Back To Life As Usual!

Well, after a month of not updating the blog, I think it's about time I write again. Our lives have been so busy over the past month and I hardly know where to start. We left in July for Oregon and spent a wonderful week first in Vale with Ruston's family. We rode 4-wheelers and Elli loved playing with the kittens. We celebrated Viola's birthday at the local Mexican restaurant. We spent lots of time with Lauren, Josh & their wonderful kids. And, of course, a huge part of the trip for Ruston was the time he could spend in the local dentist's office visiting and talking about potential business opportunities. We had a great week and can't wait to see all the Munk's at Thanksgiving in Las Vegas!

The next week was spent with my parents in Estacada. We left for the beach right away and spent two days visiting Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock, the Newport Aquarium, and let's not forget Ruston's favorite part of the ENTIRE vacation...the Tillamook Cheese Factory! Free cheese is not something easily turned down by my dear sweet husband! We stopped at another cheese factory for lunch and visited the little petting zoo outside. Elli thought the goats were funny and got to feel a few eat out of her hand. Back in Portland we visited with extended family; had pizza with Paul and Cyndi; games and feeding the ducks with Bev, Ben, Kelly and Ryan (and of course Murphy the bulldog); and had dinner with Althea. Thanks to everyone for Elli's gifts. She plays with them all the time and still asks everyday about when we will see our family again. I'll be too pregnant to fly to Portland for Christmas, but we are looking forward to seeing mom and dad (and maybe siblings too?) around Christmas time and when the baby comes.

Speaking of baby, the big question everyone has been asking is "what are we having?" Well, after a lot of thought, we decided not to find out again. I had the ultrasound and the baby is big and healthy. It moves around a ton, although I am just starting to feel anything at all. But when the technician performing the ultrasound moved downward to check out the baby's lower organs I closed my eyes so that I wouldn't see anything (or lack of anything!) Sorry to everyone who wanted to know before Christmas, but you'll just have to wait and see with the rest of us! Just FYI, I'm 22 weeks along now and the due date is still around January 8th.

This past weekend was a blast! Kevin & Emily came up from Dayton with their sweet new baby Paige. We went to Lake Erie and spent time in the water. We went out to eat (a lot!) and played lots of games. Ruston and Kevin had a great time golfing on Monday while Emily and I, with babies in tow, went shopping at the local outlet mall. Elli thought having a baby around was so great! She always needed to know where the baby was and what she was doing. She was a little sad this morning when she woke up and after searching the whole house realized that Paige had gone home. I think she is ready to be a big sister, even if she has no idea what is about to happen in a few months. Oh, and by the end of the weekend she even learned to call Emily "Emmy", which we all thought was adorable. Thanks guys for coming to see us, we love you and will hope to see you in a month or two.

Being sick must be the latest trend in parenting right now. It seems like Ruston and I have been sick with one thing or another for weeks. I'm down to just fall allergies - which are way better than last week's ear infection! But now Elli has a cough (the doctor called it croup, but it's caused by the same viruses as the common cold) so we're taking it easy this week while she gets better. I guess that's just part of having a toddler!

But she need to be better by this weekend. We are going to West Virginia for the annual dental school rafting trip. I will, of course, not be rafting for the safety of the baby (and we don't need to mention my terrible fear of rafting anyway) so Elli and I will be camping and hanging out with the other moms and babies, but Ruston is looking forward to going on the river. This will be our last year. We'll be sure to have lots of pictures posted when we get back Sunday night. So be sure to check the blog next week, I'm really going to try hard to keep up to date from now on! (We'll see!)

We hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend and can't wait to talk to many of you soon! We love you all! Thanks for reading the blog.

Love, The Munks