First, here is the lovely pic of our test showing us that another child was on the way:
And here is the little alien at almost 12 weeks:
A couple of weeks after we found out about our new addition, we took a trip to MI to visit my family over Christmas. (For a little background, this trip should take between 10.5 and 12 hours. We take it in 2 days most of the time ever since Julie was born, it is easier on her and less stressful for us) We left home on Friday, Dec 18th (our 5th wedding anniversary), about 1 hour before what we would find out later was the "storm of the century" started! This turned into the worst trip I have EVER made from VA and MI!! It ended up taking us 3 days (2 of those just to get 3 hours from Lynchburg). On day one we made it about 120 miles and on day 2 we might have made it another 30-40 miles. We were blessed to have a friend of my family who happened to live in WV put up our family on the second night, because without them, we would have spent the night in our minivan, in some parking lot in Beckley, WV. Also, on a side note, my husband deserves a medal for putting up with our 2 year old and his VERY emotional pregnant wife while being stuck in our van in a HORRIBLE snow storm for 3 days! Here are some pics from this blessed trip.
Here is our view outside of our hotel when we went to bed on 12/18 in Lewisburg, WV
Here was the view we woke up to on 12/19
Here is our van in 2 feet of snow the morning of 12/19; with the snow still coming down
Here is Julie in 2 feet of snow at our hotel before we left on 12/19
Here was our view when we got up at our new friends' house on 12/20/2009.
Then for Easter we took another trip to MI since, due to the issues with Julie's pregnancy we didn't want to travel in the Summer...too close to the new baby's due date. This trip was much nicer and quicker than the trip in December. Here are some pics:
Here is Julie in her Easter dress with Nemo.
Julie and her cousins
Julie hunting Easter eggs
Julie getting some good quality Great-Grandma time
Here is a shot of me and my also pregnant sister-in-law...due just over a month after me. (side note, her son and Julie are only 13 days apart in age)
My mom also spent quite a while working on a beautiful quilt for our bed and I was able to bring it home with me after our spring trip and here it is.
Then on tax day, April 15th, we had our ultrasound scheduled to check out the new baby and hopefully find out whether we would be having another beautiful little girl or a rambunctious little boy...and the pictures below tell the whole story:
In case you couldn't tell...he's a boy. In August we are planning to welcome a little boy into our family...Jackson Levi Gibbs!
In spite of how busy we have been, I did take some time to try to plan a date for my amazing husband (little historical fact: my husband is the one that has always planned everything for us from trips to dates to simple little outings and I thought he deserved a special night just for him...after all, he took me to DC for Mother's Day...he deserved an amazing Father's Day gift as well). So after much discussion with some co-workers and friends, I planned a surprise date night on the Friday of Father's Day weekend of Subway (his favorite fast food), a little pottery painting and a drive-in movie. We picked up our dinner to go and took it to All Fired Up, where we each picked out a gift for one of our kids (Stuart for Jackson, and me for Julie) to paint while we talked and ate our dinner. Stuart wasn't too sure of the idea at first, but I think he ended up having a good time. Here is a picture of the final products...I think they turned out great!
When we finished painting, we left there and I directed Stuart one turn at a time to a new drive-in movie theater in Moneta, called the Mayberry Drive-in Theater & Diner and we saw Toy Story 3. It was a fun night and, all-in-all, I think it was a great success for my first date planning attempt.
Since then, we have just been getting ready for Jackson's arrival and the changes that are coming. We are now just 1 week from my scheduled c-section on Aug 5th and are almost ready for him. I had some wonderful friends throw us a nice shower to celebrate Jackson and we got some really great stuff. Here are a couple of the really neat, personalized gifts we got.
And then there is his bed and the wonderful blanket my mom made for Jackson:
And that pretty much catches you up on all the excitement on our lives since my last blog. I have lots more to pass on to you, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with absolutely everything in one blog!
