Family Adventures

I was lucky enough to be able to take off nearly 4 full months of work for maternity leave. I must say, I don't know what I would have done if I had to go back to work any sooner. I really enjoyed every minute of it even if it was completely exhausting and a bit challenging, it was amazing watching Gunnar grow into a little human.



After both of our moms were in town for visits, we were able to go on our first family adventure...camping! It was a little cold and rainy, but Gunnar took it like a champ and seemed to enjoy being outside so much!





Our next adventure was to fly across the country to Georgia for Aaron and Chena's wedding! Gunnar did great on his first flight and slept most of the time. He was still at the stage where if he started crying I could just feed him to make him calm down, so it worked out great. He did great at all the wedding festivities and bouncing around from place to place sleeping in different beds and cribs. Hopefully that means he's pretty adaptable.











Next adventure was Michigan! Gunnar and I flew up there by ourselves for a couple of weeks before Ryan joined us just in time for the next wedding! It was a good relaxing getaway and Gunnar really started to talk and interact a lot more at this point.











Next big adventure was Gunnar's first backpacking trip! Aaron came in town for a visit and we hiked in about 3.5 miles to Annette Lake, set up camp and spent the night there. It was a perfect distance to start with and the lake was a beautiful backdrop to our little camp ground. I was nervous that it would get too cold at night for Gunnar, but he managed to sleep through it all!









Last big adventure for the summer was a weekend getaway on the Columbia River with 3 other families. I was a pretty relaxing weekend, but Gunnar got to try out playing in some water for a bit on nice sunny days. He also got to hang out with another baby all weekend...not that they really interacted at all...but they will someday soon!



Gunnar's Birthday!

Yeah, it's been a long time since I've posted anything...oops. So the big update is that we are now parents. That's still crazy to say and it's been over 4 months now! It really just feels like we have a slightly more high maintenance and more expensive puppy. So here's a little catching up, starting with Gunnar's birthday!

April 5th I woke up a little before my alarm thinking my water may have broken. Sorry, TMI, but it may have just been a little leakage. I still felt a little funny, but knew that I had a OBGyn appointment around lunch that day anyway, so I went into work thinking I would just ask the doctor about it later. Nothing else really happened all morning other than I was feeling a little crampy. I continued on with several meetings and running around to job sites all morning. At my doc appointment she confirmed my water had not broken and that I was not dilated at all, which convinced me that the baby was not actually on his way out at all. Ryan and I grabbed some lunch before he dropped me off at work to finish off the day. I walking into my office to drop things off then started walking out to another meeting when my water for sure broke this time! I quickly waddled off to the rest room to clean myself up then tried to go back to work, but I had several subsequent gushes that needed to be cleaned up. That finally convinced me that I should probably have Ryan come back and pick me up. I frantically wrote down a bunch of notes for my replacement and met with her before leaving work around 4pm. I set my out of office and let my boss know that there was a good chance I was not coming in the next day. I called the hospital and they told me to come right in. We dropped Ben off at the house and headed to the hospital. I still wasn't having any kind of contractions so I figured it would be a while. The confirmed that my water had broken so they admitted me, but when the doctor had checked me out around 6pm I wasn't really dilated so again I figured it would be a while still. I was starting to get some light contractions by then, but nothing too bad. All of a sudden...BAM...light contractions turning into full on labor and pushing a baby out! They were still trying to get my fluids IV in my hand (I have the world's tiniest veins apparently). I asked at one point if it was too early to get an epidural. In my mind I assumed I was still in the beginning staged of labor and thought it was going to get way worse and last for a lot longer. I didn't think I could handle that. Turns out it was already about the worst it was going to get and I didn't have too much longer. They didn't have time for that epidural anyway. Apparently I wasn't breathing enough through the contractions and the baby wasn't getting enough oxygen, so they strapped an oxygen mask to me...which I guess I decided to get a bloody nose into...super cute I'm sure. They turned me on my side (which at that point was super difficult to move at all) and started having me push. My eyes were shut and I have no idea what was going on in the room, but I remember the doctor telling me that I needed to get the baby out ASAP, so the next contraction I had, I pushed with everything I had...and a baby came out at 8:35pm. I think I remember actively pushing only twice. Ryan told me later than they were prepared for having to rush the baby off to revive him because they were scared off how low his heart rate was getting during labor. Little dude came out like a champ and they handed him right over to me! Another fun fact...I was still in the dress I wore to work that day because everything happened so fast I hadn't had a chance to change yet!









