Work work work

Waking up at 5:45, on the road by 7, in the office by 8. Leaving at 4:30, home by 5:30. Dinner, dishes, packing lunches, ironing clothes, bed time. Oh yes, so this is what it's like to have a day job.

Is it over yet?

I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but there is some kind of chemical imbalance in my brain that just does not make me suitable for a typical office job. Maybe it's the 50 minute commute? More likely that I've been doing my exact same job from home that I'm now required to do in the office. That probably has something to do with it. Oh well, it's a paycheck, right?

Travis also started his new job as the custodian of our new office. His hours are 9-whenever he finishes. He's been getting home about 8 every night. The first day we rode in together - and that was the only day we did that. I hate being in the office until 4:30, so I was extremely unenthusiastic about being there until after 7. No thank you. So I go in early and he drives himself in. Not the most cost-friendly, but we have a feeling his hours will be changing to be more like 12-8.

Actually, we're in for a lot of changes. We got a shocking call yesterday morning that the owner of our company passed away suddenly on Friday night. He was in his early 70's, but it is always tragic when someone passes so unexpectedly. I had talked to him a lot on Friday and he was in a great mood, and seemed to be in good health. He had just stepped back into the role of CEO, so I'm not sure what will happen with the structure of our company. I'm also not really sure what will happen with my new position and if that will stay the same.

So hug your loved ones extra tight today.

Oh baby it's cold outside!

Ah yes, January in Minnesota. How quickly I forgot from last year. I was just saying to Travis the other day "it's the end of January! Pretty soon Spring will be here!" And then we were blessed with a week of barely zero degree temperatures. More like negative temps. Oh joy!

So the hubster and I haven't been doing a whole lot of outdoor activities lately. One good thing from this: our shower is now grouted! It looks fantastic. Travis isn't officially done with it, as he still has to seal it all, sand down the ceiling and paint the ceiling. I don't want to show you any pictures until it's done, so you'll just have to take my word for it - it looks great!

Since we've been trapped indoors, I came up with a project for us this weekend. Naturally. See, we ordered our crib and dresser/changing table last weekend and we should be getting them sometime this week. Because it's being shipped, I wanted to take them out of the box and set them up so that we can check for damages and/or missing parts. Our plan is to turn our office, which is right next to our room, into the nursery. So my plan for this weekend was to clean out the office, and move the desk and computer to the family room.

The actual moving part of it all was short and simple. We're only talking about a desk, computer, chair and a few filing cabinets. The very involved part of the process was going through all the junk that we had accumulated that I didn't want to be visible in our family room all the time. So here we are on Sunday evening finally finished with our project. The nursery is ready for furniture!

Here's my 14 week picture:
Still not a whole lot of change, but I think we're finally seeing "bump" instead of "bloat"! Haha! My monthly appointment is on Tuesday, so send good thoughts and prayers our way!

Tomorrow Travis and I begin our new jobs at the new office. For some reason we have to be there from 9-6, which is a very long day for me. I'm bringing a ton of food and snacks because my biggest worry is getting hungry and not having food available to me! We're thinking that as of Tuesday, Travis will be working at night while I'm on days. This would be great if baby were here now and I could keep working from home. That's not the case, but lots of things can change from now until then. So we're just waiting to see what happens!

That's all from the Iron Range for now. I'll leave you with some pictures of our snow mountains in the front yard. Have a great week!
I guess we'll be "those" neighbors who leave their Christmas decorations out until Spring.

Vacation!

I finally got around to getting all our vacation pictures on the computer. I won't bore you with all of them, just the high-lights.

We left around 6:30pm on Monday night and drove straight through the night and Tuesday until we got just south of Atlanta where we stayed for the night. Driving crazy hours like this used to be no big deal, but I have a feeling that we're getting too old for those kind of shenanigans. After spending the night in Atlanta, we awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed Wednesday morning and drove the rest of the way home.

Along the way we stopped in Gainesville, FL. Go Gators! You may think we were stopping to see old college friends, or take a quick peek at the campus, but no. Travis wanted to stop for lunch at Mi Apa Cafe, home to some of the best Cuban food ever! We got our food to go and ate it at the rest stop so Maya could stretch her legs.
For New Years Eve, Mom and Dad took us on a dinner cruise on the Intercoastal Waterway. This was so much fun! I couldn't take advantage of the open bar, but I did enjoy my chocolate cake dessert!
Here we are waiting to get on the boat, which is behind us. It had 3 levels, the very top being all open with tables to hang out at. We ate dinner on the first level. We were even provided with New Year's hats!
After dinner we spent the rest of the evening on the top deck viewing small homes like this:
The rest of our days were spent at the pool, or shopping, or at the beach. And of course we had to go to world famous "Boston's on the Beach". If you go, you have to get the fish dip!
I'm not sure what was going on in this picture, but I look excited about something!
The view from Boston's patio, where we enjoyed 2 fish dips, and a plethora of other seafood dishes. Yum yum!

After lots of hugs and tears, and setting my parents up with Skype so we can video talk with them, we left earlier than intended. Our original plan was to leave very early Wednesday morning and drive straight through to St. Louis. After our previous 24 hrs in the car plus another day driving, I nixed this idea. So we left on Tuesday and drove to Atlanta, staying in the same hotel as when we drove down. Wednesday was an easy drive to St. Louis then.

I have to say this: even though we spent 2 years in St. Louis, 2 days is just not enough time to fit everything in! We had a great time even though the weather wasn't so hot while we were there. My sister in law took us to the art museum, which we actually had never been to before. It was really cool! They had a huge Waterlilies by Monet, and mummies! Travis took pictures of some of the Oceanic art but they turned out pretty dark. So the only pictures we have of our time in St. Louis is of us outside the museum.
We left Saturday morning and drove all day, getting home around 10:30 that night. We were greeted by this:
This was after Travis shoveled out our driveway, front porch and sidewalk. Then a few days later, we got another 4 or 5 inches. He is not a happy camper with Mother Nature this week. Hopefully next year we'll have a snow blower, or better yet - a 4 wheeler with a snow plow!

And just for fun, here's my 13 weeks picture:
Here's hoping for an early spring!

Surprise!

We're pregnant! I'm actually about 12 weeks along, but we've been keeping it to ourselves until we could tell all our family in person. Best decision ever! I'm due on 7/21, only 6 short months from now! As of now, I'm feeling good and getting some energy back. I had some nausea and food aversions, but those are getting a lot better.

I'll have to do another post to update about our vacation, I don't have the pictures uploaded yet. I just wanted to let you all in on our special news. Visiting our family was awesome. I am so greatful that God has blessed us with such wonderful, supportive family. Everyone has been very excited for us!

More pictures to come!