38th Week in Pictures

38 weeks pregnant today! Still having lots of pressure down low, but no contractions so far!  Hopefully she'll decide to make her appearance sometime soon! It's getting too hot for me to be this pregnant, lol!

Kelly's mom was transporting five puppies between shelters on Saturday, so she called us over to let the kids play with the puppies for a while.  They had a blast! I think the puppies had a good time too;  they slept all the way to the next shelter!

Saturday night, Marcus took Hunter to a Boise Hawks baseball game.  It was Hunter's first time going to a baseball game and he had a blast!

The bat "boy" was a dog!!

Whoa! That's some intense looking nachos! I guess ball park food has changed since the last time I went to the stadium!

Panorama view of the stadium

The Hawks ended up winning in the bottom of the ninth with an RBI triple!  There were fireworks after the game and Hunter couldn't stop talking about how much fun he had.  I love that there are all sorts of things to do here with the kids that we might not have had the opportunity to do elsewhere.

I had to end with the sweetest picture ever from naptime today.  Melts my heart...

Our Summer Bucket List

I'm so excited that summer is finally here!  We have been using this opportunity while Marcus isn't working to complete our "Beaufort bucket list" before we leave town.  We spent a full day last week at the beach and stopped on the way back and got a yummy watermelon and a cantaloupe from Barefoot Farms.  We spent Saturday morning running errands and going to the farmer's market, where we scored two bags of fresh peaches and a bag of green beans.  Nothing says summer to me like watermelon with salt or a big juicy fresh peach!

We've been to the library and played at the waterfront park downtown and Saturday, we had family pictures taken.  They turned out fantastic!  I am so excited to get a few large prints made to go up in our new house!

This one is my favorite!  I am so thankful to have met Ariel and been able to take advantage of her awesome photography skills, as well as her friendship!  It is finally beginning to hit me that we will only be here two more weeks.  I think as a former military family that you get used to being moved around and moving away from people, but this move is going to hit us the hardest because of the amazing friends, mentors, and support system that we've found here.  I am consciously blocking all of the emotions out of the equation for right now because otherwise I'd be a blubbering, hormonal mess! 

So instead of thinking about how soon we're leaving, we've been taking time to take advantage of Beaufort's natural beauty and get outside and enjoy!  We have even been getting the outside of the house spruced up and ready for closing in a few weeks.  Marcus wanted to pressure wash the driveway and it made a huge difference!  I have been clearing out weeds, mowing the grass, and edging the sidewalks.  It's been so nice outside that it has been very relaxing to get to work in the fresh air.

 

Yesterday afternoon, while the boys were napping, Marcus took Taylor to the pier to try and catch bait for their early morning fishing trip this morning.  They caught a few greenies, so Marcus threw his big pole into the water and a few minutes later, reeled in this guy:

 

His first cobia of the year! So he brought it home, fileted it and I shelved our regularly scheduled dinner plans and we had a fish fry!  It is still amazing to me that we can have fish for dinner that was just swimming around the Broad River a few hours ago!

 

 



We've still got quite a few things that we want to do before we leave, but as we wrap up our Beaufort bucket list, we're looking forward to adding quite a few fun things to add to our Alabama summer bucket list with Mimi and Poppie!

27 Weeks

Well, the end of the second trimester is finally here.  This is the last week and I'll be in the home stretch.  Miss Paisley is definitely making her presence known lately.  She kicked me so hard the other night that she almost knocked my Bible off my lap!

 

She likes to be active mostly after breakfast and when I'm lying in bed at night.  I've been having way more heartburn, especially in the evenings after dinner.  Other than that, my energy is still up and I'm feeling really good!

 

We've pretty much gotten everything packed up that we aren't in the process of using.  The last week we're here, we'll have to get the rest of the kitchen stuff and all the furniture ready to go, but other than that, the packing is essentially done!  We've taken care of everything that needed to be repaired around the house--so proud of Marcus for changing out the water heater by himself!!  He saved us almost $400 by doing it instead of having a plumber come. 

 

Last night, Marcus had a brilliant idea and gave the kids the water heater box to color on.  It kept them busy for over two hours before they had to get baths. 

 

 

So much fun for them!



26 Weeks and a Trip to Charleston

Tuesday I was 26 weeks!  Only 14 left to go.  It finally hit me that I'll be 30 weeks when we go to Alabama and 34 weeks when we begin our trip to Boise!!  We'll definitely be praying that Miss P holds on until closer to her due date!  I would NOT want to have to find a hospital somewhere on the road!

