Nesting?!

From Wikipedia: "In human females, the nesting instinct often occurs around the fifth month of pregnancy, but can occur as late as the eighth, or not at all. It may be strongest just before the onset of labor.
It is commonly characterized by a strong urge to clean and organize one's home, and is one reason why couples who are expecting a baby often reorganize, arrange, and clean the house and surroundings. This behavior is colloquially known as "straightening out", "clearing the road", or "clearing the coast"."

My least favorite part about our house still remains... ugly flowered wallpaper! Not to my surprise, there was an additional ugly flowered wallpaper under the first layer. So for the last few days in the afternoon I have been strengthening my arms by scraping the walls in the stairwell.

The family members that know me well will not be surprised by the mess left on the stairs. Yes Mom, I did clean it up!

Preparing for Baby

In my boredom tonight (no Netflix at home and no good television shows) I found these photos... they are a little funny in a disturbing kind of way. Even though we may feel like we know little about caring for newborns, we know more than the following...

Bird Family Update

Five days later from the original post, the bird have opened their eyes and GROWN! Their mud/poop home is getting cramped with their large wings and look like they are ready to fly. We are ready to clean this icky looking nest up as soon as they leave and next year we're going to make sure it doesn't happen again!

Fruit Update

This will be the first year we will have homegrown apples! We brought this apple tree back to life and we were amazed that it bloomed this year. I bet it overheard me talking about cutting it down (we haven't had any blooms for 2 years). This year we have four apples which is a start and enough to let the tree live!

We planted these grapevines during the summer of 2006. We were so excited to see that we will have grapes for the very first time this year. This variety is good for eating and making raisins... they will be golden when ripe. Can't wait!

Backyard work

To take a break from painting, we decided to add river rock to the paths in the backyard. Hopefully this will eliminate the dust in the house and will make the paths have some shape. We haven't finished it yet, but we already see the difference!

The weed barrier is down, but we will need to take another trip to Wenatchee with the trailer to pick up more rock.

BEFORE (April):

AFTER (July):

Painting Complete and Annie's Haircut

Week 37! The baby is now considered full term and would be healthy if born. So, what are we waiting for!?

I'm happy with my new haircut. Short hair will be great for the hot summer weather and easy to do when baby is here.

Kent cleared out the dirt and weeds against the house and filled it with rocks so the new white paint will not get dirty.

Now the house has a some color (the blue) and a clean white finish! Great job Kent! Now on to the other side...

Baby Room Projects

Kent and I have been roaming Wenatchee lately looking for the right valances for the baby room. Once I found something that would work, they would only have one in stock! So after three or four stores I decided to just make my own! I found this fun pink fabric at Craft Warehouse. By combining the polka-dot and stripe fabric, I really like the new look of the windows! I'll have to try and take photos when it's a little darker outside... it's hard to give you an idea of the true colors. The yellow walls do not look that dark! Oh well, I'm sure you get the picture.

Kent's project lately has been painting the outside of the house. He decided that the weed-wacking near the house was making the walls dirty, so he is digging out the dirt and filling it in with a weed barrier and then small rocks. I'm excited about getting a haircut today and am looking forward to my massage on Thursday! My massage therapist told me that she is doing all massages outside right now, that should be an unique experience!

Bird Family

Mother and father watch over their territory (our garage). We have let them built a mud nest and have been watching the progress. At one point we shut the door to the garage for a few days, and the birds were still waiting patiently for us to open it!

Baby birds looking for food. For them, every day is a bad hair day!

Lake Chelan Bach Festival

We have spent the last five days in Chelan, WA as members of the Bach Festival Orchestra. We were housed out with a very nice family and spent most of our time rehearsing, eating and spending time with our musician friends.

We ate out a few of our favorite restaurants in Chelan: Campbell's Resort, J.R.'s Bar and Grill, and Local Myth Pizza. We also enjoyed a few picnics at the local parks. Above is a tasty kabob fresh from Safeway!

We enjoyed watching these sailboats circle around the lake. Kent wanted to be out there so bad!

The Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus performed the Mozart Requiem. This was the last piece that Mozart composed before his death and there is a lot of controversy on how much was actually written before his death. It is about 45 minutes in length and a very powerful piece of music.

Caitlin joined us in Chelan on Saturday and we went to a local park for a picnic. The dogs enjoyed the cool water. Maisy had her very first swim!

New Car!

Today was a big day... we drove over to Seattle and bought an 2008 Toyota Matrix!

We've been thinking of replacing the 1990 Subaru for a couple years now (ever since the air conditioning went out and we moved to the 100* heat). I was really sad to say goodbye to that car, it was a generous gift from my Grandparents that was a lifesaver for me in college and after. After years of research and thinking, we finally found a car that had everything we wanted... 1) air conditioning 2) hatchback 3) suitable for a large dog 4) good gas mileage 5) fun! We found the Toyota Matrix really fulfilled all our criteria. We estimate that we were getting 35 miles per gallon today... so that is nice when gas prices reach $4.40 a gallon!

Kent came home and found a lot of toys that he didn't see at the dealership.

And best of all, I'm glad it's an automatic! :)

Ultrasound

Yesterday we had an ultrasound in Wenatchee. It will probably be the last one before the baby is born. This was the first ultrasound where she was not breached! She is still pretty small for her due date... 5 lbs and 1 oz. (give or take 12 oz.). Her measurements put her in the 18th percentile. Because her bones are dense now it is much harder to see the anatomy. It was also challenging to get a good profile because her hand was up by her mouth the whole time. It was really neat to see her practicing breathing.

My body finally told me today that it was preparing to have a hungry baby around when I got up every 2 hours to use the bathroom. I'm very tired today and am going to take a long nap. This Friday we may be driving over to Seattle to look at Toyota Matrix's. We think we are ready to replace the old Subaru for something with working air conditioning, air bags and good gas mileage. I hate looking for cars, but I guess it has to be done.

Weekend in Kettle Falls

We took Cassy up to Kettle Falls for the weekend to visit Bing and Britta. We took a different direction to Kettle Falls than we normally do. We stopped by Spokane for some baby shopping at Babies R Us. Kent found a new tux at Burlington Coat Factory. Then with some frozen yogurt in hand, we drove the final leg of the journey northward.

We loved the cooler temperatures and good times getting outdoors. On Saturday we decided to take a hike on Sherman Pass. We parked one vehicle at the start of the hike and another at the end so it was a nice three mile hike downhill! For eight months pregnant I feel great! The only hard part about this stage in the pregnancy is the fact that I feel I can't breathe. This makes it a little challenging on the steeper sections. Other than that, it felt really good to get out in the woods again.

There were lots of beautiful wildflowers on the hike and this great overlook.

Here I am, 35 weeks pregnant. I've gained about 18 pounds and I'm hoping not to gain too many more!

On Sunday we took the "new" boat out on Lake Roosevelt. Even Cassy came with us!

These tadpoles were everywhere!

To please my Alaskan relatives, you can see me filleting a silver salmon below. It always brings back memories of my five years of filleting salmon at Tonka Seafoods in Petersburg, Alaska. We cooked it up with butter, lemon, onions and Johnny's seasoning. Serve with salad and rice... you can't beat that meal!