oh hey, in case anybody was wondering what was going on in january and february of this year, i can tell you what was going on.  people were doing it.  and they must have been doing it a lot.  and now there are pregnant women and babies everywhere. over the last few weeks, multiple friends, a co-worker, and my own brother! have all had babies.  they were all due before me, so until now i've felt like we've had a good amount of time left.  but now... we are next.  um...WHAT DID WE DO?!  that runs through my mind about once a day when i look down at my stomach and continually ask her "wait, how will you be getting out of there again?"  because no.

sigh.

in the meantime, eric and i are trying our best to do things we won't be able to do in a few weeks.  things that are harder to do with a baby outside of your body than inside of your body.  like sleeping and going to the movies.  it's a little sad that everything we really want to do, like camping or some real traveling with diving and other fun crazy stuff, is pretty much physically impossible at this point.  it seems obvious, but i didn't realize how mentally difficult it would be to be physically limited.  right now i miss feeling normal.  and i really miss being the big spoon.

a while back we planned to take a baby-moon.  we wanted to do something easy that was still exciting and new, and realized that neither of us had ever been out to assateague island in the 6/7 years we've lived here.  so last weekend we packed up the girls and headed to the outer banks.

assateague is a barrier island that's broken up into sections managed by different groups, and we spent most of our time in the national park on the northern part of the island.  in this area, about 150 feral horses roam freely and are easily seen throughout the park from your car, on the beaches, or on trails.  we've heard that in summertime the horses will frolic in the ocean to cool off.  that's something i'd like to see!  last weekend was a bit rainy and cold, so the horses were mostly on the more protected bay side.  we think the rain must have kept away tourists.  it was like we had the park to ourselves and the horses were out everywhere.  eric kept telling me i was getting too close, but i can't help it if a horse comes my way :)

 they definitely had a wild quality about them.  messy hair and attitudes.  they kept ramming each other and showing their teeth.  it was comical and at the same time cute.

there were no horses to be found on our beach walks, but it's just not possible to ever get enough of that salt air so we kept going back for more.  as always, bella wasn't having much fun while belle couldn't resist running into the water, especially after the sun came out.

we woke up to sunshine and had two quick stops on the way back to the beach: a visit with a goat, and the dog park!  goats are just the best.  he's smiling for the picture.

 yay, the sun!  let's run and roll!

one night we made it over to ocean city and took a stroll along the board walk.  the arcade was amazing.  so much stimulation.

off the island we were just lazy.  sleeping, movies, games, snuggling the girls, and eating were about all we did.  every meal was a date.  so mission accomplished.  babymoon complete. we'll try our bests to maintain this babymoon attitude until it's go time.  

go time? wait how is this happening again? how do babies get here?!  oh crap!

merry christmas everyone!

as of today there is a book out there about dolphins featuring our research team from two summers ago!  we are literally in a children's book about dolphins!

here it is -  Pamela S. Turner's book called "The Dolphins of Shark Bay."  we have had an advance copy for a while and i'm so excited it's finally published and out there for people to buy.  pam was incredible to work with and the final product came out so much better than i ever could have imagined. i should have expected it to be great though, her entire "Scientists in the Field" series is superb and will be on our kid's bookshelves before they're even conceived.

another children's science book author, Loree Griffin Burns, did an interview with Pam about the book which can be read HERE.  i would highly suggest checking it out and have pasted question 4 below as a teaser.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

The dolphins would play themselves, and cheesy computer-generated scenes would be banned. I would cast Sandra Bullock as Dr. Janet Mann. Eric Patterson could play himself because he’s already ridiculously good-looking. I would be played by Steven Colbert in drag.

not only is eric "ridiculously good-looking," obviously ;), but he get's to work with sandra bullock and steven colbert. in drag.  i enjoyed the interview.

in all seriousness, it's a fascinating book and i appreciate that there's someone out there making biology interesting and relatable to young people.  if you are friends with us and decide to have a baby in the next 10 years, guess what you're getting for a present?

AND how freaking cool will it be one day to say "look at mom and dad when they first met in this published children's book." and they probably won't care...

oh and a couple of my photos are in the book, so i'm technically a published photographer. yes!

the book is out today and you can get a copy here!

well in less than one month's time, eric and i will have been to more places than two people should be.  here's a map of the last 25 days.

monkey mia, perth, auckland, san fran, dallas, denver, chicago, dc, and now nyc!  once we arrived back in dallas it was time to begin our long road trip to complete the road trip circle.  back in march we started in dc and have finally arrived back home.

the drive from texas to colorado looks like this:

 lots of wind turbines and oil rigs...

 and can someone tell me if there's anything classier than take-out olive garden and sharing a corona familiar on a hotel room bed?  it was a highlight.

 yay colorado!

 ^^"mom, did we move to colorado?"^^
the drive from colorado to chicago was pretty much this the entire way:

 luckily we got to stop in chicago to visit our friend lady the beautiful dachshund :)

 back on the road the girls took turns driving.  with eleven states under our belts, we made it home!
neither of us are particularly talented at taking pictures of state welcome signs... we missed indiana, maryland, and virginia, but we tried.

^^night time driving entertainment^^

we finally got our wedding pictures and have had so much fun looking through them three months later.  it's like re-living the best day ever.  we loved our photographer, nathan russell (who had these ready and sent two weeks after the wedding but australia is far away), and were excited to see how they came out.  we think he did a beautiful job!!

i have so many favorite things and moments from our day.  the flowers to die for. the delicious food. a perfect dress. a perfect man.  here are some of my favorite photos :)

photographer: nathan russell photography

venue: heart of texas ranch

flowers: rosehip flora

makeup: adrienne pitkin

dress: tadashi shoji