16 Weeks & Pre-Thanksgiving in Lincoln

We were blessed to be able to spend our Thanksgiving holiday with both families. At Prince of Peace (Micah's school) they get the whole week of Thanksgiving break off so I decided to take off the Monday and Tuesday so we could make it home for an extended amount of time.

We flew out late Friday afternoon- and made it into Omaha just before midnight. We spent Saturday through Tuesday morning enjoying time with my family. We were able to see some family friends at church and even got to say 'hi' to a good friend from grade school and high school who also happened to be back in town.
We had time to relax and watch some TV since we left our old TV's in Wisconsin! It was fun to watch the Nebraska vs K State game on my dad's new HUGE flatscreen :)
We got to treat ourselves and my brother to Noodles (oh, how we miss Noodles!!!! Someone please open a franchise in TX!) We got to see Angela and Grant for a few minutes here and there. We had plenty of bonding time with the cats...
And I got to go on a shopping trip to the mall to New York and Co., where my mom has a parttime job, to buy a few "bigger" clothes that could get me through the next stage of belly growth.

Here I am at 16 weeks! I think our little guy went through a growth spurt all of a sudden!
Sidenote: While in Lincoln I almost passed out in church- it was so scary! When I stood up for prayer it was hard to breathe and so finally at the very end when things started to get black I had to sit down (which really freaked Micah out). I think at some point I told Micah I might die or for him to call 9-1-1, I'm not sure which, but it was crazy. I finally closed my eyes and focused on breathing and then felt much better. We walked out of church and outside to the cold because I was sweating profusely. Come to find out, my mom told us she passed out several times while pregnant which actually made me feel a lot better. That's about the only negative sign of pregnancy I've experienced thus far so I have a lot to be thankful for!

We were glad to spend time with my family but it went way to fast. I'm excited that we will be back in Lincoln on Christmas Eve through Dec. 30th so we will have more time together. Hopefully I'll get to see some old friends, as well! Let me know if you will be around!

Micah is going to be such a great dad! I'll show you one reason why in my next post :)

Expansion!

Here we are...15 weeks into our 1st pregnancy! We are so excited to find out that we are having a boy. I have been feeling amazing- I know that some women have terrible nausea and other extremely unbearable symptoms so I feel blessed that the biggest thing I have to complain about is being SOOOO tired all the time.

Here are some pictures of our family expansion. I think I'm going to have one of those weird looking pregnant bellies...people aren't quite sure if I'm pregnant or letting myself go :) (just my own thought, really) But hopefully my belly will round out soon!

We'll start from the beginning...this is the day after we found out we were pregnant. I went on a 10 mile run this morning and felt perfectly normal.

Week 6
(we were apparently off one week this whole time based on the sonogram we just had so each week's card will be a week behind)

Trying to produce a six-pack before it's gone for a long time!

Week 7
This week we took one more pregnancy test to be sure and then we couldn't help but tell our immediate family the news!

Week 10

I guess we forgot to take pictures for a few weeks.

Don't mind me and my faces :)

Week 11

This is the first pregnancy shirt I bought. Though I don't really need prenant shirts yet I couldn't wait to wear it for the picture!

Again, sorry about the face!

Week 12

This week Micah and I went to our first OB appt at our new Dr's office. We think she's great. We got to hear the little heart beat!

Week 14

On Thursday of this week we went for our sonogram and got to see our little baby BOY! We also got a new due date of May 9th.

Week 15
We didn't take many good pictures this week. Though one high/low light (depends on how you look at it :) is that in the matter of a day or two most of my pants cease to fit so I've been busy shopping.

We are excited that we leave on Friday for our Thanksgiving Holiday Vacation! Saturday through Tuesday in Lincoln, Tuesday night at the farm, and Wednesday through Sunday in the Twin Cities.

Quick Pic

Yesterday Micah and I became members at our church. It's nice that they let us 'skip' the new member class so we didn't have to wait until November. We did look through the goodie bag and quizzed each other from some of the booklets on our LCMS views so I think we passed!

I got up at 5:45am to run with a lady I met at a road race we did the first weekend we were here. There is quite the running community in this area which will be a huge blessing. We ran out at Brockdale Lake on a few different horse trails. Getting up that early on a weekend seems a little ridiculous but it felt good to have my long run done early. I grabbed some Starbucks on the drive back and came home with plenty of time to get ready for the 11:00am service.

I had so much time that I actually got to put some thought into my jewelry for the day. Usually I just wear my 'pearls' cause I love them so and, of course, they go with everything!
But today I searched through my jewelry box and found this neat necklace. (Look Holly, remember this!) I don't wear gold very often but I really wanted to wear this necklace, so I did :)

My friend Holly got her bridesmaids these to wear in her wedding back in 2005. She loves cameos and I think they're pretty neat, too!

Micah didn't run with us at the horse trails. He opted to 'sleep in' until 7:00am and then got run his 11 miles. When I got home he was watching the History Channel's Presidents DVD on the computer while he was entering grades online...what a great way to start the day :)

So now we're officially members at Prince of Peace. It is great to be part of a Bible believing, mission minded, worship style options, friendly to new people church. We're slowly but surely meeting people and making friends. All in due time!

I (heart) avocados! And food in general...

I don't know what started our obsession with the little green mushy vegetable. Or is it a fruit? *


In the past three weeks after our move I think I have bought and eaten more avocados then I have in my entire life.


Avocados are so good!


I like them on so many things, or plain with a dash of salt is oh so good, too!

Here is a masterful creation we made last weekend. We copied the Greek pizza that Micah likes at California Pizza Kitchen. Very very good!

