Last week we had a tater...

Now we have a 'mater!

19 weeks:

Baby is the size of an heirloom tomato and weighs 8 1/2 ounces. (length: 6 inches, head to bottom)

As if this is really "news"...

Anyone who reads our blog is likely our friend and probably knows this already but...

WE ARE HAVING A BABY!

We are very excited to say the least!
We found out in early June and seriously, from the very first day the Dr. confirmed it, I felt terrible.  It was the nausea that kicked my butt.  Most of the time, I would actually WISH to throw up bc then I felt like I'd feel better.  And what's really unfortunate is that our Aruba trip fell at a time when I was feeling my worst.  And flying on a plane when you're nauseated...not a great idea.

Everyone assured me that I would feel much better after the first trimester.  I didn't believe them and thought I was going to feel bad for the entire 9 months.  But low and behold, Week 13 came along and the sickness magically disappeared.  Now I think back and can't actually remember the extent of how bad I felt.  I guess the Lord erases our memory on purpose so we'll continue to procreate :) 

As of today, baby is 18 weeks, 3 days old.  We had our big ultrasound on Tuesday and everything looked PERFECT.  He/she measured exactly 18 weeks, was 8 ounces (a little chunk compared to what the picture below says), had a normal spine, normal heart beat and all of the organs and brain looked great.  Such a sigh of relief because I'll tell you...I was stressing.

We don't know the gender as of yet because baby was being modest and had his/her knees together during the ultrasound.  But after seeing that everything was normal and growing as he/she should be, gender was just not very important.

I'm not certain how much traveling we will do in the near future so most of our blog updates will probably be baby related.  Just bare with me :)  I have promised a few people that I will not be posting any pictures of my uterus though :)

Playing Catch-up

Yeah, yeah.  So I said I wouldn’t slack on our blog.  And I’ve done just that.  Sorry to disappoint.

But The Shepherds have had an exciting past 8 months.  We have been privileged enough to travel to many great places.  We’ve put many miles on the Honda Accord and increased the balance on our Delta SkyMiles account.  I always complain to David that we’re “broke” but he’s quick to remind me of all the wonderful places our money has allowed us to see.  And when he puts it that way, I don’t miss the money.  So many people we know spend their life savings on mortgages, cars, clothes, etc.  We spend our money on memories and experiences.  And I’m pretty convinced we get a better return on our life savings J

November 2010

David bought me tickets to see Sufjan Stevens in Asheville, NC.  He knows that Sufjan is the former love of my life.  I say “former” because he was the love of my life before I met David.  David had Shenzi.  Then we got Mika.  So right now, he is the #4 love of my life J  Okay, not really.  But I do really enjoy him and the show he puts on. 

So we trekked it to Asheville and as always, the former love of my life did not disappoint.

(bare with me as the pictures were SO blurry from that night.)

We went to our “usual”, Tupelo Honey.  It was a quick trip but a very Happy Birthday present to me.

December 2010

Part of the cruise package we purchased for our honeymoon included a free 7-day trip to Cabo.  We decided to cash in our Cabo trip during the winter when we both were going to need to get away.

Neither of us had visited Cabo and we’d heard some mixed reviews.  But when I say we LOVE Cabo, we REALLY LOVE Cabo.  We fell in love the 2^nd we stepped off the plane.  And I don’t know if it’s because we were just so desperate to get out of Memphis that we would’ve loved anywhere we landed?  Or if we truly loved Cabo because it was Cabo?  But we have vowed to go back every other year.  And honestly, if you can find a good deal on a flight, you can spend a week in Cabo for the same price as a week in Destin costs.  And seriously, there’s no comparison.

The scenery was beautiful, the trip was relaxing and our accommodations were amazing.  I highly suggest that you tag along with us when we go back in 2012.

December 2010 (cont.)

The entire Hodge family (including David and Stephen of course) went to Gatlinburg for the New Years holiday.  We rented a cabin and it was an interesting experience from the get-go.  We arrived to find that our cabin had been double-booked…and of course we were the 2^nd family to arrive.  So we were screwed.  The rental company found us a temporary place to stay for the first night and then found a large place for us to stay for the duration of the trip.  I think it’s safe to say we have all learned our lesson to stay away from Gatlinburg during the winter (or maybe even indefinitely J ).

