Happy almost-New Year! I was lucky enough to have both last week and this week off from work, which has been so relaxing. I don't think I've had a 2-week-long break since college! We spent last week visiting my mom and Patrick's family in California, and now we're back in Portland (just in time to catch the surprise snowstorm on Tuesday!), and I have been hanging around the house, doing some cooking and being lazy. A great way to end the year :)

Anyway, this seems like a good time to catch up on a few of the posts I've been meaning to write. First up: our anniversary trip to Vancouver!

A few months ago, we decided to go on a quick vacation to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. The original plan was to rent a cabin in Montana in early October (it seemed like a good place to get away and enjoy nature), but I had a huge project going on at work, so we decided to put off our trip until mid-November. And since Montana in mid-November sounded like it might be a little chilly, we decided to take a trip to Canada instead. Based on this article in Sunset, we ended up spending three nights at Rockwater Secret Cove Resort (on the Sunshine Coast) and had some time to check out Vancouver as well. Patrick planned the whole trip, and it was great!

We drove up to Vancouver from Portland on a rainy Thursday, and apart from a long wait to cross the border, it was a nice drive. This was the first time either of us had been to Canada, so it was exciting crossing the border!

We had decided to spend a night in Vancouver before going to Rockwater Secret Cove, and Patrick found us a very nice hotel downtown--L'Hermitage. After checking in, we walked down Robson Street (Vancouver's big shopping street) and had dinner at Kintaro Ramen, one of three ramen places that we wanted to try while we were in town (we ended up making it to all three, and the ramen at Kintaro was my favorite--really nice noodles).

The next morning, we needed Canadian coins for our parking meter, so we headed to a Starbucks near the hotel. Although Vancouver felt a lot like Portland, there were some small differences that reminded us we were in Canada--like when Patrick asked for his change in singles (so he could pay the meter), the barista looked confused and then asked if he wanted loonies or toonies. Anyway, we got it all sorted out, paid the meter, and headed to breakfast.

My small contribution to our vacation was finding a good place for breakfast while in Vancouver, and I chose Medina--they serve tiny waffles with all sorts of awesome sauces! We were tempted to have an all-waffle breakfast, but instead we got one waffle apiece and supplemented with healthier fare (yogurt, fruit, and granola). It was a good breakfast, and the waffles didn't disappoint. I had the milk chocolate lavender sauce with my waffle, and Patrick had the fig orange marmalade. Yum!

Before I forget--at a couple cafes in Vancouver, I noticed a drink called the London Fog--earl grey tea, steamed milk, and vanilla syrup. I didn't have a chance to try one while we were there, but it sounds like just my kind of drink! I'll have to see if I can get a coffee shop in Portland to make one.

After breakfast, we explored Stanley Park for a few hours. It was a chilly day, but it was still a nice way to spend a few hours. Vancouver is a pretty city!

For lunch, we had ramen once again, this time at Benkei Noodle Shop (Portland is ramen-deficient; we had to eat our fill while we had the chance!). This turned out to be Patrick's favorite ramen of the trip.

Bellies full, we headed across the Lions Gate Bridge and drove to Horseshoe Bay (enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way), to catch the ferry to the Sunshine Coast. This was our first time taking our car on a ferry, and it was pretty cool! The ferry was well-outfitted with a full cafeteria, and the 40-minute ride was just long enough to enjoy the scenery without getting bored.

The ferry disembarked at Langdale, and we drove along the coast to Sechelt, the town nearest to Rockwater Secret Cove. We had a fine dinner at The Old Boot and then continued on to the resort.

Rockwater Secret Cove Resort turned out to be pretty awesome. We splurged and reserved a tenthouse suite, which reminded me of the yurts at Treebones, but even nicer (in-yurt bathrooms--excellent!).

The Rockwater tenthouses had all sorts of great amenities--heated floors, super comfy beds, cute little fireplaces, and huge tubs with jets and light shows and stuff. All that luxury plunked down in the middle of beautiful natural scenery (one of the days we even saw a deer hanging out right next to the boardwalk!). It turned out to be a great place to just get away from everything and relax.

