Ice out -- almost (Week 27)

The ice is out of some lakes in the city -- and getting close in others.  Today we took a stroll around Lake Harriet.  It was sunny and lovely.  Lots of walkers, runners, dogs, strollers and kids.  Minnesotans are just itching to stretch their pasty white legs with a run around the lakes. We were a little more discreet, and kept our winter whites to ourselves. 


I am happy to have last week behind me.  It was staff appreciation at Lyngblomsten, all staff were offered a free 15 minute massage. I gave more than 60 massages in less than 7 days! My hands were raw by the end of the week from washing and sanitizing.

We had another doctor appointment this past week.  I gained a modest 3 lbs in the last 5 weeks. I am happy to have the glucose test done, I passed with flying colors.  My iron is a little low, but everything is still checking out fine.  She continues to kick and flip like crazy.

I have been going a little nuts shopping for little pink outfits.  I think she'll be well dressed throughout her first months of life.  Grammy also has put a considerable dent in her closet, including a ridiculously adorable swimsuit.  I'm not sure how much swimming she'll be doing, but we thought we would have to put her in it, just to take pictures.

Aunt Carrie takes a break from quilting to pose for a photo at Lake Harriet

Aunt Carrie has been busy shopping for fabric, cutting and quilting.  Can't wait to see the finished product(s).  Hey, Car - we're counting on quilt, bumper, curtains, crib skirt, etc! Chop,chop! HA... kidding.  No seriously, I am beyond excited about the quilt - I think it will be so sweet for our little girl to be swaddled in something made with love by her Auntie.

In other non-important, baby related news -- Saturday we went to Baby Grand, they carry the stroller we want and a lot of other stuff we had registered for at 'Babies', for the same price. They were very friendly and helpful -- even though we overstayed our welcome, well past closing time. We've already set up our wish list there. We decided to "de-registered" for babies r us.  We were not in love with anything we had on our registry there.

That's the update for week 27.

Happy spring to all! Have a great week and a Happy Easter!!!

Art Imitating Life

26 Weeks

We dropped by Hamline on Sunday to get something from Jamie's office - I saw this statue and was inspired.  It appears that I am perfecting the pregnant lady, 'hand on the belly, hand on the back move'.  I'm feeling more and more like I need to stand like this just to hold myself up. Yoga has helped me stay upright, but this past week my balance seemed to disappear all in an instant.  I could not stand on one foot and do my balancing poses to save my life -- this used to be one of my favorite parts of yoga. 

Big weekend for Hinote's Heroes (my hockey team) -- we won state! I stepped in as 'coach', it is really hard for me to watch (I am a doer), but I was happy that I could be on the bench, yelling and opening the door for line changes.  And, of course, I love my team to pieces and miss getting to hang out and skate with them.  They had a great tournament, and an excellent championship game beating the Blue J's 4-0.  Nice job, ladies! I'm already looking forward to next season.  I should be back on the ice by early July ... right?

We had some plus 60 degree days to whet our appetites (well, mine at least) for summer -- Jamie starts sweating when it hits 53, so he is less enthusiastic.  The rink has melted (and more importantly evaporated) and the grass is starting to green.  I found some chives that had sprouted in a pot that was left outside all winter.  I'm anxious to clean the yard and start to plant -- but we'll see how much actually gets done this year, I will be quite large by the time planting season hits.

Happy Spring!

Girly Girl...

Take that! For those who are predicting that we will have a little tomboy on our hands... check out all the pink in the closet! I'm trying not to go overboard on buying clothes.  I realizewe'll get gifts and we don't even know for sure how big she'll be.  But how can I resist? I can already see how cute she'll look in all these little dresses.
This is about as far as we've come on the baby's room, by the way.  The rest of the closet is filled with massage linens, a sewing machine and random odds and ends.  The room is still set up for massage and as soon as we paint the other room we can change things around. Now if we can only get off our rear ends to paint!

And the bump goes on...

25 down, 15ish to go!

I guess perhaps I was a bit disillusioned thinking that I was "small." Maybe people were lying to me? Recently I've had two people (perfect strangers) assume I was expecting. How presumptuous, I thought - Do I even look that pregnant? The answer, by the way, is an undeniable, YES! So far it has been better to look pregnant than just looking chubby and out of shape - though there is definitely some of that going on, too.

It was a big weekend for us here. We spent most of Saturday registering for stuff, stuff and more stuff. We were all smiles at the beginning. To get our feet wet, we started at Target, where the selection and items are fewer.

Jamie learned that this was not the proper way to handle a car seat.

Our first big mistake of the day, was to leave the house at 11:30 am, dangerously close to the lunch hour.  As much as I like to shop - I am a pregnant lady who needs to eat! It wasn't long before I felt overwhelmed with hunger and had to stop for a snack. 

Thanks for the photo, dear!

