It's that time again...

32 weeks

Spring Break part 2

On the recommendation of a friend, we went to a new mall just outside of St. Louis where Britta found some very cute maternity dresses. After the mall, we went to an Italian district, know as "The Hill", where all the shops' windows were shaded by awnings matching the Italian flag to match the Italian-flag-painted fire hydrants. We stopped for dinner at an Italian restaurant called Favazzi's. You can tell an Italian restaurant is authentic when the wall decorations consist of an eclectic mix of oil paintings of Italian city/landscapes mixed with gold-framed poster prints of various photographs embellished with some sort of motto all on a wall whose paint doesn't match the carpet or the decorating theme too well. The food was okay, but the atmosphere was just right. We enjoyed it!

After dinner we went to our hotel, The Hilton, which was downtown, about two blocks from the St. Louis Arch. The hotel was packed with college wrestlers and booked solid, in spite of our reservation, so we didn't have a room. The manager on duty told us they would put us up in a hotel of comparable quality, but we would have to drive a little bit to get there. The hotel they sent us to was the Chase Park Plaza and was a notch above the Hilton. They paid for everything, including an upgrade to a King Suite. The hotel was awesome and we were offered a free night's stay by the Valet manager if Britta manages to have our baby on the 27th (his birthday) instead of the 22nd (her due date). I think I can wait it out . . . what do you think, honey?

The next day we spent at the Jefferson National Expansion Monument (the arch) and had a great time. Now for some pictures.

Spring Break part 1

Another quarter of school is over and with it a week off with no work for Britta and no school for Scott. We used the time to catch up on a few yard and home projects.

Our home purchase last summer included a patchy lawn and a dilapidated shed. The lawn was made worse when we had to replace our sewer line last fall. The robin-egg accents of access-point-protruding-PVC didn't help with the aesthetics much, either. (For reference, see the previous blog posting) Also, you may be able to see in the background the doors of the shed which hang very precariously on their hinges. These doors have gotten to the point that the planks (Battens - the vertical portion) are coming off their support beams (ledges - the horizontal braces on the inside) making them nearly impossible to keep shut and very difficult to open.

Britta worked very hard to clear away the extra dirt in the front of the yard and was able to prep the area for new grass seed, which we have since planted and covered with straw to keep the moisture in and the birds out. Britta also spread some crabgrass killer in our patchy back yard.

Scott worked on the shed doors, took them off and built new ones from scratch. Luckily, someone had recently special ordered some car-siding at Home Depot which was never picked up and so they were selling it cheaply and it was a perfect match for the original wood of the shed . . . now only to paint them to match (or, rather, repaint the entire shed).



After our chores were completed, we decided to take a trip away from Kirksville and get in touch with the larger world outside our small town by spending the night in St. Louis. Scott Pricelined a hotel and we were off.

Story of a Tree (and other landscape musings)

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful huge 100+ year old tree. Although lovely, it was growing into a house and causing damage and worry to the owners.

So it had to go. After three days of non-stop chainsaws, and discovering a large part of the tree was actually hollow, the lovely though misguided tree had dropped it's last leaf.

The owners were sad to see the tree go, especially because the loss of the tree, in addition to the replacement of a sewage line, left their front yard in sad need of attention.
Being first time home owners, the owners have no idea how to approach the new and exciting possibilities in landscaping. Should they go for a more traditional evergreen hedge/shrubs, or a more flowery country deciduous look?

Only a Scandinavian

What sort of crazy person would travel NORTH in February, driving through freezing rain, hail, a snow storm dropping 5-10", white out conditions and every sort of hazardous winter weather for almost 9 hours (5 hours of which were through winter storm warning zones), just to spend 3-4 days in sub freezing weather in a foot of snow and call it a vacation?

Me! me! me! Pick me!

It was easily the worst driving conditions I've ever been through (and that's saying something coming from a native Minnesotan) but it was totally worth it. It was the second annual Erickson Sister Weekend and even though I had a cold through the whole thing, I loved it! Here are some points of interest:

• For free Lindt truffles, go to the Lindt chocolate store at the Mall of America during a fierce snowstorm on a Thursday night in February when no one else is there. The sales guy was college aged and wearing bunny ears (?), but was super friendly and when four laughing women walked in, you can imagine the dollar signs blinking in his eyes. I had no idea how many flavors of Lindt truffles there were, but he was very generous in letting us try free samples. He even thrust free chocolate in our hands as we were leaving (after we had bought about 90 truffles for my baby shower).
• I have the best sisters in the world.

• The Rainforest Cafe is rather creepy if you're sitting below the life size mechanically animated gorillas, but the food is delish.
• The best place to spend any sort of lazy day is in Lindstrom (see number 3), even in the winter. I love my grandpa Steve, his generosity, and his love of coin collections. All the sisters left with almost a whole set of state quarters (I'm only missing Delaware and Hawaii).
• I am 7/8 Swedish and 1/8 Norwegian, but I learned that a huge chunk of my family history lived so far north they were actually in the arctic circle! No wonder I call visiting MN in February a vacation... it's in my blood!
• I love my family.
• The best way to watch Mama Mia the movie is with sisters, mom, and a brother who know all the words to all the ABBA songs and can laugh at the absurdity of the movie while reveling in it's fun. It might help if it's around midnight and everyone is deliriously tired, too.
  
• 
• Baby showers are really fun, especially when you're lucky enough to have sisters, sisters-in-law, and a mother who are so good at throwing parties. My sister-in-law Nicole made this amazing "diaper cake" as a gift to me. The picture was taken after I removed all the adorable little girl hair clips and headbands, the pacifiers, baby spoons and samples and other baby paraphernalia that was decorating it (so I wouldn't lose them while traveling). It was adorable, and is now decorating our house in anticipation of the big event.
• Baby clothes have become a trigger of excitement for me in realizing the reality of having a new baby.
• I have the best family in the world! (Did I say that already?)

Situation swap

So now we all know what Scott does when I'm out of town... The question is what am I going to do? Scott is in Washington D.C. so I am all by my lonesome, with no friend to build couch forts with. When I was in Minnesota, my sister took my 28 week picture:

Hurray for finally looking pregnant and not just fat! I had a dr appt today and everything is just as it should be. My bloodwork came back really good, especially considering I had two DQ buster bars and several cupcakes in the days before my glucose tolerance test. Yay for no gestational diabetes! Welcome last trimester!

What do you do when your wife's away?

Have a sleep over; what else?? -- Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that this was a private blog, so that the link won't work for most (all) of you.

Here's the post (most of it; I edited it to make it more relative to my audience)

Britta is gone right now. So is Emily Stacey, wife of Stephen Stacey. We took advantage of the mutual departure of our wives to have a slumber party. We stayed up late reading poetry, playing guitar, watching movies and eating junk food. We even built a fort. Emily and Britta have the "real" cameras, so we were reduced to using the iSight camera on Steve's laptop to record the event.

We pulled out all the stops on this fortress. It is complete with eerie candelabra-type magical lighting devices, mystical shields and an undead warrior guardian.