Denver Getaway

Last week Bryce and I took a week off of our regular life and headed out to Denver, Co. 

We wanted to take one last trip together just the two of us before life gets turned upside down, in the most wonderful way! As we were driving down, I realized that this is the first trip that we’ve taken that hasn’t involved going back to MN to see our families or the lakes so I think it was a great time to go! I’ve tried to keep the photo bomb to a minimum, but we did so many fun things so it was hard to do. But I’ll try to keep it brief.

We got down Saturday night and just relaxed at the hotel. Sunday morning we got to go to the LB church in Arvada which was really fun. I love that we could go to a church that we only knew one person and find all these connections through the church body.  That afternoon we took in a Rockies game. They got just creamed, but it was still a fun afternoon. Neither of us had been to a professional baseball game since we were pretty little so it was a new experience, and such a great day to just enjoy being outside!

Monday we headed out to the Denver Zoo. It was  a pretty big zoo, so we just wandered around for a good portion of the day.  My favorite - tigers!

After we had exhausted ourselves we went to the city park for a picnic and just to relax and hang out. This park is gorgeous! It is huge, with walking paths throughout, playgrounds, sports centers and everything else you can imagine.

 Tuesday we jumped in the car and headed south for a bit until we hit Colorado Springs and the Garden of the Gods. The park is filled with intriguing red rock formations. It was a great place for a growing pregnant lady to hike around since the main trails are paved and are pretty level. We did go off the paths a couple of times to look around, but for the most part you can take in a lot of beauty without having to exert too much energy.

Wednesday was supposed to be a pretty cool day so we decided to do our indoor activities. In the morning we went  to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. They had a couple of really fun exhibits. Bryce really enjoyed this guy because he was just huge and disgustingly ugly!

Our favorite part was the T-rex exhibit. You may have heard about it at other museums, they have life-size dinosaurs that are built to follow you with their eyes and they move! There were quite a few squeals from kids as they thought that the dinosaurs were alive and coming for them.  Unfortunately we couldn’t take any pictures, so you’ll just have to take my word that it was pretty realistic and fun to see! 

In the afternoon we went over to the Downtown Aquarium. I could have stayed in there for a long time watching all the creatures swim around. Between the sharks and the stingrays I was captivated. At the end of the tour you got to pet the stingrays. Since fish scare the crap out of me it took a while to work up the courage to actually touch them and that was the most disgusting thing ever! They were slimy and squishy and just creepy feeling! But I’m glad I did it.

 Since we were downtown were we decided to walk around and found a beautiful river walk that led downtown, and of course a Starbucks! So that was a great way to end the day.

Thursday (I’m almost done, so stick with me!) Was our most unplanned day. We headed over to Golden Co to tour the Coors Brewery. It was a 30 minute or so tour that was interesting but not as fun as I was expecting.

After the tour we walked around “Historic Downtown Golden” and we found another city park that was  great for a picnic.

 For the afternoon we ventured up onto Lookout Mountain.  It offers great views overlooking Downtown Denver.  As well  Buffalo Bills Grave and a few hiking trails.

After exploring all those for awhile we got to drive this crazy mountain road down. 

Whew we made it to the end! Thanks for sticking around! Bryce and I were so glad to get away and do some exploring together, as well as just relax a whole lot. It was a wonderful trip!

Pregnancy Thoughts - Week 24

24 Weeks this week!

Not a whole lot to say this week. My streak of many days with feeling great came to an end. That was sad, I was really enjoying having more energy and not having to think about what was going to make me sick or not. Oh well, comes with the territory I guess. 

Firsts for this week:

• A stranger asked me when I was due. I was taken aback, just because no one I don't know has come up to me and talked about this pregnancy yet. It was weird, but I think I will have to get used to it.
• Babe has kept me awake in the mornings before I have to get out of bed practicing to be an acrobat, that or a MMA fighter, not quite sure which it is yet.
• Had my first dream that Baby was a girl. I've always thought of baby as a boy, so if I start referring to babe as a she all of a sudden, it isn't because we found out the gender.

Well thats about all for the week! Here's how much Lil' B is growing! (and growing and growing...)

Ten on Tuesday

After a long break I thought I would go back to Ten on Tuesday. The questions are from this website.

WOULD YOU RATHER:
1. eat chocolate covered grasshoppers or this freaky squid thing?
That is a no brainer, I'll take the grasshoppers. Not that I would enjoy them, but really bugs just get crispy and they aren't chewy and jiggly like squid. The only thing that really gets me with bugs is afterwards when you feel something left in your mouth and you have to wonder whether that is a foot or an wing or what? Squid is just plan nasty all around!