The one problem we ran into was the weather. The first night we got there, it was pretty calm, but the second night it was stormy, and the tent walls flapped around noisily all night, making it really hard to sleep. I was kind of afraid the tent would blow away, it was so loud. Since it was supposed to be stormy the next night as well, Patrick asked if they could move us to a more sheltered tent, and luckily they were able to help us out. So we moved from Tent #60 (which I'm sure would be awesome in the summertime but is a little dicey during stormy weather) to Tent #53, which had a less awesome view but was way more peaceful. Phew!

We mostly just sat around our tent and knitted/read. One of the days, we drove into Sechelt and explored a little. We managed to catch a holiday craft fair, and we visited a cute little store specializing in items made by local artists (of course I can't remember its name now, but it was on Mermaid Street next to a small European market). It turned out to be a nice little town to explore.

The restaurant at the resort was nice. We had breakfast there every morning, and we went there for a fancy dinner the second night we were there. In retrospect, it would have been good to bring some food to keep in the little in-room fridge, since the resort restaurant wasn't cheap, and our only other option was driving into Sechelt for every meal.

I'd definitely recommend Rockwater Secret Cove Resort if you want to splurge on a relaxing vacation in a beautiful setting. They also offer spa services and activities like horseback riding, but we didn't do any of that. Three days was a good length of time for us to stay--by the last day, I was feeling ready to get back into the real world!

On our way back to Portland, we stopped in Vancouver for lunch at the third ramen restaurant of interest--Motomachi Shokudo. The first two ramen restaurants we went to seemed pretty traditional; Motomachi was much hipper and experimental. It was good ramen, just not our favorite of the three. Also, Patrick lost his hat there, which was unfortunate :(

So, that was our trip to Canada! I'd like to go back to Vancouver at some point (maybe on the train) and explore downtown more. It seemed like a fun place to visit.

Happy 2010! I plan to write a post about the year as a whole, but first continuing with the catching up, here's a rundown of our Thanksgiving dinner. It was our one big holiday cooking event of 2009--we didn't do any Christmas-related cooking or baking because we were traveling.

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving this year. Lee and Pete came over for dinner, and then Susan, Pearl, and Andrew joined us for dessert. Here's the menu:

• Roast crisped-skin turkey with giblet pan gravy
• Mashed potatoes and vegan gravy from Lee and Pete (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Simple cranberry sauce
• Golden-crusted brussels sprouts (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Pear and chanterelle bread stuffing, vegetarianized (no pancetta, veggie stock instead of turkey stock) and using pre-dried stuffing mix from Little T (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Soft dinner rolls from Little T (Patrick got up early on Thanksgiving and stood in line with some other roll-lovers to make sure we got some before they ran out)
• Chocolate-bourbon pecan pie from Susan (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Damn fine apple pie (using my go-to recipe from In the Sweet Kitchen)
• Pumpkin pie using Shuna's pie dough

Earlier in the year, I had reserved a Red Bourbon turkey from Kookoolan Farms, not knowing exactly what our Thanksgiving plans would be. As it turned out, the majority of our guests were vegetarians, so Patrick and I were the only ones eating turkey at dinner (and Andrew nabbed some turkey leftovers for sandwiches the next day). Because of that, I ended up preparing the turkey a day in advance, which made our dinner preparation much more relaxed. Because I roasted the turkey in advance, I was able to make turkey stock from the carcass and use that to make the turkey gravy. The gravy actually took the longest to make of all of our dishes, but it was very tasty.

Everything turned out great. I was really happy with our Kookoolan turkey--it was tasty, and I knew that it was treated well throughout its life. I think the only recipe we wouldn't make again is the stuffing, because it used a lot of butter, and it didn't knock our socks off.

