New Kitty

Well, with my best friend off to Vancouver, WA, we have adopted her kitty, Stinky. She was super stressed about not being able to take him with her, and wanted him to have a good home. We love cats and Aaron has been wanting to get a second one, so... that worked out. We haven't introduced him to our cat, Joey, yet but they'll have to meet eventually. Hopefully she doesn't hate him. :)

For now he's staying in our office, but once he is comfortable with his new home he'll be outside like our kitty.

Checking out his new neighborhood from the office window.

I'm Thankful for...

a relationship with a loving, personal God
an amazing husband, truly a gift from a loving, personal God
a child in my very near future
a wonderful family, and extended family, that loves God
a Christ-following, be-real, Bible-teaching church
a country where I don't fear my children dying of starvation, disease, or war
friends who aren't afraid to confront me for my own benefit
a husband who has a job and works hard at it
no debt
a home that we own
a husband who takes out the trash for me, and is tidy
not having to work and be a mom at the same time
Starbucks coffee
free time
the resources to bless others
bible school
peanut butter, and everything you can make with it (my craving)
timtam slams (if you've never had one, you're missing out)
dishwashers and washing machines and dryers (my own personal slaves)
back and leg massages from my hubby
christian radio streamed online
chick flicks and nail polish
the generousity of neighbors
the power of prayer
facebook
"The Office"
prenatal yoga
homeowner's exemption on property taxes
cell phones and AAA
doctors
cute maternity clothes
tickle fights and snuggling afterwards
the beauty of God's creation
Calvin and Hobbes
musicals
chocolate

...and a million other things. God has so richly blessed my life, I could never list it all.

We are getting up early so "the boys" can all go play football, and "the gals" will all watch. That is until we get cold, then we're going to Starbucks until the boys finish. Off to the parents' after that to start prepping dinner, and then we can finish off the day eating. Isn't that how it's supposed to be?

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving and Christmas

*

I burned some Christmas CD at my parents' house yesterday and was listening to them this morning while preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. I decided to get out some of my (limited) Christmas decor and put it out. I'm so excited that the holidays are here, they're such a wonderful time of year. It also reminded me that Vanessa will be home in 15 days! I came across a picture of her that made me laugh.

It reminded me so much of her personality. It was the fifth or sixth picture in a series of bad ones. I know that my Mom was trying to get a good picture of the present she got and kept asking for another. We finally got this one.

I can hear her thoughts: "THERE! Did you get THAT one!" I could hardly breathe I was laughing so hard, and then I sobbed for about 10 minutes 'cause I wished she was here.

...

I miss you Nessa!

.

New Picture

Me, at 7 months (30 weeks):

What I've been up to

Since I quit work in October I have been enjoying the blessing of rest.
It has been so wonderful to be able to sleep in when my night has been interrupted by the discomforts of pregnancy.
It has been wonderful to have all the time I need to catch up on some projects I've had sitting around.
It has been wonderful to feel on top of my housework and really enjoy being a housewife. It has been wonderful!


On the not so wonderful side of things, my best high school buddy is moving to Vancouver, Washington on Thursday.
I'm thrilled that she and her husband have such a great opportunity to start a new life there with a great job.
I'm also happy that she'll be able to fulfill her dream of staying at home and starting a family of her own, but...
I'm sad that we'll miss out on being there for eachother as we each strive to be loving wives and mothers. We'll miss out on seeing eachothers' kids grow up...

but that's what blogs are for, right?

So, in the meantime...
I baked peanut butter cookies to make myself feel better. :)

Getting bigger

Me, at six months (25 weeks):

Wine tasting, and cute babies...

Last night we had a family "wine tasting" party. It was really wonderful. Everyone brought great food and a bottle of wine to go with it. Then we uncorked them all and had fun eating and visiting. Obviously, my niece (Reece) and nephew (Malachi) were the center of all the attention 'cause they're so darn cute! It was so much fun to be with everyone and spend time together. I think that my Mom's going to be a wonderful Grandma. Malachi thought she was a blast 'cause she let him play with her water and a wine cork. Yeah, kids so don't need expensive toys. :)

Malachi's cheesy smile. We don't know why he does it, but it's funny.

