Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Peru

 
Waiting at the Atlanta airport.

  
3am - Lima airport

 
6am - Arequipa airport; Tired, but we made it! And brrr, it's cold!  It's basically their winter time down there right now, so at night it's gets down to almost 50 degrees or so.


 
Some Cathedral in downtown Arequipa.  Back of church.  It was Saturday night and people were in there praying, so we didn't use a flash.


Front of church.

 
Zig Zag's - Celebrating Randy and Kat's 6th anniversary minus the kiddos.  Had alpaca, ostrich, and beef.  Best meat ever.


Front of the cathedral, different day.  There's a beautiful park/plaza right in front of it always packed with people.

 
Some Peruvian/Incan carving on a building.

 
Mt. Misti in the background.  Means "lord".  It's a volcano that erupted about 200 years ago.

 
Mt. Chachani - means "bride".  You can't really see it, but the Chile River runs through that valley, hence all the green landscape.  Chile actually means "cold".

 
This is the best picture we could get of all 3 of us.  Addie refused to look at the camera.  Mt. Chachani in the background.

 
By a fountain at another smaller park in Arequipa.

 
Taking a break.

 
An older gentleman playing violin in the park.

 
At an alpaca/llama farm.  The difference, you ask?  Alpacas have longer hair than the llama.  The alpaca's hair also tends to have a dreadlock look to it.

 
Alpacas

 
Buenos noches!  (That's Addie under there, by the way.)

 
At the food market.  We didn't take pictures of the meat section.  All I can say is that it smelled pretty bad.  Kat says that when she goes there, there is sometimes a guy that shouts out "Gringo!"  :)  I guess "we" are an uncommon site down there.

 
More of the market.  If you've been to markets in Mexico it's sort of similar to that.




 
Addie with her cousin Logan.  And with that blond hair Addie got lots of pictures taken of her by the locals.  Shouldn't it have been the other way around??  :)

 
Probably the driest golf course I've ever played on or seen.  They get about 1-inch of rain a year.  Joel and I had bloody noses almost the entire time down there.  It's definitely drier than say, Arizona.

 
A common site on the roads of Arequipa - traffic.  They have tons of these little taxis (Tico is the type of car - similar to a Chevy Aveo, I guess?).  Most cars are stick shift.  Lots of honking and cutting each other off.  You have to be an aggressive driver.  Worse than New York or Chicago by far.  Also, you'll notice the brick for the road.  Most of the time it's brick or rock.  Arequipa is an old city (roughly 400 years old).

 
Cousin Andrew doing homework after school.  He just turned 5 in April and already learning how to write in cursive.

 
El toro! (The bull!)  No, we do not abuse our child with a hairstyle like that.  She definitely woke up like that!  

 
The ceiling lights at a restaurant we went to on the last night we were there.  I loved the decor in there.  Very modern and hip.

 
Only a tourist would take pictures of their food.  This is an appetizer made up of calamari, shrimp, avocado, onions and mango.  Really good.

 
An interesting statue at a park in Lima....

 
You can sort of see the haze.  It's much more humid and smoggy in Lima than Arequipa, seeing that Lima is right off the Pacific Ocean.

 
Kind of blurry, these few pictures here were taken in the van we were riding in.

 
Another shot of the Pacific Ocean.

 
Waiting in the food court at the Lima airport.  LOTS of people.

 
They had a group playing traditional Peruvian music at the airport.  Addie thought it was pretty cool.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Ultrasound and 20-week doctor's appointment

Our scanner is not working, so the pictures from the ultrasound I took with our camera. Ultrasound went well - took only about half an hour. Baby Z was kicking like crazy! Kicked the ultrasound wand several times. Must have been the orange juice I had this morning. Heartbeat was going about 157 bpm. The baby also wouldn't move it's head. The tech was trying to get a picture of the top of the baby's head for measuring purposes and it's head was tilted way back. The tech said baby's often find a position they like and don't move. The legs and arms were definitely moving though!

Joel and I think it's another girl, although the tech didn't tell us the gender. We didn't see any boy parts when she was measuring the femur. Although, she could have been making sure we didn't see anything. So, we'll see on d-day! We have names picked out for either gender, we think.

Also had my doctor's appt. this morning and everything was great. Joel was able to come along to both, as we had a friend watch Addie during the ultrasound. We're definitely blessed to have a healthy baby!


Feet. :)


The little kickers.


The always-creepy straight-on picture of the face.

The arms are crossed on the right, with the hands farthest on the right.

This is the baby's hand with an open palm. Knees on the left.

Profile - head on left.


Another profile. Long neck!

So on another note.... We're on our way to the hospital this morning, and we could see that the on-ramp to 169 is closed at Marschall Rd. There was also a helicopter going around and several news vans and cameras there. We asked the ultrasound tech if she knew anything about it, and she said that she knew but couldn't say much about it because some of the "victims" were at the hospital. She said it was something about a domestic dispute. We find out later that a guy shot a cop up in Plymouth and drove all the way down 169 south and he ended up going back onto the on-ramp for 169 north (turning around maybe?). It ended there, and according to the news the guy was shot and killed by the police here in Shakopee. Obviously the guy had a gun or something. Not sure if he did something to his wife??? (Edited to add: He ended up stabbing a relative in Shakopee and was running from the police) Maybe we'll hear more on the news. Anyways, kind of scary that it was that close to our house, less than a few blocks away!

