Do I really look *that* different?

Today I was talking to my office mother, Habiba. Habiba is a wonderful Somali woman. She is so in tune with people and all the touchy feely intuition girl stuff, which is why I guess I shouldn't have been so shocked when out of nowhere she said, "so tell me, Elena. Are you pregnant now?" I wasn't going to lie, she is my office mother after all.

She said that I looked different - more "glowing" and that my face was rounder. So the body changes have begun, apparently.

I never would have thought that someone would be able to tell so soon.

Doctor, Doctor

I spent half the day at work trying to find a doctor to go to. My first appointment is scheduled for December 5th. At this appointment, the pregnancy will be confirmed, they'll do routine blood tests, and have lots of time for questions and answers.

My first exam will be on December 21st. I can't believe this is all happening!

The Baby Blog

So I thought it would be a cool idea to start a baby blog so I could document everything that is happening and be able to share it all later, whenever we decide it's okay to tell people. Can you imagine how disappointed I was to see that the blog name babygrover.blogspot.com already existed!?!? It's kind of strange because this girl is due at the very end of this year. The strange part is, their family's last name isn't even Grover, it's KELLBACH!!! I guess her maiden name is Groves. Oh, and another weird thing is that her wedding anniversary is the same day as ours. And you're probably wondering how I know all this. The answer is that I'm nosy. That's all there is to it. I read the whole blog, looked at her baby registry and flickr account and now I know. This is why I am good at tracing and finding people.


You're probably not reading this to learn the details of some random lady's life, so I will end this post with my first belly picture. Here we are at end of week 5 (I think):

For real?!?

Early November I started feeling a little funny in the boob department and also feeling a little yucky after eating dinner. I wasn't sure what to think. I kind of thought I was possibly pregnant, but hadn't missed my period yet and didn't want to get worked up about it either way. Although, I'm not going to lie, I bought a package of cute green and yellow onesies.

However, the night before we went on vacation I thought the responsible thing to do was take a test to make sure. After all, we were going to have 24 hr access to all the alcohol we wanted. So I came home and waited for Lane so we could do the test.

I have serious issues peeing on sticks and into cups, by the way. I just can't do it. Anyway, I immediately left the bathroom after taking the test and Lane and I both went to check the results exactly two minutes later. Here's what we found:


We were so excited and Lane told me what a good job I had done, as if this were a one person accomplishment ;) He also said he already knew I was pregnant! So I immediately pulled my What to Expect When You're Expecting book and started studying.

A friend of ours asked if we were going to bring home a Baby Grover from our vacation, I laughed and said I didn't think so. I had no idea we'd be taking a Baby Grover with us to the Dominican Republic!

It was really good timing. We were able to read all about being pregnant, talk about it tons and just soak it all in. For ages I've daydreamed about us having babies. It's so surreal to think there's actually a little rascal growing like crazy inside of me.

At dinner one night Lane told me how happy he was that we were starting our family. I think we both got a little teary-eyed.

Our Elfamorphosis

If you've been searching the internet to see Lane and Elena dressed as Santa's little elves, doing a Christmas boogie, look no further! We have elfed ourselves, and are sharing the results for your viewing pleasure!!

Check it out:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9600613872

Thanksgiving Week

We returned from vacation on Monday night to a mostly messy apartment and an empty kitchen. We had just enough time to pick up a turkey and some other essential items at Trader Joes before David and Christianne arrived.

My 10 year old niece is such a sweetheart. Even though I had just seen her in June, I was surprised to see that she was nearly as tall as me, and wore a bigger shoe size than me. Before she even arrived to DC, she knew she wanted to go to the top of the Washington Monument, see the Jefferson Memorial at night, and go ice skating. We were sure she got to do all of these things. One night she decided to write a story. So she just sat down and immediately started writing, only stopping to give us paragraph by paragraph updates. Christianne amazed me with her descriptive accounts of being caught in a rainstorm - the clouds trembled, the lightning flickered, and she was safely covered under a blanket of trees... I loved it.

We spent Wednesday cooking and cooking, and cooking some more. It was nice, because there wasn't much to do on Thursday except clean up a little, which made the day more relaxing. We had David, Christianne, and several friends over for the following feast:

1. Mixed greens with apple, dried cranberries, candied pecans, and goat cheese

2. Roasted turkey with an herb paste rubbed all under the skin. We stuffed it with fresh herb sprigs, onions, celery, and fresh citrus fruit.

