Christmas 2011

Mike and I took his grandmother, Enid, to her favorite place for Christmas Brunch.  They have the best crab claws and dessert in town!  It has warmed up nicely this week, so we took advantage of walking on the beach to burn off some of the calories afterwards.

Park Hyatt Aviara with Enid

The beach was really crowded with people walking.

Christmas Day SoCal style

Mike took this cool picture of me.  I'm 28 weeks.

Happy Holidays!

We are planning on a nice quiet Christmas weekend in sunny southern California.  It's supposed to be sunny and 70, perfect!  We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!  Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a whirlwind 4 days visiting family in Missouri and Kansas for Thanksgiving.  My dad from Illinois also came down for Thanksgiving, it was very nice seeing all the parents this year.  We started in Joplin, MO for Thanksgiving day with Mike's family and my dad.  Then, we drove to Manhattan, KS to see my mom, Scott and my sister.

There was a Thanksgiving bonfire this year.

The Blundell crew

Happy 5 Year Anniversary to us!

It was our 5 year anniversary on November 4 while we were in Hawaii.  In 5 years we've bought a condo, visited 6 countries and have a baby on the way.  Time flies when you're having fun!  

Babymoon Fun!

Our Babymoon has come and gone, we had a great time in Kauai.  This was our first trip to the garden island.  To keep it so beautiful and green, it rains a lot.  The peak there, Mt Waialeale, is one of the wettest spots on earth.  So, it rained quite a bit, but that didn't stop us from getting out and hiking and going to the beach.  We just had to deal with little rain showers or down pours that would last 5 minutes or so at a time.  It made trails really muddy and slippery, so when we hiked, we went slow.  All the hikes are pretty difficult in Kauai, especially when it's muddy...and your pregnant.  Besides hiking, we were able to snorkel, go chocolate tasting and eat lots of local fruit.  I really miss those delicious lilikoi (passion fruit).

View of Hanalei Bay from our hike, Okolehao Trail

Tunnels Beach

Our tropical fruit from a fruit stand and farmer's market

Chocolate tasting on a chocolate farm.

Hiking the Kalalau Trail

Snorkeling at Ke'e Beach

Sleeping Monk Seal

Waimea Canyon

Lookout at end of Awa'awapuhi Trail

Nursery Inspiration

We haven't started working on the baby's room quite yet, but plan on getting serious after our Babymoon to Hawaii.  We are planning on an Under the Sea theme and I came across this room and love love it!  It'll be our inspiration for our baby room.

We're Having a Girl!

We had our 19 week ultrasound yesterday and found out we are having a girl!  The technician checked all the body parts, organs and blood supply and everything looked great!

I'm doing and feeling great still.  I feel the baby kicking and moving several times a day.  So far, I feel her most when I'm eating or relaxing (totally taking after me on getting excited for food!).  The other day I got a good kick when I was driving in the car singing "Fat Bottomed Girls"!  I have moments of uncomfortableness now and then, but Mike seems to think I'm making pregnancy look easy so far.

The photos from the ultrasound weren't as good this time, but here are a couple of them.

I just love the feet photos!

Picture of her face.

The baby bump at 19 weeks.

Miss Aubrie Nicole

My dearest friend, Nicki, had her baby last Thurs, Oct 13, 2011.  Aubrie Nicole arrived in this world 7 lbs 3 oz and 20 inches.  I think she looks a lot like her mama!

Go to Jenni Kenney's blog to see the rest of the photos from the hospital, they were taken when she was 12 hours old.  http://jennikenney.blogspot.com/2011/10/introducing-miss-aubrie-nicole.html

Tonight's Dinner

While I was on the couch watching K-State play football, Mike was in the kitchen making butternut squash pie and beef stew.  It was definitely a night of comfort foods.

The Chef...

The stew...

The pie...

Praying Mantis Shedding

Mike likes to buy praying mantises for our plants so they'll eat the bugs.  Pedro II lives in our mint plant.  He's the only one that has stuck around long enough that we've noticed and he shed his skin last week.

