A lot has happened in the last week!

Well, let's start out on last Wednesday...I told my boss who came up from Portland and my immediate boss that I would not be returning to work after the baby came. I told them how sad it made me to be leaving a great company but that I had to give this whole "mom" thing a chance and it wouldn't be a very good chance if I wasn't giving 100% of myself to it. I told them that it was a very tough decision to make because I had been brought up with the idea that it was everyone's responsibility to contribute financially to the family. Personally, and I know my parents are going to say something about this, but one thing that made me really think long and hard about this decision is that Mom stayed home and babysat when Dana was born and she brought in money. But it either wasn't enough or there were always complaints about how the house wasn't clean but she'd been home all day. I DO NOT want that to happen, not that I think Chuck will think like that. But maybe it will be my own personal struggle with, hey, I have been home all day and what do I have to show for it. At least if I'd gone to work I'd be bringing home a paycheck. It's just a lot of things my brain has been thinking and no matter how people try to justify it to me, it doesn't help. I just have to convince myself that it is the right decision for me right now at this point.

Second, there was a snowshoe trip!!! Let me post some pictures...







We got to the mountain about 3:00pm and actually got to drive a bit farther than we thought we'd be able to. We go out stuff out of the vehicles and we gearing up when a lady came by (she worked there) to tell us she was closing the gate and the drivers would have to drive the vehicles back down about half a mile. But she brought them back up. We actually started out about 3:45. We finally reached the parking lot where we were supposed to park in the first place about an hour into the hike. That's where the group shot is taken. This is also where we all decided to put on our snowshoes, we didn't need them so much before that. Then we just hiked, and hiked and hiked...and hiked some more.

We got to the access road that the groomers groom up to the cabin. At this point, the sun was definitely setting and we were tired! We still had about 1.5 miles to go. At this point half of us took off our snowshoes and decided to hike it. My hip flexors, especially on the right, was killing me!!! I just had to keep pacing myself which is a good thing I am good at that or I would have died! And thank goodness I am athletic because I would NOT have made it otherwise. Chuck stayed with me the whole time and he was very accomodating when I would slow down to stop to breathe. I would tell me I was doing a great job. I haven't sweat so much in a VERY long time. I was wearing a wifebeater, my maternity belt I got a few weeks ago in anticipation of this trip, a thin long sleeved T-shirt and a short sleeved T-shirt. Not anything real heavy. I was soaked ALL the way through!!

We finally got to the turnoff for the cabin, half a mile to go. And it started out going down hill, which was great! Then, the crap of all crap happened. There was a HUGE hill, about 20 degrees, in the dark (almost). I thought I was going to cry. I was literally saying my ABCs with each step I took just to keep me going, NO looking at the hill. By the end, it took us about 4.5 hours to hike the whole thing. We got there about 10 minutes before complete darkness set in. And I wasn't last!!
I rested for about 20 minutes and then went downstairs (there was a loft for sleeping) to mingle with the rest of the group. We were all beat.

The whole way down was pretty uneventful. We didn't use our snowshoes the whole way down. It was painful, my hip flexors were pretty sore and my calves wanted to jump out of my skin.

I could barely walk by the time we stopped for lunch. And then Easter morning was pretty bad, I haven't had tight calves like that in a couple years, that's for sure. I'm pretty back to normal now. I was going to write all this last night but I needed another night of recovery. That's about it. It was a great trip but I'm not sure I would do it again, especially 7 months pregnant. And I'm still catching up on sleep. I'll try and put a link on here for my shutterfly account so you can see all the pictures from the trip.