Bursitis and Bubbles

Last weekend Ryan was supposed to ride in the Courage Classic, a three day bike ride up in the mountains that raises money for Children's Hospital. He left on Friday night and was really excited to spend the weekend enjoying the nice weather and getting some quality time in the saddle (do you like how cool I sound with my "cyclist talk"? HA!).

Well, on the way up his knee started to swell up and by the time he was done with dinner that night he had a full blown infection—I'm talking swollen knee, fever, chills, the works. He decided to stay the night to see how he felt the next day hoping that he would be feeling better so he could at least participate in part of the bike ride. The next morning he was worse so he decided that he better come home.

He stopped at urgent care on his way home and they told him he had knee bursitis, an infection of a bursa sac in his knee joint. They gave him some heavy duty antibiotics and told him to stay off it for awhile.

He is finally starting to feel better, but I'm guessing it's still going to be a few more days until he gets back to 100%.

So basically instead of doing this...

He got to do this all weekend...

Poor guy.

This is what his knee looked like, and this was after a couple doses of antibiotics had already started working their magic. (The blue line is where the doctor marked his swelling the night he went into the urgent care.)

I already looked up some other bike rides that are happening in the area the rest of the summer, so I'm hoping that he'll be able to participate in one of those. While none of them will be quite like this one that he missed, I'm sure he'll still enjoy getting out and participating.

Cameron and I tried to stay out Ryan's way as much as possible so that he could rest and get better. We ended up spending some quality time outside playing with bubbles, which Cameron liked a lot! (Although half the time I was trying to stop her from eating the bubbles! Crazy kid.)

We even got the bubble machine out one day, which was really cool!

A couple other fun things we did this week, Tuesday night we went to concert in the park. It was very cool. There was plenty of room for Cameron to run wild, so that was great—for her and for us—and we got to meet up with some friends which was nice too. I just wish we had started going earlier in the summer, this was the last concert in the park for the year. Here  is a picture of Cameron and two of the other kiddos we met up with there.

We also went to the zoo this morning, which again Cameron loved because she could run around all over the place and check out all the animal exhibits. She especially liked the tropical exhibit where they have a lot of fish and reptiles.

Well, that's the latest from the Volk household. Enjoy the rest of your week!

28 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights

How far along: 28 weeks, 0 days

Size of baby: 2 lbs 4 ounces (about the weight of a Chinese cabbage), 14.8 inches from head to heel

Total weight gain: When I went to the doctor this week, I weighed in at 28.5 lbs more than when I weighed myself the day I took the positive pregnancy test.

Maternity clothes: Yes

Gender: Pink, pink and more pink (and a little bit of purple too)

Movements: Baby's movements are starting to be big sweeping movements across my belly, as opposed to just the small jabs or kicks that I felt at first. I guess at 2+ lbs she's just starting to get a little crammed in there. It's really fun to feel her move around, and just think about holding those same little hands and feet that are currently boxing inside my belly.

Sleep: Still sleeping pretty well at night. I think I've just about mastered the "walk to the bathroom without hardly opening my eyes" shuffle in our new house. My new bed to bathroom path took a little bit of getting used to, but I've got it pretty well down pat now...which is very important for handling the 50 gazillion trips I take to the bathroom every night. (It's ridiculous how much you have to pee when you're preggers!)

What I miss: My normal clothes. I know it's kind of strange. Most people love their maternity clothes because they are so comfy (which, don't get me wrong, they definitely are comfortable). But I kind of miss getting dressed up and looking cute in my normal clothes.

Cravings: Nothing really.

Symptoms: Just a little soreness, but nothing crazy that I can really think of.

Best moment of the week: Having a date night with my honey and going to see Harry Potter. It was really nice to spend some one on one time with him. It's amazing how little of that time you get once you have a little hoodlum running around all over the place!

Also, this week I realized how close we're getting to welcoming this little girl into the world! Throughout the majority of your pregnancy you go see the doctor once a month. Then as you get closer to the end, your visits get more frequent moving to once every three weeks, two weeks, and then every week at the very end. Well at this weeks appointment, the Doc said he'd like to see me in three weeks, and then to go ahead and make another appointment three weeks after that. He said we'll probably do one appointment two weeks after that and then we'll be down to every week.

Okay, so that may not seem like very soon to you, but to me, that seems like it's pretty much tomorrow! It's funny, part of me is so excited for it be October so we can meet this little girl, but then another part of me doesn't want to rush the summer too much. Summer is my favorite time of year and I'm going to have to wait forever for it to be summer again, so I figure I better enjoy it while it's here.

A New Friend

We are so excited, a new family moved in down the street from us and they have a little boy who is just about Cameron's age! So much fun. They came over this week and Cameron got to show off her water table.

Seriously, how cute are they?

