Babymoon

I had been hearing talk of this babymoon thing early on through my baby app forums.  I'd never heard of such a thing, but the general idea is that you take a romantic vacation, just the two of you, before the baby comes and shakes up everything.  I thought that sounded lovely, especially considering we have two on the way at once.  Some people were talking about big fancy vacations.  One lady even went to Fiji for hers.  I knew we wouldn't be able to do anything like that for several reasons, but that's just fine.  What we decided on instead was our very first bed and breakfast experience, and it was just perfect.

I did some research for B&Bs in the Poconos area.  Neither of us had been there, and we were hoping to go sometime in October in the hopes of catching some lovely foliage.  We chose the Gatehouse Country Inn, which was so amazing.  They have little add on packages you can get, so we did the babymoon package.  It was basically snacks in the room when we got there, but the apple pomegranate sparkling cider was seriously delicious.  It was a really nice way to start the weekend.*

I had been worried about the trip in general because some people are on bedrest by this point.  Thankfully, not only am I still fully mobile, but we were even able to go hiking on Saturday!  We did the Tumbling Waters Trail, which is about 3 miles round trip with a 400ft elevation gain.  I was a bit worried about that last part, but I really wanted to see the waterfall!  The majority of the hike was super easy with lots of big lovely trees and some lakes.  But you had to hike down a big hill to get to the waterfall and then back up up up to leave.  That part took some time.  I had to rest a lot, because it's so hard getting oxygen into my system with all the extra blood.  Plus, the babies steal most of what I do get.  But I managed the whole thing without incident, and DS was super awesome about being patient and waiting for me to inch my way up.  So worth it.

Of course, afterwards I ate a feast and then took a 2 hour nap...

Sunday we found a close farm and pick pumpkins out of a patch.  It feels like it's been forever since I've done that!  We were going to go apple picking too, but it would seem the area had a horrible harvest because of a late frost killing off all the blossoms in the spring :(  That was kind of sad, but I made up for it by getting the world's biggest pumpkin.  Okay, not really, but it is 30lbs!

Oh, and the breakfasts!  Man, so delicious.  I need to learn how to make a sun-dried tomato quiche.  Really a perfect weekend.  So happy we had this time together.

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*Unfortunately, right before we arrived we saw a baby deer cross the road, which was followed by its mother.  I was so excited, and then absolutely crushed when the mom hobbled across the street on 3 legs.  She had recently been hit and her fourth leg was managed.  I bawled like a baby.  I'm tearing up now just thinking about it.  *sigh*

Beautiful Fall Day

The weather today is kind of amazing.  Perhaps a little hotter than I would want in October (the high is 81°F), but slightly breezy with just a few clouds.  I spent the day at the local park with my friend Sarah and her toddler friend, who we've been calling "Mark" here.  The whole place has been decorated for fall.  There are hay bales and cornstalks around the lampposts surrounding the fountain, which are ornamented with various kinds of pumpkins and mums.  The buildings and miniature golf course have fake spiderwebs all over them.  The carousel is playing spooky music.  Perfect.

This may very well have been my last chance to go to the park with this little guy, which is sad.  He's starting school, and Sarah will be moving on to a new family that isn't close enough for us to have this kind of park time.  I will really miss it.  It gets me out of the house, which I'm sure will be something I'm really craving soon.  Plus Mark is tons of fun and adorable.  He's taught me a lot about caring for toddlers that I hope I'll remember by the time my kids are his age.  I'm not even sure when I'll see Sarah once she's working somewhere else.  This was the bulk of our hanging out, and now we'll have to actually try to schedule in time around work :/

But enough sad stuff.  Today was just great.  And it was also completely filled with pumpkin.  I had a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks with their pumpkin scone for breakfast, and then the pumpkin pie milkshake from Square Burger this afternoon.  Seriously, fall is just the absolute best.

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Summer Endings

This weekend marked our last full weekend together and alone for the foreseeable future.  We have house guests coming this week, and then between my trip to KY and school starting and conferences, we'll have something going on until mid fall.  Not that we won't see each other, but things will be busy!  So we decided to make sure we made the most of this weekend.

Yesterday we went hiking at Nockamixon State Park (there's a lake, but I didn't see it).  It's a place that DS goes bouldering (rock climbing) by himself, and I decided to tag along for the exercise.  Regular ol' hiking is more than enough exercise now.  I took a book so I wouldn't get bored while he climbed.  It was a really nice day, and there wasn't anyone else there.  So lovely and quiet.

