Week of the Mango

Baby Mangum is a GIRL!!!

Here she is laying on her back with her legs crossed on the left side of the picture and her head is on the right side. Her arms are crossed over her chest- Cody says that I sleep like this sometimes. 

In this picture she is taking after Cody- bum in the air :)

Here is her side profile- I can tell she is going to be cute!

This week we moved out of our apartment in Independence, Missouri. We moved all of our stuff into a storage unit where it will sit for 2 weeks while we take a vacation to Branson and visit Cody's family in Oklahoma. 

We started our Branson trip by heading to Ripley's Believe It or Not. There we saw...

A stagecoach made of matchsticks, 

A carving made out of camel bone, 

Nail polish paintings, 

A furry fish,

and a replica of the first scuba diving gear. 

That night we enjoyed a steak dinner at Fall Creek where the staff walks around with a bowl of rolls and throws the rolls at you. After dinner we saw the Chinese Acrobats in action. They balanced on top of each others heads, jumped through hoops that were 8 feet high, hulu hooped on a tight rope wire, spun and threw tables using their feet, and much more! 

Cody with the Chinese Acrobats

Katie with the Chinese Acrobats

We also went mini golfing while we were there and I finally beat Cody! This is a rare feat because Cody never lets me win at anything. He says that when I win against him I will know that I really beat him instead of him letting me win. 

Holding the winning score card!

We also saw the Animal Circus in Branson. We weren't allowed to take pictures but they were sure cute. There were cats that walked the tight rope, cats that climbed ladders, dogs that walked on their hind legs, and a cute little dog dressed in a tux that introduced the show. I think that Cody and I were the only couple there without kids but we enjoyed it just the same.

What a fun week!

Week of the Sweet Potato

I have made it to week 18 and the baby is supposedly very active moving its arms and legs, but I haven't felt anything yet, or at least I think I haven't... 

 

I daily go through phases of thinking that my belly is huge and then thinking that it's not big enough. Either way it is definitely growing so that is good news :)

The other good news is that we find out the gender of Baby Mangum in 2 days! I can't believe how fast it has gone and how slow at the same time. I guess I have a hard time making up my mind :)

Cody and I have been talking about going to a Royals baseball game while we are here in Missouri. The stadium is about 10 minutes away from our house and we could get tickets for $10 but the parking costs $20 :( We decided to bite the bullet and then a couple of days later someone told Cody that we were able to get free tickets and parking passes from the corporate office of the hospital - sweet!

 

The seats weren't too bad either! We got to sit up close to the boxes behind home plate. It was really nice because we were in the shade and could feel a breeze the whole game. This was especially important because it was 95 degrees with humidity at 8 pm. 

The fountains were a fun addition across the ballpark. 

Please ignore my evil eyes, I really did have fun at the game :)

As part of Cody's residency, he has to write a paper that tells all about the project that he has been working on at the hospital. The paper is due this Friday, which also happens to be his last day at St. Luke's East. Cody says that if it weren't for this paper he would have really enjoyed his residency, which is good because hopefully he won't have to write a paper like this again!

Cody needed to go in on Saturday to work on the paper and I told him that I would bring my laptop and come with him to keep him company. I read all of the news sites, watched some Olympics, visited Pinterest several times, checked my email, and anything else that I could think to do- I didn't realize that we were going to be there for 5 hours! In the end, Cody says that he now thinks that he will finish on time and his paper so far is a grand total of 60 pages! There is no way that I have ever written anything that long! Now I remember why I chose a grad program that did not require a thesis or major paper.

After that lovely experience, we drove to The Plaza in Kansas City. It is basically 10 blocks of shopping stores and restaurants that sit along a small creek. We walked around and window shopped and then ate an early supper at the Brio Tuscan Grille. 

 

After dinner we took a ride in a Venetian style Gondola down the Brush Creek River, complete with a rose that Cody gave me.

I've always had the idea that it would be fun to go to Italy and stay in a hotel on the waterway and take gondola rides everywhere. We enjoyed our ride and a few people stopped to take pictures of us.

Unfortunately this is the end of our summer in Independence, Missouri. We did some fun things and Cody enjoyed his residency. Now on to Oklahoma for a few weeks and then back to Minnesota.