Time Flys

Wow where does the time go? Another week has passed. I'm (Tiff) counting the days till Mini arrives. I'm starting to get a little bit more uncomfortable as each day passes. I've even been having some Braxton-Hicks contractions. For those of you who don't know what they are...basically it's a contraction that just gets me somewhat prepped for the real deal. I think that's the best way to explain it. Mini hasn't been moving around as much lately so I know things are progressing as they should be. She's growing and there isn't a whole lot of room left for her to swim around in. Plus it seems like my body likes to swell up more often. Not only is it my ankles but now my hands & wrists too. Oh well, I know it comes with the turf. I'm just ready to have Mini come and greet us.

Thursday night, Trav & I went to an advanced screening of the Green Hornet. I was just scoping out things to do on the Internet & came across a website that was giving away free tickets. It was pretty fun. We had a great time watching the movie. We arrived at the theater about an hour early. There were already about 20-25 people in line waiting. We chatted with some of the people around us to make the time go by. The most interesting part of the whole thing was that we had to bring our phones out to the car because there couldn't be any electronic devices.  It's only fair because the movie doesn't come out for another month. The theater was packed...all but 1 or 2 seats were full. To make matters a little worse, they had the heat cranked. It would have been nice to have some AC instead. Overall, we both liked the movie. It had some good action scenes. The movie was left wide open at the end for additional movies to be made.

Today is Saturday. I normally don't work but I am. I'm actually working all weekend. We're going through a system upgrade this weekend. We're the last site going live for the new prescription dispensing system. I'm working at the in-patient pharmacy filling discharge & ER scripts since the retail pharmacy is closed. Now some of you may be asking why doesn't the in-patient staff just do it...the answer is that this system is new to them too and there's a little bit of a push back on doing retail scripts at an in-patient pharmacy. Plus I'm being paid overtime & I don't have to use my PTO (paid time off) for the upcoming Christmas holiday. =) That makes me happy. The drawback to working all weekend is that my days of working straight jumped from 5 to 11. So I'm on day 6 right now. Only 5 more days to go till I'm off for Christmas.

Tonight Travis & I are going to the Holidazzle Parade in downtown Minneapolis. I'm pretty excited about it. We're going with a large group of friends. The Holidazzle parade is a parade of lights. All of the floats and people in the parade are decked out in lights. It's a great holiday tradition. Sorry the picture is so big, but it gives you all a small taste of what the parade is like. I'll post some more pictures after tonight.

Until next time,
Love Tiff & Trav
 

Winter Blizzard

We've survived the winter blizzard. It was actually a little bit fun. I (Trav) wanted some Pepsi and decided to head down to the  gas station to get some. Every one on the news said if you don't need to be out and about, just stay home. Well you know if they say that, I'm heading out. I wanted to practice making some donuts. There's an empty parking lot across the road from us that I had to stop at before I came home. It was prefect conditions for whipping around.

 I (Tiff) decided to pick up a 3.5 hour shift at a pharmacy 8 miles away on Saturday morning. I didn't think anything of it, what's a little snow. It started snowing Friday night and didn't stop till late Saturday night. In the mean time, I made it to work just fine. I only had 8 miles to go. During my whole shift only 3 people came out to pick up prescriptions. One lady even got stuck in the parking lot because it wasn't plowed. Work was done and I had to make it home. That was the beginning of my adventure. I was able to get through the unplowed parking lot just fine. There were lots of snow drifts about 1.5-3 feet high. It was crazy driving. So many people should not have been on the roads. I just kept a slow and steady pace. None of the roads were really plowed. I just made my own path and stayed away from the high snow banks. I called Trav to let him know that I was on my way home. He suggested that I go on the highway because it should be better than the side streets. Well that wasn't the smartest place to be either. It wasn't plowed and to make matters worse it was near white out conditions. I strained to see about a car-length ahead of me. I was driving about 20-25 miles an hour with a few other cars. Every once in a while some idiot would go flying past us and soon enough we would see that car in the ditch. I just had to laugh because people were being dumb. I seriously saw about 20-25 cars either in the ditch, snow banks or just stopped on the road. I tried to get off the highway at the Normandale exit...no good. A van was in the snow bank with a trooper blocking the exit waiting for a tow. Next up was France Ave exit...there was a jack-knifed semi on the off ramp. I was beginning to get worried that I'd never get off the highway. I saw the sign saying that 35W ramp was closed because of an accident so that was out. I was finally able to get off on Penn Ave only to have the car right in front of me crash into the snow bank and get stuck. The lady driving only had front wheel drive and was stuck good. We finally got the cars behind me to back up after sitting there for about 10-15 minutes not doing anything. I was home free after getting off the highway. It only took me about an hour to get home.

We weren't done driving around for the day either. My girlfriend Lisa was having a birthday party for her son Max. He turned one on Saturday. We braved the un-plowed streets and picked up Mary along the way to get to the party. We had a great time getting there. Once we arrived at their house, Travis & Jacob went back out to pick up another couple we know so they could come to the party too. It was awesome. We brought half of the people to the party. Others tried to come but they weren't able to navigate the roads. While we were at the party, we watched several people get stuck in the road. Some of us were even nice enough to help dig a lady out. One of the guys had a plow on his truck so he went out and tried to clean up some of the road. It worked for a little bit till the city plows came by again and re-stacked up the snow on the side street. We successfully got everyone home and then just relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Grand total for snow fall - 17.5 inches at the airport, but we had around 19 inches by us. A majority of cars in our parking lot are still buried with snow. Pretty wild! I must say this is the most amount of snow we've both seen before Christmas in a long time.

Sunday morning we made it to church. I would be willing to bet there were only 100 people or so. The roads still weren't plowed on the side streets. The biggest thing that happened was that the metrodome collapsed around 5am this morning. There are videos on the internet of the collapse on Fox Sports and You tube. Needless to say we had to drive up to see the dome or shall we say bowl now. It's just so weird not to see the billowing white tarp above the dome.

Overall our weekend was pretty eventful. Word to the wise, if you don't have 4 wheel drive...don't go out in the snow and you won't get stuck and have to be towed.

