Some times I wish I could go back to

Today I looked through some older things and came across the baptismal service programs of a few of the people I was blessed to teach in Nebraska. I teared up a little and, for the first time in a long while, missed the mission. There are many things I enjoy about where I am now -- married and pregnant? yes, please! -- and mostly I remember the mission as a time of simplicity and, at the end, intense difficulty. Right now I remember it as a time of joy.

I wonder where some of those people are now, and what they are doing. A few I even contact occasionally.

As a completely random side note, we also have five extra pillows. That's right: five.

I owe it to you

I feel this strange sense of obligation now to post. Now that I actually let someone know this blog existed. Let me tell you, the obscurity was oddly refreshing.

So, for the uninformed, I am a research assistant in an infant studies lab. This sounds way more awesome than it is, though when we actually have infants to study, it's pretty awesome. The trouble is that, for whatever reason, we don't have a lot coming in this term. (Last I heard the actual statistic was two. Two infants the entire summer term.) Yet, in order to receive credit, we have to be at the lab a certain number of hours. Last term we didn't have a lot of infants, either, and I wasn't taking classes so I sat around a lot. Eventually they found something for us to do, but it's kind of difficult to understand completely what they're asking, so it's like flailing around in the research world. Let me tell you, the research world is difficult enough when I more or less know what I'm looking for or hoping to find. Maybe it's good real-world experience, though, since most people I know can't read others' minds, yet almost everyone works for someone with a clear-cut idea that no one else is 100% informed of.

I think the point of all that was now that I have homework, sitting in the lab for three hours isn't so bad. I even did some research! Heh.

Oooh there was a pretty intense thunderstorm today. Or, at least, there was a thunderstorm. I was in class, overlooking a courtyard, so I didn't see much, but we definitely heard two very loud booms of lightning and were able to witness the torrential rain afterward. Fortunately it stopped by the time class was over, and only lightly sprinkled on me as I was walking home. What amazed me though is how dry the ground was after class. It would have been, at absolute most, an hour since that hard rainfall, yet when I went outside, the only sign of the rain was the occasional dark spot or small puddle on the sidewalk. Crazy, I tell you.

In other news, I have a to-do list that I am graciously not accomplishing. Now that I've eaten my delicious burritos, maybe I'll have some incentive. Or maybe I'll eat some of those tasty grapes first, and hope that gives me incentive.

An adventure

The past few days have been kind of crazy. I believe I documented Saturday (do you like how I didn't even look?) and it was a fun one, but we just anticipated a rather quiet Sunday to follow. You win some, you lose some...

On the whole, the day started off pretty quiet and relaxing. I made rolls for a family dinner later that night, so I was more or less busy in the morning. Still, church was good, the drive down to my grandparents' was uneventful, and dinner was going pretty good (even though my rolls were burned on the bottom). I am a slow eater, so while I was (the last one) finishing dinner and while dessert was being assembled, Gary went to the bathroom and we had a quiet moment. He'd been there a while, and they were still serving up dessert, so I took my own trip and heard him talking on the phone. When I got out, he gestured me over and told me we needed to go to the emergency room.

What?

That's right. My husband just told me we needed to go to the emergency room. Not seeing any dire problems, I asked if we needed to leave immediately (because I was thinking about that beautiful chocolate cake and ice cream), and he said yes, so I mentally sighed, mourned the loss of my cake, and tried to discreetly start to gather our things. Until I realized I didn't know where the nearest ER was. So we let the cat out of the bag. "So... where's the nearest ER? We think Gary might be having some internal bleeding." My cousin graciously escorted us over to the hospital and we were admitted fairly quickly. My aunt even sent us with some dessert! Isn't that nice? I got to eat it anyway. :) Gary had to eat most of his after the event (except the icecream, which he shoveled in his mouth when we arrived). Fortunately he felt fine and the doctor found that nothing was particularly out of the ordinary, so we were eventually released. I spent quite a while in the hallway, though, because I had just eaten and I didn't want to watch them trying to prick my hubby to get blood from him. And it took them three different tries to find a good vein. And then he had a brief rectal exam and I was informed I probably wouldn't want to see that.