We soldiered on and managed to knock out both Target and Babies R Us.  Well, for the most part. The end-cap-stop-and-snack only took me about three-quarters through Babies R Us before we had to leave for lunch, which was actually closer to the dinner hour.  We may have been a bit trigger happy with the scanner, and we left feeling a little too much like we were asking for people to buy us all this stuff.  So we've been doing some tweaking via the Internet - more editing is needed.

Don't forget to enter our baby pool:  MacBaby Girl Baby Pool

24 Weeks

 

It's high school hockey playoff time around here - a rather huge deal in Minnesota. We spent our 23rd week taking in a few high school section playoff games over at the Coliseum on the State Fair Grounds. White Bear Lake eliminated Stillwater on Wednesday, and, two nights later, Hill Murray eliminated White Bear - after Hill had brutally eliminated Mounds View (my alma mater).  We missed the Mounds View game because I was getting a massage (priorities).  I posted a few tweets (yep, Twitter) during the White Bear v. Stillwater game, which happened to be spotted by an old hockey buddy of my brother's.  He stopped by between periods with 2 of his 3 boys to catch up.  Isn't technology grand?  I was forbidden to tweet during the rest of the action because we were apparently in foul puck territory and I was putting our unborn child in harms way by not paying attention.

Still feeling well.  I will continue to work as long as my belly allows my hands to get to my clients.  It can be a bit grueling to work with my folks in their wheelchairs - but I love them all so much, and I will miss them when I'm out.

Our 24th week brings the high school hockey state tournament at Xcel Energy Center.  We probably won't attend - but it is well covered and games are aired in full on local television.  Thank goodness for all this march madness to ease the pain of the end of the Olympics.

22 Weeks

 

We are 22 weeks along today, and here is my first official belly shot.  Not too much of a belly to speak of just yet.  I keep hearing "you're so tiny."  The layers help.  She's kicking like crazy these days and yesterday we used our little listening device to hear her heartbeat.  Mom was over, so she was able to hear, too.  We could also hear her moving and doing her flips -- I think she was exercising.  

Yoga has proved to be more of a challenge these days, but it feels good to get to the gym and move my body.  So far everything has gone along swimmingly. And I'm sure my doctor will be happy to know that I'm no longer playing hockey (competitive games, that is).  You can't keep me away from the ice -- and watching is just not as much fun as playing. We figure MacBaby Girl has already played more games than her daddy in the 2009-2010 season. I think she's gonna be good. 

Great Minnesota Get-Together

We've had the best Fair weather this year. I can't remember a year when there have been so many perfect Fair days. I do not doubt that the attendance records will be shattered.

Daunted by the crowd, we tried to duck in and out of little pockets of space. They were hard to come by, but we enjoyed them while we could.

Life in a Northern Town

Stopped in a diner in Finlayson. Got this big smothered beef sandwich for just $5.95.

I had a little help finishing -- but not too much help.

Life is good.

Wet Paint

He does not read well

the longest paint job

It took about 2 months to paint these steps green. Still have to paint the risers white and then the top landing needs a new coat of green too. In the mean time, our neighbors have redone their porch, replaced all the doors in their house, built a patio and a few other things that should take longer than painting 5 steps green. Managed to mix in some texture so they won't be slippery anymore. Pretty much our biggest improvement project for the summer.

new hair do

Here is my creepy self portrait in the bathroom to show off the shortest hair I've had since high school. I slept on it so it is slightly dented in back. I'm not sure I'm up for this new hair yet. I'm sure I'll be fine. I can actually squeeze it all in to a tiny pony tail at the base of my skull, so I'm sure that will be where it is when I am working. Yeah... I put on lip gloss.

Naked

Today was bleak. The sky was gray and spat specks of rain, sleet and snow. Gone are the brilliant colors that painted our streets and lawns for the past month. The street sweeper made its pass along our block to clean any remnants of the fall that treated us so well.

Halloween 2008

Jamie went as Editor of Surfs Up, Dude! Magazine

My costume was met with a lot of wide eyes from the neighbor kids. "Is that your real wedding dress?" was the question of the night.

Tricks-or-cheeks

Our neighbor Macy was our first guest for tricks-or-treats. Cheeks, cheeks and more cheeks!

Halloween Oh-Eight...

OK, Kids... we're all carved and ready to go. We got home at 4:30 and I got carving right away. Jamie doesn't like the "guts" and is disgusted by the whole process of gutting and carving so I am on my own. I am not too creative in the creation of faces but I did go with a cork for the nose of one... more so because the space between the eyes and the mouth was small and I was worried the whole face would cave in. Ok, Kids... come and get it!

It is now 4 a.m. in Maui, from which we departed last night at 5:20 p.m. and headed to Oahu for our 9:10 redeye to Seattle, and we're killing another three hours by reading (Patty, who has hit the home stretch of a book with too many pages and too few pictures -- none, actually) and waiting for the sun to come up, if only for it to give us some sense of what day it is. I've also kicked in for the $7.99 fee to access the Internet, and we're going to see if we can fire up Slingbox to tear Patty away from all that reading.

