I am finally ready to show off the baby's room.  I hope you like it as much as I do because I think it turned out just beautifullly!!  It is the vision I had, reflecting my personal style perfectly.  I don't have a before picture to show, but I don't think you need it so see what I did to the room.  The room is a bit small, so it was hard for me to get full views, but this picture is the angle from the doorway as you walk in:

And, this is the wall opposite of the crib:

I made the framed butterfly pictures myself, along with the butterfly collage on the wall.  I applied gold butterfly decals and then attached other butterflies in between for the 3 dimensional effect.  I combined some gold branches and butterflies together for the valance above the window, which turned out great, then added a vase on the dresser with some fake orchids, butterflies in branches, and a light up cherry blossom that I got for a gift from my friend, Megan.  So, what do you think?

After a long awaited time, I am finally able to post pictures of our living room.  Here is the before picture, just to remind you what we were working with:

And, here is the after, looking at it from each corner of the room:

This last Wednesday, Dana had his dreaded appointment to get his top wisdom teeth pulled.  It is an appointment that he kept putting off until his dentist gave him a deadline and said he had to make his appointment before Labor Day (and he said this months ago!).  He was very nervous, thinking about every horrible possibility.  I tried my best to encourage him to get it over with and think about the possibilities of it going reallly well.  I dropped him off at the dentist at 3 where I was told it would take 45 minutes, but received a phone call an hour later only to tell me that they were only able to get the one tooth out and he has to come back to get the other.  Not the news that either of us were hoping for.  I hung out with him while he was in the dentist's chair, waiting for the ok to leave...then we were on our way back home, where Dana filled me in with the torture he endured for the entire hour.  He came home and landed directly on the couch, where Rocky immediately jumped on him and started trying to lick his face (he must've known Dana was in a lot of pain there).  And, Rocky wouldn't leave his side the whole rest of the day.  I think that is just what Dana needed to help him get through this experience.  Here they are together:

I can also report that it has been two whole days now and Dana is still couped up on the couch, trying hard not to take his pain meds.  His cheek is swollen and he is doing whatever he can to get through the day.  I've been trying my best to find different ways to comfort him and keep him fed and hydrated, but he can barely put anything in his mouth...my poor guy!  I hope he's almost at the end of feeling so bad, I miss dinner time with my love.

So it is official, I am now 6 months on the dot, meaning I am now entering into my third trimester.  Can you believe it?  I can't either!!  Whoa!  The days of waiting around are now over and it is preparation time.  Once the crib arrived and was put together, I worked hard at getting the baby decorated exactly the way I wanted. 

The pregnancy itself has been going very well.  On most days it is really even hard for me to believe that I am pregnant because I have been feeling so good and really do almost everything that I did before I got pregnant.  The only daily reminder is feeling the kicks and flutters inside.  I switched to taking my vitamins at night, which seems to have helped in my not getting sick anymore, its been about 2 weeks now that I haven't had to run to the bathroom because I thought i was going to lose it. 

This little baby has already been getting spoiled, especially by all of her grandparents.  She's gotten everything from clothes and toys to all the essentials, including our new stroller (thanks Mom and Dad Nevins for the stroller).  It makes us feel so special to know that although we are so far away, everyone is thinking about us during this special time.  And, in just a week and 2 days I will be headed on a plane ride to Milwaukee to begin the baby festivities, where my mom is throwing me a baby shower.  The time is approaching so quickly and I just am so excited! 

Here is a picture of my 6 month baby bump:

And, as of right now, the baby is suppose to be about 2 1/2 pounds.  It's hard to imagine what that would be like, but I just keep thinking about my little boy when we first got him.  Rocky weighed in at 2 1/2 pounds as a pup....I have a little Rocky in my belly :)

Last week, Dana and I were excited to see our good old friends, Megan and Chris.  Megan is a really good friend of mine who moved from San Diego to Washington the day that Dana and I got married.  So, it had been over a year since we last saw them.  Saying good-bye to close friends is never easy, but reuniting with them is always the best feeling.  We were excited to show them our new house and have them over for dinner, which we combined with celebrating Megan's birthday (since it was going to be the following Saturday).  We started the night off grilling chicken (for me) and steaks for them.  Megan and I made a delicious caprese salad all made from fresh tomatoes and basil from our garden, and we added a baked potato to round out the meal.  To Megan's surprise, we also had her favorite, Banana Cream Pie, which we special ordered for the occasion.  We ate pie, opened a birthday gift, and talked til the bugs started biting (yes, we have been getting bit by the pesky mosquitos).  They spent the night, testing out our new pull out couch and we awoke in the morning eating my special breakfast--pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, bananas, maple syrup and whipped cream.  Yes, it is a bit naughty, but I think our visitors always enjoy it (and if they don't, I know Dana does).