Blackout Thursday

For those of you that didn't hear about our blackout last week, we were without power for about 10 hours last Thursday.  I had just got to work and the power went out all throughout San Diego county up to Orange County over to Yuma, Arizona and down to Ensenada, Mexico.  I sat at work for 2 and 1/2 hours before they let us come home.

The drive home was interesting, because a lot of people in California don't know or forget that you have to stop at intersections when the lights are out.  People were just flying through intersections.  No working lights also meant a longer than usual drive home.  Mike was off work for the day and walked across the street to see about getting ice to save some of our stuff in the freezer and frige.  He said it was like Armageddon, people were panicking and trying to buy stuff, but all the stores were closed.  The only place he found open was the liquor store, so he bought some beer.  We had a nice evening in the candlelight and watched a couple episodes of Dexter on what power was left on Mike's laptop.  Eventually, we didn't have anything else to do, so we went to bed early.  Other people were have blackout parties in their neighborhoods.  It was funny how everyone was being all neighborly during the blackout.  We had people in our complex all in the courtyard grilling out and sitting out on their balconies talking to each other.

We were to fly out of San Diego the next morning and thought for sure we'd have to stay home all weekend, but the power came back on at about 1:15am Friday and our flight went out without any delays that morning at 10:30am.

Having something like this happen makes you think you should probably keep canned food, a battery powered radio and cash on hand.  Things we are told to keep on hand for emergencies anyway.  Maybe keeping your gas tank full too, some people were stranded without gas after sitting in traffic.  I couldn't even use my cell phone to call or text.  I thought you were supposed to be able to text at least in emergencies...not the case.

At least the ice cream truck came by....

Quote

This quote was from my yoga class yesterday and I liked it....

 The definition of success...To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

13 weeks Pregnant

Mike and I decided we were ready to start a family this year.  Is anyone ever really ready?  The baby is due March 14, 2012.  It's kind of funny to us, because that will be almost exactly a year after we left for our trip to Ireland.  Maybe we'll have a St. Paddy's Day baby!

8 weeks

13 weeks - those legs were just kicking away!

13 weeks - how cute is this little foot?

13 weeks - nice big stretch

Photos will be stored and shared on this website:  https://picasaweb.google.com/blundellorama

Yosemite National Park

We visited Yosemite over Labor Day weekend.  We couldn't get a campsite, but we got the next best thing.  We stayed in canvas tents at Curry Village in the valley.  It's so nice and convenient staying inside the park and waking up every morning to the magnificent cliffs on both sides.  You also don't have to worry about driving in the crazy traffic.  We arrived on Saturday and did 2 short hikes and Sunday we did a long hike that took most of the day.

Our tent in Curry Village

On the Taft Point and the Fissures hike

Sentinel Dome hike

View from the top of Sentinel Dome

Cute deer

Yosemite Falls

Hiking the valley floor

A break for swimming the freezing cold Merced River

Another swimming break, it was so cold it took my breath away.

Tunnel View - the first sight of the valley (which we took on the way out)

A Weekend in Missouri

I'm a little behind on posting.  I started a new job in June, so my schedule is a little different.  I'm on the computer a lot at work, so I don't feel like getting on it at home much.  We haven't traveled anywhere since our trip to Ireland until this past weekend.  I have weekends off now and we have been spending them relaxing and enjoying the San Diego summer.

We decided to make a trip back to Missouri to visit Mike's family this past weekend.  August in Missouri may not have been the best time to visit, because of the heat, but we had a great time.  It was around 100 most of the weekend.  We average about 75 in San Diego, so we were definitely struggling.  We lucked out and had a mostly cloudy day on Saturday and were able to canoe Shoal Creek.  We were hoping for a thunderstorm since we don't get those out here, but only heard a couple cracks of thunder after our canoe trip.  Once we made it back to Mike's parents house, there was no sign of rain clouds.

We did get a picture with our tree that's out at the family land used to run the canoe business.  This was planted by Mike's parents right after our wedding.  It's about 5 years old now and growing nicely.

Quote

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

Beach Day

It was a nice day for the beach and grilling hamburgers with our campstove.