We had an exciting day last Friday. We got to see the sonogram images for BZ2! We had a sonogram when he or she was just six weeks (four weeks gestation) when I was concerned that things weren't going well, but you couldn't see a whole lot in those pictures. It is truly amazing to see what all is going on in there right now. We could see all the chambers of the heart pumping away. She checked out all of the little bitty organs and measured everything imaginable. BZ2 was yawning and sucking on his or her fingers as well as being generally uncooperative with the ultrasound tech. When it was all said and done we asked how much he or she weighs and it is a grand total of one pound! Isn't that just amazing that all of the little parts are built and functioning (well, as much as they need to right now) and it is inside of a one pound little body! And that begs the question why in the world is my belly so big then?
We got to bring Koa to the appointment with us, but when I made the appointment they told me if I was bringing a child I would also need to bring a baby sitter as he would not be allowed in the room until the last five minutes. I was a little annoyed by this policy, but decided if we were going to need one babysitter we would just invite anyone who would like to come along. So, our friends Wes and Jessi and Tracie all took off work to come join in the fun. The tech was very nice and let all of them come in the room for the entire time. However, she was puzzled about why we would bring all of our friends along when we weren't going to find out the sex of the baby. I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed watching the miracle take place on the computer screen.
Of course, the still pictures are never quite as good as the actual ultrasound, but we have a few to share. This is the only one I have on the website for now. We haven't had a chance to really mess with the scanner since then because it has been so busy around here. I knew Tutu was probably chomping at the bit to see something so I took time to do one picture this morning before we head off to the Kam Flea Market for some produce (yeah, I know, it doesn't sound like a place to buy produce, but it is!)
After our appointment on Friday Zak took the rest of the day off and he and Wes and I all headed out to Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden for a weekend of camping. Jessi and our friend, Stacy, joined us later. The next night we had several more friends join us for an overnight stay and a little worship service on Sunday morning. You can see pictures of the fun weekend and beauty of the Ko'olau Mountains here. The mountains are so massive and we were too close to get a really good picture of them, but they are really amazing!
We took all of our food and cooked over a little Hibachi and the camp fire on my cast iron griddle and skillet. That was a lot of fun, but took a lot of prep work. It made me appreciate the camping trips I used to take with my parents where we would pack in on horses and cook the fish we caught in the river. That must have been quite the under-taking!! I made a bunch of homemade snacks to take with us--some of which turned out ok, and others that didn't do so well. I made homemade granola that was truly awful and half of it became duck food, some of it got eaten in the yogurt I made and we just tried to drown out the flavor with fresh fruit. I have been sneaking the rest into Zak and Koa's smoothies in the AM in place of the oatmeal I usually use. That seems to be working. I also made some homemade corn chips that turned out ok as long as you ate them with the bean dip or salsa that I also made. The peanut butter popcorn was a pretty big hit but I didn't think it was as good as it could have been.
Koa got to use his new camp chair that we got for him last week at the Kam Flea Market for $3 and he thought he was very cool! His dad gets some cool points for his successful attempt at breaking a log in half with a large rock so we could burn it. That's my boy scout! You will have to check out the pictures for a good visual of this event. We will try to find a hatchet at the market today for our next camping trip.
It is a lot of work to get ready to camp even just for the weekend and I have spent part of this week just trying to recover and get everything stowed back in our one small closet. Maybe we'll pull it all out and go again next weekend...hmmm Waimanalo again maybe...
