It's Positively Olympic!

Kurt and I took one last vacation (well, second to last) to the Olympic Peninsula/Seattle Labor Day weekend. The purpose was to visit Kurt's grandma and also a sort of baby moon. We had an awesome time! I've always wanted to see the peninsula and rain forest, and it didn't disappoint. Warning: terrible pictures of me ahead.

We flew out super duper early, so when we arrived in Seattle we used Yelp to help us find a delicious breakfast spot. Then we headed inland to Snoqualmie Falls, and then drove back in the mountains for a bit.

Then we drove around Tacoma and onto the peninsula, stumbling on the Navy's undersea museum. Kurt's been fascinated by maritime history lately, especially subs, so he was stoked. Unfortunately, we just barely missed operating hours, but they had this (apparently) very famous sub outside.

 Kurt's grandma lives in Sequim, which is the driest place in the state of Washington, thanks to the rain shadow effect from the Olympic Mountains. She has an amazing garden that I was just loving.

The next day, Kurt's grandma joined us for a drive up to Hurricane Ridge. It has amazing views, including this one of the Olympics.

Yes, that's a dog on a motorcycle. Wearing swim goggles. He looked pretty happy, too.

In the afternoon, we headed out solo (sans grandma) to drive around to the other side of the peninsula. This is Lake Crescent (or Crescent Lake, something like that).

And then we arrived in Forks! OMGEE!!!!

 Where the locals are really taking advantage of the Twilight craze. This was the best example we saw: Twilight firewood (that looked like normal firewood if you ask me. They could've put sparkles on it or something, at least.)

From here, we drove over to Hoh Rain Forest. Think HUGE trees, lots of moss, and tons of ferns. It was positively jurassic.

Then we shot down to Ruby Beach. Yes! A typical Northwest beach! Pebbles, and drift wood, and sea stacks. I was in heaven.

Then up to La Push (which definitely had some Twilight signs of their own).

The next morning, we stopped at a prime example of the ubiquitous Northwest coffee shack. These are all over, and extend as far inland as Spokane. (My favorite in Spokane is named Java the Hut. Not that I've ever been there, but I see it whenever we go to Chewelah and the name makes me smile.) I had to get a picture. And my steamer was awesome.

Then we headed over to the Sol Duc hot springs (pictures? yeah right--no pics of me in a bathing suit while 34 weeks pregnant on this blog!). After a short soak, we hiked the falls.

Then we drove up to Neah Bay and Cape Flattery, the Northwest Most Point in the US. And, the camera died right before we got to the actual point, but here's a look out on the way there. It was BEAUTIFUL. Probably my favorite part of the coast.

The next morning, we said goodbye to Grandma. We decided it would be fun to stay on San Juan island for the night. On the way off the peninsula, we stopped for some Northwest Native American art. Kurt LOVES this stuff. Like, you have no idea how many pictures of totem poles and prints and boxes he took. I spared you.

We took the ferry from Port Townsend (where we ate lunch) to Whidbey Island (so cute). Port Townsend (below) is my favorite town on the peninsula.

Then we drove to Fidalgo Island, where we took the ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor on San Juan island. Look, it's James Island!

Friday Harbor was our absolute favorite part of the trip. The San Juan islands are located in the Salish Sea, northwest of Seattle by about 80 miles. They're pretty rural, but Friday Harbor is a really cute tourist spot. We got in pretty late--around 6 pm--so we walked around the town for a bit (ice cream! seal spotting at the marina!) before heading to our hostel for the night. Yep, we stayed in a hostel. The hotels on San Juan are crazy expensive, and this hostel had private rooms for MUCH cheaper, and I've never stayed in a hostel, so why not? I was really, really tired from all the walking, so we called it an early night. And then we got up bright and early to head out to Lime Kiln state park on the west side of the island. It's a prime whale watching spot. Unfortunately, we didn't see any, but we saw plenty of porpoises and seals, perhaps some sea lions. It was absolutely beautiful so early in the morning, and we had it all to ourselves.

Then we hopped back on the ferry and headed over to Seattle! We toured the Pioneer Park district for a bit, then headed over to Pikes Place. Such a fun spot! Kurt had been sampling clam chowder during our trip (one place in Port Angeles, one in Port Townsend), and he Yelped the best in Seattle, and found Pike Place Chowder. Was it good? Let me put it this way: I don't even like clam chowder, and I ate more than my share of Kurt's bowl. Positively life changing. And the flowers at the market! Oh, huge, beautiful bouquets for $5 each. I was in heaven. We bought some for Kurt's friend's girlfriend, Bailey. We stayed with Aaron and Bailey for the night, and they took us to dinner at this awesome little spot with the best mussels I've ever had. Aaron and Kurt have been friends since, like, diapers. He's a Chewelah boy and they entertained us after dinner with tales of their childhood escapades. It's kind of a miracle they both made it to adulthood. I'm not exaggerating either.

