Ta-daaaaa!

Here is the finished product from Way Cool Designs!! Susie sent this picture last night before I went to sleep and of course I was super excited to be able to share it with y'all! Now if only I didn't live in Germany and didn't have to wait so long for it to arrive! Maybe it will be one of those packages like from Barnes and Noble that arrives in 4 days but I am not going to hold my breath! I just can't wait to get it so I can start filling in all the family information for Evans! Again, for anyone interested, Susie also does wedding guest books etc and she is certainly worth checking out! While we are on the topic of baby items (which I am sorry for those of you who find them completely a snooze, I am trying to keep the talk to a minimum!) Deaner put together the baby swing this weekend. My sister and brother in law gave us this awesome swing at my baby shower in Atlanta and I have been trying to wait until a more appropriate time to put it together. Of course it was not necessary to have a swing sitting in in our dining room for the last several months but I decided that with 36 days left it was okay to go ahead with assembly!Here is my handsome handiman putting Evans' lamb swing together. I know that Deaner is an engineer and all but after this incident...I figured that I better inspect the finished product a little bit more carefully this time around. It was a good thing I did! Apparently Deaner lost interest in the swing when it came time to put the actual seat/fabric part on it and if we had actually put a child in it the way he had arranged it, it would not have been a good ending. I had to take the whole seat part apart and redo it! Geez. After my discovery I figured it was just better if I put together the bouncy seat!Now we are done with putting stuff together for awhile at least. Deaner's dad is bringing our jogging stroller when he comes in September but that might be the last big thing. Who knows what else will come up.

So, today has been an eventful day. I went and got a pedicure on the base because I had a gift certificate. Lacking.....to say the least. Still I needed one BAD and I got one. The issue came later in the day. About half way thru this post I received a call from Deaner who informed me that the Crossfire had stalled out on the access road between the airport and autobahn. I found this a big concerning but apparently it started up again after some time and he was able to keep driving. Until it did it again and this time on a very narrow part of the autobahn. He couldn't even get out to put up his orange triangle!! The police had to come and a tow truck and I just got back from picking him up at the mechanics place where it was towed too. Nice huh? Just what we need. The mechanic thinks it could be something with the computer in the car and that it will be super expensive. Just what you want to have happen when you have doctor's bills coming right and left and a baby coming in 5 weeks. The guy told us we need to sell it. I have never liked the car but still, I don't want to have the hassle of selling a car and buying a new one with a baby coming anyday. I'm over it and in a grumpy mood about it. Don't even ASK about Deaner's mood! Happy Tuesday!

Productive Weekend!

Well, how was everyone's weekend? Ours was nice and relaxing for the most part! We had dinner with friends on Friday night at a delicious Greek restaurant where we will definitely be dining again. I love finding places here that we like because I find that they are few and far between around here!

Saturday I had a productive day and got several things ordered for the baby. It dawned on me a few days ago that I still had no baby book for Evans. There is so much tacky stuff out there and I had been really put off on previous occasions when I had looked. Saturday I was determined to find one and order it because frankly, we were running out of time. I stumbled upon the website Way Cool Designs and fell in love with the perfect baby book. There were SO many options and Deaner was actually into helping me pick one out! In the meantime, I put some feelers out with some friends, asking if anyone had any baby book suggestions and I had TWO friends respond with this being the same vendor that they used! I e-mailed the owner, Susie, to make sure that they could ship to our APO box and got an immediate response confirming that they could. SOLD. I called to place my order and Susie was MORE than helpful. She assured me that they ship to APO's all the time and that it wasn't a problem. She also said she would make a special effort to get my book out to me as quickly as possible to ensure that I had it before Evans arrives. There is a lot to say about great customer service and I certainly found it here! Deaner and I picked out a baby book with a coffee color linen cover just like this one.With this font monogram (although ours will be in navy blue).And our ribbon will be in navy blue as well. There are several themes that you can choose for the inside pages and Deaner and I chose to have the Beatrix Potter pages because that is what we had as children. I can't tell y'all how excited I am to get my baby book!!! I am sure that in the coming weeks I will start anxiously checking our APO box for my treat! I would highly recommend using this company if you are in the market for a baby book. I will definitely be posting more pictures of it once it arrives!!

I also pre-ordered Evans birth annoucements!! I copied a picture of the ones that I chose from Tiny Prints BUT I decided that I don't really want to show them yet or no one will be surprised when they get them! The stupid person there tried to tell me that they would charge me $25 to ship to my APO box. What a rip! However after a bit of research, it turns out Tiny Prints has a printer here in Europe and I can have the announcements UPSed here for only $10 and they will only take 1-5 days to arrive! The envelopes are already being shipped to me so I can get those done and out of the way! :) I was feeling QUITE productive at the end of Saturday!

