50 Things I'm Thankful For v. 2013

This Thanksgiving has been quite different for me. I confess I haven't been terribly excited for it, mostly because I'm just tired. It's a pivotal moment in the checklist of things-that-happen-before-the-baby-comes though, so in that sense I've been really anxious for it to come. Plus, I really, really wanted to eat the smoked turkey Jim was making on the BBQ. He's pretty much the most awesome person ever and I love that he cooks such delicious food. I'm one lucky girl.

This week the kitchen has gradually worn me down. First, I was making pasta dough and the bottom part of the kitchen aid that holds the beater completely fell off into the bowl. Since this piece is compression fit at the factory there is no quick and easy fix. The part has to be ordered and then there is the labor to swap it out. It's going to be more than a hundred dollars to fix (but still less than the price of a new mixer) and is rather disappointing. I admit to feeling a surge of relief that there is a reason to not over commit myself to some mysterious baking agenda and have been much more accepting of the damage.

Then I tried to make a salted caramel tart, the base of which is a graham cracker crust. Long story short, I took a perfect crust out of the oven and set it on a burner to cool. In my haste to make the filling I turned on the wrong stove burner and didn't notice it until the crust, and the parchment beneath it, were on the verge of flames. That was definitely not what I hoped my house would smell like on Thanksgiving.

After that I ended up burning the caramel filling beyond recognition. When I decided to make a pumpkin mousse filling instead (since I didn't really have ingredients left for much else) I found that one of the beaters to my hand mixer had completely come apart. Have you tried to beat anything with only one beater? It is hardly effective, to say the least.

I ended up trying to make a filling using the dough hooks for the hand mixer and while the end result was fairly tasty, the consistency was not what I hoped and it seemed like a mediocre standby to me. I blame pregnancy brain, even if that's a cheap shot. I can't seriously be this goofed up on my own. The thought that this accurately represents my kitchen competency is too much for me to bear.

I've been in a bit of a sick-of-being-pregnant funk lately so it's about time I begin this year's list. Remembering how much I have to be thankful for always helps me refocus.

50 Things I'm Thankful For v. 2013

1. A healthy body. It may not always do what I want without protest, but I'm so thankful for it and the capabilities I have as a result
2. Getting kicked in the ribs, and the way it reminds me every day what a miracle it is to grow a person
3. Lindor Dark Chocolate Truffles
4. A husband who is far and away a better match for me than I ever dreamed I would find 
5. Two beautiful girls, who keep me on my toes and challenge me in every possible way 
6. Getting to be nursery leader at church for the better part of this year. I miss it every single week
7. Living in a place that is naturally green and beyond description beautiful 
8. Kite flying at the coast
9. Date nights with my husband, where we can pretend for a time that outside demands are non-existent 
10. Artistic, creative friends who continually inspire and motivate me to indulge my own creative sensibilities
11. Health Insurance
12. Pillows. Lots and lots of pillows 
13. Hot water heaters; my favorite invention of all time
14. Hand-me-down baby clothes 
15. The power of sunshine to heal the soul
16. A mother who let me know beyond a shadow of doubt that I was the most important thing in her world 
17. Access to our apartment community room for whatever gathering we feel like planning 
18. Target clearance sales
19. Walking away from a gorgeous marble cake plate on clearance at Target just this week
20. My iphone still working, even though I dropped it in water and had a minor panic attack 
21. The many National Park adventures the hubs and I have been able to have 
22. The ability to pursue education
23. Selling things on Craigslist and feeling like less of a slave to material possessions 
24. Having a dishwasher 
25. Mandatory recycling
26. Vitamin Water
27. Warm baths
28. Pinterest, now that I've learned how to use it without letting it suck my life away
29. Sweet Life Patisserie
30. Beautiful cake plates
31. Wild daffodils growing along I-5
32. The Eugene Celebration parade
33. Amazing friends we've met in grad school
34. Learning that my camera and lens have limitations, meaning that the barriers to getting the shots I want are not all operator error
35. Super Saturday
36. The extreme diversity of this beautiful planet
37. Opportunities to meet people from all over the world in student housing, and consequently to learn about how very many things I take for granted living in the United States
38. Lotion
39. Fleece blankets
40. Bicycle traffic lights
41. Clean water to drink
42. Having never wondered where my family would find their next meal 
43. Family bike rides in the summer
44. Leather boots
45. Three pairs of glasses in the right prescription, so there is always a style to fit my mood or a pair to wear when I misplace one of the others
46. Banana Republic Visa card rewards
47. Bird songs at any time of day along the Amazon Parkway Trail
48. Ice cold drinking water
49. Picking berries with my family
50. Faith 

The Lorax

Oh my goodness, I remember being a kid and being in little plays at school. Most notably was one in 6th grade where I was the wife of the lion king and I had to get mad at him about something or another. That's about all I can remember about the play other than I wore my favorite (ever) Easter dress. Tonight, I got to sit on the other end and watch the joy unfold on the faces of little people.

