The Unexpected

William Oliver Ainge was born on Thursday, December 6th at 1:12 PM. He weighed 6 lbs 9 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. For those of you want to hear the birth story, read on. If you don't want to know, enjoy the pictures!

Nothing ever happens the way you expect it to, and my labor and delivery definitely fell into that category. The classes I took and books I read didn't prepare me the way I thought they would. First of all, everyone said that when I was actually in labor, I would know it. Well, not exactly. I woke up Thursday morning with a backache, but didn't think too much of it because it didn't feel like contractions. It was hard to pick out the waves of pain because my back hurt ALL the time, not just off and on. So I sent Adam to work and tried to relax with a heating pad, but after about an hour I realized that wasn't working and called Adam to come home. He asked if I thought I was in labor, and I said I didn't know, but I was in enough pain I wanted to go to the hospital. When we got in the car Adam started timing my contractions, and they were only 3-4 minutes apart. Well they say to go to the hospital when they're five minutes apart, so Adam was a little freaked out.

Things weren't exactly how we thought they would be at the hospital either. We got checked into the hospital around 10:30, and I was only at a 2+, so they made me wait an hour and make sure I progressed enough to keep me. I only went to a 3, but it was enough that they said I could stay. Everything we'd learned said that it would be another 5-6 hours after that and then pushing, but we soon found out I wasn't having the average delivery. About half an hour after only being dilated to a 3 I thought I had to pee, so I got up and went to the bathroom. Then something started coming out of me, and it wasn't a baby. I yelled for Adam and when the nurse saw what was going on, she looked a little worried. I had no idea what was going on, but the next thing I knew I had an oxygen mask on and there were a whole bunch of people in my room flipping me all over the place. Basically, I had gone from a three to a ten in that half hour, and my bag of waters kind of came out when I got up. I didn't even know that could happen, but apparently it does. The baby's heart rate dropped, and then meconium started coming out with my water. I started getting really nervous that I would have to get a C-Section, but they pushed my bag back inside and got the baby's heart rate stabilized. We were both okay, but they still hadn't gotten a hold of the doctor and the anesthesiologist showed up right in the middle of all the chaos. The nurse told him it was too late and I was going to deliver the baby right then (uh...what? without a doctor?), but then my doctor finally talked to the nurse and said to give me an epidural so I could wait until he got there. Not that I enjoyed not pushing when I really HAD to push, but I was glad to wait for the doctor. And really, by that point I was already feeling much better than when I was dilating.

The anesthesiologist was a really funny Indian guy who kept calling me "my dear," and got me the drugs as my baby was trying to push his way out. I had always planned on getting an epidural as soon as the pain really set in, but that didn't really work out. He only got started on the epidural about half an hour before the the doctor showed up, so I never went numb, but I think it took the edge off. Luckily, I only had to push for 12 minutes, and then our little guy was here!

So, was it how I'd always imagined it would go? Not in the slightest. Next time I will be a little better prepared and make make them give me drugs immediately! But everything worked out and Adam didn't even pass out when he saw all the gross stuff coming out of my body. And now we have a beautiful baby boy and couldn't be any happier!

Welcome to Texas

For the conclusion of our adventures together this semester Jenn and I decided to take another trip to Texas. You may ask yourself "Didn't you already spend way to much time in Texas?"

Really, the answer is YES! Our time in Texas before was so long. There were times when I thought we had stumbled into some sort of Groundhog Day sequel with rednecks and fast food. However, we had heard great things about Houston and wanted to give it a shot. Our first stop was Galveston. After our experience in Florida we really wanted to go back to the beach. 

We realized on our way that the GPS was telling us to take a ferry to get to there. Neither of us had ever been on a ferry so we were pretty excited and actually it ended up being one of the highlights of the trip. We got out and went to the front of the boat. Almost immediately, a nice Texan named Lori approached us and started chatting. She welcomed us to Texas and told us about the area a little. Then she pointed out a dolphin swimming around just a ways from the ferry. We thought that was so cool! As we pulled away and started our journey toward Galveston we started seeing them all over. They were so playful, jumping out of the water and swimming around together. Lori told us that when she lived close by she was able to see them every morning from her house. Jenn and I both thought that was awesome. 

 Unfortunately it is hard to get them to pose for pictures. This is the best we could do.

