Give me your best guess!

One of the best things about being pregnant, in my opinion, is all the suspense. In a few weeks (aprox 6) a little person will be arriving at our house. It reminds me of the suspense before Christmas. Althought it is even better, becuase there is no way for me to peek, and I know that in the end it will be better than any Christmas present I have ever gotten.

Although I am pretty sure on a few details (like Baby Dear's eyes will be blue or green) here are so many unknowns. Like is he/she a boy or a girl? Chubby or skinny? Long or short? What day will he/she get here? I have no way of knowing, but I so enjoy guessing.
I would love to hear your guesses as well. What do you think? I love hearing other's guesses, and reading what you have to say is a great way to pass the time while I wait for Baby Dear to finish cooking.

Here are the questions I would like your best guess on:

1. What gender is Baby Dear?

2. When will Baby Dear arrive? (date or date & time)

3. How much will Baby Dear weigh at birth?

4. What should we name Baby Dear? (Grace votes for Baby Dear)

Make sure you give us your name, so we know who the guess is from. Especially if more than one person from your house is guessing.

You can give me your input a number of ways, depending on what is easiest for you:

1. Leave a comment on the blog.

2. Email me.

3. Fill out the online survey by clicking here.

Unfortunately, there is no grand cash prize or anything for the winner. But you can have the satisfaction and pride of guessing the closest. You also will be entered into the baby book (last time Grandpa Dick and Cousin Jenny guessed the closest).

Lastly, if you are one of those kinds of people that just wishes they had a bit more information (like me) here are some tips that you may or may not find helpful in your guessing.

Baby Dear is due August 21st, 2009. Grace was born the day before her due date, in the evening.

Grace weighed 6 lb 12 oz at birth.

To see how I am carrying:
At 16 weeks
At 20 weeks
At 27 weeks
And today, at 34 weeks:

My weight gain so far is pretty much the same as with Grace (actually I have gained a little less, but started a little heavier, so I weigh about the same). You can see how I am carrying (this pregnancy on left, Grace on the right):
One last thing. Here is Baby Dear at 21 weeks.

If you have any more questions, please let me know. Thanks for your input! Happy guessing!

Summer fruit and a little catch

The other night Grace was a little restless, so she and Gunnar played catch in the front yard. Gunnar thinks it is too early to tell if she takes after me in athletic skills department, but it may be wishful thinking on his part. She enjoyed playing catch, non the less, which is really the most important thing.
She even enjoyed watching the ball roll away from her. :)
While they were burning off the calories, I did the exact opposite. These nectarines came off one of the trees in the front yard. They were very delicious. I love living off the land. :) Hopefully next year's crop will yield a few more.

Night time zoo

I love the night time zoo! Actually, I always love the World Famous San Diego Zoo. Gunnar and I have been members there since we got married and have enjoyed many long walks there. We don't make it there very much anymore as we live so far away, we mostly stick to the Wild Animal Park. Although I enjoy the Wild Animal Park, the Zoo will always be my favorite.

The night time zoo is by the far the best, for so many reasons. The summer evening weather is amazing, there are so many less people, the animals are more active, and they shows are usually more fun than the regular "reduce, reuse, recycle." On a side note, it donned on my last night that the zoo was so ahead of their time. They were into reduce reusing and recycling way before it got super trendy.

Last night, on the spur of the moment we called my parents to see if they wanted to join us for a trip to the zoo. They agreed and we met there.

We went on the skyfarie to get to the far side of the zoo, as I was not really wanting to waddle all the way over there. Grace was very hesitant and did not want to go on it. We couldn't figure out why until we got on, and she asked in a very serious voice "are we going to go upside down?" Once we assured her we weren't she was all smiles and enjoyed it. It is so funny how her little brain works.We walked around the new Elephant exhibit. It was great! I have never seen the lions so active. The male lion was roaring super loud, which was amazing. I had never heard that before. I am pretty sure if I heard that in the wild I would be super scared. Thankfully there was a little net and a ton of people between us. I figured one of those people would be slower than I am, so I wasn't too worried. Grace wasn't overly impressed, she kept putting her hands over her ears. I guess she wasn't a fan of the roaring.Around the "Elephant Odyssey" there were these cut outs of scientist that you could take pictures with. Grace and Grandpa Pa were big fans, as you can see. My dad's degree is in biochemistry so it was a good fit.
The elephants were super funny. One was breaking a huge log into pieces. Always impressive. I totally think he/she was trying to show off.The closest we got to an elephant was on the big screen as we walked by. Grace wasn't sure what to make of it it.
It was so nice and refreshing to take a walk in the coolness of the evening. Grace found some thingies to jump on. Yes, I know that is probably not the technical term for them, but as I am adding a picture, you can see what they look like, so I decided not to bother with a better explanation. What would you call them anyways?Oh, I also saw a peacock. It was just hanging out and didn't even move when we walked right by. Sorry for the bad picture quality, I just wanted to show that I got super close to a peacock. I was very excited about it. Did I mention how much I love the zoo?We made it to the show just as it was about to start. In other years, the evening show has included acrobats or people in animal costumes, but this year there were actually animals in it. A surprising twist. It was a bird show, and multiple birds didn't do what they were supposed to do, which is always entertaining. The rooster ran off into the zoo, which seemed to fit with our experience with roosters.
Grace had a wonderful time with Grandpa Pa and Grandma Ta. She has been asking me all day when we can go back to the zoo.

