Last trip before the new baby arrives!

We took a trip down to Lexington, VA two weekends ago to go visit Shana (old high school friend) and her hubbie Clark, yes I am a little behind on the blogging. We left Thursday after Mark got off work and drove the minivan 3 1/2 hours to lovely Huntington, WV. Yes, we are the proud owners of a minivan! Don't know if I told you about that yet! It has been fabulous and will be a lot more comfortable for the trips up to visit my family!

Anyways, we stayed at a hotel and then got up had breakfast and went to the West Virginia Pumpkin Festival in Milton, WV. Yes, it was in the middle of nowheresville, WV. Luckily we got there at the beginning of the festival, saw the huge pumpkins...ate some delicious sandwiches...bought some pumpkin butter and headed on our way! Here is Caden and Mark with the huge pumpkins, one weighed in at over 1,000lbs.

Caden checking out the John Deere tractors with Dad.

Trying it out for size...

After the festival we had another 3 hours or so to Lexington, VA. We made it to their house and went out to dinner at a great sandwich place with about 100 different choices, way too many! It was nice to sit outside and enjoy the Virginia fall weather. Shana and Clark's house is beautiful and Caden loved chasing down their two cats, good practice for him now that he is walking. Saturday, we woke up and had breakfast...Caden took a nap and then we headed out to see Foamhenge and then to the zoo! What a fantastic tourist attraction in Lexington! A lifesize replica of Stonehenge on top of a hill, and it is made out of foam! It was great!

Caden and Mark walking up to see Foamhenge

family photo

Clark and Shana in on the picture action

Caden walked the whole way down the hill, holding dad's hands.

We think it wore him out, because he barely made it through the zoo and then crashed when we got back.

Then we went down the street to the zoo, it was Caden's first visit to the zoo! It was perfect, because the zoo wasn't very big and not many visitors. Caden loved the feeding the goats and of course seeing the monkeys, only his favorite animal. These days his favorite animal noises are: monkey, sheep, cow, cat, and his newest addition the tiger.

Checking out the bears

Checking out the monkeys swinging around

He loved seeing the giraffes and especially watching the adults feed the giraffes! Unbelieveable! They would either eat the food through the fence or stick their head over the top and reach with their tongue...it was amazing and a little disgusting all at the same time. The best was watching the faces that Mark, Shana and Clark made when the slimy giraffe tongue licked the food out of their hands...too funny. Caden at Mark on their back porch. They have great views from every window, not a bad way to enjoy a cup of coffee with the sunrise/sunset.

Caden walking and playing ball out in the backyard with the boys.

Dinner on Saturday night at their house. As you can see the belly is large and in charge.

Before our departure on Sunday morning.

When Mark was in Baltimore he brought this monkey puppet back for Caden and he thinks it is absolutely hilarious when it bites/tickles him.

As for updates with baby #2...I am now on to weekly appointments. The appointment this week the baby's heartbeat was still around 149bpm. After much hounding, I received a flu shot this week and then came down with a rash. The pharmacist said that I could have a reaction to the vaccination but I didn't think anything of it until I started itching my arms. Luckily my doctor appointment was on Friday and I asked them about it, turns out it is not from the shot but is a rash that appears around the 35th week of pregnancy called PUPPS. Pruritic Uticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy. Great fun! Never heard of this before and it is definitely itchy helping me to look forward to the baby coming even more! Other than that everything else is going good, we look forward to finding more out this week at the doctor's.