saying goodbye to summer, hello to Fall.

Well after about 3 glorious weeks of summer, we are into September and the forecast is starting to have more clouds each day. Honestly, I'm not that sad. Fall is my absolute favorite. I always get this image of snuggling up under a blanket with a cup of tea... pretty much a classic pottery barn shot. Only problem is the only blanket I own is a blue snuggy and I don't drink tea. I will have to settle for time spent underneath my snuggy, drinking a glass of chocolate milk, a pregnancy craving that must be genetic. I have been getting pumped about fall decor, another thing that must be genetic b/c my mom is always sending up scarecrows. Here is how I am thinking about decorating our door this year.


I have been feeling officially pregnant lately. In fact, at work right now my pants aren't even buttoned, shh don't tell. I also just finished my first jar of pickles. According to my weekly updates, baby is now the size of an apple and can detect light.

Last Sunday we went with our community group to the Evergreen State Fair. I had never been to a fair like this before, where you pay just to get in and honestly, I'm not sure if I'll ever go back. I have never spent $50 so quickly and on so little! $10 to get in, $24 to get lunch, and $15 for dessert. I didn't even ride 1 ride! (Ben vetoed my desire to go on the gravitron) We did get to watch a jazzy lumberjack show and saw lots of animals, including 1 day old pigs! so cute.


The best part was getting to spend time with our friends. Every time we are together, we get so many comments about how many strollers there are in our group. I think people were more frustrated with our size this time than other occasions. Gosh you're blocking the way to the fried oreo stand!

The ladies!
No, I am really not that pregnant, my jacket was stuffed with kleenex due to my awesome allergies, which were really helped by walking through about 8 barns full of animals.


Kaleb was probably the most excited about the bunnies. He's a little obsessed.

A trip to the windsurfing capital of the world!

We didn't have to travel too far, just about 4 hours southeast to Hood River, Oregon. My friend Courtney spent part of her childhood in this awesome town and we have been blessed with visiting a few times of the years.

Even though it's a small town, we always manage to do something fun!

This time we ...

went geocaching and visited a site of an old Crag Rat Hut that was destroye

d by I-84 a long time ago. All that was left was a little chimney, but still a cool piece of history. We also got a travel bug to take all the way to Kauai when we go in September. Am I speaking a foreign language to you? Brush up on the terminology at geocaching.com

The one thing on our must do list is pizza at Andrews. Yum.

We also went down to the river and did some walking on water

Later on that day we took the dogs down to the river and caught a beautiful sunset.

PS- Look at this amazing baby daddy. love him.

What should we do when it's 90 degrees outside?

I know, lets go camping!! I was a little nervous that we would be totally scorching without any place to escape, but we had SUCH a great experience at kanaskat-palmer state park last weekend. This was our first experience staying in a yurt, and it definitely wont be our last. Lucky for us, our campsite was mostly shaded and it was totally enjoyable.

We spent the day playing cards, reading (more like me trying to get Jessie to tell me what happens in the book we are reading.. she is 80 pages ahead of me), and going to the river. We pictured it to be a little more swimable, but it was still nice to get knee deep in freezing water.



We brought chili for dinner; we had a few fans.


Ben tested out a strawberry cobbler recipe in the dutch oven that was amazing.


Here is my 3 month bump in all it's glory. I don't look that pregnant yet, just like a have a nice pudgy center, awesome.

revealing the news!

I am a lover of surprises. Planning out how we were going to tell our family we are pregnant has been one of my favorite parts of this journey so far.

A huge blessing was that all of our family had planned visits up to Seattle this summer, so one by one, we shared the news.

