I love Jermont

We had so much fun in Vermont (or Jermont as Finley calls it). The house was amazing. It was on a dirt road and up a steep driveway.  There was a big wraparound porch with views of the mountains and primary source of heat was a toasty wood burning stove. And of course the dogs loved having 40 acres to run.  We mostly stayed at the house in between outings to walk around a few towns and shop for groceries. We watched lots of movies, cooked, played, and just relaxed. Since the house was totally off the grid we watched snow dump down with no worries about power outages. that was a good feeling

We tried to make it a fun Christmas experience for Finley. Ben cut down a tree and we decorated it with some basic lights and ornaments. We brought tons of gifts, including everything Fin asked for: Thomas trains, A Christmas Teddy and Bandaids. She also got a doctor kit, some fake food and cooking supplies for her toy kitchen, finger paints and a sticker book. My favorite gifts for myself were a whippet statue, a pasta maker and a few gardening books that are perfect for me. Ben got a cool pocket knife and an oil lantern. We baked lemon sugar cookies that didn't come out very well, but Fin helped with the whole process and had a blast decorating them.

After Christmas we ventured out and visited the Ben & Jerry's factory tour and took a ride around Montpelier. 

We had a nice smooth drive home, got unpacked as much as possible and then headed to New Jersey the next morning. We spent the day visiting with my parents and then the next morning went to New York to visit Rachel and my friend Amy from Grad School. We went to see They Might be Giants after hanging out in the city all day. By the time we finally got home I was so tired! But somehow I managed to go out to a NYE party with some new flyball friends. Finley was so good. She socialized with the adults, played with her toys, took a nap on the dog bed, ate dinner and then decided she wanted to go to bed. She promptly passed out in our friends bed until we woke her up to leave.

We find out if we are having a boy or girl next week. Im feeling really good other than bad heart burn. I hope it keeps up. I've starting trying to come up with names. Any ideas are appreciated!

16 weeks

I am still working toward going to physical therapy school, but it's such a long process. I've been doing well with my shadowing. I go to two different places almost every week. Im learning a lot that way. I make the mistake of signing up for an online GRE class and forgot that in the beginning of pregnancy I barely have enough energy to get out of bed and definitely not enough brain power to sit through a 3 hour class once a week. Ooops! I am going to try to go through the recordings now that Im feeling much better and hope that it wasn't a complete waste of money. Today I signed up for a precalculus class, but made sure to find one that is self-directed. I still have to take Physics, Anatomy and Physiology and Exercise Science. Ugh. One step at at time!

I went to the doctor yesterday for my monthly checkup. Im 16 weeks now and everything is going well so far. My blood pressure dropped to 100/60. I hope it can stay down this time. By the time Finley was born it was up to 140/80, which is really dangerous. We found out that the baby has a 1/10,000 chance of having Trisomy 18 or Down Syndrome. That means that its such a low chance that it's not detectable. Next test we find out about is for Spina Bifida. Oh and I only gained 2 lbs since the last appointment. My goal is to weigh less than I did when Finley was born! Our next appointment will be the ultrasound that will look at the babies anatomy and make sure everything is normal and we will find out boy/girl. Fin already has a name picked out - Rudolph. Pronounced by her "Rudoss".

I will try to take photos on our vacation to Vermont and post while I am there. We are so excited!

Much Needed Fun Weekend

We started out Saturday morning going over to our flyball friends Kris & Carrie's house for a delicious breakfast of sweet potato pancakes and bacon. Then we trained our dogs for a little while and took them all on a nice long hike. We had 7 dogs total and they all got along really well. It was surprisingly relaxing. Then we came home and Finley had a long nap because she was so tried after getting up at the early hour of 8:30 am. Ben and I got some work done around the house and then we relaxed around the house. When Finley got up she Skyped with her Gran and Pop, we ordered some takeout and watched Elf. We rarely sit around and watch a movie all together, so that was really nice. Finley is just now old enough to sit through a whole movie.

Today we took Pax, Spy (our whippet puppy) and Finley to Cambridge. We went to the Museum of Natural History. We didn't get to stay as long as we would have liked, but Fin was actually interested in looking at a lot of the animals. We also got some desserts at a bakery, some Indian food to go for dinner tonight and bagels and cream cheese to eat in the car on the way home. We were also able to walk the whippets around and socialize the puppy with all sorts of scary things. She wasn't actually scared of anything..very brave puppy! We came home at around four and watched some TV and relaxed around the house. It was just the weekend we needed. The only downside is that I didn't get any photos and I still need to learn how to use my complicated new camera!


Some things Finley has said in the last few days...

- someone asked how Finley's pop was doing and she said "he only has 1 hip" (because he is in the process of a hip replacement)
- she's been asking for us to leave her bedroom door open a crack when she goes to bed. It's very cute
- She's just about able to count to 10, but mostly says the numbers out of order.
- She asks one of us to do something and then if we do it, she says "good jobbie", which she got from our flyball friends rewarding their dogs
-Last night she asked Ben if he wanted to hear a joke and he said OK and she said "Goose" and then another one was "Pax". Very cute!

