Strange Benefits

Observations. As most of you know, my weight had crept up over the years and, 3 and a half years ago, I hit my max weight and decided to do something extreme about it. So, 1200 calories and 2 hour workouts daily helped me shed a lot of weight over a year and a half period. Oddly enough, being an overweight gal, losing weight, then becoming pregnant has helped me out in a couple of unexpected ways:

1) I have a lot of larger clothes that I'm still comfortable in. Granted, these are mostly of the wear to bed or workout variety at this point, but still, they're coming in handy.

2) The skin on my belly remembered being bigger and has only been mildly uncomfortable in the last month. A couple of thin gals I know that are in their 4th month of pregnancy are already have a lot of discomfort from stretching skin.

3) I've been able to keep a somewhat positive outlook on my weight gain. I mean, even though 6 months pregnant, I still don't weigh as much as I used to!

Obviously, I'm not saying that being overweight was a positive thing in my life, but it's interesting to see the glass half full.

Kitties Love Spring

Yep, it's officially spring and there are days that are even starting to feel like it. Saturday was a beautiful day in Boston! It was great spring weather, so we finally got a chance to open some windows, get some fresh air in the house and let out the internal winter air funk. The kitties were extremely happy to be able to get in the window sills and onto the enclosed front porch!

Luci just loves watching the birds and squirrels that have been in action in our backyard. Every morning, you'll find her by our back glass door watching for them closely. On Saturday, she was treated to an even more exciting sight - our bunnies are back and she was mesmerized by watching one in our bushes!

Luci on the Lookout

As for Oliver, he spent most of the day in the sun on the front enclosed porch. Mike and I are always amazed at how expressive his little kitty face is. There's usually no doubt in his mood or feelings when you look at him....his face tells it all. That's why I find this picture so incredibly funny! Apparently, he was not in the mood to have his picture taken because this face clearly says to me,

"What are you lookin' at?!?"

Of course, Sunday was rainy, cold and nasty so the kitties slept on the warm beds upstairs. That's spring in Boston....gorgeous one day and showers the next. Green shoots are starting to appear in the yards and soon the trees will start budding. I love this time of year when the city seems to "come alive" again.

New Zoo Revue

Last Saturday, Mike and I headed down to Providence for zoo day and pizza night with Kristina, Mike's sister, and her family. Unfortunately, the Roger Williams Zoo up and changed closing time on us, so instead of a leisurely hour and a half there, we had to run through the zoo in a little over half an hour. It didn't matter, we say some great animals and had a great time.

With all the traveling Mike and I have done over the last 5 years, we always get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing animals in all areas of the world. Seeing animals in their natural habitats is absolutely amazing, but seeing them in captivity is almost as cool. Plus, we get to take trips down memory lane of when we saw the animals in their element.

On our honeymoon in South Africa, we got to see, very up close and personal, at a Cheetah Research center, African Wild Dogs. That was the first time that I had ever seen this cool animal and I was excited to get to see them again that day at the zoo.

Snow Leopard (Still need to get to Asia to see this one in it's natural habitat)

Definitely the crowd favorite was the Red Panda, which is on loan from China. The first time I had ever seen or heard about this animal was when I was a child and my Dad's Kiwani's Club chapter adopted the Red Panda at the Dallas Zoo. I hadn't seen another one since then. Such a beautiful animal! Just look at that cute face!

We did get to see other animals, but those were my favorites from our quick trip (except for the HUGE daddy giraffe, but we didn't get a great shot of him). Before heading out, we got some quick photos on the caterpillar.

Jacob, Kara, Corwin, Kristina

Ah! The expecting couple!

It's a good thing our cold weather is wrapping up because all my coats are busting at the seams!

After the zoo, we headed back to Kristina's and made some awesome pizzas! I was pretty pooped after that, so we headed home after a busy day.

And speaking of zoos, who remembers New Zoo Revue, the show from the 70s? I must have seen reruns in my childhood. I definitely remember the crew of animal puppet characters. However, I definitely DO NOT remember the birds and the bees lesson that this video clip sings about. Too. Weird.

