I thought I would give a quick update on the life of the Collins family. :)
Jeff is continuing to work hard (too hard, if you ask me) in his master's program. The poor guy always has a paper to work on, is working full time, and really has to juggle other activities. He tries to fit in the "fun stuff," but unfortunately, that hasn't been easy. We are both looking forward to the "end" next spring. He is a trooper!
The end is in sight for me. This weekend will be my final presentation for my program, and I will be completely finished after Sunday. Just in time! Let's just say that I am ready to move on, and reap the financial benefits... :) Funny how having a baby on the way makes that even more appealing!
I had my monthly "baby appointment" today, and everything is looking great. Kaitlyn was measuring big at my last two appointments, but is now supposedly measuring right on track. We'll see if she gets another major growth spurt; I'm still not convinced that she's going to be under 9 pounds. :) I am now officially in the 3rd trimester (28 weeks), and will now start seeing my doctor every 3 weeks. Time is flying!! We are so excited for everything to come, but are grateful to have a few more months to get ready.
Rob (my brother) moved back from Colorado a couple of months ago (yay!:)), and he's been helping (mentoring? He worked for a painting company in CO) Jeff paint the nursery. They just finished painting the other day, and it looks beautiful, if you ask me. I am so happy with how the colors turned out, am extremely grateful for all of their hard work (I picked out the colors, and they went from there ;)), and am excited about decorating now. :) We got a crib and changing table a few weeks ago, so those will be going in soon. For now, here's a couple of pictures of the colors. The pics definetely don't do it justice. It's yellow on top and brownish/beige on the bottom:
And, for some entertainment, here's a picture from last night. My friend Tracie is moving to Austin, TX next week, so there was a little send-off gathering. I am sporting a plastic visor with shades connected to it. There's a lever that brings down the shades - yep, coolest thing ever.
I feel like I get bigger by the day! Can't imagine the waddling that will be happening before this is all said and done...
Couldn't skip a cute picture of Amanda:
Part of the fam in the pool:
After the uncles got tired of seeing who could make the biggest splash, they moved on to see who could jump off the diving board with a successful landing onto the blow up airplane:
Uncle John had it nailed after about an hour:
Rob flying:
Good times! :)
We are very, very lucky to have received our "BOB" (brand) stroller from Jeff's parents. This is a very generous gift, and we are so excited to have the coolest stroller ever (in our opinion...) It's a jogger, but is a bit more compact than others, and has a rotating front wheel, so it turns like a champ. The front wheel can be locked for jogging. Bonnie and Roger also bought the "infant seat adaptor" so that Kaitlyn's carseat can fit in during the early months. We are so spoiled!!
Jeff wanted to practice taking it up stairs. Riley was a great sport! Ahhh...how our lives have changed already; why would we want to go out on a Friday night when we have a stroller to play with?!
Lisa, Mollie, Jenni, Ben, Jayson, and Jeff at Kara and Travis's couples' shower - the one picture I have, and they aren't even in it. :)
We had a big "Gowey family picnic" at my aunt and uncle's house in Olympia. They have a big, beautiful house and property; perfect for some good old-fashioned Gowey fun. Even though it was about 95 degrees all day, we still had fun.
My cousin Amanda - she didn't look too thrilled to run through the sprinkler :)
Her sister Kayla had a blast, though.
My dad with his 3 brothers.
We decided to let Riley off his leash since they live far from the road. This was a treat for him, so he proceeded to run around for about 3 hours straight, chasing birds and butterflies (or their shadows, whichever caught his eye first. He ended up with huge blisters on his poor little feet by the end of the day.
We had our families over for the 4th this year to BBQ. We decided to go up to the firework stand on our street to get a few things to join the fun. Riley is definitely NOT a fan of fireworks, and was a complete basketcase from about 8:00 until the explosions finally tapered off at around midnight. Poor guy :(
We are in an unincorporated county, so fireworks get a little crazy at our house - they literally go nonstop EVERYWHERE for about 4 hours with NO breaks in between - headache!!
Stacey (Jeff's sister) made Kaitlyn a cute quilt :)
Our 2 year anniversary was on the 1st, so we treated ourselves to a nice dinner and a walk by the beach. :)
