The Snoozer "J" pillow: A product review

I was told by several reliable sources, that a body pillow is a must-have item for pregnancy. I was very excited about this, because I had a beloved body pillow through college, and for several years afterward. When Jason and I decided to become roommates in 2004, I decided that since my pillow was looking a little decrepit, and I would exchange it for a brand new husband pillow. That has worked pretty well, because he's snuggly and works as a space heater. Well, after some online research, I decided that I would buy the goose-down "J" shaped Snoozer pillow. The day it arrived I donned it's pillow case, and laid down to run some snuggle tests. When Jason came in the room, he eyed the "J"pillow suspiciously, and then he looked down-right jealous. "What is that?" he inquires/ demands.

The pillow is awesome, and it does make side-sleeping very enticing. Now Jason tries steals the pillow, especially if I leave him alone in bed with it. I was awake enough the other morning to witness the pillow caper. It went down like this: Sleeping Jason will reach over and give the pillow a tug, then regardless of whether or not I am using the pillow, he throws his top leg upon it. This is not comfortable, it is a one-person pillow. I roll over the my other side for a little while.

Finally, Jenny visits San Antonio!

Last weekend my dear friend Jenny and her husband Derek finally made the long trek to San Antonio from Portland, OR. I have gotten to be a pro at taking our visitors on the downtown trip to walk along the Riverwalk, see the Alamo, and go on the riverboat tour. So, here we are on Day 1 of Jenny and Derek's visit, in front of said Alamo.

I was very excited that we all got to explore a new (to us) Texas Landmark- Gruene, Texas. Home of the Gristmill Restaurant, and the oldest music hall in Texas. We walked around this antique little town for a while after a big lunch of country-fried cookin.' I was told my belly looked very babylicious that day. So, Jason kept taking photos of it. At one point, I was being attacked by 'Jason the Paparazzi' taking photos of me and shouting directions on how to pose with my belly- Jason said "put your hand on it!" Apparently I did not do it right, and Derek shouted,"NO, like your loving it!" Here's what that looked like:

We had 3 days of beautiful, sunny 75 degrees days while Jenny and Derek were in town. Jenny and I wrapped up the weekend with a relaxing girls' day by the pool, and a group walk along the new Riverwalk extension. Then they headed back to Portland, where they can continue to be harassed by my brother Joe, Jenny's surrogate older brother.

Wedding in Kansas City

Over the past weekend, Jason and I made a trek to yet another wedding. This one was the wedding of our friend Mark to Sarah. They had a beautiful fall wedding in Kansas City and we were so happy to get another dose of Midwest Autumn. The leaves were gorgeous. Mark and Jason are college friends. Mark is a very fun guy, and he's famous for his Michael Jackson "chair dance." Mark also moved out to San Diego (with Go) after college and that is where he met his lovely bride, Sarah. Now they live in Cincinnati.

Austin City Limits Mud Festival

Last year about this time, Jason and I made our first-ever trip to San Antonio to scope it out and see if we could actually live here. On that trip we also went to the Austin City Limits Music Festival, a 3 day multi-stage outdoor concert in Austin's Zilker Park. Knowing that outdoor concerts just aren't the same without beer, I decided it would still be worthwhile to go again this year.

Due to inclement weather (and no beer), this year's ACL gets mixed reviews from me. In order to solve the "dust-bowl" issue that brought down previous ACL festivals, a lot of money was spent on new grass for the park. When we arrived on Friday, I marveled at the beautiful plush grass that covered the park. Then on Saturday, it rained, the whole day. Then all the thousands of people walked all over the grass churning and stabbing the grass down into the wet ground. By Sunday, it was a massive mud pie. I'm talking squishy, can't walk in flip-flops without losing your flip-flops mud. On Sunday, we headed straight to safety of our backstage access at one of the venues, and after a few hours we decided to brave the mud and venture out for some of the other shows. After squishing around in the stinky, gooey mud for a little while, Jason let me play the "I'm pregnant" card and we left early. The best shows for me- Kings of Leon on Friday night, and Henry Butler under the covered stage on Saturday.