on the road

Traveling through Oregon and Washington wasn't all that exciting. Its mostly like BC except Oregon is a lot flatter as you go south. Very pretty though.
California had some cool places along the way that we had to stop at. The big Sunmaid factory was one of them. Tony and I bought dried peaches and raisins. Very good road treats, especially after eating fast food. Thankfully we didn't do a ton of fast food. We did some fast food in the first day and that did not go over well in a small van. Carls Jr = not good road food. It was pretty amazing to see the portion differences. Carls Jr also prides themselves on the fact that their burgers are bigger than a Big Mac in their commercials. It was pretty good, but we could barely finish cheeseburgers.


This was out my window driving on the I5. Such pretty hills, kinda reminded me of Alberta, but prettier.


mmm Blue Diamond nuts from the Blue Diamond plant. Honey Roasted was Tony's favorite, and also the smokey ones. My dad loves the smokey ones too, and so it was a must stop thing.

Aria's blog had Tonys interesting experience with a McDonald's employee in Santa Clarita:

Tony asked how many shots of espresso they put in their lattes? The guy asked 'what? what was that you called it?' ... espresso....

He knew they were not Starbucks employees, but it was pretty funny hearing someone not know what espresso was.



The first couple days of traveling were not bad. Hard core driving for the most part with some stops every couple hours. The worst part was driving through LA in the dark in rush hour traffic. It took forever to get to our Hotel in Anaheim and it was hot out. That part was kinda awesome. We would watch the temperature reading in the van go up and up as we went south. In LA at 6 pm ish it got to 20 degrees. Felt like victory after hearing that the valley at home would receive snow.

This was close to LA on the I5. So more later on the Disneyland part of the trip.

its been so long

but I am home now with husband, and awesome internet connection. Don't get me started on the hotel ones that we had to use during the trip (it more affected Tony, but was frustrating none the less).

California/Disneyland/Oregon was awesome, I shall have more stuff about it tomorrow. Tonight is about processing information, trying to de-stress and relax a bit. Traveling in a van with 5 other people can get crazy sometimes.

Baby is good. Kicks/jumps more noticeably than before :) I got 2 very swift kicks last night in bed while watching "the parent trap". Maybe it was to say that I should stop watching girly Disney movies. Maybe baby is a boy, or just hates Lindsey Lohan.

Here is something to keep you interested until tomorrow:


One of my favorite Disney Pixar movies, "a bugs life".

Personality

Art class is so much fun for me. I love to feel free to be a little weird or crazy. That is what art is about.


This is the cube. This cube is supposed to represent me in someway using shapes and colours and stuff.


Theres something about drawing tentacles or weird little monsters that makes me happy.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Not necessarily in that order, but it defiantly described my day today, to a T!

So Lets do the good first cause that was the first part. Today was baby's ultrasound. This time I also drank too much water (again) but still was fine for the appointment. It was nothing like the last one where I drank so much that I swear my kidneys ached. Stupid me for picking the bigger cups. Stupid rules for making me wait 2 hours. I can barely wait 2 hours now on half the amout I had today.

So that wasn't bad, saw baby on the screen. Baby is a stubborn baby, much like its daddy. Ohhh I said "daddy". That's a little strange, but its a good strange. Baby is stubborn because it was facing away from the ultrasound lady's magic wand.

She got some good shots of its face, hand by its face, one foot and spine. As much as I love this baby, I am not afraid to say that the face shot looked like an alien. This just encourages my friend to keep calling it the "alien baby". It was really cute though, baby had its hand up to its cheek.

Suddenly, we all saw it jump! Yes, the ultrasound lady said it was jumping. To me, it looked like sideways leap frog, or that the baby was swimming (the swimming also creeps out my friend, but its ok, when she spawns, she will be ok with it, maybe). I am interested to know if this baby will be energetic like it is at the moment. I don't feel it too often, but felt it today in school.

So that was the good part, well awesome part for me. On to the rest...

Well, the rest kinda built up over a couple days. I had a presentation due today, petcha kutcha (or however you spell it, I don't care anymore). Its a presentation form of where you have a 20 slide presentation, and each slide is 20 seconds long. For days I have been struggling to fill up 20 slides with me talking. Timing it wasn't too bad, it was that I would go, edit things, make it sound better, but with every improvement, I would lose info and my slides would disappear.

