Coming down to the end

Despite the fact that at this point I am VERY pregnant we have not slowed down one bit. My body is telling me to do so on a daily basis. After the Graduation Extravaganza weekend, we did have a more relaxing weekend. We made a trip up to Ukiah to look at some of the houses we were interested in and found two that we liked.

Me at 32 weeks pregnant

The first house we looked at was owned by a couple who are customers of Mendicino Animal Hospital (Tim's new work). We were very excited to learn that their names were Yoli and Eagle (very hippie!) and we tried really hard not to laugh upon meeting them. They owned a really charming 2 bedroom 1 bath house very close to downtown on the westside of town (the most desirable side of town). The house was small and older but they selling point was that they did have a full inlaw studio in the back with it's own kitchen and bathroom, great for visiting grandparents, family and friends.

We looked at a few other houses with a relator, some complete with their own grow room. Ha! Good old Ukiah! If you don't know Mendicino County is known for it's production of marajuana. Tim says that often people will come into the hospital and pay in cash for $3,000 dollar surgeries. At least they are getting the money up front?
The last house we looked at was also on the west side. They had just put it up for rent and we were the first ones to look at it. It was an ADORABLE 2 bedroom 1 bath with a big storage shed in the back (about the size of a one car garage). The selling point for me on this one was that it was completely renovated. We would have to do no work to fix it up we could just move in. And for us right now that is what we wanted. New hard wood floors, brand new kitchen with new appliances (fridge, front loading washer and dryer, etc) Oh and it had a DISHWASHER! I was in love. It also has vaulted ceilings, very cute. The only problem was the owner didn't allow pets. Poor Bouncer:( So we put in an application anyways and waited to hear back from them. A week later we found out we had the house! YEAH!!! Our new address will be 805 West Mill Street Ukiah CA!

The same day we found out we got the house was our 3 year anniversary. Happy anniversary to us! Tim took me out to dinner at Morton's Steakhouse. We had an awesome three course surf and turf dinner (no surf for me) and finished it off with amazing dessert, hot chocolate cake and Creme brulee! YUM! All week long Tim was being pretty sneaky while I was at work. As we were leaving to go to the resturant he surprised me with a small box from the place where he bought my wedding ring. It was a neckalace with a pendent in the birthstone for our baby, peridot for August. It is beautiful and my most favorite color lime green! Then at the resturant he had another surprise at the table (same little box) with matching ring in it, since my fingers are now too fat to fit into my wedding ring. What an amazing guy! This baby better be born in August!

On Thursday I went home to Martinez because I had agreed (before I was pregnant) to be the sole wedding planner for a friend's wedding on Friday. The party went off without any problems and it was a beautiful wedding! However, let this be a lesson to you: DON'T coordinate a wedding when you are 8 months pregnant! NOT FUN! I was so tired by the end! Thanks mom for helping me with some of the flower arrangements I agreed to make:)

Outside arrangements I made

(there were 8 of them, simple as they look they took a while to make)

Saturday my mom and Yvonne (a college teammate of mine) planned and hosted an amazing baby shower for me! It was beautiful! We had tons of good food and a great time talking and playing shower games. Thanks ladies for an wonderful shower! Taylor did a great job taking pictures.

The amazing spread of food. A pregnant ladies dream!

The adorable favors Yvonne made!

Meredith getting her "tummy time"

Taylor's totally cute diaper cake

The new Snap n Go stroller from Ang, Mike, Carter, and Rileigh

Taylor and I in our long dresses

Mom, Dad, and I

Then if my weekend was not busy enough we had our garage sale on Sunday in 100 degree heat! UGH! I only made it through about half of that and then retreated to the air conditioned house. It was a slow morning but towards the afternoon we made more sales. Ben our friend brought some stuff over too so he kept Tim company. By 3 they had had enough of the weather so they put up a sign saying "honor system garage sale, take what you want and slide whatever amount you feel is appropriate through the mail slot in the door". It was an interesting social experiment, pulling at the conscience of people. We actually made quite a bit of money this way (around $70) considering we just wanted the crap on our front lawn gone and didn't care if we made money off of it. Overall the garage sale was a great success we made almost 500 bucks!

Later that night I was so hot and tired I thought Tim was going to have to drive me to the hospital. I was having long contractions some of them a little painful. After drinking some water and going to sleep early I felt fine. The next day we quickly got our hosptial bag ready just in case!

Hello ALL!

We have some exciting updates!

Our neice Rileigh Madison Helms was born on June 2nd at 10:13 PM. She weighed 6lbs, 6 oz, and was 19.5 inches tall. Here she is at 9 days old.



Also......Tim graduated from Vet School!!!!!!! After 10 years in Davis he is no longer a UCDavis student.