The first people we told were my sister & bro in law. My sister and I have a love for freebies, so I printed off a label (sorry work) that made it look like the package was from AirWick and then put a onesie I had ordered inside. I even went as far as putting postage on it so it looked like it was sent through the mail. We put it in front of my sister's door, knocked, and then ran around the corner. I was SO nervous waiting for them to come out. Mark opened the door and we could hear him say "oh airwick" and then he slammed the door. It seemed like an eternity before they opened the door again and we thought that they were in the middle of dinner and didn't open it! Finally the door flew open (we were still hiding) and my sister said 'is my sister pregnant?!' thinking that I would be standing there. She kept the door open and we could hear them processing what the package was all about. That is where the video starts. I was so nervous I cut my sister off before she even said "pregnant" but it's still fun.



Next came my mom. None of our family, besides my sister, knew we were trying to have a baby, so most people were in shock mode. I set the timer on the oven for 2 min and slipped a cookie sheet with a different onesie inside and sat back down at the table. It felt like an eternity before the timer went off. Finally my mom was standing up so it wasn't weird asking her to get the cookies out. If you get motion sickness, you might want to bypass this one. I was so nervous that I couldn't stop shaking the camera.



Next came Ben's parents. This was one of my favorite ideas. We bought his mom a gift card for a retirement gift and I found a website that lets you create fake plane tickets. I typed in "grandma Crowl" as the passenger and put our due date on the flight date. What you can't see in the video is Ben's dad's reaction, and the family friend that was there too. Lois, the family friend, stood there with her hands up to her mouth and Ben's dad got teary.



Then was Ben's grandparents. Because Ben is their only grandchild, I was so excited to tell them. They live in S. California, so we had to tell them over the phone.



Lastly came my brother, his girlfriend, Kelsey and my dad. This is probably my favorite reaction. My brother isn't thrilled with this video, but I think it's priceless. First watch Kelsey's reaction, then watch the video over again and watch my brother's shocked face. I printed out a baby in a mom's belly with a bubble coming out that says "Buy me some Nikes Uncle Aus". Lastly, don't be alarmed by my dad calling me a fart sack. This is a term of endearment in case you didn't know.

I just love that we have all of the reactions recorded on video! Hope you enjoy!

fill in the blank!

First comes love....


Then comes marriage....


Then comes.....


What did you say?


Oh a baby? Yeah we got one of those. Growing in my tummy. Due February 26th :)

Take me out to the ball game!

One nice thing about the take over by Union Bank has been that they have been rolling out the dough to treat the new employees. Ben has had a couple free catered luncheons and lots of freebie memorabilia-need a key chain? Last Saturday night the bank invited all employees plus spouses and other family to a Mariner's game. Not only did we get the tickets, they paid for parking so we did it up and parked in the $23 stadium parking lot. The only requirement was that we had to wear a jazzy hat-surprisingly it wasn't that ugly!

Bank employees filled up several sections, but unfortunately our time on the jumbo tran was cut short due to it also being vampire night. Apparently the poster that said "Team Edward loves garlic fries" was more important. We did make an appearance once because we were sitting behind some "union bank employees" (we were or maybe I was convinced they were plants- who paints the bank logo on their cheek?) who had a large banner. Conveniently the row below them was empty so they could store their banner... sound suspicious?

We did see a home run AND we got garlic fries which we all ate so we wouldn't know who reeked on the ride home. Ps- it takes about a day for the garlic taste to go away.

Fun night.

sweet Seattle summer

It's hard for me to believe that there is any place that beats a Seattle summer. I'm stealing some pictures from my friend Jill since she has an awesome camera and a great eye for photography.


Our community group moved locations to a new home with a huge yard so we have been enjoying the beauty of the outdoors every week. Adelle is super human and showed up to group 3 days after having baby Savannah. Can I tell you how beautiful this sweet angel face girl is?



This past Saturday our group took the ferry to Kingston to meet up with Ryan, Jayna and Brayden.
If this doesn't say summer, I don't know what does.


To say our group has grown in size would be an understatement.. check out all these babies!


I had to include this picture because it is simply hilarious. Ben (not my Ben) decided that Stephanie needed a hand in her mouth


The ferry ride home was simply breathtaking.
Do I have you convinced yet?