MAUI

How many pictures is too many? Apparently when you're staying in Hawaii, there is no such thing. Please do not be overwhelmed by the ridiculous amount of photos here.
Brian and I "babymooned" in Maui for our 2nd year anniversary. We've heard a lot of hype over Maui and I have to say, it did not disappoint. Here are our millions of pictures and a few stories about our time there.
Finally off any exercise restrictions for the first time in 7 weeks, we took a gentle hike out to the northern most point of the island to see spouting horn. Actually that's the name of the one in Kauai. This one is something like Blow Hole. Don't quote me on that.

It's where the water from the ocean crashes in the rock and then shoots straight up into the air. These 2 fools are staring directly into the blow hole.Road to Hana
We left early one morning to get a full day of Hana in. The road is insanely windy and slow but the views are gorgeous and there are tons of waterfalls along the way.
And these cool old bridges.And a black sand beach
This is pretty much what I see the entire trip:
In that one he's even holding his breath to keep himself from moving the camera.

More Road to Hana - this was a really sweet and uncrowded pool - Maybe Venus Pools? Do you like how we got all our adventure on this trip by watching other people do crazy things?
This is about as crazy as I got on the trip:On to the Seven Sacred Pools
They say some days you can see people jump off the bridge into the first pool, and then cliff jump their way down all the pools.
Apparently my lack of belly in my San Fran post had some people confused. That trip was early May so I was only 12 weeks along at that point. This Maui trip, I was 17 weeks along so you can see the belly much more. I have some bikini photos in which it's out in full force, but I'll spared you from that sight. I was not quite as kind to the guests of our hotel. After that gorgeous Road to Hana, we found ourselves on the complete opposite side of the island from where we were staying. Instead of turning around, we completed the loop and hit this road. For 3+ hours we bumped along this awful road with no view.After a long long day on the road, and only 20 miles away from our hotel, we were rewarded with this:
Road to Hana had turned into the Highway to Hell. Maui caught on fire and literally burned all day while we were gone. Took us 3 more hours to go 2 miles and there were flames on either side of us, literally feet from the highway.

The next day we took a break from the car to beach it/hang by the pool.
After a day at the pool, we were ready for some more driving and decided to go watch the sunrise at the summit of the volcano - Haleakala Crater.

Oh yeah - this is AM.

I have never been in stronger winds in my life. 60-70mph winds and a cold that threatened to take away every good warm thing about Hawaii.Luckily Brian's a genius and packed up our hotel comforter in one of our suitcases for an easy escape past the front desk.

I was a happy little burrito.More Maui fun. Snorkeling at Molokini Crater - you can see forever out there! Best snorkeling I've ever done.

Coming home, I had a bad case of the PVBs (Post Vacation Blues). We miss you Maui!

WHO SAYS PREGGOS CAN'T HAVE ANY FUN

In between morning sickness and back pain, Brian and I have tried to get as much fun in as we can before these little guys arrive.

We finally took a trip up to San Francisco to visit Ashley and Christine (Two of our best friends in the world. Yes, I said OUR, even though Ashley was originally mine, and Christine, Brian's. What can I say, we married into more than just good families.) Anyway, we've been talking about it for almost 2 years, so I was ecstatic to finally be there.
Ashley
Christine

We saw the city by boat and a lot by car and I can officially confirm now, San Francisco is so pretty!!!

This is the captain of our sailing trip under the Golden Gate Bridge. How amazingly captain-y looking is he???
The wind out on the water was OUT OF CONTROL. Brian fearlessly walked across the front of the boat without holding onto anything but when I went to follow him, I got stuck in the wind halfway across and couldn't move. Paralyzed on the spot, I thought I was going to have to hit the deck and crawl my pathetic butt back to the side. Can you imagine a pregnant woman army crawling on the front of a boat??

How embarrassing.

Luckily some friendly strangers formed an assembly line of hands to help usher me across. Brian, completely oblivious to my near tragic crossing, just smiled and took more pictures.

Not that I'm complaining. Thanks to him we have these... And thanks to the wind, he had this...
Luckily the babies played nice and let me enjoy the road trip, boat ride and the rest of the weekend.
I can't believe the boys didn't think this would look cute. Who needs boys. We'll show them how it's done.
After the weekend in the city, we spent Monday with Christine in Palo Alto. Christine is taking a leave of absence (GENIUS) so she was able to be our tour guide all day.

The majority of our day was spent at Stanford under these amazingly huge umbrellas.
Thanks for a fabulous weekend girls! We love you!

BELLY BUTTON ON ITS WAY OUT

For the record, my belly button is already on its way out. At 15 weeks. Poor little guy never stood a chance.

So incredible, so amazing, but also so strange to think I'm growing babies inside me. Not that I'm really doing much of anything, but they're growing with or without me! What a miracle that we can do this!!!

