A Week Off

Last weekend Cameron worked Friday,Saturday and Sunday nights and this weekend he is working the same shifts. It somewhat stinks that i'm hanging out alone the whole weekend, BUT it did mean that he had Monday-Friday OFF! I didn't have to work this week(or ever again, since they already found a full-time replacement for me at the dentist office and didn't bother to tell me until about an hour before I was supposed to be there Monday...nice, I know). So I am back to having no job and not a lot to keep me busy. At least it is sunny and warm out now so I can walk to the library or a few different stores that are close if I want. The other plus side of not working is that Cameron won't have to worry about taking the bus downtown if we work on the same days anymore. Anyway, since I didn't have work and Cameron had the whole week off we had a good time just hanging out together and doing a few fun things as well.

We (and when I say "we" I mean Cameron), spent one of the nice days working in the yard...Mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, and planting some more flowers. Here is Cameron hard at work.

Our pretty back yard

This is how I spent the day outside...watching Cameron work, trying to get some sun on my nasty white legs, and reading Tuesdays with Morrie for the third time.

The next day we took a walk down to the awesome Metro parks by our house. The Metro parks are like a big Central park and Centennial Trail in one. They are over fifty miles long and do a big loop around the city of Cleveland. They have hiking and biking trails, places to fish and camp and have picnics, and lost of just big open park space. We walked for a bit on some of the trails and then remembered a little cafe place that is part of one of the golf courses in the park. We decided to stop for lunch and check it out. The prices were really reasonable and the food was great.

This is my meal. I got the BLT with a berry smoothie, it was delicious.

Here is Cameron's. He got the Polynesian salad with a berry smoothie also.

Waiting for the food and laughing at the funny things some elderly gentlemen were saying as they waited for their Tee-time.

This is me, looking oh-so pregnant, on our walk back after lunch

Thursday we headed down to an Indians baseball game. We totally missed the boat on going to a Cav's game, which would have been fun, but we'll try to go next season.

Good seats right behind home plate

Progressive Field...next time we will go to a night game. I hear the fireworks are awesome.

Us after the game. It was a really warm and sunny day. Oh, and we are now official fans with our t-shirts to support the team.

And last but not least... I took this picture this morning. Cameron's work is just minutes from an AWESOME and huge market that has everything you could want. I especially love the delicious fruit assortment and it is cheaper than at a grocery store. Anyway, Cameron surprised me today and stopped by the market on his way home. He got a 1/4 of a watermelon, some grapes, strawberries, a chocolate covered pretzel and a chocolate covered strawberry. He blamed the chocolates on his work buddy. He said he forced him to try them and they were good so he brought me some. It was a great surprise, I am always glad to have fresh fruit on hand.

We had a great week and enjoyed just hanging out and spending more time together. Sometimes I feel a bit spoiled to have such large amounts of time off like that, but then we go back to the LONG 12-hour night shifts,(which are really like working somewhere around 20 hours since Cameron has to sleep at some point. So he works for the 12-hour shift and then comes home and has to sleep for a good 8 hours during the middle of the day. He usually works at least two nights in a row, so he gets home from one shift, goes straight to bed, gets up in time to shower and run out the door for the next shift) and I don't feel so bad.

I had to throw this in here too. The baby has been kicking like crazy lately, but I have never been able to document it. I just happened to have my phone by me the other day when I was obviously annoying him by having my hand resting on my stomach as I was watching a movie. The best kicks are right at the beginning so watch close!

Our First Visitors!

This past weekend we had our very first visitors to see us out in Cleveland. Tyler, Nicole, and Katelyn were headed to Arizona from Boston for the summer, so it was conveniently on their way to stop by. They got in Thursday evening. We ordered some pizza and just hung out until Tyler's dad flew in around 11pm. Early Friday morning Tyler and his dad got in the car and started driving to Arizona. They drove 16 hours a day and made it all the way there in just two days, crazy. Meanwhile, we got to have Nicole and Katelyn spend the weekend with us, then they flew to Arizona on Monday.

Here are some fun pictures from the weekend:

Katelyn just hanging out Friday morning.

Friday afternoon we decided to venture out and go check out Little Italy in downtown Cleveland. After looking around for a bit we stopped for lunch at some good-looking restaurant, I don't remember what it was called. Cameron had spaghetti and meatballs. He said it was the best he had ever had. Nicole and I both had different kinds of ravioli and that was really good as well.

Cameron with his spaghetti and meatballs.

Katelyn after eating her carrots.

After eating lunch, we found a delicious-looking bakery that we had to stop at.

Katelyn REALLY wanted to be eating our Gelato and mousse, that's why Cameron is having to hold her back from grabbing it in this picture.

Cameron with his cannoli.

Dancing around with uncle Cameron later that day.

After her bath...look at those adorable little cheeks!

Saturday was pretty cold and rainy so our plans of doing something outside were shot. We decided to head over to the rec center that we belong to. It has a really fun pool just for kids. There was a lazy river, slides, and toys. Katelyn was obviously too young for most of that, but really enjoyed just floating around and kicking her feet in her baby raft.

