Thursday, June 30, 2016

You little bastards!!!

No pics yet.
I've been watching my plants since this morning.
Went out to water my crappy looking plants and saw that one of my tomatoes had its top leaves stripped. WTF??
We have some deer that roam around the neighborhood so I thought that maybe a really brave deer got itself a snack during the night.
Then I looked closer....
Nope... not deer..... nasty frickin tomato hornworms!!!
Giant greet fat juicy caterpillars.
There was one on that plant and a bigger one on the one next to it.
So gross and I'm so pissed too.
It's insane how much damage was done in such a short period of time by these things.
Hoping the plant still produces and I've been going in and out all day to check for more.
Did find another one on a different plant. Threw them all out in to the road in hopes that they'll get run over or some hungry birds will make a meal out of them.
Had to throw the first 2 out AGAIN b/c the bigger one had already made its way back when I checked again and the smaller one was crawling on the driveway.

I would chop them or squish them, but they gross me out so dang much. I feel so.. bleh.. when it comes to big juicy wormy things. Small little caterpillars don't bother me... it's when they get huge and fat that it just gives me the willies.


AND Oren decided he was going to wake up before 6am today. Awesome....
He did quiet down until around 6:30 when he just fussed and fussed for 10min until I finally gave in and got up. He probably would have gone back to sleep, but I was tired of hearing him cry.

I went to bed earlier last night, but it wasn't enough. I'm still SO tired right now and caffeine isn't doing anything :(

Maybe if I'm lucky and the kids behave.. I'll be able to sneak in a couple of catnaps lol. Just a couple min ones would be nice :P lol

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Lazy Procrastinator!

That should be my middle name.....
I WILL have photos up tomorrow... just gotta force myself to do it already and stop putting it off.
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Yesterday was not a good day though. Good lord Oren was a little terror.
Don't he felt well and he decided that if I wasn't snuggling him, then he'd just roll all over the floor screaming his head off.
You just don't realize how draining and annoying and frustrating that is until it's happening to you.
I love him to pieces, but HOLY SHIT CHILD.... SHUT UP for a MIN!!!
He completely drained me yesterday.

Also, he decided to poop and then stick his hand down his diaper. Good times......

Thankfully after a nice long bath for him and Zoe, he seemed to be feeling better and of course was all smiles when DH got home. I mean... good for DH for not having to go through what I did but still.... lol
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Also forgot to ask DH about where we want to put the furniture. Really need to clean the room first. It's full of tools, tape, painting trash, etc etc. May do that later if I'm feeling up to it.
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Had a few small dizzy spells yesterday and again this morning.
Definitely not b/c I'm dehydrated. I've been drinking plenty... so thinking it's just baby laying on a blood vessel weird or something like that.
Other than usual pregnancy related stuff, I feel fine and as I said before.. the dizziness isn't severe. It's just a slight off balance feeling that takes a couple of minutes to resolve.
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About to go lay down and read and hopefully get in a quick nap before Oren wakes from his.
He woke up at 6:30 this morning and MAN.. I really needed some extra sleep.
It's my fault though. I was reading last night and stayed up until 11. I know that's not late for some, but it is for me lol :)

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Well... so much for that lol

Rescheduled my dentist appointment to the 12th of next month and I called up the closest dermatologist office to make an appointment.
Sigh.....
They had an opening this afternoon AND one early early tomorrow morning.. but of course... I have 2 kids. I couldn't take advantage of either. I wish I could have though b/c I want this gross mole gone already.
But nope.. so I made an appointment for the 9th.... AUGUST 9th. ROFL...... I just went ahead and made it, but I'm sure I'll be cancelling it :P Oh well
So yeah.... I'm probably gonna be stuck with this mole for at least another 3 or 4 months maybe. Not sure how willing they would be to remove a mole while I'm pumping. We'll see though. I'll ask when I cancel/reschedule.
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I'm SO hot and sweaty!!
I couldn't take it anymore yesterday afternoon. Stripped off my sweat soaked shirt and put on a sports bra. It made my nips itch like crazy, but it helped. I bought tank tops to help with this, but I think even those would be too much.

I was not this hot when pregnant with Zoe. This is just ridiculous.

Is it August yet? :P

Also the dizziness came and went yesterday. It never got super bad or anything. Think I just didn't drink enough yesterday. Need to make sure to drink enough today.
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Made fried bone-in chicken breasts yesterday :D YUM!
Pretty much my first time doing it. Actually..I may have before, but oh well.. I'll just say first time lol.
Turned out pretty well, but it needed a lot more seasoning.
I put them in a milk/water/seasoning marinade for a few hours. Thought I put in plenty of seasoning, but nope. Also put in salt and pepper to the flour too, but it still wasn't enough.
Oh well... live and learn for next time :) The breasts came out nice and juicy though. Think I may have overcooked just a tad bit, but they were still really juicy :D
Will have to do that again. Store usually had some discounted stuff so we'll see what happens.

Also bought some cheese curds to make fried cheese curds. Just need to strain out the oil first and look up a good breading recipe. Looking forward to that! :D
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I sketched out some panda designs yesterday. I pretty much just copied some I saw on google and added my own style to it.
Meh.... not like I'm trying to sell something... it's just for my baby's room :)
Just need to start cleaning up the room, tape up molding on the bottom, finish the grey paint, then I can start sketching out everything on the walls. Still no idea where the furniture is going.
Will have to talk to DH about that tonight.
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And yeah.... think that's it for now :D

Monday, June 27, 2016

....continued

I've been getting dizzy. Not to the point to where I think I'm gonna pass out or fall or anything, just slight dizziness.
That's not good.
Maybe it's the slight anemia I have? /shrugs
My iron level did go up a little and I wasn't taking the pills religiously while on our trip (I know.. dumb of me)... so I would think that with me actually taking them every day as I should that it wouldn't be that causing the dizziness.
Maybe baby is just laying on some blood vessel or something weird and it's causing the dizziness... who knows. If it gets worse, I'll call up the doc office.

I've also had a couple of nights where I strip off all my clothes except for my undies to sleep. DH thinks it's awesome lol, but I'm just laying there trying not to sweat to death :P
I would seriously walk around the house almost naked all day long if there wasn't any chance someone outside would see. I'm SO hot and sweaty most of the time... it's ridiculous.

And I swear this baby is a little night owl. From around 7 or 8.. it's pretty much non-stop movement. I love feeling baby move, but it does keep me awake while baby is having itself a good ole time in there lol. And of course baby stops just long enough that DH doesn't feel anything and as soon as he's asleep..
PARTY TIME!!!!! :P

And while I'm more on this baby being a girl side... I have no intuition about it at all. Nothing is screaming at me that this is a girl or a boy. Only a few more weeks left, so we'll see :)
Little Evie or a little Ezra.

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Crap... there was more but I've forgotten again b/c I had to go get Oren up from his nap. SIGH... thanks for working brain.... :P

Feeling SO LAZY!!!

Seriously... I want to do so much, but I just can't get my butt up to do it.

Anywho...

