Goodbye sweet glorious vacation. Hello work.

Today marks the last day of winter break. Sighhhhhh (that was a really big sigh, in case you couldn't tell by the excess of Hs). Tomorrow I go back to work. I am so not ready for that to happen. Winter break goes by so quickly. I was envisioning that I would have a lot more down town this break, but notsomuch. These last two weeks have been jampacked with friends and family and doing stuff. It was lots of fun, but as per uze, I did not get done all the stuff I had hoped to get down around the house. Story of my life, I suppose.

To start break off there were a lot of trips to the mall. Our exchange student, Liza, flew home two days after xmas and needed to get gifts for everyone back home. I did my first dint of maternity clothes shopping while she searched the mall for gifts. I got a lot of good basics at Motherhood Maternity and one cute shirt at H&M.

On the first Monday of break we also took her to Zoolights at out local zoo. It was a nice night to go, no rain, but very chilly.

The next day was my first appointment with the midwives. It was a pretty short appointment, since it was just establishing care. I didn't even meet with a midwife, just a nurse and we went over all my intake information. Then that afternoon we took Liza into Seattle to see some of the sights. We went to the Market and poked around. After that we took the monorail to Seattle Center and looked around there. We ate dinner at the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. Of course, it was Liza's first time there, but it was also WM's. He had never been to the top before! So it was a real treat to eat up there and enjoy the beautiful views. After dinner we went up one floor to the observation deck.

The next morning, Liza and I took the train down to Oregon to spend time with family. Wm wasn't able to come down until Christmas eve because he had to work. It was nice to spend time with family and friends we don't get to see as often as we would like. We headed back north on Sunday, because Liza flew back home to the Netherlands on Monday, and Wm had to work Sunday night. Sunday was mostly spent trying to cram all of Liza's belongings into her one suitcase. Monday we got up early and took her to the airport. After we got back home we just lazed around. WM was pretty tired from working the night shift, and I was just worn out from all the go-go-going.

On Tuesday we decided the time had come... for us to get a new TV. We have had the same crappy hand me down tv for years. We have put up with its floating discoloration spots and super dark picture. WM and I had made a deal that when he finished building a new entertainment system we would buy a new TV. But, here we are with a new TV and an unfinished entertainment system down in the basement. Eventually (hopefully this month) we will have an entertainment system like this only in a different color (photo and plans from Knock Off Wood):

On Wednesday, WM went to work. I met up with him and a coworker for lunch, and then I headed out to the Super Mall for maternity shopping. There have a Motherhood Maternity outlet and the closest Old Navy that carries maternity. I got tons of stuff. My hope is that I am basically set for the next 6+ months.

On Thursday, I prepped the house for guests. I had to clean out the rest of the stuff in Liza's room and make it back into a guest room. I also got the second guest room ready and just kind of picked up the house in general. That evening some friends arrived from Oregon.

Of course the next day was NYE. We went out to our favorite bar and played our favorite game (Big Game Hunter) and everyone (except me) enjoyed delicious microbrews. That night we had two more visitors arrive from Oregon. We ate good food and they enjoyed good beers, which I would sample but not drink.

New Years Day everyone was pretty worn out, so we headed out to get yummy bfast food at Alfred's Cafe where one of our good friends is the head chef. It was jam packed, looks like we weren't the only ones who wanted good grub the morning after partying. The rest of the day was pretty low key. Two of guest headed back down to Oregon. WM and I took Ralph for a nice long walk. And other than that we vegged out in front of our new tv with our friends and just kind of took it easy.

Which brings us to today. Sunday. Our guests headed out this morning and now WM and I are enjoying the last few hours we have together before he has to go to work. We will talk the Ralphster out for another walk in a bit. I'm doing laundry and right now WM is playing videogames.

I have made a slight amount of progress on the nursery. I emptied out the closet in that room. That had been where I was storing all of my clothes (gotta love old houses and their postage stamp sized closets, right?). I packed up all my non-maternity clothing (at least the ones that I don't think will work) and moved the rest into a different closet. The plan is to get a free standing armoire to put in our bedroom and install an organizational system in the closet that is in there so that both WM and I can keep out wardrobes in our bedroom (how convenient would that be?).

There you have it. My winter break in a (pretty large) nutshell. I had hoped to empty out the nursery completely, paint it, rip up the carpet in there (and the other guest rooms) as well as paint the living room. But, none of those things even remotely happened. The good news is that soon WMs work schedule is changing and we will have a lot more time together on the weekends. I am very very very much looking forward to this. Perhaps we will be able to get some projects done together on our (ready for this?) weekends at home.