2/1/11

Its a boy!!

We are so stoked to be having a baby boy! No, no names yet :) We were both hoping for a boy and so happy to see that he was cooperating. He looks so content in there sleeping all curled up. He's very, very active in there but he didnt kick much during the ultrasound. Which is a great thing! I just cant imagine what its going to be like when those long legs start kicking later on! When it came time to "show the goods" he turned his back to us and let us see. Best part, the doctor let me know within 30 minutes that the little guy looks good :)
pregnant

1/22/11

Surprise!

Nathan and I are expecting a baby! I'm due July 1, 2011, which makes me 17weeks and 2 days, today! 23 more to go!


Though it came as a big shock to us at first (as we were not trying) we are super thrilled to be parents soon! I waited so long to tell people because its advisable to wait until at least the second trimester mark (14 weeks) as this is when the risk of complications severely dies down. I also had to take care of letting my family know, as well as my work. At this time, I still dont want anything on my facebook as I feel pregnancy is an intimate thing to be shared with family and close friends. We will use this blog to keep everyone updated on the progress!


Baby so far: We dont know the sex yet! Though we were hoping to find out at the 16 week ultrasound.  We have to wait until the 31st to find out. It seems like the days are dragging by! So far the doctors say the baby is growing healthy and all tests for birth defects have come back negative. At about week 15 I started feeling weird movements in my abdomen that I knew weren't gas (hahahahaha). I wanted to say they were kicks but I couldnt quite tell! Now, all I feel is the little dude kicking me! Its the coolest feeling :)

Me so far: Not showing much! Those of you who know me, know that I've always had a flatter stomach, so this "expansion project" is hard to take in. I know though when I get my official "bump", I'll be so excited! I just bought my first pair of maternity pants (blah) and they are actually pretty cute. I also got the BeBand which goes over the top of your regular pants to hold them up. I'm tired all the time and more hungry, but not really sick besides occasional nausea haha. My biggest craving is chicken teryaki from Teryaki Time (no one else compares!!!) and sweets. I'm a very finicky eater though, if I have a craving I'll get it, take a few bites, and feel sick from it and not eat it for weeks haha. Only thing perservering is the chicken teryaki. I guess thats what the baby likes!


pregnant

Here are some ultrasound pics :)
               7 weeks                                     11 weeks
        12 weeks  (NT Scan)                          16 weeks

1/1/11

2011

Yay for 2011! Before I talk about our anticipations for 2011, I want to go over accomplishments from 2010.
The year started out rough for my sister and I in January with a move. This wasn't something planned, more of a last minute, shoot-it-from-the-hip decision to get out of a situation that was bringing me down. My wonderful sister saw and understood what I was going through and supported me 100%. Life was going good, but got even better... I should say, my eyes were opened.


Nathan and I first met in 2009 when I started working at Best Buy. He was tall, handsome, had the long skater hair and the most gorgeous smile. At the time is was merely an innocent friendship, just casual "hellos" and the occasional short conversation. There were times when I thought him and his younger brother Westley, were the same person. They had the same hairstyle and from far away (and over the shelves) they looked similar. It was really funny because my friend Tasha and I used to talk about him all the time and just how cute he was. Later on, we started hanging with mutual friends from work at a bar in Old Sac for "Thirsty Thursdays". The bar scene wasn't usually my thing, but hey I was single and I had my partner in crime with me, Amanda.


Nathan's birthday just so happened to fall on a Thursday, so everyone went out that night! I left (only to come back later) the Old Sac bar to go another spot with the group I was with and had missed Nathan and his group by about 5 minutes. I was truly bummed I didnt get to see the birthday boy, and made a valiant effort to make it back to the Old Sac bar. Sure enough, when I arrived just a little after 12:30 am, Nathan was there and shammered! He was trying to drink 24 drinks in honor of turning 24. His count was at 20 when I got there, with 21 and 22 in his hand. Needless to say those drinks were never finished, as our friends called it quits for the evening and offered to drive me home. We crammed into the backseat, Nathan in the middle, myself and Westley on either side. After 5 minutes in the car (if that) Nathan had to puke, and instead of choosing me, he puked on Westley. That is the night I will always remember as the day Nathan Warren almost puked on me. I joke with him to this day that we probably wouldnt be together today if he had chosen my side of the car.


