Pictures from Alaska

These are in no particular order.

Whale watching in Icy Strait Point

Crabbing in Ketchikan

Walking Tour in Skagway

Governer's Mansion in Juneau

State House Building in Juneau (and a bear statue)

Visit with Marie and her family in Juneau. We are in front of Mendenhall Glacier. Marie's version of the tour was much nicer than anything organized by a group.

Totem Poles in Vancouver

Hubbard Glacier

Hubbard glacier again (minus us)

Danny and Heather in Anchorage

Alaska: Here we are!

We made it! The flight was a little hard (7.5 hours from Philly to Anchorage) but we successfully made it to Alaska! Danny and Heather were such wonderful hosts for our short time in Anchorage. They picked us up from their airport and took us to dinner at a great local micro-brewery called The Moose's Tooth. It was gourmet pizza and tons of local beers. Jason and Danny started with a coconut porter. Jason moved on to the sampler and Danny went on to his favorite: Pipeline Stout.

After dinner, Danny and Heather drove us to a Flattop Mountain lookout point, where there is a spot to park and checkout the amazing views. You can see the entire city of Anchorage from this spot. I will post the three photos we took later. It was very cold and windy, or I would have taken more.

After being awake for 24 hours straight (I know great practice for when the babies arrive!), we headed to the hotel (11:30pm and still sunny) and crashed for 5 hours. Now we are up and getting ready for the train ride to the cruise ship. Danny said we will be amazed at the views on the train ride. I'm really glad we opted for that instead of the bus ride! More later (may be a few days since internet is expensive on the boat) so stay tuned.

Veggies!

We (Jason helped a little) created a large garden bed on the side of the house that gets a lot of sun. I planted three sizes of tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, basil, and cilantro. I love growing my own vegetables and sharing them with neighbors, coworkers, and friends. Jason and I both grew up with gardens every summer. I can't wait to share these experiences with our kids.

It may not look like much to someone that has never created a garden bed, but this was quite a big task. And I finally have enough space to not cramp the plants. Although it never affected the bounty of produce when it was cramped.

Goodbye Civic, Hello Odyssey

Today, I traded in my Civic for an Odyssey. I loved my Civic and had it for 9 years. After talking with some moms of twins, we decided to upgrade one of our cars. Now we can take the entire family (including Chewy) on trips. The Odyssey will treat me as nice as my Civic did, I'm sure.

Look out world, another soccer mom is born!

How am I feeling lately?

How have I been feeling lately? This video pretty much sums it up.
This episode was hilarious, but now that I'm living it - well, it's still hilarious.

The babies are about the size of limes right now. Crazy to think something so small can have so much control over me. I guess this is just the beginning.

Everything is growing like crazy

The baby birds have gotten bigger. Mom or dad is always close by keeping watch.

The rhododenron is finally in bloom!
It must like it's new location.

And all of the plants we took from our parents last year are in full bloom, too!

Springtime brings babies

Chewy found/killed a baby bunny a couple days ago and today he spotted some baby birds. Luckily they were out of his reach, so they survived. Jason took some great pictures of the babies in the tree out back.

They are still here!

Another ultrasound gave us a sigh of relief. Both babies were visible and they each had a strong heartbeat. I'll feel better when we are out of the first trimester, but seeing them on the screen really calms our fears.

I asked if two sacs meant two eggs, but the doc said two sacs can come from one or two eggs. If we wanted to find we would have to do a blood test. Jason and I don't really see any reason to find out, so it will forever remain a mystery. (You can't tell just by looking, because the Olsen twins are fraternal but look identical.)

We won't have another ultrasound until it's time to find out the genders, so this is it for a while on the pictures. It's just pictures of Chewy until then!

The journey that lies ahead

Jason and I decided to try to start a family a long time ago. We ran into one big hurdle (with me of course). With much help from doctors and medicine we have gotten over that hurdle and are pleased to announce we are finally pregnant! Estimated arrival time: early December.

The news came as quite a surprise to us. We didn't want to believe the urine tests because all we had been hearing lately was bad news. I thought that maybe the blood test would help us believe the results. Once the blood test came back, the doctor wanted to do another blood test to check that the levels were increasing. Luckily they did. Jason and I were excited, but we kept our guard up. We had an ultrasound scheduled with the fertility specialist and it was exactly what we needed to believe all the test results.

