26 weeks + Vacation Recap

How far along? 26 weeks - almost third trimester!! Yikes!!

Size of baby: Head of lettuce, about 1.5-2lbs.

Symptoms: I decided to try coming off Diclectin again, so as of Sunday night I've been off of it. It's been going ok, I still get sick at least once or twice in the morning without it, but I think that's manageable, at least on days I'm off work. I still have a few doses of Zofran left that I can use in a pinch, or that I can take with me to work and take if needed since they work much faster than the Diclectin. It'll be nice to be off medication, so I'm hoping the nausea keeps improving and I can stay off for good.

Movement: Lots! The other night I was laying on the couch, and baby was doing somersaults that I could see from the outside. My belly was jumping around like crazy. The only time I don't really enjoy the movement is when it happens after I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and keeps me awake!

Cravings: Vanilla Iced Coffee...I could have one almost every day, especially when it's hot. And we were just in Ottawa last week and I bought a jar of Maple Butter which I am devouring on bread or crackers!

Maternity clothes: Finally found some maternity shorts so I can keep cool.

Most looking forward to: I'm going to answer this with what I'm NOT looking forward to this week - my glucose test! Ugh...that orange syrupy stuff is so gross!

I also wanted to share a bit about our recent trip to Ottawa. We had a great little vacation, got to spend time with family, watch Cam run his big race, and see some sights.

Waiting for Dad at the finish line - and posing too, of course.

Tessa did well on the flights - it's a whole different ball game flying with an 18-month old versus a 7-month old (which is how old she was last time she flew). She's much more independent and mobile now and is quick to let you know when she's not impressed by squealing loudly! Keeping her busy and content on a 3.5 hour flight was a challenge, but we all survived.

The only time she will EVER sleep while being held

 She did really well, too, with the 2-hour time zone difference and adjustments to her schedule. She napped well, slept well at night, ate decently, and seemed to really enjoy all the new people she met.

Visiting Great Grandpa

A relaxing afternoon at the cottage

Canadian Parliament

Daytime and nighttime in Old Montreal

It's always fun to get away and see different places, but is almost better coming back home to the familiar routines of everyday life. We're getting settled back into normal and have focused our energy on finishing up the last of the unpacking and settling into our new home. We have a couple more small weekend trips coming up in August & September, and then fall will be here!

Tessa's Travels - Summer 2013 Edition

Well, the summer of 2013 has come and gone. This is going to be my last summer-related post for the year, so I thought it would be fitting to let Tessa take over the blog today. She's been begging me to let her show everyone the places she went and the things she saw during her first ever summer, so here goes....

 

In July, I saw the mountains for the first time. I went and spent a day at Waterton. 

Here's me at Cameron Falls...

Then, I went to Cypress Hills. My mom says this is one of her favorite places. It's alright.

I checked out the lake and spent a week at camp and met lots of new people.

 

 In August, I took my first plane ride to Victoria, BC.

 I kept pretty busy in Victoria...

I went on a boat for the first time and saw some whales in the ocean...

 I checked out Butchart Gardens (got photobombed too!) and played with flamingos and butterflies at the Butterfly Gardens.

 I saw a bunch of old buildings...

    And hung out for a bit at the BC Parliament Building.

Yay government!

I went for a hike and enjoyed some nature...

...stopped for a while at this waterfall and thought about my life.

I relaxed in the hotel pool

And got to drive a pretty nice car!

I think it's been a pretty great summer! Already working on some big plans for next year.

What did you do this summer??

{The Real} Vacation Recap

     I posted our vacation highlights the other day. I could leave it at that and let everyone think we had the perfect little holiday with our perfect little family in a beautiful place where we saw lots of nice stuff and took a bunch of pretty pictures, but that wouldn't be completely honest. And if there's anything I want this blog to be, it's honest and real. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all allow us to only share the best little snippets of our lives and let everyone think that everything's great all the time, but I don't want this blog to turn into that. So, having said that, here's "the real" vacation recap.

