Living, Loving, Learning

Hope you all have a great weekend. We are heading to Knoxville to spend the weekend at my Dad's house. My sister and family are in the country visiting for 2 months and we couldn't be more excited to see the baby. It will be a fun time to reconnect with family we haven't seen in a long time (10+ years) and celebrate my Granddaddy's 80th birthday. Next week we will hopefully find out Sprout's gender and possibly even be closing on the new house -- I will update you as things unfold. I will leave you with a few more Lake Malone pictures.

The weather here was especially incredible here last weekend.....blue, blue skies and temps in the upper 70's. Thankfully, to a preceding week of cool evenings, the trees here have begun to change color and we had to get OUTSIDE and enjoy it all. On Sunday we headed to another one of the Kentucky state parks, Lake Malone State Park. It was small but packed a huge punch! Although we were unable to find any trail maps, we did find a trail head that said it was a 1.5 mile walk BACK TO THAT POINT. We thought that it might be a little on the long side but, ya know, let's try it, it looked like it hugged the lake. Turned out that is was 1.5 miles to the trail end which was in the middle of a field, than a half mile through the field to the campground then another half mile back to wear our car was parked at the beginning of the trail and the lying sign. It was a gorgeous trail though, with about a 1/6 of it entailing some light rock climbing. We had an excellent time, and Bruce got ...

In an effort to start new traditions in our new community, and because it wouldn't seem like fall if we didn't, we went to the pumpkin patch last weekend. Uncle Wallace's pumpkin patch to be exact. Griffin had a fantastic time.. There was another 3 yr. old boy there and they had a great time playing together. That is the hardest thing right now for Griffin (that and our constant pain of missing our dear Sunshine), not having any friends to play with. I swear I take him out for activities (parks, library story time, swimming at the YMCA, indoor play area, bike rides around the neighborhood) at least 6 days a week - I am not exaggerating, this kid needs daily exercise to function normally! But we never seem to find many kids his age...I am suspicious that I am missing some fabulous stay-at-home Mom hang-out. Anyways, all that to say, he had a great time playing in the pumpkin patch. As a horticulturalist, it is exciting for me to experience different Agra-tourism venues. Here...

Although, the temperatures don't reflect it yet, the spirit of fall has begun down here.

I have been so torn as to whether or not to publish this post. On one hand, nothing is for sure and I don't want to keep saying "We found the house...uhhh, no we didn't". On the other hand, WE FOUND THE HOUSE!!! If this falls through, I will share my heartbreak with you and if we get to move into this house, y'all know what a highly anticipated moment it will be. OK, that said...let's move on. A couple of weeks ago, I saw that a 150 yr. old house that was on the National Historic Registry went up for sale in Madisonville. Bruce and I both really love the character and style that old homes have in spades compared to homes built more recently. We also would like to preserve history and resources and feel that buying something already here will conserve energy, resources and land somewhere else. Often though, the problem with these homes are years of neglect and with Bruce working many hours at a new job and a baby on the way, we just didn't know how much t...

Thank you to everyone who has sent us warm wishes! We were so eager to share our exciting news but decided to wait until we passed the first trimester mark and had the AOK from the Doc. So first off, Baby, a.k.a. Sprout, is looking great. Even before I was certain I was pregnant I felt a strange buzzing in my uterus. It was if there was a very strong electrical current running through me. This feeling continued for weeks although in the last month it has diminished to an extent that I hardly feel that strange sensation and I kind of miss it. The doctor was unable to pick up a heartbeat with a fetal heart monitor on Tuesday so she brought in a portable ultrasound machine and we were unexpectedly granted a peek at Sprout. He/She was waving his/her arms all around - it was incredible. The Dr.remarked "Wow, this is an active baby!" which is word for word the same phrase that was spoken at Griffin's first ultrasound...guess that's how I grow 'em. Griffin was so stunned...