Malachi experimenting with his new "toys."

Mom, making it way more fun! She would grab the cork out of his mouth with her teeth. He LOVED it!

My adorable 3 month old niece. I wish I could get my video to load. She's got the sweetest giggle and she likes to stick out her really long pointy tongue. It's way cute.

Snuggling with daddy while we all played "Bang."

Sleeping in Aunt Cc's arms. This is one of the best feelings ever! I can't wait 'til it's my baby I can snuggle with. :)

New "Do" for Fall (Winter?)

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like I didn't get much of a fall, seeing as it froze last night and my sister in law just called to let me know that it's SNOWING in Boise. Yes, it's freakin' snowing on the 10th of October! What the?!?

So, my new fall hairdo may in fact be my new winter hairdo. Either way, I love it. It's darker blonde and really warm-toned, and 4 inches shorter (!). I've got one of those amazing stylists who somehow knows exactly what I want everytime I go in. Even if I can't explain it or visualize it well when she's done it's always, "Yep! That's what I wanted!" She rocks!

Baby Bump

I keep getting requests for a picture of my belly. Well, I finally got a good one. To be honest, you couldn't really tell I was pregnant until about two weeks ago. Even now, it's just a little bump. But, I'm proud that I'm starting to show, it's been five months already! Only four more to go!

WOW

Yeah, wow! It's been a long time since I've posted anything. I've been busy reading up on all the important pregnancy and parenthood stuff, getting my baby room and items all ready and in order, and winding down the summer trying to make the most of the time left with my sister before she leaves for Canada again. All that said, I'm halfway through my pregnancy (and although I'm the only one who can tell, I've gained ten pounds and I AM getting bigger), 20 weeks tomorrow on my 24th birthday. It's strange to think my 20's are half over, and I'm going to be a mom in 4 1/2 months. Time flies when your having fun! And boy am I having fun! See?

Baby room! I love it! And I love the freedom, yes FREEDOM, of not knowing what we're having.

"But, Cecelia," you ask, "HOW on EARTH will you be able to plan ANYTHING without knowing?!?!?!?!?!?"

Yeah, whatever... think about it: boy=blue, girl=pink, unknown=whatever the heck you want except pink. That works for me, since anyone who knows me at all knows that pink is at the bottom of the list of colors I like. So, that said, we are going to let it be a surprise, and the baby room is going to be apple green, butter yellow, cream, and chocolate brown (notice those are all food colors, sounds yummy to me). :)

Our first ultrasound is next Thursday. YAY!

More bounty

I pulled up the rest of my lettuce today and the first of my carrots. Our beans are producing lots, but we've yet to have a ripe tomato. Soon though, very soon! So excited to eat them! :)

Nez Perce Lake

As part of Aaron's vacation time this week, we went on an overnight backpacking trip to Nez Perce Lake. It was a 5 hour drive to the east side of Idaho, but a beautiful hike. It was worth it just to have the time alone together.

Wild Columbine

The creek that drains from the lake created this large marshy meadow area, full of wildflowers. If we hadn't lost the trail on the way up we would've missed this entirely. Sometimes loosing the trail is okay. :)

It was REALLY steep, about a 1200 ft. elevation gain over just 2.2 miles. WHEW! Straight up on the way to the lake, straight down on the way back. Talk about a workout. About ten minutes into it I threw up (partly from being in the car for 5 hours, partly 'cause I'm pregnant). Aaron offered to turn around and go back, but there was no way I was going to get back in the car for 5 hours after just getting out. I'm glad we finished. I felt much better the rest of the time.

Aaron finally started teaching me to fly fish. I've always been a bait fisher, but Aaron is seriously into fly fishing, so I've been wanting to learn. I didn't catch anything but I think I have the basics down. Aaron caught two arctic graylings, a first for him. Cool looking fish too.