Saturday... we went to Home Depot and grocery shopping. We picked out the paint for the baby's room :)  A nice grey for the walls. 2 shades of green, 1 teal, and 1 magenta. We already have some black leftover so didn't need that.
Now i just need to battle the lazy and draw up some designs. Need to figure out where the crib and dresser are going though. Don't want to paint anything anywhere just for it to get covered up.
DH spent the weekend working on the room. He painted most of the walls grey. Just need to take up the floor boards and paint the rest of it.
He's also been trying to patch up spots that don't look that great.
His new wall doesn't look all that spectacular lol, but ya know.. it will work for us and with some strategically placed pics on the wall, the flaws will be hidden :)

After he's cleaned up all the tools and whatnot in the room, I need to clean those carpets again. At least once... maybe 2 more times.
The living room floors have already been stained by yogurt, cranberry sauce, and cat vomit..... sigh. That's not even counting all of the tufts of dog fur.  Sigh... it was nice for the one day it looked clean lol.

SiL and family came over Saturday too to get her hair done. Bleached it and colored it. The bleaching was great. She has a dark dirty blonde/brown hair and one bleaching brought it to platinum blonde. Just what you want for coloring. I totally messed up coloring her hair though. It didn't look bad or anything, but not what I was hoping it would look like.

Doing her hair made me want to do mine, so after they left (around 7 or 8), I bleached my regrowth. Did NOT go thee same way as hers lol. My hair lifted to brown and a dark orange :\
I wouldn't normally do it, but I bleached again on Sunday. It brought it to a pale yellow which was enough for the blue I wanted to put on the area. I just didn't want to wait to bleach it again and put a color on the area that I didn't want. My hair is feeling a bit bleh right now b/c of all the processing but should feel better once my natural oils and stuff work itself back in to my hair.
So right now, my hair is blue, purple and pink. :)
Need to touch up some blue spots that didn't get quite enough dye on the spots so some of the yellow shows through lol. Oh well.
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Also yesterday.. I tended to my poorly looking container garden. Just planting some new cucumber plants and a cherry tomato plant that we got at the store. Also adding fertilizer to everything and just hoping for the best really.

While I did that, I cleaned out a kiddie pool we had and filled that and the kids water table and let them play. It was just Zoe for a bit while Oren napped and boy did she have fun lol. Oren only really got to play in it for about an hour before we all went back in.
They're both such little water rats. :)

Anyway... I wanted to do so much more, but the heat and just feeling so uncomfortable and very pregnant... I barely got done what I did want to do. Something that should've only taken me... not even an hour, took me at least 4 to do.
I just had to keep taking breaks and then forcing myself to continue on even though every pregnant part of me refused lol.

Like right now... I desperately want to clean the mess up in the living room and I REALLY want to vacuum up all the gross dog hair. Also need to be putting Oren down for his nap. But here I am.... just staring at the mess and letting Oren run around and fussing.
I'm about to get up, but man... I don't want to!
____

There was something else, but kids are whining and I forgot.....

Friday, June 24, 2016

Taking a break

So I probably didn't get to sleep until 1am this morning. Then I woke at 5 and couldn't get back to sleep until 6 and then of course Oren woke up at 7 lol. Oh well. Thank goodness for caffeine.

I managed to clean up the living room, sunroom and vacuum. Holy crap the carpet looks TERRIBLE.
I'm taking a short breather before I carpet clean them. I was sweating like crazy cleaning what I did and just need to cool off.
So glad to not see the floor covered in toys and trash though.
Really just need to start cleaning everything up that same day so it doesn't build up and get overwhelming.

Anyway.... YAY for being productive :D
Still no photos. SO sorry :( It's just such a pain editing and blah. But I swear, they will be up by next week. Yall aren't missing anything anyway rofl.

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UGH... ok so I have to complain about the drivers here again.
I was on my way to my mom's house yesterday. Stuck behind this UPS truck that was swerving ALL over the damn road and not checking the lanes for cars and would start to go in to the other lane with cars right beside him/her. THEN of course this idiot exits on the same one I do and gets in the wrong lane so pretty much forces its way in to the lane I was in and almost hits the car in front of me.
I wish there had been one of those "How is my driving" stickers b/c I would've called it in. I should've called 911 on it or something.

THEN... I leave my mom's a bit late and at the start of rush hour traffic. I usually take a back road home when I think the traffic is going to be bad, but this time I took the interstate. BAD choice. First...
this MORON exits off the interstate right in front of me. No problem IF there had been enough room for them to get in front of me and if they weren't GD idiots that don't know where their gas pedal is.
Just damn.... would it have killed them to wait another 2 damn seconds???
Then, merging on to the interstate.... some bitch speeds up when I'm trying to merge so I can't get over, so I brake and slow down and so does she. MAKE UP YOUR GD MIND!!!!
I swear.... it's 2 things when merging... you either get stuck behind some dipshit who thinks going 40mph is the right way to merge... or you're trying to merge on to a busy ass highway with assholes who won't let you in.

I love driving the van but holy hell.. I HATE driving here so GD much. SO MUCH.
Oh and that doesn't even count the asshole when I was leaving the house to go back to the party with the veggie trays.
The light outside of he neighborhood (and down the road) is notorious for red light runners and that time was no exception.
There will usually be 1-3 cars waiting to turn after the light turns red. Ok.. not a huge deal, but then they have to deal with the complete and total assholes who run the red AFTER it has been red for enough time for them to have stopped.
Not one, but TWO assholes ran the red light.... they could have easily have stopped like they should have, but oh no.. they gotta risk their and other people's lives bc they can't be bothered to sit at the light for a couple of minutes.

I really wish there was a few cops always parked at the intersection. Get those assholes to stop treating the law like it's optional. We really need traffic light cameras in these areas. They would make SO much money from all the idiots. SO much money.
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There was more I wanted to talk about but my rant side tracked me and made me forget lol.... oops.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Wide awake

It's almost 11pm and I'm wide awake. UGH.
Had a pretty good nap today and some sweet sweet magical caffeine for dinner lol
I'm sure that's why I'm not tired just yet.
____

Was thinking as I laid in bed....
I really want to focus on losing weight once baby is here and we're past the exhausting newborn stage.
Sure we'll be in exhausting infant stage still lol, but maybe by then I'll have some energy to exercise.
It's going to be so difficult w/ 3 kids.. trying to find the time to do anything other than take care of them and rest, but I really feel like I NEED to put in the effort now.
My baby making days are over and I want to be here as long as possible for my family. AND I want to be a good role model for them.

Started thinking about it b/c I have a bit of an embarrassing situation going on under my belly flubber.
I've been using Monkey Butt powder under my fleshy fanny pack b/c it's been itching something fierce b/c of sweating (I think).
But I put it on after I take a shower so I'm not completely dry when I do apply it and I'm sure there's sweat too later on so it creates a paste.
Well that paste has adhered itself to me to create this layer that is stuck to me and peels off like a scab or like a bad sunburn. I can scrub some of it away in the shower, but still have a good bit left on me.
Actually got DH to help me some tonight to peel off some of this... stuff. So humiliating :(

I'm just sick of having the flubber there along with my giant flappy arms. And I just hate being fat. Sigh... I'd much rather have loose skin after losing weight than being fat still.. ya know?
Just hate that I'm so self conscious about it and let it get to me.
Plus I want to do this for DH too. If I'm eating bad... so is he and I know he's so unhappy with how much weight he's gained.

