Can my life be any busier right now?

Sorry I've been quiet -- it's just been so darn busy! Well, since my last post, we DID close on the house on time (woo hoo!) although there was drama til the very end. When we went to sign the escrow papers, I signed the first two pages using my regular signature. At that point, the escrow lady said, "You should sign your entire whole name" (including middle name), even though it's not my real signature. For the rest of the documents, I did...and she didn't think it was necessary to re-sign the first 2 pages. I should've questioned her on that.....because the next day, WHILE we were in Vegas, I got a frantic call from her telling me that I needed to resign those pages AND that I needed to sign them on legal paper. Great -- that's easy for me to do at my parent's house in Vegas. Fortunately, I found a UPS store nearby and for approx. $2, I was able to print out the pages, sign them and re-scan them at the right size. Sheesh.

Thanksgiving was great as usual -- lots of family, tons of eating Chinese food and just overall relaxation. One thing we did which we hadn't done in a long time --- Aaron and I took our cousins to Circus Circus, which was our favorite casino to go to when we were children because of the child-friendly arcade. It was incredible how different it is compared to when we used to go there but there were still a lot of the classic games. We probably spent nearly $20 playing the "roll the ball into the blue/red/yellow holes so your horse can move as fast as possible" game so that our cousin could win a huge stuffed cow to take home. Mission accomplished.

Since returning, I've now also kicked off another loan process...moreso, I'm finally refinancing the condo since rates are awesome and we're going to hold off on selling it for awhile. Back to scanning tons of paperwork....

Our big move to the house is this coming Saturday (when we've hired the movers) and we've just been packing like crazy ever since. Although our "official move" was last Saturday -- per my parents, the 5th was an auspicious day for moving and the 12th was a bad day. To make it "official", Matt and I had to go to the house and bring in a houseplant, a container of rice, boil some water and then announce together "we've moved in!". Hee Hee. We had to spend half the day there anyway because we got deliveries from Sears, Macy's and Crate+Barrel that day--yay! Our master bedroom is setup and looks awesome now...which is great in that when we do move, we don't have to stress about putting the bed together in order to fall asleep that night. (our current bed will become the guest bed) I'm taking the day off tomorrow to complete packing---feels so close but there's still so much random stuff! I guess the good thing about packing and moving is the forced "have I worn this in the last 2 years? do I really need this?" We have trash bags full of clothes that are going to donation now. What's crazy is that we have a huge storage area full of boxes of stuff that we packed away for the purpose of putting the condo on the market---so in a way, that helped minimize the amount of packing we have to do now.

On top of all this, we have 1 week after moving out to prep the condo for the new tenant!!!! I have cleaners and carpet cleaners scheduled...and all that remains is random paint touch-ups...oh, and preparing some sort of move-in checklist.....oh, and making copies of the keys. I will miss this condo -- lots of great memories here. Most of all, I'll probably miss living right in the heart of the city, being able to step out onto my balcony and see the Space Needle and all of Capitol Hill walking past me. Given, we aren't moving far away and are still in the city of Seattle...just in a quieter, more residential area.

Lastly, we actually have some very exciting news to share, which I've kept very quiet on this blog: we are expecting a baby girl on April 26, 2010!!! Yup, I am now a bit over 20 weeks pregnant (half way there!) and it has been such a journey. We are completely thrilled over the news and can't wait to have a lil' one in our arms. The pregnancy so far has been wonderful: absolutely no morning sickness (apparently ~60% of women will experience morning sickness---one coworker of mine due 2 weeks before me threw up 5-6x/day and has "only" been throwing up 1-2x/day during the 2nd trimester--eeks!!) and my energy level has surprisingly remained pretty high. The only weird things for me were sensitivity to smells (during the 1st trimester, walking into the cafeteria just made me want to gag) and occasional food aversions (a filet mignon tastes like rubber to me---a filet! and I LOVE steak!). In the last couple of weeks, my belly finally "popped" and I think (I hope) I transitioned from the awkward "man, did she eat too many ho-ho's?" to the "wow, she's obviously preggers" phase. As a comparison, here's a picture of me at 20 weeks (this week) compared to when I was 6 weeks:



Also, here's a recent ultrasound photo -- this was taken at 17 weeks, 4 days (so right before Thanksgiving):


I have another ultrasound coming up next week so if I get a better picture, I'll post that too. That will probably be my last "full body" ultrasound...because the next ultrasound is somewhere in the mid-30's week? Anyway, the point is, the baby is big enough after 30 weeks that it's too big to fit within an ultrasound photo.

So now that I've spilled, this blog will soon become more and more filled with pregnancy stories and then soon baby stories. Don't tell me I didn't warn you!

So you can see: there's a lot going in my life right now! Buying a house, finalized a loan, refinancing the condo, learning to be a landlord, packing and moving and oh yeah, making a baby at the same time! It's all crazy and but it's all wonderful wonderful and I'm enjoying every step of the way!