The Appalachains

We had a great time this past weekend at an Army sponsored marriage retreat. The retreat was held in the mountains near a ski resort and included free skiing/snowboarding. Of course Lance had a great time hitting the slopes while I spent some time exploring the area. And before you point out the irony of spending the day apart at a marriage retreat we actually had plenty of fun time together too. I spent the afternoon at Grandfather Mountain which features a swinging bridge at its peak exactly 1 mile above sea level. The view was amazing, unfortunately do was the wind which flung the car door open with such force that the door bent. We're all glad the car door didn't hit my baby belly and we didn't have any other mishaps on the trip.

On the ride home we took a brief detour onto the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at a scenic overlook. Lance was kind enough to pose for a picture. The other picture we snapped on the way into the mountains. Thanks random dog for posing with us!

Spiders!!!

We've been having a few headaches lately, probably due to allergies. I decided to do a little research on air quality and found some fantastic NASA studies on house plants. Turns out there's some great benefits to having plants in the house so I decided we should buy some. I only found one kind of plant in stock at the store that is safe around kitty, a spider plant. I decided to only buy one but picked the largest plant with the most babies attached. I'm going to try and separate these little spiderettes and hopefully get plenty of plants from the one. I'll have to check other plant nurseries to add more variety to our houseplants but in the meantime this is a fun experiment with baby spider plants.

Decor

I started decorating the nursery a little tonight. We definitely don't want to deal with paint so I put a roll of contact paper up to add some color. I think it turned out well. I also added some animal wall decals, though I'm not sure if I'll keep them up. I might try to find some cuter animals or pictures but for now I really like how it's coming together! Now to just get the crib and a cute rug and I think the basics are covered. We'll work on that this weekend.

Registries

We've been asked a few times where we're registered. We're registered at a local baby boutique, specifically for cloth diapers, called Sweetbottoms Baby Boutique. http://www.sweetbottomsbaby.com/ . I believe they have free shipping on most items. I'm still working on updating our registries (I could pretty much add everything from Sweetbottoms). We're also registered at Babies R Us.

Just a plug for Sweetbottoms, they are awesome! I've been having lots of fun going in there to check out their cloth diapers and natural baby products. Plus they have free classes ranging from how to make your own cloth diapers and natural cleaners to yoga poses with babies and infant massage. I had lots of fun hanging out at the boutique today. My best friend has twin toddlers that are refusing to be potty trained so I gave her a few covers and cloth inserts to cut down on her disposable diaper bill. So today I just had to go to Sweetbottoms to pick up a few extra inserts for my friend :). I ended up spending an hour there talking with the owner and a few other moms. One nice thing about a "natural" baby boutique is that most of the people that shop there are super nice and very supportive. It's always a great feeling to meet caring people, especially around here!

Day of Firsts

Since last weekend we went out of town we decided to stay a little closer to home this time. I'm always complaining that there's nothing to do around here so I decided to go do some things around base that we haven't done before. First, we finally used the game room at our neighborhood center. We played pool, air hockey and foosball. Lance beat me at both pool and foosball. We didn't finish the air hockey but I'm sure I would have won. Next we went to one of the free indoor pools on base. It was very relaxing to float around and swim a few laps. I was surprised how nice the pool area was, we'll have to go back. After dinner we finally went to the bowling alley that is only half a mile from our house. It only took us a year to go and bowl there. We met up with a few friends and had a lots of fun, Lance even won the first game. I guess there's a few things to do around here after all.

Seafood Fest

I've really been wanting Joe's Crab Shack lately, but without all the expense. We decided to make our own seafood dinner and it was delicious! Of course Lance had no objections to helping cook the crab and shrimp. We ended up having crab legs, popcorn shrimp, garlic butter shrimp, strawberry spinach salad, and mashed potatoes. Tasty indeed!

Life's a Beach

First off, Blogger changed how they format pictures which has made posting pictures look a mess. You'll have to click on the small ones to make them bigger.

We finally had a beach trip today! On our way to the beach we enjoyed a scenic drive complete with wild turkeys. As we drove down the coast the colorful beach houses were fun to look at. Our first destination was the beach. We set up our beach picnic and as Lance grilled our hot dogs a dolphin played in the shore break. It was pretty cool. Though the breeze made it a little chilly we couldnt have asked for a more beautiful January day. It felt so relaxing to walk up and down the beach looking at sea shells. This was a long overdue beach trip! We had planned to visit the beach this fall but canceled when the hurricane came through. When the sun started heading down we packed up and went to the historic downtown Wilmington. We walked around the historic area and then took a ghost tour. The ghost tour was more for Lance though I enjoyed the stories and history also. I have to admit, there were a few more creepy tales than the Williamsburg ghost tour we took in November. Read the picture caption for one of the creepy reasons.

 We found Momma Hartungs house, along with a dolphin and the Atlantic.

I've been getting requests for some belly shots, so here's my swollen self squinting in the sun.

To end our night, here's some pictures from the ghost tour. Lance standing in front of a former hospital. Our guide informed us in the second picture that we were standing over graves of unknown criminals who had been hung in this location.

Hard Work Work

These are the latest projects that I have been working on. they are layouts for our battalion's magazine. The pictures are a collaboration but the layouts are all me. I HAD TO LEARN A NEW PROGRAM (In Design) IN ONE DAY TO DO THESE, but now that i know the program a little more, its sorta fun.