27 June, 2012

Best Idea we ever had!

Meet Blue.  

She is a Craigslist find and might be the first thing I even bought off craigslist. I have sold things but I have never bought.

In Portland bikes are more numerous than cars and dogs.  While driving through downtown I regularly get caught behind a street bike which I swear adds 30 minutes to my commute. I mean do they HAVE ride down the middle of the road?  Anyways, after living here for a few years I made up  my mind I would NEVER turn into a biker. 

Well, Monday at 1:00pm I officially became a bike owner.  But, let me tell you this bike is only made for downhill and flat streets.  Grass is even out of the question.  But, you know what?  I love Blue!

You may be asking, why I all of a sudden decided to buy a bike?  It is because of this guy:

My very athletic and talented hubs decided he was going to start training for the Portland marathon.  Which meant  he would be running and running a lot.  Which also meant that he would be running long distances for long hours.  I neither wanted to be running long distances or be at home by myself for those long hours.  So, Kev came up with the best idea I think he has ever had!  Blue.  While Kev runs his heart out, I am right next of him keeping him company, keeping his time, and carrying his stuff!  Blue and I are Kev's marathon support team!
ahhhh hahahaha!! Doesn't this picture crack you up?!!


We were quite the site last night on our first run.  I took the sidewalk and Kev took the bike lane.  Now, If I can only convince the Portland Marathon Committee that I need to bike next to my team on the actual race day!  
No, I am not yelling at Kev in this picture.  This face is what my college roommates coined at my "sexy face".  Why didn't anyone tell me that when I am trying to look sexy I actually look scary?!!



26 June, 2012

Filling the Weekend Void

For the past three years mine and Kev's weekends have consisted of: meeting the Scheeles for meals, going on runs with the Scheeles, running errands with the Scheeles, pretty much everything with the Scheeles.  Well with the Scheeles recent move to Boston you can imagine Kev and I feel a little lost! I am pretty sure at some point last week I even said, "how are we going to survive with out the Scheeles?!!"

Their absents has been nothing less than a deep pitted void in our lives!  But, we know we must try to go on with our lives with out them (despite me not wanting to!).  Kev and I were determined to have a good weekend despite the emptiness we are feeling!

(Please note to those who don't know us well, all this eating out I am going to tell you about is not usual for us!)
This is how Kev feels about eating out! can't you tell how much he likes it?!


Friday- Poor Kev has been cooking for himself ever since this little baby inside of me hasn't allowed me to keep any food inside my belly.  So, Kev decided to take a break from the kitchen and find a new restaurant! With a quick glimpse inside our Portland Monthly we headed off to North Portland to try Ned Ludd.  It it like a diamond in the rough! Tucked away on MLK is the CUTEST little restaurant! As soon as we walked in the door I was awestruck with this restaurants cuteness!  WE obviously were not the first to discover this awesome place and soon found out our wait would be 2.5 hours... Kev, thinking his stomach was starting to eat his body, could not wait that long.  As we were walking back to the car I casually said to Kev,

"They probably didn't let us in because they thought your shoes were lame."  He looked down in confusion and then in horror exclaimed, "Why did you let me wear my slippers in public?!"  

Hahahahahaha! I died!!!  I SWEAR I did not notice until we were already at the restaurant!! Hahahaha!! We ended up at our favorite sushi place by our house and then ended the night with a movie, Mom, don't read this part.... we rented Harry Potter! Kev made me do it! That rascal! =)  Somehow, we survived Friday with out our beloved Scheeles.


Saturday- We woke up and I successfully cooked! I made Kathy Erickson's famous waffles!  I pat myself on the back. Then we quickly ran out of the house to view two potentially new homes to rent! We gotta start making room for all the crap that comes with a baby!!  To our surprised we LOVED both!  One is in SW Portland and the other in Vancouver, WA. After a surprising pleasant two viewings  of potential homes we headed off in a Portland Monsoon to Kev's soccer games, which happened to be by a Voodoo donuts which happened to torture me the ENTIRE game! But, I resisted my pregnancy urge!! To finish the night we drove back by our two new home choices and then finally got seated at Led Nudd!  The wait worth it, so yummy! So cute!  Day two, we still had fun but needed the Scheeles to help us make a choice on which house to persue!!