Anyway... it's going to take A LOT of willpower to lose weight and to stay away from bad food.
Thinking I do want to set a time limit goal.. like next Christmas or something, but I also kind of don't want to bc I don't want to disappoint myself if I don't reach it. I'll have to come up with something. Maybe not a time goal, but just a weight loss goal. We'll see....
I just need to do this finally.
After we're finally in the groove of having 3 kids.... I'm going to really focus on getting healthy. It's not gonna be perfect all the time and I'm sure we'll have set backs here and there, but I think if we both put our minds to it, we'll eventually reach our goals :)
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I still haven't come up with panda & bamboo designs. Such a slacker.
Might do it tomorrow, but the main focus for tomorrow is going to be cleaning this pig pen up. It's SO gross in the living room right now. I can't stand it anymore.
I'm cleaning these dang carpets!!
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I'm not a big drinker by any means, but holy hell.. I want some alcohol!!!
Was feeling so jealous of everyone at the party yesterday b/c they got to have margaritas lol.
I just want a couple of super girly drinks and I'd be happy. Ok.. maybe a few shots too. And even a beer or 2.. and I hate beer.
Not sure to call this a craving, but that's what it feels like sometimes.
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I'm going to have to rip out all of the cucumber plants and restart them. SIGH!
At first I thought MiL and FiL just weren't watering them enough while we were gone, but no.. I think it's just this heat that is killing them.
It's SO damn hot out that it's just frying the poor plants. I moved the tomatoes that I could to the porch in hopes of that helping some. The porch sits in shade for most of the day and gets only a few hours of sun. Just hope it's enough sun.... should be I think.
Still though... BOO :( Was so hoping for some fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. We got 1 edible cucumber and are just now starting to get a couple of tomatoes :\
Oh well.... live and learn.
I would definitely try container gardening again, but just need to take the heat in to account next time lol.
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Alrighty.. it's 12:30. I'm still not really tired enough to sleep, but I need to try or else, I'll be up all night and zombie mom.

So awkward...

So DH got off of work early yesterday. Had to pick up a poster at Walmart for his party... that was supposed to be done the day before and still wasn't done when we got there.
UGH.... That made us late to the club house thing the party was being held at.
THEN DH realizes that he completely forgot the veggie trays he made.
I volunteered to go home to grab them. Not a big deal other than having to drive in rush hour traffic. Bleh.
I swear.. there are 2 speeds in rush hour..... Too fast and too slow and then there you are.. the only inbetween.
Getting pissed off at the people going way too slow.... and getting zoomed by by the ones going way too fast.
I get it... everyone wants to get home, but that aint no reason to drive like a damn idiot and acting like you're invincible.
Anyway... I got back about 40mins later and the entire parking area was full except for one little space where the asshat in the audi parked right on the line. DH came out after I called him and parked it lol.

It went well though. Both kids had a great time running around. Oren had a blast being fed by everyone and finding a new grandma lol. Oren just kept going up to everyone and wanting to play with the other kids there.
I of course sat off by myself minding my own business and hoping no one would talk to me lol.

Zoe did almost get whapped in the head when they brought out the pinata. There was a little boy.. about 5? that kept whacking the crap out of the pinata when it was his turn and Zoe was almost in the line of fire... like... just mere inches from being hit.
Thankfully there were no injuries and the kids along with a few adults had fun picking up all the spilled candy lol.

Other than not really eating enough.. it was all good and everyone else seemed to have fun socializing.
It's just not my thing. I'd much rather stay home and not have to talk to anyone lol.
Plus, most of the people there were SO damn young. Really makes you feel old when you see grown ass adults, but still find yourself thinking.... "I was a teenager when you were born!" lol
Heck, the new batch of residents looked like they should still be in HS!

Oh I also had a caff withdrawal headache all day yesterday... so.. that was fun. Thankfully it was just a dull one by the time of the party, but it still sucked.
Woke up with it this morning, but thankfully tylenol actually worked on it.
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Lets see if I can actually finish this post. Oren keeps coming over wanting to be picked up whenever I start typing lol.
I just can't resist him. I want to soak up all the cuddles while he still wants them.
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Uh..... I think that's about it actually... or at least all I can think of atm. Pics will be coming soon. Just been lazy and busy lol.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Come on people...

Ugh... some of the women in my group.... just ugh.
If they want to BF still, great for them, but how about listening to your child's doctor too.
One of the women took their LO in for their 15m checkup and their boy only gained 5oz since his last appointment...and his last appointment he was in the very low percentile too so it's not like he was a chunker before and is still one now.
The doctor said that she should stop BFing b/c it's a bit obvious that he is not getting what he needs from her breastmilk and that she needs to focus on trying to feed him real food and giving him whole milk to get him to start gaining.
But nope.... her and others in the group are all like "No, don't stop BFing!"
Seriously??? Your child is barely gaining weight and is refusing regular food to BF. That wouldn't be a problem IF your milk was giving him what he needs which it isn't!
Just UGH!!
BFing is great and all if you want to do it and your LO is thriving, but there comes a point when you have to do what is best for your child. And if that means stopping.. then DO IT.

Sigh.... hopefully everything works out for this momma and her son and he starts gaining.
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Speaking of LOs....
Oren was driving me frickin crazy yesterday.
Child.. I can not make food cook faster. No matter how loud you cry and scream.. it's not going to make it cook any faster and is only going to drive me damn crazy.
I was at my wits end and had to just leave to where he couldn't see me.
I love my little booger-butt so much, but damn...... just damn.

And also.... so much for not taking the child safety door thing off of Zoe's door b/c she suddenly learned how to open her door with it on. DOH!
She hasn't been practicing or anything... it's just that I dunno... suddenly she figured it out. Sigh....
Proud of her but also... bed time now is going to be such a PITA like it was last night.
She kept getting up and going to the bathroom to pee. More like going to the bathroom to play around and avoid going to sleep.
I kept waking up during the night expecting her to be in bed with us lol.
I'm sure that will happen eventually.
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Have that resident party thing tonight. Ugh....
Thankfully it's totally casual so I don't have to dress up at all. WOO! lol
Still not looking forward to it though. I'm just not social and well.... all of those people are probably.
Just let me sit in the back somewhere... out of sight out of mind lol :P
Need to get myself and the kids bathed today.
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Looked up prices for doing a party at Build a Bear. It's not too bad so long as you don't have a lot of kids... or that the kids don't mind getting the cheaper stuffed animals lol. Doubt we'll do that though. Only take Zoe and Oren and let them pick out something.
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Oh and FYI... Dollar Tree has some cute magnetic kid frames (they were in the toy section at the one we went to). We bought 3? Different ones. Disney Princess, Mickey Mouse Club, and something else that I can't remember. Big magnetic frames for those that don't want to nail anything to the wall and have room on your fridge for them heh.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Before I forget again

No photos yet.. kids are driving me a bit crazy with their whining and I really don't feel like getting the photos.. editing them and all of that. I definitely will though soon.

Anyway... my non-diagnosis of GD got me thinking... maybe women that claim to make "Big babies" have GD-lite like myself this time.
What I mean is... they pass their glucose test, BUT they do in fact have GD and should be watching carbs and sugar intake, but since they weren't diagnosed and more than likely aren't monitoring blood sugar level... they eat whatever they want and TADA... big babies.

