Baby update and way out west Cork

So this weekend marked the halfway point in my pregnancy. That's both exciting and a little sad. I have really, really enjoyed being pregnant, and I know I will miss it. The baby is getting super active and I have been able to feel some little (and not so little) kicks and punches from the little Ninja when I have my hand on my belly. Of course, the KidZilla turns into the singing, dancing frog when I get John to put his hand on the tummy. If that reference is escaping you, here is the cartoon on YouTube. So I guess Baby is being a little shy with Daddy for a few more weeks, but hopefully John will get a little bit of the kicking, punching action soon. I'm completely willing to share. The little one sure has stretched out in the "one womb apartment" as much as possible because I'm getting the love taps all over the place. It's extremely exciting! Tomorrow I meet with our midwife for a nice, long appointment and that will just be a lot of fun. We love her!!!
Friday I went over into Midleton for a session with my friend, Mary, who is training to do prenatal massage. She is awesome and the massages are lovely! They really connect me with the baby and help me sleep really, really well. The baby even seems to anticipate the massage because (s)he was kicking up a storm as we got ready to start the massage. Our next session with include John and teach him some helpful moves to help me be more comfortable. That's pretty rockin'! We both can't wait!
The little hoodie in the picture above is our "loot" from a day out in West Cork yesterday. We stopped in a tourist shop with Josh, John's friend from the Houston office who's in town for a few days, and we both agreed that we had to get this for Baby! There will be no doubt about the dual citizenship for our little one!!! Now we need something Texas to balance it all out. . . This was my first real tourist purchase since moving here three months ago (yes, has it been that long???!!!) so I was pretty impressed. I know I will return in March laden with shamrocks, Irish blessings, and wishing stones so it has been nice to not have to rush on all the tourist items.

But on to the really fun part. . .our trip out west. I'll only give you some highlights in the blog. I posted loads of pictures on our Picasaweb site (click on the link on the sidebar to the right) with comments that walk you through the trip. Basically, we started driving with an idea of where we might want to go in mind and just made it up as we went along. It was GREAT!

So we started by picking up Josh from Houston at the Maryborough Hotel, our old stompin' grounds. We went out west through Bandon (cool little town) to Clonakilty. Chica #1 had been out that way a few weeks ago and highly recommended it. We spun through Clonakilty (typical town) and snapped some photos in from of Clonakilty Bay.
Do you like my new haircut? I knew there was no way to stand in this picture that would be slimming with multiple layers and 10 lbs of baby-fat. Oh well! I know I'm supposed to, like, gain weight and stuff when I'm pregnant, but it still freaks me out when I step on the scale and more lbs have manifested themselves. . .
Anyway, here John and I are in front of the Bay.
We ventured off a little further to Inchydoney Bay/Island and got some great photos of the waves crashing. (That's John getting a closer look). It was a really dramatic day because it was already overcast and the sea was stormy for the most part, and then an ominous fog rolled in. It affected the quality of some of the photos but also was just really cool. See the Picasa sight for more pics. On a clear day, it would be nice to walk along the beach at Inchydoney.

We lunched at a pub in Clonakilty and the food was not spectacular but we found free parking and the food was cheap, so that kind of made up for it. There was a football (soccer) game on that was deafening (Aston Villa vs. Reading, I think) so we got out of there pretty quickly. We had planned to stop in at the tourist board to do some shopping, but it was closed for lunch when we walked back by, so we decided to return to Cork via Kinsale, an uber-touristy spot that was sure to have a lot of tourist trinkets.
On the way between Clonakilty and Kinsale we passed through the small town of Timoleague and saw a HUGE structure off the road. I turned in and we wandered around Timoleague Abbey for a few minutes. The original church was built in 650AD and this Franciscan Abbey was established in 1312. Pretty cool! More pics on the Picasa site, so check them out!
We finished our journey in Kinsale, and I got this great picture of the harbour. Kinsale is a tiny coastal town but it is well-known for it's food and is a major tourist attraction. The sun was out just enough to get a nice picture of the boats. We managed to find more tourist stuff than we wanted (including an incredibly talkative shopowner who discussed the Irish inflation (6%) with pepperings of Alan Greenspan and the German market--all in all, a little much to take in when all you want is to buy the Shamrock snow globe.)

After zooming around Kinsale, it was starting to rain--again--so we headed back to Cork. Highlights of the day included finding bottles of Dr. Pepper at the gas station there.

As a final note, I geeked out when I saw that Girl con Queso, creator of the blog with the world's coolest name: Blog con Queso, commented on my last post. I am such a dork! I love her blog and am insanely jealous of the cool name. Had I know my blog would last longer than my trip to Shanghai, I would have given the name more thought. Anyway. . .thanks for commenting!

But that's about all we have going on here. I am blogging and uploading photos instead of the major cleaning I was anticipating accomplishing while John is at football practice. And my exercise plan to walk to the grocery to pick up some milk is being challenged by a huge black cloud now covering the sky. . .Oh well! More to come!