This handsome devil crawled out of the swimming pool.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tom's Favorite Vacation Photos
Ruby vigilantly scans the horizon for possible threats, while attached to a garden hose.
This handsome devil crawled out of the swimming pool.
This handsome devil crawled out of the swimming pool.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
La Playa
Honduras has been celebrating Independence Day for almost a week now (Officially on Sept 15). We began celebrations on Friday at school- complete with traditional dress, dances, chasing a pig covered in manteca (basically Crisco), and games involving a mud pit and students.
After the festivities at school, Tom and I started off the weekend with a relaxing day at home and a visit to the paint store. We bought the paint to turn our pepto-pink guest room into a baby boy's beach room. Today, Tom has promised me that we will start painting!
To be truly inspired, we decided to take up a friend's offer to visit her beach house for a couple days. One of the lovely ladies who works in the library with Tom offered for us to go out and use her beach house for a couple nights to get away. This house is just 20 minutes from our own front door, but just far enough out of town that the water is clean and turquoise. Besides a few cute kids from the nearby villages, or fishermen paddling by in their canoes, we don't see or hear any other people!
One highlight was bringing Ruby with us. This was her first time swimming in the ocean, and after getting over the initial fear of those crazy waves, she loved it!
Ruby and Tom spent hours playing fetch with a tennis ball. Tom would throw it out and most of the time, Ruby would go bounding into the gentle waves, doggy-paddling out to her new favorite toy. (The other times, Tom would go swim after it and bring it back) While all this was going on, I just floated and swam in the warm, Carribbean waters. It was pretty nice.
After playing in the salty water, we all came back to the house for a dip in the private pool! It was awesome to have this little pool right in front of our hammocks. Whenever we got hot, a quick dip would cool us off. Ruby liked the fact that she could drink this water. (The ocean proved to be a bit salty for her digestive system).
You might think that the green hose in the picture is filling up the pool. It is not. It is actually our makeshift "long leash" for Ruby. When we first arrived, Ruby showed us that she is not yet ready to handle being completly free, so we improvised by tying a 30 foot garden hose to her leash. This slowed her down enough that she didn't stray too far from the beach house, and still had the freedom to wander around a bit.
And here I am in my favorite outfit of the weekend. I brought all these clothes, but just wore my swimsuit the entire time. I guess that's how it goes at the beach!
The reason I'm posting a picture of myself in a swimsuit is only to show how preggo my belly is getting. This picture was taken at 19 weeks and 4 days. For those of you who don't do weeks- it's about 4 and a half months. I'm halfway there!
The other activity of the weekend was reading. We both spent hours and hours in our beachfront hammocks, reading our books. On Monday morning, I began reading Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen. This is a book all about life in the circus back in the day. We blogged about the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI back in July, and found out that much of the research for this book was done at the museum. I LOVED this book. I didn't put it down till I had finished the last page on Monday night. I can't remember the last book I read all in one day like that- but I'd highly recommend it- especially to anyone who liked the movie Toby Tyler when they were a kid!
After the festivities at school, Tom and I started off the weekend with a relaxing day at home and a visit to the paint store. We bought the paint to turn our pepto-pink guest room into a baby boy's beach room. Today, Tom has promised me that we will start painting!
To be truly inspired, we decided to take up a friend's offer to visit her beach house for a couple days. One of the lovely ladies who works in the library with Tom offered for us to go out and use her beach house for a couple nights to get away. This house is just 20 minutes from our own front door, but just far enough out of town that the water is clean and turquoise. Besides a few cute kids from the nearby villages, or fishermen paddling by in their canoes, we don't see or hear any other people!
One highlight was bringing Ruby with us. This was her first time swimming in the ocean, and after getting over the initial fear of those crazy waves, she loved it!
Ruby and Tom spent hours playing fetch with a tennis ball. Tom would throw it out and most of the time, Ruby would go bounding into the gentle waves, doggy-paddling out to her new favorite toy. (The other times, Tom would go swim after it and bring it back) While all this was going on, I just floated and swam in the warm, Carribbean waters. It was pretty nice.
After playing in the salty water, we all came back to the house for a dip in the private pool! It was awesome to have this little pool right in front of our hammocks. Whenever we got hot, a quick dip would cool us off. Ruby liked the fact that she could drink this water. (The ocean proved to be a bit salty for her digestive system).
You might think that the green hose in the picture is filling up the pool. It is not. It is actually our makeshift "long leash" for Ruby. When we first arrived, Ruby showed us that she is not yet ready to handle being completly free, so we improvised by tying a 30 foot garden hose to her leash. This slowed her down enough that she didn't stray too far from the beach house, and still had the freedom to wander around a bit.
