More Happenings At Home

Days seem to fly by here at home in Idaho and consequently everything seems to happen all at once. One major ongoing event has been my weekly doctor's visits. Last week my doctor informed me that I was already nearly 3 cm dilated and the baby had already dropped. She also told me she's pretty sure I won't make it to my due date and if by some miracle I make it to 39 weeks, she'll definitely induce me. That was huge news to me since I was only 36 weeks at the time and I've been planning on Logan coming in late February. Today at 37 weeks I found out that I'm dilated 5 cm and I may have only a matter of hours or days before Logan gets here. I'm really excited to finally see and hold my baby, but I'm just hoping he can hold off until tomorrow when my mom comes in town, and also that he'll be okay coming a few weeks early. The doctor seems pretty confident so I'll try as well.
With my time before Logan's birth suddenly shortened, it's had me a racing around to make sure everything is ready for his arrival, including my first ever rag quilt/blanket that I made for him. I'm not sure why, but the fabric for this blanket just makes me ridiculously happy every time I see it. Maybe it's the marine pattern, maybe it's the shade of blue, I don't know, but I hope Logan likes it even half as much as I do.
Another feat Camille and I set out to accomplish before Logan's arrival was taking pictures of my large belly. Someone at work showed Camille's husband Jacob some cool pictures of pregnant ladies with neat paintings on their bellies so Camille decided to turn my belly into a canvas for the pregnant pictures. This past week Camille and I dedicated a day to the task and here are the results of our/her labors (She did most of the work, I pretty much just sat there while she curled my hair and painted my stomach). :)
If/when I ever decide to do this again, I think the next design might be a ticking time bomb or something like that. The soccer ball was a lot of fun though and quite a surprise for Eric when he got home from work.

Another big January event for us was Nathan's birthday on the 23rd. We actually celebrated it two days later on Sunday because we're a bunch of schmucks (not including Nathan), but it was nice because we got to involve the family in Mexico as well via webcam. We made him a german chocolate cake and tried to recreate a shrimp and vegetable dish he invented a little while back, but I don't think we got it quite right. I thought it tasted pretty good, which is saying a lot coming from me because I'm not a big seafood fan, but those who tried the original recipe said it was lacking something in comparison. Oh well, overall I thought it was a pretty good birthday celebration. :)

Finally an update...

So things have been great but busy for the past couple of months and consequently I've been terrible about updating our blog. We'll see if I ever get the hang of updating it regularly. Anyway, here's a brief synopsis of the past few months for us:

November:
Eric was busy with never ending school and I mainly with work. I continued to grow larger and this month I reached the milestone of buying my fourth bottle of Tums since I've been pregnant. Oh how I loathe heartburn. We drove to Washington to spend Thanksgiving with my family there, and miraculously the roads were wonderful the whole way, even through the Blue Mountains. We had a great holiday with my parents, brothers, and extended family, and with the long car drive we had lots of time to reflect on our many blessings and all the numerous things we have to be thankful for.

December:
This was a ridiculously busy month but amazingly relatively snow-free. No snow actually fell and stuck to the ground until the second week of the month, which has been unheard of as long as I've ever lived in Utah. Here's a picture from our front entry of our first real snow of the winter.
Eric stayed strong through finals and I worked hard to get my projects completed out at work before I left so hopefully the person to take my place wouldn't be completely confused by my mid-project organized chaos. I worked through mid-December and in the end it was pretty hard to say goodbye to all the awesome people I'd come to know out there. Two days after my last day of work, Eric and I said a temporary farewell to our first home together and we headed to Meridian, Idaho where we'll be living for the next semester. It took a good two weeks of nothing but packing and cleaning in our free time to get ready to leave on schedule, plus numerous trips to DI, but in the end it paid off and we actually got to leave a day early. We made it to our new home December 18th and spent a few days helping prepare everything for the arrival of family for the holidays. Things flowed pretty smoothly and we had a wonderful time talking, relaxing and playing games with family. They helped me celebrate my golden birthday on the 22nd and decorated a beautiful cake for me.
I think my favorite touch is the finger marks going up one side of the cake. Apparently Jack was real excited about the cake and when no one was looking, he climbed up on the counter and started to dig in. I think Camille and Mom (who had just finished the decorating) felt kind of bad, but I'll admit, I mainly just thought it was really funny. It still tasted great so, eh? :)

