Happy Birthday Mom

Okay, so it's Halloween again which means, Mom's birthday! I just wanted to take a minute to write down some of the things that I love about my mom.

She's a good roommate. Paul and I have had the opportunity to live with them a few times since we've been married, all for relatively short periods of time, and it's been great. First, Keith got to spend so much time with his grandma and they truly have a special relationship. Also, I love that we can be living in her house and mom is so wonderful about NOT getting into our marriage. She really understands that a marriage is between the husband and wife and where our marriage begins, her parenting responsibilities end (to a point, of course) and it's not her job to try to "fix" any problems we're having.

She is super generous, and I'm absolutely sure that if she were rich, we would never need for anything. As it is, sometimes I think she's too generous with us, but fortunately I think it has rubbed off on me as I enjoy being generous and giving to others what I can.

She has a great sense of humor. She has the ability to laugh at herself, and take a joke very well. She's also very good at dishing it out! I love when she gets all goofy and we can't stop giggling about silly, unimportant things.

She is a fantastic adviser. I think there's very little that I haven't asked her opinion about when it comes to the major decisions in my life. She gives such great advice and I always know it's coming from someone who not only wants the best for me, but also from someone who is close to the spirit and doesn't take my questions or problems lightly.

She has taught me the value of giving a marriage everything. She truly gave everything to her first marriage, and although I know, she wasn't perfect and of course it wasn't ALL dad's fault, I know she did everything she could before making the decision to save herself.

She is such a great example. I know it's tough for her to have her family not only have zero interest in the church, but kind of blame the church for some things that have happened in her life, but no matter what she continues to be true to what she knows and never stops hoping that one day they will understand.

She's smart! How many people can go to their parents with computer questions?? Not many in this generation. And though I'm definitely not computer illiterate she knows much more about them than I do, and that's awesome!

She still knows how to have fun. I know life is busy for her, even more so than I was a kid (hard to imagine huh?) but there are times when she can just have fun. Ironically, one of my favorite things to do with her is camp (she doesn't care much for camping.)

She treats me like the adult I am while still making me feel like I'm her child and she'll always do what she can to protect me. It's a fine line to walk, but she has mastered it.

She's a great conversationalist. I love that we have reached a stage of life where we can just talk about things. We share opinions and ideas and we can talk for hours sometimes.

Mostly, she's my mom and has been a great mom over the years and taught me some great stuff, the most important being to really love the gospel. I love her very much and hope this birthday is a good one . . . at least better than it was when I talked to her this morning on the phone! Love you, Mom!!

Reality Has Finally Hit Me, And it Was A Big One!

So I've been saying for weeks how tired I am of being pregnant and how I'm so ready to have this baby out. And I am . . . or I thought I was.

Monday night I started having some very strong contractions and though they were erratic I was starting to wonder if maybe the time had come. And as it did, I started to get scared. Is that weird? Well, it probably is, but I guess it finally hit me, like REALLY hit me. I think part of the fear is the unknown of the labor and delivery part. Will I be able to have a successful VBAC or will I labor uselessly for hours only to have to be cut open again? The other part I think is that I guess I just realized, like really realized, that it will no longer be just me and Keith and Paul. There will be four of us. Last time, by the time I was a week late I was so ready to go that when I had false labor contractions I was excited and grateful to have something--anything!--happening, and I was truly disappointed when they stopped. This time, I was kind of hoping they would. I thought I was ready, but maybe I'm not so much, though at this point it's a little late to be wondering if I'm ready for another one! One other thing that I think helped last time I think was that we had the crib in our room for probably close to a month, and I think that helped me to adjust and prepare.

So, am I crazy or is this normal . . . even a little bit? Cause I feel kind of silly to be getting scared this late in the game.

Am I missing something??

It's still October right? Have Christmas lights suddenly transitioned to Halloween lights? Or did I fall asleep and do a Rip Van Winkle thing? Check this out.

This one is just a few houses down from ours, and though you can't tell very well in this photo, they're the pretty, colorful lights.

