Touristas!

We returned from a week in Tennessee to a house void of food. Isn't that always the way things work out? Go out of town for a while and come home to moldy cheese and a half empty tub of peanut butter. Since we will be in town for a few days before heading back out of town for middle school summer camp, we NEEDED to get some groceries. Makes sense right?

But here is where we went terribly wrong: hitting the only local grocery store (unless you also count Walmart) at noon on the Saturday before July 4th. We should've known it was a mistake when we drove into an almost completely full parking lot. We got inside the store to see dozens of carts filled with chips and dip, sodas, booze, funnoodles, and coffee cake. 

Yes friends, the tourists are in full force.

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It's been an interesting few years for Jordan and myself, living in a town that thrives on tourism. Sure Augusta is tourist heavy for 1 week of the year, but between the snow birds that invade Rockport from October to March and the families/college kids that come from Spring break to labor day, we're pretty much a year-round tourist destination. (Snow birds will insist that they are NOT tourists. They also prefer the term "Winter Texans." But we just let them keep believing what they want to believe.) The touristas are pretty easy to spot, whether on the road, in the restaurant, or at the store. So as a service to anyone doing any traveling this summer, I've compiled a list of "tourist donts"for your reading pleasure.

Enjoy! 

1. Please. PLEASE. Don't wear your bathing suit outside of the beach/pool. Obviously within the confines of your rent house/condo/hotel room is acceptable as well. But for real, nobody (and I mean NObody) wants to see you in a swimsuit at Walmart. Or Walgreens. Or Chili's. Put on some shoes and a coverup at least! I've gone to eat at nice restaurants here in Rockport and been seated next to folks who are still in their sopping wet bathing suit. I was unlucky enough to see a "don't #1" offender today at the grocery store... swimsuit (no coverup) and pool shoes.  Seriously- someone still makes pool shoes? Anyway, the part that really had me scratching my head in confusion is the fact that today it rained ALL DAY LONG. There was no pool/beach time to be had unless you wanted to brave the rain and occasional thunder & lightning. But that didn't stop this lady from wearing her beach gear in public.

It's just gross. Don't do it.

2. Speaking of restaurants, remember that just because you're out of town it doesn't mean that you can throw away all common decency. This means children should still be somewhat contained and not allowed to run wild. This means you should save being loud, drunk, and obnoxious for the confines of your rent house/condo/hotel room. This means that your waiter or waitress would still like a tip (heard dozens of complaints about tourists being notoriously bad tippers!).

Simply remembering that you aren't alone on an island (even if you so happen to be on an island) might conjure up feelings of responsibility and spur on appropriate behavior.

3. Speaking of debauchery and loudness (and since July 4th is just around the corner), remember when you get the urge to shoot off some fireworks at 1:30am that there are full time residents of Rockport next door who have to work tomorrow. Someone's got to restock the styrofoam cooler aisle at Walmart.

Shooting off fireworks at 1:30am on July 4? Marginally acceptable.

Shooting off fireworks at 1:30 am on June 30??? Just plain rude.

4. Between the beaches and the birds, Rockport can be pretty scenic. But please don't block up the road driving <12mph with a camera hanging out the window taking blurry moving photos of the waves or a pelican.

5. And for the love of all things lovely, don't feed the seagulls. 

One-a-see, Two-a-see, Three-a-see...

It's been a quiet week here on the home front, with the exception of several crazy work days in L&D. 10+ pound babies and projectile vomiting was all the rage apparently. But I get a long stretch of time off of work for now... because it's that time of year again... Summer camp!

We leave bright and early (read: tired and grumpy before sunrise) tomorrow morning with a great group of high school students on the way to Cleveland, Tennessee for Student Life camp. Camp is always a bit of an undertaking, but seeing our students grow in their relationship with Christ is such a joy that it far surpasses any of the bumps and grumbles that come along with summer camp. This will be our first experience with Student Life, but I've consistently heard great things about them and am really looking forward to hearing Jeremy Kingsley again.

So the blog will be quiet until next weekend when we return, but I'm sure to have lots of great stories and pictures from the week. Prayers for our students & leaders for safety, health, good rest and a heart-changing connection with the Lord is much appreciated. We will also be traveling over the next 2 days and returning over 2 days next weekend, so I'll also welcome any prayers over our vehicles and drivers!