Never in my life did I consider having twins. It wasn't even in the realm of what I thought was possible. After initially being told there was only one, the doctor proceeded to find another heartbeat. We thought she was kidding and until she was able to get both babies on the monitor at the same time, I genuinely thought she was just showing us the same baby from different angles, and she had mistakenly thought this was a different baby. But those 2 little heartbeats didn't lie and Brian and I just stared at each other in disbelief. Every emotion running through us. Shock, excitement, overwhelmed, blessed. My mind started racing with thoughts of 2 crying babies, 2 feedings every 2-3 hours, piles and piles of dirty diapers. Brian's mind went straight to the cash register... 2 kids turning 16 and wanting cars at the same time, 2 kids going to college at the same time...

Our nurse took us aside and told us that she thinks the Lord selects special couples to raise twins and how it's a blessing the Lord has given us. I know she's right about the blessing part and even though I'm pretty sure she was just trying to calm the fear in our eyes, bless her heart because that's exactly what we needed to hear in that moment.

We are BEYOND excited and can't wait for these little guys to get here!

THE TWINS

You know the feeling when you actually take the time to capture a moment and get all the details down and are happy with the outcome (judging by how often I blog, you can see how rare these moments are for me) and then something happens and technology slaps you across the face and deletes everything you've just worked to create? That's what just happened to my twins blog.

So whereas a minute ago my feelings were joy and excitement as I was finally ready to "blog announce" my pregnancy with TWIN BOYS, my feelings are now borderline rage and I just can't bring myself to write it again right now.

But rage or no rage, nothing makes me happier than saying or typing twins and I wonder just how long it'll be before that shock will wear off. Maybe never.

I will say how happy we are and how blessed to be able to tell the world that we have these boys on the way... and will someday in the somewhat near future (expected arrival = mid-late October) we will be responsible for raising these 2 little guys, which is overwhelming but mainly just pure joy.

And I promise something more detailed will be coming soon.

Here's the 15 weeks and growing belly bump proof.

TRIP TO CHILE

Chile might not be high on everyone's vacation spot list, especially with the recent earthquake and all the aftershocks, but it is so beautiful there! The whole family went to visit my parents over Christmas break and had an awesome family reunion. Here are some pictures from our adventures. Ok fine - a lot of pictures.

There is no way to describe how terrifying this bridge is, how high up you are, or how wide the gaps are between those wooden, wobbly boards.Or how scary it is when you're taking a picture in the middle of the railroad track that you thought had long been abandoned and a train comes through. This might be my fake scared face, but believe me. I was shaking.

This is the view from our hotel balcony in Villaricca.

Volcan Villaricca
We decided it would be a good idea to hike this active volcano. Why not right?

Here we are getting cocky. Thinking it doesn't look as hard as we thought it would.

Here we are realizing we were wrong. So so wrong.

Collin and Kate decided to play a trick on Eric and never say how tired they were no matter how bad it got so E would think he was the only one hurting. So when Eric would say he was exhausted, they would say "Really? I'm not feeling it. I think it's been easy so far."

Kate (loudly): FEEEEEELING good.
Under her breath: I want to kill myself.

This game did not last long. Kate couldn't fake any kind of joy after 15 minutes.

Easily the hardest thing I've ever done.

But check out those views!!! And we're only half way up.

At this point, I was convinced this was Everest. The wind was blowing SO HARD that even with my crampons and ice pick, I would have to fight with everything in me to stay upright. Too bad I thought they were kidding when they showed us how to use the ice pick to keep from dying if you slipped. I had some close calls.

Yes that steam is from the volcano. Are we hardcore or what. Speaking of hardcore, Mama Swenson was the only Mom in our group to complete the hike. Others tried but they didn't last long. We were proud.

Papa, baby sister, lil brudder, big brother, Mama, me, Brian
Lindsay had to stay back because of the nugget (due in August)

Best part of the hike, on the way down, they put you in an ice chute and you get to luge down the entire volcano on your butt.
4 1/2 hours up.
30 minutes down.

How cute is this kid???!!!!
My nephew Sean, 2 yrs old, was the star of the show most of the trip.

He did NOT want to have his picture taken.

He wanted to DANCE!!!Chile has all kinds of gorgeous waterfalls. Waterfall #1 in the POURING rain. Please tell me you can see that my dad is wearing an H&M shopping bag as a hat.

ZIPLINE!!! Sexy harnesses right?

Waterfall #2

Waterfall #3 - this one we actually got to hike down and go under the falls. So sweet.

Does this look like we're in Lost or what? Where's Jack? Sawyer? Smoke Monster? I looked like freaking Rousseau after this thing. Haggard.I'm a little teapot, short and stout... Sean was being threatened by horseflies the size of my fist.
And a mangy, homeless, hairless, diseased dog that wouldn't leave him alone.
This is our "protect the wawa" (aka baby) stance while Sean played in the sand, completely unaware. Gotta have a stick.Family shot! (if you'll notice, Sean's still holding a stick.)