Cali + lots of pictures, for once

Last week, Dan was able to travel to California for a business trip. Thanks to Southwest, I was able to tag along for a "babymoon" of sorts. Highlights included: Attending the beautiful Newport Beach temple.



Seeing dear friends Max & Collin, and their beautiful boys. Attending Disneyland with them was a particular treat.


The bump on Max is sweet little tiny Samuel. I loved when people kept staring at her and saying, "Is that a baby in there??" Yes, yes that is a baby. No, it is not some extraordinarily abnormal growth.



Going to Diddy Riese. Dan ate 3 ice cream sandwiches.


Attending an amazing jazz concert in the park in Coronado.



Eating delicious breakfasts in our adorable B&B and managing some pretty great dinners, too.


Attending a phenomenal concert in Balboa Park with the world's largest outdoor organ.


Seeing my delightful cousins.



Attending the San Diego temple and visiting beautiful La Jolla.




All in all, it was a delightful and relaxing trip, aside from the harrowing trip home...I hate airports. It's also good to be back and to have license to make things like this:


Yes, the ice cream was also homemade, and yes, despite its ease, I did inexplicably feel like a domestic goddess, thank you for asking.

Needless to say, we're excited to spend the rest of the summer exploring and staycationing in DC.

Food obsessions

Do you ever get really really extremely into one kind of food? Because I sure do. I really like food in general. It's probably a little sad how much I actually think about/plan/consume food. I also like a wide variety of foods. Dan teases me about being a picky eater, but I vehemently deny this. No, I don't eat meat, and yes, I find most cereal (and other highly processed items) rather tasteless and bland, but other than that, I generally like most foods. I don't think anyone who likes all fruits and vegetables can be counted as a picky eater.

In any case, despite my love of meal planning and trying out new recipes and stalking Smitten Kitchen, I often go through phases during which I crave a particular kind of food. No, it is never anything normal like chocolate chip cookies (which I do love), thanks for asking. Take, for instance, the summer of 2007. For a period of several months, I craved Grape Nuts with Original Silk soy milk and blueberries something fierce. This coming from the girl who, as mentioned, doesn't really like cereal, and generally finds cereal WITH milk to be entirely repulsive. But, for some reason, I just loved this combination and ate about 4 bowls of it a day. I am gratefully astonished my teeth are still intact.

My current obsession is cottage cheese with fruit for breakfast. I was struggling because I had decided my Grape Nuts would get way too soggy in my Greek yogurt by the time I arrived at work, and it was entirely too steamy to even consider eating oatmeal in the morning. And dry Honey Nut Shredded Wheat would only keep me full for approximately 4 seconds. This is when I discovered cottage cheese with fresh fruit. Oh my heavens. It is SO delicious. My favorite is with either blueberries or a diced pear. Mmmm.

And now you can all go laugh at the fact that I just wrote an entire post glorifying cottage cheese.

Driving in DC

I would say I've done my fair share of driving. I grew up mostly in Alabama, where kids were allowed to get a driving permit the day they turned 15, and their license when they turned 16 (no supervised driving hours - or even driver's ed - required. I dearly hope this has since changed.). I was lucky enough to be able to drive to and from school in Utah after that, and often made multiple trips around town for both me and my little sister. I didn't drive a ton through college due to living in a city with limited parking, but after graduation, I started a job that required a 45 minute - 1h15m commute each way through crowded city streets, random back ways, and winding river roads.

In all of these driving experiences, I have never met drivers worse than those in the nation's capital.

Now, I remind you - I lived in Philadelphia for 7 years, and drove 10+ hours a week for 3 of those. I lived and commuted in Los Angeles for a summer during college. I've driven in New York City, Boston, and probably at least half of the country's states. But really, DC drivers just hit an all-time low.

They regularly honk at you for not moving even when traffic is completely blocked. They get angry when you have to merge into a lane even though you have no other choice and they just did the exact same thing. And while I regularly complained about driving in Philly, drivers there were, at least, somewhat skilled, if rather aggressive. Drivers in DC are aggressive AND lack skills.

Take, for instance, a couple of days ago. I was driving down a main street by my house to pick up a friend. She lives on a relatively small street, a little bit past a stoplight. Like I had been taught, I got into the rightmost lane of the three available well ahead of time. I waited until I had made my way through the stoplight, and then turned on my right turn signal. I slowed down in order to safely make my turn. This is the point at which the woman behind me LAID on her horn for a good 10 seconds. Can somebody please explain this to me?

Ugh.

In which I retained my car... and got a blanket

As some of you probably know, pregnancy does weird things to your body. I've been (very gratefully) spared of many of these symptoms, but most of the unusual things that happen to me lately can be blamed in some form or another on the parasitic being inhabiting my uterus. I felt very validated when BabyCenter sent me an email a couple of days ago detailing why some pregnant women occasionally awake with cramps in their calves.

Perhaps the symptom that has most affected me, though, is very very strange dreams. I am an extremely deep sleeper, so I didn't typically remember my dreams when I awoke. Lately, though, they have been so vivid that I remember specific images from them weeks later. This is very rare for me... I remember a grand total of one dream from my entire pre-pregnancy life.

One dream included Dan turning into some sort of undead creature who left me, but then was chasing me. A police officer who was attempting to protect me and I rushed onto some sort of elevated rail system, but couldn't seem to shake him. It was rather terrifying at the time.

Last night's dream included me parking my car somewhere and handing over the keys to someone else. By the time I got back, this incredibly responsible person had decided to trade in my car for some new fancy-pants vehicle. The funniest thing was that I COULD NOT figure out what was different for the longest time after returning, even though it looked completely different, even in my dream. I sat in the driver's seat (with this girl in the passenger seat) and stared at the new dashboard for some time before wheeling sideways and pronouncing, "This is NOT my car!" I was, naturally, upset, because I didn't want to make big car payments on a new and fancy car that I didn't want.

Luckily, the dream concluded before I woke up (can you imagine the horror of not knowing how it ended?). She somehow managed to trade the car back, and when I returned, she handed me my old keys. She also had an armful of quilts, and said the person who had sold her the car was also trying to sell blankets... for $50 each. I thought for a moment, and then said, "Sure, I'll take one - and you're paying for it!" Then I drove away, blanket in hand.

What strange dreams have you had? Interpretations also welcomed.

By Popular Request

Several of you have thoughtfully requested to see a picture of Pregnant Preethi. As I am notoriously poor at uploading photos to facebook, I figured I could at least use this as a forum for one of them. I didn't look particularly pregnant for a while (and think I'm still sort of in the "is she fat or pregnant?" stage), but here goes.

Welcome to Almost Week 23 (I turn 22 weeks tomorrow).


It also sort of depends on what clothes I'm wearing. Here's another look with a different shirt.


Thanks for visiting!

(Please excuse the poor lighting and photo quality.)