Yes, that is three, count them, THREE houses in a row with Christmas lights up. Though, to be fair I've never had a problem with the white lights year round if done tastefully. To me, they're just like sidewalk lights or something. And these are just on the next street over from us. That one on the corner--theirs go all the way around their fence on the side to the left too! Nice, huh?

Pumpkin Carving Fun

So, Monday night we did the pumpking carving thing. Here's some (okay, a whole bunch) of photos from our family fun night, haha.

This is Keith trying to wipe the yucky pumpkin stuff off his hands after putting them inside for the first time.

This is while I was trying to coax him into sticking his hand in again so I could get a picture of it. He's thinking about it . . .

He was totally interested after I gave him the scooper thing, probably cause that wasn't quite as icky (or slimy).

Then, Paul giving him a hand trying to help him gets some of the seeds out. icky.

He decided that little thing wasn't cutting it and went for the BIG spoon!

He liked playing with the seeds though, and that kept him occupied for a little bit.

I didn't get any pictures of Paul working on his pumpkin because mine took like three times as long, so of course I was busy focusing.

Taping on my pattern, which took a ridiculously long time all by itself to get it to sit just right so I didn't mess up any of the words.

This is grainy because Paul took it from the couch . . . which is why it's dark too. Oh well. I was too lazy to fix it right now.

And the finished product(s). I messed up a little cause my pumpkin got too weak and I accidentally knocked off the inside of the "c", but it still looks pretty good. Paul's is the goofy face, of course!

For Lissa

Just to keep you updated, here is a picture of week 2 after laying the seed (We seeded the 11th, this picture is from the 26th). I would just like to say, it looks better and a little fuller in person. =)

Where's My Lasso?

So, I'm standing in the kitchen cleaning, I dunno, the counters or stovetop or something when I look over and see Keith grab my car phone charger. I almost took it away then thought "eh, he probably couldn't hurt that. THEN, a couple minutes later I hear Keith say "My lasso!" And wondering if I possibly heard him right I look over at Keith, and there he is, holding my phone charger and swinging it around like . . . well, like a lasso! Where on earth did he learn that word? I don't know! He just said it, and for the rest of the day he'd put it down somewhere and then a few minutes say "where's my lasso?"

We Got A Piano!

Last night Paul made the comment that we should go to breakfast this morning which was cool with me. So this morning we got up, lounged for a little bit and headed for Denny's. On the way back Paul got into the left turn lane one street too early so I said "where are you going?" He said "there was a sign for an estate sale back there." Uh, okay, whatever. I figured it would give us something to do for a little while and we couldn't figure out what to do anyway today, so why not? Besides, who knows, we could get lucky and find some unbelievably awesome find, right?

Wow, the place was packed. When we drove up the street I said "I'm guessing it's where all the cars are parked." There were an awful lot of cars. The woman who was moving out must've been old cause the house was completely 70's, right down to the green shag carpet. (Yeah, I had flashbacks to my bedroom when I was a kid, haha). Most of the stuff was junk or worth very little, but inside there was a piano! So, I sat down to play. And it turned out to be an awesome piano! The action on it is great and so is the sound quality, and even though the piano is obviously a few decades old, it's in great condition, outside and in! This was truly an answer to my prayers. I'd prayed to find a piano, but I wasn't doing a whole lot to help right now because I didn't want to spend the money. I figured if now was really the best time to buy one, one would sort of fall into my lap . . . and it kind of did. It was a great price too. A little more than I initially planned on spending, but definitely worth the price.

The sale had started only at 9:00 am, and we arrived around 9:40. After I'd bought it and we were waiting for Paul's dad to come with his truck another guy came in and was like "Oh, it's already sold." What kind of awesome luck is that? The hammers and felt inside look almost new. They're obviously not because they have some wear, but I can't help but think the owner has had them replaced at some point, or from the beginning this piano was more for looks than function. All it really needs is a good tuning. I'm so excited to have a piano again!

Look how flat the hammers are still (really shallow indentations from the strings still) and how flat the dampers sit against the strings. Or if you don't really care, you can move on now . . . I'm just super excited, haha.

(PS - If you click on the photo of the piano you can see all the detail in the wood.)

