Easter Weekend

This Saturday we drove to the Jersey Shore. Point Pleasant Beach was calming, beautiful...and cold. As if going snow skiing, we bundled up with layers of clothes and our warmest coats. But it was so worth it. Minus the warm sun, watching the ocean was everything I love about being on a boat in an Oklahoma lake. The waves came and went, lulling me into peace and relaxation.

When we first arrived, we drove up and down the street nearest the beach. It was fun to see all the old beach houses. Some of them were so enormous, they must have housed 20 bedrooms. I loved the wrap-around porches. It was easy to imagine bathing beauties of the Victorian era with all their pals heading to the beach to cool off.

Many of the shops were closed for the season, but a good portion of them were open. We stopped at this one and enjoyed a seafood feast while looking out at the docks, the seagulls, the ducks, and the working fishing boats. I think Garrett was trying to retrieve this anchor from the ground out front--but you'll have to ask him to be sure.
We didn't actually make it to the boardwalk, but plan to return. I'm drawn to the carnival atmosphere. All sorts of rides entice me, but I'll have to wait until Baby arrives before I try 'em out. Hopefully, they have corndogs. A corndog would make me happy. Going back will be easy. It's about an hour and a half drive (if that) and we noticed the train station stops just a short walk from the beach. Train tickets would definitely be cheaper than parking.

For the weather being so frigid, people were plentiful on the sand enjoying the bright day. We even saw toddlers with their Easter baskets collecting seashells. Adorable.

Garrett is on the pier holding our little sack of collected seashells.

On Sunday, we went to West Point to share Easter dinner with our friends Alison and Paul and their baby girl Ellery. It was nice to have a holiday with loved ones when family is so far away.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Christmas in March

Christmas? Check. Kwanzaa? Check. New Year's Eve? Check.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Groundhog's Day, Chinese New Year, Presidents' Day, Flag Day, Valentine's Day? Check.

Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, St. Patrick's Day? Check.

Daylight Savings Time? Yep.

Good Friday.

I have photographic evidence for you. This is a CHRISTMAS wreath, right? This house represents all the others who still proudly display their holiday wreaths with their tired red bows.

I don't have photos of all the holiday offenders because people get annoyed when you slow traffic to take pics. Plus, it probably seems a bit creepy to people who don't know me. Heck, I felt a little odd taking them, but I knew you'd want to see.

These deer crack us up almost every time we pass them--which is daily. The one that's down must be dead. At first we thought it had passed out on New Year's Eve and never recovered. Since it's never been set rightside up again, maybe a hunter got it.

You can't really tell from the picture, but they're wearing holly and red bows.

Maybe it dropped dead from mortification.

Week 15

We took this picture on March 19. It's the first one we've taken to commemorate the pregnancy. I love that regular fashions adapt so well to maternity these days.

I'm a Sneetch

It's official. I look like a character from Dr. Seuss.

Over the weekend it happened.

One day I was one of those women that look as if she's merely had too many jelly donuts.

The next day I looked pregnant.

Sort of.

Mostly I look like a Sneetch.

I think I need to get a yellow t-shirt and paint an aqua star on my belly.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

As I've mentioned before, some families around here don't have a clue about the holidays. Our friend Stephanie told me that NJ fines people for leaving holiday decorations up past January, so it must be a problem. I'm not just being obsessive. (Okay, maybe a little.) While taking Garrett to work this morning, we passed three houses that still displayed Christmas decorations. Yep.

It's St. Patrick's Day. That means dancing leprechauns, green beer, and festive pinches. Not holly and red bows. C'mon people!

If you're not feeling festive yet, click here to read some interesting tidbits about St. Patrick's Day.

March 15, 2008

We've needed a dvd player for Jersey. Garrett bought a Play Station 3--which has Blue Ray technology on the dvd player and, of course, gaming capabilities.

He's been playing for several hours. We went by Blockbuster today and rented the game Lair. It's kind of fun. The graphics are so realistic.

You may think I'm slow on catching up with the last couple of decades. I am. Not counting a bowling game of Wii at our friends' house, I've not played anything really since Atari and early Nintendo. I rarely got to play often because the games were in my brother's room and he had an aversion to his little sister playing Pitfall and Mario Brothers around him. I have players' anxiety.

