San Francisco

Mat's family celebrates 30th birthdays with special trips.  A few years ago the girls went to New York to celebrate Mindy's birthday, and this year we got to go to San Francisco to celebrate Marilee's 30th!  

We left early (4:30 am) Thursday morning so we could maximize our time in San Francisco! We drove to Sausalito to check out our condo for the weekend.  It was amazing... I wish I had taken some pictures.  We had a great view of downtown across the bay.  That afternoon we took a harbor cruise under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz. The water was rough, but there were quite a few sail boats and kite boarders out on the bay.  I can't imagine swimming in that cold water!  After the cruise, we had some delicious clam chowder in a bread bowl at Fisherman's Wharf and took in some more beautiful views of the bridge at an overlook.  

Friday was spent driving into the wine country and exploring 2 different wineries.  We enjoyed the drive and taking in the views.  At the first winery we had beautiful views of the wine country, got to go into their wine caves, and learned a lot about the process of making their wine.  I didn't participate in any tastings, but I heard that the wine was good!  After lunch we visited a second winery and got to ride a tram up the hill to the winery. We took a self-guided tour (and didn't learn near as much!) but enjoyed the views here also.  

Saturday we drove up to Muir Woods.  It is a small grove of redwoods just a few miles from downtown San Francisco. This was one of Mat's favorite parts of our trip a few years ago.  We took a short hike through the park and enjoyed the amazing trees.  The picture to the right is of all 4 of us inside a tree!  Saturday night we headed to AT&T Park to watch the a baseball game.  It is a neat ballpark with great views of the bay!  Once the sun went down it was a chilly night, but we enjoyed the game.

We spent Sunday finishing up our list of "must-dos" before heading home.  We drove down Lombard street (the crookedest street), shopped and enjoyed some crepes at Pier 39, and took in some more views of the city on a trolly ride.  It was a wonderful girl trip!  Happy Birthday Marilee!

Memorial Day Weekend

We were able to spend our long Memorial Day weekend with a group of our friends from college.  We have friends that live all over the country (Tennessee, Ohio, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma...), so Arkansas seems to be a central place for us to meet.  This year we met up in Hot Springs.  Our friend Traci found us a great house to stay at! 

We got in late Friday night and stayed up later than I have in a long time catching up.  It is always good to hear what everyone has been up to and what's going on in their lives. Saturday morning the guys went to play golf, and the girls set out for a morning of shopping.  Someone had told us to find Hot Springs Village for some good shopping, so we spent a good portion of the morning driving around trying to find it.  When we did, we actually found a retirement village!  The cute old man at the entrance told us we probably didn't want to stick around because the "dudes in here are 60 and older!"  

We decided to head back to downtown Hot Springs to find a place for lunch.  We found this cute hamburger place and decided to try it out.  It took us almost 2 hours to eat lunch!  Chrissy didn't get her meal until last, and she ordered a salad and sweet potato fries!  After lunch we decided it was best to head back to the house.  We spent the evening hanging out and playing the dictionary game- always a lot of fun with this group!  

Sunday was a cool rainy day, but we decided to check out the national park and show the guys around downtown.  We spent some time going through the museum about the bath houses and drove up into the national park.  We ended up enjoying our picnic lunch in a parking garage because of the rain and then headed back to relax at the house.  We had a devotional and communion at our house.  Mat and I feel so blessed to have friends to share these times together.  It was a special time of worship for us!

It was a great weekend that ended way to quickly!  We are already looking forward to next year when we can take Baby Kelso to meet everyone.  

It's a...

Here is a picture of his profile.
BOY!

It was so fun today to get to see our little boy and watch him move around. Everything looks good and is measuring right on schedule, and his heartbeat was strong.

There was no denying that we were looking at a little boy. I told Mat it was a good thing that we wanted to know the gender. :) Mat's exact words when we walked out of the office were, "You couldn't kick the smile off my face right now!"

We are so excited to start working on the nursery and planning for his arrival in October!

Here is a (very blurry) picture of our little boy waving to us!

Boy or Girl?

There are all sorts of old wives' tales about figuring out the sex of your baby: which way does your pillow face (north or south- but what if it faces east or west?), how long it takes your pupils to dilate when you look at yourself in the mirror, and whether you present your hands palms up or down when showing them to others. Since we aren't far from finding out the sex of Baby Kelso, I thought I'd try and figure it out myself! :)

- My age at conception and the year of conception equals an even number, so I'm having a boy. (or girl, depending on which website you look at!)
- Since I didn't really have much morning sickness, I'm having a boy.
- My hands and feet are very dry, so I'm having a boy.
- My baby's heart rate is at least 140 beats per minute, so I'm having a girl.
- According to the Chinese gender chart, I'm having a girl.
- I sleep on my left side, so I'm having a boy.
- Since I refuse to eat the heel of the bread, it's a girl.
- Since I am craving Orange Juice (which I never really liked before), I'm having a girl.

Now it is all as clear as mud! :) I guess we'll have to wait until Thursday to find out if we're having a boy or a girl!

Oklahoma City Half Marathon

I finally uploaded my pictures (for the post below about George!), and I realized that I needed to put up some pictures of the half marathon Mat, Marilee, and Clayton ran a few weeks ago. Mat and I loved going up to Oklahoma City to see our family and friends. Mat ran with Team OC and got a special OC shirt to run in. It was bright red which helped us spot him as he ran past us! Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

George or Marley?

I haven't seen Marley & Me yet, but from what I can tell from commercials, Marley likes to tear things up. We knew George looked like Marley, but apparently he acts more like Marley than we realized! One of George's favorite things to do in the house is go to this bookshelf and pull the Bibles off to chew on. (He used to like chewing on the picture frames, but we've broken him of that habit.)


This is the stack of Bibles I've taken from him today.


Oh George!


We obviously don't let George just sit and chew on our things but he's fast and it's tough to chase him down by yourself! When Mat and I work together we can corner him and get whatever he's got back. I have found (after today) that taking pictures confuses him enough to drop whatever he's got long enough for me to grab it...

I started this post yesterday. This is what George did today...

Eight Things

My cousin Haley tagged me to do this post. Here are the rules for "Eight Things": mention the person that tagged you, complete the list of eight things, tag 8 of your blogger friends, and go tell them you tagged them.

Eight Things I Look Forward To:
1. Finding out if our baby is a girl or a boy
2. Meeting our baby in October
3. Watching Mat as a dad
4. Being a mom
5. My summer vacation
6. Heaven
7. Finding out what happens on Lost (I'm only on season 3)
8. Christmas

Eight Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Clean the bathrooms
2. Dust
3. Vacuum the house
4. Laundry
5. Grocery Store
6. Helped Mat make dinner (Yes, Mat made dinner and all I had to do was help!)
7. Enjoyed dinner with Sarah and Eric
8. Watched George chase Mia around the house for 3 hours

Eight Things I Wish I Could Do: (Haley, I stole a few from you...)
1. Visit all 30 baseball stadiums with Mat
2. Speak another language fluently
3. Make better use of my free time
4. Travel more
5. Run without hating it
6. Remember more Bible verses
7. Be more outgoing
8. Have someone clean my house for me

Eight Shows I Watch:
1. American Idol
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. Project Runway
4. John and Kate + 8
5. The Bachelor
6. The Office
7. Lost
8. Astros baseball

I tag anyone who wants to do this...