A quick note

Just thought I would blog a little note to let everyone know that Brice and I are off for a weekend trip to North Dakota to spend some time with my family before the baby is born. It might be a difficult one for me since I have been at home sick (AGAIN!!!) for the past 2 days. I feel terrible in more ways than just being sick because I want so bad to be able to be at work and actually be productive but when you have body aches, hot/cold flashes, a fever and a sore throat you really shouldn't be doing much but resting anyway. I'm happy to know that my son is obviously oblivious to the fact that I have a cold right now because he has been kicking me non-stop since about 4am. I'm going to try to do as much resting as possible while we are there because I want to get better; and with only 2 months left, I want to stay healthy! Brice is working an overnight tonight and will probably be home around 5:30 tomorrow morning after very little sleep I'm sure so the trip might be difficult for both of us. At least he's planning on making a good pancake breakfast in the morning to get us going. Well, I guess that's all for now. I'll post some pictures of the trip when we get back.

A festive day

One of my friends from work got married today and I had the pleasure of attending the wonderful occasion. Unfortunately, Brice wasn't able to come since he had to work this afternoon but I had fun without him. I thought that we had a lot of cake leftover when we got married but they are going to have even more! They had one small round cake for each table which is a good idea but everyone at our table had a pretty good sized piece and there was half of it left in the end. There were some tables I saw on my way out that just had a couple of pieces eaten out of them. The ceremony was at a very old Catholic church in Stillwater (close to the downtown area) and the reception was at the country club in Sommerset, WI. To get from the church to the country club, I had to go over the lift bridge and I have to say that I understand why people are afraid of that bridge....it's all rusty and doesn't look all that safe anymore. Here are a couple of pictures from the evening.

A busy weekend

So, as the title states, Brice and I had a very busy weekend. Friday we actually stayed home and went to get some ice cream. Our busy-ness started on Saturday with first stop of the day being Caribou Coffee to get Brice some must have java. After sitting there with the brew of the day and reading the paper for about an hour, we took a trip to Northwestern bookstore and were there a really long time. I love going to that store and I could always find something to take home with me but Brice can do nothing but walk around for HOURS and still be perfectly happy. I have about an hour and a half limit on bookstores before I get bored. After that, we drove to Eagan where our baby shower was being held at Brice's dad's house but we were really early so we decided to take a stop at Target to waste some more time. While we were driving around, we saw a lot of trees down over there from the early morning storm on Saturday. We must not have gotten the worst of the storm down here because we really didn't have anything but a few small branches fall off the trees by the pond. Oh, the pond....Friday it was completely devoid of water and with all of the rain we've had this weekend, it is completely full again! That makes me glad because then the ducks will come back. Anyway, back to the shower. We got there and opened up lots of presents and got to visit with a lot of Brice's mom's side of the family who we ususally don't see more than once a year so that was really nice. We heard a sad story when talking to Brice's great aunt Barb. They had this really nice golden retriever (probably one of the best dogs I have ever seen) who one day, went outside to do his business, started barking at the dog next door and just fell over and died....it's so sad! Brice said that at least he died happy while he was barking. So now, they have a new golden retriever and he is just a little puppy so we are going to have to go over there and visit to see him! After we got the car all packed up with all of the goodies that we had to bring home, we got caught driving through another storm! We were about a mile from home, pulling onto main street when it started pouring in sheets and hailing. I pulled into the gas station to get underneath the awning until it let up a little bit. After about 5 minutes it decided to stop hailing and let up enough so we could see for the rest of the drive home and we finally got here. We had to wait about an hour or so before we could actually unload the car because it was pouring.

Today, of course, started with church with a trip to Babies R Us right afterward. We decided to buy the last 2 larger purchases that were absolute necessities for the baby (the carseat/stroller combo and a dresser for his room). We were just able to squeeze the box for the carseat and stroller in the back seat of Brice's car but he has to go back with his dad on Tuesday to pick up the dresser because the box is way to big to fit in any of our vehicles. After tuesday we will have the crib and the dresser and we should be able to finally start putting clothes away and finding places for everything. After our trip to Babies R Us was a stop at MOA for a short walk and another stop at Caribou Coffee for Brice. We then met my college roommate and her family for a late lunch across the street from there at Chevy's. It was really nice getting to catch up with everything going on with them because we don't get to see them a whole lot. Of course, they had to bring us a present too which was very nice of them!

