Finally some pics!

Well I have absolutely no excuse for not blogging for awhile. A lot has happened in the last couple months. I'm a new Aunt! My sister and brother-in-law had a little girl, Bethany, on October 28, she weighed in at 5 lbs and 10 oz, 20 inches long. Here's a pic of her at Thanksgiving with her favorite auntie :) Congratulations to Heather and Dan on their beautiful little girl!! I can't wait to introduce her to our little guy in February.





Brent has also been working hard to get the nursery ready. He painted with the help of my dad this weekend. It turned out great! We still a few things left to do to get the rest of the nursery ready but it helps checking painting off the list of things to do. :)

Here are all the belly pics that I've documented this pregnancy. I've realized that it might have been helpful to write down how many weeks along I was when I saved the pictures- maybe I'll remember next pregnancy :)

10 weeks or so?

12 weeks ?

16 weeks

Around 20 weeks

22 weeks

25 weeks

27 weeks


30 weeks- tonight!

Its fun to see the belly pics over the pregnancy. I clearly remember thinking how huge my belly was at 12 weeks! Clearly it's gotten bigger :) It'll be interesting to see what it's like at my due date!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had my family (Bauman side) to our house on Thursday. It was the first time we've cooked a Turkey- it actually turned out really well. Heather, Dan, and Bethany slept over and we did a little shopping on Black Friday. It was a great, fun family weekend. Now we are getting ready for Christmas in a couple weeks- I'm thrilled that it's going to snow tomorrow so it seems a little more Christmasy around here :)

IT'S A B O Y!!!

We had our 20 week ultrasound today and were able to find out that we are having a little boy!

The ultrasound went really well and everything looked normal, but the tech wasn't able to get all of the measurements because our little guy had his head way down in my pelvis. We found out that he is a little stubborn guy :) Throughout the whole ultrasound he had his head down and would NOT move out of that position no matter what we tried (walking around, emptying my bladder, laying with my head down and feet up). He moved his arms and legs but wouldn't flip around. So we are going back for another ultrasound in a week or two to get the rest of the measurements and hopefully he will have moved out of that position. But that means I'll get to see more pictures of him soon :)

I'll put the ultrasound pics on here soon!

Sister bumps

My sister and I are both pregnant and it has been so much fun to be able to share these new experiences together! She is due November 24- a Thanksgiving baby! We are just about 3 months apart. Since she is always a trimester ahead of me I can always get advice from her about how often the baby kicks, when you start feeling it move, when does the nausea go away, etc. Thanks Heather for all of your advice over the last 18 weeks! I'm sure our babies will love being able to grow up together!

Here is a pic of our bumps together! Doesn't she have the best pregnancy glow?

I'm 18 weeks, Heather is 31 weeks:

The big news!

Well this post is long overdue...

WE'RE PREGNANT!

Most of you I'm sure have known for several weeks or months that we are expecting our first baby this winter. We are thrilled to be soon-to-be parents! My official due date as of now is February 22, 2010. We have our official 20 week ultrasound on Sept 30 to find out how the baby is and what the sex is...I can't wait!

I have had good intentions all summer about updating the blog. First I thought that I would wait until I was 12 weeks along, just to make sure everything was ok. Then the summer kept sneaking by and excuse after excuse leads me to finally posting tonight. Ahhh....I feel so much better finally posting and being able to check it off my long list of things to do :)

This has been such a great summer! Our trip to visit Brent's parents in FL and our cruise to the Bahamas was relaxing and so much fun! We went to a friends cabin for a weekend, went to a lot of weddings, spent time at my sister and brother-in-law's lake cabin, and just time at home relaxing. We just finished tiling, painting, and putting in new showers in both of our bathrooms. We did both of the bathroom remodels at the same time (why? I have NO idea!) We were without a shower for 1 1/2 weeks and let's just say that if we ever decide to re-do a bathroom we will NOT go without a shower in our house again! Brent did a great job on the tiling and I love the outcome. I will post pics of it later. I've heard that when couple's are expecting a baby that almost everyone does some kind of remodeling project...did anyone else do that?

