Easter!

So, this video is long, but it's Hazel's egg hunt, and I feel (as her first true egg hunt) everyone should be privy to her excitement. Mom spread eggs out all over Hangar 52, so you'll see the adults battling some metal and equipment, but Hazel has eyes only for her lovely eggs...

[Nevermind about the video. For some reason Blogger is no longer allowing me to upload videos. I guess they want me to upgrade my blog but I really don't want to.]

I carried the camera around with me on Easter, but still managed to walk away with very few pictures! These are a couple shots from home, just before taking off for church. I was excited about the book in Hazel's basket - I like the Bernstein Bears, so when I saw the "New Baby" book I thought that would be fun for Miss B.

We started the day out with church in our brand new building. Athey Creek has held its various services at a nearby middle school for the last 11 years. This past year or so it became very clearly the time to move our church body to our own building. As far as I know, we don't outright own the building we're using now, but we have alot of leniency when all is said and done. We've built out a warehouse to suit our needs, so there are offices and classrooms along with the main sanctuary and the kids' hall.

Perhaps it's cheesy but I was so emotional at the service. It felt like such a blessing to be spending our first service in our new building talking about the resurrection. Here's a picture I took with my phone of the back of the sanctuary:

I'm not sure if you can tell or not but by the time we got to the service, it was packed. There was only standing room available...and we were 15 minutes early! ACCF went from three Sunday morning services (8a, 10a, 12 noon) down to two (9a and 11a), so I'm sure that, combined with it being Easter, is what filled up the sanctuary so fast.

When the kids were dismissed for their church, several seats opened up, but still not enough for everyone standing around the outside of the sanctuary. It was incredible. The sanctuary seats 1,200!

After church we headed straight to the hangar to meet Mom and Dad for lunch. I felt very mean to poor, tired, teething Hazel, but she did okay. She slept in the car for maybe 40 minutes and then we arrived at the hangar and she woke up.

Hazel was excited to run around the hangar and ride the tricycle Mom and Dad keep there. She fell in love with the little bell. We had lunch and Hazel opened a basket of gifts from Mom and Dad and chased down all the eggs scattered around the hangar. We ended the afternoon with lemon meringue pie and coffee before loading back up into the car to head to Nate's parents' house for the evening.

Just before heading out, though, I had Nate take a couple of belly pics. They're not that great. My hair is an absolute disaster, which I totally blame on pregnancy. Once I become pregnant, my hair (which usually grows more than a foot a year) stops growing almost completely - this round, I have fringe around my face trying to grow in after giving birth to Hazel. I'm all a mess these days!

I am 21 weeks pregnant with Baby Girl #2 in this picture. Still nauseous most mornings, tired every other day or so, but able to eat pretty much whatever I want now! I struggle with soup - I can't have that too many nights in a row - but it's been okay with me that that seems to be my only real problem. Oh, and I can't cook raw chicken or ground turkey from start to finish. Nate usually has to step in and help (I gag like crazy and then can't eat the meal).  Oh, and I want pop, like, all the time; either that or a really good nectarine. Pop is year-round, while it isn't quite nectarine season, so you can guess which one I pick when I have the option.

This picture is bad, but not nearly as awful as some of the others. I was facing the other direction for most of the pictures and my hair is crazy poofy, which no one told me - I spotted it in the mirror later that night. Excellent.

The baby moves like crazy these days, which has been so fun! Nate has felt some of her big movements and I've watched her kicking - I look forward to reaching the point where it's easy for him and Hazel to feel her and see her right along with me.

Karen sent me some photos from Easter with them, so here is Hazel playing at their house. The headband was in her basket - it's so cute! She loves to have things on her head, especially headbands, hats, and a plastic Burger King crown that Rae Ann's girls left at Mom's house.

So I think that sums up our day! We made it home in time to put Hazel to bed in her own crib - she spends the first couple hours of her bedtime on Monday nights sleeping over at Rick and Karen's so that Nate and I can attend BSF. I try to not mess up her sleep schedule too many nights in a row...

