Never Say Never

"I will never date Mike," said 19 year-old Carolyn.

Our First Date (Age 19)

"I will never marry a boy from Idaho, because then I will have to live in the cold forever," said 18 year-old Carolyn

Wedding Day (Age 22)

"I will never live in California," said 22 year-old Carolyn.

Our Mess of a Living Room in None Other Than San Jose, CA

Here's to hoping that this "never" turns out to be as good as the others...

Christmas Exchange 2013

Sorry it's a little later than normal, but here it goes...

Johns give to Neads
Calls give to McCulloughs
Neads give to Zavalas
McCulloughs give to Johns
Zavalas give to Calls

And what do these pictures have to do with it? Absolutely nothing. But she is so stinking cute, and we are obsessed with her.

The Calm Before the Storm

By calm, I mostly mean for jobless and endless free-time me, and by storm I mean the type that you love and look forward to...but a storm none the less.

We have now been in D.C. about 2 1/2 months. These months have both flew by and crept along slowly. Now that we aren't traveling the world and mostly just live normal life we find that we take a whole lot less pictures. Here are some highlites:

•  I spent the first several weeks unacking and figuring out how to layout our small space. We also built furniture for the baby and for our room. It was a first for us!
• Cat and Jason came and visited for about 4 days in September. We loooved having them here. We did all the touristy stuff, ate lots of froyo, and spent a day w the Johns fam in VA! Here is the ONLY pic that we took:
  
• I started and then finished the ENTIRE series of Lost. Yup....6 seasons later I feel like a new person. Seriously, the best show ever. I don't regret one minute spent or one tear shed in the process!
• Zar has gone out of town 3 times in the last month for med school interviews. So far he has interviewed at University of Chicago, Stanford, and is on his way at this moment to University of Pennsylvania. He has felt really good about the interviews (of course), but he is still waiting to hear back from a couple of his top choices for an interview invite. We'll seeee!
• Zar had a turbinate reduction procedure done to his nose a couple weeks ago the help him breath. So far....not much improvement. I have actually had to wake him up the last couple nights to stop him from snoring (a problem that wasn't there previously). 
• Our roommate Gabri and I made challah the other day (a jewish bread). It was fun. Here is evidence of our success!

• Last night Zar and I rented a Zipcar and drove to Baltimore to see So You Think You Can Dance top 10 on tour. It was AMAZING! We both loved every minute. Here are some of our favorite moments: (I kept trying to upload an awesome video of the sand group dance but it kept telling me there was an error. grr.)
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  
  
  
   
  
  
  In other news....I am now 37.5 weeks pregnant! I feel huge and my back pain is proof that I am. haha. Our little Annabelle has now decided that she is happy and comfortable being breech. As a result, I am scheduled for a c-section on November 1st! Obviously this is not ideal, but it is what it is. We can't wait to meet her, but we are also trying to cherish or last 9 days of quiet solitude. Ahhh! We are about to be parents! Mom will come help for a while after and teach us all her brilliant ways....hallelujah. We will be keeping you all updated next weekend!

McJohns Canyon, sometimes referred to as McKittrick Canyon

Friday, we drove to Guadalupe National Park (just West of Carlsbad Caverns) and hiked a 7-mile trail called the McKittrick Canyon Trail.  Our thanks to the astoundingly adept politicians who made this possible by allowing the re-opening of the National Parks. It was an awesomely beautiful day with temperatures 60-75 degrees, blue cloudless skies, and just a hint of a breeze.  We showed up with only four dollars between us and the nice park ranger gave us a parking pass anyway with our promise to pay our $10.00 fee by credit card at the main ranger station (20 minutes away) on our way back home.

We understand taking care of our national parks, but felt they had kind of gone overboard with a printed warning about talking too loudly, as not to disturb the wildlife, not putting a toe outside the designated paths, and at the stream crossings there was a notice "Delicate water: do not touch the water." All the rock in the canyon is white limestone.

