Baby Belly Week 24

We had our 24 week checkup today and all is well. The doctor is not concerned about Melissa's contractions since they stop with rest. She told Melissa to just keep resting and drinking lots of water (enough to pee every hour, so fun) to keep the contractions under control. Melissa has now gained 9 pounds or 6 pounds, depending on which starting weight we use. Travis has lost 6 pounds so both Bumgardners are on track :) The belly is growing slowly and the baby is moving like a future soccer player.

Strawberry Pickin'

It's that time of year again when the pick-your-own fields open up for picking of whatever fruit is ripe. This week, it was strawberries. We had a gorgeous Duluth day ideal for the event...70 degrees with a cool breeze. We went to the same field as last year only this time we were prepared with knee pads, sunscreen, and hats. This year, Sheinah actually did a good job of picking berries for about 5 whole minutes. After that, her focus was eating them and putting the berries we picked into the container. Sheinah decided that all the little strawberries were for the baby and refused to eat them. She insisted that she had to eat the big strawberries because she was a big girl. All in all, it was a good day and we'll be eating strawberries for awhile!

Chicago

We all went to Chicago for four days so Melissa could attend a teaching conference. For the first time since Melissa's been teaching, we actually got to stay at the hotel in which the conference was held. Boy, was that nice! The conference hotel was just 5 or 6 blocks from Navy Pier right on the water. Chicago has a Children's Museum at Navy Pier so Sheinah got to go play everyday while we were there. Since Melissa does best in the morning, that is usually when we took Sheinah down to the pier as Melissa had enough energy to make the walk there and back. Check out snapfish for the full repertoire of pictures. Travis got a new, professional grade camera as he's been contracted to shoot the student portraits at the college so he took a whole bunch of pictures.

As many of you know, Travis traveled with a woman's choir while he was in college. One of the women from the choir, Rosie, lives in Chicago so we connected with them one night to go out for dinner. We decided to go to Cheesecake Factory (Melissa's favorite restaurant). It was about 12 blocks away on the "Miracle Mile" where parking is virtually non-existent so we decided to hoof it. For Melissa, this meant borrowing a wheelchair from the hotel and Travis pushing her to the restaurant. Sheinah caught a ride in the stroller with Rosie's little girl so the only Bumgardner who got any exercise was Travis. Surprisingly, Travis didn't get any pictures of Melissa in the wheelchair. Travis snapped a bunch of pictures of the girls in the stroller, but little Selah did not want to smile at him. After about 20 pictures, he finally got this precious grin.

We had a great time with Rosie, her husband Jose, and her daughter Selah. While we were walking down to the restaurant, we noticed that many stores had decorated mannequins in the planter in front of the store. There were all sorts of oddly dressed mannequins, but the one Travis liked the most (and took a picture of) was the coke girl. As lovely as this picture is, the best story of the night happened when Rosie left to change Selah's diaper. Melissa happened to take Sheinah to the bathroom at the same time so just the guys were left at the table. Somehow, they managed to let the waiter take away Rosie's plate even though she hadn't hardly eaten her dinner yet. When Rosie came back, she wasn't exactly happy with Jose. The story has a happy ending though...we just told the waiter what happened and the manager replaced Rosie's meal...just one of the many benefits of eating at a nice restaurant!

New Siding

Last summer, all three of our properties were damaged in a crazy hail storm. We qualified for new roofs for all three and new siding on our current house. We got our old house roofed right away (in an effort to help it sell) but waited until this summer to do anything about the duplex or our current house. Since Travis' good buddy, Terry, does siding for a living, we thought it would be fun to fly him out to Duluth to do the job. He and Travis happened to be chatting last week and learned that Terry's schedule was open for the next few weeks. Just like that, three days later, Terry was on a plane to Duluth and the guys spent the fourth of July weekend siding the house. In addition to new siding, Travis added a porch to the front (to help it look less plain) and put an egress window in Sheinah's bedroom to make her room a legal bedroom. The two guys accomplished all of this in just SIX DAYS. Terry is a rock-star siding guy and one heck of a hard worker...can you say fourteen hour days in the Duluth humidity! Check out below for the before, during, and after photos.


front of the house (before) back of the house (before)

Terry set up the camera and took some silly pictures while we went to the hardware store. The house was previously a one room log cabin that they apparently built somewhat haphazardly. Terry and Travis added insulation and foam where previously there was nothing but siding.


Terry posing with Gene, our 84 year old neighbor, who picked up every piece of aluminum siding that came off the house. He's amazing!


The finished product. Notice the porch in front and the new window on the left side of the back of the house. Way to go Terry and Travis!

Baby prayers

On the way to school today, Melissa noticed Sheinah had her hands folded (like in prayer) and asked her what she was doing. Sheinah replied "I'm praying for the baby in your tummy." After a few minutes of quiet whispering Sheinah said "now the baby stopped crying." Melissa asked her if that was because of her prayer and Sheinah said yes. How sweet is that?

Sheinah also told Melissa she had a baby in her (sheinah's) tummy and that she (Sheinah) was the mommy. Apparently, she's excited about the baby coming...