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So today is my last posting before the baby is born! Last Thursday, my mom and I went to the Alaska Zoo. It was neat because it was mostly animals native to Alaska, such as black bears, brown bears, polar bears, moose, caribou etc. And the non-native animals were all from cold weather places elsewhere in the world, like tigers from Siberia. We also twice heard the wolves howling, which was pretty eerie. My mom took a short video of this, which you can see on YouTube if you click here.

Black Bear at the Alaska Zoo, similar to the one seen the next day in Anchorage!

Then on Friday, we were driving down Lake Otis Parkway, between 15th and 20th (for those of you who know where that is), and in the backyard of one of the developments there I saw a black bear moseying along! It was very exciting! But also a little scary, because that's just a few hundred yards from where Marika lives! But it was nice to check off "seeing an urban bear" from my list of things I wanted to do while in Anchorage. If only I could see Denali once before I go home, then I would feel that my trip was complete. :-)

On Saturday, Chris, my dad, and step-mother Joyce all arrived. It was so nice to see them! It had been 7 weeks since Chris had flown home, so I was pretty happy to have him back here, and before the baby was born too! Last evening, we tried to go for a walk on the Coastal Trail, but it started raining again, so we didn't get very far. But my mom was able to take this picture before the deluge.

This morning I went to the hospital for my pre-op blood work, and impressively the phlebotomist was able to get me on the 1st stick without even needing to use a butterfly needle! Later today, we're going to Babies R'Us to buy some more supplies off my registry- Babies R'Us gives a 10% discount 1 week before your due date, and since my due date is technically 8/2, today is 1 week before. Chris assembled our stroller yesterday, and I think we've mostly figured out the car seat, as we're feeling as prepared as I suppose we can, at this point. One sort of amusing thing that happened today is my watch died, and we've decided that this is symbolic of the fact that once the baby is born, I'm not going to have any control over my schedule anyway! Tomorrow, we have to be at the hospital at 5:30 am, and the c-section is scheduled for 7:30 am Alaska time (11:30 EST). We'll send out some sort of announcement as soon as we can afterwards...