John's Favorite Gift

John and I have had a quiet and relaxing holiday week so far.  On Christmas Eve we both worked all day, but enjoyed curling up to the classic "A Christmas Story" movie that evening before an early bedtime (John had to get up at 3am to go to work so he could get home early on Xmas Day).  When he got home around 11am, we made a Kinsey favorite for lunch (the ham loaf), opened gifts, watched Christmas movies, and played games.  We both worked again on the 26th, but enjoyed using my parent's gift card to The Melting Pot restaurant for a 4-course fondue meal that night.  And today, we headed downtown to San Fran for a bit of it's holiday spirit (see below), and had dinner using the gift money from John's grandma.  It's definitely been a different kind of holiday without family and friends, but we'll cherish this quality time together forever I'm sure.

John's favorite Christmas gift this year is his new SLR camera (he thanks all who contributed!).  He's been trying it out on anything and everything around him.  I was very hesitant on John getting a new camera (since he thinks he needs the newest and latest one that comes out every year), but I will admit, this one takes much clearer pictures, especially in low light.

Here's Sienna with her Christmas gift

And Sienna mad at me for interrupting her nap with daddy

"Sienna Claus"--an outfit given to us by a friend

Which she tolerated for approximately 5 seconds

Union Square's 80 foot Xmas tree!

Ice-skating in front of the tree.  But our favorite Xmas activity at Union Square each year, is Macy's window display complete with adorable, adoptable kittens.  It's REALLY hard not to take one home!

The lighted streets of downtown

And me, on the subway ride home, after hours of watching John take photos--ha, just kidding, it was fun.  He appeased me by letting me buy a couple outfits for the baby :)

Hockey, Cookies, & Trains

Saturday night we drove down to San Jose to take in a Sharks hockey game. Cheyenne loves to go with me because of the following reasons:

a) she is able to eat Una Mas deluxe nachos, 

b) she enjoys joining the crowd to move her arms in a motion replicating a shark chewing when the Sharks go on a power play, and 

c) to sit, wait, and hope throughout the entire game that her seat will be selected as the winner of any one of the numerous prizes awarded. 

The Sharks beat the NY Rangers 3-2, so it was a good game!

The majority of Sunday was spent preparing, baking, and decorating Christmas cookies. I love my mom's recipe so Cheyenne helped me make them since we will not be traveling back to WI to enjoy them in person. I tell ya', it was exhausting but damn worth it.  Do you think we made enough cookies for 2 of us?  Ha...I wonder why I weigh 225 pounds?!?

Monday evening we had reservations to head down to Santa Cruz to jump on the holiday train that is decorated in lights and holiday spirit and also features elves, Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and hot cider, and sing-a-long carols. Before we got on the train, we took a brisk walk to the boardwalk to scarf down some fish and chips. We were in a bit of a hurry since we didn't have much time because we had to catch the train. We ate quickly and scurried out of the restaurant, but as we were leaving the waiter caught up to us to give us the hat Cheyenne left behind. Whew! We then walked back to the train at an Olympic speed-walker's  pace. Just when we reached the train to stand in line, Cheyenne exclaims, "where is my purse?" S*%#! I gave her my camera bag and RAN back to the restaurant, which is roughly one-mile away. Now picture this...a semi-out-of-shape and extremely full guy running at a fairly speedy pace. Yep, that was me. While I was running down the boardwalk, I was mocked by a group of high schoolers with the ever so clever, "run Forrest, run!" If I had more time, the half of me that is in shape would have come out to play. Nonetheless, I made it to the restaurant but to no avail. The purse was no where to be found. As I jogged back (wheezing, mind you) to Cheyenne, my mind scrambled to think of all the things we had to do when dealing with a lost purse. Finally, I saw Cheyenne. While catching my breath I sputtered, "did you leave it in the car?" We strolled to the car (right next to where I had left Cheyenne and the train), unlocked it, and what did I spy in the front seat....but the 'missing' purse. Crisis averted.  What do ya think--pregnancy brain or just blonde?

We did make it on the train in just enough time. Just as we found seats on the train did we hear a ruckus coming from a few seats down. Two mothers are screaming at each other over the seating arrangement. F-bombs and S-bombs are being dropped left and right. Luckily, an elf came by to separate the two (not really, but the story is funnier this way) and all holiday spirit was restored to maximum capacity. Merry F-ing Christmas! Nothing warms me up like a unnecessary jog and two middle-aged women fighting over seats with a train filled with children...well, this is not to say I don't thoroughly enjoy the overcrowded malls and the menacing people stampeding through Target!

Have a great holiday season. To those of you who have endured the snowy winter in the mid-west/east coast I have this to say to you....ha, suckas!

Merry Christmas.

IT'S A ....

It's a GIRL!!!!

What was the first thing we did after we found out we're having a little girl?  We headed to the mall of course to go shopping!  First, we headed to the Build-a-Bear workshop where we built our future daughter a teddy bear (dressed just like me-lol).  

Here's the baby's first footprint

And her profile--well almost, the tech was frustrated she couldn't get it exact, so it's not the best picture

After we built the bear, we decided to try and take a picture with Santa.  I had what I thought was a cute idea for our xmas card...I wanted to sit on Santa's lap, with John kneeling next to us, and have Santa put his hand up to his ear towards my belly, like he was listening to the baby's first xmas wishes...but Santa and his team were less than amused by us, and didn't really want to cooperate to say the least, which made us uncomfortable--can you tell by our facial expressions?, and this is the best one!  But they did give us this digital photo for free--I think they just wanted to get rid of us.  So...we went home and took our own xmas card photo...a less than original photo, which you'll all be getting soon.  Then we shopped for a few cute girl outfits...very fun.