Even though I got the smallest turkey possible, we still had plenty of turkey left for sandwiches, turkey soup (made with a combination of leftover turkey stock and leftover gravy), and treats for Patches. And we ended up with a great assortment of pie leftovers, which we enjoyed for our post-Thanksgiving breakfast (and beyond). Yum!

I'm glad we were able to spend Thanksgiving with friends. It was a nice way to celebrate!

We kept our Christmas gifts pretty low-key this year. We took advantage of our cabinet full of jams from this summer and gave those as presents, along with felt trivets. The trivets, based on directions in Kayte Terry's inspiring Applique Your Way, were easy to make and turned out nicely. I got the wool felt sheets at Gossamer, and they had so many pretty colors to choose from! I had a great time coming up with all the color combinations. I was too lazy to go through all the tracing steps to get the exact doily patterns from the book onto the felt, so I just freehanded patterns on the felt and then cut them out as if I was making paper snowflakes.

I did a little knitting for our two youngest sisters. I made Patrick's sister Meg a buttony hat out of super-soft Mirasol yarn and this pattern. Because the band was done in seed stitch, it doesn't really hug the head as well as ribbing, but I'm still happy with how the hat turned out, and Meg seemed to like it too. (More info on Ravelry)

I made my sister, Lianna, some stripey gray mitts out of Malabrigo. They were pretty quick to make, and they're nice and cozy. I'm tempted to make myself a pair too. (More info on Ravelry)

I also did some embroidery a few weeks ago, which is a rare occurrence for me. Lee recently started selling connect-the-dots stitch sets (great idea!), and she gave Star and me some unicorn canvases to play with. It was such a fun little project, and it was great seeing the unicorn emerge as the embroidery progressed. I embellished mine with some French knot roses.

Right now, Lee is selling the connect-the-dots sets in two themes (with five designs per theme)--cryptozoology and craft tools--and it sounds like she'll be coming out with more themes soon. Fun!

Like I said in the last post, I didn't do any Christmas-specific baking this year, but I did make some mini cupcakes to celebrate Star's birthday in early December (using the recipe for yellow cupcakes with simple chocolate frosting in The New Best Recipe).

And then I had sour cream leftover from the cupcake baking, so I made a batch of the apple streusel cinnamon swirl cupcakes from Cupcakes!, but I used the same yellow cake recipe from The New Best Recipe that I used for Star's cupcakes. They turned out really nicely--like little moist coffee cakes.

Yesterday, I had some ricotta to use up, so I made the fluted polenta ricotta cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking (plus some mini cakes, since my tart pan was too small). I like the general idea, but the only honey we have in the house is this really strong stuff from the farmers' market (it tastes almost like eucalyptus to me, but I think it's linden honey), and it overpowered the cake's flavor. So I'd like to try it again with milder honey.

And that brings us to today. For breakfast, I made our traditional Dutch babies (recipe here), but I used eggnog instead of milk. Yum! I also made tangerine-vanilla spritzers (tangerine juice, vanilla sugar, and club soda) since we didn't have any orange juice. It was a nice way to start the year!

This past year has definitely had its ups and downs for friends and family and for the world in general, but we were lucky enough to have a pretty good year. Some highlights:

• We made new friends and managed to see many of them regularly thanks to our weekly trivia night get togethers. I feel so lucky to have made friends in Portland. It was one of my biggest worries about moving somewhere where we didn't know many people (especially since we're both kind of introverted), and we ended up meeting a group of really great people who seem to enjoy our company. Phew! I'm hoping to organize more social gatherings this year. It's something I mean to do every year, and it never really happens. Maybe this will be the year :)

• Excited about finally having a yard of our own, we made a pretty ambitious garden plan and stuck to it, for the most part. Our main problem was actually harvesting everything that we grew in a timely manner. Most of the lettuce we planted bolted before we could eat it, because we were too busy eating lettuce from our CSA box. We'll probably skip the CSA this year and rely on our farmers' market to fill the gaps in our garden.

