The Adventures of T&L Smith

Lets do this

2011-09-13T22:03:00.000-06:00

Alright, signed up for WeightWatchers tonight. I'm gonna be doing this with my sister-in-law and a friend of hers. I've also had a gym membership for about a month now. It's time to get back in shape, not only from the pregnancy, but from my lax-ness over the past fourish years. So yeah, I'll work on it.

Just have to stay motivated.

Home

2011-09-11T23:16:00.000-06:00

It's kind of crazy that I've been gone for six years now, but Phoenix is still 'home'. I'm not sure if it will always be like that for me. Kind of makes sense because I've lived kind of nomadically since I left home, never staying in one apartment for very long. Raleigh, I think, I could definitely call home someday... if we stayed. But more than likely we won't be, which is sad, because I'm really liking the city, love our ward, and love being close to family. Although, we do have the potential to stay in Raleigh for 3ish more years; Tucker just needs to decide if he wants to get his PhD. I'd be fine if he decided that. I'll be fine if he decides he's done with school, as well.

Anyways.

I'm home in Phoenix till Wednesday. Been here since this past Tuesday. I haven't really done much, just mostly hung out at home with my parents and Nettie. That was kind of the main point in coming anyways, so that they could see her again while she's still smallish. Jenna was able to come home for the weekend, which was awesome. It's crazy how much we like each other now, considering all the fighting and disliking we did when we were younger. I was sad to see her leave tonight; had to concentrate really hard on not crying in the airport (but she failed, both when she got here and when she left). We must figure out a way to live close to each other someday.

We had a nice day yesterday filled with family. Got to see my oldest brother and his family (and his kids are so big now it's crazy!), and my Uncle Ron and Aunt Pam. The day was super fun, and apparently exhausting because I fell asleep at like 7:30.

The home ward was great (as usual), though there are so many people that I don't recognize in it now. It's kind of strange being a "grown-up" in the ward. I remember being a kid, watching all the teenagers leave for college, then get married and start coming back to visit with their kids. Now I'm doing that..... weird.

Nettie has been pretty good on this trip. Not gonna lie, I was like super stressed to fly with her. She's normally not a big fan of sitting (while being held) for long periods of time, and that's basically all I can do on the flights. But we survived. The first flight people were super helpful. I was in the last group to board the plane and had a diaper bag and backpack with me plus Nettie, so when I got to my row to sit down, I looked at my seat and then at my bags and must have looked frazzled or something cause a bunch of people sitting near me asked to help me out. I'm so glad there are decent and nice people in the world. Couldn't have made this trip without strangers offering assistance along the way. Also glad that the older lady I sat next to on the flight didn't care when spit up rolled off of me and onto her. And glad that she and the guy sitting on my other side didn't complain when Nettie pooped with an hour left in the flight (this poop ended up as a blow-out too.... yeah....). Second flight Nettie just slept the whole time, so it went much more smoothly, all in all, than I pictured it going. Now we just have to make it home to Raleigh, and I'm sure I'll stress over that trip until it's over.

And tonight I was able to get together with a few of my high school friends (as well as some of their new friends). It's awesome that no matter how long I'm gone for I can just come back and basically pick up where I left off with them. Pretty sure I'll be able to call them my friends for my whole life, which is great, cause they're all awesome people. I wish that I could come home more often to visit, but I'm glad that I can always see them on the few times that I do come home.

But yes. My trip has been good thus far. I've been really bad at taking pictures so far, but I always am. I'll just steal pictures from my mom and Jenna eventually.

General Updates (because I can't think of a more clever title)

2011-08-09T08:53:00.000-06:00

I realized I haven't actually done a post for about a month now, so I figured I'd take advantage of Nettie's vaccine induced exhaustion and write a quick little update for those of you that read this.

I'll start with Nettie since she's the cutest and most interesting of our little Smith clan. She's 9 weeks old now, which is kind of insane when I stop to think about it. At the risk of sounding cliche, it feels like we've already had her. But what a little blessing she is! She's started "talking" to me sometimes when I talk to her, and she's also smiling on a more consistent basis; though, if she doesn't feel like it, she won't, no matter how long I make ridiculous faces at her. She also can hold her head up pretty good... well, pretty good in comparison to not at all. There's still a fair amount of bobble-headedness going on, but she likes to be held up right so she can look around at stuff.

The stats from her appointment yesterday are:
Height: 22"
Weight: Right under 12lbs
Head Circumference: Hmm... I don't actually remember. We think her head looks huge, but apparently it's right in the same percentile as her height and weight.

And speaking of percentiles, she's basically between the 50th and 75th percentile on everything. A fairly average baby I guess. She got three shots and one oral vaccine at the appointment. Needless to say, she did not like getting jabbed in her thighs, and I don't blame her. The cute little tears were streaming down her face even before I had a chance to pick her up. And when Tucker and I took off the bandaids at home later, the painful scream and tears started again, which made me cry (something that I've never done in relation to her). I just felt so bad that I couldn't make her feel better. But for the most part, she slept all day yesterday and is now asleep (with a small fever) again this morning. Poor baby :( I just kept telling her it was for her own good; hopefully she understands.

I've been cleared to start exercising, which I am itching to start doing. Why haven't I started already? Last week was crazy busy, and so far this week, I've felt too bad leaving Nettie alone cause she's feeling pretty crummy from her shots. Hopefully tomorrow she'll be doing well enough that I can head down to the gym and sign up, cause let's face it, I look pretty gross. Haven't exactly been the most disciplined person when it comes to eating or exercising since we got married, and it definitely shows. I want to try to get back to what I weighed in high school... or at least my first year of college.

Also, I started taking birth control pills about a month ago (because that's when I was told to start taking them back while we were still in the hospital), and since that first week, my milk production has gone down. So far down that we have had to feed Nettie a bottle of formula a couple times a day because I simply don't have anything to give her. While I'm not opposed to formula, it's kind of frustrating that I'm not able to satisfy my baby's hunger. I asked her pediatrician about it yesterday, and she said that my pills probably have the wrong mix of hormones in them for a nursing mother. More than likely I'm going to stop taking them and opt for a more... uh... direct form of birth control and see if that helps with milk production.

Tucker has pretty much finished up his lit review (which is basically 30ish pages of him summarizing stuff that other people have written about similar stuff that he did his research on) and should be starting his thesis soon. He also needs to get his resume updated so he can start sending it out to companies. Kind of crazy to think that we're less than five months (potentially) away from having a real job. Dr. Drake keeps telling Tucker that he should take a job with Glambia, a company in Twin Falls, Idaho........................................................................................ yeah. Not exactly thrilled with the location, but apparently she thinks they would be a great company to work for and thinks that Tucker would fit into the lab there really well. Also, the guy that runs the lab is a Bishop, and I'm sure many of the other workers there are Mormon as well, so maybe she just thinks that we need to be surrounded by Mormons, haha, I don't know. We're not ruling it out as a possibility, but we'd really like to stay on the east coast (could always go work for Campbell's soup in Camden(?), New Jersey: worst city in America 2008!)

I can't think of anything else off the top of my head that I'd need to include in this. It's probably already way longer than most of you will want to read. My bad. Oh! At the beginning of next month I'm going to be flying out to Phoenix for a week long visit which I'm pretty excited about. Flying with Nettie will be a bit interesting I'm sure, but we'll survive. Lots of people do it.

And to Lindsey: One way or another I'll be in Phoenix for Christmas this year. You can count on it.

2 Monday Pictures

2011-08-09T08:24:00.000-06:00

August 1, 2011

Nettie got to borrow this new awesome swing from Aunt Katie. It's pretty much our favorite thing now.

August 8, 2011

The aftermath of the two-month check up. Shots are hard :(

Monday Picture

2011-07-26T14:43:00.000-06:00

Ok, so this week's picture isn't technically from yesterday (even though I did take some last night), it's from this morning. I couldn't help but pick this picture, though. She's so dang cute in it!

July 25, 2011

Monday Picture(s)

2011-07-19T06:57:00.000-06:00

I didn't post a picture last week, but I did take one. I just never really think about getting onto my blog to do that kind of thing. But I did think about it this morning, so voila!

July 11, 2011

Tucker was at a conference the first half of this week so Mommy decided she would sleep in the bed (I've slept on the couch in the front room with Nettie since she was born), and so when I fed Nettie and got up, she stayed asleep and it was super cute.

July 18, 2011

First trip to Walmart = Success! Also, first ride in our jogging stroller. She did pretty good. I think she's a bit on the small side for it still (it's not recommended for use until they're 6 months old... yeeeeaah.), but it was fun to push her around and have everybody smile at her. And not gonna lie, like 6 people either talked to me and Tucker or made a comment in passing to me about her as we were walking through the store. Even the general public thinks Nettie is adorable! Who can blame them though?

:)

2011-07-07T12:42:00.002-06:00

She smiled for reals this morning. Adorable. No pictures yet. Working on it though.

Happy 1 month birthday!

2011-07-06T14:39:00.000-06:00

Nettie's a month old today. Crazy. That went way too fast. Or maybe it just seems that way because my days and nights sort of blended together for awhile.

Anyways, went to the doctor this afternoon (and left right before it started to downpour, thank goodness) and she's doing really well. Gained a full pound since her last appointment (which was 2 weeks ago) and now weighs in at 9lbs 12oz. Little chunker. Although... she still doesn't look all that chubby. Getting there, just not there yet. She's also now 21inches long (a gain of 3/4"). Percentile-wise she's right about 50% with everything. Average baby, yay!

She hasn't quite started smiling yet. I think she's really close though. Every now and then she'll get this cute look on her face that's like right on the verge of a smile. I'm sure when she does smile it'll be adorable though.

Also, Katie let me borrow her Moby wrap this past weekend cause I couldn't figure out my sling. Holy crap, love this thing! Used it for the first time a couple days ago and as soon as I had it tied on Nettie was zonked out. Even as we speak, she's strapped to my chest (sleeping). Awesome! I have hands to do things with again.... well.... at least when I'm holding her, that is.

Nettie's Blessing

2011-07-05T09:44:00.000-06:00

In church this past Sunday we did Nettie's baby blessing. It was a super special experience (made better by the fact that she decided to sleep through sacrament meeting) and all the guys in Tucker's family excluding Sam were in the circle, and my parents made the trip back out here so that my dad would be able to participate as well. Katie (my sister-in-law extraordinaire) was much more clever than me and wrote down the blessing as Tucker was giving it. I would never have thought to do that, but I'm really glad that she did because this will be something sweet to show Nettie later on in life.

I didn't think to get a group picture of everyone while we were at the church building (mostly because I think everyone was hungry and wanted to get out of there to eat lunch), but we did get some group shots later at Shad and Katie's house, so hopefully Barbi will upload those soon so that I can post them. I did take some pictures of Nettie in her dress though. She's swimming in it, but it's really cool cause it was the dress that I was blessed in. Yeah, that's right; retro.... or vintage. One or the other.

"Nettie's Blessing"

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Miracles

2011-07-04T19:35:00.000-06:00

I'm not quite sure where to start this post. The subject matter for it is fairly emotional not only for me, but for the whole Smith clan. I guess I'll start by saying that this weekend we blessed Nettie. All but one of her Smith (and Williams) uncles were here, and both of her Grandpa's were here as well. It was a truly sweet experience, highlighted by the fact that her Uncle Scott was still here to participate in the event.

Thursday evening, Tucker and I were getting ready to head up to Shad and Katie's house to play some D&D. Right after 6pm (I think), Tucker got a call from his mom. I didn't really think about it, or pay much attention to what he was saying on the phone because she calls fairly regularly, and I assumed she was just asking about something for the upcoming weekend when the whole family would be here in Raleigh. When Tucker got off the phone, he said that Scott had been in an accident (a motorcycle accident) and they couldn't get ahold of Stephanie to let her know. The hospital chaplain had called Lois instead, hoping that she would be able to reach Stephanie. All they had told her was that they thought that Scott was ok. Not the most reassuring statement, as ok could mean a lot of things.

The next few minutes, Tucker tried to get ahold of Stephanie, calling her cell and her work, but couldn't get through. But shortly after all this trying, he got a call from her instead, asking him to come to the hospital with her. So of course he said yes. I called Katie to let her know that if we made it to the game that night, it would be late (seeing as we didn't know how Scott was doing). Tucker left with Stephanie and promised that he would call soon to let me know what was going on.

About an hour later, Tucker called and told me that Scott was relatively ok. We found out that his accident had happened while Scott was driving home from a job interview on the 440... that's right, he crashed his motorcycle while driving on the freeway. So immediately, I thought that he must have been hurt pretty bad, but his list of injuries was a concussion, a broken collarbone, and some road rash on his hands and knees. Extremely good considering the circumstances. Tucker stayed at the hospital with Steph until about midnight.

The next day Tucker went to school a little late, explaining to one of his labmates that he had been at the hospital late with his brother. When he got to school, he explained his injuries to them and then told them where the accident had happened. More than one of them had driven by (and got caught behind the traffic) of Scott's accident, and they even expressed to Tucker that they were amazed that Scott was even alive from how bad it had looked.

From what we can piece together, Scott somehow lost control of the bike (whether he was hit, or blew a tire, or just lost control isn't really known) and was thrown into the median (just a concrete barrier separating the two sides of the freeway). His bike hit the median as well, but bounced back out into traffic, where it hit one car, and was then caught under another car. The bike (supposedly) exploded, and the car that it was trapped under, burned and melted with it.

While this accident was certainly bad and will leave Scott a gimp for a little while, he was extremely lucky. If Scott had bounced back out into traffic like the bike, he would have been killed. And really, it's amazing that he wasn't killed or more seriously injured just by being thrown from a bike going 70 mph. Even more amazing is that Scott was discharged from the hospital the evening after the accident.

Lois joked today that she was happy Scott decided to time his accident with this weekend since they were going to be up here anyways for the blessing. I think that we all realize just how close we came to loosing Scott, and even though this was a happy weekend, there was a definite feel of gratitude underlying everything. The family simply would not have been the same without Scott, and I know that Nettie was glad that he was able to be in the circle to help bless her on Sunday.

All in all, a very memorable Fourth of July weekend for the Smiths.

Monday Picture

2011-07-04T19:12:00.000-06:00

So I realize that I missed doing last week's picture, but Nettie has been sleeping weirdly for about a week now, and so I nap a lot during the day. Anything that doesn't involve taking care of Nettie or sleeping sort of goes right out the door and I forget. She's started to sleep a little bit better again, so hopefully this lasts.

Today has been four weeks since Nettie was born. Crazy! And she's still alive! Wahoo!

I would have taken her picture today in her cute little red outfit for the Fourth, but she spit up all over it. So here's a slightly less glamorous picture (or two).

This last picture is the one that was taken today before my parents flew home. They were out here this weekend while we did Nettie's blessing. I'm really grateful that they were able to be here for such a special day.

Update

2011-07-01T13:50:00.000-06:00

So I promise I'm still alive (and so is Nettie), I just haven't been able to think of anything interesting to blog about lately. Also, the time that I have when I'm not feeding/holding/taking care of Nettie is spent either sleeping or just doing something mindless and lazy (I've watched a ton of Psych in the past couple weeks).

Nettie's blessing is this Sunday and hopefully it will all be ok. My parents are coming in for the weekend, and Tucker's family will all be here as well (except for Sam). There was a fairly significant piece of drama that happened last night that I'm sure will alter the "plans" that we had for this weekend with the family, but that's ok. We're just glad that everyone is ok. (I'll probably post more on this later, but I'm not sure how private the people involved want it to be).

For now though, enjoy this cute video of Nettie... although, all videos of her are cute.