So one of my biggest Christmas surprises came in the form of a phone call from my brother Jacob who's currently serving a mission in Mesa, Arizona. I got to talk to him last year at Christmas because we were with my family in Washington, but I assumed I'd miss that chance this year and the next time I'd hear from him would be October when he gets home. Much to my surprise Eric walked up to me Christmas afternoon with the cell phone and Jacob was on the line. His mission president gave the missionaries permission to make 3 calls to family that day and lucky for me, I was one of the three. It was wonderful to hear how much he's grown and all the work he's accomplished thus far, especially since he's terrible about writing more than a sentence or two home each week so we generally have no clue what he's been up to. Along with the surprise of his phone call came his announcement that he'd sewn me a baby blanket. This blew me out of water since I'm pretty sure the only time Jacob has ever sewn anything before this was in Home Ec in middle school. Apparently he saw a sewing machine at a members house and asked if they would be willing to help him sew a baby blanket for us. They agreed to help him and he sewed two cute blankets using some deer and elk patterned fabric in remembrance of a hideous deer blanket we used to love and fight over when we were kids.
He's so amazing. :)

A couple of days after Christmas we decided to take advantage of all the snow and play a little snow football. We met up with Ben and Heather Jeppsen and a bunch of Adam's friends at a local elementary school to play and had a great time. I was pretty bummed to have to sit out the actual game this year, but Heather and I had a good time documenting the whole experience and trying not to freeze.
Christmas and New Year's with the Channers was great and it was hard to say goodbye, especially not knowing how long it'll be before we see them again.

January:
We spent the first week in Washington with my family relaxing and enjoying each other's company. Unfortunately we were only able to spend less than a week with them because we had to be back in time for Eric to start his internship with KPMG. Eric's now been working for KPMG for a little over 2 weeks and he's liked it thus far. He's done a lot of intern trainings, including a week long national intern training in San Fransisco, but now he's actually getting to start helping audit and I think he's pretty excited about that.
Things are going pretty well here at home. I'm now 36 weeks pregnant, on my 5th bottle of Tums, getting larger every day and anxious to see our baby boy. Camille, my sister-in-law, has been taking good care of me, helping me realize things like the fact I was experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions and I had no clue. It's also been really nice to have her and little Jack as company at home to keep me from missing Eric while he's at work. Sometimes Eric and I find ourselves missing our old home, but it's nice to know we left it in the hands of good friends and we'll eventually be moving back in. Till then we're just living it up here in Idaho in Eric's parent's beautiful home, enjoying the time we get to spend with family and the break away from school.

Here are some random pictures of the amazing sugar cookies Camille made for us the other night while we were playing games.
Jack couldn't sleep so Jacob brought him down and we gave him a sugar cookie which he truly enjoyed. We thought he looked like a mix between Ronald McDonald and the Joker off of Dark Knight. Kind of creepy, but cute.
Here are the few cookies that I actually decorated. I love decorating cakes and cookies, but it takes me way too long to think up designs and I end up going all perfectionist so it takes me that much longer. It was fun though, especially with the vibrant colored frosting that Camille made.

