glad to turn again...

This past weekend Mike and I traveled to Camp Barakel. A place that is very near and dear to my heart, and that is becoming that to my husbands. :)

Barakel is mainly a summer kids camp, but in the fall and spring they hold weekend retreats for men and women. They have ladies retreats, mens retreats, father\daughter retreats, and couples retreats. We have gone for several years now to the couples retreat in the fall. Because Barakel is designed as a summer camp, men and women have to lodge separately at camp. However, if you go in the fall, you can stay in their RV Park which means you can stay together. We always choose this option. :) It's just a bit more married that way.

After much debate, we decided to go and that this would also be our last "hurrah" before little miss arrives. We shipped Levi to the grandparentals and made the 4 hour drive north friday night.

We arrived in the rain.

This news is less than exciting when putting up a tent. Determined to have a good attitude we pulled in, and we're going to go gangbusters in setting up, just get it done, and hopefully not get too wet. As we began to unpack we realized we were missing a CRUCIAL piece to our tent. We searched for quite some time with our trusty flashlights and headlights on the car. After a valiant search, we determined we had to find another course of action.

We called our friends who live there on the resident staff to see if they could help us out at all. We knew we could stay in the lodges if need be, but we were really wanting to stay together in the RV Park. Dan told us he had a tent we could borrow, but couldn't get it to us until after chapel. No worries, we said, well take it.

Chapel came and went. As we came out of the building, we were met with TORRENTIAL downpour. I pretty much just wanted to give up at that moment. We walked back, and there was our vision of a friend, Dan, standing in the pouring rain, trying to put up the tent by himself. Mike jumped into action, and I proceeded with the wifely duty of sitting in the car, where I tried to turn on the headlights, only to realize we had killed our car battery. A.W.E.S.O.M.E. I watched as they struggled to get it up, in the dark, in the rain, and felt so badly for both of them getting SOAKED.

By the time the tent was up, there was literally a POOL of water inside of it. Dan got us some towels, and we sopped up what we could, and finally crashed into bed. It poured all night long. We stayed fairly dry, but we were misted on most of the night. Because the tent was wet on the underside of the rainfly, as the rain hit the fly, it just kind of tapped the excess water down into the tent.

I had to go to the bathroom around 4, so we braved it and headed to the bathhouse to discover 2 things.

1) the hub to our tent that we had been missing... shining like a beacon of light in our flashlight... really??

2) that our tent had a pool o' water in it, and clothes (namely the only bra i brought with me) was now floating in this pool of water.

So now, I trucked out again.. this time to the dryer in the RV park, throwing in a load of laundry to dry. yup.

May I just remind you this was our last nice weekend getaway before the baby comes??

Yea.

I was more than done at this point.

We survived until morning, took steaming hot showers, trekked ourselves to the dining hall for some hot coffee and hot breakfast, and things seemed a little better with the world.


All in all, by Saturday at lunch time, the skies cleared, the tent dried out, and truly.. we had a lovely time. We spent a ton of time on the lake, paddleboating, went for some walks, went down Thunder Express, curled up by a fire playing games, a beautiful night walk through the wood listening to owls hoot back and forth to each other, and enjoyed those conversations that remind you why you fell in love, and also, how lovely it is to have a conversation start to finish without the interruption of "mama, papa" over and over again. :)

I'm still feeling like we deserve one night at a hotel before the baby comes though ;) Overall it was good times, and good memories to be had.

32 weeks

8 weeks and counting.

I'm so thrilled to be in the last leg of this pregnancy. Oddly, while I've felt like time has flown by this pregnancy, and even though I'm back to work now, it seems like time has come to a creeping halt, and 8 weeks feels like an eternity at the moment. I'm ready to meet little miss.

So the decision is final at VBAC. I am really excited for this opportunity. (Someone remind me of that in labor, please) I'm thankful my OB is willing to let me try, even though, I can tell he's less than thrilled with my decision. I'm definitely saying that this baby will be born in December though now. ;) I just highly doubt I'll go early. Though, if you're listening baby girl, I'd be thrilled with that decision, as long as its not too early. (we ask so much, don't we?)