Both Marcus and I needed to get our VA ID cards, but the closest place we could get them made was in Charleston, so we decided to make a day of it and take the kids to the aquarium while we were there. 

From the entrance to the aquarium, we could look across the river to Fort Sumter.  There was a ferry that took people on tours of the Fort.  Maybe if the kids were older we would have taken them.

Also across the river is the USS Yorktown.

The aquarium was literally right on the water.

 

Inside was a coastal rainforest exhibit.

Daddy and the kiddos in front of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge

Mommy and the kids

In this touch tank there were a couple different types of sting rays and a bonnet head shark.

In a different touch tank, they had horseshoe crabs and smaller sting rays.

 



Had it not been naptime, I think we would have had a better time.  Mason ended up having a total meltdown and he and I had to leave and go wait in the truck.  He fell asleep about 2 minutes after I put him in his car seat!  I was also not impressed with how expensive it was for the size and quality of the exhibits.  If it had not been a somewhat spontaneous trip, we might have done a little bit more research and gone somewhere else instead.  But you live and learn, and I think the big kids enjoyed it.  We got what we needed to get done accomplished, so I count it as a productive day!

Mother's Day 2015 - Park Evening

After we left church on Mother's Day, we went out for lunch at Applebee's and then went home and the boys laid down for a nap while I finished up some homework.  Taylor and Daddy bought me some beautiful roses, a Mother's Day card, and some Twizzlers, yum! :)

It was a gorgeous day, so we decided to grab a pizza for dinner and have a picnic at the park.  We all had a blast.  Everybody got in on the action, even Daddy!

Taylor helping her brother! Proof that it does happen occasionally! :)

Mase munching on a breadstick

Daddy and Hunter racing across the lily pads.

Mason trying to figure out how to get down, lol!

Miss Paisley and I relaxing on the bench.

 

This was right before Mase decided he wanted off and almost flew into the mulch, lol.

Tay and Hunter swinging like a crab.

Whee!!

We saw this cool flower; I have no idea what kind it is, but it was beautiful!

 

We drove home with the windows down and enjoyed the sun going down.  I couldn't have asked for a better Mother's Day!  I even got a back massage, which is a little slice of heaven for this pregnant mama!  :)  

 

First Beach Trip of the Year

It has been getting warmer and warmer the past few weeks, with a few cold, rainy days mixed in, but it looks like summer is on its way here, so we decided to take advantage of the last few weeks we will have in South Carolina and go strawberry picking and then to the beach.

I wish I had gotten a picture of all the yummy strawberries we got because they were perfectly ripe and huge!  We found some the size of my palm!  I was able to make 12 pints of freezer jam, which will be gifts to our friends and my parents when we leave Beaufort in June. 

The second batch of strawberry jam setting up

 

After strawberry picking, we made it to the beach late morning and the weather ended up being beautiful!  There were thunderstorms predicted almost all day, so the kids prayed the night before that God would give us nice weather and He did!  I love being able to point out  to the kids when God specifically answers their prayers.  It is such a testament to how much He loves us to answer such a simple prayer, but one that meant so much to them.

 

We packed a picnic lunch of PB and honey, Cheese puffs, and bananas for Daddy and the kids and a turkey and cheese mini-pita with a Kind bar for me.  I think they enjoyed feeding the sea gulls more than eating the Cheese puffs themselves!

 

 

 

 







The water was still freezing at first, but I swear kids have no nerve endings, so they were out there in the water all day.  I will admit that after the initial "Oh my goodness, that's cold!" wore off, it was really nice to just sit in the shallow waves and enjoy the sunshine.

 

 

The kids wanted to bury Marcus in the sand and they made him a "baby belly."  He kept saying how heavy the sand was and I joked that he should have to carry it around all the time!

 

 

We finally pried ourselves away from the beach late that afternoon because the kids were singing in the choir that night and we needed to get back to get showers and dinner before heading to church.  About 5 minutes into the drive back home, I looked back and saw this...

 

 

He was trying sooo hard to stay awake, haha!  I looked at Mason and he was already out.

 

 

I looked back over at Hunter and in the time that it took me to take the picture of Mason, he finally gave it up!

 

 

Normally Taylor is not one to sleep in the car, but the ocean must've worn her out as well because she was curled up asleep too.

 

 

I know we are going to miss this place when we move, but we are excited to experience some new things in Boise.  But for the last month or so that we're here, we plan on taking advantage of all that the Lowcountry has to offer and making memories with the kids so they'll always look back fondly our time here in South Carolina.