Baby showers

Here are a few pictures from our baby showers. We have been spoiled by so many people, and gotten so much stuff. The cake with the monkey on the top is actually a diaper cake. It's a cake made out of diapers. Then they put all these little onesies on there as well. The other pictures are from Dan and Cynthia's party for us. One classic shot is a game that we played that the guys ended up having to drink out of the bottle. Loved that game! We have Brian, Gary, and my friend Jeremy......all of them without babies yet. All the other guys had their babies in their laps. :-) Another picture is people guessing how big I was......Gary had the biggest ribbon! Hope you enjoy!

35 Weeks

Here I am at 35 Weeks. He is moving out through my sides these days. So maybe a pictures from the side would better show what he's doing. Only 3 1/2 weeks left of this quiet time. Let's pray he makes it that long. We'd like a nice big baby that is healthy for the new year! Get your computers ready family and friends!

I have to apologize that I don't have more pictures up yet. I honestly haven't felt like having pictures taken of my large self. :-( I'll get something up in the next week. Also Gary's been working so our time together is minimal again. I've got a recital this weekend, and housesitting for Dan and Cynthia. Life just got busy! But I'm thinking of you all.

32 Weeks

Here I am, feeling very large. Went to the doctor this morning. Our boy is growing, and heading down. Which means his tiny little feet are in my ribs. Gary says he's practicing his heel hooks (a climbing term). He should be pretty practiced by the time this is finished!

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving dinner and day. Gary and I started out by sleeping in later than we have in a long time. This will be the last weekend that we have 2 days together, because Gary starts his job next week. So that is something to be thankful for. :-) We went to Dan and Cynthia's of course for dinner and enjoyed watching football games. I have to say it was very nice to not have to cook anything. Sitting with my feet up was very good for my achy body. Our little baby decided to stick his elbow out for the evening. It was crazy being able to feel that little bony part in my belly. Pretty amazing!

We put up our Christmas tree yesterday and reminisced about all the places we've been as a couple. You see, Gary and I get a christmas ornament whenever we travel someplace together. Our tree is full of memories, and I have to say, it's probably the most favorite time together for me. I still have my box of ornaments from when I was little too, so we went through those and put a few key ones up. Like a snowman that you pull the string and his feet and arms go up. I got that in 1977 from my Great Grandma Roland. I also have a clown from 1977, and a few others from Grandma and Grandpa up there. I even have my Baby's 1st Christmas bulb. I still get as excited now as I did when I was little pulling out my box of ornaments. I hope my brother still has his, and although he probably doesn't get as excited, I hope he remembers the fun of putting on OUR ornaments as kids. :-)

Gary was telling me stories of their traditions in his family. Number 1 that he talks about every year, is just the amount of ornaments that are on mom and dad's tree. He always wants our tree to look like theirs, just the small version right now. He was also telling me that his grandma had this ugly bird ornament, a big one at that, and that his mom and grandma would try to sneak the bird on each others trees. :-) When we get a house and have family here, we may just have to do something silly like that.

I love traditions. I am 34 years old and still find myself wanting the same things I did when I was 8. And I love incorporating Gary and I's traditions together. So next year, I'll be starting our little guy's own ornament box. And I hope in 34 years when he's putting up his tree with his wife, that he'll pull out that same box with his name on it and look back at the wonderful grandparents and family he had and say, "This is my favorite part of the year, look at all my ornaments from 2011."

30 Weeks

Hi Family and friends! This is our 30 week pictures. We had a friend take our pictures. They aren't professional, but he did a pretty good job.

Baby boy is growing pretty fast these days. I feel like I'm stretching in every which way, and have recently found his foot in my ribs. Gary and Clementine have a bet going on when I move to the recliner for the nights to sleep.

So there are actually 9 weeks left as I'm writing this blog. We are getting things all put together. I think we really only need our other car seat. But we also have one more baby shower for friends and family that is the weekend after Thanksgiving.

I'll write more soon, and show you more pictures. We love you all!

28 Weeks

I'm trying to catch up here. This is me at 28 weeks. I'm growing fast huh???

27 Weeks

We were 27 weeks last week. I'm falling behind on my pictures. Ugh! Lots of kicking going on, even a few in my ribs. And he doesn't want me to eat more than just a few bites.....heart burn or indigestion rule my world right now. :-( That's fine though....he's going to be cute!

Happy Halloween

Here's his Room!!

Here's a glimpse into his room. It will be a little more put together when we get everything. My students are putting on a shower Nov. 13th and Cynthia is putting on a shower for friends on Dec. 5th. Don't you just love it???

26 Weeks

Here I am at 26 Weeks. I am starting to feel as big as I look. Having a lot of hip pain and I want to sleep ALL the time. Gary has been a wonderful husband taking care of me and the house.

24 & 25 Weeks

The green is 24 Weeks and the pink is 25 Weeks. I seem to have lost my sides this last week. And I finally felt him move on the outside yesterday while my students were playing. Gary has yet to feel him. :-)

October 2010

I haven't written for awhile. I'm going to start again. Since our little guy is a few months away. I thought you'd all enjoy some pictures. So this was a picture from about 20 weeks. Gary is a great photographer. Me on the other hand, is just a swollen centerpiece. :-) Not really, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm just done traveling. Airplanes do a number on my ankles. I think we'll stay home for the remainder of this pregnancy. Love you all!

Almost the End

Only a month more before school is done and life changes. In the beginning, it seemed like a long time, but now that we're through this part, it seems like yesterday that Gary and I were taking the bus to the building where he'd be taking classes. Graduation is June 12th. I think I'll throw him a party towards the end of June for our friends to come and celebrate.

I hope all is well with everyone. It's almost spring and the flowers are blooming. And the sun is shining way more in our neck of the woods. Enjoy the sun!

Beautiful day in the Neighborhood

Hello all! I don't really have anything new to report. But I wanted to write something and maybe post a picture. Doing this makes me feel just a little bit closer to you all. The weather is absolutely beautiful here today. It's sunday. Yesterday, Gary and I went for a hike up Mount Washington. Neither of us had ever been on that hike. It had about a 5000 foot elevation gain in about 4 miles. So it was steep. But boy, it felt great to get outside and hike! It wasn't this beautiful yesterday though. We got about 2 miles up and it started dumping rain. I mean bathtubs of rain. Has anyone rain through irrigation sprinklers? That's what it felt like. But we kept going up. Gary in his shorts and tennis shoes, because he didn't think it was going to be snowy or rainy. Hence, we had to turn around. We came down as fast as we could, which took about 2 hours. Being drenched and a bit tired we headed home HAPPY!

This reminds me of one of the first hikes with Gary. These first hikes in our relationship taught us a few things about each other. I met Gary at his house in North Bend back in 2006, probably in March or so. It was supposed to be raining, but we wanted to hike. We hiked Rattlesnake Ledge, which was just a couple miles from his house. Now normally this is a very popular hike with the locals. I mean 100's of people up there. But no one was there. So we went up and on our way down, I stopped and Gary said to me, "At least I know you are tough enough to hike in the rain." We were soaked. He was testing me!!! He wanted to make sure that I could do something that he loved, even in the worst conditions.

So what I learned from that is just go with the flow. As long as I have a warm car and a happy husband at the end of the hike, I'll be okay. I'm lucky enough to have a healthy body to be able to do these things with him.

I look forward to many more hikes, rainy, snowy, or sunny!

Gary's test

The results are in today!

