Multnomah Falls

As we traveled to Portland to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast with Nate's parents we decided to stop by Multnomah Falls. Friends from California had come to celebrate Thanksgiving with us and we thought this was one of the best stops between Pasco and Portland for them to do a few minutes of sight-seeing. It was even more fun than usual as we realized as we stopped that the Falls had recently received freezing rain and so the entire grounds were covered in a thin sheet of ice. Free ice skating!!! We carefully stepped and slid our way to the falls and saw an amazing sight. Snow and ice can cause adults to moan and groan, but it really does make for the prettiest of landscapes.

A view of the falls in all their glory. The snow made it look like a winter wonderland and the ice made everything sparkle so pretty.

Nate and I bundled up from the cold. You can see that it's still raining, but a little rain didn't stop us. Although it did shorten our visit by quite a bit!

The group of us. Blaise, Jonathan, Me, Nate, and Valerie in front. Blaise and Valerie were Nate's roommates at MIT (they met in the dorms and then decided to rent a house together for the next six years!) and they're still friends after all this time.

It was especially fun seeing them at this time as Valerie is currently pregnant with their second child. She's due early February (the 9th I believe) so it was fun to compare pregnancy stories and bellies!

First Snow

I woke up this morning to snow outside! Three thoughts are running through my head. The kid in me says "Woo hoo!". The worker in me says "Come on two hour delay!". The adult in me says "Oh, crap.". Right now the kid view is winning!!!

A view of the backyard

10 Hours Later

Another View of the Backyard

10 Hours Later

A Final View of the Backyard

10 Hours Later

Babymoon at Skamania Lodge

This past weekend Nate and I took a much anticipated vacation, or Babymoon, to make sure we had at least one last weekend of relaxation with just the two of us before the holiday madness and baby craziness hit. Boy, were we really glad we did this. It was basically a weekend of sleeping in, long walks in the woods, and just talking and catching up with each other.

On Friday we drove up to Skamania Lodge, which is outside of Stevenson, WA. When we got there I was immediately impressed by the lodge itself. Out of the middle of nowhere there was suddenly this massive wooden structure with lights all aglow. When you walked inside the first thing I spotted was the fireplace cracking away. Ah, the smell of campfire in the fall. I really missed out on a few camping trips this year (all-day sickness didn't leave much time for driving and hanging out) so it was an awesome smell to be smelling. We got checked in and headed up to our rooms and basically decided that it was a room service for dinner type of night. After eating a yummy dinner we both intended to pass out. What ended up happening is that Nate passed out and I lay in bed for the next hour trying to subtly shake him to stop the snoring without actually waking him up. An hour later I gave up and decided I would play on my iPhone. It was sort of evil of me but everytime he snored I'd point the phone in his direction so the light shown on him and wave the phone back and forth for a mini light show. Hee! After another hour of this I got bored and figured I'd read my magazine (lights on and all - hee hee!). Well, he woke up (no surprise there) and, after explaining why I had the lights on, he decided that he'd play his phone games until I fell asleep in the hopes that I would at least pass out for a bit. Two hours later I finally stopped the light sleeping/waking up routine and fell into deep sleep. Thank goodness!!! When we both woke up the next day it wasn't exactly the refreshed feeling we both wanted, but overall had been in bed for 14 hours so it made sense to get up.

Our Saturday was spent having a yummy brunch, hiking in the woods (I was able to go 2.5 miles of uphill and downhill!), goofing off in the pool, and driving in to Edgefield to have dinner McMenamins (Nate's favorite brewery). By the end of the day I was COMPLETELY exhausted. In fact, I was close to done after the hike but really wanted to get in the water instead of taking a nap or something. Funny thing I found out, though, was that when in the water if I wasn't in an upright position I'd get really sea sick. Here I thought I could just float away on my back, but every time I did so I wanted to hurl. :-) Nate had a bit of fun with this for a while, but overall was a good sport in keeping me upright.

On Sunday we woke up and headed down for the hotel's breakfast buffet which turned out to be a Champagne Brunch. Oh, how I missed the mimosas! Nate had two for me, though. Great guy that he is. After stuffing ourselves with yummy food, we checked out of the hotel and decided to stop by the Columbia River Interpretive Center. Basically it talked about the history of Lewis and Clark Expidition upon reaching the Columbia River up to present times. It was pretty darn interesting. From Indian artifacts to old fashioned chain saws to household goods. There was something for both Nate and I to be interested in.

One of the displays that I thought was really interesting was this Russian gentleman's rosary collection. Here is a picture of me standing in front of one of ten rosary displays. You'll see that behind me are oodles and oodles of rosaries in all shapes and sizes. It was interesting seeing all the materials used to make all the different styles. Very neat.

After finishing the Exhibition Center we drove home and basically collapsed on the couch. It was a great weekend, one that we both admit was needed, but we were also glad to be home. Even at the end of my second trimester moving is tougher, long trips are harder, and by golly there's just no place like home. Overall, we'd definitely recommend Skamania Lodge (with the caveat that while the rooms are nice they're not extra special). If you end up visiting, I hope you have as great of a time as we did!