 Even though the beaches were not quite as nice as those in Pensacola, we had a lot of fun. There were fish swimming around us, and some really big waves. The weather was beautiful and the water was really nice. We didn't want to leave!

Jenn's dream home...

 We stopped for lunch at Wendy's and this was the view from our table...I am falling in love with the ocean and the beach. 

While in Houston we stopped the visitors center. I really wanted to buy this buckle for my friend Jared Oldham. He loves Texas so much. I really wish he could have been there to enjoy it with us. We toured the town a little and did a some shopping (we seem to do a lot of that when we travel). We really liked Houston. It was clean and had tons of things to do (none of which we had time to actually do). 

The next week flew by and before I knew it Jenn was on a plane back to Utah. I am glad that she is safe and with family. I worry about her a lot less now that she is home...although it doesn't seem to make it any easier to be away from her. 2 weeks down...4 to go. 

The frog and the worm

Thanks to the Smithsonian Institute's free museum day, we had one of our busiest days yet. Its a good thing we have had so much practice as "speed tourists."

Our first stop was the Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, LA. We got there bright at early and were the first visitors of the day. It was raining pretty hard but luckily we had our umbrellas. A very nice tour guide (senior at the local high school) gave us a tour of the planation house. 

Although the house was nice, really the grounds were the best part. It was a beautiful place. The 200 year old oak trees were awesome and the best part...I caught a frog!!!!!! It was so cute. I tried to think of a way to take it home with me but I didn't think it would survive all day in my pocket. 

Jenn finally got her Mardi Gas mask. 

Our next stop was the National WWII museum in New Orleans. It was a great museum and really helped put in perspective the sacrifices made during the war. It focused mostly on D-day but had a holocaust exhibit a few other great exhibits (we didn't take any pictures though). 

For our last stop, we walked down to Canal St. to the Audubon Insectarium. It was fun but mostly geared towards small children. I found myself wishing I was 3 ft tall. While we were there we both ate cinnamon crunch flavored grub worms... delicious. The only problem was that it was sort of gritty and I felt like it was stuck in my teeth the rest of the day! Yuck!!!!

Gators, Gators, and More Gators

Some of the things we have liked best (and sometimes least) about Louisiana are the outdoors and wildlife. I joke with some of the people I work with that they don't even need a zoo here because all they have to do is walk outside. Just in our little pond behind our apt we have frogs, turtles, 10 different types of birds, fish, and nutria (which is a rat/beaver thing that came from South America to take over the south for those that didn't know). We decided to make another trip to the bayou to look for alligators, and whatever else we could find.

Just south of New Orleans lies the Barataria Wildlife Preserve inside the Jean Lafitte Preserve. The preserve is made up of tons of rivers, canals, and bayou.

There is tons of Spanish moss dangling from most of the trees. It makes it a little eerie but really pretty. I wouldn't want to be stuck there at night! Also, It was nice because most of the trails were raised so we could walk right over the water and get really close to the wildlife.

This guy was hanging right over the trail. He was probably 3 inches long. I am still having nightmares from that.

We got to see quite a few alligators on our walk. Most of them were right off the trail. It made me wish I had a bag of marshmallows.

We also saw a few turtles, salamanders, and this little guy. I am determined to catch one of these before I leave. They are so cute.

We saw this guy just as we left the preserve. It is awesome how many alligators there are here. If I wasn't so scared of getting my arm ripped off, I would try and take one of them home too.

I'm goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo...

Adam is working kind of a weird schedule where he gets every other Friday off, so last weekend we decided to visit the zoo. It was honestly one of the best zoos we have ever been too. Most of the animals were in open enclosures without glass, so we could see all the animals really well. Plus, they were so close to us!

They also had a petting zoo, and we got a kick watching little kids run away from the goats.

My favorite exhibit was the orangutans. They had this little baby one that was so cute! I could've just sat there and watched it for hours.

Adam loved the turtles. The enclosures are set up so most of them had water between us and the animals, and I'm pretty sure Adam was more interested in finding turtles in the water than looking at the animals in the exhibit.

In order to get his attention, I decided to try on a little disguise. I think it worked!

They had a bunch of gators, but it's a lot more fun to see them in the wild. They get so fat at the zoo!

We mostly loved this zoo because the animals were so active. We totally watched these two go at each other and it was crazy. I thought the poor wildebeest in there was going to have a heart attack.