On Saturday night, we attended the extravagant annual Genentech work xmas party, again held at the SF Giants stadium...complete with a ferris wheel, ice skating, food and music tents, a bull riding ring (I tried to get John to do this so I could video for the blog, but the line was too long), and marshmallow pits.  Craziness, again.

On Sunday, we headed down to Monterey for our xmas celebration with Celia and Sean before they headed to New Zealand.  We exchanged gifts, saw a one man show of "It's a Wonderful Life", attempted to see the lighted boat parade on the Bay and go ice skating, but got rained out, and instead had dinner and played cards.

Monday night, I had my hands-on final for my massage class...I just have one more class tomorrow and I'm done!--can't wait.  So needless to say, it was a jam packed weekend--so much so that my body decided to let me know I guess.  I got the closest thing to a migraine that I've ever had--got super nauseous on my drive home from class, and had to pull over to throw up, 3 times!  In the 2 months I had morning sickness I never threw up, but yesterday?...hmm...odd. I guess I'll be thankful that was the only time.  And I feel completely fine today!  :)  Pregnancy is weird.

Christmas is coming!

This past weekend Celia and Sean came up on Saturday night for dinner.  The boys grilled steak on the roof while the girls prepared the baked potatoes and salad.  This dinner was thanks to John's xmas present from my aunt/uncle, Fred and Kim, who know John well and had a box of steaks/pork chops/gourmet franks/burgers delivered to our door--he's in heaven.  

On Sunday we all did some window shopping and had lunch in Half Moon Bay, and then Celia and Sean humored us while we searched endlessly for the perfect xmas tree to cut.  We walked and walked, at one point up a steep hill (Sean was a trooper and did it with a pulled quad), and finally settled on a "decent" tree we had seen in the first 5 minutes of searching.  

Turns out, it had one good side, and once we added lights and ornaments, we deemed it "beautiful"!  Here I am with the tree, at 17 weeks, trying to look as pregnant as possible for John's photo shoot.  I was starting to worry a little when everyone at my work, and people in WI were saying I didn't really look pregnant...but my paranoia was put to rest at the doctor's yesterday when we heard baby Heltemes' little heartbeat!  Personally, I think I've really "popped" this week--what do you think?  :)  Ok, I don't know why, but this photo wouldn't upload unless I made it large instead of medium sized.

Flying Turkeys

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend in Wisconsin; well, besides the cold, 10-inches of snowfall, and windchill. My Thanksgiving morning consisted of playing football in the snow with Dylan's friends and then preparing a sweet potato casserole, alongside Brooke and Dylan who were making a corn casserole and guacamole, to bring to the Strube's home. Cheyenne flew in that morning and helped her parent's prepare for the large feast and family gathering. 

All sixteen of us sat down to devour two kinds of turkey, traditional and deep-fried, stuffing, casseroles, and desserts. I won the "weight gain" competition, which measures the difference between the before and after dinner weights; I gained 4.2 pounds. I am equally proud and ashamed!

Throughout the long weekend, we saw plenty of new additions to our circle of friends: 

Alana Schoen

Kyle Watson-Johnston

Aveya Ziegler

Noah Lund

I was able to use my new baby, Nikon D300, with Dylan when we ventured to Milwaukee to take cityscape photos. Later that night, a group of us scarfed down the world's largest pizza while playing "Catch Phrase" and "Guitar Hero". 

Click here is you would like to view an assortment of photos.

On Sunday night, we all gathered at the Heltemes' residence to enjoy each other's company and eat some more food. There we learned Kathy Strube and Brooke Molitor excel at the game "Mad Gab". 

Monday night we left to head back to a moderately warm climate; but United Airlines decided to throw us a curveball:

Our flight was scheduled for 6pm; it was then delayed to 8:30pm, then 9:30pm, then 10:30pm (see a pattern?), then 11:30pm, and then finally 12:30am. The result of this delay was a lack of ground crew. We then sat on the plane for 50 minutes while they scrounged up crew to de-ice our plane. After arriving in Denver (and missing our connecting flight by 6 hours) we taxied on the runway for 20 minutes and walked about 3 miles to find luggage claim. Now, it is 2am. Our rescheduled flight from Denver to San Francisco is at 6am. We quickly set up camp in the ticketing section of the airport. Cheyenne was able to catch some Zzzzz's but I was so angry and uncomfortable I couldn't sleep for more than 2o minutes. I walked the airport and at 4:30am I saw that United had conveniently delayed our flight two additional hours. After getting our tickets at 5:30am, we sat down to breakfast and sat patiently at our gate. Our flight ended up leaving at 8:30am (2.5 hours late). Cheyenne had to call and have her work cancel her entire morning slate of patients. I, on the other hand, told my work I would not be in at all because I was exhausted, pissed off, and hadn't showered in over 24 hours. After finally arriving in San Francisco and obtaining our luggage (which we assumed would be lost, given our previous experiences with United) we took the shuttle to get our car from the parking garage (we had to pay an additional days worth of fees because of the flight delays). We drove home, opened the door, set down our bags, and I got a phone call. It was my mom...Grandpa Andrews (my mom's dad) just died that morning from pneumonia. Could it get any worse?

What a horrible way to end a great Thanksgiving trip home to see family and friends.