One of those weeks

The sun beat down on my face, and I could feel my nose starting to burn. I was hungry, tired of standing around, and bored to tears. I had been feeling ridiculously grateful that I hadn't seemed to contract the swollen ankles and achy back and other unpleasant symptoms of mid-third trimester pregnancy I kept reading about, but now I wished I had an excuse to get back on the bus.

My office was on our mandatory semi-annual staff ride, which strongly resembled a grade school field trip, but with fewer bathroom stops, no snacks, and way less fun. This one involved an all-day tour of the Chancellorsville battlefield, complete with overly enthusiastic (and long-winded) guide and a whole lot of time on the bus.

I survived, eventually, but it was painful. I was not having a good Army week. On Monday, thanks to an argument at the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, I had been forced- after months of avoiding it- to wear this ridiculous garment. The Army's answer to "professional" maternity wear is anything but, and it was tough to mask my indignance at the all-too-visible insult.

It was probably just one of those weeks. I hadn't hit the "I'm so uncomfortable I'm ready to have this baby" stage of pregnancy yet, but it was definitely becoming more of an effort to do things. I usually raced through the commissary, grabbing groceries on a quick lunch break. This week I dreaded it, and eventually sort of lumbered through the aisles, figuring anything I missed I could just get next time.

I hadn't seen much of Seth, either, since he spent the weekend in Nebraska and got in late Sunday night. He has evening classes Mon-Wed and works on homework until late, so between my week of long days and his playing catch-up, we were pretty much passing off the house keys. I think we're working on getting down his school routine, though- he's definitely busy, if the absence of wet fishing gear in the driveway is any indication.

It did sound like he had had nice weekend in Nebraska with Jayne and Tony and his Grandpa, a trip he'd been meaning to make for awhile. I felt bad that we had waited until I was too far along to fly, but was glad they had gotten to spend time hanging out together and seeing family. In sad news, however, our weekend of amazing football luck didn't hold, and all of our teams lost this weekend. Some badly.

I stayed home on my own, and instead of watching the football carnage had a nice weekend catching up on sleep and errands, and hiking with girlfriends. Michelle and I had a long-overdue dinner date, and I finally got the baby laundry done and sorted (a monumental task of which I was inordinately proud.) This coming weekend, it's Seth's turn to install car seats while I head down to NC for a baby shower. 

...anndddd just when I was feeling a little sorry for myself, Seth came home with chocolate and we found a few minutes to hang out on the couch. We all have those weeks. They're not so bad when you tackle them with your best friend.

This week marks another big milestone- Dad's 60th! He and Mom spent it hiking. Of course. Seth and I are looking forward to celebrating with them over smoked meat (we got him a smoker we hope he likes!), but in the meantime, we all wished Dad a video HBD.  

Big fish and big football weekend = a happy big guy

Let's be honest. Last week was dominated by The Big Fish. And not just because I'm still trying to get the smell out of my washer and dryer after Seth's post-fish-fillet cleanup efforts.

In his own words, I feel like these pictures should just come with a cheesy a one liner that you would see on the back of a Bass Pro T-shirt of "What Rednecks Do After Dark". However, I have to thank my wife for so many things. The main one being that she just makes my life a whole lot better everyday, and she puts up with me of course.

This is the largest critter with gills that lives in freshwater that I have ever caught. I know its not a 10 lb. walleye... I am still hoping to catch one of those in my lifetime too. This is a large river fish that I did catch from my kayak though.

I can honestly say that if it wasn't for Amy Nieman I would not own a kayak, nor would I have ever fished from one.

I have been an outdoorsman my entire life. Which to me means being at one with nature while at the same time pursuing a huge animal that I can eventually put on the table. Usually I am not far from an F150, four wheeler, or boat with a motor though. It always just seemed more efficient.

It was not until I meant Amy that I truly understood that you can be an outdoorsperson without pursuing animals in the woods. Amy loves being outside and appreciating nature while at the same time having an adventure and getting some cardiovascular exercise. I really do love sharing my life, my time, and my adventures with Amy and that is why I decided to get a kayak not long ago. (I got Amy a kayak last Xmas, because she thinks they are cool, and until recently she had been pretty much kayaking on her own.)

