Good times with good friends

Tyler has made it to Korea safely, has unpacked everything and already has a broken computer.  I guess he's officially in his new home!  He's enjoying his job (even though he's not exactly sure what it is yet) and getting settled in.  It's going to be a long year, but we're certain it will go quickly.

I'm spending a week with my best friend, Sarah, and her sweet little family.  It's been such a blessing to spend quality time with my childhood friend and her children, a gentle reminder of the circle of life.  Evelyn is three-and-a-half and an energetic one at that!  She runs whenever possible, even between her play room and the kitchen, LOVES to entertain her new baby sister and has a heart of gold.  She's always good for a smile, a giggle or a tickle!  Vivian, the new baby, is five months old and the smiley-est baby I've ever met!  She is almost always happy and has just started eating solid foods--butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and oatmeal--she loves them all!  As I said, I'm so blessed to have the opportunity to spend good quality time with them and be a part of their lives. 

Here are a few of my favorite pics, so far:

It's a girl!

We checked out the "business end" at our ultrasound on Monday and the tech was pretty certain that she didn't see any boy parts.  Pink frilly dresses, here we come!  My friend Grizellie is already hard at work on a tutu and matching hair bows.  Would that be an appropriate "coming home from the hospital" outfit?  We're still working on feeling like there will be a real baby in our midst sometime soon (only four-and-a-half more months!), but it's taking some time.  Seeing her wiggling around in there and feeling her ninja moves have definitely helped!  We're considering Samurai Sam (obviously short for Samurai again) as a good name.  Any suggestions?

In related news, we went hiking on Sunday at Lake Mead.  It was a gorgeous day, which we wasted by sleeping in and not arriving to the Nat'l Park until about 2:30pm.  Then, we ate a delicious, greasy diner lunch on the lake (burger and fries for Tyler, grilled chicken with swiss and 'shrooms and fries for me) and finally headed out to hike about an hour before sunset.  Great planning, Guenzels.  We'd planned to walk a trail, about five minutes from the diner, where the railroad originally ran to get supplies from the nearest city (not sure which one) to the Hoover Dam site, which would've included the original tunnels.  That would've involved leaving the actual park, which we paid $5 to enter in order to eat our greasy lunch, so we chose a different hike that was a 20-minute drive away.  We hiked for about an hour (walking about 1 mile per hour--Pregzilla can't go too fast) and finished just as the sun was setting--gorgeous!

Us at the 200 ft "summit" of our hike.  Lake Mead in the background.

People were feeding popcorn to the ducks and carp.  The carp were jumping out of the water to get to it first.  The ducks also WALKED on top of the carp to get to the popcorn.  G.R.O.S.S.   Where is the "please don't feed the wildlife" sign???

 

 

Hey everyone--check out my mad photography skills.  I'm learning!

Bambino Newsletter, vol. 1

Hey!  Look!  My belly is most decidedly bigger than last week!  Mom keeps telling me that this is normal, but it's still surprising to me. 

As for the biggerness, I'm glad to know that all of the discomfort I felt last week (I had to take two full days of only sitting--and it wasn't as torturous as I had imagined, so I must've REALLY needed it!) was worth it.  Bambino must've been growing like a weed in there, because now I can feel him/her moving around!  Until now, I've thought I felt it a little bit, but wasn't quite sure.  It started to be more consistent yesterday morning after I drank a delicious cappuccino, so I figured the caffeine was the culprit.  But then, as we sat in our hotel room last night, if I was still for more than a few minutes, I could feel it again!  Eventually I wondered, "I can feel it on the inside, but can I feel it on the outside, too?"  I put my hand very gently on my tummy and could feel a couple of little kicks!  I called Tyler over but he got bored waiting for another one.  I think Bambino got stage fright.  But THEN! as I was sitting in bed, reading while Tyler tried to fall asleep, I made him put his hand on my tummy and he felt two really good ones.  He immediately yanked his hand away and looked at me with such a look of disgust that I laughed so hard, I cried!  It feels like an alien to him, and I'm not really surprised, since it's not very often that there's something moving around inside your tummy. To me, it felt a little strange at first, but now, it's really reassuring to know that he's/she's doing well in there and shakin' his or her groove thang.  I told Tyler yesterday that if this keeps up, Bambino is going to come out with a ninja mask on, even if it's a girl!  Today, as I sit here at the computer, he's wiggling around in there, saying, "Hey Mama, what are we going to do today?"  SO cool!  I'm sure that once he or she gets bigger and I can feel jabs to my bladder and stomach and lower back, it will be a little more uncomfortable, but no less cool.

