Well things have been interesting lately.  We were very disappointed this past weekend.  We were supposed to have gone to Annapolis for a wedding, and to get to see all of my side of the family.  Ryan was so excited to get to meet everyone.  We were unable to catch our flight on time though - four minutes too late for them to check our bag, which was too large to carry on.  We are trying our best to find another time to fly somewhere to see my family.  It was nice to be able to spend a day with Ryan, which is hard to come by.   We ended up going shopping on Saturday and buying a recliner.  Ryan has kindly offered it up as my pregnancy and feeding the baby chair, which he states he will reclaim after : ) 

     Today I went for my 17 week appointment.  Things are going pretty well.  We were worried that I hadn't put on any weight yet, I have actually lost some since my last appointment.  We talked with the doctor though, and found out that this is common with first time pregnancies, and that as long as I begin putting on weight in the next four weeks then everything will be great.  The baby's heartbeat was 151 today.  The doctor surprised us by doing an ultrasound today!  We weren't expecting another one until 20 weeks.  The baby is growing and looks so long!  At first the baby was sleeping, but then Ryan began talking and the baby woke right on up!  It was quite active after that.  We attempted to find out the sex of the baby today, however the baby was being a bit shy about that area!!  No luck today on determining the sex.  We are scheduled for an appointment on December 5th in which they will do a more detailed ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby.  Cross your fingers that the baby participates.   Everything else at the appointment went well.   Thankfully I haven't had any more morning sickness in about 3 weeks now, which I'm certainly praying continues. 

      I'm very excited for tomorrow - we are going to start getting the nursery ready!  Ryan's parents have bought us our crib and we have picked out some bedding.  Wednesday we are moving the furniture out of the guest room and into the computer room.  Then we have to tape off the walls and prime.  We are also going to Home Depot to match the paint to one of our baby blankets.  I am so excited to get started on the nursery.   We will post pictures as we get them.

     Be looking for our ultrasound pictures from today.  I will post them shortly!

     Please keep Ryan's family in your prayers as the holiday season approaches - it will be a challenge with their loss.  Also please continue to pray for Ryan's youngest brother Brent who is still serving in Iraq.   He gets lonely over there so if anyone would like to write him a letter, please contact me for his address.  We would greatly appreciate any letters or cards to him as he too is struggling with the loss of his brother Jason, and without any family or his wife in Iraq.