Well, they referred him to a specialist (a gastroenterologist?) and we were thinking there were going to do some procedure in the office, so I stressed about it all day and eventually called in to work to say I couldn't come (I did try to find a sub) and went with him. Apparently we weren't thinking, cause as soon as they showed us in the room I realized, it doesn't look like they can do anything here except take his blood pressure. And, yeah, not much was accomplished during that visit, so Gary has another referral type deal to get a colonoscopy next week.

During the stress, though, and combined with the weekend being so full and not being able to have time for my reading, I decided to drop my TTh class. Do I regret it? Not yet. Do I feel like I should have tried? A little... if the add/drop deadline were two days away, I might have gotten through it. But after the ER fiasco Sunday I've been pretty tired and stressed. The fun thing is that Gary and I got to spend last night together. We haven't spent a weeknight together in a long time, so we got an impromptu date. (Dinner at Arby's and Ocean's 13? I totally count it.) And I'm pretty excited about having some time on Tuesday and Thursday to try and actually get some stuff done. Why can't I do it any other time of the week? I don't know. But hopefully I can get it done now. We'll see.

You know what? For a first experience at the ER it really wasn't bad. Turns out I was more stressed than I thought I was (our current finances don't help), so I'm still kind of recovering, but Gary is doing pretty good, he felt fine, and so it was a relatively positive, non-dying ER experience. Kind of ironic that we were going in for my husband and not the pregnant lady, but we all appreciate the fact that my little fetus is doing good. Sort of.

Aaaah doctor bills. Who knew they would become such a prominent part of two relatively healthy people's lives? At least yesterday I got a reminder that "all these things shall be for thy good," even if I can't see how yet.

And now for something completely different

Today was not serious. At all. (Except maybe the part where we went to the temple, but I won't really talk about that.) We went and played kickball with a bunch of Gary's former mission buddies and their wives!

At first, it was going to be a water-style kickball with kiddie pools as the bases and a slip and slide to home. (Slip'n'slide means no pregnant woman!) However, it changed back to regular kickball, so I've sort of had a dilemma. I have a confession: I'm not the most active pregnant woman. Early in my pregnancy I just felt lousy all the time and now that I feel better, it's just a habit. And sometimes it starts to hurt a little when I walk too fast or stand too long... so I just don't do it if I can avoid it.

So what I do I do about playing kickball??

I thought casually that I just wouldn't play, that I'd instead be the keeper of our neighbor's little girl, but the problem with activities featuring only couples is that each couple is expected to contribute, or the teams are uneven. Playing sounded like fun, but I looked at the distance between the bases and just didn't like the idea of sprinting so far. So I was discussing my dilemma with one some of the girls and one suggested that I kick and someone else run for me. Brilliant! Seriously, I think she should have won a medal for that suggestion. And the funny part is I asked her if she really thought they would do that for me and she said, "Who would say no to a pregnant woman?" Haha! I know some great people. Unfortunately I tended to kick toward first so my runner would usually get out (or I would pop it too much so they caught it), but I did pitch okay and once even got someone out while hanging around second base. All in all it was fun.

Here's some complaining - everyone's got to do it once in a while, right? - we went to Cafe Rio afterward, and it was only my third time (probably because I managed to get a little stomach flu bug after the second time so I haven't really relished the idea of going back to a meal that I had tossed), but I noticed they had an "enchilada style" option for the burritos that was about a dollar extra. Well, interesting as it sounded, I just like burritos fine and I was thinking about Chipotle so after that initial glance I didn't think much of it. We ended up paying for our neighbors since they forgot wallets, and so I just paid without a thought, but looking back on the receipt, my burrito and the burrito my neighbor got were enchilada style. Did they ask me? Nooooo. I didn't know about Cafe Rio enough to ask for it not enchilada style, I didn't even think when they poured some sauce and cheese over it and ran it through... whatever it went through. I know it wasn't even a dollar, and that the restaurant was very busy, but I'm pretty upset. It's like those times when the server asks if you want something and I think, Oh they're offering so it must be complimentary, only to find out they charged you for it. I don't want to be the stickler who always asks "does it cost more for that," so I always appreciate it when I ask for a substitution or the server points out something will be extra. Regardless, this is completely different since without a second thought they just prepared it the way that cost extra.

