Ever since we moved to Sitka & our household goods were delivered, Kolt & I have been filling our storage unit with boxes of items that we have realized we do not need. It has been a few years since we had all of our belongings in one place at the same time & nothing in storage. Our living situations (there have been several) over the past few years, have caused us to buy multiples of things, mostly kitchen stuff, or we had things that we no longer needed or used, like the washing machine & dryer, or we just simply no longer had room to store things, like wedding gifts from 2005 that had never been opened or used. I am NOT a clutter bug AT ALL! I do not like keeping things in the house that do not get used & quite honestly I'm shocked that we had managed to keep 2 unopened boxes of wine glasses that were given to us as wedding gifts. We don't even drink wine!!! Anyways, with all of our storage space maxed out & a baby on the way, we needed to get rid of things. The Sitka Coast Guard Air Station has an annual community garage/ yard sale inside the hangar where Coast Guard families can buy a table to set up & then the Sitka community is invited to come into the hangar & shop, kind of like a little swap meet or flea market. I didn't realize that we had that much to sell until we were setting up this morning & realized we should have gotten 2 tables instead of 1. Since we live in Coast Guard housing, they supply us with a washing machine & dryer for the laundry room & the set we had were taking up space in the storage unit. We also decided when we do move again & if we were to buy a house we wanted a new set, so they went to the garage sale. We arrived & started setting up at 9am & they were going to open the doors to the public at 10am & it was supposed to end at 1pm. Our washer & dryer sold to another Coast Guard family that are moving out of housing, before the doors even opened. Almost everything else we had, including a desktop computer with printer & webcam, was sold by 11am. We ended up leaving with a few pieces of clothing, about 5 books, a couple flower vases, & some plastic cups & went straight to good will to donate our small amount of unsold items. All in all, we cleared out a good amount of room in the shed & made almost $1,000. With a new baby on the way & all the stuff we have to buy for her & her bedroom, we were very pleased with the extra income. Now, I get to move & rearrange our storage spaces for the 4th time since moving in. I am also very proud of myself for not buying anything from any of the other tables while we were there AND there were SEVERAL tables of very cute baby girl clothes.
After the garage sale was over & we were driving to the bank, we noticed that ALL of the fishing boats were leaving the harbors & headed north. Herring season was about to start & game & fish put the commercial fishermen on a standby. This meant that all the fishing vessels were heading to "the spot" to sit and wait & as soon as game & fish says "go", they drop their nets. We decided to drive north towards the boats to see if we could watch, however, they were too far out from the island. A lot of people were pulled over on the side of the road trying to watch, but unless you had binoculars, there wasn't much to see. They ended up opening herring season around 2:30pm for about an hour & a half. We brought the binos with us so we could see all the boats & all the spotters flying around in the air above. There was a ton of boats out on the water & we were so disappointed that it wasn't happening closer to land. Kolt is going to go out on the boat tomorrow to do some fishing & he will probably head up to the herring area to get a closer look if they open it again.
Our baby shower/ BBQ, that the neighbors are throwing for us, has been set for June 2nd & the invitations are absolutely adorable. They match the bedding we are going to get for Brinleigh's room.
This past week in Sitka has been absolutely beautiful. We had about 5 days in a row of clear blue sunny skies & no rain or snow. EVERYONE is usually outside when we have weather like this & there are tons of boats out on the water. We have a lot more boats here right now since herring season is about to start. Herring season is something that the Sitka community looks forward to every year & Kolt & I are VERY excited to experience it this year. Boats come in from all over Alaska & even from Washington since Sitka has some of the best herring seasons. Since game & fish announces the season opening only days or hours before it opens, fishermen come to Sitka in the beginning to mid March & wait until it's go time. The commercial herring season is also only open for a few days & there is a lot of money that can be made, sometimes an entire year of income can be earned from just a few days of good herring catches. From what we have heard & seen on tv, there will be A LOT of boats out on the water, some of which hire "spotters" who fly above in their planes to look for & guide the crews to the big schools of herring. All these boats in the water racing to catch all the herring & all the look out planes in the sky make for a very exciting scene for the community to watch.
Kolt has taken our boat out a few times this week & I went out one day for my 2nd time since we have been here. It was a quick trip to check a friends crab pots but Kolt has gone out several more times to actually do some fishing. Even though the weather has been beautiful it is still cold...... too cold for me on the boat. I had to do some serious shopping & invest in a good set of thermals & I have slowly started learning about the "layering" system & the different types of thermals & outerwear.
We now have quite a bit more daylight since we started gaining it back & with the daylight savings time change. The sun comes up around 6am & it is usually dark by 8pm. I have finally invested, ordered, & started hanging blackout curtains in the bedrooms. Our room was the most important, especially because Kolt is going to be working midnights starting April 1st. I have now moved on to the baby/guest room since we have company coming in May.
After a week of sunshine, we are expecting rain & snow in the next few days, according to the weather channel anyways. I'm not quite sure when exactly the weather makes up its mind here in Alaska, but hopefully spring is around the corner & we will have more days of sunshine & beautiful weather.
Kolt's Rock Fish
CRABS!!!!
Babies"R"Us - Baby Registry
Target
Kohls: Registry Number:
1675233
We found out last week at our 20 week ultrasound that our little bean is a GIRL! Kolt was a little shocked at first, I think mostly because we were certain that based on his family history that we would have a boy. I however, was not as shocked since I have thought it was a girl from the beginning. But it was nice having the confirmation & being able to now refer to "it" as a "her" & to start getting more serious about picking out a name. Since before we got pregnant we always liked the name Savannah for a girl, but we recently decided it was more common than we wanted. After looking through the baby name book & only making it to the F names, we decided on the name Brinlee & then changed the spelling to Brinleigh since my middle name is Leighann. It is a name Kolt & I both fell in love with & have never heard before & it means "sweetheart". The middle name we really like is Dilan (Dylan) & as of right now that is her name, Brinleigh Dilan, unless we decide to change it in the next 4 months.
During the ultrasound the baby was quite active, moving around & looking right at us on the monitor. She kept putting her hands together & then placing them next to her face & she also smiled a lot giving us some great ultrasound pictures. Today at our monthly check up the Dr went over the radiology report & informed us that everything looked great. They found nothing to be concerned about or any abnormalities. We also had a quad screening done last month which came back negative as well. (The quad screen testing is a maternal blood screening which checks for 4 specific substances produced by or affecting the fetus, placenta, & ovaries. These specific substances can indicate a possibility of down syndrome, neural tube defect, mental retardation, or other birth defects.)
I have gained 4 pounds which the doctor is very pleased with & my belly is measuring at 21 weeks ( I am 21 weeks & 4 days). My own personal measurements that I do at home show that my belly is currently 36 inches all the way around. At the ultrasound last week the baby was measuring at the correct gestational age & weighed 12 ounces. I am officially wearing mostly all maternity clothes now & I have also started to feel the baby move a lot more & have even felt some kicking. It is some times hard enough to surprise me & make me jump but still not hard enough for Kolt to be able to feel. The guest bedroom is now completely cleared of anything not related to the baby except the guest bed & we have all of the baby furniture set up, including our new changing table that Kolt's mom bought for us. Now it is all ready to be decorated & set up with all of her stuff. We have decided on a girly jungle/ safari theme called Cocalo jacana:
