While we left for the weekend for our One Year Wedding Anniversary , we had to leave the house and garden unattended.  You know it had to be driving Dana nuts to know that his trees, veggies, and grass couldn't get watered.  At the same time, I think we were both excited to see what could all grow in the three days that we were gone.  As soon as we got back, we unpacked then headed out to the garden to see what we could find.  Here are all the veggies we were able to harvest, what a collection!

Our pomegranite tree is just about ready for some harvested fruits (we picked one just to check), we had plenty of pickling cucumbers, yellow zucchini, green zucchini, mexican zucchinis, butternut squash, yellow crookneck squash, green peppers, and a few tomatoes.  It was a perfect array of veggies to make an assorted veggie dish for dinner last night (for we really needed to cleanse our bodies of all the naughty food we ate on vacation). 

To see all of our past garden stories, you can go here.

Dana, Rocky, and I just got back from our one year anniversary vacation at Catalina Island.  It was such a nice and relaxing weekend spent together as a family and for such a great celebration.  I still can't believe one year has already arrived, it seems like it has just begun!  For those of you who aren't familiar with Catalina Island, here is a map to show you where we were.

We drove up to Dana Point on Saturday to catch the noon ferry over to Catalina.  Dana and I sat on top of the boat, outside, thinking we got the best seats in the house, but once we began the journey we quickly realized that while the sight was beautiful, the wind made for a very chilly ride.  Regardless, we were really happy with our seats because we were hoping to see some dolphins or whales, but no such luck (although, we did see dolphins on our way home--so cool!).  Here we are on the boat, just arriving to the island.

Once we got to the island, it was time to unload and check out the town.  Alot of what Catalina has to do is walking around the town and boardwalk, eating good food, and checking out the cute little shops.  Being that we had Rocky with us, we had to be creative in how we would manage our time so that he wasn't couped up in our room the whole time.  The weather was perfect, warm enough for tank tops and shorts, but not too hot to enjoy a nice walk.  We toured the town on foot most of the time.

We also took advantage of all the great food.  They had a great array of different restaurants, considering it was such a small town, and ice cream shops on every corner.  Dana and I thought it would be a good idea to treat ourselves to ice cream after every meal, but we ended up eating too much to even fit any room for the good stuff...so we only had ice cream twice on our trip, and ended it with a couple carmeled apple treats.  Yummy!  You can see below why we didn't have room for dessert on our first night.

Sunday was our official anniversary day, so we planned a whole day of celebration.  We started it off with a long morning walk with our little furry son, Rocky, stopping to squeeze in half a game of mini-golf.  We had to leave after hole 9 for we then had an appointment for a couple's massage at our hotel.  We were pampered with facials and massages which made us both so relaxed and rejuvenated.  Carrying on with our relaxed energy, we went back to our rooms and grabbed the gifts that we got each other and a part of our wedding cake that my mom froze and sent to us for our anniversary.  We were excited to carry on the tradition of eating some of your wedding cake on your one year anniversary to bring us good luck and happiness for all the years to follow.  We all hung out in our hotel's courtyard and dove in to the cake.

The cake was actually in the tupperware bowl you see us eating from (we couldn't get it out)...and the hotel had no utensils, so we have to use our hands.  It made the memory that much more fun.  :)  To our surprise, the cake wasn't bad at all.  Still tasted like it did that day, except the fondant was a little gooey, so we had to work around it.  After getting a few good bites out of the cake, we exchanged gifts, which we decided to keep traditional.  The One Year Anniversary Gift theme is Paper.  Being such a broad theme, it was interesting to see how differently we thought.  I chose to paint a watercolor hummingbird painting for Dana and framed it with a personal message on back of the frame for him.  Dana bought me a blank cookbook which gives me spaces to save all of our favorite recipes.  I love it!

After exchanging our gifts, we really wanted to go on a guided bus tour around the city of Avalon (the main city on the island) to learn more about the history of the town and get a better idea of what it all had to offer.  Not sure we got what we wanted out of the tour, but it was fun to ride around together and see the different sites that we missed on foot.

We ended our night by eating dinner at Steve's Steakhouse, which we both thoroughly enjoyed.  The service was fabulous and we got the best seats in the house, overlooking the water with a window seat.  We both loved our food, we had great conversations, then finished the night off with a walk through town to find the best ice cream around :)

We have so many memories and good pictures to share from our weekend, but I don't want to ramble on in our blog, so feel free to check out the album from our trip to check out all our adventures.  Click here to see all the pictures.

