Nursery Before

These pics aren't too exciting but here are the before pics of the nursery. I promise it was even more pink than you can tell from these pictures. The lighting is horrible when we took these. It took three coats of primer and paint in one to cover up the pink glow and still I swear I can see pink if I look hard enough.

As you can see we had already started taping. Now the room has been painted and it is almost finished so you will get to see some after pics soon!

Visit from Friends

Last month Peggy and Will came to Texas to visit and we had a ton of fun! We did quite a few different things but here are just a few pics from the weekend.....

(Above) Of course we had to visit the Alamo and take the touristy pics
(Below) Rudy's!

We went to Gruene ("Green") Texas on the way to the outlet malls and ate at The Gristmill Restaurant on the river.

We had a lot of fun exploring the town and having them stay with us! Come back soon!!!

Port Aransas

After the museum and aquarium we were pretty tired so we drove to the hotel in Port Aransas and then layed out on the beach and enjoyed the breeze. Nick decided to test the waters and sure enough it was warm! Very un-beachlike if you ask me but it was a nice change.

We then went to explore and find a restaurant to go to for dinner. I wasn't really impressed with the selection in Port Aransas but we settled on this interesting Spaghetti place and the food was just ok. The next day we set out to explore more of the town.

We found this jetty to walk out on and we sat and listened to the waves and watched people fish. We were on the lookout for dolphins!

And we found some!! Below is a picture of them- sorry they are far away but we left the video camera in the car so not a very good zoom. We had our binoculars and we spent a good hour or two watching them and enjoying the beach.

So after the dolphin watch we decided to do some touristy shopping. They had a few of those big beach shops with t-shirts and they all had some type of shark outside to tempt you to come in and spend money. I was very dissapointed that there were not shops like the beaches I am used to but we still had fun seeing what they had to offer. We took a few pics outside the shops but as you can see below my camera was not cooperating and did not want to open the shutter- I think the pic still looks cool though.

So that pretty much wraps up the beach trip. It was just a quick trip to the coast and back so not too many pictures- sorry. Overall we had a fun time even in the hot hot weather. It made me miss home and the Oregon Coast beaches so we will have to plan a trip home next summer and spend time there instead!

USS Lexington

Our next stop in Corpus Christi was the USS Lexington Museum. We went up and down tons and tons of stairs and saw all the inner workings of the battleship. It was a really good workout with so many stairs (that with my pregnant belly I had to climb up and down like ladders) and the hot hot weather. Here are some pics....

Nick and a big gun type thing- we were waiting here for the movie about fighter pilot training to start. The movie was actually pretty cool and I loved that the theater was the only place around that had a/c!

I can't remember what this room is called but it is where the captain steers the ship and below is what I am looking out at.

I used to have a thing for the Blue Angels when they would come to Hillsboro for the airshow every year so here is Nick and one of their planes on top of the battleship

Here I am in one of the jail cells. We took one of Nick in the other one but I haven't photo shopped them together yet.

Overall it was fun to be touristy for the day! After the tour we drove to Port Aransas to find our hotel and relax on the beach. More pics to come!

Texas State Aquarium

For our 4- year anniversary this May we went to the coast to check out the sites. These pics are all taken at the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi.

We had the most fun in the underwater view room of the dolphins. Not only was it air conditioned but they played some good music and there were places to sit. Corpus Christi was super super humid and warm the day we went so we stayed with the dolphins for a while.

I really liked this picture- we took all these pictures with our new camcorder and even though this little otter was pretty far away we were able to capture him with the new camera. Isn't he cute?

They had a few different tanks with sting rays in them that you could touch but these were off limits because they still had their stingers and were really big compared to the hands on exhibits.

This picture is looking across the water at our next stop! The USS Lexington which was turned into a museum. I will post some pics on that and the rest of the trip soon! Enjoy the movie below of Shadow the dolphin playing basketball!

Trip Home and Baby Shower

In April I took a trip all by myself and left Nick all alone in Texas. It was very sad for him but I had a lot of fun. First of all I got to fly to Idaho Falls and stay with my sister in Rexburg while she finished up her finals and then I drove her back to Vancouver. It was a fun couple of days but I definitely do not miss Rexburg or college life at all. It made me appreciate a home of my own with no need to share a space with five other girls. (Sorry no pics from the drive or from Rexburg- there really isn't anything to see anyways). When we arrived back in Vancouver we promptly headed to the beach with Mom and the puppies! The pic below is taken on the beach in Newport where my sister in law's family has a beach condo that they let us stay in. Many thanks to them because it was the perfect little getaway!

After the beach we had a week of shopping, hanging out and right before I left I had a baby shower! Here are some of the pics from the day.....

Nummy food and treats

Fun games (above: Jen playing the pee pee game, below:the winners of the pee pee game)

Above: Matching game with fun prizes
Below: Me opening one of the presents!

It was great to see so many people! High school friends, college friends, family and more friends!

Jenn loves taking pics and more pics!

Thanks to everyone who came or sent a gift- it was great to see/hear from everyone. Hopefully I will be home again at the end of August for a wedding so I look forward to maybe seeing some of you again soon!

Baby Boy

So in case you haven't heard the news, Nick and I are expecting this little guy to be appearing sometime around July 23rd of this year. We are pretty excited and everything has been going well so far. No names have been chosen and might not ever be chosen at the rate we are going but we still have time since I am only a little over half way there.
Nothing else new is really going on around here except that I am very excited to be flying to visit Jenn at school and then we will be driving home to Vancouver and I will be staying for a week there!
P.S. Sorry I totally skipped Christmas posts but unfortunately my laptop has finally died and the pictures which are on there have yet to be retrieved by Nick. Basically we had a ton of fun visiting family in Sweet Home and Vancouver and even made a trip to Seattle for the day. It snowed in Vancouver and a snowman was made, pictures were taken and more fun was had! That pretty much sums up Christmas vacation. Since then we have been in Texas waiting for the weather to get nice, doing little house projects, and making summer plans! More posts to come as soon as I take some pictures!