Plus I thought it would be pretty bad ass to fight a big old River Cat from a kayak while being pulled up and down the river. Turns it out it is. I have been chipping away at figuring out how to fish these things the last couple weeks. I am glad that I finally got lucky tonight. And I do kind of feel like Huck Finn when I am paddling around by myself under nothing but the moonlight. And I am so grateful that my nearly 8 month pregnant wife puts up with me when I say, "one more cast..." when we both know that I am going to get a bite on the next cast and that is going to motivate me to cast five more times after that or until I catch the big one...

And also she doesn't worry about me too much when she doesn't hear from me... Because you guessed it. I caught this monster and I was so excited to take a picture and send it to my lovely wife that I dropped my phone in the Potomac. That is the second phone that the river has taken from me in the last two weeks, but what the heck... Who's keeping score.

I am very happy to have tried something new, but mainly I am thankful to have such a great wife that loves me and keeps me learning and broadening my horizons.

So there's that. Putting up with late-night fishing (apparently that's when they bite?) and fishy-smelling laundry lands you "terrific wife" status. Noted.

I myself love our evening paddling dates, but have learned my lesson: stick around for the sunset and then hightail it home, leaving the big guy to the nasty, mosquito-plagued, and interminable business of killer catfish- landing.

Still smelling slightly piscine, we headed to West Point this weekend to catch the season opener against Buffalo. (We had opted for the early morning haul Saturday rather than the painstaking Friday evening freeway crawl out of the DC area. The early alarm definitely paid off, as the drive took us no time at all.) We made it in time for kickoff, and had a terrific- if sweltering- time watching the Black Knights roll over Buffalo. Seth was thrilled about the team's performance under the new head coach, and improvement since we saw them play in the spring. Finally feeling eight months pregnant, I was mostly excited about spending halftime in the air-conditioned "A" Club room.

Seth spent the afternoon catching up with friends and mentors while I tried not to melt, which longsuffering patience eventually scored me a trip over the mountain to Prima Pizza. I had been hearing about its many superiority practically since the day I met Seth, and I have to say that it was not just my unwillingness to consume stadium hot dogs for lunch that made me concur. It was amazing. Between that and the gorgeous views of the Hudson River valley, I was again reminded that being stationed here was not going to be so bad.

We skipped the Highland Falls nightlife this time for beer/ ginger ale (guess who got which) and football in bed. It was a terrific decision, and I was thrilled to catch the end of SC's upset win over Stanford in my pajamas. Thanks to either pregnancy or late-night fishing- and most likely a little bit of both- our idea of weekend fun is a littler tamer than the usual, but we'll take it.

We took our time on the trip home, stopping for an incredible lunch at the incredible Backfin Blues in scenic Port Deposit (score a big yelp win for Seth), and allowing time for me to discover the shocking New Jersey "full service only" gas station law (how is that a law?!) We also got to listen to the Vikings game, courtesy of my new satellite radio, completing the trifecta of awesomeness as far as Seth is concerned- wins by Army, USC, and the Vikings (plus, of course, NDSU, although they really never lose.)

We made it home jussstttt in time to ignore all of the weekend chores that had piled up and hit the river for a sunset paddle. I didn't have my phone with me (having learned from Seth's bad luck with electronic devices and rivers), so he took the photo of the week with his loaner brick phone (complete with slide-out keyboard.)

As photos never do really do a sunset justice, it probably doesn't matter what we used to try to capture it. Suffice it to say,  it was a spectacular evening on the Potomac. We had the river all to ourselves and we sat in companionable silence, taking in the vivid colors reflected on the river's surface and the cacophony of early evening sounds. It was a nice moment.

In the picture, I'm feeling Baby Nieman kick. We think she likes family paddling dates.

... anndddd a post-vacation vacation!

We found a way to beat the inevitable, depressing post-Hawaii blues.