Aeryn's school is rather unique in that they have a homeroom class for language arts, then they do project classes that mix students and teachers of various grades as well as have a community time which is also inter-grade. Aeryn has learned about mythology, built rockets, learned about rumba music and dance, written poetry, and many other things in the project class time. It's really a neat way for the teachers to explore something they have a personal connection to and may not have a lot of time to dedicate to in class. The kids get exposure to a wide range of people and experiences, and frankly it's a lot of fun.

Her current project class has been putting together a play of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax and tonight was their performance.

She has been a bit spazzy due to the excitement of it.  I can't say I blame her, but I do think when I got upset this afternoon because she was stuffing clean clothes under the bed instead of putting them on hangars it all went in one ear and out the other because she was so preoccupied.

She got to be a Barbaloot. They crawled around the Truffula Tree forest eating fruit from the trees. Until the trees were chopped down, of course, and then all the Barbaloots got to become Thneed knitters.

She painted the mask this afternoon and we dried it in the oven so she could wear it tonight. She is also wearing a maternity dress a friend gave me because we didn't have any other brown clothes. She didn't care at all... when I finally told her (after the play) that it was a pregnant-lady-dress, she got far more excited than I care to remember. It reminded me of earlier today when I allowed myself to look through the drawers of my non-maternity clothes and I was beyond excited about how cute they are. It's funny how not wearing things for 6 months has made them all so much more appealing.

Throughout the play she had a big smile on her face. It was great to see her so happy! I've wondered if theater might be something she pursues in middle and high school and even though there is no way to tell at this point, it sure looked like she was having an amazing time. The fact that she asked at least two dozen times afterward "was it awesome, mom?" just confirms that.

I love this motherhood thing. I know that being a parent isn't for everyone and not all parents are as sappy as I am, but goodness gracious this is so awesomely rewarding.

Showered!

Sometimes I still can't believe there's a little man coming to our family. Even with the swelling, waking up several times per night, exhaustion, and just plain getting huge, it sometimes feels like it's all in my head and it will never actually happen. Today though, it has felt more real. In large part because of this:

Some of my friends threw a baby shower today for my friend Karen and I. We are due about 5 weeks apart and I'd been planning a shower for her a few weeks ago, but unforeseen circumstances caused it to be delayed. I'd been so worried about making sure she got a shower that when the hosts asked if we minded that they be combined, she and I chatted and decided that would be a lot of fun.

It was.

The decorations were gorgeous, the food was fantastic, and the company even better. 

I never had a baby shower for Aeryn. My office brought in a cake one day and surprised me with a little party, and the employees at the post office even surprised me with a cake one day. Does that tell you how often I was in the post office? I didn't have many real friends at that time and the only people I really knew well were my colleagues. The idea of friends throwing me a party was truly a little overwhelming. I was glad it turned into a double shower so the attention wasn't only on me. 

 

I can't describe how lucky I feel. Through generous gifts, hand-me-downs, and Craigslist, I'm feeling like little man is well covered as he comes into the world. Not only are the essentials going to be covered, but some of the things I really hoped to have too. It may be the hormones, but I want to cry every time I think about how blessed I am. 

I sent Aeryn off with my phone and asked her to take pictures of some of the people at the shower. This is what I ended up with:

At least I will always remember my friends' cute kids. The rest of the guests I'll have to commit to memory. Honestly, I feel so spoiled and loved. It was amazing. 

Halloween

This year I got to make Squirt's costume. After her batgirl costume a couple years ago I swore I wasn't going to do that again, but the opportunity arose and I am glad it did. We ended up with a 9 day notice that we were going to make one.  That may sound like ample time, but since I typically make her finalize her choice by October 1st it left me feeling crazy anxious.