And here I am in my favorite outfit of the weekend. I brought all these clothes, but just wore my swimsuit the entire time. I guess that's how it goes at the beach!
The reason I'm posting a picture of myself in a swimsuit is only to show how preggo my belly is getting. This picture was taken at 19 weeks and 4 days. For those of you who don't do weeks- it's about 4 and a half months. I'm halfway there!
The other activity of the weekend was reading. We both spent hours and hours in our beachfront hammocks, reading our books. On Monday morning, I began reading Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen. This is a book all about life in the circus back in the day. We blogged about the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI back in July, and found out that much of the research for this book was done at the museum. I LOVED this book. I didn't put it down till I had finished the last page on Monday night. I can't remember the last book I read all in one day like that- but I'd highly recommend it- especially to anyone who liked the movie Toby Tyler when they were a kid!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
WookieFoot: Sept., 2008
Here's my old band playing a really nice song at their Harvest Fest music festival in Minnesota. I have so many great memories of playing in the band. They sound really great and I'm very proud of all of them.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
My Birthday Present
Our son gave us an early small birthday present last night. Very small, but it's definitely there! We are excited to share that we are going to be having a little boy! Here's proof:
The arrows don't lie!
Finding out was what I really wanted most for a birthday present. Since ultrasounds here are first come, first served, we could have been waiting anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours for an appointment. I didn't want to spend my birthday in a waiting room, so I convinced Tom that Children's Day (Sept. 10) would be a better time to wait, and I got it last night.
This is one of those cool 4-D ultrasound pics!
For those of you who have been keeping tabs- I knew it all along! I was on cloud nine all night. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was, "We're having a boy!" and my second thought was "I'm 30."
It's been a great day so far though, and I'm so happy to be wearing my new blue birthday shirt over my 19 week preggo belly!
The arrows don't lie!Finding out was what I really wanted most for a birthday present. Since ultrasounds here are first come, first served, we could have been waiting anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours for an appointment. I didn't want to spend my birthday in a waiting room, so I convinced Tom that Children's Day (Sept. 10) would be a better time to wait, and I got it last night.
This is one of those cool 4-D ultrasound pics! For those of you who have been keeping tabs- I knew it all along! I was on cloud nine all night. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was, "We're having a boy!" and my second thought was "I'm 30."
It's been a great day so far though, and I'm so happy to be wearing my new blue birthday shirt over my 19 week preggo belly!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Cayos Cochinos and other stuff
Yesterday, we took our second annual trip to the Cayos Cochinos. (Follow link for pics from last year's trip) This group of small white sand islands are located just 4o minutes by boat and a 25 minute car ride from our house. Yesterday, a group of 8 teachers headed out for a day of snorkeling along the pristine reefs, swimming, eating, and fun. We had a blast!
One highlight for me was that Josue, our guide for the day, asked me how many months I had. This may not seem significant to many people, but for me it meant that I actually looked pregnant and not just fat to someone who didn't know! Here's a picture of Tom and me with Josue and our friend Jason.
While we waited for our lunch of freshly caught red snapper to be prepared in the local Garifuna village of Chachauate, we were entertained by a few of the island kids. There is no tv, electricity, or arcade to keep people entertained out there. Instead, the locals make their own entertainment in the form of kids! One little boy, Pedro, was hanging out with Tom and was loving the Gatorade I shared with him in his cup.
We are so excited for all the celebrations coming up this week. I've got 2 student birthdays in my class on Monday, so we're enjoying cake on Monday and cupcakes on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, the kids are very much looking forward to one of their favorite Honduran holidays- Children's Day. This is a day where the whole country celebrates youth and spends time appreciating children. The PTA has organized a 30 minute, mini-train tour around the city for each grade and a big party at the end of the day. Tom is hoping to accompany all the grades on the train ride since he loves trains so much.
Then on Thursday, we celebrate my 30th birthday. I think I'll make monster cookies and bring them to school for the kids (we're going to have sweets every day this week!) For my birthday, we'll celebrate with an ultrasound and dinner. I'm hoping that the baby will show itself to be a boy or girl as a gift to me on Thursday- we'll keep our fingers crossed!
Finally, on Friday, we will celebrate Independence Day at school. Honduras actually celebrates its independence on the 15th of September, but we've got a 5 day weekend due to the holiday, so we'll celebrate on Friday in school. I'm sure there will be more treats.
In baby news... I felt the baby move for the first time this week! Now that I know what it feels like, I've noticed it every evening. In fact, the little guy/girl is squirming around as I type this blog. It's exciting!
Also, we'd like to thank our readers for their dog advice. After much deliberation and thought, I think we're going to hold off on a second dog for awhile. Ruby might just have to settle for us for now, and then once the baby is born, there will be someone here all day, every day to keep her company.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)