Most or all of you probably know by now that we are expecting a baby boy sometime around December 20, so that has been the focus of a lot of our free time- researching products to add to our registry, trying to clear a room for a nursery, sanding/painting bargain furniture for the wee Womble's stuff (Patrick gets 95+% of the credit on the refinishing- thanks babe!), and things of that sort. We've been particularly excited lately because in addition to me feeling the little guy a lot more, Patrick is now able to sense his kicking and movements as well. I'm already experiencing some discomforts at 25 weeks, so I am trying to brace myself for the coming months knowing the rapid growth is only just about to begin!
As for my career, I've just passed the one year mark serving in a new department on campus- a pilot shared services center. It's constantly busy, but I enjoy having a team to work closely with and a boss that's been mentoring me. I've also been attending a Toastmasters Club on campus since February, which occupies me weekly with meetings, the occasional speech to practice, and more recently I've become the VP Public Relations so I need to get my butt in gear and start tending to my official duties!
Patrick has inherited more projects but has a lot less people around to help him with them, so he's felt the workplace pressure this year too. He still worked in time to participate in a fair amount of the activities our church's summer men's program offered though, so I'm happy he had that outlet! Our to-do list seems to keep growing in office and out. For instance, we have to go test driving and car shopping soon since we plan to sell back our primary vehicle to VW, with the reparations package for the emissions scandal being financially profitable to us. We lucked out on that, but it does mean a little additional leg work in the meantime.
Due to all these demands, we haven't been as recreational in 2015-16, not having done as much backpacking, etc., but we've still managed to work in some pretty cool outings here and there, such as kayaking Mono Lake and exploring the ghost town Bodie the weekend of Labor Day 2015; hiking Mt. Whitney in 14 hours last fall despite the weather going pretty sour; I ran my first marathon this spring in 4:24:26; and Patrick went white water rafting this summer.
I'd love to circle back to some of those things and highlight them in postings of their own to show off photographs, but for now I'll just offer a few images from our most recent activities.
August 20th we went for my first hike while being pregnant, so we kept it a day trip, around 5 miles total since I'm pretty out of practice and didn't want to overdo it (I still huffed and puffed up the hill quite a bit though!). We did a semi-loop with a side trail off to Dog Lake, pictured above. The weather was gorgeous, and a welcome relief from hot Merced temps.
Patrick heard about a community art project- an artist named Monika Modest, who has been involved in several mural installations around town, invited people to her studio on September 7 to paint a ceramic poppy that would be installed in Bob Hart Square downtown. It was only $5 per poppy and proceeds go toward two local charitable organizations.
Next to me is the artist (we closed out the place since I'm a slowpoke!). It was hard to visualize exactly how our poppies will turn out since the paint soaks in and looks very light, but she had color guides to show us what each would resemble after firing. Monika said she'd send an email to show the participants how they all look, and the installment should be up by November to see on permanent display- only a couple minutes walk from my office building.
We paid for 3 poppies- one for me, one for Patrick and one for Baby. We tried to make Baby's look like a mashup of our two poppies. :) We'll have to show you what they look like once complete!
Usually Patrick has been my amazing cheerleader at my races, but we participated in our first ever race together this morning! The UC Merced campus hosted a 5K to help raise money for scholarship funds and several of my coworkers were going- I figured even though I haven't been working out or running most of the pregnancy, I could at least walk it and therefore I could probably persuade Patrick to do it with me. :) We kept a decent pace, it was a cheery family event, and we went out with some of my colleagues to Jamba Juice afterward, so it was a fun affair all around. Oh- our compadre shown is school mascot, Rufus the Bobcat.
I'd say more to come soon, but with our recent track record, who knows! Hope life is going well for you too, though!
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