National Toasted Marshmallow Day

As a side note for everyone, today is the perfect day for toasting marshmallows. Who knows where this holiday came from, but it will be a nice treat tonight to roast a marshmallow or make some s'mores!

In our family, everyone likes their marshmallows done a little differently. Some like them barely warmed, others medium and toasty, and some like to set them on fire and blow them out just before they are totally charred.

It has been a while since we've gotten to vote on any thing...time for another poll! How do you like your marshmallows done?

17 Weeks...who even likes turnips?

17 weeks today, Khloe weighs as much a turnip, which is 5 ounces for those of us who might not have seen an actual turnip lately. She is about 5 inches long.

Her cartilage is beginning to get harder to be like bones. She can move her joints and her sweat glands are beginning to develop. Every little girl needs sweat glands.

I think it is pretty amazing that it is possible to know exactly what parts of a child are developing and when.


Not much else is going one for us. Eric is working this week, and Dad and Mom went to New York to visit Chris and celebrate their 36 year anniversary. They had to top our road trip by getting to go to New York City and see a Yankees ball game today. The forecast is calling for showers today in NYC, so please pray that they don't get rained out. That would be really sad.
They are also staying at a Doubletree Hotel, and I believe they are excited about free cookies. It is the little things in life that make our family happy. Fun times.

I am watching their two old dogs while they are gone, so Schooner is happy to have his friends over. I am happy to have them, but not so happy when they all want to get u a 5:30am...Yikes. It is not so bad. I am able to get a lot of stuff done in the day when I get up so early.

I hope everyone else is doing well.

16 Weeks

Here she is, Khloe the avocado. It still feels weird to call her by a name, and I think it would be even more weird to get used to calling her a girl, and then at the next appointment find out it is a boy. Oh well.

So this week she is 4 1/2 inches long and about 3 1/2 ounces. Her major development this week is that her heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood. Pretty exciting stuff.

15 Week Ultrasound

Good news, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and to our surprise, the doctor did another ultrasound, and this time said he is "pretty certain" that the baby is a GIRL! That is pretty exciting to get to find out so early. He did say that there is a chance that in a later ultrasound we might discover that it is a boy, but he was able to get a clear shot, so for now, we are going with girl. As for names, we both really like Khloe, so we are not really looking for anything else at this point. We both have liked Khloe from the beginning, maybe even before we were actually having a baby. We are not settled on the middle name yet, and are open to suggestions. If we had to pick a name today, it would be Khloe Ann, but we'll see.

In looking at the picture of the ultra sound from this week, I felt that Khloe really resembled someone. Strangely, it is not someone in the family, but someone we all know well. Nacho Libre, la Luchador. Does anyone else see the resemblance?










































On a serious note, the doctor said everything looks normal and healthy, but we are doing a down's syndrome test. I had the blood drawn today, so please pray that our baby is developing into a strong healthy child. Thanks!

15 Weeks

Here we are, 15 weeks, the baby should be "about the size of an apple." Sometimes these estimates vary from week to week, and I don't think it means the baby is actually as large as an apple, but maybe lengthwise or something like that. It should be about 4 inches long and about 2 1/2 oz. There are taste buds beginning to form, and the legs are now longer than the arms. That is good news that it is beginning to be better proportioned. Also, the website says that even though the eyelids are fused shut, if I shine a light at myself, the baby can sense light and it will move away from it. Sounds like fun!

Besides that, Eric is surviving his first week of night work, and he says it is not too bad. Even almost nicer than day work because it is so much cooler. He has been able to sleep pretty good in the daytime, so I am sure that makes a big difference on his overall outlook.

All I have to do to be able to start working as a substitute is get my transcripts from Sac State, so that the school district can be sure that I really did graduate. Hopefully, it will only take a week or so, but it might be as long as two. It is getting there, it just takes time I guess.

That is everything that seems to be going on here; I hope everyone is doing well!

Camping in Glass Creek

Beginning on Wednesday of last week, Eric began his first shift of 7 days off. SEVEN DAYS! So of course, we were not going to just sit around here doing nothing and being boring, so we packed up, and went camping on Thursday night. We drove to Glass Creek, which is between Mammoth and June Lake, on highway 395.

This was the first time I had ever been camping when we were responsible for all our food, cooking materials, tents and shade, etc. Man camping is a lot of work! We had several mishaps, but all in all, everything worked out fine and we had a great time. Some of the minor mishaps included: marinated chicken leaking all over everything in the ice chest. We salvaged everything except a pack of butter and apples. Also, then we had to deal with tons of marinated chicken juice and prayed that it did not attract bears. (It didn't). That night, Eric's brother, BJ was sleeping under the stars, so while we never saw any bears, some kind of animal came up to him in the night and sniffed his neck. He guess/hopes it was a dog, but we heard a lot of coyotes in the area... Eric's parents brought a brand new tent for the big camp out, but when we tried to set it up, we found out it was supposed to hang inside an Easy-Up sunshade, so it didn't have any poles. We were able to get one the next day, but they ended up sleeping in a much smaller tent on a leaking air mattress. That was a long night for them.

None of these things were major events, just funny when we look back at all of it. We learned valuable lessons, so the next time we all go camping, we will be a lot more prepared.

As for all the fun we had, we played many games of 10,000, which is a big hit with the Olson clan, who had never played it, we hiked to Inyo Craters and Earthquake Fault, and just had a good time hanging out together. Another highlight was getting to stay until Monday when everyone else had to go to work. Fun times when you have seven days off in a row!

Here are some pics of our weekend.

14 Weeks

So shrimp baby is gone, and now it is time for Lemon Olson. Let me tell you that Lemon Olson is a little sour. It doesn't know that it is supposed to be done making me queasy. We went camping with Eric's parents and his brother this weekend, and Eric's mom, Terri, thinks that Lemon is showing signs of not listening and behaving much like her Olson boys. That is going to be a problem. Maybe whatever comes after lemon will be better behaved.

Right now it is 3 1/2 inches long and can use its facial muscles. Exciting stuff.

13 Weeks

So my family has started referring to our unborn child as whatever its size is for the week. Thanks to babycenter.com, I am able to get weekly updates as to the size of the baby, along with fun pictures of whatever size it is. The picture to the right is from that site.
I think it began around the road trip, where the baby was referred to as kumquat for the majority of the trip.
Well, now kumquat is gone, and this week, the baby is as big as a medium sized shrimp. I wanted Kim and Kelcey to still be up to date with the size of it, so that they will still know how to refer to the baby. Kira is always asking if it is a pumpkin, but that won't come for a while.

So here it is. A shrimp. It also has its own set of fingerprints this week. Yahoo.