The Dagwood Challenge...

(Tyson with his statistics peeps)

A while back we were watching a show on the Travel Channel called "Man VS. Food" - the host Adam Richman was in Columbus Ohio - showing some of the best places to eat in Columbus. Adam went to a place called the OHIO DELI where he tackled the "Dagwood". After watching that show, we knew we had to make our way to the OHIO DELI.

So, Last Saturday we did just that and ventured to the OHIO DELI and met up with some of Tyson's classmates who wanted to share in this experience.  The OHIO DELI is Home of the "Dagwood Challenge". And that's exactly why Tyson and one of his buddies were there. 

They wanted to try and conquer the "Dagwood". 

Tyson and his buddy John Bradley excited to each eat there own Dagwood

What's the "Dagwood Challenge"? ...

The Dagwood -That's right - 1 pickle, 1 pound of fries, and a 2.5 pound meat sandwich with all the toppings lettuce, tomato, onion and a garlic mayo. Sounds good right? But there's a catch - you have to be able to eat EVERYTHING in 30 minutes or less. And if you DO eat everything in that time frame, you get your picture taken and t-shirt. Time to beat was 4 minutes and 44 seconds! Pretty sure that wasn't going to happen. But everyone was excited for this challenge to start! woot woot! Tyson was very excited! 

Yummy! Starting off good and happy - Tyson said it tasted really good too - only took about 12 minutes to eat the first half and some fries and a few bites of pickle...EASY...

Or maybe not so easy...going at the second half of the Dagwood 

and it's not as good anymore...

there was only like 15 minutes to go....and he kept going...but time was FLYING on by...

Oh...someone has a tummy ache...

times up! 

Well it ended up being a lot harder than it looked. But Tyson was a Bear and did awesome! His buddy John Bradley did finish everything just in time - but ended up in the bathroom afterwards. It was fun and Tyson said that was the fastest 30 minutes ever and he never wanted to eat lunch meat ever again.  Way to go at attempting the "Dagwood" Tyson! 

Your a champ and I love you!

Happenings...

Last week was spring break for Tyson. We took it pretty easy and kept our week of fun low key. But nonetheless, good times were had. We kicked off the break by starting to set up the baby's room. Tyson has been dying to put the crib together - so that's just what he did. I will post pictures of Baby Bear's room once everything is all done. 

Tyson starting to put the crib together...yea! 

Last Tuesday we headed out to the Amish country. *Fact: Ohio is home to the nation's largest Amish community. Who would have thought?  Well, our adventure was fabulous! We had the best time. I just googled online Amish country in Ohio and a place called 'Walnut Creek' was the first place to pop up - plus when I read there was a Chocolate Company, that pretty much did it for me. 

Here we are in front of the super yummy Coblentz Chocolate Company. All the candy is hand made by the Amish and Mennonite women. Right when you walk into the store you are hit with the most yummy smell of Chocolate. Oh it was heavenly. 

Not only can you buy and eat the most delicious chocolates, fudge, candy and caramels, but they also have a viewing area where you can watch the candy being made.

viewing the chocolate being made. Mmmmmm!

When in Amish country - of course you must eat with the Amish. So that's just what we did. 

We ate here...at the Der Dutchman. It was REALLY good. And of course if you know us, not only do we love food, but we love dessert - so we couldn't pass up homemade...

PIE! 

After the chocolate company, lunch and looking through shops , we hit up an Amish market which was really fun. 

And one of the best parts of Amish country is of course seeing the

Horse and Buggies everywhere.  Love it!

Last Saturday we headed down to Kentucky to see our fabulous friends the Barnett's! My friend Kally just had her first adorable baby boy Brody back in February - so we knew we needed to get down there and snuggle the little monkey. Tyson is a baby Pro - he always has been! He has the magic baby touch - pretty sure Brody slept in his arms for over 2 hours while Kally and I sat and chatted. Brody is so dang cute. We loved his chubby cheeks!!

We had the best time hanging out, talking and eating. We also got to meet Kally's hubby Kris for the first time. We thought he was Great! Good job Kally! We had such a great time!

And to end our wonderful spring break we also added a new member to our family,

we'd like you to meet ...

BLUE the Bear.  He's about 2.5 feet tall, very soft, blue nose, black eyes and lots of blue fur. We love him. haha. I'd been eyeing this bear for a while now at Toys R Us, and we finally gave in and bought him. He will be in Baby Bear's room. I plan on taking a picture of Baby Bear and BLUE every month - so you can see how big Baby Bear is growing. 

