IT'S OFFICIAL!

Baby Pethel is going to be a "Friday the 13th" baby. They've scheduled the C-section for Friday, June 13 (unless I go into labor sooner and I have an emergency surgery). The doctor assures me not to be superstitious, but should I be?

THE DAY I BECAME A VEGETARIAN

MY CHICKEN AUTOPSY

I don't know how to even post about this because I'm still dealing with what Nanette made her 6-1/2 month pregnant sister do! Yes, at the time, I was laughing because that's the only way I could deal with it. But needless to say, I will never be eating Cornish Game Hens again.

****WARNING****Contains some graphic descriptions...:)

As you all know, Nanette is a self-taught gourmet cook. And every time we visit her house she has some awesome recipe to try out, or make, for us. When I was in California visiting, here's what our Sunday dinner was going to be...

Sounds good, right? Ya, I thought so too...Until Nanette read out loud the first instructions for preparing the actual chickens..."halved, backbone removed, rinsed, patted dry." I don't know about you, but "backbone removed" does not sound very fun. I thought, "Great, Nan is a real trooper for being able to remove the backbone." Suuuuure.....She only got as far as unwrapping the plastic around the chicken and said, "Christy, I can't do it. You have to." So, I'm thinking, there's no problem... until she holds it up and it is a freakin WHOLE tiny, baby chicken.

I felt like it was going to come alive at any moment and instead of crying, I started laughing. I started playing around with the wings and teasing Nan to make it worse. I was showing her the butt hole (sorry) and flapping the wing joints and everything. It was so horrible, but all I could do was laugh. I was laughing as I cut down through the chest and opened it up. Until....I realized I was performing an AUTOPSY. It looked exactly like what they do on CSI. I just cracked the chest cavity open and all these ribs and bones were making a crushing sound. I just kept laughing uncontrollably and Nan was so grossed out she was getting so pissed. BUT I was totally okay, even when I had to scrape around the backbone and had to pull each little teeny tiny rib out, one by one, UNTIL a kidney popped out. I had to lean on the counter cuz I almost fainted. It was all I could do to not throw up. That was just too much for me. It was the size of cherry seed and all bulbousy. I couldn't handle it. (You can see it below). At THAT point, it was Nanette who was laughing and said she had 3 more for me to do. I just put down everything and walked away. I told her, "Hell no. I cannot do another autopsy. That just did me in."

Myles was the good sport who carved and butchered the next three. Nan made the sauce and we finished cooking the chicken but between the two of us, I was the only one that ate it. It was pretty good actually, as long as you didn't think about the process. Nan couldn't even look at it. And I still can't stop laughing. I think I've joined you, Ben. I might have to convert to vegetarianism.

California Series, Part 3

LUCK OF THE IRISH TO YA!

I know this is late comin, but I wanted to post a few pictures of how we spent our St. Patty's Day in California. I really do love St. Patrick's Day, even though it gets forgotten most of the time. Xanthe & Xoe surely didn't forget. Before we could even say anything, they came out dressed in all green, from head to toe. Didn't even know they had packed that much green! They ended up changing their green pants and green skirt for jeans, but believe me they were definitely in the Blarney spirit!

We were at Nan's house in Camarillo, California and they helped Rocky & Piper pick something out. Again, green from head to toe. Here are some pictures...

Picnic At the Park. Next, we went to the park and had a picnic, courtesy of Subway and Auntie Katie, who gave them the picnic basket. And yes....the girls brought this picnic basket all the way from Arizona. You might be able to see it in the picture of our "Jimmy-Rigged Car". Thank you Auntie Katie! They have picnics everywhere we go! :)

Am I really THAT pregnant?

Here I am with one of the first pictures I have taken with my belly that seemed to double in growth in just the few days from Arizona to California. I was 27 weeks at the time and I'm almost 30 weeks. I know I'm twice that size now in just a few weeks. I can't even get that shirt on now.

Underwood Farms. Nanette lives in beautiful Camarillo and has all these orchards and farms around her that stretch for miles and miles. One of the farms has a food stand near her house. We go there most every time we're there and feed carrots to the animals. The kids love it. One EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA large bag of carrots, please? Seriously look how huge that bag of carrots is.

Check out the cute haircut on Xoe. Xanthe has the same one, and they wanted it to be like Auntie Heather's! Thanks Nanette for the haircuts!

There's one other thing we did that night, but I have to save it for my next post. It deserves it's own entry! Happy St. Patrick's Day!