3. Dressing, which my brother called hippie stuffing. I made it with asiago sourdough bread, spicy italian sausage, dried apricots, fresh apples and cranberries, pecans, pine nuts, fennel, other regular veggies, tons of fresh herbs, and moistened it with spicy apple cider and white wine.

4. Spinach Gratin (which I could have added a little extra spinach to)

5. Roasted sweet potato and roasted banana puree with a nut streusel topping

6. Mashed Potatoes

7. Sauteed Green beans

For dessert, Lane made delicious Pumpkin Crunch, a recipe shared by our dear friend Malia, and I made an apple cranberry pie. It was a serious feast.

I truly thought I was going to pass out after I finished eating my dinner. Lane was in all his glory. We purposely got an extra big turkey so we could have tons of leftovers.

After running about 8 cycles in two days my dishwasher decided to crap out after Thanksgiving dinner, leaving us to wash all our dishes by hand.

The next morning, we put on the Christmas music, decorated the tree and the rest of the apartment. I just love getting a head start on the Christmas holiday. The rest of the weekend was spent checking items off of Christianne's list, in addition to visiting the American Indian museum, the Smithsonian visitor center (the castle) and the Botanical Gardens.

June and October

In June, while Lane and I were in Indiana one night, Lane looked at me and said we should decide when we want to have kids, and it should be soon. I was so surprised and excited to hear this come from him. So I cried.

Later on, we talked about how we wanted me to stay home, and what we'd need to do to make that happen. We decided we'd have to sell our house in CA. This is quite possibly one of the most overwhelming things to figure out, let alone trying to do so from 3,000 miles away. So we procrastinated and did nothing.

In October, we had this moment where we both just realized that if we got pregnant we'd be happy and totally ready to take on the new challenge, adventure, and stage of our lives that a baby would bring. And, that maybe actually having a 9 month deadline would get us into shape to do the things we've been dragging our feet on.

Ahh, Vacation!

We had a wonderfully relaxing trip to the DR. We went kayaking in the ocean, ate lots, and just chilled by the pool, and then by the beach, walked on the beach at night, read, and enjoyed being able to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted to. We really needed that break.

It was in the high 80's the whole time we were there. Rain was in the forecast every single day for our trip, but it only rained once. We were on the beach and all of a sudden this roaring thunder came from no where, and the rain immediately began pouring while everyone ran frantically off of the beach. Lane and I used the opportunity to snag one of the huts and went swimming in the ocean. We practically had the whole beach and the ocean to ourselves.

One night they had this "arabian nights" entertainment show. Lane and I thought we'd go check it out, not having very high hopes at all. We thought we'd go check it out, promising that we'd leave if it was totally lame. So we stood in the very back, allowing us an easy escape route. The thing was, we had found ourselves transported to this bizarrely bad live Sabado Gigante-esque show. It was terrible, but in that way that you want to see what happens next.

They picked four ladies for this "Miss Oasis Hamaca (the resort name)" competition. They told the ladies to watch this other lady as she demonstrated what they'd have to do. The next thing we knew, the song, "I'm Too Sexy" started playing and this lady pranced around stage with a boa, walking all sultry and sexy. She ended up on this chair in the middle of the stage with her leg up in the air, as if she were being dipped.

The first lady was kind of big, and obviously not very excited about her turn to repeat this fiasco. She went backstage, and then the music started. But she was nowhere to be found. They restarted the music, and still, nothing. The host had to go back stage and give her a little pep talk or something. She finally walked across the stage with the boa, but wasn't too happy about it.

Contenstant number 2 started, but she didn't seem very coordinated. She hardly bent her legs as she went across the stage. Lane and I were asking eachother why she was walking so strangely. As she dipped down to go into the final pose on the chair, she just kept going and somersaulted over herself completely losing her balance and fell on the stage. We quickly realized that her lack of coordination was due to her inebriation.

Contestant numero 3 was a crazy 65 yr old Canadian lady. She must have misunderstood the directions, because she came out MARCHING across the stage, using the boa as if it were a set of nunchucks, she was karate kicking her legs around and doing 360s. She was ninja lady. It was SOOO funny. It was like she was trying to intimidate the audience, rather than entice them.

The last girl actually followed the directions. She was also the only girl the audience would have liked to see follow the directions. She was a young hot Spanish girl.

Next, they each had a minute to go out in the audience to kiss all the guys they could. Canadian Ninja lady misunderstood the directions again. She went out in the audience and just kissed her husband over and over again. Afterwards, the husband (who was clearly drunk off his ass) stood up and started flexing his muscles and grunting.

The last round that we stayed for was all out mayhem. Each girl was supposed to go out in the audience and collect as many articles of clothing as possible, each of varying point value. Some of the girls were pulling clothes off of people, but some guys in the audience were taking off their own clothes and chasing the girls down to give them the "points."

At the end of the round there were huge piles of shirts, shoes, and pants on the stage. The host said everyone would have ONE minute to go on stage to collect their belongings. They started flashing lights, blasting house dance music, and even used the strobe light. It was absolutely ridiculously retarded. We just couldn't pull ourselves away from this Sabado Gigante inspired extravaganza. It gave us a lot of laughs.

Pics from the Dominican Republic

This is a busy weekend. More on our trip soon :)

Wacky Weekend

We were supposed to go out to this jazz club called Vegas Lounge on Friday night with some of my co-workers. Lane and I decided to rest up before a night out on the town. Unfortunately, this plan didn't work so well for us, because we ended up just staying home. So, we are old, what can I say?! Sometimes it's just a good idea to have the party start right after work so you don't have a chance to realize how tired you are.

Saturday, we went to an afternoon picnic for Lane's work. It was outdoors with all the bbq food you could ask for, beer and wine, even crab, but I'm not really down with using a hammer to my food and all the mess, so I held back there. It was also super cold. We were all bundled up and stood by the fire. Lane and I decided to jump in the kids bounce house to warm up. It was funny. Trampolines are way better though. We also decided to be the first to use the sumo wrestling costumes... YES, sumo wrestling. So, after I wrestled a while just to get into the costume, I battled against Lane who wrestled his whole childhood (sans the huge costume). Needless to say, he totally kicked my ass. We were laughing so hard, and I kind of didn't want to get out of the costume that enveloped me because I was finally cozy warm. It was so liberating when we did take the costumes off. I could see the ground, i could actually hug Lane. wow. Here we are all sumo'd out:

So at the picnic, we made plans with some of Lane's co-workers to go out later that night in Chinatown. Lane and I went home and sat in the car deciding if we should go upstairs. The reason we had this conversation was that the power was off in our apartment building for the WHOLE day (this was planned). But this meant no hot water, no using the fridge, no lights, and most importantly to those who live on the twelfth floor, NO ELEVATOR!!!! We braved it and I realized quite how out of shape I was.

Later that night we had fun out on the town with Lane's co-worker Wes and his lovely wife Ioana and some of their buddies, one of whom was Jesus for halloween also. What are the chances?!?! I got to see my long lost dear Katie that night also. It has been way too long since we've caught up.

The fiasco began as soon as we left. We were waiting and waiting for the metro, but the yellow line wasn't even on the schedule board. During this time, I realized how much I had to go pee. Lane went upstairs to check on the schedule, and seriously, the second he went up was when the train popped on the schedule, scheduled to arrive in just two minutes. I tried franctically to call him, but it wasn't working. I even yelled his name. The train came, and was waiting an extra long time.. i ran up the escalator to find Lane, but didn't see him, so I went back down. (in this time, unbeknownst to me, Lane ran down the escalator, ran up the platform, looking for me, and since he didnt' see me, he hopped on the train, thinking I was on it also). In the meantime, my urge to pee was growing exponentially by the minute. And the next train wasn't arriving for 13 more minutes. I finally realized Lane was on the train already. He turned around, went back to meet up with me, and made it 1 minute before our train arrived. By this time, I was ready to burst. I'd never had to pee this bad in my whole life. I was also ready to cry, because, well I never had to pee this bad in my whole life. Our train ride was about 10 minutes. After we got off the train, Lane suggested that I pee in the bushes. I was *not* going to pee in the bushes, are you crazy!?!? I started walking away and realized how much I really, really, really, REALLY had to go. So, I walked up a little hill and peed. I can't believe it came to that. I had a glass of wine and a glass of juice, it wasn't like I was drinking all night. so that was a first. But I felt like a new person afterwards. I said, at least I'd have sometime to put in the blog.

