Ultra Productive

I feel like I have gotten so much done in the past 2 days! My last day of work was Tuesday, so on Wednesday I kicked it in to high gear and did some much needed cleaning around the house. Today was dedicated to running errands and doing yard work.

I had my 20 week appointment this morning, and my Dr. says baby is growing well and its heartbeat sounds good. It's so cool/surreal to hear it. After the Dr.'s visit, I did a little shopping. I retired our down comforter to the attic yesterday, and I wanted to get a lighter summer blanket for our bed. Marshall's had just what I was looking for.

Still working on getting a bedskirt, but I love it!

Later this afternoon I hung our new flag, mowed the lawn, weeded the garden, and

watered our veggies (cucumber, yellow tomato, cherry tomato).

My mom tipped me off that hanging plants are way cheaper after Memorial Day, so I went over to Walmart to check out the goods. Sure enough, these beauties were only $4 each.

Pretty gerbera daisies.

Geraniums.

And this picture is just because I'm excited about our cute new picnic basket. We are looking forward to some cheap dates with this baby (the basket, not the one inside me- although we're excited for that one too).

Only 6 days left until I see Spencer, and only 11 days until we find out if this baby is a boy or girl!! Hooray!!

Liberty

I talked to Spencer for a little while today. He is on "liberty" this weekend, meaning they get privileges that they don't usually have during the week. Last weekend they were allowed to go anywhere on base they wanted. This weekend they got to go off base, so his company put together a little road trip and headed to Boston for the day to do some sight seeing. They aren't allowed to wear civilian clothes (even to church), so they were all in uniform. He told me he loved Boston because sometimes people would spontaneously start clapping as they all walked by. Some of his buddies went to a nice Italian restaurant for lunch, and the manager gave them all a bunch of free drinks.

Spencer said he went in to a store to buy a bottle of water, and when he came out he heard some women near him say, "I sure love a man in uniform."
"Are you wearing your khakis today?" I asked.
He said, "No, we're in our summer whites."
No wonder.
I'd be checking him out even in his less attractive khaki uniform, but the white one?? I'd probably be drooling...

Just for a general "Spencer Update," he is doing well. We've reached the end of week three today, so just two more to go! Ugh. That sounds like forever. But I'm flying out to Rhode Island for his graduation, so it's really only a week and a half until I get to see him. The "classes" portion of his training ended Friday, which he was relieved about. Mostly because class was 8am - 4pm, and if they were falling asleep they were supposed to stand up in the back of the room. Spencer said he was usually standing after the first 10 minutes of the first hour, so he would pretty much be standing all day. He mentioned something about firefighting and a simulation involving a sinking ship on the schedule for next week. Hopefully it will go by quickly for both of us.

As for me, I'm hanging in there. My friends have been so wonderful at inviting me over to save me from boredom. I still have two more days of work (hooray!!) until the school year is over for teachers. So between working, traveling pretty much every weekend to visit family, and keeping up with my church callings, I'm staying pretty busy. Baby seems to be doing ok too. I love feeling those little kicks every now and again, and I certainly look forward to them getting stronger! I still don't really look very pregnant, but I'm definitely entering that weird in-between stage of just looking kind of fat around the middle. This was a temple weekend for me, and in my dress I felt like I maybe even had a noticeable little belly. Here I am at 19 and a half weeks:

Lakeside

My family rented a cottage in Lakeside, Ohio for Memorial Day weekend. It's a nice little community right on Lake Erie. We had a great time! The weather was perfect for lots of fun outdoor activities.

Our cottage was the perfect proximity to the park and the lake. However, the decorators had a serious obsession with corn.

On Saturday night we went to see an Elvis impersonator. The show was really good- especially for the songs I actually knew!

Mom holding sweet baby Sam.

Dipping our toes into the lake. The water was cooooold, but some kids were brave enough to swim. I'm pretty sure Alli's swimsuit was on backwards - excess room in the front and a little extra cheek in the back if you know what I mean.

Little Jamesy just being cute.

We were right across the street from the park, where there was a playground, shuffleboard, basketball hoops, horseshoes, and miniature golf.

The (in)famous tire swing. One day Riley was spinning so fast that she got sick and ended up puking a few hours later. It wasn't pretty.

Celebrating James' 2nd birthday.

Happy Memorial Day!

Our Memorial Day salute (wrong hand Mom).

More pictures to come. Spencer, we sure missed you!! Everyone says hi!

P.S. Here's me at 17 and a 1/2 weeks:

Spencer finished his finals last Friday, so he is now officially a 2nd year dental student! We celebrated on Monday by going to the zoo since Mondays are free for residents of our county. It was such a nice day, and not too crowded!

We dressed like twins. On purpose (Spencer copied me).

We thought this grizzly was pretty funny, just chillin' in his pool.

This was a weird red kangaroo type thing. It was cute, mostly when it jumped around on the ground.

This koala was asleep for most of the time we "explored Australia," but he did wake up for a second and looked around. He kind of looked like Yoda.

Our funniest/most inappropriate story of the afternoon occurred when we were checking out the monkeys. A little girl was looking at these small monkeys with her dad, and one of them was bent over with his rear facing the glass. It was noticeably male, so Spencer and I cracked up when she said "Dad, how come his butt looks like grapes?" He didn't answer, but just laughed and moved her along to the next cage.

Dear Spring,

Thank you for coming and bringing sunshine and warm weather along with you. I love your flowering trees,


the unexpected presents you left me in my garden,

and your ability to make even a street lined with multiple foreclosed homes look beautiful.

And even though the lack of snow has revealed some large spots of dead grass in our front yard,


I'd still take you over winter any day of the week.

Love,
Suzy

The Best Kind of Update

We are going to have a baby!

I'm just about 13 weeks along, and for now my due date is October 30th. We got to see the baby for the first time last Tuesday, and we also got to hear the heartbeat. I have been feeling pretty good, just a little nauseous if I go more than 3-4 hours without eating anything. We are so excited to have a little one of our own!

Coloring Eggs

It's been a good 7 years since I've decorated Easter eggs, and since Spencer has never been interested in coloring them with me, I asked my neighbor Becky if she wanted to. It turned out it that she hadn't done it for a while either, so we set out to decorate this morning. I certainly learned that I'm not that great at boiling eggs. Is there some secret to it? What started as a full dozen ended up being a lame 9. Good thing Becky made some too, or we would have been done in like 10 minutes.

Little Macie thought throwing the eggs in the dye was the coolest thing ever, and it was certainly entertaining to watch her break and then peel some of the eggs... or take a huge bite out of one and then have a look of utter disgust cross her face.