The bonus of us making it on our own is that we can make it with the ingredients we like. Micah has to ask the CPK waitress to always make it with all of the ingredients on the side and then he assembles it at the table (since the Greek mix contains onions and olives which he detests).

This was also our first try at making cucumber sauce which turned out well.

Our toppings include: shredded cooked chicken, mozarella cheese, tomatoes, avocados, feta cheese, and cucumber sauce.

All but the avocados and cucumber sauce are baked.

*I just spent 30 seconds researching the avocado on the ever accurate and reliable (ha) Wikipedia...and found that it is a fruit, actually a large berry. Another name for it is the "alligator pear" which I think describes it quite well!

And they are super nutritious:

"About 75% of an avocado's calories come from fat, most of which is monounsaturated fat. Avocados also have 60% more potassium than bananas. They are rich in B vitamins, as well as vitamin E and vitamin K.[21] They have the highest fiber content of any fruit - including 75% insoluble and 25% soluble fiber."

But avocados aren't all we have been eating. In my current job-less-ness I took time to make some cookies. We love these too!!

We actually use my Dad's famous recipe (very very good) and tweak it with a few "healthful" changes. Though I don't think it can be very healthy- it's still a cookie :)

We leave some out on the counter in a glass jar to snack on and then we store the rest in the freezer. If you've ever been to the Kuca home you probably have had a frozen cookie...in my opinion, the best way to eat one!

And then last night I finally unpacked the Crock-pot so we could wake up to perfectly cooked steel-cut-oat oatmeal. I like to add a spoonful of yogurt and fruit to mine, or it's always good with some milk, raisins/craisins and brown sugar.
We actually use a small crock-pot dish inside our large crock-pot so that we can make a one day serving. I would just use the small Crock-pot by itself but it doesn't have a temperature setting so I don't know how long it would take to cook the oats? I don't want them to cook all night at too high a temperature and then be scorched in the morning. Maybe I'll experiment with that tomorrow!

All for now,

WOW!!!!

That's all I can say!

Last you may have heard we were in Wisconsin wondering what God had in store for our future.

And HERE we are! What a whirlwind of a month...Oh, where is HERE?

We are now Texans! Plano/Carrollton Texas, to be exact!

Here is Mr. Lorenzen on his very 1st day of school!

What a handsome man!

A little closer up...yep, probably the best looking teacher you can find!

Finally making use of his graduation gift from my parents

Mr. Lorenzen had a really good first day, which is good, because I was praying constantly that it was going OK. First days are always hard! And to meet him at school after the first day and for him to still be smiling was a great sign. Beside his legs and back hurting from standing all day, and his voice I think hurt the worst from talking all day, he was optimistic about how things went.

Mr. Lorenzen knows he has a long "first year" ahead of him but I think he's going to do just great! I'm sure we'll have some good stories to share. He already had one incident from the first day but I'll wait to share since it involves one of his new students and I'm not sure what he thinks of me blogging his misfortunes...it was unfortunate but funny!

Pictures coming soon of our new residence and maybe a picture chronicle of the move.

Love and miss you all,

Catching Up...

Keeping a blog up-to-date is hard work! Here is a little of what we've been up to the past few weeks...

Micah's 200 mile relay race...

Quick tour of downtown Chicago after the race...

Walking, walking, walking... The last thing Micah needed to do was add more "mileage" to his day, and we both desperately needed food since it was 4:30pm and had barely eaten all day - so we really wanted to eat at QDoba. After locating it with our Garmin and walking a ways we found that we had missed it being open by only 20 minutes. We then walked around for another 45 minutes before settling in at Giordanno's Pizza (deep dish Chicago style :)

Always excited for Jamba Juice!

Note: About 5 seconds after Micah finished his Jamba and after he let me take over driving he passed out from sheer exhaustion and slept pretty much from 6pm until then next morning

Hanging out with Andrea, Jay, Angela and Grant...

We happended upon downtown Woodstock when we were in search of a coffee shop while at Andrea and Jay's. We loved it! Something about the small town feel of quaint downtowns is right up our alley. Where we currently live there are cute downtowns in both Cedarburg and Grafton which we spend quite a bit of time at, frequenting different coffee shops and other little stores.

(The carousel horses were a high school art project called "A Horse of a Different Color" These bright horses were all over Woodstock)

Ang and Grant- the responsible party for bringing us all together that weekend. It was so good to see everyone. Andrea and Jay have an amazing and comfortable home! I didn't get a picture of Jay and Andrea or Bentley. I do have a picture of the back of Andrea's head because I heart her hair cut and I need pictures for when I go and get my current hair cut "fixed."

&
Our favorite summer event- Giro de Grafton!

Mascot race - we think next year Freddy the Falcon should enter. The blue moon with the red hat from Senor Luna's won the race.

Pace car

Start of the men's pro race.

This type of race is called a criterium where they race around an 0.8 mile loop over and over again for 90 minutes. After about 60 minutes into the race they have judged how many laps it should take to finish in the allotted time. Then they start a count down for laps and the first to cross the finish line on the last lap wins. They also have mini "races" during the race for cash and prizes. These are awarded to the biker who wins the individual lap that is designated as a cash/prize lap. They go so fast and make sharp turns- it's great!!

We had the best seats in the house! Thanks to our friend Tyler (who lives above one of the small shops in downtown Grafton) for letting us hang out in his apartment and use his roof to watch the race!

It wound up being a really good race.

If you read our blog you might realize that we lag behind in keeping things updated. If you ever want to know what is happening in "real time" don't be afraid to give us a call, comment, email, or Facebook. We have big news to share but this post has taken too much time already so we'll save it for a later time- or you can just check out our Facebook status.