Take another vacation. Immediately.

It was Seth's idea, something about needing a getaway before he started school. (Meaning he hadn't caught any fish on his post- night- of- drinking deep sea fishing debacle in Hawaii, so he was jonesing for a lake and a bucket of nightcrawlers.) I myself never object to an adventure, so we frantically unpacked our suitcases and threw every piece of clothing we owned in the laundry. I put in just one- insanely long- day of work, and we headed for the hills for a Labor Day weekend/ farewell to summer/ beat the blues weekend.

I only felt a little bit bad about ditching our woefully neglected yard and the sandy towels we had left on the basement floor. It was tough to be too wrapped up in the long-ignored "to do" list when my view looked like this.

We had made hasty reservations at the Resort at Glade Springs, where I hoped to balance some downtime by the pool with Seth's obsessive desire to "slay fish," a desire apparently so deep that my "my eyes don't open all the way before 9am" husband set his alarm for pre-6am two days in a row. Infuriating and truly impressive at the same time. (Do I smell hunting season around the corner...?)

At any rate, we had a terrific time paddling together on Bluestone Lake (Seth having replaced my stolen kayak in record time), Seth caught a few fish floating the New River in a zodiac (a trip I had to skip, since apparently whitewater and unborn babies don't mix), and we discovered this place in the middle of nowhere, WV, with unbelievable food. Seth rarely raves about dinner (unlike yours truly, a die-hard food raver), but in an attempt to get me to take a bite of his pecan-crusted trout he told me solemnly, "it doesn't taste like fish. It tastes like heaven." I cracked up. And the fish was almost as good as the peanut butter pie. Almost.

We swung by Fayetteville on the way home so I could show Seth one of my favorite outdoorsy towns and whine just a little bit about pregnant ladies not being allowed to climb the beautiful nuttail sandstone walls of the New River Gorge. As a consolation prize, we spent a rainy afternoon stuffing ourselves with gourmet sandwiches and decadent pimiento cheese fries at The Secret Sandwich Society, an old favorite, and checking out the jaw-dropping single span New River Gorge Bridge.

Of course all vacations must come to an end, and eventually we had to head back and face the music. By which I mean, of course, our "War and Peace"- sized "to do" list at home. We worked like Trojans all day Monday, my first-ever "labor on labor day" observance, and maybe it was all for the best: hours of hot, miserable yardwork made us long for Siberian tundra rather than Hawaiian beaches. After a long day without too much complaining- since we had been on vacation for what seemed like months-  we finally had a respectable yard, clean beach towels, and bathrooms that weren't biohazards. I even braved the Labor Day sales and my fear of craft stores to get frames for Baby Nieman's room. All in all, a productive day.

We celebrated with one more fishing excursion, against my better judgment. Seth talked me into an evening paddle on the Potomac (of course with all of his fishing tackle and no fewer than four poles rigged up), which turned into a pitch black slog through knee-deep river silt when I finally got him out of the water. If there had been leeches in it, as there were in my vivid imagination, he might never have made it to his first day of school.

Luckily, we eventually made it home- covered in mud but thankfully leech-free- in time for late-night leftovers and a still- jet lagged crash, visions of a terrific summer dancing in our heads. Or something like that. Seth had class Tuesday, and we were down to roughly nine baby-free weeks. It was time for new adventures.

I guess the photo of the week can be me with my new hedge trimmer. It seriously is the best invention ever.

A little aloha in August

I looked over my shoulder at Seth, sprawled out in the passenger seat of our rented minivan. He was singing along with the "Mandatory Marley Hour" on the radio. Over his shoulder I could see the lush green folds of the Ko'olau Ridge and below them, the cerulean blue of the shallow edges of the ocean before they faded darker, into so many shades of blue I mentally ran out of names for them. It was hard not to relax and melt into the "island-ness" of it all.

It was good to be back in Hawaii, even without the whole Walters clan. The travel to get there is so miserable I tend to dread the trip- and had been particularly worried about this one, at 30 weeks pregnant. But we had promised to be at Mike and Marlena's wedding, and figured it would be our last long plane ride for awhile at any rate, so we sucked up the banged-up knees and sleeplessness and jet lag in the name of a "babymoon" and a little aloha.

