Hello again. I’m less than a month away from my due date now so I thought I’d better get another update out before the baby comes. In October we went camping with our small group at Lake Henshaw, CA. It’s only the second time we’ve been camping since Paul and I met, so despite being 7 months pregnant I thought it would be a fun adventure. Well, it surely was an adventure, but I’m not sure I would describe it as fun. It got down to 37 degrees at night and we definitely were not prepared for that, especially now that we have adapted to San Diego weather. I can’t remember EVER being that cold. We did enjoy hanging out with our small group friends, however, and were also able to take a nice hike on a mountain above the lake and treat ourselves to the infamous caramel apple pie and fresh apple cider in Julian afterwards so it wasn’t a total loss. After camping we headed up to Joshua Tree National park for one night since it was a long weekend for us. We did a couple of short hikes that Kade was able to handle without being carried, and also stopped by Palm Springs on our way back home to ride the tram up the mountain and enjoy the views of the valley below.
Although we don’t really celebrate Halloween in our family, we did decide to go to a pizza party that night at the house of some of our small group friends. Kade wore a hand-me-down Spiderman costume from one of his friends and Jacey wore a Hawaiian dress…just enough to not feel left out since all of their friends were dressed up. I did break down and let Kade go trick-or-treating at a few houses with the other kids on our way back home (they live just down the hill from us), but Paul and I ate all of his candy of course!
My mom and dad came here in mid-November for a few days before heading to Mexico. They will be returning on December 12th to help out with Kade and Jacey when I go into labor and while I recuperate. Paul just found out that he gets 10 days of paid paternity leave from work, so that will be nice. We’ll probably be using some of that time to move though since we have to be out of our house by January 3rd. The owners of the house we are renting just got foreclosed on (surprise, surprise), and so we had to find a new place to live for our last five months here in CA. Kind of a bummer to have to pack up again (this will be our 7th move in 5 years of marriage), but we have been very blessed financially through this situation so we can’t complain too much. I’m so glad my mom and dad will be here to help us get packed up and move because it would have been pretty hard otherwise with the baby being due a week before our move our date.
Kade turned 3 on November 21st, but we celebrated his birthday a few days early while grandpa and grandma were still here. He was happy as a clam with his whole-wheat, sugar-free carrot cake, and seemed to enjoy the baseball glove and used digital camera that he got for gifts. He continues to become more and more independent (which as usual is both a good and bad thing), and is a great big brother for the most part. Jacey is definitely trying to keep up with him though, both verbally and physically. She talks far more than most kids her age and she doesn’t seem to mind “rumbling” with Kade on a regular basis (thanks to Paul for teaching Kade such things as tackling and “steam-rolling”).
The last 9 days of November we headed to Arizona and Utah to see the few remaining things within driving distance of San Diego that we haven’t gotten to yet. We met our friends from Phoenix down in Tucson and did some hiking amongst the big Saguaro cacti, and then the following day they took Kade to the Old Tucson filming studios while Paul, Jacey and I hiked the 5 miles to Seven Falls and back. I was so happy to get back to the car without having gone into labor from all the walking! After Tucson we headed up to northern Arizona to see the Petrified Forest and Canyon de Chelley, and into southern Utah to see Monument Valley, Goosenecks State Park, Mexican Hat, Natural Bridges National Monument, Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, and Capitol Reef National Park. We were also supposed to see Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, and Zion National Park, but our trip got cut a day short because of a snow storm that went through the area. After Paul practiced his MN driving skills for a few hours, we arrived at Bryce Canyon and couldn’t see a thing so we decided to head back to our friends house in Phoenix and save the western parks of Utah for another trip.