Okay. So I'm not very good. I get bored. The problem I've always had with games was once you get to a certain point, you just don't know what the game wants you to do. For example, the game has us riding a dragon (yeah, cool, right?) and fighting against these bad guys who also have dragons. We go through the training rings fine. Then we blow up the ships that have catapults blasting the city. Then our fire breathing dragon even destroys the bad guys on dragons. Finally, we get to the general. Neither Garrett nor I have any idea how to kill him.

Is that even what we're supposed to do? Seriously, at this point, I'm so thrilled that I've figured out what many of the buttons can do that I feel like I should get some courtesy points for effort. C'mon, I've come a long way from Atari with its joystick and bright red button.

No such luck. Neither of us knows what the point is with the general. Garrett is still trying, though.



What we look forward to playing is Guitar Hero. Garrett wants it, too, so I think that may be a birthday present.



Another game that looked way fun was Star Sing or something like that. And I saw a similar American Idol game. Both come bundled with microphones and you go at it karaoke style. How fun would that be to sing and have Simon say, "That was bloody awful" or "That was brilliant. It was the best performance in the competition tonight"?



'Cuz that's what's gonna happen.

March 7, 2008

Juno

It received all sorts of Oscar buzz. We'd been wanting to see it, and friends of ours had said even Garrett would enjoy it. So, we finally made it.

I cried. Then I laughed. Then I cried some more.

However, the film wasn't sad. It was touching. Similar to Little Miss Sunshine, it made me feel like everything could be okay no matter how messed up the world seems to get. In fact, aside from the hilarious dance scene in Little Miss, I thought this movie blew it out of the water.

Diablo Cody deserved recognition for the fine script she created with such a diverse group of characters. She managed to hint at bigger conflicts than those at hand. Insodoing, she enriched the story by making it feel as textured as real life.

Ellen Page's Juno was quirky, witty, and loveable--even if I did want to put my hand over her mouth sometimes and tell her to have some respect. She managed to be haughty in that way only naive teenagers can be, and she pulled it off oh-so-well.

The unsung performance was Jennifer Garner. She's the one who made me cry. Although her character was high strung and controlling, she managed to show why. Her yearning for a child was evident. The scene where she wanted to feel the baby kick was realistic. The painting of the nursery was haunting.

Since I'm still suffering with nausea and will have to cancel my beautiful gym membership due to difficulties, I was a bit annoyed that Juno so easily got knocked up and managed to skip through the pregnancy with little more than social problems while the seemingly ideal couple who had so much to offer couldn't manage to pull it off.

But I guess that's the point. It's not the problems you have. It's how you deal with them. And Juno was a great example.

March 5, 2008 SECOND TRIMESTER!

Today marks week 13, so we are officially in the second trimester!

I read that as of this week, the baby can actually hear us. They've done studies where they stuck microphones in the uterus and 80% of words can be distinguished. Isn't that amazing? Baby will eventually recognize our voices. I'm going to try to talk to it more now that I know someone is listening.

March 2, 2008

Definitely, Maybe is a cute movie. I'm on limited activity, so we're getting to catch up on flicks. Yea! I'd been wanting to see this one, and Garrett indulged me. I think he actually enjoyed it, too, because he claimed it made him feel good.

How could it not? It has cutie pie Abigail Breslen from Little Miss Sunshine and adorable Isla Fischer from Wedding Crashers. Plus, the rest of the cast, including Ryan Reynolds (he's been in lots, but remember Two Guys, a Girly, and a Pizza Place?), simply make you smile. Did I mention it even has Kevin Kline?

Love, Actually is one of my favorite Christmas movies, and I love Notting Hill, so it's not surprising that I enjoyed this show by the same creators.

February 27 Ultrasound

We had a doctor's visit about the same time their plane left. It was an ultrasound and blood test to determine if the baby will have certain problems. Everything looks good!

No really, everything looks good.

She didn't even see the hematomas on the ultrasound until we told her about them. Then she saw one and said it was barely there. The other one must have totally healed. We were so relieved.

She sent us home with lots of pictures. The baby has a cute little nose and long legs. And it really looks like a baby--until it looks straight at the camera. Then it looks like an alien. Hey, it will grow out of that soon enough.