Everything still seems like such a blur of people running around checking everyone's vitals and doing tests for the first few hours. I was also in quite a bit of pain at the point and couldn't really move, but they gave me the baby for a while and we did lots of feeding and napping at that point. We stuck around the hospital for another day and a half getting monitored and doing lots of tests and eating lots of hospital food and watching harry potter. On the 7th (his actual due date) we got to take him home. I was a little shocked that they didn't really check us out or anything, we just walked right out with our baby.



Catching up

I've been getting pretty terrible at blogging lately...maybe my new iPhone will make it easier to upload things now. So what's been going on the last couple of months...?

 

We went to San Francisco for Thanksgiving where my parents also happened to be visiting, so the WHOLE family was there...including the 2 crazy pups who had a blast together. There was a lot of food and a lot of football.

 

We went to Georgia for a little over a week for Christmas/new years. My parents also happened to be driving back from Florida while we were there, so they stopped for a night in Columbus to have dinner with us and hang out with the Stephensons.

 

We got back to Seattle the day before my birthday, so I mostly spent my birthday relaxing and getting ready for going back to work the next day. Later that week though we celebrated with some friends and Ryan took me to see The Book of Mormon, which was awesome ;)

 

MLK Weekend we ditched the good ole US of A and hung out in Whistler, BC for the weekend. I was suuuuper tempted to go snowboarding, but my bump is getting a bit more bumpy these days, so on top of the fact that none of my gear would fit me right now, I didn't feel super comfortable with snowboarding without falling and injuring my unborn child. Instead, I did lots of relaxing, hung out with the dog, went shopping, etc. I did get to partake in night snow tubing though and that was actually way more fun than I was expecting!

 

That pretty much brings us up to speed. Now it's February and the count down is on...2 more months till baby is here!! Lots to do around the house to get ready. The crib is all put together...with no where to put it yet. We're renovating the basement to move the washer/dryer down there and add lots of storage so we can turn the laundry room into a baby room. We'll see if it's done in time! We're also in the process of having a new deck built out front (it's up already, just need to fill in the siding on it so people don't fall through) and a new fence that should be starting to go up this week! Lots of fun and exciting things going on!

Babymooning in Thailand

Knowing that our travel flexibility might be a little constrained in the next couple of years,  I knew I wanted to go ahead and get another bucket list trip out of the way before we added to our family. I'd like to eventually check off all of the continents as places I've visited, so next up was Asia. After having our first baby appointment, one of the things I made sure to ask about was if I would be able to travel internationally while pregnant. I got the green light from the doctor and was approved for leave by my boss and booked our flights...Thailand here we go!





We left late Friday night after work and after about 16 hours of flying...including a quick layover in Taipei, we made it to Bangkok. We taxied over to our hotel and relaxed for a little bit in the pool before hitting the town. Our hotel was right by a train station, so we were able to easily hop on that and head into more of the downtown area to visit the big mall there, walk around a bit, and end up getting foot massages for an hour. It felt great after sitting on planes all day and walking around a ton, and it was sooooo cheap!















The next day, by then it was Monday due to all the time changing, we headed to the riverfront and hopped on a ferry down to some more touristy/historical sites. I really wanted to see the big Wat in town, Wat Pho. It was amazingly beautiful and I looooooved all the intricate colors!