I've had several appointments over the past few months to check out our little one. We had an ultrasound at my first appointment when the baby was 7 1/2 weeks, it was just a little cute lima bean :) The last few appointments they have listenened to the heartbeat and the first time it was 160 and today's appointment it ranged from 148-158. I asked my Nurse Practitioner what the chances would be that they had missed a baby during the first ultrasound and if there could be 2 babies (there is a small history of twins on Brent's side of the family)...I was just curious to see how often they miss a second baby. But she brings in the ultrasound machine and says lets just look and make sure...don't worry there is only 1 baby in my belly :) It was so much fun to be able to see our baby. I can't believe how much it's grown in 10 weeks! I could see the profile shot, spine, ribs, beating heart and chambers, arms, and legs- it was so fun to see the baby move all over. The Nurse Practitioner had a guess that she saw something during the ultrasound.

Does anyone have a guess on what it might be?? I'll tell you after Sept 30!

Here are a few belly pics over the summer:

This is at 12 weeks:

14 weeks:

16 weeks:

Fly Fly Away!

Vacation here we come! This weekend we are headed to Florida to celebrate my brother in law graduating from the top of his class in Fire Academy and EMT school. We are very proud of him! After graduation we will head down to the Keys to stay with my In-Laws for the rest of the weekend. We haven't seen them since October so we are looking forward to spending a lot of time with them.

Then on Monday we will drive back up to Fort Lauderdale and go on a 3 day cruise to Nassau, Bahamas! We got this free cruise when we participated in a time share presentation when we were in Vegas, so we decided that since we were going to be in Florida we may as well go on the cruise now. Bon Voyage!

Fun Weekend

It was a gorgeous and hot weekend. It finally feels like summer and I love it! I have been extremely lazy about blogging lately. I guess now that we're back from Vegas I feel like I don't have anything exciting to talk about...but I'll try and be better this summer!

Saturday we went to the Farmers Market to get some flowers, had a huge cleaning day (which wasn't fun at the time but feels soo good when you're done), and went out to Enjoy for dinner and sat on their patio.

Sunday we threw a baby shower for my good friend Carrie who's baby is due early August. It was such a fun day. It was great to be able to get together with friends.

Here are some pictures from the shower:

Danielle, Beth, and Carrie all due within 1 1/2 months from each other!




College friends


Congratulations Carrie and I can't wait to meet your little baby boy soon!

Long awaited pictures

**I had forgotten to put the pictures on this post!! Here they are :)

I don't have an excuse at all on why it's taken me so long to update the blog with a post or even put up pictures from our vacation. When I was looking at the pictures of our vacation again, the details are slowly fading from my memory already. So I figured that after a month, I should at least recap the trip.


Carrie and Ryan flew in to Las Vegas on Friday afternoon. We spent Friday and Saturday night walking around to "old part" of the strip and the "new" strip. We got to see a couple free concerts at Freemont Street because it was the CMA awards that weekend in Vegas.

We were watching the Bellagio fountain show and took a pic in front of the Paris hotel

Our San Diego vacation in a nutshell:

We stayed at a gorgeous beach house for 5 days on Mission Beach, San Diego with our friends Ryan and Carrie. The house was only a 1/2 block from the beach. I had never thought about renting a place when planning a vacation, but honestly I think that renting is the way to go, especially if you are traveling with friends/family. It was so nice to be able to buy some groceries for snacks and meals instead of having to buy stuff all the time. It definately saved money. It was also great to have a place to hang out in the evenings to play cards and watch movies.

We got in Sunday evening- watched sunset, got groceries, hung out at the house

Monday- Day at the beach (Mission Beach), went boogie boarding (the water was chilly!!) Walked around Seaport Village. Out to dinner for fresh seafood.

Tuesday- Day at La Jolla Beach. Saw the seal beach, boogie boarded in the waves, watched Brent and Ryan get taken down by the massive waves for an hour :) We went to a Padres baseball game that night at the outdoor field- very fun!