"Delicate" water

Despite the dire warnings, Mom did venture a few feet off the trail to pose with the machinery used to repair trails.  Grandpa wouldn't have it any other way. This piece is titled: Heavy Equipment Operator--double entendre intended.

The farther up the canyon we progressed, the more color we saw in the trees. They told us that in another couple of weeks, there would be even more.  We were delighted with what we saw.

We kept seeing a beautiful tree with red, peeling bark.  We later found that this was the Texas Madrone Tree.  We quote from Texas Plant and Wildlife: While the madrone’s lantern-shaped flowers and showy fruit dazzle the eye, it is the tree’s thick, papery, peeling bark that is its most distinguishing characteristic, undergoing metamorphoses each year. In their book, Native Texas Plants, Sally and Andy Wasowski note that the change begins each fall, “when old skin peels away to reveal the soft, cream-colored new bark. Color then changes to peach to coral to Indian red to chocolate and then peels away to start the process over again.”

Texas Madrone

At nearly the end of the trail was the "grotto", a collection of limestone formations.  We relaxed here and had some vitamin Ch (Hershey's Nuggets with almonds for you unenlightened CF's).

For those who have labored through this whole post, you can apply for course credit (.000025) through the Texas A&M extension service website.  Password is gullibleísimo.

We leave you with one of Bill's favorite shots o' the day:

Kenichi Ebina

Tutu has been watching "America's Got Talent" all season and she showed us some of the performances yesterday and shared this link with us.  I think you'll be impressed. However, perhaps they should name the show "Japan Had Talent", or "America's Got Talent--Albeit Imported".

Let us all know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2edltPdP14

Home Bodies

Mike and I are pretty easy to please (read: lazy) when it comes to entertainment. Give us some fast food and a good show to watch, and we are golden. Being pregnant and then having a newborn only made us less adventurous. We did manage to venture out of the house a time or two in the last year. If you can get past the crizazy peeps, Portland is actually a pretty cool city. Some of our favorites have been:

• The Trailblazers game. Neither of us had ever been to an NBA game before, so that was fun.

• The Pittock Mansion. Mike and I loved touring this turn of the century home. The grounds are also beautiful, and it has a great view of Mount Hood. 

• The Roloff Farm. Mike has always been a Little People Big World fan, so a trip to their pumpkin patch was a must when we found out that they live about ten minutes away from us. 

• Helvetia Tree Farm. We (let's be honest, Mike) cut down our own Christmas tree for the first time. We got some funny stares when we tied to the top of our Saturn. I was kinda ticked when Becca told us that they paid less for their pre-cut tree from Oregon all the way down in Arizona. 

• The (not so) Sunny Beesh. We visited Seaside when Mike's family came to town.

• The Portland Zoo. Parking was a fiasco and a half, but the zoo itself was enjoyable. All the walking made me miss the El Paso Zoo, where all the exhibits are pretty much right next to each other. 
• Food Carts. Downtown Portland is full of food trucks/carts. You can pretty much find just about any type of food you want for cheap. I even found some decent Mexican food. 
• The Rose Gardens. The gardens were fine. The best part of the trip was discovering a neighborhood with amazing old houses close by.
• Noble Woods Park. We took our cub scouts hiking at this park that is walking distance from our apartment.

• Timbers Game. This was our first (and only so far) date without Mara. Guess what we thought and talked about the whole time?....Mara!

• Silver Falls. Just last week we drove about an hour and a half away to hike. We are normally morally opposed to hiking in general, but I was going stir crazy in the apartment and was willing to lower my standards. 

• The Waffle Window. We had heard a lot about this place in downtown Portland and decided to give it a go. Our assessment--a bit overrated, but worth the trip once. 

Next week we plan on visiting The Gordon House, a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It will be our third out of the house field trip within six days. We're getting wild like that. Next thing ya know, we'll be as adventurous as Mel and Zar. Prolly not though. 

Brady and Aaron

One of the perks of living in Oregon has been seeing my Chatrin, Jason, and boys regularly. Brady and Aaron say and do the most hilarious things. I kept a log of funny things they did and said while we met up with them in Seattle for the Fourth of July. So here goes...