She is on a mythology kick, thanks to reading the Goddess Girls series. So far Persephone and Aphrodite are her favorites. Last year she was in a play of Persephone and Demeter at school so that may have contributed as well. Long story short, she chose to be Aphrodite this year, in large part due to the fact that the Aphrodite costumes we saw online had pink scarves while Persephone had purple. 

We were headed to the 5th street Haunted Market on the 30th for October visiting teaching, and I snapped a couple quick photos with my phone thinking I could get better ones on Halloween once I helped her with "makeup" and we spent more time getting ready. This turns out to be the best I got, and it's a good thing I did since the costume was never fully put together again. 

The 5th Street Market has a shop that specializes in African imports. We took this picture so that Aeryn could stand next to the giraffe... since she loves giraffes. She has off and on called them her favorite animals since she could speak, but really, anything with four legs and a pulse is likely her favorite.

I was able to whip it up better than anticipated, though I learned in the process that I HATE SEWING SLEEVES and am clearly not a seamstress. I can fare well enough for crafts and decor, getting quite particular and perfectionist like, but when it comes to clothing I am a wreck. I found a dress pattern for $0.99 and used a white sheet I already had on hand for the dress, then bought 1.5 yards of pink fabric at $2/yard so as far as costumes go this was about as cheap as it comes, unless, you know, you already have everything on hand. 

For the first time since we moved here, kids were allowed to wear costumes to school on Halloween. I showed up in the morning to watch the costume parade. It ended in the gym where the kids all did the monster mash. For as much as Aeryn says she doesn't want to take a dance class, she sure loves to dance. She threw her soul into that even though most of the other kids around her wanted nothing to do with it.

I love that she's made it to fifth grade without getting embarrassed to have me around. I'm sure that is just around the corner though.

In losing her BFF from last year to another school (which I'm actually not too sad about) she has made new friends. This is the girl of the hour. It sounds like they play at recess most days. 

Kids changed out of their costumes after the school parade, and as fate would have it, she left all the sparkly adornments in her desk. At least the dress and scarf made it home! We improvised with one of my scarves tied around her waist but the glitzy part of the costume has yet to reappear.

Once again she went trick-or-treating without me. I can't decide if I like that or not. She came home with quite the stash, and I'm proud to say the only thing I've eaten was three rolls of smarties that she said she didn't want. 

I'd say it was a successful holiday. 

Autumn

Fall is fabulous. I don't really know if there is anywhere else on Earth that does fall as exquisitely as the northwest since there are so many places I haven't been, but here it is just glorious. There are so many species of trees and they all seem to change at a different time so there are colors for a long, long time. It's the onset of sweater weather and three quarters of us really love sweater weather. The final quarter of us loves SoCal summers. Perhaps one day we'll convince her sweaters are amazing. 

Grandma Debbi is so good to send the kids packages for the Holidays. It always makes Aeryn's day. I'm still amazed at how lucky both our girls are to have been welcomed so completely by the other person's family. We are truly lucky that way. When Aeryn sent a "thank you" text she had to include a selfie... which is so funny to me. Kids have always taken selfies, even in the days of traditional cameras with delayed gratification, but I'm sure the reversible cameras and digital displays on most phones just make it that much more exciting.

We watched our neighbor's girls for a couple hours one day and one highlight of the afternoon was playing in the leaves.

I can't blame them, who doesn't love to play in the leaves?

Then to make it actually feel like Halloween, since somehow October has decided it is almost over (seriously, HOW???) some friends of ours orchestrated a pumpkin carving party. Aeryn takes this very seriously as you can tell.

We decided to use real knives this year instead of those cheap, bendy pumpkin carving kits and while it seemed like a good idea at the start, she was actually really scared of using the knife. She asked me to cut the eyes and nose after she drew them on, then used a scraper to put all her other designs on the surface.

For year number 5,487,827,346 (or maybe just 5) she chose to make a cat. This girl is definitely consistent.

After she had completely finished, she saw the drill one of our friends had brought to carve theirs. She is clearly her mother's child and was completely drawn to it. Smart girl... drills are pretty awesome. She tried to smooth out the eyes somewhat and then just took to making random holes in the back of the pumpkin. We'll just pretend it's for ventilation. 