Dana and I had a busy weekend away from the house, but we surely couldn't allow ourselves to leave without doing a little housework.  Dana did the usual plant and tree watering and catering to his garden as I cleaned, cooked, and organized.   On top of that though, we painted the last room in the house that needed our little special touch.  We were sick of looking at the wood paneling in our extra room and decided enough was enough.  Dana set out to find some suitable paint and away we went.  It is hard to believe how much of a difference the paint made, and it turned out really nice painting over the paneling.  Once we get carpet and furniture you'll see what I mean.  Dana and I were very happy with the end result.

So once we finished up with our painting project, we decided to treat ourselves to some fun with friends and family.  We started out on Saturday by attending our friend, Jack's birthday party, hosted by his girlfriend, Jennafer and her wonderful family.  We had a great time hanging out and making friends.  For the occasion, I handed down my favorite lion piece from my lion collection to Jack, who is a Leo and also loved this special piece.  After moving to our new house, I had no place for it and had a hard time parting with it.  But, I knew someone who would appreciate it possibly even more than myself and so I gave it to him as gift.  He was extremely stoked about it and showed much gratitude for it.  It definitely made me feel good and I knew I made the right choice by giving it to him.

We also fell in love with a new band, Little Hurricane, which played a set while we were there.  Celeste and Anthony, of Little Hurricane, met just less than a year ago and already they are a huge hit in San Diego.  After hearing them play, we knew exactly why.  They are a super dynamic duo. (The guy to the left was an addition just for the night.  He was a friend who joined the group just for Jack's party)

On Sunday, we were excited to see many people that we haven't seen in a long time.  We started off by driving up to Oceanside (about 45 min. North) to see Dana's Aunt Jean and cousin, Amy.  They are family who live in New Mexico, but frequent San Diego so I have had the opportunity to become very close to them.  I get so excited every time I hear they are in town.  As soon as Amy and I get together I just can't seem to stop talking.  While blabbing and catching up, the four of us walked on the beach, got some food at the food stands, and took a walk along the pier.

And, lucky for us, we will be blessed with their presence again this week when they come over to see our house and have dinner.  This time Dana's other cousin, Jessica, will be joining us (she doesn't fly in until today).  It will be so great to catch up with Jessica and show them all our new house.  :)

After meeting them on Sunday, we wrapped up our day by driving south just a few miles to visit with our friends, Jen and Carlos.  We checked out their new apartment and got to meet their new dog, Elvis (whom I completely fell in love with--he's adorable!!).  Then we went to Pizza Port, a well-known pizza place that brews their own infamous Microbrews.  Dana fell in love with this place the first time we went there a while back and just couldn't stop thinking about it since then.  So, we finally arranged plans to go there and eat.  And, now I remember why he loved it so much.  Yummy!  Although I couldn't try any of their beers (which Dana can atest to being very delicious), the pizza was also made to perfection.  Here's Dana and Los showing off the menu:

Now comes a busy week of entertaining, working hard, and gearing up for next weekend--Our One Year Anniversary!!!  :)

If you don't already know, Dana's 33rd birthday was on July 28th (Wednesday).  Rather than buy each other gifts (although I can't resist getting him something), we like to celebrate our birthdays together and try to get away.  Since we planned a whole weekend getaway for our anniversary (next weekend), we didn't want to do anything that involved traveling.  But, Dana left the planning to me.  My planning went well because we had an amazing two days together.  We woke up yesterday started the day off with a family walk and opening gifts.  Rocky gave his daddy his card first, which you can see if you are on facebook  here.  They had a good time opening it together and daddy was quite impressed with Rocky's hard work of finding that card for him.

We then dropped Rocky off at his friend, Frito's house, where Frito's dad, John, watched Rocky for the night.  We took off to go downtown where we had a room at Se Hotel booked for the night.  We dropped our luggage off and took a walk around to get lunch and enjoy the day.  We never go downtown because traffic and parking is always a hassle, so not having to worry about driving made it such a nice adventure, and so relaxing.  We ate lunch at Neighborhood, which is known to have a great beer selection (something Dana was really looking forward to).  Dana got his birthday beer and burger (and I ate, too, of course), then we walked over to Heavenly Cupcake for birthday cupcakes.

Once we got back to the hotel, we unpacked and checked out our room.  Surprisingly, we got a room on the 15th floor, which was amazing!  We were looking over all of downtown and got such a view!  Here we are right when we got there:

(By the way, I'll have to apologize for all the pics, but I was a bit snap happy)

Anyway, we enjoyed the pool for a few hours before the sun went down.  Dana also enjoyed a few poolside cocktails, as you can see. 

We then got ready for dinner, which we had in the restaurant in the hotel named Suite and Tender.  We definitely didn't restrict ourselves from anything, for we had a starter salad, our entrees, and two desserts. 

And, check out the view from our balcony when we got back from dinner!  This really is from my camera.

We then ended the trip by enjoying a walk down 5th Ave this morning, where we had breakfast at Mary Jane's, which Dana was super excited to get their Corned Beef Hash that he said was simply amazing.