Random Video

2011-06-20T19:51:00.000-06:00

So this video isn't of anything exciting, but I think it's cute. It's just of one of the few times that Nettie is awake and not crying or eating during the day. I also have a couple of her hiccuping, but I haven't uploaded them yet. Maybe I'll get around to it.

Monday Picture

2011-06-20T19:47:00.000-06:00

June 20, 2011

Here's this Monday's picture. I think from now on I'll try to get her in basically the same pose. And just for memory's sake: Nettie was not very happy most of today. Slept for about 6 hours (longest stretch yet), and pooped like a billion times.... literally. And since Tucker does pretty much all the diaper changes when he's home, he was not very happy. But I laughed. :)

A Few Frustrations

2011-06-16T08:10:00.000-06:00

I definitely love being a mom, but the past couple days have been really hard. I came down with some dang head cold thing that Tucker got while we were in the hospital, and so all that I've wanted to do is sleep. Nettie was cooperating with this desire for about a day, but the past two days or so, she won't sleep anywhere but in my arms or laying on my chest. This makes sleeping fairly uncomfortable for me because I have to prop myself up and then can't move the entire night either, leading to some annoying back and neck pain the following morning.

On top of all this, Nettie seems to have regressed a little bit with the whole nursing thing. She'll start rooting around to eat, and then when said nipple (yes, I said nipple) is in her wide open mouth she'll do this bounce off my boob thing with her face and will open and close her mouth, but won't latch on and will then scream because she's not getting anything to eat.

In the middle of the night when I try to feed her in my sickness and sleep-deprived zombie state, I/we end up soaking just about everything that both of us are wearing, and that's really annoying too, cause then we're both cold and I have to change us, and it makes more laundry, which is hard to do because we don't have a washer and dryer in our apartment, but have to go to the laundry facilities at our complex or lug it all to one of my sister-in-laws homes to use their machines, which I then feel bad about just because.

Hopefully this will only last a couple days and Nettie will go back to being the perfect baby that she was. And I really, really, really hope she doesn't catch what I have right now......... that would not be fun at all.

A Picture Every Monday

2011-06-14T17:50:00.000-06:00

I can't remember exactly who was telling me about this cute idea, but I liked it a lot and figured I could attempt to do it. The deal is that you take a picture on the same day every week of your child for a year or however long to show their growth, etc. Since Nettie was born on a Monday, that's the day that I'll use.

June 6, 2011

June 13, 2011

The picture from yesterday was taken during a photo shoot that my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law were kind enough to give to Tucker and I as a present. This is the only one that I've seen so far, but I love it! Soooo cute!

Little Miss Nettie Smith

2011-06-14T04:32:00.000-06:00

So I got a surprising 9 hours of sleep last night (total, not in a row) and Nettie is asleep once again. Figured I'd at least try to start this post. Kind of hard to believe that we've had Nettie for almost a week now. She's fit so perfectly into our lives, and to risk sounding cliche, it's like she's was always here. Anyways... on with the story.

Our induction was scheduled for Sunday (June 5th) at 830pm. On the instruction sheet that they gave me at my final doctor's appointment, it told us to call the hospital an hour before the set time to make sure that there was a bed available for me. Neither Tucker or I thought this would be a problem because the two times that we'd been up at the hospital before (once for our tour, the second to be monitored for a little while) it had been fairly slow in the Labor and Delivery area. We called anyways, and the girl I talked to asked if they could call us back because she needed to find out about availability from someone who was on break when we called. That was fine with me.

We finished collecting our stuff and headed down to the car at 8 even though we still hadn't been called back. I decided to call again as I walked to the dumpster to throw away some trash and while Tucker pulled the car around. I spoke with the person that had been on break and (go figure) they didn't have any room for me. Talk about a major disappointment. She said that we would probably have to go in the next morning instead, but asked how late we were willing to go in that night, just in case something opened up. I told her that it didn't really matter since we had been planning on being up the whole night anyways.

So, we went and got some hamburgers from Burger King (we had already started driving by the time I finished talking with the woman), which we probably wouldn't have normally done, but I hadn't eaten since noon-ish per my instructions, the nurse told me to go ahead and eat since they didn't know when I was going to be called in, and we didn't have any food in our apartment (sort of, nothing to make a meal out of at least). Back at home, we decided to watch a little tv before I went to bed, but between 930 and 10 the nurse called and asked if we could come in at 1130 that night instead. Um, duh.

When we got to the hospital, we had to check in at the emergency room because patient registration (where we would have gone during the daytime) was closed for construction. Checked in, and made our way up to L&D. When we got to the desk there, a nurse took us back to our room and started to ask all the normal questions. By the time I had gotten changed and stuff signed it was close to midnight, and they needed to check my 'progress' to see if they would start me on pitocin or a balloon thingy (honestly can't remember the name of it) that they would put in my cervix to help me get started dilating. I was only about 1cm, which wasn't much of an improvement from when they had checked me on Tuesday. So in went the balloon. They said that I should start feeling a little crampy (which I did), and so they would give me a pill to help me sleep. I agreed to take the pill, thinking it would take like half an hour tops to get the dang thing, but didn't end up getting it until after 230ish am.

The next morning my new nurse woke me up at 6 to take a shower and to check to see if the balloon would come out easily (meaning that I had dilated to at least 3cm). The balloon definitely came out, and I was between a 3 and a 4, completed effaced. They got all my IVs started right around 645am and so now all we had to do was wait.

Around 1130am, they came to check me again and decided to break my water. In doing this, we found out that little Nettie had already pooped for the first time because there was some staining to the fluid. The only difference this really made was that they would have to check her briefly before allowing me to hold her right after she was born. No big deal. Up until this point though, I hadn't been uncomfortable or feeling any sort of pain, like, at all. I remember thinking how easy being in labor was. Little did I know that as soon as my water was broken, things would change. I started to actually feel the contractions, and to me it seemed like they were coming like 3 minutes apart (I never actually timed them out though). My parents and Jenna had arrived at the hospital by this point too, and whenever I started to have a contraction, my dad would let me squeeze his hand. I went like this for about 15 minutes before I decided to call the nurse back in to tell her to start getting me ready to have an epidural.

So they started me on another bag of fluids that I had to drain before they would even call the doctor down. They finally called him down around 1pm and by 105pm they had the IV in my back and the medicine going. Ah, sweet relief! I felt great again. I dozed off and on for awhile (pretty sure that my family left to go do something else when they came to do the epidural), and they didn't really feel the need to check my progress for a few hours. Around 440pm, though, the nurse came in and told me that she was going to turn the pitocin off because Nettie's heartbeat was starting to look a little bit questionable. Nothing to worry about, but it was starting to look like it could become irregular. They also gave me an oxygen mask to wear to see if that helped at all.

While the nurse was in the room turning off the one IV, I mentioned to her that I would sometimes feel pressure like I had to go to the bathroom. So she called a doctor in to check me (and like 5 people came along, apparently they had all been at a delivery next door and decided to come; a couple of them were 'student' doctors though, so they were just observing). They checked me, and lo and behold, I was completely dilated! They had me try pushing a couple times (which I don't know if I was doing right cause all I could really feel was that pressure), and then they decided to let me sit for about another half hour before doing more pushing so that I didn't have to push for like an hour and so that Nettie could descend a little more on her own.

I didn't really care that I would have to wait a little bit longer, but it was exciting that stuff was actually going to start happening soon. My Dad left the room and we waited for about 15 minutes before I decided that the pressure (which was starting to strengthen and was really hard to ignore) was great enough that I had to call the nurse back in. I definitely felt the need to push now. So she sat down on the bed with me around 520pm, I'm sure thinking that we would probably be pushing for awhile because she didn't bother to call the doctor yet.

We started pushing. It took me a couple of contractions to figure out exactly what to do because of the epidural, but about fifteen minutes later, the nurse got up to call the doctor. We kept pushing, and I could definitely feel something coming out of me. In just a few more pushes, Nettie's head was about half way out of me and my nurse told me not to push anymore. I remember thinking that she was ridiculously stupid. How the heck was I supposed to hold off on pushing when the baby was basically coming out of me on my own? I kept telling her, "I need to push, I can't stop, I need to push," but she kind of ignored me. I really couldn't stop myself from pushing though; it was physically impossible.

The doctor arrived just in time to wash her hands real quick and watch as Nettie came out into the nurse's hands (way to go, Doc) at 538pm. Tucker cut the cord (I think), they checked her out, and then I was holding her. My perfect, sweet, little baby. She was here, and I couldn't have cared less that they were starting to stitch me up (I had a 3rd degree perennial tear because Nettie came so quickly).

In total, I pushed for about 20 minutes. Apparently that's quick. I'm just pro at pushing I guess, haha! Both Jenna and my mom were able to be in the room with us as well when Nettie was born, which I think is kind special.

Now as far as naming her goes.... During the time that my family had been gone that afternoon, Tucker and I looked at the list of names that we liked and narrowed it down to three. My favorite: Eleanor Janet. Tucker's favorite: Emmeline Lynette. And then a completely out of the blue name that we hadn't really discussed before: Lynette Meryl. Tucker suggested it, saying that he thought it would make a pretty first name as well as a pretty middle name. I actually kind of like it. We both agree that if that name was used, we would not be calling her Lynn for short. And we decided to pair Meryl with it (my little sister's middle name) because unfortunately, Lynette Janet didn't quite flow well enough for us. At this point, we didn't decide for sure on a name because we both still wanted to see her first. But I think that my mind was sort of already set on Lynette, and as soon as she came out, I was certain that that was her name.

Little Nettie weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. When she popped out of me, she inhaled quicker than the nurse could suction out her mouth and nose (remember the meconium staining in my water), but she was screaming so well right after they checked her that they weren't concerned about that at all.

We got the chance to try breastfeeding while they were stitching me up, and Nettie latched on perfectly (and has ever since). About an hour or so (I think, not really sure) after Nettie was born, my family all got to come back to the room to see her. Lois and Stephanie had arrived as well and were able to see her. When they came in, I asked if Tucker had told them her name yet (because he had been the one to go out and get them). He hadn't. So I told them, and immediately started to cry when I said her middle name and looked at Jenna (I'm kind of a softy). I'm pretty sure that we caught Lois off guard with our name choice though (Lynette is her middle name), and the next morning when she came to visit I remember her asking if we like Meryl Lynette better, haha! Lynette is definitely her name though.

The rest of the hospital stay was pretty easy though. I was never really in any pain or discomfort from my stitches (still aren't actually), and so I never had to take anything stronger than Ibuprofen. Poor Tucker though, due to lack of sleep the first couple nights that we were in the hospital, started to feel really crappy and got a sinus infection sort of thing. Because of this, and the fact that Nettie did not like sleeping in the little tub they had in our room for her, I got a total of about 6 hours of sleep for the 3 nights/days that we were there. Though, that hasn't really bothered me much either.

Also, holy crap, I am a milk making machine! I know this is gross/tmi, but the second that I take my bra off to nurse or take a shower, I'm seriously dripping all over everything. Kind of annoying. But I shouldn't complain really, because Nettie has already passed her birth weight, and according to the lactation consult I talked to this morning, she's done it a week faster than most solely breastfed babies. Go us!

Mostly she's just the best baby in the world. She's adorable, and she sleeps really really good. Lately (meaning the past two days) she's gone for 4-5 hour stretches before waking up, which is very nice for me and Tucker because we both seem to have gotten a head cold. We also got some newborn pictures taken of Nettie (courtesy of my mother-in-law and two awesome sisters-in-law), so hopefully those will get edited soon so that I can show them off to everyone :).

But yeah. Be jealous of my uber cute baby :D

The Final Countdown

2011-05-31T10:05:00.000-06:00

Well, my due date has come and gone (the 29th), which sucks, but I was prepared for that possibility. My parents and little sister were all here in town this weekend and it was really, really good to spend some time with them since it's been about a year since I've seen them. They left Monday morning to drive up to see my older brother Jeff and his wife Rachel for a couple days in Rochester, and then sometime during the week they'll head down to New Jersey to see my older brother Mike and his wife and daughter (who is about 6 months older than Baby). They'll be back down here in Raleigh though at the end of this weekend to spend just about a week with Tucker and I and little Baby, who will for sure be making her appearance by Sunday night or early Monday morning.

That's right, the induction is scheduled. Sunday June 5th I'm set to go in at 830pm to be induced if I haven't gone in to labor before then. I had a doctor's appointment this morning to get "checked", and not gonna lie, it was majorly uncomfortable and even just a tad painful. We found out that I'm basically not dilated at all, but I am 75% effaced (which I'm still not completely sure what that means even after my sis-in-law Katie explained it to me) so that's apparently good.

Now while I'm ok with waiting till Sunday for things to get rolling, I'd much rather have something happen earlier than that, so Thursday night when Tucker and I head up to Durham to play D&D Katie (my sister-in-law) is going to have a delicious (ha!) caster oil milkshake waiting for me. Yum yum.... haha! While I'm sure this will be gross, I'm totally fine with trying it just to see if it jump starts labor for me, cause that'd be nice. Yeah. And if nothing happens after drinking it, then oh well. It doesn't hurt to try!

So anyways, that's about it I guess. We're pretty much just killing time now and twiddling our fingers. Hopefully the song "The Final Countdown" doesn't stay stuck in my head all week, cause it's been playing in my head all morning so far.

Playing the waiting game

2011-05-20T10:16:00.000-06:00

Pretty dang bored at the moment.

No baby yet. Nothing really going on either.

Our sister-in-law Stephanie got to town last weekend and has been staying with us while she looks for an apartment. Not gonna lie, I'm glad it's her and not us that has to look for an apartment; super stressful. She did find one that she really likes that's only about 5ish minutes away from us (and in our ward, woot!) that we're hopeful about. If they aren't approved for it, I think we'll all be really surprised seeing as Tucker's parents are co-signing with them.

It's strange to think that we're down into single digit days for the arrival of little Baby. Even stranger sometimes to think that the little alien moving around inside of me is actually going to have a face soon... and not be in me anymore. I think I'll be glad to "have my body back" to myself again. I'm sick of sleeping on my sides, and not being able to get up off the couch, and not being able to bend over.

Next week Jenna gets here on Wednesday which should be super fun since I haven't seen her in like a year. My parents won't get here until Saturday. And hopefully Baby will decide to make her entrance at a convenient time for everyone (and not late either).

So that's it for now. When stuff starts to happen, I'm hoping that we'll be able to keep everyone posted through facebook and what not.

A lovely Saturday

2011-05-07T13:54:00.000-06:00

Yesterday while I was waiting for our laundry to finish up in the dryers I drove around our neighborhood a little bit to figure out exactly where the parks were near us (so that I can go there in a couple months with Baby and take walks). I decided that instead of doing basically nothing today (Saturday), I would bribe Tucker to go on a walk with me at a trail near our apartment by first going on a picnic. Now, for most people, a picnic is probably not really much of a bribe, but to Tucker, picnic = KFC. I guess that's the only time that he ever really had it as a kid--and as an adult, as well, I suppose.

Back before we were married, we tried to have a KFC picnic once at Rock Canyon Park (I think that's what it's called... the park behind the Provo Temple), but it was totally crashed by bees, and I'm pretty sure I made Tucker pack everything up and we ate at his apartment. Bee free's the way to be!

Anywho, the weather was perfect, the area was beautiful, and there weren't any bees! Most excellent picnic. I even remembered to take some pictures while we were there.

The delicious spread.

The colossal 'jug' of lemonade.

Aw, so cute!

Yeah.........

And I thought the lemonade container was colossal, haha!

Our picnic spot. See?! Totally beautiful.