Wednesday- Day at the San Diego Zoo and took tons of fun pictures. Out to dinner at a yummy seafood restaurant.

Thursday- packed up, played Rook at a coffee shop right on a boardwalk next to the beach. Brent and I drove back to Vegas late morning.

Our vacation was so wonderful! We were expecting the weather to be cool and rainy, but it was actually really warm and sunny for most of the trip. Goes to show you to not always trust the weather man ;)

It was so fun to see Carrie and Baby Moorie (6 months along :) )

Home Sweet Home

Well, we're back! Ok, so we've been back for a week now and I am just getting to posting an update on my blog. I am slacking. Maybe it has something to do with the 7 loads of laundry, putting all of our stuff away that we lived with for 3 months, going to work, and working on the yard. Actually we had most everything put away within the first 2 days of being home, I really am just procrastinating about updating the blog :) It is SO nice to be home! When we were in Iowa I almost jumped for joy when I saw a tractor and fields...I find so much beauty in that.

Everyone has been asking if we liked living in Vegas. Well, Vegas was not what I pictured at all. I pictured what everyone pictures when they think about "The Strip". I think about lights, music, casinos, crazy weekends, etc. But there is a lot more to Las Vegas than just the Strip. I think because we lived there we were able to explore the surrounding areas of Las Vegas and see some of the "calmer" sides to Vegas. It was great! They had mountains, palm trees (which are my absolute FAVORITE!!), warm weather. The downfall of Las Vegas was that everything was dusty and deserty (aka, brown, very little grass, tumbleweed plants/bushes, rocky landscape). Which some people love, but I started missing seeing water very quickly.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. It seemed like more of a vacation than actually work, which is a HUGE plus! We have escaped the Minnesota winter for this year which might have really been the highlight :) Not that I'm rubbing it in or anything that we weren't here to experience the negative degree weather :)

I will really try to post pictures soon from our San Diego trip!! Be watching :)

On the road again

Our vacation in San Diego was wonderful! We had a blast in the sun with the Moorlags- the time went by way too fast. We ended our vacation today and began making our long trek back to MN. We drove back to Vegas to get our stuff that was in storage. I was shocked that we were able to fit everything in our SUV. We even were able to squeeze in the vacuum! I think we did a better job packing or something, but I am still pleasantly amazed. :)

We picked up Bella at the kennel and were on our way. We hadn't boarded her at this kennel before and I think she was really mad at us...she didn't even look at us when we picked her up. We made it to Beaver, UT and stayed at the same place that we stayed at on our way to Vegas.

Tomorrow, we'll drive to Denver and get a chance to see Heidi and Adeeb again. Then on Saturday we will drive all the way back to MN. We are so excited to just get home at this point. Can't wait to see everyone soon. Wish us a speedy trip home :) Hope everyone has a good weekend.

updates...

Not much is new right now...

We just packed up most of our stuff today. We put it in a tiny storage locker for the week while we are in San Diego. We don't have much stuff but I feel like we've accumulated things since being here so hopefully we can fit in in our Escape for the trip back. We'll squish it in!

Right now I'm just sitting here waiting for the Moorlag's flight to arrive in an hour. Then we'll have a weekend of fun sightseeing here in Vegas and then roadtrip to San Diego on Sunday. We are soo excited to see them! Familiar faces :)

I had my last shift at the hospital on Tuesday night. It was so strange to be done with this assignment. It's kind of a surreal feeling. It almost feels like this is a dream being here because I know our life is in MN but I don't feel like we're going back anytime soon. Just a weird feeling. I guess because I've never lived anywhere else besides MN.... hmm...who knows!

All of my co-workers at San Martin were wonderful! They were very welcoming and treated me great while I was there. It was a great first assignment experience. I wonder if we will ever do travel nursing again? Time will tell.

Have a great weekend!

