As promised

A sneak peek of our new flooring, a beautiful dog, and some mega belly.

Checking in

I proooomise to post photos later, but I thought I would at least check in, just in case anyone is wondering where we disappeared to. Well, I'll tell you: we disappeared into a remodeling vortex. But all that is over with tonight. Here's a quick rundown, and, like I said, we'll get photos up soon:
First, we hired contractors, so don't be freaked out thinking that we did this all ourselves!

• A wall was taken out of our living room
• A cabinet set was purchased for an island
• A new refrigerator was purchased
• Our kitchen was all torn up, including the sink and countertops, so our entire kitchen, including all major appliances, was moved to the garage
• Oh, yeah, and so was our whole living room
• Our laundry sink began to pile up dishes
• Our flooring was ripped out
• Our North shed was taken away
• Lots of money was spent

Then... once the house was all torn to pieces, things started to look up...

• A dog kennel on the north side of the house was built (now Buster will have a place of his own where he will not bark at cars - we are really trying to break him of his barking habit before the baby comes)
• Laminate flooring was installed, and let me tell you, it is a riot to watch Buster slip and slide around that floor!
• New countertops and sink were installed
• New lights over the new island were installed
• The new cabinet set for the island was installed... and it is a LOT bigger than I pictured it. Apparently, I do not have good spatial reasoning skills. The island will now dominate our main floor, but I think it will be handy to have.
• Furniture was moved back in, along with the appliances and kitchen stuff
• A load of dishes that had been festering in the laundry sink for a week was finally run through the dishwasher

Ah! I also had a checkup this week, at 29 weeks gestation of this lil' kicker. I am measuring 31 weeks from the outside, and my next checkup will be in three weeks instead of four. Then the next one in two weeks, and then every week after that. As if I needed another reminder that this kid is getting ready to squirm its way to the outside world! I am very healthy, and the baby's heartrate is holding steady at 140 bpm. I also only gained a teeny bit of weight this month, which is kinda weird. After all, I am OUT THERE in the belly region. In the past week, even Tony has said that I am starting to get big. Maternity clothes are being stretched to their limits! I am starting to walk more like a pregnant woman, not so much with the waddle as with a giant weight in front of me. I still can't breathe half the time, and I think I can identify appendages as the baby squirms around inside. Pretty cool!

It's a beautiful day here, leading into a beautiful weekend. We have plans to go to doggy obedience training (yeah, we did that last summer, but it is time for a refresher), a dog festival in the park, have dinner with Tony's new coworker and his wife and 2-year-old daughter, watch some Seahawks football, and enjoy the sunshine.

I imagine everyone who is reading this blog from Washington State heard about the terrible shooting up here in Skagit County. It's pretty much rocked our world around here, and I had the privilege (?) of watching the takedown at the Sheriff's station directly across from my office. A terrible tragedy, and it just goes to show that you can't account for the crazy people in this world. Go home and hug your family, because some wackjob out there could go on a killing rampage at any time.

I can't breathe.

Ugh, the baby is now making it tough for me to breathe during the day. And night. And my remedy is to drink lots of water, juice, milk, and other because, I don't know? Liquids make me feel like I can breathe better? So now I have to pee a lot more often. Fun. I think I got up forty times last night. Large child, time to get your feet out of my diaphragm!

So here's a photo of Buster in the river on Tuesday for your viewing pleasure:

I love this dog.

Exhausting Ourselves

What did we do this weekend? Besides a long bike ride (Tony) and a beautiful blueberry pie (Amelia), we hiked a HUGE mountain, thankyouverymuch! Actually, not so huge, but a mountain at least in name. Yesterday, we met in Burlington, drove out past Concrete (east on Highway 20) to the trailhead at Sauk Mountain and began a 4.5 mile hike. And! I wasn't even the slowest of the group!

The hike was beautiful, and Buster had a grand time playing with the other two dogs on the trip. At the summit, there was snow and there were marmots for him to chase. Yum, marmot!

