Baby bump

Here I am at 18 weeks, almost halfway done. We are so excited, it seems to be going very slowly and flying by at the same time if that makes sense.

Molly is the best dog in the whole world.

This is a picture of Brian as a newborn. He was so cute I can hardly stand it, I hope our baby looks exactly like this!

Guess what?!

We are pregnant! Due Febuary 26, and we are pumped. We are not going to find out the sex, its going to be a big suprise. Unless there are 2 or more. So far just 1 in there though. I will post a picture of my baby belly.

A pretty darn funny video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H6mmTvDUdA

the newest member of the young family...

We got a dog! We, as in Brian and I both decided on this one, I did not go out and get her without asking! She is so sweet, her name is Molly and she is 3, she is a great dane but at 120 1bs she is small for a Dane believe it or not. We got her from a Dane rescue organization and she is already housebroken and trained. She is seriously the perfect dog, she is so well behaved. Most Danes have really laid back gentle personalities, like to sleep a large part of the day and aren't huge fans of excercise so it was like she was made to order for us. We are currently watching Rob and Big and Molly is passed out on her bed because we took her for a 1/2 mile walk. We intended on going for a mile but she got so tired we thought we might literally have to carry her so we came home early. I love her!

the past 2 weeks

well let's see, we have worked and hung out, we saw ocean's 13, my dad came to visit, we have hung out with friends, gone to the pool, watched some movies on out couch (do NOT see apocalypto) gone shopping (father's day is coming up) gone to the library, gone running (I walked, my knee hurts) and that is about it. it has been a fun and relaxing summer so far.

lunch at friday's with my dad

So over the course of the past few weeks I have turned into a total night owl, no matter how tired I am or how early I get up once I lay down I get my second wind and end up getting back up and staying back up until 1 or 2. It's the weirdest thing, I am hoping it is just a phase. Sometimes I am really productive when I get back up but most of the time I just end up watching TLC. I have seen siamese twins joined at the head, the largest man in the world go on a diet (poor guy lost like 200 lbs and you couldn't even tell) families with quints, septulets, sextuplets, a set of twins and then triplets. What is worse/better, having twins and then having triplets or just having all 5 at once?

KEANE!

I love Keane! Last night's concert was so much fun and they played most of my favorite songs. We stepped on some toes, spilled on some people, and got some seriously dirty looks but made our way to the middle about half way to the front of the 9:30 club which was the perfect place to be in my opinion.

our weekend

Fun times this weekend. Saturday we went to a cookout at the Cassadas with the Kekic's and the Goeller

I mean how cute are those two (three really but specifically the little ones)




My friend Louise and I hosted a baby shower for our friend Jess on Saturday before the cookout

Tonight we are going to the Keane concert at the 9:30 club and I am so so so so so so excited.

spring fever is over (for now)

Well our living room is yellow, and our downstairs bathroom is green, we repainted all the white walls on the middle level and I couldn't sleep one night so I touched up all the trim till 2:30 in the morning, our closets are cleaned out and our house is spotless. And I am tired of all the cleaning and painting and I don't want to do it anymore! When Brian was cleaning out his closet we found some pretty hilarious stuff from his college days (he says that most of the things we found were bought to be funny or for a joke and I choose to believe him) including an N'Sync shirt complete with purple sparkles and a picture of the entire group on the front, some brightly colored tie dyed brew thru shirts, with and without sleeves. AND the long underwear pictured below, I laughed so hard when I saw those, they made my whole month. They even have a flap in the back, I didn't know you could actually buy long underwear like that anymore.

Date night

So last Thursday night Brian and I went to the Maestro restaurant in Tyson's Corner. We had been given a gift certificate as a Christmas present. "It was an unbelievable dining experience" - quotes Brian Young. It was super fun! We ordered the chef's choice which was a little scary and a couple of times I regretted it, but for the most part everything was really really good. We had like 11 courses or something ridiculous like that. One of them was pigeon, which Brian was excited about but I just couldn't make myself eat after a few bites. I kept picturing all the pigeons in DC and how gross they are.



the pigeon (we snuck some pictures on my phone)

Some of the other courses were steak tartar, Rock fish topped with Foie Gras, raw tuna with a beaker of clear tomatoe soup, raw oyster, tomatoeless lasagna...not things I would normally eat, and quite frankly I don't care if I ever eat them again, but it was still fun to try them!

Spring Fever

I am not exactly sure what spring fever is but I think I have it, I have been cleaning and painting like a crazy person this week. Sunday night Brian and I painted the living room yellow which I posted pictures of, Monday night we repainted the rest of the middle floor white (the walls were so dirty from moving furniture in and out) and tonight I am painting the middle floor bathroom and possibly the kitchen. I have spent more time than I care to tell at home depot (I hate that place) and Sherwin Williams and I am shocked at all the choices you have to make when it comes to picking out paint! After going through 23 different samples of WHITE and picking one, then they asked me what kind of gloss I wanted and I picked 1 from 6 choices and then they asked what quality of paint I wanted and there were 5 different choices of that. Ridiculous!!

This weekend

This picture has nothing to do with anything, however we have the ugliest bush outside of our house, but for a few weeks every year it blooms and looks beautiful, then dies in about 3 weeks and looks ugly again. It is currently in its pretty stage and I am taking a picture so I can remember what it looks like the rest of the year when I am hating the ugly bush outside our house.

Saturday night I went to a going away party for my friend Karen who is moving to Texas.

I love you Durre!
Now this is our really exciting news for the weekend, tonight after 2 years of debate Brian and I finally decided on a paint color for the living room and had time to paint, so....we painted! Our living room is yellow. Now we have to pick out colors for the rest of the house. Expect another update in about 2 more years.

this week...