Until next time, Trav & Tiff

Already into December

Well it's been an interesting start to December. This past weekend, Travis & I completed all of our birth & parenting classes. Let me tell you, sitting in a room full of pregnant women with their significant others is not my ideal way of spending the weekend. We opted for the express class which condenses a 7 week long class into 1 Sat (7.5 hours) & 1 Sun (4.5 hours). I must say it was grueling at times to simply remain seated and not walk out. The couples ranged in age anywhere from early 20's to early 40's. I think during every question time, one of the younger women had tons of questions...although she must not have listened or liked the answers she was getting because she would reword the same question or ask it in a different way. It just got a little old and frustrating that the instructor wouldn't take control of the situation and tell them to talk to them during a break. I think that only thing that I gleaned from the class was how horrifying it looks to give birth without any meds and I'm surprised on how much stuff I already knew. I was hoping that the class would give me more information but alas it didn't and I consider the whole weekend as a loss.

Monday night we took a breastfeeding class. That was a little more interesting and informative. We watched videos of proper ways to feed and latch. I take it all in with a grain of salt. I'll never be prepared for what's going to happen because everyones experience is a little different. I just hope that Mini isn't colicky. I don't think I can handle that much crying.

Tuesday I had another baby check up. Looks like everything is progressing just fine & dandy. Mini had a good strong heart beat. My next visit is in 2 weeks, right before Christmas. Basically my OB said that after me next visit, they'll let me have the baby whenever. I just need to hit 34 weeks. Granted Mini may spend some time in the NICU if she can that early but my doctor said he wouldn't try and stop the birth if that's when she wants out. Pretty crazy. Both Trav & I had dreams that Mini came on Christmas Day because she wanted to share a birthday with Grandpa Raimo and Evi (cousin) and meet everyone since my whole family will be together this year at Christmas. We'd have a doctor in the house but I think it's too early for her to come.

As for me, it seems like the closer I get to her due date the more things start to go wrong. I've been snoring pretty bad lately (around 6 weeks). I just chalked it up to the baby and squishing my diaphragm plus the extra fluid in my body causing some congestion. Things had progressively worse over the past few weeks. Well yesterday my hearing was starting to be affected. I couldn't hear out of my left ear and a little in my right. Basically it felt like being on an airplane and you need to pop your ears, but you can't. So I broke down and went to my primary physicians office. Turns out I had a massive sinus infection. The doctor took one look in my ears and said "yep, you've got a lot of fluid behind your ear drums." He gave me some antibiotics, so hopefully that takes care of the infection.

The next piece of falling apart is that I can't get a good nights sleep anymore. Between the snoring (which hopefully will go away now), waking up to go to the bathroom and now restless legs. Ugh I won't get a good night sleep for months now. According to Trav, last night he wouldn't even sleep in bed with me because I was constantly moving my legs and tossing all night. He's given up and sleeps on the couch. I find this all terribly amusing. For as good as my pregnancy has been in the beginning, it's slowly deteriorating on the back end. All I can do is laugh.

Until next time, Tiff & Trav

Update on the baby progress

Everything has been going really good with the pregnancy...well almost. Lately since my stomach has been growing my balance is a touch off. I'm trying to compensate for the shifting weight, thus my back is starting to ache during the day. Despite wearing my compression socks, my ankles are still swelling during the day. I'm starting to feel like a basket-case. =) Honestly, it's not all that bad. The knot in my back is probably the worst of it.

Travis was really sweet last night. We went to the mall for a little bit. We stopped at Brookstone. Travis wanted to do something to help my back. We picked up an I-need lumbar massager. I must say it really helps with the knots. It provides enough temporary relief.

We've also been continuing to spruce up Mini's nursery. I was putting away some of the gifts from this weekends baby shower. It'll be interesting to see where we'll be able to fit everything. I finally put a crib sheet & blanket on the mattress, so it's starting to look like a baby will actually sleep in the crib. It's all coming together slowly but surely.

Here's a few pictures of my growing bump. I'm 31+ weeks right now. Down to about 8-9 weeks on the countdown.

Until next time,

Love Tiff & Trav

Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving weekend started on Weds at noon. We both were able to leave work a little early in order to try and get in front of the coming storm. Unfortunately even though we were able to pack the car and be on the road by 12:30, we didn't beat the storm. The storm followed us the entire way to Ripon.

The fun started about 5 minutes into our drive with sleet or hail, whichever you prefer to call it. From there the weather changed to snow. The snowflakes were so big and fluffy. It started off light and steadily began to get worse. A few times during the drive the snow was near white-out conditions because of the howling wind. The snow changed back over to rain the further east we drove. Although it wasn't as smooth as that because the temperature was flirting around 31 & 32 degrees. At times the rain would be a little bit slushy and slightly freezing rain. The worst of the drive was when we were on highway 23...the drivers were nice and slow. Despite all of the weather, the drive took us a little over 5 hours.

Thanksgiving morning - We spent a good part of the morning relaxing and watching the Macy's parade. Then we were all getting ready for dinner. Dinner was at 6pm. Aunt Peggy, Uncle Bruce, Andrew & Adam Lindsay came over along with Grandpa & Grandma Splitt and the neighbors Judy & Erin Maguire. Kenny unfortunately was still sick and unable to make it. We had a lovely dinner with family and friends.

Black Friday - I had mentioned to Sue that I was hoping to find some matchbox cars for my little brother Sean. She had remembered that there were 2 different stores with sales. So that morning the entire household was up around 4-4:30 am. Trav, TJ & Ron went out hunting, while Sue & I went shopping. Tiffany (TJ's wife) went out shopping with her sister. The first stop on our list was K-Mart. Nothing horrible or awful. We were in and out of the store in about 15 minutes. The second stop was Menards. The parking lot was completely full. All of the side streets and adjacent parking lots were full as well. The store opened at 6am, we got there around 6:40. The store was absolutely packed. People were everywhere. Sue & I were lucky enough to have walked in the exit door so we were able to scope out where to check out the fastest. We successfully found the cars. There were 5 big garbage cans full of cars to begin the morning, by the time we got there, only 3 cans had cars in them about 1/3 of the way full. Who knew so many people wanted cars. The check-out lines were all the way to the back of the store...I'm sure people waited in line for 1.5-2 hours. We winded our way through various aisles till we came out by the check-out. We were able to hop into a line with only 5 people in it.  Over all we spent about 35 minutes in the store. It could have been a lot worse in Menards. Lastly we wanted to go to Jo-Ann fabrics but the store didn't open till 9am even though it was posted online and in their ad that they opened at 6am. I think they must have lost a lot of business.
The guys came back and have 2 deer. It was great that they were able to get something. The rest of Friday was spent relaxing and recouping from being up so early.