Tonight has just been the normal doing the dishes, the laundry kind of stuff and now Brice is out on the porch reading a book and I need to go fold some laundry. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend as did we (although we have no pictures to prove it...I took the camera everywhere but never took it out).

A couple random items

I was watching the news the other day and they were talking about this video on YouTube about a laughing baby so I had to check it out for myself. This baby has the best laugh I have ever heard - Brice and I had a lot of fun watching it. Here it is for your watching enjoyment.




My second random item is that it is Miracle Treat Day at Dairy Queen. You can go to DQ today and buy a blizzard and all the proceeds go to the Children's Miracle Network. I already took my trip today and got a cookie dough blizzard with a shot of peanut butter in it and it was really good that way. I highly recommend everyone trying it that way because it was REALLY good!

Brice is working tonight so I have a quiet night of relaxing at home by myself. Well, I guess I'm not really by myself, my very active son reminds me of that every time he moves around. It sounds like they are getting farther on the search for the missing people from the bridge collapse. When I was getting out of the car after work I heard that they for sure found 2 bodies with a possibility of a third. Hopefully the families will be able to have some closure.

Lake Life

I love living by the lake! When we lived in Bloomington we had lots of critters that would stop by because there were 3 great big pine trees by our front and patio door so there were always a wide variety of birds and groundsquirls that would come and live every year (we even had a mamma with 10 babies one summer). Today, we had an even better visitor! We went to Chipotle to grab a bite to eat before Brice had to leave to go to work. Well, as we were walking from the car to the front door, we have a visitor waiting for us on the sidewalk. It turns out to be a small turtle so of course, we had to get out the camera to take a couple of shots.


So, after putting the camera away, Brice and I decide that he needs to go down to the pond so he doesn't get run over (we have had frogs run over before in our driveway) so I pick him up and we start walking down the driveway. We didn't get very far and he comes out of the shell and starts wiggling his legs a lot I put him down in the grass. Brice still thought that we should take him down to the pond (which, by the way, is completely empty because of the lack of rain) so both of us tried picking him up again but he was not very fond of us by then and started hissing and decided to get up the gumption to walk away from us (he was getting along pretty good!). So, hopefully he stays in the grass and I don't see him tomorrow stuck to the road somewhere.

Catching up on photos

So I haven't posted any pictures in a long time because our stupid internet just decided not to work in a long time (that's what we get for relying on a public Wi-Fi feed). Well, it has actually been working lately so I could finally upload some pictures!

The first one has a story behind it. I was sitting here watching a moview one Saturday night after I had attended a baby shower for a lady I used to work with (Brice was at work). All of a sudden I see what looks like a giant bug on the patio screen. Turns out, it was a frog! I grabbed the camera and took some pictures. Here is one of them.


A week or two after that Brice and I took a trip to Fountain City Wisconsin to spend a weekend at Hawkesview Cottages (Brice's dad had gotten us a gift certificate). The cottage was up on this steep hill overlooking the Mississippi River. There was this tiny little parking lot at the bottom of the hill and we had to climb 117 stairs to get to our cottage (of course, it had to be the one at the very top). Here is a picture climbing the stairs.

And here is a picture of the cottage we stayed in.

Of course, I realized just today that I never took any pictures of our view from the top or of the cottage once we were inside. It is a very relaxing place to stay, lots of birds to watch and quiet time together. On our way down there we took some pictures of the shoreline; here are a couple of them.



Today I finally went up to the baby's room to take some pictures now that the paint and wallpaper is up on the walls. Here is a corner that shows both colors that we put up.
Here is a close up of the wallpaper.

And here is the name plate that we made together of Karsten's name.


I'll take some more pictures once we get the crib over here and set up. Brice's dad was very generous and bought it for us and it is still over at his place. I also have a video of us climbing the stairs to our cottage when we were at Hawkesview but for some odd reason it wouldn't fully upload so I'll keep trying. There are much more pictures that I didn't post here on my Photobucket album....there is a link directly there on the right side of the page.

3 year old potty mouth

Brice was on YouTube last night and found this absolutely hilarious video of a 3 year old talking about monsters. The ending is especially funny, we laughed for quite a while after this one. I hope everyone gets a kick out of it as much as we did!

TGIF!

