As I mentioned in my last post, Matt and I are adding to the family. I am currently 25 weeks pregnant (only 15 more to go!) with our baby girl, Katie. I went to the MD last Monday and she said everything looked fine. My blood pressure was normal, Katie’s heartrate was in the 150′s, I’ve only gained about 12 pounds total. I do have to go back on May 22nd to have another ultrasound because Katie didn’t cooperate on the last one and they couldn’t see the bottom of her spine to tell if she has spinabifida or not. Matt and I elected not to do the blood screenings for all of that stuff so this is the only way to tell. On a good note, Mom will be in town on that day and plans to go see Katie on screen! Boy will she be surprised. I think ultrasounds have changed quite a bit since 1983 when she had me. I am excited that Mom gets to go. After the ultrasound I will have an appointment with my MD to go over the results. So it isn’t a totally wasted trip we plan to go ahead and do my glucose screening at that time to check for gestational diabetes. Fun times. At my appointment on Monday I did receive some sad news. My OB/GYN is moving to St. Louis! Oh no! Her husband received a promotion and they decided to relocate. Unlucky for me they will be moving about 2 months before Katie’s arrival so no I have to switch MD’s. Bummer. There is another MD in the same practice with my current OB/GYN and I will try him for my appointments after May 22nd. If I don’t care for him I guess I’ll be out looking for someone else. I’ve heard he’s good though. Matt and I have registered at Target, Babies r us and Amazon.com. It is amazing how you can find the same exact stuff on Amazon for cheaper than you found it in the store. Matt and I support Amazon a lot. As far as I know one of my friends from church will be throwing a shower for all the girls in our LifeGroup class to attend. Right now it is tentatively scheduled for July 10th or 11th. I know the girls at work are planning on throwing one for the State Farm crowd to attend. Not sure when that one will take place yet. That’s all that I know of so far. Matt and I did decide for me to stay home after Katie’s arrival so my time at State Farm is coming to a close although if I ever need to return to work I will definitely look there for a position. I have 5 years of history with them. I will work up until Katie’s birth, take my 6-8 weeks of paid sick leave and then terminate. It feels good, but I know I will miss being there with everyone. That’s all I’ve got on Katie right now. Once we get her room done I will try to get pictures posted.

In other news, my sister had her baby boy, Joshua David Moore. He was born at 1:40 a.m. on February 28 (long night!), weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz. and was 20 inches long. Now he is about 10 weeks old (my goodness can that be right? man how time flies!) He only weighs about 10 lbs, but is quite long. I can’t remember the number exactly. He talks and loves to play with his Mommy. Sometimes I’m lucky and get to see him on Skype. He’s so sweet.

Next weekend my best friend from high school, Sarah Beth Cates, will become Sarah Beth Renfrow. I will be traveling to Halls, TN on Friday, May 15 and participating in her wedding as the Matron of Honor. After the wedding she and Dustin will be moving back to West TN from KY and they will live happily ever after! I am so excited for her. I know she has truly found the man God made for her. Matt will not be attending the wedding with me because his friend from HS, Dan Burks, is also getting “married” (the quotation marks are too long of a story to tell on this post) and he will be an usher at the ceremony. Whew! We’re busy.

Life is quite nuts around here. I had something to do every weekend from the last one in March through the entire month of April. Matt and I were blessed to be able to travel to Missouri to see my Granny and Grandad for Easter. We had a great time and Granny made my favorite salad (always important)! This weekend I am happy to report that we will not have a ton going on. I need to paint the changing table for Katie’s room, I need to do a few loads of laundry and clean my house. We need to run by Sams and get laundry detergent, Matt has a hair cut at 1:15 p.m. tomorrow and then we will meet his parents and sister, brother-in-law and Ty for a Mother’s Day dinner. On Sunday we have church. So not too bad.

Well, I guess that’s it for now. This post should keep you reading for a little while at least. I’m going to watch the Mother’s Day present my husband bought me (the Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix DVD)! Night y’all!