Why I'M voting 'Yes' on Prop 8

Okay, so I've really been thinking this out and this is what I've come up with. One of the biggest reasons (from what I've observed) that some people are voting 'no' on Prop 8 even though they don't necessarily agree with same-sex marriage is this: they worry that by "pushing" our beliefs onto others we are opening ourselves up to the same happening to ourselves, and when it does we will not have the right to complain since we are a guilty party as well. Well, I've finally figured out my response for that because it is a valid argument, and this is what I've come up with:

Yes, that time may come, and possibly (probably, in fact) by voting 'yes' on Prop 8 I am opening myself up to that at some point in the future, and you know what? I think that's okay with me. There are many examples of people in the scriptures who decided that standing up for what was right was more important than the possibility of losing their religious (or otherwise) freedoms in the near or distant future. Daniel, Abinidi, and countless others, but those two stand out the most to me right now. Both of them weren't just putting their freedoms at stake, they were putting their very lives at stake by standing up for what was right. Daniel, fortunately came out of it okay, but Abinidi wasn't so lucky. They didn't say to themselves "Hmm, I could stand up for what's right, but if I do that they could put me in jail, or kill me, so what good would that do?" They said "I must take a stand for what I know to be true, even if I'm condemned to death for it."

So, where do I stand on this? Well, I think I've decided that I would rather be imprisoned (since we've kind of done away with condemnation of death at this point) with a clear conscience knowing that I stood up for what was right than be free with the thought that I could've and should've done more. Satan doesn't need us to do and say awful things to people to make us his, he just needs us to be silent. That is enough for him. And he convinces us to do that by telling us that it's not our place, or it doesn't effect us, or we're not being tolerant if we take a stand, or it could end up backfiring on us in the future. If by voting 'yes' on Prop 8 I am setting myself up for others to push their beliefs on me later, I will take that chance knowing that I stood up for what was right when I was called upon, because ultimately others actions will not condemn or exalt me--my own will.

Decisions, decisions . . .

Okay, so turns out we DID do lasting damage to the engine, and now our car is a sitting pile of worthless metal. We cracked a head (we think) because we got it too hot. Now what? We are trying to decide whether it would be best to cut our loses, try to sell it for $1000 or so and buy another car or spend the money to fix it. This sucks. I hate making these kids of decisions. Logically, I feel like we should spend the money to fix it since buying a new(er) vehicle would be much more costly for two reasons: one, we practically would have to deplete our savings to get a decent down payment, two, then we add a monthly car payment on top of that to our bills which would make it that much harder to restore our savings. I know it's costly to fix it, but at least it would be done, it would be cheaper than buying a new one, and we'd still be debt free, which really seems like a better idea at this point with the economy the way it is and all.

Then, another part of me thinks maybe we should simplify even more sell the suburban. I'm pretty sure we could get $5000 for it, and we'd go back to being a one car family for awhile. I know that seems silly since we just bought it, but I'm thinking having the money right now might really be smarter than the second vehicle. The would also give us a big jump start in our car fund for when we really WILL need to buy a new car cause this Saturn ain't going to last forever! Ugh. In the meantime, Chuck is going to let us borrow the station wagon since he doesn't use it much anyway, but I don't know for how long. Nick thinks we should "cut our loses" and sell the Saturn, but I truly don't think Nick understands the beauty of being (minus school/house loans) debt free.

Any thoughts? Ultimately, of course we will pray about it, but I'm curious to hear what others think. I like to get lots of different opinions about things like this.

Photo Evidence

Nick is outside taking apart our car right now to replace the radiator for us (see previous blog). Here is the radiator that he pulled out (that should be all one piece, in case you weren't sure). Nice huh? And he thought Paul was exaggerating when he said our radiator exploded . . . not so much. Kind of a miracle we got home at all huh?

Sunday Adventures

Well, yesterday was quite an adventure. I haven't been to our ward in 3 weeks due to illness and a week of general conference, so I was quite looking forward to church yesterday. As Paul and I got ready I said to him "hey, we should go up to the mountains today after church." He thought that was a good idea, so we were trying to hash out details (like leaving straight from church since it doesn't get out until 2:00), and then of course, dinner details, but ran out of time. We just got ready for church and headed over thinking we would figure things out as they came.