• Before we got there Brady had put a sign on Aaron's new toy and set it out in the front yard. "Buy it. $3.99" He was pretty pleased with himself.
• Brady to Catherine, "Mom, do you love Aaron?"

• Aaron to Catherine, "He [Mike] is smarter than you. Look at his brain."
  
  
  
  
• Aaron struggles with names. After I told him that my name isn't Becca (for the hundredth time) he asked, "Do you know Becca?" Me-"Yes. She is my sister." Aaron- "You have a lot of sisters."
• The Call's neighbor accidentally shot off half of his leg with a shotgun over a year ago. He was showing off his prosthetic leg to the boys when Aaron said, "Now you have a robot leg. I can't believe you can control that. Do you got robot feet?"

• Brady is currently on a whale kick. Whales are the new pigs, you see. When they were sitting in the backseat of my car, I heard him ask Mara, "Do you like whales, Baby?" They proceeded to sing "Baby Beluga" to her while we were driving. 

• Aaron about Mara, "She has a small brain right now so when she is five or six she won't remember anything. Like me. I don't remember a single fing from when I was a baby because I had a short brain."

• Aaron often called Mara "Marla." Oh the power of a letter. Her name went from cute to terrible in an instant.
• Aaron also couldn't remember Marla's gender and asked if "it" was a boy or girl. He insisted that she looks more like a he and would often get confused. "I hope he grows up fast. Can he crawl yet?" I think he was pretty underwhelmed with Marla's skills in general. 

The Tower of Terror

When talking to Becca earlier today, I compared motherhood to a roller coaster with ups and downs. Then I  laughed and corrected myself by saying it is more like one of those Tower of Terror rides--you know the ones that take you up all high and then BAM suddenly you're plummeting, and then the process repeats itself.  Roller coasters are a little too tame, and you can see what's ahead. Though it is a dramatic exaggeration, there is a lot of truth to it.

My first ascent to the top--finding out I was pregnant. Pregnancy was a smooth sailing. We were so excited to find out that our little "it" was a "she." We had always wanted a girl first and had agreed on the name Mara three years earlier. I was never sick, and my biggest complaint was waking up to go to the bathroom multiple times a night.

36 weeks Pregnant

The first plummet--labor. Holy canoli. Reader's Digest version of labor story: Two days and sleepless nights of uncomfortable contractions. Four hours of the kind that make you cry and want every pain-killer ever made. "Let's go to hospital." Car wouldn't start at midnight. Home teacher to the rescue. Triage. Dilated to a 3 with contractions every 4-5 minutes. Nurse, "Go home." Me--lots of crying. Nurse, "Hopefully some sleep will help you come back with better coping skills tomorrow." Me (in my head), "I want to kill you evil nurse. I'll show you coping skills." Went home. Water broke fifteen minutes later. In your face triage nurse. Back to hospital. Dilated to a 4. Epidural at 7 a.m. Me to the anesthesiologist, "You're my new best friend." Plummet officially over.

Probably the ugliest picture of myself. Ever. We will call  it, "Hi there, Double-chin."

Other Plummets:

• Mom leaving
• The incessant crying the first few weeks
• Her first cold
• Me being sick
• Sleep deprivation galore
• Most recently: 5 nights in a row up until 2 a.m. with only a couple tiny cat naps during the day

Other moments at the top:

• Obviously her actual birth
• Taking her home
• Having mom here to help
• Lots of smiles
• Baby laughs and coos
• Yummy baby lotion smell
• Baby blessing
• Mike's family meeting her
• Hilarious gas (sorry Mom, had to include it)
• Seeing her funny and sweet personality come out more

We are currently on a rise to the top again! What what! She has been sleeping for 6-8 consecutive hours for the past three nights in a row and napping several times during the day. Thank goodness. Next order of business will be to fatten up our little miss who is now in the 1st percentile for weight (8.7 lbs). 

Happy Two-Month Birthday to our Cwazykinita. She has made the scary yet thrilling ride worth it.