I let myself get talked into a bit of rock climbing at the top, but wisely declined to go further when it became apparent that my six-months-pregnant butt was not going to make it any higher. I had a lot of help getting as far as I did on the climbing part from my friend Jamie and from Tony. Yeah, it took one person ahead of me and one person behind to get me up!

As you can see, the only outdoor gear that fits me at this point is Tony's raingear! It worked wonderfully, and allowed me the fun of sliding down the snowbank on my butt and not getting wet. Definitely a better idea than trying to walk down!

Our friends Jeremy and Jamie brought their daughter, Avery! She made it up the rocks all bundled up.

The walk down, of course, was the easy part. On both the walk up and the walk down, since Tony and I mostly brought up the rear, Buster would race ahead with the other dogs, playing and having a good time, then race back to check on us. It was very cute.

And, finally, we made it back to the trailhead. I suppose doing a hike like this as large as I am is somewhat of a feat, because the others cheered for me and took photos. I was beat, and fell asleep on the way home!

Proof I was big ol' preggers!

I think even Buster was impressed! As for exhausted, the dog definitely wins the prize... he is still sleeping!

Health Report

Well, I just had another doctor's visit, at which I saw the scale jump past the highest it has ever been before, even in my post-France, beer-guzzling, pastry-noshing days. Ugh.

But, the good news is that the baby is super healthy, kicking and squirming up a storm. Still head-down, still a strong heartbeat of 140, and my belly is measuring 29 instead of 26 weeks. Oh, but I am a large girl with a large baby. And, I am starting to hit what I understand to be the 3rd-trimester fatigue, which makes me cranky, which in turn makes me extra sensitive to those awesome comments about how large I am. I am just repeating the mantra, "my baby is healthy, I will lose the weight." Sometime in the next week I do my glucose screen and blood workup, but so far all my vitals appear great and the doctor is quite enthusiastic about my progress.

I just thought you all might want to know that things are progressing swimmingly, and there are a mere 3 months (3 months!) and change left to go until we welcome a new baby to the world! Hooray!

Photos Galore!

We have had a photo-fantastic week, people! Well, actually, we'll start out with one from a couple of weeks ago, when I could still crouch without extreme discomfort in the belly region:

This was taken at a WSCPA event where Tony had a water balloon fight with other accountants. Who says they're no fun? Note that the only indication of my pregnant status is the giant boobs-that-will-not-be-contained-by-conventional-methods.

So, we are now at the 24/25 week mark. It totally depends, you see, on which dates you go by: original due date or the two-day-earlier due date established by our very first ultrasound. Although my doc said that our child was measuring in the 93rd percentile based on the 19-week ultrasound, he didn't say anything about changing dates. Then again, at my last appointment, my belly was measuring a week ahead. Sigh, so confusing. The baby will come when he or she wants to, I suppose. I am hoping for the beginning of November. All that to prep you for what are the most amazing belly shots yet:

Yes, folks, it's quite scary. Actually, what's scary is that I am a mere two weeks away from being in the 3rd trimester! And what's more scary is that my belly will only get bigger...

Last night we had the great pleasure to witness our friend Kelly Balzer get married. She was so pretty, and we had a great time at the wedding. Now having met her family, we understand where she gets her boisterous personality!

I bet you can guess which one Kelly is, but the other gal in the photo is our friend Morgan.

Tony and I took some nice photos there, too, since we hadn't been so dressed up since my cousin's wedding, and we didn't take any photos together there (yes, I am wearing the same dress... clothing options are a bit limited for preggos!).

So there you have it! Weekend Update with Amelia & Tony. Until next time... stay classy, Mount Vernon!

Coeur d'Alene & 23 Weeks

I have freckles! And Tony is sooo brown!

