Cave without a Name

Our good friends Kelli and Garrett Nahas came to visit from California this week. Yesterday we ventured out to the "Cave Without A Name" here in Boerne (pictured above). To ring in the New Year, we have been BBQing all day and plan to go in to San Antonio tonight where J and Garrett will be doing all of the partying for me and Kelli (the pregnant ladies). Kelli, my college roommate for 4 years, is due with her first baby in June!

Go Frogs! Anna's TCU Graduation

These are some pictures from Anna's graduation from TCU. The whole family went to Fort Worth to celebrate and had a blast! That's 4 down, only 2 more college graduations to go for the Johnson-Gross family (hang in there Kent and Regina)!

The Boerne "Back House"

Many of you have asked to see pictures of our little home in Boerne. I posted a slideshow to the right of pictures of our rental house here a few blocks off of Main St. in Boerne. Enjoy!

Baby's Room

(Before)

This weekend our good friends Max and Whitney Jodry came to visit and help with the baby's room. Our rental house only has two bedrooms, so we are trying to figure out a way for the second room to double as a guest room and nursery. In the top picture you can see the "Before" of the guest room. Note: J and I did not pick out this color blue for the walls. The room is fairly large and has it's own bathroom and walk-in closet, which is wonderful!

Below is a picture of my sweet husband putting the paint color on the wall so that I can decide if I really like it. This is a really big deal because J hates painting. In our last house, I was the designated painter, but I have pregnancy as an excuse not to help this time around!

(Priming the walls and testing out the paint color)

As you can see in the picture, J and I have decided to call our baby boy Trip. This is a name used for boys who are the third generation to be called a certain name, since we are officially naming him Harry J. Kuper III after his father and grandfather. We thought the name was unique and classic at the same time.

As the room progresses, I'll post more pictures, so stay tuned!

Thanksgiving in Missouri

We spent this Thanksgiving with my family in Missouri. Thursday morning we went to the Johnson cabin in Dalton, MO (in the background of the first picture) and then drove to Kansas City to see the Plaza lights and have dinner. From left to right in the picture below are my siblings Timmy, Whitney, Trett, Anna, Matt and me and J on the right.

It started snowing late last night and has snowed off and on all day today! We head back to Texas tomorrow morning. I will be sad to leave my family, but we will see them again the weekend before Christmas for Anna's college graduation from TCU.

23 Weeks

Here I am at 23 weeks ... Only 4 more months to go! I have been feeling (and seeing) the baby move much more frequently over the past couple of weeks, which is indescribable! J keeps saying that he's ready for his son to come on out and play!

San Antonio Half Marathon

Bright and early this morning, J ran in the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll half marathon and finished in 2 hours and 19 minutes! The weather was perfect and he survived the 13 miles with little more than a few blisters. Watching him cross the finish line was so much fun and incredibly emotional, especially after he cheered me through my 13 miles in Austin last February. I was so proud!

Just for Grins!

(Jack dressed up as a Frog Prince)

(Mia Dressed up as a Pig)

We weren't home for Halloween this year, but I wanted to post these pictures of Jack and Mia in their Halloween costumes. These were some of the only costumes in their size at a store called Dogology in Fredericksburg, TX. It turns out they look a little like Kermit and Miss Piggy! The funniest part is that the hood on Jack's costume covers his eyes and he makes no attempt to take it off, so he just stumbles around like a blind frog! Sad ... but so hilarious!

Boys and a Buck!

I haven't heard the entire story yet, but above is a picture of my step dad, Kent, and my two little brothers, Timmy (in the brown shirt) and Trett (in the Mizzou shirt) with a buck Kent shot in our neighborhood.

Kent's ritual every week is to sit for hours in a tree stand in our backyard with his bow trying to shoot a buck. The last time he successfully shot one, it didn't immediately fall over, but ran off. Kent found it dead in our neighbor's front yard! Can you imagine coming home to that!?!

I guess I can't really call my brothers "little" anymore! They are both sophomores at the University of Missouri (Go Tigers!). They have both turned out to be such men, and even though I know they had nothing to do with killing this buck, I am so proud of them!

Spurs vs. Mavs

Last night, J's dad got us tickets to the Spurs vs. Mavs game. This was my first professional basketball game to attend and our seats were amazing! We were within talking distance from Mark Cuban, who wasn't nearly as animated as I hoped he would be. It was strange not knowing who to cheer for moving from the DFW area to the San Antonio area ... I think our allegiance will be to the Spurs, but it was fun to see the Mavs in action too. My favorite part of the game was the large chocolate and vanilla swirled frozen yogurt I picked up during half time!

Jack and His Baby

This is one of those funny things that Jack has always done that I never really thought much about until my mom came to visit and urged me to take a picture of it. The picture above is of our dog Jack sleeping with his "baby", a stuffed dog that my mom gave me a few years ago that Jack claimed as his own. He sleeps with his arms around it like this every day. I have also put a picture of Mia below so that I am not showing favoritism.