Spring Break was great - but it could only last so long. It was for sure a nice break for Tyson but he was excited to start his spring quarter.

Which takes us to....

This week we said Goodbye to Winter Quarter and Hello to the Spring Quarter of school.

This was Tyson at the beginning of January on his first day of Winter Quarter. I forgot to post about it - so I figured I'd just add it now. What do you think of the orange calcuator? I saw it at a store one day and thought it was funny. Perhaps he can use it as back up - you can never be too prepared,right? ha.  There were a few highlights for the Winter Quarter... like Winter Quarter flew by so fast...Tyson got all A's again. Yes, he is AMAZING! He taught one class for the quarter and at the end of the quarter his class had to evaluate him - he got really good reviews along with- one person commenting that, "He is really cute" and someone else said that "He looks like he work outs". We've had some good laughs over his evaluations and at least they were all really good.  So bye-bye second quarter of school and bye-bye winter! 

and now...HELLO third quarter of school and HELLO Spring! YEA! 

So Monday morning was the first day of spring quarter. If Tyson looks a little tired in this picture, well it's because he is. He was nice of enough to let me take a picture of him before I took him to school. He was tired because all last week we stayed up every night till 1 am and slept in till 11 or noon. So it was a little difficult getting up for school. But, Monday turned out to be a great day and he loves his new classes for this quarter. This quarter is gonna go by so fast too...and you know what??? By the end of this quarter...we will have our Baby Bear!! YEA!! Which leads me to this...

Hello! Here I am as of yesterday (Saturday) at 32 weeks and 5 days. WHOA, huh? hahaha. 

Okay, the front shot isn't too bad. However...

From the side...hello big belly! I like my big belly. I look big, but I don't feel big, so that's a good thing right? By the end of this next week - we will be down to 6 weeks! We can't wait!! We both get so giddy with excitement! Everything is going great. We went to the doctor's on Thursday for the 32 week check-up and our Baby Bear is doing awesome - he's head down, so let's hope he can stay that way for the next 6 weeks. He is definitely getting stronger by the day. Sometimes I think he might be trying to escape from my sides, too bad it doesn't work that way. 

So I've got to share a quick funny with you all - because I got a kick out of it. So... last Friday night we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things - and we decided to do the self-check out, well of course something we were getting wouldn't scan so a worker had to come and help us out. I need to give you a quick description of the 'store worker' - she was this nice, larger black lady. So use your imagination...After this lady helped us, she looks at me and asks, "do you know what you are having?" and I said, "yup we are having a boy", her response in her thick loud black lady voice, "WHAT? There's only ONE in there? WHOA you are HUGE!!!!", hahha, I was like, "um, yeah I am?" I had a sweater on that was pretty thick so of course that made me look even larger, so I told her, "well my sweater makes me look kinda bigger" and Tyson was like, "and look at us, we are both really tall", well her remark was "uh, huh...honey you are HUGE and your baby is going to be HUGE, WHOA you are HUGE." By then we were ready to make our exit out of the store, so we were were like " have a nice night" and she said "uh-huh congratulations." We got in the car, and I was like "WHOA you're HUGE." hahahahaa. I've been laughing about that ever since. Good thing my emotions are in check or I could of been crying instead of laughing. But it really was funny, especially the shocking look on her face when I told here there was only 1 baby in my belly. hahaha. You can't say that's not funny. Good times, good times!  

So, that's what's been going on around here. The weather has been so nice here in Columbus. Spring is definitely here. Flowers are blooming and the grass is green! So we are welcoming spring with open arms! Hopefully spring has sprung or is beginning to spring up where everyone else lives! Can you believe it's already April! 

30 weeks...

Here I am Today at 30 Weeks! I love it! I keep saying it - but time is flying by! We are almost to, two months away and our little bear will be here. We are so stoked! I am feeling great. I am tired - but I've been tired the entire time I've been preggers. I know some get there energy back - I am not one of those. But I can't complain - I am totally blessed to be able to stay home and just take it easy - 

I am soaking it up now before our little bear comes. 

Other than that everything is Great! He's still kicking strong - and he LOVES to roll. 

We've had a few shopping sprees to Babies R Us in the past few weeks and that was really fun. We have almost everything for the baby's room - now we just need to get it all together - that's the exciting part! I will post pictures once we have it all together. 

30 Weeks and counting - YEA for BABY BEAR!

Birthday Fun...

My birthday was a few weeks ago - and I had a blast - thanks to my AMAZING hubby! We hung out and relaxed, went shopping and enjoyed a really fun day together. 

I choose the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday dinner - it was very tasty (as always). Best part of eating there - we had to wait so long to be seated we ate dessert first. I was starving and the prego girl needed fed. haha. So we ordered dessert from the dessert counter and just stood there with our super yummy cheesecake and ate it. Dinner was fabulous too! 

So I have the best hubby ever - he decorated the house upstairs and down stairs with lots of balloons, ribbons and streamers - along with that I got fun gifts and a cake that was almost better than our wedding cake (seriously). 

It was a wonderful day and it was full of birthday fun! 

Thanks Tyson for making my day the best! I loved it all!

CREATE

We Caved...

And saw this last night...

Yup we finally saw Twilight - we hit up the cheap movie theater last night - and when I say Cheap theater $2.00 a person. Can't be that.  We ate a huge yummy bag of over priced popcorn and candy and watched the movie while we reminisced about reading the books-trying to actually remember what happened. It's been a while since we've read the books. Yes you read that correctly....WE. Don't act surprised Tyson read each book in like 3 hours - yeah he's pretty much AMAZING. To be honest, Tyson read all 4 books, I read the first 3. And even though we own all 4 books - I just couldn't get myself to read book 4. And I am SO GLAD I didn't. Yup you read that right too. The Ending of the series SERIOUSLY? I thought it was stupid. Tyson just told me how it all went. I Love him. Only part of it ended how I was hoping it would, but that's just me - I know so many Twilight lovers that thought the ending was just perfect. To each there own. But besides that, we had a fabulous time and we thought the movie was pretty great. We even really liked all the characters. I still wish Edward was a little cuter and I didn't think of Jacob as such a 'pretty boy'. haha. But I'm over it. We gave it two thumbs up. Obviously books are always better than a movie. But the next movie New Moon should be pretty darn good. It almost makes me want to re-read the books and maybe even read book 4 Breaking Dawn. 

I said Almost. 

Third Trimester ...

Today is February 26th and I am due May 26th,

which means we only have 3 more months 

*(unless he decides to take his time or come early)

 till we get to meet our Baby Bear.  We seriously can't wait!

We LOVE him so much already and 

he gives the LOVE back with his kicks. 

Time is flying by so quickly and he 

will be here before we know it! Yea!

28 Weeks

Lovey Dovey weekend -turned Fat Fatty Love Fest

What do you get when you go away for a quick weekend to St. Louis, seeing amazing friends, eat lots of yummy food and have a great time? That would be our Lovey Dovey V. day weekend! That's right, we took off last Friday when Tyson got done with school and headed to St. Louis to spend the weekend with our friends Valerie and David. 

cute couples

Saturday (V.day) we slept in and then for our Lovey Dovey dinner we went to an all you can eat Brazilian Restaurant. (I forgot to take pictures - we were to busy eating). I thought it was good - but Tyson thought it was oh so super yummy - he said it took him back to his mission days in Brazil. Once we stuffed ourselves full - we headed back to Valerie and David's apartment - where we vegged out - and that's when our Lovey Dovey weekend turned into our Fat Fatty Love Fest. The rest of our evening was spent talking, eating more food and staying up way late playing games. 

eating yummy pizza

and of course a Fat Fatty Love Fest would not be complete without AMAZING FONDUE!

playing games

Probably not the best group shot - but it had to be documented. ha.

We had such a great time in St. Louis. Sadly, Tyson didn't get President's day off. what's up with that? So we headed back to Columbus Sunday afternoon. But we were happy with the time we had. Indeed it was a quick weekend. 

But we wouldn't have wanted to Celebrate our 

Fat Fatty Love Fest any other way! Thanks Val and David for a fun weekend!

the end.

LOVE

Happy Lovey Dovey Weekend!

Orange drink day...

Today I went in for my Glucose Screen - many know that it's a blood test that should be done between 24-28 weeks of pregnancy that screens for pregnancy induced diabetes and anemia. And for those of you who didn't know that, well you just learned something new. I got lucky and when I went in for my 20 week check-up they gave me the bottle of orange sugar stuff and told me to just come back in when ever between my 24-28 weeks. And so I choose today as my Glucose day. 