After that we wandered across the street to try to wander around the Grand Palace. Upon trying to enter the grounds we were told we needed to be wearing long sleeves and long pants...mind you it's in the 90s out. So we walked to a nearby shop and purchased some cheap linen pants to throw on and walked back in. About 10 minutes of walking around we had to debate if we wanted to pay the admission fee to see more of the stuff. At this point I was crazy hot and exhausted and decided it wasn't worth it knowing I probably wouldn't last too long in long pants and a jacket...and being preggers. So we left there and walked around into a random market. At the end of the market there were boats offering canal tours, which sounded perfect to just sit and be whisked around on a boat getting a cool breeze, so that's what we did! It actually ended up being pretty awesome seeing the small canals where a lot of people lived in little shanty houses on stilts. I have no idea how those things stand up though and it looked like quite a few of them were in the process of falling into the canal. It was pretty neat to see that side of Bangkok though, and definitely much more relaxing than walking around in the heat.









After all that wandering, we headed back to the hotel to enjoy the pool, get some free food, and check out the rooftop bar at sunset. That was one of the selling point for staying at this hotel was the rooftop bar overlooking Bangkok. It was a great view to enjoy while sipping my mocktail ;)











The next day we had a lazy morning before wandering around the neighborhood near the hotel. We only had about an hour or so before we had to head to the airport for the next part of our trip. This time we were off to Phuket to enjoy the beach! We got to our resort (which was pretty amazing) Tuesday late afternoon and got situated before hitting up the pool for a bit and getting some dinner nearby. It was a great little bit of relaxation!









The next day after a relaxing morning, we headed into the town of Phuket for the day to wander around and....to see monkeys!!! That was one of the big things I wanted to do there. There's a place called monkey hill that is essentially a random hill with a communications tower on top. It was not super touristy as well, but as we got almost to the top of the hill...BAM...monkeys EVERYWHERE! There was literally a monkey road block as they were just strewn across the road. Some of them were playing in the trees, most of them were sitting around in their families picking bugs off of each other. They were so cute though!!









We wandered around town a little more doing a lot of walking...so after dinner we spent an hour in an amazing massage place getting our feet massaged. This place was by far the best one we went to. There was a koi pond and waterfall for ambiance, and they had big leather chairs to sit in that reclined back really far. I'm pretty sure I dozed off as soon as she got started on my feet. It was the perfect end to the day!

The next day was resort day...and it was perfect. We literally didn't leave the resort all day. Luckily, the resort was amazing, so it was a great place to be. After breakfast we spent most of the day at one of the many pools, reading in the sun and taking quick dips in the pool when it got too hot. This pool also had a pretty awesome swim up bar so we could take snack/drink breaks during our swims! We walked around the resort a little bit, but mostly just relaxed allllll day!

















Our last day in Phuket, I wanted to check out a little more of the outdoorsy stuff, so we set off on a day long kayaking trip through Phang Nga Bay. We hopped on a big boat to get out to the area then all separated into our kayaks and got to explore some islands and a couple of Hongs (lagoons inside the islands). Despite a bit of rain (which was light and warm anyway) the whole area was gorgeous and we got to see all kinds of unique animals and landscapes and enjoy some good food and a lovely sunset!



















The next morning we headed on back to Bangkok for a final evening. Since we got back to Bangkok on a Saturday, we hopped on over to the Weekend Market which was ENORMOUS! We definitely got lost in it a couple of times and felt like the twilight zone thinking we kept passing the same things over and over again without finding a way out! There were tons of random shops and all kinds of foods to keep us going for several hours. We even stopped for a quick foot massage at one point before we kept wandering. We ended up getting a few cheap things, but for the most part just enjoyed taking in the scenes.









The next day was the day we were leaving Thailand, but our flight wasn't until the evening, so we had all morning/afternoon to explore a little more. We saved today to fit in a little nerdy architecture touristing. There's an awesome building that was supposed to be completed years ago, but like most construction projects...is still not quite finished. It's close though, close enough to get the idea of what it looks like. So we hopped on a train over to check in out in person.





After that we took a walk back to the hotel which caught us in a downpour and we had to pop into a building for some lunch to wait it out. On the way back, we wandered through a huge park that was near our hotel. One of the interesting things in the park was that there were quite vicious looking monitor lizards (like 4-5 feet long) just wandering around on the river banks. Not sure if they would attack, but they were awfully close for comfort!

Finally we made it to the airport and settled in for our long flight home. The next week was ridiculous at work...I might not try to pack quite so much into a week off next time. I needed some serious recovery time!