Okay. Hopefully that was enough steam blown off.

Wow. Looking at the time, I actually can't believe I'm still awake. I called my Mom and we talked for a while, which is maybe why time got away from me. I wanted to put some rolls in the refrigerator to rise overnight, and I had a question about them (they were strangely sticky after kneading). Here's hoping they turn out; I've never made the recipe before. The last recipe I tried from good ol' Betty Crocker turned out quite nicely, though. I even tried half and half white and wheat flour this time, cause that's usually pretty successful.

Guess it's bedtime. And after the little kickball fiasco (even the little I did do tuckered me out!) combined with the sunlight/sunburn... I am worn out. Woof.

Truth and theories

Today in class we had an interesting discussion on truth and how we find it. Obviously, the researchers presenting the material in our textbook suggested the scientific method as the closest path to finding truth, and in class we discussed a more spiritual method as well. (Not to say we discredited the scientific method, though.) The reading for next class discussed various theories that guide thinking on intimate relationships (okay: moment of self-congratulation! I've done half my reading for Monday's class! I'm trying to take into account my 44 pages of reading for Tuesday's class, because I'll have to write a 1-2 page paper on that reading by 10 AM on Tuesday). The chapter started with an argument that great minds do not think alike: the theory determines much of the thinking process.

Well that brought me back to our discussion on truth and the scientific method. A crucial part of the scientific method is theory; we discussed in class an example of a study where the researcher chose to base her 'experiment' on a feminist theory where men and women are essentially created the same. What does this prove? Had this researcher based her experiment on a different way of thinking, such as the evolutionary theory I just read about, her findings may have been different. (She and her colleagues were basically testing the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus to see if it held any water compared to scientific findings.) I've had professors bring up the excellent point that some theories work better in certain situations, but I suppose what I'm considering now is all this "scientific literature" that we have available: does it contain credibility when examined by someone looking through the lens of each different theory? Sure, some theories just aren't compatible with other ones, but you can definitely try and find a solution to one problem through many different theories.

I realize this is probably very dry to someone who, well, isn't immersed in these classes as I am. I'm not saying you need to be a family scientist to find it interesting, but anyone not in a scientific field, and perhaps those in more "concrete" science (in other words, not social science), probably wouldn't know or care what I'm talking about. Oh well.

So in other news I'm trying to gather my courage to start the dishes. I don't know why I'm balking so much; it's not like I would end up doing all of them anyway. I guess standing there usually makes my feet get super uncomfortable.... I could try wearing shoes, since I seem to stand in one place for long enough at work before I get really uncomfortable.

... yes, I am a wimp. I'm sorry you had to witness that, but it's true. I almost didn't eat a real dinner because I couldn't find the means or inclination to fix myself something easy. (Except maybe mac'n'cheese, but that's hardly a real dinner anyway.) My salvation was in a container of ill-loved leftovers that I thought would be just fine, since it meant I didn't have to cook. Isn't that sad? At least I can blame pregnancy, right?... Hah.

The other good news is that Gary and I are going to the temple tomorrow morning. Yay temple! My dress even still fits, though it's a little funny looking. It's a good thing, too, because renting one for more than three months almost doesn't seem worth it. I wonder how long I'll be able to get away with my current one.

Revamping procrastination

I was going to wait until I had finished my reading to try this out, and I suppose I still could, but... well... at least this way I can attempt to make my procrastination more useful, right? (Because I could choose two sections of the chapter to read and of course I picked the longest one.)

One thing I thought I'd try out was practicing writing about family studies. Last night I spent three or so hours on a ten-point writing assignment, which looking back shouldn't have frustrated me as much as it did... but writing was one of the things I struggled with the most during winter semester and was the thing that stressed me the most. And it looks like this term is going to be pretty writing  heavy, in one way or another. So I thought, as an experiment, I would just write some of my thoughts about my readings here. This is a pretty friendly place, right? I mean... pretty much no one reads this anyway, making a fairly safe spot for my experimental writing. I may structure it, I might not. I just want to be thinking about it. And I want to be able to write without thinking excruciatingly about each sentence, while at the same time being aware of my passive voice and gradually correcting and re-organizing my very thoughts so that they are strong-less strong-strongest in format and stuff like that.

