30 weeks

I know I usually post a picture every four weeks, but I didn't want to skip week 30 since it seems like a fairly major milestone. I'm not sure if I'll continue posting each month after this or switch to posting a photo every two weeks instead. I guess it might depend on the amount of belly growth that may or may not take place during this final trimester.

I'm well into the third trimester now. I know I say this every time I post a picture, but I still have no idea how this pregnancy is going by so fast. Only two and a half months left (plus or minus some days or weeks, of course) until we meet this little bundle! Yikes, we'd better get going on actually figuring out some viable names! And now that we've arrived in Folsom, we'll probably start working on finally getting some baby gear, but first we have to find a place to live where we can store that gear. It's a tough job to decide on the place where you'll bring your baby home and where he or she will spend the first months or years of his/her life.

In travel news, as many of you know, week 29 was spent in transit driving from Maine to Northern California. We managed to take a route that, happily, was filled with relatives. Over our drive we stayed with or visited Jonathan's brother as well as four different families or individuals from Jonathan's mom's side and one family from Jonathan's dad's side, which was great. Baby G also prenatally visited an impressive seventeen states (including Maine), two National Parks, and the Four Corners Monument. Not too shabby for just a week of traveling!

In actual baby news, Baby G is seeming to be doing well. There is a lot of kicking going on and I can see many of the kicks if I happen to be looking at my belly at the time of the kick (or punch or jab), which makes me grin and also amazes me. How can a thing that strong be living inside of me?! This past week it seems like my belly has gotten quite a bit bigger, but it may just appear to be bigger from my perspective now that I've traded my regular wardrobe from pants, long-sleeved shirts, and sweatshirts to shorts and T-shirts. My belly button is getting closer to popping, too, which is an interesting process to watch. I wonder when it will actually become a full-fledged temporary outie?

Before we left Maine I had contacted several prenatal caregivers in this area, and now that we're here we'll be meeting with them and hope to decide on one soon to get back into our regular schedule of prenatal visits, which should be happening every two weeks now that I'm in the third trimester.

That about wraps up the news for this update.

28 weeks

Yesterday was 28 weeks, which means that I'm officially into the third trimester now. How did that happen? And how can I be only two weeks away from 30 weeks already?!

There's nothing too much to report at this update. I made the rounds of the maternity/thrift stores in the area once more since my last post and found a good amount of maternity clothes to supplement the three pieces I found last time. All tops this time, but that's fine as I have a good number of lounge pants that are still comfy to wear around the house.

Baby G is kicking much stronger and I'm feeling it much more often. It always makes me smile! :) I'm already so in love with this kid. Haha, of course I am, though. I fall in love with kids pretty easily.

On that note, last Thursday was my last day of work at my nanny job. I worked for this family for more than a year and I can't believe how much "my boys" have grown and changed in that time. It was so hard to hug them goodbye and leave at the end of the day, but I'll definitely stay in touch with them and their family.

One thing I've been thinking about throughout this pregnancy so far is how I'm going to feel having my own child. I've taken care of and loved so many other children during my teens and twenties, calling many of them "my babies/kids," and loving a very special few so much that, had my situation been different at those times, I would have very seriously considered adopting them. I've had so many people tell me (both before getting pregnant and since) that I just won't be able to believe how much I will love this baby (and subsequent ones, of course), but I have a hard time understanding how it could be all that much more than other kids that I've loved, especially the ones that I've loved enough to consider adopting. Maybe it's just a different kind of love. I don't know, but it will be interesting to see how I feel once this baby is placed in my arms.

It's official

I've been waiting a bit to make this public because I wanted to make sure it really was official, but it basically is by now: I have a job!

On March 23 I flew out to Vancouver, BC to interview for a job with Intel. The job was actually to be in Folsom, CA but the team head works in Vancouver. To make a long story short, I eventually received and accepted an offer, and one week from today we will be leaving on yet another cross-country road trip to travel out there and get settled in before I start work on the 18th of May.

I will be designing PCBs (printed circuit boards) for solid state drives in Intel's NSD division, for those of you who are wondering.

Thank you all for your prayers and support through this phase of our lives! We're excited to take this next step and see what God has in store for us!

 - Jonathan

Fall outings in Maine

We spent the fall of 2012 in Brunswick, Maine. On weekends Jonathan showed me around the area where he grew up. This post contains pictures of several different outings we took to nearby places. Enjoy!

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Reid State Park - September 1, 2012

Jonathan's aunt, uncle, and some of their children from New Hampshire come to visit in Maine every Labor Day weekend. They usually enjoy spending Sabbath afternoons after church at the ocean. This time they wanted to visit Reid State Park, one of the two sandy beaches within a reasonable distance from Brunswick (about 40 minutes drive). Although the day was clear, sunny, and warm, the water was already too cold for swimming, but we enjoyed walking on the beach and wading into the ocean.

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Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park - September 8, 2012

The next week after church, Jonathan and I headed to Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park. I had never been there before, and we both enjoyed hiking on the various trails, some along the ocean and others further inland amongst the granite hills.

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Bradbury Mountain State Park - September 22 & October 6, 2012

As summer moved into autumn, I started getting excited to see the famous New England autumn colours. Although Jonathan and I been in Maine the previous autumn, that year the colours weren't too great and so I was still feeling like I hadn't really experienced the phenomenon. In mid-September we went to Bradbury Mountain State Park, about a 15 minute drive from Jonathan's parents' house, and hiked up the mountain. The hike didn't take long and at the top we were rewarded with clear views all the way to the ocean, although that early in the season we only saw the very, very beginning of the colour change. Two weeks later we headed back up the mountain, this time taking a different trail - this one not as steep, but longer. From the top we saw a bit more colour, and enjoyed the misty views of the woods below.

Two weeks later...

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Freeport Town Wharf - October 6, 2012

After our hike up Bradbury Mountain (above), we still had daylight and Jonathan took me driving around the nearby Freeport area. We ended up at the Freeport Town Wharf and relaxed there for a little while watching the moored boats bobbing up and down in the harbor and enjoying the scenery.

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We have one more post in this fall outings segment, but since there were so many photos on that day, we decided it deserved its own post.

Next up: Popham Beach State Park

Metallak 2012

August 21-26, 2012

A couple days after we completed our Trans-Canada road trip, we headed out on another adventure. Each year, a group of people from Jonathan's home church go to an island in a lake in northwestern Maine for a week at the end of August. One of the reasons we had chosen to leave BC and drive to Maine when we did was so that we would be able to be at Metallak Island for at least part of the week. We finished our road trip late on Sunday night. On Monday we slept in a little bit, recovering from our many days of waking up early on our drive. Then we unpacked our things from the truck, returned the empty U-Haul trailer, and got our camping gear and food ready to go. The next morning, Tuesday, we got on our way in the morning and drove about two hours from Brunswick to Metallak Island on Richardson Lake. We enjoyed the rest of the week on the island with Jonathan's friends and fellow church members, and were glad we had been able to be there for at least part of the annual event.

- Ali

(Click to enlarge images)

Woodpecker

Birch

Greenery

David on the Cat

John on a Laser

Flare

Shoot the Moon

Milky Way

Big Dipper

Frothy morning

Mist on the lake

Morning Loons

Flame

Toasty

Twilight

Morning Glow

Solitude

Waiting for the Sun

Misty Mountains

Sunrise