Hopefully I can figure out how to attach videos again! I have a growing pile I'd like to share! Soon, soon.

Another anniversary.

We left Hazel with Rick and Karen and took off for Twin Rocks Friends Camp on Friday, March 12th. It is incredible how much less I had to pack for just Nate and I...

We took our time leaving the city, running errands on our way to the coast. We checked in around 9pm and I craved bed immediately. We emptied the truck of our bags and coolers quickly and then went to bed.

On Saturday, we spent the morning reading (I napped, too) before heading toward Cannon Beach. We decided to keep this trip pretty simple, just hitting up the places we are most familiar with. On the drive I called Rick to check in and see how things were going with Hazel. I had to laugh at what he told me: Rick said that Hazel had made sounds throughout the night and every time she did, he got her up, like out of bed to play with toys. He was exhausted, as was Hazel, because they had spent so much of the night playing in the living room! I told him he might have just set himself up for trouble.

Cannon Beach was packed with people from all over - turns out that our weekend to celebrate Nathaniel's due date (3rd anniversary) was also a wine tasting tour weekend! It was okay, though - the little town was super busy but there was a ton of good parking because most of the tourists had been shuttled in.

Down on the beach I found a great stick to write in the sand with, so I took some time to try it out. As soon as Nate saw me writing this message, he took off - apparently I embarrassed him...So I snapped this picture of him fleeing the scene of my silliness:

So we wandered the beach, ate lunch at our favorite pub in Cannon Beach (truth be told, the only pub), had coffee at the Sleepy Monk, and then headed back to our little cabin for the night. We had dinner and watched a few episodes of "30 Rock" before finally being tired enough to go to sleep.

On Sunday we started the day of fairly slow again: Nate read and I napped (all that extra sleep was marvelous - even though my morning sickness seems to be diminishing, I'm still so tired). He woke me up around 11 so that we could pack up and head back home. We loaded up the truck and then parked at the camp entrance; we crossed the pedestrian bridge over Hwy 101 and walked to Twin Rocks beach. Ready for this? It's my 18 week pregnancy picture:

I'm wearing a thick sweater but I think the baby bump is still plenty visible. There hasn't been a real moment of "popping" like I experienced with Hazel (17 weeks, in Exeter, California, the morning of my cousin's wedding), but more of just a thickening and then "plumping" outward. I'm very much in the I-feel-fat stage, but I think that things will begin to change fairly drastically pretty soon. This kiddo is getting bigger by the day!

Speaking of the kiddo...

We found out yesterday at my 20.5 week ultrasound. Wahoo! We're pretty stinking excited! I can hardly believe we're already this far along - it's crazy how quickly time is beginning to pass.

Nate and I drove from Twin Rocks to Cannon Beach for more Sleepy Monk coffee (it's just that good). We tried to take a good beach picture of ourselves with Haystack Rock in the background, but, alas, no real luck. Here's what we did end up with, though:


Very typical beach self-portraits!

Nate wanted to finish our trip with a lunch at our favorite seafood place at the coast, so he treated me to fried deliciousness! I can't usually say that - my stomach does not handle fish and chips well, except from Ecola Seafood and Restaurant! I don't know what they do differently but it doesn't make me feel sick for hours afterward.

We got to Rick and Karen's just in time to pick up Hazel and get her home to bed. It was so wonderful to walk through their front door and have her squeal at the sight of us! She was so excited! She wanted to show us everything she'd been playing with. When we got home, she was asleep in no time. Nate and I were able to unpack and decompress before bed.

Even though I was a bit emotional on Nathaniel's due date, it was so good to be at the beach. It was so fresh there that I just stood on the sand and breathed as deeply as I could for as long as possible. It was invigorating and renewing. Nate and I treasure our time together every day, but there's something to be said about our special beach getaways. We've been so swamped lately that this trip shone as a wonderful reminder of what good friends we are, besides being husband and wife. Oh man, how I love him.