27 Week Ultrasound

Well we had another ultrasound done yesterday. This time it was at the albany hospital. Their 2D pictures don't turn out quite as well as the specalist but they had more time to play around with the 3D/4D pictures. Since we didn't actually see a doctor this time we won't find out the results until tuesday so it will be interesting to see if they still measure as big as they did at 20 weeks. Our next appointment with a perinatal specialist isn't until 32 weeks and this time we will be going up to Portland. Both babies were moving quite a bit during the ultrasound which also made it kind of hard to get good pictures. They are still lying transverse on top of one another. Baby B is the top baby and A is on the bottom. They started out with both heads on the left side and half way through baby A flipped so that his head ended up on the right side. The weird thing is that I couldn't even really feel that. If I didn't feel a movement that big it makes me wonder what their doing in their when my stomach stretches out and it feels like big movements. So far everything seems to be going great.

The Boys Bedroom

Well we got the boys bedroom painted this weekend so I thought I'd add a couple of photos. My mom came over to help and I think for the first time ever the paint actually turned out to be the color that I wanted. Now if their bedding would ever come off back order we'd be set. Some of you may have seen our bedding but its blue and brown turtles with dots. Don't ask about the one random brown dot on the wall. You'll also notice that we finally got the second crib set up too. (Not that they'll get used right away-but they look good.)

Shop Progress

Who would have thought we would have made so much progress so quickly. The guys spent friday night and all day saturday finishing the framework. Unfortunately they did it in some of the worst weather that we've had in over a month.

The Shop Is Going Up !!!

Wow!! Who whould have thought we finally started putting the shop up. The kit has only been done and paid for since July and we're just now getting around to putting it up. James, Arien, and Jim have spent a couple hours each day after work getting these poles up and its going amazingly quickly. When it is finished it will be a 50' X 72' shop with 18' eves. There will be three RV doors, two man doors and we eventually will have some office space with second story storage also. We really need the storage space since everything in the babies room needs to go in the garage and everything in the garage needs to go in the shop. Now the shop just has to be built and maybe we'll have room to bring our babies home....

Two Boys !!!!!

Who would've thought two boys. The Dodge family is not destined to have any girls. These will be grandsons numbers nine and ten. Well we had our 20 weeks ultrasound with the specialist in Eugene and everything looks great. Both babies are without a doubt boys and both are on the big side. They are not only big for twins but they are both about a week larger than your average singleton baby. Wow this should really start getting fun. It was just a relief to know that both are healthy and it was fun to get to see some of the 3D/4D images. Thankyou everyone for all of your happy thoughts.

Puerto Rico & Cruise 2008

Now that we're back maybe I'll update you on what we've been up to. On our latest vacation in January we spent three days in San Juan, Puerto Rico and then sailed out on a seven day cruise from there. We were very fortunate to have perfect weather for the entire trip.

During our three days in Puerto Rico we kept really busy. The first day we decided to walk into town and tour two of the forts that had been built in the 1500's. After misreading our location on the map our stroll into town turned into a 3 mile hike. (needless to say we took the bus back to the hotel) We like to think of it as our cardio workout for the day. After touring the forts we spent the afternoon wandering around downtown in the old san juan area. We also vistited one of their cathedrals and finished the day with some amazing Puerto Rican food.

The next day we decided that we wanted to do a little hiking in the rain forest and spend an afternoon on the beach. This being out of walking distance required a rental car. James was the lucky one who got to try to navigate traffic without totaling the rental car. Imagine crazy Mexican driving times two. Puerto Rico made the Mexican road ways look downright serene. The drive was worth it though and the views were amazing. We chose a trail where the sign said it was a half mile round trip. I think this was some sort of joke on the tourists because this 1/2 mile hike turned into another 3 mile treck into the rain forest. The waterfall at the end was pretty but not worthy of a 3 mile hike. It felt really good to spend the remainder of the afternoon relaxing on the beach.

Our first stop on the cruise was St. Thomas. We didn't end up doing alot on this stop. We took a taxi into town to do a little shopping and then we spent the remainder of the day just laying in the sun on the ship. (Hey the foods free here.)

Our second stop was Dominica. This is where Pirates of the Caribbean II and III were filmed. Here we went on and awesome excursion called the Wacky Rollers. They loaded everyone up into old army issue trucks where you could stand up and hang out of the top. First they took us on a short drive through town and then up to a view point where we could get pictures of the bay and see most of the island. The second stop was in the botanical gardens where we saw a variety of plants and two parrots found only on this island. Next we wound our way up through the countryside to see one of their sulfur springs. The water boils up out of these at 150 degrees. Our last stop was actually a location where they filmed one of the movies. They said that there was a swimming opportunity and a waterfall. Unfortunately they didn't tell us we that we had to swim to the water fall or would need an underwater camera for any pictures. so the coolest thing that we saw the entire vacation we have no photos of. Everyone got to wear cute yellow floatation devices and the water was really cold but the swim was sooooo worth it. It was a short one minute swim into a sort of open air cave with trees and vines hanging down and inside was the most incredible waterfall. Afterwards there was a tiny hot water waterfall out side the cave that we could warm up in.

The third stop was Barbados. Unsure of what we wanted to do we just wandered into town and ended up having a taxi driver give us a tour of the island. We visited another church, saw the sugar cane fields, and old slave house and stopped a some great view points along the way.

The next day we docked in St. Kitts.

The island gets so narrow at one point that you can see where one side is the caribbean sea and one side is the atlantic ocean. Along with several other passengers from our cruise ship we piled into a cab and headed to the beach for a little snorking. We only spent three hours on the beach but got fried to a crisp. I don't know if it was because we were right on the equator. Because we never got burned like that any other time on our vacation. Our cab driver promised to pick us back up at 2:00 but the sweet guy never showed back up and we were way too far off the beaten path to walk back. Luckily a local lady offered to give us a ride back to port. We got to cram six people into four seats.......good times.

Our last port of call was the Dominican Republic. It's sort of weird to think that everyone in Haiti is trying to escape to the US and here we are vacationing on the other side of the island. The first night we spent wandering around the town square and checking out yet another church. I had to include the picture with the church in the background because James was really pround of his photography :)

The next day we went on a catamaran sail and snorkle excursion.

The last couple of pictures are just of us at a couple of the formal nights on board the ship. It was a great vacation but came at a really busy time for us. It was fun to get away but it was also good to get home. Our first day home was also James's first day at his new job.

We're Back

Well we're back everyone. We haven't added to the blog since I started it last year but now that we have faster internet hopefully we will be better at it. Most of you know that we are expecting twins somewhere around the end of June and so far so good. Right now I'm 19 weeks and we will get to find out what they are next week at our 3d/4d ultrasound. We figured with babies on the way we needed faster internet just so we could send out pictures of them.