Well, one of my classes is on intimate relationships. The name of the class is "forming marital relationships," and, being married, it gives me a lot to think about. I wish, though, that my husband were reading the same things, because some of the things in here and in my studies in general, I'd like to discuss with him. Shortly before we were married, the bishop of his student ward gave us a book. It was a sort of marriage prep book, with important things to consider before marriage (a little deeper than "where's the coupon drawer going to be?" be that could be a topic of interest as well). We both thought it was more than a little silly, though it did generate some discussions between us. However, looking back, we could have benefited a lot by just biting the bullet and talking about some of the topics. I suppose we still could.

See, in today's reading, I chose a section about ways to measure intimate relationships. (Which, if you think about it, is a very valid question: how would you go about measuring your own relationship, let alone someone elses?) One brief section included sample questions from surveys and "scales" that are generally accepted as means of measuring satisfaction within a relationship, and I asked myself the same questions. I wondered how my husband would have answered them, and I kind of want to ask him. I'm just the sort of self-depreciating person who would consider myself a nagger or the one who sulked after an argument, but I really am very in love with my husband and rarely feel dissatisfaction with our relationship. Any dissatisfaction I feel is most likely (not always) in myself, not in him or our relationship.

The funny thing about that, though, is my last writing assignment and most of our class discussion today was about the concept of a family system and how the individual is inseparable from the whole. Not in a horrid drone sort of way, but, for example, therapists had a difficult time making progress with children because they attempted to only deal with the child and his or her individual problems. Later, when involving the whole family and looking at/fixing the group interactions, the child progressed much faster. A child's behavioral difficulty was less likely due solely to the personality of the child and more likely attributed to their reaction to what was happening in the family. Thus, to get back on track, it makes me wonder if I look at myself in a depreciating kind of light, how that affects our little family system, since my output is hardly contained within myself.

On that note, though, I think I'll stop before I am tempted to pour out too much of my soul and/or think myself into a tizzy. I'll just get back to reading about ways to observe relationships and have a fine time of it.

Eating

It's funny how I sort of think I'm doing okay--admittedly, not great, but at least okay--in the eating department. Then I go and record what I'm eating and see a consistent lack of enough vegetables, milk (who knew???) and even protein. Occasionally fruit, and heck, just everything. Except things like cake. I do juuuust fine with getting enough of those. Who knew eating enough calories would be difficult?? No wonder I'm not gaining a lot of weight.

Boy, this makes me want to eat more cake. Go figure.

Part of it is a convenience thing. I have a hard time keeping on top of things, and that includes food. Especially because food costs money, and we aren't exactly rolling in dough right now. (Is that slang term for money spelled "dough"? What are my other options, though?) That, and I still haven't figured out exactly how much my husband eats. If it is straight up meat, he eats a whole lot of it. With meatless dishes or casseroles (usually lower in meat content) he'll eat less... I just don't ever know how much. Supposedly he likes everything, but I can tell what he really likes by how much he eats and how consistently. :-) He really is a good sport, though, about liking everything, even if it's just 'okay.'

So, in light of the fact that I probably shouldn't eat more cake, what else can I have with dinner?


(maybe the cake really IS a lie!!!)

Aaah... Procrastinating

I don't think I've mentioned it yet here, but blogging is usually something I do while procrastinating. (Hmm. Knowing my repetitive self, I've probably mentioned that several times.) What am I procrastinating now? Homework! Lots of things, really, including homework, which is an unusual thing for me. I haven't had homework since some time in April. I think it's all reading, but since I didn't have the book before my Monday class, I also have to do Monday's reading, making it just a little more hefty. Still, I think it's only twenty pages or so. (Could be worse, considering it's a semester class that is jammed into a term, right?)

So much for my resolution to be on top of things.