And it was utter perfection. Well, OK, the cabin at Bellows we stayed in could've used a/c in August (and a good can of Raid anytime), and I couldn't stave off a little jealousy at Seth's evenings of Longboard Lager with friends (this seems particularly egregious at weddings, which were not meant to be enjoyed with Fresca), and we did- as always- wind up doing a ton of driving, criss-crossing the island to see people and do things at a pace most vacationers probably find incongruous with a tropical paradise. But the wedding was gorgeous, we did squeeze in an awful lot (vacationing Walters-style, I call it), and we wound up feeling insanely lucky that we had gotten to spend some downtime together and some quality time with the Bustamantes. Who were really the highlight of the trip.

Sara and Daniel were hospitable as ever, juggling their crazy schedules around ours, and we couldn't get enough of the sweet, effervescent Lehua, who was wild about her "Uncle Set." (She did save a few snuggles for me, and was beyond cute patting my stomach and su prima, but the two of them were thicker than thieves, and it was basically the most adorable thing ever.)

We didn't wind up doing as much sleeping in as we had planned on, but we did get to go ocean kayaking and Sara talked us into shark cage diving, which was pretty epic (and, hilariously, Seth's first experience with a snorkel.) Sara and I did some hiking, while Seth deep sea fished (and shore fished, and pier fished), and- because the Bustamantes really are the best tour guides around- Daniel even fished up some giant sea turtles for his second snorkeling experience. We made a pilgrimage to Teddy's Bigger Burgers, and- sadly, Missy- they whipped us at bocce. Although sunset bocce at Ala Moana park is tough to beat no matter the score.

I've left a billion things out I'm sure, having only recently survived the horrific trip back (arriving just in time for rush hour traffic!) and tackled the mountains of sandy laundry and appellate briefs waiting on this end. I'm not even ready to comprehend the yardwork that awaits... with a long weekend about to kick off, we may "think about that tomorrow," a la Scarlett O'Hara.

Suffice it to say, our August dose of Aloha was just what the doctor ordered, and- although we miss the Bustamantes a ton and wish they lived closer- are committed to our current vow not to take any more lengthy plane trips for a long, long time. The timing really couldn't be better on that.

The photo of the week is maybe my favorite one ever, of Lehua and Uncle Set at Ala Moana.

 

Oh, and in the midst of the whirlwind that has been our life lately, I almost forgot! Seth got his way (by doing all of the unpleasant legwork, for which I am eternally grateful), and Baby Nieman has a new car. A shiny Ford C Max that looks only a little Mom car-ish and gets 40-45 mpg. It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to the Escape, with 150,000 memorable miles of it and which I was actually living in when I fell in love with Seth in Colorado, but it was time. And I have to admit it's pretty nice to have air conditioning and satellite radio.

And although- in a Major Vacation Miracle- my iPhone survived a dip in the waterfall, the case and cord for the good camera were not so lucky, so those pictures will have to wait to be downloaded. The (unedited) ones from my phone are here.

Pre-vacation vacation? Yes, please.

Of course we needed a vacation... before our vacation.

Or maybe Seth had just caught the fishing bug, and I was always happy to tag along for an adventure.
Either way, we headed out Friday to explore Deep Creek Lake, a closer-to-home fisherman's paradise Seth had discovered in one of his new fishing magazines. To convince me of the need to skip out on pre-Hawaii packing and yardwork, he made reservations at a cool ski resort and took care of all the plans. And took me to dinner on the way out of town at Lucky Corner, a Vietnamese place in Frederick I had been dying to try. Who could resist?

We had a terrific weekend. We slept in and ate great. Seth caught a couple fish (and would've made Missy proud, filleting them right on the back of his pickup truck) and just generally loves driving a boat around a lake. I played trophy wife, kayaking and taking myself to brunch (nutella crepes!) and sunning myself on the boat with a book. (Seth's suggestion that I help him out by "netting" his fish was met with zero enthusiasm.)