To spice up our lives even more Matt and I are adding another Vance to our family tree this year! Our baby is due on August 25, 2009. I am currently 9 weeks and 2 days pregnant. I went for an ultrasound on Tuesday and everything looked great. We got the best pictures of our baby! No…seriously…every time I’ve ever looked at an ultrasound I’m silently thinking, “Where is it? Is it that blob…or maybe that one?”  but with our pictures you can actually see the arms and the legs and the head and tell that there is a new life growing inside me. According the the ultrasound tech the baby looks like a teddy bear. I got to see the baby’s heartbeat which was beating at 183 (normal according to the MD) and wished for Matt to be there with me. He will definitely be joining me for the appointment when we find out what we’re having. I’m not sure when that will be yet, but I’m guessing some time in April. My next appointment is February 16 and I will get to hear the heartbeat at that one. Life is so exciting! Matt and I are very glad God blessed us in this way.

Matt and I are doing good. My long time friend Sarah Beth is getting married next May, Matt’s really good friend from high school, Dan, is also getting married in May of 2009. Both were in our wedding almost 2 years ago…I guess we started a trend! Matt had an interview today for a position in Johnson City, TN. We are still waiting to see what, if anything, develops from that. Our lives are fixing to get busier. We visited one set of my grandparents in Olive Branch, MS for the Labor Day holiday. Matt had a business trip right after that. He has two more trips scheduled. One at the end of September and one at the beginning of October. I will be going to see my Missouri grandparents at the end of September. We are hoping Matt will get to go, but we are afraid he will be between trips. Around the middle of October my sister and her husband and my parents will be coming to my house to celebrate my sister’s birthday on September 26th, Matt’s birthday on October 7th and my birthday on October 26th. Matt and I will celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary on October 21st. Then before we know it Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here. Whew! A lot more happens in our life, but it is mundane stuff like cooking, cleaning, laundry, yard work, etc. Somehow, working 8 hours a day and then coming home to do all of that leads to a very busy, full life. We sure hope everyone’s having a good summer like we are!

Matt’s been to Las Vegas for training and North Carolina for training. In about 3 weeks he will take his Certified Information Systems Auditor exam. And then will head out to California for an audit he is leading. When he comes home we will have about 3 days to get ready for our Colorado vacation. Ah, vacation…I can’t wait! 10 DAYS OFF! Don’t worry I’ll take plenty of pictures.

My parents are moving…WooHoo! My Dad has been in Georgia since October 2007 and my Mom has been in Tennessee trying to sell their house. Mom’s last day in TN will be June 9th. Although I’ve gotten used to her being close and hate to see her go, I will love seeing the stress decrease and my parents together again. They will have been married 30 years this July and being apart really doesn’t work too good for them.

And on a final note, the pictures that I will share this post are from the zoo trip that Matt and I took with his family last weekend. The weather was perfect. There were a ton of crying, screaming kids all over the zoo but our nephew didn’t cry one time! We are so proud. Hope you enjoy.

Ty has started acting shy. Now when he sees someone unfamiliar he lays his head on your shoulder or hides behind your legs. Due to that fact, he cuddled with me some yesterday–something he hasn’t done since he has gotten big enough to run around! Speaking of running around…trying to keep up with the boy will just flat out wear you out. We had a great time though…even if I was pooped by the time the day was up!

Still trying to avoid posting pictures of Ty on the internet, I will not be putting any pictures of his face on this site just yet. I have included a slide show of some of the decorations and pictures of Ty’s back. There is also a really good shot of Matt and his sister Kathy. Enjoy!

Matt and I spent a very relaxing 4th of July.  Matt took me to breakfast at Cracker Barrel…I had their strawberry pancake breakfast that wasn’t on my diet, but still tasted wonderful.  After breakfast we headed to Lowe’s to buy a grill that we had been looking into.  It was on sale for 20% off, so what better time to buy…right?  After that we went to Target and then to Toys-R-Us to buy Ty, our nephew, a birthday present.  He will turn 2 on Tuesday, July 17.  (When I asked Ty what he wanted for his birthday his response was: “CAKE!”  We did get him more than cake, but his answer was adorable.  I love kids…especially that one.)  Lastly on the 4th, we went over to a church member’s house for a Sunday School cookout and then watched the fireworks.  It was a wonderful day.