We woke up super early again on Wednesday to fly back home and head to work. All in all, we logged over 700 miles on our rental car during our 5 day stay. Such a fun last vacation as a childless couple. It was fun to plan future backpacking trips up Mt. Olympus with Turbo one day. We'll definitely be back.

August Goals Recap

1. Learn How to Coupon
2. Clear Out the Nursery
3. Paint the Nursery (Or rather, have Kurt paint the nursery)
4. Buy and Refinish a Dresser for the Nursery

BAHAHAHA! Me, accomplish my monthly goals this year? Yeah, right.

(Apparently, that's how my 2012's just gonna be. But I'm not sweating it.)

Also, I'm not setting any goals in September. In fact, I think I might take the rest of the year off from monthly goals. The goal of "learn how to be a mother" will be enough, I think!

Silly, Silly Puppies

Just a few recent pictures of the pups being their quirky selves.

Swift is our troll dog. He likes hiding under things.
The guest bed:

 The love seat:

 And our bed:

 These pictures were taken over the course of only two days.

 I think there's a dog under here...

Also, I think it's time to install the floor boards under the cabinets. Swift can almost squeeze himself completely under!

So, I guess mostly pictures of Swift. Ruby does funny things that we video: growling in her sleep, playing with soccer balls, "talking" to us when she wants something. She's equally as quirky as Swift, just less ... stationary?

Anyhow, we love these crazy, silly shibas.

Two Finished Bedrooms!

And neither one is the nursery! What fun!!!

So, my friend Lindsay featured our french door headboard on her blog and even polled the audience about my frame dilemma problem. She suggested wood frames, and I decided to run with it ... which inspired me to finally finish the room (hang up curtains on the small window, buy an ottoman for the vanity, etc). I was originally thinking purple would be a nice accent color, but Kurt thinks that purple is an old ladies-only color, so I went for the indigo instead (two picture frames mats and the mirror frame). He declared the color "blurple" but didn't argue. Of course, I painted it all while he was on man-weekend, so by the time he got home there was nothing he could do about it. (If he'd pitched a big enough fit, I would've repainted.) Eventually I'd like to paint some chunky, horizontal stripes in indigo onto the curtains, but that's definitely a 2013 project. Oh, and we need closet doors. Sigh.

The other room is our guest bedroom. The only things left to do in here are fix my painting gaff on the foot board (from 3 years ago) and add closet doors. I hemmed the curtains with hemming tape (which is awesome, but doesn't work nearly as fast as the instructions say it do) earlier this summer, and added a few more frames to the collage wall. Looking back, I wish I'd hung the curtains higher, but whatever, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. 

I call this my Charleston room. Everything from the Jim Booth painting on the wall to the pictures of Charleston in the frames to the colors remind me of Charleston (or are directly related to Charleston). Well, I guess not the books or the Willow Tree statue, but almost everything. I wanted the room to feel coastal but not beachy.

Don't you want to come stay with us now?

Welcome to the Family!

On Saturday, our 2 year car search ended with the purchase of a new Subaru Outback.

We love it!

We started dabbling in the car search when we started trying to get pregnant, nearly two years ago. Once we found out that I'm pregnant in January, we got more serious about it. We had a lot of cars in mind in the beginning, but an Outback was always at the top of the list. Once we test drove it, we were hooked.

We are true Coloradans now:

-lotsa bikes

-dogs

-snowboarding

-and now an Outback

The best part? I won't have to kill my back shoving a car seat in the back of a two-door coupe.

August Goals

1. Learn How to Coupon
2. Clear Out the Nursery
3. Paint the Nursery (Or rather, have Kurt paint the nursery)
4. Buy and Refinish a Dresser for the Nursery

Not sure what I capped those like they're headlines, but whatever. :) Wish me luck!

July Goals Recap

1. Make Progress on Operation: Babyfy the House:
     -Completely Clear Out the Nursery FAIL
     -Which Means Finding New, Permanent Homes for All that Junk FAIL
     -Order the Crib SUCCESS!
     -Have Paint Color Picked Out FAIL--though I have a good idea what color I'll use
2. Finish My Novel -- FOR REALS THIS TIME! FAIL
3. Complete All Value Experiences (or whatever they're called) for Individual Worth--I'm in Young Women's and want to get my YW Award, so I have a goal to do a value each month. I'll work on it on Sundays. FAIL--completely forgot about this one!