Today we got some grocery shopping done, put a giant stew teeming with vegetables in the crock pot, and put together the crib.  We are so excited!  Having the crib up makes things feel more real for sure.

That's my giant care bear that I've had for nearly 10 years in there, and the whale tub sitting next to it.  The bedding set isn't here yet, so right now there's just the mattress and a couple of my old baby blankets in there.  I also ended up sticking the two quilts DS's grandmother gave us in there.  There are some built in shelves in this room that used to have a bunch of my craft books and whatnot.  I cleaned that out this week so it can hold baby things.  It's not a huge difference, but it makes it feel more nursery-like while the babies are sharing space with the office.

We have a tentative plan for insulating that brick by the crib.  It gets super cold in the winter, and this room is over our landlord's bedroom, and you can hear everything through that brick.  (yes, I do mean everything, it's a little embarrassing to be in there at times; I'm glad it's not where we sleep.)  Hopefully some insulation will help them sleep better until we're able to buy a house.

Making progress!  Now we're looking forward to some of our Santa Barbara friends coming to stay.  Exciting times ahead!

Stargazing

This weekend DS and I drove down to WV to visit his grandparents.  We know we won't be able to travel for Christmas or Thanksgiving this year since I'm not supposed to get out of easy range of the hospital after 24 weeks.  His mom and aunt also came up, so it a nice little family gathering.

The weather was fantastic, especially coming from all the upper 90's we've been having here.  I actually wore pants and got chilly at night.  We slept with the windows open.  It was also the peak weekend of the Perseid Meteor Shower, and WV is probably the most perfect place to watch stars on the east side of the US.

Saturday afternoon we hiked up Bickle Knob.  There's a fire tower at the top, and it's a lovely place to enjoy the landscape.  Honestly, it's not much of a hike.  You drive most of the way up.  But you can't beat the view, especially in the fall.  I was impressed with my ability to climb up all the stairs of the tower.  Anything remotely cardio is a lot harder these days, it's kind of depressing.

DS and I at the top of the fire tower on Bickle Knob.

That night we went back up to view the meteor shower.  Some of them were really bright and amazing.  We didn't stay out late enough for them to really get going, but I'm still really excited with the amount we did see.  I've never lived anywhere before where I could see a meteor shower, so that was awesome.

It's pretty difficult to photograph actual meteors.  There's not a lot of light, and they're not in the sky for very long.  But DS was able to take some cool photos of the sky with a long exposure.  The lines you're seeing are the paths of the stars across the sky as the earth rotates during the exposure.  The lines get smaller in the upper left corner because it was center of the rotation.  Pretty cool huh?

Long exposure of the sky over WV on Aug 11, 2012.

So we had a pretty great weekend.  The food was good, the company was good.  One of his grandmothers even gave us two handmade quilts her friend made for the babies.  She also gave us a wrapped gift "for the shower" that we're not allowed to open yet :)  Now if his other grandmother could just feel better, things would be perfect.

In Search of Climbing

Today DS and I decided to explore.  We haven't really done this enough since moving here.  He had read that there was some decent climbing in Ralph Stover State Park, which is about an hour from here.  Today turned out to be crystal clear skies and a high of nearly 60, which is perfect hiking weather in my opinion.  We layered up just in case, grabbed the camera, and went off in search of adventure.

The climbing guide we were following took us to the picnicking and white water section.  This part was home to a late 18th century water-powered grist mill, and the park takes its name from its owner¹.  However, the climbing section is in the "High Rocks" section.  While there is technically a road that connects the two, there is a pedestrian only bridge in the way.  So we bundled back into the car and tried again.

The High Rocks area is, as you might have imagined, high.  It overlooks a horseshoe bend in the creek, and there are 200-ft drops down to the river.  The rocks were often a bit purple, and reminded me a lot of Devil's Lake because of that.  They didn't seem nearly so slick though, so they are probably not quartzite. There were quite a few climbers there, though not as many as we would have expected for such a nice day.  That looks good for us being able to find places to set up once we start going there to climb.  There were a lot of bolted routes too, which isn't something I've personally encountered much.  It will be nice to use their built in anchors and not have to spend 45 minutes setting up the rope just to get started.

The day was lovely, both because of the weather and because the leaves were still hanging on and beautiful.  I tried to get a good feel of the place for you in these photos.

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¹Ralph Stover State Park Recreational Guide