Around Chicago

After we returned from Nauvoo, we had several days to hang out around Chicago. Josh's grandparents also came into town to join in the fun. We never get tired of doing things around the city! And it helped that the weather was absolutely PERFECT.

We went over to The Point a few times. Here we were watching Josh play a game of ultimate frisbee. He's been playing every Saturday morning lately with a group from the ward. He loves it.

We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, the best zoo in my opinion because it's big and it's free. :)

We showed Josh's family around the University campus. We really think the campus is beautiful! We took a walk over to the pond area and found a bunch of turtles hanging out. We probably saw a total of 10-15 turtles! Too bad we didn't bring Rockford and Coronado along, they could have made some friends. :)

On campus there is a free museum called the Oriental Institute. It contains a lot of ancient Near Eastern artifacts. This stone object is huge, standing 16 feet tall! It's a human-headed winged bull from Khorsabad.

This is a 17 foot statue of King Tut.

One of the days we spent downtown. Here we are at Buckingham Fountain.

It was such a nice day out! There were people out everywhere, and lots of people enjoyed the lawn at Pritzker Pavilion. We also enjoyed delicious Chicago-style hot dogs, a must if you visit Chicago!

A place Josh and I had never been to before was the Chicago Cultural Center. It's right across the street from Millennium Park, and it's free (we love the free stuff!!). The center offers various tours, programs, and concerts, but it also contains some art exhibits. We went to a cool orthopedic surgeon art exhibit. They also have two of these beautiful domes inside! One was being rennovated so I couldn't get a picture of it. But this would really be a fun place to hold a nice event.

To end our day downtown we went on an architecture boat cruise up and down the Chicago River. I had never gone on this tour before, and it's always highly recommended. It was lots of fun, and we learned a lot about Chicago's history! That evening we ate dinner at the Walnut Room inside the Macy's on State Street. I highly recommend this place, it was yummy! And though it's quite popular at Christmas time, I'd recommend going a different time of year because it wasn't busy at all so we had no wait and excellent service!

The last day we all had together we went to the Shedd Aquarium. This is one of our favorite museums probably. And I love the dolphin show!

We couldn't pass up the great city skyline outside the museum. Then we ended the day with our favorite pizza, Giordano's.

Thanks Jack and Cathy and Grandma Jean and Grandpa George for coming to visit us in Chicago!! (sorry I didn't get any pictures of you guys on here). We had so much fun!! And we hope you had a great time too!!!

Nauvoo

Last week we had some of Josh's family in town and we were able to do some fun stuff. We took a trip to Nauvoo for a few days and stayed in a cute bed and breakfast. It was Josh's parent's first time there, and we did all the classic Nauvoo things-wagon ride, make rope, get a Nauvoo brick, get prairie diamond rings, go the the evening performances, etc. We saw some of the Mississippi River flooding, but it didn't affect our driving route too much. We just avoided the bridges into Iowa. The waters got dangerously close to some of the buildings in Nauvoo, but there were lots of sand bags and the waters started receding while we were there so everything seemed to be ok. We saw one lady who said she had lived there for 80 something years and never had seen the river level so high! We also stopped in Carthage to see Carthage Jail, but I didn't take any pictures there.

Fun in the Valley of the Sun

I recently spent about a week in Arizona and I had a great time! I wanted to take one more trip before the baby comes, and I'm glad I could! It was just me on this trip, Josh was still busy with school stuff.

**and side note...Josh finished his third year of medical school today!! He officially only has one more year of school left! He is going to complete one 4th-year rotation before we leave for Ecuador, and he's glad that he gets a two week break before he starts it!

I was able to spend some good time with family and friends. While I was there I was lucky enough to have a baby shower too! It was really nice to see old friends I hadn't seen in years. Here are some pictures of what I did:

We went out to Peoria (the West Valley is so foreign to me!) to visit my sister Kim and her husband Devin. They moved to Peoria earlier this year because Devin is going to nursing school out there. They have a really cute apartment and we had fun playing with their two chihuahua puppies, bbq'ing, and hanging out at the pool.

Yes, I braved the maternity swimsuit! Not a flattering picture at all, but it was so nice to be out in the AZ sun!

I went with my friend Jessica to the salon to get her hair cut. She cut several inches off, so I was there for moral support. :) It turned out great! Before and after:

I helped my talented sister Amy put these adorable cupcakes together, made to look like baby rattles. So cute!

My wonderful friends Amy and Jessica who threw the shower for me

My mom and sisters

My mother-in-law

Check this out!

This is a great little video for all to watch! It's about the priesthood being granted to all worthy male church members of every race. It's a good video in and of itself, but the neat thing is that our ward here in Chicago is featured in it! A while back some camera men from Salt Lake City came and filmed our entire Sacrament Meeting, and they chose our ward due to its diversity. We knew it would be used for church purposes, but didn't know exactly what, so I'm quite excited to finally see it put to use! (Thanks Danielle for sharing the clip.)

One of the people featured in the video, Cathy Stokes, was a wonderful member of our ward but now lives in Utah. She says a lot of great things. You can see our ward towards the beginning and also nearer the end of the video. At about minute 1:10 the sacrament is being passed, and if you look super closely you can see part of the back of my head. :) (just look for the blonde). All the boys passing are who Josh works with in Young Mens. At minute 5:02 to 5:05 there is a wide shot of our chapel and you can see Josh and I. It's hard to spot us quickly, but we're sitting in the fourth row from the front, on the end. So there you have it, my 4 seconds of fame. :)

More Pictures of Baby Wallbrecht

I had another ultrasound on Monday! It was done just to check the babies growth (the dr. says since I'm so anemic they want to make sure he grows enough). I always love the ultrasounds, and this time it was so fun to be able to see him and feel him moving at the same time! He was measuring right on, average for his age of 29 weeks. The estimated him to weigh 2lbs 14oz. He was mostly sleeping, but we could see him moving his lips like he was sucking on his tongue or something. We also discovered he is sitting breech right now! I sure hope he makes his way head down soon!! I know he has time still. I'm so paranoid about everything that I already looked up natural ways to get breech babies to turn. :) Hopefully I won't have to do any of them. I have another growth ultrasound in a month so we'll see if he cooperates by then. Here are the pictures they printed for me. The ultrasound tech was so nice and even gave me two 3D pictures without even asking for them! I think he looks quite cute, but then again I know I'm biased.






Do you think he looks like his mommy and daddy?


He kept his hand up by his face the whole time. (Yes that's his hand even though it looks like a foot). I wonder if he's started sucking his thumb or fingers yet.