• I took up running with the help of the couch-to-5k plan (with lots of support from Patrick and Star) and completed a couple organized 5k runs. It was kind of mind-blowing, since I totally didn't see myself as a runner (I still don't), but I actually started enjoying it! I pretty much stopped running after my 8k run in October, but now that I know I'm capable of it, I'm hoping to be able to start up again next year when the weather's nicer.

• We cut back on the amount of meat we eat at home, not because of any strong moral convictions, but because it seems healthier for us and better for the planet (fewer resources used to make vegetables vs. meat). My biggest accomplishment on that front was no longer buying lunch meat for sandwiches (though Patches was not happy to lose her daily turkey snack!). I still eat meat when we go out, though Patrick is pretty good about sticking with vegetarian options at restaurants. I'm not sure if we're going to become vegetarians in the future (I do love those cured meats!), but it's not out of the question. It just seems so much easier to live this way in Portland than in the Bay Area. I'm not sure why.

• I worked up the courage to try canning, and I generated all sorts of jams and pickles during the summer. That was fun, if a little exhausting. Now that it's winter, we need to get to work enjoying all that summer bounty. I would have liked to have done some apple preserving too (apple butter or applesauce), but it just didn't happen this year.

Plus we spent a good amount of time enjoying Portland and our lives in general. We're still really happy that we moved here. It was a good choice :)

There's one more big thing that happened in 2009 that I haven't told you about yet. I'm pregnant! (I know, you were probably totally expecting that after last year's post) The baby is due on June 3, and we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl in a few weeks. We're really excited :)

I have a lot to say about being pregnant, but I'll save that for a separate post. Hopefully I'll be posting more frequently now that I can talk about baby stuff. It has been hard keeping quiet for so long, but we wanted to keep it a secret until we could tell our families in person at Christmas.

Okay, where to begin with the baby post? I have 18 weeks' worth of pregnancy talk that I've been saving up! This is probably way more than anybody is interested to hear, but I want to get it all written down for posterity.

Having been together for 11 years and married for 4 years, Patrick and I have been talking about starting a family for a couple years now. We were considering it seriously back in mid-2008, before we moved to Portland, and then we put it on hold while we got settled here. We figured that aiming to get pregnant in mid- to late-2009 would be ideal. Based on some big work deadlines I had scheduled for late 2009, it seemed like I wouldn't want to give birth until 2010, so September looked like a good time to start trying to get pregnant (early summer seems like a nice time to have a baby). I even wrote it in my planner so I wouldn't forget. Yes, I'm a big dork :)

I started reading What to Expect When You're Expecting this past summer (full of eye-roll-worthy writing, but also pretty informative), and based on information in the pregnancy preparation chapter, I started taking prenatal vitamins about 2 months before I planned to get pregnant. Patrick and I spent a long time staring at all the vitamin options at the grocery store and trying to figure out which we should buy, and we ended up going with the Rainbow Light Complete Prenatal System vitamins. They're big and expensive and you have to take six a day, but they've been really gentle on my stomach, so I'm happy. I'm also taking an omega 3 supplement for kicks.

I went in for a pre-pregnancy exam in August (which turned out to be unnecessary; the doctor just told me what I already knew from reading books), and Patrick and I sat down and talked about the pros and cons of having a baby and decided we were ready to start trying, and that was that--September was go time!

I had been using the fertility awareness method as a means of birth control since mid-2006, so I already knew when I'd be ovulating and all that good stuff (Taking Charge of Your Fertility is a great resource for this--I really enjoy knowing what's going on in my body at any given time, and it's such a reasonable scientific approach!). I figured despite knowing exactly when I was ovulating, it would still take a few months to conceive, but we were pleasantly surprised (and a little freaked out) to find out that we'd gotten it on the first try!

