On Monday we were invited (the whole church was) to Pastor Nick's home for a cookout. We loved spending time with our church family, although it did get pretty vicious at the end with the super-soakers and buckets of water being dumped on people. I managed to stay dry because I sat near the babies :)

The kids had a great time playing together. They also had a slip-n-slide for them. We are looking forward to Baby Fernandez having lots of good friends at church!

We are 36 weeks and 4 days along! I had a doctor's appt. today and everything looks good...the encouraging news is that the baby is head down. There is no dilation, though, so the doctor said he doesn't think the baby will make a grand entrance into the world this week (which is a good thing, also). The heartrate was still 130 bpm! The only bummer is that I had gained a lot more weight than I imagined...I'm up to about 30 pounds now :) Hope that means that baby is growing...not just me!

I used my womanly skills of organizing to categorize items on the shelves :)

from left to right in the front: me, Amanda, Katie in the back: Lisa, Lee, and Kari

Baby Fernandez was serenaded while we were there! A guy from the table beside us realized we were celebrating the baby and he made up a short song to sing for us. It was hilarious :) I think he was just just a sophomore in high school!

When we arrived Saturday afternoon, we became college students. The whole family had a dorm suite to ourselves...we all adjusted well to college life, though, including sharing a bathroom :)

I know you don't see my handsome hubby in any of these shots. He wasn't able to join us...he was in Charlotte with some friends for the NASCAR race hehe I will post pictures of his weekend soon.
Stephen and Michael took us on a tour of the grounds. Here we are on the steps of the Rotunda. We had to rest here for a while...Baby Fernandez won't let me get too much exercise in these last few weeks!

After the ceremonies, we ate lunch at Stephen's house.

We are all so proud of you, Stephen! Love you :)

On Thursday night the Flores family took us out to celebrate my birthday. We went to Trio in downtown Roanoke for dinner. Thanks for the encouragement and good food, family! I got some new perfume, a diaper bag, and a gift card for post-maternity clothes :)

I'm a little late to post about Mother's Day, but that doesn't mean we didn't have a great one! We were thankful to spend time with both of our mothers for the holiday. On Saturday after the baby shower in Raleigh, we went to eat in Brier Creek at Moe's with Mike, Peggy, and Brooke. We gave our moms this fruit basket from Edible Arrangements. We tried some ourselves...the chocolate covered strawberries were awesome!
On Sunday after church we had a cookout at the Flores house. Stephen and Dad made all the preparations for us. :)
Joey and Sierra gave mom this frog to put beside her water fountain outside.Michael, the creative one, gave mom these matching sunglasses (did he say he got them from a gas station? hehe)
But it gets better. He also gave her a funny card. Check out the progression of when she opened and read it:


And then, to top it off, he gave her Hillary the Nutcracker. We had lots of laughs about it. You can see from the video:

Last Thursday Aaron and I left around lunchtime to drive to Asheville, NC. It was our last little getaway for just the two of us before Baby Fernandez arrives. It was perfect! We were so thankful to be able to go...we stayed at the gorgeous Grove Park Inn. Quality time with your best friend...nothing like it.

On Thursday evening when we got there, I took a quick nap while Aaron read up on the resort. We went to dinner on the Sunset Terrace at the resort. Here is what you can imagine it was like: Yes, it really was this romantic! The view was unbelievable. The food was even better than that. And the company was the best part of all. We had a lengthy conversation about how God has grown our marriage.
And we had this for dessert! We had lots of dessert on our vacation. :) After dinner we were so full and tired from the week, we crashed in the room.

This is an aerial view of The Grove Park Inn. It's huge...we explored a little, but didn't see everything. The big things to do there are golf and visit the spa, but we did neither. We were happy to just hang out. In the far left corner in this picture, you can see the Sports Complex. On Friday morning we went there to work out together.

This is the view of the resort when you first drive up. Needless to say we were very excited.

I didn't take these pictures! I got them off of their website! This one shows how the resort is tucked in the mountains of NC. It really was a beautiful place.So why do I look so blue? Well, we had started the day off well with a workout, and then we headed to downtown Asheville to eat lunch. When we sat down, my oversized belly brushed against the table and I got a couple of stains on my shirt. I was so sad, and for some reason Aaron thought it would be a good time to take a picture of me! My emotions are sort of out of whack, and it took me a little while to bounce back from the incident, unfortunately.So to cheer me up, Aaron took me to the Biltmore Estate! He had already been twice, so it was kind of him to take me. I'm glad we went...it was a fun way to spend the afternoon in Asheville. Here are some pictures of us on our tour:

We went to the winery after finishing in the gardens at the house, and Aaron participated in a wine tasting.
We were too hungry to go somewhere else for dinner, and it worked out perfectly that there was a casual outdoor grill restaurant at the winery. Aaron is listening to and watching the guy who was playing guitar and singing for us. It was a relaxing end to the Biltmore visit- after walking so much, we enjoyed sitting for a while.
And then Aaron played the hero again when he took me to Marble Slab in downtown Asheville before we went back to the resort :)

We ate breakfast at the resort on Saturday morning before we headed to Raleigh for the baby shower. We could have stayed more nights, but we loved the time we had to vacation there together!