Here's the play by play...

the bottle of orange sugary liquidness - it smelled like orange pop...

gulping it down... you have to drink it in 5 minutes or less. So I just chugged it...

all done. It was tasty...

showing off my war wound...

I was totally going to document my blood being taken, but we forgot to take the camera. So let me share with you how it went. Once the orange stuff has been taken, you wait 1 hour and then have the blood drawn exactly ONE hour after you finish it. So we got to the doctors office - and I was already nervous. I HATE needles. HATE HATE HATE them. They called us in - Tyson offered his hand to hold - but I opted for the furry teddy bear to hold because my hands were sweaty. Yes I act like I am 5. So Tyson just stood next to me and watched while I had my eyes closed. It lasted 5 seconds. The blood nurse did a great job. Yea for the nurse. She was so nice.

So I survived and this afternoon the nurse called to tell me that everything was great.  

Yea no diabetes and no anemia. 

I do have to say something - the orange drink was BOMB. I thought it tasted great! It was just like orange pop with no fizz.  Granted I totally gulped it down - because almost everyone I've talked to about this test, has told me how awful the drink is. But I stopped to breath half way though my gulping and had one more taste and it was tasty! Perhaps I can just handle my sugar better or something. But it wasn't bad at all. So for all of those who told me is was so horrible - shame on you. haha. 

Okay that was my adventure today. Sad that this was the excitement of my day! 

Happy Birthday Brother!

Today is my brother Jeremy's 30th Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER! Tyson and I hope that your day is wonderful! 30 never looked so good! woot woot! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 

We Love You!

Preggers...

So I know in my last post there is a picture of me all round and jolly - but I thought I would post a picture of me without my nice big grey sweater on. Here is my nice belly. I love it. 

I am finally feeling so much better. It's about time. I love being preggers - it's so wonderful - and it's so fun feeling my little baby bear kicking all around. I just started feeling him about 2 weeks ago - and right before I left to come to Oregon, Tyson was able to feel him kick - so that was very exciting. Tyson loved that he was able to feel him. So everything is going great. On Tuesday I will be 24 weeks along - so crazy. Time is just flying by. Before we know it, the month of May will be here. YEA! We seriously get more and more excited everyday. 

I've been asked by lots of you if we have thought of any names...and Yes we have. But the more we've thought about the names we have, we don't like them any more. ha! So that is still in the works. We do know that our Baby Bear's middle name will be "Reese", that's Tyson's middle name. We've even joked...or I should say that I've joked that we should just name our little one "Bear" - shoot we can't think of anything else and we call him our Baby Bear right now. haha. But we will NOT be using that name. I just think it's funny. 

I will keep everyone posted with my growing pregoness - I don't mind showing the growth. But I think we should all prepare ourselves that I am gonna get really BIG before this Baby Bear comes. haha. Hooray for our little one!! 

Letters to my Tyson: The Week...

Happy Friday Bubs! 

 front yard                    love u.                      back yard

Monday it snowed. I know you know it snowed because I called you whining  that it snowed. ha. We see enough of it in Ohio - it had to follow me to Oregon.  At least it only stayed around till the early afternoon. 

   Before                                        After

Tuesday night I went over to Ashlee's to get my hair trimmed and re-highlighted. She did a fabulous job and I love it. It's nice to have highlights again. And of course what would be a blog post without a scary picture of me (the Before picture - yikes!). ha! 

Wednesday and well the rest of the week I've been water coloring - it's been fun. I couldn't find my water colors from college, but I had my grandma's water color set - and it's worked out awesome. Some of those colors on the palette aren't from me mixing colors - they are from my grandma from the last time she worked on something years and years ago. I think it's really cool to think about what she might have been painting with those colors.  AND AND AND...what else do we see in the picture...oh that's right a JAMBA cup. Halla for the Jamba! Surprisingly enough I've only have it ONCE this week. I will make up for it this weekend. 

Oh...and Wednesday night I hung out with my friend Jocelyn and I totally forgot to get a picture of us. We had a great time catching up and chatting for a few hours! I love it when you can meet up with a friend you haven't seen in forever, like 10 years and pick up where you left off. AMAZING if you ask me!

And what is this??? Oh yes... this is a shout out for your Bubs! OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY CANCELED school on Wednesday due to the weather. CRAZY!

