Our Trip Home

We had a great trip home...but it seemed very fast. I took off work on Thursday and Friday. We slept late (until about 8:30 - yay!!!) on Thursday, then got up and packed, and took off. Leaving town is so much fun (I would give just about ANYTHING for us to go to St. Augustine for a week like we did last year or to New York like we did the December before - I think I've learned to value our vacations just a slight bit more since all this change happened). We ate at Coach n Four on Thursday night when we got into town. Now, I have said before that this is one of my favorite hometown (is that a word?) restaurants. I do think it's been hit or miss the last several times I've been home, but they were ON IT Thursday night for my petite filet. I took some pictures so I could show some about this restaurant. Here's the menu:
Here's a shot of the inside of the restaurant....we were in a side room...it's not this yellow, but I had to turn the flash off so people didn't realize I was taking a picture.

Okay, one thing they always do here is put a HUGE dollop of butter on your potato. Like a crazy heart attack amount. Here's Landon's potato. Isn't this crazy????

Here's my dinner. I already ate my salad. You can see that they give you sherbet to clean your palate. It's at this point (when we get our food) that my mom always says she feels like we should pray again. My dinner below was delicious. My steak was really, really good. And, see the juice on the plate - that's the best part ever.

Everyone (except the other girls) thought it was dorky that I wanted a picture, but I just thought it was fun. Finally, Momma called in the waitress again so she could take our picture :)Here's a picture of all of us. Oh yeah, and Daddy wanted to hold up the bill he was about to pay for all of us in the picture...but he didn't :)

The rest of the trip was good - just flew by. We spent time with Landon's family on Friday evening, so that was good, too. Saturday morning Landon got up and went to Zach's baseball game. I slept a little later and then got up and hung out with everyone (but Krista since she was still asleep). Momma and I went upstairs and found my old books to see what I wanted to take for James. I am mixed about taking sentimental stuff because of what happened with the hurricane, so I wanted her to keep a few of the books, but I took most of the ones that were mine. I'm pretty excited about reading them to James :)

Landon and I were sitting on the couch last night, and James started moving around like crazy. Like it looked like an alien was in my stomach. I was like, "Landon, look, look!" We are more and more ready to meet him. But, we're happy to wait until he's even healthier and stronger! Last night was the second night in the last week I've gotten up to get a snack after I've gone to bed. I'm so hungry that I can't go to sleep because I feel like I'm starving. Usually I can ignore this feeling and just go to sleep, but it seems like lately that has not happened (recall dentist boy: going to bed hungry is the best feeling in the world). So, I got up last night and drank some milk and ate a Little Debbie Swiss cake roll (I know, not the healthiest snack). Last week I had cheese and crackers and some grapes, so that was at least better.

And, we are supposed to meet at Costco tonight for dinner. Oh my word, I really hope that goes better than the last time with that catheter situation....I will try not to think about it again.....yuck!

Traffic Citation

So, it was Wednesday afternoon. I was taking off work on Thursday and Friday for us to go to Florida for one last family visit before we can't travel anymore for a while. I left work at 4 like usual. Wednesdays are pretty busy days because of church. It's been a good run (like my entire life), but I received my very first traffic citation on Wednesday afternoon on my way home from work. Oh wait, silly me, it wasn't actually on my way home, it was actually leaving the PARKING LOT OF MY BUILDING BEFORE MY LONG COMMUTE - no, I am not kidding. Apparently I blocked an intersection as I was leaving. Here's how it went down:

Bethany pulls up to stop sign leaving work parking lot. Bethany sees that a cop has someone pulled over near the parking lot. She makes sure to stop fully at the stop sign and immediately gets ready to turn right (with her blinker on, of course) at the light. There is one car in front of her. When the light turns green, traffic is backed up in the lane she and the car in front of her are trying to turn into. The car in front of her can fit....and she just wants to fit too - the commute is so long...Bethany does not want to miss this light! So, she pulls into the intersection and wedges the car behind the one in front of her. The light behind her changes and that traffic begins to move. Clearly, the left lane is clogged, but people in the right lane seem to be getting by okay. Then...all of a sudden...
Policeman (over loud speaker - no I'm not kidding): Ma'm, please pull over to the left. Pull over to the left.
Bethany pulls over to the left into the turn area that would be great if they finished sometime this decade since because there's no special turn lane to turn left, traffic backs up really bad.
Bethany rolls window down.
Policeman (after walking to car): Is there a reason you were blocking the intersection?
Bethany (who in the past has never gotten a ticket for things she probably should have gotten one for... and was always honest): Well...that light is just so short - I really wanted to get through it! I thought I was enough through the intersection that cars could get by...but I knew it was close.
Policeman: May I see your driver's license?
Bethany: Sure. It takes me a long time to get it out of my wallet though (because it's one of those fake wallets from Chinatown so it's not made well and my driver's license always gets stuck in it).
Policeman: No problem, I can wait.
He then proceeds to take the driver's license back to his car, and Bethany waits what seems like forever. After deciding she is either getting a ticket or getting arrested....the policeman returns with a clipboard and a paper and a pen.
Policeman: Ma'm, you are receiving a traffic citation for blocking an intersection. Please sign here. You may call in 5-10 business days to see what your fine is.
Bethany: Thank you (didn't know what else to say to him).


