2/3rds

Yes, I'm solidly into the third trimester! Again, the passage of time seems so warped and has been since January when we found out about Bertha (formerly Sea Monkey). It's beginning to feel real (as if the soccer ball I seem to have under my skin and "muscle" layers wasn't enough to convince me) now that we're nearing July and week 29-ish. Preparations are beginning, lists are being made, purchases are being considered. We think we know what we need/want to have handy to get ready for Bertha's arrival. In fact, I couldn't resist these two little items the other day:

That should be enough for a couple of hours, don't you agree? At the OB appt. where her gender was discovered, we also found that the placenta has migrated to a more agreeable position for delivery, and that she was measuring perfect at about 2.5 pounds. My blood pressure is still great, I have gained 5 pounds total from my pre-pregnancy weight, and I haven't heard anything about my gestational diabetes test, which I assume means I didn't do myself or the baby any harm with that Dr. Pepper I had the other day, or the ice cream I had last night, or the constant consumption of fruit I've been inhaling. But that's all-natural, right?

Yesterday we took Henry to see WALL-E. It was so, so good. Henry was really into it, and laughed out loud and pumped his fist in the air after a particularly dramatic moment met it's victorious conclusion. It was great for kids and (as usual for Pixar movies) enjoyable for the grown-ups, too. Plenty of fun little details are included, too - Keep your eyes peeled for the Big-Mouth Billy Bass, all you fellow Millenials.

I saw Ashley's grandma at church today - she seems to be doing well. She told me that Ashley's mom, older sister, nieces and nephew all went to Disney today using tickets given to Ashley earlier this year when it was still a possibility that she would recover. I think that's a perfect way to begin some healing - Ash would totally give her blessing to that. We also talked about something that weighs heavily on me and has for some time - the week before the brain cancer was found in 2005, Ashley was on a mission trip with me and 3 other youth in Georgia. She complained of headaches the entire time. Of course I felt bad that her head was hurting, but I really didn't take it very seriously. Not that anyone would or could have guessed that her headaches meant she had tumors, but still - it's strange to think that through that fun long weekend, cancer was lurking, just getting ready to show itself. I'm glad to have spent that time with her and to be able to have great memories.

Oh, and yeah, it doesn't compare to your church being destroyed by flood, but the church got struck by lightning last week (again - yes, for the second time in 3 years; not even God's people are exempt from His natural displays) and here are the functions and systems affected:
-the doorbell/intercom is fried
-2 out of 3 phone lines were disrupted but have been fixed
-several thermostats and one A/C relay were blown, but have been fixed
-6 out of 8 computers have no internet access, even after the replacement of our network switch
-the computer network does not function properly - most computers have no printer access
-the fire alarm is not functioning
-the organ is totally gone, possibly unreparably fried - we didn't discover that one till this morning when the organist came into practice before the service.
Awesome, huh? And guess who gets to attempt to handle juggling all of these items getting repaired in the next two weeks while our church secretary is on vacation? If you guessed me, you'd be right. FUN. And I get to do it all while hoisting this belly around: