6 months! With 4 more to go??? Hmmm...

6 months and growing fast!

Who had the kooky idea to tell women that pregnancy lasts 9 months?! I just passed the 24 week mark which is marks 6 months, right? Well my due date is October 12th and that is about 4 months away! So in my calculations that is 10 months of pregnancy. Thank goodness I am enjoying it! My baby is due on a Full Moon! How cool is that? We just passed the full moon of June on the 15th. There are 4 more full moons until the baby is due to arrive!

As you can see my belly has gone through a growth spurt and her kicks are getting stronger with more muscle behind them! It is such an awesome feeling that I cherish every time I feel it. River has also been able to feel her move in my tummy. We have been talking to her now and playing her special songs. River plays to her too on his guitar and makes up silly songs. It's really sweet.

So many things have happened since my last post it's hard to know where to begin. Let's start with the happy events! My great friend Jen Edington was just here visiting over the past week. She was my co-worker at Indralaya for 3 1/2 years. She and her partner Mark now live in Oregon but she came to co-headcook for a workshop back at Indralaya. She brought her amazing camera and we got several really great shots that I look forward to sharing once she sends me copies.

Here's Jen with one of the 3 Mastiff Dogs she lives with!
This picture is from a visit to her home in October of 2010, she did not bring the dog to Orcas :)

The Orcas Island Summer Solstice Celebration was yesterday. It has the best parade, so many fun costumes! This year's theme was "Around the World".

I opted out of being in the parade this year and enjoyed it from the sidelines! It actually rained a little bit on our parade! Last year it was sunny and hot! My good friend Megan was in the fashion show put together by a friend of ours, a local designer, made out of recycled materials or re-fashioned clothing. Here she is below modeling for me!

21 weeks and Loving it!

It is official! I love my pregnant self! It is such an amazing thing to be able to grow a baby! I feel it moving daily now and every time it's like the first! Such an exciting feeling! The baby is growing all the time and I suppose it will continue to grow the entire pregnancy, duh, but the changes are noticeable week to week. I feel great and have a decent amount of energy to put to good use. Organizing the house in preparation for our new arrival, envisioning how we will set it up to create baby space.

Right now I am listening to some lovely music and I have a small speaker on my belly for the baby to hear. It's cello music right now which is very soothing and beautiful. It is nice to relax to myself after a busy day at work with many issues to resolve. It was a successful and fulfilling day however and I am so grateful that I have such an amazing co-worker/boss, Jami Mitchell. She is the best. I love my job and I love Doe Bay!

This is the cafe building and it also houses my office. River took this dusky shot from his kayak!

It has been hard lately to keep a positive attitude when my spirits have been dampened by the news from back home that my Grandfather Ron Linneman, has decided not to continue chemotherapy and is now under the care of hospice. He has battled this cancer for about a year really, though they didn't know what it was until last fall. It's really hard to be away from everyone right now, so far removed from the situation, nothing I can do to help. I try to remember the amazing things about him, I see him in my memory as strong, broad shoulders tan from the sun, working outside whether it was hauling hay or mending fences, he was always working hard on a task. I'm sure I will have more memories to share about Gramps in future entries but for now I need to remember he IS still living and just send him peaceful and happy thoughts of comfort and love even if I can't be there to express them directly.

Dad, Me, Granny and Gramps taken during my visit February 2011, just after we found out I was pregnant! It was great to share the news first hand!

River had a poignant trip to Indiana and Ohio. He was able to spend a few days with his father who is also ailing from cancer. His dad came and stayed at Marlene's house, River's mom, where Ryan, River's younger brother, and his three girls were able to visit as well. They even went to the zoo together.

Here's a picture of our sweet nieces, Amelia, Ava and Bella.

Baby Girl! Oh, the sweetness to come!

Our Baby Girl!

I am so excited to announce that our ultrasound came out perfectly with everything normal and healthy and it looks like we are going to have a baby girl!

The second picture is a view of the belly
and head. You can see the dark spots of the location of the eyes and a nose with nostrils in the middle. The brightest part is the lips and chin.

The Happy Parents to be!

