Adventuring Again

As we get a little bit more comfortable in our surroundings, we have ventured out for more outings and adventures in Corpus Christi. We also got paid by the Navy for our move and added some of that money to our 'date night fund' so that we can take advantage of time exploring before Ava gets here.

Tesla Auto Show

This was a free event that I found online and knew Mike would love. Tesla brought some cars down to showcase and offer test drives at a beach club in Port Aransas, TX (north of Padre island near Corpus Christi). The Tesla we got a test drive in (from one of their staff members) was the one with the white seats and it went 0-60 in like 3 seconds! Being pregnant, I let Mike experience that without me, but it was really weird for me to watch a car accelerate without making a sound (due to it being electric). It is beautiful out there, and I've heard we should go back and check out the downtown area of Port Aransas.

View of the beach from the golf club where the event was held

Side view of the 3 models Tesla brought

Interior view of my private car...the white seats were so cool!

Picture of Mike in the driver's seat (although we didn't drive on ourselves)

Full car view

Me in the back seat!

Annual Wimbledon Feast

Mike and I were able to partake in our annual Breakfast at Wimbledon tradition thanks to Mike finagling a way to watch the finals live on our Apple TV! I thanked him by making tomato sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, strawberries & whipped cream (made in out KitchenAid), and a cheese plate. Perfect way to celebrate a Roger Federer win!

We used our nice china and Game of Thrones-themed cutting board since the season premiere was later that night!

Movies & Shows

We saw this movie in the Alamo Drafthouse in Corpus Christi (you can get food brought to you during the movie) and it was amazing! I found it super funny and also heartwarming. We've since also seen Spiderman which was also good.

We saw the local community theater's production of "Beauty and the Beast" which was really well done! They were mostly a young cast, but Belle sounded exactly like Belle from the movie. There is one other community theater in Corpus (besides the universities) that we are also planning to check out this weekend!

Recent Eats

Shrimp salad (marinated shrimp in lime/garlic/cumin then had avocado and tahini dressing)

I don't always eat this healthy, but we had leftovers so that helped:)

Other Projects

In addition to volunteering at a local career resource center one day a week, I began training last week to become a CASA (which is why I've been busier than usual). I will basically serve as a voice in court for the interest of the child in cases of abuse. It's a really great program and I'm glad I have time to get involved now, although I may still want to work in the future.

We bought some herbs for our balcony! Mike has kept them watered and so far none of them have died, so maybe soon we will use some of our basil, mint, and rosemary!

We finally finished our baby registry! You can search for us on Amazon or this link should also take you straight there. We tried to keep it minimal, but it was still an overwhelming process with so many options for everything out there these days (and also not having done the parenting thing yet).

In the long saga that has been our moving claims process, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. We are going to get almost $700 for missing items. Unfortunately, this is like 2 months after we moved and we got tired of having a desk with no legs siting on our floor, so Mike (being incredibly resourceful and motivated to not want to haul a desk body to a landfill or Goodwill) decided to make some! Even though they are slightly different color than the rest of the desk, it is going to save us money AND give us a working desk!!

Bump Pics

I think this was like 27 weeks?

I think this was around 27 weeks as well

Sitting in the doctor's office at 28 weeks

View from the top!

Bump pic at 27 and a half weeks

So that's it for right now, but I will be posting a recap on the 2nd trimester soon, now that I officially entered the 3rd trimester at 28 weeks!

-Kelsey

Exploring Corpus Christi

Oh my goodness! I completely forgot that I hadn't posted this blog and these pictures! Things have been a little crazy around here (as you'll see in our next blog with more recent pictures:)), but the pictures below are from some of our first ventures out into Corpus Christi trying to get to know the community, which included a trip to a Hooks game, the Art Museum of South Texas. We also acquired a few more pieces of furniture for our apartment!

The Corpus Christi Hooks play regular games over the summer and Mike and I decided to go to "military night". Even though neither of us is super into baseball, Mike is into Dippin Dots ice cream (of which there was plenty there) and I like leaving peanut shells on the floor:)

Note to self for next time: getting shady seats is worth it. The TX sun can be brutal even after 6pm!

I know this doesn't look like much, but I was really proud of myself for making a pizza crust out of sweet potatoes, and I actually really liked it! 

This is a view from the cafe at the Art Museum of South Texas that (L to R) shows the edge of the Texas State Aquarium, the USS Lexington, and a boat coming in.

A reminder to go to the pool more because it is glorious for pregnancy!

Wonder Woman shirt gift from my person, Kelly:) A book that I recently finished from the library (got a library card!) and a postcard from friends in Colorado.

He loves being an only child for now haha.

Another picture of Rupert enjoying all of the extra room.

We got new bookcases and Rupert somehow managed to scale them, of course. This was the first bookcase, but now we have TWO of these! We love books:)

And you can see where this is going to go.....

YEP

I hope you can tell how crazy proud he is of himself in this picture.

I have been pretty good about working out thanks to a plan for prenatal workouts I got online that helps keep me accountable and safe:)

Beautiful sunset

New shoe rack and keyholder for our entryway!

You were not allowed to take pictures of Art at the Art Museum of South Texas (so you all will just have to come visit!), but Mike did take a picture of me trying out this collage art simulation:)

Get excited for another post soon (hopefully today!)!