Me, watching Aaron fish. I'm really not as bored as I look. It was nice to be cold for a change and enjoy being outdoors in God's wonderful creation.

Oh yeah, and...

We have got zucchini coming out of our ears. Man! Our veggie garden is going nuts. We'll have beans soon and I can't wait until all our tomatoes ripen. We'll be living on them. It's been very rewarding. I can hardly believe the pictures of my garden from only a month ago, it looks so sparse. So, that's eight right there, and I probably gave away about 15 of them two days ago, and we've been eating them too.


We've also been having lots of salads, and giving away lots of lettuce too. Our carrots aren't quite ready yet, but maybe in two weeks.

I love fresh green beans! Can't wait to pick them!


Compare this picture below to my post on June 6th. It's an amazing transformation. Especially going back to April and seeing what our grass looked like. I'm now convinced of the power of my blogging to encourage me in this area.


If anyone wants any zucchini or lettuce just let me know. Court?

A totally random and long post

I feel bad that I haven't kept my blog up to date, because so many things have happened lately. For starters, I have a beautiful new niece, Reece. She was born on June 26th.

We had a wonderful time visiting with family at the hospital, after waiting for Reese's arrival back in the room for more than an hour. It's so wonderful to see our family growing. It makes me all that more excited to have our baby. I'm 1/4 of the way there, 10 weeks out of 40!

This picture was just priceless. Malachi sure loves Uncle Andrew, which makes Aaron sad because Malachi cries everytime Aaron laughs, especially at the same time as his daddy, Tony. It must be too loud. :) So, Malachi's not so sure what to think of Aaron, because he laughs a lot when he's with Tony.

This is Malachi "being gentle." He's rubbing his new sister's head. I think it's because Bridget always tells him to be gentle when he pulls her hair, so now he must associate "gentle" with hair.

A long awaited visit

My Aunt Kristen and her boys finally got to come up and visit. I missed them so much and it was such a blessing to have them stay for so long. It was fun to visit and catch up with my Aunt (more like an older sister to me, she's younger than my hubby, which really weirds her out), and to play with her boys (my cousins, but they feel more like nephews). And yet, I didn't get any pictures with them. I'm a dork. But, I love you guys and miss you, again! Please move to Idaho!?!?!

Fourth of July

Well, we hung out with the family on the 4th. Only this time we were actually patriotic about it. My mom just decided that she wanted to decorate and be all festive, something she usually saves up for Christmas time. So, we made red-white-and-blue bunting and hung it from the trees, and we painted little pots red and blue, and planted red geraniums in them with little flags.

Since my mom had just had my Aunt Kristen and her two adorable boys visiting, she had a bit of a "kid-hangover," so we made this an adults only party. My Dad and Mom, Vanessa, Aaron, my mother-in-law Susan, and me. We ate, played games, lit sparklers and California candles (BIG sparklers), and then climbed up on the roof to spot everyone else's fireworks. It was lovely. And, of course, the food was yummy. My mother-in-law always says yes to our invitations because we "always make such good food!"

It's true. I didn't get a picture of dessert though. Black and white angel food cake with chocolate ganache. Yeah, it was so good!

Me, playing Quiddler, one of our favorite new word games.

And of course there was ping-pong. My dad and my Hubby just can't beat eachother enough at this game. There is a raging on-going competition between them. Notice too, that even our ping-pong table is dressed for the holiday. :)

Venice: Days Five and Six

Before we left Florence, we climbed the Duomo's dome. When the church was built (1300-1435, 135 years) the technology didn't exist to span the dome, so it just had a hole in it until someone felt up to the challenge (Brunelleschi). 463 steps to the top, and totally worth it. It took about 15 minutes to climb up on very narrow stone steps that made me feel like the princess in the highest tower. No wonder she never came down and had to be rescued, it was exhausting. But like I said, worth it. It was breath-taking, literally.