The ultrasound showed two babies! The one had a heartbeat that was visible to the doctor and the student observing him. The second one had a heartbeat, but the doctor didn't see it at first. The student did. When the machine was switched to detect sound, both heartbeats showed up and they were strong. Such a relief. Once you see a heartbeat the chance of miscarriage goes down to 5%. We were beyond happy. Our fertility specialist recommended going to the regular doc in a week or two and having another ultrasound. He said there is a 10-15% chance that only one baby will be there in the second ultrasound. We are staying positive, but have accepted that this might be a possiblity.

Some people would have kept this to themselves until they are in the "safe zone" of the second trimester. Jason and I have learned that we really need the support of our friends and family. During our struggle to get here, the support that we have had was incredible. We are sharing our news with all of you, because we know that through thick and thin you will be there for us and we need all the support we can get.

We did it!

Let the yard work begin

Jason and I were busy this weekend improving the backyard. Some neighbors rented a bed edger so we chipped in to use it. We edged out where new beds would go and edged existing beds. We also fenced off below the deck. Chewy is sad about it, but he'll get over it. We will put up some wooden boards to make it look nicer.

We plan to do a rock garden in front of the deck, so people can still step off the deck without worry. The side bed is mulched. The plants there now are from last year and aren't doing too well. They will probably be replaced next year.

Eventually a tree will go on the corner here.

It's Springtime for Duffys and Delaware

Alaska excursions booked!

One of the excursions we booked is a crabbing expedition. We will go out on a boat and collect some crabs, then we will eat them!

We will also go on a whale watching excursion!

Dogs, dogs, dogs

Chewy loves hanging out with Kiki and Duncan this week. As you can see, the little ones have more energy than Chewy.

I love that they lined up like this.

Chewy

Duncan

Kiki

Cake Class, Course 1, Lesson 4

Cake Class, Course 1, Lesson 3

For our third class, we could bring in whatever we wanted: cake, cupcakes, cookies, nothing but waxed paper. I decided to do red velvet cupcakes and I had enough batter leftover to do a loaf cake. I didn't feel like making a lot of colors, so I reused the ones from my last cake and made purple icing. It turns out I was able to make a lot of different designs and used everything we learned in class today! I need to work on making straight and parallel lines. I think i might mark the cake next time to guide me. One more class to go and then Course 2!

I am signing up for Cake Decorating Course 2 at the JoAnn's at Polaris on Monday nights if you are interested in joining me (you know who you are). The same teacher for my class is doing the course 2 class and I think she's great. It begins on April 5th and runs through April 26, Mondays 6:30-8:30pm.

PA Trip

We stopped in Hershey on the way to a friend's house this weekend. We did a chocolate tasting, saw a 3D movie, rode a ride telling us the history of Hershey's, and took a trolley tour of the town. It was a lot more fun than we expected.

Thanks go out to Bryan for the pictures!

Cake Class, Course 1, Lesson 2

Update: I decorated the cake. Since St. Patrick's Day is Wednesday, I decided to do an Irish theme on my first cake. My handwriting is terrible - sorry.

So I spent 3 hours this evening doing my homework for my cake decorating class. Chewy hung out on the couch the entire time. I had to take a picture. It cracks me up that he sleeps on his back.

I made 6 cups of icing to ice the 8" round cake that we will decorate in class on Monday. I then had to make an additional 6 cups for the icing that will be used to decorate it on Monday.

I'll post a picture of the completely decorated cake on Monday night, after class. Stay Tuned.
Also, I updated the cheese post on the blog to include pictures of the cheddar now that it is ready to eat, so check that out!

Crazy new shoes

Keith has been talking about these shoes for a long time now. I decided that this would be a great purchase to get me back into running. I bought myself some Vibram Five Fingers shoes. They are suppose to be as close to being barefoot as possible. So far, I have found they are difficult to put on. Each toe must fit into it's designated pocket. Once they are on, they are comfortable. I haven't run in them yet. I'll let you know when I do.
Also, this picture shows off the new bookcases in the living room.