Drying off in her robe

Saturday night after we had put Katelyn to bed we decided it would be fun to make pizza for dinner. We have our individual pizza pans which were perfect since we all like different toppings.

Here is Cameron rolling the dough. We made it in our bread maker which made it really easy and was way good dough.

Nicole starting to make her pizza

Just before going in the oven

Nicole and I with our pizza creations

Sunday was Mother's Day and Cameron woke me up said there was breakfast waiting for me downstairs. He had gotten up extra early and made a big breakfast for Nicole and I. He made eggs, bacon, pancakes, juice and fruit. He also had a cute little place setting for both Nicole and me. He had picked flowers from out yard and wrote nice notes to each of us. It was a great surprise and fun to have Nicole there for it also.

Katelyn loved uncle Cameron

Happy girl

Nicole packing to leave the next morning ):

I had to include a picture of all the awesome gifts that Tyler and Nicole brought as well. They got the baby two cute pairs of pj's, a big set of cloth diapers, some ring toys, and an adorable little outfit with kaki shorts and a super cute striped shirt. They also gave us their car seat which was SO SO nice. We can't thank you guys enough, we love all of it!

We were so sad when we had to take them to the airport to leave Monday morning. We had such a fun weekend and loved having them here. We can't wait to hang out again when we go home in June and to the family reunion. Thanks for coming!!!

More pictures

Ok, here are two re-do shots for all of the people who demanded to see my face. These aren't great pictures and I had just gotten out of the shower, so my hair is up and wet and I have no makeup on, but these are all you are getting for a while... so enjoy (:

What We've been up to

We haven't really been up to a whole lot... Cameron has been working all nights lately and I started a part-time job as a dentist office assistant, basically I assist the hygienist and take x-rays and whatever else needs to be done around the office . I really like where I work and it makes the weeks go by so much faster. Since Cameron works 12 hour shifts at night he needs to come home and sleep during the day. That isn't so bad on the days that I am at work, but on the days that i'm home I do have a hard time not going and waking him up every ten minutes or so. I told him it is just practice for having a newborn (: So, since I work during the day and Cameron works at night we don't see each other too often except for the fun days(or nights) that we both have off AND that Cameron isn't sleeping, which come around every so often.

Lately we have found ourselves so tired during the times we both have off that we haven't done a whole lot. We have just been enjoying catching up on some of our favorite shows and hanging out together. Here are a couple pictures I took during one of these wonderful and relaxing nights together.

I made my grandma's potato soup. Cameron likes his in a bread bowl. It was the perfect thing for this cold and rainy evening.

For dessert while we were watching the shows, we had Oreos dipped in milk. It was delicious.

Here is Cameron pulling up one of our favs... House.

A big thing that we have been told about a lot since we moved out here are the kids resale events. They are huge and happen at different high schools like every six months. We had missed a couple, but decided to try to make it to this last one. We had NO idea what to expect or what we were even looking for, but it turned out pretty good. We ended up getting 8 new outfits for REALLY cheap. They all are almost brand new and look way nice. Here is a sample of what we got. We had a good time and I was glad we went, but I think next time we will have to have more of a game plan for what we are looking for. We just kinda wondered around in all the chaos, it was crazy.

These are all the outfits we bought.

This was probably what I was most excited about. It is an ADORABLE little suit with a vest and tie and everything. It looks brand new and when we took it up to the lady to buy it she said "I bought this for my son for my sisters wedding and he literally wore it for less than 2 hours. I paid over $80.00 for it at JC Penny's." I am so excited to put him in this for church.

Cameron said we needed some Cleveland apparel for him, so we saw this cute little Indians outfit and had to get it. I think it was $2.00.

Ok, here it is....

I have had MANY MANY request for a belly shot, so this is me finally caving in. I am just a couple days shy of 25 weeks in this picture.

Day at the Hospital

Monday I ran out of my nausea medicine, but I thought I was feeling so much better that I would not fill it again and that I must be well over the morning sickness by now...(I am over 20 weeks along). Obviously I was very VERY wrong. I took my last pill of the medicine on Sunday and thought I would be good to go and not have to take it anymore. I felt ok Monday till about noon. I started feeling pretty nauseous, but thought I just needed to eat a little more than I had or something. I took a nap and waited for Cameron to get home from work. By the time he got home at about 8:30 I was NOT feeling good at all. I had him stop on his way home and get some Ginger Ale and Sprite because I wasn't even able to keep water down at the time. He brought those and I tried to take little sips of that, but as soon as I did that I was running to the bathroom and could not even keep down like 1 tablespoon of liquid at all. I went to bed feeling miserable, but figured I could get the meds early in the morning and be ok. The night was horrible, and I was throwing up AT LEAST once every hour all night long. Luckily Cameron had Tuesday off, so he was doing everything he could think of to help, but there wasn't much anyone could do. We called around to get my prescription filled, but were told everywhere that it would be 24 hours to fill since it was an out of state prescription. i then tried to call my doctor and see if she could just call in another one, but the nurse said she wouldn't be in until 3pm and then they could do it. I thought I could make it ok till three and then just get the medicine asap. I took a bath, took a nap, paced around the house and was STILL throwing up every hour or more. So by this point I had not eaten or drank anything for more than 24 hours and I was feeling HORRIBLE. I was just about to call my doctor again to rush it when I started throwing up blood. I called and told the nurse this new development and she said she would talk to my doctor and call me right back. She called back really soon and said to go straight to the Emergency Room. I wasn't too excited about it, but I was ready to do anything to help by then. Cameron took me to the ER and we were sent to the High Risk Labor and Delivery area since I was only 20 weeks. They were really nice and said I was super dehydrated. They immediately put me on an IV of fluids and also put anti-nausea meds in the IV. I slowly started feeling a little better as I got the fluids and the medicine. They kept a contraction monitor on me, but never saw any contractions, which is a good thing. They listened to his heartbeat and that was fine too. They did some blood work and kept checking vitals and stuff until things started to look better. We were there a total of 8 long hours and got home around 11pm. I felt better by the time we left, but was super tired. We stopped and got more medicine on the way home and went straight to bed once we got there. i slept straight through the night and slept in the next morning. I felt SO much better when I woke up though. It was such a big difference. I was able to eat some plain toast and drink a glass of Ginger Ale. I feel lots better today other than having a super raw and sore throat and tongue. I told Cameron I am NEVER stopping taking my nausea medicine again.