Since I was tracking my basal temperatures, I knew when I didn't see the typical drop in temperature 12 days following ovulation that something was up, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too soon. I happened to be in California that week for work, so I had to wait a whole week to get back to Portland and buy a pregnancy test to find out if I was really pregnant (I didn't want to take the test in my hotel room by myself; I wanted Patrick to be there too!). Right after Patrick picked me up from the airport, we drove to Walgreens and bought a test (only one; not a whole shelf-full like in the movies). The next morning, I took the test, and it was positive. Holy crap!

This was about 5 weeks into the pregnancy (using the wacky counting method where you get to count the 2 weeks before you even got pregnant), and my first OB appointment wasn't until 8 weeks. Waiting was kind of excruciating. I wanted some sort of confirmation that I was pregnant beyond a plus sign on a stick!

Morning sickness kicked in around week 5, with general yucky feelings, lack of appetite, and a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, and sometimes there was excessive salivation, which is kind of unnerving. Those symptoms stuck around until about week 14. I hadn't realized it before I got pregnant, but that's a long time to feel crappy! But I think it was pretty mild morning sickness (no vomiting; phew!), so I consider myself lucky. I ate crackers a lot at first, but then those started making me feel sick (I think because I associated them with feeling sick), so I had to move on to other mild foods, like oatmeal. I ate a lot of salad in the first trimester, because it was the only thing that I could bring myself to eat, and as a consequence, I ended up losing about 7 pounds compared to my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm putting that weight back on now, not to worry.

At week 8, we went to the OB, where they gave me all sorts of brochures and ran some blood tests and--the best part--did an ultrasound. The baby looked like a little frog at that point, but we got to hear its heartbeat and see the corresponding flutter on the ultrasound, and suddenly it was real--I was really pregnant! That was a pretty amazing moment :)

We opted for the First Trimester Screening, which meant we got a bonus ultrasound at week 12. The baby looked much more baby-like at this point, and the ultrasound tech even got a picture of it waving at us (we'll pretend that's what it was doing, at least). The screening results were good, which was reassuring.

I started sleeping on my side around 12 weeks, since stomach sleeping is out, as is back sleeping (so many things to worry about!). I picked up a Snoogle at our neighborhood consignment store early on, and although it's kind of cumbersome (especially when I need to get out of bed), it definitely makes sleeping on my side more comfortable.

My morning sickness mostly went away around Thanksgiving (13 weeks), though I came down with a cold soon after, followed by another cold a few weeks later, so I wasn't really at full appetite/energy levels until about a week ago. It was kind of disconcerting when the morning sickness went away, because I suddenly didn't have any day-to-day tangible proof that there was a baby in there, and it had been a few weeks since my last ultrasound. It made me unreasonably nervous. I'd keep sticking out my belly in front of the mirror, looking for signs that I was pregnant.

Things got more reassuring about a week ago (around 17 weeks), when I started feeling the baby move! (This is also known as "quickening." I wanted to go rent Highlander to celebrate, but it was checked out at our neighborhood video store. Bummer) I first felt it when I was lying in bed a little over a week ago. It's hard to describe--it was like a little pop or tickle on the inside of my belly. The day that we flew back from California, we got Lebanese food (Ya Hala, yum!) and went to a movie (Whip It at the Academy), and something about that really riled the baby up, because I felt it move four or five times that day! It has calmed down since then, but I usually feel it move once or twice a day (most often at mealtimes), which is really reassuring. I'm excited for when it gets strong enough that Patrick can feel it on the outside.

We're lucky to have two great maternity/baby consignment stores within walking distance of our house (as well as additional stores around Portland). Although it was a little early, I picked up a few maternity pieces at Piccolina before I left for California in mid-December, and I was glad I did. I splurged on some used Citizens of Humanity maternity jeans, and I have been so happy to have them, because they fit really nicely and give me plenty of belly room.

Speaking of belly, here are a couple of pictures. When I was in my first trimester funk, I didn't take any pictures, because I figured that everybody has seen plenty of pregnant bellies. But now that I'm feeling more energetic, I've decided to start documenting the pregnancy in pictures. I think I'll enjoy having them.

