Sunday, November 27, 2005

Thanksgiving weekend

It's been a few weeks since we last posted, but that's because not much has been happening. We spent Thanksgiving at Nan's parents, where we made the traditional dinner with turkey by Alton Brown. It was two days of cooking but everything turned out great! Too bad there's not that much left over.

Nan is almost 32 weeks pregnant now, and there's some serious "nesting" going on here. We cleaned out the garage of all the stuff we haven't used in 3 years living at our place. Then we packed away our wedding stuff for safekeeping. On Saturday we bought a dresser/changing table from Ikea and I spent Saturday night putting it together. We also saw Harry Potter this weekend and a funny German movie about a retired miner who plays the accordion. Nan's been feeling more tired lately, and she's been sleeping like 9 hours a night.

Today we went to our weekly childbirth class (now on week 4 out of 6). It's at a baby store in Santa Monica, which means it caters to a lot of highly educated and high maintenance people who think they know everything, which I guess kind of describes us. I had some preconceived notions about the kind of material that the teacher would be giving (i.e., no vaccines! no epidural!), but she's actually pretty good. While you can tell what she thinks, she doesn't tell you what you should do. That is, except for this week, when she basically said that if you get an epidural, you will be on the fetal monitor continuously, have your own heart rate and oxygen saturation monitored, a fetal scalp electrode will be placed, and the baby will have a much greater risk of being born by forceps/vacuum or by cesarean section. I try to keep my mouth shut during the class, but I could tell that some of these women were horrified. Who knows? Maybe she's right. But I think we're still going the epidural route.

Nan has only 15 more days of teaching left before she stops work. That means no scenes like in this photo (grading down students' assignments). Check out that smirk!

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Oak Glen Apple Country

On the first weekend in November, I had Saturday off and we went to visit Oak Glen, which is out near San Bernadino, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles. It's a small town where you can pick apples, pumpkins and chestnuts and buy everything that can be made from apples including apple butter, apple pie, and apple jelly. We were too late in the season for apple picking, but it was still a neat so-close-yet-so-far-from-LA experience.


A crab-apple. Nan is 28 4/7 weeks pregnant. Posted by Picasa


"Bushels" of apples at the Parrish Ranch. That's a yodeling country singer in the background behind an old time apple cider press. Posted by Picasa


I never knew how sunflower seeds looked like when they're on the sunflower. This is a close-up of one drying. Posted by Picasa


28 4/7 weeks pregnant and the cider mill at Snowline FarmPosted by Picasa


Mini apple donut making machine Posted by Picasa