The Past Nine Months...

It's been a super long time since we updated our blog and a lot has happened in the past year! The most exciting news is that we're expecting our first little one any time now...Baby Manczak is due on 12/23/10! After trying to get pregnant on our own for awhile, we underwent invitro fertilization and had two embroyos implanted on April 1st, 2010. Here's a pic of our little embroyos:

Unfortunately my body didn't appreciate the whole IVF process and I spent several days in the hospital post embroyo transfer. Luckily, despite all the complications, we did get pregnant with one baby (not two)! Thanks to all the love, support and prayers from our families and friends we were able to get through the difficult first couple months of the pregnancy and it has been smooth sailing since then!

Belly Pic at 10 weeks

Another one at 24 weeks!

Since everything was so planned with this pregnancy, we decided to not find out the sex of the baby and be surprised on the big day. The nursery is all ready for Baby Manczak to arrive, the theme is Jungle Babies. Here are a few pictures of baby's room:

We are so excited to meet this little one in just a few short weeks and we're going to try to post more frequently once baby arrives!

It's been awhile...

Welcome 2010! It's been awhile since I've posted last (several months)...mainly because I've been lazy! The holidays were wonderful; lots of time spent with family and friends. As you can see from the photo below, our nephew Ethan is getting so big! The Kallenberg family made the long trip up to the Michigan for Christmas so we spent some quality time with our godson.

Ethan is walking (I should say running) everywhere and saying lots of words. He's full of energy and tiring to keep up with. He loves music and loves to dance and discovered my parents' piano!

Here's a picture of Nate and I on New Year's Eve, ringing in 2010! Here's to a great year and hopefully more blog postings!

Myrtle Beach Vacation

WELCOME HOME RACHEL!

After serving the past six months in Afghanistan, my sister, Rachel, is home! We celebrated her homecoming with a much needed vacation with the family in Myrtle Beach!

Nate and I decided that we would take our time driving down to South Carolina...a road trip! We left on a Thursday evening and drove from Grand Rapids to Cleveland, OH. Neither of us had ever been to downtown Cleveland and decided to check the city out and an awesome restaurant, Lola. This restaurant is owned by Chef Micheal Simon, who won The Next Iron Chef America reality show last year. Since Nate and I both love The Food Network, we decided to check the place out and it was great! The food was very unique and amazing...we had some bacon ice cream for dessert! If you're ever in the Cleveland area, it's totally worth checking out!

From Cleveland we drove through Ohio and Pennsylvania to Charlottesville, Virginia. Here's a picture of the beautiful scenery we drove through...I think this is somewhere is Pennsylvania. The fall colors were beautiful! We decided to stop in Charlottesville, VA because that's where University of Virginia is and that's where DMB got it's start!

As many of you know, my husband is a huge Dave Matthews fan and has since converted me! Every year we try to see Dave (yes, we're on a first name basis) a few times and Nate really wanted to check out the bar, Miller's, where Dave played before becoming famous. It was a very cool place and we drank a few beers in Dave's honor!

From Charlottesville, VA is was on to our final destination, Myrtle Beach! We spent a week with the family enjoying the sun and the beach, drinking lots of cocktails and playing with our nephew Ethan. We stayed in a beautiful condo right on the beach, Ocean Blue Condos, with two pools, a lazy river, and hot tub! It was very relaxing and great for catching up with everyone. While we were in Myrtle Beach, our nephew, Ethan, got his first haircut (which he didn't like very much) and we spent a lot of time playing in the sand, floating in the lazy river and just having fun. We ate lots of good food, went shopping and just had a great vacation!