Post Thanksgiving Wrap Up

I hope everyone enjoyed a fabulous Thanksgiving. We enjoyed ours - the food and company was great. About 15 of us gathered at Mike and Karalyn's house for a fried turkey and all the fixings. Everyone brought a dish to share, and let me tell you - our friends can cook! The food was great!!

We also picked up our exchange students and brought them along to experience an American Thanksgiving. We managed to stuff two teenage boys full, and that is no small feat. I think the turkey was stripped to the bone (although there was another one we had just begun to nibble on).

Friday we headed out shopping, although not crazy early. We got most of the Christmas shopping done, and scored some great deals. Our goofy purchase this year was a waffle cone maker from Macy's. Dan's already had fun cooking omelets in it. (They were cool. He rolled the egg into a cone shape and stuffed it with cheese and veges - very tasty!) Tonight we had some actual waffle cones with ice cream, and they were a hit.

The rest of the weekend was spent decorating for Christmas and working on household projects. We had some friends over Sunday for take 2 of the camp out cobbler. Take 2 was a resounding success and enjoyed by all. (Take 1 resulted in a glowing red cast iron dutch oven with a charcoal briquette of cake inside.)

This week will be spend trying to survive. I thought I was past my first trimester exhaustion, but it seems to be back with a vengeance. Nap yesterday, nap today, and I am now off to bed - at 9pm.

Freezing Weather

If you follow our weather at all, you know we've had it rough. Snow and freezing temperatures, which are uncommon to this area, have wrecked havoc with life in the PacNW. Here is a great video that was shot not too far from our house. (Check out minute 3 for how well city buses did.)

Schools have been closed for the week. Commutes which normally take 30 minutes took 5-7 HOURS yesterday. Bus drivers were giving passengers fast food breaks so they could get food and go to the bathroom after being trapped in traffic for hours. And that's if the bus didn't jacknife on the road or flip over. Arterial roads were snarled, and the interstates were all but shut down.

Believe it or not, this is better than it was two years ago...but just barely. The city tried to get ahead of it with salt trucks, but the cold weather was against them. We also just don't have the equipment or manpower to deal with situations like this. We are up to 30 snowplows - for a city of 600,000. It also doesn't help that because of our proximity to the coast we have an odd weather pattern for snow. It involves very wet snow that quickly melts, then freezes, then snows, melts and freezes over and over. The roads are literally just sheets of ice.

Since we're stranded at home anyway, and the temperature is only 15 degrees, it seemed like a great time to defrost our deep freezer. We hauled all the frozen food outside and set it in the snow, defrosted and cleaned the freezer. It's cooling now, and we should have everything back in it in about an hour.

Kendra and I also made the most of no school today by inviting one of her classmates over. They live just down the hill from us and were able to walk to our place pretty easily. I had hot coffee and coco waiting for them. We had lunch together, the girls played and her older son learned the joy that is Wii. All in all it was a really fun day. Take that weather.

Snowfall

Today we were hit with our first snowfall of the season...actually the past couple of seasons. It has snowed all day long, and there is about an inch on the ground. Since Kendra has never seen snow, I bundled her up and off we went.

She wasn't too sure about this whole snow thing, although she did enjoy eating it. She went down the big hill in the park on a sled with the neighbor. She was giggling madly the whole way, and at the bottom said "more ride?"

Since she was dressed much warmer than me (does anyone even make maternity snow pants???), we came in after about 45 minutes. I am still trying to warm up. After much cajoling my sweet husband is making me some of his delicious hot chocolate - with marshmallows!

Learning Letters

Kendra loves reading. We caught her the other night - at 10:30pm - in bed with half a dozen books. She was flipping through the pages and telling herself the stories. It was really cute and reminded me of my mom telling stories of reading under the covers with a flashlight until the wee hours of the morning.

Here she is going through a set of alphabet flashcards I bought. She loves them. She would flip through the set a dozen times in a row if we'd let her. Unfortunately, our patience for looking at the same thing over and over and over is not nearly as high as hers.

Otherwise things have been really normal and boring here. The weatherman is predicting some snow over the weekend, which would be really weird. It would also be pretty fun since Kendra's never seen the snow. :)

Happy Birthday Dan!

Today was Dan's 35th birthday. For the next month we are the same age! So listen up buddy - no old jokes for the next 30-odd days, got it?

We celebrated his birthday Saturday with steaks, friends and pumpkin cheesecake. It was low key, enjoyable and fun. Today and most of tonight he has to work, so Kendra and I met him for a quick bite at a greasy spoon and gave him hugs and his gift. Our waffle iron broke a few months back, and he missed it terribly. I gave him a new and improved model that he is already planning on using tomorrow.

In other news, our poor Turtle developed a hematoma on her ear over the weekend. She had surgery today to remove it, and is now home and looking perfectly miserable. She will have to wear a cone for 2 weeks until the stitches are removed. She's also on pain meds and antibiotics for a while, plus some additional meds to treat the underlying ear infection that caused all this.

Feeling Better...

but not perfect. We went out to dinner with friends tonight. A lot still makes me really nauseous, but I was craving a nice, juicy burger. I figured I was fine because every place has a plain burger I could order...except the vegan Thai joint we went to.

I came home and made a big pastrami sandwich.

Seven Weeks In

All is well on the homefront. I am extremely nauseated most of the time, and have had a tough time dealing with that. The doctor says they can give me something that may or may not help. It's designed to stop vomiting, but often helps patients with extreme nausea as well. I'm going to try to wait another few days, but if I loose weight I'll probably start taking it.

I have been referred to a perinatologist as well. This is a doc who specializes in high risk pregnancies. It's just a precaution. So far everything is looking fine, but my doctor wants a second opinion and a second set of eyes on me because of my previous pregnancy. We want to avoid a repeat of last time, if at all possible.