It was all due today, or rather last night. I had a meltdown last night and bawled cause this thing is huge marks and I couldn't make my brain get it together. After crying last night, I was totally done and went to bed.

Worked on it today, got it finished with 10 minutes before I had to leave for school. Well, here is the ugly part: Mine and Tony's desks are kind of "L" shaped so that we are close to each other. I was using his laptop to read my presentation and have my desktop do the slide show. Things were great until I was about to do my last run with my newly finished slide show. I leaned over to use his mouse and my arm hit the huge cup of water that was on the corner of his desk.

....you can only guess what happened next

Tsunami hit the laptop, desk, floor, everything was soaked. And I had to leave for school in 10 minutes to do a presentation that I didn't want to do and was still wearing (now soaking wet) sweat pants and a painted on tank top.

Can you say PANIC??? Oh my goodness, that was the icing on the cake for me. Thankfully I had clean laundry sitting in the living room and there were towels. The computer turned itsefl off, (bad sign) just as I unplugged it from the wall. Upside down it went over a towel. Mopped off the desk, floor and then sat the computer on the towel on the couch.

I seriously contemplated not going to school at all. I called Tony who was really good about it all. I cried again. I threw on clothes and ran out the door.

Presentation went ok. Its blocked out of my mind now cause I am done and that's all the matters.

As incentive for coming to school, Kelsey said she brought me a treat to share with her. We didn't end up sharing as we were too busy before class to eat it, but I got to take home one of the little cakes that her store sells. She works at Thomas Haas in kits and they have amazing chocolates and cakes and pastries and coffee. This is the first time I got to taste this goodness.


Oh its light and fluffy and filled with raspberry awesomeness!

Defiantly some awesome incentive to use to come to class. I will need to get me some of these. I saved half for Tony cause I may have wrecked his laptop.


That was my day.

Baby at 19 weeks

I am rounding up to this being the 19 weeks picture. 2 days will not make a difference in my head.


Go stretchy pants! Jeans are getting uncomfortable when sitting for a long period of time. Sad times for me.

Christmas Dinner

Although the plan was to skip Christmas dinner in favor of going on vacation, my momma couldn't bear not to have turkey dinner and all the good stuff. So off we went to Chilliwack for awesome dinner time. During the day it snowed! I love Christmas dinner when it snows.

This little dude was in Mikaela's Christmas cracker. I got vampire teeth in mine :) We obviously traded, her being a twilight fan. Me, well I had plans for my extinct friend.



We grew up with the rules of "no toys at the table", and "you cannot play with your food". We get away with it at Christmas as it was humorous. I like that he is in a brown swamp here (my gravy and taters).

Aria loves that hes camouflaged in the orange forest.

Mikaela loves pickles, enough said.

Oh noes! Wounded!!

And STABBED by Tony.

Aria gets carnivorously gets the beast.

Show off.

Other things that happened were that we watched "The Nativity". Very good movie, I didn't like the parts where they were having babies as I avoid all those things at the moment. I was worrying about all that a week before, had gotten to the point of not thinking about it and being excited to just have a baby instead of the stuff to come before that, and last night I got home and panicked again. Tony was nice to me and said nice things and I feel a little better now. In the end I get to take home a baby and all that pain and stuff goes away, and thats all I need to think about.

My momma was all excited, she went to give me a hug and bumped into my belly. "There's a baby kangaroo in there!" she exclaimed. I was wearing my hoodie and she just thought it was loose like it normally was (not anymore). She got all excited. It was so cute. The two of us started looking at baby outlet stores in the states where they are pretty cheap. That was awesome. Now I want to know what it is so I don't have to get gender neutral colours like yellow and green. Tony is liking the green idea though :P

Oh baby, I hope we can see what you are on Wednesday.

little flutters

Well hello flutters! Baby seems to be moving just every once and a while now. If I am sitting still for a while or almost asleep, it moves about. Hehe funny baby. I hope baby is not nocturnal like its daddy is.