Halloween

So, this is my (Eric) first ever blog entry. Normally I let NaTasha do it, but she is making sugar cookies for us right now and I decided that I could muster up enough courage to write in the blog. We don't take a lot of pictures, but these past couple of weeks we have taken a few that you all might enjoy. First of all, both NaTasha and I decided that it was time for us to go to the dentist and get a check-up. Well, it turned out that both of us had cavities. I'm embarrassed to say that I had six, and she only had one. It worked out that we both got them filled on the same day, around the same time. So when we came home we were numb and we just laughed at each other, which was funny because neither of us could smile quite right, which made us laugh even harder. Here are some pictures. As a disclaimer, I had a hard time getting NaTasha to let me put this picture of her on the blog (she had a lot of Novocain :)

I'm also embarrassed to say that last year I kind of was a stick in the mud when it came to taking time to do fun things around the holidays. We didn't dye eggs for Easter, carve pumpkins for Halloween, or go and see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. For those of you who know me very well, you'll know that that is just not like me. But, in my defense, it was during a VERY intense part of my schooling. So, this year I decided that I would do a better job. Scott Miller told me that he was in the same boat, so we got together the weekend before Halloween to be festive and carve pumpkins, make caramel apples, cook pumpkin seeds, and watch Hocus Pocus (NaTasha's favorite Halloween movie). While carving the pumpkins my knife broke right in half! But, I managed to still carve a pretty decent pumkin, which NaTasha designed.


On Halloween our ward had a party, and we volunteered to bring chili. However, I wasn't planning on dressing up for this party. NaTasha, on the other hand, wanted us to dress up. She wanted to be a soccer player, because she really enjoys wearing her soccer stuff that we bought her when she had a soccer class. By the way, she is pretty good little player for having never played as a little girl. I just decided to use the stuff I had purchased for the two past Halloweens (I'm cheap, I know). I threw on an old leather jacket, spiked my hair, and spray painted my hair black. As a finishing touch, NaTasha wanted to paint my eyebrows black too, which I reluctantly let her do. When she was done I looked VERY different, and the black eyebrows looked really weird, so I wore sun glasses the whole night. In the end, I actually kind of liked it. At the ward party nobody even knew who I was, it took them all at least 30 minutes to find out who I was (partly because we teach in primary and don't get to know people very well:) By the end of the night I didn't want to wash my hair, I thought it was pretty cool. But all good things must come to an end. Overall, it was a pretty fun Halloween.


Finally, due to popular demand, here are some pictures of NaTasha about 25 weeks along. Isn't she adorable?

Drum roll please...

So this is way belated, but the ultrasound is in and we're having a wonderful baby boy! It was such an amazing experience finally getting to see him, even if the ultrasound photos make him slightly alien-ish. The technician said everything looked normal and healthy, which was very comforting and more important to hear than the baby's gender. He had most everyone (except for Eric) sure he was going to be a little girl, but every day I grow more and more excited thinking about our son. I just can't wait to see him in person but I'll try and appreciate the time I have left before he's born and I turn into a complete sleepless zombie. Luckily though we may not have to wait as long as we originally thought to meet him because the technician estimated that I'm actually a little further along and he could be due as soon as Feb 12. I'll find out at my 24 week appointment tomorrow whether or not the doctor will officially move up the due date (here's hoping though!)

Days of our Lives

These past couple of weeks have been pretty interesting for us. Eric started the master's program for accounting at the beginning of September so he's been pretty busy between classes, homework, interviewing for internships and working for a professor. I on the other hand was relatively bored and unproductive for about two to three weeks while I struggled looking for a job. I pretty much slept in every day, applied for jobs, waited anxiously by the phone to hear back from employers and read books until Eric came home at six for dinner. It was frustrating and I felt pretty lazy, but I have to admit I did enjoy getting a lot of reading done. Luckily the wife of one of Eric's mission buddies heard I was still looking for a job and helped me get an interview with her employer and tada, starting last Tuesday I'm finally a working woman again. I'm working as an administrative assistant for a company called Mentoring of America, and at the end of my first work week, I feel pretty good about it. I mainly schedule clients which hasn't been too hard, but I've been getting this happy, rewarding feeling helping them out that I didn't get with my last job so it's definitely an improvement.

