Texas Photo Montage



We're back!  Our two little mini vacations were wonderful and restful.  Now we are trying to get our motivation back to work on our pre-baby to do list, granted it's mostly self imposed, but some of it - like move our bedroom furniture out of the nursery and then move Noah's furniture into the nursery - should probably happen sometime soon!

 

Apparently it was too cold on our first mini vacation for me to take my hands, let alone my iphone out of my pocket much, so I have no pictures.  Plus, I was having to pause and catch my breath all the time, so I was slightly distracted by the slight suffication feeling at all times.  Thankfully, it must have just been the altitude since now that I'm back in Tulsa I'm having no trouble breathing, just trouble fitting in my clothes!  Other than the lack of air though, the trip was really relaxing.  Spencer skied two days while I had basically no agenda other than getting a prenatal massage and doing some window shopping with the girls.  Okay not entirely window shopping, I did get some cute jewelry at the outlet malls and a finally a chambray shirt!  Just in a size larger than I would normally need, oh the joys of figuring out what to wear while prego :).  We ate delicious food, heard Brent preach on the parables in a squeeky teenage girl voice thanks to a cold (which managed to be encouraging and entertaining at the same time), and had lots of fun just hanging out with our friends minus their cute, but distracting to serious conversation, kiddos.

 

Fast forward a few days and we headed south to warmer and sunnier climates in Texas for some R&R with just the two of us, our babymoon if you are into that kind of lingo.  We had pretty much no agenda other than getting massages and enjoying the sunshine, oh and seeing Spencer's brother play in a concert Friday night.  And no in case you are wondering I do not get massages all the time, it just seemed like an appropriate thing to do on a babymoon and well in Colorado I didn't have to buy lift tickets so it cancelled out ;).  Okay I'm done justifying my actions haha.

 

San Antonio was absolutely beautiful.  Other than the fact that our resort was under a renovation which included guys with chainsaws starting up right at 8 am right outside our window, it was really peaceful and relaxing.  We walked around the golf course path on the resort under huge old trees, ate delicious mexican breakfast tacos, worked out a little in the resort gym,  and then headed to the day spa for our massages.  This place was so relaxing it was ridiculous.  After the massage (complete with hot towels on my feet and a pillow with room for my prego belly) we had access to the facility for the whole day, which included saunas, hot tubs, steam rooms, giant showers, jars full of chocolate chips and craisins and biscotti, cucumber water, and an outdoor heated pool with chaises in the sun.  Yes please.   

 

 

And did I mention we were pretty much the only people there?  We laid out in the sun and read our books and felt completely spoiled.  Oh yeah so small back story, this is the resort I stayed at last year on valentine's day.  For a work conference.  By myself.  So we redeemed valentine's day in San Antonio this go around :).  We headed down to the riverwalk area for dinner.  Here's us taking a picture of ourselves.

 



 

Then this lady sitting on a bench by us offered to take a picture for us.  Zoom out - there you go, my prego belly at 28 weeks!  So far it hasn't gotten too huge and uncomfortable, but people are finally getting the guts to ask me if I'm pregnant or just going ahead and asking me when my due date is.  I guess the start of the third trimester is a legitimate time to actually look pregnant ;).

 

 



 



After walking around for awhile we managed to find the fresh mex place I ate at last vday (by myself, I know I'm weird, but I didn't want fast food when I could expense it!).  Other than the fact that I could only try the delicious margarita instead of getting one myself it was delicious!!  I mean how can baked cheese dip with chorizo be bad? :)  Oh also, we had the Mariachi band sing for us!

 

 

 

After stuffing our faces, we started walking back to our car and came across an outdoor ampitheater with an outdoor screen playing When Harry Met Sally which we both realized we had never seen.  So we sat in the breezy 70 degree weather and watched.  I couldn't help thinking it was one of the most peaceful days we've had in a long time.

Oh and how could I forget, we also had yummy coffee and pastries at a local, hipster coffee shop we read about in the hotel magazine.  Yep pretty much a perfect day.

The next day we went back to the hipster coffee shop, read for awhile (this trip it was the Girl Who Played With Fire) and then headed to the zoo!  Again the weather was AMAZING.  And the zoo was really well laid out and beautiful.  We saw hippos up close in a giant water tank (so ridiculously huge!!), we saw monkeys taunting eachother, we saw zebras and a wild dog that looked kind of disturbing.  On our third try we finally saw the lazy old lioness move from behind her rock hiding place to out in the sun where she promptly laid back down and went to sleep.  And we saw these weird giant anteaters!  So cool.  And it made me want to have a little kid (I know good thing right?).  We heard one little kid say, "mom, it's a good thing you have a phone because if that lion gets out you can call animal control."  We saw another little girl with one of those leash backpacks literally pulling her dad in the direction she wanted to go.  Just remember that when you decide to buy my kid a leash backpack ;). 

 

Wow I should write blog posts more often, or somehow break them up, this is ridiculosu!!  After the zoo it was off to Austin, and I think I will do the second half of the trip another night.  Spencer's been reading to me from the book his grandpa's friend wrote about WWII and I have no idea what's happening.  I better focus!  Plus I need to put in another load of laundry.  And maybe make some hot chocolate considering it is NOT 70 degrees and sunny here today, it's cold and rainy and dreary. And on that note, I'm out.

Mom Car?

Okay so a little while after we found out we were having a mini Hellman we started talking about whether or not we would need to get a different car.  My current car is only two doors and it's a manual.  Two strikes against it in the mom car category.  However it's awesome.  And I'd be lying if I said I was having an easy time imaging myself giving it up for a spacious SUV (not to mention a minivan, goodness the thought of that made me want to cry or at least run away to Europe for awhile where I could happily drive a small car in peace).  I think also that thinking about having an SUV made me feel like I was officially giving up my carefreeness (I know, not a word) and resigning myself to true adulthood. Maybe that only makes sense to me, but anyway I felt like I was constantly feeling like I was willingly giving away my freedom ever time I even thought about test driving an SUV.  Okay ridiculous back story done! 

 

 

So we slowly started test driving when we felt like it, and we spent some nights browsing the internet and of course I asked everyone I talked to what they thought I should get.  I got everything from a porsche cayenne (umm I'm looking for something that cost less than my house thank you very much) to a honda accord (okay these are fine but I kind of like cars that are fun to drive not just reliable, again not ready to be a grownup yet) to a dodge caravan with a BMW logo stuck on the front (thank you engineers I work with that do actually have a sense of humor).

In response to that we test drove none of those of course.  Warning: before you keep reading you're forewarned I might bash your favorite car.  I figure differing opinions are why Honda isn't the only car company in the world :).  We did test drive a jeep patriot which we pretty much hated.  I'm sorry but being able to reach 45 before hitting the end of the highway ramp is kind of important to me.  Next it was the grand cherokee, which the sales guy assured us would be more powerful.  Yes more powerful and also HUGE.  No thanks.  Pause for christmas vacation and some cold dark nights we didn't want to venture out on to test drive cars when we couldn't feel our fingers.  Then it was on to the VW dealership, which was really more by chance.  We'd been scouting around online and found this car that would be AMAZING to own.  The Golf R.  Yes the R stands for racing.  We went to get my car serviced and low and behold they had jsut gotten one on the lot that morning complete with red paint and four doors!  Fast forward a day or two to when we actually had time to go back to check it out - it was sweet.  A six speed manual that was ridiculously fast.  Also expensive, as expensive as some smaller SUV's Spencer had been looking at sneakily in his spare time while I freaked out about having a mom car.  So we told the sales guy we'd think about it and went on our way.  For the record he did say he thought a car seat would fit in the back, although he said we were the first people to ask about that feature!

So Spencer kept researching things online.  I kept having mini freakouts about being a soccer mom.  People at work kept telling me you are really going to want an SUV, you're not going to want to be bending down all the time, hitting your head to get baby Noah out of the back seat, plus you're not going to want to have no leg room for whoever gets stuck sitting in front of baby.  Goodness! Who know there were so many things to consider.  Enter the possibility of the BMW X3.  Sneaky hubby knows I love BMW's.  He also did his research and found their smaller SUV and found that it costs around the same as a new Golf R, with way more room for car seats and all the other stuff you apparently need to have with you at all times when you have a baby!

In a moment of weakness, okay more like a moment of needing a break from spreadsheet analysis at work, I thought okay I'll go online and see what the dealership in town has in stock in the way of X3's.  I found one that said it was a 2011 and suddenly was more intrigued by the thought of not having to pay the new car price tage.  Okay this is getting long winded!  Long story shortish, I emailed the dealership and a sales guy I had met before when my friend at work was buying a BMW remembered me and emailed me back lickety split saying the car had just come on the lot and had low mileage and we should come drive it!  So Saturday afternoon we headed over to check it out and go figure it was fully loaded, complete with a giant moon roof, turbo charged engine, paddle shifters, sport mode, back up camera, built in window shades in the back to keep the sun out of baby's (or grandma's) eyes and oh yeah heated seats in the front and back!!  And did I mention it was fast?  Like really fast? Put it in sport mode and pretty soon you are flying past everyone else on the highway before you even realize you are going 20 over, but wait!  It also projects your speed onto the front windshield so you don't have to even look down to know you are in danger of a speeding ticket, perfect!  But being the rule follower I am, plus the fact that it was still a big price tag in comparison to my little rabbit, we told the sales guy we needed to think on it for the weekend and take the chance that the three other people who had already test driven it that day wouldn't decide on it faster than us.  We talked about it.  Slept on it.  Talked about it some more.  I decided I could live with a super sporty, super fast BMW SUV.  Spencer convinced me we should get a nice car so we weren't always wishing we could drive his car everywhere.  Plus, it was like the best of both worlds combined, letting me still be carefree while also having room for a baby and a pack n play and a stroller and a baby bag and umm a case of beer haha.

Ta da!!! My new mom car.  I love it.

 

I will love it even more when I've figured out how to park it without being completely paranoid about how big it is.

Spencer is a little jealous that my car is now nicer than his.  We now have the ying and yang of BMW's as David affectionately calls our black and white vehicles.  I feel a bit like a tool, but as a coworker said, a fast, stylish tool.  Mission accomplished ;).