On Sunday, of course, it poured rain. I was less than thrilled. It was a terrific reminder to myself that one should always ignore the "one more cast" plea, no matter how adorable one's husband is while making it. Because that's when the sky opens up.

Soaked to the bone, we eventually made it back home, way too late to pack or mow the lawn. So it's been a madhouse of a couple days. (Although Seth did buy himself a new fishing kayak, so we had to squeeze in time for a beautiful morning out on the Potomac breaking it in. Complete with a few disasters, but those stories will have to wait.)

Because now, once I extricate myself from work and throw a few pregnant-lady muumuus in a suitcase, we're Hawaii-bound! Hard to believe we have a dinner date with the Bustamantes tomorrow night!
(The photo of the week is our attempt at a selfie on the boat.)

Escape to "wild and wonderful" WV

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that a day or two with an out-of-town husband meant late nights catching up with girlfriends over cocktails in high heels. Tonight, however, finds Seth on the road to West Point with Ashton for the Grad Marchback, and me on the couch with a Whole Foods salad and a bottle of mineral water, wearing one of Seth's old tshirts. Which may or may not even be clean. I'd be tempted to wallow in nostalgia for my wilder days, but it is Shark Week, after all. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday evening. 

Not to mention that we had, as per usual, managed to wring every usable second of fun out of our weekend, and I am beat. We escaped the summer gridlock and heat early Fridayand headed for the cool, uncrowded green hills of West Virginia. (I had leftover yurt reservations from a girls' weekend that didn't pan out, and we had started to think in terms of our weekends of spontaneous getaways being numbered.) 

So, uncharacteristically (for me, especially), we jumped in the truck and headed for Summersville Lake without a plan or a packing list. Which meant that, of course, I ran out of clothes and we spent a lot of time hoping it wouldn't rain (it didn't) because of a dearth of dry ones. 

But it wound up being an idyllic weekend. The rain drummed softly on the roof of our dry, cozy yurt at night (I was hoping to win Seth over to mine and Missy's love affair with "camping lite"), and the days were cool and cloudy (Seth's favorite, although it didn't do much for my pre-Hawaii tan plan.) We had such a nice time trolling the lake with our rented Triumph, I forgot-mostly- to mourn my current inability to cliff dive off the beautiful sandstone cliffs or scuba dive the clear, green depths of the manmade lake. 

I played (knocked up) trophy wife for much of Saturday, stretching out catlike in the bow with my burgeoning belly on display, thumbing through "The Economist" and fetching sandwiches from the lunch I had packed. When I started to feel impossibly lazy, I took myself kayaking in the no-wake zones, enjoying the quiet solitude and glass-like water. Seth fished obsessively and had to be dragged out of the water (I made a mental note to thank Missy for the "one last cast"s), although we didn't get much but this tiny rock bass thanks to low stocking levels and (in my opinion) lethargic-looking bait. 

Still, we enjoyed each other and the downtime, and agreed that it had been a terrific and much-needed weekend getaway. And that Summersville was quite a discovery. And that- I'm a sucker- we would try our luck at Deep Creek Lake, a little closer to home, next weekend.

Tomorrow starts the third trimester! Crazy to think about. We had stopped on our way to WV Friday for pizza and a beer at the Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton, a place we had last been to- and loved- when we were first dating, when I first moved to Charlottesville and not long before Seth left for Afghanistan. We couldn't help but marvel at how far our lives had come since that September afternoon just two (two!?!) years ago, and raise a glass to our good fortune. We could never have imagined... but feel lucky indeed. If you make a toast this week, join us in celebrating life's unexpected- but unimaginably wonderful- twists and turns. May your lives be as full of surprise adventures as ours.

The photo of the week should be called "recipe for a perfect day."