On Saturday, we took a little trip to Pensacola Beach. After seeing what the Louisiana shore looks like, we thought it might be nice to go to a real beach.

Adam had never been swimming in the ocean before, and he loved it! It was a gorgeous beach with white sand and really clear water. We even saw a jellyfish!

It was also really nice because the water was shallow, so we could go pretty far out and still reach. Actually, we had a hard time even finding water deep enough to reach Adam's shoulders!

Also, I thought I'd add this picture on for you baby bump watchers. This is me at 29 weeks!

NOLA

We started off our first day in New Orleans with a stop at Cafe du Monde. Apparently it is THE place to get beignets, and we were very pleased. We will definitely be getting some more of those before we leave.

After breakfast we took a little tour of the French Quarter. I really love the architecture there and all the buildings are so cute! There a lots of cute colors and they all have sweet balconies.

If the city wasn't so dirty, I would totally consider living in one of these apartments.

After wandering around, we went over to the French Market which is so fun to walk through. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture, but it's basically a bunch of vendors selling venetian masks, gator heads, and other local souvenir-type stuff.

One of our first weekends here was Decadence, which is some sort of gay pride festival. Anyway, they put these all over the sidewalks and I thought they were hilarious so I just had to put it on here.

After our little tour of the French Quarter, we walked over to the aquarium to meet some friends. We had a hard time finding somewhere to sit because there were lots of nice guys like this taking up the benches.

They have a sweet package where you can go to the aquarium, zoo, insectarium, and imax for only $19 which is a killer deal, so after the aquarium we went over the imax and finally saw the new Batman movie (and loved it of course!). We were pretty tired by the time we got home from our busy day, but we had a lot of fun exploring the city!

To the Edge of the Earth and Back

Our first weekend back from the storm, we decided to go on a swamp tour and find some alligators. We had to drive a little ways to get out to the real Cajun country, but as soon as we saw these little guys coming out to say hi, we knew we must be in the right place.

Then out came our captain, and we were on our way. He's lovely, right? But he had an awesome accent and had been working out on the swamp for a long time, so he made a really good guide.

Once we got out there, it only took a couple minutes before we spotted our first gator. The captain would throw marshmallows out to lure them up to the boat, and then we they got close he would use the stick so they would come right to us!

 Most of the gators we saw were medium-sized, about 5-6 feet long, and they were very friendly.

 As you can see, Adam was getting pretty into it.

These aren't great pictures, but the captain got some of the gators to jump for the marshmallows, and they could really get out of the water. If you look at all three of these together, it's kind of like a flip book lol.

As part of the swamp tour we also went out to a traditional Cajun village, which is only reachable by boat. As you can see, it was very, uh...nice.

Because of the hurricane, the water was still pretty high and a lot of the houses were still flooded, and this house had water that covered their porch enough to let the river otters in.

After seeing how fun it would be to live out here, this is the house we've started building. Haha, yeah right.

They don't really call these houses though, because most people have a normal house somewhere, else, and then a "camp" out on the swamp where they can do fishing and crabbing and hunting. A lot of people make these camp houses themselves, and try not to invest too much in them because they are frequently ruined. Go figure, huh? During big hurricanes like Katrina, houses this low get completely flooded, like up to the roof.

After the tour, we were going to go explore a national park that has some walkways in the swamp, but it was still closed because of the high water, so we decided to take a little drive to the edge of the earth.

Alright so maybe it wasn't really the edge, but it was as far as we could get! It took a couple hours, but was totally worth it to see this lovely beach! Okay, so maybe it was a terrible, yucky beach with only oil platforms in view, but it was still a fun drive. We saw lots of these tiny little crabs, and a pelican, which is the state bird ( I know you wanted to know that).

But the drive out really was cool, we drove all across that part of Louisiana that looks like a bunch of dots on a map. In real life, it looks like this. A bunch of green dots on the water. Imagine that.

We also passed a lot of these lift bridges, and got stuck waiting for this one to raise to let a boat through.

There were tons of stilt houses too! Especially once we got out past the levees. Most of them kind of looked like mobile homes on 2 x 4s, and we even saw one completely knocked off the stilts and lying sideways in the water. I didn't get a picture, but the power is still out in a lot of these areas, and we saw a couple fan boats that had been rigged with bucket lifts to fix the power lines, so that was pretty cool.

Anyway, we had a fun weekend drive and now we know what it looks like at the end of the road!