Q & A

Since we shared the news of Geoff Jr. on the way {no, we're not actually having a Jr., especially if its a girl :) }, we've of course been having similar conversations with many of you so I thought it'd be good idea to have a mock Q&A here on our blog, especially for those of you we don't get to talk to regularly.

When are you due?

Baby Peck is expected to arrive around January 5th. Yes, we've been reminded that for tax purposes, getting baby out before 1/1/12 would be financially wise so I'll see what I can do :) Except if baby waits until 1/10, it will share its birthday with my mom which would be pretty special too. And further away from the holiday madness...

How are you feeling?

I have been spared morning sickness which is such a blessing, so I really have been feeling just fine. I am quite tired, all the time, but that's really not much to complain about. I feel lazy but I'm told my body is working hard so it's excusable. It is hard to find things to eat sometimes because more often than not, nothing really sounds good to me. I've had much more aversions to food than cravings so far. Things I am liking include: pasta, chocolate milk, lemonade, and fruit. Things that make me shudder: seafood, creamy sauces like Alfredo, and Mexican food (the Mexican has been especially hard for Geoff since we used to have it 1-2x per week...). I'm also not enjoying coffee like I used to. I drink a cup on rare occasions but generally have no desire for it. This is the biggest difference by far, because I was quite coffee-dependent!

Are you going to find out if it's a boy or girl?

This is a tough one and we really haven't decided yet. I love the idea of being surprised until the moment baby is born. I think that will just add more excitement to that day. But its also easier for planning and preparing if we know, and 9 months is a long time to call it "baby." However, we'd probably buy a lot of neutral things anyway so we can use them for more than one child. So we're still deciding on this one. Keep you posted!

The Big News

On May 2nd, I surprised Geoff with this "belated birthday gift," a bib that says I love Daddy. I had taken a pregnancy test the night before but knew I wanted to tell him in a special way. Waiting almost 24 hours to share the news with him was probably the hardest thing ever. But it was worth it to see his reaction when he opened that bag :) Pretty sure he yelled something like "holy crap! are you serious!" as he jumped up and ran over to me.

Patiently waiting to get into the doctor for another month (when I was 9 weeks along) was another difficult waiting period as we kept the secret from all our family and friends. My first appointment was June 2nd, when we got to see little baby Peck for the first time and hear the heartbeat. Amazing. We told my family that weekend when we were already scheduled to visit them, and then told Geoff's family the following weekend when we flew out to Milwaukee for a week. The timing worked out perfectly for us to tell our families in person, which was important to us, and then to finally be able to share our joyous news with all of our friends and church family after that :) We are so thankful for this new little blessing in our life, and excited for the next chapter as we embark into parenthood.

Graduations

In May, we traveled back to Cedarville University where Geoff and I met to see his brother graduate. It was a quick trip but good time spent with family. We’re so proud of you Jordan! And we’re looking forward to spending next week with his family in Wisconsin!

Last weekend we traveled back to my home, Lancaster, to see my brother graduate from high school. Hard to believe he is joining the adult world when I can so easily picture him toddling around after a soccer ball. Congratulations, Tyler. You persevered and made it through and we’re all so proud of you!

Theeeeee Yankees Win!

My family gets pretty excited about Yankees baseball. And living so close to the Orioles ballpark in Baltimore has always provided a cheaper option for seeing the Yankees play when they come to town, although we have made the trip to the Bronx several times. Anyway, the Yankees came down to Baltimore the last full weekend of April, so Geoff and I drove up to meet my family for the game. Geoff is not a Yankees fan, except that it makes me happy when they win so he puts up with them, but he was a good sport and spent his birthday cheering on my team. The Yankees put up a convincing win against the Orioles, and it was a great couple of hours spent with family!

my cute parents

me & my sister, Kara. We try not to talk about the cute baseball players around Geoff... :)

Happy birthday hon!

Hometown Fun

One of the things we love about living here in NoVa is that we're so close to my family in beautiful Lancaster, Pa. While this could/should happen fairly frequently, life gets busy and weekends go by and before we know it, its April and we haven't seen family since Christmas. oops. We remedied that a few weekends ago. There is a lot of history in Lancaster that I take for granted (or got tired of because of school field trips) and Geoff has never seen, so we took this opportunity to hit up some local historical "hot spots"...if you can call them that. A little history lesson via photos:

Geoff showing off our chocolate purchase: Wilbur Buds from Wilbur Chocolate Factory in Lititz, PA which originally began in Philadelphia in 1865. While both Wilbur and Hershey are a stones-throw from where I grew up, and I have a affinity for both, if given a choice between a kiss or a bud, I'd chose the bud. Semisweet, not milk chocolate. Sturgis Pretzels, the oldest hard pretzel maker in the U.S., celebrating 150 yrs in business. Below you can see my dad admiring his pretzel twisting skills -- he did a pretty amazing job. We all left with certificates in pretzel twisting, so if this counseling thing doesn't work out... :)

By the way, hard pretzels are pretty simply soft pretzels baked twice. They, like so many products, started by accident when a batch of soft pretzels were left in the oven overnight and fired a second time the next morning. Nice mistake!

We all left the tour with sample bags of pretzels -- yum-- which were quickly devoured. It was just about lunch time.

Speaking of lunch, per my request we went to one of my favorite sandwich places for lunch, Isaacs. Every sandwich is named after a bird so its not only delicious, but educational! I always get the same sandwich. Always. But its just so good, so why mess with perfection?! (ham and pineapple on a kaiser roll. simple yet delicious)

After our late lunch with my parents and sister, we went back to the house for a relaxing afternoon. Which, unsurprisingly, turned into us girls heading out for a little shopping at Target. One thing I miss especially about living far from my sister is not being able to go shopping with her on a regular basis. We try to remedy that any chance we get. The rest of the day was spent in a heated game of Clue and having cake to celebrate Geoff's birthday later in the month.

The next day we went to church, visited my grandparents for a few hours, and spent some time hiking before Geoff and I headed south again. Here's the girls at Chickies Rock.

So thankful for family, and the joys of home.