See you soon!

Happy Birthday Husband!

Jordan spending time with the kids in Mombasa.

My funny honey is one year older today and I want to wish him a very happy birthday! He admitted yesterday during Sunday school that this is his last year to be a kid because "next year i'll be 30 and have a kid, so I'll finally be an adult!"

I am so thankful for my wonderful husband - he is such a great man who loves Jesus. Is there anything more important? On top of that, he is kind and thoughtful and he makes me laugh all the time! There's never a dull moment at our house! I am just thrilled beyond words at the thought of him becoming a father later this year. I know he will be the leader and love-giver that our child needs.

So Happy Happy Happy Birthday to you lovey cakes!




Ps: I added a poll to the sidebar that'll be up'n'running until my due date... so tell me what you think! Is baby Mims a girl or a boy???

Going Around in Circles

Even though I've been looking at baby items since peeing on that little stick that said "pregnant," I haven't wanted to register until I got past that all-important 20 week anatomy scan and check up. So I feel like I've got the green light to get serious about our baby's registry, with the exception of one thing.

I'm pretty clueless.

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After inputting "Baby Must Haves" into the Pinterest search engine, I found someone had pinned a Louis Vuitton bag as a "Baby Must Have." I'm not exactly certain, but I can only assume that a $1000.00 purse isn't quite an essential registry item.

Obviously, I'll need some kind of car seat contraption. And diapers of some sort. And something for my baby to sleep in. I've got my brain wrapped around these main items. Outside of this, however, my mind is swirling around, going in circles... I mean, have you seen the wall of bottles/pacifiers at Babies R Us?

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I think back to my wedding registry (hindsight is always 20/20!) and if I'd known then what I know now, I would have registered completely different! Why the heck did I register for wine glasses? We don't even drink. And I think my Panini press is still in the box. A casual set AND a formal set of dishes? Howabout paper plates vs real plates? If I could do it all over again, I'd register for a higher quality set of steak and carving knives and some really great towels.

In an effort to keep from kicking myself in 2 years over my complete lack of baby registry knowledge, I'm putting myself out there... so all you moms out there, give me your opinions on these two questions:

What do you think is a must-have baby item? 
What did you register for and surprisingly never use?

20 weeks!

It's hard to believe this pregnancy is now half over. It has already gone by so quickly! Jordan assured me this morning that the second half goes slower than the first, but I don't know if I believe him. All is now right in my world for the time being. My wonderful husband has returned from his African adventure and I had a fantastic check up this morning with Dr. Canterbury. 

It really is incredible to see the changes in my little squirt over the last 12 weeks. The first sono was just a little bean shaped thing with a heartbeat. Then around 11 weeks I snuck in a little ultrasound time while at work one day and saw a little teddy graham. But today's sono was amazing! It was a surreal moment getting to see my sweet baby kicking and moving around inside bouncing off the walls. The ultrasound tech even made a few comments as to how active this little one is. I then apologized for drinking a few swallows of orange juice before coming in for my scan. 

All in all, the anatomy looks as perfect as can be! Jordan and I breathed a huge sigh of relief to see a normal brain, spinal cord, and heart. I was also happy to hear I had a fundal placenta and a normal cord insertion site. The tech got such great pictures of the heart, that we were able to see that structurally my little kicker's ticker is very normal. Dr. Canterbury assured us that we could rule out 98% of cardiac problems just by seeing structure and normal blood flow. Because of Jordan's cardiac history, we were going to have a fetal echocardiogram next month, but after getting a great report today, have decided to opt out of this. 

Check out my little pumpkin!

Hello world! (face, body, right hand)

I'm trying my best to hold still.... (profile)

... but I'm just a little wiggler! (back/spine, head -looking down)

And of course a belly shot! 

Same tank top, Same jeans... New & Improved Bump!!

Stats:

Size: A Banana! (Or 6.5")

Cravings: Still nothing specific. I keep waiting to capitalize on the whole weird pregnancy craving thing, but am having no luck with that so far.

Aversions: None!