Baby is getting bigger. I feel much bigger than I did before. I cant suck in my stomach like before. It just sticks out there. It makes the wearing of coats a lot more difficult. Standing wearing a coat is fine, but sitting is too tight and kinda hurts now. Its just too cold to not have it done up and I am sad. Tony noticed that my brown coat looks stretched on the sides :'( sad times. Got to find me a bigger coat. My fiend might have one that I can use, so we shall see.

I cant believe its gone by so fast. Kinda freaks me out all the time now. All I do is worry about the end...oh the end, its coming, and it terrifies me. I have told Tony that I would like to be numb from the waist down if possible. He doesn't like that idea, but he also doesn't have to live with a baby coming out of him.

Think happy thoughts, happy thoughts Mir... sooooo today I was doing homework, cleaning up and making Christmas presents. Presents part was the best part. Not done yet, still have a bunch left to do. I will not share what these presents are yet, but soon. They are not all completed. Yay for handmade things though. Makes me wish I could knit or own a sewing machine.

silly old photos

These ones creep me out. Creepy filter




Rockin the stach!

this is what I looked like going outside

and later on, this is what I made out of paper and a wooden skewer. Very mini tree!

Christmas up the house

This should be the last year that this tiny tree takes center stage. Its a little too small for next year and looks a little like a toilet brush. Its been my tree for about 6 or 7 years, since I got it from my mom as a "sick" present. I think I had the flu or something and when any of us got sick, she would bring home a small present. It came with the lights and it made my room all sparkly.

Last year I cut out dozens of snowflakes, covered them with glue and used tiny vials of chunky glitter to pretty them up. Took forever and the carpet was pretty when I was done. Some were damaged, but most are still good.


Next year we shall get a bigger tree and this one can be for baby.

baking snowflakes!

Before I get on to the baking, I noticed that the ratio of rootbeer flavored bottle caps to the others is considerably smaller and I do not appreciate that. My favourite flavor has like nothing compared to the cherry. I hate the cherry ones. They were bought for the purpose of doing homework, and they've made homework sad again.

On to happier things!


Tested out my cookie cutters from last years presents. I love snowflakes and my momma found a really nice set of them.


I made myself a little guy to see what he'd turn out like... TOO SMALL, BEHEADED!


The cutters come with a small diamond shape guy to cute holes out of your big cookies. I failed at this by doing it on the counter and then trying to use the flipper to move them. After mangling many cookies, I figured out to to that detailed work on the sheet pan. Much easier.


I need to make more as we ate a bunch and I brought some to school to share. They had icing on them, but those were pretty ugly and I would rather use a piping bag instead of ziplock bags with holes in them. Also need to use royal icing or something that wont smush.

snow?

I've heard rumors of snow tomorrow. I really hope they are true as I love the white fluffy stuff, that and I get to squeeze into my snow pants for the last time. Even if they don't fit, I may end up wearing them and taping them shut hehe. They were tight last year, so its looking like a possibility.


Spent yesterday baking and cleaning and cooking. I made cookies, icing, and chicken parm. Chicken parm was a good choice for dinner. Tony loved it. But with all that cooking and baking came mountains of dishes. oh and it was a mountain. I did most of them. Tony promised he'd do the rest today.

I don't have any new pictures yet for today so to make up for it, I've drawn the snowpants picture.

Bird is his usual self, very into wanting to bake or cook with me. Even while washing the dishes, he kinda clings to the front of my shirt to hang down to see whats going on. He loves the noise the dishes and running water makes. He also likes to be with people rather than on his own.

Lately when Tony gets home, the bird hears the keys turning in the door and starts these shrill chirps. As soon as he sees Tony, hes in the air and on his shoulder. Tony loves it.

Dr appointment went well. Had a resident doctor for my appointment. She was nice, but couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. Kinda was unnerving. She was searching all over and then got nervous and had to get my doctor to find it. Baby was found. Baby likes to hide. Last time it took a while, and today longer. Baby sounds healthy and is growing.

Lentil Soup

I was bored with all my food options yesterday, so I decided to make soup. I had all the ingredients for soup here *BONUS* and so off on another soup making adventure!

