Girl baby!

We had our 20-week ultrasound last week (at 22-weeks) and the running hypothesis is that we have ourselves a little girl baby.  It was fun to see her wiggling around in there, and good to know that all her parts are appropriately sized at the moment.  The best still showed baby's legs in a lunging stance.  I hope she has strong legs like mama!

I've recently graduated from the beer belly phase to the point of being pretty obviously pregnant, which has been odd.  Luckily, I have some awesome pregnancy pants that I got on the cheap on craigslist.

We've started looking at things to buy for baby, and it alternates between exhilarating and overwhelming.  Who knew they made such fancy strollers and baby carriers.  Another shock was perusing baby clothes at the store, where there was a distinct girls' section (85% pink, 10% purple, 4% yellow, and 1% green) and boys' section (75% blue, 20% green, and who cares whatever else).  What if baby's favorite color is not pink?  I know, blasphemy.  It was fun to see all the tiny little things and intimidating to think we'll have a tiny person to wiggle into them.  

Adding another to our awesome team

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes. .  you know.  Babies.  We are happy to announce that we are expecting another addition to Team Haggling in July!  The big ultrasound is next week, so we should have some more news soon.

We have been trying to knock our some minor house things and get our head around just what it is we are getting into.  It's been a fun winter with several trips, including a week skiing in December, a beach tournament in January, a trip to the cabin up north, and a fun weekend with friends in February.  We are planning weekend trips to New York later this month and Arizona in April.

It's great to be all settled into our house.  We still love it and feel lucky everyday to have such a cozy place to call home.  It should be interesting to have another person-though quite small-around.

Spring time

Springtime has arrived in Minnesota.  We have been a bit out of commission for a few weeks due to injuries and illnesses, but are back up and running now.  Ali has been keeping busy coaching a high school girls ultimate team, and Matt has been training for his triathlon.  Here's some snapshots of what we've been up to:

Making marmalade and yogurt in my double dutch ovens.  Our kitchen gets a lot of love.  

I got a sewing machine from my aunt and am diving into quilting (by which I mean I've sewed six squares together in two weeks).

Perennials sprung up in our yard!  It's been fun watching what comes up.  

We finally built some of the bookcases we got for Christmas and unloaded our books.

We also got a grill to put on our awesome treehouse deck.  

Settling into our house

We closed on a house in Minnetonka at the end of the year.  Being homeowners has been great so far.  We have been paying bills, doing little construction and maintenance things, and generally getting settled in what we hope to be our long term home.


Here are some photos of the house before we moved all our stuff in.  It's woodsy outside!  And jungley inside!

 

 And then we moved in and there were boxes everywhere. 

 

We painted all the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms upstairs, and are getting new carpet in on Monday.  We opted to remove the carpet instead of having the contractor remove it.  It turns out that this includes removing the carpet pads and the staples and lots of cleaning.  Luckily, we've had some great help from parents and siblings.

We now have a driveway to shovel.  It happily faces south, so we don't always have to exert a lot of effort.  My parents recently sold their house in the suburbs and saved shovels, rakes, hoses, and such for us.

 We like that the kitchen, eating area, and family room are attached.

Living in the living room (that's what it's for, right?) feels a bit like being in our 700 sq. ft. apartment in Boulder, but with plants!

 This photo is staged:

 

 This one too, though I'm sure you'd never guess.  My sister re-upholstered these chairs, and they look great in our house.

Matt got "Modernist Cuisine," a huge and beautiful coffee table book filled with food photos.

In other news, we have inherited a marlin that my grandpa caught.  He hangs on the walls and looks classy.  Unfortunately, there are only about two walls in the house long enough for him to fit on, so we are still figuring out where he will live for the long term.

 

We've recently been replacing lightbulbs and fixing some last minute things before the carpet goes.  It's been wonderful to have our own kitchen again.  We've been baking and cooking more like normal and now have ample storage space to keep all my supplies. We have also started hanging our artwork on the walls, and thus the place is starting to look like our home. 

After the carpet goes in, we can actually move upstairs, which should be super cozy.

Back in Minnesota

We've had a busy fall.  We moved back to MN at the beginning of August, and settled in with my parents at their townhouse in the city.  We have been house-hunting since we arrived, and after seeing about 70 houses, we finally think we've found the one.  Inspection next week.  I started furniture shopping a month ago.

Both of us have had a lot of travel this fall, with Ali flying back for some ultimate tournaments, an impromptu weekend trip to DC to see friends, and Matt travelling for work.  We are planning to return to Colorado late January for a week of skiing.

Winter is coming on fast here.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that it's not as bad as next year.

China, briefly

China was very fun.  We really needed the vacation time.  We spent three days in Chengdu and three in Xi'an.  Highlight include lots of delicious food, climbing Huashan and paying with four days of sore calves, seeing pandas, and wandering the cities.  

My favorite:  hot pot!  Quite spicy!

Struggle face.

This baby panda was awkwardly climbing all over.

Our favorite type of meal.  Noodles and dumplings

Traditional street turned touristy in Xi'an

This drink had boba and grass jelly and coconut goo and passion fruit bits.  

My favorite street food:  Jian bing

Atop the city walls in Xi'an

Biang biang mian in the Muslim Quarter

Xi'an by night

At Huashan

Heading to China

Matt and I are headed back to China for a week starting this Sunday.  We are going to Chengdu and Xi'an and are going to eat all the delicious things!  Both of us have been rather distracted, and we are very excited to have a week just for us.  We'll post the details when we get back!

All those tasty pancakes

HOTPOT!