Sunday- Weekend almost over, and my baby brain still won't let me sleep in so Kev and I hit one of the Sunday morning services.  We LOVE our church! If you are in Portland and need a church come to ours!  After church I could not stop thinking about the HUGE slices of cheese Pizza from Costco.  To say the least, I gave into this craving and it was soooo worth it! 
mmmmm, dion't you want one??
 After my pizza gorge Kev somehow convinced me to work out (which I actually enjoyed but don't tell him).  That afternoon we had an Erickson/Scheele conference call just to make sure we would make it through our weekends and then headed off to see "Brave" the new Disney Pixar movie.  Very cute but it was no "Toy Story".  Then to finish the night I beat Kev at two games of Backgammon. 

So, we survived our weekend with out our favorite Scheeles and even had fun.  But, we still are looking forward until we are all together again! Miss you guys!

25 June, 2012

Daycare Diet

People continually ask me if I crave anything and my response is, "I am not really doing food right now." But the more I am thinking about it the more I am realizing that yes, I am having some weird cravings.

For the first month I am pretty sure I only ate sourdough bread.  Then I decided cheese popcorn is what I really needed(thank you, Pip for all the cheese popcorn dinners we had)

Several weeks ago after church I was dying for grilled cheese.  As we were approaching the store to pick up the supplies, I had to use one of the plastic baggies I am accustomed to carrying everywhere with me.  As I was finishing up my "business" Kev sweetly asked if I just want him to take me home.  With my head still in the bag I said, "no- I need some mac and cheese.  KRAFT, only please. " The blue box blues.
Thank you, Heidi for capturing my lunch

A couple weeks after the above incident, I was feeling brave enough the face the grocery store and all the food it contains.  Kev and I split up to make the trip quicker.  When we meet back up his cart was full of veggies, fruit, meats, eggs and milk.  I had: Mac and Cheese (KRAFT, of course), Spaghetti-os, and salt and vinegar chips.  Can you all imagine Kev's face when he surveyed my cart?? Hahahah, I am pregnant for goodness sake!



Kev and I made an attempt to backpack over Memorial Weekend but we ended up at East Lake to visit my parents and that night for dinner all I wanted was chef boyardee and oh was it tasty!

Poor Kev has become my cupbearer.  Nothing ever sounds good until I see him eating it and then all of a sudden I HAVE TO HAVE WHAT HE IS EATING! I can't tell you how many times we have gone out to eat and the poor guys is swapping plates with me!

These are the items I absolutely CANNOT eat: avacados, ket...ketc...ketchup(ahhh, even to type it is torture), garlic and onions.  Kill me now!  Sooooo gross!!

Ugh, hopefully I will get over this sickness soon so I can get some salad or meat or anything healthy in me! Say your prayers for this sweet babe.  With the way things are going, I am setting this poor helpless kid up for obesity! 

22 June, 2012

In The Woods

Kev and I LOVE to camp.  We love camping with friends but we also love camping when it is just the two of us.  There is something as exhilarating as feeling like we are the only two people around.  The only sounds we hear are the sounds of the forest and God's creations.

we took a million of these pictures and they ALL turned out blurry!
With the baby making its grand entrance in only 5ish months we knew our alone time will soon be coming to an end. Also, with my growing gut we have a very small window to hit the trails.  So, we decided to plan a backpacking trip memorial weekend.  Portland's summer's don't ever really show its face until late June be we didn't want to waste any valuable time.

We took a half day on Friday and drove to the wilderness.  I have to admit, working out has been VERY low on my priority list the last few months.  But, I had no idea how out of shape I was. I kept hearing this retched noise and realized it was MY BREATHING!  The pack clips right on my stomach to help carry the load... and it squeezed my belly... and well, with the pregnancy symptoms I am having, it was squeezing other things out!! A couple of times I could feel Kev pushing on the back pf my pack trying to get me to walk a little fast.  The sad part about it was my pack only contained: my sleeping bag, water and my clothes...poor Kev carried EVERYTHING ELSE and I was the slow one!

We didn't get to hike in as far as we were hoping because the majority of the trails were still covered in snow...icey cold, wet snow.