Oh well. I'll get by, I always do. And I'll probably enjoy it. I like the topics we have for this class; it's entitled "forming marital relationships" and the book is Intimate Relationships and it's all about what defines, influences, and enhances intimate relationships (in our personal case of BYU, that is usually marital relationships). Okay, so why am I not reading this fascinating material? Habit, I suppose. I really do have this nasty habit of doing nothing. At least I went to work today... and spent an hour in the morning helping with an infant study. That totals to... I'll include travel time to make myself feel better... maybe 5 hours of productivity today? Yeah. That about sums it up.

I suppose the real question is which do I delve into next: the article by Elder Bednar that I briefly skimmed, or my 20 pages of textbook reading? Maybe I'll insert Bednar into the middle of my textbook to break things up...

In other news, I was also making a cake. My husband probably doesn't need sweet things to take to work in his lunches, but I sort of feel obligated to provide them because I would always want something sweet and delicious in my lunches. While feeling health-conscious, that was often a granola bar or something pseudo-healthy, but it usually involved chocolate and had some of that lingering sweet that made it feel like dessert. So, anyway, I'm trying a cake experiment; we'll see how it works out. Mostly, I wanted a base to spread some leftover chocolate pie filling on, and I decided brownies would be too rich. (Could I have just sent Gary with the chocolate "pudding"? Noooo, I had to try and get all fancy.) If I don't have enough or if it doesn't work out, I at least have some left over cream cheese frosting that's probably still good. Cream cheese frosting tastes good with everything, right? .... right....?

Not what I used to be

Just a heads up: this might be a whiny sort of post. Because I'm tired and sometimes I whine when I'm tired.

I had work today, friends. I also had work yesterday, and then decided that evening would be a great time to organize a bunch of baby things I got back in Oregon. After, of course, having gone drum-accessory shopping with my husband.

So, if having slightly worn myself out the day before wasn't enough, my body (or baby?) decided it would be a great idea to wake up sometime before seven. I say sometime because I'm near-sighted and it was slightly dark because of the rain this morning. My brain kept telling me it was maybe 7:30, until I laid in bed for a while and finally looked at my phone/alarm clock to read the disturbing news: 7 AM. Sad day. I started work at 9:30 and took a short break a little after 10:15. From 10:30 on though I was standing and working pretty hard.

Now, this isn't the first time I've worked this shift. I've worked it almost once a month for all of 2011 so far... but admittedly I've also been pregnant most of 2011. However, I keep getting pregnant-er and realizing work isn't as simple as it used to be. At the end of the shift, one of the other workers not involved in ice cream volunteered to come help, and I was going to grab this big metal splash-guard for her... but I was so tired I had to show her where it was instead. It probably was within my "safe" weight limit but my body was refusing. Oh I was soooo tired. Made me realize how lucky I was when earlier this week my supervisor trained me to be a cashier.

Have I told you about my sympathetic supervisor? Apparently his wife worked at the MTC while pregnant, also, and she was always given hard jobs which made him mad. So he always tries to give me easy jobs. (Hence training me as a cashier.) He told me he would always put me on as a cashier if I were working during his shifts.... buuuut unfortunately I don't work the two days I know he does. We'll see what happens tomorrow. (Uuuuugh tomorrow.... death....)

Anyway. I often laugh and feel kind of bad, using pregnancy as an "excuse" for some of my behaviors... and then I attempt to do what I did a few months ago (while still pregnant!) and realize I just can't do everything I used to be able to do. Well, either that or I'm just getting lazier. See? I'm doing it again. I remember early in my pregnancy when I was talking with my grandma about being nauseas all the time, she said something interesting, to the effect of: that's how our body tells us to cool it so the baby can be protected. Pregnant women can do a lot of things non-pregnant women can... they just need to be more careful.

However, thinking about tomorrow kind of made my head hurt. And using the word nausea... not only is it a horrible feeling, but it is so difficult to spell! Seriously, whose idea was that?

