travels and travails.

when i first started taking french classes a loooong time ago, i was really confused that travail is work en francais, since travel is fun in english.  alas, this past week i was in chicago for work and i realized how the two can actually be quite similar.  haha.  i was there for a conference and it was a jam-packed week - i flew out at 6:20 on monday morning and landed right around 11 on friday night.  days were long and busy, but i learned a lot and it was fun to be engaging with educators outside of the office and the usual scope of my job.  i love chicago even though i didn't get to see too much of it from a hotel conference room.

a couple of highlights: i got to spend a few hours with my friend mp who lives in rhode island.  i hadn't seen him in over a year, so it was awesome to catch up and get to watch some videos of his twin baby girls (born oct. 28 last year).  man, those are some cute babies.

also, my girl n had her baby girl friday morning.  it didn't happen in chicago, but i was there while it was happening so it counts as a highlight.  yola kat is 9 lbs 14 oz and quite the pretty little lady.

saturday after i was back, jb and i decided to head to usa baby because we heard they were having a sale.  we ended up getting a pretty good deal on furniture for the niblet, so we can cross that off our list!  granted, the furniture won't actually be in for 3-4 months (who knows why this stuff takes so long to build), but we know it's coming and we know what it looks like, which feels like a big step.  we went with white furniture and the glider is white with a dark slate blue microfiber upholstery.

we also spent a couple hours trying to begin our registry sunday afternoon.  wow, talk about exhausting.  we made some headway, but we will need to do some more work on that over the next couple of weeks.  i keep telling myself we have plenty of time, but then i realize time is FLYING, so i'm just trying to stay on top of everything.....

jb models the crib.

dresser that we will use as changing table.  we passed on the hutch since the room is so small.

glider in the store.  wicked comfortable!

half way there.

yesterday afternoon, jb and i went to the doctors' office to see the baby up close and personal for the second time.  the first ultrasound we had was at not quite 7 weeks, so we were pretty excited to see if our little niblet had progressed from the gummy bear look/size.  we were not disappointed!

the baby (and i) are measuring exactly where we thought we were, so that is awesome.  s/he has all ten fingers and toes, 4 chambers of the heart, kidneys, bladder, etc etc.  of all the 20 criteria that the sonogram tech looks at, each one looked great, she said.  we could not be more excited.  right now, the baby is mostly head down, kind of lying across my belly.  s/he was sleeping when we interrupted with our little peek in there, so lots of the pictures show hands in front of face like s/he's rubbing his/her eyes and telling us to carry along.  such a scorpio already - ha ha!  the heartbeat was almost exactly the same as our 16 week appointment - 146.  i'm still feeling movement kind of on and off, but the tech said my placenta is anterior (sorry if this is tmi for some of you), which makes it harder to feel kicks as frequently and intensely this early on.  so, that made me feel a lot better and less crazy.

anyway...i actually only cried a little bit, mostly because it was just so awesome.  i expected to bawl, but i was really just so amazed and excited to see the niblet moving around looking like a real human baby in there.  we did stand firm on not finding out the gender, and i'm really proud of us for that.  it is so tempting, but we told the tech right when we walked in that we didn't want to know, so she didn't even look in that general vicinity.  she said she doesn't know either, so it will be a surprise for everyone in november.  woo hoo!

one funny story - after the sonogram, i got to get weighed and b/p and all that.  my doc's office just got a new, digital scale, so i stepped on it and it got to about where i expected it to be, then it started climbing to the 160s, 170s, 185, 192 and then sort of acting all crazy and going up and down in that range.  i was freaking out a little bit because i KNOW i haven't eaten THAT many french fries....the nurse was confused too so she was like, just step off the scale and then get back on.  well, of course i turn around and jb has one of his feet on the back of the scale messing up the whole thing.  the nurses about lost it.

hand in front of face; profile of face and abdomen

little feet; profile of full body, hand waving

both hands in front of face (weird pic); head and abdomen

head and abdomen with a little wave; hand in front of face in "land ho" position

yummy dinner.

now that we're finally kinda sorta back in the swing of things (except for what happened this morning - i'll get to that in a sec), we are back to cooking dinner at home.  yay!  not that we haven't been at all, it's just been more about throwing stuff together lately than actually planned, functional meals.  anyway...last night was the first night i felt like life would be normal again after school and all the activity and fun that has been going on, and it was awesome.  we got home from work, picked veggies in the garden, jb mowed the lawn, and i watered all the potted plants (man, we have a LOT of plants) and ran to the grocery store to pick up the goods for dinner.

i was craving salmon and central market (this amazing grocery store by our house) has a salad they make in their cafe area, so i went over, took a picture of the description on the menu, and bought all the ingredients to make it at home.  it was a super tasty treat - the perfect summer dish.

- salmon (about 4 oz. per person.  i prefer wild, but they only had farm raised last night.  put cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar, then bake on 400 for about 20 minutes, depending on the size of the filet.  i like to broil it for a few minutes at the end so it's kinda crispy on the outside).
- daikon radish, grated or julienned
- carrot, grated or julienned
- english cucumber, grated or julienned
- mango, cubed
- fresh lettuce or field greens
- ginger mandarin salad dressing - i used brianna's and it is delicious

all in all, a great night at our casa.  and then there was this morning.  poor ollie - i woke up (early), walked in to the kitchen, and fortunately decided to turn a light on.  good thing because that dog must have eaten something really bad as there was an explosion (or more like 6) all over the place.  clearly what justin wanted to be woken up with: "hey honey, our dog had explosive poop everywhere, can you get up and come clean it?".  gross.  anyway...i guess it's good practice for future diaper changing and all that.  hopefully our baby doesn't excrete with the same volume and ferocity as our dog.....and i hope mr. ollivander is feeling much better by this afternoon when we get home.  we left him in a crate today to contain any potential madness.

ollie on a day when he was feeling much better than today....

the st. thomas adventure

well, we've been back for a week so i think it's about time to summarize the trip.  we still aren't fully re-settled back home, which is ridiculous, but we've been super busy and we're almost there.  i just finished all the laundry (it didn't help that i had to wash every towel and blanket in the house, since ollie took it upon himself to sleep wherever he pleased while we were gone....), and i think everything else is about in place.

st. thomas was a little disappointing, which is sad.  jb and i had a blast with each other, but the hotel we stayed in was really a let-down.  it was dirty, worn-down, and the service was HORRENDOUS.  then, the package we booked was all-inclusive, and the food was just not good.  since i'm really into eating these days, this was a really sad state of affairs for me.  but, we did make the best of it, even though we overpaid and wouldn't recommend this place to anyone else.

the highlight of the trip was our day excursion to virgin gorda.  we booked a charter on a boat and it took us to st. john (briefly), past lots of islands and lovely views, to marina key (the smallest island in the caribbean, where we had lunch), virgin gorda (where we toured the baths and swam in devil's cove), and jost van dyke, a little island that has about 50 residents and one or two bars, that's IT.  it was a great day.  the baths (short for batholiths) are these HUGE rocks that you hike through, with water and animal life all around.  super cool natural formations.  pics that jb took are below.

other than that, we spent the majority of this trip being super lazy.  it was incredible.  i've really never taken a vacation where i just didn't DO stuff, and this might be our last one for quite some time.  jb is a funny guy, so he kept me entertained all day.  we floated in the lovely ocean, hung out and napped by the pool, read books, and watched the french open sometimes.  we also became obsessed with the iguanas that are everywhere and saved all of our drink accoutrements for the little guys.  jb has plenty of video footage of that, so i'll wait for him to edit and post that.

anyway....all in all, it was really nice to get away and to spend some quality time just the two of us.  it's been a long three years leading up to this trip.

the biggest bummer happened when we got back to our house after a LONG flight home (delays, delays, delays).  we had gotten some neighbors to watch the dogs, cat, chickens, and garden.  i figured it was better to pay them and have everyone in their own environment than to board the dogs and let everything else fend for itself.  well, i don't think the neighbors had bad intentions, but they certainly didn't treat our house the way we might have expected.  despite asking them not to let the chickens out, they did (two days after we left), and their dog (a 90-lb. chocolate lab) killed our hen, bettyrene.  she was our favorite, and this was exactly a year after octavia died mysteriously, so we were pretty bummed.  plus, even though it's a chicken (i think you have to have a little bit of perspective when it comes to chickens), it's still hard to know that a pet died in such a horrible manner.  anyway, she was a sweet little hen and she will be missed, but bixby and bernadette and still going strong, so hopefully they'll be safe from neighboring dogs for a while.

in addition to the loss of a chicken, our garden was completely ignored/neglected.  super bummer considering all the time, money, and energy jb has put into it this year.  we lost our pumpkins and our squash and all the tomatoes that should have been picked while we were gone.  fortunately, we have gotten some good rain this week and it looks like most everything else will be salvageable, if not the bumper crop we were hoping for.

finally, the lab chewed the arm rest of one of our outdoor teak adirondack chairs.  super bummer.  it's not completely ruined, it just has teeth marks in it now.  the chairs were a surprise gift from justin about a year ago, and were not cheap.  we had debated getting them for about 4 years before we finally bit the bullet.  anyway.  jb is hoping to contact the manufacturer to see if we can just get a replacement arm rest, but it was a huge bummer.  oh, yeah, and their dog dug a big hole in our front yard, but i'm sure our pups probably helped with that a little bit too.

so, we're in the market for a new/different pet-sitter.  i know it's a big responsibility, but i feel like you should maybe just decline the job instead of saying you'll do it and then letting our house and pets get worked over by your dog/neglect.  that is harsh, i guess.  i really really don't think there was malicious intent, it was just hard to come home to all of that.

finally, in baby browne news, i felt the little monkey move last saturday, june 5.  very exciting!  we have the 20-week ultrasound this wednesday (my dad's birthday), though we're still not planning to find out the sex.  i am so excited to see the little face and arms and legs and all that.  i haven't felt him/her move every single day since then, but here and there i do feel it.  i think it's like a goldfish doing flips in there.

inside the baths in virgin gorda

someday, we'll own a sailboat....

the view from our hotel room (the best part of the hotel)

one of our new iguana buddies

one of the few super sunny days we had so you can see how blue the water is

rest in peace, bettyrene

we're back!

we have lots of pictures to post and lots of stories to write, but first we're working on catch up at work and life.  one of our chickens, bettyrene, died while we were gone, so that was super sad news to come home to.  beyond that though, we got some sun and some relaxation, so we're feeling pretty good about life.  i'd love another week off to just spend at home getting stuff organized and cleaned up (nesting starts sooooo early), but we should have relatively mellow weekends coming up.  hope everyone is well (the 4 people that read this and all...haha).