I'm feeling okay, just more and more uncomfortable. Getting harder to bend over, pick Levi up, pick up Levi's toys, you know, things like that.... but overall, I feel ok. Still sick here and there, but it's much much more manageable at this point.

We're in some serious organization mode here, trying to organize baby things, Levi's things, and find room for what is such a small object, yet has lots of big things that go with it :) If you've been to our home, you know we have a small home, that we really do love, but it's getting smaller by the day, as I try to figure out how to organize everything.

experience

We finally heard official word that we did not get the job in Alpena. We suspected it was coming on various levels, but nonetheless it still stung, and hurts to once again be rejected because we lack experience that we can't get because no one will hire someone who doesn't have experience. Anyone else see the failed logic there?

Today we got word on another job with the same result, because of the same ol' tune we hear each and every time.... lack of experience...

and you know what?

It. Gets. Old.

I'm tired of hearing the pat answers of... in the Lord's time, etc etc. Please don't patronize me with your Christian-ese. While we know it is true, it gets old and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of watching my husband pour his heart into something, that he feels so strongly about, only to be told, yet again... that he doesn't have enough experience.

29 weeks and counting

I thought I should get on the stick with writing things down about this pregnancy.. I apologize for being so pathetic about it. Something about being sick, and chasing around an energetic 2 1\2 yr old keeps me busy.

I'm currently 29 weeks and into that final 3rd trimester and down to every 2 weeks at the OB office


Sick: yes. Oddly, since my hospital stunt, it has not been as bad, but I still get sick on a fairly regular basis. This is pretty much the same as it was with Levi

Cravings: none, nada, zilch. this is also the same as Levi. Nothing really ever sounds good to me when I'm pregnant, I eat because I know I need to. end of story.

Weight: I've gained about 10lbs, which is pretty much spot on in comparison to Levi.

Movement: She is quite active during certain parts of the day, last night I'm pretty sure she did a full somersault which wasn't exactly comfortable for me. :)

Sleep: el-stinko. I haven't had the insomnia that I had with Levi, but I'm just not comfortable while sleeping anymore and switch positions 8,000 times a night.

Labor: really hoping to have a VBAC this time around, though continuing to fight for that with my OB, he says he's supportive, but I beg to differ. I've been having a lot more braxton hicks this time around, though it's hard to say if it's different, or that I'm just noticing them because I know what they are :)

I've moved slightly into that nesting mode, and I'm sure I will even more in the coming months

It's a GIRL.. and no we don't have a name picked out yet :)

A job update

I thought I'd update on the job in Alpena.

Mostly the update is that we know nothing. :)

We spent that first weekend up there and then the next weekend, Mike and I went by ourselves. That second trip was good for being able to talk about things as they came up, while not chasing a 2 yr old around, as well as just some really good decompressing talk time on the way home, afterall it is 5 hours.

Overall? We really REALLY love Alpena. We love the town, we love the area, and really nothing in that area has been a deterent for us. In fact, Mike has also applied for a job over in the Ypsilatni area, and I have to say the thought of moving to Alpena is more exciting to me than Ypsilanti, even though we'd be much closer to family down here. I mean really? who says that they want to move to the middle of nowhere in northern michigan? We also have really enjoyed getting to know the people of the church. Really nice, down to earth people who love Jesus.

We certainly have some questions that we would like to ask of the congregation, just basic sort of.. where do you see this church going, what's your vision, strengths, weaknesses etc etc.. but we're hoping the time will come for those.

We are just kind of in wait mode right now. The church had a meeting last night to talk about the pastoral search process, and we can only assume, we were discussed at that meeting. I guess now, we just wait to hear if they still like us or not ;)

We're just continuing to trust and pray that the Lord is leading in all of this. We've really felt like He's been ahead of us in this whole process, and we're continuing to trust in that.

So that's where we are... in case you were wondering ;)

oh and if you can believe i'm in my 3rd! trimester now! how on earth did that happen?