Apparently I was wrong

2011-05-07T13:35:00.000-06:00

If you'll think back a few posts, I related my story of the tornado that went through Raleigh. I mentioned that while Tucker and I were hiding out in our hallway I took a few pictures but deleted them because they were gross looking. Remember? Yeah, found out that that's not entirely true just a few minutes ago while I was uploading some other pictures. They are definitely gross looking (at least the portion of the pictures that is me are), but what the heck, I'll post them anyway.

Notice the grossness.... please disregard.

The little radio that was our lifeline to the outside world.

There ya have it. Just thought I'd share.

What's in a name?

2011-05-06T12:29:00.000-06:00

Picking the name that a person is going to be called the rest of their life is just kind of a daunting task. I can understand how some people pick their child's name before they're born because they like a name (or whatever), and I've got a list of names that I like, but every time I think I'm getting closer to pinning down one that I like "the best" I completely change my mind.

What if I get sick of the name a few years down the road? It's happened before with me. There were names that I absolutely loved in high school and was positive that I would someday use for my children, but I can't stand them now. Also, what if the name we chose isn't easy to scold with, or call from across the house, or some such thing? Seriously stressful.

I'm posting about this because my little name poll has closed, and the obvious winner was 'Charlotte'. But I can already tell you we don't know if this will be her name. We're not even sure anymore if we're going to use the names that were on our original "short list". So there.

We just can't bring ourselves to name little Baby before we meet her. After all, she has to look like a Charlotte, or an Emmeline, or whatever, if we're going to name her that and we have yet to see her. Maybe we'll just use the nickname my parents have given her--Roscoe.

Very frustrating.

Bored again

2011-05-02T10:02:00.000-06:00

I don't know about the rest of you bloggers out there, but I kind of really enjoy playing with how my blog looks (even though I don't post all that often) and seem to be changing it constantly. My apologies. It entertains me when I have nothing else to do.

Also, I'm noticing lately that I'm short of breath, like, all the time. I've also found that I hold my breath, thus making my shortness of breath problem even more annoying. Huzzah for having a person inside of you squishing your lungs!

Holy Moley it's May

2011-05-01T20:58:00.000-06:00

It's kind of hard to believe that after all the waiting and daydreaming, May has finally arrived. I know this probably sounds fairly stupid, but I still don't think it's fully hit me exactly how drastically my life will be changing in a few short weeks. It's still hard to believe that there's actually a baby inside of me right now even though she moves all the time to make her presence known. What if I'm not ready for this?

Ha. Funny that after 9 months of feeling confident that I could totally handle whatever was coming my way with this I'm finally starting to have worries and doubts. It's only natural though, I suppose. Still... I'm nervous.

People have asked me throughout the whole pregnancy if I was worried about labor and such, and honestly, I really wasn't. I've known for quite some time that I was going to be getting an epidural. I have no false ideas about me being a pansy when it comes to pain. Certainly if it came down to it, I would have little Baby naturally if I needed to, but I really don't want to. :) But now that I could potentially go into labor any day, I'm feeling anxious about the pain that I'm going to experience before I get the blessed relief of an epidural. Not only that, but I'm really, really worried about the pain/uncomfortableness that will come after baby is born.

I know I'll survive it all though, and it's going to be one of the best experiences of my life. And I'm super grateful that I'll have more than one sister-in-law close by to help me out or give me advice if I need it.

I guess what it comes down to is: we're ready for you Baby.

Bring it on!

Baby Registry

2011-04-16T19:16:00.000-06:00

For those of you that care, here's a link to our baby registry: Baby Girl Smith or if that doesn't work, the registry number is 46776611 on the Babies R Us website.

I'll be posting a note of facebook too. Only 6 more weeks till she's here !!! :D

Crazy Ridiculous Storm

2011-04-16T19:07:00.001-06:00

Yeah, the title pretty much sums it up.

The storm only last about 20 minutes total, or at least that's how long it took to move through Raleigh. But I tell you what, it was insane.

We were out and about starting at about noon. First stop was Babies R Us to do our registry (again), and this wasn't too bad. Tucker seemed to really enjoy looking at all the baby girl clothes, which is both funny and cute. He even said that doing the registry made him more excited (this would be one of the very few times that he has vocalized this). After the registry, we headed across Capital Blvd. to a used book store just to look around. I don't know what it is about used book stores, but we love them. After hanging around there for a little while, we decided we would go get some lunch, and conveniently, there was a Golden Corral right next door. Happy day!

It was when we left that we noticed how windy it was. We knew that there was supposed to be a storm today, so I turned on the radio when we got into the car and one of the local news stations had 'taken over' the music station. When we started listening to it, they were listing counties that were currently under a tornado watch. This didn't mean much to either of us, because unless we're looking at a map, we don't know where anything is in relation to Raleigh. Anyways, we got home and got on the internet to try and look at what was going on (we lost our free cable this week sadly). This was when the power started to flicker on and off. Not a good sign. Not super concerning, but not a good sign.

It was kind of annoying though, because we were now cut off from any updated information about the storm. I made a comment about how it would be nice to have a normal radio right now so that we could at least hear updates. This was when Tucker remembered the 72-hour emergency kit that his parents had given us for Christmas one year. He was pretty sure that it had a hand-crank powered radio in it. So I dug around for a little while in the closet and found the kit, and sure enough, there was a radio in it. Woohoo!

Tucker cranked it up and we started listening to the storm updates. The weather guys were saying that there was now a tornado warning for Wake county (our county). Everything that they were saying was about a tornado that was on the ground and moving north-east; towards us. This is when I started to get a little nervous. They kept talking about how people near downtown Raleigh needed to get to a safe place immediately because they were in the track of the tornado. We live only a few miles from downtown. Yeah. So we decided that we would head over to the Target near out house because it would be safer than our second story apartment. I put a few things together in my backpack (72 hour kit, phone charger, 2 water bottles, our important documents folder (thanks for that idea Mom), and a couple jackets).

By the time we had this stuff together and had both gone to the bathroom, the rain was coming down in buckets and the wind was ridiculously strong. We decided it wouldn't be any safer for us to head out now than it would be to just hunker down at home, so we moved to our little hallway and closed all the doors leading into it. I'm sure it would have been quite funny to see, but at the time, with the news casters being all negative and stuff, it was kind of scary. I took a couple pictures of us sitting there in the dark, but they turned out horrible, so they've been deleted.

Anyways, they started to report damage throughout downtown and moving our direction. They started to mention streets that were only about a mile away from us, but from everything they were saying, we decided that the real danger was off to our east, if only just barely. A few minutes passed and the radio reported that the tornado was now up in the area that we had been in for our outing earlier (yikes), so we came out of our hiding place. The rain was still coming down, but the wind had died down a little bit.

In the end, our power was off for about 3 hours, and when we could get back onto the internet, we looked up the news website to look at pictures of what had happened. Yeah, it was pretty bad. If you care to look, the website is wral.com. There was some pretty serious damage. ~~Not sure if anyone was hurt or killed, I couldn't find anything that talked about that~~ EDIT :: Just checked the website this morning. There are 10 confirmed deaths, but as many as 24 could be dead. Very grateful that this missed us., but regardless, it was a crazy-ridiculous storm.

Time seems to have slowed a bit

2011-04-12T19:42:00.000-06:00

I don't know what it is, but the last couple weeks have definitely seemed longer to me. Ok, that's not entirely true, I do have some idea of why this is, but it sucks. I'm way more uncomfortable than I ever was before; sleeping is kind of a struggle when it comes to finding a nice position. And yes, I'm well aware of the fact that it will get worse.

My urge to "nest" seems to have kicked in a bit. I've really been wanting to get things organized and put together for when Baby gets here, and today I was all motivated and got most of her room put together. We still don't have everything that we need yet, but we've got tons of clothes (courtesy of a lady from my mother-in-laws ward and from my sister-in-law Barbi, haven't bought a single piece) and most of the essentials. Here's a couple pictures of the room in case you didn't notice them on facebook.

Not gonna lie, I'm getting really antsy. I keep telling Tucker that we need to get everything done soon just in case she comes early and he chuckles at me. Sure the odds of her coming early aren't super high, but it does happen; maybe I'll get lucky :) Y'all should keep your fingers crossed for me.

Not much to report

2011-04-07T10:45:00.000-06:00

Doctor's appointment this week was kind of just a weigh in. Nothing they needed to test, just wanted to measure and make sure I didn't have any questions. Although, on my way out, they asked me if I could speak with someone from UNC really fast, which was fine with me.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it in previous posts, but the clinic that I go to is run by the county health department and I'm fairly positive that the only people that go there are people who are on medicaid like me. So kind of a lot of mexicans and african americans; I'm usually the only white person in the waiting room whenever I have an appointment. This clinic is also a teaching clinic, connected with the med/PA schools here in Raleigh (basically UNC and Duke (I think)), and the hospital that we will be delivering at is a teaching hospital, so I've seen quite a few students in my appointments, which doesn't bother me in the slightest; gotta learn somewhere.

Anyways, back to my appointment. I went to talk with the lady from UNC and she just wanted to know if I was willing to take part in a study they were doing on depression connected to hormones (or something like that) for women shortly before birth and shortly after. This is totally fine with me, mostly because I'll be getting $200 out of it, but also because I don't have to travel anywhere for this study (they'll come to our apartment), and all they want from me is blood and pee--two things I have plenty of right now. The only slight inconvenience going along with this is that I'll have to collect pee samples (sorry if that's gross for me to be talking about) for a 24 hour period. They gave me this totally awesome (yeah, right) kit for collecting samples which has to be kept chilled; for this they told me I could keep it either in the fridge (which is really gross) or in a tub of ice I can keep in the bathtub (definitely going this way). But yeah, $200 is totally worth this. Also, sorry again if this was gross or TMI.

Let's see, what else...

I attempted to set up a registry at Babies R Us this week as well. And I say attempted because they seem to have screwed something up on their end after I scanned everything, so, lucky me, I get to go back to the store to do it all over again. Awesome.

Tucker and I also made it to our first childbirth class on Tuesday night, and it was a lot better than I thought it would be, surprisingly. As with any class that I've ever taken, people insisted on asking stupid questions or the same question someone else asked five minutes earlier in a different way, but it was still interesting to hear everything. While we will go to all the classes (unless our car breaks down again), we're mostly looking forward to the class where they'll take us to the hospital and give us a tour of everything so we'll know where to go when the time comes.

D&D again tonight. Woohoo! Super excited.

Birthdays and Car Trouble

2011-04-02T08:31:00.000-06:00

Things I consider accomplishments right now:
- I pee less than 3 times during the night.
- I eat a meal without ending up with something dribbled on my stomach.
- I don't fall asleep until 9pm.
- I can bend over to pick something up.
- I actually do my hair and/or makeup (though this one has always been something I struggled with).

That's all that I can think of right now. I'm sure as these last 8 weeks tick down I'll come up with more to add to the list, but for now (seeing as I just woke up) it's good enough.

This past week was our birthdays (mine was the 25th and Tucker's was the 30th). They were alright I guess... or well, mine was pretty good. We had some pizza and wings for dinner, and both my parents and Jenna got "presents" for me. My parents got me one of those edible arrangements, which was absolutely delicious. And Jenna decided that I needed more food and ordered me some fancy cupcakes from a little shop near campus. And here, I'll even post pictures (look at me feeling slightly motivated).

Tucker's birthday was...... not quite normal. The day before his birthday was packed full. We both had to be at campus at 8am; me for work, Tucker to get ready for his committee meeting later that day. Tucker mentioned that he was starting to feel a little sick when we got to school. There wasn't much of anything that we could do for him then though, because I had to work until noon and he would be busy until 5. On top of working for both of us that day, we had our first 'childbirth' class that night from 6-8. So super packed full day.

When I got off at noon, I went and did a little bit of shopping for the lab because the next day (Tucker's birthday) they would be having paninis for lab lunch. It was about 1:30 when I was finally heading home. When I turned on the car, the heat gauge thingy automatically went all the way up to the top like the car was over heating. It kind of confused me, so I turned of the car and let it sit for a second, then turned it back on and it was normal. So I drove home. I didn't want to tell Tucker about this yet because I knew it would stress him out and he wouldn't be able to focus on his committee meeting (which is a fairly big deal). So I stayed home for a few hours, then on my way to pick him up, the temperature gauge shot up to the top again. Luckily I was only about a minute from the school, so I turned the heater on full blast, rolled down the windows and drove the rest of the way to school.

I guess I should mention that about a month ago, we had the same problem with the car 'over heating' and had it in to be looked at. They told us that the problem was a cracked cap on the radiator (or at least I think that's what it was) and it only cost us $20 to fix. When Tucker came out and got in the car, I finally told him what the car was doing (and he was really appreciative that I hadn't told him before because he would have been worrying all through his meeting; I know him so well), so we decided rather than have the car towed like we did last time this happened, we would just drive it to the shop we had gone to before because it wasn't that far away from campus. We dropped the car off, and then were trying to get ahold of the rental car agency so that we would have a way to get home and then back down to the shop to get the car the next day when it was fixed, but no one was answering. So on a whim, we decided to try riding the bus home. Tucker used to ride the bus all the time when we lived at our old place, but he hadn't yet tried it at our new apartment. Yay for adventures! However, he called one of his friends while we were on the first bus back up to campus and asked him for a ride home. Needless to say, we didn't make it to our first childbirth class.

Tucker's birthday dawned and he was feeling more sick than the previous day, and it was rainy outside, and he was going to have to ride the bus to school if he wanted to go, so he decided to just take the day off and stay home (yay!). I made him breakfast in bed and we kind of just took the rest of the day easy. Around mid-day the car place called and told us the news. Basically they were needing to replace some stuff to do with the cooling system and also a couple things dealing with the oil were leaking and needed to be replaced (obviously I don't remember exactly what the stuff was, I don't pay much attention to car stuff). It was going to be a grand total of about $550 to fix everything. Um... ouch. But we told them to go ahead and fix everything, they said the car would be ready by the end of the day.

Now normally, it wouldn't be a super big deal to get to this place in a short amount of time... but we didn't have access to a car and Tucker didn't want to impose on his friend again for a ride. So we decided that when the time came for us to pick up the car, we would just take a taxi (wahoo! never ridden in a taxi before). This was more stressful than I initially thought it would be because they didn't call us to tell us the car was done till about 50 mins before the place was supposed to close. We called the cab place to ask for a taxi and were told that it would be about 15 minutes till they could get someone to us. This was still ok; plenty of time to get to the shop. Wrong.

The cab didn't get to our apartment until 20 minutes before the shop was supposed to close. It was going to take us about 20 minutes to get there. And that's if the traffic stays good (we have to take the freeway). Luckily, we arrived a few minutes before they closed. I got the special job of paying the taxi guy, which we didn't think was going to be a big deal cause their website said that they took credit cards. When I asked the guy if this was true, he shook his head no. Awesome. Normally we would have been screwed, but I just happened to have about $40 in cash on me, which, really, is amazing that I did, cause neither of us ever carry cash. I was that day, however, because I had been planning on going to get our registration renewed that week and needed cash to do that. So, we were able to pay the taxi guy.

We paid for the car stuff and then decided to go to a chinese buffet place for Tucker's birthday dinner. Normally this would be ok with me, but I was starting to get a headache, and for some reason I was feeling kind of nauseous, but I didn't want to ruin one good thing that Tucker would have on his birthday, so I didn't say anything and we went. I ended up eating a cup of soup, 2 mini-sugar-covered biscuits, and a couple slices of fruit. But Tucker enjoyed it, and that was all that mattered that day. I feel really bad that his day wasn't all that great, but we get to play D&D this week and I also got him a D&D book for his birthday, so hopefully this will make up for the crappy day at least a little bit.