With three days to go I'm not done making her costume. She was expecting her dad to send one and then late last week we found out that wasn't happening and set to work. We will see how it turns out, I am not even close to considering myself a seamstress and costumes always freak me out. Secretly though, I'm glad that I get to make it. As cute as her Frankie Stein was last year, I really missed out on helping her put it together. Here's hoping I get it pulled together and have something to report in a few days...

Pregnancy Woes

I try really hard to be optimistic. For the most part, I have very easy pregnancies and am not sick at all compared to others I know. With Aeryn I worked comfortably every single day and expected to go to work the day she was born, until she let me know she had other plans. This time I'm not feeling so fantastic.

I'm at 25.5 weeks. The baby is growing and kicking like crazy - putting on a funny show the other night where I could see him kicking through the blankets on my bed. I couldn't help but laugh and wonder what kind of bundle of energy he will be. The crib is set up and I'm getting a good start on decorating and other nonessentials the way I'd like them to be. Things are rolling forward quite splendidly.

However, I'm a little irritated. Last week I caught a cold. A piddly little cold that I can't kick to save my life. Ten whole days now! Jim and Aeryn didn't catch it, which I am grateful for, and it's the kind of thing that normally would have me down and out for maybe a day. I didn't bargain for how much harder it is on your body when you're growing a person. Then there's the fact that I can't lift heavy things. Ok, I get it, I can adapt and let people help me once in a while. Until I get a spontaneous thought to relocate the printer, lean against a wall to nudge a dresser out ever so slightly (like 2") in order to reach the outlet behind it and in doing so cause major pain to my foot. Six days of incapacitating pain that has me hobbling around like I don't have that foot at all. The doctor even said it was probably due to pregnancy and the way hormones cause your body to relax and I just overtaxed it and blah, blah, blah. Long story short he said to STAY OFF MY FEET until it feels better - which he said to allow at least 2-3 weeks for, which is where I get really grumpy. I'm not a stay-off-my-feet kind of person. Though the way I change my walk to compensate for the foot then triggers lower back pain and sciatica... so perhaps sitting on my bum for a while is the way to go.

After how difficult it is for me to get pregnant, I feel bad for complaining. This is miraculous and wonderful and the best thing in the world. There are days though where pregnancy is really frustrating. It's definitely different this time around. For the first time pretty much ever, I'm feeling the difference between the upper thirty's and the upper twenty's. This was much, much easier eleven years ago.

So there it is. Pregnancy may be the most amazing thing in the world, but it's also crazy hard some days.

Babymoon Part 3 - The I have died and gone to heaven edition.

As if things couldn't get any better, they totally did. I have wanted to go here for years. Something like 18 years, to be exact. The Kenai Fjords have mesmerized me heart and soul.

I love moments like this when Jim says "we should jump!" He's just as spectacularly nerdy as I am, isn't it great? I don't think I actually propelled my body upward at all, but hey, that's what folded knees are for; creating the illusion of jumping. The first attempt wasn't so successful...

Once in a while we gauge the timer allllll wrong.

Exit glacier is one of the only things in the Kenai Fjords that you can actually drive to. We had booked a boat tour and had about 45 minutes to kill after getting hot chocolate at an awesome coffee house filled with old storage trunks and stacks of National Geographic magazines dating back to 1958, so we took the 8 mile drive to the glacier. It would have been fun to go exploring, but it was so incredible just to see it.

The boat tour took no time at all to be amazing. The skies were overcast and grey, threatening to rain on us the whole time which made the ocean not a terribly impressive color - except for a few shallow locations near the shore where the colors were incredible. At times it almost felt Caribbean; except for the temperature, and the lack of sunshine, and the fellow passengers in rain parkas.

There were many glaciers in the area, this one I believe is Bear glacier. It was toward the beginning of the tour and I thought that was awesome. Boy, I didn't know what was coming.

We squeezed through some narrow openings, which were ridiculously gorgeous.

See how pretty the water is next to the rock? I wonder if some of it has to do with the different sediments deposited from glacial erosion. I know we saw one lake in one other park (cannot remember for the life of me what or where) that was a teal green color because of sediment from erosion.

I love this mug. He laughs at me sometimes for taking about a bazillion pictures everywhere we go, but I think secretly he likes it because he always wants to copy them from my computer.