Snowshoe\Hike in NH

Last weekend, I took a couple of days off work. Mike and I headed up to our place in NH Thursday night, worked on some things in the condo on Friday, then were joined Friday night by Lisa and her dog, Harley, as well as Jessica and her dog, Bunsen. Saturday morning, Mike, aka the infamous breakfast chef, filled all of us with yummy food, then the gals and pups headed out for a snowshoeing trip.

We decided on a flat trail that is right off the Kankamangus Highway with a destination of Franconia Falls. We strapped on our snowshoes and headed off. However, we quickly realized that the extremely packed snow would be more quickly traversed by foot. So, the snowshoes came off and we continued.

It was a beautiful, "warm," sunny 40+ degree day and a great day to be outdoors. Pretty soon on the trail, we saw this small, snow melt waterfall.

Jessica, Kara and Bunsen

Lisa was our official photographer for the day. Obviously, no album is complete without a self portrait of the group.

Jessica, Kara, Lisa

Nice view from the trail

Preggo Kara barely fitting into her jacket

It was a long trek into the falls. We stopped a lot to enjoy the views and Jessica and Bunsen were taking some time out to train. This was only Bunsen's 2nd trek out "into the wild" and Jessica was tired of getting dragged along the trail. So, 3.5 miles and 2.5 hours later, we got to the falls. Given the long amount of time it took to get there, I was hoping for more impressive falls. They were pretty....still frozen and snow covered, but I had expected more.

Franconia Falls Harley and Lisa

The sun was starting it's path down out of the sky and the weather was getting a little cooler, so we picked the pace WAY up for our trip back.

Kara, Jess, snowshoes on packs, with pups

After a "quick" 1.5 hours, we were back at the car and ready to head home. Mike had a nice day of relaxing at the condo while we were out. After our 7 mile hike (and Mike's hard day of video games), we were all ready for a good, big dinner. So, we had one then had a mellow, but very nice night of movie watching.

After breakfast the next morning, we all headed to our homes. It was another great weekend spent with friends in the great outdoors.

Babies R' Overwhelming

Over the last several months, I've been introduced to the wide world of baby stuff. And man is there a lot of stuff! It's been completely overwhelming to weed through all the items out there, figure out what's going to be helpful in our lives (pretty tough when you don't even know what having a baby around really entails) then tracking down the right product for the right price.

The biggest decision we've made, up until yesterday, is for a jogging stroller. Being the active person I am, that was one of my top priority purchases. So, we've done lots of research and shopping and decided what we wanted for that. I hope this baby likes the stroller! One decision down, only about half a million to go.

A couple of Saturdays ago, Mike and I ventured into Babies R' Us. All I can say is wow....completely overwhelming. Our first mistake was going in without a plan and our second mistake was going on a Saturday afternoon when every other family with screaming children planned to do their shopping there as well. We left a little dazed and very confused. This beast of a store was going to need a different tactic in order to tackle it.

So, last night, I went in armed with a seasoned pro.....Mike's cousin's wife, Jessie, who is a new mother of a wonderful 7 month old boy. She was awesome! She offered advice, was efficient in her method of going through the store, was great at answering questions and helped me tick off the registry list very quickly. We were in and out of that place, almost completely registered, in about an hour. Jessie - I can never thank you enough for your help. I owe you big time!

Now, don't run out and check out our registry, because there are still some changes I want to make over the next week. However, the big, scary, first step is done and it's a huge weight off my shoulders.

Busy Weeks-Nothing Complete

The last few weeks have been fast an furious and I haven't been taking time out to blog. However, I haven't had anything too interesting to report either because most of what's been going on is still "in transition."

A lot of time has been devoted to price shopping among contractors, tvs and furniture. We're still doing a big furniture shuffle in the house (so no photos to share yet) and we're still deciding on how much work we want to hire the contractors for and when (so no demo reports yet).

We did take some time out last weekend for some NH fun, but I've either been too tired or too busy to pick out some photos to share. However, part of my plans for the weekend is to catch up on my blogging. So, if you're bored on the weekend and want some (semi) interesting reading, check back in!

Oh, but I DO have a VERY important belated birthday to announce. My awesome nephew, Reece, turned the big 1-2 yesterday! Can you believe it?!?! My little Reece is a tween!