So long as we don't have any more problems with our car overheating, I think we'll be happy. It's just kind of annoying.

Have a doctor's appointment this coming Monday (32 weeks along!!!) so I'll try and get an update posted here sometime next week.

28 Week Update

2011-03-09T19:12:00.000-07:00

So I had a doctor's appointment on Monday and everything's still looking good. Had a blood sugar test and (go me) I don't have pregnancy diabetes or whatever it's called. Yesterday I had a second ultrasound appointment so that they could get a closer look at Baby's heart. They had told me from the beginning they would want to do this just to make sure that everything was looking ok because my older brother Jeff had a heart defect when he was born that had to be operated on, but it doesn't look like anything that we'll have to worry about (at least with this baby).

But yeah, short post today because I'm ridiculously tired, just wanted to get an update out there and let you all know that I haven't forgotten about my blog.

Productiveness

2011-02-16T12:59:00.003-07:00

Well, I've had a couple of productive days this week (productive for me, at least). I finished our taxes, made a card and necklace for my mother-in-law for her birthday, and kept things in our apartment fairly neat. There's been other minor stuff thrown in there as well, but those are the major things that have happened. Tomorrow should be a full day too, as Lois (my mother-in-law) will be coming to town tomorrow and she's bringing us some baby stuff from a lady in her ward (yay for getting hand-me-downs of sorts).

Last night Tucker started throwing up... a lot. Poor guy barely ever gets sick, and the time that he does it's the stomach flu. There's not much I can really do to take care of him, but I got up with him pretty much every hour last night when he was throwing up. And thinking about it this morning, I decided that the schedule we kept last night will probably be similar to what it will be like once Baby comes, at least for me. I'm surprisingly not tired today, but that might still change. Hopefully I won't catch what Tucker's got.

My parents also told us this week that they'll buy a carseat for us. This is really awesome of them cause now I don't really think we'll have any large purchases to make. Originally we were just going to use the carseat that our nephew Finn has been using (cause he'll be upgrading soon), but as I thought about it more, I realized we would just have to buy a carseat sometime towards the end of this year anyways since we'll probably be moving away from NC and I'm pretty sure Katie would want her carseat back for their next kid, whenever they have their next. So I was just going to buy one, but now I don't have to. Yay! We still might need to buy a crib, but that's still up in the air kind of. Anyways, this is the carseat that me and my mom picked out:
I'm a big fan of "gender neutral" things, at least when it comes to carseats/strollers/etc so that we can reuse stuff for future little Smiths.

But yeah, I think that's it for this post. Can't really think of anything else to add right now. Maybe I'll post some pics of what Lois brings us tomorrow later this week.

Finally...

2011-02-09T07:28:00.002-07:00

We finally got a letter from Medicaid yesterday telling us that we are approved for pregnancy coverage!! Best news I've had in a really long time. It's definitely lifted a major weight and so now I can move on to worrying about much more minor things. But yeah, after one rejection, one fairly major breakdown on my part, reapplying, and a lot of nervous waiting, we found out everything will be taken care of and Baby will be (pretty much) paid for... at least until she gets here that is.

24 Weeks

2011-02-07T14:08:00.005-07:00

Had a doctor's appointment today, and everything's looking good. Only new development is my back hurting fairly constantly. Showers and baths seem to be helping with that though, so I'm dealing with it I guess.

This is me at 24 weeks. I've decided I have a huge butt.

This is Annabelle, who is the baby doll that I had when I was a baby. Found her the other day, and now she's going to be Baby's baby doll. I'm kind of excited about this.

Oh yeah....

2011-01-30T18:14:00.002-07:00

Before I forget about this...

The other night when Tucker and I were going to Shad and Katie's (Tucker's bro and his wife) house for D&D, Tucker said, "You can't be almost six months pregnant right now. The baby is due at the end of May and that's four months away, not three."

Apparently Tucker didn't know that a pregnancy is actually 40 weeks long. I thought that was just common knowledge. Am I wrong?

17 Weeks and Counting

2011-01-30T17:53:00.002-07:00

So I've decided that the baby moving recently mostly feels like a muscle twitch. I'm sure that will change as she gets bigger, but for now, the bumps and nudges aren't super strong. Although... the other night when we were going to bed, Baby was moving up a storm, so I pressed Tucker's hand on my stomach to see if he could feel anything, and he felt her move!! It was pretty cool.

I'm right about 23 and a half weeks now. Still not looking nearly as pregnant as I would like. Seems like all the pictures I see of friends or friends of friends (cause I'm a major facebook stalker) have the moms with cute bellies like weeks ahead of me. Guess I just have nice deep hips that the baby likes to sit back in. Tucker thinks I'm crazy that I want to be bigger than I am right now, because it probably means I won't be ridiculously huge towards the end. I just want it to be obvious that I'm pregnant and not just super chubby or something.

Next doctor's appointment is on Feb. 7th, so next week. Not really sure what's going to happen at that one, but I'm just glad I didn't have to wait for like a billion weeks again in between check-ups. Probably in the beginning of March I'll have to have a Level 2 ultrasound. Not entirely sure what that means, but I was told that because my brother was born with a "hole" in his heart, they wanted to check the baby's heart to make sure everything was ok. Also, they told me my placenta was low, but that wasn't really anything to be worried about because the placenta moves around (?), but they wanted to check on that again to be safe I guess.

People keep asking if we have a name picked out for the baby yet, and the answer is both yes and no. We've had names that we've liked since before we got married (yeah, we jumped the gun a little, but whatevs). Before I had the names all paired up with middle names too, but I'm changing my mind on that because I have a certain middle name I want to use pretty much regardless of which first name we pick (Janet, after my mom). But yeah, we've decided that we aren't going to pick a name for the baby until she's actually here and we've met her. And because I'm sure at least someone will want to know what the contenders are, here ya go: Charlotte, Emmeline, and Abigail. Those are our favorites. If we pick Emmeline (Emme) or Abigail, her middle name will be Janet, but if we pick Charlotte (might go by Lotte, haven't decided yet), I'm pretty sure her middle name will be DeRue (after my mom's mom). My mother-in-law loves that combo, by the way, and she's told me that she already calls the baby Charlotte, hahaha! So she's definitely rooting for that name I guess.

Ok, so this next part might be a bit TMI, but I've definitely accepted that I'm pregnant now. Obviously because I can feel the baby moving, but also because I have the urge to pee, like, all the freaking time, including when I don't actually have to go. It's kind of annoying, and yet, funny at the same time, because anytime I leave the house, I make sure I go, and then no matter how long I'm gone, by the time I get home and get into our apartment I feel like I'm going to explode, haha! Yeah... I'm sure most of you didn't really want or care to know that, but hey, my blog, I get to share what I want.

It's a..........

2011-01-10T14:48:00.002-07:00

GIRL!!!!!! Ten points for me, I was right! Super excited, due date is May 29th so I guessed right on that as well. There's a picture from the ultrasound up on facebook that I don't really feel like posting here right now cause it's uncomfortable using the laptop in the car and I want to get off soon. But yes, a girl. :)

And to be honest Lindsey, your comment on my last post made me worry it was going to be a boy and I was going to be disappointed, haha, I'm dumb. Oh well.

Yay for Stealing Wifi

2011-01-05T15:03:00.002-07:00

This post is being written from my car in a parking lot at NC State while I wait for Tucker to get done with work. I'm only writing it here cause we don't have internet right now at our new apartment, which sucks majorly by the way.

Just thought I'd let you all know that I'm still planning on blogging, but I've been fairly busy/pre-occupied with stuff for the past month or so. It happens. We are all moved into our new apartment though and really loving it. It's a million times better than our old apartment (mostly because we don't have little bugs crawling all over everything), and once I get internet working in our apartment I'll put up some pictures of it.

Also, I've got a doctors appointment on Monday. This one should be more exciting than just getting blood drawn. I'm really really really really hoping that we can get an ultrasound while we're there, not only because I want them to measure the baby to find out if my guess of a due date is accurate, but I'll also be "20 weeks" (again, could be wrong about that, I'm just guessing) and that means we can find out what we're having!!!!!!!! Yeah, we're finding out. Can't remember if I put that decision up here or not. Cross your fingers for me that it's a girl, cause that's what I want; a boy would be super too, but I really want a girl.

Anyways, that's it for now.

Because Lindsey asked for it

2010-11-29T10:12:00.003-07:00

Happy Lindsey? :P (that's me sticking my tongue out at you, in case you didn't get it)

Anywho, an update... let's see. First doctor's appointment wasn't even really a doctor's appointment. I went to a clinic thing and they drew blood (and sucked at it too, got a huge bruise from the experience), told me when my next appointment was, gave me a prescription, and that was it. I was in and out in less than ten minutes. Sort of really a let down for all the worrying I did. Don't worry though, my next appointment (which is on January 10th) is supposed to be between 3 and 5 hours long. Yikes.

Thow up count so far: 2 times, both in the evening.
I haven't gained any weight at all even though my boobs look bigger to me and I sort of have the beginning of a baby bump (or at least I think so). I'm rarely nauseous anymore, but I still have a problem with finding anything to eat that actually sounds appealing. Recently though, I've started having problems with my left hip like... catching or something. Like the joint will hurt really bad for a few minutes if I try to move. This usually happens if I've been lying or standing in a weird position (most often in the shower for some reason). I'm assuming this is happening because my bones are shifting, but I don't like it; it hurts.

At the moment, Tucker and I are looking for a new apartment to move into later this month, so tomorrow will probably be filled with tours for me, which will more than likely mean that I will either A) need a nap, B) need to go to bed early, or C) both. Yay sleeping!

Also, 1 week left till WoW Cataclysm comes out!!!! Yeah, I'm a major nerd. I thought about posting a screenshot of my character in-game to emphasize the nerdness, but the first sentence of this paragraph probably captures it well enough on it's own. Although, if someone does want me to post a picture, I'll totally do it.

There ya have it! Hopefully my next post will be of me describing our new place or something. Love you all!

First Doctors Appointment is today

2010-11-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

Yep, first appointment. Is it dumb that I'm kind of scared for this? For some reason the past few days I've had this irrational fear nagging at me that I'll get to the appointment and they'll tell me that I'm not actually pregnant. Yeah. That would suck majorly. Tucker's coming with me though, so that makes me feel a bit better. If I don't do another post today about the appointment I'll try and get one done tomorrow for sure.

Telling my parents

2010-11-03T08:12:00.002-06:00

So, when we found out the whole going to have a baby thing, I was kind of really sad that I wasn't going to be able to see my parents reaction to the news because there's just no way we could afford to fly out to Phoenix for this. Sure we could tell Tucker's parents in person (and we did while on a hike at some really cool waterfalls), but I'm sort of selfish and wanted to tell my parents in a special way too. Well, after telling my sister and having her help me come up with some cute ideas, I settled on sending a package to them with a small gift to let them know. But I still wanted to see their reaction, so I enlisted the help of a friend from our home ward, and rather than sending the package directly to my parents house, I sent it to the friend's (Doris) who was going to take it over to my grandma's house the following sunday while my parents were with her eating dinner. Doris even agreed to take a video of the whole thing, and I finally got it uploaded to youtube, so here it is!

Clicky-clicky

Personally my favorite part is my grandma's reaction ("Oh, crap."), but it makes me cry every time I watch this because my mommy cries :). Anywho, enjoy!

The Hiatus is Over

2010-10-27T08:47:00.003-06:00

Or at least it's over for now. I feel really bad that I suck at this whole blog thing, but it's just the way that I am; I'm excited about something for a couple weeks, lose interest for awhile, but then always return to it. So here I am. Pretty sure that my last post was about 9 months ago, which is kind of funny... in a way... you'll understand soon, I'm sure, if you don't already.

Anyways, the main reason I decided to get my blog going again was because I will actually have stuff to post about. Up until now, my life has been the same. Every day. Nothing changes, and it's fairly boring. Trust me. Not that I'm dissatisfied with my life, quite the opposite. I'm a fan of easy-going boringness. It's the way I am. This brings us back to the reason for me posting here.

I think most of you probably don't check my blog anymore, and I don't blame you, I don't check it anymore either. But for those of you that have stumbled across this post, CONGRATULATIONS, you get to hear our exciting news before most of the rest of the world!

Come next summer (towards the end of May or early June), I'm going to be a mommy!!!!

Yes, we're excited (super excited actually). No, we technically weren't 'planning' this pregnancy, but we weren't surprised by it either (I've been off birth control since January and we haven't really been trying to not get pregnant).

Now, before you head off to facebook to post something on my wall... DON'T! Please.

It's not that I don't want people to really know yet, but I don't. Does that make sense? I haven't been to a doctor yet (won't until November either, which is weird to me, but that's when they said I could come see them), and while I'm not concerned that I'll lose the baby or anything, I'd just assume wait till we have our first ultrasound to officially tell the facebook world. So why post anything here then? Simple. I'm horrible at keeping secrets (generally... usually only when they deal with me). I had to tell someone/thing. And since I'm fairly confident that not too many people will see this, I'm ok with spilling the beans. So, if you do read this and feel the urge to reply, by all means do, just not on my facebook wall. :P

That all being said, this whole pregnancy thing has been mildly 'uncomfortable' thus far. That's not even really a good way to describe it. I just feel kind of blah most of the time. Nothing, and I mean nothing, sounds good to eat, but I'm very rarely actually nauseous (only thrown up once so far). I'm exhausted all the time. Before I would say that I was tired most days when I got to the afternoon, took the occasional nap, you know, like a normal person. But now, I'm ridiculously tired by the time 10 or 11 roll around, and if I don't take some sort of nap during the day, I struggle to stay awake past 8ish. This is the most annoying thing for me so far. I hate feeling tired. Oh, also, my boobs hurt like crazy! That's second most annoying, because it hurts to hug Tucker, which makes me laugh and cringe all at the same time. I mean, it's funny, let's face it.

But yeah, there you have it. For those of you that are reading this, consider yourself special; you know something only a select few know right now. I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself too. But I mean, since I'm bad at keeping secrets, I can't really be mad if one of you guys is too, just don't tell anyone that we both know that might be offended if they don't find out directly from me. Yeah.

Well, it's good to be back (we'll see how well I keep up with this) and I love you all!

North Cak-a-Lacky

2010-01-21T12:16:00.002-07:00

Or for those of you that didn't understand that, North Carolina. Yep, that's right we're finally out here and all moved in. I would have posted something sooner, but there was some drama with our internet, and we just barely got it working this morning. So.

Tucker has started school at NC State, and seems to be enjoying it. He hasn't really complained about anything yet... though, he doesn't complain much anyways. But he does taste a lot of cheese, or whey, or powdered milk. Basically lots of dairy stuff. Yum?

I got out here about a week ago after a super long drive with my parents (we had to go up to Provo, then come back down from Provo, and THEN drive out to NC) who were super nice in being willing to help us move. If it wasn't for them, we would have had to start from scratch for the most part out here. It was hard to see them go, especially when my dad cried as well when they left; it was a given that my mom and I would cry, but not for him. Then my in-laws came up with a bunch of stuff for us, so our apartment is filling in quite nicely. And not only did Tucker's family give us some furniture, but they brought us tons of groceries. Super, super nice of them. I consider myself lucky with how nice/good Tucker's family is.

But yeah, we really like our apartment. We consider it a step up because it's bigger than our last, but there are some weird problems (like the fact that most everything is slanted downhill) with this one that we are still figuring out.

Now all I need to do is find a job, so wish me luck!