We did hit up the visitor's center before heading out and asked the ranger what we should be on watch to see. "Well, you won't see any humpback whales, they've already moved on, and the puffins have left too" which we figured left us with a glamorous collection of snow, water, and maybe fish interspersed with the gorgeous scenery. Turns out he was wrong. We saw both puffins and humpback whales, within the first hour on the water.

The whales tend to leave behind all manner of tasty bits floating in the ocean that the birds want to eat, so we could often find the humpbacks by watching where the birds were circling.

And a tail... I confess I really hoped he'd breech. It didn't happen, and I am totally OK with that. The tail was pretty cool in and of itself.

It did rain during the boat tour, but we are Oregonians and didn't care! I was a little worried about the turbulent waters affecting my stomach even though I've never been motion sick. The bumps from some road construction in town were enough to get me feeling queasy, but this did nothing. If anything I really loved it. We would sit for a time, then go outside if the captain said he thought he saw something and just hang out there for a while. It was a six hour tour, I probably would have fallen overboard if I stayed outside the entire time.

There were so many waterfalls. I never tire of waterfalls though, so that was definitely a good thing.

This chunk of ice was about 10 feet long, and I kept trying to imagine how big it was when it initially fell off the glacier. This really put into perspective how icebergs could be a problem. In some directions there was a ridiculous amount of ice floating in the water.

We had clear enough sailing that we were able to make it all the way up the fjord to the Aialik glacier. This was incredible. The boat stayed there for at least a half hour and I could have easily stayed longer. There would be loud cracking/popping noises and then periodically they would be followed by a large chunk of ice calving into the ocean. Incredible, I tell ya. I was pretty mesmerized by this and when one particularly large chunk fell Jim said "take a picture!" but I stood frozen and saying "wow!" over and over like a crazy person. It was honestly one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.

The boat staff retrieved a couple chunks of glacial ice from the water so we could all have a chance to hold it. It was crystal clear and a bit heavy.

Fortunately I was wearing Aeryn's cheap cotton skeleton gloves so when they got wet I could lay them on the heater by our seats and they would quickly dry off. No, I didn't take a single jacket that fit around my belly. Fortunately it didn't rain too much!

See? Calving is really spectacular - just to see how much water is displaced by each chunk that falls is mind boggling.

This little seal was swimming within a quarter mile of the glacier. I feel cold every time I look at him swimming in that icy water.

The front face of the glacier is about one mile wide. It's so hard to look at it and truly understand the size. This was also the turnaround point for the tour.

On the way back the captain made a concerted effort to take us to areas where he knew there was wildlife. We saw these Stellar Sea Lions basking on the rocks. There were a couple in the water at another spot waiting for the tide to raise the water enough they could get onto a nearby rock. Evidently sea lions are not the best rock climbers by nature.

At one point we had separate Orca pods swimming of opposite sides of the boat. That was a good time to be standing on the bow! It was really exciting to look from one side to the other as the separate pods would be swimming along. The folks who chose to stand along the sides of the boat near the doors to the gallery really only saw a small fraction of the excitement. If you're ever on a boat like this, it is worth it to make your way to the front.

The Orcas didn't put on too much of a show, but we were all just happy with their presence.

These bald eagles were watching as their eaglets were out practicing flying. Apparently adolescent bald eagles do not have good enough vision yet to land on branches or other small targets and practice flying where they can land on larger surfaces.

The eaglets looked so much like golden eagles. Had I not been told, I'd have never known they were bald eagles.

Last, but not least, a sea otter that would actually hang around and put on a show. Most scampered off as soon as they saw us. This guy was perfectly content until someone took a picture with a flash and scared him off. The captain was a bit peeved at that one since he'd said over and over to make sure flashes were of.

Hands down, this was the most incredible trip we've ever taken. It has made us re-evaluate our top 5 National Parks and for me at least I think this has displaced Glacier in the #1 spot. I love it here and could come back over and over again. I'm so glad this was our last destination. As beautiful as the rest of the trip was, I think it would have felt anticlimactic if it all happened after this. We literally couldn't believe our luck and would have been happy seeing half of what we did.

We did get to go to the Anchorage temple at one point, and Jim went running in the mornings. In that sense it was pretty normal, except for all the completely abnormal awesomeness that ensued. This concludes our babymoon and leaves me wanting to take another. If I had the choice between Alaska and Hawaii at some future point I really do not know which one I would choose. So no, I'm not bummed that we used up our miles. This was so, so worth it.