This was the recipe that I used and modified a little:

3 tbs. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tbs. tomato paste
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 to 1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
3-4 cups quart chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup red lentils
1 large carrot, diced (at least 1 cup) --- I used 2 carrots
2-3 tbs lemon juice
chopped fresh cilantro and plain yogurt to top (optional) --- I only had yogurt

(I also threw in 2 stalks of celery)

In a medium sized pot, sauté onion, carrots, celery and garlic in olive oil on medium high heat until golden, about five minutes.

Stir in tomato paste, cumin, black pepper and sauté another five minutes.

Add 3 cups broth if you prefer a chunky soup, 4 cups for a thinner version. Add lentils. Bring to low simmer and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally until the lentils and carrot are soft (about 20-25 minutes).

Blend soup, using an immersion blender (first time I used it and it was great!) or in a countertop blender. You can choose to blend completely for a smooth and supple soup, or leave some texture if you’d like it a bit chunky. Both are good.

Add lemon juice. I like this soup quite lemony and use somewhere between 2 and 3 tbs. You may want to stop at 2 tbs.

Add salt. Depending on the salt content of your stock, you may want more or less salt. Start with 1/2 teaspoon and work your way to where you like it. I always use at least 1 tsp, sometimes more.

Serve topped with yogurt and chopped cilantro, if desired. It’s also delicious without any topping.

I loved it, tasted great, got to eat veggies and the lentils that would otherwise just sit there in the back of the cupboard.



This I thought I'd post cause it was kinda cute. This is what the bird traveled in on the way to the bird hospital. Apparently people use "bird incubators" which is just fancy talk for a small hard plastic insulated box with a handle and no perch (so they don't fall off). PFFT to that! I had a scarf and fleece blanket that worked fine. Tony wants a bird incubator for incase we ever have to transport the bird again...like around Christmas :P oh Tony...he loves his bird so much.

My new love is...

Pears! Oh my goodness either I bought the tastiest pears, or I am crazy. I bought 2, for lunches for Tony and I and I was so hungry when I left the store that I scarfed one down so fast, I don't think it made it past a block or 2. So tempted to eat the other on the way, but I refrained and in the end ate it at home. Tony will never know what he missed out on.

I gotta say, I will never like canned pears again cause these were delicious! Must get some more. I am sure the baby enjoys them and their vitamins and antioxidants.



See, its almost half way done and I was just sitting down to write this.

New Moon Party!

Only waited for forever for this movie to come out. I didn't expect it to be spectacular or anything, but it was way better than the first one. This is us waiting in line at the theater. We were there early and got awesome seats. From left to right, we have Kathryn, Beth, Aria and Mikaela.


They weren't paying attention, but I liked that Aria was laughing. Its an iphone so its a crappy ish camera.


What do you do when you are bored in a line up? Make art! I had the genius idea to deform the "famous" magazine for fun. Taylor Lautner was not harmed in the deforming of this magazine lol.


Oh fun times. Beth and Kathryn were more about putting speech bubbles throughout the thing instead. We even displayed our art in the magazine rack, but some girl moved a good one in front of it. At least she didn't throw it out.

After the movie we went back to my house for cake and pop and food. We had mini pizzas that Mikaela made the dough for. Tasty food!

Update on the bird:

He is doing well. He was prescribed liver tonic and is a poop machine again and super happy all the time. He loves showers and the lose change that he finds on our desks. Nickels are his favourites.

sick bird :(

The bird is sick :( He's been very quiet all morning which is his usual time to be super happy and energetic. Hes not flying around a lot and sits in the cage by the cuttle bone. Tony noticed him straining and fluffing up but not pooping. He did a small poop but had to shake his tail to get it going. poor thing.

So unusual for the bird who is a little poop machine. I am gonna watch him today and if things don't get better I might be taking him to the Night Owl Bird Hospital. For a tiny budgie it seems a little much, but Tony would be crushed if this bird died. I was looking up things about constipated budgies and all I could find is to feed them veggies (which our bird wont touch) or put a tiny amount of apple cider vinegar in his water. I am a little too nervous about doing that as I don't want to be the one to kill the bird.

Oh bird, why couldn't you get sick after payday. We are both worried about him. Budgies hide their sickness as a natural instinct so that they dont seem weak in their flock. Well once they show signs of sickness they are usually very sick. We both know this.

