There's No Place Like Home

I was able to go home to California for a wonderful two weeks. Mostly I spent time with my parents at home sweet home. I am convinced that no matter how old you are, you like having the attention on you. It was quite fun to have all the "attention" on me and my belly for the first full week. We worked in the yard, went for walks, visited, watched movies, played games, and worked on a sewing project. There is no place like home.

This is one of the tablecloths Mom helped me to make.

One afternoon I went to lunch with Aunt Bev, Grandma, cousin Michelle, and cousin-in-law, Melissa.
Mom and I had all of the aunts, Grandma, and in-town relatives, over for a luncheon. We made a delicious salad, homemade rolls with homemade strawberry jam, chocolate dipped strawberries, and strawberry shortcake. It was so much fun to visit with everyone.

I was in charge of decorating and setting up the table. I made the napkin-rings.
Mom, Dad, and I went down to the LA area for the blessing of Chad and Christy's 3rd son, Craig.
Later that week, Chad and Christy came up to Merced. We spent time adoring, holding, and cuddling little baby Craig as often as we could.
The boys and I went swimming.
The boys helped out around the yard and house. You NEED a sword to help fight off the bad guys while mowing the lawn as Brent proves below. Davis was a super good helper getting the fresh grown corn ready for dinner.
We all went to Cambria for a wonderful weekend.

Brent and Davis in their "just the right size" chairs.
We spent time at the ocean searching for shells and throwing rocks.

The boys helped to celebrate my birthday.

And, last, but not least, I was able to visit with Jenny and Ryder. Our vacation paths overlined by a day we were able to squeeze in a quick visit.

Becoming Gardeners.....kind of

Over Memorial Day weekend Tyler and I, (mostly Tyler) set to re-inventing our yard, which had, to this point, mostly been ignored. We are quite positive that the previous owners did nothing except let their dogs out in the yard and pour mounds of wood chips to cover up the weeds.

Here is Tyler wacking and triming away at our once quite over-grown shrubs. Please note the lovely hanging flowers that 1) Tyler gave me for Mother's Day and 2) are still alive and thriving!!

Due to being in quite the drought and being on strict water restrictions we have resigned ourselves to a dead lawn--but think the bark and flowers give a much needed improvement!

All-in-all, we are pleased and happy with how it did and is continuing to turn out, with the exception of the petunias. A once cute and adored bunny is now our mortal enemy, having eaten up $24.00 worth of petunias. (The petunias are the white flowers--which are now completely gone--eaten to the very core). Lesson learned: no more petunias. Vincas are the way to go.

While Tyler did the majority of the manual labor I am quite proud of my contribution of the flower boxes!

A Small Post

A somewhat recent pregnant picture of my growing belly (27 weeks).

I'm now at 29 weeks, but only measuring 28 weeks. The doctor says all is healthy and well.

I'm thinking this picture perfect home-made strawberry shortcake could be featured in Fine Cooking. Hooray, once again, for strawberries.

One Month Later....

We are finally posting pictures of our fabulous Hilton Head getaway. Tyler and I had an absolutely wonderfully fantastic week in Hilton Head. We stayed in an area of Hilton Head called Sea Pines and that made all the difference. It was quite secluded from the rest of the hustle and bustle--full of walking trails, bike paths, small cute shops and restaurants, and of course, the beach. We were right on the beach and enjoyed a beach walk almost everyday. We rented bikes for the week and rode almost everywhere-- as well as just leisurely bike rides. We spent a perfect day in Savannah as well and loved walking around and taking it all in--- as well as enjoying a southern style lunch family style (more food than Thanksgiving dinner). It was a perfect week (minus the intense sun-burn my foot received on our last day, that left me bed-ridden for the following three days with swelling). We absolutely can't wait to go back one day.

March Was A Good Month

March was a good and busy month for us.

We visited friends, Doug and Christine and cute kids Scott and Tommy, from school-days at Duke, in Charlotte, NC for a fun St. Patrick's weekend complete with a parade and a corned-beef dinner.

We found out we are having a baby girl and felt her kick (pictured below is her foot).

We saw the Hawk's win at Philips Arena with our friends Brian and April.

And we had a chance to visit with a colleague and good friend, Jo, from my days at Farmington Woods when she came to Georgia for the weekend. (This is the first "belly" shot of the pregnancy).

A Baby Girl Is On Her Way-

After much pushing, proding, and moving the monitor all around my belly the nurse announced that there was no way we were going to find out what the gender was--and sent me out to do jumping jacks. One hour and many jumping jacks later, our little one had moved enough so we could see, or rather, the nurse could see, that our little baby is going to be a girl. All is healthy and well--from heart to tiny fingers and toes. Pictured below is her cute little profile.

Blue Skies, Nothing But Blue Skies

We made this scrumptious strawberry pie to celebrate a whole week of feeling good. For while being pregnant is great--I haven't been feeling so great up until just about a week ago. The doctors said maybe at 12 weeks I'd start feeling better, then maybe at 13 weeks, but the magic number was 16 weeks. So--here's to feeling great once again and blue skies up ahead.
The strawberry pie was absolutely delicious--so here's to Costco delivering yummy strawberries across the world.