It was definately a Friday today at work. I had an issue with people being complete morons and not actually using their brains....these are the people "above" me, mind you. I was about ready to scream at them and tell them to wake up and smell the coffee.....UGH! After I finally got done with work I went over to Kohls before coming home. I actually went to the mall to find a pair of slip on flats that I can wear because I've been having issues with one (yes, just one) of my feet getting swollen and my sandals don't really feel all that great when my feet are all swollen. I didn't find what I wanted at Payless (I was trying to go the cheaper route) so I ended up in Kohls. I found a pretty cute pair that are kind of a mix of a tennis shoe and dress flat if that makes any sense (Sketchers brand....they are actually pretty cute - and comfy!). They were on sale so I guess that made it all worth it. While I was down by the shoes I had to walk by the baby clothes to get back up the escalator so I HAD to stop and look. Stopping to look ended up buying because everything was half off! I got Karsten a little long sleeve polo shirt onsie, a zip up sweatshirt and a sleeper that is made of this really soft, fuzzy and warm material. I figured that it would be really nice for him to wear when it gets cold out. Brice will be mad because he keeps telling me to stop buying clothes but I just can't help myself. I want to make sure that we have plenty for him to wear plus, how can you not buy a shirt that is $5.00?

Brice has to work all weekend so I'll probably just stay home and get some cleaning and laundry done and maybe some movie watching too. We'll probably get something to eat tonight since Brice will stay up a little later because he has an overnight tomorrow. Well, that's all....I'm REAL interesting today I know. I hope everyone is as glad as I am that it's Friday.

Media Frenzy???

So, turns out Brice didn't have to go down to the bridge. Since it is now deemed a recovery, they have a couple of trucks that were added to help out on standbye if needed. He said that they had to go on a transfer to take a guy to a nursing home over by the U and traffic was bumper to bumper....he said there was a guy speed walking that was going faster than traffic! So while they were over there they drove over to see what was going on and he thought it was wierd that there was nobody on 35W....I had to remind him that they are telling people to not even take that freeway. We were talking about all of the reporters that are here...Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper, Shephard Smith and who knows how many others. It's just crazy that this is getting the air time that it is. I feel bad for the police who are trying to keep people out of the scene when all of these nosy national reporters are here trying to get up all in their business. Anyway, just thought I would let everyone know that Brice didn't have to go down there. I was worried about him all day because I couldn't reach him by phone (I tried calling early in the morning when I left for work). Apparently he was sleeping until they finally got a call around 9am and well, he likes his naps in the morning when he has to work early.

Bridge Collapse

So for those of you who saw or didn't see on tv, the 35W bridge going over the Mississippi river collapsed during rush hour. Brice did not get called to the scene but his pager was going off. He has to work early tomorrow morning so he might end up having to go down there. My uncle AJ is a Metro Transit cop and I just heard from my aunt that they decided not to send him down there tonight but he will have to go tomorrow morning. Please keep all of the victims and emergency workers in your prayers - there is a thunderstorm going through the citites right now and could make it difficult for the rescue work. I was very sad after a guy on tv said he lives in an apartment close to there and said that he helped a pregnant lady out of her car to the ambulance and she was obviously hurt with blood all over. It will be interesting to find out what exactly caused it...it's scary to think of what might or could have happened.

UPDATE: I went to go check Brice's pager. He had one that said not to come in because all trucks were out on scene. They have paged out extra trucks for tomorrow morning at 6am....I have a feeling Brice will have to go down there because he works at 4am - I woke him up (accidententally) and told him if he has to go down there to be careful. He has never had to do a massive casualty like this and we were hoping that he would never have to have that experience. I'll update further tomorrow.

The wonders of pregnancy

I felt like I was having a really wonderful pregnancy until the past few days. I have just started getting the joint pain in the hips that makes you feel like you've done nothing but run a marathon and you can't move after you get up out of your chair. To top that off, I am a complete klutz! Today I was walking up the stairs from the cafeteria and ran into the wall next to the stairs which made the top to my glass fall off and it hit the floor and spilled and then the bottom blew out (it was a styrofoam cup). So I picked up what was left and finished walking back to my desk. After I got to my desk, I happened to spill what was remaining in the glass all over myself.....ahhhhh! What a wonderful time I had today! I would still say that all of the pain is worth it - in the end I'm going to have a wonderful, beautiful baby boy that is all my own!