Zion National Park

Last weekend we spent Friday night and Saturday in Springdale, UT. It's such a cute little town with shops and good restaurants. Saturday morning we drove a few minutes to Zion National Park and spent the day hiking. It was gorgeous!! We hiked Angels Landing which was one of the strenuous hikes. (I felt proud that we accomplished that :) ) This is what the trail consisted of: The path winds its way up steep switchbacks gaining 1520 feet of elevation above the valley. It became incredibly narrow toward the top and had chains that you had to hold on to continue climbing. There were spots that were only 18 inches wide with a sheer 1000 ft drop on either side. Once we got to the top it was worth it. It was absolutely gorgeous at the top!! You had a 360 view. The cars driving below through the valley looked like little ants. There were birds that were soaring below us, it was really cool. I thought it was worse going down because you had to look down and you saw how far you could fall. But we made it down to the bottom safely. The view was incredible- we would definately do it again if we were ever back here.

I thought it was hilarious that it said in the brochure to NOT feed the persistent chipmunks to avoid bites, torn clothing, and the hostile takeover of your backpack. We certainly did not want hostile chipmunks so they did not get any of our sandwich :)

Take a look at our pictures to the left that says "Our photos" and you'll see all the pictures from our trip.

Thought I'd put just 1 picture to entice you to look at the rest of them. If you look closely at the bottom of the picture you'll see the little tiny cars. And here I'm standing on the wrong side of the chain and Brent was not happy at all about that. He took the picture quickly so that I'd get back on the safe path. Such a rebel. :)

On a side note...only 6 days left here. Then, our friends Carrie and Ryan Moorlag are coming out to spend a couple days with us in Vegas. Then we'll drive to San Diego and spend 5 days in a beach house enjoying the ocean. We are thrilled to be seeing them soon! Then we will make the long drive back to MN and will be back on April 11!

Our first roach

YUCK! We saw our first roach on our ceiling the other day! When we read reviews of this apartment complex, a lot of people complained about feeling like their apartment was infested with roaches. My recruiter reassured us that it was winter and we shouldn't see any roaches. Needless to say, we were nervous for the first week in our place, constantly looking around for nasty bugs. When we hadn't seen any, we thought we were safe, but apparently not. I know that it was only 1 bug but now I am paranoid. Good thing we only have 1 1/2 weeks left :) I was too freaked out about the roach that I couldn't get a picture of it to post. It was probably 3 inches to give you a mental image. I just keep replaying the reviews in my mind of people saying that they found so many roaches in their bed and shower and cabinets. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will not see any more!
I guess spring is coming and I know that we'll have bugs in MN but roaches just seem worse to me :)

Move That Bus!!!

Well I have officially been able to check saying that phrase off my to do list. We went to the Extreme Makeover Home Edition home reveal on Monday afternoon and stood with hundreds of other people to see the Cerda family see their new home. It was kinda cool to be there with all the hype and excitement, but we couldn't see anything! I could see the top of the home and occasionally when I jumped I could see Ty! I think I enjoy watching it a little more on TV, but hey, now I can say I was there when this episode airs in May :)

Here's a picture of Ty:

A pic to prove we were there!

The beautiful house:

Move That Bus!!

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

I just found out last week that Extreme Makeover Home Edition is in Las Vegas! I know that they did a show in MN last year or two but I never heard about it until it was over. Today is the revealing of the home to the family and we might go to the revealing! I just love the show, I always shed a tear each episode, I can't help it. I've always thought it would be cool to be part of the crowd yelling "MOVE THAT BUS!!" So..I just need to convince my husband that it would be fun. Wish me luck!

Visit from family

We had a fun visit from my sister and brother-in-law, Heather and Dan. We went down to the strip, hiked at Red Rock, went to the new M resort, hiked/took pics at Valley of Fire and watched the beautiful sunset, and walked around the old part of the strip and Fremont Street. We had lots of laughs and good times this weekend. Thanks for coming to visit Heather and Dan!!

The Elephant Rock at Valley of Fire...see the elephant in the pic?

The gondola ride at the Venetian...

I don't have our other pictures downloaded yet from the camera of us with Heather and Dan...an update soon!