And last but not least...last night...Thursday night...Tiffany came up from Eugene to see me. She is wonderful. We had a GREAT time! We ate dinner at P.F. Changs and got ice cream at 31 flavors (yum) and then hung out at my house for a few hours chatting and looking up baby names on the computer. It was so fun to be able to hangout with her. Before she left we had to get a picture. Don't I just look Round and Jolly! hahaha. I think the sweater adds a little to the roundness -but that's okay, because there is a baby bear inside of me.  Tiffany and I were laughing at how I tower over her. Tis true. haha. 

So there we have it...It's been a good week. I've had some fun times. I am excited it's the weekend! Super Bowl Sunday Baby! woot woot! I hope that your Friday is fabulous!! 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!

Big LOVES and Big Hugs...Me

Letters to my Tyson: The Weekend...

Hi Bubs! The weekend was good - but I didn't do a good job of taking many pictures. So here is what I have to share with you...

Friday night Mommers and I baby sat the Hayden Bug - and it was fun. He loves Grandma so much, it's so dang cute. We played and played and giggled a lot - we even put him the bathtub for a little while. Good times were had. And of course I had a Jamba too! And it was yummy! And yes that's a scary picture of me - but I had to document the goodness. 

Saturday was fabulous - I didn't take any pictures. But there were some highlights...

1. shopping with Mommers

2. buying some dang cute baby clothes (can't wait to show you)

3. going to P.F. Changs - it was really good - we got some Harvest Vegetable Egg Rolls for an appetizer and they were the bomb - I am craving them this very minute (that's like my first craving being preggers...haha.)

4. talking to you on the phone like 15 times

5. laying in bed and watching a movie with Mommers

..............................................................................................

And onto today...Sunday

It's been a nice relaxing day. 

Jeremy, Naomi and Hayden came over tonight and stayed for a little while.

We played for like a minute - Hayden was more into walking around the house and playing with the magnets on the fridge.

We also ate some yummy cake! You would have thought it was good. Mommers made the cake and I made the frosting. The frosting turned out a lot better then I thought it would. It was much better than using a can of frosting - that's for sure. This is Jeremy saying Hi to you and he is wishing you were with us to eat cake. 

So that was the weekend. I love you and miss you! 

Have a Happy Monday!  Don't have too much fun without me. 

Love Love Love u.

Letters to my Tyson: The past 24 hours...

Bubs! I've only been home in Portland a little over 24 hours. And even though we've talked like 20 times already... there are still pictures to share with you. 

Last night after dinner, I think Hayden thought he would help grandma clean up the kitchen floor - he went and got the Shark cleaner and started going at it. You would have loved it!

Today wasn't too eventful - I was tired all day long - so I just lounged around. But no worries - I went to one of our favorite places...Jamba! And it was Jambarific! I got the Strawberry Surf Rider and it was del-ish. The only thing that would have made it more glorious, would have been to have you there with me to enjoy one. I still think it's so lame Columbus doesn't have Jamba. I will try and drink one daily while I am here. 

Remember how I told you about the cat in my Better Homes and Garden magazine. Well here he is. Thanks to photo booth I got to pose with him. I named him Mr.Biggels and I love him. I think he may be my #1 favorite cat now, yup I said it. I think I like him even more than chub chub's. 

Well Lovey...that's all that's going on. I think I am going to make some carmel popcorn with my mom and watch t.v. before bed. 

I love you and Miss you...

BIG Loves and BIG Hugs...

Jen

We found out...

(baby bear at 20 weeks)

I had my doctors appointment today which was very exciting and we didn't have to wait long at all for the doctor to call us in. I did the regular routine of peeing in a cup, blood pressure and weight. I have officially gained back weight. In my first trimester I lost 15 lbs. But I've upped it back to a 10 lb weight gain - not too shabby. We only had to wait minutes and our doctor was in to see us. I have to say that our Doctor is Amazing! He's done every heart beat check-up and every ultra sound and he is always so reassuring and comforting, which we love. He was all hyped up for us to check out our baby. I must say, our baby is way cute in my belly. Our little one is doing great and everything looked wonderful - Baby Bear was very wiggly - and when it came down to looking for the goods, it didn't want to be still - well no worries we were lucky and got a good quick glimpse at what would resemble a BOY! YEA! The doctor tired a few more angles - we kinda got one more little peek - but like I said, he was wiggly - the doctor even checked to make sure that it wasn't the umbilical cord- and everything came out clear - so BOY OH BOY, We are so excited and we haven't stopped smiling since we found out. Yea for our baby BOY bear that will be here in May!