a quick roc trip at 35 weeks of jacob jay

mother's Day weekend our presence was requested in Rochester so that Jacob Jay could be celebrated with a baby shower. We hopped in the car midday on Friday and arrived in Rochester around 7:30 that night. It's normally a quicker drive, but not with a pregnant bladder. it was a fantastic weekend, a bit too short for my liking, but fantastic none the less. some highlights:

+below you will find evidence that my brother does not dislike our dog. he pretends that he thinks beans is not cute, however, what is the first thing ricky did when beans came in the house? oh yes, take him outside to play ball. imagine that! (sorry, ricky, but we know you really love beans!)

+i reminded my father on our drive that pregnant women are often hungry. lucky for me he indulged my cravings and ordered a plethora of pizza and wings from mark's pizza for when we got home. mmm buffalo chicken pizza...the best ever!!

+saturday morning tradition in my father's house for him and pat-ricia is a trip to wegmans for breakfast pastries. obviously a trip home is not complete without wegmans, so we tagged along. oh so happy :)

+ we were lucky enough to actually hit rochester during the lilac festival this year! usually this doesn't happen as our trip is usually around memorial day. so saturday morning we set out to see and smell the lilacs, as they are one of my favorite flowers and scents in the world. MAJOR BUST. due to the unseasonably early warm weather, the lilacs were past their prime. i pretended that there were many, but the picture you see below is about the only one we saw!

+ my step mom, pat-ricia (aka gramma), threw a WONDERFUL shower with the help of my fabulous AC (aunt cyndi, soon to be the great AC). It was fun and jacob jay surely is going to be one loved little man. we played a couple games, created a book for jacob and opened way too many generous gifts! unfortunately, i was not taking pictures during the shower and i forgot to steal all of pat-ricia's pictures before we left roc. bummer! here are some from after the shower:

((me and my love))

((blue flowers for a baby boy...and our wedding flowers, too! perfect!))

 ((the fabulous white chocolate raspberry cake my father made for me and the rest of the shower guests))

((and 35 weeks of jacob jay dumas!!))

+after the shower was the after party that most of the shower guests stayed for! we let the men come and my daddy made me lasagna (well, he made it for everyone, but we all know that daddy loves his daughter so i got the lasagna i'd been craving for MONTHS!). mmmm was it ever delicious, complete with an abundance of wegmans italian bread. jacob jay was well fed, that's for sure! it was a wonderful, wonderful day full of tasty treats, great company and side splitting laughter (yes, a party is not complete without my uncle marty cracking jokes. everyone needs one of them...but you can't have mine!). doesn't this lasagna look DELISH?!

+so that was that. a fabulous weekend, indeed. we always enjoy our time in rochester and are always sad to leave it behind. hopefully we'll be able to get back there soon since jacob jay needs to meet all the wonderful friends and family we have there!

post tax season adventure: massachusetts style

i'm posting two days in a row. this must be some kind of record. two weekends ago marked the first weekend without tax season since late january - YAY! let me tell you how happy life is again now that tax season is over. i think i forget every year how horrendous that 1/4-1/3 of the year is. however, tax season makes not tax season that much sweeter. typically we celebrate the end of tax season with a little trip - one year was NYC, the next was a staycation in which we redid the porch (oops, forget about relaxing!) and this year was a trip back to the north shore to visit all our friends that we so dearly miss. here are some highlights:

+ one of the first things we did was take beans to gordon for a walk. he loves it there. he practically drags us to the entrance to the woods and is a crazy man once he's inside. it makes our heart happy to know he's so happy. the best part is when we approach the turn in the path leading to the pond. as soon as we get there, beans takes off in a full out sprint and goes in the water, looks back at us to make sure we're coming and to make sure it's okay he's in there, and then jumps right in. gets us every time.

+after our walk: a target run. always a highlight. you try living without a target. it's not easy

+we then got to catch a bit of the women's lacrosse game, which was wonderful since many of my soccer players are lacrosse superstars. they even kicked serious roger williams butt, so it was that much more enjoyable, not to mention all the fantastic people we ran into at the game (old roommates, coachie, soccer players, etc.)!

+then we went to meet our friends for dinner...or so i thought! little did i know that our "dinner plans" were actually code for a surprise shower with all the wonderful women of pigeon cove chapel!! it was FABULOUS. there were just so many smiling, hugging people and my heart was happy. not to mention there was a beautiful diaper cake, fun games and tasty treats. thank you to all of you who were there and for my fabulous friend jamie dolan for putting it all together!

(diaper cake) 

(me and jamie - clearly the shower was a surprise...my hair is a disaster and i'm in the clothes i was walking around in the woods in!)

(a few of the guests...i'm realizing now we should have taken a group shot!)

+after the shower, ry and i got to spend some time chatting with the soon to be married chris & jamie. jamie is one of my oldest gordon friends, dating back to the san francisco days, and i love every minute i get to spend with her...and her hubs to be!

+sunday morning was obviously spent at pigeon cove chapel. great teaching. great fellowship. great hugs. it's just a place full of joy.

+sunday afternoon was spent out to lunch with two of our PCC favorites and their amazing 90 year old mother - this woman is a RIOT - most witty 90 year old i've ever met, that's for sure. lunch was full of good conversation, good food and good encouragement.  

+ following lunch we curled up in sweats and napped the afternoon away - my post tax season accountant needed to catch up on some sleep! what a perfectly timed rainy sunday!

+ the evening was a low key taco night with wonderful friends. perfect.

+ monday was spent working at gordon college - always a highlight. i love working there...it's just full of so many good people. i worked all day and then at the end of the day adrianne suckered me up to her office for a "meeting", which was really code for a surprise baby shower! it was so fun celebrating with  the whole development team. thanks to all of you who put this together!

so there you have it. a few  a lot of highlights from our trip. we had a great time. it's a place that we always leave feeling filled up with so much joy. there are so many people there that we love and care about and miss dearly. most definitely a great post-tax season trip!

33 weeks of jacob jay in there.

oh boy. that's a belly, alright. it's a little hard to tell against the wood door, but we had nowhere else to snap this picture. also, if you think i look exhausted and hideous, you're right. it was the day of ry's cousin's bridal shower and we had gotten up early and been cooking all morning before this pic was taken! this baby is sucking the life out of me, so any extra activities really zap my energy...but it is SO worth it. we cannot wait to meet jacob in seven short weeks. wow! seven short weeks. that's only slightly intimidating considering we still don't have a nursery for jacob. don't worry, we're working on that piece. he will have a home soon!

also - if you think that is a small looking belly for 33 weeks along, you are correct. i'm measuring small. this just means we got to sneak in an extra ultrasound of our little man to make sure he was growing okay in there. don't worry, he was actually weighing slightly above average. go figure. what a silly little chunker we have in there!

and finally - sometimes i force ry into taking pictures with me. it's not often since i'm always the one behind the camera. lester snuck this one in before we were ready, but i like it...we'll pretend we're marveling at jacob in there, but really we're just trying really hard to make a good heart with our hands...

*please note: this blog post is out of order. i was planning on blogging our trip to MA complete with two showers, then this, then beans' second birthday party. However, in my haste of getting ready this morning, I forgot to grab my memory card out of my camera to load the pictures after work at my sister-in-laws (much faster internet). so, coming soon: massachusetts and beans turns two!