Filling the time...

So, despite the fact that the baby didn't come this week, we managed to have some adventures and fun anyway...Friday morning, Tom had off work, so we drove down to LBI at 4AM so he could surf. I sat on the beach in my chair (Xmas present from Amy!) and finished reading Treasure Island while he enjoyed the surf. Unfortunately, he had a little accident while surfing and got pushed out onto the jetty. His side was all scraped up, his feet cut and bleeding and board dinged a little. Despite all this, that didn't stop him from continuing to surf for a couple more hours, even though his feet were still bleeding...I don't know if you can tell from this picture but his one foot is now pretty swollen and oozing. I am sure it must hurt.

The next day, we had the opportunity to get this stand-up paddle board from a friend since Tom fixes surfboard dings so we were able to trade it for work he has done. This board is 4 1/2 inches thick and 9 ft. 3 inches tall. Tom was able to take it out on a local creek and said it was quite fun. It will be a good board to use when the waves are really small and a fun time for our kids once they get a little older.

Tonight we went to an awesome restaurant called "POD." The meal was family style, three courses and the restaurant was very modern.

I know it's silly but I wanted to include a picture of the baby closet. Little does our little baby know how she is getting hooked up with everything she could ever need, she has lots of cute little clothes and books, now all I need is for her to be outside my belly so I can use them on her!

My next doctor appt. is tomorrow, but Tuesday will put me at 40 weeks. Judging by the way I am feeling, I think I have another week or so to go. Things are uncomfortable sleeping at night but I haven't had one twinge or inkling of impending labor.

Nothing to report

Well, yet another week has gone by. Another week that brings us closer to meeting our little girl face to face! I am officially 39 weeks now but after leaving my midwife today, not much progress has been made...I am 1 1/2 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced. On the bright side, my weight has seemed to stabilize. Although my belly measurements have continued to grow indicating that the baby is still growing, I have not gained any more weight in the past 3 weeks. The total tally is 32 pounds thus far. Since she has gotten bigger, I have really lost my appetite. Even eating little meals gives me indigestion.

Things I am doing to keep busy:

Just so you know, I did not choose this book because it was a part of Oprah's book club, but because I enjoy reading about the Holocaust.

1. Bake bread in my bread machine (Tom's favorite of the moment is potato bread)

2. Read-I have read 3 books so far....Night by Ellie Wiesel, The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London. Today I will start reading Treasure Island, another book I have always wanted to read.

3. Pack, write thank you cards, clean house.

4. Take trips to Barnes and Noble for more reading (can you tell I love to read?)

5. Long walks

6. Hang out with friends...last night went to see the latest Harry Potter movie and if I don't go into labor, Tommy and I will go to the beach and then dinner on Thursday night.

7. Any other suggestions??

Last week, my midwife told me I could go "anytime." What does that mean? All this time I have been hoping to go "early" but thinking that I will probably be overdue because of the family track record. It is a weird feeling not knowing when it will happen. I am so used to scheduling my life out and this is the one time when you are waiting for something big to happen and have no idea when it will be. It certainly doesn't help when you show up in church and people say annoying things like "When are you due?" or "You're still pregnant?" Yes I am....no, nothing is happening yet.

Preggo pic

Here is the last pic I will post of the belly at 38 weeks...definitely getting bigger and I am sure she has dropped because I am feeling more pressure in my pelvis. I can't believe how time has flown and she will be here soon!!!

Another clue that I have dropped...all of a sudden in the past week, none of my pregnancy shirts completely cover my belly anymore, I have to keep tugging at them to hide the belly. So, I have taken to wearing dresses lately, which is cooler anyway.

Yesterday after Tom got home from work, we washed and waxed both cars and today I vaccuumed out the carpets in both cars so they are nice and clean. Today was my appt. with my midwife...I am only 1 centimeter dilated but she said I could go "any time." We'll see.

Vacation in Vermont

We're back!

After spending a week in Vermont, it is nice to be home and back to the routine. Vacation was wonderful, of course, time well spent with family. Some of the things we did were go on a walk every morning, lots of reading, a trip to the theater to see Transformers (not very good by the way), out to a nice dinner one night, a tour of a local farmers market and town. The tour of the town was interesting because we happened upon a pewter store in which there was a craftsman in the back actually shaping a vase so we all got to see a demonstration. Tom was fascinated by all this and discovered that the store allowed customers the chance to polish and finish spoons that had been poured in a mold. He spent about 2 hours polishing 2 spoons and was so excited about it, he spent the rest of the afternoon talking about his spoons. I got quite a kick out of it and I am sure you can understand why he enjoys fixing surfboards so much.

I wanted to show a picture of the house we stayed in that was right on the lake. The bottom floor was an open floor with living room, sun room and kitchen. The 2nd floor housed all the bedrooms. It was really a cozy little place.

While we were there, we had free reign to use the big pontoon boat, paddle boat, kayak, fishing boat and sailboat which you might be able to see in this picture behind the pontoon boat. I enjoyed taking the little kayak out a couple of times, while Tom went fishing every day as he had gotten a fishing purpose for the week.

The fishing boat!

A shot of the first floor...

In other news, Tom and I decided to spend the 4th of July at LBI. It was a beautiful night. Tom went in the water for a nice surf and I read and took a little nap on the beach.

I am going to post only one more photo of my pregnant belly. It is growing nicely and most people have been nice in their comments about it. However, while stopping by the health food store today to get some ground flax seed, a man opened the door for me as I was leaving and asked, "How are the twins?" Grrrrr.

