Blake gets his ring... WHOOP!

One of my "little" cousin's (ok, so he is growing up) got his Aggie ring last Friday. This is such an important day for Aggie's; however, it was that much more monumental because he is the first in his immediate family to have one (his mom is a graduate of the "other" school.. for those of you who do not know the Aggie lingo, the "other" school is the University of Texas or as we lovingly refer to it t.u.). Since J&I had just arrived back in the States, he was not expecting for me to surprise him and go up to see/celebrate this day with him. We all had SO much fun! CONGRATULATIONS BLAKE!!!!







OH! Did I mention, you "dunk" your ring as a part of the celebration. You can dunk it in whatever you would like. Blake chose his mother's banana pudding, and I have to admit it was the best banana pudding I have ever had!

30 Weeks and WE'RE HOME!!!

Here is my 30 week picture:-) I am growing fast these days. It is hard to believe that we just have 10 weeks to go (give or take). We also are back in Houston, and had our first doctor's appointment with the doctor that will be delivering our our precious baby girl. We really like the doctor and she is SO informative. I had to go back on Thursday for some testing and then now I start having appointments every 2 weeks! It is hard to believe.

We have also announced her name!!!! Drum roll please.......................................... Our little girl's name is: Miss Kaytlin Elizabeth Hall.

How we came up with the name: Well, we wanted for her name to have significance from both sides of the family, so....

Kaytlin is after Jeremy's mom who's middle name is Kay

and

Elizabeth is from my family.... prior to being adopted (so up until I was a month old while living at the adoption agency) my name was Elizabeth, my sister's middle name is Elizabeth, my Aunt's name is Elizabeth, my Grandmother's name (on my Dad's side) was Elizabeth.... so is obviously Elizabeth is very prominent on my side of the family.

Update on Hurricane Ike... Houston is slowing but surely getting back to normal :-) Currently over 50% of the city is still without power, and evidence of the Hurricane is still everywhere, but over all we have all been so blessed. Please just continue to pray for those that lost loved ones, their houses, and those struggling because of damages to their homes, etc.

Aloha! Hawaiian Style :-)

On our trip home, our flight took us from Fiji to Hawaii (I know rough life!). We were meant to have a 15 hour layover in Hawaii, so I made a list of things to do :-) Due to Hurricane Ike though, that 15 hours, was turned into a couple of days. In fact, we would probably still be in Hawaii (well technically I am at the airport writing this so I guess I still am here...) but Jeremy pulled the "my wife is REALLY pregnant" card, and they took one look at me and got us on another airline to get us home (well to Austin where family is picking us up). The problem with staying longer, is that we do not really get to "enjoy" Hawaii. We end up spending most of the day in the airport waiting on a flight, then seeing it gets cancelled, then having to get in line to be placed on another flight, and then them telling us all over again, the earlier you can be here tomorrow the better because we cannot promise your seats, and even if you have seat, then we cannot promise the airport will be open... so we decided to take them up on their offer of another airline and to get to Austin :-) Praise God for small miracles because we literally ONLY got on that flight because I was pregnant and they told us not tell anyone else standing in line that they had done that for us (although our smiles and a million thank you's to them probably gave it away...).

I have to say that Hawaii is beautiful and we were able to explore a bit :-) so those pictures are below, but we most definitely plan to return one day for a proper holiday!

Sunset's Fiji Style...

Over all, Fiji was beautiful! Very lush and not very developed at all, so pure. The water, especially close to the islands and by the coral, was crystal clear. We saw tons of colorful fish, star fish (of all different colors... the bright blue ones were our favorite), and coral. Parent's do not worry, we did not go out where we could have viewed the sharks and sea snakes, but many people at our resort did and quite enjoyed it... like I said, I (we) played it safe the entire trip... we did not want any little arrivals coming early :-)











Some other last minute pictures...

BULA! from Fiji

Bula! Or Hello from Fiji!!!! On our way home Australia, we decided to take a little vacation. We figured we had a LOT to celebrate... our 3rd year wedding anniversary, a year in Perth, and well, it was our "baby moon" (so another words, last vacation before our little blessing comes). Here are some pictures and stories from the trip...

Fiji is made up of more than 300 islands and we took a day cruise one day and got to see some of those islands...













One night we had a Fijian Feasts, or as they term it a lovo. This means that they dig a pit, and allow for rocks to heat up, then place the meat on those rocks. The meat is wrapped in plant leaves, and then covered with more plant leaves and all the meat cooks within an hour. We also could eat some of their native vegetables (Jeremy tried it but, I played it SUPER safe... yet not safe enough, we both at some point or another got sick during our stay in Fiji :-(
The Fijian's sang to us, and then after the meal they had their traditional cava drink. Cava is non-alcoholic but is made from a root of a plant and if you drink enough of it, it acts as a hallucinogen. Again, I did not partake in this tradition, but Jeremy had a try. He said it basically tasted like water that had been through a dirty sock and to be honest, that is what it looked like!






An Authentic Fijian Village:

We took a tour of a village that Fijian's live in today. This village said they felt very blessed because they had two resorts close by (one being the one we were staying in) so that their people could work in these resorts.
Here is a pictures of their church.

This is a picture of plants that are drying and then after they dry, they make it things of it (we bought some little purses, mats with some native art on them, etc.)

Here is their "hospital" for the village.

A Fijian school (my favorite part, naturally...).


We LOVED the village tour and learned SO much. One of the natives sat and spoke with us about their culture and their way of life for about an hour. Some interesting points that we learned: almost all native Fijian's are Christian's, they leave their doors open at all times because they are always willing and wanting to serve each other, NEVER touch a Fijian head or else you get killed, and well lots of other interesting things...

Relaxing in Fiji...