It's a...

From the very beginning, we had a strong suspicion that the bean in my belly was a boy {good parental instincts, I guess} and today those predictions were confirmed! Come April, he'll be making his debut and we could not be more excited. After taking measurements, multiple times, and looking at measurments from previous appointments, my due date is officially confirmed for April 21.(and has not changed once).  Baby Boy Rinabarger appears to be growing strong and in excellent health - two statements from the technician today that gave us an overwhelming sense of happiness.

People keep telling me "let the shopping begin" but little do they know that the shopping began about 4 years ago when my obsession with childrens clothing (and just about anything involving babies) truly took off...it's a serious condition, that I will gladly take to a new level with my boy.  I think it's time to invest in a larger "bin" for all of my finds.

November "Arctic Blast"

Ever since I can remember, the local news has gone to town with their extreme winter weather coverage. I believe yesterdays storm has been referred to as Arctic Blast 2010 so that's what I'll call it. Friends across the country laugh at our inability to maintain any sort of normalcy during one of these "freak" winter storms. It's almost like the people and the city of Seattle can NEVER quite be prepared for yet another crazy/sudden storm. Yesterday,I had a brief flashback to past winter commutes home so I left work at 1:30 and was home faster than normal. I finished my work day from my home office and worked from home again today. I have a feeling we're going to be in for a long, cold winter...maybe by the time the next storm hits the city will be a bit more prepared - ah probably not. As I write, it's currently 14 degrees out and only twenty days about it was 74 degrees.

Here are a few of my photos re-capping my past 24 hours.



The sunrise this morning







Sunset out our backyard

Hope everyone enjoyed their snow day and weren't one of the thousands stranded on I-5 for 5 hours last night.

* Random Ramblings *

I caved...I listened to Christmas music almost the entire weekend while I was in the car, which was a large part of my weekend with my day trip adventure down to Longview on Saturday. I couldn't resist - I whistled, I sang, I smiled - it made me happy and I realized that I could no longer deny myself something that was going to keep me entertained during my alone time in the car.

During my roadtrip, I passed a restaurant with a sign just like this one (I didn't stop to take a photo so I borrowed one from the googles)...

WHAT ON EARTH WOULD MAKE YOU THINK THAT $1 CHINESE FOOD WAS ACCEPTABLE??

Nothing about a $1 Chinese meal sounds good to me. My stomach hurt just at the thought of what might be included.

Have you tried the Limited Edition Haagan-Daz Peppermint Bark ice cream?

 OH.MY.G

If you haven't, PLEASE buy some tonight for dessert - you'll thank me later. P.S. It's only available until January.

Too Early...

For Christmas Music???

In my option, YES! It's way too early! Have people forgotten that we have another holiday to get through...otherwise known as Thanksgiving...BEFORE Christmas, which is still 40 days away? This past Friday, two of my twelve preset stations in my car started their Christmas coverage. I start my "continuous holiday favorites" playlists the day after Thanksgiving...Pandora at work, 106.9 and 95.7 in the car and Comcast 'Sounds of the Season' at home. I've got it down, but I'm not ready...just yet. So, for the time being, I'll cringe each time I scan through my preset stations and end up hearing one second of my favorite Carpenters or Johnny Mathis tune...or maybe it's just time I learn how to use my cd player.

In other news, our little RinaCoffeyBean is healthy AND two weeks from today we find out if our babe is a boy or a girl!

Halloween Weekend in Bend

Friday night I flew down to Bend to spend the weekend with Megs, Galen, Ava and Miles. As always, the trip was perfection. We took a bunch of photos, wrestled/begged/bribed Miles to smile in a family photo, relaxed, talked about my babe, watched (some pretty horrible) football, shopped, watched as my friends drank Deschutes Jubelale (favorite seasonal beer) while I enjoyed water and capped off the weekend with dinner and trick-or-treating with the Vigelands. Only thing missing was Steve as he opted to stay in Seattle to celebrate Halloween...and boy did he get into character...shaved off his beard and his hair to play the part of Popeye...I'm anxiously awaiting for his hair to grow back (fingers crossed that the hair isn't gone for good).

Ole dressed up as turkey leftovers