Another year, another TJAG Picnic

I pulled into the driveway yesterday, and a ridiculously sexy guy (a sweaty Seth Nieman, of course) was mowing my lawn. There were flowers on the table too. Lucky me. Not that he's not always terrific, but Seth does seem to know when long days and painful commutes and curtailed fun (courtesy of Baby Nieman) start to chafe. And makes up for it. (He even engineered a movie night and watched "The Other Woman" with me. If you must see it- it's pretty bad- let me know and I'll send you our copy. It is not a keeper. Seth is a champ for getting through it, even if he is running a pretty serious tab in the "picked a horrendous movie" department.) All in all, I scored in the husband department.

Plus he makes me laugh.  On one particularly long day, we picked up takeout. I was craving the momos at my favorite Nepalese place, pan-Asian food being particularly well-suited for takeout dinners. I thought Seth would pick something off the extensive menu there, since he claims not to be very picky. (A dubious claim in the ethnic food department, if you ask me.) Instead, he opted for crabcakes and shrimp from the Bethesda Crabhouse down the street, a combo not designed for takeout boxes. Our eclectic dinner looked like this. It cracked me up.

Which is a good thing, because boy, did I need support and patience and a few laughs this week. It was hard to wrap my mind around it, but it was somehow TJAG picnic week again. It sounds totally ridiculous, but my office- populated by high-powered attorneys possessed of multiple graduate degrees who manage hundreds of clients and thousands of deadlines- completely shuts down operations for a chunk of the summer every year to plan and execute one of the JAG Corps' premier annual events. The TJAG Picnic. It's not just any picnic. It requires months of planning, numerous meetings and committees, powerpoint presentations delivered in dress uniform to general officers at the Pentagon, and last year very nearly caused the nervous breakdown of a seasoned attorney who has argued death penalty cases when he found out at the last minute that the moonbounce did not have adequate insurance and the park rangers were not thrilled about the animals.

Yes, really. This year, we had one-upped ourselves and added a llama to the hugely popular germfest known as the petting zoo. But it was supposed to rain. At the last minute, Seth and I found ourselves hauling up to Fort Meade in Friday (gridlock) traffic to rent all of the tents available just in case. Of course we didn't wind up using them, and the picnic was sunny and went off without a hitch. (Well, minus the grill catching fire and some colonel's wife complaining that the cheese selection was inadequate for her Costco hamburger patty.) All things considered, it was a rousing success. Or at least we had survived another one. (Rather, I had survived. Seth had made an appearance and sipped whiskey in Solocups with the grilling committee while I served hot dogs and averted dodgeball crises and fixed the popcorn machine.) We were both in bed by 8:30pm. On a Saturday.

We got a slow start Sunday, but eventually dragged ourselves out of the house for an adventure. Overflowing with magnanimity this week, Seth had finally agreed to go to Annapolis with me. I think it's a beautiful town with a killer waterfront. He, on the other hand, has never been able to see past the presence of the offending Naval Academy. We went for a bike ride on the rails-to-trail B&A Trail, which was cool and green and uncrowded, and then it was my turn for selfless gestures. I took him to Pusser's (a favorite from my BVI days) and watched him drink painkillers (a ridiculously strong but delicious rum drink) on the waterfront while I added soda water to my glass of wine to make it last. We had a terrific evening relaxing at an outdoor table with live music, so it was well worth the watered-down sauvignon blanc

So all's well in Nieman Paradise. Baby Nieman now kicks hard enough that you can actually see my stomach move, which fascinates us sitting on the couch at night. She's apparently the size of a head of a cauliflower and weighs two pounds (Seth's bet is 2.5, of course). Hard to believe next week we'll be 7 months into this thing! I still feel terrific and get around pretty well, although I did start wearing a maternity support band when I run. It is not at all sexy, but definitely helps. Of course the quest for the perfect one had us in stitches one night, as my thorough search initially turned up this and this. Seriously, what is going on there? I somehow ran across this too. The baby (and pre-baby) industry is creative if nothing else.

The photo of the week is courtesy of the TJAG Picnic Photobooth (and a very indulgent husband, who was clearly less than thrilled with being asked to pose, complete with props.) Made for a pretty great picture though.