We have had a wonderful couple of weeks gallivanting around in the sun, and it is beginning to show. We recently returned from our trip to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where Tony had a great big CPE (Continuing Professional Education) class on taxes and other fun accounting stuff. I, on the other hand, joined him for the weekend to enjoy the nice east-of-the-mountains weather and a change of pace. We slept, ate, and went on hikes. Well, Tony might have called them "walks" but to me, they were hikes. Tony also worked out a bunch, so I have no doubt he will kick butt on his next triathlon.

The main attraction in Coeur d'Alene is the resort (creatively named The Coeur d'Alene). We are not really resort people, so it was good that this was a short trip for me. I think Tony got pretty bored, however. Turns out that if you are not the type of person to spend $1000 per day on unnecessary amenities, like golf, spa, and fake antique shopping, resorts are not really your thing. Add that to the fact that Tony and I are not, by nature, lazy people who are content to lie around a pool all day long, and resorts end up being no fun at all. So, to pass the time, we walked/hiked the 2-mile loop around the point (not sure what point, just that it jutted out into the lake), walked around town, watched movies on TV, and watched the baby kick my belly hard enough to see it from the outside (YEAH! Go baby!).


On Saturday, we drove out to Wallace, a small silver mining town that is listed, in its entirety, on the National Historic Register. The town is, well, what you might expect from a tiny historic town. Not much there, but interesting. Here I am next to the Bordello Museum. But, of course.

We took a trip on a Sacramento Trolley to a real, live silver mine for a tour conducted by a retired miner. It was very interesting, and mining turns out to be just as disgusting and depressing a profession as I always thought. I nearly passed out in the mine (combination of too much heat and too little space) and had to leave, sit down, and put my head between my knees at one point. I didn't miss much of the hour-long tour, though, and I still got to see all of the machine demonstrations and the dynamite blast map, so that was cool. Also, chipmunks! They were so cute!
















There was quite a large tour group with us, and they do the tours every hour or so, so it is quite the popular tour. There were some German folk on the tour, and the dad was translating-- it would have been awesome to have Sarah or Leland around to converse with them. One very rude, older lady tried to get the tour guide to stop the tour because the German dad was translating, and she didn't want "another conversation" going on while she was trying to listen to the guide. Even this crazy woman's husband looked like he was at his wit's end with her!


I enjoyed ice cream for the first time since becoming pregnant in Coeur d'Alene... a combination of the heat and working really hard, I'm sure. We walked A LOT. I couldn't even look at ice cream last night, though, so I guess it was a one-time thing. Lucky for me, the raspberries will be harvested this week and ready by Thursday, so berry smoothies, berry cobbler, and berry scones with light up my life for a few weeks!

We also had lunch in Coeur d'Alene at the famous golf course overlooking the signature "floating green." Essentially, you shoot from the shore to a small island that the golf course can move (is it 90 yards? 120? You NEVER KNOW.) and you only get two chances before you have to take a little boat over and take a drop. Apparently, once a year, the golf course hires SCUBA divers to retrieve over 30,000 balls lost to the lake. Poor golfers! (or not, since they pay $220 per round)

So that was our trip to Coeur d'Alene. Tony might have more to say about it based on the fact that he "learned" something while there, but all in all, that's what we did. Buster was sure glad to see us home.

You might have noticed my prominent belly in the photos above. I am now at 23 weeks pregnant, meaning that there are only 17 to go (15 if this kid pays attention to mom's directions and comes two weeks early). The baby kicks and punches like crazy, and if I am just hanging out, some of the kicks are big enough to SEE. Wow, strong kid. In my paranoia and disbelief that this is really happening, I have been hesitant to purchase anything baby-related (ohmigawd, anything could go wrong! Do not get me started), but the other day I did buy a book of baby animals and an awesome laundry hamper for the nursery. We have also received two baby gifts, one of a great 360-degree, hand-made, applique bib from George & Terri Morrison, and the other a Whitman Junior sweatshirt from Maggi & Matt. Thanks, everyone! One day, we might even be prepared for this baby!