Local Food Cook-Off

Last night K hosted a local food cook-off on campus. The competition featured 3 restaurants: Food Dance, Sprout and our friend Jared's new place A Food Affair, as well as the on-campus catering service. Each place had to use locally grown food. We brought our own plates, and for $3 a person, we got a huge meal of really tasty, healthy local food. YUM! And the best part is that Jared won the contest! Gotta love the opportunity to eat delicious food cheaply and support a good friend at the same time.

Tonight we have the annual fishing group fish fry... my stomach is growling just thinking about it!

Road Trip

One of the activities that Todd and I both really enjoy is driving around looking at things--houses, cars, you name it--we love hopping in the car on a beautiful day and cruising. So this weekend was perfect cruising weather, and we are on a mission to find a Subaru for me, so of course we were off and running! Unfortunately, we did not find the elusive Subaru that is in our price range, hasn't been in an accident and isn't rusty. So the search continues! But we did have a great time together exploring a good chunk of the Western half of the lower peninsula.

Saturday night we took a break from our driving to celebrate Fred and Cindy's 60th birthday with a big group of friends and family. It was just another reminder of what a great community we have here in Kalamazoo.

24 week doctor appointment

We went in this morning for the 24 week OB visit. I really like the doctor we met with; this was our second time meeting with her and she's really laid back and funny--efficient without making us feel rushed. Because they are experiencing a shortage of midwives in the practice right now (one left and one is on maternity leave) we have been getting appointments with the docs as well as the one midwife who is in the office right now. All of the providers have been really great, which is wonderful since any one of them could be on call when I go into labor.

Everything with the baby and I checked out great--I gained 5 pounds in the last 4 weeks, which the doc was happy to see, and the little guy's heartbeat was thumping away at 128 bpm. This is the slowest his heartrate has been to date, but I think he's having a lazy day recovering from all of the dancing and acrobatics he was performing last night! I think we may have a night owl on our hands...

Goodbye, Lola!

Well, it's official. Lola the Corolla's new owner came and picked her up last night. I will miss my little car and her fabulous gas mileage. We're headed up north on Saturday to visit a dealership that has several Subarus of the vintage we're considering, so hopefully I'll have a new car to introduce to you soon! :)

Bells, Baby Stuff and the end of an era

Friday night Steve and Joanna stayed with us in Kzoo. It was nice to have some time for just the four of us to hang out. We cooked dinner at home and then headed downtown to introduce Joanna to Bell's Brewery. It was a drizzly night, so not an ideal evening to spend in the beer garden, but luckily it wasn't crowded, and we were able to sit on the covered stage area at the back of the garden. We had a great time, and I officially like Joanna. :)

Saturday Todd and I went to Babies R Us and started our registry--talk about overwhelming! Luckily we had already figured out what car seat and stroller we wanted, and gotten the opinion of our wise mom friends about baby carriers. That reduced the number of items that we had to spend a lot of time trying out, opening/closing, shaking, inspecting, etc. So we got a good chunk of stuff on there, but got pretty fried and decided to leave all of the confusing bottle/feeding stuff for another day.

Today we had an open house, so we spent the morning cleaning. Last night Todd posted an ad for the Corolla on Craigslist, and almost immediately his email and phone started buzzing with inquiries! The first person who came to look at it this afternoon bought it--we are happy that we got what we wanted for it, but have a little remorse that we could have priced it a little higher!! So it is the end of the era in which a compact car will meet all of my needs. I will miss Lola the Corolla, but I am excited to find a Subaru wagon that will fit a baby and a dog, as well as make it up our driveway easily in the snow. I'll keep you posted as the car search continues.

After all of that excitement, we decided to add one more exciting event to the weekend. Earlier in the week Dan and Nancy purchased our crib for us!! Sidenote: you would not believe how hard it is to find a crib that is just a crib, and not a huge piece of furniture that converts into a bed--but at least having fewer to choose from made the process a little less overwhelming. We waited until after the open house to set it up, but I couldn't wait much longer than that! :) So we assembled it and set it up in the nursery--I love it! Here are some pics:

Visit to Grand Haven

Steve and Joanna are visiting from San Francisco for a few days. It's been great to spend some time with Steve, and to finally meet Joanna! She seems great, and it's clear that the two of them care about each other a lot, which makes this big sister very happy! :) Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous, and we decided to show off Lake Michigan with a visit to Grand Haven. We had lunch at a restaurant with a rooftop deck, and then spent a few hours wandering on the pier and the beach. That evening Todd joined us for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Wayland (gotta love the one restaurant that's halfway between our house and mom & dad's). Here are some pictures from our shoreline excursion.

Weekend Projects

Saturday was a drop-dead gorgeous day, and I decided to replace my dead/dying petunias and impatiens with mums and pansies to celebrate the beginning of fall.

Today I felt like nesting a little bit, and I went to work cleaning out the closet in what will be the baby's room, and moving his stuff into it--seeing all of those adorable clothes, blankets, books and animals only makes me more excited to put the rest of the nursery together and have a baby to put in it!!

22 weeks

Here's the latest belly shot at 22 weeks. Even though people keep telling me that I don't look pregnant--my belly is definitely growing!!

Labor Day Weekend

We spent a fantastic long weekend in Northport for Labor Day. We took a half day on Friday and arrived in Northport around 6:00--arriving before dark always makes it feel like there is so much more time left in the weekend!

We spent all day Saturday and Sunday hanging out on Lake Leelanau with Toby, Joey and Jenny. Dan and Nancy, Jordan, Stuart and Erin and grandma and grandpa rounded out the group that was up there. The evenings were spent eating huge dinners made by grandma, and then all the "kids" except me (waaaay past my early bedtime!) headed over to the McMorrow cottage for a bonfire on the beach. On Friday night Todd decided to pull the Subaru onto the beach in order to have some tunes. Unfortunately, even though it's all wheel drive, it was no match for the deep sand, so Dan had to put his new Vue to the test to pull it out the next morning.

Monday was another glorious day, and we took the boat over to Cathead Bay on Lake Michigan for a few more hours in the sun before heading home.

21 week belly in Lake Michigan

Sprained Ankle

Last Wednesday I spent all day helping to get the LandSea participants all check in and ready to depart on the bus to Killarney. This is always a very hectic day, as there are 92 participants and their very nervous parents all trying to move their stuff into dorms, organize all of their backpacking things, get their id pictures taken, and say goodbye for the first time. So naturally, I had to add to the general craziness of the day by falling and spraining my ankle! Apparently walking down the stairs, carrying a large box of squeeze butter and answering my cell phone is just too much multi-tasking for me to handle! I fell down two steps, and landed directly on my ankle. Luckily I didn't land on my stomach or rear, but the OB had me come in for an ultrasound the next day, just to make sure that the baby is ok. He is still a healthy and happy little guy, and he was moving around a lot more this time than at our 20 week ultrasound. I was on crutches for two days, hobbled around with my ankle wrapped most of the weekend, and am moving pretty well now.

My swollen and discolored ankle hanging out in Leland.

Weekend at Cooley Lake

Well, this post is a bit overdue... I have some catching up to do! The weekend before Labor Day weekend, Gillian and Dylan flew to Michigan for a weekend with family and friends. Todd, Deuce and I were lucky enough to be invited to Dick and Jan's to join in the fun. We spent a glorious weekend hanging out on the boat, swimming, eating delicious food and spending time with some of our most favorite people. It was so great!!!