Saturday was the Open house/baby shower & Christmas. Travis & I helped Sue in the morning get things ready for the shower. People started to arrive around 1pm. It was a great opportunity to see family and family friends that we haven't seen in a while. Both Trav & I were overwhelmed with the love and support we received from everyone. All of the gifts were lovely and wonderful. Our little girl has several new outfits, bibs, toys, and blankets to name a few items. After everyone left, we were able to set up for Christmas dinner. We had another round of presents after dinner. We received great gifts all around. Travis is excited because we will be able to get a new golf bag, since his bite the dust this year. Me being a book worm, I always love to get new books. After both the baby shower & Christmas we were a bit worried about how we were going to get everything home. Our car was completely full on the way home. We wouldn't have been able to fit anything more into the car. We did an amazing job to fit everything in, like one big jigsaw puzzle.

The drive home was much better. We had sunshine the whole way with weather in the mid 40s. It was great. We made it home in 4.25 hours, including stops. After unloading the car, we've just been relaxing all night. It would be great if we still had another day off to completely unwind from being gone all weekend.

Until next time, love Tiff & Trav

Holiday Tea!

Last night was the Ladies Holiday Tea at our church. It was a wonderful evening spent with friends! The church was already decorated for Christmas so it was looking beautiful. There were about 75 tables with 8-9 ladies at each one. So I spent a little time telling you all about our table before but it was inspired by gingerbread and fiesta ware. All of the pictures of some of my favorite tables and our table are up on my Facebook page. Don't worry, I'll put some pictures up on the bottom of this blog.

We had a beautiful menu put together by the men of the church. They served all of the ladies. It was great to see so many husbands and sons having a great time. Our senior pastor even served! The reception was great with Sparkling Cider, Assorted Cheese & Crackers and Grapes. It was a nice time for all of the guests to mingle while the hostesses made finishing touches. The tea started with Blueberry Streusel Scones and Pumpkin Pecan Scones served with Lemon Curd, Devonshire Cream & Raspberry Preserves. Next came the salad of field greens, dried berries, Feta cheese, almonds with a raspberry vinaigrette. We also had a sandwich of Italian herb & cheese focaccia bread filled with Smoked Turkey, Ham, Baby Swiss, Lingonberry Sauce and Honey Mustard. (On a side note, we were expecting small tea sandwiches...no we got a huge pie shaped sandwich.) Best of all the dessert was a Chocolate Mousse Torte adorned with Chocolate Curls & Raspberries. The tea that we had all night was Barry's Gold Blend. Everything was so beautifully presented and tasted just as wonderful as it sounds. Sorry if I made you all hungry now.

The guest speaker for the evening was Devi Titus. She's a very vivacious woman. She's an accomplished author, speaker and woman of God. Do me a favor and google her, she's pretty amazing. Her talk for the evening was based on the Table. She gave her opinion on why coming to the table for dinner is so important to the family. Scientists have proven that children who eat at a table with their family and engage in active conversation are better, more intelligent, more confident and so on. However scientist haven't figured out why. This is where Devi went to the scripture and explained where the table came from and it's importance to God. She's very passionate about preserving the sanctity of the home. She has all of this in one of her books that was just published this year, I think. Don't quote me on it. It was really fascinating to hear what she had to say.

The night was wonderful overall. As we head into the holiday season, I hope that you have a safe and blessed time spent with family and friends.

Until next time,
Love Tiff (& Trav too)

Our colorful table!

This just shows some of the detail from the centerpiece. Lisa made the Nativity Scene from Fondant.

The lovely hostesses. Myself & my two best girlfriends, Mary Kumba (middle) & Lisa Schulz (Right)

Weekend

Alright so you all know that is snowed here this weekend. The official tally from Saturday was 7.7 inches. It broke the record snowfall for the day. Basically it was a lot of fun because people turned into their usual paranoid selves and couldn't drive. The snow was really wet and heavy which did cause a few problems around the Cities. We had a lot of trees and branches down. A few power lines snapped under the weight of the ice/snow as well. We didn't lose power on the west side of Bloomington but a good chunk of east Bloomington lost power for a little while. It's much better today because the roads are clear and people went back to driving like normal.

Yesterday Trav & I went to the Mall of America to try and finish up some Christmas Shopping. We had a good time wandering around stopping in store after store. After shopping, I went over to my girlfriends house (Lisa) to put together our gingerbread houses and tree for the ladies tea this Friday. I'll post a picture of our table all put together on Sat. Lisa, Mary & I had a great time decorating the houses with frosting and candy. After we finished decorating, Trav brought pizza and soda over and we all watched a movie together. The girls decided that it would be fun to have a movie night, so we had all of our significant others participate as well. =)

Today was a great day. There was just a little dusting of snow, nice and fluffy. We spent the morning at church and the grocery store. After we got home, Trav watched football while I did some cooking. I made 2 loaves of Italian Panettone bread. It's a really yummy bread that makes the best toast ever. Traditionally it's a dessert bread but we've adapted the bread to our liking. I also made chili and corn bread for dinner. It just seemed like a good and hearty meal to have now that we finally have snow. Tonight we plan on just relaxing before another hectic week at work.

Until next time, Love Trav & Tiff

It's Snowing...

YUCK!!

(all the morons on the road need to learn how to drive, it's not like this doesn't happen every year!)

New Microsoft Store

Alright so I may not be the most computer savvy person but I consider myself pretty knowledgeable. I went to the new Microsoft Store at the Mall of America. I won a ticket to a VIP event with Mom's Like Me (MLM). MLM is a website all for mom and run by moms. Basically a social network just for moms. It's pretty cool. So back to the store...this is the 6th Microsoft store in the nation. It opened last weekend. We received a goodie bag with a stress ball, mints, pencils, t-shirt and something that I have no idea what it is. Pretty nice. They gave us a couple of workshop demonstrations about their newest products, Windows 7 & the Windows Phone. Both I must say were pretty sweet. The best thing we learned about was the "cloud" thing. If you've seen the commercial with the lady trying to take the family picture. They showed up a demonstration of it...amazing. Seriously anyone can use it by going to explore.live.com and going to the photo gallery area. Plus it's totally free. They also showed us how with that same site, you can link up all your different email accounts so you only have to check 1 site a day to get all of your email.