There is nothing like starting a blog to make one realize that one's life is pretty boring. Every day this week I have been waiting for something blog worthy to happen and its looking like it ain't gonna happen. Here are my high/low points for the week.

Monday:
high point - Chessie came over and Brian made kung pao chicken and we watched the Bachelor. I find that show highly entertaining.
low point- I convinced Brian to go to the pound (he took Monday off, the pound closes at 5 and he never gets home during the week before 7 so I thought it was the perfect opportunity), not only was the road in front of the pound closed so we had to drive 20 minutes out of our way to get there from another direction, when we got there.... we found out that it is CLOSED on Monday. What the heck?!

Tuesday:
high point - I started a running plan I found online called "couch to 5K"
low point - I started a running plan I found online called "couch to 5k" oh and my netflix is all messed up and they can't figure out why, the computer won't allow them to send me any movies and I am highly annoyed.

Wednesday:
high point - lunch with Brian!
low point - I had to drive home from DC during rush hour and it took me 1 1/2 hours!!! I am so glad that I don't have to do that every day, or worse, twice a day. Also I got my hair cut today and there seems to have been some misunderstanding about the length of my bangs.

Thursay:
high point - Brian and I walked to Chicken Out and had dinner.
low point - ALL of the flowers I bought a few weeks ago are dying! I have no idea why, I have read all these website and am doing exactly what they say and they are still dying. It is such a bummer.

A little family time

Brian and I spent the weekend with his sweet family down in Blacksburg and I took lots of pictures of course:

Saturday night we had a little mother's day cook out
Brian let Rebekah do his his hair, I could have saved him and let her do mine, but this makes for a much more entertaining picture
The whole family went to the driving range, fun times

Jansen runs powerpoint on Sundays, Brian's dad is in the background (wearing the tie)
The family doing dove calls on the back deck, Brian taught us. He does them so well that he actually had doves calling back to him and flying over to see if they were about to get lucky. They were not pleased when they realized that Brian was making the noise.

Blacksburg

Brian and I went down to Blacksburg this weekend to visit his family, on Sunday we drove around the VT campus and I took some pictures.

This baptist church put up 32 flags This tent contained letters, posters etc sent from other schools, colleges and churches to the students of VT right after the shootings

Someone sent BCF (the church Brian's dad pastors) 32 flags to put outside their church, apparently there were people all over the country sending things to churches, schools, restaurants etc. to show support. Almost every house, business, school and church in Blacksburg has something on their door/yard in Virginia Tech colors.
There are 33 stones set up in a semi circle on the VT campus in memory of those killed on April 16. Friends, family and strangers can visit the memorial and leave flowers, notes and mementos. This stone is for Professor Librescu who died blocking the door of his classroom with his body so his students could jump out of the window. Apparently some of his students tried to force him away from the door and out the window (he was 76) and he refused to move.
A few days after the university put the 32 stones down, a student added a 33rd stone and wrote a letter asking that university leave it there which they eventually did though I think people have mixed feelings about it. I am not sure whether or not I think that stone should be there with the rest, but I got a little emotional when I saw that people had put flowers on his stone. I was touched by the love, forgiveness and compassion that people are capable of.

Denied

I go back and forth on wanting a puppy, I do not want to pick up it's poop which is really the big obstacle. And I don't know what we would do with it when we travel etc. Oh and Brian is not a big fan of the idea. So anyway I have now gone to the pound twice, and practically every dog there was a pitbull which did not excite me, and I have gone to just pets twice. The first time I fell in LOVE with the cutest puppy ever and while I was there wondering whether or not I should just buy it and hope that Brian fell in love with it too, someone came in and bought it right out from under me. Tonight I went in, just to look of course, and there were NO PUPPIES only rabbits in the puppy bin. I am starting to think there is a higher power at work here.

little cheerleader

I went to lunch today with my friend Jess and her adorable 2 year old Corban, Jess coaches cheerleading at Madison so Corban has mastered some cheers and poses. Look at her little pink crocs, how cute are those?

my Lopester

My sweet and gorgeous sister Chessie is coming home for the summer today and I am super excited, I can't wait to hang out with her. I found a picture of her from when I first moved in with the Fitches in 2001 and she was in 7th grade...

And one from last year when she was the maid of honor in my wedding...

?!?!

I was looking through old pictures today and came across this one of me as a FRESHMAN in High School. Correct me if I am wrong but aren't you supposed to lose all of your baby teeth in elementary school or something? Yet in this picture I appear to have 2 teeth growing in, what is that?! By the way those earings were very in that year...

a little bit of culture

So I ended up at the American Indian Museum today, and got to take a tour with one of the curators and it was really interesting. Plus we were in and out in 1 1/2 hours which is my kind of museum tour. While we were there I saw a Hawk, which I obviously took a picture of, and I was ridiculously excited. Everyone I have told about it has seen a hawk before but I never had so I thought I was seeing something rare, which is why I was so excited. I won't bore you with all the details of things that I saw/heard but one thing I learned is that most of the items in the musuem were collected by 1 man who was obsessed with native american culture and started buying everything he could get his hands on, and went through his fortune and 3, yes 3, wives inheritances. Crazy! And he ended up with 800,000 artifacts. Can you imagine? I am going to stop complaining about the few extra pieces of furniture Brian has stashed in our basement.

new baby!

Our great friends Brad and Katie had a baby girl tonight!! We are so excited for them.

Reason # 287 why I love my husband...

he makes hummus. Really really good hummus!

Except for the couch and the coffee table, these are things that Brian is fixing so that he can sell them on Craig's List. The problem with buying these things, fixing them, and selling them, is that once they are fixed we usually end up wanting to keep them. And since we have no room for them, our basement looks like this.