We got all the way to the church building to discover an empty parking lot. Turns out yesterday was stake conference! lol We had no idea. Since I didn't go to church last week, and the week before was conference, I hadn't heard. Paul did go to church last week, but missed the beginning of sacrament meeting when they must've mentioned it, I'm sure, and then also missed priesthood because the bishop called him in to extend a calling. Hmm, oops. So, we'd already missed half of conference and our stake center is a ways across town so I figured by the time we got there, there would only be 45 minutes left, if that. Though we probably should've gone just to hear our stake presidency at least, we decided to just take the opportunity to go up to the mountains instead.

It started out great. We had a great time exploring and seeing new things, since I haven't been on this side of the mountain much (if ever). We found this meadow on a dirt road. It was called Big Stump Meadow or something? I can't remember for sure. It used to be a logging place. Anyway, kind of looks like a tree graveyard huh?






Here, Paul was trying to get Keith to put his feet together so he could put him in a hole. Keith didn't bite.

We made a loop that went past Hume Lake, which was beautiful. Unfortunately I didn't have the batteries for my camera, so I didn't get many pictures, and the ones that I did get were a real struggle. Anywho, on the way back we decided to try this other dirt road . . . which turned out not to have been such a great idea. Just when we decided we should turn around there was a big pop/poof and then steam billowing out from under the hood. Oops . . . that can't be good. And it wasn't. Our radiator blew . . . literally. Pretty much the whole side blew out. Water wouldn't even stay in it for a little while. It just went right through. It took us 3 long hours to get home, and hopefully we didn't do any permanent damage to the engine.

It was still a nice day, and since I'd already prepared dinner to shove into the oven first thing when we got home, and we didn't get home until after 7:00 I already have dinner prepared for tonight! The whole thing wasn't really stressful (for me . . . Paul didn't handle it quite as well) as much as it was tiring and tedious having to stop constantly to let the engine cool and try to push water through to cool it down. And wouldn't you know it, the one week we needed Paul's dad to come help us out he and Paul's mom are on their way up to Sacramento. Paul says it probably would've happened anyway, but I still feel responsible for suggesting the road. In my defense when we first started on it, it was paved and I would've turned around long before he did!

Anyhow, just briefly, on a different note, check it out! Grass is starting to grow! It's only been a week and there it is, growing all over! We thought it would take at least 2 to see anything. I'm so excited. (I hope you can see it in the picture)

Naturally 7

I just thought this was really awesome, and thought I'd share it. Enjoy. It's quite impressive, and I've heard lots of a capella groups.

BIG Blessings

So, Paul came home yesterday a bit later than usual, and I said "you're late." (as in, later than usual), and he said "Yeah, and I'll probably have a few more late days. Four people got laid off today."

What?? Wow. When I asked him why, all he could say was "the economy". He wasn't sure who exactly it was except for one woman named Jadine (who I liked a lot). Now, Paul was the last person hired at Matt . . . and of course everyone knows what that means. I can't believe how close Paul just got to losing his job. The question is, why did they keep him and hire others who have all been there, at least months longer than him?

I don't know. I think this must be one of the tender mercies of the Lord. That's about the only thing that makes any sense. He hasn't even been there 3 whole months yet and Jadine had been there for over a year, at least. There was also one other little miracle; It wasn't just some random choice that they kept him . . . somebody he works with--(easily the most successful man he works with who doesn't work in a "management" position because he's smart enough to know he doesn't want all the responsibility. He just continues to work for the "fun" of it)--I think stuck his neck out for Paul and argued to keep Paul (if there a debate which there probably was). One of his bosses told him "be grateful, you have a fan."