R.I.P. Tess

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned to Gunnar that Tess looked really skinny. He said he had thought the same thing, but we thought that it might be because her eating habits have changed due to the arrival of Linus, the eat-everything-in-sight dog, that we inherited from my father-in-law. So Gunnar started working on feeding her a extra and making sure she ate while Linus was locked up, etc...

As the weeks have gone by, she still was not looking well. He finally took her into the vet and after a series of tests concluded that nothing "simple" was wrong with her. The vet said that considering her age, it really wouldn't be worth our while to spend a fortune on diagnosis. She recommended waiting until Tess was no longer happy and responsive, and then putting her down. She did, however have some hope that it might be an infection, so she sent her home with antibiotics and steroids to see if that would help.

We thought she started looking better after a few days on the meds, but that was probably all in our heads. In a way it was a bummer though, as it got our hopes up that maybe what she had was fixable. The last couple days however, she has not been looking well at all. I haven't seen her much, as with all the construction I haven't been out in the back yard. Yesterday it became apparent that the end was near.

Gunnar took her down this morning to have her put down. Although we hadn't had her that long, she was a super sweet dog, and we were very sad to see her go.

We did talk to Grace about it. Actually Gunnar did most of the talking...as I was not doing too well emotionally with the whole thing. It worked out well though, that the other day my dad was talking to Grace about his dog Hector (the dog he had as a child). Grace asked him where Hector was now. My dad said Hector had died. Grace said "My dogs aren't going to die are they?" to which he replied that all dogs die eventually. At the time my mom and I scolded him, but in hind sight I think maybe it was God preparing her. Gunnar explained about how Grandpa had told her about Hector dieing, and now it was time that Tess was going to die too. He asked her if she wanted to say goodbye to Tess before he took her to where they were going to take care of her until she died. She went out with him and said good bye, but didn't seem to be too affected by the whole thing. I, on the other hand, have been quite the crier. I am blaming pregnancy hormones, but I am pretty sure I would probably be this way even if I wasn't pregnant. My darling sister Maria called me all the way from Spain when she heard the news, so that cheered me up somewhat.

Here is a picture from the day we brought Tess home.

4th of July

We had a very low key fourth of July, as it fell on a Saturday, which is a work day for pastors. My parents and Daniel came up early in the day so we could still do something festive before Gunnar and my dad had to hit the books in preparation for Sunday.

It was a warm day, so we sat outside so Grace could play in her kiddie pool while the meat was on the BBQ. I didn't take too many pictures, as these days I am feeling quite hot, tired and large. Here are the few pictures I managed to take without having to get out of my seat. :)

My brother Daniel is a gifted musician and brought his guitar along. He was playing around on it while Grace was in the pool. She thought singing and dancing to the music while still in the pool was great. It was super funny. It had a musical theatre meets water arobics feel. On another note, in this picture you can see part of the new covered deck that is being constructed in our back yard. The contractor that is building it worked on it all last week, and hopefully it will be done towards the end of this week. I am super excited as I think it will be much easier to have people over, plus, it will shade the sunny side of the house, which will make the air conditioning much more effective.

After a while of playing in the pool, Grace was getting rather chilly, so she took turns getting out of the pool and sitting on people's laps. This warmed her up and cooled the rest of us down, so it worked out well. There she is with Grandpa Pa.
Fourth of July wouldn't be complete without watermellon. It was perfect for the hot day.
To say that my dad loves watermelon would be an understatement. He LOVES watermellon like no one I have ever met. We should have known better than to let him and Grace hold the watermelon plate. It worked out about as well as having the fox guard the hen house.
I hope you all had a great 4th, filled with fun, family or friends and hopefully some apple pie!

Just because....

Here is a family picture from a couple weeks ago. We went to an event at the Zoo with my mother-in-law and had a great time!

Farm update

We have been having a lot of work done around here lately. There was the room in the garage, which I will take pictures of eventually. I keep meaning to, but I want to get stuff moved back in there first. Anyways, now this week, the entire back yard is now a construction zone as we are having a new back porch/deck put in. I am sure I will be posting pictures of that when it is finally done.

The front yard, however, is looking great. Gunnar's roses and trees are doing amazing. He certainly has a green thumb and keeps everything looking great. Also, the orange tree is keeping up stocked up with fresh squeezed orange juice, and we have gotten some peaches off the front tree. The peaches are the most delicious peaches I have ever eaten in my life, so it is exciting to think of the possibility of more than 6 total peaches in future years.
Not bad, considering the tree is shorter than I am!

Here are some of the beautiful flowers from our yard. I love seeing them as I head in and out of the house.