Our New Normal + Saying Goodbye to my Grandma

Life in Corpus

We're overdue for another blog post! It's been a hard couple of weeks around here. I had to go home for a week to attend my grandmother's funeral and then Mike and I had a week of trying to re-find our normal routine down here, and now Mike is in Florida this week for work. It's just been tough trying to find routine in the midst of a lot of travel, having a lot of feelings coming up (for me) from being home, and then (also me) still coping with a lot of free time on my hands.

I have at least found a volunteer opportunity that I'm taking advantage of one day a week on Fridays. It's with a local non-profit that helps connect members of the community to education and job opportunities, and I'm actually going to be giving two presentations for them during the month of July, which is nice! I also have a library card, a prenatal yoga class that I go to once a week, a gym routine to keep up with (hopefully!), and I've been doing slightly annoying around-the-house things like dealing with (messed up) furniture deliveries and beginning our claims process for items lost/damaged during our move (I should definitely write a post about what we learned through the PCS process, but I'm still learning right now!). 

Mike gets back late tomorrow night and then I'm hoping we can start to make this place feel like home soon. (Once we do, I'll share more pictures.)

In the meantime, here are some picture of everyday life in Corpus!

Crazy/pretty clouds.

23 weeks pregnant...(I'm 25 weeks now, which is how long it takes me to blog haha)

View from our balcony!

Mike's first trip to Whataburger which was founded in Corpus Christi.

View from bedroom window where we have our bike set up!

At an event with Mike's coworkers, which was also our first time at the beach.

I got tired of standing, so I sat down and enjoyed the sunset.

Sunset!!

Lots of pretty skies.

Rupert hanging out in the toy my family gave us for Ava (used to be Ashton's). It's now his favorite thing.

Oh, he has also claimed the changing table as his own.

Our brand new table that was made my one of Mike's Woodberry friends!

Rupert playing....

and then attacking!

Traveling Home & Back

My grandma (Nova Eliza Yates (maiden name: Leonard) was born in Grundy, VA which is in the Appalachian mountains in Southwestern Virginia where the accents run thick! Her father was a coal miner. I know that she met my grandfather in the Northern Virginia area when buses of girls were basically shipped North to find work & meet husbands. She worked as a secretary for the Navy and then retired. They lived in Woodbridge, VA while my mom and her sister were growing up, but most of my memories of them are from spending summers and trips at their house in Davis, WV where they had retired. 

My grandma was a simple, kind, and quiet country woman. When we were little, we'd poke fun at her for eating onions like apples (straight out of their plentiful garden), never throwing away plastic containers (always re-using them for leftovers so you could never tell what was actually inside of the container), thinking that packaged food never expired (I remember her trying to convince me a hard marshmallow just has to soften in my hot chocolate for a bit haha), and never sitting down when the rest of us were eating (always trying to fix things for others). I also remember her for her very southern eating habits: cornbread with milk, making drop biscuits, lots of greens cooked with fat, and using lard to cook. She loved my grandfather too. He was the clown of the two of them, a musician and jokester. She was always stable, worried about everyone, and only let her anger show if we had endangered ourselves or wasted something precious. 

My grandfather passed about 10 years ago from dementia and that is what my grandma also passed away from. She did okay for a couple of years after he left, but had lived with my mom for much of the past several years when she needed more support. Seeing my mom care for her was a blessing in my life. In many ways, it was like their initial roles in this world were reversed, but in such a sad situation, I thought it was a bit of beauty.....to love someone so much that you would show such care for them even knowing you will eventually say goodbye. But I suppose we will all eventually say goodbye to each other.

Below are some of the favorite pictures I came across of her and my grandfather over the week!

At our home in Castleton, VA (I was just a toddler)

My grandfather loved building miniature doll houses.

On the swings in WVA. I believe that's me on the left!

One of my favorite pictures because I think it sums up their personalities so well.

A recent picture of her at my mom's house.

That's me! And that's her traditional hairdo!

Me again with both of them

Traveling Home & Back

Anyway, it was wonderful to be able to spend some time with my family and here are some pictures from that trip.

There was no toning down Ashton's 3.5 year old energy!

Loved being able to take a long walk outside in a place that I knew!

Here he is wanting to make wishes in the fountain.

And this is where I finally got him to eat some of his ice cream.

(Watching a bubble maker in the distance.)

Something I created for my parents when I was little. I don't know where my picture of the other side went, but it was a very nicely colored coloring book page!

I was SO happy to be able to see Kelly and Alex for a bit while I was home! Here we are meeting for dinner in Fairfax.

Sunrise at Houston airport after I had to spend the night due to missing a connecting flight. I did lots of adulting on this trip (with Mike's help obviously) including doing my first flight transfers by myself and first rental car! (I know this isn't a big deal to other people, but I hate flying, so it was big to me!)

Flying back into Corpus and I even got brave enough to take a picture out of the window!

Sunrise leaving Houston

Time To Cook

Another perk of my funemployment time right now is having lots of time to cook (and also take pictures of what I eat when I've impressed myself). Here are some things I took pictures of!

I do think I've gotten quite good at fried egg sandwiches.

Steel cut oats with strawberries and peaches, because why not if you have the time?!

Mediterranean nachos (pita chips with feta, yogurt sauce, cucumber salad, roasted chickpeas, etc.)

Breakfast tacos

This weekend, we're headed to a work cookout for Mike and I might make Mike take some 25 week pregnancy pictures of me! We also have to buy a new dresser, since our deliver was botched this week (don't worry, I got full refund).