I was stunned. I was just sitting there thinking about how close he got to losing his job. You don't realize how quick something like that can happen. And while I'm thrilled that by some miracle Paul still has his job, I feel so bad for the four others who don't. I wonder if they're thinking "Why me and not Paul? He was the last guy in." He said his boss was not in a good mood yesterday afternoon. He was sad he had to let anyone go. About all I can say is, wow, and kneel down and thank Heavenly Father . . . repeatedly. And think about what I should be doing to be worthy of such a blessing.

Growing babies and lawns

We had such a productive day Saturday! Friday night, I was really starting to feel that we should get a car seat so that we had that done. I realized I was starting to get edgy about the things we have left to do (like get a mattress for Keith so that the crib is free again), and I was starting to kind of panic. With 4 weeks to go I know that's kind of irrational, but when you're pregnant you can't always help those kinds of feelings. So, we went out looking Friday night and looked everywhere that I could think of. Finally, at Wal Mart I found one I kind of liked, so, thinking that I wasn't going to be able to find anything else, we bought it. I said if I found something else I could always take it back.

Then I discovered Baby Depot online, which is inside Burlington Coat Factory. We went there Saturday morning, after Paul changed his break pads and rotors that were making some awful noises, and I actually found THREE there that I liked! I couldn't believe it. I actually had to choose. Fortunately, Paul kind of had a favorite among the three, saving me the chore of choosing myself. He took the other one back this morning and I'm so happy I don't have to have one I only kind of like, especially since it will have to last through at least another 2 kids.

I like the color and I think the polka dots, combined with the stripes makes it pretty gender neutral . . . like it?

Anyway, after that we went to Home Depot and got a rake and seed and top soil fertilizer, and then we proceeded to take most of the rest of the day to seed our dirt. I've been watering faithfully since then (I know, it's only been 2 days), but I hope to be able to post a picture of actual grass in a few weeks. For now it looks like this:


Saturday I woke up feeling quite sick with a nasty cold and awful sore throat. I thought it might be coming on since I sensed it in Keith Friday night, but it sure hit me hard. I helped with the seeding and such, but after raking the length of the yard once after I put down the seed, I was done. Between the pregnancy and the cold, I felt like someone had hit me with a shovel. It wasn't terribly pleasant, but at least we got something accomplished.

Yesterday, since Keith and I were so sick, Paul went to Church by himself. When I came in from watering my dirt in the morning, I found him in the shower at 11:02. I said "So, I take it you're not going to church?"

And he was like "What do you mean? Yeah, I am."

Then I told him that church started at 11:00...and it was already past.

He just looked at my funny and said, "What? Since when does church start at 11:00? I thought it started at 11:30."

And i had to tell him . . . "Uh, since we got in this ward."

He didn't understand why he thought it started at 11:30 Well, in Tulare it does, but not here. So, though he went, he was late and missed sacrament. And THEN he came home with a calling . . . maybe he should've just stayed home! He was called to be the Webelos leader, which didn't surprise me at all since both wards we were in in ID tried to call him to scouts. It was only a matter of time.

I'm finally feeling a little better now, so hopefully by tomorrow morning I will be almost back to normal . . . just in time for another dr. appointment . . . woohoo. I've got officially less than one month to go, and I'm ready to be there!

Food for thought...

I think this is an important video to see. I stumbled upon it, and think it's a real eye opener. Proof from a real couple with a real story. Watch it and tell me what you think. The end is especially disturbing.

Home, Sweet Home

Last night was so wonderful. It was my first real "this is my house!" moment that I'd been imagining for a long time. We've moved around so much in the last 5 years (I think 9 times...seriously. And that's not counting the 6 months before we got married when I moved in and out of the dorms pretty quickly) that moving into this house felt like just another move for awhile. I love the house, but it's not the first house we've lived in since we've been married, or even the first one we've lived in alone. So, I guess the "my house" thing hasn't really sunk in.

Last night I decided to do BBQ chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner (so yummy). As we moved around the kitchen doing different dinner things I had my first feelings of...um...possession maybe? It was like a "this is what I've been imagining!" moment. It was so great. I can't wait to spread seed this weekend, and begin making the backyard my little get away. I've got such great ideas for it and great plans. I wish we could do it all right away, but there's two problems with that. Money for one. The baby will be coming, so we'll be spending a lot of money on that, and then the other is that I really do want to do a lot of it myself, and that takes time. But the possibilities excite me!