But, we found an amazing spot right on the lake!  We pitched our tent, hung the hammock and gathered wood for a fire.  We got everything set up just in time to eat dinner and go to bed. As I laid down to sleep I could feel the icey earth cooling my sleeping bag. I had on layers and layers of clothes and it felt like I was sleeping in the artic!  I was so cold I even tried to crawl into Kev's sleeping bag in my sleeping bag. I don't think I slept a wink!

trying to stay warm!!
Kev was up and at em early trying to start me a fire to warm my icy body, everything was SOAPING wet from the rain so a fire was looking unlikely!  I finally convinced myself that I was not going to get any sleep and braved the world outside our tent!  We enjoyed a hot breakfast and decided to try our hand at fishing.  After about an hour of no bites and my fingers turning to icicles we went for a hike to try and get the blood pumping.  We couldn't go very far because of the piles of snow...are you getting the drift?  I was cold. Just as we were turning back to our campsite we got caught in a hail storm.  We leaped into our tent and listened to the rain fall.  We talked, sang, cuddled and dreamed!

Fishing!
When the rain sounded like it was coming to an end Kev gave me two options, "we are 2 hours from home or 2.5 hours from the resort. What do you want to do?" I wondered what gave him the idea of heading to the Resort? I mean I had only mentioned Chef D's french toast a million times in the last 24 hours.    So, we tore down our beautiful campsite.  All of a sudden I was moving MUCH quicker!

We got to the resort in 2ish hours, surprised my parents, took a hot shower, eat a hot dinner and the next morning I was chowing down on Chef D's french toast.  This will definitely be one of my most memorial camping trips!





20 June, 2012

16 Weeks Shot

Here it is, my 16 week belly.
I realize that I look pregnant in this picture but I still wonder sometimes if I am making everything up in my head.  I mean, I don't feel pregnant.  I just feel sick and squishy.  Call me cold hearted but I can't say I am "excited" to be pregnant.  Don't get me wrong, I am glad I am pregnant, I just thought I would be feeling pregnant and feeling excited.

I have a friend whose due date is two days after mine and obviously we talk a ton about how we are feeling, what our bodies are doing, what we are craving.  It is a-mazing to have someone going through the EXACT same things at the EXACT same moments. But, I can't really relate when she says things like:

"I am reading EVER baby book I can find." 
"I can't stop thinking about the baby, it consumes my ever thought."  
"It is so fun to plan the baby's room"

I don't have any of those thoughts.... I tried reading a few baby books and found them to be sooooo boring and a few overwhelming.  All I think about is, "don't puke, don't puke, don't puke." And, Kev and I need to move out of our little place so I don't even know where the baby's room will be. Am I going to be a bad mom because I am not jumping for joy?  Will I get excited?  Will I love this little kiddo like I love my niece and nephew?

Maybe it is because I haven't seen much evidence of this little baby inside of me.  Tonight we are scheduled to hear the heart beat, maybe hearing the life of my sweet child will bring about some of the joy and excitment I feel I have been lacking! I really hope so.



Whoa, look at it grow! I AM pregnant....right?


19 June, 2012

Insomnia

I have no doubt in my mind that Kev is going to be an INCREDIBLE dad.  Here is a small example of how I know.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day in Portland, I was in shorts and a tank all day.  It was glorious.  After several miles on the motorcycles, a run with Dan at the Gladstone track, and sitting on the patio at dinner I had some pink shoulders at the end of the day. I blame it on the pregnancy but oh boy, I have NEVER had a sunburn that hurt so bad and for so long.  I was trying not to complain about it especially because it didn't even look like I was burnt.  I mean who was going to give me sympathy when they looked at my browned shoulders? But, I was burnt, and it hurt and it stung and I was soooo uncomfortable! Poor Kev,  Sunday night I was still in anguish and when we went to bed I tossed and turned until about 2am and decided to move to the living room so I wouldn't wake him up with my long drawn out sighs and flops.

I read my bible, pleaded with the Lord to take away my sting and then listen to the Hunger Games audio book until I couldn't take it any more and I googled, "Can I take Tylonel PM while pregnant?" From my vast research on Yahoo Answers, baby wise, and mom's club my conclusion was YES.  (Pip, tell me these forums were right!!)  I swolled one of those big blue pills and quietly crawled back in bed next to Kevo around 5am.

In my drugged state I heard Kev come into out room at 8:15 to wake me up...opps, guess I am going to work late.  With him he had Aloe Vera!!  He ran over to the store earlier that morning to buy it for me.  And, ontop of this sting free gift he was apologizing profusely for not getting it last night!  I PROMISE I would not have let him run out at 2am to buy me Aloe Vera, even though I would have contemplated it. I was overwhelmed by emotion thinking about him getting up early to run to the store made me KNOW that I am in good hands and our baby will be in good hands also!  WE will be protected and provided for.  Love you, Kevo!

