Pictures!  Arya smiled for her very first 3D ultrasound picture.  The radiology technician tried to get a melty face picture, but she stayed still, so no funny pictures!

Here's a side view.  She was expected to be 2.5 pounds, but is 2 pounds, 15 ounces.  I'm just hoping she won't be too much above average at birth!

Funny Stories

Thursday night I had my very first babymare.  (Baby+nightmare.)  I have never woken up so anxious and so amused all at once.  As is the case with dreams, it seemed entirely possible and real while I was asleep.  I did spend a little extra time in bed afterward, though, getting some reassuring cuddles while recounting the whole thing to Kelly.

We had borrowed a crib for our daughter.  When she was a day and a half old, we had to return it.  However, we managed to return the crib with the baby inside.  When I realized it and brought it up to Kelly, he said, "We have places to go this weekend, so we'll just pick her up afterward."  When I confirmed that he was sure, I just accepted this statement.

After the weekend, several events prevented us from being able to pick her up.  It finally sounded like we'd be able to pick her up while we were at a camp site.  I eagerly followed the folks who had her and went into a room full of cages.  I wondered if a cardboard box contained my daughter.  All of a sudden, the woman I was with proclaimed, "Ah, there she is!" and pointed at a cat.  When she saw the crestfallen look on my face she said, "Oh, you thought you were picking up your daughter.  You're allergic to cats, aren't you?  Well, maybe I should carry her."  In desperation to carry something, I wound up carrying the cat.

By the time the facility that took the crib was "ready" to return our daughter to us, I was beside myself and in tears.  We arrived and they were giving us ice buckets and liners as well as other random objects.  I was trying to settle the bill and wound up tipping the wet nurse $190 for her troubles.  The next thing I knew, my alarm went off.  Weird and hilarious, huh?

My second funny story had to do with Kelly.  We purchased a new energy efficient washer and dryer.  I came home from work on Friday and had barely set my things down when he said, "The washer is about to go into the fastest phase of the spin cycle; you have to come watch!"  We were sitting down against the wall when my roommate came to say hi.  She, too, was invited to watch the spin cycle.  So, there we were, the three of us sitting against the wall with the washer a couple feet from us.

As we were waiting for it to rebalance itself and achieve the high speed, Erin and I started discussing where she was in reading the Dresden Files.  Well, that's when we weren't getting play-by-plays from Kelly about the washer.  Eventually, we realized that we were all supposed to be discussing the washer.  I asked which character in the Dresden Files our washer was most like.  In a features-based discussion, we decided to name it Michael and the dryer subsequently became Charity.

Kelly teased us for naming the washer.  We teased him right back for spending his Friday night watching appliances.  It has certainly been a fun couple of days here in the Nace household!

Quick baby update: I'm now at 27 weeks - the last week of my sixth month and third trimester.  She's coming in 13 weeks - MEEP!

Love to all!
Megan

Return to Blogsville

Okay, okay.  I'll start blogging again!  Thanks to those of you who gently bugged me - this will be a good habit to get into now!

If you haven't heard, I'm embarrassed and apologetic, but I'm officially 6.5 months along with a baby girl in tow.  She's due July 5.  It has been an extremely easy pregnancy so far - no morning sickness, no weird aversions or cravings.  Since this seems to be an appropriate venue for funny stories, I can tell you about the 4 random moments where smells were influential.

One morning, Kelly was having ketchup with his breakfast.  (Now, I am usually the person who has breakfast with her ketchup.)  I had to order him to the opposite side of the couch as the smell of his ketchup turned my tummy.  What was the delicious smell later that day?  Little Ceaser's.  Go figure!  Another day, sweet Kelly had to clean the chicken coop all by himself as I could not deal with the smell of chicken poop.  It usually doesn't bother me.  In the evening, we'd been snacking on pickles and playing board games.  I had to move the jar of pickle juice to overcome the nearly overwhelming desire to chug it.  Ugh.

Today I had a routine check-up.  All seems well and fine, but I should weigh about 166 and I weigh 161.  My doctor ordered an ultrasound out of an abundance of caution, but it doesn't seem like there's a reason for worry.  However, she told me to go get a shamrock milkshake at Burgerville.  Doctor's orders.  Best appointment ever!

Lots of love,
Megan

Family, Camping, and Chickens

Last weekend, I headed down for a family wedding down at the beach.  Shawn is the child of my mother's cousin, Susan.  She and her sister, Nancy, have been so sweet about inviting me to family functions.  I feel lucky to have this extra connection to my mother's side of the family.

After a brief ceremony conducted by Susan's husband, we headed inside a beach house for a reception.  It was terrific to catch up with everyone.  Below are Nancy and my Uncle Randy (mom's brother).  I wasn't sure if any of her brothers or their families would be able to make it, but I was delighted to see them!

The next weekend held Let's Go Camping at Wallowa Lake.  I'd been really looking forward to it as Kelly has never been to Wallowa Lake.  Unfortunately, a job went really long and he wasn't able to go.  I drove 6.5 hours to the campground which is almost in Idaho.  This picture doesn't really do it justice: Wallowa Lake is a gorgeous, glacier-cut lake.

