Weekly Belly Pic - 17 weeks

It's that time again for the weekly belly pic!  OK, I know that this in only the second one, but whatever...  So, with much protest and "I really hate you right now"s I managed to coax her off the couch to get a picture.  See that beautiful smile?  Yeah, there were lots of "Take the damn picture" and "I will punch you...right in the mouth" and other imaginative expletives. Ah yes, the mother of my children, or child at least : )

Next week we hopefully get to find out the sex of our little bun in the oven.  I'm so stoked...I can hardly wait.  It seems like we've been putting all the planning and doing of stuff to prepare on hold until we find out.  Feels like I should be doing something...


Malia is feeling well, thankfully.  With the way this is going so far, I may be able to talk her into another one ; )  Before I get too far ahead of myself though, we need to figure out how to deal with just the one first.  Speaking of another one; Malia's cousin, Kelsey, just found out that she is having twins!  Seems like twins tends to run on Malia's Moms side of the family.  This has given me some mild panic attacks as the date of our ultrasound draws closer... I imagine that we would have noticed that she was getting abnormally large by now or that the doctor would have said something.  Probably nothing to worry about, but still.

In other news; Malia's Dad, David, had a mild heart attack last week.  He had an angioplasty to make sure that everything looked OK.  He's doing fine and all is well, but everyone was a bit tense for a few hours.  No new news from Boeing either.  Hopefully I hear something soon, fingers crossed!

Belly time!

Ain't she beautiful?  : )

Malia is starting to show now, so I wanted to keep a record by taking a weekly belly picture.  I don't think she's too keen on the idea, but I think she'll be glad I did it once its all said and done.  I'm going to try and make a post with the new pic every Monday or Tuesday.

On Sunday, I finally was able to get her to go to Target with me and she was able to find some Maternity jeans and tops that she liked.  She is much more comfortable now! I'll have to give her kudos for making her old pants last as long as she did.  She's still feeling good and everything seems to going along fine so far.  She hasn't felt the baby move yet, but that should be coming fairly soon.  We go in for the 18 week ultrasound on Feb 8th, so hopefully we'll be able to find out whether we are having a little boy or a little girl.  Better get your vote in, if you haven't already!

In other news, I had my second interview with Boeing today for the Weight & Balance Analyst position.  This one was a much more laid back atmosphere compared to the formal structured interview of the last one.  I think it went really well!  I got to spend about an hour and a half with the lead of the department and got to learn a little about what goes into the weight engineering of a 737.  Pretty cool stuff, I think.  VERY complicated...

I was able to show them some examples of the kind of work I've done before, working at Kenmore Air, and they seemed impressed.  The head-honcho, Bill, did tell me that I was the first one they asked back for a 2nd interview but that there were several other competitive candidates that they also asked to come back.  So, who knows.  Maybe I'll get it...I sure hope so!

2nd interview!

I got a second interview for the Weight & Balance Analyst job at Boeing!  Hopefully I'll get the job cause Daddy needs to make some money!!

Also, I found this really informative poster online today about childcare.  I thought it was well thought out and provides some really helpful advice for soon to be parents.  So, I thought I'd share!  Click on it for a larger view.

2nd Prenatal Appointment

We had our 2nd doctor's appointment on Wednesday, and I'm happy to report that at 14 weeks everything is looking good!

The nurse checked Malia's blood pressure, which is good, and then she got out the Doppler fetal heart monitor to try and find the baby's heartbeat.  She warned us that since we were still pretty early along, that she may not be able to pick it up and that it would be pretty normal if not.  Well, as soon as she put the receiver down on Malia's belly, it came right in!  It sounded nice and strong...fast, too.  It's crazy to think that there is a baby in there.  We both tend to forget that this is real, but that surely brought it back into reality.  It was pretty damn amazing.

Speaking of forgetting that this is real, I don't think that  we'll be able to forget much longer...  Malia is starting to show ever so slightly now.  Nothing anyone else would really notice, but she'll tell you that she is definitely starting to become more and more uncomfortable in her pants now.  We went shopping yesterday after the appointment to start looking around for some kind of maternity wear, but she was only able to find one pair of sweat pants that she liked, though.  Anybody have any good suggestions for maternity clothing stores around here?

Whaaaaaaaat?

We go back to see the Doc on Feb 9th and an ultrasound the day before that.  We'll be 18 weeks at that point, so hopefully we'll be able to find out the sex!  Better get your vote in on the poll to the right soon!  We didn't get another ultrasound on this visit, so no new pic to post...  However, not to break the streak of a pic with every post, here is a picture of Cody.

Paradise

The Mighty "Tahoma" and the Nisqually Glacier 

Figuring that this would be the last outdoor trip that Malia & I  would be able to do for awhile, a bunch of us took a snowshoeing trip up to Mt. Rainer last Sunday.    I'd been to the Paradise Meadows on the southwest flanks of the Mountain before, but no-one else had been.  Well, we were all in for a treat because we couldn't have asked for better weather and snow conditions!  Bluebird skies and excellent snow.  The temps were just slightly above freezing, too...perfect!

It was quite a journey to get up to the Mountain.  We all met at Ron & Katie's house at 8am and didn't make it to the parking lot until close to 11:30.  The road up to the Paradise parking lot was compact snow & ice but was sanded pretty well so there were only a few spots where we slipped a little.  We all piled out of the car and made our obligatory potty breaks and then got all geared up!

We made our way up the hill from the parking lot past all of the screaming kids hurtling down the sledding hills at near warp speed until we crested the ridge and stepped into the aptly named Paradise Meadows covered with about 6-8 feet of snow.

We all gawked around at the scenery and leisurely meandered up through the meadows to a nice spot to stop and have some lunch.  We also made tons of stops for pictures and to joke around.  Once we found a good spot for some lunch, I fired up the Jetboil to made some hot chocolate for everybody (Apple Cider for Malia) and get our hot lunch going.  I have always been a fan of having a hot lunch while out snowshoeing...it may take a little longer, but it makes the whole trip that much more enjoyable.  Plus, the Jetboil is small and effecient so it makes it even faster!  In no time I had everyone with hot chocolate in hand and a nice Chicken Veggie Curry with Couscous lunch for Malia and I.  Yum!

Once we all had enough to eat, we made our way north up towards the Nisqually Glacier Vista.  We spent a good deal of time eating lunch, messing around taking photos an whatnot so it was beginning to look like we weren't going to make it to our planned destination of Panorama Point.  We still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us to get back home.  It didn't matter though, everyone was having a good time just being out in such beautiful country on such a beautiful day!

We kept heading northeast towards Panorama Point and then just decided that we would turn around pretty soon and head back to the car for the long drive.  I had really wanted to make it out to the Point, but Ron and I settled instead on making a hard push ahead of everyone else for the lower Glacier Vista Highpoint instead.  Ron and I broke away from the pack and made a swift ascent up the remaining 500 feet to the highpoint.  I could tell that the rest of the group was getting ready to turn around so there wasn't much time to soak in the views from up top.  Man, they were pretty spectacular though!

We decided to take another, more adventurous, route back to the car and cut underneath the bottom of the main ridge into some deep fresh powder.  Well, on about the 3rd step down the slope Malia lost her footing and almost went headfirst into the snow!  It was nice and fluffy so she was fine and laughing her head off!  The rest of the trip went without incident and we piled back into the car for a stop for coffee and the long trip home.  It was a fantastic trip that I would like to do again, but as an overnight trip since the drive is so long.