First Baby Present!!

We told our neighbors across the street the good news last weekend, and they came home the next day with a present for us! It's our first official gift for the baby...how exciting!! :-)

Dishes

Our sink decided to leak, and we now have a ruined kitchen cabinet, sink, and wood floors in our kitchen and living room. It is a complete mess, and the wood floors are warped and ruined. We have had someone come out and give us a bid, and we sent the bid immediately to our insurance company. That was two weeks ago, and we are STILL waiting for them to approve the cost so we can move forward with the repairs. I'm really hoping they get back to us soon, because I would love to get this done over my spring break! But, it is not looking good...

In the meantime, we are spending too much money eating out. It is really hard to cook anything in the kitchen when you can't use the kitchen sink! When we do cook at home, the dishes pile up because we can't easily clean them and put them away. When we do want to rinse anything, we make trips to the bathroom with a giant bowl, fill it with water, and pour it into stuff in the sink. It's really starting to get old (and smelly).

Tonight, we finally had enough and did the dishes...19th century style (minus the whole running water in the house thing...) At least we didn't have to fetch water from the well! :-)

We took the dishes outside and rinsed them in the spigot outside the house...

Then we took them inside to the bathtub and washed them with soap and warm water...

It was quite a chore, but at least now everything is clean!! :-)

End of the First Trimester

We had our second doctor's appointment today, and everything looks great!! I met the doctor, and he seems really nice. And today's appointment actually turned out more exciting than I thought because they decided to do another sonogram!! The only reason it happened was a guy from San Antonio was there training all the doctors how to use the new machine, so they were having the doctor's practice on all their patients today! So, I was shocked, but getting the sonogram helped make up for the TWO hour wait I had to endure because of this...it was totally worth the wait.

The doctor was "practicing" so he kept the baby on the screen for a long time. It has grown so much!! They determined we are 13 weeks and 3 days along. It's about three inches long now, with a heartbeat of 180 bpm, and you can see its sweet face, hands, feet, and even an ear!! And that baby was moving... Arms were flailing, legs were kicking, head was turning back and forth for the entire duration of the sonogram. The only time it stopped moving was the few milliseconds before it made a huge somersault!! It flipped itself completely over and then started all the wiggling again! I can't feel a thing yet, though, so it was really great to see it all happening on the screen. I was amazed that this little person is inside of me, and it was really exciting to see how much fun it is having in there. :-)

And, because the doctor was "practicing" his sonogram techniques, he actually took a 4D sonogram picture of the baby. It was pretty cool!! Here's the picture we got to take home:

Travis thinks it looks just like him. I'm inclined to agree. :-)

We have our next appointment in a month, and that's when we'll find out the sex of the baby (as long as it holds still long enough for us to see)!!

As for me, I'm feeling much better - the nausea isn't as persistant as before and only happens now and then. Now, I am just really tired all the time, and I can feel the emotional roller coaster that I am riding constantly (poor Travis!!). My students, honestly, get the brunt of my bad days and the best parts of my good days; I try really hard to be nice to them, but when I'm not feeling good, my patience runs a little thin!! You can see a little bump in my stomach (not much, but definitely noticeable if you are looking), and I can feel everything stretching (sometimes that hurts!!). I crave chocolate milk ALL the time and have finished off about four gallons of milk in the last month! I am also devouring strawberries like crazy, and this week's food of choice has been Lucky Charms (random, right!?!?). Travis is really excited about all the changes he is seeing and is extremely patient with me, regardless of my mood. He's been to the store more than once for more strawberries and milk, and he's always happy to take care of anything that I need. I couldn't ask for a better husband, and we are both looking forward to whatever comes next! :-)

First Pictures of Baby Daniels

In case you haven't already heard the news, we are pregnant!!

We had our first appointment today, and everything looks great. We love the nurse we are going to be working with and have yet to meet our doctor. We should be seeing him at the next appointment in March.

We went this afternoon for a sonogram, where the technician determined that we are 9 weeks and 1 day pregnant (she was very precise!). Everything is normal and looking good! In the pictures, the baby is upside down. It's not really much more than a blob right now, but the nurse pointed out some of the bones that are forming already. She promised it will look much less like an alien and more like a human baby at the next sonogram! :-)

We don't have any ideas for names yet, but we will find out in two months what the sex of the baby is, so we have some time to think about it. We are really excited!!! It's going to be a fun and pregnant summer! :-)

Happy New Year!!

For our New Year's Eve celebration, we went to one of our favorite places in San Antonio called Howl at the Moon. It is a dueling piano bar where we reserved a table for us and our friends and then spent the evening singing along to the songs the pianos were playing. It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend the New Year!