Oh, Baby

My stomach hurts tonight. I got pretty hungry while working tonight (which happens when the cafeteria you work at only serves during regular mealtimes... dinner shift is 4-7:30 or so). They fed us some of the leftover pizza after work, which was pretty dang splendid, but after the first few pieces I still felt like I was hungry. And I didn't exactly stuff my face, either, because most of the time I find that I fill up pretty quick with my baby taking up the room my tummy used to. However, I got more pizza anyway and a small dessert (because I earned it! sort of), but while I sort of had that hungry feeling after, it was mostly hurt. I passed the hungry stage and just went to the stuffed stage, I think. I'm mostly better now, three and a half hours later...

And, speaking about baby, she was dancing like crazy today. Especially this morning. And even during work... I wondered sometimes if the missionaries thought I was really weird for kind of holding my tummy, since in my ginormous work shirt, it isn't obvious that I'm pregnant.

Yesterday I had a prenatal appointment, and it was kind of funny... my doctor was running late, so I waited probably about 40 minutes, got weighed and had my blood pressure taken, waited another five minutes, and spoke with my doctor for another five or ten minutes, where he measured me and listed to the heart beat. I kind of knew it was going to be short, but that was ridiculous. Of course, he was running a bit late, so I think he rushed through just a little bit. (I sort of wished that they told me he was handling an emergency instead of just saying he was running late; wouldn't that make you feel more compassionate? It certainly did for me, and I wasn't really that impatient to begin with.)

Well, I think that's all for now. Random baby ramblings. You get what you get, I suppose.

Mr. Curiosity

It's a funny thing, wanting to be friends and not knowing how. Well, okay, so maybe that's just a problem of mine. Some people I connect with really well, but I think some of my best friends I connected with really fast really quickly. However, I love lots of people. Somehow I just manage to turn into that person that people like to say hi to (and excitedly!) but don't actually have anything to say to. It's mutual, I suppose; I'm super excited to see people but I guess I just don't know what to say after that.

I love love love my mission sisters. Maybe I'm just not in the same stage as them... lots of them are getting married, which makes me really happy (because I love being married!), so maybe we will have something to talk about, if we manage to still get together as old married ladies. Except I'm an old married pregnant lady now. And I love it! It's just more like being a return missionary around lots of people who haven't served a mission -- it's an interesting topic, for a time, but they can't really relate, and on top of all that, I start to sound like a broken record. At least I feel like I would. I love my little girl. I love feeling her move, I love the idea that we're going to be parents. I don't always love being pregnant, but I do like to talk about it. I don't know a  ton of currently pregnant women, and so I suddenly find myself wanting to communicate more with random friends on Facebook that I haven't talked to since high school, just because they are pregnant, too.

Enough whining, though... I just wish I were better at connecting. Practice makes perfect?

Thanksgiving!...

Today smelled like Thanksgiving in the Kiester household. It wasn't a full-blown deal, but I did the best I could considering we had a twelve-hour road trip on Thursday and I had work Saturday night and kind of threw things together.

See, around Thanksgiving last year we hadn't been invited anywhere yet and turkeys were such a good deal. So I bought one, thinking we could have a fun little dinner with the neighbors. Upon hearing that we weren't going anywhere, they invited us to their party, so Mr. Turkey has been in the freezer ever since.

Enter the vacation. I tried not to have too many leftovers before our vacation, because even though looking back I am positive we've eaten food more than six days old, I just wasn't sure what would last and what wouldn't. So I thought to myself, I'll let the turkey thaw during the week we're gone and cook it when we get back! That way we'll have plenty of food in the fridge! (It seemed like a really good idea at the time. Until I got back and was super tired, but it's not like I can just cook a turkey any old day of the week, seeing as how Gary usually works during traditional dinner hours.)

I was pretty nervous, because I've never cooked a turkey on my own. And we did end up having the neighbors over and of course dinner was ready maybe half an hour after they showed up... but the turkey was beautiful and the rolls were pretty good. The gravy didn't thicken properly but at least it was tasty, and the box-mix stuffing was pretty good (in my opinion, but I think I'm weird in my stuffing tastes). Mashed potatoes probably needed a little something extra; however, since we were rushed I didn't care and they were good enough for the moment. We'll see how those reheat. I also made a couple pies (I bought frozen pie dough tin things, so I figured I might as well fill them both), except we brought that down to the NBA finals game party. Pumpkin pie was good (in spite of its poor appearance) and the chocolate creme pie... well... Gary liked it, at least. Maybe I'd like it better with cool whip on top.