/shrug... just a thought lol
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Oren is going to drive me crazy and so is Zoe for that matter.
She'll forget to close the bathroom door when she's done.... and there goes Oren to play in the toilet. Sigh...
I JUST gave him some string cheese and off he went. Heard that familiar toilet seat sound and sure enough, he had dumped his cheese right in to the toilet.
THEN later in the day... Zoe was taking too long in the bathroom. Go in there and she's ripped off ALL of the TP from an almost full roll. Made her pick it all up and put it on the counter. Good tp is too damn expensive to just throw away.
THEN.. just caught both of them playing in the bathroom AGAIN.
They are making me regret taking the child safety thing off the doorknob :\

We were thinking about taking the one off of Zoe's door on the inside, but nope. I know as soon as she realizes that it's not there, she's never going to stay in bed at night.
Do not want to wake up to a toddler's face in mine lol.

One day it will come off.. but not anytime soon.

OH AND... Keeping ORen out of the pets' water is almost impossible. I wasn't paying attention and he grabbed the remote for the sound system and then plopped the remote in the water. Awesome.....
Hoping that once it dries off that it will still work.
We'll see I guess.

I do love my annoying little munchkins though. It hasn't all been bad. Some laughs and snuggles today too.

I just need a soda..... a nice cold fizzy caffeinated soda......

It's all good

Yesterday's appointment went well. Both kiddos behaved, thank goodness. I was a total wreck and sweating buckets though. I wasn't late to the appointment, but it felt like I was.

Had some blood drawn to test my iron level again and also had the whooping cough vaccine. And yeah... that was about it. Doctor measured my bump and listened for the heartbeat (150).

Pretty uneventful lol. Should have results of the iron in another day or so.
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DH is really pissing me off.
I think work is stressing him out some, but that's not an excuse to bring that shit home. He has some resident party to throw tomorrow (that I'm being forced to go to) so is trying to get stuff for that put together.
He stayed up until midnight last night doing... something. No frickin idea, but he comes to bed, I wake up b/c I'm a light sleeper... and he bitches at me for letting the dog lay in his spot.
Seriously?? I WAS ASLEEP. Excuse me for not being able to control everything while I'm SLEEPING.
He needs to chill the F out or I'm going to blow up at him. Only reason I haven't is b/c this could all be work related.... but again. He better get his shit attitude together.

And that wasn't the only incident.. it's just him losing his patience quicker with the kids and just little bitchy comments here and there that are chipping away my own patience.
____

Anyway... on a lighter note...

I think we're gonna be buying the kids a motorized car for Christmas. They fight over Zoe's little car thing that only sits one. We think they would like it.. and the one that we want to get... while expensive.... has a little space in the back for possible baby or one of the other kids. We wanted one with a wagon that could be attached but there really isn't one like that. I'm sure it would've been easy enough to hook one up though.
We'll see what happens. Still a little bit away from Christmas. Maybe we'll find one we want to get them more :)

Monday, June 20, 2016

Ugh....

So I hope all the awesome dads out there had a great day yesterday :)
DH's day was a bit underwhelming. I did jack shit for it, but oh well. I let him sleep in.. that's good enough :P lol
We went to one of those overpriced Brazilian steakhouses for lunch with family. The sirloin they served was frickin delicious, but everything else... meh.
Just overall not worth frickin $32 a person. Not unless you can eat your weight in meat and especially b/c their servers are still all paid waiters wages and rely on tips.

We then went and got some happy hour half price slushies from Sonic on the way home and then my brother and his wife brought over their kids for me to watch while they went to see Warcraft.
My brother  IM'd be yesterday on FB and jokingly asked if I would watch them. Meh... it was no big deal. Their older kids were bored, but their youngest had fun playing with Zoe and Zoe had a blast too :)
Oren kind of just followed them around... wanting to participate, but not really understanding how to yet. SO adorable! lol

Speaking of Zoe... so she spent the night with her granny Friday night... but on Saturday spent the night with aunt.
Aunt told DH that she got eaten up by mosquitoes.
Yeah... I don't frickin think so. She got eaten alive by fleas once again. Especially since she wasn't playing outside. Hell... even when we were at the lodgings at Yellowstone with the swarms of mosquitoes there.. she didn't get bitten up this bad.
No way in hell did mosquitoes fly in between her legs to bite her on her inner upper thighs.
Aunt just needs to own up to that shit and get her frickin pets some damn Advantage or Frontline already. So sick of Zoe coming home with dozens of bug bites all over her.
____

I also got absolutely nothing done yesterday lol. Oops. I had fully intended to do some carpet shampooing, but nope.
I REALLY need to do it though. These carpets just look disgusting. I took before pictures and will take after ones once I finally do clean them.... whenever that may be. Probably tomorrow.

Have an appointment today and just don't feel like doing anything else today. Gotta take both kiddos with me since MiL can't watch them. Shouldn't be too big of an issue since it's just seeing the doc and getting blood drawn. Think I mentioned that already in another post lol. Oh well.

Anywho.... I'll try to have photos up tomorrow  of the trip. Really didn't take as many as I was hoping to. Mostly b/c the van was so cramped with stuff and we were so tired most of the time that we just forgot. Did get some though. Just gotta go through them all.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Not quite...

Didn't get quite as much done today as I was hoping I would.
Zoe spent the night with her granny... and will tonight too. Just glad that it's just her and niece couldn't. Not that I'm against them spending time together, but it's rare for Zoe to get one on one time with her granny and grampy like niece gets all the time since they babysit her.

We went blueberry picking this morning. It was nice, cloudy, cool, and breezy. Oren had fun being fed blueberries and picking some when I found a good bush with low hanging berries on it lol. He was a good little picker too :)
Of course he had some nasty blueberry poop before bed, but hey.... gross price to pay I guess lol.

We then went grocery shopping after where I forgot about the coupons we had and paid before we used them. DOH! Would've probably have saved us a good chunk off of the bill. Sigh.....
I blame the store. Not enough employees up front bagging so DH had to do it and he's the one with the coupons.
Oh well... think some of them will expire before we go back but we should still be able to use most of them next time or whenever.

And then home where we watched a movie.. I napped a little after reading and yeah.
I was SO incredibly achy and sore after shopping and picking so didn't want to do anything. The rest was nice and I managed to vacuum, put some dishes in the washer and cook dinner. Still aching like crazy though.... and an hour after vacuuming.. it doesn't look like I did at all with all the new tufts of fur. Sigh....