Weekend Fun

That's right...Nascar was this weekend! We only went to the Saturday race but let me tell you, it was still plenty of Nascar. It was a lot of fun. At the beginning of the race we picked our winners and mine won! Brent is always loyal to Carl Edwards, but my pick #16 Greg Biffle won! :) I'm not smug about it or anything :) The race got a little long, with a lot of crashes, running into the walls, and blown tires that slowed the race down by at least an hour. It was an experience! Here are some pics from Nascar:

On Sunday, we went to the Hoover Dam and to Lake Mead. The Hoover Dam was actually really cool. I'm not usually all that interested in taking tours or finding out about all the history or what goes into making things work, but it was very interesting. It was a ton of concrete! Afterwards, we went to Lake Mead and took Bella swimming. Apparently the water is about 80 ft below its normal water level- you can see the bathtub ring line on the rocks, kinda cool.

Valley of Fire

We went to a state park, Valley of Fire, last weekend. It was gorgeous! Here are some pics:

Mullets, dirty wifebeaters and more...

So a week ago, Brent excitedly told me that Nascar was coming to Vegas and was having a race at the speedway in a couple weeks. Background to this story- A few times while in college, Brent and his guys friends roadtripped and went to a Nascar race. They had the best time and always came home with stories of mullets, dirty wifebeaters (which I hate that name by the way!), and swimming in a blowup pool with a thawing rack of ribs that the people were cooking for dinner- gross!! So when my husband hears that Nascar will be here I think he recreates all these fond memories and thinks that I can carry on the tradition with him. I was thinking when we came to Vegas that we could catch a couple shows, maybe a Circ de Solis show or something, but not Nascar! Well, being the dutiful wife that I am, I said yes. He got tickets for $10 each when they are normally $50, so I couldn't refuse a good deal like that. :) I guess the hick side of me, being from a small farm town, finds joy in the loud engines, dirt, and car crashes. (don't let that get around- hehe) Anyways, the race is in a few weeks, so I'll tell you ALL about it- every single detail. If I'm going to the race, then you will hear about it!

By the way, I am writing this at 1am while working after not sleeping before this shift, so excuse my behavior, I'm getting silly sleepy. My friends at Gillette have experienced this :)

Date night

We celebrated our Valentine's day with our free tickets to a show, dinner, and a ride to the top of the Stratosphere hotel. The best part of the night was being 1,150 feet in the air and looking down at all the other skyscraping hotels. You felt like you could fall out through the glass and every 10 min the tower would shake when the ride went off. They had an outlook area on top with 3 crazy rides that would shoot you in the air. We finished the night off in this cute, candlelit lounge with jazz music. Its called the Romance Lounge, doesn't the name sounds like a sleezy place?

Crab stuffed shrimp

As you probably know, Brent and I love seafood. We thought we'd try out a new recipe and we actually loved it. I thought that I'd post it for anyone that wants to try it:

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter
3 green onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
4 1/2 teaspoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Dash cayenne pepper (we didn't have cayenne pepper, but it was slightly bland, so put it in)
1/2 cup saltine cracker crumbs
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 egg
2 tablespoons fresh parsley leaves (I used dried parsley)
1/2 lemon, juiced (I used a few squirts of lemon juice in the bottle)
1 pound crabmeat, picked over (I used 3 cans of crabmeat, drained)
1 pound extra-large or jumbo shrimp (about 24 shrimp), peeled, deveined, tails on

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat and cook green onions, green pepper and garlic powder until peppers are limp. Place in mixing bowl and add cream, mustard and cayenne pepper to sauteed vegetables, mix well.
Add cracker crumbs, mayonnaise, egg, parsley and lemon juice; mix well. Gently fold in crabmeat. Form into small patties sized to stuff into shrimp; set aside.
Split shrimp down the bottom center to tail, being careful not to cut through. Stuff each shrimp with crabmeat mixture. Place on a baking pan and cook at 350 degrees until shrimp are pink, about 15 to 20 minutes.

This recipe we found on the food network wrapped the shrimp in bacon and drizzled a basil cream sauce over it, but we didn't do that. I made coconut rice and served it with asparagus.

It's always fun to try a new recipe. Here's a picture of our fabulous meal- try it out!