First off: nope, no baby yet. Yesterday was my due date but I’m not really in a big hurry. We haven’t had this much down time…ever, maybe? It’s been so nice to just spend time together, relax, and make plans at the spur of the moment. I’m not feeling horribly uncomfortable, though sleep is a little lacking. I’m walking a lot and keeping my food pretty clean in hopes of continuing to feel good until it’s go time.

The baby did not get the memo that Martins are punctual. Let’s hope s/he understands that our family motto is “efficiency” and makes this a quick labor once it’s time.

My last day of work was Friday and as I was heading home Greg mentioned that he and our friend, KII, would be staying later at work to finish a project. You might think this means a work project, but no, it was to update their lego station in the break area to include our company’s new logo.

We’ve been doing Friday night happy hour (though it’s turned out to be dinner every week) with KII and his wife Becca lately, so us ladies decided to go out on our own while they nerded out. The point of Friday night happy hour is to try new restaurants as we all felt like we’d been in a rut (adventure is happening, people!). Last week we had dinner at Brunswick & Hunt in Ballard. Great atmosphere, delicious food, big portions. Since I’m not imbibing all I can say is that the drinks looked pretty tasty as well. Try the Merguez sausage and take the half you can’t eat home to enjoy with eggs the next morning.

Back to this weekend. Becca and I tried mkt. in Tangletown. It is super tiny (28 seats) with an open kitchen. Greg and I are currently watching all the seasons of Top Chef from the beginning and I love open kitchens and watching chefs do their art. We showed up right when they opened at 5 and got the only non-reserved seats they had for the rest of the weekend. Let’s just say that it’s three days later and Becca and I are still texting each other about the food. I’ve never lusted over green beans before. Or a beet salad. Or quail. I have lusted over hamachi before, but there’s was delicious as well.

No different than other years, our Valentine’s Day was very low key. We started off with brunch at Liam’s in U-Village, another new-to-us restaurant. We are on a roll. There is nothing like the pending arrival of a newborn to make you get out of the house way more than you normally would! While cleaning out a coin purse last week, I found a gift card from our wedding in 2012. I looked up where it could be used and one of the places was Liam’s. Thanks, Smithskis, for our Valentine’s brunch!  The food was pretty good, but what we were really excited to see was a number of strollers and car seats. Another baby friendly place to add to our mental list.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing. We watched a lot of Top Chef season two, took the dog out to play fetch in the amazing weather and worked on our hobbies.

I’m almost done with a giant blanket that I don’t particularly love but want to finish.

Greg continues to classify and rebuild all his childhood lego sets.

We had a very romantic dinner of burgers and fries (my request) from a restaurant a few blocks from us. I was enjoying the lazy downtime and didn’t want to bother actually going there for dinner so we ordered it instead. I don’t know when the last time I had french fries was. They were amazing. To make myself feel better about being good and skipping the bun and cheese, I added egg and bacon to my burger. We’re not total heathens and I did add a beet salad to our order. It might be because I was 39 weeks and 6 days pregnant at the time of consumption, but that meal was amazing. We watched the season two Top Chef finale while we dined and it was a lovely way to end the day. By 9pm I was pretty excited that the chances of having a holiday baby were getting close to zero. That was gift enough for me.

The weather continued to be amazing and yesterday we took the dog around Green Lake for a brisk walk. I consider keeping up with my 6″ tall husband at nine months pregnant to be brisk.

Greg has gotten in the habit of making extreme statements every time we leave the house now, like “this might be the last time we ever go to brunch”. I did have to give him this one, though. This very well could have been the last time the three of us walk around Green Lake. I don’t really see a situation in which together we take the dog without the baby. Of course that means I had to commemorate it with a shadow picture. Turns out pregnancy isn’t great in shadows.

I’m writing myself a short to do list of the last few things I’d like to get done before baby, but otherwise plan to do a lot of reading, finish my blanket, and maybe even bust out the sewing machine. I’ve never not had a job since I was 16 so this feels a little strange, but definitely doable. And I will continue to walk briskly until the kid decides it wants to make an appearance. Have a great week!