Wow, what an epic failure of a month. The crazy thing is? I was actually really productive in July too, despite our many trips and such. The hard thing about clearing out the nursery is I can't do it by myself these days (though I could've done a lot of it back in the pre-prego days). Frustrating? You betcha. And Kurt was really busy this month, so that's why that didn't get done, although I did make some progress on cleaning it out. There are a few things I could lift in there. But at least we got the crib ordered!

Classic!

We headed out to Salida this last weekend for the last Colorado race of Kurt's season. I wasn't sure I was going to make it until about two days before, and I'm so glad I did. Got to get in these spontaneous trips while we still can!

Kurt himself almost didn't go. After Laramie and then his bike crash, he was feeling pretty low about racing. He told me, at the time, that he was burned out and considering no more races for the rest of the season (except Lotoja, because for some unknown reason, he enjoys riding 206 miles in one day). On the way home on Sunday, he told me a little more--that he had been seriously considering quitting all together. I think Kurt's done phenomenally this season, considering it's his first true racing season, but he was really discouraged a couple weeks ago. But he also told me, on Sunday, that if it weren't for his awesome team, he definitely would've quit racing after this year. Kurt's had some good races, and some not-so-good races, and if he'd been flying solo for the summer it would've been really hard to take. As it was, he got discouraged, but having an active, supportive team (and he helped get multiple guys on the podium) has made all the difference, and he's ending the year with a bang. Plus, hello! It's his first year. He's learned a lot, and still has a lot to learn, and I'm really proud of everything he's accomplished.

Anyhow! So, we drove up to Salida on Saturday morning and Kurt raced in the crit. He didn't get to warm up as well as he'd like, so he was sluggish at the beginning of the race, but after a while he looked (to me) and said he felt very strong. So warming up is so important! After the race, I walked around downtown Salida with the other team significant others (wives, girlfriends, fiancées). It's a really cute little town back in a desert valley west of the Springs. That night the whole team went to dinner. Then we got up crazy-early on Sunday morning for a short road race. I handed out water bottles with the girls, and it was really fun. Of course, the forecast had called for rainy and 70s all weekend, and it ended up being sunny and warm, so I was sweaty and gross-feeling almost the whole time. But whatever! After the race, we met in Buena Vista for lunch, then Kurt and I came home.

I didn't get an pics at the crit, as I was struggling to breathe at the time. For some reason, my asthma was really bad on Saturday. Go fig.

Kurt's team's the cluster of red and black kits (uniforms) at the front right. Kurt's the farther right, with the black helmet, red sunglasses, and red bike. This is lining up for the road race.

 Kurt had to lead the pack for a while to give his teammates a break, which is really exhausting. So he got dropped after a few laps. Here he is, heading into the feed zone on the last lap. On the lap before, I'd called out his name, and this time, some high school boys who were volunteering to hand out water bottles had remembered his name, and called it out. Funny kids.

 Primal Cat 4s after the race.

Sadly, most of these guys will more up to Cat 3 next summer, but a big reason the Cat 4 team is so strong is because of good leadership (and one of the leaders will be a 4 next year too). 

Now Kurt's got his eye on the big one: the Lotoja! 

Belly Shot!

When I hear "belly shot," I think of someone punching another person in the gut.

Because I'm weird like that.

Anyhow, I've been getting requests for a picture of my expanding body, so on Sunday I decided to make everyone happy. And, funny enough, Sunday was exactly 3 months before my due date.

(And our crib arrived on Friday! I can't wait to put it together!)

I'm not the type of girl who says, "I can't wait to snuggle my little baby!" I think it's weird when people describe babies as 'yummy.' I rarely ask to hold other people's infants. Usually only if they belong to a close friend or relative, and sometimes not even then.

So it hit me as kind of a shock when I realized how excited I am for our little guy to be here. I'm so excited to see if he has my nose (like I suspect, due to the ultra sound). I can't wait to learn his personality; I hope he'll be a rambunctious little boy like his dad was, but still love reading like I do. And--I'll say it--I'm excited to hold him.

So while the next three months don't need to fly by--because we still have so much to do--I'm looking forward to their passing, and to moving on from pregnancy and into parenthood.

July Goals

1. Make Progress on Operation: Babyfy the House:
     -Completely Clear Out the Nursery
     -Which Means Finding New, Permanent Homes for All that Junk
     -Order the Crib
     -Have Paint Color Picked Out
2. Finish My Novel -- FOR REALS THIS TIME!
3. Complete All Value Experiences (or whatever they're called) for Individual Worth--I'm in Young Women's and want to get my YW Award, so I have a goal to do a value each month. I'll work on it on Sundays.