Finally done with Finals

2009-12-17T15:39:00.003-07:00

That's right. School's done for the semester. Let the packing/cleaning/throwing away of tons of stuff begin in earnest!

On a depressing note, we're hanging out with Scott, Stephanie, and Sam tonight. Now, normally that's not depressing, but the fact that it could potentially be the last time that we hang out with them until next Christmas is. Depending on what goes on in the summer, we might not see them. Sad day!! I will miss the hours of Stephanie and I watching the boys play Smash Bros, and occasionally joining in and getting our trash kicked.

But on a very happy note, we're only a few short weeks away from being able to hang out with Shad, Katie, Barbi, Robert, and their respective kids. Change is sad, but definitely good at the same time.

And so it begins...

2009-12-10T19:50:00.002-07:00

School's winding down, and as of today, Tucker and I only have 2 weeks left in Utah. 2 WEEKS!! It's so crazy to think that we aren't going to be coming back here after Christmas. And not gonna lie, with all the snow we got this past weekend, and with all the snow that's supposed to come this next week, I'm super excited to leave.

I've finally started going through stuff and sort of packing this week. I posted ads on a couple sites for all the furniture that we want to sell/get rid of before we leave, and we've already sold 3 of the 5 things we posted. Kind of crazy how fast it happened. But it's a relief knowing I don't have to worry about those things anymore. Packing, however, is another story. That's what I'm stressing over. I just can't see all the stuff we want to take actually fitting into our car. So if anyone has advice about moving long, long distances, I'm open.

Something new to keep me occupied...

2009-12-01T13:39:00.002-07:00

So for those of you that don't know about my job, it's super easy, and most of the time me and the lifeguards sit and watch TV shows on the computer while we're at the pool. We have our schedule for when we watch new shows that come out every week, but to fill the rest of the time, I've finally discovered Heroes. Dang good show.

Thanksgiving in Phoenix

2009-12-01T13:01:00.003-07:00

So after some 'subtle' prodding from a certain sister-in-law (*coughKATIEcough* :) ), I've collected some pictures from my sister's facebook to post here from our Thanksgiving this year. It was sooooo nice to be able to go home, especially because it seems like it's been forever since I've been there. And the great part about this Thanksgiving was we were able to bring home Sam, Scott, and Stephanie with us! So while one half of the Smith family was having a great time in Spartanburg, the other half was in Phoenix celebrating with the Perry family.

"Picnik Show"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

The dinner was excellent, and the grand total for people we had over to eat including us was 17. Needless to say, things were a little crowded, but it was super fun. Scott brought along his Wii, so lots of Smash Brothers and Mario Kart were played. Aside from that, I took Tucker, Scott, Sam, and Stef on a driving tour of the greater Phoenix area. Basically we drove downtown and then went to Scottsdale Fashion Square (a huge, rich people mall). We walked around for a bit, and while the boys were getting a Kobe beef hotdog, Stephanie and I went to a couple stores to look at stuff, and both really liked Anthropologie. Super cute store. We also went to see the Mesa Temple lights one night, but I don't have any pictures from that, Stephanie does, however.

So that's it. Thanksgiving break was awesome, aside from the ten hour drives there and back, but they were worth it. Guess we'll be seeing you guys (East Coast Smiths) soon!!

I have a real excuse...

2009-10-05T15:36:00.001-06:00

Our computer is broken. Sad day. Hopefully it will be fixed within the next couple weeks (yay for warranties!), but until that time, I'll be forced to use the computers here at school and at work as well. It's kind of crazy how much I use the computer in my daily life, but it took our computer breaking for me to realize this. I suppose this could be looked at as a good thing. Tucker and I are certainly reading a lot more than usual.

Okey-dokey

2009-08-10T06:22:00.004-06:00

So two and half months, give or take a few days, is quite enough of a break from posting on here. I'll stop being a slacker and start doing this again. On to the recap of the summer....

It's been fairly eventful, to say the least. In June, we made a trip out to the Carolina's to have a Smith family reunion. Sam came home from his mission, and then we all went to Lake Lure to stay in a lake house for a few days. While there we white-water rafted, water skied, played in the lake, and had an awesome time. It sucked having to go home, but it was fun while it lasted. We even got a decent family picture!!
The weekend of July 11th, we were able to go down to Phoenix for a few days. The reason for the trip: my grandma was going through the temple for the first time and was going to be sealed to my Papa and my mom. Needless to say, I really wanted to be there for it. It was an amazing experience, and I'm so proud of Grammy for making the decision to get her endowment. Even though she's a stubborn old lady, we love her tons.

Other than that, we've... or at least I've had lots of fun hanging out with my sister. We've gone to a wedding, hung out with friends, and spent time with family. Tucker is going out of town this week to go to his dairy competition (cross your fingers for him, the check we would get if they win would be really nice to have), and I'm going to stay here and be lonely for a few days. Good thing I work so much or I would be really bored. Next week we get to head out to North Carolina again for Scott and Stephanie's wedding (YAY!); it'll be a fun weekend to spend with the family.

And one last update... Tucker will be graduating in December, and hopefully will be getting an internship with the church at Welfare Square in the winter. Then next summer, we'll probably be moving away from Utah, whether it's for an internship in Michigan or Missouri, or if Tucker gets accepted to NC State and can start working there. We really hope that Tucker gets accepted there so that he can start his masters there. It would be awesome to be near family.

That's it for now. I'll try to be better about this again.

My Poor Hair...

2009-05-21T07:29:00.002-06:00

K. All I'm going to say is that I'm blond again..... like UBER blond. I got my hair done a couple days ago, you know, wanting to lighten it just a tad from what it usually is because it's summer again. Well... apparently the girl that did my hair thought she would make me a platinum blond....... yeah.

Yipee!!!

2009-05-19T11:50:00.002-06:00

'Chuck' got renewed!!! Definitely one of my favorite shows, and I'm so glad that it's coming back for next season. YAY!!

Quick Update

2009-05-08T13:34:00.003-06:00

Since school got out a couple weeks ago, my life has consisted of sleeping and working. There's been some exercising, reading, eating, and playing of WoW thrown in there too, but it really feels like all I do is sleep and work. My life is boring. Oh well. By Friday of next week, I'll have more stuff to do, and then June will be packed full of super fun stuff to do.

Why Friday of next week, you may ask. Well, next Friday is when my Lifeguard Instructor course will start. I'm super excited about it. Basically it's a class teaching me how to teach others to be lifeguards. I'll be able to certify others in CPR and basic first aid, and (of course) lifeguarding. Once that class ends, me and Tucker will be headed down to Kanab, UT for my family's annual Memorial Day Reunion. We'll only get to be down there for a couple days this year, but it's better than nothing.

Swimming lessons will start the first week of June, and I can't wait! Teaching lessons is what I look forward to every summer. And I'm even thinking of branching out into private lessons, so if you or anyone you know is looking for a teacher, you should call me.

Oh, and as a final note, I've signed up to run another 5k! This one will be in Wilmington, NC in June. I'm really excited, and it's keeping me motivated when it comes to running, because I'll admit, I've been slacking these past couple weeks. But I'm back on course, so we'll see if I can keep up with Katie..... I probably won't be able to, but that's ok.

Until next time!

A Darn Good Show

2009-04-21T20:44:00.003-06:00

K, so I thought that I'd share this for any of you looking for a good show to watch. "Chuck" on NBC is possibly one of my favorite shows. It's an action comedy that we watch here at work, and it's pretty much amazing. The 2nd season is winding down now (I think there's only one episode left), but it's well worth checking out on Surf the Channel or some such thing.

WANTED:

2009-04-21T20:38:00.001-06:00

A cheap, fun hobby. I've decided I'm kind of a loser because of the fact that I don't do anything cool like scrapbooking or quilting. I would really love to pick up something like that, but I don't have basically any money. So if anybody out there knows of a hobby that I could pick up that doesn't require a big chunk of change every time you want to do it, let me know.

Tucker screams like a girl in his sleep

2009-04-19T15:56:00.002-06:00

K, so this is quite a funny story.. at least it is for me and Tucker. Saturday morning I was woken up abruptly by Tucker "screaming". It wasn't quite a scream/yell, cause it was one perfect note. Actually, I didn't know if he was singing in his sleep or yelling, so I woke him up (it was about 4:30am), and we both had a good laugh about it because, apparently, he could hear himself.

He said that the reason for his yell was because of a scary dream that he was having. He blames the occurrence of the dream on the movie Poltergeist 3. In the dream, he had hit a crazy lady in the face, who then in turn told him that he would die in 24 hours. Later in the dream, Tucker falls off a tall building (this is where he screamed at).

So, the next time you see Tucker, you can have a good laugh at his expense because he screams like a girl who's singing. Hahahaha!!

2009-04-18T14:35:00.001-06:00

Seeing if this works... Apparently now you can text stuff to you blog.

Utah's weather is super dumb.....

2009-04-15T18:35:00.002-06:00

I don't know how the weather is elsewhere, but the weather here in Utah is ridiculously spastic! It snowed a good 3 inches today.... it's the middle of April; this isn't supposed to happen anymore! Dumb....

In other news, the semester is winding down, and I am so ready for it to be done. Anatomy has totally burnt me out, and working up the motivation to go to class is really hard (and I fail on some occasions.... more often than I would like to admit). But I think that I'm doing well enough in the class so that I won't have to retake it, so that's good.

Tucker had a fairly frustrating past couple weeks, due mostly to one person in his group for his Product Development class. I've never heard Tucker complain so much.. it was kind of weird. But he's done with that class now, so he's relieved. And he's graduating in December!!!! Yay!! And then hopefully (if things go our way), he'll be starting his Master's in January. With any luck we'll be able to stay here so that I can finish up school as well. But we'll just get through the Bachelor's degree before we start freaking out about that stuff.

Um...... nothing else to report really. Hopefully I'll remember to post in a week (ish) to let you all know how finals go.

Birthday Week!!!

2009-03-24T18:55:00.005-06:00

So I know I said before that I would update everyone (well... anyone who even reads this anymore) on how the 5k went, but school kind of took over until about 330 this afternoon. The 5k went about as well as I expected it to. And surprisingly, I actually enjoyed it. Of course, I walked about half of it seeing as I did no training whatsoever to get ready for it. I think I'll sign up to do another one though, and yes, I'm actually running now.... well, I haven't for about a week or so now because of a sore throat and some congestion. But I promise that once those clear up, I'll be back out there.

But yeah, as of wednesday, I am officially 22!! Gettin' up there; I know. I didn't expect the day to be all that great mostly because of the fact that I was going to be doing stuff constantly all day long, but the day actually went better than I had hoped. I forgot to set my alarm Tuesday night, so I woke up late which put me in a bad mood right off (but in reality I was really glad that I got to sleep in a little), and then I had my dumb anatomy lab for three hours (but I left early so I could get ready for Activity Day). Activity Day was at 330 that afternoon, and the sweet Primary president brought cupcakes for everyone and they sang me happy birthday. The activity itself was funner than I thought it would be; we "egged" the bishop's house, or in other words, we heart-attacked him with paper easter eggs. Then when I got to work that night, my friends had balloons, a whopper from Burger King, and a crazy weird birthday song waiting for me (they're pretty much the best co-workers/friends ever).

So all in all, my birthday was actually a good one. My parents sent me a movie I wanted and a couple cute shirts, and Tucker got a movie from them for his birthday too. We also got a flippin' awesome ice cream scoop from Katie and Shad, which I tested out, and it's pretty much amazing (thanks Katie!!!) My little sister Jenna though, she was definitely my favorite person this week. She brought me floors and an oreo pie on Tuesday night, Thursday she took me out to lunch at Chipotle (which we drove all the way to Sandy for), and Friday she and my brother Jeff to me to see BYU's rendition of Macbeth (which was set in Book of Mormon times........ yes, it was most definitely a horrible play. I give them props for trying though.. the acting just wasn't that good). Basically I love my little sister a ton!!

Well, I think that's about it for now. Oh, Tucker went on a campout last night with the teacher's in our ward (dumb, I know... it's still freezing cold outside here), and poor Tucker didn't take enough stuff to keep him warm, so he froze all night and didn't get any sleep at all. I'm just waiting for him to come home from school right now so that he can sleep the rest of today and tonight. Poor guy.

Tomorrow's going to be one heck of a day

2009-03-13T10:50:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow's date is March 14th, for those of you oblivious to calendars, and as the title of this post suggests..... it's going to be insane, or maybe I'll just be insane.

My midterm for my anatomy lab starts tomorrow at 8am and closes at 5pm (I can show up anytime during those hours to take the test). I think I'll do ok on the test, but honestly, I feel like I should have been reviewing everything I've learned this far for the past three weeks. There's just so much information, that I don't think I'll be able to remember it all. And while this test won't be horrible, it'll be bad enough to make me not want to do anything else all day, but lucky me, I have some anatomy homework that needs to get done this weekend........ stupid, never-ending class.

But yeah, while I'm stressing a little about this test, the thing that I'm stressing the most about for tomorrow is this 5k that I'm running. That's right folks, I'm 'running' a 5k. And this race starts at 9am... pretty much it cuts into valuable midterm taking time. But the thing is, nearly all of the anatomy students will be participating in this race due to the fact that we can get some serious extra credit points for doing it. Basically, if we register for the race we get 10 points. If we actually show up and run the race, we get 15 points. And if we run the race and beat our professor (who is running it), we get 20 points. That's HUGE!!! Especially when the only other way is to take a quiz every week that you can only miss one on for a grand total of one point extra credit per quiz (sucks, I know, though it sucks more when you miss two questions).

So my strategy for tomorrow is to show up, survive the 5k (because honestly, I haven't been running in months), and then drag myself over to the anatomy lab to take this beast of a test. I really must be stupid for doing this, but hey, I get a shirt for doing the 5k, so that's pretty cool. Anywho, wish me luck, and I'll report back on how tomorrow's events go for you probably next week sometime.

Yay!!! (and a little boo)

2009-03-09T21:29:00.002-06:00

We got our car back today!! Finally. A full week later, but I guess it's ok, cause it's better that we get back a fully functional car that won't break on us again in a month.... but it very well might (stupid Dodge). It cost $1510, and Tucker's parents completely took care of that for us, which we are super, super grateful for seeing as we don't even have $1000 in our account at the moment.

Daylight savings happened yesterday, for those of you that didn't know. Tucker and I actually didn't know about it till we got to church and someone mentioned it. Yes, we did get to church on time. The only reason we did, though, is because we use our cell phones as our clocks and as our alarms in the morning. And since cell phones automatically update their time, it still got us up at the right time. Thank goodness.

And as for the 'boo' goes, it snowed again today. I'm not really surprised that it happened again because it's only the beginning of March, but it's just really annoying when it happens right after we were having such nice weather. And it's also annoying when one where's flipflops to work, and the snow comes during work, and then one has to brush one's car off in those flip flops. Needless to say, my feet are cold.

Bad news just keeps coming...

2009-03-05T21:51:00.002-07:00

The car guy called today. Our whole transmission needs to be replaced. *Insert frustrated sigh here.* He gave us the option of a total rebuild, costing about $2200, or replacing ours with a used transmission at about $1500. We chose to get the used, so if nothing else goes wrong, we get the car back tomorrow. Man alive.....

A Fairly Bad Week

2009-03-04T18:25:00.002-07:00

Why is it that Monday's always have to have some problem associated with them? Cause, man alive, it sucks having to deal with them sometimes. And they're even worse when it makes the rest of the week bad. And yes, in case you haven't already guessed, this is another of those ranting posts.