Now let me describe the store a little. Everything in the store is hooked up to Wi-Fi so you can play with everything. On the perimeter of the store, the lower half of the wall are shelves for the products. The top half of the wall is one big monitor/screen. Just like a TV, the wall changes and displays various products. On the right side, they have all of the different gaming systems set up so people can play those. A guy next to us was playing the rock band game for about 20 minutes. The store is one big game room.

We were in the back of the store behind a half wall. They have a bunch of benches with varying heights and high top tables to sit at during the workshop, but then everything can be pushed back and stored under the taller benches to make room for the newest game. We were able to demo the new Xbox Kinect. It was pretty cool. I think the system was a little touchy because you need to wait for the game to recognize you as a character. Also you need to ensure that there is plenty of space away from the TV due to the computer recognizing you. You have to stand in a certain space by looking at the TV, I would say at least 10-12 feet from the TV. Maybe it's adjustable for smalled spaces but I didn't ask, so I don't think we'd be able to play it in our small living room. Oh well I still love my Wii.

As the afternoon was wrapping up, the people from Microsoft surprised all of us by saying that there would be a drawing for 6 prizes. Five of the prizes were $25 gift card and a free PC tune up. The grand prize was a Samsung Netbook with Windows 7. It was exciting...I won a gift card! So not only did I learn some cool stuff about Windows, but I got a gift card to boot! Now I have to go back with Trav so we can pick out a new Xbox game or something like that.

Till next time, Love Tiff & Trav

Third Trimester...ready or not!

Hi All, so it's been a little bit since we put up a baby update. Things have been going very good. As a medical person, I continue to say that it's been an unremarkable pregnancy. I really only have 2 complaints. The first is some mild swelling in my legs, which I wear compression socks for and it's just fine. The second is a little bit more annoying. I've been having some lower and mid-back pain. The mid-back pain is more noticeable. It seems like it always hits me around 11am. Right in the middle of my work day. Oh well, I have high pain tolerance so I just grin and bear it till I get home where I can stretch my back out and use my balance ball. Trav has even been massaging my back to try and get rid of the knot.

I had another doctors appointment this week. Every checked out fabulously. I only had to have 2 needle pokes so that's better than last visit with 5. I was given another shot of RhoGam because I am Rh-. This shot will take me up to birth. (For those of you wondering what Rh- is, it's a factor in your blood. You either have it or you don't...that's why you'll hear people say I'm A - or A+. So being that I'm negative, I've been getting these shots to ensure that I don't create antibodies to Mini's blood. If I did create antibodies, my body would recognize Mini as an invader and attack her. All in all, every time the lab has checked my blood, I haven't built up any antibodies so that shots are doing their job.) Why I did I bring up the shot in the first place, I've already had 3 of these shots. Every time it's a large needle and I have to get it in a large muscle (aka. the butt). I knew that once I reached 28 weeks, I'd be getting another shot and was dreading getting it. The nurse made my day!!! She walked in and said "where do you want it...shoulder, hip, thigh, butt?" I avoided a shot in my butt and took the shoulder. Now why wouldn't all of the other nurses offer that??

As for Mini, she's doing really good. She's active all the time!!! Her kicks are getting much stronger, almost to the point of being uncomfortable. She is already head down, more on the left side of my stomach. Her favorite thing to do is push with her feet on the right side of my stomach to stretch out. When she does this, I push back against her feet and she pushes harder. It's kinda funny to see my stomach all of a sudden start pushing to the right. It's also funny to see my stomach when she kicks, because my stomach will bounce and you can see right where she hit. It's an absolutely crazy to feel Mini moving around. The doctor thinks she's about 2.5 lbs right now, maybe 14-15 inches long. All that movement from such a tiny baby.

Being that I'm in my third trimester, I should be visiting the doctor every 2 weeks...but since I'm doing so well I don't have to go back for another month. After that visit I'll see the doctor every 2 weeks for 2 visits, then it'll be every week in January. It won't be long now till we get to meet our little bundle of joy. The rest of the year is going to fly by because I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with family. We'll be in Ripon for a combined Thanksgiving and Christmas with Trav's family. Then Christmas in Duluth and Danbury with my family. Come New Years, we won't be straying too far from home in anticipation of Mini's arrival.

Till next time, Love Tiff & Trav

Opening Weekend Success

It has been awhile since I, Travis, have checked in with all of via the blog, but this weekend presented a perfect opportunity to write a little post for you all to enjoy. This weekend us Minnesotans don our blaze orange and welcome in the gun deer hunting season. Even though our season is a little earlier than many would like to have it, we usually have some good luck. Unfortunately the last two years haven't treated to any deer, so I really needed to step it up this year because the freezer was running on empty.

I go hunting with my best friend Kyle, who I met about 7 years ago now while I was framing houses, and his dad Wayne. We hunt near Zimmerman, MN on a property that includes about 20 acres of woods, corn fields, soy bean fields, and some marsh areas. We mainly hunt within the woods, as the deer will use that as a safe haven after escaping other wooded areas and running through the fields.

Saturday morning came a lot quicker than we would have liked, but much to our chagrin once we got out the property, the corn had been cut, which greatly helped us out. At about 7:50 Wayne had two nice does come walking his direction. He picked one out and shot her, but the odd thing was the other one stayed right there and so he was able to shoot her as well. With two deer down that early in the morning we felt like this could be our year to get a few. As I was sitting there waiting to go help Wayne get his deer out of the woods, I was blessed with sight of a buck walking my direction at 8:02. I spotted him coming from about 80 yards away. As he was coming in my direction, he stopped to eat and look around. I patiently waited for him to present me with a nice shot, and after about two minutes I took the opportunity to take him. I had a nice clean shot and he only made it about 20 yards before retiring!

