Dad Paints the Nursery...

...and Mom has cankles. M has been hard at work this week painting the nursery. Because M is a creative man, and also because he has a tendency towards not doing things the simple way, this has required three shades of paint and lots and lots of taping, painting, drying and waiting. But I think it's going to look really great and can't wait to put the finishing touches on it, which include extremely cute monkey decals. Stay tuned for photos of the finished room.

In other news, we had a great time with the family at Pete and Meg's wedding last weekend. For some reason I took only one photograph the entire week, which included my baby shower, several family dinners and the wedding itself. However, there were enough cameras flashing from the rest of the family to make up for that. This photo was taken by Aunt Mary. You may notice that I was forced to purchase some bedazzled flip flops to wear to the wedding, since my feet, and hands for that matter, are a bit larger than they used to be. I also have recently developed pregnancy-related carpal tunnel syndrome (caused by water retention) and my middle finger is permanently numb and tingling. But this is all normal, apparently, and oddly the treatment for water retention is to drink more water. My mother would love that one, as that was her favorite prescription for all of our ailments during my childhood. There's nothing like trying to flush your kidneys when your bladder is squashed into the size of an acorn.

In an unusual fit of nesting, I washed some baby clothes and set up the sleeping/changing area in our bedroom with the pack-n-play that my aunts bought us. Besides that, I've been working nine hour days all week to finish all the training. The one thing I didn't anticipate was how tiring doing all that facilitating would be, and hours on my feet has not been great for the state of my cankles. But overall, it's gone really well with my tutors, and I should finish up tomorrow.

And finally, I've been enjoying the Ken Burns National Park series that's airing this week. Of course there's lots of Ken Burns-y panning of beautiful photographs, but I am also learning a lot about the complex history of the parks, as well as reliving some great memories - like the bear in the Grand Tetons and green lushness of the Ho Rainforest.