Sunday, we did pre-thanksgiving shopping for all those non refrigerated items. And since Lane had to work on Veteran's Day, I decided to be super duper housewife and did laundry, cleaned, organized, cooked, etc. It was so weird to be finished eating dinner before I usually start cooking it.

We have to pack for our trip soon because we leave on Thursday. yay! The very day after we get back, David and CHristianne arrive. That's when we have to do mad thanksgiving grocery shopping and start the cooking bananza.

Weekend in the Kitchen

Since it's been almost two whole weeks, without any mention of my kitchen adventures, I thought it was time to share.

Lane was feeling under the weather this weekend, so we stayed in and he rested. Thank goodness he's sick now, instead of next week. So I made him a HUGE pot of chicken soup.

Yesterday, I made banana bread, but just for the fun of it tossed in a bunch of fresh cranberries. Hadn't ever tried that before. After I tasted it, I wish I had put in more cranberries. They are wonderfully tart bursts of flavor. I decided plain banana bread is just boring.

But the grand finale of the weekend kitchen adventures was my butternut squash ravioli. On Saturday I roasted the squash and made the filling. Lane and I cheated by using wonton wrappers as the pasta. We cooked them up in a delicious sage butter sauce with red pepper flakes and garlic. We finished them off with toasted pine nuts. Lane made a salad with fresh apple slices, goat cheese, dried cranberries and pecans. We are definitely making this recipe again.

....

So, in my (long ago) 100 things about me post, I shared that I always have weird dreams. Here's a little tidbit to give you the picture: I had this dream that I was supposed to be at work, but was with my mom in Santa Cruz instead at this little international crafts bazaar and then remembered I should call work. She handed me her cell phone which was this oversized big yellow, juicy half pear shaped number. When I pressed the buttons they squished around and I couldn't remember who my boss was or who to call. The next thing I knew, Lane and I were at our apartment and someone was banging on the door. We opened it up to some really raggedy looking neighbors this one guy immediately punched Lane in the face. I gasped in horror and tried to yell at him, but nothing would come out. This guy stormed inside and started yelling at Lane for stealing his 3/4 cup measurer.

??? I don't get it either.

Vacation Update

Today I had to send an email to a colleague at the Dominican Red Cross who I met at my conference in Panama. Since I was already corresponding with her about the affected disaster areas for Tropical Storm Noel, I decided to ask her if Boca Chica was affected. I needed to know if I had to cancel my trip or not. Yeah, it may have been a little inappropriate, but I knew I wouldn't get more accurate information anywhere else.

I was elated to learn that the beaches at Boca Chica were minimally affected. Now I know exactly the areas that were affected and can see them on a map in relation to where I'm going, and can finally breathe a huge sigh of relief.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

No vacation for us??

I just came back from a total bummer of a meeting. It was a disaster briefing on Tropical Storm Noel, which is headed toward the Bahamas and has recently hit Cuba, Haiti, and (what luck) la República Dominicana. Yes, that Caribbean vacation hot spot I am supposed to be heading to (for a much deserved 5 days of complete sunshine and utter relaxation with my over-worked, loving husband whom I rarely see these days) in exactly two weeks. I learned all sorts of interesting factoids about the current haps of the DR– for instance, the rains from Tropical Storm Noel have caused flooding and landslides throughout the country. About 34,000 people have been affected and more than 19,000 have been evacuated. Infrastructure including roads, bridges, electrical power lines, and agriculture has been damaged. But my personal favorite tidbit of unconfirmed 411 was that while the DR is reaching out to international aid organizations for assistance, they are not officially declaring a state of emergency, as it could impact local tourism.

HELLO!

I’ve checked the maps and the actual storm hit the westernmost portion of the country, while we are supposed to be staying in the south east. I will have to do some research. I thought I was being so smart by taking a trip at the last two weeks of hurricane season (June 1 – Nov 30) and getting hurricane insurance. We’ll see what happens.

I am still very determined to take this vacation. Stay tuned for more.