Anyway, the photo will be of my 38 week mark, so I will post it sometime next week as I am now 37 weeks and counting! I am mostly comfortable, still sleeping pretty well, except for the nightly indigestion and groin pain that I get sometimes if she is pressing on a nerve. I have recently begun experiencing those braxton hicks as well as some cramping so I know things are moving along.

Trip to the shore

Friday, after work, Tom decided to take a trip to the shore. He had 2 guys that wanted to come and I invited a girlfriend. Plus, we had two boards inside the car and two boards on the top so it was pretty squished. My girlfriend has a really nice camera so all these photos are compliments of her. I took pictures with my camera but hers looked so much better. I thought I would show Tom's routine when we get to the beach. First, he pulls out his wetsuit and puts it on. Then he grabs his board and rubs more wax on it.

His next step is to stretch and do some warm up exercises before he runs out into the surf. Here he is with the guys stretching.

Our friend got this great pic of Tom "snapping" on the top of the wave.

We watched the guys surf for a little while and then we went for a nice walk and got dinner.

This is Tom's latest creation. Look closely at the logo, which was created for him by a friend. He is pretty happy with this board and feels it is the best he has made yet.

The happy couple. It looks like I have a basketball under my shirt.

It was such a beautiful day. I just had to put a shot of the beach just before we left. I love these long summer days...we didn't leave until after 8PM and it was still light out!

Saturday, we didn't do a whole lot, except household chores and such, but Sunday, we went to see Tom's Dad and then drove out to hang out with my side of the family. I didn't realize I was tired but it took me all of Monday to recover from all that driving on Sunday. I slept until 9AM Monday and still needed a nap in the afternoon! I know this won't be possible once the baby comes so I will just enjoy it now. Today is my checkup at the doctor and tonight we have our birthing class. Then we leave for vacation early Saturday morning! So you may not hear from me for a little while...

Pics of "S" party and water overload!!!!

Okay, so I thought I was done blogging about "the happenings" but we had a major problem last night...okay, maybe not major but it sure seemed like it at the time. Yesterday afternoon, the maintenance men for the apartment shut down the water to do testing of the pipes. When they turned the water back on, there was a huge crack in one of the pipes and the sheetrock came crashing down in one of the other rooms in the building before they got to it in time. All this had no effect on our apartment however since the pipe was located in one of the other wings. So the maintenance men replaced the pipe and started work on repairing/replacing the sheet rock. How we got affected was when I went to run the water in the bathroom and saw that it was yellow from the new pipe (Ewww!). So I called tom and asked him what I should do. He told me to just let the water run in the bathroom sink and tub for 10 minutes until it cleared up. So that's what I did. I left it running while I took our neighbor across the hall on a tour of the damage to the some of the rooms. When I got back, the sink had overflowed and completely covered the floor in water and was running out onto the carpet in the hallway and our bedroom. My first course of action was to shut of the water. Second course was naturally to call Tom, who came up and vacuumed all the water up and cleaned the carpet with maintenance's equipment (a nice perk of living at the where we do...)

He's did such a good job...I just stood and watched as there was nothing I could do. He did all the hard labor of course and I cleaned the bathroom because everything had to be wiped down and the floor had to be mopped since it was covered in dirty grime from the water. I just kept thinking that at least I got a clean bathroom out of the deal!

I just wanted to include some pics from our friend "S" surprise party, this is him being led to the park where we were all waiting to yell "surprise!"

Playing bocce ball.

Need I say more?

This little guy was going up pretty high, I thought he might be scared but he was laughing so hard, he loved it!

Yet another busy weekend :)

I continue to be amazed at how fast the weeks are flying by, only about 6 more weeks to go (give or take a week) until my due date!  Although the saying "time flies when you're having fun" can apply here because things have just been busy.  Last Thursday was my last grad class as well as Tom's and this morning I finally finished up the last of the post course work.  Whew! Now the work can begin on my thesis! I am hoping to do the bulk of the research before the baby comes so I will only have to type it up once I have her.  

Friday night we went to a surprise birthday party for our friend "S" who was not completely surprised unfortunately...(I will try to put up some pics of this later)

Saturday morning, tom and I took a tour of our hospital and I must say I was very impressed.  This hospital is known for being very midwife friendly and there are two tubs for women in labor to use which I was very excited about. The only problem was, while we were going on the tour, there happened to be a woman who was in the process of giving birth and even with her door closed I could hear her screaming a horrible blood curdling scream.  It was more than a little scary imagining myself in the same position in a little over a month.  

In other news, after the tour, we both got ready to go to my cousin Jon's wedding.  I should have taken the camera but of course forgot so these pics are compliments of mom.  

It was actually a very different wedding than I am used to seeing...they were married on a dock outside overlooking a beautiful lake and everyone besides the grandparents stood and watched.  Immediately following the short ceremony performed by none other than dear old Dad, every sat in their seats and began their meals. Pretty efficient, no traveling to get to the reception, it was all in the same place.  It was nice to see Jon get married...he has been dating this girl for close to 10 years.  

Here is the latest belly pic...34 weeks and counting! I am so thankful for the weather.  So far, this summer has not been extremely hot and seeing as I am a little heater now, that has been a HUGE blessing!

Sunday afternoon, it was off to another party, this one a graduation party for the son of Tom's boss.  

Monday, we had dinner at a friends house...(MMMM, eggplant parm!) and now I am waiting for my second loaf of bread to finish in the breadmaker.  This loaf will be potato oatmeal bread and it is smelling pretty good right now.