Planning on shampooing at least the bedroom carpet and maybe the sunroom carpet tomorrow. Leave the living room for Tuesday. Monday I have my appointment where I'm gonna be dragging the kids along lol. That should be interesting.
Thankfully it's just seeing the doc and getting some blood drawn.
____

UGH... so in my quest to not be so judgemental.. (which isn't going so well).... the crazy ass woman in this new August DD group that is all about homebirth can't actually do a homebirth this time.
HA! GOOD!!
Ok, so I know that's harsh, but this is a woman that thinks she knows more than doctors b/c she was in school for a year or so to become a nurse and her mom is a nurse (or was and is retired now?)... that's it. That's her credentials for her know-it-all-ness.
But anyway, she posted that she can't have her homebirth now b/c she has complete placenta previa. So now she has to get a c-sec and she's not going to get her fantasy birth.
Again, I know all of this sounds super harsh, but this woman is just.... ugh. She values the birth experience more than anyone should. Not saying that she can't be disappointed, but the way she was going on about how she wasn't actually going to be giving birth just pissed me off. Yeah... she said that because she wasn't going to be pushing that baby out of her vagina in her home, that she didn't count it as giving real birth.
Bitch..... please.
____

And finally.... caught Oren playing in the toilet right before his bedtime. Sigh....... Thankfully it was a clean bowl, but still... EW.

Friday, June 17, 2016

And I haven't done annything

Go me! I've done a whole lot of nothing today! WOO! lol
Felt like posting again really quick before plopping the kids in the bath.

Woman from Oren's DD group just had a baby 2 weeks ago.... TWO WEEKS AGO and she's already having sex with her husband. Uhm... no girl..... just no. Her labor and birth went pretty fast and well, but still.... 2 weeks??? The hell if I or DH was in any kind of sexual mood that soon after having a baby.
Must be nice to be young and full of energy lol. She's freaking out b/c they didn't use a condom though. Oh youth.....
Then again she was already talking about them trying again in 6 months for #3.
Just typing that out made me tired rofl.
But ya know whatever works for them I guess. Just hope they remember the condom next time they want to get frisky so she doesn't freak out again lol.
____

Zoe pitched some serious attitude today. Girl apparently does not know who her mommy is. This momma does not take that crap.
I can't even remember what caused the tude... just remember it happening and taking everything in me to keep from laughing in her face. Had to put my mommy face on and straighten things up.
Still though.... /BIG SIGH
Who knew almost 4yos could have the attitude of a teenager??
____

Oren needs to stop with the tantruming too. Also needs to stop wanting to dig in her diaper trash /vomit
I usually remember to pick up his trash and put it on the changing table since they'll play in his room sometimes. Forgot to today though. He came in here and I picked him up and smelled poop. Yeah, he had poo so I took him to his room and saw a nice big full dirty poo diaper opened up on his floor.
Thankfully it wasn't poo side down and no visible poop anywhere though.
Just ew though.. EW
He also needs to stop playing in the dang dog water like he's doing right this second.
He knows he's not supposed to b/c as soon as we get up to stop him, he tries to run off :\
And now he's standing in it.... awesome.

Guess that's my cue to get them a bath going. Little water rats.. both of them rofl.

So much pee!

I have to pee ALL the time!! Thinking it might be my body trying to get rid of the bloating I'm still experiencing b/c I'm not drinking a ton more or anything.
My right ankle and foot are still slightly swollen, but other than that, I think the bloating I was getting from the car trip have gone.

I'm hungry ALL the time now though. The iron pills have been causing some short term nausea after I take them, but after that... GIVE ME FOOD!!!!! lol

OH and while on the trip.. I felt hiccups for the first time from the LO :) Awwww
Felt them again last night after I got up to pee. Only twice now, but I'm sure it will start happening more often like it did with Zoe and Oren.

Honestly.. I just wish it was Aug 12th already. While I am enjoying all of the movement and not giving a F about my giant pregnant belly and popping it out...... I'm SO incredibly uncomfortable this time around and just want to get past the c-sec recovery stage and the exhausted newborn stage lol.

And while a part of me is still sad about not having any more babies... I know having a tubal done is the 100% right decision for us. I'll always wonder what more kids would look like, who they'd become, etc etc.. but I'm done.. done done done being a baby making momma :)
And knowing that.. it's such a relief.
____

Apparently we didn't have $1000 left on the furniture. Nope... we had $1700 left to pay on it!! DOH!
Damn our expensive taste! But YAY for being able to do payments on it! lol
Yeesh... again... thank goodness this is the last time we need to buy baby furniture. We will have to eventually replace Zoe's cheap dresser, but that doesn't need to happen any time soon... or at all really. But it's cheap material so I'm sure with 3 running around and causing chaos.. something will happen to it.

I've been procrastinating about coming up with a nursery design. I have some images in my head that I'll sketch out... eventually. Need to get it done though. I just don't want to for some reason. Just being super lazy I guess. But I'll be doing that today.. even though I don't wanna :P lol
____

My poor container garden looks awful! Really need to cut off the crap looking plants and replace them already. Should've bought new plants when we went to Home Depot, but by the time we got the stove.. I just wanted to leave.
That seems to be the common theme wherever we go. Want to do something else, but b/c I'm so big and uncomfy... by the time we get around to doing whatever... I just don't feel up to it anymore.
____

This weekend is going to be SO busy. We need to go grocery shopping.
We would like to go blueberry picking. DH wants to work on the nursery and get that done. (we got the fan in yesterday). I need to vacuum and shampoo the carpets. They REALLY need a good shampooing. They're absolutely filthy and just gross.
Ignoring the giant tufts of shedded dog fur.... there are stains everywhere... a pee spot in the sunroom that needs to be cleaned and who the heck knows what else.
We really need some new floors, but that crap costs so much.. especially for the area we would need.
DH wants hardwood or pretty much just anything other than carpet in the main living area. I don't mind carpet... but yeah.. with pets and kids... carpet is a PITA to keep clean.

Anyway.... think there was something else too we wanted to do, but whatever.. just those couple of things will take up both days.
____

And blahblahblah.. yaddayaddayadda..... My brain is shutting down and wanting a nap. Doubt I'll nap, but relaxing? I can do that at least while Oren naps :)

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Back to normal? Not quite...

We headed to Home Depot last night to get the stove we want. Unfortunately, they're out of stock and won't be getting more in until the 7th or 8th of next month. We went ahead and put the order in anyway.
We also sorta kinda bought a new fridge too. Nothing wrong with our current fridge other than it being too small. Sigh... I guess yay or boo for credit cards :P lol
Going to suck not having a working oven for another month, but we'll manage.
Figures that when we don't have the oven... all I want to do is bake bake bake lol.

Bad thing though is that we still owe about $1000 for the crib and dresser. Still have to buy paint and the other things for the nursery.
AND now we have to take one of our dogs to the vet b/c his butt is bothering him again and we'll probably have to fork over at least $700 to get his tail area fixed. Something that we should've gotten done a long time ago.
So yeah... we're going to be in some credit card debt for a while here, BUT we always pay it off, so it's not a huge deal. Just another bill to pay off.
Just gotta make sure to not use the CC unless it's absolutely necessary now lol.
____

Zoe is a trip. Everywhere we go, she sees something she wants and says "Maybe for my birthday." lol. Candy, toys, clothes.... everything. We already bought her those 3 superhero girl dolls and then I bought the water table and gave that to them early.
Also bought her a couple of toys on the trip too lol.
Yeah... our kids are spoiled as heck, but man.. it's so fun getting them stuff when we can.
I think we're going to take her to Build A Bear for her birthday since they have some new ones to pick from. We'll see what happens. Maybe get her to pick out one for her new sibling too :)
____

Oren is doing good too, but holy crap does he throw down some epic sized tantrums. Zoe was a mellow child compared to Oren.
She didn't prepare us for this at all! lol
He's a smart, sweet little guy though. Tries to say lots of words, mimics his sister and us... etc. It's just the meltdowns that I wish would stop.