Monday morning, I slept through my first class because I had a test in the class later that day and didn't see the need to go and get all confused with new information..... and I just wanted to sleep in. So I got to take Tucker to school before I headed to take my test. We didn't notice anything wrong with the car before I dropped off Tucker, but as soon as I was leaving BYU, I started hearing a whiny, siren-ish sounding noise coming from the engine whenever I was accelerating. Obviously, I knew this wasn't a good thing, so I called Tucker to let him know that it was being weird, and then continued on my merry way.

Yeah, well... just as I was getting up the hill in between Provo and Orem on University Parkway (at the light just before University Mall), I tried accelerating and all that happened was the engine revved. Basically it felt like the car was in neutral, except for the fact that it was in drive. So, lucky for me, I was coming up to an entrance to the mall parking lot, so I turned in with the little momentum I had left and managed to get to a safe spot to stop. I called Tucker and tried driving the car again to see if it would actually work, and it did just about half the time, but the rest of the time it felt like trying to drive in neutral. So I called AAA and they got a tow truck dispatched to tow me to a mechanic. And, I don't know about all the rest of you guys, but I've never really had a car break down on me before, and so I was really stressing, and to add to the stress, I couldn't get ahold of anyone to come get me, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to go take my test... so pretty much I was on the verge of tears while I was talking to the AAA lady. Then when my brother called me back, I totally just started crying. I do that sometimes.

Well, the tow truck guy came and picked me up (and by the way, it was probably the most awkward car ride of my life), and we got the car to the mechanic's, and to add onto the problem of my car not working, the poor tow truck guy accidentally cracked our oil pan, and so now that had to be replaced too (we didn't have to pay for it though). So yeah, I managed to borrow Jenna and Jeff's car so that I could get to school, and the mechanic guy said that he would call us later that day to tell us what was going on. But we didn't get a phone call. Which made me even more worried.

Tuesday morning we found out the news. Our torque converter in our transmission was broken and would need to be replaced. The estimate was $1500-$2000. Yeah. We definitely didn't have the money to fix it, but Tucker's parents generously offered to cover it for us. We are SUPER grateful. They've helped us so much since we've gotten married, it's not even funny. There's like no way that we'll ever be able to repay them.. at least not for like 8 years.

So yeah, that's my story about that. I won't unload about my tests in anatomy that I have coming up in the next couple weeks. Needless to say, the month of March kind of sucks thus far. Maybe after spring break is done with it will get better.

I'm such a slacker...

2009-01-29T19:17:00.002-07:00

Wow, 2 months of me not writing on here is pretty dang impressive. My excuse this time is that the holidays and finals took up a lot of my time towards the end of the year, and now that school has started up, I just don't have the time to post here. Lucky for me, work is super slow tonight and I'm not in the mood to study.

But yeah, another semester has started, and while Tucker is taking a super easy work load, I only have three classes, but seem to be studying almost constantly. Mostly this is because I'm taking anatomy. If it weren't for that class I would probably be just fine. But this class literally is taking over my life. The books for just that class alone cost us $400, and I spend anywhere from 3-6 hours a day studying for it. When I try to go to sleep at night, I have the terms just on like a loop running through my brain... not the best thing to have happening when one is exhausted.

Tucker's teaching a lab for food science this semester and he seems to be enjoying that. And I'm not positive on this, but I think that he's taking something like four different religion classes.... super easy stuff for him. But I guess it's ok as long as he does good in Ochem this semester.

Anywho, I've got to get back to work cause it's my turn to guard, so hopefully I won't be waiting like 2 months to post again, but you never know.

Oh Monday....

2008-11-24T21:17:00.003-07:00

So... I got rear-ended today.. yeah. First accident ever. Guess it was the best type of accident I could have gotten into if you can call any accident good. There isn't much damage to our car, I'm perfectly fine, and the other girl was at fault, so we don't have to pay anything. Just thought I'd let ya'll know.

First Anniversary

2008-11-17T21:33:00.003-07:00

That's right! We made it through our first year without killing each other! Actually, our first year has been relatively smooth and quite fun. I don't think that we've ever "fought" about anything, which is weird according to some people I've talked to because to them their first year of marriage was the hardest. Tucker and I don't really fight... we occasionally get annoyed with each other, but not to the point that we'll say something mean to one another.

I'm not sure if I've done this in a previous post, but I feel like I should recap how our relationship formed. It all started when my brother, Jeff, moved up here to BYU after his mission to continue his education. He moved into an apartment in Campus Plaza that had an opening, which was nice because it was in walking distance of where I lived so that I could visit him. The first time that I met Tucker was when he and Jeff took me and my roommate Erin to the grocery store. Oddly enough, this wasn't the best first impression ever; it has to do with bagged salad and my roommate taking offense... really silly when looked at in retrospect, but whatevs.

At the start of the semester (Jan. 07), I spent a lot of time, like seriously a lot of time, at my brother's apartment because I was having problems with a couple of my roommates and just didn't want to go home to see them. So generally I would go to my brother's apartment everyday when I was done with class and I would leave at midnight to go home. The first few visits to Jeff's apartment were spent visiting with him, catching up and all since it had been two years since I'd seen him, but slowly that evolved into me playing cards with Jeff's roommates, including Tucker. Little did I know, but playing cards everyday and chatting with the boys at the apartment had endeared my to Tucker and he developed a "crush" on me. We used to talk on instant messanger all the time, just for funsies, while Tucker was at work, and it was over instant messanger that Tucker asked me out the first time. I thought, and still do think, that this was hilarious. I mean, who does that?

Our first date was to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, and I don't think it was that great of a first date. The activity was fun, but the conversation could have been better... mostly on my part. I think I spent like half of the time complaining about the boy that I had dated the previous semester.... saying I was bitter would be a good description of that. We even talked about how Tucker's grandpa thought that dinosaur bones were from other planets or something like that. The second part of that date was us watching 'The Grudge', and I just remember thinking that Tucker was sitting awfully close during that movie, haha!

Now, you have to understand that at this point in my "life" I didn't really want to have a boyfriend, mostly because of my bad experience the previous semester with a dumb boy, so I was really hoping that Tucker wouldn't ask me out again. But Tucker was a persistant little devil, and he got my phone number from my brother to ask me to go to a basketball game with him and his friend (now my friend as well, Scott Matheson). I won't lie, I was kind of a jerk on this date.... basically I ignored Tucker the entire time. My excuse was that I didn't want a boyfriend right now, but man... I was a jerk.

Now before I had gone on this date with Tucker, he and a couple of his friends had been planning a group date and Tucker had been planning on asking me to go on this date with him. After my "silent treatment" to him, he didn't really want to ask me out again because he wasn't wanting to waste time on someone that didn't want to date him, but he decided to ask me anyways just to find out if I wanted to go on another date with him... he asked me over instant messanger again (haha!).

After the basketball game date, I did a little thinking, realized that I wasn't giving Tucker a chance, and decided that I needed to be nicer to him, so when he asked me out again, I happily agreed to go on the date. This date went well, and I even gave Tucker the opportunity to hold my hand, which he didn't take advantage of. But from this point on, things were good for us. Our first kiss was on our Valentine's date, and the rest of the semester was "perfect", and we decided to stay dating while we were separated during the summer.

This was probably the hardest thing that I've ever had to do; I don't know about Tucker, but leaving to go home to Phoenix for the summer sucked. Don't get me wrong, I loved being home with my family, but things just weren't the same; I missed Tucker. We talked every night on the phone and ran up our phone bills with texts, but this just wasn't all that great. After a few weeks of being apart Tucker came down to Phoenix and totally surprised me. We saw each other a few more times through out the summer, I even went out to North Carolina to meet Tucker's family (totally fun trip even though I got sick half way through it). It was on this trip in June that I told Tucker that if he asked me, I would marry him. Everything was downhill from here. We set our date, I bought my dress, and starting planning things all before Tucker had officially proposed.

The proposal was a total surprise to me; it happened about twenty minutes before I had to leave Provo to go to the airport to go back to Phoenix, but it was perfect and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

November 16th, 2007, we were married in the Washington DC temple, and our life has been great ever since. We're looking forward to the rest of our lives together, and the rest of forever as well. Thanks to all those who have supported us along the way and helped us out. We love you all!

I'm such a slacker...

2008-11-17T21:25:00.003-07:00

My apologies to those of you that have been eagerly awaiting a post from me. I have no excuses for why I haven't written on here for a few weeks; I just.... haven't.

Anywho, November has been a fairly nice month. We've been able to hang out with our friends, Scott and Cathryn Matheson more than once, and it's always a blast to see them. Mostly Tucker and I have been going to school and just chillaxin' in between. We're pretty ready for this semester to be done with though; we're at the point where our classes have lost their appeal and are now just tedious. It'll be refreshing to start new classes again.

I guess this is really it for this post. Oh, we celebrated our first anniversary yesterday, which was fun and kind of weird; doesn't seem like it's been a year. But yeah, now we're just waiting for Thanksgiving to roll around which will be really fun. My parents and grandma are coming up here this year for the big day, and Tucker and I will are in charge of the turkey cooking (FUN!).

Lots of the Same Old Stuff

2008-10-29T08:03:00.002-06:00

October has been a busy month... well, at least when it comes to school and work. Yep, this month has been a lot of the same old stuff. We've spent, or rather I've spent, a lot of time with Jenna while she's had some "drama" with boys. Other than that, we've done relatively nothing.

That did change this weekend though when we finally got together with our "long-lost" friends, the Matheson's. I'm pretty sure that the last time that we saw them was when we went camping this summer.. so it's been awhile. Anyways, we met up in Provo on Saturday night to go to Comedy Sportz. And let me tell you, it was a very entertaining evening. Comedy Sportz is basically like the TV show Who's Line is it Anyways?, except it's live. Most of the stuff they did was pretty funny, and I even got one of my suggestions used in a skit, so I felt special. After the show, we all went to Cold Stone for some delicious ice cream and to talk politics (fun stuff). But yeah, we're planning on hanging out again this weekend, and from what I understand, we'll be going to Wingers and then to Ikea. Should be fun!

As far as school goes, Tucker and I have had a few tests, and we've been doing pretty good. I got 100% (plus some extra credit) on my last Russian test! I have a test in my math class this week... and I'm not sure how I'll do, but I'm going to be studying in the Math Lab with a friend today, so hopefully that will help. Oh yeah.. I just remembered that I have a take-home midterm for my Sociology class this week too..... sucky.

Well, I think that's about it. If I remember I'll get on later tonight to put up pictures of me and Tucker carving our pumpkin.

Must See!!!

2008-10-11T21:56:00.003-06:00

So we rented this movie tonight, it's one of those that I've been meaning to see for a really long time, but just haven't. I LOVED this movie, and I think even Tucker enjoyed it... though he said the best part of the movie was the midget reporter and his mini-row boat. But yeah, this was a great movie, all about being happy with yourself the way you are. If you haven't seen this yet, you really should!!!

Beginning of October

2008-10-08T17:43:00.006-06:00

First I'd like to make the observation that it's far too early for there to be snow on the mountains... stupid cold weather. After the storm that dropped the snow on the mountains, I made sure that Tucker remembered my desire to someday live someplace with a more mild climate. Doesn't necessarily have to be super hot or have no snow, but less snow and slightly warmer than what we get here would be nice.

Anywho, since I last posted, Tucker and I got ourselves our anniversary present to each other a little early. This was totally Tucker's idea too, there was no prompting or hinting on my part at all. We got a second guinea pig!!!! Now Chimi (the one we already had) has a friend: Changa. And to celebrate their namesake, we had chimichanga's the day after we got Changa. It took them a little while to get used to each other, but they get along really well now. I have suspicions that Chimi thinks Changa is a girl, mostly because he tends to purr when ever Changa walks by and... other events that have happened.... yeah. For clarification, they're both boys.

I also did Activity day today with the girls in my ward, and we made Chia pets out of panty hose. I originally got this idea from Lois while we were out on the East coast, so thanks Lois! The only hard part about this little project was driving around to find grass seed, finally went to Lowes and they had some, but yeah, only got it a couple hours before the activity was to take place, so I was beginning to think of other things we could do in place of the chia pets. In the end it worked out nicely, and the girls had a fun time making them.

Grrr.....

2008-09-25T11:35:00.002-06:00

Warning: The following is a rant. Don't read if you don't want to hear Lauren complaining.

Stupid FAFSA and UVU.

I guess I should start at the beginning of the story. For those of you that don't, I transferred to UVU this fall from BYU to study Dental Hygiene. I didn't think that there would be any problems with this (money wise) because I'm now a Utah resident, and as such would get in-state tuition. I was wrong. I found out just before school was set to begin that I would have to pay out of state tuition this semester, even though I am a Utah resident now. The reasoning for this, given by UVU, is when I applied to the school back in December of last year, thinking that I would be starting classes in January, I wasn't a Utah resident. Well, I didn't start back to school in January for various reasons, but I didn't think that this would be a problem either. Well, turns out that I can't be changed to Utah residency until I've taken a full semester of classes because when I applied to the school I wasn't a resident. Basically this is a stupid, retarded technicality that I loathe a whole lot right now.

Well, while this was a minor setback, Tucker and I didn't think that it would be too much of a problem because we could get financial aid and it would completely cover my tuition. Wrong again. I found out today that I would only be awarded $2,241 this semester. So out of a $5,600 tuition, Tucker and I still have to pay for a majority of it. RETARDED!!!!!!!!!!!!

We will be able to pay for it (actually about $2000 of it was already paid by us), it's just retarded that it didn't cover everything, which we assumed that it would. Tucker's tuition will be covered, and we'll even get a little extra for him because of the SMART grant (it equals out to about $4000), so we'll stay afloat... but this whole thing is just really frustrating.

Stupid UVU and FAFSA!

Bus Rides and Football Games

2008-09-23T11:11:00.002-06:00

This past Saturday was the BYU-Wyoming (second shut out in a row!!) football game, and Tucker and I were stoked to finally go to a game. We weren't able to go to the UCLA game because of work, so I made sure that I had this day off so we could go. We decided to make the day a little more interesting by riding the bus to and from the game.

So, with bus passes in hand, we got on a bus in Springville and headed up to Provo. It wasn't a very long ride, but because of the limited bus schedule on Saturdays, we got to BYU really early. This was good though, because we were able to get lunch before we walked up to the stadium. After lunch, we walked up to the stadium and found our seats, which weren't horrible, but we are in an enzone, so not the best seats we could get either. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that Scott and Dave Allen have their tickets just a couple rows in front of us; crazy!

Anywho, the game was great, but it was hot being out in the sun (both of us got sunburned), and so we left at half-time to go to Tucker's old apartment to watch other games with his ex-roommates. It's always fun to go see those guys. They were all pretty much my roommates last fall before Tucker and I got married because I spent all day, every day there with Tucker. I managed to squeeze in a nap while we were there too, which was great.

Around 530 we went and got dinner, and we were going to stay on campus to watch a movie at BYU's International Cinema so that I could get extra credit for Russian, but decided that we were ready to go home. So we didn't get to do that last part of our day, but I'm kind of glad that we skipped it cause I was asleep about an hour and a half after we got home. I would have never made it through a movie and a bus ride home.

Oh yeah, and I would have put pictures up, but of course I forgot my camera.

Making a Couple Goals

2008-09-23T10:58:00.002-06:00

Lately I've been trying to be better about exercising and such. I swim a mile twice a week, and I've started running again.......... which I'm not the happiest about, but whatevs. I've never really been a big fan of running, as is apparent by my choice in sports in high school: swimming and softball (in which running was for very short distances). But since I've been out of high school and am not actively training myself for something, I have gotten "soft", which bothers me a whole lot.

