Strawberries!

The past couple of weeks have been busy for both of us. 8th grade graduation, Confirmation, the end of the school year, picking strawberries, and parents visiting have been a few highlights. So far, the pregnancy has been going well. I had an appointment a couple of weeks ago that was normal, although I am on antibiotics for an infection, and I have one coming up on Wednesday. I think it will be the last appointment with our family practitioner as we transition our lives to St. Louis. The nausea and bloating have decreased significantly, thankfully, and I have moved into maternity pants as I now have nothing that fits.

Back to the reason for the title, we went strawberry picking on Saturday. It was a hot morning, but it was so much fun! We were taken by golf cart out to our rows and really only made it a third of the way down before our box was full. We could have easily picked more, but wisely stopped, because we had picked over 12 pounds! After a quick trip to the grocery store, I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, hulling, freezing, and making jam. We enjoyed eating them throughout the process and all over angel food cake that night. Jared grabbed a few pictures with his phone (we have a bad habit of forgetting the camera) and those are posted. Its the first peak of "the belly," although I think most of it can be attributed to bloating.





Mom and Dad Hintz came for the weekend and we spent Sunday touring Abraham Lincoln's neighborhood (no pictures due to lack of camera). Today, we went to New Salem, the Lincoln tomb, the Lincoln museum, and walked around downtown Springfield (pictures are on picasa). Whew...after a dinner of brats and beans, we all have our feet up and enjoying game 2 of the Stanley Cup. Unfortunately, Detroit and all Canadian teams have been eliminated, so we have to resort to cheer for (gulp) Chicago.

Another post will be coming soon...tomorrow I have an interview for a job in St. Louis and then back to the doctor's for another appointment on Wednesday!

busy weekend and first pictures

This past weekend we had a wonderful time visiting Jared's parents and family. The three days of time spent in South Dakota were well worth the 18 hour drive on Friday and Tuesday, but I think its going to take until the weekend to fully recover from traveling. We had the opportunity to see Jason graduate from college, Eli welcomed into the family of God through Baptism (yay for being godparents!), and the first glimpses of our baby. Thanks to Jared's brother Eric, who sits on the board for the local pregnancy center, we were able to stop in and get an ultrasound! It was truly awesome to see an actual image of our child, bouncing around with a furiously beating heart. According to Jodi, the nurse who did the ultrasound, they also have an impressive yolk sac and umbilical cord, so I guess at this point all is well. I also ventured into the world of maternity clothes with my mother-in-law and was pleasantly surprised to find several things that fit well and are COMFORTABLE. :)

For all of you looking for more pictures, look to the right, above our picture, and you'll see a link to our Picasa site that will have more pictures. Right now, there is an album dedicated to our wonderful (though sometimes pain-in-our-rears) pets and then one of the ultrasound pictures. Check here for more pics in the coming days. I am not really comfortable posting a ton of pictures on facebook...i seem to have more control on picasa. We also have important family members, such as the future grandparents, who do not have facebook and they of all people need access to pictures of the newest member. Someday there may be a password required, but for now, check them out. We may or may not have pictures of "the belly" as it progressively gets larger; I have to decide if I really want to bear it for all to see. Thats it for now, its naptime with Oscar and probably Tigger too.

A Sunday Afternoon...

After a busy week, Sarah and I enjoyed a delicious lunch at Ruby Tuesday curtsey of a coupon and gift card. We then headed south to the Saint Louis Zoo to enjoy the weather with hundreds of others. A fantastic Sunday afternoon.

Here we go...

Considering that most of our family lives miles away, we figured this was a good way to keep everyone in the loop as to what is going on...most of the time this will be Sarah writing, but Jared may be inserting his commentary now and then. Thanks to Michelle for the great idea, we enjoyed following your pregnancy on your blog and looking forward to Eli's many happenings.

First of all, I am 9 weeks pregnant. We found out on April 1st (no joke), 4 weeks ago, and we still are in awe of the situation. That puts our due date on December 3rd. We are planning on finding out the gender of our child because I cannot wait that long and am kind of obsessive about planning things out. We will let you know as soon as we know...sometime in mid to late summer I would think. I just had my first doctor's appointment yesterday, although it wasn't much. I had a nice conversation with the nurse about everything under the moon and then had blood drawn and provided some fluids. Not too bad, I can handle this. Unfortunately I get to have another pap smear next time, but at least I'll get to talk to the doctor. Right now we are going to our family practitioner, but will be switching soon to a doctor down in the St. Louis area. When that is going to happen is still yet to be seen, but it will probably be sooner than later. We would like to start establishing a relationship with the doctor who will be with us when we get to meet our child!

Other than feeling exhausted and having waves of nausea, it is going not too bad. I keep crackers in various locations, including me desk at school, and have a great excuse for taking a nap. :) I also have to rethink dinner prepping - the smell of raw and cooking meat will finish me off for the evening. I think there will be more instances of using the crock-pot over the next few weeks to eliminate my need to be in the kitchen in the late afternoon.

On a different note, I burned out the vacuum Tuesday. I could smell something funny and then all of this white smoke came flooding out of the bottom of the vac. Needless to say, the carpets did not get cleaned and the house smelled like burning wires. Today we took a trip specifically to Edwardsville and picked up a nice one at Target (on sale and we got a twenty dollar gift card with the purchase). It does a great job with the floors and the canister will come out and you can carry it up and down the stairs. It also came with a pet grooming brush that will grab any loose hair off of your animal and suck it away. It works pretty good, although Tigger spent the next hour hiding under our bed, traumatized. We also got boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.89 a pound. :)