He's still trying to hit when we tell him no or if he tells us no. When he starts, I say "Gentle" and try to guide his hand to pat or rub gently instead of hitting. That seems to be working a little bit. Not sure what else to do in that situation. Hitting is new for us.

He figured out how to take his diaper off yesterday..... Joy :\
Thankfully he only had pee, but earlier he did have poop and while I was getting up to change him, he decided to stick both hands down his diaper right in to the poop. BLEH! lol Always an event when you're freaking out and trying to keep little hands from touching anything :P

But man... he loves Zoe so much. I know I always comment on it, but it's just so heartwarming to see how much they love eachother.
And then thinking about how he was around SiL's baby...... i think we're gonna be ok. At least for a little while.
They're starting to "fight" a little more now, but it doesn't happen too often. It's more of Zoe taking some toy from Oren and him getting upset over it lol. Fight is the wrong word to use... more frustration on their part with eachother.

Anywho.. gotta put little man to bed for a nap soon. He's not gonna like it, but tough dooky little dudey.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

And finally

Oren is napping and I didn't want to wait to post the rest of the trip until tomorrow...


So after leaving friend's house, we headed to SiL's. We thought Nebraska was going to be just as awful driving through as Kansas, and it well could have been, but there was SO much traffic and road construction that it distracted you from potentially boring scenery. Seriously... that must've been the only road going east b/c it seemed like every damn car and semi were on it.

We got to... wherever the hell it was a little late, but DH wanted to try this pizza place he saw online called Fong's Pizza. They have some interesting Chinese style pizza toppings and were pretty good. SUPER busy in a small downtown location though so if you decide to go, expect to have to wait to be seated.

The hotel was fine. Nothing special really, but at least it was clean. BUT the assholes next to us royally pissed me off. We got in to our room around 8pm. Still fairly early and still bright and light out.
Surprisingly enough, the kids actually weren't being loud. DH did accidentally spill the drinks out of the cooler when he was trying to drain the water out of it, but that was the only loud noise we made. We're not rude jerks.....
8:30pm and we get a phone call in the room telling us that there was a complaint about noise.
F-ing seriously you assholes?? It's 8:30... get the fuck over yourselves.
By 9:30 we were all in bed trying to get to sleep when someone across the hall from us had their yappy ass dog start barking up a storm for at least 10mins. I wasn't even mad.. just thought it was sweet justice for the assholes that called to complain about us.
Anyway, other than that.. the place was fine.

The drive to SiL's was such a PITA though. GPS took us through mostly backroads and UGH..... 2 lane BUSY back roads that you can't safely pass slow drivers on is frustrating as hell. It took us 2hrs longer than expected to finally get to her house.
Thankfully she and her family don't live on a military base, but they do live in a military neighborhood.
Will say this about military housing/neighborhoods... they're not afraid to spend money on some nice playgrounds for the kids and you actually feel really safe walking around the neighborhood.
And lemme say.... SiL's baby is frickin ADORABLE!!! Holy crap that baby girl is just straight up cute as hell! Bright red hair, cute little upturned nose, chunky cheeks and legs. So cute!
MiL keeps saying how spoiled the baby is.... meh.... it's whatever is working for SiL and if that means she carries her everywhere, sleeps with her... whatever... then go for it SiL. Do your thing.
DH and I both giggled a bit at SiL though. Could definitely tell she's a new first time momma with how 'perfect' everything has to be with her LO. lol It was cute though and that little girl is a lucky one to have such a wonderful momma :)
After relaxing a little, we all walked to the neighborhood little playground so the kids could unwind some. Then came back when SiL's husband got off work.
We then went to some place called Silo that they liked. It was ok. Good, but not great.
We were supposed to leave for the road again by noon the next day, but we were all procrastinating. We headed to the nearby Jelly Belly tour thing, then after spending too much on candy, went to some Wisconsin cheese castle thing. Finally left after that. Think it was around 2 when we finally did leave.
Sigh... wish we could've visited with them more.
You could tell SiL was a bit homesick and lonely. She didn't have anyone around her there so just hung out at home with her baby all day long. Would've been nice to visit with her more, but she and her family are coming down when this LO is born so we'll all get to see her then at least.

We had one more stop at a hotel before we eventually got home. The drive away from Sil's was AWFUL. For some reason GPS decided to take us through the outskirts of downtown Chicago. That wouldn't have been that bad, but we caught every single GD traffic light and that is NOT an exaggeration at all. We seriously caught every single red light... and there were a ton of them. And don't even get me started on the condition of the roads. Just royally F-ed up.
SO much traffic, SO much congestion.
We were going to get to the hotel late anyway, so we stopped to eat dinner then finally did reach the hotel at around 10:30 or so.
I did actually drive some, but I am not comfortable driving at night any longer. My eyes start playing tricks on me and I just don't feel safe driving. And it figures that when I started driving, about 10mins in and a frickin deer almost runs out in front of us. Sigh. I saw it climb over the metal railing and could only keep saying "Don't do it.... Don't do it you stupid ass deer!" It ran in front of us but thankfully quickly stumbled and turned back around before I got to it.
Anway... wish DH had let me drive more just to give him a break, but oh well...

Then after that, it was time to drive home. Driving back through Tennessee was nice... even though we did get stuck behind A LOT of stupidly slow drivers.

We could definitely tell when we were home b/c the driving just got more frustrating as the drivers got dumber.
Apparently SC needs those "Keep Right unless Passing" signs everywhere b/c the people here don't understand that.... at all. SO many people in the left lane going at or even below the speed limit with the right lane next to them clear for them to scoot their asses over. SO MANY.
And there are 3 types of drivers in SC.... the ones that go at or below the speed limit. The ones (such as myself) who go 5-10 over the limit depending on traffic and where. (I do go the speed limit in neighborhoods... I'm mostly talking about highway driving here)... and then the ones who go 20+ over the speed limit and think that fraction of a second matters to get to wherever the hell they're going in such a hurry.

Anyway... I could go on and on about the driving here like I have before, but... maybe next time lol....

We came home to a house covered in dog fur lol. Our oldest mutt sheds clumps of fur in the summer and it was ALL over the living room. SO GROSS.
MiL said one of them peed in the living room and Pippin (the chihuahua mutt) had pooped in his pen a couple of times, but that had been it as far as messes were concerned.
So glad that MiL and FiL were able to take care of our pets for us.
They didn't do such a great job with my container garden though /cry.
With the extreme heat and probably them not watering quite enough.... my poor plants look frickin terrible. Probably just going to rip them up and try to restart some.
It is ridiculously hot here though so I'm not entirely sure container gardening is even going to work. It might just be too hot to do any kind of gardening that's not the traditional sort.
We'll see what happens.

We have to go to Home Depot to pick out our new stove anyway so I'll try to pick up a couple of new plants then and keep my FX for them lol.

