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I had been putting off posting, because I have been trying to get a new camera cord in order to post pictures. Apparently, it is much harder to find the correct cord than I thought. So...still no pictures.

This last weekend was both good and bad. Both Ben and I had off Friday AND Monday, so it was a four day weekend. Friday we went to my 28 week doctor's appointment. I am measuring right on track and (according to my doctor) so is my weight gain. All I have to say is as a female, it is incredibly hard to watch that scale creep up every time I go in. But all in all, I feel lucky that I have only gained what I have and hopefully we can keep it under the 30 lb. mark. I also had my glucose test that day. It was disgusting. Not only did the drink taste bad...but there is so much of it. It pretty much "filled" me up and made me feel super icky for a couple of hours. Exactly one hour from the time I finished drinking that sickly sweet concoction, I had to have my blood drawn. For those of you that know me...you know that blood draws are always a bit dramatic! I have the worst veins ever. They seem to be at the surface and then as soon as they stick me, my vein will bury itself. I ALWAYS have to be stuck twice and in the past up to 5 times! Fortunately this time it was only twice, but I always come out sore and bruised from my blood draws. I joked with the nurse that was taking my blood that the other pregnancy symptoms wouldn't deter me from getting pregnant again...but the frequent blood tests might! So far I haven't heard any "bad" news about my one hour glucose test, so we will keep our fingers crossed and assume that no news is good news. I also found out what was going on with my blood pressure. I am not sure I posted this, but at my last appointment my blood pressure read at 130/90. MUCH higher than it typically is (115/60). The nurse had me lay on my left side (which isn't that comfortable on an examining table) and then came in to check again. It was the same. So they tested my urine for protein and said I was clear. The doctor seemed really nonchalant about it, but it freaked me out. Over the past four weeks I was watching my salt intake, drinking tons of water, and in general worrying about gestational hypertension and preeclampsia. I go in last Friday and the nurse tells me my BP looks great! I went "Whew...I am glad its better from last time" and she tells me that the nurse that checked it TWICE is no longer with the practice and routinely had a hard time with taking blood pressure! What the heck! No one could have told me that FOUR weeks ago, so I wasn't freaking out the whole time! Anyway, all in all I am VERY happy that my BP looks normal and I don't have anything to worry about in that department.

Other pregnancy news. My swelling seems to be better lately. I still have a bit by the end of the day, but I am guessing all that water and lower sodium really helped. So, I am keeping that up. I also have started having some of my first Braxton Hicks contractions. Not routinely, but particularly at the end of the day after I have been up and going for 12 hours straight, I will get one or two. It is REALLY uncomfortable, but not painful. I am also noticing that shaving is a pain in the hiney! Why, oh why did I have to be majorly pregnant through the whole summer! Someone suggested Nair, but I am not sure I could handle the smell. Baby girl doesn't appreciate my bending over either. That is usually the time she goes a little crazy and tells me to stand up straight again. Can anyone say "DIVA"!

This weekend was also busy with the nursery. Once again, this is something I had planned on posting as I took LOTS of pictures. We painted the nursery on Friday night and Saturday and got that all done. It looks fabulous and I am so happy with the way the color came out. It was pretty funny...I had originally had a color all picked out and when I got to Home Depot I freaked out and decided I didn't like that color. I was afraid the "taupe" I had chosen would have too much yellow in it for the chocolate brown in the bedding. So I opted for a darker taupe with more of an ash base. It looks so great! It goes well with the white trim AND really warms up the room! We also got our crib and changing table on Friday. So Saturday, after the painting was done, Ben and I put those together! They are a natural oak color and just look beautiful with the paint color. Ben's aunt and uncle gave us their crib mattress and I went and bought a couple of crib sheets so it wouldn't look so stark. It is actually starting to look like a baby's room. Then on Monday my mom began sewing the pieces of the bedding and curtains together. She got the curtains done and then the top of the quilt/comforter done. I put the curtains up and can't wait to get the rest of the bedding in there. Now we are in search of a dresser (that will hopefully match closely to the wood of the crib and changer), a glider, a couple of lamps (one floor and one table), and some wall art. The wall art may prove to be the hardest as I am VERY against anything too cutesy...so we will see what we come up with.

This weekend was also filled with other various activities. Ben played drums for the other team since their drummer was out of town for the holiday, we moved ALL of our garage sale stuff over to my mom's for her garage sale this weekend, I cleaned the nursery from top to bottom, we moved things into storage that weren't going to be sold (but Ben couldn't part with), and we spent time with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew who were in town. VERY busy!

Monday...Memorial Day, we went down to Hillsdale Lake with another couple. It was pretty relaxing and just fun to enjoy the outdoors. Not to mention, it got me a little bit of sun so I don't look nearly as washed out. We then rented a pontoon boat for a couple of hours. We got on and started heading out on the lake. About 10 minutes out it start pouring. I am not talking about just a little bit of rain but torrential down pour! We were soaked! I definitely put a little bit of a damper on our boating trip, but we still had a good time. We will miss Justin and Christie (and little Joel) this summer while they are in Hays :(

So that is a detailed account of our weekend. It was so nice to have to time to get things done, but it was also a very busy weekend. Tuesday we both went back to work and hit it with full force. I acquired another client this week and this Friday and Saturday I have a seminar on Psychopharmacology (I get class credit for it).

I promise as soon as I figure out the camera cord thing there will be pictures. That blog will probably be huge!

Amber