Our group included two other guys that Travis works with on base and their wives. Another couple joined us later in the evening too, but I didn't get those pictures on my camera.

The amazingly talented group of people who entertained us the entire night with a saxaphone, two pianos, guitars, and drums.

I think we're ready for the new year!! Welcome 2011!!

Farewell 2010!

As we say goodbye to 2010, here's a brief look at the fun we had this year:

(I have to give credit to my friend in Austin for giving me the idea for this post!! Thanks Gohean! )

1. We started the year off with a great skiing trip to Colorado with Travis' brother and family:

2. Travis became Captain Travis Daniels...

3. We took a trip to Canyon Lake, Texas with my family where we learned that the dogs love to swim, Rio loves to fetch things out of the water, and Percy must wear a life jacket while swimming...

4. Travis installed our dog door, which changed our life forever...

5. I participated successfully in what became the first of many triathlons...

6. I completed one year of teaching Math at Del Rio High School...

7. We "trashed" the wedding dress...

8. We shaved Rio for the first time...

9. We bought a boat, I learned how to wakeboard, and we throughly enjoyed our summer....

10. We took a great vacation to Key West, Florida with Travis' family...

11. We celebrated our first anniversary in San Antonio with a trip to Sea World and then a stay in the Presidential Suite at the Omni Del Rio...

12. I finally had the chance to meet all the wives in the 85th squadron...

13. We joined a CrossFit gym...

14. We hosted Christmas in Del Rio with both sides of our family...

15. And finally, our family picture for the year included the T-6 and our two lovable puppies!!

Christmas 2010

Merry (late) Christmas!!

It's been busy around here lately, but I didn't realize that I hadn't posted on my blog since September! Wow! Part of my excuse is the fact that I am teaching Pre-Calculus this year, and it is taking a LOT of work to prepare for that class! The other part of my excuse is the fact that my camera was stolen, so I didn't really have any pictures to share. Luckily, I have plenty of photographers in the family and have some time today to update you on our oh-so-exciting existence here in Del Rio! :-)

Christmas this year was awesome! Travis and I invited our families out to Del Rio to celebrate in our home, and we had two weekends filled with Christmas cheer and family. It was our first time to host Christmas at our house together, and we were so glad everyone could make it out!

My family, including my sister, parents, grandparents, and cousin came out the weekend before Christmas, and we had a great time enjoying the weekend. We took a tour of the base, enjoyed dinner in one of the restaurants in town, and did some shopping downtown. We also had a great time hanging out and opening presents. The best (and only) gift that Travis and I exchanged was the new furniture we bought ourselves to host everyone this year! It is absolutely perfect and works great in our house!

Travis' family, including his mom, grandparents, brother, sister-in-law, and the twins, all came out the next weekend. The dogs soaked up attention from the babies (who are 15 months old) and loved having so many people around to play with them! We truly loved our second Christmas celebration and enjoyed having everyone in our house! Christmas music was playing constantly throughout both weekends, and it was really a lot of fun. :-)

Pictures from our Christmas celebrations:

Hooray!! All the last minute Christmas decorations I ordered online finally arrived - just in time for everyone to see them! And yes, those are snowflake sheets...I was super excited about them. :-)

Family group shot!! And yes, I forgot to mention that my sister brought her dogs too!

My wonderful husband who is an amazing cook! We made lots of yummy goodies for everyone while they were here... I don't think anyone went hungry!

So, it was the kind of thing where you open a cookbook and see something cute and fun, and you just want to make it. These were delicious blackberry tarts!!

Travis, me, Kelly, and Shane all holding the sugar cookies we decorated with our college logos. Kelly and I made (and decorated) a HUGE batch of cookies, and we forced the boys to participate. They dutifully decorated their college cookies and then quickly lost interest. :-)

My sweet husband who I continue to love more every day!

My adorable niece Avery and nephew Carson! (15 months old)

The first thing the babies found when they got to the house was the dog door!

Avery and Carson in their Christmas pjs on Christmas morning...so cute :-)

Carson loved his train sets! He even says "choo choo" now!

Avery's word of choice right now is "puppy" so she got several stuffed puppies for Christmas! I don't know if she liked the puppy or the huge box it came in better...

And our puppies got a lot of attention from the babies! The puppies weren't really sure what to think about these little people, but they played nicely.

The weather was perfect for a trip to the park...

Overall, it was a wonderful Christmas! We were so happy to have everyone out to visit us, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone again soon! Merry Christmas!