The ceremony was last friday the 11th. We had alot of close family up, with a BBQ at our place following. Later in the evening we had friends over to celebrate Dr. Helms' graduation, our move to Ukiah, and of course BABY HELMS!

The following day, Jim and Jessie threw a BBQ graduation party at their home in Martinez. We had 5 Graduates to celebrate. Dr. Tim, Maggie from Stanford (Jessica's Cousin), Carlos from High School (Maggies younger brother), John-Mark from UC Merced (Taylor's BF), and Taylor from dental assistant school (Jessica's litl sister). It was a great party!




THE GRADS




Here is Dr. Tim practicing dad skills and scaring his nephew Carter with his weird hat.


As if we did not have enough going that weekend, Team HORSECOW BLAZING SADDLES HOT RACING had a triathlon to race Sunday the 13th. Tim's mom Joan, Jessica and Tim crashed at Litl' brother Andrew's bachelor pad in San Jose to wake at 4:45 sunday morning for the tri. Pregnant lady and Mom were so happy to be rushed out of the house to go watch a triathlon. This race was the debut of HORSECOW's formal wear. It was a huge success. The team did well, but Captain Steve Garza did end up taking top HORSECOW of the day. He got Tim by 30 seconds. The team as a whole did quite well, and had a great time most importantly.




Speaking of BABY HELMS, there is only 6 weeks until Jessica is full term! Ready or not.... Maeanna or Jackson is coming very soon, and in spite of our efforts to ward off too many baby gifts before we move, our guest room is filling quickly with parafanalia. That baby better appreciate it when his/her dad throws his back out moving us to Ukiah!

Our last baby appointment went very well. The heart rate was a comfortable 140 bpm, and the babies head is down preparing to line up for the pitch. Jessica has been felling pretty good all things considered. WE have been x-tremely busy and she is handling it like a champ, swollen feet and all. Our next few baby classes and appointments will take place out here, but we will be moving in mid July, so we will start seeing doctors at Santa Rosa Kaiser at that point. We are currently working all the details on that out. Ukiah is one hour north of Santa Rosa. 40-45 minutes when expectant father is driving.


Here is Jessica at 31 weeks...Looking good preggy Mama!

Jessica's "Girls Only" Baby Shower is rapidly approaching on June 26th. She is looking forward to it very much, so get excited ladies!

Love you all.
Tim and Jessica

Ukiah is Haiku backwards....

Big news! We have finally decided where we will be for the next year (at least). Tim has officially accepted a position in Ukiah, CA (very, very northern tip of wine country and the start of the redwoods). He will be an associate Doctor at Mendicino Animal Hospital. You can check out the website at http://www.mendocinoanimalhospital.net/ . There are currently four associate Doctors at the hospital and Tim will be the fifth. The hospital is a full service veterinary clinic for canine, feline, and smaller animals. Tim is excited to use his medicine skills but is even more exited to be one of the two Doctors interested in surgery. He starts on July 12, pretty exciting!

I will be ending my job in the middle of July. I have had some bittersweet endings these last two weeks. Four of my kiddo's at work have graduated into less restrictive programs or don't require services any longer. So I guess it means that I have done my job, it's just sad thinking that I won't see them on a weekly basis. As for my future I will quickly move into the role as MOM! I won't need to work (excluding the whole mom business which is a 24/7 job), unless I want to which is rare in this day and age. Tim and I are very fortunate and grateful that we can make that happen. So we are both looking forward to starting our new family in Ukiah, CA! We will miss Davis, having lived here for 10 years now!

Other than that not much else to update on. We went for our first "baby class" last Thursday. We got some information about Kaiser hospitals and how their services work. We also got to tour the hospital. The only problem is is that we toured the hospital we would be using if we were staying in Davis (the appointment was set before we knew we would be moving). We decided to go anyways. It is a beautiful brand new facility in Roseville, CA. Too bad we are moving, it was sooo nice! As we were leaving to go see the birthing suites a poor lady was being wheeled into the her suite. As much as she tried to smile she was in some major pain. I told Tim that they should really take that part out of the tour! We will have to set up another tour at the Santa Rosa Kaiser where we will be delivering. I hope that hospital is as nice as the Roseville one.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Anchondo family (my cousins and Aunt and Uncle) who are driving in from Texas this week. They will be staying with my parents for a few weeks to partake in this whole Graduation Extravaganza! Their daughter Maggie is graduating from Stanford the Sunday after Tim graduates. So we will be having a weekend long graduation celebration. Can't wait! More updates to come.

Here is the most recent preggy pic. I am slowly turning into the human torpedo.

29 weeks! (don't laugh at my Crocs they are the only comfy shoe I have!)

Oh and Tim got his cap and gown so of course poor Bouncer fell victim to that.