14. 3 weeks

15.4 weeks

17.6 weeks

(I'm sticking my belly out as far as it will go in that last picture; I don't think I normally look quite that big)

We went in for our monthly checkup a few days ago, and we got to hear the heartbeat again, which was nice. I'm really looking forward to our appointment in two weeks, when we get our third ultrasound and get to find out if it's a boy or a girl. It will have been 2 months since our last ultrasound, and I'm excited to see how the baby has grown (but I don't want a 3D ultrasound--those pictures creep me out for some reason).

We had considered waiting until birth to find out the sex of the baby, but I've found that I'm operating under the assumption that it's a girl (partly based on the timing of conception, but also just on my own unintentional bias, I think), so if it's a boy, I want time to change my assumptions. Either a boy or a girl would be awesome, of course; I think I just have a tendency to imagine our child as a girl because most of the babies and little kids I've been around have been girls. Raising a boy is kind of a mystery to me, since I didn't have any brothers, but Patrick has plenty of experience with boy stuff, and I'm sure we can figure things out either way :)

As far as names go, I've been keeping a running list of possible names for the past few years, but we haven't made much progress narrowing it down yet. There's also the question of what to do about our last names, since neither of us changed our names when we got married (and our names are too long to hyphenate comfortably). I had originally suggested that we give the baby my last name if it's a girl and Patrick's last name if it's a boy, but that would probably be too confusing. I think we'll go the least-confusing route and use Patrick's last name for all children. At least it's easier to spell than mine :)

We're planning on turning the room next to ours into a nursery, but we haven't done any work on it yet. Over the past week, I've spent an unhealthy amount of time on Ohdeedoh, which is simultaneously inspiring and stressful. Too much to think about! And as one commenter said, in retrospect she should have spent less time perfecting her nursery and more time learning about how to take care of a baby! So I'm trying not to get too caught up in nursery madness. The baby won't care what it looks like (but I would like to create a nice space, since the rest of our house was kind of decorated on the fly as we unpacked in 2008). I'm also hoping that we can get a lot of our baby stuff at our local consignment stores, rather than buying new. I think we can do it!

Speaking of learning how to take care of a baby, I checked out The Happiest Baby on the Block from the library and read it over Christmas break. Dr. Karp has some interesting theories, and it sounds like a lot of parents have found his method useful. I've put a hold on the Happiest Baby DVD at the library, since I think seeing the 5 S's in action will be helpful. I have no idea if this is something that we'll actually need to know, but it seems good to learn about it now, rather than after we've got a colicky baby in the house.

Oh, and I've just started reading about natural childbirth techniques. At the moment, my feeling is that it would be nice if I can give birth without drugs, but since I have no idea what labor is like, I'm not going to rule out an epidural as an option. But I would like to take a class in pain management. Lamaze seems reasonable (that's what my mom used when she had me), or there's something called hypnobirthing, which sounds kind of iffy based on the name (hypnotoad!), but when I asked my OB about it, she said she's seen women have success with it. I don't know, I need to read more about it.

It's funny how many things there are to think about related to having a baby. I feel like I shouldn't spend my time obsessing about all of this, but I'm not sure what is important and what can be ignored. And I'm sure all of my careful planning will go out the window when it comes time to actually have the baby. I'll definitely need to learn to be more easygoing. Being organized and planning ahead might work for us now, but it probably won't work once we have a child. That'll be an interesting change for me :)

While I'm writing, I also wanted to say how lucky I feel that this has all gone so smoothly so far. I'm really grateful that we were able to conceive so quickly and that my morning sickness was relatively mild. I know not everybody has been so lucky. Here's hoping that things continue to go well!

Okay, I think that's everything I wanted to say for now. I expect that my posts will be baby-centric for a long time to come, though hopefully I'll still have time for baking and crafts and all that good stuff. Now that my energy is back, I'm definitely enjoying spending time in the kitchen again. That's a relief. It was weird not wanting anything to do with food!