Big Belly, Bigger Trees

Well hello again, we are now at 22 weeks with Baby Sand, and all is well. Last term ended well for Megan, and at the end of that week we had our ultrasound. It was quite amazing. We know there is much higher tech stuff out there like the 3 and 4-D ultrasounds, but it didn't matter, the baby was the amazing part! It was wonderful to see the little one grabbing its feet, hiccupping, taking little gulps of amniotic fluid, punching right where the thing was on my belly, kicking and flipping around, seeing all the fingers and toes and long legs, the little spine, the four chambers of the heart beating away, it was so cool. It's amazing some people can look at something like that and not immediately think it's a baby!

The picture isn't wonderfully clear, the tech was trying to get the baby to lift its chin a bit, and was being stubborn, and we thought we saw several other shots that were better, but oh well. The head is on the left if you can't tell, and you can see the profile with an eye, nose, mouth, and ear, and then the baby has its hand in a fist next to the face, and you can see the bones of the hand and arm, and where the baby's elbow is bent. The doctor told us that everything looks perfect with the baby, so that was nice reassurance that all is well in there.

That evening our friends Austin, Noah, and Sarah came to stay at our house so we would all be together and ready to leave for the Redwoods. We got all packed up and left Saturday morning. We went to the Jedediah Smith State Park section of the Redwoods, and stayed at a campgroud there. We were prepared (Thank God!) for rain as you can see with the huge tarp. That thing saved us the next two days as it rained A LOT. We still had a great time and stayed pretty dry under the circumstances. The guys made up games with golfing and frisbee and rock throwing, we sat by the campfire, cooked, ate, laughed, made up songs with the guitar playing of Kirb and Austin and laughed some more, went to the coast, hiked, and just hung out and talked. It was a nice getaway. Kirby wanted to mention that it was he who won beer can bowling, Austin won campground golf, and Noah won the rock throwing contest. Of course in their eyes the competition is never over, so you can expect rematches soon.

Can you believe the size of the trees? Quite amazing. It's fun to feel like a little gnome with the big trees, big ferns, and even big clover. It really feels like a different reality. We were right in the same area that they filmed the ewok part of Star Wars. We wanted to see an ewok, but no such luck.

When we got home, we were prepared to paint our upstairs, including the baby room, the bathroom, and guest bedroom. It was a lot of work in a couple days, but it looks great and it is nice to have done.

The day after that, we went on a baby shopping excursion with our friends Mike and Staci who are expecting as well. Their blog is babymonroe.blogspot.com if you want to see her cute belly. Staci is still officially due August 19th, but they think she might be a little further along and will find out soon if they change it. Of course, the guys already have a bet which baby will come first.

We had a really fun and overwhelming day looking at baby stuff, there is so much to think about! We actually purchased a beautiful crib and dresser/changing table that we really love. They had to order it, so we should have it by next week. Mike and Staci found theirs too. We also decided to register for some things at Babies R Us mainly just to have a list for ourselves of what we like and what we have researched. We found what we want for the car seat, an awesome stroller, high chair, and other things. We had never seen so many pregnant people in one place before, it was almost comical. The guys had to go golfing the next day to get their hormones back on the man track. We'll put up some pictures of the baby room when we get the furniture.

So, since I am 22 weeks today, we thought we would take a picture. So here's the belly. Hopefully the trees still look bigger than me! Hope all is well with everyone!