     
     Our flight departed at 7:55am. I should have known when I booked it that a flight that early in the day was a recipe for disaster, and while it wasn't actually a disaster, it did get our trip off to a rocky start. By the time we got to the airport, parked, shuttled to the terminal, checked in, got me a coffee, argued a bit, and got through security, we were being paged to our gate because our flight had already boarded. Yep, we were those people...the ones who come huffing and puffing onto the plane last...the ones the flight attendants have apologized to the rest of the passengers for. We sat down, buckled up, got a quick run-through of the instructions for flying with a baby and literally minutes later we were taking off. In a way, this worked out well, because we didn't have to sit through pre-boarding and regular boarding while trying to keep Tessa entertained, but it made for a very stressful start to our trip and set the tone for the next couple of days.

Awkward family photo? I set the timer and didn't quite get into position in time! I thought it suited this post.

     Once we arrived, we weren't able to check in to our hotel right away (which is the only thing we really wanted to do because we all needed naps!) so we were forced to kill some time. We wandered through downtown and a park, and tried to enjoy being in this beautiful place, but there was a thick tension in the air between me and my husband. I was frustrated by what I felt was poor communication during our trip and he wasn't sure what he had done wrong and was feeling like he was walking on eggshells. We finally found a quiet park bench out of the way, sat down and tried to smooth things over. We realized that we were both being overly sensitive, largely due to our exhaustion and the stress of traveling with our daughter for the first time and we were taking that out on each other (or at least I was taking mine out on him).

     The next day wasn't a whole lot better. Tessa had had a rough first night in the hotel (which means everyone had a rough first night) and getting her down for her morning nap was an hour-long struggle with her wailing the whole time and us switching off trying to settle her. I even cried along with her for a bit because I was so tired and frustrated and had no idea what else to do for her. Cam was finally able to get her to sleep and we sat down, looked at each other and asked each other why we had even bothered coming. The whole trip was starting to feel like it had been a bad idea.

Everyone was very tired and grumpy the first few days...

   
     The worst moment came a day later. We were driving back to the hotel after a morning of sightseeing and were planning to take a bit of a break before meeting up with friends for the afternoon. I made some snarky, unnecessary comment, which led to another argument. We parked the car in the hotel parkade and just sat there in silence. There we were, in a beautiful place, during what should have been a relaxing, fun, memorable first family holiday, and we were miserable and mad at each other. One of us finally said something like "this sucks" or "this isn't working". I looked at Cam and asked "what do we do?" My wise, patient husband said the one word that we I had been forgetting..."We need to have a little grace".
   
     He was absolutely right. Grace was needed, and badly. Grace for each other during stressful, exhausting, frustrating moments. Grace for our daughter when she struggled to sleep in a new place, a different time zone, and through teething. And grace for ourselves when we mess it all up. We both apologized and committed to being more patient and grace-full with one another, and the rest of the trip was much better. I'm sorry that the first half of our trip was mostly unpleasant, but I'm thankful that we were able to salvage the last few days and that even in the midst of those rough first days, there were still some great moments.

     I came across this wheelbarrow of tools while wandering through Butchart Gardens. I wasn't intending on it turning into a life lesson when I took the picture, I just thought it was interesting. There it sat, right in the middle of a gorgeous place, full of its dirty tools and dead flowers and weeds. And the entire time we were at the gardens, we saw workers weeding, watering and pruning. It reminded me that beautiful things don't just magically happen - they take a lot of work. And even though the gardens look beautiful and complete, they're always a work in progress - the ugliness needs to be removed to make the beauty even more beautiful. Kind of like me.

Vacation Recap

     We just returned home from our first family vacation (hence the lack of posting here!) so I thought I would recap our little trip and share some of the highlights.

