It's a Boy!

If you live around here and haven't noticed you soon will since my stomach seems to be growing rapidly. If you live far away here is the official announcement, I'm Pregnant!

I had my first ob appointment about a week and a half ago and found out we are having a boy! The little guy is due on Sept. 18th which makes me 19 weeks.

Since it will be the first boy in our family on my side, my dad only has sisters and he only has daughters and granddaughters we wanted to make the announcement special for him. So we made and sent him this shirt.

Williamsburg

Mike had a Medical conference to attend in Williamsburg, Va and so the girls and I decided to tag along and make it a family vacation. We had a great time! We left for Williamsbug on Wed. a few days before the start of Mike's conference so we could take in some of the historic sites before hand. We arrive at our hotel Wed. afternoon. We got settled, went for a swim in the indoor pool, then out to dinner and back to the hotel for bed. Not too exciting but we were all tired from the drive across the state.

Thursday was a bit more exciting! After a quick breakfast we headed off to the Jamestown Settlement. It is a museum of 17th-century American history and culture that is just down the road from the original site of Historic Jamestowne. We learned all about the people who founded Jamestown, and the Virginia Indians that they met while here. They had gallery exhibits, a short film and outside we explored re-creations of the colonists' fort, a Powhatan Indian village and boarded the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery (the three ships that brought the settlers from England). I think both Mike and I would have liked to have spent more time exploring the expansive gallery exhibits, there is only so much you can do and learn with two small kids in tow. After our little history lesson we headed back to the hotel for a nice refreshing swim, it was in the 90's the first two days of our trip. After tiring our the girls we took in a early dinner at Golden Corral. Neither Mine nor Mike's first choice but it was the best place to take the girls, probably the least stressful dining out experience we had while on vacation.

Mike's "Rejuvenating Geriatric Care" conference started Friday and so after dropping him off at 7:30 am the girls and I had the rest of the day to ourselves. Unfortunately it ended up being a cold rainy day. We tried going out and exploring a bit but Natalya was not up for that and was very fussy. So we came back to the hotel and swam as long at Natalya would let us and then spent most of the rest of the day in the hotel room letting the girls nap and watch TV.

Jamestown Settlement

Powhatan Indian Village

On board a re-creation of one of the three ships that sailed to

Virginia in 1607 to establish the first permanent English colony in America.

Ahoy Matey!

Below deck on the Susan Constant.

Natalya is demonstrating how the early English settlers probably felt while on the journey over from England. There were about 52 colonists, all male that had to stay below deck most of the time sharing their space with supplies, chickens and dogs for 4 months.

The re-created Susan Constant is behind us.

We are standing on the Discovery.

Trying on armor at James Fort

Row, Row, Row your boat!

A Powhatan canoe

Saturday was another cold day and after dropping Mike off at his conference the girls and I headed to the Virginia Living Museum. I learned from the day before that we need to get out and go somewhere that the girls could run around inside. I found this museum to go to which ended up being perfect for both the girls! We all got to learn about the array of wildlife that live in the rivers, waterfalls, mountains and sandy coasts of Virginia. We got to see fish with no eyes, frogs that change color, moon jellies, the endangered red wolf and lots of fish. They had lots of hands of activities and a touch tank where Raquel and Natalya were able to see and touch different sea creatures. While there we got to see the Otters, Raccoon and Beavers being feed. It was so fun watching the otters swim around in their tank catching the fish to eat. It ended up being a very fun day with the girls!

Mike was done with his conference for the day around 2:30pm and so we picked him up and headed to Historic Jamestowne. Here we got to explore where the original 1607 James Fort was situated along the James River. We took a walking tour of the historic site which includes Old town and New Towne. In Old town we saw the site of the Fort, the 17th-centurey church tower and memorial church. Archeologist's are still excavating the site, it was only found in the 1990's. In New Towne we were able to walk along paths and see brick replicas that mark the excavated foundations of the expanded settlement. We also visited the Archaearium and saw artifacts they had found while excavating the James Fort. After a long day of exploring we headed back to the hotel for a swim.

The Virginia Living Museum

Here fishy fishy

Learning about sea creatures at the touch tank.

Smile!

Playing at the museum

Watching our money go round and round!

This was both Raquel and Natalya's favorite thing to do at the museum.

Historic Jamestowne

Standing in front of the Tercentennial Monument

at Historic Jamestowne.

Part of the reconstructed 1607 Fort

The James River

Walking along the James River

Posing with a Pocahontas Statue

What a great day at Historic Jamestowne!

Sunday Mike finished up his conference at noon. We got a quick bite to eat in Richmond and headed home. Over all I think everyone had a good time and Mike might let the girls and I tag along for another medical conference.

Easter

The Easter Bunny did make it to our house this year. He showed up on Sat. while we took a break from remodeling our pantry. The girls first found their Easter baskets and then headed outside for an egg hunt. The Easter Bunny got a little carried away with candy and eggs this year providing each kid with over 40 eggs filled to the brim with candy. Raquel collected most of them because as soon as Natalya figured out what was in the eggs she stopped to eat what was in it before collecting more. But in the end we dumped all the candy out into a bowl so that the whole family could partake of the mounds of candy.

Raquel found her Easter Basket!

Natalya enjoying her Easter candy from her basket.

Hunting for eggs!

Finding eggs in the tree

Sunday we cleaned up the house and got the water turned on just in time to have our neighbors (Ann, Wes and William) and Andrea Hall (a Dr. that works with Mike) over for Easter dinner. We ate our traditional Easter meal of ham, pineapple sauce, funeral potatoes, veggies, a salad and finished it off with strawberry shortcake. It all tasted great and I was able to make it minus sawdust from the pantry renovation.

Ann and Raquel enjoying the whipped cream from their strawberry shortcake.

Monday we finally got around to dying some Easter eggs. We got a kit that made tie dyed eggs, cool looking but very messy. Both Natalya and Raquel had fun making the eggs and making a mess, I don't know if more dye got on Natalya or the eggs.

Dying eggs, fingers and her mouth.

Tie-dying eggs!

Remodeling

Our weekend was filled with more than the Easter bunny and candy. We started a major renovation of our laundry room and pantry, later to continue on into our kitchen and hopefully make it more functional. We have spent the last four days removing, tearing down and re-plumbing. As all remodeling projects go it took longer than we had expected. The people that lived here prior to us were self re-modelers themselves and anything they build we have found is a pain to remove. If 4 nails are sufficient to hold a board to the wall, they would use 12 extra long nails along with 6 or 7 screws. We did manage to remove all the walls and floor with the help of lots of pry bars, brute force and a chainsaw.

We were without water for a few days and had to borrow our neighbors shower, washing machine and water to drink. But Mike was able to successfully reroute the plumbing and hook up the washing machine and dryer in their new location and restore our water. Very impressive I say since he had never done it before and was able to complete it with a few small leaks that he soon fixed.

Me modeling the shelves before we destroyed them.

The hole we created by removing the shelves.

Yes, thats a chainsaw he is using! Quite a handy tool in our remodeling project.

Removing the floor boards and paneling

Now we just have to decide how we want to start on the kitchen and start picking out new cabinets, flooring and tile. I'm such a bad decision maker it may take awhile for me to decide and so we may be working on this project for years. Anyone want to help me make a few decisions and help speed up the process?

While removing the flooring and walls this weekend Mike and I received a few bumps and bruises, not anything too serious. Unfortunately Natalya wasn't so lucky, while playing outside she fell down the front steps landing on her face.

While we were remodeling the girls spent a lot of time outside and playing with each other. They enjoyed the warm weather, swimming in the pool and having lunch outside. Here is a picture of them just out of the pool eating lunch while drying off.