:( :( :( :(

Why hello there baby!

I am not feeling so different, it doesn't look like to me that a baby is in there. Tony shakes my tummy a little when I wake up and tells the baby to wake up. Sometimes he does it at random during the day.

Baby is 15 weeks exactly today. Yay baby! Yay no more sickness, although my morning sickness wasn't terrible (compared to what I've heard about), just felt queezy and the pre-natal vitamins made me puke. Taking the vitamins before bed has helped and so I feel great.

I really want to find out what this baby is, but right now its a little expensive for us. We also don't get to find out until after Disneyland. This means it cant really be my Christmas present. :( Tony doesn't really want to find out because he told me that its not like we can change it at all. The curiosity about this baby is driving me crazy! I don't need a surprise, just need to know lol.

Corn potato chowder soup recipe

Now I kinda did this with vague instructions from my mother, but this how I made the soup and you shall also need to tweak this a bit:

Ingredients:

3 carrots
3 celery stalks
2-3 potatoes
1 onion
1 can creamed corn (use frozen or whatever works for you) if you like corn, maybe 2 cans of corn or creamed corn
6 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water
2 cups milk
flour
1tbsp olive oil (optional)
salt and pepper
thyme

So chop all your veggies. I had my pot on med heat and then added the olive oil and veggies to cook a bit.

Then I added the veggie stock and 1 package of chicken bullion, potatoes and corn. Thyme, Salt and pepper now!
Once the potatoes were all tender, I whisked the milk and flour and then strained it while it was going into the soup to avoid the icky lumps. Depending on if your mixture is thick or not, you may want to add more flour or less. I added 1/2 of flour to the milk.

Once things get thick, I tasted it I added more salt and pepper (I like soup peppery).

Done!


In other news, today was the first day the bird bathed in the sink. He was in the bathroom with me while I was doing my hair and I noticed that he kept peering into the sink, and flying from one side of it to the other. He was too afraid to go in by himself. I helped him get down in there and turned on the water to just a dribble. He really enjoyed drinking from the stream of water and then he got all excited about getting wet. He got right under the stream and fluffed his feathers up like a big fluffy ball and wiggled around. He likes to get his chest wet, that is why he looks like hes falling in one of the pictures.






This last one is where he was wiggling around on his chest with his wings all open. He really had a good time. When he came out he landed on my shoulder and did what all animals do after getting wet, he fluffed up and got my face and neck all wet with wet bird. He stayed fluffy and has been very happy listening to the postal service with me.

blustery day

Last night was bad. I woke up several times due to the crazy wind. Usually we keep our bedroom window open a crack cause its just too warm otherwise. Well, I woke up with a start cause the blinds and curtains were just blowing in our room and it turns out that the wind blew our window wide open.

Only a couple hours later I was awake again thinking it was just way too cold out. Window was fixed, but all the blankets were on Tony and hanging off his side of the bed. I woke him up a little by shaking all the blankets off him and straightened them out. He doesn't remember it, but he did look apologetic seeing me all angry. On the up side, I got to sleep in until he put the bird on my hand. Its pretty startling when you wake up to tiny claws holding on to you. I almost sent him flying.

So today was a day to clean up a bit, Aria and Mikaela are coming over this Saturday for a sleepover party thing :) Also today was a good day for soup. This weather always reminds me of having soup. When I lived at home and my momma would make soup I would eat it all day long, for snacks, for dinner, for breakfast. My favourite soup is potato corn chowder.



I have had 2 smallish cups of it so far. Hopefully it lasts the week (but I doubt it).

soomo (not sumo)

is driving me crazy! Its a fake name of a fake energy drink and we are supposed to do designs for it. Keep in mind that its not about sumo wrestlers. That took a while to get out of my head. Its apparently a natural energy drink with electrolytes in it.



I dont feel creative and yet I have to crank out more stuff for it. Le sigh. Maybe I need to get away from the disaster area that is my desk and go have a coffee (or tea), or peppermint mocha! :O I feel a field trip coming on!



Anyways, this is the stuff I am doing for school, I will have my other art stuff from my other class up next.



These kind of remind me of the I spy books only less clutter than that. Some days it feels like that much clutter. I wonder why I put the remote on my desk.