Happy Anniversary to Us!!

It's been THREE whole years (from yesterday)!!! WOW we're getting up there!
To celebrate we went to a popular fondue joint last night in downtown Minneapolis. It was fun! It was our first official fondue experience, where you actually cook your food in the hot liquid of choice. I actually got Mike to try lobster without a fight! He wasn't too impressed. They give you a sample of different meats with sauces so it looks like you end up eating a lot but not really. All the samples were small pieces. The meal ended with a chocolate peanut butter fondue that we dipped strawberries, bananas, pineapple, marshmallows, brownies, pound cake and cheesecake. That was by far the best. We'll have to go back just for dessert next time, of course, how many times do we all say that and never do!?
In that past we've gone to a bed and breakfast for the weekend. But since this time of year it's cold, make that beyond cold up here, and I'm out of commission on any winter sports, we are going to wait till it warms up. We'll make it a combo anniversary/last-getaway-before-baby-comes weekend. That is if it warms up here in April!!
To all my southern family and friends that would be a stable 40 degrees!!

Belated Valentine's on How We Met

Kecia wanted her friends to post about how they met their husbands, so here's our story:
Summer 2003 at Lone Tree Lakeshore camp on Elephant Butte Lake, NM
This was my second summer there and Mike's first. The camp directors, Eric and Nikki, knew me from the previous year and knew Mike from college, which is why he was coming to work at camp. I was one of the first staff there and was asking Nikki about the new staff coming in. She told me about them and then about Mike. While talking about Mike she threw in that she thought we would probably start dating this summer. She could picture us together and then told me about his long hair and beard. She also said that she can't say anything to him about it because he might not act on it on his end. So...I was stuck with this info not knowing what to do and a little nervous when we first met.
The first few conversations with others involved him putting his foot in his mouth twice. One comment was about these red neck/hick people on TV using this round thing on their dinner table to pass things around. I said yeah, a lazy susan, we had one of those, not realizing I'd just labeled my family as red neck/hick. But I think it embarrassed him more than me!! Fun stuff!!!
His first impression of me was a camp nerd (coming from a computer geek!) I just remember he was shy but a hard worker.
The good part was that I was his boss for part of the summer. Towards the end he'd follow me around trying to anticipate what I was about to do and do it for me. Sweet, but a little annoying since I liked to pull my own weight.
Our first date was eating Thai food and going to see Finding Nemo. Previously, he'd said he didn't like cartoon movies but quickly changed his mind after seeing my interest in the movie.
After summer ended we decided our relationship was worth trying over long distance. A year later I moved to Idaho, to actually live in a non-camp setting in the same town to make sure we could stand each other! Turns out we could!!
We will be married three years on Feb 27th!

Africa pictures

Instead of painstakingly adding each picture to a post, I got smart! With Mike's help, I added photo albums to the right so you can look at the rest of our trip's pictures. Have fun browsing!

Baby Update starting third trimester

I'm now at week 29 which is really hard to believe. I apologize for not posting more about my pregnancy but it has thankfully been uneventful. As you can see from the picture I am showing but still not as much as you probably expected. Since I'm tall I won't be really big till the end if even then, I'm told. But everything is going right on schedule and all test have turned out fine.
I've been putting off registering just because it is such a daunting task. The first time Mike and I walked into Babies R US we were extremely overwhelmed. But my goal is to get it done this week!!
Another reason the registering and baby buying has been put off is that we are in a one bedroom apartment. We really just don't have room to keep all the stuff and it helps us also to not go overboard on what we want verses what we think we'll really need!!
If any of you have items that were a must-have please let me know!!
Also if any of you have or are using cloth diapers, I'd love to hear what has and hasn't worked. I've decided to go that route but there are so many option available now, it's hard to know where to start.
A fun note: there are two other first time moms in our Sunday school class. One is due in March, then April and then me in May. SO I'm lucky to be last to learn from them as their babies come!!

Out of Africa: Part 2

As you can see from the previous picture that Kenya is very sunny!! We were almost blinded coming off the plane out into the open. We didn't realize how big the plan was until you are on the ground looking up, to the left and right. Huge plane!!
Kenya kind of reminded us of Mexico as far as the driving rules are merely suggestions instead of enforced laws! Mom did a great job driving but it was a little stressful until we got used to it.
After a day or two of down time we went on safari. Safari technically means a trip/vacation. But we did go on a safari, as we think of it, to a game reserve to see all the animals your used to seeing behind cages in the zoo. Cool thing here is the animals are actually doing something with a purpose instead of pacing back and forth or sleeping in the farthest corner away from you!! Amboseli game reserve was a very bumpy 4 hr drive south of Nairobi close to the Tanzania border. Even though we had to pay to get into the park there are no fenced boundaries. The animals are free to roam the country.
We stayed at a lodge in the park that did have a fence around it that kept all but the monkeys out. As we were driving to the lodge in the reserve we saw many different animals up close. We went on one drive that evening, then three the next day and supposed to do one more on the way out but plans changed, more on that later.

As for the animals that we saw: tons of elephants, zebras, wildebeest, hyenas, giraffes, monkeys, hippos, cape buffalo, gazelle, antelopes, many different birds, cheetahs, lions and warthogs. They don't have rhinos there and there aren't any tigers in Africa, apparently those are all in Asia. We saw lots of babies also.

Below are some of the best pictures from the MANY we took!

Warthog with three little babies, can you see them?

Hippo with elephants and Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background.
Hippos actually only come out of the water at night usually but we were fortunate to see this and another one out grazing.

Fish eagle

African circus parade!

The elephants were not too bashful, they are crossing infront of the truck.

More elephants crossing the road...

These were the smallest baby elephants we saw, so cute!!

More babies, monkeys that is...

I spy something cute and brown.
This was our first of two lion sightings.
You can tell they're used to the attention!

Yes, even safaris can have traffic jams!!

Ahhh, the two love birds.

More pictures to come...

Out Of Africa: compare and contrast

From cold windy North of the Equator Amsterdam
(8 plane hours later)
To warm sunny South of the Equator Nairobi

P.S. The water does swirl the opposite direction south of the equator!

Out Of Africa

Yes ,we are back from Africa, have been for a while but we hit the ground running as soon as we got back.
Our adventure started even before we left the states!! Our itinerary would take us through 3 international airports to finally get out of the states. So it seemed like half our travel time was spent in the states. On top of that the three airports where the twin cities, Chicago and Detroit, not the best picks for winter travel. We got to Chicago fine but Detroit was snowed under, which is where we would meet Lauren and get on our overnight flight to Amsterdam. Fortunately Lauren's plane got re-routed to Chicago so we could all be stuck together. At Detroit, we were going to get our bags and re-check them with another airlines to do the overseas flights. We were able to get a direct flight to Amsterdam from Chicago but our bags were on their way to the next flight to Detroit, so we took the flight thankful we'd packed clothes in the carry-on bags and hoping our luggage would show up sometime in Kenya!
We arrived in Amsterdam in the morning so we would technically have a full day of sight seeing to do in town. Total we probably spent maybe 5 hours out, we took a canal boat tour which is a good way to see Amsterdam, specially when it's freezing and windy outside! The boats where enclosed with glass sides and roof. Mike and I decided we could definitely live in one of the many house boats in the canals. After passing up the Mexican restaurant for an authentic Dutch place we walked around some more then headed back to the airport for showers and sleep. After the entire trip we became well acquainted with Amsterdam's airport.
To Be Continued.....