Movement: I felt my first little poke at about 17 and a half weeks and am feeling all sorts of bumps and wiggles these days. It's just the most bizarre thing ever. 

Gender: We're having a...............................................................

SURPRISE! 

We chose to look away this morning when the sono tech was checking out the gender, so she's the only person who knows what I'm growing. Jordan and I are super excited about our little surprise baby!

Clothes: I have a mix of maternity and regular clothes. My regular jeans and shorts still fit, but the maternity shorts are so stinkin comfortable! Why don't we wear stretchy panel pants all the time?!

Looking forward to: Hitting that viability mark (24 weeks) and getting to the point where Jordan can also feel baby movements.

Staying Productive

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wouldn't make a good military wife. Or wife of a husband who is gone overseas for business. I just like having my husband around and I can only assume that's a good thing. The Kenya team gets back home this Wednesday evening, which thrills me to no end! While hubby's been away, coordinating Sunday morning and Wednesday night activities for the youth has fallen on my shoulders (with plenty of extra helpers!), which is fine, except the team arrives into Corpus right in the middle of our Wednesday night worship service. So do I skip out and surprise my hubby? Or just do my job and wait another hour to see him and smother him with lovin? Oh the choices.

Here's a little recap of what the Kenya team has accomplished this past week:

They set up and ran a free medical clinic out of a church in Mombasa. On Monday, they only saw about 150 patients, but apparently the word got out to the community and they saw over 200 patients each day until Saturday when the clinic was only open a short time. Can you even imagine? 2 Doctors and 3 nurses seeing over 200 patients in less than 8 hours? Needless to say, they were exhausted! Each day when the clinic was coming to a close, one of the pastors that went on the trip (3 of our 5 staff pastors went on this trip!) gave a short sermon to the crowd and the gospel was shared many times (I'm thinking hundreds of times) throughout the week. On Saturday after the clinic was officially closed, the team held a worship service and invited everyone from the last week to join them. They specifically asked for those people who had made the decision to follow Christ as their savior this week to be at this worship service, where they would have the opportunity to be baptized. Jordan said over 100 people returned to the church for baptism on Saturday. What a testimony of God's great power and love!!! The team was back at the church for their regular Sunday worship time and then packed their bags and traveled to another hotel in Kenya where they would be embarking on a Safari Monday morning! The hard work (and it sure sounded exhausting!) is behind them and now they get to enjoy Africa for a couple of days before leaving the country Tuesday night and arriving home Wednesday afternoon. Cant wait to hear more stories from the team in the days and weeks to come!

Not to be outdone (ha!), here's a little recap of what I accomplished this past week (brought to you in lazy blogger bullet fashion):
-I entertained my sister until last Wednesday morning, feeding her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and letting her drive me around San Antonio. She also helped me prep for a Sunday school party and listened to me scream at the VW dealership.

-I still don't have a car for those of you keeping track of that fiasco.

-My left tricep has been twitching for 24 hours.

-I spent a few wee hours of the morning (say like 1am) nursing some of my first round ligament pains. I got it all sorted out and when I woke up that day, I was sporting quite the bump.  Pics to come with my 20 week update on Thursday.

-I successfully (fingers crossed) transitioned Mauve out of her kennel. She now spends all of her days wandering around the house, which I'm sure she enjoys over laying in a kennel. Only problem I've run across is realizing how much hair she accumulated in the kennel, because now it's covering every square inch of the house.

-I hosted an extremely successful scrapbooking night at church where there were exactly 0 participants. Maybe next month.

-I've started and almost finished season 8 of Hell's Kitchen. Hulu's not where it's at in the summertime when there are no new shows.

-I havent discharged any firearms yet (I'm looking at you VW of CC.).

Dont poke the preggo.

My dearest most favorite little sister ever is now back in her own home, which makes me sad, but our visit was fantastic. Even if we took naps and ate peanut butter & jelly. It was good. I spent the majority of my time since Friday doing one of two things: spending time with Cas, and being absolutely furious with Volkswagen of Corpus Christi.

I thought long & hard about whether or not I'd use names and throw the dealership under the bus. Well, look at that, I just did. Don't cross the pregnant lady, because I'll go all shades of hormonal crazy on you. 

