Sorry for the ridiculously long time away. Life's been a little ho-hum. However, I am pleased to announce that the Winemans have their grove back! Life has officially returned to the chaotic whirlwind that we're used to dealing with.

My sister is coming to visit this weekend, which is great, but the house is nowhere near ready for a guest. And yes, the house needs to be super clean b/c she's allergic to our kitties. We leave for England in just over two weeks and I haven't really had time to come up with a decent itinerary. We have plane tickets and a place to sleep and that's about it. I installed a water filter on the back of our refrigerator last weekend, but turns out there was a small leak in the hose. Two nights ago, we discovered said leak by seeing water dripping from our family room ceiling down onto a nice bookcase. It had clearly been doing that for a while.... Got it all cleaned up, but we have stains on the ceiling and the top of the bookcase is warped. My mother in law is in the hospital again for passing out in her home. She's been there a couple of days and the doctors are still working on what's wrong with her. AND, when I came home from work last night, Brad escorted me to the basement which had about 2 inches of standing water in it! The sump pump eventually turned on and we spent a good amount of time sweeping the water towards that corner. Most of our stuff is safe, but there were a handful of casualties. The next step is making sure it doesn't all mold and mildew...

So, there you have it. My life in the last 3 days. It's been kind of nuts, but Brad and I both are approaching everything with an eery level of calm. Life is back to normal for us and even though I won't say it's a good thing, at least it's a familiar thing.

Happy Valentine's Day! I don't have much to report, but yesterday afternoon I went outside and took some pictures of our house in the snow. Yesterday's snow wasn't all that deep, but it still looks pretty blanketing the yard and roof. Here's our winter house:

It's snowing again. At least I got a snow day out of it, which is nice. Is it spring yet? I'm so ready for flowers and warm days spent outside in my backyard. Just a few more weeks....

Over the weekend, Brad and I finished putting together a smith machine in our basement. Brad loves to life weights (I do, too) and this was a steal! But it came in a box and took a couple of weekends to finish. Behold the mighty machine - sorry about the picture - the light is very weird in the basement.

It's official! We're going to England! (again....) Hopefully, everything will go smoothly and we won't have to cancel this one, too. My doctor said it was fine to go as long as I don't have any complications between now and then. We leave 18 March and will stay for a week! Yipeee! We've decided to spend most of our time in London since there's so much to see. One of Brad's friends lives in Cambridge and so we'll spend the day up there, but it's only an hour outside London. I'm still working on details, but I'm so excited!!!!

I've got baby fever! A woman I know from church brought me a whole slew of maternity clothes yesterday. It was so nice of her - especially since they are exactly my size and I like the style! Score! I tried on a bunch of stuff yesterday and it was a nice mix of stuff I can wear really soon and stuff that's more for when I really balloon up. Okay, so I tried those on, too - it was fun to imagine myself with a big preggo belly.... :)

I had my first real checkup with my doctor on Friday. Everything's fine but there is one weird thing (I pretty much already knew, but having the doctor confirm was strange). Yeah, given the enormous size of my ass, it's genuinely surprising that I don't have good birthin' hips! I have a fairly narrow pelvis, which he said will make it difficult if I have a big baby. It's not any worse than any of my teeny friends who carry babies, it's just odd for someone my size to have narrow hips. Here's hoping I have a small to medium sized baby...

Pottermania!!!!! The last Harry Potter book's release date has been announced. In case you've been living under a rock today and missed the near-constant news coverage - 21 July is the big day. Even more fun because it's unexpected, what with the latest movie coming out just days before that. July will be a very fun month. Maybe I'll pass a love of Harry Potter through the umbilical cord to my unborn child.... He/she will certainly get an overdose this summer!

Oh, so I had my first pregnant icky day yesterday. I was fine until the evening. I was busy doing lots of things and then Brad and I got chatting and lost track of time. Next thing we knew it was after 8pm and I guess my body decided all of a sudden that was not okay. I started feeling pretty quesy and nothing we had in the house to make for dinner was appetizing (and the stuff that was would take too long to make). And of course, we couldn't order a pizza because the thought of grease made me feel worse. So Brad drove us out in the snow to get a sandwich so I wouldn't get sick. I started feeling a little icky tonight right before dinner, but I made sure we ate earlier and now I'm fine. Guess I've just entered the fun weeks. At least I finally feel pregnant - it was a little disturbing how not-pregnant I was feeling.