New Stuff for the Truck

Gary put a new bumper (ARB of course) and a new suspension (ARB of course) and new tires. We are very excited to not look like the other 1000 silver 4-runners that people own. We are very fortunate for the things we have and thank God for that every day. :-)

By the way.......74 days until Gary's graduation. 50 some days until he's done with classes! 30 days until his BIG national tests and comps are done. Not like I'm counting or anything :-)

Ninety and some days and counting

I've secretly started counting down the days until Gary's graduation. 100 days until graduation, 70 days, plus or minus for vacations and days off, of actual classes or work. And he has put in 1095 days of work for this degree. GO GARY GO!!!! He's got finals next week, and then one more semester. I'm very proud of my husband, and very excited to spend a bit of time as newlyweds again. :-)

Nothing else going on new in our lives. Clementine is still crazy and I'm still busy with work. I've been cutting back a little bit at a time. Soon I'll be able to get off around 7:30 or 8:00 and spend the evening normally.

We love and miss you all!

Christmas pictures

Gary with all of his loot from Christmas. We had a great Christmas here at our house. This truly felt like our first Christmas here. I know we celebrated it early, but it was a great day.
I was a little overloaded here. I had to put on everything that I got....and new coat and a new vest and a new hat. So I may look very heavy here, but it's because I have a lot of clothes on. :-)

This is now our new tradition. Although we didn't have a dinner to go with it. You light the candles and the angels fly around the chime the bells. :-) Maybe some day our little boy can put it together.
And our Christmas tree. I think that all my presents were on the right and Gary's were on the left. It looks like I have more, but his are just stacked. We made out pretty good. Jeanie, I believe that the Hershey tradition will be carried on. :-) Lots of ornaments and lots of presents.

Happy Birthday Clementine!!!

This is when Gary told me he didn't want Clementine in his tent because she might poke a hole with her nails. I bought her booties, and the first thing she did in his tent was pee. She didn't have to wear her booties, and he gave her his pillow that night. :-)
And this is why she'll never drink again.
First night I got home with my little one. I loved her so.
Coconut was soooo mad at me. How dare I bring another kid home. He was King!

Today is our little girls' birthday. I know it may sound funny to you all, but until we have kids, we're going to treat our little puppy like our kid! She is our kid. I'm sending some pictures of when I got her. She was so tiny. I may make some cookies for her if I have time this weekend. So enjoy the pictures! She told me to tell you all the she loves all her grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins and wish she could play with you all!

I just wanted to say hello to our family out there. This is our New Years photo! Me in my size 10 dress. But pictures always add about 50 pounds! :-) We had a nice evening. Of course we did, I had the hottest guy there. :-)

Happy New Year!

January

So life is back to normal for the Hershey family. Being away from my home makes me realize how much I love my home. I used to say ' I'm going home' to Gary when I'd go back to Nebraska to be with my family. But now I say, 'We're going to Nebraska'. I just love the home we've made.

While in Nebraska, the winds were going 50 miles an hour, the roads were drifted, the power flickered in and out, but we got to do some fun things. Gary got to hunt with Mark. Not necessarily what he wanted to hunt for (turkeys were too expensive for us this year) but he walked a few tree lines for pheasants. Now he's motivated on learning how to shoot with his shotgun. He really enjoyed that Mark! Thank you! It was sort of a whirlwind for us though. We got there, and instantly we were busy. I had a baby shower to put together for my best friend Courtney. So I had to bake a cake, get some decorations, do a little shopping, put some Christmas lights up. Then it was already Christmas eve. We had a very nice dinner with my dad and aunt and uncle. Christmas day we had dinner with mom, then supper with Mark and his family. After the whirlwind, we went home to pack to go home.

We spent a whole day in Denver, seeing a friend of mine and searching out the area that we want to move to. It was very exciting to think about the future and where we will land. I loved the area, and most of the neighborhoods we looked at surprisingly had hospitals across the street. I pray that a job will land in Gary's lap. That would make moving so much easier for us.

I'll post some pictures later of our frozen, windy Christmas. We had a great time! And of course we missed the Hershey side this year. We'll be there next year!

Love,
The Hershey's