Roommate Reunion, Yard Crawl, and Delicious Food: Part 2, Saturday Morning

After a night of fun talking and eating Banana Split Trifle with Claire, we woke up early Saturday morning ready to conquer the Yard Crawl...

...Pregnancy side note: I woke up SUPER early that morning because as I told everyone at breakfast, "someone I sleep with decided to apparently do acrobatics starting at 5 in the morning."  Which prompted both my mom and Claire to quizzically look at Todd... No!  Not him... the little man who sleeps in my belly! :)

Anywho... so we took two cars because we knew my other roommate, Emily, and her husband Michael would be arriving at some point in the morning, so we'd need two cars in the end.  My parents drove themselves and then Claire, Todd, and I went together.  We drove down to Tom's Brook and worked our way up.  Here are some of the more unusual finds we discovered along the way... (thank you @clairecraft for the pictures). 

Seriously??  We believe this is an old school birthing table (note the foot holders)... the creepy dolls really are a nice touch, huh?  As a friend mentioned, if we had bought this we could have had a home birth.... AHHHH!

For only $600, Claire could have had her very own carousel horse.  The lady selling it did suggest she get on it... I REALLY wish she had! :)



When I saw this and started to read it, I expected it to be serious and possibly gag-inducing.  Instead, it made me BURST OUT LAUGHING (seriously, for a good minute or so) thus I, OF COURSE, had to buy it!

We also saw some live chickens (not sure if they were for sale or not), some Chihuahua puppies (they were for sale), an many other antiques that weren't quite as exciting as the birthing table.  In the end, I walked away with mostly baby clothes and other baby things. 

Emily and Michael arrived about 3 hours into our adventure, and we were only able to enjoy about another hour after they arrived (despite it being MUCH cooler than it had been recently, I still was BURNING HOT and EXHAUSTED after 4 hours).  My parents, however, didn't get home for about another 2 hours after us! 

Roommate Reunion, Yard Crawl, and Delicious Food: Part 1, Friday Night

I don't know how it has taken me SO long to blog about this, but last weekend I was able to have an absolutely fantastic time with friends, family, and good food!

For those who don't know about the Rt. 11 Yard Crawl, it is a 43 mile stretch of Rt. 11 that is basically turned into a GIANT yard sale!  It starts in our town of Stephens City (mile marker 307 on I81) and goes south to New Market (mile marker 264 on I81).  And it always takes place on the second Saturday in August.  Well, last year my parents came up for it, and now it has become a tradition.  So, they came up Thursday night in preparation for this wonderful event...

...but that's not all.  I also accidentally committed to that weekend to do a roommate reunion with the 3 wonderful ladies I lived with for my last two years of school.  It has been TOO long overdue, and this summer we finally got something together (it's tough since one of our lovely ladies is a missionary and lives on a completely different continent for most of the year)!  So on Friday night and Saturday morning two of the three arrived.  Unfortunately, a last minute emergency meant one of the girls couldn't make it... and we missed her dearly!

Claire was the first to arrive on Friday night, and while she had stopped for dinner on her way up from Chapel Hill, I had promised her a FABULOUS dessert.  So, inspired by this recipe, I made Banana Split Trifle.  Here is how I did it:

Ingredients:
1 yellow sheet cake, prepared from a mix and cut into small chunks
1 large box of pudding, prepared mixed with 8 ounces cream cheese
2-3 large bananas, cut in small slices
1 container cool whip
Chocolate Syrup
Strawberry topping for ice cream
Whole Maraschino cerries

In a trifle dish (or just a really big bowl if you're like me and don't own a trifle dish) start with a layer of cut up cake.  Then add a layer of pudding/cream cheese mix.  Next, layer on a sprinkling of bananas and a pretty drizzling of both chocolate syrup and strawberry topping.  Continue this until you run out of room in the bowl (which in my case was I believe 3 layers).  On the very top add a layer of cool whip, a pretty drizzling of chocolate syrup, and some cherries. 

Nice pretty drizzling, huh?

I got the bowl as a wedding gift and had NEVER used it!  Now I know it makes a perfect trifle bowl!

This dessert turned out REALLY yummy, but VERY sweet!  And you might want to have a lot of people to serve it to, or make a smaller portion, because it did get pretty mushy after the first night... but it was still yummy, just not as pretty!  Everyone really enjoyed it (thankfully no one hated bananas) and my dad even gave this endorsement (note: he doesn't really like bananas)... "This is really good.  I didn't even have to pick out the bananas!"  Thanks, dad! :)

26 Week Update at Myrtle Beach

On Friday I officially reached the 26-week mark!  Each week brings, at the same time, the relief of knowing Baby Boy Narcross is that much more developed and prepared for entering the world and an increased stress of knowing he's going to be arriving soon, and that time is going to fly! 

I've finally decided it's time for Todd and myself to get at least a little clue regarding the birth and early weeks of newborn raising, so I've been reading some books and the internet more than ever.  It's all just so darn conflicting though!  The concepts of "on-demand" feeding versus scheduled feeding leaves me feeling like I have NO IDEA what to do... I mean, it seems "on demand" is better, but isn't my baby going to kinda need a schedule once I go back to work?

And don't even get me started on all the "tips" for going back to work!  "Ask your boss if you can just come back half day," "Ask your boss if you can leave to feed your baby at daycare," "Ask your boss for a flexible work schedule so you can come in later or leave earlier,"... hmm... not really going to happen when you're a teacher!  That being said, I know I do have a good schedule but I'm already starting to stress about managing a baby, a classroom, a house, a husband, a dog... AHHHH!  And Baby Boy Narcross isn't even scheduled to arrive for another 3 months, plus an extra 6-10 weeks of maternity leave.  Our new family lines are, "Todd, it's not going to be nearly as easy or wonderful as you seem to think it is!"  and "Erica, it's not going to be nearly as hard or horrible as you seem to think it is!"  So we just agree to disagree! :)  Or really, we agree that it will probably be wonderful, horrible, very hard but not always, all rolled into one!

Enough ranting about all my stress... here are some pictures from Myrtle Beach last week.  Todd and I were blessed to get to go and spend a week in MB with my family.  Though it was stressful at times (having four kids under the age of four running around) and very HOT, we had a very nice and relaxing time!  Because of the heat, we didn't spend nearly as much time outside as we have in the past, but we still had a good time.  We spent many mornings at the pool with the kids, read, enjoyed some late afternoon/evenings on the beach, and had great meals.  Plus we had a special evening out and feasted on crab legs!


I REALLY love this picture!

The classic "prom pose."  And I think Todd's hands are trying to make a heart, but mine are covering it!



This was originally a full length shot, but let's be honest, even though I say that this is the only time in my life when I don't need to feel self conscious, do I really have the guts to put up a full length picture of me in a swim suit?? Guess not!



The whole gang:  My parents and my two sisters and families.