Okay, that's it. This is a sample traffic ticket. Who knew that in the state of Georgia (or really could be anywhere - I didn't know since I'd never had a ticket) that there apparently is not a set fine for things - maybe they will just decide if they like my name or not....or maybe if I have a long name it will cost more...or maybe it's just how someone is feeling on some particular day...but apparently, I have to call to get my fine. Um, right. Wouldn't you think blocking an intersection would just be a set fine? And, what are the odds that after not receiving tickets for things that I should have received them for, that I would get one now....while I'm pretty big pregnant. Cold, dude, cold. I'm not saying I didn't deserve the ticket - I think it was pretty nit picky since the cars could get by me - but I know I was squeezing in. No grace, man. I have a long commute, I have church that night, and now I have a ticket. I thought it was funny at first, then I wanted to cry, then I was mad. Now, I'm just resigned. I got my first ticket. I'm 28 years old. I was honest about what I was doing. I've heard it's going to be pretty expensive because I got it in Fulton County. We'll see. It just happened Wednesday so the 5-10 business days aren't up yet for them to decide what my fine will be. I'll keep you posted.

James Update

My dr. appt. last Monday went GREAT. James and I are both doing really well. I passed my gestational diabetes test, and the ultrasound was very good. It was amazing to see the heart chambers and how the blood was pumping in and out, etc. (insert a bunch of technical stuff I didn't understand but gathered was good). James weighs about 2 lbs 14 oz (as of last Monday). I asked my usual lots of paranoid questions, and as usual, Dr. Hirsch answered them. So...things look good! I'll be 30 weeks on Wednesday of this week. I am feeling REALLY TIRED again like I did in the beginning. Like I wish I could just sleep all the time. I can't eat very much at once anymore - and when I do, I really regret it because I feel like I'm going to explode - bluh, it is gross. My back hurts by the end or middle of the day. I'm feeling really anxious now because did you realize there is a baby inside me? He's coming out, and I'm his mom. Oh my word. I'm not sure if I can do this. I see other people being mothers, and I think they do a great job, and I know I want to be a mother, but uh, I'm just not sure if I can do it. Do I have the skills it takes? Landon and I have talked about how I think I will need some serious encouragement when James arrives. What I don't think I need is someone telling me what I'm doing wrong or what to do and what not to do - I just need encouragement that I'm doing well and I can do this thing! So...here are sweet James 29 week pictures. Remember how he wouldn't show us his face (except for one picture) in the 20 week ultrasound? Well, this time we got lots of face pictures! That's what's below...

Ladies Retreat

Last weekend (not this past weekend but the one before), I got to go on my first ladies retreat with the Bethabra ladies. Because of getting home so late from work, we thought it would be best for me to leave on Saturday morning, and that ended up being good for Leslie too, so I rode with her up to Lake Nantahala Saturday morning for us to meet the other ladies. Isn't this a beautiful house we stayed in??

This was on my bed when I arrived. My t-shirt, the cute pink bag with our book for the weekend and other fun stuff, and then my gift from my secret sister :)

This was my room. Because they were so kind to me....I was able to sleep in a twin bed (by myself!) that actually had a bathroom entrance!! :) Mrs. Sue, our church secretary, slept in the other bed beside me.

Here are some of the ladies chatting around the kitchen table...

More ladies....

This was a funny game we played where you got into teams and had a certain amount of time to blow up balloons and stick them on one person. My team didn't win...but we did come in 2nd!

Here's our group picture. Isn't this a GREAT group of ladies??

This is Jeanette and me :) Jeanette ended up being my secret sister, but I already thought it was her even before they told me - she is so creative, and I thought by the way my bag was done that it might be her. She has been so generous and really kind to me since we arrived - just really welcoming.

