A Progression of my Largeness

 It is hard to believe that baby boy Kuhre (who is still nameless...) will be here in just a few more weeks! The stork is definitely in a holding pattern above our house. Along the way, we've taken some pictures to document my growing belly

 

 

It was fun...and a little bit horrifying to look back at these pictures today. I chose to wear this shirt in the pictures because it was the one that made me look the most pregnant. In the beginning,  it took a long time for my belly to really show. That is definitely not a problem these days. I am feeling large and in charge! I packed my hospital bag and made freezer meals yesterday, and Jeremy put the car seat in car. I think we are just about as ready as we are going to be! We're really excited for him to get here!

Fall Happenings

It has been such a fun fall so far. Over my birthday weekend, my good friend Brooke came to visit from Boise. It was so great to have her here. We were able to pack a lot into the weekend. On Friday we fit in some quality shopping time and went to University City in downtown Philadelphia on a double date with one of Jeremy's friends. On Saturday, we woke up bright and early and took the train to New York City. Our first stop was the half price Broadway ticket booth in Times Square. A little known perk of being pregnant in New York City is that you get to go to the very front of the line! After we got our tickets, we took the ferry past the statue of liberty to Ellis Island.

 

 

It seems like whenever we visit, we never have quite enough time there. I think it is such a fascinating place. After Ellis Island, we hurried back up to Broadway to see Spiderman. We told the man in the ticket booth to give us the best seats he had, but we didn't ask him what those were. When we got to the theater (with 2 minutes to spare) we found out that our seats were front row center. It was a little bit difficult to see during a couple of times during the show, but mostly it was pretty cool. The cast members interact with you a lot when you are that close. Spiderman swung from the ceiling and landed pretty much on top of us and made me and Brooke jump. Brooke also got spit on by Spiderman :)

 

 

After the show, we went to Max Brenner's for dinner. They have a regular menu, but they also have an additional menu devoted entirely to chocolate. Jeremy and I shared the fondue. It was amazing! It was an excellent birthday!

Last weekend, my friend Kelsey put on a a shower for me. She did such a great job. It was a "shower" theme. She made cute crepe paper pom pom rain clouds and rain cloud cupcakes

 

These are chocolate covered marshmallow "baby rattles." So cute!

This is the gorgeous quilt that Kelsey made. It is so soft! I love it!

 

We got a lot of really nice things from the ladies in our ward. We feel really blessed to have such good friends. It is crazy to think that the baby is due next month! Pictures of the finished nursery soon to follow!

Babymoon to Vermont

Last weekend, Jeremy and I went on our "babymoon" to Woodstock, Vermont. It's crazy to think that the baby will be here in just about 2 months! We had such a good time. I would love to live in Vermont, just so that I could be there for the fall every year! We stayed at the Maple Leaf Inn.

 

 

It was the cutest place. The breakfasts each morning were incredible, and the Innkeepers made fresh chocolate chip cookies each afternoon. Our room had a real wood burning fireplace, which was really fun to use at night when it got down to the 30s outside. On our first day, we took a little drive north to Stowe, Vermont. We went to the Ben and Jerry's factory and took a tour. They have a "flavor graveyard" of a bunch of the discontinued flavors.

 It was pretty easy to see why most of them didn't last long. We also stopped at Cabot Cheese, Lake Champlain Chocolates and Cold Hollow Cider Mill. I guess this stretch of highway is known as "enticement alley" just because there are so many yummy places to stop. Cold Hollow Cider Mill was a really fun place. It was really neat to watch them press the apples. I do love my cider!

 

That afternoon we walked around downtown Stowe and looked in some shops. After that, we drove around Mt. Mansfield. The drive was gorgeous. The weather could have been better, but we still saw some really pretty foliage.On the other side of Mt. Mansfield, we visited our friends, the Bigelows. We went on a little hike with them and they made us a delicious dinner!

 

On Saturday, we went to Sugarbush maple farm, another place with lots of yummy samples. They let you taste all the different grades of maple syrup: from Grade A, which is really light and mild tasting, all the way to dark amber, which is pretty dark and has the strongest maple flavor. When we walked into the tasting room, a black man turned to us and said "Nice to meet you...I'm dark amber." I guess that makes me and Jeremy Karo Syrup :). It was really fun to walk around the farm and learn how maple syrup is made.