It was a fantastic two day adventure that I am so happy that we got to do.  We realize that in just a few months we will have far less opportunities to do things like this together, so we are so glad we get to squeeze them in now.  And, I actually don't think Rocky minded his sleepover very much either.  He seemed very happy and well taken care of while we were away....although, he sure was happy to see us today.

Happy Birthday to my amazing and loving, strong and caring, super terrific husband!  I am looking forward to spending today with you, hoping it is everything you wish for it to be.  You deserve the best, I love you!!!!!!

After adjusting the days to get on track with my new due date (Nov 30), I am officially 5 months pregnant tomorrow!  It is crazy to think about it because I am now over the half way point...whoa!  Good thing I still have 4 more months because I don't even feel like I am prepared yet, but are you ever really prepared?  Probably not, from what I hear.  Anyway, the pregnancy right now has been going very smoothly.  I still do get sick and spend some time with the porcelein god in the mornings (about 3 days a week), but once I relieve myself of whatever needs to come up, I tend to start feeling better for the rest of the day.  I still have my energy and am pretty active during the day.  I am at the gym 3 days a week and spend the rest of the days walking 2 1/2 miles through our neighborhood with Rocky.

I was excited because while I was working at my friend's boutique last week, a woman asked me if I was expecting.  I was so excited that she asked.  Turns out she was expecting as well, so I'm sure she had babies on her mind.  Many other people have already begun celebrating our little girl as well.  We have received some fun packages in the mail of little onsies, sleepers, blankets, and other clothes.  I was so excited about them that I have already washed and folded them into drawers, getting ready to dress our little girl.  My mom also surprised me with a box filled with things that she kept from when I was a baby, including the outfit I wore home from the hospital and my baby book.  It was so fun to read through the book and see everything my parents did in preparing for my arrival.  One of my favorite things to read was a peice of paper that my dad was writing my mom's contractions on.  The nurse had asked him to write down the time every time my mom had a contraction and my mom included it in the book.  It made me think about how my parents, too, were doing it all for the first time once, and it was with me!  I could tell their excitement was exactly what Dana and I are feeling.  My dad also sent me a package and included a CD that read "listen and enjoy".  At first I didn't know what it was, but when I popped it into my computer I heard a collaboration of recordings of myself when I was little.  The beginning was my crying as a baby, then talking to my dad, then saying my ABC's and 123's.  It was so cute to hear and brought tears to my eyes instantly.  It is hard to believe that both of my parents have held on to these precious things for the last 30 years.

So, a little more about Baby Nevins.  She has been much more active lately.  I've been feeling her kicks much stronger now and more frequently.  Sometimes I can just sit and watch my belly move around while she moves.  I'm not sure that is a feeling I can ever sick of.  I'm pretty sure she's been having some growth spurts as well.  The other day my lower belly was hurting for quite a while.  It wasn't in a way where I was concerned to go see the doctor, but more a feeling of stretching and stabbing.  I did, however, call one of my cousin's to get affirmation that it was ok and normal.  It was bothering me for so long, though, that I thought for sure I was going to balloon over night.  It's hard to tell if one day made a significant difference, but I definitely know she's in there :)

Anyway, here is a pic of my belly at 5 months:

After Dana had been teasing me for "taking it easy" for the past couple weeks (I beg to differ), I was swept up with a whirlwind of a weekend...but as you will later read, it wasn't all that bad considering it was a lot of quality time with good friends, even though I didn't see Dana all weekend long (and if you ask him, I'm sure he was quite alright with that, as you will see down below).  On Saturday, I spent the day at my friend, Ruth's, bridal shower.  It was so much fun because I have only seen her once since Dana and I got married and I had never been to the house she has been living in with her fiance, Ben.  We caught up like the good ole days and I got to meet all the women in her family, who were all too much fun to be around.  It was a gorgeous day outside, so it was a perfect day to picnic in the backyard and celebrate the soon-to-be nuptials of Ruth and Ben (They are marrying in October).

On Sunday, I was participating in a fashion show that was held by the students at the fashion school that I graduated from.  Check out my blog post about the event if you are interested by clicking here. Two of my designer friends, Jen and Michelle, and myself set up a trunk show to sell our clothing, which was also used in the fashion show.  What better way to sell your pieces than to show what they look like on a model on the runway.  It was held in this gorgeous garden yard of a couple who allowed us to use it for the fashion show.  It turned out so beautiful and I made many connections and possible clients. 