18 June, 2012

Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day and that means it was Kev's first Father's Day! I couldn't sleep yesterday morning so I got up around 5:50am...(*big sigh*.... my sleeping in days are almost over and I am getting up before 6 on a weekend, am I MAD?!) Anyways, I was up with the birds and decided to make a breakfast in bed feast to start off Kev's big day!

Veggie scramble, sausage links, and hash browns (OK, they were really tater tots, but they just sounded sooo good at 6am!) I tried to be as quiet as possible but with a less than 600sq ft apartment, he was a REALLY good sport being woken up by the clangs of pots and pans.  I dished everything up on our "Breakfast in Bed" tray (Thank you, Aunt Shelley for this cool gift) and headed into wake up the daddy to be!


I know he doesn't look thrilled in this picture, but he actually was. Oh, and he isn't naked either, but it looks like he is! ooh la la!

Kev has been researching the Art of Shaving, so I got him a few shaving goodies! Who know it would be so fun to watch a guy shave!


With a fresh shave and full bellies(mine only full with tater tots) we were ready for Kev's first father's day!  First, Father's day sermon at church and the fatherly example of Christ.  The we headed to tickle creek for a Jones family BBQ and hung out with some of the wise father's in our family.  Then raced to kid's church to show our Father in heaven's love to the kiddos and lastly topped our day off with dinner to celebrate Katie and Michael's PSU graduation where Kev practiced being a daddy to Bug and Aiden (soon we can't give the kids back)!!

A seriously awesome Father's day full of dads.  Only thing that would have made it better is seeing our own dads! Kev and I are always continually impressed with the vast knowledge both of our dad's have about EVERYTHING. We suspect that men get this endless knowledge when you become a dad. WE are so lucky to be surround by so many great dads as we enter into parenthood!


09 June, 2012

Baby Bump Sighting

Ok, here it is. Your first glimpse at the baby bump.  I am 14 weeks and it is difficult to tell if I am pregnant or if I never learned to do a sit up.  But, here it is.  I didn't want to take pictures of my growing belly because I knew I would have to look at my growing body as well... but, I guess this is when the sacrificing as a mom begins!
Have you seen the movie, "What to Expect When You're Expecting"?  Sweet Pip took me to see that last week in one of the theater rooms,  amazing!  The movie is cute and everyone woman could probably identify with at lease one character.  Anyways, there is a hysterically funny character played by Elizabeth Banks who has every pregnancy symptom and is nuts-o.  As I was watching this movie I realized in horror that I am the NUTS-O character!  I am the crazy one!!  Groan... I am text book pregnant.  I should be touring medical schools so the students could see what every pregnancy symptom looks like.

Morning sickness- CHECK
Implantation Cramps- CHECK
Chloasma Mustache- CHECK
Bleeding Gums- CHECK
Bloody Noses- CHECK
Bloating and um...gas - CHECK
Acne- CHECK (like a teenager)

When I read about pregnancy and symptoms I now just sit and wait for it to start surfacing on me!  My only prayer is that all my hormones are creating all the symptoms because I am growing a healthy, sweet, precious baby. So, bring on the symptoms, I am can take it!

04 June, 2012

Being Preggers

I am back by popular demand.  Well, I am back to please Grammy, Mom and Pip.  Ok, and I'm back because I KNOW I will not regret documenting this stage in life. 

 To all those who haven't heard, I am growing a human!  

Yep, that's right.  Kev and I are becoming adults and entering into the next stage of life.  Parenthood.


So far, I am the only one experiencing the "joy" of being a parent.  I don't think Kev feels too left out, except maybe a little jealous that I spend more time hugging the toilet than him.  Luckily, I am entering into my 2nd trimester and Kev should be getting the majority of the hugs soon.

Kev has been AMAZING! He cheers me on when I keep a whole meal down. Though, he does not encouraging or supporting my pregnancy diet (we call it the daycare diet), as it consists of Mac and Cheese(kraft only), Spaghetti-O's, Grilled cheese and bagels. He will take naps with me, pushes me to be active, listens to my every woe and prays continually for me and little babe. I am so glad to be on this journey with Kev-o.

Baby is set to make his(or her) grand arrival on December 5th.  We have a few short months to get things together.... glad God gives us a few months to try and prepare. I am just glad to be surrounded by the family and friends we have to help and support us as we bring little Erickson in to the world.  We are going to need it!