A few prego pictures

During the snow madness, around Christmas time.

Taken in Febuary down home, at about 25 weeks.

I'll try to get some more recent ones up soon but i keep being asked so there you go. :)

Jonathan Dean Ahrendt

Oh Boy!!!

Almost half way to our due date and we found out last night that we are going to have a boy! Just a bit excited and haven't decided completely on a name but that will soon come. Wahooo!!

Taking bets on what you think our kiddo will be.. :) thanks for playing!

http://www.mybabysweepstake.com/BetPage.aspx?Id=323

We'll hopefully be finding out the gender of our little one in a little less then a month, if they cooperate!

Happy guessing!!

Why do we have school on Halloween?

This week has been conferences at our school so for three days we had half days. But on Halloween, they decided to have a full day. The level of energy is pretty incredible. They served chocolate cake at lunch and then some classes were also handing out cupcakes because they probably won't get enough sugar tonight. It's been raining pretty good today and kiddos are still allowed on all the playground equipment, so we have hyper and wet children who are racing down the slides and everthing else.... oh what a day. Ok I'll stop my rant. I'm very thankful Halloween is on a friday this year. Last year the kids were all coming down hard from sugar rushes and expected to still be successful in school.

We hit thirteen weeks this week. It's pretty exciting. We got to hear the heart beat last week at my twelve week appointment.

Well i better get back to class. I'll try to write more later!

Wahoooooooooooo

In one hour, Molly and Corban are taking me to the airport. For the last hour, I've been at Ellsworth where i worked last year. It was pretty fantastic. They had made me book and i got lot's of hugs. Oh i miss those boys. For a few hours before that, i was at school. But we need not bring up work till Tuesday...

I'm just a bit excited to be heading to Chicago. My flight leaves at 4:45 and I'm getting back at around 11:45pm on Monday. I'm going to visit my friend Heidi and I'm not sure what all we are doing in the big city but am absolutely stokefied. But i haven't finish packing so I'm going to get on that.

Well I'll be writing all about my trip next week so this is for now. See you all on the other side!! :)


Bethany

Pregnant

So, I just realized that I had posted countdown on this blog but hadn't actually said that I was pregnant. So there you are. I'll be seven weeks tomorrow and we had an ultrasound this last Monday, do to past issues. It was great to see a little heart beat! It made it a bit more real. The due date should be May 7th. My sister, mom and Dusty, all have birthday's in May so i really shouldn't be surprised.

I'm going to go to bed now cause I've been a tired zombie all day. My kiddo doesn't deserve that so it's time to hit the hay.

till later

bethany

A bit of the summer of 2008

So, I realized I hadn't blogged for a big portion of the summer so here are a few pictures for now.

We are celebrating Dusty's 28th birthday and he's bit excited about his cake. He'd also been playing a lot of Guitar Hero so this is a common expression these days.
Dusty and Corban... a future Guitar Hero lover I'm sure. They start them young around these parts.
Micah, Seth and Dusty on the Sticklers roof, watching the Fort Vancouver fireworks.

Dusty and I celebrated our 4th anniversary at Crater Lake and Klamath Falls this year. It was a lot of fun to get away which we haven't done for awhile. I love you dear!

A pretty fantastic coffee shop, in Astoria. It's right on the water and serves great coffee too!


A good friend I met this summer. Erin and I worked together at the Marshall Community Center with the Inclusion kids this summer and I also got to show her around the area a bit before she headed back to Nebraska.
Here are a few of our kiddo's, that we worked with this summer. This was after our hike a Multnomah Falls.

We got to go to the Red bull Flugtag, in downtown Portland, which was a lot of fun. It was packed so i didn't get the best pictures but here are a few of the flying contraptions. Hmmm...it would be a lot of fun to enter, next time it comes to Portland. Any takers!? :)

Kristie and I at Family camp.



A few of the little ones at Family camp. That wagon was very popular with the young crowd.


Corban and I chillin' at our Church family camp. We got to spend a lot of quality time together while his parents and Dusty swam. No complaints here.

This was a pretty good summer...I can't believe school is starting again in a little over a week! We only have a week of camp left...hard to believe. I'll continue teaching swimming lessons during the school year and possibly soccer too ..oh and I'll start as Sparky director at Awana which starts in a month and a half...oh my

Well i better go finish the laundry.

Till later....

The happenings of this week and weekend....

To follow up with my last blog...