And, as I was out and about being a social butterfly, Dana was....well, can you guess?  You got it, he was working away in the backyard.  He must almost be done by now you ask?  Hahahahaha, yeah right.  While he is working on one thing he is always brainstorming on the next thing because he just doesn't want it to end.  So, he started off the weekend by getting some bird feeders and hanging them in the backyard.  He was anxious to attract some hummingbirds close to his flower gardens, so he set up a hummingbird feeder on the edge of our patio and it didn't take long at all for the birds to find it.  The whole feeder was empty in one day!  We were lucky to catch a couple pics of a bird feeding while we were eating dinner last night, check it out:

And, his big project of the weekend was building a retaining wall in the very back of our yard where he felt that "it would erode very soon", so he went to get some bricks and away he went to put it together.  One thing I really do admire about Dana is that whenever he does projects like this, he really takes his time to make sure that he does it right the first time.  He leveled all of the bricks and made the wall look just perfect!  Here was the end of day one (yesterday), which he actually finished today.

And, yes, he really does wear that hat all the time.  I can't blame him, for it does cover his back and neck and prevent them from getting burned, but my gosh he sure looks ridiculously silly, wouldn't you say?   He sure is turning into an old man pretty quickly.  hahaha. 

So, after weekened upon weekend of working on the house, I was finally able to convince Dana to get away for the day and enjoy the hot summer weather.  Being that we live east a few miles from the beach, the temperature is almost 10 degrees hotter than near the ocean.  This last week was filled with some pretty hot days, reaching the 90's.  So, what better to do than to cool off with the ocean breeze and catch some rays.  We spent the day in Pacific Beach for some much needed fun, together time.

We ran a couple erronds, treated ourselves to some acai bowls, then layed at the beach and people watched.  We ironically sat right next to another couple who were expecting, but it looked like the other girl was further along than I was.  We wanted to find a good way to strike up a pregnancy conversation, but never did...so we just kept to ourselves and played the guessing game "How old do you think they are?  How far along do you think she is?, etc."  You know, all the things you wonder, but you maybe shouldn't ask.  :)

Anyway, since we were in our old stomping grounds, we wanted to take as much advantage of it as we could.  We ate at one of our favorite lunch spots, Cass Street Bar and Grill, where we both got their infamous stuffed baguettes.  We parted ways so that I could meet with my girlfriend, Jennafer of Jennafer Grace Clothing, and we could go shopping.  I've been on a lookout for comfy maxi dresses that my belly will allow me to grow in to this summer.  And, while we were on our shopping adventures, Dana met up with Jennafer's boyfriend, Jack, for a nice cold beer.  We rounded out the day with an ice cream treat at Mr. Frostie's, compliments and Jennafer and Jack.

It was a perfect day, and so much fun!!  After our fun-filled Saturday, though, apparently my body couldn't handle much more so I spent Sunday napping and watching TV, while Dana did...well, what do you think he did?  Yup, thats right, he spent the day outside in his garden, cutting away dead branches, adding more vegetables and trees and building his irrigation system (yes, that means that each and every single thing that he has planted has its own water supply set to the desired amount that it needs daily).  I'm telling you, this guy don't mess around.

Here is a general picture of what is going on at 21 weeks:  You can see the baby is so close to being fully developed

Today I had a check up with my regular midwife.  We went over the results from the ultrasound, listened to the baby's heartbeat and went over any questions that I had.  First, we did a weigh in.  I have now gained 4 pounds overall, which I am no longer worried about.  The doc said that was very healthy and there is nothing to worry about.  It was good to hear it from her.  She looked over the ultrasound results and everything was normal, normal, normal.  Good, good, good!  She did say, however, that my baby measured to be about 3-4 days different than what we originally thought.  So, she moved my due date from November 26th to November 30th. 

Other than then my doctore check up, we do have other exciting news.  Yesterday morning while we were still laying in bed, I started to feel the baby kick.  While I have been feeling the kicking for a while, I wasn't sure how long I was going to have to wait until Dana could feel it.  But, in the morning, I put my hand on my belly and felt it from the outside.  I immediately grabbed Dana's hand and rested it in the same place.  Sure enough, about a minute later, he felt the kick.  But, nothing more after that.  Then, last night, she was moving around more than I have ever felt before.  I rested Dana's hand on my belly for about 10 mintues and he could feel all the movements and commotion that I could feel.  It was such an amazing moment that we got to share.  I think it made Dana very proud and excited, for it did for me.

We finally have pictures of yet another room that we have worked hard to decorate since we have moved in.  We are excited to show you our bedroom!  It was actually the very first room that we painted and started working on, and now it is complete.  Here is the before picture:

Not really much to see....but we did alot.  After painting, we also put in new windows and bllinds.  We tore out the closet doors and replaced them with curtains, new light and outlet plates, then all our furnishings and decor.  And, here is the end result:

Dana and I couldn't be any happier with how everything turned out.  We worked hard together to get it to this point and now we love our new bedroom!  :)