Here is one picture we took on my phone while we were in the hospital. It is just of my arm all hooked up to the IV's and stuff. I'm surprised I don't have a bruise yet because I was so dehydrated that the nurse had to try like four times to get the IV in.

It's a... BOY!!!

We had the 20-week ultrasound today. It was fun to see the baby for the first time and to find out that we are really having a boy-(I have thought it was a boy for a while now). Here are a few of the pictures that we got:

This is a not-so-good picture of his face. It is looking straight on.

Self explanatory

Rubbing his eye. Every time we tried to get a good look at his face he would put his hands over his face and hide.

Profile shot

Profile shot of his whole body. Notice he is still covering his face with his hands.

Cameron and I both agreed that it made it so much more real to see the pictures and see him moving around and kicking and stuff. We are very excited to meet our little boy.

Pregnancy, Moving, and New Job

Well, it has been almost two months since my last update and lots has happened since then. I am now almost 5 months pregnant and have the big ultrasound next week. I am feeling a little better now, but these first four-ish months have been pretty miserable. I have been pretty sick all day long and can only keep certain things down. It is starting to get a little better now, but still not great. Meat has been the worst. I have never been a big meat-eater, but now I can't even look at chicken or anything. Things that I use to love sound good minus the meat in them. For example, I love mexican food so things like chicken enchiladas or tacos sound good, without the chicken or taco meat, which doesn't leave much of a meal for Cameron. I am hoping there will be some bigger improvement very soon.

Onto the next topic, we moved out to Cleveland almost three weeks ago. Cameron and I were supposed to both drive out in our car because we did Pods and all of our stuff was already in storage here. We just needed to get the rest of our stuff and our car here. Well, a few days before we were supposed to leave I still was not doing good and the worst part was that I got SUPER car sick in the car after like 5 minutes. So, Cameron's parents were nice enough to take pity on me and let me use a plane ticket that they needed to use somewhat soon anyway. We then asked Cameron's youngest brother Scott to give up his long weekend off school to drive across the country for almost 40 hours. He was a trooper and agreed and I am VERY appreciative. So, Cameron and Scott set off to make the long trek and I got to stay in Spokane for an extra few days before I flew out. The weather was horrible for the drive and all the roads were way icey. The boys nearly froze and it was so windy plus the bad roads that they said the car would just slide all over the road. Oh, the car didn't have snow tires because we got a new car and it was super nice in Spokane, so we just never got any.

Here are pictures of what the conditions were like.

(I think the three means day three of the trip, and they are both obviously cold)

The boys did get a chance to do some fun things along the way. They stopped at the College Football Hall of Fame.

Celebrating with the guys

Waiting to get in the game

They also stopped at Notre Dame. I'm pretty sure it was Cameron's dream stop.

The next fun stop was Mt. Rushmore

Boys will be boys. Once they got to Cleveland they opted out of staying another night in a hotel and decided to stay in our EMPTY house. They took the random things out of the car and made a fort to hang out in for the night. They rented a movie and watched it on the laptop(in their fort). They both said it was really uncomfortable, but fun.

Here are some pictures of our new home. It is a way cute three bedroom home in a nice neighborhood that I think we will really like.

Here is the kitchen right as you walk in from the side door.

The other side of the kitchen

The living room

Living room

The front room

Front room

Dining room off of the kitchen

Front room

Master bedroom

The basement, where we have our washer/dryer and treadmill.

Well, that's the update on our house and the pregnancy for now. Cameron started his job on Monday and seems to like the people so far. He has mostly been doing only orientation stuff so far, but will start on the floor on Friday, so we will see how it really is then. I am just hanging out at home and trying to keep myself somewhat busy to keep from going completely insane. I'm not going to get a job since nobody will want to hire me for four months. We also only have one car now, so I am trapped at home. If anyone has any great ideas on how to keep sane here at home, let me know.