Approximately 1 more month!!

Our baby is due in 1 month - we are 36 weeks today and we will now start seeing the doctor every week. We are super excited and just had a good trip to Babies R Us to get the last few essential items. We are still getting the room together and waiting for the furniture to arrive, but feeling more and more ready every day! [We just had a little set back - I was just finally starting to feel like the room was ready, we bought a nice rug, measured out where the crib and dresser will go, etc...but then maintenance came to fix the boiler/thermostat. On Monday, they worked in both bedrooms and had to cut holes in the walls. They had moved all the stuff in the baby's room to the middle of the room and covered it with a tarp (thankfully!), but we are basically back to square one with possibly some dirt on the rug. :( We were pretty bummed but are moving forward and getting things back in order]. Here I am at 36 weeks!

Visit #3 back home

  

Baby Shower @ Pam's

We made our 3rd trip back to California in September for a little baby shower with some church friends and my niece's baptism (surprisingly there was no wedding to attend!). Since we saw most of our family and friends in April and June, Brian and I were able to spend a little more time actually "vacationing" a little - we did some shopping and spent some time at the beach. It was nice to have some time to relax and not be rushing from one place to another. We had lunch on Saturday with Brian's family and then dinner with friends at Dee Dee's house.

Valentina's baptism was on Sunday in South Orange County. Brian & I are her Godparents - such an honor! She looked so beautiful in her dress and was such a good baby - so mellow and content with everyone and everything. What a blessing! It was a gorgeous warm California day spent with family and friends. 

We had a lovely, but brief, visit home - it's sometimes hard to believe that the next time we go back we will have a little person to tag along with us! :)

Enjoying Summer

As usual, on nice days (when I'm off of work) we like to get out and try to go somewhere new. One afternoon we went to Castle Island/Pleasure Bay in South Boston for an afternoon walk. It was quite windy with a little rain, but otherwise a beautiful day.

Hurricane Irene ruined my Cape Cod birthday plans last year, so we decided to use our hotel credit this summer. We drove down to the Cape and wandered around Chatham for the afternoon. One of our favorite things to do is walk around little unique town shops. After exploring Chatham, we drove to our hotel in West Dennis, MA. It was so nice to just relax and enjoy being near the beach. We saw our first East Coast sunset! Then we watched some of the Olympics (which we were pretty into this summer) and then went to dinner at The Ocean House. The food was amazing - Brian, naturally, got lobster and I got a steak. We slept in and then read a little out on our little cottage porch, then checked out and headed to the other side of the Cape to explore and shop. We headed home in the late afternoon and had a nice phone chat with Angie to catch up while driving home.

Our Cape Cod Cottage at the Lighthouse Inn

 Dinner at the Ocean House

The young crowd at work requested a night off work so that we could all go out for dinner. We sat on a rooftop in downtown Boston on a lovely summer evening. My co-workers in this picture are (from Left to Right) Merideth, Jill, Kristen, (me), Lauren and Rosalind. We had a great time, even though we still talked a lot about work  haha.
 
Dinner at a friends house for his birthday. The Kelly's on the left and the Jones' in the middle. These two ladies will be throwing me a little baby shower here in Boston in a couple weeks. :)

Brian and I went to a farm one afternoon to pick our own vegetables. We picked green beans, corn, tomatoes, and apples. We used all the veggies for our next two dinners - they were all yummy!! It's super fun to go farming and we plan to do lots more of it!

After coming home from the farm, we stopped by the little summer festival that our apartment complex was having. They had a BBQ, games and activities for the kids, tons of bounce-houses, and a little petting zoo. We didn't stay long - just enough to check it out...and get some free water haha.

That's a little of what we have been up to on my days off! :)

The Bump

 The baby bump at 23 weeks - just a couple days before the movers arrived.

The bump at 25 weeks - settling in to our new place!

Moving

We've moved, but this move wasn't quite like the last (CA--> MA). We only moved about 10 minutes away, a little outside the city. It's a nice area with some hiking trails, tennis courts, and a small shopping center all within walking distance. There are lots of trees and shade, providing us with a nice summer breeze. Our little townhouse apartment is much more spacious than the last and we are enjoying it very much here.

These are a couple pictures we took the day we got our keys, which ended up not working in the door! It was a Saturday afternoon, so there wasn't much anyone was going to do - it was a good thing we didn't have a moving truck there ready to bring things in! (Because we wouldn't have been able to lock the door when we left). We did a walk-through of the place and were a little disappointed - the previous family had marked their childrens' heights with marker in the bedroom, in a spot where no furniture would go and there were markings in other places throughout the apartment. So, it was clear they didn't paint. There were a few other little things that we weren't happy with, so we wrote it all down for maintenance and then brought our complaints to the office (which was closing in just a few minutes). Since we weren't able to leave stuff in our unlocked apartment and because they were hopefully going to be painting soon, we decided to head down to Ikea and get some furniture. By Sunday, we had new keys and by Tuesday, the place was painted and all our complaints were repaired. We were completely 100% satisfied and happy with the results and promptness they delivered in getting it all done.

Then on Thursday, we had movers come and move all the big stuff. The whole process took much longer than we anticipated, but they did a great job - I don't think they made one mark on the wall... and we have some pretty tricky stairs!

We are officially out of our old apartment and just about settled into the new one. One of my favorite things with our new place is having the washer and dryer two steps from the bedroom! It has just been so wonderful to be able to do laundry without having to walk outside! And no more quarters!! One of my least favorite things about the new place is the child next door who screams constantly (I especially don't like it when the screaming takes place outside at 9am on a Saturday! It doesn't matter if the windows are open or closed, you can still hear him!). Anyway, we love our new space and will post pictures soon!!

Our little one...

Here's is our little one at 18 weeks! Showing off those cute little hands with a thumbs up! :)

Heading Home

First, I must announce on our blog that we are pregnant! We told our families around Easter time and then started spreading the news among friends when we went back home in April. Our trip back to California was the first one since November 2010!! It was so nice to be home, but it was a quick weekend trip for a wedding. We were so busy with wedding events and visiting friends and family that the time flew by too quickly. Our first stop was to In-N-Out since we don't have that on the East Coast (who knows why!). The wedding was on Saturday the 19th and it was a gorgeous day in Orange County. The bride, Kimi, was a bridesmaid in our wedding and I was one in hers. It was a beautiful wedding! That same day was my sister's baby shower, which I was sad I had to miss, but we spent the night at her house that night and got to see all the gifts she got.  It was great to spend time with my sister who was about 33 weeks pregnant at that time and I was around 12 weeks.Our last day there was spent with our families. It was a great, busy trip!!