By the way, I'm really looking forward to knowing if Bambino is a girl or a boy for the sole reason that then I don't have to keep saying and typing "he/she."  I think it will be a couple more weeks.

We're coming to America...

Well, actually, we've made it to America!  We spent a fabulous week with our families in Lincoln before arriving in Las Vegas last night.  We had a whirlwind last two months in Europe, so here's the rundown:

We took a cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean during most of November!  The pictures are on our other computer, but Tyler uploaded the best ones to facebook.  The itinerary included a day at sea between each day at port, so we had a great schedule of walking like crazy one day and reading on the deck all day the next.  We embarked in Barcelona, after spending a full day there.  It was a cool city but we felt like one day there was sufficient.  After Barcelona, we were at sea for a day and spent it exploring the ship.  It was nice, but the colors were SO LOUD, as were many of the people.  We used the ship as a means to an end--getting to see all of the cities that we did--not for the cruise itself.  For that reason, it was a great trip!  We saw Rome (we walked around to see the highlights again), Athens (we saw Keramikos, the ancient cemetary and entrance to the city and walked the shopping area), Ephesus (we stood on the steps where Paul actually spoke to the Ephesians--amazing!!), Cairo (we rode camels and saw the pyramids), Malta (kind of small after the other huge cities we'd visited, but quaint) and back to Barcelona.  We disembarked on Thanksgiving Day, so caught a cheap flight to Dublin for the rest of the weekend.  They spoke English there!  It was MUCH colder there than we'd previously experienced, but we had our hats and coats and our love to keep us warm.  All in all, a perfect "capstone" trip!

In December, we took our last trip through Bavaria, our favorite region of Europe.  We stopped in Villach at their cute little Christmas market, in Salzburg at our favorite brewery Augustiner, in Munich to see their Christmas market and Dachau, then to Andechs--our other favorite brewery.  Five days of eating würstel, sauerkraut and brezn and beer-drinking for Tyler.  We definitely planned this pregnancy wrong!

Also in December, we had our farewell from the squadron, where Splinter fake-made out with me (a fighter squadron tradition...kind of) and Otis said some really nice things about Tyler.  The squadron Christmas party was at a castle, where Tyler drank our money's worth in wine--no small feat!  We outprocessed painfully, but that's standard, and packed up our house with only a few minor mishaps.  I cried really hard on the plane as we left because we've made some amazing friends that made the adventure of living in Europe that much better.  We'll miss them much.  It's always sad to leave but exciting to arrive somewhere new.  Ok, I don't know how exciting billeting at Nellis will be, but we're off to new adventures!

 

Our last trip to Venice before we move

This weekend, we had thought about going to Florence, but decided we had too much to do this weekend before we left for our cruise, so we took a day trip to Venice instead.  It was great weather, we got really lucky because it has been raining pretty much everyday (standard European fall/winter weather).  Since we've been there so often, we didn't have anything that we had to see, so we had a nice time just wandering around.  We ended up meandering our way to Saint Mark's Square and the Arsenal.  As we started our trip back, we stopped in a glass shop and bought some fancy water and wine glasses to go with our china.  Our table will fit eight people, but we decided to buy 12 of each since it will probably be fairly hard to replace them as a couple break here and there.  It was a little strange walking in the city that we have spent so much time in but will probably not go back to for many years.