The Grubers: Announcing March!

I spent the first weekend in March in Idaho to celebrate my cousin, Ashley’s, bridal shower. I drove with my mom Friday afternoon (sadly, Camry couldn’t come because of a school Moab trip). We had a great time at the shower, hanging out...and vegging out after the shower. On Saturday, the girls didn’t have work so we got to spend some more time together. We picked up a pizza for lunch while all of the moms were busy with errands and things. We painted our nails outside on the deck in the warm sun. Later we watched Catching Fire. My mom and I didn’t start the drive back home until 9:30 PM. So we got home around 1...but it was Daylight Savings...so it was more like 2, and went to bed at 3. I was exhausted!

We had another date night with the Wingers. They really treated us this time! Kaari made us a legit Asian dinner, complete with homemade cream cheese wontons, PF Changs knock-off lettuce wraps, and an Asian salad. It was fabulous! I was obsessed. Our contribution was dessert: vanilla cupcakes (Trader Joes) with chocolate frosting. A very successful date night!

(Thanks Kaari...I stole your pictures)

Thanks to Groupon, I made it back into the fitness world….well, for a short while. I got one of those Ballet Blast Groupons. The first class...totally kicked my butt! I felt like a failure! That’s how you know are out of shape. The dancing element made it really fun, however, and I did a lot better the next couple times. It also helped having a fun friend to go with. Bryton was my bar buddy, and I loved it! She is one tough mama.

My Ballet Blast days came to an abrupt halt...I found out that I was pregnant! That’s right, we are expecting baby number two at the end of October! We are thrilled. So once the nausea and fatigue kicked in, I was ready to take a break from Ballet Blast. Now that I am feeling better and am in my second trimester, I plan to make it back.

So far, this pregnancy has been very different from my first. Here and there I have had intense moments of nausea, but nothing as long-lasting or demobilizing as last time. What has really killed me this time has been the fatigue and complete lack of motivation! I could not get myself to want to do anything. It was so weird and pathetic...but there was nothing I could do about it! It is hard to explain! I took a month off from work (Pinnacle Quality Insight is so great to work with you) and took it easy. I am definitely not a fan of the first trimester and am so glad it is over!

With a baby on the way, we had to search for new medical insurance. Up to this point, we had catastrophic insurance with like a $10,000 deductible. Maternity alone was $7,500. So, yeah, we needed something better. I spent months at the end of last year trying to upgrade my plan through Blue Cross, or getting supplemental insurance...but nothing was working...thanks to ObamaCare. So we had to dive right into the health.gov chaos. The only upside was they couldn’t disqualify us for a pre-existing condition (like pregnancy)...so we were saved that way. Thankfully, we have found a better plan...and hopefully the cost won’t completely deplete our (hopefully) near future house savings. That and taxes have really put a damper on those hopes this year. But the excitement of a baby FAR outweighs the excitement of a house!

Jason started another indoor soccer league with his friend, Mike Monson. It was a very exciting season. They lost a couple games, but also won a handful of them. It made it very fun. Charlie and I attended two or three games, and each time Charlie showed more and more interest in watching the game. Eventually, the iPad always made an appearance, but his attention span seemed to get longer each time. We even got to see Jason score two goals in one game! That was awesome! Especially since he plays defender most of the time.

The last March event worth mentioning was St. Patrick’s Day. Jason had the day off of work so we made a special trip to….McDonalds. Ha! I had high hopes for a picnic in the park, but it was so darn windy that we had to slum it at the McDonalds playplace to give Charlie something to do. (Unfortunately, a day or two later Charlie got so sick...and we blame it on the nasty playplace germs...more on that in his monthly update).