Once the weekend rolled around, I left Dana and was Santa Barbara bound.  Leaving early Friday morning, 2 girls (Jen and Normandy) and myself hopped in a car and headed to SB for my friend, Jen's bachelorette party.  We made a pit stop in LA to pick up one of my closest friend's, Brooke, whose brother let us use his pride and joy, a '73 Cutlass Convertible, to ride in style up the coast to Santa Barbara.  It was a bit chilly on the way there, but we were lucky to have a gorgeous sunny day on the way home to keep the top down and let our hair blow in the wind Thelma and Louise style.  Our weekend away was much needed by all of us and very thoroughly enjoyed.  We lounged by the pool, ate good food, played fun games, and giggled 'til our cheeks couldn't take it any more.  Twelve girls made the trip, traveling everywhere from Washington, to Lodi, to New York, to San Diego.  We all left feeling like we had made great friends and are all looking forward to reunite for the wedding.  We did our best to pamper Jen and make her feel special, and based on the big smile on her face, I think we accomplished our job. 

Now that my computer is back on track, I can blog again!  Trying to maneuver Dana's Mac was driving me crazy, so all I managed to do was keep my emails in order.  Oh, how I missed my PC :)  Anyway, our weekends of doing whatever comes up are long gone, for we are booked up all the way until the baby comes.  Not that we are complaining because everything going on is all fun and spending time with friends and family.  Last weekend was no different.  We planned a Saturday with friends, Victor and Rhaylene, who invited us to a fashion show luncheon called "Haute with Heart" which they contributed to.  It was an event put on by St. Madeleine Sophie's Center, which is "a unique organization that helps adults with develop-mental disabilities find a way of life that makes a world of difference".  They had a huge silent auction, opportunity drawings, a delicious lunch (I'm pretty sure dessert was Dana's favorite part), and a fashion show.  The best part of it all was that we finally got to spend some time with friends that we have been trying toget together with for some time.  Among many other conversations, they were filling me in on their life experiences with a 7 year old daughter.  Boy, do we have a lot to look forward to ;)

After our luncheon event, Dana and I finally got the word that our crib was in and we were able to go and pick it up.  I was so excited because that meant I could also work on putting the baby's room together.  Dana assembled the crib (thanks, my love) and I started decorating the walls.  It is coming together exactly how I wanted, but I still have a few more things I need to add to the wall and figure out what type of curtain I want to hang for the closet.  It is so close and looking so good!

Next week I will be leaving my hubby and taking off for Santa Barbara for my friend, Jen's bachelorette party....who can complain about a girl's weekend hanging out by the pool all weekend?  It will be a perfect weekend for Dana to spend in his personal oasis (maybe I'll come home to some newly grown veggies :)

I had my 4 week check up today, which is my opportunity to hear our little girl's heartbeat and make sure that my body is treating her good, giving her everything she needs.  As I am always hoping, everything was good and well.  Blood pressure was good, fetal movement is good, heartbeat is in the 140's...and, After a long weekend of eating tons, I was not surprised to see that I gained 6 lbs from last month.  So, now I am totally a 10 lb weight gain.  Before I went in, Dana said to me that he could see my belly has gotten so big that it has to weigh about 10 lbs...well, I guess he was right :)  I am also feeling stronger movements from our little girl.  Her kicks and jabs are much more obvious and some days I can feel her all day long.  I think Rocky is starting to feel them, too, although, they aren't strong enough to get him to move away.  He still likes sleeping right next to her.  Hopefully that means they will be best friends when she actually arrives :)

It is fun having a noticeable belly now because it has striked up conversations from many mothers.  I enjoy hearing the different experiences that all mothers have through this whole process.  Here is a picture of me and my baby belly over the weekend:

Other than the baby in my belly, I am still anxiously awaiting the arrival of our crib.  We should be getting it at the end of the month.  Once it is here, I will put the rest of her room together.  I am starting to get a little impatient for I have almost everything I plan to use to decorate.  I think once it is put together it is going to look so beautiful!  Our little girl is just going to love it, well, I am going to love it for her.  I realize it really won't make much of a difference to her. 

I am also getting really excited because in less than a month, I will be traveling back to Wisconsin to see my family and celebrate the baby with a baby shower at my mom's house.  The baby will get to hear her grandma and grandpa's voices so she can recognize them when they come to visit when she arrives.  My friend, Elizabeth, is also throwing me a shower here in San Diego two weeks after that to celebrate this little girl with all of my friends.  After sending out the evite, I have been excited to see all the girls that will be showing up...through this whole pregnancy process I haven't seen many of my friends, so it will be so nice to get them all together at once place to hang out for the day.

Lastly, in just two short weeks I will officially be 6 months pregnant and getting in to my third trimester.  Can you believe it?  The time is going by so fast!!  And in just about 3 short months, baby will be here!  Whoa!  I feel like there is so much to do to prepare us for being parents and yet the time is approaching so quickly...

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!!!  :)