I told Paul that I really want to decorate my house/lawn for Halloween this year, mostly because I can! I always wanted to do that as a kid, and of course, we never did. We made a few scarecrows over the years, but that's about as creative as I remember getting. I probably won't do anything extreme this year (but, just wait. I will!) but I look forward to having my own porch to put my jack o lantern on where people can see it and maybe some lights up my walkway (and just for the record, we did have that house, and I could've put my pumpkin on my porch there, but no one would've seen it and I worked very hard on it!). I'm not terribly creative, so the final result won't be anything spectacular. I'm still trying to decide what Keith will be for Halloween since I really want to take him trick-or-treating this year. (Any good...easy...ideas, shoot them my way!)

On a different note, the weather has got me feeling so happy! It's finally cool! Of course, the last really warm night here was Wednesday which was the night we went to the Fresno fair. I wore pants, and that combined with tons of bodies, lights and the weather had me quite warm. Oh well. Without my AC on last night, before 11:00 it was only like 72* in my house. I had the sliding door open all day yesterday letting the breeze come through. This morning Keith's hands and feet were cold when he came into my room, so I happily put some pj pants on him. I look forward to making soup and sipping on hot chocolate and cider. Yay!

Grrrrr...

Okay, seriously, what IS is with doctors who think that our time, as patients, isn't as important as their time, as doctors??

Normally, I just take Keith with me and he sits there and that's that since all they do is listen to the baby's heartbeat and measure my belly. Two weeks ago, however, they told me that next time I went in I would have to undress. I didn't know how Keith would deal with it, so I decided to talk him to his grandparent's house for this one. Unfortunately, the time I finally ask Arlin to babysit, he's out of state in UT taking care of his mom. Ugh. So, instead I ask Paul to come to my appointment and hang with Keith while I go in. Since my appointment was at 10:10 and they're ALWAYS late getting me in (like usually 20 minutes +) I told Paul to come at 10:15 just to be safe.

At 10:50 I was STILL sitting in the waiting room wondering what the heck was going on. I tell a receptionist "Uh, I've been here for like 40 minutes...is there a reason I'm still sitting here?" She says she'll check, blah blah. Anyway, she finally says that I'm next. 20 minutes later (no joke) they call me up, and I go in for my appointment. To make a long story short...they didn't even make me undress, so Paul came and took over an hour off work for nothing, and they told me I'll have to undress next week. GRRRR. Talk about SUPER frustrating. By blood pressure was a little higher this week than last time. hehe. They got me in a out fairly quickly last time. But basically their attitude is that an hour is a reasonable amount of time...for them to do about 4 things.

Why do they schedule 6 appointments in an hour if they can only see 3 people?? What is UP with that? Why is it that my time isn't important, and I'm supposed to be on the doctor's schedule? Now, I understand that sometimes things happen and they get behind, and they DO deliver babies, and that's, of course, not a predictable thing, but seriously an hour? To check my weight, urine, blood pressure (which of course, none of which the actual doctor does) and then another 20 minutes before the doctor comes in to listen to the baby's heartbeat and measures me? I'm sorry, but that seems kind of silly to me. Not to mention that she has a nurse practitioner, so she doesn't even see all her patients and it STILL takes me an hour to see the nurse...ugh. I'm so sick of going to the doctor. And next time, I WILL be finding another office. My last place was a lot quicker than this on average...and it was a low cost clinic!

Okay, rant over...had to get that out of my system. =)

I'd Almost Forgotten How Nice It Is...

So yesterday, after conference, Paul and I went over to Daniel Netzley's house for his birthday party. When he told Paul about it initially (and Paul told me) we thought it was just going to be a little BBQ action and hanging out. When we got there, and his mom, dad, and sister pulled up behind us and there were already 2 other cars there, we realized that this was a bigger gathering than either of us had initially anticipated. Paul has been adopted into the Netzley family over the years, so it certainly wasn't the first time we've gotten together with the family, but it was a surprise to walk into the house and find his whole (except one brother) family there and even Grandma Netzley (who I absolutely adore!)