Here's the situation (in a nutshell). Last wednesday (as in a week ago from yesterday), the airbag fault light came on in the Jetta. Jordan made an appointment at the dealership for 9am on Thursday morning to have the oil changed and the light serviced. Without going into too many details, you can fast forward to Tuesday when I finally got a call about the diagnosis. Should I mention that I had to call SIX times to talk to a person about what was wrong with my car? Because I did. Four entire days and six phone calls later and I'm finally aware of what the problem is. Surprise, surprise! It's the airbag. 

Sidenote: I'm no car expert, but I can read a manual and the manual told me that if the airbag light was on, it means that there's a problem with the airbag ignitor. As in, the airbag may not engage if I got in a wreck, or even worse, may engage when I'm not in a wreck. But regardless, it's an airbag problem. Sidenote over and out. 

So, imagine my fury when it takes the service department FOUR days to tell me that the ignitor has gone out and needs replacing. I just keep thinking that it'd be a lot better for the service person if Jordan was here to take care of this *ahem* issue. Because he'd be waaaaaay nicer than I have been. I hit new levels of volume on the phone while screaming at the service person. The service that we've gotten has been absolutely unacceptable. Both the ridiculously long timeline and a complete lack of contact from the dealership regarding my car (even after leaving five messages!). I still am completely flabbergasted that it took as long as it has just to diagnose the problem. I mean, had I gone in Thursday for open heart surgery, I would be home by Tuesday. I think in hospital talk. Just bear with me. 

Sidenote: I'm no car expert, but I assume that if the airbag light is on, that means it can only be one problem. A check engine light? Or a mechanical light? Tons of potential problems. It would make sense that a problem with a single issue would be easy to diagnose, whereas a problem with many potential issues would take a bit longer. I'd hate to know how long my car would sit there if we'd come in with a service engine light. Sidenote over and out.

I screamed at the service person to order the part and fix my car. He tells me that they'll order the part Tuesday and it should be in by late wednesday or the Thursday at the latest. Today is Thursday, but did I get a call about my car? Nnnnnnope. So I called once again to get an update and my service person was apparently gone for the day. Nobody else was able to tell me if my car was ready or not, so here I am once again completely out of the loop. And I'm about ready to bust some skulls. 

I'd rather tow my car to Houston or San Antonio to avoid ever stepping foot in VW of CC again. And you can forget ever buying a car from them (which is unfortunate for them considering the Contour's been on it's last leg for about 3 years now.). Ridiculous. Absolutely inexcusably ridiculous. 

Last sidenote I promise: I did a little market research by calling other VW dealerships here in the great state of Texas. Despite not actually doing any business, one service department kindly helped me and answered questions for twenty minutes. The general consensus was that an airbag light can be diagnosed usually within 4 hours, with a full repair taking an overnight stay IF a part needs to be ordered. Take that VW of CC.

Punks.

But Mostly Tex-Mex

After about 48 hours worth of traveling & lay-overs, I got this picture from the hubs this morning:

The Kenya team made it safe & sound to Mombasa... and after flying Corpus Christi to Dallas, then Dallas to London, then London to Nairobi, then Nairobi to Mombasa, all of the luggage made it safe & sound too! I was able to FaceTime (thanks iPhone!) with Jordan for about 15 minutes around lunchtime today, which was both bizarre because he's halfway around the globe and wonderful because he's halfway around the globe.

My lovely lovely sister has come all the way to Rockport to keep me & Mauve company while Jordan is a jillion miles away. Of course, this is awesome and makes me feel a lot less lonely slash vulnerable.

After picking Casey up in Houston yesterday, we did a small amount of shopping (yay for new living room decor. Love me some HomeGoods) and met up my in-laws, niece and nephews for dinner at Escalantes. Aren't the kiddos just adorable?? The baby gender consensus between Cameron & Ava was split- of course my niece said baby is a girl, but my nephew insisted that it was a boy. So we'll see. I think Cas enjoyed the real thing tex-mex, which is good, because I think we'll hit up Chuy's tomorrow for lunch and then breakfast tacos at Arandas on Tuesday. We've got tons of fun plans for this week, and maybe for one meal we won't actually eat mexican food.

But mostly we'll have tex-mex.