We had a great dinner down on the river Saturday night and Sunday had a relaxing day. Deaner left for England this morning for a meeting but he will be back tomorrow afternoon so he isn't gone for long. I have done a major cleaning of our house today which greatly needed to be done. The top two bedrooms are spotless and I even vacuumed spider webs off the ceilings. The next two bedrooms (ours and Evans) and the guest bathroom are also spotless. The entry hallway on the first floor is sparkling. I have only completed half of the main floor though before I ran out of steam. The kitchen and laundry room are perfect but the den and dining room still need a bit of work. Unfortunately the Country Club was calling my name and I had to have a several hour float to recover! Now I am about to eat some dinner and watch some TV! Perhaps tomorrow I will resume my cleaning! Happy Monday to everyone!

Evans is a Beast!

Well, I was pretty happy with Evans' size at my appointment two weeks as he was 4.5 pounds and in the 50% for weight. I thought that was pretty normal and nothing out of the ordinary. Today, on the otherhand, was another story. Apparently Evans has totally chunked up and now weighs 6 pounds and is in the 70th percentile for weight! WHAT? What is going to happen if I go another 6 weeks?? That means that I could have a 9 pound child. God help me. I mean, I know that babies slow down their growth at the end but something tells me that Evans isn't going to stall out at 6 pounds. Yikes! The doctor even called him CHUBBY and showed us his belly fat! Nice. I am sure that this in NO WAY reflects my eating habits and what I have chosen to feed this child! :) Now I don't see my doctor for another THREE weeks because her office is closing for summer vacation. Some timing huh? I'm frightened to see how big this baby gets while she is closed. And frightened to see how big I get. At my next appointment I will be almost 38 weeks. I hope I make it until then! She said she thought I would make it to my next appointment but I guess we will see! I wonder every night as I waddle to the bathroom how much longer this is going to last!! I don't know what I am going to do but I feel like time has completely stopped!!

Unwanted Guest at the Club

Things at the Deaner Country Club have been going really pretty well the past few days. I have had some really nice relaxing afternoon lie abouts in the water and I truely don't remember the last time I was this tan (on the front side at least). Deaner and I had a small squabble this past weekend over who the actual "owner" of the DCC is because apparently whomever the owner is, gets the better chair. I feel like I am the owner of the club but he says that he is since he is the actual mortgage holder on the club. I just let him have the chair in the end and I know in my heart who the real owner is! Like we have a mortgage on an 80 euro pool!

Unfortunately I think I may have an unwanted visitor at the DCC. As I was peacefully floating today on my raft without a care in the world I was very startled to hear a giant croaking sound. Yes, that is right, three very large RRRRRRRRRIBBITS right in a row. I did some detective work around the pool because the last thing I want is a giant frog taking up residence there but he was no where to be seen. I think he might currently be residing in George's fish pond next door but I hope he doesn't get a hankering to move to my much nicer and much cleaner pool, because he is not welcome. I continued to hear him all afternoon. The rrrrrrribbets are so distinct and come in sets of three and for awhile I was thinking that maybe it was a toy of some sort. I'll try and pay attention tomorrow.

My lack of blogging yesterday was in direct relation to the heat. I just couldn't stand to sit with the computer on my lap producing heat on my legs. Tonight it looks like it might rain (HALLALUJAH!) so I figured I would try and get in a quick post. Deaner is frying bacon in the kitchen for BLT's and while the smell of bacon is delicious to me, I hate that my kitchen is going to stink for the next 12 hours! More updates to come tomorrow! I have a doctor's appointment at 11:30 and I can't wait to hear if there are any developments in Evans' arrival schedule! Looks like there is definitely a storm brewing here so I need to go make sure the cover is secure on the DCC. More later, Happy Wednesday!!!!!!

My Club's Newest Employee

Isn't he handsome? And he has so many uses!! Saturday Deaner took on the role of lifeguard at the club as well as the pool boy. We decided that since I love my pool so much that we need to take really good care of it. We went to the German Home Depot (OBI) on Saturday morning before taking to the pool and bought some chlorine/pool chemicals so my water can stay fresh and so clean clean. We realized quickly enough that the water was not going to stay so crystal clear for weeks on end if we didn't buy some chemicals. It was really interesting trying to translate the instructions into English so that we didn't end up with chemical burns on our body! However, I think we figured it out just right because the water is nice and clean now without an ounce of slime! We also go a skimmer (a.k.a. a cat pooper scooper because the "real" skimmers were so expensive), a pool cover (again, a.k.a. a cheap paint drop cloth) and this little guy!!Actually Deaner picked him out all by himself because I had to sit in the air conditioned car with the groceries while Deaner ran into OBI for the pool goods. I didn't mind at all! So there was lots of time spent at the Club this weekend. Deaner and I both swam on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is just so refreshing. On Saturday the pool was getting a bit on the warm side so we drained out some water and replaced it with nice freezing hose water. When it is 97 degrees outside and you have no AC in your house you resort to desperate measures. There have also been many many showers this weekend. I never thought I would say that I was sick of seeing the SUN in Germany!

I have been saving some pictures to post that I keep meaning to share with y'all and then I forget. The first is that Evans' laundry basket liner finally arrived from Pottery Barn Kids. I will never understand how places like Barnes and Noble can get me 10 hardback books here in 4 days but some places like PBK take 3.5 weeks to ship me a piece of fabric. Regardless, it is here and it fits the basket that I bought at the PX.Now his dirty clothes can be housed in style! :) Also we received two packages recently from friends of mine with AWESOME gifts for Evans'. First my friend Jen sent these cute outfits!And then my friend Julia sent us these.I'm sorry, I have tried to rotate this picture 4 times and I just can't figure out why it won't work. Cock your head to the side! :) I can't wait for Evans to get to wear all these adorable outfits. I am currently washing them right now so they will be nice and ready for him!

So that is about all from our weekend. I'm heading over to Steph's today to help her organize her spare bedroom. Yes, that's right, I'm taking a day off from my Club but that is okay because it is supposed to be nice and hot all week. There will be plenty of time for clubbing. Honestly it has been so hot in Germany the past week that I'm really surprised I'm still alive. I am really hoping that we get a good doctor's report this Thursday and that the Doctor still thinks there is a chance I will be early. I don't know if I can continue like this until August 25th!!

Today at the Club

Today at the club was another giant success. Steph came over this morning for a day of fun in the sun at the Country Club and the weather did not disappoint! It was about 85 degrees and not a cloud in the sky all afternoon! Last night I made a Club playlist on my ipod of 75 of the most popular beach/pool songs that would play for 5 hours of floating in the pool. It was fantastic. Even with the remote I never had to start the playlist over again! The menu at the Club today was a bit more sophisticated than yesterday and Steph and I dined on fresh brushetta for lunch in our top notch dining facility.Not to mention the mass amounts of brownies consumed after our afternoon of floating. And don't forget the smoothies we had after lunch! After my small sunburn yesterday I decided I needed to float on my stomach today. Thankfully our rafts had enough "give" in them that I was able to do this very comfortably. So comfortably in fact that 3 hours of floating passed in no time at all! It looks like I am going to keep this tan afterall! Jon is out of town so Steph is staying for dinner with us. I made spaghetti sauce this morning and we are just waiting for Deaner to get home from the gym so we can eat. I think we will dine at the Club for dinner as well! Happy Thursday!!

Country Club at it's Finest

I have to admit, I grew up enjoying my parent's country club immensely. I was on the swim team from the age of 5 and it was pretty much the dominating environment of my childhood. In the summers the normal routine was to wake up in the morning, put on our bathing suits, head to swim practice, afterwards jump off the diving board 4389734 times, have lunch at the pool, jump off the diving board 4398743098 more times, then have dinner at the pool with my dad joining us after a day of work. I have to say that it was the life. And I have been missing it a lot lately. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. If I couldn't be lounging around at Ansley in Atlanta, I would have to create my own private Country Club and extend membership invitations to only the tip top elite in Germany. Last week I took the first steps towards my dream by purchasing the pool.Now this pool might not look like much but after two days of preparation, I think that my country club is closer to being complete! I really wish that I had taken some pictures of it today while it was in action but sadly, I don't want to show a picture of myself in a bathing suit. So here it how it looked yesterday while it was being filled.Who knew it would take ALL day to fill a 1500 gallon pool? I sure didn't. I finally turned off the hose around 5 because I may or may not have gotten a bit nervous about the actual weight of the pool on our deck. I mean, as much as I want this pool, I don't want it to collapse into our basement or anything. That might not be worth it. Upon Deaner's arrival home last night and his assurance that the pool would not collapse into our basement I resumed work this morning. I got our new patio umbrella set up.So now we have a dining facility at the Club. I realize that that umbrella is tilted to the side but there have been contruction workers at the house next store and this provided a bit of privacy. And finally!! The pool was filled to capacity!Keep in mind that during the day (before 5pm) my whole swimming pool is in the sun. I'll try and do better with the pictures tomorrow! Do you like my rafts? At the real Club, rafts are not allowed but this is the joy of having your OWN club! You get to make the rules! Today my friend Anne came over for the Grand Opening of my Country Club and it was a huge hit. The water was still a bit chilly having just come out of the hose but we both got in the pool and floated on our rafts for an afternoon of pure enjoyment! I didn't even manage to sink my raft despite being over the weight limit! Today at my pool I served fruit smoothies, brownies and diet coke. Not my finest menu but I am expecting that to improve. Steph will be joining me at the Club tomorrow and I am planning a lunch of fresh brushetta and icy drinks. In about 7 weeks or so I will also be serving a full bar. I am hoping that I can talk Deaner into grilling out by my pool this weekend so I can show him how awesome it is. For membership information please contact me!