So with three deer already taken, we figured that if we were able to get one more this morning we would be having a much more relaxed hunt for the rest of the season. Well Kyle decided this morning that only taking one deer wasn't good enough. At about 8:15 Kyle harvested a nice doe and a really nice buck.

I am betting most of you are reading this and thinking, well how big are these two bucks? Kyle doubled me up on the antlers for the year. I got a three pointer and Kyle's is a really nice six. I feel really blessed every time I get the chance to harvest one of God's creatures and I know that it will make for some good meals, so I couldn't be happier with how the weekend turned out! Hopefully we will be able to get a couple more next weekend, but if not that is alright as our freezer is already full!!!

Until next time,

Travis

Happy Halloween

It's been a little bit since our last post. November finally comes tomorrow. Travis is busy getting ready for deer hunting. The funniest thing is that he's been looking for this certain pair of gloves for about 45 minutes getting cranky because he can't find them, when I told him exactly where to look and it's the last place that he looks and sure enough the gloves were there. The first time he looked there, he didn't move anything around so he skipped over them. But all's well, the gloves were found. The next two weekends I'll be spending some quality time by myself with Yummy. Maybe I'll get a whole bunch of baking done, finish wrapping Christmas presents and submit my PharmCAS application. It's tough when the first round of Christmas is 3 weeks away. This is the first year that I'm not 100% ready yet. Oh well the next two weekends, I'll have plenty of time.

This past week was pretty busy with spending time with good friends. Mary, Lisa and I are hosting a table at our churches Ladies Holiday Tea. Wednesday we were having a pow-wow about our theme and what our table will be like. We're all a bunch of young women and we want to have a modern feel to our table. There will be several tables there with all the fancy bone china and sterling silver tea sets. We are going to represent the younger generations. We'll be using multi-colored Fiesta wear (almost all the colors of the rainbow). Our centerpiece will be a rectangle gingerbread house. Lisa is extremely creative and an awesome decorator. (She makes & decorates wedding/birthday/any kind of cakes.) Mary & I will just assist in putting the candy on. I'm pretty excited for the day to come. I'll post a picture of the table after the event and let you all know how it goes.

Friday night we went over to Mary's house for dinner. Travis was also helping Mary fix her ceiling fan. The piece that hangs off the fan that turns the light on/off was old and needed replacing. Luckily it was an easy fix and Travis was able to replace the broken part. Mary made an authentic Mexican dinner. It was chicken tostadas with a side of Mexican veggies. I can't remember what all the dishes were called. The craziest thing we had was a rice milk drink. It looked just like milk but is tasted like a Chai bubble tea. We had a great time after dinner playing Taboo with everyone.

Today I'm headed up to the Mixed Blood Theatre with Mary to see La Casa de Los Espiritus (The House of the Spirits). The play is performed in both English & Spanish. It should be interesting. The play is based on the book written by Isabell Allende.

Until next time, have a great week.
Love Trav & Tiff.

Nursery continues to evolve!

This past weekend my (Travis) parents came up to visit for the weekend and we had a great time together! We were even able to work and make progress on the nursery. My dad and I put the crib together on Friday night, which was a pretty simple task to complete. We also routered a slot in a wood sign that Tiff and I made to hang above the crib with Mini's name on it!

On Saturday we drove to Winona to watch Adam play soccer. It was a very good 1-0 game, but unfortunately St. Mary's lost. Adam had one great scoring chance, which was very exciting to see, but unfortunately he just kicked it right into the goalie's chest. You win some and you lose some, but it was a well played game and fun to watch. It is just too bad the referee didn't know more about soccer!! It was nice to see Aunt Peg and Uncle Bruce at the game as well. After the game, we decided that Owatonna was on our way back to Bloomington, so we had to go that way. It doesn't get any better than going to Cabela's a couple of weeks before deer hunting starts!

Mom and Dad left on Sunday morning and then the work in nursery began. We moved the crib and dresser into place, moved around some things we had hanging on the walls, strung up some dragonfly lights to act as a night light, and hung Mini's name sign. For those of you who are wondering, we have a name picked out, but we have decided not to make it known to everyone yet. I mean, we have to have some surprise left once our little girl arrives!! I am sure we will post pictures soon of the nursery, but for now we are just continuing to get things set up and ready for her arrival!

Those were the highlights of the weekend considering it ended on a sour note for us Vikings fans. I hope you all have a good week and until next time...

Love,

Trav & Tiff

Another great day!

Well today is a good day. Tiffany got the results from her 3 hour blood glucose test. For those of you not familiar with it, you have to fast all night long and then go to the doctors office, drink a nasty sugary drink and be a pin cushion. Everything turned out wonderful. She blew away each hour mark and was even low for the last test. Fasting blood sugar should be between 60 & 90, 1 hour: 60-179, 2 hour: 60-154, 3 hour: 60-134. Tiff's numbers were 74, 132, 108 & 56 respectively. So I'm glad that both Tiff and Mini are healthy and everything continues to be an unremarkable pregnancy. Her only real complaints are back pain and swelling in the lower legs. Both of those can be managed pretty easily. On a side note, Tiff's belly is steadily growing every week. We'll have to start taking a weekly picture to show you all the changes. I love the belly bump.

As for the nursery, the crib has arrived! I'll be putting it together tomorrow night. Then we'll finally be able to get a feel for how the nursery will be arranged. We're contemplating painting the room although I'm not sure if we will. We will post some pictures of the room once we get the crib put together. We're still ahead of schedule though...3 months till Mini arrives. We just want everything to be set ahead of time if there are any surprises.

Take care till next time  

Big Day tomorrow!!

Tomorrow I take one more step towards my dream of being a pharmacist. I take my PCAT, pharmacy entrance exam, in the morning. The exam starts at 8:30 and will last about 4-5 hours long. There are 6 different categories...Reading Comprehension, Verbal Ability, Quantitative Analysis, Biology, Chemistry & 2 essay questions. I think that no matter how much I prepare for these exams, I always psych myself out. I haven't been a strong standardized test taker in the past but maybe this will be the year that it all changes. Although the PCAT is only part of the application process, there is a large amount of focus on what percentile I fall in. The test isn't really graded on a pass/fail scale...it's actually gives the results as saying I did better than a certain percentage of people. The goal would to be on top in the 99th percentile but being realistic it would be great to be around 75-80%. That would be an improvement from the last time I took these exams 3 years ago. I'm just praying that if I meant to be in school, it'll happen. So if you remember tomorrow while I'm at my exam, just say a little prayer for me. Thanks!!

Other than the test, I'm really looking forward to the rest of the weekend. Travis & I are going to a comedy tomorrow night at a local theatre. Neither one of us know anything about the show, we just thought it will be fun to go do something different. Sunday we have church and then we're headed to the giant Severs corn maze with friends! If you've never seen the Severs corn mazes, take a look at their website. This year is a tribute to the MN Vikings 50th season. Skol Vikings!

Have a wonderful weekend,
Tiff

Baby Update

Hi All

I know it's been a while since we actually blogged about Mini. She's doing great!! I had another doctors appointment today. We were able to hear her heartbeat. I think it's one of the most amazing things to hear. We didn't get an actual count this time but it's strong and steady.

I've reached my 24th week of pregnancy so it's time for the Glucose Tolerance Test. This tests to see if I have gestational diabetes. Today I had to do the 1 hour test. Basically I had to drink a nasty drink...50gm of pure glucose in solution (fruit punch flavor). It was absolutely gross. It tasted like really thick cough syrup. The goal is to have a blood sugar of 129mg/dl or less. I just had to sit there unable to do anything and wait for 60 minutes to tick by. Unfortunately I didn't make it. So I'll have to go through the 3 hour test. This will be on Monday morning. This test will be even worse. I can't eat for 10 hours before the test. I have to have my blood drawn 4 times, a fasting level and then at each hour mark during the test. I need to have my blood within very tight ranges (even more than Travis with his type I diabetes). It makes no sense. I don't see why they just can't do an A1C to test how things are going. I have to drink 2 bottles of the glucose for 100 grams. Ick and Ick again!! Not something that I'm looking forward to. I felt so gross after the 50gm that I had today, I can only imagine how I'll feel after 100gm on an empty stomach. Too much sugar! Lets pray that I don't have gestational diabetes and be classified as a high-risk pregnancy. Everything has been good so far, let's hope it continues.

Mini has been moving all around all the time. Last night Travis came to the bedroom to check in on me. I wasn't quite asleep yet so he started talking to me and my belly. Pretty soon after that, Mini was kicking him to say hi and let him know that she's listening. It was wonderful. I feel her move so much during the day. I don't know what's better...hearing the heartbeat or feeling her move all the time. I must say though for those of you who have never been pregnant or can't, it's the weirdest thing feeling your insides all of a sudden just move or flop on you. I can't even truly describe it.

Well I'm off. I'll keep you all posted about the upcoming test.
Until next time,
Tiff

Back from vacation

Hello all,

Well, we are finally back from a weeks vacation out to Williamsburg, VA and we had a blast. Sorry for the late post about our vacation and although we had intentions of blogging while we were out there enjoying the nice fall weather, the wireless Internet at our condo was not working properly. Needless to say, we had a wonderful time away. It was our last hurrah before baby girl comes.

Our trip started out a little slow with some cloudy/rainy 2 days. After that weather moved out, the remainder of the trip was absolutely perfect fall weather. Travis and my dad went golfing every morning, while the rest of us slept in and then played in the pool. Travis played his best round of golf ever by shooting a 77. It was on the Jamestown course a Jack Nicholas design. So basically that means that Travis was able to navigate around all of the bunkers that Mr. Nicholas loves to place on the course. The mornings at the pool were great! The sun felt nice and warm...I even got a little tan sitting outside.

My birthday was last Monday. I had a wonderful time with my family. The best part of the day was going out to dinner at a nice restaurant...The Fat Canary. Special menus were printed up for our table that said "Happy Birthday Tiffany". It was pretty cool. I've never seen anything like that before. The food was absolutely amazing. We split a few appetizers...Salmon, Asparagus with prosciutto, Fresh Mozzarella with tomatoes. Next course was soup or salad. I had an arugula salad with figs and Gorgonzola cheese, while Travis had butternut squash soup with shrimp. Both were really amazing. I'm glad Trav lets me taste his food. For the main course, I had fresh grouper with fingerling potatoes and sauteed vegetables. Travis had the pheasant. My compliments to the chef. It was a wonderful night.

Every afternoon we went out to various shops and attractions around Williamsburg and Virginia Beach. The day at the beach was great. There were several people on the beach swimming and tanning. We had fun walking along the waters edge, flirting with the incoming tide. The shops around Williamsburg were interesting. They ranged from scary to fabulous. To start with the scary...we were in search of the Pepperidge farm outlet. It supposedly was at the old pottery building. When we drove in the buildings looked run down and something from a horror movie set with a guard watching the only gated opening. So we go in not sure what we're going to find. Turns out it was a massive outlet type shop with things ranging from Kitchen items to pottery and linens. The buildings were just creepy. On the flip side, we went to the Prime outlets. These are some high end outlets...although the prices could have been a little bit lower. Travis & I wandered into a very high end kids clothes store. The clothes ranged in price from $40-160. These were some of the most adorable clothes I've ever seen, although I would never pay those prices. Overall the shopping experiences were fun.

I'm sure we'll have more to say about vacation later. Hope you all have a great night. Until next time, love Tiff & Trav 

Sweetheart

I just wanted to put up a quick post about how wonderful my husband has been this past week. We have been struggling to get everything ready in the nursery. If it's not one thing, then it's another. Even though we hoped to have the nursery set up about 90% before vacation, it's only about 25%. Oh well, I know we'll be get there sometime. So for those of you who are hoping to see pictures of the nursery you'll just have to wait a little bit longer.


Back to Travis being sweet. I had just been at the grocery store and forgot to pick up butter. I'm a little scatter brained lately...ugh the dreaded mommy brain. I'll survive. So I asked Trav to stop and pick some butter up on his way home since he already had to stop at the hardware store for sandpaper. Well he came home with a dozen beautiful Orange Fire & Ice roses just because he felt like it.


Tonight should be a busy night once I get home from work. I need to finish doing the laundry. Once the laundry is done, we can pack for vacation. (Yes we're packing tonight because tomorrow we'll be at the Twins game with a big group of friends.) I'll be making dinner at some point as well as yummy Pumpkin bars & bundt cake to bring to work tomorrow. I figure it's nice to bring stuff to celebrate a birthday with co-workers. I just have to make twice as much because I love all of my Retail & Inpatient Pharmacy staff!! Last but definitely not least, we have to clean the whole place. I hate coming home from vacation to a dirty house. So we have a full agenda for the evening.


Until next time get outside and enjoy the beautiful fall weather,
~Tiff & Trav

Weekend in the Frigid North (aka in Duluth!)

I hope this post finds you all enjoying the nice fall weather we finally had this weekend. Tiffany and I went to Duluth this weekend for a few reasons. First, we hauled up some of our stuff from the nursery to put into storage and then loaded up the crib, high chair, pack 'n' play to bring home so we can finish setting up our little girl's nursery. Saturday was a day filled with relaxation and shopping to replace some of the items that were stolen from our family cabin.

Today we had two separate events that took place. Tiffany went on the buddy walk along the boardwalk. This walk is to raise money for the Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota. Sean was very excited to have Tiffany, Mary, Norrie, Jullianne, and about 80 player from the St. Scholastica College Football team walking with him.

At the same time that they were walking the boardwalk, Dave and I were golfing at Lester Park for the Duluth East Athletic Association. This was to raise money for all the sports teams at the High School. For those of you who don't know, the East Hockey team has made Sean one of their own as their Student Manager. Sean loves to be part of the Hockey team, so we enjoy supporting the athletic association. Besides, it is just another good reason to get out and play a round of golf. We ended up shooting a 65, 7-under round, which was only 8 shots out of first place!

The weekend is quickly coming to an end, which is always sad, but hopefully the week ahead will go by fast as we prepare for our vacation to Williamsburg, VA. Hopefully this week we will be able to get more of the nursery set-up, but we will see how it goes.

Until next time,

Trav & Tiff

Sean with Captain Scott

Bundled up for the round.

                             

It's Raining

Good Afternoon everyone. We're now into day 2 of solid rain. It's really been coming down. I'm sure you might have caught some of the news about places flooding and roads being closed. We really don't need this much rain all at one time.

Now for more baby news...this little girl has been really active lately. Today while I was working, she started to kick pretty hard. I swear my whole stomach lurched in one direction. She likes to wake me up in the middle of the night because she's so active and wants to explore. Not too much to see but there's no telling her that. Our little girl is just growing away.

This weekend we're headed up to Duluth. We're bringing home some more items for the baby's room. Not to mention that my sister is giving me a whole bunch of clothes for the baby. I'm excited to see what all is there. Every little bit helps when it comes to babies. Hopefully after this weekend we'll have quite a bit of work/set-up completed! 

Until next time, hope you all are having a good week & staying dry.
Love Tiff & Trav

Cribbage is FUN!!

Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a good Monday of work. The rest of the weekend went as planned for Tiff and I. We were able to finish most of the cleaning that we needed to get done in the nursery. Everything is taken apart and reorganized for storage. This coming weekend we will get the crib brought down and that will be my next project to put it together and continue getting everything in order for our little bundle of joy to greet us.

This is more of an impromptu blog post for me. You see Tiff and I enjoy playing cribbage and I usually don't get to taste the sweetness of victory. But, tonight it actually happened, including a skunk in the second game! That was basically the whole point of this post, so until next time enjoy your endeavours.

Love,

Trav & Tiff

Weekend

Happy Weekend Everyone! It's been a very productive & wonderful weekend. My weekend started with a girls movie night. Of course there were several treats on hand...chocolate, dinner mints, peanuts, popcorn & tea. We watched Letters to Juliet. It was a cute, predictable chick flick and I liked it. It's so wonderful to have close girl friends to hand out with on a regular basis.

It's only Saturday afternoon and today has been so productive. Travis went up to our friends house to help put up a fence. While he was out and about he also picked up a changing table & dresser combination for the nursery. It's all starting to come together. My morning has been jam packed with cleaning. The nursery is almost ready. I spent the morning rearranging and clearing stuff out. I wanted to surprise Trav with just about everything finished in the room. All that's left to do is haul more stuff down to the garbage, Trav to go through a few bins and move items to our storage locker. Hopefully tomorrow will go smooth because the nursery could be ready for the rest of the items to be moved in! Baby Girl will be here sooner than we think. Time has been flying by. Only a few more months to go, I'd rather be prepared than scrambling.

Tonight we're going bowling to celebrate our friends birthday. It should be a great time. Hopefully you're all having a great weekend too.

Until next time
Love Tiff (& Trav too)

Started Cleaning!

     So we've finally started to get ready for our Baby girl! We tackled our storage unit...that was a mountain of junk to sort through. We were able to throw away unwanted/unneeded boxes, combine items and fit them into our Rubbermaid containers. It was a great feat!! Anyone knows going through a bunch of stuff that you only see once a year or so is a daunting task. Both Trav & I feel relieved that we were able to make a small amount of progress. Although the sad part is that we just cleaned it out only to add more stuff to it. It was the first step in clearing out the dreaded office closet area.
    
     We're going to attempt to clear out the office all in one afternoon. I'm sure there will be kicking, screaming, crying and general chaos but I'll try to be the calm one. Basically my goal for Sunday afternoon is to clean out the closet, take the futon apart & clear off the tall book shelf. Hmmm I say that and we'll see how far we get. I can't think about that now or I'll start to hyperventilate. =) Just let me have this small victory from tonight.

Hope you all have a great evening. Until next time,
Love Tiff (& Trav too)

Another Tuesday Baby Update!

Last week we posted that during the ultrasound, one of the baby's ureters measured a little big so we had to go back for a level II ultrasound.  Today we had that ultrasound and everything checked out ok with mini. Today's ultrasound was pretty in depth with measuring everything all over again, and today mini was estimated at weighing in at a whopping 12oz! Everything seems to be moving along so fast. I mean 12 weeks ago all we saw on the first ultrasound was this little blob with a head, and now Mini is approaching a pound. Every time we get to see Mini, we are reminded at how amazing the miracle of life really is.

Some of you who have been following along now for the last couple of weeks, may be wondering when will the announcement regarding Mini's sex will come. Without any more hesitation, we are pleased to announce that baby Mlodzik has indoor plumbing (that is exactly how the doctor told us). We are very excited to be expecting a little girl! She is already daddy's princess!

We are starting, all be it slowly, to put together the nursery. Over the next month or so we hope to have everything that is currently in the extra bedroom out and the crib and such brought into it. As we move along with the transition of the nursery, the excitement will continue to grow as we await the arrival of our little peanut!

Until next time,
Trav & Tiff

Start of another week

We had a good time this weekend, it's just too bad it flew by. Saturday Tiff  picked up a few extra hours at work while Trav played golf. Later that day we went to our friends house for a BBQ and bonfire. We had a wonderful time reconnecting with friends and meeting new people. Another weekend with a bonfire & smores, can't beat that!!! No alarm was set for Sunday morning, we only slept till 7am. Soon we won't even need an alarm because we'll already have been up for several hours with the baby. Church, grocery shopping and laundry has taken up most of the day. Now I'm (Tiff) making one of my favorite foods for dinner and lunches...Chili!!! Nothing can beat chili and corn muffins in the fall. I could eat it just about everyday, no joke!

This week will be jam packed. We'll be back to the daily M-F grind with a few interruptions. We have a follow up ultrasound on Tuesday to ensure that Mini is doing well. I just view it as another chance to see our baby and the miracle of growth. Trav has his annual physical on Weds. I'm sure it'll be another clean bill of health (healthy as a horse). We'll be spending some time with friends again; pie night, tea party & U-30. Even though we're just starting another week, I wish it could already be next weekend.

Until next time, Have a wonderful day!
Love Tiff & Trav

Happy Pie Day

I (Tiff) just wanted to comment on how much I look forward to the middle of the week. If you don't know, Bakers Square has Pie Rush Wednesdays....basically free pie with any purchase. It's a great time to meet up with friends and enjoy good pie. Since it officially feels like fall, pumpkin pie is in season. Trav had a huge piece of pumpkin. It was really good, but it fails in comparison to some of the family recipes. I tried a new pie Berry Peary. It's a combination of fresh pears and blueberries. Now some of you might think that it wouldn't taste good at all, I was even skeptical. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted. The chefs mixed sweet and tangy flavors together in a perfect combination. The pie was even served warm which made the flavors melt together even more. Now that I've probably made you all start to crave your favorite pies, I better get going. Just keep  in mind that next Wednesday if you're hungry for some pie, go grab a free slice and enjoy time with friends/family!

Baby Update!

Today we had another ultrasound, which meant another chance to witness the miracle of life. What an amazing journey this has been so far for us, and we are only 19 weeks into it. The baby was full of energy today, moving and swimming around. The ultrasound technician was very nice and explained a lot to us as we were looking at the screen. We were able to look at the baby's brain to see the two halves, heart to see the four chambers, kidneys, and even the umbilical cord with color to see the arteries and veins within it. In order to see that, they turn on color and you see blue (veins) and red (arteries). Measurements were taken of the legs, arms, brain, heart, kidneys, circumference of the head, circumference of the abdomen and all checked out just fine. The only questionable measurement was with the ureters, which is what allows urine to flow out of your kidneys. They measured 1mm too large, which could mean that the baby hadn't gone to the bathroom for awhile or the angle the measurement was taken at wasn't quite right. So, we will go back in about a week to make sure everything is alright. The doctor said that we shouldn't lose any sleep over it for now, so no worries.

We were able to see facial features such as the lips, nose and eyes including the lens of the eye (basically the circle of the iris and pupil). One thing that I (Travis) found amazing was that at 19 weeks your bones are starting to harden and become more dense. The way we could tell this is because they show up on the ultrasound very white. This allowed us to be able to see the spine, femur, skull, and other bones starting to really take shape. Even though seeing all of the different aspects of the baby was amazing and special, the best part of the ultrasound would have to be the 5-10 seconds that we caught the baby sucking it's thumb...that is simply beautiful to see.

Tiffany is still on track for a February 1st due date, so we are getting closer to meeting our little gift of life. We have attached a couple of pictures of our little bundle of joy, but to put everything into perspective, Baby Mlodzik is approximately 6" from head to rump and weighs roughly 11oz.

Love Travis & Tiffany

                      

Labor Day Weekend

The weekend started out on a rough note. Our beautiful family (Raimo) cabin was broken into and several items were stolen. Not the way to begin a holiday weekend. We tried to rack our brains trying to recall all of the items that were missing. My Mom and I ran into the next town over, stopping off at a few places to replace a few items and see if the criminals were stupid enough to try and sell any items. On the upside, the sheriff assigned to our case is an amazing man! It'll be nice to see these criminals brought to justice.

Once everything had calmed down, we had a nice time at the river. Travis went fishing twice a day. He caught a really nice Northern Pike; 35 inches, 13-15 pounds. Trav was pretty lucky to land the fish. Inevitably every time my Dad and Travis catch large fish, they do not have a net in the boat with them. Trav and my Dad took turns holding the rod and trying to grab the fish. My Dad was successful in hurling the fish into the boat. Hopefully it'll be mighty tasty to eat!

We did a little bit of raking, cleaning up downed branches and leaves from a large storm that passed through about a week ago. Sean & I built a great bonfire down at the Smokey Joe right before dinner started. Little did I know that several pieces of wet wood found their way into the pit. Sean wanted to help make a huge fire. There had been a lot of rain in the past week. Needless to say lots of the wood that Sean found in the woods was soaked. Trav did his best to pick off the wet wood and salvage the fire. We eventually fought our way through the thick, white, billowing smoke to revive the fire! With enough newspaper, dry kindling and a few logs from the shed we had a beautiful roaring fire. We had the most perfect red hot coals to roast marshmallows and make smores. We had to abandon the fire to seek shelter from the wicked mosquitoes. Perfect way to end a night at the river.

All said and done, the weekend turned out to be nice and relaxing. Just as we had hoped for.
Until next time, Love Tiffany (& Trav too)

Starting out

Hello Friends and Family,

We are entering into a new phase in our lives...parenthood.  We thought by starting a blog we'd be able to share some ups and downs of daily life with you all.  Just a fun way to stay connected with you all despite the distance between us.  We hope that you'll follow along with us as we transition to become parents and start our own family.

Love Trav & Tiff