I know many of you came here today for the last installment of our France journey, but instead, you’re getting this…

That’s right, friends! Come January, these two solid New Englanders will be welcoming a true Southerner to the family! We are very excited!!

It’s been so fun to share the news with family and friends (who are also SO EXCITED) over the last few months, and so I wanted to bring you friends up to speed, too! Here are a few of the first questions people have had for us:

Are you nervous or excited? Surprisingly, not nervous. Definitely excited. There is a reason for this, and I plan to write a longer post about our path here soon.

How do you feel? At this point (17 weeks), I feel great! I had kind of low-grade, all day queasiness from about weeks 7 to 12, but if I ate at regular intervals (lots of oyster crackers!), I felt okay. I was also more tired than usual in the first trimester, but going to bed earlier and resting when I came home from work helped a lot.

Are you going to find out whether it’s a boy or a girl? We’re pretty sure we’re going to find out, and pretty sure that if we find out we’ll share the news.

Do you plan to write about pregnancy here? Yes. EFM has always been about our adventures and what I find marvelous, and this new development fits squarely into both of those categories. While I don’t plan to write monthly update posts, I definitely have lots of thoughts on certain topics :)

More about this later, but I just wanted to end (for now!) by saying that neither John nor I experienced “baby fever;” in fact, I am a bit notorious among friends and family for “not liking babies*.” Everything is new to us and there has been so much to learn along the way already. Mostly, we are grateful. We are trusting in God, that he has equipped us with everything we need and has chosen us uniquely for this baby. We are trusting in each other, as we have for the last ten years. And we are trusting that all that is to come is the continuation of a beautiful story. Looking forward to sharing it, friends!!

Photos by the wonderful Anna Routh!

*I’m banking on the fact I will feel differently about my own :)

Granted, this playlist might have been appreciated more on Friday instead of after this most celebratory weekend, but there’s still so much of summer left to enjoy! I hope my newest seasonal playlist will help you do just that. This one is definitely more eclectic than my spring or fall offerings — there’s some old stuff, some new stuff, some rock, some pop, some country — but the unifying factor is that every song is fun to dance around your kitchen or backyard to. Trust me, we tested them this weekend.

Click here to listen to my summer playlist.

You do need a Spotify account to listen, but, well, Spotify is wonderful, so go ahead and take the plunge!

Two years ago I wrote a post sharing seven things I love about my Mom. I intended to write a companion post for my Dad that same year, and then the next year, but for some reason it never happened. As you’ll see, it’s not for lack of reasons. So in 2015, here are eight things I love about my Dad (in no particular order):

1. He is full of wisdom. This fact has always impressed me, apparently, because when I was in elementary school I designed and printed him a poster entitled “Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned From My Dad” (sorry, Mom). You can click here to see a photo of this gem :) I could fill an entire blog post with his nuggets of wisdom that were imprinted upon me after being repeated over and over and over throughout my childhood, but one of my favorites is, “If you’re going to give, give graciously.” He knows that what you do is not always as important as how you do it.

2. He always takes the scenic route. Literally. He thinks the world is a beautiful place and doesn’t mind taking the longer way to see more of it. He’ll also take any excuse for a road trip, especially if a daughter is at the other end. He and I drove from Maine to Chicago once to help my older sister move, and driving through those picturesque New England towns with him is one of our fondest memories together.

3. He is a diplomat. He studied international law and diplomacy for his PhD, and instead of taking his skills around the world, he deployed them in our home and community. He is the one you want leading a meeting as well as refereeing at the dinner table. He is calm, patient, and fair, always. He votes in every election and is informed about every issue. He can strike up a conversation with anyone and put them at ease, even though at heart he’s an introvert like me. As one more example, when my family drove across the country for two weeks, he wrote up a family contract of behavior and made everyone (including parents) sign it, then laminated it and displayed it in the car on the drive.

4. I learned my punny humor from him. No opportunity is ever wasted to make a play on words.

5. He loves reading, writing, and learning, and he taught me to love them, too. For more than thirty years, my Dad was a college professor. He is SO smart, but he’s still intensely curious to learn, most often through reading. He is always reading. My sisters and I love to read, too, and I could not be more grateful that he instilled that love in me at a young age – it has shaped my life in every way. He also taught me almost everything I know about grammar and editing. Even after correcting dozens of student papers, he would always read through mine for school. Instead of correcting them for me, however, he would mark each line that had an error, and then we would go line by line together, and I would have to figure out what it was. He did this even if I brought him the paper at 10pm the night before it was due. No short cuts.

6. He is a dedicated servant. To his church, our country, our family cottages, civic groups, teams he coached, and more. When you’re a good leader (see no. 3), people tend to ask you to lead, and any position he accepts, he executes with graciousness and diligence.

7. He is a music maker. He has the most beautiful voice, he loves to sing harmony, and he is an amazing whistler. He regularly breaks out into song, most often while doing after dinner dishes.

8. He truly cherishes his children. In the end, this is my Dad’s defining characteristic. He will talk to anyone about his daughters – what we’re up to, what we did the last time we were together, when he’s going to visit us next. He has saved (and displayed) the most ridiculous grade school gifts we made him – his old office was full of them. Some of you may remember the books of drawings he gave Kate and I at our rehearsal dinners. When we were younger, he was NEVER too busy to read with us, ever. He is an example to me every day in how to treasure my closest relationships — and to show them that through my actions.

Bonus reason no. 9: He is one of my most faithful blog readers. If you see Rob commenting, that’s him :)

I love you, Dad. Happy Father’s Day!

All photos by Tanja Lippert from our wedding

With all the things on which modern medical professionals differ, it’s nice to know there seems to be at least one thing they agree on: we should all be drinking more water. Every system in our bodies depends on it! How much? The Mayo Clinic recommends 72 ounces of fluid a day. Some people recommend drinking the numerical value of your weight in pounds, in ounces. Others suggest half that. Others recommend drinking only when you’re thirsty.

If left to my own devices, I would drink approximately zero ounces a day, making the “only drink when you’re thirsty” advice not terribly useful. I rarely drink anything besides water, and am great about drinking during meals, but have always had difficulty putting away anywhere close to the recommended amount. (In fact, I wrote about this a few years ago, too!) However, just recently I’ve put in place a system that seems to be working for me, so I thought I’d share!

My desk at work! Photo by Robyn Van Dyke.

Apparently I really thrive on mini challenges, because this is what I do. Every morning at work, I fill up my 24-ounce water jar. Before I eat lunch, I have to finish it. I drink another full jar with lunch, then fill it up again for the afternoon, and I have to finish that one before I leave to go home. (I leave my jar at work every day except for Friday so I don’t have the excuse of forgetting it! I wash it over the weekend.) I drink another 24 ounces with dinner, bringing my daily total to about 96 ounces. A tip: every time I pick up my jar, I drink five sips instead of one – helps it go down quicker!

As for the amazing skin, health, and energy benefits drinking water is supposed to give you? Two weeks in, I haven’t noticed too many changes, except that I’m peeing more frequently (ha!) and I haven’t had a headache in the afternoon like I sometimes do. Then again, I’m not the best about recognizing change over time. I’m just happy I finally seem to have found a system that works for me!

I’d love to hear: do you feel like you drink enough water? What helps you get there? Does it come naturally to you?