22 Weeks...18 to go!

I am now 22 weeks pregnant and I feel great! This is the best I have felt since week 5. I have more energy during the day, I am not feeling nauseated and eating is quite enjoyable lately. The energy is coming from finally getting active again. Now that I feel good, I can actually do some exercising. Our school is doing a Fit Challenge right now and I love it! It is exactly what I needed to get my butt in gear. The goal is to get 10, 000 steps a day or 70,000 steps a week. I use to come home from work and nap or just lay around. Now, I come home and walk. The challenge keeps me motivated and makes me want to walk. I started slow with just walking the perimeter of our compound once. According to my Nike app that is about 1.7 miles around. The next day I did 2 laps and then even walked 3 times around (more than 5 miles) a few times. It has gotten cold the last few days so I moved to the indoor track, but am still walking at least 3 miles. It has also been nice seeing friends out and about and joining them. The more you talk, the faster it goes by. I met my goal last week and was so proud of myself. I am hoping to do the same this week. We get tickets according to how much you walk and then we are entered into a drawing for prizes, which is extra motivation. It has really been wonderful and the timing could not have been better. Travis runs in the mornings, walks a ton throughout the day at work and goes for walks with me most days after school. Needless to say, he has a lot of steps each day!

Here I am at 22 weeks. Belly is growing, baby is moving, I am feeling good and loving it right now!

21 Week photo:

It has been two weeks since my last post, so I will fill you in on what has been happening over here in Riyadh. I really can't believe it has been two weeks already. This year is flying by! Anyways... shortly after we returned to the magic Kingdom, I got sick. It was just a cold, but it hit hard. The combination of being pregnant, having jet lag and getting sick was terrible. I was quite miserable. I had to leave work early one day and then took the next day off. It took a while to get over the cold and am feeling pretty normal now. I really hope I do not get sick again for a while! I went through so many tissues and drank a ton of hot lemon, honey water. 

I also did some shopping. When living on a compound, it is easy to get stuck here and not leave for a week, sometimes longer. I often feel like I want to stay here and don't want to go into the outside world. However, every time I leave, I feel better. I feel like a normal person. The first weekend we were back, I went shopping with two girlfriends, Tracy and Josiane. We all needed to get a gown for the AIS-R Black Tie Gala that was the next weekend. We had a great time shopping and eating. It was a nice girl's day out. We even got to try on clothes at the mall! Here in Saudi that is not normal. At most places you have to buy clothes, try them on outside of the store at special designated areas and then return them if you don't like them. We went to Kingdom mall though, and they have a special floor dedicated just to women, so you are allowed to try on clothes right in the store in a normal dressing room. It was great! We tried on loads of dresses and were very successful finding what we needed and wanted. 

Then the next weekend was the Gala. It was on a Thursday night after work and I was worried that I would be really tired. The night ended up being fantastic! The event was outside at the British Embassy and the weather cooperated. It was not too cold and we stayed warm by dancing! The evening included a four course meal catered by The Four Seasons Hotel. The food was amazing. I had such a great time. After, we were invited to the British Ambassador's house. His wife is our high school principal, so she asked us to stay a bit longer. We didn't end up getting home until 2am! I was really proud that I made it so late. I was doing really well until about 1am and then I pretty much demanded that we go home. Everyone understood and we ended the night. Travis and I slept until 11am the next morning! It was so nice. We need to sleep in while we can!

Here is a picture of a picture of us at the Gala. You cannot take photos inside the embassies so this is all we have of the evening.

Other than that, Travis has been golfing with some other men and is loving that he can do that year round. We continue to be busy with school, but are settling into some routine now. This weekend we are going to Bahrain for some professional development. The next two months are really busy at work. It will be April before we know it and then May and then baby girl Klump will be here! We can't wait!

Mama and Baby this week:

• Mama feels great!
• Mama can feel baby girl move!
• Mama is craving fruit, tomatoes with salt, ice cream and pasta.
• Baby has eyebrows and eyelashes (and probably a lot if she is like daddy!).
• Baby is developing her sense of touch.
• Baby's sense of sight is also improving. She can sense light if we shine a flashlight on my belly (this is crazy to us!).
• Baby is over 1 pound now and 10-12 inches long.
• Baby is the size of an ear of corn.