Outside the Exhibition Center

Baby's Room

This past weekend Nate's parents came up from Portland to help us paint the baby's room. The plan was to have the room entirely prepped with paint purchased so that the work could get started bright and early Saturday morning. That's not exactly how it worked out. During the week Nate had come down with a pretty bad cold, so the painting party was actually cancelled and we figured we'd get his parents up here another weekend to paint. So, while I'd picked out colors, we didn't actually go and buy any paint to paint the rooms. Then Friday evening came, and with Nate feeling better, it was decided that his parents would make the trip up here.

So here we are. It's Friday night, we have no paint, we have no food, and I'm exhausted. Sounds like fun, right? :-) Well, we make a trip to the paint store figuring that we for sure need paint in the morning and (figuring that we could make a donut or bagel run for breakfast) I can go to the grocery store while the guys are painting and pick up food for lunch. What ended up happening is that I learned a very important painting lesson at the painting store. Actually a few lessons.

Lesson #1 - Make sure you keep the paint sample testers of the paint you want and throw away the paint not selected. When your husband asks which one can be thrown away, really pay attention to this as you may inadvertantly have him throw away the incorrect can. This meant that when we went back to the store to pick out the real paint at 8:30pm on a Friday night I had one correct paint color sample and one incorrect paint color sample. As I have full pregnancy brain symptoms of late, and I was tired, I honestly couldn't remember if the 'light' color for the wall was the light color on the color card or the medium color.

Lesson #2 - When in doubt about the color, don't buy anything. I finally decided that the light color on the wall HAD to be the light color on the paint sample card and the dark color on the wall was the medium color on the paint sample card with 50% more color added. We got home and painted the two colors and I realized that I was very, very wrong. The light color wasn't a color I'd even selected as one of my paint tester samples. Oddly enough the medium color with 50% more color added looked like the light color on my walls. Yet, I knew (and yes, I was right) that the lighter color from the original tester samples was not the 50% added color from the color card but the medium color on the color card. So how does a meduim color paint suddently become a medium color +50% paint? That brings us to lesson #3.

Lesson #3 - If you want to paint using paint brand A you need to get a sample size of paint brand A paint. When I originally picked out my colors and paint samples I was told that the store was out of BEHR paint (which I wanted to use as it had the primer build into the paint) but that the Martha Stewart brand would give the exact same colors. So I got Martha Stewart based paint samples to test my colors. I went home, painted colors, picked out the two I wanted (after much debate) and 'knew' what to get when we went back to the store. Well, the picking out colors fiasco of lesson #2 I realized that the different in base paint made a HUGE difference in actual color on wall. The Martha Stewart brand paint went on darker than the BEHR brand paint. So whereas Martha Stewart paint required the medium and dark paints from the color card to get the look I wanted, the BEHR paint required the medium paint from the color card + 50% additional color and the dark paint from the color card needed an additional 75% of color.

Hopefully I haven't lost y'all in this painting extravaganza. Bascially it took three trips to the paint store to get the correct colors that I'd decided on two weeks prior due to the lessons learned as described above.

In the end I turned a very dark green and blue room into a light and airy tan and brown room. We (or I) decided on the light and darker brown with white trim theme because, not knowing what the gender of our baby is, meant I had to use neutral colors. Additionally, if we ever want to use this smallest bedroom as an office instead of a nursery it will be painted a color that makes sense for an office. Not a fan of having butterflies or baseballs in the office. :-)

A big thank you to Nate's parents for all the hard work (all the painting was finished in less than two days!) and to Nate for putting up with my indecision in decided paint colors.

Before picture - the dark blue and green colors are not done justics in this picture. They were MUCH darker in person. Imagine a dark cave that just happened to be blue/green.

A view of the newly painted room with just sunlight peeking in. LOVE IT!!!


A view of the newly painted room with the lights on and the sun at our front.

Soon-to-be Mom and Dad in the new room. Oddly enough this was one of three times I was allowed in the room while it was being painted. Nate was very concerned about me breathing in paint fumes so he wouldn't let me go in to check on progress but just a few times. The times I did get to peek in (which was only to give my opinion on colors) I had to leave right away. He still won't let me stay in the room very long as there's still a slight odor. He's such an awesome husband and dad-to-be!!!

24 Weeks

24 weeks!!! (Well, at least when this picture was taken last week :->)

So far, so good. Starting to feel a bit more tired at the end of the day (not as bad as the first trimester, but definitely feeling less frisky than just a few weeks ago) and definitely having more sleepless night, but liking the "I'm definitely pregnant look". I can still see my feet although bending over has definitely become more of a chore. I know take a second to see if I can pick that fallen item up with my feet or call Nate over instead of just grabbing it up. Finally, I'm starting to feel baby kick a lot more. Usually it's when I'm sitting down at work or laying down in bed at night but it's so nice to be having a quiet moment and then feeling my little guy or girl start kicking away. :-)

24 Week Belly