A couple weeks later (after he recovered from the night, of course) Nathan invited Amanda and I to go out with his brother and friend to Second Saturday. The next day was Valentines Day, a day I had talked so badly about that evening. I came home that day to find flowers on my doorstep, no note. I later found out the flowers were from him, and I was still clueless as to his feelings for me. A week or so later he asked me on a "date" (I still say he asked if I wanted to "hang out", but Nathan will debate you) so I went into it thinking we were just hanging out. In return, I got a delicious Italian dinner at Cafe Italia in Davis and some play time in the park. How did he know my idea of a perfect date?


Anyway, the rest is history. I'm fortunate to have met the love of my life in 2010. And the best part? He loves me back. I've never met such a caring, selfless, loving person like him. He's silly and makes me laugh, and knows how to console me when I've had a rough day. We connect on such an intimate level, I've never known that before. This man has my love and my heart forever <3


On top of finding each other, we each got a new job (and a raise) in 2010! He's the Supervisor of Geek Squad and I am a police dispatcher at CSUS. Making our schedules work together is tough and emotionally taxing at times but I know it only makes us stronger. We went to a few Giants games and even squeezed in a trip to Disneyland! Well, thanks 2010, its been real and its been fun, here's to 2011 being really fun!

10/16/10

Gym Memberships!

Courtesy Yahoo! images


I'm happy to say that Nathan and I finally got our gym memberships at 24 hour fitness. We've been watching Biggest Loser for a couple weeks now and we (or should I say I) are finally going to start a gym routine. It's hard for us to go together with our crazy schedules, but it looks like we're either going after 11pm or early am (hahahaha). 


Either way, we're going to start going. Thanks to Friedman, et al. vs. 24 Hour Fitness, I got two free 3 month passes to 24. Some kind of membership dues grievance thing. I gave one to Nathan and used one for myself. Im pretty stoked for the classes and I'm pretty sure Nathan is stoked for the selection of weight lifting equipment! At any rate its better than the apartment gym we use now. We both have goals we want to reach, and this will definitely help us out. 



9/29/10

Say Hello... to my new flash!!

Existing Light
Flash









Nathan got me my flash!! I've wanted this thing forever, but I just haven't had the opportunity to get it. I'm amazed by the change in quality of my pictures. I took some great pictures of the cats that show the benefit of having the flash. These were taken in the super low light of my living room at night! You can also see the two I took of Nathan, one without the flash, the other with it.


I feel so lucky to have such a sweet boyfriend... He's just so wonderful!!

9/26/10

We're Back!!








Disneyland was amazing!! We had the best time... we didn't want to leave!! We flew from Oakland to Long Beach early Thursday morning and got to Anaheim at 9 AM. The flight was so cheap out of Oakland through JetBlue and it left early enough in the day to get to Disneyland on time. But I think next time, we'll spring the extra cash to fly out of Sacramento. Oakland is a nice airport, but the BART ride over to the airport left lots to be desired. AND we'll probably go the day before, so we can be well rested for Disneyland (we were soooo tired all day Thursday!!). Why Long Beach? Long Beach Airport is 14 miles away from Anaheim, whereas LAX is 18 miles away. LGB was closer to our hotel and cheaper flights! BTW, I enjoyed JetBlue, the staff was nice and the flights were fast, though they ruined my Kathy Van Zeeland luggage.





When we arrived at our hotel, Cortona Inn and Suites on South Harbor Blvd., the staff was sooo friendly!! We were able to check our luggage with them (for free) and head off to Disneyland. How did we get to the hotel? Well, they have a shuttle service they contract with, called Karmel Shuttle and they do airport transfers. It's a little pricey ($28 per person, per trip) but if you don't have a car it's cheaper than a taxi from Long Beach Airport (over $100 to go 14 miles and thats with no traffic!). Our driver was super friendly and showed us the area around our hotel (I know that area around Disneyland pretty well already, I grew up going to Disneyland and I have family there too). When we got back on Thursday night, we got to check in to our room. All we wanted was a nice bed to lay in, we were soooo tired! Not only was check in fast (and friendly!), they hooked us UP! I reserved a King Room, but we got a King SUITE!! Whoo hoo! It was huge!! We had a separate bathroom, vanity, and a jacuzzi/spa bath (amazing for my blistering sore feet!). We also got a microwave and mini fridge. I can't say enough good things about this place... we will definitely be staying here again in the future! 





