St. Augustine

Since living in FL we have always gone east or north when going to visit places. But since we only have about a year and a half left in FL we've been wanting to visit more of FL while we still live here and it's more easily accessible. So, for my birthday/Mother's Day we decided to visit St. Augustine. It's about 45 minutes south of Jacksonville on the Atlantic coast. We went with another couple, JD and Michelle Buchholtz, who we know from Navs. 

We left Friday with Jacksonville Naval Air Station as our destination for the night. We made reservations to stay there since it's so cheap! $64 for both couples. We get there about 11:30 pm. As we pull up to the gate, we're informed we have to get a pass for my car since we don't have a sticker on it. So we pull into the parking lot and I get into my glove compartment to get my insurance and registration. Joe goes in and comes back a few minutes later informing us that both are expired. They aren't actually expired, I just didn't have the updated paperwork in my car!!! So, they wouldn't give us a pass to get on the base. We'd already paid for the room, so we didn't just want to go find somewhere else to stay. After discussing for a few minutes someone suggests we could just walk. So we take the bare essentials and walk up to the gate. Joe tells me to 'look really pregnant' in the hopes they will have pity on us and let us drive on. No such luck. We end up walking a good 45 minutes to the lodging area. Once we get there the lady gives us a number for the 'Duty Driver'. Thank for not telling us about it before we walked all that way!!! We did give them a call in the morning and were able to get a ride back to my car. They place we stayed in was nice and it was a bonding experience to start the trip off. :) 

We got to St. Augustine without any more adventures. There we stayed in a Bed and Breakfast, 44 Spanish Street Inn. It is right in the heart of the downtown historic district, which was great because we were able to walk everywhere. 

JD, Michelle, me, Joe
Joe's parents had given us a gift certificate for our last anniversary to use at a bed and breakfast and so we used it this weekend. This is the room we stayed in, the Orchid room. Thanks for the gift! 
San Sebastian Winery is there in St. Augustine, so we took a tour and the three of them tasted the wine. 
There is a lot of historic things to visit in St. Augustine. One of the places we toured was the 'Spanish Quarter.'  It was an area set up in the 1700s depicting life then. We ended up talking with the man who was their carpenter for about 30 minutes. He told us all about how everything was made and the tools worked. It was interesting and made us appreciate the dinning room furniture we have that was hand made by the amish. Quality stuff! There was also a blacksmith, depicted below. 

We ate delicious food and walked all around the city. It was really neat because the streets were all cobblestone. We had great weather too. It was warm and sunny, but not too hot yet. I did learn however, being 6 1/2 months pregnant I should've worn tennis shoes instead of flip flops, because by the end of the weekend of walking everywhere my feet and calves were killing me. 
The last place we visited was the Alligator Farm. This stop was at the request of Joe. He kept mentioning all weekend he wanted to go here. It did end up being pretty interesting. They have all 23 kinds of alligators in the world there, birds, turtles, crocodiles and other reptiles. One of the most interesting alligators we saw was the albino alligator, which is the picture below. They can actually get sunburned because of the lack of pigmentation in their skin. 

Week 24/6 Months

Here I am with much more of a belly than 4 weeks ago. We went to the doctor today for my 6 month appointment. I'm really healthy, the baby is healthy and growing right on schedule. At this point I can't really wear any shirts that aren't maternity. The jeans I have on in this picture are the only pants I can still wear that aren't maternity. Our little girl is moving around everyday with her kicks moving higher up each week. I'm feeling good. This past week I have started feeling a bit more pregnant in that if I walk around for 30 minutes or more I'm ready to sit down. My feet also start hurting after walking that much. My belly gets a little in the way every so often. I'm starting to understand how the last 3 months are going to be. 

My friends and I have a little hypothesis going. The more your baby moves while in utero the more the baby is fussy and has to be moving once it's born. If your baby only moves some, where you notice it move a few times a day, the baby is fairly calm once born. Right now, two moms had babies who only moved some in the womb and then are/were good babies. One mom had a crazy moving baby who is now fussy and squirmy. My baby move some and my friends baby moves 24/7. If you are a Mom and want to weigh in on our little hypothesis we would love to hear about it!!! 

Help! The ceiling is falling in!