I'm keeping it light this month I''ll be traveling quite a bit, and I don't want to put too much on my plate. Because, historically, my eyes have always been bigger than stomach in that regard.

May/June Goals Recap

-Finish my WIP. I know, same song, same verse even. But did you know it's just as hard to write a novel while nauseous as it is to clean the kitchen? True story. Fail. Yet again. Oh well.
-Write a short story after I finish the novel (the novel should be done in about two weeks, so that gives me plenty of time for a short story) Technically a fail, but I deliberately decided not to write this short story, so we'll say it's a pass.
-Do research for next book. Make tentative outline. (I'm a semi-outliner.) -- This is optional. We'll see how fast I get the short story done. Another pass ... since it was optional.
-Accomplish these house projects: kitchen curtains, guest room curtains, paint and upholster kitchen stools, make trash/recycling can cabinet-thing, make our headboard, rearrange our bedroom. Success! I didn't complete the kitchen curtains or the cabinet, but only because the other projects took longer than expected (don't they always?). 
-Work out 4-6 days a week (don't worry, two days a week will be prenatal yoga and walking--not exactly strenuous exercise) Success! Some weeks it was only 3 days, but those were literally the only days I was able to work out, so I still count that as a success.
-Maintain a clean home. Because right now it's clean! And I want it to stay that way. Because maintenance is easier than letting it all go to pot, then trying to clean it all. Success! And I'm kinda addicted to keeping my house clean. Sometimes it gets a little messy (not dirty, just messy), but I never wait more than a day before straightening things up. It's been so easy to maintain my clean home, about thirty minutes a day for whatever needs to be done (kitchen, laundry, bathroom, etc.). I need to remember this in the future, because a few minutes a day is way better than hours once a week.

Some House Projects

Here are some pics of the projects I've completed around the house this month. I don't know if it's nesting, or just finally getting sick of sitting on all these projects for so long, but I've been über productive so far this summer. Yep, über. 

Upholstered My Piano Bench:

Okay, I actually did this back in March. But it's the only non-June project. I decided to do this because my butt hurts after sitting on the bench for more than 30 minutes. Since this piano will be around a long time, I chose a nice neutral, durable fabric. Love it!

Upholstered and Painted Kitchen Stools:

These are just your typical blonde-wood, cheap stools you can pick up anywhere. I was originally going to paint them gray, since I have so much gray paint it's insane, but decided to do the green to add some color to the kitchen. And my original plan for fabric was going to be painter's drop cloth, but I had enough fabric leftover from piano bench, and knew the white would look awesome with the green (spray paint). I love them!

 I even remembered to check my centering and direction of the fabric. I'm learning!

 Love the green against the white beadboard.

 And super fun with the cushions on our other two stools.

French Door Headboard:

Kurt did a lot of the work on this, obviously. I originally saw the door-headboard idea way back in like 2008, and immediately thought it would be cool with a french door. Well, last year I finally saw nabbed one on Craig's List for only $20! And then it sat in our hallway for almost a year. :D

Kurt built the frame and I painted (spray paint, don't worry I was outside). It's technically still not installed--not screwed onto the bed frame--but I wanted to go ahead and take pictures. And yes, document our lovely AC unit in the window. So classy. 

I love the black and white combo. I thought about doing a mercury glass finish on the glass panes, but decided not to, mostly because I have way too much other stuff to worry about right now. And I rather like the plain glass. Oh, and Kurt's mom made that gorgeous quilt for our 4th anniversary (err ... or maybe 3rd... ).

 So, obviously all of this art needs to be framed, but I wanted to throw them up there. Kurt's cousin made the graphic art on the left with our wedding date, Kurt's dad gave us the drawing of the SC temple (where we were married) on our wedding day, the picture is obviously of our wedding day, and the certificate on the far right is our temple sealing certificate. 

 I'm thinking of doing some kind of metal frames, to give an industrial touch to the room. Any ideas? And I'll probably get a new matte for the temple drawing--something smaller, so that when I matte the certificate, they'll be closer to the same size. I'm not sure if I can get a new frame for the graphic art though ... so we'll see, I might just have to do black frames.

Wreath and Flowers:

This may have been the end of May, but close enough. I've posted about potting flowers in our blue planter before, but I found the other two planters and decided to put them to use. Also, the flowers I've planted in the blue pot before have never done well, and I've finally realized why. I've always put Full Sun flowers in there, because most of the year, the stoop gets a ton of sun. However, in the summer with our elm tree fully leafed out, it gets about 2 hours of sun. So this time I planted all Partial Sun flowers and they're doing great! I think I need to water the begonias a little less to make them happiest, and the impatiens don't want to fully bloom right now because of the oppressive heat (we've had like 5 or 6 days over 100 degrees in the last week and a half here--about 20 degrees hotter than normal!), but everyone's looking pretty happy.