Now, on to the park tickets. Normal retail price at the gate for a 2-day park hopper is $161 per person. I bought the tickets online through eBay, through a sort of "ticket exchange" company. You go to the office in the morning pick up the tickets and drop them off after the you're done at the park. Normally, I don't go for this kind of stuff, but we saved about $100 using this service. We actually lucked out because we were given tickets that had 2 days left on them anyway so we didn't have to go back to that office. After two days of walking around at Disneyland, I would've have found it very inconvenient to walk back to that office, had we had to, and return the tickets. Even though she claimed the office was across the street, no, it wasn't. It was located above a Chevron on the other side of the 5 freeway overpass....I don't recommend this service unless you drove to Disneyland. 



Disneyland. OMG. How can you NOT have a good time here? Every one is always smiling and welcoming. Its the beginning of holiday time so everything is decked out in Halloween stuff, it's soo pretty! Thursday was awesome, there was hardly any wait time in any of the rides, we got to ride the popular ones like Space Mountain, twice and even three times. Though, on days when its not busy, they don't have the horse drawn carriages running, or more than one train going around the park, or the popular shows like Fantasmic or the Fireworks show. Plus the hours are shorter, Thursday the park was open from 10 AM to 8 PM. Our favorite ride was definitely Space Mountain, though it was changed for Halloween to "Ghost Galaxy" it's kind of scary, I thought. I highly recommend sitting in the front, if you're willing to wait, the experience is way different!! 

You gotta love Disneyland and their FOOD selection!! Our first Disneyland food experience was at the Blue Bayou on Thursday night. For the purposes of this blog, we'll consider food anything that is a sit-down, restaurant experience. We made reservations in early September for the Blue Bayou restaurant, the one located in Pirates of the Caribbean (Nathan's favorite ride). The setting is beautiful, the food is awesome (though limited selection and pricey), but our waitress could have been way better. Oh well, at least she remembered our anniversary right? Hahaha she gave us anniversary buttons that say "Happy Anniversary" in Disney insignia, but she wrote "3 years" underneath it. I haven't even known Nathan for that long, but we just laughed and ran with it. One place that is a MUST try, is the Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney. Holy Cow the food is amazing! Their was a live Jazz band and the Gumbo is to die for. I don't like fried bananas, but the people next to us ordered the fried banana dessert, which they cook table side. Have your camera ready, because they pour something on top of it while its cooking that sends a 6 ft flame up... pretty cool! Great service and great food!!




The SHOWS are amazing here!! We saw the Hill Billy show, very very funny! We also got to see the re-opening of Captain EO, yes, it is still lame but it was cool to see Michael Jackson in his good years. However, the best show, was definitely "Fantasmic", the light show they do over the water. I still get goosebumps just like I did when I was younger!! It just gets better and better! The firework show "Remember... Dreams do come true" is pretty awesome I have to say. It is definitely a force to be reckoned with. They have all the classic Disney movie music and sounds playing with the castle and fireworks lit up to match the setting! 

Last but not least, I have to tell you about our shirts. We came up with the idea a couple weeks ago to wear matching shirts, it was our first time together at Disneyland so we wanted to be funny. No, Nathan was not forced into it, haha. He was just as much involved as I was, he even came up with the saying. You can see in the pictures but, my shirt said "My first time with Him" and his said "My first time with Her". On the back we had "Disneyland", I drew a Mickey on his and a Minnie on mine. They were so freakin' cute, seriously though, everyone LOVED them! We got compliments allllll day on them, especially from the Disney Cast Members and characters, including one from an elder lady who caught the "double" meaning. Anyhow, who thinks we should copyright that phrase and make shirts out of it?? Haha, I doubt Disney will ever agree to something like that. 

What an amazing time we had, I'm so happy I got to spend this time with Nathan. We hardly get to spend days off together, with our new jobs and different schedules, and we really needed the stress release. I mean, how can you stay stressed at Disneyland? Well, until next years trip, goodbye Disneyland!


9/22/10

Disneyland!!

OMG... We have been waiting to go for, it seems like, FOREVER!! We are finally going tomorrow! It will be our first time going to Disneyland together and we are both super stoked. We even made nerdy shirts haha (wait for pics!). 


We are leaving incredibly early in the morning... which Nathan and I are NOT so much morning people. Because of our jobs we get off later than most people and sleep in. But I mean, come on, it's Disneyland!! I haven't decided what part I'm most excited for... Space Mountain or Splash Mountain... I think it's just the general fact that we're going. I just love Nathan so much, he makes everyday fun and full of love and laughter and now we get to go to one of the most fun places in the WORLD together.


This will be Nathan's first time going on the Matterhorn and other newer Disney rides.. can you believe that? I cannot wait :) We'll post pics when we come back to reality this weekend.