So, I've decided to set a goal for myself that will keep me motivated to exercise. I'm going to run in the Rex Lee Run this next spring at BYU. I've never really run in a race like this before, but it's always been something that I've wanted to do. So I'm going to do it. I'll only be doing a 5k (about 3 miles), but that's farther than anything I've run in one go ever.. should be fun.

Being motivated to eat better is something that both me and Tucker are going to need to work on. We're not very good about getting our veggies and fruit everyday, so I'm going to try to be better about that, and any suggestions for making veggies taste better would be welcome cause me and Tucker are both kind of picky when it comes to the green stuff.

But yeah, I really want any one out there who reads this to hold me to my goal of running in the race. Shun me if I don't keep training for it!

Monday's Suck

2008-09-15T16:26:00.002-06:00

Yeah, Monday's are probably my least favorite day of the week. It's on Monday's that my schedule and Tucker's overlaps horribly. I get up and go to school at 7 and get home around noon. Tucker on the other hand leaves around 9 for school and doesn't get home till right before 6, which is just after I have to be at work..... it's retarded. The only times that I see him are when I'm getting ready in the morning while he's still asleep and then after I get home from work at 9. At least it helps me to remember how much I appreciate having him around.

In other news, I had a meeting for Activity Day to think up new things to do. And for those of you that don't know what Activity Day is, it's basically Young Women's but for the girls who are between ages 8 and 11; a warm up for Young Women's, if you will. It's taken me a little while to really get into this calling, though I haven't had it for very long. I think I was just concerned that the girls wouldn't like me, or I wouldn't be able to come up with activities that they would find fun, etc. But I'm starting to feel more comfortable in it, and I think that me and Ashley (the other leader) do a pretty good job coming up with activities. At our last activity, I taught the girls how to do cross stitch, and I wasn't sure if they were old enough to understand it, but it's something they can do for one of their Duty to God requirements, so we tried it out. I challenged the girl's to keep working on it, and told them that Stake and General Conferences were good times to work on it, but I didn't really think that any of them would actually continue with this. Lo and behold though, last week was Stake Conference, and there was more than one girl that came to show me their cross stitch that they had brought with them to work on! It's funny how things like that can make you feel so happy. I'm was just glad that they actually understood my intructions well enough to keep doing it by themselves. But hey, if any body has any ideas for activities that I can do with the girls, let me know!

And to end my little shpeel today, I'd like to recommend to all you out there pandora.com. It's a totally amazing site that Tucker first introduced to me. Basically it's a music site that sort of "creates" radio station for you. You enter a band or a song and the website plays songs for you that are similar to the one that you entered. I love it!! I put it on while I'm at work, and when I'm at home by myself (cause I hate it when our apartment is quiet). Check it out.

Well.... Dasvidania!

Vacation Recap

2008-09-06T20:40:00.006-06:00

K, so it's been long enough since the last time that I posted, guess I should get back into this whole thing; I did promise Katie I would, after all.

Our trip back to the East coast was pretty awesome, even if it did rain almost every day that we were out there. But we didn't let that get us down. Our first day out there, Lois and Brad took me, Tucker and Scott out to this lake that a couple in their ward lived by. I got my first experience with kayaking and a majority of my time doing it, I was going around in circles. It's a shame that I forgot my camera that day cause I could have gotten some hilarious pictures. Mid-way through this activity it started to rain pretty hard, so we went home.

The following day we went to Chimney Rock, again in the rain, and for all of you from the West side of the country, the mountain range out there is not called the 'Appalasion' mountain range, it's the 'Appalachian' mountains. I've been saying it wrong my entire life. Anywho, Chimney Rock. It was pretty cool being there, we had fun walking around up there, can't say that I've spent that much time up in a cloud before.After Scott's girlfriend, Stephanie, finally got out to South Carolina, we drove up to Wilmington to spend the rest of the week with the whole Smith clan. I really like it out there, well, if you take out all the stinkin humidity, I would like it even more. But holy cow! That humidity is horrible! I think it's kind of funny that people think I'm crazy for living in Phoenix with the 110 degree weather, but honestly, I can't understand why people don't mind the humidity.

But yeah, we went to the beach while we were there. I got the opportunity to try body-surfing again, I'm still not very good at it. And Tucker got to see a couple of his friends out there. But the main reason that we went out to North Carolina in the first place was to go to Adam Wilson's wedding. He and his wife Wanda were sealed in the Raleigh temple, and it was a pretty cool ceremony because it was done in both English and Spanish. Wanda looked absolutely beautiful, and Adam didn't look half bad either.

We had tons of fun while we were out there; it's always great to spend time with family, especially because we don't get to see them very often. But by the time the week was over, Tucker and I were ready to be home again. The only bad thing about coming home though, was the fact that rain followed us. It was freezing (well, not technically freezing, but it was a whole lot colder than when we had left a week earlier) when we got home, so it made if feel like we'd been gone for a really long time.

But now school's started again, and thus far, things look like they're going to be good this semester. Honestly, I'm just glad to be back in school period; taking a year off sucked big time. I'm taking a beginning Russian class this semester, and me and Tucker are both really excited about it. It's fun to actually be able to learn things from Tucker about the language. I know that it's going to be quite a while until I can actually understand well enough to carry on any kind of conversation, but I think it'll be fun. Maybe someday when we actually have the time and money, Tucker and I can take a trip back to Russia to visit people and places that Tucker knows.

Summer's Winding Down

2008-08-19T11:59:00.002-06:00

It's really crazy to think that summer is just about 2 weeks from being over. These past three and a half months have gone ridiculously fast, and it seems like there should still be lots of time left. But I guess we've had a full and eventful summer. We've been on about three (soon to be four) really fun trips, and have had plenty of time to just chill and do nothing. Once school starts things will be fairly busy for us again, and even slightly hectic. We still haven't really figured out how we're going to work transportation for both of us.

This Saturday we'll be flying out to North Carolina to spend the week with Tucker's family and to go to Adam Wilson's wedding. We're both really stoked, and I've been waiting for this trip all summer. Friday night we're going to drive up to Bountiful to stay with Tucker's grandma and then she'll take us to the airport in the morning. We still don't have anyone to leave Chimi with, though we haven't really asked anyone yet. So if you're reading this, are in the Provo area, and would like to watch our guinea pig for a week, let me know! I promise he's really easy to take care of; very low maintenance.

Anywho, I think that's about all I have for you guys right now. I won't be posting next week cause we'll be on our trip, but when we get back I'm sure that I'll have plenty to say and plenty of pictures to post.

2008 Summer Olympics

2008-08-13T07:24:00.003-06:00

In case you didn't know, or were in a cave for the past week, the Olympics started this past Friday, so our TV has been constantly on the three different channels that we have in order to watch as much as we possibly can.

It's a little known fact, but I'm pretty much obsessed when it comes to Olympic swimming. If I remember right, it was during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney that I first watched swimming and was like, "That looks easy. I bet I could do that." Hence, my passion for swimming was born. It was the year after that that I started on the high school swim team, and everything was down hill from there. I still swim everyday (usually about a mile or so), and I think I've watched almost every event for swimming that's been on TV thus far these Olympics.

But if you haven't been watching, let me tell you, you're missing out on one of the greatest situations in Olympic history. Michael Phelps has already made history, actually I think it was made yesterday, when he became the first Olympian ever to have 10 career gold medals... and he's not done yet. Phelps is shooting to win more gold medals than anyone in a single Olympic games (which I think is 7), and he's already got five with three events left, and the way things are going, he probably will reach that goal.. or at least I seriously hope that he does. All in all, it's going to be a long time till we get another person even close to as good as Phelps is at so many events. He's truly an inspiration.

I've watched more than just Michael Phelps this week though. I stayed up way to late last night watching to see if the Women's Gymnastics team could get gold (which they didn't), and I watched a sport I've never seen before (Handball) and kind of want to learn to play.

But yeah, you should definitely watch the games. I'm excited for Track and Field to start, cause that'll be a blast to watch too.

Blond Again

2008-08-08T13:12:00.003-06:00

There you have it; I'm blond again. This is pretty much the same color that my hair always used to be. I like it alot. Though these pictures don't quite do it justice.

Just Another Day in Paradise

2008-08-06T11:47:00.004-06:00

For some reason, the week this far has been full of leg injuries. Not for me or Tucker, but man, it's kind of ridiculous. For example, Sunday at the start of Relief Society, the pianist was getting up from just playing the opening hymn and immediately sat back down on the bench and started.. not really yelling, but very loudly saying 'Ow!' over and over. She dislocated her knee. But she ended up just borrowing one of the many wheelchairs that were available in the room and went with her husband to a different room so she could recover.

Monday rolled around, and I can't remember if I said this in a previous post, but I don't have to teach the last session of swimming lessons, so I was the supervisor on duty and a lady came to the front desk and told us that someone just slipped on our bleachers (which are cement, and so when wet like they are during lessons, are also slippery) and hurt her ankle. So I went out with another guard and looked at the lady's ankle.... it was obviously broken, and she was going into shock. So we took care of her best as we could until the paramedics arrived (I even splinted her leg with a pillow) and then passed her off to them. That was pretty exciting. Thank goodness for first aid training. But that's all for exciting leg injury stories.

I also finally got around to finalizing my classes for this fall. Though I'm not really happy with some of the times, but everything else was taken. But I'm really excited, cause I'm taking a beginning Russian class, so maybe I can start talking to Tucker in code.. or at least another language, might as well be code though. Not excited about having to take the bus to campus every day though.

And as some of you know, the last book of the Twilight series came out (Breaking Dawn), and I bought the book off one of the other girls that I work with after she finished it (she's moving to Hawaii and didn't want to have to pack it). I'll admit, it was a good, entertaining story just like the first three books; not the best written book ever, but the series kept me entertained for a week and even helped make my dreams pretty action packed which was a nice change. If you're looking for a good story and don't mind some angsty teenage drama with vampires thrown in the mix, then I would definitely recommend the series to you (and will even lend you my books).

Ah yes, before I close, I am blond again. Pretty exciting, huh? *Pictures to come soon!

Same Old, Same Old

2008-08-02T08:11:00.002-06:00

Yeah, our life is kind of simple right now. It consists of working, eating, and sleeping. Real hard, huh? Once school starts up things will get interesting, or at least different, again. I guess there is something that will be different this next week; I actually have to work at closing time at the pool. Thus far all I've done is open. I'm not very thrilled about having to close, but whatev. Oh yeah! And I'm finally going to be getting my hair cut (been wanting to this whole summer)! Along with the hair cut, I've decided that I'm going to go back to blonde, so that'll be fun.

Sorry that this post is super short, but we really haven't done much of anything since we went camping.

Escalante Camping Trip

2008-07-20T19:04:00.004-06:00

All I can say about this past weekend is: wow! It seems like we did sooo much on Friday and Saturday. So we drove down to Richfield, UT on Friday morning to meet up with Scott and Cathryn, and decided that before we would leave to get to our campsite, we would go see the new Batman movie. And HO-LY CRAP!!! That movie was probably the best superhero movie that I've ever seen! That being said, it was also one of the most creepy movies I've ever seen. The Joker was exactly as I think he should have been, and the movie was just....... amazing! I don't even know how to describe it, but I would definitely recommend it, though, Mom, Dad, if you read this, I can pretty much guarentee that you guys wouldn't like it.

Anyways, we eventually left for Escalante (Southern Utah) by about 4:30pm and got there right about 7. We were totally stoked to do this trip cause it was one of those things where you backpack in a few miles and have to cross a river a bunch of times. Plus it was my first time doing a camping trip without sleeping in a tent, so that was pretty awesome. It took us about 2 hours to get to our camping site, but surprisingly it was still slightly light outside once we did get there, so we didn't have a problem getting dinner ready or setting up our sleeping area. We ate chili, courtesy of Tucker, that was amazing, and then when we went to bed we watched The Transformers on the Matheson's portable DVD player.. haha, yeah, totally camping, I know.

So when we woke up in the morning, we got everything packed up and headed out by 8 to get back to our car. On the way out we stopped by some indian ruins and a natural bridge, and then once we got to the car (nice and tired from our 7 miles of hiking roundtrip to our campsite), we headed to Bryce Canyon to meet up with some more friends to do a 1.2 mile hike. Now I know that that hike doesn't sound so bad, but it was a hike down into the canyon, and then right back out, or rather out and up. Needless to say, by the time we started the uphill climb, we were ready to just fall asleep. But we did make it out, and after making it back to Richfield and cleaning up a bit, we went to a great restaurant in Monroe, UT for some amazing steaks. After that Tucker and I headed home, and both fell asleep as soon as we got everything into our apartment. So yeah, we're both sore and tired, but we had an amazing time this weekend and wouldn't have had it any other way.

Been Awhile...

2008-07-15T14:03:00.005-06:00

To those of you that actually read our blog, I apologize for the two week break that we've had in our posting... my excuse is that work is very tiring and Tucker's excuse is that he never knows what to say on here. But all excuses aside, here goes.

I'm pretty sure that the most major thing that's happened since my last post was the Fourth of July. And not gonna lie, our BBQ was a total blast! The only drawback that we had with the whole thing is the fact that we don't have air conditioning, so when Tucker started to heat up the big pot of oil to fry the wings, our apartment quickly became unbearable. So we moved everything over to our neighbor's (Austin and Michelle) backyard, which surprisingly was much cooler than being inside. The food was great, and hanging out with all our friends that we don't get to see very often was even better. After all that we did fireworks (more than one little plastic green army man melted that night), and then when all but Scott, Cathryn, Jared, and Heidi had gone home, we watched episodes of The Office. Such a great night.

The day after we eventually got everything cleaned up and then we decided to drive up to Ikea for a "date". It's always fun to go walk around that store, and we even came away with a dresser for our bedroom so that we have a place for all of our clothes, and then on the way home we got a new guinea pig!!!! It was a great surprise. His name is Chimichanga, but we call him Chimi for short, and he's got the coolest/craziest hair I've ever seen on a guinea pig. Hopefully he'll live longer than the rest of our attempts at having a pet, and we've already decided that if he dies as well, that we're just going to give up on the whole having a pet thing.

That's basically it, except for the news that I'm just as fast at swimming as I was my senior year of high school... not necessarily as in shape, but in a race today that I did with some other girls at work, I got the same time that I usually got back in my prime. Pretty sweet! Now I just have to get back in shape, which I've been working on for the past couple weeks, so it's only a matter of time before I'm able to swim more than a 200 without getting short of breath.

Park City

2008-06-29T13:46:00.010-06:00

So our trip to Park City this past Friday was a total blast! We only ended up going with Scott and Cathryn cause Ryan and Leah had to work (I think), but even so, it was one of the fun-est dates that we've ever been on. We left for Park City at about 5:30pm and got up there around an hour later. I've never been up there before, so it was really cool to see how gorgeous and slightly different that city is in comparison to Provo. It had kind of an old, New England/European feel to the way the houses looked, and it was easy to tell that the people that lived there were better off than everyone living in Provo.

But anyways, the actual walk through the mini-art galleries was really fun. Lots of the stuff was amazing to look at, though I wasn't a big fan of a lot of the 'modern/contemporary' stuff. And it was kind of funny too that more than one of the galleries had a faint smell of alcohol permeating them. Over all though, I think there were just two artists that I liked a lot. The first is Sergei Trukhan, and Tucker had seen his work the last time that he did this walk and liked him then. The picture that's included here to the right was the most amazing painting that I have ever seen. It's kind of hard to tell here, but when the lighting is shining just right on this, it sort of glows and looks like the light that's shining through the trees is actually real. Tucker and I have already decided that someday when we have a couple extra thousand dollars, we're definitely going to buy a copy of this painting.

