Santa's Village mini-vacation

Scott and I took our very first family vacation with Austin and Grace, meeting up with Todd, Katina, Devon and my parents a couple of weekends ago. Put together by my brother, who decided it was time to do something as a family before we got old and rickety, we all met up in Gorham, NH halfway between Santa's Village and StoryLand. As a young child of 6, I remember taking a similar family vacation (our ONLY family vacation), with the entire Pelletier clan. It was awesome! So Scott and I quickly got on board with the plan. We had a few set-backs along the way. We couldn't squeeze out an additional day with our kids, so we had to jam-pack our fun into a Saturday-Sunday timeslot. Then, Todd got held up in North Conway due to a car accident. The damage was minor and no one got hurt, but the man who hit them didn't have insurance, so the police had to be called and a couple of hours were lost. But once we all finally met up at Santa's Village, it was a great vacation!
Thanks to my forgetfulness, I don't have pictures of Storyland. I forgot our camera!!! AHHHH! Mom gave me pics of Santa's Village after our first day, but I still don't have pictures of our second day at Storyland. Here are a few great pictures of our day at Santa's Village!

Pregnancy, the first trimester

So by now, I've known about Baby Girouard for 6.5 weeks. Early signs of funky stomache and tenderness alerted me to the possibility. Then an expired home test showed 2 pink lines: pregnant. A week later, off to the doctors, where I peed in a cup, gave 16 gallons of blood and received a whole boat load of instructions, guidelines, prenatal vitamins, and confirmation of baby to be. I was also told I was 6 weeks along with baby to be born on or around March 2nd. Although proof exists that I did not get pregnant before I was married, or even during my honeymoon, I still secretly pray Baby Girouard does not arrive before February 26 (9 months to the day I got married)!

The first 7 weeks were great. Slightly more tired. Mostly I tried to make a conscience effort to get to bed by 10 pm for the health of the baby. But I felt great. Minus extreme tenderness, I really had no signs of being pregnant. Scott and I bought our first onesie. Just one, until we find out the gender of the baby. Then Mom came for a visit. It was perfect! Having just found out we were pregnant, she, of course, wanted to buy one baby outfit and a baby book for me. Mothers are the best! (Dad's too!)

Week 7. According to my new book: Week by Week (which is awesome!), the baby doubles in size this week. And boy did it effect me! Like walking into a brick wall, the exhaustion slammed into me hard core. Two naps per day for the next couple of days kept me functioning, but I was greatful that work was slower paced and I wasn't traveling. Also, my need for food vanished. Nothing was appetizing or appealing. I would have gone the whole day without eating if it weren't for my insane need to eat healthy during my pregnancy. Thankfully yogurt and oatmeal went down smoothly. And Scott made me some plain pasta, which was fine as well. I ate a lot of fruits; blueberries, kiwi, strawberries, and bananas. I tried an apple. Bad idea. I'm slightly allergic to some apples. My lips get a bit puffy. But this pregnancy has made me hypersensitive to my food allergies. Itchy eyes and an itchy throat put an end to eating apples for the next 8 months. Sweet things aren't appealing, which is unheard of for me. I tried a variety of foods, but really, nothing tempts me.

Week 8. I had a bad run of nausea for a few days and I have learned a few things. Foods high in fat, drinks with fake sugar, and chocolate are my nemisis in this stage of my pregnancy. After my 8-week appt with Dr. Hancock, I would say this is a great thing for me and the baby. I eat lots of yogurt, fruits and bland proteins and carbs. My appointment went really well. My blood work came back all positive. My liver, kidneys and proteins are all great. I am immune to chicken pox and 5ths disease, which is also good news. My concern for high blood pressure and gestational diabetes (due to my lovely genes and my weight) has prompted my doctor to take a few extra tests and stay on top of these things. So far, I'm in great standing. However, it is imperative that I keep my pregnancy weight gain to a minimum. It's going to be a long road for me, especially when I am past the nausea stage and move into the "I want to eat all the time" stage, which I know is inevitable. I also had an ultrasound this week. It was to determine the exact gestation of the baby so that I could have a first trimester test done. The baby, though only 1 inch, was zoomed in on, and has a HUGE head...must take after daddy. :) Actually, at 8 weeks, the baby is pretty much only a head and a body. Legs and Arms grow next week! Scott and I also got to see the heartbeat...so fast! 178 beats per minute!

Week 9. The nausea has just about subsided. I still have a hard time with vegtables. Except for corn and salads, I can't seem to get any of them in front of me. Everything smells weird, or should I say, smells BAD! I don't even like the smell of our new car! Dinner is still a struggle for me. While I don't have the constant all day upset stomache, most foods do not tempt me in the least. I can now have chocolate on a small scale, but no matter what I eat, it leaves a horrible aftertaste in my mouth. I chew gum all the time because my mouth constantly tastes bitter. It was a stressful week with our car breaking down, buying a new car, Scott starting his new job, and going to court to get more time with Scott's kids. I sure hope baby Girouard is hanging on strong. I haven't been a very good mommy this week, between all the stress and no veggies.

Week 10. Same ole Same ole. I eat a lot of cereal and toast now. I'm tired of yogurt as I have lived on it 3 times a day for the last 4 weeks. Dinner is limited to 4 food items; plain, boring, tasteless, and bland. Still have the perpetual bad taste in my mouth. My house is a cyclone because I have absolutely NO energy to clean, pick up, or do dishes. If my husband doesn't get to it, it doesn't get done. Please, no visitors! :) I would be completely humiliated if someone walked through my door right now. oh well. I'm pregnant. At least I have a small excuse. Time is crawling by. Days move so slowly, I swear they are moving backwards. My prenatal vitamins are horrid and make me miserable. I have stopped taking them for a few days and feel like the worst mother ever. I'm such a peach this week, huh?

