A wonderful break!

I’m not even sure where to start……this last weekend was AMAZING!

Perhaps I should start with the week BEFORE last week as a good set up.  The middle of November tends to be a super busy week for our family.  My husband is in charge of a special event at our church and is gone most of the week which isn’t too rough but being 29 weeks pregnant at the time AND since Southern California decided that it STILL wanted to keep some remnants of Summer with warmer temps, the week was pretty rough for me.  My wonderful hubby did make sure to ask for Thursday Nov 16 off since it was my 31^st birthday.  I got to sleep in, the boys and Daniel cleaned the house while I napped and then Daniel took me out to Dinner and a movie, it was a great day!

On a side note: I love number patterns! I like to say I have Prime children because they were born on the 1^st, 3^rd and 5^th of their months.  A few years ago, I started looking at my ages of big life events in the last decade or so and found an awesome pattern, which will continue with the birth of sweet baby girl in January….

Age 19 – Met Daniel

21- Married

23- Birth of my first son

25- Birth of my second son

27- Birth of my third son

29- Moved our family back from South Africa to the US and arrived on my birthday

31- Birth of our sweet surrogate baby girl

Needless to say, it’s been a BUSY 12 years and I’ve loved it all!

Ok back to my update.  By the time Tuesday Nov 21^st arrived I almost begged Daniel not to go and leave me alone again with the boys but I knew he just had to go finish a few last items at work and then would be off for an entire week.  And boy oh boy has it been an AMAZING, restful week for our family!

On Thursday (Thanksgiving) we got to go visit our wonderful family that only lives about 20 minutes away! They did all the cooking and prep and all I had to do was bring the Hawaiian Rolls!  I was SO grateful I didn’t have to turn on my own oven that day because warm temps wasn’t enough for Southern California, they decided they needed to really shine and have record high temps in the 90’s on Thanksgiving Day! Seriously, SoCal? Seriously! The seven-month Prego would REALLY appreciate it if you stopped showing off and just PRETENDED we were in Fall! Anyway, we had a wonderful day with family, eating and chatting and relaxing!

The next day began our AMAZING weekend away with Chad, Stephanie (baby girl’s parents) and their 2 adorable boys.  We packed up what seemed like enough stuff to last us a week and headed 2 hours north to Oxnard. (anyone else notice how you have to pack exponentially more stuff with the addition of each new child?)  We were debating taking the inland freeways or braving the coastal highway with lots of street lights.  We finally decided that if we were going to be stuck anywhere, we’d rather have the beautiful scenery of the coast to watch.  I haven’t driven much of the 1 Hwy. but it was SO beautiful! 

We didn’t hit too much traffic at all and made it to the Channel Islands about 30 mins after Chad and Stephanie.  We actually stayed at Stephine’s parent’s home right on the water with its own dock and everything.  It was BEAUTIFUL! I found myself incredibly grateful that Chad and Stephanie also had two young boys and had placed a few strategic sheets and blankets over some couches and benches.  I always find I’m more relaxed when vacationing with other young families cause we all just understand a little more about kids and keeping them entertained and safe!

The first day there, Stephanie’s good friend from childhood (who lived nearby) came by to visit with her 2 kids.  Her little boy was right around the age of all the others and we had 6 boys ranging from 20 months-age 7 running around and playing so nicely together! She also brought her 4 month of baby girl who mainly sat with us three mommies while we chatted and got to know each other better!

It was such a nice relaxing afternoon! Around 4:30 we loaded everyone into the cars and headed to the “Pirate Park” (as Luke named it) around the corner and let the kiddos run out some energy.  Then we headed over to Toppers Pizza for a delectable dinner with 5 types of pizza!  We said goodbye to Stephanie’s friend after dinner and headed back to the house.

The boys were a little riled up from a day of travel and settling in but once they all seemed happy in their beds, Daniel, Chad, Stephanie and I sat down to what we all had been looking forward to the most…. Strategy Games! They taught us Qwirkle the first night and I must say I picked it up pretty fast with a double Qwirkle and an eventual win…. I’m only SLIGHTLY competitive!

The next day after breakfast, Gabriel was begging to try out the kayaks on the dock.  We got all the boys fitted with life jackets and daniel took turns taking each of our boys out for a little paddle.  I walked inside for a few minutes simply because it was SO hot on the dock I felt like I was overheating.  Next thing I know, Ethan comes running up saying “Mom, Gabriel is in his own kayak, come see!”