He's normally so happy and excited, I wonder why he looks so pissed?

25 weeks

So we are a little behind, what's new.

At our 25 week appointment (which was actually on 5/7/10) we got to hear the baby's heart beat and all sounded good. Beating strong at 141 beats per minute, thanks to Dad's counting. Both Mom and Baby are looking good. I have gained about 14 lbs and am starting to feel it! Pregnancy has showed me what it would be like to be overweight and let me tell you what I have motivation to never be fat! The impact that mere 14 lbs. has on my feet and overall ability to move has been pretty intense.

Right after our appointment we made our way over to the lab because I had my blood glucose test to make sure I don't have gestational diabetes. First they make you drink a nasty sugary lemon drink in five minutes and they watch you drink it all. Then you get to sit around and wait for one hour so they can test how well your body processes the sugar, with a blood draw. Well turns out I screwed myself. The whole week I had been craving Eggo Waffels with butter and syrup of course. So without thinking I ate those the moring before my test. Well a few days after our appointment I got a call saying I did not pass my test! CRAP! The norm was around 140 and I was about 170. Tim said that in the grand scheme of things I was bairly off (people with diabetes score into the 300's). So that meant that I had to go in again and do a 3 hour test to get a blood glucose curve to really make sure that I don't have diabetes. I haven't had waffels since.

The following week I made my way to the Kaiser in Sacramento (since the one in Davis was closed on the weekend) all by myself since Tim had patients in the hospital. I had my blood drawn and then drank the crappy syrup drink and sat for an hour. Don't worry I brought some magazines and work to do during my three hours in the hospital. Once one hour was up then I got blood drawn again and repeated this for three hours. Nothing like making friends with the phlebotomist and feeling like a pin cushion. The phlebotomist did a really good job but my poor arms had track marks on them and were sore all weekend. I don't think getting addicted to herroine is in my future, I HATE needles.

The good news is I haven't heard anything back from the Doctor so I am assuming that I don't have diabetes. Damn those waffels!

Last Sunday Tim participated in the Bay to Breakers with some of our old college running friends. Of course they didn't just run it they dressed up as Redcoats and ran 6 minute mile pace with muskets, battles and all. They were quite a hit and several pictures were taken of them. Click on the Horsecow link to see some of the pics. Pretty funny! http://www.naymoo.com/pictures/B2B2010/B2B2010.htm

The Redcoats are coming!

Right after the race we headed up to Napa for a surprise birthday party for our friend Yvonne (she was one of my bridesmaids). I had a great time watching people drink good wine! Just kidding, it was great to see all of our friends. Here are some pics.

In front of Franciscan Winery

Tim getting some Daddy practice with Lorelei our friends Stevo and Liz's beautiful baby girl.

Me, Yvonne, and Liz

26 Weeks! GET IN MY BELLY!

Way Behind!

Ok so we are way behind in our updates sorry, life has been crazy! Let's see where did we leave off?....... Two weeks ago we made a trip down to the Cal Poly area for one of the largest triathlons in California, the Wildflower Triathlon. Originally we were going to make a long weekend of the event and head down on Friday. But Tim found out last minute (thanks to his spam filter) that he had a mandatory orientation on Saturday morning to get approved by the USDA to sign health certificates. So it was a meeting that he couldn't really miss. There we were driving 5 hours to get to the race last minute. On Saturday they do the long course (the half iron man) and close the roads down to the camp site until everyone is finished racing. So we ended up setting our campsite up pretty late but it all worked out in the end. We were accompanied by a few of our close friends on the Horsecow Blazing Saddles Hot Racing Tri Team. They were able to make it down before we did so they secured our campsite. In the end it turned out to be a blessing in disguise since my back started hurting earlier that week. We ended up camping one night instead of two! Thank GOD!


Last year both Tim and I competed in the race, but this year Tim was obviously the only one participating from our family. The baby and I were the cheer squad. We had a great time (except for the whole camping situation). The guys competing did well. Tim was 9th in his age group (the most competitive age group of the day) and was 22 overall completing the race in 2 hours and 15 minutes. Not too bad for a guy who isn't training that much due to his busy working/school/internship schedule. GO DAD! Our friend Chris improved his personal best from last year by 8 minutes and Duke (who is the US Record holder for 3 marathons in 3 days, true story http://renorunner.com/ or my favorite
http://renorunner.com/headlines/headline05.html don't be fooled in that race he entered as Lynryd Skynrod) competed his first Olympic Tri in 2 hours and 19 minutes. Go Horsecow! Naymoo!

Ladies Cheer Squad Yvonne, Heather, and I.

Horsecow Team! Jeff (J-Dub), Tim, Captain Studbull Steve, Duke, & Pecow

Tim coming down the home stretch, GO TIM!

