Nature's Bounty

Everyone knows that California has great weather. That’s why people like us (and especially me – J writing) wanted to live here. If you don’t live here, you might not know another great perk: the produce. It’s amazing. We live a few short hills from the California’s Central Valley, which yields some of the most delicious food we’ve ever tasted. Boy have we been spoiled. Personally speaking my favorites have been the farm fresh strawberries, white nectarines, and red plums. Sweet only begins to describe them. Not only that, but we’ve been able to try lots of different fruit and vegetable varieties thanks to our neighborhood produce stand.

This week our friends Jeff and Sarah (not to be confused with the two Boston couples of the same name) called us. Because they were going out of town, they asked if we wanted their vegetable box from their farm share. Talk about an all-time no-brainer. Everybody wins here. They go to Hawaii; we eat their veggies. As you can see from the picture, it was quite a bounty! Sorry Mrs. B, no Swiss chard.

Of course, pregnant women (and everyone else) need to eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Thank you Jeff, and Sarah. You’re contributing to a healthy baby (and well-fed expecting parents).

36 Weeks

I'm a little late adding this post as I'm almost 37 weeks and I figured I would try to post every week for the last month. The baby is doing well. Good news - it is head down, praise God! Thanks for all of your prayers. We have been busy going to childbirth classes and this week we are going to newborn care classes (really we are going to all the classes we can since we have no idea what we are doing). I think I have started nesting - yesterday I did four loads of laundry and even ironed some baby blankets. I am feeling good for the most part, but I think getting ready to be done. I probably shouldn't speak too soon though, because in a few weeks I'm sure we'll be quite overwhelmed.

32 weeks

I don't have much new to report here - this picture was taken on our vacation in Tahoe, so I can talk about that, but things are pretty much the same with the baby. It seems to be growing well and still moving a lot.

At my last appointment, the baby had its head up, so please pray that it turns in the next few weeks. The doctor said that 95% of babies do, but if it stays breech, I will have to have a c-section, which I would like to avoid.

We got a lot of baby stuff from J's sister on the way home from Tahoe - I am feeling a little more prepared. We still have a ways to go, but if the baby were to be born today, we could probably get by. Though we don't have any diapers. Ha.

So, on to our vacation. We spent a few days in Lake Tahoe with J's family. It was nice to get away and hang out with family. We had great weather. I don't have a lot of pictures, but I'll post the ones I have.

Seattle

We went up to Seattle this past weekend to visit my brother and sister-in-law. It was a really good time - they fed us lots of yummy food and we saw a lot of the city.

I don't have any pictures, but we did the Underground Tour on Saturday, and it was really cool - I would recommend it if you visit. It is a tour about the history of Seattle and how the city was built, and the guides are really entertaining. Brian didn't stop laughing for the entire 1 1/2 hours.

Here we are at the locks - where the boats come in and out of the Puget Sound and lakes of Seattle.

We went kayaking on Lake Union on Sunday. I know, I was as surprised as you are that the belly fit in the boat. Afterwards we went to Pike Place Market and got some salmon for dinner. The market was great - a lot better than the farmer's markets we have.

On Monday we went down to Mount Rainier National Park for some hiking. It was gorgeous, but we weren't quite expecting the snow. We asked the park ranger about the route we were planning on taking and he said he wasn't sure we were prepared because it didn't look like we brought our ice picks. Ha. So we took another one with just a little snow.


We're trying to navigate through the snow. Slippery! Too bad the ice picks were in the other car.

Definitely some amazing views - the mountain was beautiful.

It was such a fun trip - thanks Brian and Katie!

28 weeks

Ok, we're in the third trimester. Does anyone else think this is going pretty fast? Let's see what we can tell you since the last update. I had the gestational diabetes screening at my last appointment and I passed - bring on the cake. My doctor also did a measurement of the baby on the ultrasound, and from that was able to predict its size at birth. He thinks it will be around 7 lbs. I think that sounds good. Just no major growth spurts now.

We started our childbirth classes. They had us watch the birth video the first week - I don't think J was ready for that. Then again, he wouldn't have been ready for it any week. Other than that, we're headed up to Seattle next week to visit my brother and his wife, and at the end of the month we're going to Tahoe for a vacation with J's family. Then we need to start getting ready for having another person in our house. Hope you're having a good summer!

Yosemite

We went camping in Yosemite a couple weekends ago with my aunt, uncle and cousin. It's really beautiful there - I don't know if I have ever seen such cool things in nature. The granite and waterfalls are amazing.

They have sequoia groves with huge trees. These are the ones that you can drive your cars through. I guess it's really not good for the trees because their roots don't go very deep and carving giant holes in the middle will eventually make them fall over.



Here is El Capitan. It's the famous granite rock formation that is popular with rock climbers. We watched some people summiting - you might be able to see the tiny person if you look closely at the top in the second picture. I guess it takes 4-5 days to climb. Can you imagine sleeping while climbing up a rock? Aye.



We went for a hike on Sunday to see some falls. We found a rock to match my belly. My belly might actually be a bit bigger.


Becky, Uncle Greg, J, and Aunt Jean at the top of the falls.
The baby is doing well. I'll have the 28 week update soon!

24 weeks

Whoa, time is flying. The baby is really active - it doesn't seem like there are many times when it stops moving. I can even see my stomach move when it kicks. That's funny. Things have been going well - I have been feeling good and have more energy. Sleeping has been a little more difficult, but that might be the case for a while now.

We have actually been busy, even though this blog doesn't show that. My parents were in town, we have seen J's family a couple times, we went to a party in Napa with J's work - of course, I don't have pictures to reflect any of these things. I lost our camera a little while ago, so we're using an older one. I'm not sure if that matters as I'm not good at taking pictures regardless. Let's hope that changes once the baby arrives.