California Road Trip

On Sunday J flew to California to make the 20 hour drive with his good friend Brad back to Texas. Along the way, they made a pit stop at the Cabazon Dinosaurs from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Luckily, this dinosaur didn't like the taste of J and I welcomed my husband home safely just in time to watch the election results and go to the Spurs v. Mavs game (see pictures above).

20 Weeks

After some prodding by my best friend Johanna, I am finally posting a "baby bump" picture. I am now 20 weeks ... the half way point! (That's our dog, Mia, staring through the glass door in the background.)

Missouri Fall

My mom sent me the picture above of one of the trees in front of our house in Missouri. The fall is one of the many things I love about my hometown.

Camp-iversary!

(Disclaimer: J came up with the creative title for this posting.)

For our three-year anniversary this past week, we decided to go camping at the Guadalupe River State Park, which is only minutes from our house. The weather was perfect! We went hiking along the river while the dogs swam. Later J cooked us steak and asparagus and then I taught J how to make the perfect smore! The only downside was that we couldn't find our inflatable matress, so we had to tough it out and sleep on the ground. As a pregnant person who has a difficult time sleeping anyway, this was not the best night sleep of my life! Fortunately, we spent 4 hours the next day at a local spa getting all of our sore spots rubbed down. And while I'm sure he wouldn't want me to make this public, J also enjoyed his very first facial, manicure and pedicure!

Girls Weekend!

My mom and sister came to Boerne for the weekend while my step dad joined J and a few of his friends for fishing at the Texas coast. The weekend passed way too quickly, but it was so good to share my new home with a few members of my family. Unfortunately, the picture above is the only one we got of all three of us over the weekend and I am mid-sentence trying to tell the man taking the picture how the camera works! We were all sporting our Missouri Tiger gear in preparation for the game against Texas.

You can see my growing baby bump in the picture below. We hung out in Boerne for the most part, but also took a brief trip over to Sisterdale and Fredericksburg so that Anna and I could pose in front of the Sister Creek Vineyard sign. Mom and Anna tasted some of the fine Hill Country wines and I enjoyed the beautiful weather.

It's a Boy!

We had our 19-week doctors appointment today and were able to see very clearly that baby Kuper is a boy! In case you can't make out the picture above, look at it like he is sitting on a piece of glass (rump, legs ... and, that's right, boy parts!). I feel like I am exposing my child before he is even born! Thanks to the glass of OJ I drank before the appointment, he was really moving around during the ultrasound (you can see this in the videos below).

I still haven't actually felt a kick - which is surprising after seeing how hard he is bucking his legs! As many of you already know, he will be named after his father and grandfather, Harry Jersig Kuper III. What we will actually call him is still up in the air, but we have a few ideas and will keep you all posted.

Good Friends & Good Wine

This Saturday, we joined our friends from Dallas (Whitney and Max, and Baylee and Brad) to relax and tour the Texas wine country. Although I wanted to do more than "taste" the wine, it was still nice to spend time with such good friends. Hopefully being in the Hill Country will inspire many more to come and visit!

Lone Star Brewery

This Sunday J and I joined his brother and cousins for a tour of the Lone Star Brewery in San Antonio. It has been unoccupied for years, but a new developer is turning the old brewery - formerly owned by J's great grandpa, Harry Jersig - into a multi-use facility including town homes, apartments, restaurants, organic food market and spa. Collins is already plotting how the family can buy back most of the brewery and live all together in a compound of sorts!

After the tour, we met the rest of the Kuper family for dinner at La Fonda (a restaurant I am quickly learning to be a Kuper favorite!). I have been emersed in the San Antonio culture and am loving every minute of it!

Take a Hike Ike!

We were supposed to get a visit from the Underwoods and the Arnetts from Fort Worth this weekend but forecasts showed heavy rain in the Hill Country so we postponed the trip. Of course the weather is awesome (which should have been expected). Rach and I decided to hit up Fredericksburg to get a sampling of the local German food and drink. I hear that brats and beer are good for prenatal development... Or at least it is in Fredericksburg!

Live from Luckenbach!

Once Rach and I heard that Ike might make his way to Boerne , we decided we better head over to Luckenback! Thanks to the power of the iPhone, we can broadcast our blog directly from the one place where 'everybody is somebody!' We wish y'all were here!

Meet Baby Kuper!

Today we (finally) had our first doctors appointment! We were able to see our baby moving and hear its heartbeat - which is an indescribable experience. The due date is March 14 ... just two days after my 26th birthday. J joked that this would be the last year I would be getting any birthday presents!

Quote of the day:
"For some reason I thought the doctor was going to come in and say, 'You're not really pregnant' ... I just wasn't expecting to see an actual baby!" (J Kuper)

Honestly, as I've started feeling better with less morning sickness, I have had the same thought cross my mind. Especially since I am still not really showing. So seeing a real baby squirming around inside of me made the reality of our pregnancy much more real! (This is a picture of the squirming baby below.)