Great Expectations

Well, as the previous entry from March foretold, big changes have happened in the Maciukenas household this year. The biggest news of all is that we are expecting our first baby on November 12^th, 2009! This is all together exciting, nerve-wracking, incredible, fun and totally scary for us, but we would not want it any other way. We are happy to have been blessed with the news and look forward to this new chapter of our lives. As of now, I am 18 weeks along and feeling very good – much better than the first trimester, when I battled nausea, fatigue and all that jazz. Here I am at 18 weeks. More pregnancy and ultrasound photos can be seen in the gallery here.

We also can’t wait to meet the little Maciukenas Munchkin when he/she arrives. However, as our baby will likely be born under the sign of Scorpio, we wonder if we should be concerned, since both Tom and I are also Scorps. Why should we worry, you ask? Well, considering that the general characteristics of Scorpios (at least according to the magnet on our fridge) include: volatile, demanding, moody, hot-tempered and intense …. a house full of these people might just get a little nutty … guess only time will tell.

So all in all, Project “B” is a serious roller coaster, but Tom and I are strapped in and ready for the ride. :-)

Since our days of carefree, cross-continental travel may be limited for a little (read: long) while, we decided to enjoy one last hurrah this year and took a two week vacation to Lithuania and Ukraine at the end of May. We termed it our Heritage Tour in honor of Tom’s part Lithuanian and my part Ukrainian background. We had a wonderful time visiting beautiful churches, monuments, museums and even catching up with great hosts and friends in Kyiv, Ukraine. Some highlights of the trip included visiting the Pecherska Lavra (Cave Monastary) in Kyiv, eating delicious food including varenyky (pyrogies), borscht and lots of kinds of sausages, visiting the Carpathian Mountains in Western Ukraine, and learning that the pronunciation of “Maciukenas” was pretty much as we’ve thought all along (we also got the extra bonus of capturing a native Lithuanian actually pronounce it on camera for us ;-) All photos of our trip will be uploaded soon!

Besides trips and babies, we have continued to stay busy at the ol’ Cottage. I’ve started a “kitchen garden” just outside the kitchen (duh!) and having fresh herbs, tomatoes and strawberries accessible outside the door has already proved to be wonderfully handy during cooking. This should have been done long ago, when we moved in…but alas (as with all things house-related) these things take time. Our big plans for the back garden beds got a little bit off-schedule because of our vacation in May, and as I write this blog entry, I still am debating whether or not we will actually have vegetables growing this year, besides our tomatoes. The weeds that erupted over the two weeks we were away were astonishing, and it’s a little bit disheartening to think of all the digging and prep we’ll need to do to get things back into shape; but then I think of all those lovely potential cucumbers! Zucchini! Peppers! Swiss chard! (sigh…)

Tom’s newest house assignment is called Project Built-Ins (Part Two). (The first Built-In was completed in 2008). The goal is to construct full-wall, built-in shelves along the stairway to our basement to be used as pantry/storage space. There will also be recessed lighting above (yay!) so that we no longer have to rely on the small light way down at the bottom of the stairs. As Tom works through this project, I continually thank my lucky stars that I am married to a handy man who is able to whip out house projects like this. We’ll try to post photos along the way, as things progress.