This was the view from our group camps along the river.  I am standing with Jimmy, one of the co-coordinators from Let's Go Camping.  Jimmy and Jill, his counterpart, are incredible human beings who have crafted one of the most successful programs for folks new to the outdoors that I have ever seen.  It is a pleasure to volunteer with them!

The following, one of my hens collapsed on her first birthday (hatchday?).  She'd been sneezing, but she's had the sneezies before, so I didn't think much of it.  Kelly helped me get a little travel kit together and I rushed her to the vet.  She was extraordinarily groggy and weak.  The vet wasn't sure what was wrong, but did tell me that birds end to hide illness until it's nearly overtaken them as they would seem vulnerable to other birds in the wild.  Well, shoot.  He gave her an injection of antibiotics and one of B vitamins.  He sent me home with two B vitamin injections and a feeding tube.  For almost the remainder of the day, Kelly and I syringe-fed her mash and water.  I've nursed chicks before, but the results have not been outstanding.  I am thrilled to say, though, that by the fourth day she's eating and drinking independently, perching, and walking a little bit.  We're not out of the woods yet, but I have a lot of hope.  Below, Austra and I are hanging out and watching Aladdin together.

 

I've had a couple young Ameracaunas in a cage inside the coop for three days and tried integrating them into the flock today.  I was all set up with books, this blog entry, and a comfy camp chair to supervise the process.  Unfortunately, my older birds seemed a bit too eager to show their dominance.  I'm going to give them a few more days then try again armed with tricks this time!

 

Finally, yesterday I said goodbye to prime 29 and turned 1/3 of a century old.  Kelly and I went berry picking in the morning and snagged some late season marionberries and blueberries.  In the afternoon, we cleaned the pine needles off our driveway and tidied our kitchen.  Kelly cooked me a delicious meal and blueberry guh for dessert.  My roommates came home and we played games in the evening.  It was a super huge treat as Kelly made sure I didn't have to cook or clean.  Wowee zowee!

Thanks and Back Home Business

To all those of you who sent emails and comments, thank you!  Your well-wishes meant a lot as we were on our journey.  I'm certainly working hard to respond to them, so if you haven't heard back yet, you will!

On the first day back, rather than fall asleep, I put things away and cleaned cleaned cleaned!  It felt good to create a "fresh start" immediately.  I was completely exhausted by bedtime, though.

The rest of my days have been filled with a variety of things.  I've been helping Rusty out at his place a bit.  I've picked blueberries, played safety as he re-topped a noble fir, and denailed scrap lumber.  The scrap lumber project has taken quite a bit of time and I have a few little blisters, but I'm quite proud of them!  I am as good with a hammer as I ever have been in my life and it's very satisfying.

My roommate, Erin, celebrated her birthday while we were away.  As I enjoy baking quite a bit, I offered her a belated cake/pie/cheesecake.  She was delighted, but overwhelmed with all the choices.  After going over some of my specialties, she selected key lime cheesecake, much to Kelly's delight.  What a great choice for a summer birthday!

There were also four huge zucchini waiting for me in our household's community garden when I got home.  Knowing that they're not great for fresh eating when they're so aged and five people can only consume so much zucchini bread, I looked for some other ideas.  At this blog, the author suggested zucchini pineapple.  It really does taste like pineapple with a slightly different texture!

 

Tomorrow is helping out a friend and heading to a family wedding on the coast!  This weekend will hold Let's Go Camping at Wallowa Lake.  I'm crossing my fingers Kelly will be home and not working over the weekend so he can volunteer too.

 

Take care,

Megan

Home safely!

We are back home safely!  For now, we're going to have a shower in our own shower and a sleep in our own bed. Yay!  Here's to hoping our diabolical plans avoid jetlag!

Last Full Day

So today began our last full day. We got up and got our stuff together, cleaned the sheets we had used, and got the gifts for our hosts laid out for giving after breakfast. We had one last great breakfast with them and before the first of them had to leave we get them the gifts we had gotten for them. These consisted of the deck of cards we had for all of our hosts along with the Oregon post card thank you, and some other things we got from the store early this morning. Martin and Maryna were great hosts and staying with them and having them let us blend into their daily lives was a great experience and we had many great conversations exploring the similarities and differences between our cultures.

We then hopped on a train for a quick stop in the town we spent our first night in to pick up a couple fragile things we had eyed when there a month ago (wow! yeah, a month!), aka Heidelburg. We really can’t say it enough it’s a great little town and is more worth a visit than Frankfurt or Munich. After getting lunch at another kebab shop we got back onto the train to head up to Frankfurt, so that we could check into the hotel we reserved right next to the airport for easy travel in the morning.

So yeah, here we are nearly at the end of our trip, and while the experience has been really fun and exciting we are both kind of ready to be home again. The places we visited were great and the history we saw and the history we observed being uncovered still, really puts the really young nature of our own country into perspective. It also makes me wonder if there are places where Native American sites of wonder and importance were covered up, filled in, and built right over the top of in order to remove knowledge of them out of fear and spite.

Well it is about time for bed here, we have an early morning and a 20 hour journey in order to make it home. We look forward to seeing you all again soon!