Update

I have not been good about posting regularly. We have a lot going on and have been busy, but at the same time not as much going on as we would like. The biggest news is that Im pregnant! 16 weeks right now. I spent the last several months feeling sick and staying in bed. So incredibly tired and nauseated. Now Im feeling better, but it's harder to handle typical life stress. I still don't know what I am doing about work and school. I want to go back to school, but there is so much to do to make that happen! Im hoping to take a Calculus class this semester and have gotten on a regular schedule of shadowing at two different Physical Therapy places. My nutrition job search is on hold at least until the new baby is 6 months old.

The other HUGE stress in our lives is the house hunting. We've looked at a ton of houses and nothing even comes close to working for us. It's so frustrating and disappointing. It feels like we will never find something that works. We need a bigger house before this kid is born! And then on top of that, I don't even love the area that we are in. I think I will be happier if we ever get to Sturbridge, but I hate the town that we are in now.

It has gotten a bit better since the last time I did a post like this. Finley started a gym class that she loves. I started taking yoga classes and we found a good dog training facility near Sturbridge for taking classes with the dogs. I got a new amazing camera and have been looking into taking a photography class to learn how to use it. So we are adjusting and getting involved in the community, but I still can't help but feel disappointed.

With all the stress we have, Finley is the light of our lives. She is a wonderful, empathetic, sweet and thoughtful little girl. She is talking up a storm and has tons of questions about everything. She loves Thomas the Train and is excited to get some trains for the Holidays. She also wants bandaids! Haha. She does not like getting up early and still loves to eat, but is a little more opinionated and picky.

The three of us and our 4 dogs are heading to Vermont for Christmas for some relaxation, snowshoeing and skiing. I cannot wait to get away from our tiny little house.


Finley absolutely LOVED the Polar Express Movie so we had to go take a ride on the train with her! She loved it..especially getting a little gift from Santa and the hot cocoa and cookies!

house hunting

We are enjoying the cooler temperatures here. It really doesn't get any better than early fall in New England. The air is dry and cool; the sun is shining. There are less bugs , which makes hiking so much more enjoyable. It's very festive with all the fall/halloween decorations and of course the leaves are starting to change. We went apple picking a few weeks ago, which we all loved.  It makes me realize that I made the right decision to move here...

Speaking of moving here, we went to go look at two houses in Sturbridge yesterday. The first one is on a great road. It's close to town and has lots of old beautiful farm houses. This particular house was smaller than others in the neighborhood. It had tons of 1930's charm and was well taken care of. The layout was the opposite of an open floor plan - typical for that time period. I guess it would be considered a colonial. It had lots of nice features, but the land would not have worked. It's on a steep hill and there is no where to exercise the dogs or park our trailer. This is a deal breaker for us. Also it needed some updated in terms of plumbing and electric. The 2nd house was definitely not going to work. It was huge..like over 4000 square feet. It was almost too big and I hated the style. It was very 1980's fake lake house. It was trying to be high end, but hasn't been updated in a long time and it's  a short sale so the current owners have let it go. We are definitely sticking with this town, but need to find the right house!

This weekend we are going to Cape Cod for our final trip with our trailer for the year. I'm very excited!

Finley & I

Ben just got home from a camping trip with "the guys". They had fun even though it rained quite and bit and he is extremely stressed about Vet school. My parents came up from NJ to watch Finley on Saturday, so I could go whippet racing with Pax. I had a lovely day with just one dog and no one else to worry about. I got very little sleep the night before though, so I was not feeling great when I got home and the other dogs and Finley were full of energy. We went out to an Italian restaurant called Dinos and I got my standard eggplant dish and shared it with Finley.

Today Finley and I went to the Sterling fair. It was weird to be there without Ben, but we better get used to that. He is going to be spending the next 4 years buried in books. Anyway, it was a cute little fair with all the standard stuff. Fin decided recently that she doesn't love horses, goats or sheep anymore..Now it's all about the cows and cars/trucks and other modes of transportation. Sooo...we checked out the helicopters and of course Fin loved nothing more than the ride that spins around and she gets to sit in a car. Speaking of that she has a new obsession with getting in the drivers seat when we get home. She says "drive car" and she wants to sit out there and pretend she is going food shopping or to the lake. She is always sure to bring me good stuff from the grocery store..usually PB&J, bread or butter.

Lets see more updates on Finley...well for food, she has been really into PB&J and even named her toy spider after it. She also still loves hummus, grapes, pasta/noodles, cheese, broccoli, hotdogs, french fries, rice, soup, burritos, ranch dressing, juice, peaches, mac and cheese, grilled cheese..but she'll eat pretty much anything we offer. She still sleeps wonderfully..in fact she's going on 2 hours for her nap right now.

This morning she woke up at 8:15 and I woke up for a second..waited 2 minutes and didn't hear anything else and she went back to bed until 10 am..thats my girl! She's gotten a lot taller, which I only know because I got her onto a ride that required her to be 36" and she was just about there. She loves to sit in her room and read books by herself, play with the dogs, go to the playground and swing, play with other kids. Fin still loves to help by cleaning, carrying stuff, pushing the stroller, holding the dogs leash, feeding the dogs. She is in a climbing phase, in which she carries around a stool to get up to higher places. The biggest thing is her talking! Finley doesn't repeat us really anymore..she actually responds to questions and remembers things she did. She even said a full sentence today (it was completely out of context but thats beside the point). She said "Rachel and Teddy have a dog named Odie". I was so proud and am amazed everyday at the things she says. She really is an awesome kid and Im proud to be her Mama