grab one now anyway. I also got a five-pack of cute embroidered newborn onesies to take to the hospital. I have plenty of 0-3 month sized clothes but I hear they will most likely all be too big right when baby’s born. The pack I grabbed should fit 5-8 pounds and they were cheap enough. I also got another diaper in the mail today: a small Swaddlebees pocket diaper with organic velor in forest green. It is the cutest thing ever!

I've been a bit of an eBay junkie lately, looking at cheap cloth diapers and good-condition used / new / NWOT baby clothes. For $10 (including shipping!) I got a box of unisex clothes, etc that are really cute. It included 4 gowns, 2 sleepers, 9 onesies, 2 pair of pants, 5 lap pads, 3 receiving blankets, and 1 plush blanket and I think they're all adorable!

I also got 3 medium sized Fuzzi Bunz diapers (in navy, turquoise and orange) because I know medium will be the size we use most.

Mom and Jen returned from New York this week and came up to see us on Friday. We had a relaxing couple of days, talking a lot of baby talk, playing Balderdash and Apples to Apples, watching MST3K, playing Wii (well, watching Mom play and getting a good laugh!) and eating yummy food. Mom and Dad wanted to get the baby and stroller and car seat, so we all went shopping for a travel system. We picked one out from Target: a Graco Passage Travel System (Grove Park) and we love it! Jen and I put it together and Matt installed the carseat and we took plenty of photos! Mom also picked up some cute embroidered onesies and a 9-month outfit. We pushed the stroller around and put clothes in the carseat (we had a mango-head baby and a hammer baby) and had way too much fun with the whole thing! It was so nice to see them and we had a wonderful time visiting.

Since my last post, of course more has happened. Here are plenty of pictures to show you all about it. D and I went to the La Purisima Mission and took a lot of photos. We had just missed the guided tour, so we went around and made up our own stories about the olive presses and the hospital and the snazzy roof. We hiked around the sandy hills overlooking the mission and took more photos, mostly of plants. This was my first hike with Danielle and it was much like a botany field trip. Being that she has a degree in horticulture, she is chocked full of interesting plant information.

The following week, Danielle took Matt and I hiking up Madonna Mountain in San Luis Obispo. It was a nice, short hike right in the city. More plant information and a tasty lunch at the top with a hiking dog. And of course, Matt is a goof with the pretty cacti.

The next week, Matt and I took a nice hike by ourselves in Los Padres National Forest from Red Rocks up to Gibralter Dam. We hung out with a friendly snake, took more plant photos, attempted to cross the river and I fell in, and hope to return soon.

Danielle and I hung out a few more times. We went back up to SLO to go camping-supply shopping, to meet some of her plant-nerd friends, and to watch the movie Miss Potter. I heard this movie wasn't well-received, but I really enjoyed it. We went to the Lompoc Fine Arts Festival where we fell in love with so many cute, knitted, animal finger puppets. We met up with her friend who was doing some plant research in Los Osos and walked around a lovely grove of oaks, where she believes we contracted some icky poison oak. I think it was from a later adventure on base.

I took a last-minute trip out to Colorado to see Mama for Mother's Day. Matt didn't come, but it was only less than 5 days away from home. I just recently went on active duty status at my guard unit and will be working full-time for quite a while, so I saw it as my last opportunity for quite some time to just pick up and take a trip. And it's Mother's Day and I wanted to see her new puppies. It was a relaxing few days gabbing with Mama and spending a lot of time at the dog parks. I cooked a little bit for her and Ron every night, which I feel very privileged to be able to do. After all, before I moved out I had been permanently banned from the kitchen for my incompetency. It's nice to prove myself! I made desserts, of course, including the scrumptious baked pear pastries that turned out fabulously! We did a bit of gardening, which was wonderful, and I took plenty more flower photos. I'm obviously getting fond of taking pictures of plants — thanks, Danielle! Since Delilah, the dog I received for my 11th birthday, passed away in the winter, Mama had her cremated and held on to the ashes until I could return. We played the Grateful Dead's "Samson and Delilah", said a few words, and scattered her from the balcony, her favorite lounging spot.

Little Melissa and I are still spending time together as well. Next week she'll finish her first year of high school! All ready! This month is our 3-year anniversary and things just keep getting more fun! We went to a BBBSA bowling day, ate a lot of pizza, (re)met another great match of girls, and took home certificates for our most amazing bowling forms (under the legs, backwards, lying down, etc. etc!) We also visited the Santa Maria Strawberry Festival, where we spent too much on sugar and dizziness. I also bribed Little Mel into getting on a ride that goes upside-down for the first time. Ohh, it was a blast! We have done a little hiking of our own, as well. We planned on taking this loop trail in Gaviota State Park. I guess we missed something very early on in our hike because we traveled far from the loop. It was still a nice, 2-hour hike through tall weeds, drenched in sun.

During the May guard weekend, I got to talking to an ex-I-Labber who had extensively explored the abandoned missile sites all around base. He drew me a crude map marking all the great spots to crawl through tunnels and down silo ladders. Matt, Danielle and I set out one day to find all these amazing sites. We all ready knew about the Titan site that exploded in the 70's. I learned the real story of how that happened, dispelling all the more interesting rumors I had been told over the years. I think we hit every road and dead end on this huge base, but we didn't find any of these great old missile sites. I blame the map, of course. So we went back to the Titan site to crawl around it a bit more and see if there's anything interesting we'd missed. We saw a badger, a wonderful spiky lizard of some sort, lots of pretty bees on ice-plant blooms, and I think this may be where we got our case of poison oak. Just like last time, but not as bad. I got medicated early on. I learn.

Since then I've been at work filling in for a bunch of people. I was almost on my own, but it went pretty well. I like my unit and I think the work is interesting. It's fairly quiet and not too stressful. They're unsure exactly how long I'll be on orders, but I'm told they're hoping until at least the end of September. The paycheck really will be nice. It's been too long since I've really contributed financially! Danielle and I go to the gym whenever we work at the same time and get a little exercising in. I'm starting to stress out about that a little more, as my annual fitness test is this Thursday. I'm not as lazy as I had been last year, but I think I'm still not up to where I'd like to be for this test. We'll see how it goes on Thursday, I guess. Friday Danielle and I went to a great Total Body Conditioning class on base with her friend, Stephanie. Boy, did that surprise us! The instructor had absolutely no mercy! It was a great time, but hard work. Stephanie seems like such a great gal and she and her husband live here in town (and he is a World of Warcraft junkie … I'm sure the men will get along fabulously once they meet!) The there of us and Matt went out that evening to see the local grandpas pickin' country tunes on their guitars upstairs in the Lilly building. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was a good time! We didn't know too many of the songs and I think the old men got a kick out of us. I took some horrible videos of Danielle and Stephanie singing along to some songs. It inspired Matt and I to actually pick up the guitar we bought last year. Hopefully we'll be strumming out something soon. Danielle had told me this get-together would be bluegrassy, but it wasn't exactly. What I love most about bluegrass music is the mandolin. I struggle with forming chords on a guitar, which I know is my own fault which I can overcome, but I've convinced myself that I'd have a much better time with a cute little mandolin. I'm watching eBay for them this week. Danielle has a fiddle, though wants to learn the upright bass. Maybe someday we'll have a little band of our own!

That's all for tonight. Matt will be on nights this week, so he will be coming home from work right as I wake up, then I'll take the car and get home just in time for him to leave for work. It will be a long week, but that's just what we have to do. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to myself to blab to this blog. Be expecting it!