52 kids and 12 staff (most of us being Inclusion staff) headed for the Oregon Zoo. Luckily someone came early and purchased tickets and so we got to bypass part of the insanity, which is $2 Tuesday. I have never seen the zoo so packed. Most of the kids had a lot of fun but we were there a bit long (especially for our kiddos)so by the end, we had a lot of complaining but we all survived. None of our kids jumped into the lion enclosure, as my dream the night before had predicted, so that was nice. Tomorrow we are going canoing as a day camp. I'm really looking forward to this.. i love being on the water, not that it will be quite as relaxing with 52 kids, as it was back in the day.

My friend Heidi came in last night and stayed with us, on her way to Chicago. I took the day off and we headed to the beach which was fantastic 73 degrees. It was a lot of fun hanging out and doing the usual CB activities... and being greatly entertained by little Nora Duff who is now walking.

Dusty and I are celebrating our 4th anniversary tomorrow. We are heading for Klamath Falls on Saturday for two nights and we are both really looking forward to this. We'll be going to Crater Lake on the way down which is something we've been wanting to do for awhile. Does anybody know of any other places that we shouldn't miss while down there?

Well i need to get some laundry done...

till later..

Zoo

The day camp is heading to the Portland Zoo today. It's $2 day and so i'm sure it will be busy but the kid's are going to have a lot of fun. It's supposed to be almost 90 degrees today so we'll see how that goes. But tomorrow I'm going to the beach for the day so what ever today brings, I'll have that to look forward to. One of our girls really likes to climb things and then jump off. I woke up this morning with the thought in my head that she's goint to climb into the lion enclosure. Anyways...tomorrow I'm going to the beach...tomorrow the beach....

Dinner and Enertainment

It was decided last night that their's a lot of people that are missing out on a delicious combination of food. Molly and I decided to get some Indian dishes from Trader Joe's and eat it along side Dusty and Micah's delicious barbecue hamburgers. It was excellent though and it was brought up while we were eating, a bit ironic. Later in the evening we enjoyed watching Corban try to roll over (supposedly he already has like 6 times but I'm starting to think it's made up). Then we watched WipeOut and I survived a Japanese Game Show on ABC which are pretty stinking funny. I think we'd all like to try the obstacle course on Wipeout.

How did you spend your evening, last night?

98 degrees and climbing

It's hot ( no i could not tell you one song that that band sang)... I love the sun but it doesn't make me very motivated to clean my house and Dusty's cousin plus a friend are staying her tomorrow night so, i need to get on that. Washing the van sounds much more enjoyable...hmmm

Today it cost $79ish to fill the van... I'm very glad I'm going to be riding my bike or walking to work next year. I should get one of those kid bike carriers to go grocery shopping with...


It's really tempting to take a drive today and put my feet in the water!

By the time i finished writing this post it was 100 degrees!

New stuff that's going on...

Ii got a job at the Marshall Center, here in Vancouver, as an Inclusion Mentor. It's been a lot of fun so far but it's definitely going to be a busy summer. I'm excited to finally have a summer that I'll be spending a significant amount of time outside and in the pool. On Monday's and Wednesday evenings I'll also be doing swim lessons.

Due to the fact that I was a one on two this last year, in the SLC classroom and they both are moving to Portland this summer, I've had to pursue new employment. Well I've had a few interviews this week and I found out Monday afternoon that I'll be working at Endeavour Elementary, which happens to be very close to us. This is exciting because it's a brand new school and I won't have to drive, saving lot's of gas money. So, i can justify drinking more Starbucks!... ok probably not.

Well i better get to work....

So, this has been quite a week. On June 2nd, Molly and Micah welcomed this wonderful little man into the world, Corban Michael Stickler. He was breech so Molly had to have a C- section but things went smoothly. He had to spend a couple of days in the nursery, do to an infection but came out of it fantastic and they were able to go home on Thursday as planned. It's been a lot of fun to watch Molly and Micah be parents. I got a job working for the City of Vancouver this summer. I've been an Inclusion Mentor during swim lessons on Sunday's and have had a few other sub jobs and classes to keep my evenings rather full. I'll be working in the summer camp programs, working as an Inclusion Mentor which means I'll be working with kids with special needs. I'm pretty excited about it. I don't know my exact assignment yet but I'm excited that I'll have the chance to spend some quality time outside this summer.

My garden is growing wonderfully right now. We have a bit off veggie jungle look but i like it... everything is hanging out by the porch right now because Lua (the Stickler's dog) was here for a couple of days and she has a tendency to eat plants.We've already enjoyed some strawberries and a rose or two but everything else still needs time. I have strawberry, raspberry, tomato, pepper, beans, cucumbers and lot's of flowers.. oh and a Japanese maple tree that I'm excited about. Hopefully the tree will be ok in a pot till next year because I don't have a good place to plant it yet.

Well i had some other stuff to share but i think I'll wait till I'm more awake..

till later