ANYWAY. It was really funny to have a mini Thanksgiving, and even though timing didn't work out the way I thought it would at the end, I did have the pies made in advance, I stared the roll dough last night and par-baked them this morning (is that the proper term for the equivalent of a brown-and-serve roll?) and put the turkey in before church and it was beautiful afterward, so I figure half of it went really well. I feel good about it. Apparently I feel terribly accomplished because I've written way too many paragraphs about it. The best part? My no-fuss turkey of deliciousness. I have never dealt with a turkey aside from eating it, so I looked at some recipes, looked at the suggestions on my oven bag box (I am a firm believer in oven bags, by the way. Amazing.), and just kind of went with it. I even ended up not putting stuffing in even though my mother insisted I should at least put some bread slices in if I didn't make stuffing, and I think it turned out great. Maybe it's because it was a relatively small bird.

Okay. I guess that's enough of that. We're pretty happy that the Mavs won tonight (Gary was bitter because the Heat beat out his beloved Bulls), but the game wasn't really that exciting. At least the people were fun. And we had a delicious dinner. ;-)

Oregon

I admit, sharing between families has been interesting. Fortunately our compromise is that during down time, Gary goes and chills with his parents. We'll switch and then I'll probably come back and chill/do stuff with my mom and sister. It seems like a decent compromise. Except that we have to separate, which isn't the most fun all the time. You know, cause I kind of am in love with my husband.

Really though it's been a fun few days. I've seen lots of family and church friends. Loooots of really cute baby clothes. :) Not a lot else, but at least I don't have to worry about that so much. And I got a couple of gift cards, which will be nice.

What's been a real treat is having my oldest brother here so much. He has these crazy finals that he'll have to do next week, but for the most part he's been spending time with us this weekend. The thing about John is that he is hilarious. He is a really funny man. :) Glad he could be here.

Now, if only my throat would feel better. This whole coughing thing is getting old.

So close!!

The weekend. Not that it really matters to me whether it's the weekend or not since I'm not in classes and I'm just as likely to work on Saturday as I am any other day of the week. HOWEVER, this weekend brings some excitement... we're going home! For the first time since we were married, we are actually going home. (But what about Christmas, you might ask? Hah! Just another reason we're glad Gary no longer works at Best Buy.) Gary is super excited because he really wants a vacation from work; I'm excited because I want to have fun. We might have a bit of a conflict of interest, but the beautiful thing is that our families live pretty close to each other, so if worse comes to worse and Gary just wants to chill, I can go pester someone to do something with me, even if it is just my sister to go window shopping. We don't exactly have a lot of money to go play with since we're also buying a car while we're out there. (Sort of. Father-in-law already bought it in our behalf, I suppose, so we're buying it from him.) 

I'm also excited because we get to see our families and some friends from church. And I'm going to have a little baby shower! Which is funny, since I'm not super far along (fortunately my tummy looks bigger by the end of the day and my shower is in the evening... heh). My mom thought it would be fun, since I did grow up in the same ward my whole life and some of the women at church who probably were at my baby blessing can now come to my baby shower. Now wouldn't that be weird? And I think it's bad when some of the kids I remember being born are going to their senior proms... 

The funny thing is I should be doing lots right now to get ready. For one thing, I really ought to finish cleaning a few things, because who really wants to come home to a messy house? Especially when the mess is dishes and possibly could end up with a little stink if left alone too long. (Gross, sorry, but it's true...) I at least started some laundry so we can pack, though silly me I thought about packing earlier this week. Did I start? Noooo. Maybe procrastination is why I hate packing so much. Or at least part of the reason. 

Oh, boy. I am excited to go home. I'm not excited about the drive back (we're flying down, which makes me a teeny bit nervous since I haven't flown much over the past few years, but I was a frequent flier back in the day). I can't complain, though, since things have worked out really beautifully. Even with the fact that we won't really have a lot of extra money after we pay for the car, we aren't going further in to debt, which is amazing. Yay for miracles!

All right... time to do something just a little more productive. Hopefully. :-)