Lots of catching up to do

So we are returning to blogging once again after tons of pestering from fellow bloggers... and I must admit, it has been awhile. Here are some pictures from a weekend at Lake Lure with Adam's parents back in September. This is likely my last time golfing before Caleigh gets here... I am way too big!

Trip to Chapel Hill...

So about 3 weeks ago we went to Chapel Hill for the UNC opening football game against James Madison. It was great to get away (for one night) and see a bunch of friends from UNC. Here are some pictures of us enjoying the game...

Above - me, Landry (far left), Terry, Adam, and Lauren; Below - Landry, Terry, and Adam Adam and I also had to pose for yet another picture at the Old Well. We figured it was Caleigh's first trip there :) In about 18 years she can take a picture there when she is cheering on her Tarheels!

Slightly improved nursery

And here are some pictures of our slightly improved nursery. It still needs alot of work but at least we have the basics!

the beginning of a nursery

So here is the beginning of Caleigh's nursery - we have strategically placed all of the disassembled furniture in front of the boxes that we have yet to unpack. One big accomplishment: all of Caleigh's furniture is courtesy of http://www.craigslist.org/ (highly recommended). The true test will come when I trust Adam to put together the crib - hiding in the background of the first picture... The results of his efforts to assemble the crib are known but will be revealed at a later time. We are trying to lure our blog readers back with this bit of suspense... One nice glider... one hideous color (not exactly but it looks pretty bad with a bunch of yellow, pink, and green) - it is getting recovered to a very nice, gender neutral yellow. In this full shot of Caleigh's first nursery we did a pretty bad job of hiding the boxes... Well - Caleigh is getting 'pretty dang excited' (insert Nacho Libre voice) about her nursery, although she will only be in it for about a month and a half. Look for much to come as far as nursery progress!

our return to blogging...

So we are the biggest blog slackers of all time... but we have decided that this is the week for a change. So we went to the Panthers game with camera in hand and then got soaked in the rain and forgot to take a picture until after we were walking to our car. So - a very uneventful blog post is what you're going to get today but we promise there is more to come! Be on the lookout for some pictures tomorrow. This weekend we are headed to Chapel Hill for a UNC vs. JMU game on Saturday night and to spend time with some great friends from college. So pictures are surely in the making, not to mention we are now in the 3rd trimester of our pregnancy! So another pregnancy picture is also coming soon. So don't lose hope! We will be back... we are back...

Caleigh Grace Dyer

Well - we have officially chosen a name for our little girl - she will be Caleigh Grace Dyer. Caleigh is a take on mine and my mom's middle name, Leigh. I am now 5 months (22 weeks) and there is no hiding the bump, as you can see - it is getting huge. For sure the next month's picture will be with maternity jeans.

it's a girl!!!

Well we went to our new doctor in Charlotte on July 3rd for our ultrasound and we found out that we are having a girl! She gave us a scare on Tuesday with the umbilical cord and we had to have a second ultrasound and see a maternal-fetal specialist on Tuesday also, but the specialist gave us a clean bill of health for our little girl. Here is a shot of her sucking her thumb. It was really amazing to see her moving around in there. She put her hand up to her mouth and it took forever for her to figure out which one she wanted to suck on. She seems so big compared to the last ultrasound when she was just a little bean.This is a really cool picture that the specialist gave us - she had to use the 3D ultrasound to look at the cord and so we got this cute picture. You can see her laying on her side with her hand near her face. You can see her little nose and cheeks! So amazing! And here is the money shot. This is a picture of her butt with her legs spread open. She really didn't want to open her legs and they kept banging on my belly with the ultrasound device to try to get her to move around so we could see her genitals. Finally she opened her legs for a brief second and no penis was seen! We are really thankful for her health and for the hope that we have in Christ. In between that first and second appointment we really didn't know what the outcome for her would be - you realize how completely powerless you are to have any affect on this baby, it is all God. We were really scared and were just blessed to know that God already knows what will happen to her and he has already taken care of all of the details - all we have to do is trust in that. I can't imagine what people do who have no hope in a holy and just and powerful God. Praise the Lord alone for her health and safety!

Move in progress...

And here are some pictures of our final moments in Nashville. Our living room being taken apart... Bailey is trying to figure out what is going on! And I am making use of our last few minutes of internet in the apartment...

And the final truck, ready to leave for Charlotte! Goodbye Nashville...

Golf trips...

We also had to commemorate our golf trips that we have taken so often with Brent and Renee (newly engaged!). These trips have been really fun for us while in Nashville and even though Renee doesn't know it, she really was one of the first ones who made me want to play golf. We met them pretty much as soon as we moved to Nashville at the dog park! Bailey and Marshall (Renee's doggie) became very good friends throughout the year and Bailey is going to miss Marshall as much as we are going to miss Brent and Renee. It also took a couple of takes to get a good picture (apparently after we went to St. Maarten our camera lens got dirty and all of our pictures came out a little foggy, but it took us a good month to figure out that this was the cause of the bad pix). Here is the good picture of Adam and Brent after their last golf outing in Nashville - which was actually a tournament. Unfortunately they didn't win me anything but I still think they're great :)And here is the blurry picture which otherwise would have been really cute of the four of us after 18 holes of golf on a Sunday afternoon.

Ready to move...

So we moved from Nashville to Charlotte on different days, but before Adam left we had to spend some time with some of our best friends in Nashville. It was sad to say bye to them and to everyone at Vanderbilt but we are excited to move into this new phase of our lives in Charlotte. We have tried really hard to get a good picture with Jason and Lindsey Edwards - the first couple that we met in Nashville but as you can see it has taken several takes. Here is the good one - outside La Paz on our last night in Nashville. Ironically - the good picture is not from our weekly ritual of eating pizza and drinking beer on Tuesday nights at Mafiaso's (buy one get one free on Tuesdays!). We tried for 2 weeks in a row to capture the Tuesday night pix but it just wasn't happening, both are blurry!