I walked outside to see my 7-year-old out in his own kayak after a 5-minute lesson with daddy.  And he was doing pretty well! Daniel was out in the other kayak close by and it was just a little private harbor so not too much trouble to get into but I still had to tell myself to stay calm! Ha-ha!\

After the kayaks, Chad brought out a toy racing boat his boys had received from their uncle! All five boys and both daddies spent a good hour outside playing with the boat on the water.  It seems the biggest lesson for the boys to learn was to watch the boat not the remote control when driving the boat!

All this time, Stephanie and I chatted and relaxed on the couch!  It was so calming!  After the battery died on the race boat they all came inside and we popped a Christmas movie on while we chatted about what to do next.  It was about 10:30 am and we began chatting about a trek back to the park down the street and heading over the sand dunes for some beach time.  As we talked we all kinda folded more and more into the comfy huge L-shaped couch and eventually decided we should just plan something after the boys’ nap.  Chad got quiet first at the end of the couch followed by daniel and soon they were both snoozing.  I scooted closer to Stephanie cause baby girl started kicking and she got to feel her rolling around. 

I had taken my next sewing project with me and enjoyed just quilting while the beach house became a napping house.  Later that afternoon we took the kids back to the Pirate Park and got more wiggles out.  Then we came home when we all started shivering! Yes, you heard me right…. the fog blew in enough to even make the Prego lady shiver which felt SO nice after months of sweating! We came home and Stephanie made us a spaghetti and meatball dinner complete with hidden shredded vegetables which all the kids ate! We separated to get all 5 boys through baths and showers and cleaned up for bed.  We relaxed with a movie and then marched all the boys up to bed!

Again, like little elves, the adults snuck downstairs to try out more strategy games! This night we all learned Ticket to Ride for the first time and LOVED it! Took us awhile to learn all the rules but once we got the hang of it, we had a blast! Did I mention that the 5 lb. bag of peanut MnM’s and 3 different types of Klondike bars only seemed to materialize after the tiny humans were in bed? Coincidence? I think not!

We played another round of Qwirkle and then all headed to bed a little earlier after a long day! We were laughing and joking all night long and I found I was SO grateful again that the Lord had brought our families together for this surrogacy adventure!

The next morning, we packed up and headed to Chad and Stephanie’s church about an hour back towards home in Pacific Palisades.  We so enjoyed worshipping with them and meeting their friends! We all went to lunch afterwards with some frozen yogurt to follow it all up!  After all the tiny humans were officially sugared up, we said our goodbyes, shared multiple hugs and headed home.

It was a VERY quiet car ride home and luckily there wasn’t any LA traffic and it was a pretty quick drive.  I fell asleep about 20 min before home but still felt exhausted when we got there.  I trudged up the stairs telling Daniel “I don’t know if I will be able to fall back asleep.”  He chuckled and said “I think you will be fine falling back asleep.”  Fast forward 2 hours later and Luke is standing by our bed asking “mommy when are you getting up?”  It took me a good 30 min to fully wake up and roll (yes I ‘ve hit that point where the easiest way out of bed is rolling) out of bed! Ha-ha!

Today (Monday) is Daniel’s normal day off and it has been so necessary! We have been able to get all our ducks in a row and settle back into normal life before work starts tomorrow! I also took the whole week of Thanksgiving off from Homeschooling since we started Aug 1 and haven’t taken a prolonged break yet.  So tomorrow its back to life! But we are SO grateful for the week we’ve had!

It was funny all weekend to see these five rambunctious boys playing together and then we all would remember that baby girl will be here before we know it! Which by chance is exactly 2 months from yesterday!

My last appointment went well and was very uneventful (which is exactly the type of appointments you want at this point).  The doctor checks my belly size and baby’s heartbeat.  We discuss any questions I might have and that’s it!  We’re now down to an appointment every two weeks and will soon move to a weekly appointment as we get closer!

Daniel’s mom has officially bought her plane ticket and will be crossing the Atlantic from South Africa to help us in the last 3 weeks and I couldn’t be more thrilled for her coming! 

Other than that, I continue to hear about other surrogacy journeys and I realize how much we HAVEN’T had to deal with and find I am again, shocked not shocked as God has soaked every detail of this journey and we have all trusted Him with each step and we continue to trust His Will no matter what happens.

Thanks for following along!