30 Weeks

Today I am 30 weeks pregnant & definitely starting to feel uncomfortable.  This past Monday we had an ultrasound done & got to see our little baby.  We confirmed yet again that it is definitely a girl, Thank the Lord.  I would have gone into an extremely dramatic panic episode if they told me any differently.  She is growing perfectly weighing about 3 lbs now & measuring at 30 weeks as of Monday, which was only a couple days ahead of the gestational age.  She is head down which explains why her feet are always in my ribs.  She was very active as usual & it was entertaining watching her move on the computer screen & being able to feel her at the same time.  At our 20 week ultrasound I was only barely starting to feel slight movements so when we saw her move on the screen I didn't feel much.  During the ultrasound we could see her opening her mouth & sticking out her tongue & she was touching her nose with her hands.  That same day we also started our first childbirth education class.  There are a total of seven couples in the class with Kolt & I being the only ones expecting a girl.  We learned about the end of pregnancy & what is happening with the baby & my body as I prepare to go into labor.  We also learned about the stages of labor, when it is safe to stay home & when we should prepare to head to the hospital.  And then of course all the details of the actual delivery process & the husbands/ labor coaches role during the process.  Since being pregnant I haven't had any weird or unusual cravings & the only food aversions I experienced was with red meat, mostly during my 1st & 2nd trimesters.  My latest obsessions have been brownies & coke, which is weird for me since I normally prefer Pepsi & don't bake brownies very often.  As of now I am baking a new pan of brownies about every 5 days & had to go buy a 12 pack of coke since we usually only have Mt. Dew in the house.  We also received GREAT news this week!  My mom wasn't going to be able to come visit when the baby is born, but Cordale managed to work some things out & as a wedding anniversary gift to my mom, he is sending her up to visit for about 2 weeks so she can see the baby when she is born.  We are very excited that both our mother's will be coming up to visit & will be here to help us with the baby in the first few weeks.  

   

29 Weeks Down.... 11 more to go

I am now 29 weeks pregnant & definitely still growing (about 1/2 an inch a week).  On top of the back pain, heartburn, & constant urge to pee, I now get to feel the wonderful sensation of being jabbed in the ribs at random moments.  It's not comfortable at all & at times quite annoying.  A few weeks ago we found out that Kolt can hear the baby's heartbeat if he puts his ear to my belly.  We read about this in one of the pregnancy books & decided to give it a try.  I started going to physical therapy a few times a week to help with my back pain.  Apparently I don't have an arch in my back that most pregnant women get from their pelvic bones moving forward.  My back is staying somewhat flat causing me to carry a lot of weight in my back & putting extra pressure on my back muscles & nerves.  
We start our childbirth education classes this coming Monday & will have one class a week for five weeks.  We also have our 3rd trimester ultrasound coming up next week & then begin to see the Doctor every 2 weeks.  Our first visitors are coming in a couple weeks.  One of Kolt's best friends from the Army, Dustin Zumwalt, & his wife will be here for about a week.  Shortly after their visit we have our baby shower on June 2nd.  As of right now my last day of work is scheduled to be June 29th & then my sister is coming to Sitka on July 23rd.  So we will see when Brinleigh decides to make her debut.  I think these last 11 weeks are going to go by pretty quickly.

28 Weeks:

  
Coast Guard Alaska Season 2 premiered a few weeks ago on the weather channel & I hope you are all watching.  So far every episode has had stories from the Sitka air station & some of the episodes have been all Sitka air station stories.  A nice change from last season where they covered more Kodiak stories.  Tonight's episode showed the Coast Guard rescuing one of their own.  Flight mech Andy Dennison & his family were reported overdue after their boat ran aground & got stuck on shore on Nakwasina Island.  This is somewhat ironic since Andy had to "rescue" Kolt & his friend Steve a few weeks ago from Nakwasina Island when the tide went out & left Steve's boat aground.  
     

Easter Sunday on the Boat

So I just realized that I never posted about our first Easter in Sitka...... not that anything exciting happened, haha.  It was absolutely beautiful outside & so we decided to load up the boat & spend some time on the water.  We took Gunner with us & did a little fishing.  We didn't see much wildlife except for some sea otters & Kolt caught a few rockfish.  It was a very relaxing day with our little family.  Here are some pictures from the day:


Mt Edgecumbe:

Some of the beautiful scenery:  

Catching Some Fish:

Sea Otters:

 

I know it seems like I haven't been keeping up on the blog, but the truth is........ our life is pretty boring here in Alaska.  The only interesting thing we really have going on right now is the pregnancy.  I am now 26 weeks & my growing belling is slowly getting bigger.  My only complaints are back pain, a lot of back pain, & my new found relationship with heartburn, which doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon.  The baby kicks hard enough now that Kolt can feel her when he puts his hand on my belly.  I can definitely tell she is getting bigger by her movements & that she now kicks me in the ribs.  A couple weeks ago I had a glucose screening to test for gestational diabetes, which came back negative.  This Monday we go see the doctor for our monthly checkup.  During the month of May we will be taking a childbirth class every Monday night & our Baby Shower will be June 2nd.  Kolt started working the midnight shift a few weeks ago & so we have been adjusting to his new schedule.  He will stay on mids until he goes on leave when the baby is born.  Kolt seems to like it & it is slowly growing on me as well.  

Pregnant Belly at 24 weeks:

25 Weeks:

26 Weeks:   

Community Garage Sale

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.  

       

Spring? or Winter?

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!!!!

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Kohls:  Registry Number:  1675233