Week 11. I am finally starting to feel better. More energy and more like myself. Yeah! It's been a long 3 weeks of hating food and feeling lethargic. My appetite is slowly growing. I still eat a lot of bland foods most of the day, but I can eat more of a variety, which is wonderful. I still chew gum almost every night before bed to get the bad taste out of my mouth, but other than that, I'm much happier with the way I feel. Just in time, too, because the next couple of weeks are very busy for Scott and I as we are taking the kids to Storyland and Santa's Village and then we have them at our house for a full week, which is always awesome.

Week 12. FINALLY! YEAH! I can officially tell everyone I'm pregnant. Most importantly, Scott and I have told the kids they are going to have another brother or sister. I am feeling great this week too. Food is glorious. Yeah! (I gained 3 lbs this week). The baby is so much bigger now. Real appendages and its body is filling in so the head isn't so predominant (though, really, the baby still has a very large head). I heard the heartbeat this week. That's the coolest machine ever! 160 beats per minute. Took the Doctor a while to find it, but when I finally heard it, it was amazing! It's so awesome. I should probably post this now before I blabber on and on. It's just so cool.

skunks, anyone?

So by now, if you've read some or most of my blogs, you might have a small understanding of the luck that Scott and I have - um, DO NOT have, I mean. Most of the time (though I will write sarcastically about most of these events), Scott and I laugh it off because what else are we going to do.

During a warm spell early this spring, a lady skunk decided it was time to find her mate. She sprayed in a most unopportune location - under our 3-season sunroom. The smell was unbearable in our house. It was very much like the skunk sprayed in our heating vents. The stench lingered in the air and it took WEEKS for it to dissipate fully. Worse yet, a fews days after the skunk sprayed, I was to make a trip to northern Maine to visit my family. Along the way, I picked up a lady and her daughter and drove them to Bangor. We "hooked up" via mutual friends and I liked the idea of helping out this very nice woman from the county. But my van reeked of skunk. It was humiliating to meet this woman and impose the nasty smell upon her and her 8 year old child. But what was I to do. Not only did our house smell bad, but our vehicles did as well. I can't imagine what friends or passerbys thought of us. We learned a lot about skunks after that. We hired a man to come in a trap the skunk, which of course did not work. The skunk came and went, lingering long enough to let us know she was in heat. What we need to do, but cannot afford to do at this point in time, is to build a wire fence that digs 5 feet below the ground and surrounds our sunroom to keep the skunks from making a home under there. However, a repeat spray 2 nights ago may change our minds quickly. Luckily, the spray was only in our backyard, so the smell was gone the next morning. But to be safe, we've left our lights on in the backyard because skunks are nocturnal and don't appreciate the bright light. This isn't very energy efficient either, so we'll have to figure out what to do before spring comes. The joy of homeownership!

Reprieve

It's been unbearably humid in CT for a few weeks now. You walk outside and a wall of warm air you can barely breathe in hits you and almost knocks you over. At least that's how Scott and I feel. We are not fans of this heat and we suffer in this type of humidity. Yesterday morning I noticed the wind in the trees was blowing fairly strong, so I opened the door thinking it would be nice to have fresh air in my home. HAHAHA! The air was anything but fresh. It was surprising how little air there was considering how hard the wind was blowing. Today, though, is absolutely gorgeous. You can't get better weather than this. Still on the hot side, upper 80's I'm sure, but the humidity is gone. Who knows where it went, but the wind is cooler and refreshing. It would be a fabulous beach day. Of course, it's Thursday and we're all working. :)

de-stressing

So I haven't made time to write lately, so this is going to be my brain dump. I need this as my de-stress. Last week was hell. Car broke down. Scott started his new job. We took his ex-wife to court. Nothing went well. Scott was going to fix the Subaru so that we could trade it in for a measly $200, but that didn't pan out. The car is a complete dud. Car shopping was OH SO MUCH FUN. We hadn't planned on swinging 2 new car payments so soon, but I wasn't about to buy another heap-o-dung and have to worry about towing Scott home or putting dollar after dollar into another fixer upper. So we went small, efficient, and standard. We ended up getting more car than we wanted because we got a really great interest rate for the more expensive car. The difference of $2000 (which we put down on the car in the end anyway), was worth the MUCH lower interest rate. We ended up with a Nissa Versa. It's silver. Yeah, not so exciting (we saw a blue one we loved, but they offered us a 12% interest rate...what a JOKE!). Finding a standard transmission was difficult, so we were limited to silver or silver. :) But the new car was worth the 3 days of car shopping, the 3-hour wait, and the bigger price tag. It's got a lot of bells and whistles, including a sun roof and a blue tooth system so now we don't have to worry about headsets while in the car. We can talk directly through the car stereo (which to our surprise has a subwoofer!).

Scott's new job has turned out to be great. So far so good. Although one of its biggest pluses was that he started at 9 am and left the house a full 1 hour later. Which meant that we could have breakfast together and sleep in past 6:15 am. But that only lasted 5 days. His new work hours are now 8 am to 4 pm. So he gets home nice and early, but we're back to the 6:30 am wake up calls. And no more cozy breakfasts together. :(

Taking ex to court has proved to be my biggest stress thus far. We got beaten down last week, details of which I won't relive again, but I will tell you that it's going to be a long journey. We thought we were asking for reasonable things from his ex, but she's got her fists clenched and she's going to disagree just for the sake of pissing us off. We did manage to enforce the divorce decree which states we get the kids once a week for dinner. So now we have them on Thursday nights, which has been great. As for the rest of our requests, well, we'll have to go back to Family Services and keep fighting the good fight. Hopefully at some point, we'll get in front of a judge who will hear our plight and see reason.