Okay, this is just showing that James was on the retreat.

Saturday night we had a beauty pageant. Kerry won and she was HILARIOUS.

I don't know much about this last picture because I had been asleep for a while at this point. I know they snuck outside and scared someone with this bear rug situation. I bet it was really funny...and maybe next year when I'm not so pregnant and tired I might be able to stay up for it :)

It was a great weekend!

Update on James

Alright, I know it's been kind of a long time (or it seems like a long time to me) since I've posted an update of how I am growing. Let me just tell you - I AM GETTING BIGGER. I just entered Week 28 yesterday, which means I am now in the 3rd trimester. Here are my pictures I got Landon to take of me this morning before I left for work.

I do think with this dress on it's kind of hard to tell how big I actually am. I am feeling pretty good. I feel like that crazy tiredness I felt during the first trimester is coming back though. I am starting to feel like I could sleep anytime again. My back is hurting a lot more. And, although I am pretty hungry, if I eat too much - I feel DISGUSTING. Like for a long time. It feels like my stomach is just going to bust out - it's gross. Yesterday this happened to me. And it didn't go away all day until I went to bed last night. Here's what I ate yesterday (and this was a really heavy eating day for me....so try not to judge, okay?)...

- Hardees sausage biscuit on the way to work and half of a small sprite (and don't even get me started on the fact that Hardees has the best sausage biscuit EVER even though people make fun of it. I know Bojangles is good....but really, Hardees is better. You know it must be since it has at least 200 more calories in the sausage biscuit).

- Cantaloupe for a snack

- Small salad and 2 slices of thin crust cheese pizza

- 1 small cupcake

- Wendy's small chili with cheese and a Wendy's baked potato

That's what I ate. And I was gross. Probably after lunch was when that was just too much. And I don't understand why the feeling doesn't go away then for a REALLY LONG TIME. I'm determined not to do this today. I had grits this morning for breakfast. No crazy sausage biscuits to start out with.

Okay. I also have some positive things to say. I am feeling James move a lot. I am feeling so much more of a connection with him as time passes. I can't wait to meet him (when it's time). He likes to stay on my left side for some reason. I try to tell him that he has plenty of room to get on the right too, but he likes the left side. The last couple of days he's been sticking something up in my ribs (I'm not sure what - I still can't tell what's what in there). Isn't it crazy to think there's a baby in there??? I'm getting more and more excited. I know it's harder for Landon to make all this connection since James is actually inside me, so I can't wait, too, for Landon to get to make the same connections - well, you know what I'm trying to say.

So, 12 weeks left. Wow. I go to the dr. this next Monday (04/19) and will do the gestational diabetes test and have another ultrasound. I'll keep you updated!

Gwinnett Braves Game

Monday night we went to a Gwinnett Braves Game with Neal and Leslie. We had a great time. Now, you know my ways at the baseball games, usually. I really like to go to stuff like that, just not necessarily to watch the game. I love to bring my sudoku book or a book to read or a crossword and sit and work on that stuff during the game. Oh, and don't even make me mention how much I love the concession stand food. I love it so much that we've talked about getting the "all you can eat seats" because by the time you pay for your ticket and even just chicken fingers, french fries, and a drink - you've bought the all you can eat seat....and you could get MORE FOR FREE! Anyway, the Gwinnett stadium is really close to our house. Normally, I don't think I could have handled this excursion on a "school" night, but I felt like I could do it because since it was Monday night and Tuesdays are my work from home days, I knew I wouldn't have to get up at 5am. We had a really fun time at the game. All my observations:
- Neal and Leslie told us we were sitting up on like the front row. I thought this meant "like" the front row...so pretty close up. Um, no. After getting food, we went down with our two tickets to find Neal and Leslie, and guess what? They were on the VERY FRONT ROW. It's the front row on the first base side, so it's a place where kids are hoping to catch foul balls. Let's just be clear here. I like to sit where NO BALLS COME CLOSE. I like to go to stuff like this with Landon, but if he wants to walk down close to the field, I always want to stay up higher where I feel sure I'm safe. I know they told us we were on the front row, but I really didn't believe it until I got up there. It was nice that you could put your feet on the railing though.
- Because we were so close, I couldn't do any of my planned activities (reading BabyWise, doing Sudoku) since I was having to pay such close attention to the game to make sure no balls came my way. Landon always has my back, as did Neal and Leslie, but it was still scary enough that I needed to pay attention my ownself.
- We ate chicken fingers, french fries, and split a large sprite. French fries - serious quality. Sprite - fine. Chicken fingers - not so hot - it was fake chicken, for sure. So, next time....I'll definitely get french fries, but probably will not do the chicken fingers again. They have fried pickles there, and ice cream, and all kinds of stuff, so I'll broaden my horizons and investigate something else.
- Landon caught a John Deere shirt for me. Now, I realize John Deere shirts are extremely accessible to us. But, it was exciting when a Gator sped around the field and people threw JD shirts out of it to the crowd. I always cheer for JD. Next time we'll have to catch the Gwinnett Braves shirt since that's one we actually really need so we could wear it to the games.
- The funniest part of the whole night (aside from some heckler kind of man that was hilarious and kept yelling...."You're boring"...."I'm falling asleep") was Chopper, the Gwinnett Braves mascot. That bro is funny.