Besides work and school, we've been enjoying the start of the fall intramural season. Eric's playing ultimate frisbee with "The League of Shadows" again this year, and soccer with a couple of buddies from previous teams. While I can't play many sports right now, I've had a really good time watching Eric's games. His ultimate frisbee team is playing in the upper division, and last night they played a really close game and barely beat their opponents. He then had a soccer game at noon today that went pretty well. I'm not sure if they completely shut out the other team or not, but overall they rocked them. Eric got a number of shots off, including the first goal of the game, about 30 seconds in. It was fun to watch, even though the other team played pretty physical, and somewhat dirty at times.

On another happy note, we felt the baby kick for the first time almost two weeks ago. It generally seems to happen when I'm laying down, but I actually felt it at work yesterday while I was typing. It's been really exciting, and kind of comforting to finally be able to feel our baby. I just worry that being half Eric, it's going to end up kicking a lot and hard by the end. :) We'll let you know in a week and a half when we find out if our little kicker is a girl or a boy!

Creative Dating

So, when it comes to dates, especially since we've been married, our creativity seems to have tragically died and we mostly just watch movies from the library, go out to eat or hangout at home. Adam on the other hand, could claim the title of Master of Creative Dating. He's like a modern artist or something, refusing to follow/succumb to the traditional, uncreative cultural template. Well, to say the least, mine and Eric's traditional dating template was crushed when Adam asked us to double with him and my cousin Holly. He does things pretty spontaneously, and he decided that for our date, both couples would go to the local DI and purchase 2-3 items that the other couple would be forced to take pictures of in random, creative situations as a spin on traditional picture scavenger hunts. We set a time limit to meet back at our apartment to compare pictures and have dessert. Eric and I were a little worried about how creative we could get, but I think we did a pretty good job. First off, we had a blast trying to pick out the items that Adam and Holly would have to use. We tried to be covert about it, and collected many items with potential. The runners up with got thrown out were a metal, one eyed duck, and a doll sized penguin figurine. We ended up picking three winners though, and I hope we didn't make it too hard on them with our randomness. The items they had to work with were a large Mighty Mouse doll, a crafty wooden cow with fake plants coming out of it's back, and lastly this huge blue blown glass lamp. We only have pictures of the last, but let me tell you, it was a steal for only $8, especially since it actually works, and has a night light setting too. ;)

Adam and Holly picked out two items for our use: a Conair appliance that no one really knew what it was, but our neighbor hypothesized was like a leaf blower for inside your house, and this slightly creepy medusa doll with wires in her hair for styling. It took some serious thinking on our part, and in the end we didn't get to realize all of our cool ideas, but here were our contenders.

Playing Zelda on N64, of course. ;)

Unfortunately, I don't have copies of the pictures and videos that Adam and Holly took, but let me assure you, while these pictures may look relatively creative, Holly and Adam pushed the creative envelope and theirs were amazing as well. :)

Stoker Camping Extravaganza/WASHINGTON!

So, the sad truth of it is that our entire summer vacation summed up to two measly weeks. It's kind of our fault since Eric is going to school year round, but I'll blame BYU instead since that's the length of the break they give between summer and fall semesters. ;) We decided to try and make the most of it, so we planned a two week long expedition to Washington to visit my family, who we hadn't seen since Christmas. The drive there has never been described as short or scenic, and my love for Oregon took a blow because of their ridiculously low speed limits, but the company was good and we survived. It was so nice to finally be able to relax as I was done with my job back in Utah and Eric no longer had school or finals looming over him. My family was wonderful, and knowing how much we'd been wanting to go camping, they planned a three day trip to La Wis Wis campground in the Cascade Mountains. I was so excited for Eric to actually experience real camping in an old growth forest, where everything is green and beautiful. I joke with him that if Boise is the city of trees (and I love Boise), then he's never experienced real camping in Idaho. It was nice and cool there, and not real packed since it was the beginning of the week. We got there late Monday afternoon, set up camp, ate dinner and played some games.
Besides both our air mattress and my parent's mattress deflating, nothing too crazy happened. The next day we hiked around and rode bikes, and since it was slightly warm (at least for camping standards), we decided to go swimming and cliff jumping at Blue Hole.

