Mini-Vacation Part 1

Since moving to Las Vegas we have been very excited about traveling the western part of the United States.  Although both of us have briefly visited a handful of places (mostly for work) in the west, neither of us have spent much time on this side of the country with the spirit of exploring and really getting to know it.  When the opportunity came up for us to tag along on Brad's work trip to San Diego we jumped at it.

We drove in on Tuesday and enjoyed a lunch along the way at Chick-Fil-A.  We have missed this little luxury while living in Las Vegas, but to Micah's dismay there was no playground at the one we had stopped at. We arrived at our hotel early in the afternoon and got settled.  That evening we met up with the other folks from our squadron who were also going to the conference and went to Old Town for dinner.  I LOVED it!  It was like an old restored Mexican village and they had the best Mexican food I have had since I left Texas (which is why  I loved it.) They also had musicians and dancers roaming about as well.  It was a lot of fun!

Wednesday Brad had to go to work but one of the other wives also came with her husband so Kendra, Baby Weston, Micah and I all set out to explore.  We decided to go to Coronado Island that morning.  You can drive there but when I was researching it I found out that there was also a a ferry that would take you over. I knew Micah would love to ride on a boat so we decided to do that.  We actually ended up parking right in front of the USS Midway Museum so Micah got to see a really big boat before we took off on our ferry ride to the island.  Micah did LOVE the boat.  He didn't want to leave when it was time to get off. We forced him off the boat though and went strolling around the island.  It is a relatively small island but we probably walked a couple of miles total.  We stopped and let Micah play at a park and saw the beach.  We also got to eat at a little cafe.  We were hoping for some seaside dining but didn't find anything on the water so we had to settle for close to but not in the view of the water. We walked back to the ferry and Micah strong armed me into an ice cream cone before we boarded. It was a fun and exhausting day.

Thursday Brad also had to work so we set out on our own adventures again.  This morning we got off to an early start so we headed to Chick-fil-a for breakfast and a little playground then to Ikea once it opened at 10.  Ikea is such a fun store and since we don't have one near us I took full advantage of getting every gadget I thought I might ever need and ended up with a nice little bill at the end.We went back for Micah's nap and then set off again with Kendra and baby Weston for Balboa Park to see the model train museum.  Now Micah loved seeing all of the choo choos and was just in awe of every display, but Kendra and I decided that this must be why little boys have daddies because we couldn't imagine anything more boring in the world. Balboa park itself was amazing and the architecture of all of the museums was awe inspiring even to someone like me who doesn't appreciate such things as much as I should.  After our tour of the museum and a short walk around the park we headed back to the hotel. One thing we lucked into (and I didn't anticipate or pack for) was that our hotel had a heated swimming pool.  This was a HUGE hit with Micah and he constantly asked to go swimming the entire time we were there.  Every evening Brad would take him for a quick dip in the pool (in their clothes since I didn't pack for it, oops!) and it was the highlight of the day.

Fun at the Park!

We have been enjoying some pretty nice weather here in Vegas lately so that means lots of time outside for our family.  Luckily we have lots of great parks near by and we take advantage of them often.  Mommy and Micah love this park and visit it often but this is the first time we took Daddy there!



You just never know what you will see when you go to the park here.  On this day there was a little girl who had brought her pet bunnies out to play.  She was very nice and let us pet the bunnies and play with them for a bit too!



Finding our ears like the bunny



Micah loves balls and we bring them to the park often.  He does like it much better though when daddy is there to play ball with him.  SOme how he is just faster, more coordinated and ll around more fun to play with than a big pregnant lady.  Micah is getting really good at kicking the ball.  I was even able to catch a coule of action shots!

29.5 weeks!

Well here we are closing the gap to the 30th week.  I always feel like hitting 30 weeks is a big milestone because when the 30's are over the baby comes! So basically, I have 10 weeks left.  Crazy! This pregnancy hasn't been bad, I just haven't had the time to enjoy it like I did the first time around.  When I was pregnant with Micah I loved to take long baths and watch my tummy jump around as he moved.  With this pregnancy I am so tired that I am lucky to get one hour to myself after putting Micah to bed before I pass out for the night myself.  Besides being exhausted most of the time I feel really good.  The baby is just in the past couple of weeks gotten big enough where I am losing my range of motion.  I have  hard time bending over and if she stretches she can just get her little foot up into my ribs.  The less glamorous parts of being pregnant but still nice to know she is growing and if something was to happen and she came right now there is a good chance she would make it and not have long term effects.  Crazy! The nursery is getting closer but still has a long way to go.  Lucky for me a new Hobby Lobby opened about 5 miles from our house.  Before I had to go about 25 miles to get to the only one in the area.  I see some new decor filling up her room in the very near future!

I just went back and found a pic from 30 weeks with Micah.  To compare you can click here: http://bkmatherne.blogspot.com/2009/12/grow-belly-grow.html





Ski Trip!

One of the fun things that Brad's squadron does each year is rent a ski cabin for a few weekends in the early spring so that several families can go each of the weekend and enjoy some fun and friends on a weekend away.  We got to go up to the cabin mid-march with two other families and had a blast.  Brad went and rented ski gear from a sports store that is near our home and surprisingly Micah couldn't wait to get all the huge and very restrictive gear on!

We took off on Friday around noon and arrived in Brian Head UT around 4 pm.  We had so much fun just hanging out with friends and eating a big dinner that night.  The other two families that went were both exchange pilots from England so we got a little bit of education on the little things that we do differently.  Two funny things that stand out in my memory are 1. that British people use the term pudding as a generic word to mean dessert. So they might say to their kid, "If you finish your dinner you can have a pudding."  This was so funny to me because a few weeks before we had been at a dinner party with one of the British families and I had brought a trifle made with banana pudding for dessert.  The husband kept asking me over and over what was in it and I kept telling him it was pudding, and again he would say yes but whats in it!  We just went in circles and this made no sense to me until I realized he had no idea what American pudding is!  None of them did actually.  We got into a discussion about it and I tried to explain it to them but how do you explain pudding without just saying it is pudding!  The other thing that happened that was funny was that each of us took a meal and cooked for the group.  I did the breakfast on Saturday.  I thought about doing breakfast burritos but thought that might be a bit out of the comfort zone for the Brits, so I decided to do a more traditional pancakes, sausage, and eggs.  Little did I know that British people almost never eat pancakes!  How funny!  They told me they usually only eat them once a year on national pancake day.  I had to explain to them how the proper way to eat them was to butter them up and then drench them in syrup.  I think they were a bit concerned with the nutritional value of the syrup but not too much!  I think they are missing out!
Sometime on Friday night a storm blew in.  On Saturday the weather was not great but it could have been worse.  It was overcast, windy and snowing the entire day but that didn't stop the skiers!  Despite the weather they were able to get a good half a day of skiing in.  And to our surprise Micah was the best skier of them all. He loved it.  No he LOVED it!  Brad spent the day skiing with Micah.  He positioned him between his legs and let him ski right with him.  He wanted to wear all of his gear and just go down the mountain over and over again.   He even loved the ski lift.  Who would have thought?! By the end of the day he would even ski (still between Brad's legs) by himself with out Daddy holding on.  He didn't want to take a break, he didn't want to eat lunch, all he wanted to do was ski. 
We packed up and headed back to the cabin around two and then packed the car and hit the road.  The storm was getting worse and we didn't want to be stuck there the rest of the week so we played it safe and headed home.  Even though we were only there for about 2 hours we had an absolute blast and loved hanging out with our friends and seeing Micah have so much fun with a new activity. We will look forward to ski trips for as long as we live here.

Micah's with his friend Ethan



View from our cabin with storm kicking in!



Hello Third Trimester!

I am now 27 weeks pregnant with our little princess and beginning my third trimester.  I had to look that up because like many things in the second pregnancy I am just not quite certain and lose track of the details.  I managed to get through the first pregnancy okay so I guess I am much less uptight about this one.  According to my e-mail she is now comparative to a head of cauliflower.  About 15 in and 2 lbs.  Baby girl is quite the active little thing.  I could first feel her around 15-16 weeks.  By 20 weeks you could visibly see my stomach jumping, and somewhere around that same time Brad was able to feel her too.  She seems to be most active in the evenings and gets especially riled up if I put the lap top resting on my belly and it gets really warm.  They aren't small movements either.  More like a gymnastics routine.  For the past couple of weeks she has been able to reach up in my ribs when she really stretches out, but thankfully doesn't reside there full time... yet.  I am still feeling well although I think she is doing a number on my back since most of the time if I roll my shoulders or neck to stretch out they pop so loudly people will look at me.  I am also getting lots of good sleep at night thanks to being absolutely exhausted at the end of every day.  Things are starting to come together with her room.  We have the furniture in and have started collecting lots of pink to dress her in.  I am starting to decorate the room but still have a ways to go before it is anywhere near done.  And I know the next question on your lips is about the name... there isn't one... we honestly haven't even hardly discussed it.  I know it is important and I am assuming it will get done before the baby arrives, hopefully!  For now it is just baby girl or as Micah likes to call her, Baby Seeeester.