New Years, 36 weeks

Playing dress up!

My parents came to visit for a week just after Christmas. They arrived late on the 27th and stayed until Jan 2. We had a great visit with them, as always. Ainsley was so excited to see her Grandma and Papa - she had so much fun! I got some much needed rest- Ainsley did not want much to do with me since Grandma was around. If she woke up in the night, she went to their room, and she went to them in the morning too! I was able to stay in bed until I had to get up for work and on a few days, I was able to sleep in! It was pretty nice.

Riding her new bike!

Dan and I even went out for a date night- we had dinner at Moonshine- a restaurant Dan had been wanting to try. It was really fabulous- it is our new favorite. It has a great atmosphere and the food was fantastic. I had a rainbow trout stuffed with cornbread and drizzled with a sauce, lots of veggies and a yummy dinner salad. Of course, we saved a little room for dessert and had a massive brownie with malt ice cream. After dinner, we went to see a movie- we saw True Grit and really enjoyed it. I can not even remember the last time we went out to see a movie in the theater.

New Years Eve we went with my parents to a wildlife farm in Johnson City. It was not something I had heard of before, but it was really neat. It was a chilly day, but sunny so we braved the weather. There were lots of animals there. We took a tour- you are pulled in a covered wagon by a tractor. You can buy animal food to feed to the animals so they come right up to the trailor looking for food. They had a lot of exotic deer, buffalo, scottish cattle, camels, llamas, sheep, goats, ostrich, emu, zebra, and others. Ainsley was not sure about the big animals at all- she was a bit scared of them. The buffalo and big cattle were my favorite- I was able to drop food into their mouths, and they licked my hand. Their tongues are much rougher than cats and actually left abrasions on my hand. I was able to pet them too- they are truly massive in size. The camel was pretty neat too- I have never been so close to one and they are HUGE. Ainsley really did not like the camel. We had lunch in town- not many options so it was just ok, then drove home. I took a nap when Ainsley did- nice!

Scottish cattle


Camel- he tried to steal my food bucket

In the afternoon, Joe, Julie and the twins came by. We had not seen them in quite some time so we had a great visit. The girls played great together and we were able to sit and visit on our own while they entertained themselves upstairs- what a treat! They decided to stay for dinner so we ordered pizza and had a geat evening. My Mom had started making bread so the girls got to help with that- they all really enjoyed kneading it, rolling it and shaping it. They stayed until close to 9. We had so much fun- thanks for the visit!

Ainsley was tired, but we had a hard time getting her to sleep because she was scared of the fireworks. They seemed to be all set off right by our house. I sat with her for a while, then Dan sat with her for a while. We had planned to watch a movie, but did not in the end. We went to bed early- 10:30.

Work for me was really busy the entire first week of January. Usually January is a bit slow for us, but not so far. I was swamped every day- unfortunately, that meant I was on my feet a lot too. Exhausting.

My doctor check up for 36 weeks went well. Ben moves all the time and keeps me company. I have been sleeping really poorly due to sciatica. I wake up every hour or so then have to change position, then run out of positions. Yuck. Then I sometimes can't fall back asleep for hours. I sleep better on one of our couches- it is really soft and angled so I have been sleeping on it some. Ainsley likes to talk to Ben in my belly and her Ben in her belly too- so cute!