Ok, read about the story at KARE11 news online (click this link). Some of my information is correct. Scary! Also read at Fox9 News that he was a suspect in a burglary on Monday....


Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Calahan David Pudell

We went and visited Matt, Amanda and Calahan today.  Matt and Amanda seem really laid back about being new parents.  And Calahan slept the entire time, which was so precious, and which made for some nice pictures.  They were even trying to wake him up so he would sleep tonight, but no such luck.  And yes, he has a lot of hair!  But after looking at these pictures more carefully I noticed that his eyebrows are lighter colored.  I think his hair will eventually be a blonder color with maybe some reddish tints to it after his mommy.  :)  Ya never know - just my guess.  Addie came out with a mullet of brown hair and it all turned blonde.  Who knows!


Monday, April 19, 2010

16 weeks 4 days


Took this picture last night.  I think I'm finally past the "is she just gaining weight?" stage.  :)  I looked at some pictures of when I was pregnant with Addie and I don't think I looked this big till about 22 weeks!  Yikes!  Crazy how much quicker the baby pops out the second time around.

Just so everyone knows, I decided not to go get the heart ultrasound and heart monitor today.  I haven't had any episodes since I've been done with Lent/Easter stuff and since I've gotten back from my vacation.  I think that these heart things, along with my high blood pressure (at least at this early point in the pregnancy) is stress related.  It's not that I'm stressed out or was stressed out, but just that I had a lot of stuff going on.  Stress isn't always a bad thing either!  Probably just not a lot of stress.  I did some praying and I just thought that going in to get an ultrasound and heart monitor would be a waste.  So, hopefully these heart things stay to a minimum for the rest of the pregnancy and my blood pressure stays relatively low.

On another note, we got to go see our friends Matt and Amanda's new baby boy, Calahan, on Saturday at the hospital.  We forgot to bring our camera so we didn't get any pictures but maybe I'll take my camera over the next time we see them and get some pictures.  Congrats and blessings, Matt and Amanda! 

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Heart stuff

Some of you got this in an email from me.  For the rest of you, here's an update:


Had an OB check-up with Dr. Griffiths on Tuesday and mentioned the increasing heart palpitations (up to 4 or 5 times a day I'll have an "episode" - rapid heartbeat basically).  I also sometimes get light-headed and/or slightly short of breath and will have to sit down.  I also mentioned this time that my mom has had issues with this as well and is now on medications.  That seemed to bother him a little more that it runs in the family.  So, he referred me to a cardiologist who I will see tomorrow (Wednesday).  My blood pressure also has gotten high during pregnancy, which is usually low under normal circumstances.  Although today the nurse took my blood pressure twice and it was back down to "normal" - 112/68.  Maybe I was stressed over Lenten/Easter stuff??  Who knows.  So, say a prayer that either one), all is well, or two), they find what is causing my heart to act all crazy.

Wednesday's update:
Had my heart doc visit this AM.  Had an EKG (where they hook you up on all parts of your body to a machine and it tests your heart rhythms).  That was fine.  The nurse listened to my heart with a stethoscope for about a minute and said she could tell that my heart would speed up and slow down a little when breathing.  Once Dr. Lin came in he determined that we should do three things:  1) Run a thyroid test, which ended up coming back fine.  2) If thyroid is fine set up an appointment for a heart ultrasound, which I'll have on Monday AM.  3) I also will have a heart monitor that I'll need to wear for 48 hours starting Monday.  Then they'll be able to see what my heart does when I have these episodes.  I had none yesterday, which is a first in a long time.  And today I've had 2 already.  Oh, by the way, if you're 27 and *only* walk 1.5 miles a day with your dog that's not much for a 27 year old, according to a heart doctor.  :)  Kim, I should join your walking group!
 
By the way, the baby's heartbeat was nice and strong at Tuesday's visit - 150 bpm.  I'm 16 weeks along today.  Big ultrasound next month!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Happy Easter!

Had a wonderful Easter weekend.  The Good Friday Tenebrae service went well (the choir always amazes me with how well they sing - 7 songs!) and then all 4 of the Easter services all went well (with a few minor problems with the organ - the organ "phantom" was back for Easter....perfect timing, eh?).  I think Easter is my favorite church festival service of the year because who can be sad when you're singing about Jesus' resurrection?  Not me, at least.  Besides, my "busy" season is done for another 7 months or so till Advent starts.  Anyways, had our friends Ryan and Erin Hulse and their 3 kids over for Easter dinner yesterday afternoon.  They also have an MLC student staying with them this weekend, so she came along as well.  After they left, Joel, Addie, and I plus the dog headed to the dog park for a walk.  I was so exhausted by the end of the night that I fell asleep in front of the TV 9:15 and then slept in till 9 this morning.  Hope everyone else's weekend was filled with the joy of Jesus resurrection and time spent celebrating with family or friends.  He is risen!  

Here are some pictures from this weekend:


 This was taken about 5 seconds before she smashed the egg.  She did this to two of them (results below - the two white uncolored eggs) before mom got smart and didn't let her grab them anymore.
 
Trying to get a picture up front by the pretty flowers and cross.

 
Guess it's not going to happen...

 
 
Checking out the chick that she got from the Strehlers last year.  When we wound up the chick to have it bounce she would get scared and run away.
 
She would take the basket and walk around saying "bye bye".  I think she thinks it's a purse.