2. never see another movie or never watch TV again?
I would so rather not see another movie. I don't watch a lot of movies actually, I tend to gravitate to tv on dvd's instead of movies in general. So it wouldn't be a big deal to give up movies.

3. be a superhero with a lame power or a supervillain with an awesome power?
I guess I would go with superhero. It would be fun to have an awesome power, but I don't think I could justify it by being a supervillain. I wonder what a lame power is?

4. eat only salty snacks for the rest of you life, or only sweet snacks?
This one is a tough one. I love sweets and lean towards that. But to now have chips would be sad. But then again, there is just so much more you can do with sweets, so I'll go with that.

5. never read another book or never hear another song?
As much as I love to read a good book, life would be so boring without music. I think I would probably cheat and find other things to read.

6. be a whale carcass remover or a sewer inspector?
So I don't really know anything about either of these professions. So going purely on my preconceived notions I would go with sewer inspector. There is just something about rotting animals that I cannot handle, I can't imagine what it would be like on the enormous scale of a whale carcass.

7. have no electricity or no running water?
No running water. I'm a little too attached to electronics, and besides there are ways around no running water! I could just pretend that I was staying out at the lake cabin before we got running water in there. That makes me feel really old, the fact that I've stayed somewhere that doesn't have water. Isn't that something that people who are a lot older than me are supposed to say?

8. be a dog or a cat?
Dog. Dogs get brought on trips and get played with more than cats. That and I just really like dogs!

9. always be hot or always be cold?
Depend on what season we are in. If you ask me in January I would say hot. Ask me in August and I would say cold. Gotta love midwest weather!

10. be forced to watch all 3 High School Musicals on an endless loop, or the Twilight movies?
I've never seen any of them, so I don't have a lot of good information to base this on. I would say twilight because as far as I know they don't bust out in song and dance. While I do enjoy a good musical, it would be so much harder to tune out if it was an endless loop.

Pregnancy Thoughts - Week 23

23 weeks down, 17 to go (or somewhere in there)

Baby is continuing to grow and thrive and kick up a storm. At my last check up I was told that after my next appointment we'll be down to 2 weeks in between visits. For some reason that just kind of took my breath away. Where has time flown away too? My list of things to do keeps growing, but so far my motivation to do any of the things on that list has been doing the opposite. The crib that we ordered arrived in town this week so I think once we pick that up and get it set up that will kick our butts in gear a bit.

Pregnancy Thoughts:

• Pregnancy First: Bryce has finally been able to feel Baby kick and move around a bit. Last night Babe threw a party and really showed Daddy what he could do, kicking and moving all over!
• So there are some great things about pregnancy, and a long list of not-so-greats. This week hormones have taken over. Up until now I've been able to keep mood swings and irrational thinking at bay, but my goodness being a hormonal pregnant gal can mess with your head! I was practically in tears all day after struggling to find a kennel to watch Bentley on our upcoming trip. I would wake up for hours  stressing about it, and practically canceled our trip because I was convinced that it just wasn't going to happen! (I have since found a great place for puppy to stay, and then of course was almost crying because I was over the moon happy!) I just can't wait to see what other needless things I'm going to flip out over - thank you God for an understanding husband!

On a completely unrelated note, here is what our downstairs bathroom is looking like: In case you can't tell, where Bryce is standing, that used to be a shower. I can't wait to show you the final result, I think it is going to be great, and such a huge improvement!

Pregnancy Thoughts - Weeks 21/22

Last week just got away from me, so I didn't get a chance to take a picture or write whats been happening. Which is probably ok, since I don't seem to have too much each week. So I'll try to recap the last two weeks for you.

First off, here's what the bump is looking like:

We got to go in and get our official anatomy scan last week. Baby must have liked all the attention because that child would not settle down! The tech was just laughing the whole time because every time she thought she had a good picture baby would do a little dance for her and just be uncooperative. If baby decided to behave and lay still, the hands where in front of its face so it took a long time to get everything done. I was so glad that we got our unofficial scan done the week before because since that tech wasn't going to be showing the pictures to anyone she could focus on more on showing us the baby and not on measuring every little part.  Overall, baby is doing good and still measuring right on track!