Speaking of which... DH ordered the door knobs and the fan for the baby's room last night. And we had a message that the furniture was in so whenever we get that paid off, we can pick it up :)
Now I just need to work on the design of the graphics for the room and pick out some colors and yep. :D
DH needs to sand down the walls, add floor boards and add the closet stuff. Still lots of work left to do, but it will get done.
And like I said before... baby is going to be in our room for a couple of months anyway so it doesn't really have to be done before baby arrives. Would just be better since I'm sure neither of us will want to do anything when baby is here lol.


And yep... that's pretty much the whole trip. I'm leaving out a ton of stuff probably, but it really wasn't too exciting. I mean, it was fun, but nothing spectacular happened or anything lol. Just mostly a lot of driving :P

And more

First up....
Oren had his checkup yesterday and all is good with him. His height only puts him in 11th percentile though. Kind of scared he's going to be super short. Not that there's anything wrong with short guys, but I know a lot of women want TALL guys. I'm thinking way ahead though and I'm sure worrying about nothing.
He had 2 shots and was not happy after. Poor little guy.
Also mentioned his possible egg sensitivity and the ped didn't seem too concerned. Just said it was pretty common and if he isn't reacting to stuff like baked goods w/ egg in it, then he could just outgrow his sensitivity to just eggs and to try again once he's about 2.
____

So more trip....
I forgot to mention the time when I mowed down a little 2yo Asian boy. SIGH....
Think it was at Old Faithful. After watching it erupt, we went to the cafeteria to grab something to eat.
DH handed me Oren, I also was carrying the big diaper bag too so I couldn't really see anything below my belly. I felt my foot hit something, but instead of the normal "You hit something, stop or you're gonna trip!" Nope... my brain decided to "Oh you hit something.... it's all good! Just keep going!"
So I did and promptly tripped up a little 2? yo Asian boy that faceplanted at my feet. I'm surprised I didn't fall either.
OMG I felt AWFUL when it happened and promptly freaked out and I'm sure turned super red b/c all heads turned my way.
Thankfully the boy was fine and his grandmother? could only chuckle as I apologized so much. I don't think she knew English, but she seemed to understand my apologies nonetheless. Sigh....

Anyway... after leaving Yellowstone.... we headed for Wyoming to spend a few days with DH's friend and his family.
They live on the military base there so DH had to get a visitor pass. Apparently I needed one too, but they didn't bother telling us this the first day :\
Friend has 2 German Shepherds and well... one of them apparently is "nippy" according to them. Yeah.. that dog BITES. It may not be a full on bite, but it's a bite nonetheless. And DH got bit on his back by the dog. A few small punctures that bled a tiny bit along with a bruise. He's lucky that the dog didn't bite him worse.
And then I think the next day, the dog apparently 'jumped' at Zoe. We didn't see it, but their youngest son did. No idea if the dog was trying to be aggressive or not but it scared Zoe and she refused to walk by the dog without an adult to help her. We were watching the kids like hawks but obviously that wasn't going to always be the case.
Thankfully nothing else happened concerning their dogs.

The stay was nice there. We took over their youngest son's room. Got to sleep on an air mattress on the floor. The mattress itself was actually comfy, but getting my giant pregnant butt off of it.. not so much lol.
I hate staying at someone elses home though. No matter how well you know them, how nice they are... you never feel totally comfortable.
The kids, other than Zoe and the dogs were great there though. Their older kids and ours took to eachother and Oren was just LOVING all of the attention he was getting. Zoe enjoyed all of the new toys she was getting in to along with having Cartoon Network to watch lol.

We all tried going to Estes Park since they don't live too far from it. The drive there was nice but slow. Going through the windy mountains was interesting, but the weather was sketchy. It was raining which sucked, but then the further in to the mountains we got, we started seeing little piles of hail on the road.
Think it's the town right before Estes? But they were covered in INCHES of pea sized hail. It was all starting to melt and was just not a safe situation so after traveling all that way, we turned around and left. It was still raining and none of us were prepared to wade through inches of hail to look at anything lol.
Kinda disappointing since I did want to see the Stanley Hotel, but oh well...

We really didn't do much while we stayed with them. Just hung out and relaxed which was much needed.
My ankles and feet were constantly getting swollen after sitting in the car for so long. The swelling would mostly be gone by the morning, but would come back as soon as we were in the car again. So the rest was definitely needed.

We stayed there for 3? nights and left Thursday morning. I know DH was trying his best to hold it together, but I saw the tears in his eyes. Awww. We'll hopefully see them all again sooner rather than later though. DH and I had talked about taking a road trip to Maine eventually and coincidentally friend and his family also want to travel to Maine and all of those NE states so that could happen.... whenever. Probably not until this LO is at least 2 lol.
We'll see what happens.


And more to come later!
I swear I'll have some photos up soon. I did take a lot of photos, but there really aren't a lot of good ones to share. Boo :(

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

More trip chat

Okedoke.. first up...

Had an appointment yesterday and scheduled my c-sec :) When we were coming home, we decided that August 12th instead of the 5th would be better. Mostly b/c of Zoe's birthday being on the 8th and  me wanting to do something special for her that weekend. If I was to get a c-sec on the 5th, I'd still be in the hospital or going home on her birthday and while she is still young and probably wouldn't care... I don't want to be out of it like that on her birthday.
Just gotta hope baby cooperates and stays put until then though lol.
____

So where did I leave off..... nasty hotel I think.
After that, our next destination was Kansas City I think. Or maybe Kansas City was where the nasty hotel was. I don't even remember.. it all sort of blurs together lol.
We were going to go to a BBQ place but saw this Chinese place featured on some food show that sounded good so we went to that. Blue Koi.
While it wasn't bad... it also wasn't all that great either. Regret not going to get BBQ but oh well.

Lemme say... driving through Kansas SUCKS. Holy crap is it boring as heck.

I think it was on to Colorado after that. As I had mentioned earlier... we were going to stay in Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, but learning that they have no AC and how rundown the rooms are.. we decided it wasn't worth it so stayed in a La Quinta Inn in Fort Collins? Fort something....
That hotel was being renovated, but the rooms were SUPER nice. Really clean and just updated.
Also, their breakfast was pretty good. Decent selection.
The traffic from Denver to Fort was awful though. Think it was 2 or 3pm and traffic was already terrible.
It was pretty cool though to see the snow covered mountains in the distance. Sucked that we weren't going to see them up close, but oh well.

We got to that location early enough to go get something to eat. Not wanting more fast food, we decided on some local place that was in a booklet the hotel had in the room.
That was a bad decision. The food was ok enough, but it was WAY overpriced and the service was awful. The whole restaurant was dark and dingy and just.. bleh. You could tell that it had never been updated since it opened 20+ years ago. Just glad we didn't get food poisoning or anything.

So after Fort... it was finally off to Yellowstone! We still had a good long drive ahead of us but man, it was a gorgeous drive.
We didn't realize it until we were almost at our next stop that we were driving through Grand Teton national park lol. There weren't any signs or anything to indicate that that's what it was. Should've figured though heh.
We did come across a ton of people on the side of the road gawking at a grizzly bear. We should've stopped but we came upon it so quick and there were SO many people there that we just kept going.

So Flagg Ranch was our next rest stop. They have 3 different lodging options. 1 is for military only, or well.. only military can book the RV trailers. Thankfully DH's friend was able to get us one of them for 2 of the 3 nights. Nothing super special, but also better than their other option of a room w/ bunk beds.... nothing else. No electricity, no bathroom. That would be a great option for those that aren't heavily pregnant and need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night lol.
The other option is paying $300 a night for... basically just a larger than normal hotel room. It was nice, but absolutely NOT worth $300. Hell, breakfast wasn't even included... cheap bastards.
It was a nice place though. Just outside of the south yellowstone entrance.
BUT... no one warned us about the mosquitoes. Holy shit the mosquitoes. You get SWARMED by them. The amount of mosquitoes is actually scary. I can't emphasize just how bad the flying leaches were and just how many there were. Everyone that was there had to adopt their own arms flailing ritual whenever they entered or exited their room/car or else you'd be stuck with at least a dozen of the bugs in your room and car.
Bug repellent WITH deet? was the only thing that helped, but even then, it only helped a little. Those bastards still got to you through your clothes. I had about a half dozen bites on each hip... and I got lucky. After that first night.. I didn't stay out too long the other 2 nights while DH and friend's family did. They all got eaten alive.

Anywho.... in Yellowstone though, no mosquitoes thankfully. Yellowstone was really nice. Long and slow drives (specially if you get stuck behind someone going under the speed limit), but the scenery was amazing.
We saw a lot of buffalo which was cool. Only one or 2 here and there, but then we came upon a HUGE herd of them w/ some stopping traffic to cross the road. :)
There were also 2 instances of coming upon a bear sighting. Always a ton of people stopped. The first one.. the black bear was WAY off in the distance and down a cliff. Scary as hell. I didn't bother getting out of the van but DH did and said it was scary trying to not fall to his death lol.
The 2nd black bear sighting... also a ton of people but thankfully the bear along w/ her 2 cubs were in a little overgrown field. Couldn't really see them. Just their furry backs above the tall vegetation.

We stopped at a few of those boiling hot pools and whatnots. Was not expected the boiled egg fart sulfur smell lol. They were really pretty and super neat to see though.
Of course we stopped at Old Faithful. Took about 30 or 40mins to erupt and we got sprayed with boiled egg fart water, but it was neat.
We also got sunburned too. Wasn't expecting that :\
Oren was a huge hit with the Asian tourists for some reason. Yes.... he's adorable, but they were really going crazy over him... /shrugs.
And lemme say.... there were A LOT of Asian tourists. Not a bad thing or anything lol... just thought it was... I dunno... kinda weird?

The bathrooms without the plumbing were a bit freaky and gross. Basically a slightly fancier porta-potty with a dark pit of doom that you had to sit on. That crap was scary at one of the places we stopped. I sat down to do my business and as soon as I did, I swear I heard something moving under me in the sludge O_O.

Anyway.. Yellowstone was very cool and I would love to go back and stay longer one day.
Maybe actually get started earlier so we could hopefully see more wildlife.
Oh and if you're going to go... bring some REAL food with you. The military only RV trailers had dishes, utensils and a working stove w/ oven. Or you can just cook something on the fire.. whatever.. just bring some real food. After a week of junk... DH and I were dying for something that wasn't processed lol.

Ok... enough for today!! Oren is napping and once he wakes, gotta give the kids and bath and get him ready for his checkup today. :)

Monday, June 13, 2016

And we're back!!

Holy frickin crap.... I just had the whole post almost done and one accidental click of the mouse from Zoe and it's all gone... ALL GONE!! Sigh........

Anyway.... condensed version for now I guess b/c the hell if I'm typing all of that back out.
The trip was an experience. Both good and bad... but mostly good I think :)
DH drove most of the time. Good for me, bad for him. He's just not used to me driving and apparently suffers from some mild motion sickness.

Oren and Zoe were both great when it came to sleeping with us. Oren was actually the better choice to sleep with lol. Zoe.... good lord she moves so much during the night and I found myself with bony little knees, elbows and feet digging in to my back. A couple of times she'd roll over and actually lay on me :P lol Oren fell off the bed once while we were in Yellowstone and bit his lip but he was ok the rest of the time and loved it.

Yellowstone was pretty darn cool. We didn't see the amount of wildlife we were hoping to see b/c of late starts b/c of DH's friend and his family, but oh well. We saw some along w/ all the pretty amazing scenery.

And blahblahblah.. I'll post about the first couple of days and then do more posts later when I feel like typing everything out... AGAIN :\

We left on Monday morning and headed for The Lost Sea in Tennessee. The Lost Sea was pretty neat. They have a couple of shops at the top to visit while you wait for the tour of the cave to happen.
The cave was pretty darn neat. Nice and cool, but let me warn anyone thinking of going to it. Wear good traction shoes and make sure you can endure the climb back up to the top. It's all good going DOWN even though some of the inclines are steep and you can slip easily b/c of the loose ground, but the climb back up is HORRIBLE.
29w pregnant with a baby that is laying low (even though it looks high) and out of shape too? I was in hell. Zoe didn't want to walk and Oren didn't want to go back in his stroller after the little boat ride on the underground lake (which was neat)... so she went in to the stroller and DH carried Oren. I needed that stroller to lean on as we climbed back up and poor DH.. along with having to carry Oren had to literally push on my back to help me climb back to the top. It SUCKED!!!!
Neat attraction, sucky climb back up from it.

DH wanted me to drive after that. Really?? Sigh... anyway... it wasn't so bad. Even though it had killed my legs, my legs weren't sore or anything so I was fine to drive. But this is where we learned that DH has some motion sickness problems b/c GPS decided to take us on some Tennessee back roads. Tennessee was actually really beautiful to drive through, but those back roads were windy and not great for someone suffering from motion sickness lol.
DH eventually took over b/c he couldn't take feeling ill any longer and he drove the rest of the way to Nashville. Can't remember the name of the hotel we stayed in, but it was ok. The beds were weirdly high though.
Like... to the bottom of my chest high. That sucked with how achy and tired we were.. having to literally climb up on to the bed, but whatever. They also had a nice complimentary breakfast w/ eggs, bacon, sausage and all the other breakfast stuff.

We left early to go see the Parthenon. It wasn't open, but we didn't care. Just wanted to see the outside of it really and with it being early and closed... other than a few folks exercising in the park around it, we had the whole place to ourselves :D It was very cool though and just so unexpected to see something like that in the middle of Tennessee lol.

We did take some photos which I'll post eventually.

Then off we went to.... somewhere. I can't remember where our next stop was. I do remember that Kentucky had a weird amount of turtle roadkill though.

Why did the turtles cross the road?
They didn't b/c they're roadkill.

Seriously... 9 out of 10 roadkill were smooshed turtles.... WTH?
Anyway.. the next hotel sucked BALLS. Think it was just under 100 a night. And it was GROSS. We should've asked for another room, but we were tired.
Our room wasn't cleaned properly... as I'm sure most of the other rooms were probably in the same condition. There was hair ALL over the place from the previous occupant and the shower curtains had mold and mildew all over them. Oh AND there were ants. Plus.. their little breakfast in the morning consisted of toast and cereal. :\
Just... yuck. When I find exactly where this was.. I'll post it so others know to avoid that hotel at all costs.


Ok enough for now before one of us deletes this once again. I'll post more later :)