Paul is currently back in the Midwest for his residency interviews through December 10th. He will be interviewing at five programs; three in MN (Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Rochester-Mayo), one in Iowa City, and one in Madison, WI. Minneapolis has always been his number one choice, but we have no idea how we’ll rank the other programs. Hopefully he will have more of an idea after the interviews are done. Meanwhile I am hanging out with the kids just trying not to go into labor until my husband and parents get back (not that I have all that much control over the matter). We’ve still held out on finding out the gender, but now that my due date is rapidly approaching the curiosity is starting to get to me. We think we have a first name picked out if it’s a girl, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten with the naming process. It’s much harder when you have to come up with two!!!
We hope you are all doing well and wish you a wonderful holiday season. Hopefully we will be ringing in the New Year with a new baby!
Although we don’t really celebrate Halloween in our family, we did decide to go to a pizza party that night at the house of some of our small group friends. Kade wore a hand-me-down Spiderman costume from one of his friends and Jacey wore a Hawaiian dress…just enough to not feel left out since all of their friends were dressed up. I did break down and let Kade go trick-or-treating at a few houses with the other kids on our way back home (they live just down the hill from us), but Paul and I ate all of his candy of course!
My mom and dad came here in mid-November for a few days before heading to Mexico. They will be returning on December 12th to help out with Kade and Jacey when I go into labor and while I recuperate. Paul just found out that he gets 10 days of paid paternity leave from work, so that will be nice. We’ll probably be using some of that time to move though since we have to be out of our house by January 3rd. The owners of the house we are renting just got foreclosed on (surprise, surprise), and so we had to find a new place to live for our last five months here in CA. Kind of a bummer to have to pack up again (this will be our 7th move in 5 years of marriage), but we have been very blessed financially through this situation so we can’t complain too much. I’m so glad my mom and dad will be here to help us get packed up and move because it would have been pretty hard otherwise with the baby being due a week before our move our date.
Kade turned 3 on November 21st, but we celebrated his birthday a few days early while grandpa and grandma were still here. He was happy as a clam with his whole-wheat, sugar-free carrot cake, and seemed to enjoy the baseball glove and used digital camera that he got for gifts. He continues to become more and more independent (which as usual is both a good and bad thing), and is a great big brother for the most part. Jacey is definitely trying to keep up with him though, both verbally and physically. She talks far more than most kids her age and she doesn’t seem to mind “rumbling” with Kade on a regular basis (thanks to Paul for teaching Kade such things as tackling and “steam-rolling”).
The last 9 days of November we headed to Arizona and Utah to see the few remaining things within driving distance of San Diego that we haven’t gotten to yet. We met our friends from Phoenix down in Tucson and did some hiking amongst the big Saguaro cacti, and then the following day they took Kade to the Old Tucson filming studios while Paul, Jacey and I hiked the 5 miles to Seven Falls and back. I was so happy to get back to the car without having gone into labor from all the walking! After Tucson we headed up to northern Arizona to see the Petrified Forest and Canyon de Chelley, and into southern Utah to see Monument Valley, Goosenecks State Park, Mexican Hat, Natural Bridges National Monument, Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, and Capitol Reef National Park. We were also supposed to see Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, and Zion National Park, but our trip got cut a day short because of a snow storm that went through the area. After Paul practiced his MN driving skills for a few hours, we arrived at Bryce Canyon and couldn’t see a thing so we decided to head back to our friends house in Phoenix and save the western parks of Utah for another trip.
Paul is currently back in the Midwest for his residency interviews through December 10th. He will be interviewing at five programs; three in MN (Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Rochester-Mayo), one in Iowa City, and one in Madison, WI. Minneapolis has always been his number one choice, but we have no idea how we’ll rank the other programs. Hopefully he will have more of an idea after the interviews are done. Meanwhile I am hanging out with the kids just trying not to go into labor until my husband and parents get back (not that I have all that much control over the matter). We’ve still held out on finding out the gender, but now that my due date is rapidly approaching the curiosity is starting to get to me. We think we have a first name picked out if it’s a girl, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten with the naming process. It’s much harder when you have to come up with two!!!
We hope you are all doing well and wish you a wonderful holiday season. Hopefully we will be ringing in the New Year with a new baby!
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