11 Weeks - Baby Claybrook travels to the South

11 Week Pregnant.  This is in front of Forsyth Fountain in Historic Savannah, GA.

Nyoli, Rowan, Me, and Justin on the Riverfront in Savannah, GA

Justin and I at "The Swamp" aka University of Florida's football stadium in Gainesville, FL

Rowan and Nyoli took us on a hike in a state park and we saw over 100 alligators.  Here there are at least 50.

Outside the fort in St. Augustine, FL.  This fort was built in the 1600s. It is very old for US standards!

Me on top of the fort!

Well, two weekends in a row we have been off traveling the United States. This time we traveled to Florida to visit our friends Rowan and Nyoli (who we hung out with in NYC last week!).  We went to Savannah, Georgia, Amelia Island, Florida, Gainesville, Florida, and St. Augustine Florida.  All in two and a half days! We had a fabulous time! So relaxing and enjoyable.  I highly recommend all of the above places!! I have put up all of our pictures on Facebook.

As for Baby Claybrook he or she is doing well.  I have been feeling pretty darn good. I did get sick this morning, but that was only the third time for the whole pregnancy. We go for our 12 week appointment on Thursday, so I am excited to see how this baby is growing and coming along!  We are on hiatus for traveling for awhile, so that will be nice to relax a bit here. 

Our next trip will be to Kansas City in July, then we are meeting up Rowan and Nyoli in New Orleans in August, then we are going to Chicago in September.  I think after that we will just stick around Dallas until the baby arrives!  That is about it for now!

10 Weeks- Baby Claybrook is in the Big Apple!

10 weeks pregnant. Still not really showing.  I am in front of the Belvedere Castle in Central Park!

We met up with our friends Rowan and Nyoli and were able to spend the weekend with them!

Justin and I on Broadway. 

As you can see we traveled in New York City this past weekend!  Justin was able to go up for work, so we decided to should fly up too.  We celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary while we were there.  It will be 4 years on May 25.  Crazy to believe how much we have done in four years! Moved to Dallas, started our careers, got involved with our church, moved to Australia for a year, bought a house, traveled the US, went back to Australia, and now we are having a baby! We have done quite a bit for four short years!

While in NYC, we were able to meet up with our Aussie friends Rowan and Nyoli.  The are living in Florida for 8 months.  It was really random that we were both in NYC at the same time! We just called them up and asked what they were up to for the weekend and they said, going to New York! We had a great time hanging out them. Crazy enough, on Saturday, we fly to Florida to visit them for Memorial Weekend!

In baby news, I am starting to feel a bit better. The ickiness is slowly subsiding.  I am not really showing, but all my pants fit too tight and I have to wear them low.  I think I just look like I have a gut.  I wish I could wear a sign that says, "this isn't my normal belly, I am just pregnant!"    One night in the city we wandered into Babies R Us.  Boy was that overwhelming! I have absolutely no idea what in the world we are going to have to buy for this baby!  You could spend up to $1000 on just a stroller (pram for my Aussie friends!).  Cribs (or cots) are that much too!  Justin and I left that store in shock with how much you can spend and realizing we have no idea what to even buy!

Well, 10 weeks was a success.  Week 11 we will be in Florida!  I would have to say this little baby is quite the traveling and he or she isn't even born yet!

9 Weeks- The Baby is the size of a grape!

Week 9.  It was a beautiful Saturday evening in Dallas. We spent it in the back yard!

Week 9 is here!  According to one of the baby websites. Baby Claybrook is the size of a grape; about one inch long.  I am still feeling icky in the morning, but hopefully that will past in a few more weeks. 

This week our adventure was looking into day cares.  You might be thinking, "your baby is the size of a grape and you are looking at day cares!".  That is what I thought until I started calling around and some of them have wait lists until June 2012!!  We went and toured two day cares and officially got on the wait list for both of them.  It seems like getting into day care is harder than getting into college!

Our 10 week picture will be from New York City (if I can remember to take one while we are there!).  Justin and I are going to NYC to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary! We are super excited! 

That is about it for now. Thanks for reading!

We are going to have a baby!

April 12, 2011. Positive pregnancy test!

May 5, 2011.  First doctors appointment.  This little 18 mm nugget is our baby! You can see the spinal cord, ventricles of the brain, and umbilical cord (where, I don't know!).

First pregnancy photo!  8 weeks pregnant.  Let the growing belly begin!!

Well, if you made it to this website, then you have found out that Justin and I are going to have a baby!!  This is our old blog from our year long adventure in Australia, but now we are writing about the new adventures of pregnancy.

We found out we were pregnant on April 12, 2011.  It was right after we got back from a week long vacation visiting friends and family.  We were super excited!! This was definitely a planned pregnancy.

We went to the doctor May 5, 2011 and got a good report from the doctor.  He said everything looked really good.  We even saw the baby moving around.  He told us that with the baby moving this early, the chance of miscarriage in only 2%.  We felt that was low enough we could start telling people. The baby is due December 13th.