I'm still on "take it easy" mode until the end of March. However, it's such a relief to know baby is doing well.

February 24

My mom and I watched the Broadway production of August: Osage County. The guys went to the Natural History Museum, which they said is nothing like Ben Stiller's movie At the Museum.

The first act was especially good. I thought it seemed to have elements of Steel Magnolias and Terms of Endearment. Tracy Letts created a believably kooky family--even if a certain subplot was a little icky. As the play continued for three acts I wondered if the theater was trying to add to the setting of an Oklahoma August by smothering us. I think I'd seen a show in that theater before and remembered a leaky roof that did not help the fact that it was frigid.

One of the reasons we'd wanted to see the play was because the playwright was the son of Oklahoma's own Billi Letts, who wrote Where the Heart Is (you know, the Oprah book that became a movie and was about the girl who had a baby at Wal Mart). Letts has such a knack with creating characters, we wanted to see if her talent rubbed off on her son. We met her at HAWK's Heartland writing workshop last summer, and she glowed with pride as she spoke of her son's play. Below is a picture of some of my writing pals with the author:

The show was a family affair. Her husband Dennis Letts played the father. His monologue opened the show. We were disappointed to see that someone was filling in for him. When Mama returned home she explained why the actor missed the show. After reading local Oklahoma papers, she learned he'd died that Friday--two days before the performance. My heart goes out to their family in their loss. I've heard her speak a couple of times, and she seems like a sincere person whose pride and love for her family are evident.

February 21-24

We were thrilled when we saw it was going to be pretty when my parents visited. They were expected to arrive around 11 in the morning on the 21st. Instead, their non-stop flight got delayed (although it eventually arrived a few hours before they did). They were sent to Texas and then New Mexico. At least three of their scheduled flights were cancelled and they couldn't even get on one to go home. Thankfully, they managed to catch a flight that had them arrive at 2:30 in the morning on the 22nd.


On our way to pick them up, we noticed it started to snow. My dad called to see where we were just as a car in front of us had slid across several lanes and hit the concrete barrier along the road. As the snow picked up, the street disappeared. We eventually arrived at the airport. I was so relieved that my parents had arrived safely. Here's a pic of my dad juggling two phones in an attempt to locate their luggage: We cancelled our weekend trip to Hartford because of doctor's orders. However, we managed to have a good, low key visit and they helped us immensely by cooking and cleaning and shopping. They even helped me lug laundry to a laundromat since I'm not supposed to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. My mom's favorite aspect of their visit was our trip to IKEA. We're still accumulating things for our apartment, and the curtains my dad installed make our bedroom much cozier. We went to Palisades Mall. We ate lunch and tried to see No Country for Old Men, but they only had three tickets left. We saw another Oscar nominated movie on pay-per-view when we got home: Michael Clayton. Good movie.

Below is a picture of Garrett trying to win a stuffed animal at one of those crane games that's in the mall. He was once quite good at it because he and his father would play at lunch each week. His mother accumulated quite a batch of animals. The best carnival-esque gamer I know, though, his Aunt Anne. The woman is a master at everything from the crane to the shooting games.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

A few weeks ago we finally had the snow we'd been waiting for. I thought living "up north" meant cold weather and snow. Mostly, it's just been cold weather with little snow. When the little flakes have fallen, they've quickly been swept away by rain or warmer weather by the next day. However, people told Garrett that he was finally going to get his snow one night. And he did. I watched it start to fall that afternoon and it reminded me of a snow globe. The snow continued into the night. When we realized it was truly sticking, Garrett was so excited he went outside in his pajamas. He stayed gone so long I got concerned and saw him just staring out at it. I took this picture from our porch.

Boston Pics

Here are a few pictures from our Boston trip before it was cut short...

We pause on our march in search of the b&b with faulty directions to see a Boston landmark: Fenway Park. About where Garrett is standing was also an advertisement for the Dropkick Murphys.

We saw the location for the USA's first public school as we walked the Freedom Trail. Boston Latin School is marked by a hopskotch playing area. 5 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence attended the school: Ben Franklin, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine, and William Hooper.

Garrett pauses on our trip around Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.

Boston boasts our country's first subway system. Isn't it beautiful?

Back at out townhouse b&b.