Team mom shirt.

The Half Way Point!

Well we had our baby appointment last week (April 9th) to review the results of the "big" 20 week ultrasound. Overall the doctor said that everything looked great! Yeah! More specifically there are "four limbs" as the doctor put it. The brain, heart, body structure, spine all look normal and healthy. And last but not least she said that we were growing a good healthy strong BIG baby! So our baby is about six days ahead of where it should be in physical growth. He/she must be like his/her daddy. Tim was a 10 lb. baby! YIKES! The doctor said that this is normal but if he/she gets to be ten days ahead of where it should be in physical growth then they will move up my due date. So let's hope that baby stays somewhat small for his/her mother's sake! Baby has been moving around like crazy! It's newest trick is moon walking or what feels like moon walking on the inside of my tummy to do a summer sault! Tim and I will sit there watching my stomach move like I have an alien inside of it. The doctor is right it is healthy and STRONG (especially when it kicks my full bladder)!

Angela (my sister in law) and I

Angela is 30 weeks and I am 22 weeks. Ang has done this before with baby #2 in her belly! She knows how to pose at the right angle as not to look HUGE! I clearly have some learning to do!

This last weekend we went down to Mountain View to celebrate all the April Birthdays. Despite the rainy and cold weather we made our way to two wineries to celebrate Andrew's (Tim's big little brother) birthday. Earlier that morning we celebrated Angela and Carters birthdays. Here are some pics.

Carter opening his present from Uncle Tim and Aunt Jess for his first birthday!

Look out he's almost walking on his own!

Uncle Andrew stoked about his new goggles and gloves from us!

Wine tasting (well Tim anyways) at The Ridge Winery in Mt. View

Not much else to report. Tim is still on the job hunt. This last Tuesday we made our way to Ukiah so that Tim could interview at a practice up there. While he interviewed I toured the town. It is at the very most northern tip of the Napa Valley and in the past has been voted to be the best small town in California population ~16,000. There were some cute areas, lots of little farms with small vineyards. The interview went well and Tim again impressed them with his ultrasound skills, diagnosing pancreatitis in a dog. So we are waiting to hear back from them next week, they have two more people to interview.

This weekend we will be hosting a BBQ for some of our old college friends or FAGS (Former Aggie Greats) as we like to call ourselves. Every spring UC Davis hosts the annual Picnic day. The campus is open to the public and alumni with educational displays, a parade, animal events (wiener dog races, Frisbee dogs, cow milking, etc.) and some of the UCD athletic teams have home events. A big attraction for us is of course the Woody Wilson Track meet especially the alumni mile! I think I will be walking it this year:)

Aloh-no.....

Almost two weeks ago we were going to meet the Dr. and his wife from Hawaii to discuss the contract. Well as we were getting up and ready to go meet them Tim receives a TEXT yes a TEXT message from them that they are no longer offering the position. I guess the other Doctor that they hired in January was taking them longer to train and adjust to the practice so they were no longer going to be hiring on a third Doctor. Needless to say Tim and I were totally bummed that we would not be moving to Hawaii. But, we feel it may have been a blessing in disguise since they showed their level of professionalism by contacting Tim via Text message! I think that the hardest part of the situation was that Tim and I had to pretty much mentally commit to moving there before we met with the Doctor to make sure that that was a move we were willing to make. We were upset but in the end things happen for a reason and now we (or Tim) is back to the drawing board applying for more jobs. I think for selfish reasons all of our family members are a little relieved that we won't be moving so far away. We are still excited to see where this will take us. It will be an adventure anyway we look at it.

We made some pretty big purchases in the last two weeks! I bought a brand new Nikon DSLR digital/manual camera. VERY EXCITING! I am still learning how to use it so that when that baby gets here I can take photography up (of the baby of course!) as a hobby. We also made our way into San Francisco last weekend to pick up Tim's new toy a Kestrel Airfoil Pro bike for racing Triathlons. Since he is on the Horsecow Blazing Saddles Hot Racing Tri Team he got a VERY good deal on it. He will race on it for the season and then possibly sell it.

Tim and his new bike like a kid at Christmas! I think the cardboard weighed more than the bike.

For the cost of that bike they didn't even assemble it! What a rip off!

Bike complete.

While in SF we picked up my cousin Maggie from the bus station and then headed over to Martinez for an early Easter Saturday dinner with my family. It was a beautiful day filled with good food and family (our California family, the Patutes came over for dinner). Here are some pics with the new camera!

Taylor and John Mark and his little Dog Cerberus. (I think I spelled that right?)

The little dog.

So stinking cute!

Dad's most favorite flowers in the back yard Lilacs.

Bouncer and his most favorite toy.

Happy dogs come from California!