16 and 17 week belly pics

Today we are actually 19 weeks. The time is flying by so quickly and I am torn between feeling sad that this precious time is almost over and feeling such impatience wanting to hold this precious baby in my arms! I love being pregnant and I love knowing that this life is growing so perfectly according to God's plans inside me. It is more than magical. It is the greatest miracle I have ever experienced. On Thursday I felt the baby move for the first time! Well the first time that I knew it was baby and not something else going on inside there. It was so wonderful. First it felt like a bubble. Then I felt a little bump like someone was poking me with a finger from the inside of my tummy. Next it felt like little butterflies fluttering around in there. It actually tickled and I started laughing. Then, of course I started crying. I just can't believe how beautiful God has designed this process. It is more amazing than any words I can think of to describe it. I still can't believe that this is all happening to me. By God's grace alone there is life growing inside me.
I was so happy that Gabe was there to witness me feeling baby for the first time too. We were working in the office together that day. It was such a blessing. Ever since that day I have felt baby more and more often. In fact, as I write this I can feel my little tickler inside me! :) I love it!!
We also went to the doctor again that day and had a good appointment. The doctor said that the baby is in the normal range as far as weight, length and heart rate. So we felt very blessed. We asked again to know the gender of our little sweet pea but the equipment was not strong enough to see. But at my 20 week appointment I will be going to the hospital to see a new doctor and there they have a 3D ultrasound. So if the baby cooperates maybe we can find out then. Even if we can't I just can't wait to see a clear picture of our little angel.
We are slowly getting unpacked and settled into our new house. It is hard to unpack when I feel so tired at the end of a work day. But we got a lot accomplished yesterday in preparations for our friend Nathan coming to visit. So today we are relaxing in a clean house. There is a nice breeze and beautiful sunshine. As I write this my sweet husband is planting marigolds around the windows outside our house. Marigolds are supposed to be good mosquito repellents! Mosquitoes LOVE me for some reason and since we don't have air conditioning we will have all the windows open all the time this summer, sweet Gabe is trying to do all he can to prevent me from being boiling hot and itchy with bites! I'm so blessed! Well I guess that's it for now. I will post 2 belly pics. Hope you enjoy

16 weeks

17 weeks

This was our home

We have been so blessed! Today we signed the contract on our new home! It is actually our 4th home in Japan...crazy.
We found it about 10 days ago and now we can start moving in tomorrow! We got the key today and headed straight over to take some before shots.
It's so clean and smells so new. It has new tatami mats (grass mats) in three rooms and they fill the house with their lovely fresh scent. It was all recently re-modeled. It has 3 rooms a big kitchen and an empty store front that will become our new "shop" as Gabe and I call it. It is going to provide plenty of storage for all of our teaching materials. We are so thankful for that. With two teachers it has become pretty much impossible to have anyone over because all of our materials are spread out on every empty surface we have. Now it can all be organized OUT of the house!
Another huge blessing is that it has a fan system that runs under the house to control mold. Ofunato is a really moist city (it is a "port city") so we are truly thankful!
Well here is a video of the house room by room. It's 8 minutes long so... so watch when you like. Enjoy!




This will be our new address starting April 1st (but don't worry all of our mail from our old address will be forwarded to the new one):

38-10 Aza-Jinomori,
Ofunato-cho, Ofunato-shi
Iwate-ken,022-0002JAPAN

in Japanese:
日本岩手県大船渡市大船渡町字地ノ森３８－１０
And here is the link on google maps:http://tinyurl.com/gnsnewhome



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Video: Car/Flowers/Dinner in About 1 minute

A short update...

Video: "Spring Has Sprung" by Steph

Hey Everybody!
Gabe here,... I'm proud to introduce the first "Peanutbutter and Pickles™ " production ever!!!

Today, Steph made a short film which will give you the "nickel tour" of our little home here in Ofunato. There's also some silliness at the end too...

Just click the play button (you may have to pause it and let it "buffer"---just let the grey bar get to the right side) and enjoy the goofery.

Pot-Luck Party

Tonight we are having a pot-luck dinner with our Sumita English Conversation Circle. Steph is making "Enchiladas Potosinas"...

Preparing for Pot Luck:


Pot-Luck Spread: