"Let's get physical, physical..."

How exciting to hear baby's heartbeat today! My pulse got in the way for a bit, but finally the doctor was able to find the little thump-thump-thump of Baby H. It was going pretty fast - around 165 beats per minute, but that's a good thing! It made me think of an image of a baby in 80's style aerobic gear, just hanging out down there, doing his thing.

We are excited to have another sonogram, but that happens in a couple weeks, so we will just have to be patient. They may be able to guess the gender at that time - which would be fun! - but I've heard many-a-story of gender swaps that we'll know to take the info with a grain of salt.

Where the Magic Happens

Continuing the theme of our domestication, we went furniture shopping the last couple weekends. Its kind of a fun process until you are in the 10th furniture store and, as a result, your nights are filled with visions of dovetail joints dancing in your head.

Erik and I have somehow managed to elude the need for bedroom furniture such as dressers for the last 10 years. It was time. Erik's t-shirt collection is well into the 3-digits and some need a folded home since many of the classics are warping on their hangars.

Our budget allowed for a bed and 2 dressers and delivery, apparently. Of medium quality. We tried to go with Ethan Allen, but turns out our money there only gets you a dresser and maybe a night table and maybe a stick of chewing gum.

Our decision-making came down to its normal point of "Ugh, let's just get it over with." We are classic Libras indeed, unable to make decisions without first weighing all possible options and reviews. So most of our decisions are typically just made on information-overload induced exhaust at a certain point. But hey, it works for us.

Here is the resulting decision!


We will see it in our own house next month! One of the pieces is on back order, so what can you do, what can you do.

Next purchase? Furniture for Baby H! I'm not quite ready to go back to the stores yet - we shall wait another month or two for that. Must... restore... energy for next... big... decision.

Yay for Visitors!

We had such a nice time this weekend with visiting family friends, Jon and Kathi Kissane. Its always great catching up with the "The Colonel" and Kathi and hear stories from their Army career. Erik always loves talking work and throwing acronyms and lingo around, so they are the perfect conversation partners!

We ate at the Padre Island Burger Company out on the island (as the name would imply) and it was so very yummy. I didn't realize they were half pound burgers, but the peanut and I were hungry so we did our best to tackle the patty. It was great to sit outside on the deck and watch everyone drink beers - just seeing a summer brew in a nice pint glass made me smile. Even if I only had some lemon water to sip on.

Meat coma followed shortly thereafter.

12 Weeks

We need to improve our belly pic photo approach, but here is our first shot. The belly has popped out a bit, but it basically looks like I've been eating too many donuts lately rather than harboring a growing baby. Although it could be because I indeed have been eating too many donuts lately.


Donuts or baby? Probably donuts.

For as much as my body has been morphing, its still a little bummer that I haven't been able to gain any of the weight lost the last couple months. I've been told it will easily pick up over the summer and I'm sure I will soon have to eat my words. Sweet, delicious words.

As we look to close out this pivotal first trimester, I'm glad to say the nausea has been subsiding. I think Erik appreciates that advancement, as well, given he doesn't have to hear my sporadic moaning and heavy breathing at random points throughout the day. Thumbs up!

Green Thumbs

Our backyard was quite the mess when we moved in. The dandelions were as tall as me in some severe cases. It took a few hours on a Saturday afternoon to dig most of them out (Erik did most of the work!) but it was very rewarding to see a clean slate at the end of the day. Next week we will get some grass seed on there to fill in some really random bald spots.

Here is one corner of the yard with the massive dandelion bushes:

Thumbs down

And here is the same corner after some elbow grease:

The progress called for a popped collar!

Someday when the yard is in all its glory with minimal bald spots, we will share more pics. One weekend at a time!

Introducing Baby Halvorson!

We think the baby looks pri-tty pri-tty darn cute, but obviously we're biased...


Are his legs crossed? That's quite demure for age 10 weeks.

The peanut's birthday is currently set for October 29th. This means that a Halloween birthday party theme will be in the works for years to come.

"That's Unheard Of!"

I wanted to originally post a video clip from a recent commercial in which a couple is sitting in their car of a Lowe's parking lot, rehearsing how they are going to get the best deal. I thought the actors were cute and funny, but apparently Lowe's doesn't allow their commercials on YouTube on such. Kinda' weird, but whatever.

I thought it would have been an appropriate video to share since Erik and I went through the same machinations this past weekend when we were on the prowl for a washer, dryer and a refrigerator. Armed with our Consumer Reports data and our sale prices from all local competitors, we were ready to deal. But our friend Mo at Lowe's made it so slap happy easy to purchase everything at a great price and for free delivery, our other trips to Sears and Home Depot (just to make sure) were half-assed in effort.

Free pitch for Lowe's - complete!

I Gots Some New Wheelz, Yo!

After an unsuccessful attempt at getting the Honda guy in town to give us a new 2010 CRV for $5k under asking price (enter: stare down), we walked away from the dealership. In my past car purchasing experience, they followed me. Here, they did not.

Soooo we decided to check out some other cars for the heck of it. We stopped by the Toyota lot under the impression they would give us a Highlander or 4 Runner for $10k under asking price ("umm, don't you want to like give these things away?"), but that didn't go as expected either. So we were then onto the Ford dealer to check out Hybrid Escapes.

And what do we see on the certified used lot next door? A 2007 Honda CRV with 18,000 miles.


Sold. Tag it. Done! Meanwhile, this car looks like a peanut compared to the trucks that people drive down here.

Don't Need to Do That Again

For our flight out of Japan, we were assigned the good ol' "Freedom Flight" out of Yokota air base, about a couple hours north of Atsugi. This is the same flight folks take when they want to fly free as "Space Available" back to the States. I never took advantage of Space A despite best intentions, but I know now I wasn't missing out on anything. After getting a 4 am shuttle to Yokota, waiting for 6 hours there, flying 1.5 hours to Misawa, waiting in another lounge for 4 hours, and then a 8 hour flight to Seattle (we were spared the stop in Anchorage), I can safely say I rather just throw down some dolla' bills for a direct flight.

At the least the girl next to me on the plane was enjoying Ice Age 3 as much as I was. It's always nice to have a giggle buddy in crime, even if they are a complete stranger. Oh Sid, you offer such comical relief.

On Base Living

This past week, we moved out of our Japanese home and onto base temporarily before we fly out next week. And I have to say, base living has a couple things going for it!

1) I don't wake up to a 30 degree room. Seriously. The lack of central heating in our off base home was probably the worst thing about living off base. But that's our bad - we really should have had a Japanese friend teach us how to use the timers on our kerosene heaters. Anyways, on base you can use as much heat as you want. It is ridiculously comfortable to walk around and not have to preplan every move.

2) Cable. Well primarily HGTV. I've watched about a dozen episodes of House Hunters over the weekend to make up for years of its absence. Also, commercials - real commercials. Off base, our AFN satellite only offered military propoganda and information spots. Its nice to watch a show without intermittently being informed about the capital of Kansas (Topeka!) and told not to shake my baby.

Other than that, it is a tad claustrophobic to be in this single room for a week and a half. Erik is in Guam for the week to round it his time here with his buddies as they enjoy the lovely shows that Guam has to offer. I have basically just been hanging out and meeting up with dear friends for random lunches and dinners... and running back to my hot box room to catch the next round of Curb Appeal.