It was early morning, and the first non-rainy day of our visit. But it had rained that night so everything felt fresh and clean. The view was perfect.

We got there first thing in the morning, around 8am, so we were able to hear all the church bells going off at around 8:30. The same bells that woke us up that morning at 7am. For some reason my video wouldn't load, sorry. It was idealic.

We took a three hour train ride to Venice, and although we did get seats this time, we weren't sitting by eachother. That wasn't cool. Aaron was across the aisle from me and I was by the window, three seats in. The scenery was so much prettier on this trip, but unfortunately the windows were dirty so I couldn't get a good picture. Rude.

Of all the places we visited Venice was probably my least favorite. Oh, it was beautiful, but it felt an awful lot like a theme park. Very surreal. And LOADED with tourists. And the food was less than authentic, way less. However, due to the popularity of Venice with tourists, the upside was that it was very clean. And no, it doesn't stink. It's in the ocean, so, yeah, it smells like the ocean, but that's not a bad smell, really.

So, yeah, we didn't take a gondola ride. Granted the price for one, you probably wouldn't either. It was about the equivalent of $120 in US funds for a 45 minute ride. No thanks, I'd rather eat. We took the slow public transit water-bus down the grand canal for a 12 euro, 45 minute tour of the city. Much easier on the wallet, and I'm sure just as fun.

Venice is well known for it's Murano glass. An island nearby, part of greater Venice, has a glass blowing factory where they make everything you can possibly imagine from glass. Everything from Chandeliers to chess sets, jewelry to clocks and glass candy. Pretty cool.

St. Mark's square is the main attraction on the island. It is surrounded by the Doge's Palace (The Doge was the political leader of Venice), various public buildings, St. Mark's Basilica (where the "supposed" bones of St, Mark are buried), and the Correr Museum. We visited all of these, but no pictures were allowed. The history of Venice was fascinating, I highly encourage you to read about it.

Us, waiting in line to take to elevator to the top of the bell tower in St. Mark's Square.

View of the Grand Canal from the bell tower. The canal branches off to the right in the middle of the picture. The triangular building in the center was the customs house for all shipments coming into Venice, it was being restored at the time. The strip of land at the top of the picture is Giudecca, the residential island.

This was taken on our way to the Peggy Guggenheim collection, definitely my favorite part of our stay in Venice. It's a modern art collection housed in the former retirement palazzo of the American heiress, and includes works by Picasso, Dali, Pollock, and Chegall. It was awesome, and, of course, no pictures. I love modern art, it really makes you think, especially if you read the titles and try to figure it out, it's fun. It was funny also to see Peggy's tombstone, and right next to her are all of her "beloved babies." It took me a moment to realize that they were her dogs (there were about 20 of them and they each only lived about 10-12 years). Some people are so strange.

Parting shot: Our last night in Venice, we just walked around and enjoyed the surreal beauty of a city that is basically decaying, and sinking. But, as long as tourism exists, Venice will survive.

On the way home the next day, we stopped in Switzerland, and based on their airport I'm convinced of their sophistication as a society. It was the cleanest and quietest airport I've ever been to. And not for lack of traffic. There were thousands of people there. But no one was stressed out, everything flowed smoothly, everything was very easy to understand. Then there were the two black ladies at the customs check point, who reminded me very much of the southern-gospel type we know so well in the states, only they had swiss accents. Imagine that, it was hilarious. Definitely want to go back there and visit the whole country.

Next stop was Washington D.C. On the whole, much less impressive. Noisy, hot, crowded, and dreadfully slow moving through the customs check points. Bleh!

Next stop, San Francisco (where, ironically, we saw Ian Johnson, our local celebrity). I hate it when they do that whole east coast to west coast in one flight thing. It's exhausting. So,it was 8pm when we got to SF, but to our bodies it was about 6am. When we finally got home at about 2:30am, we were definitely ready for bed. Fortunately we recovered quickly, and that's the end. :)