Olympia "Staycation"

We headed to Lacey/Olympia for a few days to visit mom and Sarah and have some hometown fun!

Best strawberry shortcake ever at the Thurston County Fair.

We spent most of our time at the fair with the bunnies. Bianca was so excited, it took her a few minutes to get up the nerve to pet this one (to her credit, it was a HUGE rabbit with crazy long ears).

Makin' "musics" with John's guitar.

Getting her bounce on at Charlie's Safari. We loved that place--tons of bouncing and climbing action (plus mini-golf, laser tag and arcade games for the older kids) for around $3! Count us in!

The fam at Kora's house for a BBQ.

Silliness.

Having her first s'more. Summertime at its best!

Aaron and Sara Wasser

Our dear friends Aaron and Sara tied the knot on Saturday. Aaron is a friend of mine from high school (I was student body secretary to his VP--until his controversial impeachment), and he held Steve's old job as sports reporter at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. Sara is the kind of spouse you'd want for any of your friends--sweet, kind, and patient. She looked gorgeous and the wedding was lovely. After a long engagement, we're thrilled to finally see these two crazy kids get hitched! Congratulations you two!

Our friend and classmate Walter officiated. I think he's telling Wasser where to stand. :)

Steve and I in front of the lake.

Best man Phil makes a hilarious toast. Good times.

Love the look on Sara's face--she knows him so well!

Delicious cupcakes--I may have eaten three or four. Don't judge.

Aaron with his new nephew who followed him around much of the evening.

Aaron reminiscing about old times with Don Hussey.

Kora and I catch a photo with the bride--loved her hair! The last of our photos before the camera ran out of batteries.

Fancy pants

B decided that Barney needed to be fancy today. He's even wearing her little Elmo undies and shorts underneath. :) This is such a fun age.

25 weeks

I got another peek at little Deuce today. We're already noticing some differences between our kiddos--while B was always very accomodating for ultrasounds, this one seems to respond to the prodding by curling into a ball (making it tough to get good images!) Possibly a defense mechanism from months of poking and prodding by Bianca? :)

I only had to hide my eyes for a minute or two during this scan...I really enjoy not knowing the gender this time. It's like I have a wonderful gift to unwrap in November, and until then, I just get to dream and enjoy. Like holidays and parties, sometimes the anticipation is half the fun!

Heart rate=123 bpm, wt. 1 lb 11 oz. Everything looks great!

Grabbing at a little foot!

Blast from the past...I found this photo of me at 25 weeks pregnant with Bianca. Oof, yes--I'm LOTS bigger this time (see my previous post, below!) despite gaining about the same amount of weight. I'm truly scared of how big I might get, and I'm hoping I can keep up with Bianca while lugging a watermelon for the next 3+ months!

Me at 25 weeks with B.

More bedtime adorableness

We've got a couple more videos of the bedtime singing cuteness...you just never know when one phase will stop and she'll move on to the next thing.

In this video she starts out telling Daddy to "lay down please!" and then she goes into more nursery rhymes...but the cutest is at the end when she sings the Barney song, "I love you, you love me..." She always inserts a hug into the song during the "With a great big HUG and kiss from me to you!" line. It's just beyond adorable.

Guilty pleasures...pregnancy sends my melanin into overdrive, which is both good and bad: I can actually get a tan, but unless I'm super careful (and now that I'm a mom, I'm usually not!) I get crazy dark tan lines all over. Since we're going to Aaron and Sara's wedding this weekend, I went tanning today for the first time in ages. Pregnancy presents an interesting tanning challenge since you can't lay on your back or your front--even reclining is out for me since it makes me so uncomfortable and short of breath. Standing tanning bed to the rescue! I'm still not TAN by anyone's standards except mine (the Desert Sun employee encouraged me to only tan for five minutes today) but it's nice to have a glow. I triple-pinkie-swear to slather on beta hydroxy and retinol night cream for the rest of my life to make up for the skin damage. Although during pregnancy, I'd personally rather catch a few natural rays than lube up with fake-tanning chemicals. Anyway, that's my justification and I'm sticking to it!

Lazy Lakefair

With Steve at the Sounders' game on Saturday, I was in the mood for some fair food. B, Sarah, Mom, and I headed down to Olympia Lakefair to check it out. I was apprehensive about the parking and crowds, since we arrived right before the parade, but it was really pleasant--not a parking hassle to be found. We even got to see the first few minutes of the parade while we enjoyed dessert.

B enjoying her first snowcone--watermelon.

She loves to push her own stroller.

Another first--elephant ear, a Lakefair classic!

Mom and Sarah with the Olympia Capital building in the background.

Cuteness

Morning cuteness...Daddy with his girls. Notice B had to take out her nummynum (paci) and put it behind her. She doesn't like to be photographed with it in--too funny.