Good Luck Eric!

Today Sara and I went out to lunch with my aunt, uncle, and cousins from Alaska, to say goodbye to my cousin Eric before he went into the MTC! He is going to be serving as a missionary in Armenia for the next 2 years. I am so excited for him, and I know he is going to do great.

Happy Birthday Rebecca!

Today we celebrated my sister Rebecca's birthday. She, her roommate Emily, my sister Sara, and our cousin Oliver all came up for dinner. It was a beautiful day, and we ate delicious barbecue chicken wrapped in bacon, potato salad, regular salad, and of course cake and ice cream. It was fun to see them, and fun to have a break in the middle of finals. I can't wait until Tuesday, when I will be done with classes forever!

Update

We are expecting a baby girl! And we are really excited.

Prior to the ultrasound, we were both pretty convinced we were having a boy. Peter is the oldest son of the oldest son going back lots of generations, and we figured we would probably just continue the tradition. When they told us our baby was a girl, we were both surprised. But we are happy, and excited, and looking forward to meeting her in a few months.

Ultrasounds are really amazing. I didn't know how much detail we would get to see. I think it's incredible that we could look at her brain, and see the chambers of her heart, and everything. I have seen pictures from other peoples' ultrasounds, but it isn't the same as being there- you get to see a lot more than just what they print.

I can sometimes feel her wiggle around and kick me, and that is fun. She seems to like to move around when I am trying to fall asleep, which isn't quite so fun. I'm sure she's just practicing keeping us awake all night for after she is born.

Overall, things are going well here. The semester ends in 2 weeks, and things are pretty crazy until then. But I'm sure it will go by quickly, and everything will get done that needs to, and then it will be summer!

News

We are very excited to announce that we are having a baby this summer!

Telling people that we are having a baby is a strange experience. I am really excited, and want to share with people, but there isn't really an easy way to bring it up in conversation. Or on a blog post. So this news is delayed for the blog because I didn't really know what to say. Sorry!

So- to answer some questions you all may have- we do not know if we are having a boy or a girl yet. We are planning to find out (and are excited to find out!) and we'll post it here when we know.

I have been fairly sick- not as sick as some people I know, and more sick than others. Not so sick that I needed medication. But I think...maybe...I'm done with being sick? I sure hope so. We'll see.

I haven't finished my degree yet, but I'm going to. I finish classes this semester, I have an internship spring term (which I am also very excited for), and then after the baby comes I will write my thesis. The timing actually works out very well, because my thesis shouldn't be too hard to do with a baby, but classes and an internship would be harder to do.

If you have any advice on anything baby-related, we'd love to hear it. Going into baby-land is overwhelming- there are so many things to do, and get, and SO much information available, and it's nice to hear opinions from people we know and trust. So send us your checklists, or the names of books you think we should read, or your favorite products, or anything else that you have found helpful. We'd love to see it!


Also- so you're aware, I'm not going to post my due date, or our baby's birth date, or that sort of personal information on the internet. I'm happy to tell you, I just don't want just anybody to be able to look it up. :) So if you want to know, send me an email or something.

Lost & Found

Last night, a stray dachshund followed me home from taking Callie out for her evening walk. They were playing together, so Peter took her back to the corner where she first met up with us alone to see if she would wander home. She followed him home too. Since she didn't have a collar, and she and Callie had been getting along, and when Peter took her out she spent lots of time walking in the middle of the road (bad idea for a small black dog at night) we decided to keep her for the night and take her to the vet in the morning to see if she had a microchip.

Callie DID NOT like her once she came into the house. We knew Callie was territorial about food, and we learned that she is also territorial about her house and her people. She spent lots of time growling at the poor little dachshund (actually, the dachshund was bigger than Callie and weighed a lot more) and holding her head down to the ground so she would know that Callie is the alpha dog at our house. Whenever Callie would push her head down, the dachshund would just wag her tail and lick Callie's face. It was sad to watch, so we tried separating them for the night. The dachshund cried and cried until we put her back with Callie. We thought it was weird that she wanted to be with Callie when Callie wasn't being nice to her, but we wanted to sleep so we just left them together. It wasn't the most restful night, because several times in the night Callie felt the need to growl and put the dachshund back in her place.

In the morning, they were both wagging their tails and playing nicely and you would never know that they hadn't been getting along the night before. Peter took the dachshund to the vet, and fortunately she had a microchip so they were able to get her back to her family.

I'm glad we were able to help the stray dog, but it turned out to be a lot more challenging than we thought it would be when we decided to bring her home. It has been nice to have a quiet house this evening.

MR2 x2

Those of you who have been reading this blog since the beginning may remember this post about us getting a black 86 MR2. What I did not include in that post was that the car didn't run when we bought it. We thought it would be a "quick fix" that Peter could do himself that would be fun for him to do. Well, after four years, a new engine, and more money and headache than I want to think about, the car finally runs. It isn't in perfect shape, but it runs. I hope we have learned our lesson and will not buy another project car ever again. Even still, I feel like this story has a happy ending because the car RUNS, and for a long time, I thought it never would.

Jamaica Video

This is the video report for Peter's recent Jamaica project. It talks about their work there, and shows Peter in action a few times.