So, this morning we had a big spring storm come through.  Nothing exciting with the storm, they are typical for this time of year. But then I'm sitting in the living room and I hear a sound like the window is open in our bedroom and the rain is coming in. I had gone in earlier to close the window I knew was open. I thought maybe a second one was open I didn't know about. Oh, no. That would've been nice. Instead I find water dripping all over the window, wall, and floor coming out of the ceiling! It started in the window closest to our living room and as the storm continued it spread across all of the windows. I hurry and grab towels and try as best I can to start sopping up the water. I can Sundance, who is our rental agency, to have them come send someone out to fix it. I called at around 9:30/10 am and

 it's 1:15 pm right now and I haven't heard anything. I've now gone through all of the towels we own, putting them in the washer to be rung out and then in the dryer to reuse. The rain has calmed down, so I'm hoping we're done with the dripping for the day. Below are pictures I took to document for myself and to show them whenever they decide to come and fix the problem. The final picture shows how the ceiling is now falling in. 

"Gardening" 2009

I have developed quite the love of 'gardening.' I put gardening in quotations because we don't have a yard, so I have to put all of my plants in pots. It was worked out well. This last week I began my initial planting for this year. After I put them all out I felt like there aren't very many, so I might be adding to them at some point. The following pictures are the beginning. 

This year I have branched out from flower to veggies. In the large pot are two tomato plants. One of them will be grape tomatoes and the other a type of roma tomatoes. The medium size pot has a red pepper plant. The smallest pot has basil in it. The veggies are supposed to take about 2 months to produce fruit. So, hopefully come June I'll have some pictures of tomatoes and peppers! 

It's a.....

We're having a GIRL!!!!!

This morning at our 20 week appointment we found out God has blessed us with a little baby girl. She is healthy and weighs 12 oz., which is right on track for how far a long I am. I am also healthy, doing great, and have gained 6 lbs. at this point.

Going into the appointment I was expecting them to tell us we were having a boy. Why? Because it seems all of my friends have had or are having boys and both of our families have LOTS of boys. Joe was hoping it was a girl and had thought that it was going to be a girl. I was quite surprised when we were told it was a girl. I was partly surprised because as soon as the tech put the doppler on my stomach she happened to hit right between the legs with a clear shot. She said "you're having a girl." I thought she was kidding because it seriously hadn't been two seconds since she had started. She told us she was 100% sure it's a girl because of the angle she was able to see the sex organs. To quote her she said, "There are no boy parts down there." We are both excited! :)

This first picture is a profile of our little girl. :) The one below it is one of her face straight on. It looks a little creepy because it mostly is emphasizing her skull. 

It was amazing getting to see all that we did. I am so grateful we have the technology we do. As you can see, the baby looks like a baby now. It was neat to get to see the heart beat again, her bones, and all of her organs. It was awesome to see the baby move on the screen while feeling it at the same time.

My clothes are slowly starting to get too small. A few of my pants still fit and some of my shirts do. I have upgraded to mostly maternity shirts at this point. They are just more comfortable. I know from the picture of my belly you wouldn't guess my clothes don't fit. People keep being surprised with how little my belly is, but I think people don't realize that you don't 'look' pregnant for most of the pregnancy. I feel great. I'm still able to workout on a regular basis. I haven't felt tired during the day or anything like that. I'm sure as things progress I will! No crazy cravings, although I do enjoy spicy food even more than I did before getting pregnant. Garlic bothers my stomach, so I try to avoid it. (Sorry Berni's!)

Thanks for all of your prayers and excitement during this time in our lives!!!!

Crab'n on the Bayou

Every place Joe lives he likes to pick up a new 'sport'. Since we're in FL and live on the water he has started fishing and just recently bought a crab trap. This morning he checked our trap after filling it with the bones leftover from buffalo wings last night. There were two stone crabs inside. Stone crabs have large claws with the best meat. They are regulated though, and have to be a certain size to be able to be taken. Only one of the crabs had a claw big enough. Here's the crab we kept. Their claws are quite strong, enough that it can bruise your bone! Joe was smart and grabbed some tactical gloves before engaging with the crab.Here is the claw he took. It measured about 5 1/2 inches long. So we boiled the claw and made a scramble with the meat.

This is our resident Heron. We see him almost everyday around our 'backyard'. He was out on the dock when Joe went to check the crab trap.

Welsh Rabbit

Joe and I have established what you might call a 'tradition' in our family for Saturday mornings. We sleep in (if I have my way :) ) and Joe pretty much always cooks a big breakfast for us, usually making some kind of delicious egg dish. Often it is some kind of scramble. This last Saturday he wanted to branch out and try something new. He made Welsh Rabbit. Unlike the name implies it doesn't call for rabbit. The sauce that is used is a rarebit sauce, which often is mispronounced as 'rabbit', hence the name. The sauce is cheddar cheese, beer, worcheshire sauce and red pepper. The other components of the dish are english muffins, canadian bacon and poached eggs. We didn't have any canadian bacon, so we had sausage on the side instead. Joe also poached his first eggs for this recipe. They turned out well. Over all the dish was great and has inspired Joe to continue to try new recipes for Saturday morning.