Early 3rd Trimester

Here are some recently taken 3rd trimester photos. It's hard to know how to pose for these kind of photos, what often happens is I find myself awkwardly standing in front of the camera, asking Cam, "What should I do?" "I feel weird posing."  And he says, "I don't know, ya, do that." So I've included some other models in these pictures to take the pressure off of myself. The models include Kindle (our little French black kitty) and Lion (big U.S. kitty), this way they can share in the 3rd trimester photo shoot as well. By the way, the cats are handling pregnancy pretty well. Although they do have a fascination with climbing up on my belly that I tend to get rather frustrated with. We have heavy cats, so I've made a "no belly rule" they sometimes decide to follow. Most of the time it goes like this: Lion or Che jump on what's rest of my lap, then they try to sneak up on my belly, I say no and push them down...30 seconds later they try again. Repeating this pattern until I get so frustrated Cam has to come over and take them off my lap (while laughing of course, b/c I'm not able to get them off myself due to lack of ab muscles and sitting up power...I'm sure I look like a turtle lying on her back just getting more and more pissed off). 

Stam & Ceph's Newest Adventure

So, looking at our last blog entry I see it has been almost an ENTIRE YEAR since we wrote! Somehow time has passed quickly in the slow moving region of Ariège. A lot has happened in our lives since this time last year, so here we go...

I (Steph) am still working in the towns of Muret and St. Gaudens (France), teaching adults English. It's an enjoyable profession. I have had the opportunity to meet many quality people that are excited about learning, which is a refreshing break from teaching Public Speaking where I had to convince my students that learning was important! ;) I recently went to Helsinki, Finland for a work conference/project with the European Union. It was an incredible opportunity to be a part of the progressive development of intercultural communication within the EU. The project consisted of creating a resource website in which teachers and trainers could find teaching tools to further intercultural communication training in the classroom. Exactly my kind of project. :)

Cam's work life has changed quite a bit since last year. He is now an official computer programmer! He's been super busy working away on several projects, and amazing me with his incredible knack for learning anything he sets his mind to! He's having a ball, and it's really been fun to see his progression in his new career path.

Here's a few pics of Helsinki...

The veggie garden is back, bigger than ever, for the summer! Cam decided to enlarge are already very large garden to accomodate for...us two. Whatever the reasoning, we have a VERY big veggie garden this summer. We planted approximately 200 potato plants, a plethora of tomatoes, beets, carrots, spinach, onions, garlic, shallots, cabbage, peppers, pumpkins, cucumbers, artichokes, rhubarb (thanks to Bettye and Diane), rasberries, strawberries, blueberries, zucchini and a couple types of lettuce. Whew! We should be set for a summer filled of weeding and eating delights!

Garden pics:


As you can probably tell from this last photo...my physique has changed quite a bit since last year too. Hmmm, what's the news...

We're having a baby! Cam and I are expecting a little baby (girl) around October 2nd. Preparing for parenthood has been an adventure in and of itself, we can only imagine what the real deal will be like. We are super excited about this new adventure, it makes moving to France seem like nothing. :) So far a challenge has been figuring out how to work our new (used) super stroller that transforms into 3 different things. Talk about confusing. But we've also been trying to enjoy the down time we have by climbing, traveling just a bit, and playing with our super funny kitties. They're going to be in for a big shock when the little one joins the family! :)

More Pregger Photos:
To finish off this blog post, I'm posting a picture of our last construction project. After having finally finished the hardwood floors in the house (great job Camicito), our next project was building a systems board (wooden climbing wall) in the garage. It's a very nice addition to the garage that Cam is super psyched on. I can't use it during pregnancy, but I'm all about it when the little one arrives. She'll have something to train on too! :)

The Nakeds

Picture this...you're walking down the streets of Barcelona...

Wall to wall people: look left- there's a mass of German tourists straight of the bus, look right-there's an even larger mass of Japanese tourists shooting pictures blinding you with their camera flashes. Everyone looks the same: heads, shoulders, arms, legs, hair or no hair, glasses or no glasses, clothes....

or no clothes?????

Eye stimulation was everywhere. Cam, Elise and I had spent the past two days walking around the city gathering an arsenal of beautiful pictures of all that the city of Barcelona had to offer. Between the enormous market just off the side street of the Ramblas and the Sagrada de Familia- the church that Gaudi designed and is under permanent construction to be finished in the distant future- our heads were overflowing with Catalunyan culture! It was spectacular.

At the particular moment referenced above, we had just spent an entire day walking all over the city. Our brains were saturated, and brain function took a couple seconds longer to process than normal. Elise and I were walking next to each other with Cam trailing a few steps behind (although Cam can out-hike most people on any mountainside, when you get him traveling he walks slower than any snail I've met). ;)

We were walking down the Ramblas (a famous tourist street in Barcelona) and I was observing all the funny fellow tourists around me, when I noticed a couple of men that somehow just didn't fit in with the rest of the crowd. Focusing in on them, I wondered, "Hmmm....something is different about those guys. What is it? It looks like that old man has a lot of tattoos...is that it? No, though old guys with lots of tattoos aren't totally normal, there's something even stranger about these guys." As I reflected on why these two men struck me as looking so strange, it hit me like a ton of bricks...: "I see their penises!!!! They have no clothes on!" Then I realized that they had no body hair either...they had definitely prepared for this moment for a while! I knew there was something different about them! There was an older man and a young man just trompsing down the most crowded street in all of Barcelona totally buck naked!

Suddenly, when I realized what was happening, I turned to Elise, "Elise, do you see their weeners??? They have no clothes on!" Of course, Elise had realized this fact without my help. After the initial shock waned I noticed that there was a crowd of people following the naked men snapping pictures of the onlookers (Elise and me included), who must have had their jaws fully ajar coupled with hilariously shocked expressions on their faces. I immediately picked my bottom jaw up off the ground and passed the "Nakeds". I had to get just one more glimpse after I had passed them (I mean how often do you get to see two naked, completely shaved men walking down the middle of the street) and noticed the old man had what looked like the butt of a swimming speedo tattooed on his butt! At least he covered his bottom for us all, how proper of him.

Needless to say, Cam, Elise and I laughed the whole way home remembering that scene...crazy naked people in Barcelona! ;)

International Driver's License Poll

So....Steph was trying to decide which of the following photos to use for her new International Drivers License.  We need some input....

Here are the options:

Option 1: Sexy Duck

Option 2: Happy Bulldog

Option 3: I'm Too Sexy For My Pants

Option 4: Pelican Choking on a Fish

Option 5: Monkey Moose

Option 6: Studious Duck (Sny Dog Rules!)

Ok!  Your votes determine the outcome!

Remodeling Fun

 

Day 1 - Laundry Room Destruction

(Cliff's Closet is now all over the house and the washer/dryer are officially out of order)

 

Where's the Bosch?  Oh yeah, in Fort Collins with Ben.  Broken bits galore.

 

The usual suspects

 

Steph hooking up the sink, shortly before I foolishly talked Cliff & Monique into taking it back out and letting us remodel the entire room.

 

 Day 2 begins

 

Steph and her new friend, "Cat's Paw"

 

The visa that magically appeared shortly after taking half the room down to studs.

 

Steph doing the end-of-day gorilla dance

 

 

The grand finale move which is aptly dubbed "B.S. eats a burrito"

 

Day 3

Tomorrows forecast: Mud & sanding, with a high chance of a dust storm.