4 months!

So we went to the doctor again yesterday and all is well. It was another fast appointment - weight check and listen to baby's heartbeat. 17 weeks now and the baby's heart is still going strong. Hopefully at our next appointment we will find out the sex! Here is me at 4 months - the magic is starting to happen in the belly area (at least I think it is).

almost time for Charlotte...

We wanted to keep everyone up to date on our plans to move back to Charlotte. The movers are picking up our stuff in Nashville on Friday, June 22nd (a week from this Friday!). Adam is moving back to Charlotte on Sunday June 24th (for good!) and I will move back after work on Thursday June 28th. Our time in Nashville is almost over - it is bittersweet in several ways and the Lord has really blessed us since we have been here with friends and in our relationship and with the baby on the way! We can't believe it has almost been a whole year!

More St. Maarten! (Finally, I know)

So here are the pictures from our trip that you have been anxiously awaiting!

One day we went to this little deserted island called Ilet Pinel where we snorkeled and laid out. We also ate a great lunch there (I know, deserted but still with 2 restaurants).

Here is the beach camp that we set up for the day... In order to get to Ilet Pinel you have to take a little dingy boat back and forth so here we are enjoying the ride...

Our favorite event of the whole thing was Loterie Farms - it is this awesome ropes course/ zip line course that was suspended in several mango trees in the mountains of St. Maarten. It was a really long obstacle course (took us like 2 hours!). We got to go independently through all the obstacles which included rope swings and rope bridges that were suspended about 20-40 feet in the air at different points. We also hooked ourselves on to the zip lines throughout the 2 hour long course. Here are some fun pictures...

After it was all over (harnesses and all)...

Adam up in the trees...

Me in action on one of the shorter zip lines...

Adam navigating one of the bridges...

Me navigating a similar bridge (look at how focused I am)...

We also went to several awesome restaurants, here are some pictures of us enjoying those... We have to find good Tex-Mex wherever we go, so Jimbo's was the place in St. Maarten. And it was SO sad because they had $3 margaritas and I couldn't have any.To enjoy some of these great sights we rented the fabulous all-American car ever... the Kia Picante. The Kia and it's 10 inch tires did not fair so well on the St. Maarten roads. We navigated several potholes that were much bigger than the tires themselves. And as you can see - at St. Maarten we also encountered other obstacles while driving around the island... COWS...

So all in all it was an excellent vacation for our (early) three year anniversary - very fun and very relaxing!

St. Maarten

So we have just returned from a very relaxing trip to St. Maarten! We were gone for the past week - Saturday to Saturday. St. Maarten is a little island in the Caribbean; it's part of the British Virgin Islands. We stayed at the Westin Dawn Beach which was probably one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed in. We spent our time doing TONS of fun and relaxing things - but we will have to fill you in later this week. Here are some beach pictures to wet your appetite.

The island of St. Maarten...

Here is the hotel (view of our room)...

And the pool and ocean... (I know it... it was very relaxing!)

And us on the beach...

We have lots more pix and will update the blog with these shortly!

Residency party, round #1

Also before heading to St. Maarten, we had our first of many parties to celebrate the end of residency (I think from now on we have about 1 per week). Philip Stewart had us over to his lovely house for some snacks and drinks (water for me - boo...). Here are some pix.

Jen, Nikki, Alan, me, Christina, and Mindy...And here are Nikki, Mindy, and I... And this is us trying to lift Alan - I know it's blurry, but hey, it's an action shot!

Heartbeat!

Before we headed off to St. Maarten for the week, we went to the doctor for our 12 week check-up. Pretty much all they did was weigh me and then listen for the heartbeat. The doctor preceeded the Doppler by saying that sometimes the heartbeat was hard to find, but then he was interrupted because the second he put the Doppler on my belly we heard the heartbeat! We are so blessed and completely in awe of the way God gives abundant life. Praise God for our healthy bean (actually now it's bigger than an apple!). Oh - and here is the 3 month update on my belly (it feels a little bigger).

no more black thumb...

After a long weekend working I was determined to enjoy the beautiful weather by planting some flowers. Some of you may know about my black thumb. An example: after we moved to Nashville last summer I brought our pretty flowers that had just been planted in pots with us. When we got here I sat the pots on the back porch and proceeded not to water them through the hottest months of July and August. By September they appeared dead and I was tired of the evidence of my failure so I dumped the plants out over the side of our balcony. Some dirt remained in one of the buckets and I was (embrassingly - is that a word?) too lazy to clean it out. But there is hope! Alas, come this spring there was green life springing out of the one pot with remaining dirt. My lilies (I assure you they can't be killed - so fellow black thumbers, lilies are the way to go!)! So after seeing this new green life I decided it was time to retry my luck at flowers. Here is the fruit of mine (and Adam's! - he was good at going to get the rocks for the bottom of the pots) labor. We will see how long it lasts. I have to actually remember to water them this time...

baby!

In case you haven't heard, we are having a baby! We are currently about 10 weeks! We hope that the blog will be a good way to keep up with my belly progress and the little bean when he or she makes an entrance. We are due at the end of November (11/30) which is right in between mine and Adam's birthday! We are so excited... here is the little bean at 8 weeks...

And my current belly at 2 months - no progress yet (probably due to the nausea/vomiting that is finally getting better!)

And a picture of the oh so mature Adam enjoying our 1st baby gift (thanks Grandpa and Grandma Dyer!)