 

 

After Sugarbush, we drove into Woodstock and went to the Simon Pearce glassblowing factory for lunch. In the basement, they have live glassblowing going on all day that you can watch. After lunch, we hiked to the top of Mount Tom. At the top, there was a pretty view of Woodstock.

After the hike, we explored downtown Woodstock and went to the farmer's market. That night we went to Cloudland farms for dinner. It is a "farm to table" restaurant. Everything they serve there they either produce on the farm or get locally. My favorite part of the meal was the apple tart with caramel sauce. It was a delicious end to our trip! Hopefully this won't be our last trip to Vermont while we live out east!

Utah Trip

Last weekend, Jeremy and I took a little mini trip back to Utah.  We were able to fit a lot of fun things into a pretty short period of time. It was really great to be back Utah. There are a lot of things I miss...family...the lack of humidity...the restaurants...the roads and the speed limit. Even with the 1-15 construction going on the freeways in Utah are waaay better than any of the sad excuses for highways in Pennsylvania. On Thursday, we drove to Provo for Jeremy's brother's convocation from BYU. Being back on campus always brings back so many good memories

 

We went to Cafe Rio for lunch, which was pretty much the highlight of my day.

 

After Brandon's graduation ceremony, we drove to the Joseph Smith Building on temple square in Salt Lake City for my cousin Katelyn's wedding reception.The Joseph Smith Building is another place that brings back special memories for me. Jeremy and I had our wedding reception there just about four years ago. The reception was beautiful and it was really great to see a lot of family members that we hadn't seen in a while.

 

The next morning, we drove back to Provo for Brandon's commencement ceremony.

After the ceremony, we went to J-Dawgs for lunch (another Provo classic) and walked around campus a bit. That night we had a yummy graduation celebration dinner at Tucanos. On Saturday morning, my sisters, mom, and mother in law threw a baby shower for me at my sister's house. It was great, I was able to see a lot of family and friends and we got a bunch of really cute baby things.

 

 

 

 I think seeing all of the tiny baby clothes made everything seem a little bit more real to me. It is crazy that baby boy Kuhre is going to be here in just a little over 3 months!

 

my mom and sisters made these adorable baby cupcakes

 

My mother in law, Phyllis made these cute little favors

and my Aunt Johanna made the fabulous diaper cake. That night my Dad's side of the family got together for a barbeque. I think this is the best picture I had of everyone together

We had a great time in Utah, it just went by too fast. Now I am ready for summer to be over in Pennsylvania and for fall to finally be here. I don't care what the weather looks like, I am putting up my fall decorations on September 1st!

Summer Updates

It's been a great summer so far. It's hard to believe it's almost July. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Newport Beach, CA with my family. It was really nice to get away from the humidity in PA. We stayed at the Marriot villas. They were gorgeous!

On one of the first days in California, we went to Balboa Island. We had a great time riding the ferris wheel and riding bikes along the beach.

We also rented a Duffy boat and took it for a spin around the bay. I fell in love with all of the little houses along the waterfront.

I think my favorite thing about California was just relaxing on the beach. Luke had a great time building sand castles, and Nic and Jeremy became pro boogie boarders.

On our last day in California, we went to Disneyland. It had been forever since Jeremy or I had been there and it was a lot of fun to go on all of the classic rides like the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Carribean.

We had a really great time with my family and I think the only way Jeremy was able to convince me to leave California the next day was by promising we would get Cafe Rio in the Salt Lake City airport on the way home. Since we've been back home, Jeremy and I (mostly Jeremy...) have been working really hard at re-staining our deck. It has been a really big job. Here is a picture of what it looked like before (I took this picture in November when they deck was a little bit wet and so you can't quite tell just how faded and weathered it really was)

This is what it looks like now that we are all done with it! Jeremy did a really nice job.

Last week, we took a little break from working on the deck and went to Longwood Gardens to see the light display by Bruce Munro. It was really spectacular. We thought it was even better than their Christmas displays. To all of our Philadelphia friends, definitely go if you have a chance this summer. They had tens of thousands of lights set up throughout the gardens. I thought it looked like a fairyland. Jeremy thought it looked like the movie Avatar. Either way, it was pretty cool

And last but not least, last week we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary. We went out to dinner at the Seven Stars Inn in Phoenixville. Jeremy got their specialty, the prime rib. I think the piece of meat he got weighed about 3 pounds. It was incredible.

Happy anniversary Jeremy!