While we aren't a huge fan of photographers, there was one husband/wife team, John and Debora Scanlan, that had simply beautiful pictures. I loved them so much, I convinced Tucker to let me buy one of their notecard sets for $15 bucks so that I can frame them and hang them in our bathrooms someday. I've never seen photos with such vibrant colors and such simple compositions look so amazing.

All in all, I'd definitely do that gallery walk again, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone here in Utah. It's a blast! Oh, and in case you were wondering, it takes place the last Friday of every month, and is in the historic downtown part of Park City.

On Saturday night we hung out with Ryan, Leah, and Scott and watched the movie Flawless. It was a pretty good movie, seeing as none of us had ever heard of it before. Demi Moore and Michael Cane star in it, and I probably wouldn't mind seeing it again. And last but not least of all the things we did this weekend, we went to Ellie Belnap's homecoming. She gave an amazing talk, and it was nice for me to finally meet her because I've heard so much about her. Her ward was ok, but the music director was..... well, it seemed like she was having a competition with the entire congregation on who could be louder. It was kind of hard to get into the right frame of mind for the sacrament when she was belting the song out like she was in a Broadway play. But oh well, can't blame her for liking to sing.

That's all for now I guess. On the 4th of July, we're going to have a BBQ with a bunch of our friends, so that should be fun, and I'll do my best to take pictures of it to post here.

***Note: For some reason, all of the links that I had for other people's blogs got deleted. I've got a few up again, but I don't remember all the ones that are supposed to be there, so let me know if you want your's on our list.

Nothing Much to Report

2008-06-25T06:45:00.002-06:00

So this post has the potential to be extremely short since not much has happened this past week.

I guess I'll start with a follow up from my last post (aka whether or not Tucker took me to the movies). Yes, we did go see Indian Jones this past weekend, but as I predicted, it wasn't on Friday, haha! Of course it's ok that we didn't go Friday night, I just think it's funny that I knew exactly what would happen. Tucker came home from work, and when I showed him movie times for that night to remind him, he pitifully asked if we could see the movie the next day. So cute, haha! So we saw the movie on Saturday, and Tucker even bought me a cute dress (such a nice husband). The movie was..... just alright, I suppose. Definitely wasn't as good as the originals, but it wasn't completely horrible. A disappointment, is what Tucker called it.

As far as being sick goes, I'm still on the tail end of whatever we had. My nose is still stuffed up, and I've developed a cough that is extremely annoying when I try to sleep, but other than that, I feel just peachy.

The only other thing that I can think of to let everyone know about is we're going to Park City this Friday night with some of our married friends to go walk through a bunch of mini-art galleries. I think it'll be a blast, and I'm pretty sure that TuckTuck's excited too.

Bored at Work

2008-06-18T07:01:00.003-06:00

Yup.. the title for this post pretty much sums it up. I got here at 5:15 this morning and have finally Facebook'ed myself out (one can only look at pictures for so long). But anywho, I figure it's been a week since I last posted, so I'll go ahead and fill some time by writing a new post for those of you who visit here.

I'm not sure if I mentioned in my last blog that I had a sore throat last week, but I did, and by the weekend, it evolved into a full on cold thing. It would have been fine to be sick under normal circumstances, but because of the fact that I had to get in the pool at work everyday for four hours, it made it pretty miserable. How did I get sick, you might ask. Well I blame it either on one of the little kids that I teach swimming lessons too, or one of the other girls here at work cause she was sick right before me. Whatever though. I finally went to the doctor yesterday morning, and he didn't really tell me anything that I didn't already know to do. But I'm happy to report that I'm feeling much better today, and will attempt to get in the water to teach lessons. Oh, and yes, I did get Tucker sick as well, though his doesn't seem to have been as bad as mine.

In other news, my good friend Deborah Peterson has finally made it public that she's pregnant, so I feel ok writing it here. I'm so excited for her, and just slightly jealous too, though not enough to change anything just yet. She and her husband, Sam, will be having a baby girl on November 2nd! They're going to be great parents, and their baby is going to be dang cute. Seems like a lot of people that I've known up here at BYU that are married already are either pregnant or have a baby, and that makes me want one too. But I'm almost completely positive that with the way our lives are right now, Tucker and I couldn't handle it financially or timewise. Ah well, maybe in a couple years. It's funny though, we've already got a bunch of names picked out for future children, so we don't have to worry too much about that once we do start having kids.

Lastly, I'd like to let everyone know that Tucker has promised to take me to see Indiana Jones on Friday. You can be sure that if we don't see it, you'll be hearing about it here in my next post, haha!

One final note: I love the new feature that lets me see when everyone's updated their blogs. Totally sweet!!

Summer Plans

2008-06-11T05:59:00.002-06:00

Ok, so it's been a couple days longer than a week since I last updated; my bad. I've either been too busy or too tired these past few days to have written something. But hopefully now that I'm starting to settle into my new routine/schedule, I'll do better in the future.

So, last week I finally started working again (hallelujah!) and I'm really liking it. I work mostly in the mornings and a majority of the time for each of my shifts is spent in the water teaching swim lessons (which I am loving). Some days I don't enjoy spending four hours in the water so much, but teaching and swimming are two things that I love, so most days I don't mind too much at all. The staff at my new job are all great. Everyone's just laid back and good humored, so it makes for a nice work environment.

In other news, we got to hang out with some of our friends this past weekend. Scott and Cathryn were in town (they're living down in Richfield for the summer) and so we had made plans with them to go to dinner or something, and then a few hours before we were supposed to meet up with them, Leah Dymock called us and asked if we wanted to hang out. So... we combined our plans and all went over to Ryan and Leah's for dinner and games. We had a blast playing games and just chatting (and watching Samantha crawl all over the place), and dinner was excellent. But we also made some more plans for this summer with all of them.

Tucker's really excited about all these plans, so I'll go in chronological order and do my best to remember/guess the dates for these things. This Saturday, Ryan and Leah are moving back up to Provo, so Tucker and I will help them with that. Then on the last Friday night of June (the 27th, I think), we're all going to drive up to Park City to go walk through some mini art galleries. The next time that we're all going to meet up again is the Fourth of July, and more than likely we'll be having a bbq. We'll probably have more than just the afore mentioned people at this since Jared will be in town and we all want to see Heidi again. Plus, Tucker wants to make steaks and wings, and boy-howdy, people will not want to miss out on that! Next, either the weekend of July 11th or 18th, we'll all be meeting down at the Matheson's in Richfield to go camping. I'm pretty sure that we're all stoked for this one cause Scott says he's got some amazing places picked out to go to. So, that's all that we've got planned... for now. More than likely we'll be doing more stuff, but by the time we had all this sorted out on Saturday night, it was way past my bedtime and the Matheson's had a two hour drive ahead of them. So needless to say, this will be an awesome summer.

Oh yeah!! And we are probably going to fly out to North Carolina for about a week at the end of the summer to spend time with family and also to go to one of our friend's wedding/reception. We're way excited for that. But I'm also bummed a little cause that means I won't get to make another trip down to Phoenix, but we'll get to go down for Thanksgiving, so it's all good.

It's Already June?!

2008-06-01T16:09:00.006-06:00

Posting on a Sunday.. this is weird; I'll throw off my whole schedule with the blog! Ah well. With my new schedule at work, Tuesday's aren't going to work for posting any more, so I'll just have to experiment with different days till I find one that works. That's right, I said it; I finally have a set schedule for work, it's only been about a month now. Starting tomorrow morning, I work from 5:15am - 12pm (I work that shift Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) and then also on Tuesdays and Thursdays I work 7:45am - 5pm.

And I'll be perfectly honest, I'm actually excited about working at this place. It's a pool owned by the city of Springville, but it services Springville, Mapleton, Salem, Payson, Spanish Fork and Santaquin; quite a big area for one small pool. I did my training and first inservice this weekend, and just from being around the staff and in the general atmosphere of the pool, I can tell I'll like it. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use the cash register and I'll be good.

Yesterday (Saturday), Tucker and I finally took the trip up to Kohl's to get Tucker some desperately needed new clothes. We had a gift card from our wedding and one from my mom for Tucker's birthday gift, so he pretty much went hog wild. Four new pairs of shorts (as all his old ones had holes in them), four new dress shirts, new slacks, and a couple new tshirts (both of which are not black/navy blue). Not gonna lie, he looks pretty dang good in his new outfits. He even wore one of his new dress shirts to church today, and normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but it was the first time that Tucker's ever worn a colored shirt to church so he felt a little weird.

Well, that's about it for now. Depending on how tired/worn out I feel this coming week I might post again; not much, mind you, just a small little update on how things are going. Have a great week!!

Memorial Day 2008

2008-05-27T09:45:00.003-06:00

So first, can I just say that I absolutely L-O-V-E long weekends. They're amazing!

Anywho, this past weekend Tucker and I drove down to Kanab (small town on the southern border of Utah and Arizona) to spend time with my family. It's kind of a tradition in my family to go there on Memorial Day Weekend; I remember going there every year when I was little, and it was always a total blast. It's my mom's mom's (so Grammy's) side of the family that goes cause apparently our ancestors helped to found that town. And from what I understand, we're also related to 3/4's of the people buried in the cemetery there (totally awesome, huh).

It was great going down again this year cause I've got some crazy fun relatives. We spent most of our time with Roger and Janet (Roger is my mom's cousin) playing games. And it was also nice to go down to Kanab because the last time we were there, Tucker and I were still dating (yes, Tucker visited me there in Kanab last year). Kind of weird to think that we've been together for more than a year, not married for a year, but just together. I'm feel lucky every day cause I've found him and because I get to spend the rest of... well, forever with him.

In other news, I finally get to start my job this week. That's right, I get to be an assistant manager finally at my neighborhood pool. OH!!! And I'm doing my first activity for my calling today. I'm the activity day leader (which was Achievement day when I was in primary). Basically I do fun stuff with the 8-11 year old girls in my ward. We're making journals today. I'm soooooo excited!!

Good Times

2008-05-20T13:09:00.004-06:00

This past weekend was a total blast for us, and we were totally worn out. Saturday morning me and Tucker went to see the Chronicles of Narnia sequel with Ryan and Leah (a couple of our friends up here). It was a pretty good movie, kind of loud, but good nonetheless. Was kind of reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, but what isn't when it comes to fantasy? After the movie, we came home and then helped throw a BBQ at our neighbor's (Austin and Michelle) house for a bunch of friends. That was really fun too; Tucker did the cooking for it, which is kind of funny cause it was like he was back in his ward at Campus Plaza doing the cooking for a ward party. When we left the BBQ we went over to Ryan and Leah's to watch Casino Royale (another excellent movie). By the time we got home we were dead tired, but Tucker had to prepare his lesson for Sunday so we stayed up past our bedtime.

Sunday was good. We hadn't been to church for two weeks because of our vacation, so it was nice to be back. Tucker taught in Elder's quorum and did a wonderful job (of course).

I'm still waiting to start my new job... getting kind of tired sitting around at home cleaning all the time, but I guess it needs to be done. Ah well, I'll get to work again soon.

This weekend we'll be going down to Kanab for our annual mini-family reunion. Should be a total blast! Hopefully next time I post here I'll have some great pictures to show everybody. Well, that's it for this week I think.

Overdue Update

2008-05-12T15:20:00.004-06:00

First off, I guess I should apologize for the HUGE break in posts here on our blog; but I promise that we'll do a better job (cross your fingers).

Since last time we posted, not much has really changed. The end of March was pretty fun. We had both of our birthdays, Tucker's parents came to town, and we decided to get a pet! The day before Tucker's birthday (March 29th) we got a guinea pig that we named ChuCho, and we both loved him so much. Sadly, he died suddenly almost 4 weeks after we got him. We felt that something was missing without a pet in our lives, so we decided to get another guinea pig (ChanCho) who died as well only 2 days after we got him. So, a little hesitant, we tried one last time and got Chorizo.

The semester ended well, and this past week we went to California with my family courtesy of my parents. We hit up Disneyland and then spent a couple days on the beach in San Diego. It was such a great vacation; just the break that we needed. When we got home yesterday though, we found out that Chorizo(picture here to the right) had died on Thursday. Needless to say we're sad about it, but we're also a little upset. We went through 3 guinea pigs in less than 2 months, all the while taking care of them extremely well. There was no reason for any one of the guinea pigs to die, so we think that there might be something wrong with Petsmart because that's where we got all three of them. We've decided to hold off on getting another pet for awhile, mostly because it's not fun being constantly afraid to look at the cage because the animal might be dead. But it's ok, we'll try again eventually.

Other than that, we're both just going to be working this summer. Tucker's got like four jobs on campus. One's his sensory lab job which he's had for a long time, then also he's started working in the library as a janitor. On top of that he's going to be working on two different research things; one to help his professor/boss finish up her PhD and the other is a competition to make a new dairy product. I finally quit my job at Apx and got hired on by the city of Springville at the local pool as a Shift Manager. So I'm really stoked cause I get to be back around water, but I've actually got some power (no, I won't let it go to my head).

We'll keep you guys updated on everything else, and try to post at least once a week. Have a great summer!!

The Kitchen is Done..... Almost...

2008-03-02T21:59:00.004-07:00

So, the remodelling on the kitchen started about three weeks ago, and is in the very final stages. There just a little bit of painting that needs to get done on the ceiling, but everything is looking good. Of course, there's that underlying curse that seems to have come upon me and Tucker: we have problems with pipes/water. Yesterday (saturday), we tried to run the dishwasher and one of the pipes that hooks up to it came loose and sort of started spraying huge amounts of water all over the kitchen. I wasn't at home when it happened, but apparently there was water spread throughout the whole kitchen. Here's where I tend to let out an exasperated sigh. I suppose eventually things will get all done and fixed, hopefully that will be by the end of this next week.

In slightly better news... well, not really news, but whatever. Tucker and I went and walked around a couple of model homes down in Mapleton. Really nice places, little out of our price range at the moment (the home cost $450,000), but yeah, we'll save for a few years, give or take, and be able to afford that some day. It was a good way to get ideas on what we want in the future though, and we both agree that it's going to be tons of fun to own a home.

Woot-woot!

2008-02-19T13:30:00.002-07:00

So I mentioned last week that we might be getting new cabinets, and I am happy to report that we are! We are currently under construction and without our kitchen, and have been for about week now, but we're perfectly fine with that because the kitchen is going to be amazing! We get new cabinets, new wood flooring, and we actually get a dishwasher!! I'm so excited for it to be done, it'll be great! Pictures will come soon!

And so it begins...

2008-02-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

So, I saw that a lot of married couples now have their own little blog pages, so I figured, "What the heck!" Hopefully this will be a good way to keep everybody up to date on our new life, but if not.. oh well.

At the moment, our lives are pretty simple. Tucker's still going to school, and I'm working at Apx still but taking a couple online classes through UVSC (which is so much nicer than not going to school at all). Yeah, that's pretty much our lives. Although we did have a little bit of excitment this past week when we discovered some mushrooms growing in our kitchen. Yes, that's right, mushrooms. Turns out we have a small leak in one of our pipes that kept the carpet next to the cabinets just wet enough for the fungi to grow, so we're supposed to have a plumber out today to fix that up for us. Some good news coming out of this though: we get new kitchen cabinets courtesy of our landlords! Yep, the water did so much damage to the cabinets (not to mention they're really old), that they'll be buying some new ones for the basement. We might even be getting some tile or wood flooring in the kitchen too, which would be incredible because it's currently carpet.

All in all, our apartment is finally a clean and comfortable home... with the exception of our bedroom. Still trying to figure out the best way to get that room organized, but we'll get there.