Pregnancy Thoughts:

• Pregnancy First: I've been able to feel Baby move around quite a bit! Makes me happy!!! Whenever I call Bryce over to feel, babe just goes completely still. Its the weirdest thing, but I'm hoping Bryce calming affect will continue when Baby arrives!
• Pregnancy First: I did one of those rock back and forth to get momentum to get out of the chair. I laughed pretty hard when I realized what I just did! Thankfully I don't have to do that all the time, but it definitely takes a little more effort to get standing upright!
• Baby weighs a pound now, and is the size of a spaghetti squash or a papaya. Yeah neither of those are that helpful to me either! Around 11 inches or so.
• I have found out how dangerous Motherhood Maternity sales can be! (buy one get one half off jeans, plus 40% off sale prices - Yes please!!) So because of that, and my sister in law grabbing some great clothes I have a great start at my maternity wardrobe. And I will admit the clothes aren't nearly as bad as I was expecting, so that's been good.
• I have started to enjoy being pregnant. Is that bad of me that it took that long? Its not that it bothered me before, but now I can say that I have been really enjoying it! I feel good most of the time, I got over my dread of getting bigger, and feeling baby moving really helped too.
• We ordered our first piece of baby supplies. The crib will be coming in next week. Now its time to go through and decide which furniture we are keeping and moving around and what we just need to get rid of. Bryce and I were given so much furniture individually before we were married and we easily overfilled our four bedroom house, so it will be nice to go through things again and purge some stuff before we get inundated with baby stuff.

Overall it has been a great couple of weeks. I feel like things are starting to pick up speed and know its only down hill from here. I can't wait to see what the next few weeks/months will bring!

Life - Outside of Baby

Looking over the last month of posts, I noticed that I haven't written anything other than pregnancy news. I guess it isn't that surprising, it is a huge part of our lives right now. Especially being our first everything is just so new and I feel the need to share that all with you. But there have been other things going on so I thought I would do a quick rundown on those fun things.

This past weekend we went over the MN to spend a long weekend with our parents. We got there Friday evening just in time to celebrate my mother in law's birthday with some amazing Chinese food. Saturday we went to a zoo in a neighboring town with Bryce's parents and his sister and her family. It was so fun to see the zoo with the kids. It never fails to make me laugh when they are way more impressed with the everyday ordinary bird that just flew by than the monkeys that are doing all sorts of fun things. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with that day, so I don't have any pictures. Sunday - Tuesday was spent out at my family's lake cabin. Definitely my favorite place on earth! I didn't take many pictures but here is a few of my favorites!

Sitting around visiting with family on Sunday afternoon.

Monday and Tuesday was just my immediately family and was spent like this: lay in the sun, grab some good food, go back on the water, repeat. Perfection!! We couldn't ask for better weather or a quieter time to just enjoy time with each other. 

These are just a few of the fun things we've been able to do this summer, other than dream and talk about Baby's arrival. Throw in some camping, hiking, and enjoying time with friends it has been a pretty good summer. Bryce has moved to daytime hours at work (7:00 am - 5:30 pm Mon- Thurs) and so life feels a little more normal again.

Things we are looking forward to - Tomorrow is the official 20 week ultrasound. I did get a chance to have one done this past weekend at home which was so much fun, and special since my sister, mom, and mother in law got to be there too. We still aren't finding out the gender, but it is just as much fun to see baby moving and shaking! Also I have been inundated with cucumbers from my garden this summer and just picked up a canning set so I get to teach myself how to can pickles in the next few days. Should be an adventure! If I don't write anything about it, it probably didn't go well, but hopefully it will be a success!

Pregnancy Thoughts - Week 20

20 Weeks! It seems so crazy that we're halfway done with this pregnancy. The first month or so after we found out seemed to drag on forever! But once summer got into full swing and so did the energy (well at least more than it was in the first trimester!) the days and weeks started to fly! I know that it will go even faster once we start getting prepared for baby and then the holidays hit.

Pregnancy Thoughts of the Week:

• Pregnancy first: I am wearing my first maternity shirt today. For some reason I had decided that I wanted to make it to 20 weeks before buying/wearing maternity clothes. I ordered a couple of pairs of jeans online this week that I am really looking forward to having!
• I had to laugh because this past week within 24 hours of each other I was told that I am not showing at all, and then the next day that I was getting so big! It cracks me up how different peoples thoughts on how big a person should be at each stage in pregnancy.
• I've taken a slight break from all my baby research. But it is just because I've been researching trip ideas for Bryce and I to have one last trip together as a family of two. I think we finally found a spot that meets all our requirements and should be a blast!
• Wow, I'm having a hard time with coming up with things to say about this week. I suppose that is a good thing. I am so happy that this has been a relatively "boring" pregnancy - meaning no complications or severe sickness or anything.

And lastly, Happy Birthday to my dear husband Bryce! You have made life more fun and amazing than I could imagine! Love You!