The wreath is the same style as others I've made in the past, without the buttons, cinnamon sticks and bow/ornament. I decided to try without those things because there's already a lot going on visually with the flowers, plus I'm going to paint the door at some point this summer (we're in a long process of painting the house. If you are really observant, you'll be able to notice a difference in the siding color. The trim and door are all that's left, but this heat is making it impossible to finish up for now). I rather like keeping the wreath simple, too.

Originally we had the two smaller planters both on the right side, but Kurt kept tripping over them, so we rearranged to make things less cluttered on that side.

Yeah, I goofed and planted these with the sticker showing. I need to rip it off. One of these days...

Cycling Is My Life

And I haven't even ridden this whole year! So maybe it's not my life, because I don't go to all of Kurt's races, but I go to a fair amount of them. Not because I have to, but because it's fun to cheer on my husband. And not be stuck at home all Saturday morning. Kurt has a race almost every Saturday. This season is a lot more intense than last year, but that's a) intentional and b) good. He really loves his new team, which provides a lot of support. And he's learning the ins and outs of racing. And there is a lot to learn! Kurt's had some really good races, and some not-so-good races, but he's learned from all of them. Here are a few pictures.

Warming up for his first time trial, which was a team time trial.

 Sweet time trial gear

 We even volunteered at a Bike Colorado event. I told you, it's my life too.

 Starting his latest race in Laramie. This race was absolutely brutal, but Kurt managed to finish, though he was too sick from dehydration to continue the next day (it was a stage race (think the Tour).

And while he avoided hospitalization after Laramie, he had to make up for it on the following Tuesday (just two days ago) by getting in a wreck on the way to work. Luckily, he was fine, and so was his bike. He banged up his nose (as you can see) and suffered a minor concussion. Did I mention he seriously cut his hand about a month ago while working on his bike? I swear, he gets hurt way more often than I do.

Little Turbo

We found out yesterday that we're having a BOY! Let's just say that my mother's intuition was wrong. Lots of other people were wrong. In fact, most people who'd voiced a strong opinion, had gone the other way. Kinda funny how that works. 

But we're so excited! I love the idea that I'm going to have a mini-Kurt running around (and breaking things, and eating dirt, and being generally rambunctious). I'm so glad we found out the gender of the baby ahead of time. Not only can I plan (i.e., shop!) for him, but he now has an identity to me. Rather than being amorphous, ambiguous THE BABY, he's now a person to me, an individual. I didn't anticipate that experience, but I'm digging it. 

Anyhow, we're kinda at the drawing board when it comes to names (we had totally zeroed in on a girl's name. boy's name ... not so much), so if you have suggestions, they are welcome. 

Right now I want to post a bit about the nursery. Kurt is a "man's man," and I'm not the only one who thinks this--many people over the years have expressed this same statement. I want our son's room to be All Boy. I don't want it to be cutesy, but be something that he can grow into as a toddler and even a kid, if need be. And I've mentioned before that I want to do a bike theme.

When I found out I was pregnant, I emailed Joni at Lay Baby Lay requesting a bike-themed nursery inspiration board. She actually made two (one for each gender) that are SO cute and exactly what I was thinking of. Here's the boy one:

I love it! The navy is awesome, and she finds the best art. I want to capture the essence of this mood board, but incorporate a few more pops of green, yellow, maybe even some orange or red. I want the room to feel ALL boy, but also playful and be something he can grow into. That might be a tall order for such a small room, but here's hoping!

Anyhow, here's the art I'm leaning most towards:

 I like the vintage-feel of this, though it's not my favorite.

I don't love these colors, but I love everything else about this print. 

I love the euro and vintage feel!

also comes in blue

 Again, I don't love the colors, but SO FUN.

This is probably my favorite. So simple and graphic, yet bright and bold. But perhaps too simple.

also comes in red

We really like graphic-type prints. All of these (super affordable) posters come from poster cabaret.

And the word-art print Joni featured that I love most is "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." It also comes in green, chartreuse, yellow, and red-orange.

Anyhow, just some ideas tossing around inside my head. I'll definitely have a rug of some sort, and most of the furniture will be white (if we stick with navy walls). I'm not sold on the navy walls, mostly because the room is so small. However, it gets A TON of light (the windows face south and west). And I love navy. So if we did another color, I'd have to incorporate navy somehow.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Baby names?