Date Night & Glucose Test

Last night Ryan and I went to a movie for our late anniversary celebration. We saw Harry Potter in 3D, which I really liked. I'm not a Harry Potter connoisseur or anything, so I couldn't tell you all the things that were in the book that the movie was missing, but from what I remember of the book, the movie seemed to tell the store pretty well.

Then this morning I had an OB appointment and my Glucose Screening Test. I survived the glucose test (a lot of people I know really hate doing the test, but I don't think it's all that bad). I'm lucky though because I only had to do the 1 hour test. Only if they get questionable results do I have to go back and do the longer test. My doctor said they are in the process of switching over so that everyone has to take the longer test the first time, but they haven't quite make the switch yet, so I was able to slide by.

The appointment went well too. Baby seems to be doing great. Her heartbeat is strong and she's head down, both good things. I have my next appointment in 3 weeks, which means I'm getting towards the end of the pregnancy (throughout most of the pregnancy you only go in once a month). I can't believe 2/3 of it is already over. Crazy!  

Cameron spent the night with Superpop and Granne, which worked out great because I was able to pick her up after my appointment this morning. She had a blast. While we were doing this...

She was busy doing this...

But even though it's nice to have a little bit of a break and have a kid free night, we missed our little toots. So we made sure to send her a good morning picture this morning, just so she didn't forget us ;-).

The Weekend

Here are the highlights of our weekend...

Friday night we made a trip to Costco for dinner and shopping (but mostly for the cheap dinner at the Costco food court. I know it's a little ghetto, but we all ate for like 8 bucks and their pizza and hot dogs are pretty yummy!). Cameron was pretty enthralled with this puppy dog. She was very cute and just wanted to hug and pet him.

Saturday, Ryan and Cameron watched part of The Tour de France coverage together in the morning. Cameron is definitely starting to act like a big girl. She can crawl on and off the couch all by herself and she loves to watch shows with her daddy.

Saturday afternoon we got together with some of Ryan's family for lunch. Ryan's cousin Nichole has two kiddos. Kinsley and Cameron were very interested in each other's pacifiers...and Brady is just a funny little guy.

Sunday morning, Cameron and I got up early and went to early church. Ryan waited and went to later church so he could meet up with a friend after and go mountain biking. Cameron made sure to sneak in a little story time with daddy before we left.

That pretty much covers everything. Not hugely eventful...but it was actually a nice little calm for us in the middle of all our summer craziness.

26 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights

How far along: 26 weeks, 2 days

Size of baby: 1 lb 11 ounces, 14 inches from head to heel (about the length of an English hothouse cucumber)

Total weight gain/loss: I think I've gained close to 30 lbs...yikes! :-/

Maternity clothes: Yes. I had to buy some new summer maternity clothes because most of my maternity clothes from last time were of the winter variety.

Gender: Girl

Movements: She's moving around quite a bit now. I got a prenatal massage a few days ago and she was going crazy during that.

Sleep: I've been sleeping ok at night and taking lots of naps during the day.

What I miss: Sleeping on my tummy. Peeing a normal amount of times during the day.

Cravings: Nothing really.

Symptoms: Starting to get kind of sore under the belly and in my lower back.

Best moment of the week: Getting a massage :)

North Dakota Part 5: Medora

We spent the second half of our week in North Dakota in Medora, a little town right outside of Theodor Roosevelt National Park. It's a really cute town with lots of little shops and playgrounds. I got to spend a lot of time with Ryan's Aunt Lora and her kiddos while we were there, which was awesome!

In summary, our trip was really fun! And even though we came home exhausted, we had a blast. We are very blessed to have such wonderful family surrounding us. Thanks for the good time Volks! And congratulations to Grandpa and Grandma on 60 years of marriage!

North Dakota Part 4: The Farm

On Tuesday, we got to drive through the town of Flasher, ND where Ryan's mom grew up and we got to visit the farm where Ryan's dad grew up. This was definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole trip! Ryan has lots of memories of visiting those places when he was a kid and I loved hearing his parents and the other siblings talk about what it was like to grow up there.

Our first stop was a little restaurant in Flasher where we had lunch...

And then onto the farm...

About an hour before we got to the farm, one of the goats had babies, they weren't even up and walking yet...

After the farm we went to see the school that Ryan's dad graduated from. The high school closed down awhile ago because the farm kids were all growing up and leaving the little town of Raleigh, ND. Now the facility is used to help adolescents with out-of-control, antisocial or delinquent behavior. (It's actually a really neat thing they're doing there, if your interested check out their website: Prairie Learning Center). We got to take a tour of the whole facility which was really neat... and the kiddos loved the gym! Based on the plaque under the scoreboard in the gym, I'm guessing that back in the day Ryan's dad and his siblings loved the gym too!

Finally it was off to Medora for the final part of our North Dakota vacation. And as I'm sure you all know, no road trip through the country is complete without a quick pee break in the middle of nowhere...