March 2011

For David's Christmas present, I gave him a gift certificate to go skydiving.  It's something he's always wanted to check off of his bucket list.  So...we headed to West TN Skydiving in Whiteville, TN.

I will admit that I was a tad nervous.  But David didn't appear to be so I tried not to be. 

About 20 of them piled into a tiny little plane and into the clouds they headed.  I quickly lost sight of them and then all of a sudden, I looked into the sky and saw 10 parachutes above my head.  It was actually quite neat! 

I still have no interest in personally jumping out of a plane but am glad David had the experience.

April 2011

Our friend Jimmy Shires finally decided to tie the knot with his long-time love Jenny.  Jimmy used to live in Memphis but moved to Slidell, LA to be closer to Jenny and her daughter.  So we made the short trip to New Orleans for the weekend...along with 2 of our favorite people, Hayden and Laura Simons.  We also met Steve Farmer at the hotel as well. 

Neither David nor I have ever really loved New Orleans but we were able to see a different, more positive side of the city on this trip so we are glad we went.  And the Simons have been to NOLA many times and were great tour guides.

May 2011

You’re probably wondering why in the heck it took us 5 months to take another big trip?  Well, we were too.  And by the time May came, we REALLY needed to get out of town.  And we could not have asked for a better time than the one we had in Charleston with Chad and Stephanie O’Neal.

The discussion of this trip started in the Spring over lunch, whilst watching a NASCAR race on TV (yeah, embarrassing huh?).  Both Chad and David love NASCAR and were talking about all of us going to see a race.  We decided on the NASCAR race in Darlington, SC because it would allow us to vacation at the beach AND see the race.  We found extremely cheap flights out of Nashville to Charleston.  Chad was able to find inexpensive NASCAR tickets and I found a great house on Kiawah Island.  This trip really came together well and we were excited to go.

But the week ended up being 10 times better than we ever could have imagined.  I’ll be honest…we were nervous about traveling with another couple.  It’s hard enough to travel with your family but another couple??  We were a little uneasy at the beginning.  And I’m sure the O’Neals wouldn’t mind me saying that because I’m fairly certain they were wondering the same thing about The Shepherds ;)  But I think I can speak for all of us when I say we had a perfect time.

We stayed on Kiawah Island, about 30 minutes from downtown Charleston.  And when I say that Kiawah is something to see, it’s not an understatement.  Nothing I write will do Kiawah any justice.  Just go see it if you haven’t.  And if you have been there, you know what I mean.

We ate at a restaurant in Charleston (The Peninsula Grill - http://www.peninsulagrill.com/) that there are also no words for.  It was by far the most expensive meal I’ve ever eaten but none of us are talking about the money we spent.  We are still talking about the perfectly-seared scallops, the peach glazed jumbo shrimp and the banana panna-cotta pudding (which I still have dreams about by the way).

We made the trip to Darlington for the NASCAR race, which was a ton of fun.  We visited Savannah, GA for one day.  We ate dinner in Hilton Head on the bay.  We went to the beach at Kiawah (on our bikes).  We explored the entire island of Kiawah.  We spent a few days in downtown Charleston.  I think we were all out of breath by the end of the week.  Yet it was a relaxing trip at the same time.

We appreciate the O’Neals for being such great travel partners and look forward to many years of traveling with them in the future!

June 2011

For Christmas 2009, David’s parents gave us all a trip to Aruba.  They had recently returned from there, fell in love with the island and decided to take all of us there.  But with the wedding, honeymoon and other scheduling conflicts in 2010, we weren’t able to take the trip until this past June. 

We stayed at the Marriott Ocean Club, which had an incredible lazy river and awesome cabanas on the beach.  We rented a 4-door Jeep one day and toured the island.  Aruba is not Cabo (in our eyes J) but the 4 Shepherds and the 2 Batsons had a nice time and it was a much-needed break from the “real world” at home.  And we were very appreciative of the trip from David’s parents.  Best Christmas present we’ve received in a LONG time!