Celebrating Baby Swenson in CA

Again, I will say that I have been blessed with a great crowd of girlfriends in California.  This post is a little out of order, as my baby shower was on July 13, but I wanted to include it on the blog, since it was a great day for Baby Swenson and me.  

We have had a lot of fun throwing showers in the past-it's always a group effort, and this time I had the pleasure of being on the receiving end.  I was overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of my friends!  

Unless you know me and how much I heart Taco Bell, this may seem a little weird to you, but it actually meant a lot to me that my friends know me so well and planned the perfect center piece.  One of the games was to guess how many sauce packets were in the vase!  Stephanie won this game....there were 510 packets, if you were wondering!  I found out that my friend Shannon went to the Bell every day for a week since she didn't want to feel like she was stealing the packets.  She ordered a taco every time.  

I was so glad that my mom, sister, and mother-in-law were able to make the trip from MN to attend the shower.  We had a great weekend of relaxation!  They are awesome!

Here are three of the beautiful ladies who planned my shower: Hollie, Angela, and Shannon.  Anna also helped, but didn't arrive until later since she was leaving for Africa the very next weekend!  

The girls had to guess how much toilet paper it would take to get around my belly.  Nicole is trying her strip on for size.  She ended up winning...almost perfect!  On the left is Jen (very into the game) and on the right is Megan. 

I got so many wonderful gifts!  This is one of my favorites, a quilt made by Jen!  

Thank you, girls, for giving Baby and me such a wonderful and thoughtful day that we will always remember!

Phil Returns to the Scene: The Wilson's Wedding

On July 26, our good friends Ray and Brandy were married!  They are awesome and a perfect match for each other, which made their wedding even more fun and amazing to attend.  

Here are some shots of me before we left, incase some of you haven't seen my growing mid-section recently.

This is 21 weeks.

Ray and Brandy's ceremony was at an absolutely beautiful church in Palos Verdes overlooking the ocean.  Phil and I enjoyed wandering around before the wedding taking in the views.

Speaking of Phil...he is back from Russia!  I am so thankful.  It's been really hard having him away for so long, especially while pregnant.  He got to feel the baby kicking for the first time two nights ago, and he felt him again during church yesterday.  It's great to finally be able to share that with him.  

Here we are with our friends after the ceremony.  Jen (also a bridesmaid), Travis, Phil, Me, Krista, David, Lauren, and John.  It was nice to be able to spend time with them, too, since we are moving soon.  

Congratulations, Brandy and Ray!  

Teacher Field Trip - Diddy Riese

Another teacher field trip!!!  I had heard about this place, Diddy Riese, and the amazing ice cream sandwiches a few times, but had never been.  Lucky for me, Becky had never been either and requested a teacher field trip!  So here we are, the teachers, standing out front with our yummy treats.  Probably the best ice cream sandwich I have ever had.  Diddy Riese is right by the UCLA campus, and was clearly a destination spot...plenty of people waiting in line.  You have to love the random Air Force guy who showed up behind us in all of our pictures.  

Some of my lovely teacher friends: Megan, Jen, Me, Krista, and Becky with our treats.

Future Mamas!

I confess, I wanted to name this post "Fellow Fatties," but didn't want to offend anyone.  That's just my kind of humor...

I have mentioned my great friends in CA, but I also have friends back in the MN that I heart big time!  One of them is Kitty, who I love so much and feel so lucky that we have traveled through life together.  I have known her since high school, where we played volleyball together, and since then we have followed some of the same paths: we both became teachers and volleyball coaches, we lived in Northfield at the same time, and we both married men from Albert Lea (random!).  Now we have a new adventure together...becoming mothers!  It has been a blessing sharing this experience (the good and the bad) with Kitty.  It's just too bad we don't live near each other anymore.

During a trip to Minnesota in late June, Kitty and I got to spend some time together.  I am 17 weeks pregnant in this picture and Kitty is 26.  

Teacher Field Trip - Nixon Library

I love being a teacher for many reasons, one of which is having summers off!  Summers in CA have been extra fun because of the wonderful teacher friends that I have...I love them so much!!!  For the past two summers, we have tried to plan a "teacher field trip" each week to take advantage of not having to work.  It can be as simple as lunch or going to the beach, but we often try to do a destination field trip to places we have never been but have wanted to visit.  Last week, my friend Jen (the mastermind behind the teacher field trips) and I went to visit the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, CA.  Presidential libraries have a section that is actually a library open to researchers, but they also have a museum portion, which is open to the general public.  You can see Jen's comments and photos from the trip on her blog "The Life of Jen."  We had a great time and learned muchisimo!  

The Ronald Reagan library is also in California, and I have been there several times (once with my students for a field trip).  I would love to eventually visit all the Presidential Libraries...wish me luck!!!

This was a highlight for me.  This is the house that Richard Nixon's parents built in 1912.  Nixon lived here for the first 9 years of his life.  It has been refurbished, but remains on the original site.  Very cool that about 90 percent of the furnishings and objects are original items from the Nixon family home.  The lady standing to the left is possibly the cutest docent ever, Margie.  She told us all about the house and Nixon's parents and childhood.  I should also add that she was wearing some pink sunglasses that really completed her cute look!  

Here is the reflecting pool which leads up to the back of the museum.  The little white gazebo on the right was used during Tricia Nixon's (the former President's daughter) wedding, which took place in the Rose Garden at the White House.  

Concert in the Park

We have been blessed with an amazing family of friends in California.  God's faithfulness continues to blow me away!  It was so hard to come here, but now it is just as hard to leave.  We will miss our friends here so much, and have been trying to really enjoy our last few weeks here (I have been doing a better job of this than Phil, since he is in Russia!).  

One thing we love to do during the summer is attend the concerts in the park at Polliwog Park in Manhattan Beach.  It is a great time to be outside with friends and share wine (they let you have it in the park during the concerts) and food.  We're not so much into the bands (they are often mediocre) as we are into the eating, drinking, and chatting!  This past weekend, they had a band that covered a bunch of Neil Diamond stuff...very entertaining!  

Here we are with Shannon's great new picnic table, skillfully assembled by John.  I had never seen one of these tables before, but then saw about 20 of them while walking around people watching.  These are my good friends Shannon, John, and Lauren.  Lauren's parents also joined us.  

This was the most popular concert I have ever been to - you can't really even see the band!  Here is the view looking down at the pond during "Sweet Caroline."  The band is down there, I promise!

The First Post!

Hello everyone!  I set this blog up months ago, but haven't posted until now.  I think I was intimidated by the first post, and felt like I needed something amazing to start it off!  So, I have finally decided to just start, and I have chosen an image that many of you have already seen, but it is the most important thing going on for Phil and I right now, so I thought it was appropriate.  Baby Boy Swenson is due December 3rd.  I am 21 weeks pregnant now and his kicks are getting stronger and stronger!  I can see my belly move a bit sometimes, and it always makes me smile.  Daddy has been in Russia for three weeks, and Baby and I are excited to welcome him back.    

This was the ultrasound from our very first doctor visit at about 6 weeks.  It doesn't look very exciting, but you could see the heart beating, which was amazing!  It also was relieving to see that there WAS a baby in there.  Part of me was nervous that I was just wrong about the whole thing!  How embarrassing would that be???

These pictures - I call them the teddy bear phase - were taken at 10 weeks.  This one was cool because you could see him moving around.  It made me realize that he is a real person alive in there.

Here he is at 20 weeks.  This is when I learned he is a boy.  Totally amazing to see his little foot, leg, face, and hand!