Let's Face it, I Caved to Peer Pressure

Yesterday, I finally broke down and did it. I joined Facebook. After not less than 5 people (friends and family) from all around the country asked me within a 24 hour period why I wasn't on it, I was done. Usually, I don't cave to peer pressure (though my parents still believe all my teenage rebellion was acted out of decisions from my peers). However, I'm sick of getting the grill. I absolutely still don't get why it is so necessary to be on this social networking site, but I'm there now. Are you all happy??

On a very seperate note, Boston is having a nasty storm today. Even though the governor asked all non essential employees not to come into town and urged private sector businesses to delay close, I'm here at work. For some reason, my company never changes operating hours due to extreme weather. So, I got a good test on my new car's snow driving abilities. It passed with flying colors! My street hasn't seen a plow yet, and I got off of it with no problems. I watched the car in front of me slip a couple of times, but I made the 4.5 mile commute with total control of the car. Not bad!

Alive and Kickin'

I've been getting lots of baby questions, so I figured it was about time to post some info. So, here's everything you wanted to know (and probably more) about how my pregnancy is currently going.

The biggest news is that I can feel the little guy. I'm not really sure when I first felt him. There were a couple of questionable occurrences that started happening before we went to Puerto Rico, but it was really on the flight back that I was pretty sure that I was feeling the baby. Since then (that makes it two weeks), I've definitely felt those "quickening" movements daily. I don't think you can feel the baby on the outside yet, but it's hard to tell. The movements don't happen for long periods so I haven't been able to get a hand on the belly in the right place at the right time yet to check it out.

I am definitely looking like a pregnant lady now. I suppose there are likely still folks out there who might just think I have a beer gut, but my "filling out" has happened just about everywhere and is heading outward. I only have a few "normal" shirts and sweaters (from the older, heavier days) that I can wear and the rest of my wardrobe is elasticized maternity wear. I don't have much winter stuff so I'm definitely having to be pretty creative in rotating essentially 3 shirts and 3 pairs of pants. The weather's been warm and has been teasing of spring, so I was hoping to quickly have more options in less warm clothes, but we're getting snow this weekend (and likely more throughout March) so looks like I'm stuck with a small winter wardrobe for a bit yet.

Me at 21 Weeks

Everyone seems to want to know how I'm feeling. Well, I feel pregnant. I'm never sure how to answer past that. Do I feel like I'm having a good pregnancy? Well yes. But there are so many changes going on with my body that it's inevitable that some things just aren't comfortable. I've finally gotten that 2nd trimester energy but I still am definitely not to pre-pregnancy energy levels. I need a lot more sleep than I ever did in my "former life" and some days I'm able to do more than work all day, eat dinner and sleep, but not every day and the "more" is usually not more than a task or two. However, the renewed energy at least allows for more productive weekend days. The belly is causing me to adjust positions in my workouts (especially in the weight lifting class I take) and "gets in the way" on simple tasks like bending and leaning over. Also, I've started to experience the belly itch, big time, over this last week. That would be the skin not being thrilled about getting stretch beyond a reasonable amount. Oh, and some days I just can't seem to get enough food in me! I'm really trying to stick to my healthy eating ways, but it's definitely a challenge when the bambino turns me into a ravenous beast. I'm really not stating these things to complain, just to give a full picture of my new little daily challenges in this time in my life.

Having a due date out there is definitely making us feel like we've got a huge deadline looming. There are a LOT of things we'd like to get done before then so we've really been busy little bees. I really have too many projects to list, but I'm sure I'll post about them as we (hopefully) get them done.

I also wanted to briefly mention that we did have a little scare just after getting back from our vacation. Our 18 week ultrasound, done before our trip, showed a small bright spot on the heart called an echogenic intracardiac focus. It's a calcium deposit on the heart, similar to what you can get on your fingernails, that sometimes can be a sign of a chromosomal abnormality. However, we went back for genetic counseling and further ultrasounds to check for signs of risk. Since we have none, everything is good. Of course there are no 100% guarantees but our risk is very low and we feel confident that all is well. We've had time to process the information and now feel ready to share. The upside to all of this is that we got to see the baby again on an ultrasound. Here's a picture of the little guy....I think he's starting to look like a pretty darned cute baby!

Note: I just took a look at this post and realized that my official pregnancy photo outfit doesn't show well....light blue shirt against a gray background. I'll have to revise for photos going forward.