More details to come soon!

19 Weeks! I Feel Movement!

Fabulous flutters! It has been a big week for me and the baby! I am really progressing into being pregnant! I started to feel the baby begin to wiggle and squirm this week!!! They say the baby is the size of a Mango and funny that I ate a fresh mango tonight! My belly has grown quite a bit these past 2 weeks, in fact it has been getting in the way a bit more! I bumped into it with the car door as I closed it! Didn't realize it was sticking out so far.

River is coming home tomorrow! He has had an awesome time in Indiana visiting his mom and many other family members. I look forward to seeing his pictures and hearing the stories of his experiences there. I will be catching an early ferry tomorrow to head to Seattle. After River gets in we will get dinner at Pabla, a vegetarian Indian restaurant near the airport. It is my favorite spot to

hit whenever I am around that area.

The photo on the left was taken at 18 weeks and the photo on the right was tonight at 19 weeks.

On Tuesday, the day after I pick River up, we are going to visit my midwife Cynthia again. We will be heading over to the hospital to get our first ultrasound! This is also the time when they can tell whether it is a boy or a girl! So in my next post I should have that exciting bit of news. We are very excited to find out and to share! I have been thinking of names lately but nothing really stands out as a certain choice. River and I bounce ideas off of each other but nothing has quite the right fit yet.

I am planning to have a baby registry on Amazon.com, but at the same time we hope to get many of the items we need gently used and/or passed down to us. My friends are gifting us with a very nice car seat! Thanks Joern and Tiffany! I am looking into this high chair right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohnizuQBfUg . The brand is Svan and it is made in Sweden. It is made of wood and doesn't take up much space, which is important. It is adjustable to grow with the baby all the way into the teen years! This also means it has a sturdy construction and it's long-lasting life means it won't end up in a landfill any time soon!

More on all of this when I return from my trip to the mainland! I'll leave you now with one more belly shot! Now that's a belly full of baby!

May is upon us!

Last Saturday I went out to a party some friend's were throwing in celebration of various birthdays which all fall in Taurus. It was a small quirky group and we enjoyed the various dress-up party favors the hosts provided, such as many colorful wigs and accessories! It felt really funny to leave the house at 9:30pm to go to a party on the other side of the island (a time I am usually cozy in bed these days!) But I am so glad I went and danced and had a great time with friends. There were plenty of organic strawberries to feast upon, some even covered in chocolate!
This is my friend Susie in the photo with me. She's an artist, belly dancer, and has a huge wolf-like dog named Max.

Yesterday I took River to the airport and had to say goodbye for 10 days apart. He went back to Indiana to visit with his family. His dad has cancer so he wanted to spend some time visiting with him. Today I talked to him while he was walking in Foster Park with his mom and brother Ryan amongst tulips flowering and trees in bloom. He arrived perfectly to spend Mother's Day with his mama! Another weird synchronicity happened to River on his way. He was in the super busy O'Hare airport in Chicago changing planes and he ran into his cousin Dave Augenstein! He was one of his cousins that came to our wedding but they haven't kept in touch very well and Dave had no idea River was coming to Indiana. It was really random and they even ended up on the same flight together to Fort Wayne! It was even weirder to Marlene and Ryan who awaited River at the baggage claim to see another relative walking up with him! So strange the way the world can bring people together. Sometimes the chaos all makes sense.

My 17 week belly

Lately I have been more moody, hopefully not too crabby! I have been a little more emotional than the earlier months and that is a welcome relief. It felt strange to not have a good cry when I felt like I was supposed to all overwhelmed by pregnancy hormones. Touching moments in movies really get me these days! I've been napping more too. About an hour a day really gives me a boost. The night before River left he made a wonderful salmon dinner with wild rice and asparagus with a salad. It was nice to get the fish in my diet. Still have a little left over so maybe I'll make some nori rolls with it, like a California roll but with salmon!


Only 1 week and a couple of days until we have the ultrasound and hopefully find out what our baby's sex is! I don't have the camera (River took it to Indiana) to take 18 week pics which is what I am today. I actually have a 2nd camera that was a recent gift so maybe I'll fire it up and give it a test run! I definitely think I have grown, as has the baby, in the last week. I hope everyone has a lovely Mother's Day!