Friday, my mom and dad came over to try out the new grill.  Dad cooked his famous and most delicious hamburgers.  Mom cooked campfire potatoes that were great.  I didn’t do didley squat…I’m spoiled…what can I say?  After dinner, we all bowled on the Nintendo Wii.  I won which was nice.  After bowling we switched to golf…I lost…not so nice, but oh well.

Yesterday, I worked with Angie Gambill from Gambill Photography on a wedding in Shelbyville.  The wedding was beautiful.  Hopefully she will post those pictures on her blog in the next few weeks.  While I was off taking pictures, Matt took one of the cars and washed it, waxed it, checked the oil, etc.  Then he came home and mowed right before the rain hit.  Today we went to church.  So, like I said…we’ve been pretty busy.

I will try to keep up a little bit better so my next post won’t be quite so lengthy.  By the way, some of you may be wondering why I haven’t posted any pictures lately.  The reason is because I haven’t taken any new pics lately and the reason I haven’t taken any new pics lately is because the spiffy camera I was using is currently broken (remember, it broke on my Alaska trip).  Somehow, after using nicer cameras, using the little point and shoots just don’t do much for me.  I will definitely take pictures of Ty’s birthday and will try to get those posted for you.

Have a great week!

On to good news!  Matt and I took approximately 400 pictures while in Alaska and will be posting some of those as soon as we get them cropped and edited.  Alaska is a beautiful state.  The weather was perfect (around 65-70 degrees the entire week) and the people were incredibly friendly.  We didn’t get to do as much sightseeing as we would have liked because Matt DID have to work and because we were limited by lack of transportation.  We didn’t get to see any wildlife because of time constraints…so, I promised Matt that I would take him back one day–but we will definitely be taking a cruise! 

More to come later on…

Matt and I arrived at the airport approximately an hour prior (possibly even earlier than that) to our 2:50 p.m. boarding time. We were happy because our flight said “on time”. About the time we were due to board the plane the airline put a time of 3:04 p.m. up for a departure time–we were delayed…UGH! Keeping in mind that we only had 33 minutes to make our connecting flight in Houston, TX, we started getting a little nervous. We finally got off the ground at 3:40 p.m. We arrived in Houston ten minutes after our connecting flight left. So…the airline put us on a 12:10 p.m. flight for Saturday (in first class). They provided us a hotel for the night and food vouchers. The hotel was HORRIBLE! Matt and I actually found bugs in our bed. BUGS! The next morning when we were ready to leave we couldn’t get the hotel shuttle to hurry up so we could get back to the airport. We were afraid we would miss our flight again! We finally made it to the airport and onto our flight bound toward Anchorage. When we arrived in Anchorage we had to wait an hour for our hotel shuttle (our hotel is only 10 minutes from the airport). We had to wait for our luggage. Luckily it made it!

My camera died on the way to Alaska…I have never been so disappointed. We bought a new battery. We tried a new memory card. We tried turning it on without the lens attached. Nothing. The point-and-shoot camera we are using is fine, but not what I was hoping to use my entire trip.

Yesterday, we took a train ride to Seward, Alaska. The sights were so beautiful! Here’s one picture for you to see what I am referring to! Oh yeah, by the way, God is definitely trying to teach me patience because when we got back from Seward yesterday evening we had to wait 30 minutes for our hotel shuttle (again only 10 minutes from the hotel)…life is definitely an adventure!

On that note, as I celebrate this Memorial Day, I know that the freedom I have to go on a date with my husband, take pictures and celebrate days off with family is a result of the sacrifice of our service men and women. I have several people I know personally (Gabe Lewis, Greg Moore, Bobby Houk, Caleb Daniel, and Tyler Layne) that have committed to serving our country–to fight for freedom. Thank you to those serving now. Thank you to those who served in the past. Because of you…I am free.