He stood really close to us some of the time, and kids loved him. He carries around an aluminum trashcan with stuff in it - and the can lid on the underside says Get Loud. He lets kids bang on the tambourine thing he uses.

- I still will not do the chop (is that what it's even called?). I will never do the chop. I do not care if it is the Braves, either Atlanta Braves or Gwinnett Braves. I will never do it. I cannot. A deep hatred for FSU is inside me and I would never be disloyal to my own team. This is just FYI.

- There is a grassy hill area where you can get really cheap tickets and bring a blanket. I think this looks really fun.

- You cannot bring food into the game. I did not know this and had some cookie crumbs in a ziploc bag still in my purse...sort of right on top. When the man asked to check my purse, I opened it right up and let him. He said, "Just so you know, you might want to push your cookies a little further down in your purse," and then we went right in. I was like, OH, I didn't realize I wasn't supposed to bring them - HA. I would have stuffed them further down or left them in the car. He must've known not to ask a pregnant woman to throw away food. HA.

We had a great time at the game...even though they lost. I can see lots of memories being made there with Landon and James in years to come :) And me....sometimes...if there are concessions involved....and we sit higher up :)

YAY....Clifton is THE GREATEST!

Well, look at my new little blog header. Cousin Clifton fixed it for me! He is in law school at Georgetown....so I KNOW he did not have time to play with this for me, but out of the blue when I got online today, I had an email in my inbox with a couple of choices where he played with the header for me and gave me some options. Exciting! And, I think it might have helped me figure out how to do it when I want to try it....like when Baby James arrives (oh, and I actually have time and sense to get on the computer and blog).

I had a really good weekend away at the ladies retreat at church. I'll post about it later, but I want to tell you about the book we used that I think looks really good. I didn't take my camera because I knew so many ladies would take theirs (you know how girls are! :), but I'm hoping they'll share their pictures with me! It was a beautiful place to have a retreat - on Lake Nantahala. It was so obvious the committee had worked really hard to make it a very special weekend - and it was. Oh wait, why am I telling you all this!? I said I was going to do a separate post later....okay, check back. Hopefully soon :)

Oh, and we're going to the Gwinnett Braves game tonight - fun, huh? I LOVE concession stand food so I am really excited!

The Header of this Blog

Okay, so I think I'm somewhere in the middle of totally internet ignorance and being really savvy with the internet. I'm decent at doing stuff. I cannot figure out though how to do the header right on the blog. What I want it to say is:

Authentic Life
Life with Landon and Bethany

and then the picture below it.

Well, I cannot get that to work. It only gives me a choice of either removing the text from the header or leaving the text on top of the picture. Well, it doesn't look good on top of the picture. Then I tried to add a gadget - one of the gadgets is a picture. Well, I thought okay I'll leave the header with the words and then put the gadget picture. Nope. Won't work - the picture is really small, not like a header picture. Then, there was a gadget that was text only, so I typed in Authentic Life, yada yada inside that thing and tried to move it up above the header in the layout. Nope, you can't move anything above the header. I tried putting it under the header, but it looked stupid because it was a lot smaller. I know I'm smart enough to do this - I'm just not sure how to get it to work! I wish I could have someone design a blog for us where the pictures would rotate in the header, but uh, I don't want to pay any money for that. So...that leaves me where I am. Either a picture or words. NOT both. I'm going to leave the picture for now, but maybe I'll change my mind and put the words back up tomorrow :) If you know how to assist me with this and have time to be my personal tech support, let me know...

Seriously....We're Having a Baby??

We were talking last night about how I'm 27 weeks now. In some ways, 27 weeks seems like not too far along - I still have 13 weeks left, right...and that's 3 months and 1 week...that's a LONG time....on the other hand...my mom had Krista and me a month early, so I know that can happen...and if you think about it that way...13 weeks is a short time. What if it was only 9 weeks? YIKES! It's too late for us to go anywhere on a fun trip together....I think...unless we go somewhere really close by, and then that makes me feel like I'm wasting our money if we could just as well be sleeping in our own beds. We are going home one more time toward the end of April, but other than that, looks like we're bedded down at home. As I have said numerous times, I think the gravity of all of this just continues to hit...as time draws nigh :) Last Thursday evening we took the maternity tour. Here's a picture of Northside Hospital, the hospital where James will be born (hopefully....if I can make it there and don't deliver him in bad traffic with a HERO unit on the side of I-85....).

From the time I moved to Atlanta, I knew that if we had a baby, I wanted to have it at Northside. I've heard so many people talk about what a great baby hospital it is. They said on the tour last week that this hospital delivers more babies per day than any other hospital in the US. They deliver 75-80 babies every single day....no wonder it is called the Baby Factory! I even chose an OB/GYN because of which hospital he delivered at.

On to the details of the tour. There were only 3 couples (including us) on the tour, so that was really nice. It was very informative, but also pretty scary. I alternated back and forth between wanting to freak out and wanting to cry. Although some mixed in there was me being excited about what a good hospital I chose because it was even nicer than I would have thought :) Landon, meanwhile, felt there was not too much good information shared during the tour. He felt the most informative points were:

"Turn your flashers on when you drop your wife off"

AND

"See here in the side of the TV (in the labor and delivery room) is a DVD player. You can bring your favorite movies to watch"...which is where he immediately whispered to me..."Don't worry B, we'll bring Lord of the Rings." HA - I HATE LORD OF THE RINGS.

I'm pretty much just teasing about Landon, because he's been GREAT and really supportive about nearly everything this whole crazy time. I know it's been hard for him, too, and I'm so thankful for such a good husband.

Anyway, back to the tour. We toured the drop off your wife while she's in labor area, how to check in, where they take you, and the labor and delivery room. They have like 45 labor and delivery rooms on one floor and 5 or so operating rooms right down the hall just in case. We were able to go into one of the rooms where you deliver your baby. First mistake: I did not sit down. The lady said, "Moms, you might want to sit down, we'll be in here for a while." The other "moms" sat down, but no, not me. I just stood there. Why? Why did I feel like I had to be strong and show I did not need to sit. I don't know, but it was stupid. By the time we left that room, especially with seeing traumatic thing like how the bed comes apart into a birthing chair and some talk about a squatting bar (never mention this to me again), I was SO SORRY I had not sat down...but by then...I felt like as soon as I sat down it'd be time to leave. I ask you, What did it matter if I sat? No one would have cared. I learned a lesson, and next time...I'll be the first one finding a seat. I think this was the main room that was the most traumatic - just the realization that James is coming out (which is good because I want to meet him....when it's time) and he's going to come out in a room like that, and they're going to take him over and put him in that cart, and I'm going to be doing goodness knows what while I'm in this room to get him out, and if he's not okay they have to roll him on the cart to the special care nursery....and why did that make me want to cry? It's like such a roller coaster of emotions - excitement, fear, anxiety, so much love for James already, fear....oh wait...I already said that one :)

Anyway, all in all, trauma or no trauma, I'm really glad we took the tour. It was so informative and helped us just be able to actually see everything with our own eyes.

We had a great weekend. We had Mandy and Shannon and Isabelle over for dinner on Friday night (after I was OFF ON FRIDAY!!!). Then, Eric and Kelli came to spend the night so they could help with the Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday. It went really well, and Landon and Eric did an awesome job telling the Easter story to the kids. Easter Sunday was great too - Kevin and Karen came with their kids to worship with us and have lunch with us (Mexican on Easter) and we had a really great crowd at church and then no church Sunday night! I love church times, but you know, it's so great to have a break and just time to spend together. We went for a walk and just were able to hang out and relax together. It was really nice. This weekend I'm going on our church ladies' retreat up to North Carolina. Because of how crazy my commute is and all, I'm going to leave early Saturday morning to get there instead of coming in Friday afternoon.

BTW, I did get the AJC last Saturday at the Dollar and More, if you were wondering, so Ms. Debbie at Walgreens was correct. April, it definitely may be at WalMart. I'm not sure because I haven't checked that out yet. I was thankful to get the coupons though - I really like that paper.