I have been feeling in general pretty good.  No morning sickness, but more morning ickiness.  I feel kinda nauseated/icky in the mornings, but it is usually gone by 11 or 12.  Other than that, I feel great! Justin and I are still running and exercising.  We are even running in a 5k this weekend!

That is about it for now! I will put up weekly pictures and updates! We figured since we have family and friends all over the world, a blog would be a good way for people to keep up with us!  Let the journey to parenthood commence!

A Farewell Party, Aussie Style

Saturday night was our going away party at Rowan and Nyoli's house. The theme was Australia. Above are our Australia outfits. They were pretty loud, but fun to say the least!

Joe and Alice, some of our first guests. They were Surf Rescue people. Great costumes!

Ah, Bob and Anne! They came in their R.M. Williams attire! I am very happy they dressed up!

Nyoli, Kyrali (I have no idea how to spell her name), and Riley. They were the masterminds behind all of the food and preparations!

You wouldn't know it, but this boxing kangaroo is actually Darren. One of the best costumes by far!

Us with Rown and Nyoli, the party planners! Rowan was a guy called Peter Allan. He was an entertainer. I guess Hugh Jackman played him in a musical called The Boy from Oz.

Bob got his hands on the boxing gloves and decided to take Justin out!

Justin with some of the party goers!


We had the best party we could have ever asked for! I had so many more pictures, but I had to pick only a few. I think we had about 40 people come. It was a mixture of church people and Justin's work people. We had a blast! It was sad saying goodbye to everyone at the end, but we will be back to Adelaide!

This will be our last post in Australia. So sad! Justin and I have been talking about keeping up our blog (well, I will be keeping up our blog), back in Dallas for all of our Australian friends. The only thing with that is that we are pretty boring back in Dallas, but we can try! A week from today, we will be back in Kansas City. This has by far been the fastest year of my life! Justin and I have had the best time of our lives here and we will never forget all of the amazing friends we have met here!

Melbourne Weekend Trip

We were off to Melbourne this past weekend to meet with Justin's main boss in the head office. We had a really nice lunch on Friday and then we had the rest of the weekend to relax and enjoy Melbourne (this was our third trip there!). The picture above is us before we headed off to go see Wicked. Wicked is really good!! Justin even liked it. It is about Glenda the good witch and the Wicked witch of the West and how they became who they are in the Wizard of Oz. The music was amazing and the story line was great! I couldn't recommend it enough!!

On Saturday, it was ANZAC Day which commemorates all of the war veterans. So we walked around the city and watched a bit of the march. This is me in front of the State Library. Last time we were there, Justin and I went in and looked at several exhibits. It is a really nice library.

This is one of the famous Melbourne trams.

Justin by some guy named LaTrobe. He was out in front of the library.
Some of the ANZAC marchers. If you can see the Regent Theater in the background, that is where we saw Wicked.

In Melbourne they are famous for what are called "hook turns". A hook turn is where you have to turn right (or left for Americans) from the far left lane (or far right left). It is supposedly to help the trams to keep flowing since they go down the middle of the streets. Whenever you have to do one, one of these signs in there.

This is the Melbourne Post Office. Pretty nice, huh? After our nice tour of Melbourne, we went to a place called Peninsula Hot Springs with one of Justin's friends from work. It was about an hour and a half out of town. It was like a spa with natural hot springs to sit in. It was really nice and relaxing!

On Sunday, we headed to the Melbourne Aquarium. They had penguins on display! They were really cute!

He looks like he is posing!

They had this big pool where you could watch them swim. They are so fast!

How cute is this little guy!?

That seaweed looking thing is a sea horse type thing! Craziest things I have ever seen!

After the Aquarium, we went to what is called the Sky Deck which is a look out from a sky scraper. I think it was like 300 meters high. The main thing in this picture is Federation Square.

You can see the Melbourne Cricket Ground in this one. Oh, and the river running through Melbourne, is called the Yarra.

So that was our weekend in Melbourne. It was our last hurrah before we head back home. The next time we are on an airplane we will be headed home. We have about two weeks left here. It is really sad thinking about leaving. Australia is wonderful! This week, the packing begins and we move out of our apartment. Then next week, we just enjoy Adelaide. We miss you all, and see you in a few more weeks!

Our Last Weekend in our Apartment

Justin and I had our last weekend in our apartment this past weekend! It is absolutely crazy how fast time if flying by! We move out of our apartment next Thursday and this weekend we will be in Melbourne. We had a laid back weekend catching up friends and it was really nice.

Friday night we went out with our friends, Darren and Kylee. On Saturday, we did our usual calling home and shopping. We hung out at the Botanic Gardens and watched parrots fly by. I am really going to miss that! Oh, side story. Last week just and I went running and what do we see? A kookaburra just sitting on a sign post. How cool is Australia! Anyway, Saturday night we had a nice night in watching the footy!

Sunday, we had a great long run! Then I went to go see the Adelaide Thunderbirds play netball. Netball is a big women's sport here. It is kinda like basketball except no dribbling or backboards. It was really fun!

Like I said this weekend we head off to Melbourne and then only two more weeks in Australia. We arrive back home on May 9th and will spend a week in KC and then back to Dallas on May 16th. Take Care!