Sun returns to the sky. We return to the beach. One last day of SPF 30 for me, one last day of taking in as many rays as possible for Patty.
The day was packed a little tight, as our cab would take us back to the airport at 3:40 p.m. and there was some packing and cleaning to do, but it ranked up there as another beauty.
With the waves crashing as hard as we would see at any point in our stay (whitecaps on the bay), we would eventually have the chance to hone our boogie boarding skills. We're not quite world class yet, but we didn't drown, either, in the three-plus-foot "swells" that were ripping across the jetty to our immediate left.

We also spent a good amount of time playing catch with a waterproof football and soaking in enough sun to last at least through next week.

We had lunch on the beach, returned for the cleaning and packing portion of the program and hit the road for the airport.

On the way, our cabbie, a one-time New Jersey resident who decided to pick up his life and move to Maui after a two-week surfing trip in the late 1970s, predicted a 90 percent Obama win in Hawaii's presidential election. Those four electoral votes should come in handy likely three hours after polls close in the West.

Smothered in Vog?

For some, it is overexposure to the sun that makes them crazy. For us, a lack of it seemed to affect us, and we set a course specifically to shop for others. We headed north, took a left toward West Maui and stopped at a shopping center for gifts to bring home. I, stingy, figured generosity begins at home and bought only flip-flops for myself and lunch for the two of us at a nice little find (water view, $3 margaritas, pulled pork sandwiches, wacky waitress [but not as wacky as the lady at the surf shop who asked us twice within 10 minutes, and with all sincerity, where we were from, and had that hippie, "that's cool, man" thing down ... plus she drew a little art scene on a paper bag and spoke fondly of the California Golden Seals], and HD TVs), while Patty reminded me that she has a bigger heart and spent not only on herself.

We spent the rest of the afternoon running important non-beach errands (still too hazy), such as washing the car, getting pedicures (Patty, and only Patty), napping (me, concurrent with the pedicure), and picking up a few last-minute purchases as we try to hold on to the fact we're only here for another 24 hours. Sad but true. Thankfully, we were able to find a treat along the way, though we missed Starbucks, which meant a third trip to our local outdoor mall for ice cream, a cookie and a couple of coffee products that should either push our last dinner off a bit or, at least, keep us from spending another $100 on it.

And now a word from Patty...

Ok, Ok... I know I am not the writer in the family... but I feel like I really need to get my two cents in here, though let it be known that while James has been writing, I have been editing, picking out photos and posting it all. Today I will have to post a photo of, well, not today. We did not take many photos today and what we did take are still in the camera which is not here right now.

I have a confession to make, and if I were on an MTV reality show I would be sitting in a burgundy velvet draped room with a tissue to my eye telling the world the horrid truth... we did not go to the beach today. It's true. No sand between our toes, no waves crashing at our legs, no sun screen dripping in to our eyes. We awoke this morning to a cloudy sky, "it will burn off" I assured James... but not necessarily myself. It looked as gloomy as it's looked since we've been here (which really is not all that gloomy).

As for my pedicure... it was AWESOME! I tried like crazy to get James to come with me. I'm all, "there are ladies and you soak your feet and they massage your legs..." Nope, he would not bite. We pulled up in front of this place with a sign that said "Foot Massage" and another tiny sign that read "manicure pedicure". Hmm, sketchy, but I was up for an adventure. I know that "massage" can mean different things in different places, especially when located in an out-of-the-way little strip of shops in an area that is"less nice". I walked in and man with a pleasant smile asked what I would like, "pedicure", I said with little confidence. I had wanted a manicure too, but thought it best to test the waters with my feet. "Pick color, come back," he said and disappeared behind a satiny curtain. I chose an irridescenty pink-purple, The name of the color escapes me now. I grabbed the color, stepped in to what looked more like a cocktail lounge than a nail salon. "Yum!" I thought. There were overstuffed couches and lounge chairs and a few people scattered about in various stages of manicures and pedicures. The gal was sweet and did a lovely job on my toes. I paid a few dollars extra to get the parafin wax and the head and neck massage. Towards the end the gal said, "your friend, he is in car, sleeping... he should come in and get massage and take nap." I told her that I tried to get him to come in but he would rather sit in the car in the sweltering heat and wait for me. Wimp. Maybe next time.

Oh... and they are saying we are smothered in Vog here. Apparently that is like smog or fog, but it comes from Volcanic sulfur. That is what they are saying on the news, but that is for another island and James is saying that we just have haze, so perhaps I really have no idea what I am talking about.

For the third day in a row, I had to ask what day it was. Turns out it's Tuesday, which is nice insofar as this is the first time we woke up to a day for the second time in our stay, but kind of a bummer in that we're down to 1.5 days here.

As of 9:35 a.m., we're looking at the first legitimately overcast day so far, which means Patty can finally feel good about getting her nails did. Here's an idea for the entrepreneurial among you: open up a nail salon outdoors, preferably on the water, so no travelers feel guilty staying indoors in paradise.

OK, we're going to figure out how to navigate the day.