Food, Feathers and Fun!

Tonight I was able to take part in a dinner hosted by Christina Orchid who ran a very well know restaurant on Orcas Island for nearly 30 years. The restaurant was called "Christina's" and it was still in business when we moved to the island but she has sold it and now holds demo cooking classes at her farm. I went with a group from Doe Bay and we sat at a long table and observed while Christina taught us how to make various dishes, not hands on, but still interesting and enjoyable. We had lovage soup (it's like celery but more herby tasting), vegetable stuffed eggplant with greens, black eyed peas and drizzled with a chutney-like sauce. For dessert she mad an angel food cake (which seemed so simple as long as you can get the egg whites whipped!) with rhubarb sauce and rosemary infused lemon ice cream all made during the demo. I don't have any pictures, but trust me it was yummy and I definitely ate for two!

I think the belly has had a growth spurt in the last week. No new belly shots though. I am 16 weeks and 3 days along and I have been very hungry and extra thirsty. We get a tart cherry juice by the case and I LOVE it! It has a lot of antioxidants too. I am eating more fish lately to keep up the protein intake and lots of greens from vitamins and minerals (and besides I love kale, collards and spinach!) We are going to start our own garden plot very soon. It is so important to us to grow at least some of our own food.

We had a sad day the other day when one of our chickens was killed in the night. The coop door was accidentally left open overnight by those who care for them and a raccoon got in. This chicken was getting over an illness and was not yet roosting up high with the rest of them which made her an easy target. She was unnamed when we brought her from Indralaya and the Doe Bay garden crew had named her Beyonce. We are now down to 7 chickens.

Here's a picture of Ruby from a year ago, she is very much alive and thriving!

Another shot of some of the chickens... I realized I never updated the blog on the subject of chickens after I posted their arrival! They are now 2 years old, but these pics are from last summer.


I recently revisited Indralaya (to get my mail and say hello!) and the new (returned) managers asked to take my picture to post on the Indralaya blog that they started. Here is the link to check it out:

http://thisweekatindralaya.blogspot.com/

I would like to share a few more pictures now that are from my trip to California this winter.

River and I with the positive results of the pregnancy test! We found out while visiting our friends in Morro Bay who have a baby that was 9 months old when we were there, so they bestowed hand-me-down gifts such as the lovely baby wrap carrier that River is wearing here!

Here we are celebrating our
12 year wedding anniversary!
This was days before we found out I was pregnant! We were at a quaint Inn right on Morro Bay where they lend you bicycles for the day!

Here I am at Disneyland in front of Thunder Mountain. Always been one of my favorites! We had a great day full of fun and time spent with family. It was both River and Thomas Jay's first visit! Here's River standing near a dolphin topiary at It's a Small World.

Thomas Jay turned 3 years old while we were visiting which was the reason behind the Disneyland trip. Here he is enjoying his birthday dessert at the Rainforest Cafe. He is such a handsome boy!

I'll leave you now with this awesome picture of Minke birdwatching. He actually just likes to sit in my lap and watch the cursor move around the screen! Today he did catch a shrew though, so he is becoming a hunter. He is the best cat ever!

Baby's Heartbeat!

My Baby's Heartbeat! It was so exciting to hear the quick, little, rhythmic beats! Of course I knew I was pregnant but now it is so much more real! Here's the video I took while my midwife Cynthia used the "Doppler" on my belly. It was taken almost 2 weeks ago. We will have the ultrasound in another 3 weeks. So stay tuned for more baby news!



We finally had a sunny spring day that was a bit warm! Tomorrow is looking to be even warmer with a big ol' high of 57 degrees! Never thought that the high 50's would feel warm to me, but it does. I sat in the sun today for a bit and soaked it in.

I'll leave you for now with this photo of me taken yesterday (yes, those are Christmas PJs). My belly grows by the day, little by little. I am 4 months along now! 16 weeks! Lately I have been craving artichoke hearts... yum.