Dogs on parade

We were awakened this morning to the sounds of dogs barking. Eventually, we figured out that our park was having an event called Barkapalooza. We couldn't resist checking it out, and were rewarded with one of the silliest spectacles we've ever seen. There were a gazillion dogs parading around our pond, and lots of tents with area businesses and charities. The highlight was a brief Border Collie frisbee-catching demonstration. Those dogs can fly, and it was a hoot to watch all the spectator dogs getting all excited.

A view of some of the booths and the parade of dogs walking around the pond.

This dog's name was Midnight, and she was really good at jumping...

Case in point! Andrew had fun with the fancy action shot options on our new camera. He took about 130 pictures in well under an hour.

Signs...

...that you're starting to look REALLY pregnant. Well, other than the obvious and symptomatic ones that is.
1. When you pass people in the hallway, or going in/out of doorways, their eyes hit on your belly before they meet yours.
2. You've begun to consider the walk to the gym as part of your actual workout.
3. The girls in the locker room avoid the lockers around yours, as if your pregnancy is contagious or infectious somehow. At least it means I get more bench space.
4. Not sure which is worse, the fact that random strangers have started to ask when I'm due, or being asked by colleagues every other day, "now, when are you due again?". It's like they think I'm going to pop any second and they want to plan their escape route.

Showers, showers, showers!

This weekend was my first baby shower (yay!). All sorts of wonderful people came to stay at Chez Dombard for the event, and Andrew and I had a great weekend hanging out with all of them! The girls organized an excellent party (the boys escaped to see Batman in IMAX)! So now we're well on our way to being ready for the bambino to arrive. We're well-stocked with clothes and hats and really cute stuffed animals (the most important part!). Thank you all so much for journeying here and making it a special and fun weekend! Here're a few photos of the festivities. If anybody has others to share, send them on...

First order of business on Saturday was to check in with Gretchen and company via Skype.

Sprout ordered a fancy cake that had layers of banana-spice, vanilla-strawberry, and yummy chocolate! This came from Ingram's Bakery here in Downers Grove. The little bags in the background held the contents of a guessing game that we played later.

This is an amazing tower of gifts assembled with much care from Becky (and I hear her girls helped with the construction efforts). It's a multi-tiered collection of baby necessities!

Here we are concentrating very hard on one of the games we played. We had to match baby photos to both ourselves and misc celebrities. Much harder than you would think it would be! Luckily, no one confused me with Justin Timberlake. We also had a rousing match of baby shower bingo while opening gifts.

So part two (due!) and three of the "showers" part of the weekend consisted of a cold front that brought a day of rain on Friday, followed by the remanents of Ike that lasted through Sunday afternoon. There was so much rain that we had localized flooding in our neighborhood. For those of you that left early Sunday, "Lake Blodgett" continued to grow rapidly throughout the day. Here you can see some kids who were actually boating on it (that's the house across the street from us).

Mid-afternoon brought the development of our street being turned into a detour, as Barth Pond finally overflowed its banks and began spilling over the street and into the neighborhood. Here, the pond is on the right of the frame, and you can see that it has made it well up and over the curb on the other side of the street! In fact, it's actually flowing. Lots of excitement! REALLY glad our house is up on higher ground!

32 Week Scan

We had our (probably) last ultrasound this week, at 32 weeks. Ok ,well technically it was 31weeks and 5days. Kid looks fine. Confirmed once again that he's a he, he has 4 chambers in his heart that are pumping properly, and all the appropriate organs are present. Woohoo!

Misc

Check out our swank new stroller, being modeled here by Bear.
Just trying to stay relaxed and enjoy the few remaining weeks of our freedom. Mouse is going along with this plan as well, although she has NO idea that her life is about to change!