Pregnancy

I figured after dropping the news in the last post that I am pregnant I should probably do a bit of an update. Baby Marshall is technically due on August 7, 2014, however I am not holding my breath that baby will actually agree, my fear is it will be the world's hottest summer on record and baby will hold out until an eviction notice is given and baby is forced out of the womb. Bring on the ice cream and the lake.

We found out we were pregnant back in December, actually on the same day that we closed on our new house. It was quite the surprise to us and not at all like we had planned, I feel like this is how these types of things generally work out. We are jazzed for sure.

A selfish downfall is my race schedule is pretty much non-existent for a while with baby coming in August. I still plan on running a couple 5ks but no halfs or even 10ks are on my calendar, which saddens me. I am not really certain I can bank on being able to run all that well this summer so attempting to do something more than a fun 5k sounds awful. Not to mention the treadmill makes me sick, literally. However, I have been swimming a TON of miles. New problem, maternity swim suits that are geared towards lap swimming rather than having your stomach hang out, they are few and far between and generally cost way more than I actually want to spend. Next year, I will be back running for sure. I have convinced Marc to run the Tower of Terror ten miler with me down in Disney world, not this October, but the following (yes, this seems ridiculously far off in the distance, however, I want a fun race on the calendar. I imagine registration will open up in February or so for the race). My parents, who took no arm twisting, agreed to come along on the trip so that someone can hang out with baby while we run.

I will also hopefully have Fargo 2015 under my belt (no commitment to distance yet, perhaps the 10k) and some fun summer runs. This summer is shot. Something about being seven through nine months pregnant and running sounds horrible.

I have been feeling less than ideal to put it mildy. Whoever named it morning sickness was lucky, I would have referred to it as all day and every day sickness and still going strong at this point (Yes, I am well aware it dies off for most people at 12 weeks, I am just extra "lucky" or something. No, the drugs don't do anything for it.) It sucks. I puke more than I care to admit and am at the point that I look at food and think "do I want to puke that back up" before eating it. Ridiculous.

We are excited for August for sure.
Bring on the world's hottest summer (which after this winter is next to impossible to imagine).


Any fun or exciting news in your world?
Life throwing you any curve balls lately?

Ten Months as a MRS

I just realized I missed our 9th month update. Life was nuts.

The Wonderful Things:

• We have gotten some spring days! but they are few and far between.
• My husband brought home two movies this past month for me (which we NEVER, or rarely hardly ever buy movies, mostly because we Netflix 99% of our movies or borrow from friends) and he got me the new Hunger Games movie and Frozen (LOVE THEM BOTH)
• We are making some serious progress on the basement. We insulated the basement ourselves and we don't hate each other like everyone told us we would. I would dare to say we even had fun doing it. We like doing projects that are within our abilities, we know when to call in a professional. We aren't above hiring someone else to do pieces of it.
• We went to Chanhassen Dinner Theater's version of The Little Mermaid, soooo wonderful
• We both had birthdays (Marc's is 4/3 and mine is 4/5)
• Our chickens have been shipped and should arrive tomorrow or Thursday - you have been warned that there will be a chick explosion on my page
• Marc has really gotten into woodworking/building things (he built our chicken coop) and it has been really fun to watch his skills develop and some of the fun stuff that he has built 
• once the weather gets nice and he can be out in the garage a little bit more I imagine he will be even more happy to be out there and it will be more fun to hang out there with him, I don't love hanging out in the cold 

The Things No One Ever Tells You About:

• It is hard to make decisions about how you are going to finish off your basement. Certain things I just don't know what to choose (yes, I know, first world problems) 
• which tub/shower to pick shouldn't be this hard
• which color of off white you want your primer to be really doesn't matter
• When boys are sick the world ends (I know I have had this one before, but seriously)
• I know being sick sucks and actually he did much better this time than before but still when boys get sick the world ends
• How amazingly wonderful it is when for a few hours you are totally caught up on all of your laundry, washed, dried, folded, and put away
• really I just feel wonderful whenever my house is totally clean
• Marc really is pretty good at helping with keeping our house clean 
• he really really really likes to vacuum, seriously, and takes it upon himself to vacuum up golden retriever about every other day - I will happily scrub the bathrooms to not have to do golden retriever every other day

The Miscellaneous Things:

• I still wish my family lived closer
• I am jazzed our basement is coming together, it will be AWESOME when it is finished.
• I am excited for Easter
• The camp I help to co-manage almost has a full summer calendar and that makes my heart happy because now we don't have to fret about meeting budget and what not

Welcoming a new decade

Today I enter a new decade of life. Good bye 20s and hello 30s.

My 20s were great. The highlight reel:

• I earned my bachelor's degree
• I earned my masters of divinity
• I was ordained
• I took my first call to full time ministry
• I got married
• I traveled the globe
• met amazing people and heard their stories
• smelled and tasted things beyond my wildest imagination
• took thousands upon thousands (literally) of photographs
• I learned more about myself 
• I ran my first half marathon (and have continued to run them)
• I bought 2 houses and sold 1
• I got my a golden retriever, Dakota
• I got pregnant (yep, you read that right, Baby Marshall is arriving early August 2014)
  

Hopes and Dreams for my 30s: (in no particular order)

• deliver a baby (eeeeeek)
• raise a wonderful child who lives to love and serve God
• Travel the globe
• payoff Marc's student loans
• finish the basement of our house
• go on a sabbatical (after 7 years in ministry at my current ministry site I am allowed a 3 month sabbatical)
• continue to run half marathons
• and other races - and place in the top 3 of my age bracket for some race (yes it can be a small race) - now that I am out of the 18-29 age bracket (seriously, how is that age bracket fair to those of us in the upper part of that bracket) it seems like this goal may actually be do able
• Grow in my photography skills 
• also in my photoshop/lightroom abilities
• live in the moment more often
• and live simply
•  keep up on my shutterfly books - I love looking through them when they are finished 
• read lots and lots of books
• crochet beautiful things

This list is only the beginning, as life always goes, we have NO CLUE what we are doing. However, I look forward to the years to come, good-bye twenties, you were good to me for sure. Hello, thirties, bring on the adventures.

"O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." (ELW pg 304)

Basement Update

You may as well be warned: there will lots of house updates in the next while, our basement is in full get it finished mode. This week we have the crew here taping and texturing our basement. It is impressive how much work they can get done. I am thankful for these guys because I don't even want to guess how many hours/weekends/months it would take Marc and I to do this. And to be REALLY honest, there is NO WAY it would look as nice as what they are doing. Thank God for professionals who work with sheet rock. We currently have our house warmer than I would want and their two massive fans as well as a few of our own fans blowing full power down there in hopes that the walls are dry enough that they can work again today.

It is a hurry up and wait type of process. We REALLY want to get this part done because this weekend we would have time to prime the walls and ceilings if they are ready for us to do it. Fingers crossed we can work our tails off this weekend on this. Yes, I am sure there will be a plethora of pictures to follow after this weekends thrilling (hopeful) paint party. 

Do you like doing projects on your house?
What is your favorite house project you have done on your house?

March Photo Dump

Sheetrock is hung in our basement

Duncan - 8ish weeks old Golden Retriever - visiting for the night

We got new snow boots & were chipping away at the ice

Learning the joys of icicles

While she has gotten huge sometimes
she still looks so small

So this picture is totally posed, but I think it is hilarious
I was noting that the insulation was set up for a perfect lounger
so I laid down and Marc snapped the picture. I think it is funny

Love this sweet nose & the golden retriever it belongs to

How can you not just laugh at this photo
Dakota was getting the snow off her face

Doggy bribery at it's finest

It only took me 3 years to get these hung in my office

INSULATING 

Marc's face makes me laugh on this one

Puppy whiskers (how many years can I get away calling her a puppy)

Dakota is not impressed with my photo taking of my blanket

sort of like the way this one looks in black and white

Golden Retriever A Palooza

One of our dear friends recently got a couple of golden retrievers, Duncan (the smallest golden retriever pictured below is 8ish weeks) and Echo (the middle sized golden retriever pictured below is 4ish months). One night she had meetings all night and so we got the opportunity to be on puppy patrol and it was MARVELOUS. Seriously, we snuggled the puppies and laughed as Dakota, Duncan, and Echo played together. Here are some of the pictures from our night with three golden retrievers in our house.

Who doesn't try to sit in the food bowl?!

3 sleeping golden retrievers = victory

How can you not just sit and snuggle them all?!

Do you have dogs?

Do you have a favorite breed?

Winter crochet project

      This winter I have FINALLY been working on a blanket for myself, I have made lots of other folks blankets, but I finally got to the point that I wanted to make mysefl one. SOOO this blanket was born, I semi adapted a pattern from some things I had seen  and the hours of crocheting began. I began just after Christmas and finished a couple of nights ago. It always takes me a couple days to get pictures and uploaded. The blanket measures roughly 83 inches long and 52 inches wide. It is obnoxiously big and I seriously lost track of how many skeins of yarn it took. I used Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Yarn," which I love and went to town. I actually only had one skein of each of the colors but then the grey is where I lost track of how many skeins I used. I do still have a pretty good ball left of each other colors, which is perfect by me because they will be transformed into other things (hats, mittens, baby booties, ear warmers, the list is endless). 

     My pictures aren't amazing of the blanket, but I have a hard time photographing crocheted blankets. The one picture is while I was laying on the floor attempting to get some pictures of the blanket and Dakota laid down right in front of me and it felt like she was almost rolling her eyes at me and telling me enough is enough, move on and come snuggle me or something other than take photos of this blanket. I love it though. I suppose the size is a little large, but I wanted to be able to tuck it under my toes (I am just shy of 6 foot tall) while laying down and be able to pull it up to my chin without having to stretch it out. It is plenty wide enough that I can either sit in my favorite chair at our house or curl up on the couch and nap in it.
     While I loved this project was fun and mindless (I watched countless movies this winter while working on this blanket) I am happy to be moving onto another project. What's next in my crochet world? Great question, traditionally in the spring/summer my crocheting slows WAY down due to my love of the outdoors, but I a dear friend of mine just had a little girl who clearly NEEDS some crocheted goodness, a blanket for my mother (she wants a big one as well, so that will take some time) and a few other things up my sleeve. I also want to try out a couple of new things. Keep your eyes peeled, there will be more crocheted wonderfulness coming down the pipe.
    Given the weather this Spring winter my guess is we won't be hanging out too much outside for a bit. BLAH craptastic weather, bring on spring.