     We spent 5 days in beautiful Victoria, BC and had a great time. Sometimes it's just nice to get away and have a change of scenery. I always like visiting new places and had never been to Victoria, but had heard good things about it. We had enough Airmiles to pay for both our flights so we didn't have to worry about driving and since we were saving so much on flights and gas we were able to splurge a bit on our hotel. We found one right downtown in a perfect location - within walking distance of a lot of the things we wanted to do so that also saved us gas money. The hotel was amazing - it had a little kitchenette so we bought groceries and cooked most of our meals instead of eating out (a 7 month old in a restaurant 3 times a day didn't seem like a great idea to me). Our room was more like a suite - it had a separate bedroom and a nice spacious living area/dining room and kitchen and a cute little balcony. My favorite part was the super comfy king-sized bed! The hotel also had some great features - swimming pool and hot tub, gym (for Cam), and a movie theater (which we never actually used). We would definitely recommend the Parkside to anyone going to Victoria.

     
     It was Tessa's first time flying, so we were a little nervous about that, but she was a total pro! I fed her during take-off and she fell asleep almost immediately after and slept almost the entire flight both ways. It was actually kind of nice - she's not the most cuddly baby and never sleeps in my arms anymore, so it was a nice treat for mama! :) I was thankful we just had short flights for her first time and I guess I should have known better than to worry - just like everything else that comes her way, she handled flying really well.

     As for the sightseeing and activities we did in Victoria, I'll just recap with photos rather than describe everything in words - that would take forever!!

     We arrived early on Saturday and couldn't check into our hotel right away, so we wandered through Beacon Hill Park and saw the world's tallest totem pole.

     On Sunday, we had our whale watching tour. This was the best part of the trip for me. We were able to see a large pod of orcas, a pair of humbacks and tons of seals and sea lions. Pretty exciting stuff for a couple of prairie kids!

     On Monday we went to Butchart Gardens. Absolutely beautiful, especially the Sunken Garden (below). To get to it, you walk along a narrow path completely covered over by trees, come around a corner and it opens up looking out over this spectacular view:

My new favorite family photo

We thought this Bill Cosby sweater was awesome!

     And of course, you can't go to Butchart Gardens and not take ridiculous amounts of flower photos (at least I can't, it would seem). Here are a few of my favorites:

     After Butchart Gardens, we stopped at the Butterfly Gardens for a quick look around.

     On Tuesday morning, we visited the Craigdarroch Castle (which sounds a lot cooler than it actually was), and in the afternoon we met up with some friends from home who were also in Victoria at the same time and went to the Bug Zoo together. Tessa was fascinated by a rather large tarantula (behind glass, of course) and her parents both held Nora, the smaller one.

      Wednesday was our last full day, so we tried to pack in as much as we could. The highlight of the day was our drive north of Victoria to Goldstream Provincial Park, where we found this beautiful little waterfall. For lunch, we stopped at Spinnaker's for the best fish & chips I've ever had then made our way back downtown to see Chinatown and do a bit of shopping.

The gorgeous Empress hotel from across the Harbour

Tessa being a goof - love this girl to bits!!

          We lucked out with our rental car and got to drive a Charger around all week - Cam was pretty excited so we had to take a photo of him next to it! :)

     We landed in Calgary on Thursday afternoon, and it was a bit of a shock going from the lush greenery and the cool, fresh, sea air of Vancouver Island to hot, dry, dusty, windy southern Alberta. I love the prairies and they've always been home, and I hate to say it, but for the first time I can remember, coming home was a bit of a let down (I'm sure I'll recover though!).

    We made it home Thursday night, and spent the last day of our holiday deep cleaning our house, including carpets - fun! It needed to be done though, and felt great after.

     And on Sunday, we set up Tessa's little pool in the backyard and enjoyed what might be one of the last hot weekends of the summer.

     We're back to regular life today and it's nice to be back into our normal routine, but we were thankful for the break and the time to get away together. Some of my favorite childhood memories center around family vacations, and I know Tessa is still too young to remember this one, but I look forward to many more family trips in the future where we can give her some of those wonderful memories to cherish for life.