Blue Hole is a portion of the river that gets wider and really deep, and is fed by glacier runoff, so it's ridiculously cold. It looked a bit different this year since heavy snow fall had caused flooding and deposited a lot of small rocks and silt, but luckily we found that the area for cliff jumping was still deep enough. So my family's been camping at this campground for about 12 or so years, and every year I've been, I've tried to talk myself into jumping off the cliff. I've done the lower one, which is maybe 10 feet to the water, but I've never got up the guts to try the higher one. In normal years, we've measured the drop to the water to be about 30 feet, but this year the water was a little lower so it was about 35 feet. I'd sworn to myself that I would actually jump the next time we came, but "unfortunately" I think that cliff jumping is frowned upon for pregnant women so I had to pass again. Eric on the other hand had no excuse, so the pressure was on and he performed marvelously. It took him a bit to talk himself into it, but he did and he was the first in my family to try. Crazy as he is, he actually jumped three times. He passed the pressure on to my 13 yr old brother Garrett, who took a lot more coaxing, but eventually took the plunge as well. I was super surprised when my mom decided that she would be the next to jump. While she screamed like a banshee on her way down, she did it. She's still recovering three weeks later from a bruised tail bone from landing wrong, but she did it. :) I was a pansy and just kind of waded around, but it was fun none the less. So cute story: while I just waded around, I spotted this pretty purple flower growing out of the base of the cliff on the far side of the bank, I jokingly told Eric that if he really loved me, he'd get me that flower. To "prove his love", he swam over, scrambled up the base of the cliff, pulled the flower out of some spiderwebs, and then realized that he didn't know how he'd get back across if he was holding the flower in one hand. Here's a video of him doggy paddling with one arm back across the water to bring me my flower. It was pretty hilarious to watch, but he sure showed me.




It's a good thing we went swimming that afternoon, because in true western Washington fashion, it started raining that night just before bed time and it just wouldn't let up. We actually had to pull the sleeping bags over our heads to stop the water that was dripping through the rain fly from landing on our faces all night. That was probably the second worst night camping I've ever experienced. Everything got wet. A pool actually started forming at the entry to our tent, so twice during the night I grabbed dirty clothes and tried to absorb most of it so it wouldn't reach the air mattress and the sleeping bags. We got so little sleep, and the next morning we found out that all three of the tents had flooded during the night. Everything and everyone was wet, and it was STILL raining, so we ate a quick breakfast and decided to pack everything up and head home a day early. Most of the rest of the break in Washington was nice and went well. We went swimming, helped can some peaches, played volleyball, hung out with extended family, attended court of honors, etc. The least enjoyable experience happened our last Sunday in Washington. My dad is the second counselor in the bishopric of my home ward, and last December when we visited, he and the rest of the bishopric thought it was pretty funny to call me up in the middle of sacrament meeting and ask me to bear my testimony. Everybody but me got their laughs in, and I told my dad if he did that again, we wouldn't come visit anymore (somewhat jokingly). Well, our last Sunday on this summer trip, my dad called me up completely out of the blue in the last 10 minutes or so of Sacrament meeting to make me bear my testimony again. I went from being completely calm and at ease to nervous beyond all reasoning in a matter of seconds. I was so shocked and nervous, I swear I gave the worst testimony EVER. I literally couldn't think at all. Afterwards numerous members of the ward came up and talked to me about it, each offering ways to punish my dad, mainly that I wouldn't ever let him see his grandchild. My favorite though came from an elderly gentleman who used to be my Sunday School teacher. Right after sacrament meeting was over he patted me on the back and then whispered that I had permission to go kick my dad in the shins. He's great. :) Anyway, my dad felt kind of bad afterwards because he thought I was REALLY mad at him (which I wasn't), but I convinced him to take us out to get some good Mexican food later that week as payment for my mental anguish. The rest of the break went well, and though it was really hard to say goodbye to my family, it was a little easier knowing we'll see them come Thanksgiving.