Also, his best friend (or so I assume) Albert was there, and another couple showed up with their 3 kids. Keith had such a blast playing with all the other kids there. There were about 6 other kids there for him to play with and we didn't have to watch him the whole time...it was great!

I was initially a little nervous because I have met Daniel's wife maybe once, very briefly, and had no idea what to expect. I wanted to make a good impression and have a hope for a friendship as Paul would love to do more things with them. They are great fun to hang out with. Also, Peter (Daniel's brother) was there with his new wife Mai and I don't know her very well yet either, and being adopted into the Netzley family means we will probably being seeing a lot more of each other.

I had such a great time! I'd forgotten what it's like to hang out with friends, and more especially friends who are at the same point in life that I am. I miss my high school friends, but it's a totally different dynamic with people who are married and have kids too. I felt so comfortable and had such a wonderful time talking to everyone and joking, laughing, and talking about normal adult things. I got to talk to Mai a little more, and got to know Tiffany just a little bit. Both seem like just awesome people. Mai has a great sense of humor and made jokes about how if she and Peter moved down to Chinatown in LA she'd spend all her time trying to explain to people where "Hmongs" come from. They'll say "So, are you from Mongolia?"

She'll say "No, we're from Thailand."

And then they'll say "So you're Thai?" to which she then replies with wide eyes, "No, we're Hmong!" And then she tries to explain that Hmong's don't have their own country.

I had to say "well, you have to admit it IS a little confusing!" and she just laughed. Tiffany, I didn't get to talk to quite as much, since she was the hostess and was wrangling her kids a lot or preparing something, but I did get to talk to her a little and I'm looking forward to being able to get to know her better with slightly less people around.

We left our house a little after the last session of conference and were there basically all evening until past Keith's bed time, but he had a great time and so did Paul and I. Now I know what we've been missing out on!

The Long Awaited Blog...Sorry it took so long!

Okay, so finally now, we are now only in our new house, but I finally have the internet connected. For some reason, the people that come to install things at our new house never seem to have an easy time (the Dish guy had some trouble too). When we called to set up an appointment to have our phone/internet installed by ATT they couldn't get us in for over a week! So, finally they showed up here this last Wednesday, and the guy had been here 5 minutes when he came in and said "I'm sorry, but I can't do anything until you get a box installed outside to run the fiber optic into the house." That wasn't his job, and the it
was already after 4 by the time he FINALLY showed up at my house (it was supposed to be between 10-2) so the guy whose job it was was already off for the day. Thursday he showed up pretty early and got it taken care of. Friday a different ATT guy came to try to hook up the internet/phone again and was successful!...half way. We still don't have a phone for some strange reason. We can make calls out, but if you try to call in, you get a message saying the number isn't hooked up. But, at least we have the internet! Hopefully the phone issue will be resolved shortly. For reference the # is (will be) 559-375-1114.

Our new address is 5347 E. Atchison St. Fresno, CA 93727. We finally have a "permanent" address! I'm so very excited. So, as I promised, the long awaited pictures.

Funny story, after about a week in the house, Paul and I were about to leave to go somewhere when he walked back into the house saying "I'll be right back." He came back out and goes, "We don't have a doorbell." I looked around and sure enough, we have no doorbell! The box for the doorbell is in the hallway all hooked up and everything...they just forgot to put the button outside! They did the same thing inside in the dining room. They drywalled right over the light switch. I'm pretty sure, if the Beazer woman hadn't noticed and written it down, I would have gone a whole month before saying "Huh, ya know, I wonder how you turn those lights on up there..." Oh well. That's one of the things you have to deal with buying a new house...however, they fix all that stuff for free too, so whatever.

Well, here are the long awaited pictures. These are from when we first signed papers, so obviously the house is empty, but it's better than nothing for now, and I can put up more later. There's still a lot of boxes sitting around right now.

<----My very pretty master bath. That's the shower right there on the right side, and behind the open door is the "water closet"













This is the view from the from door. This is where my piano will go! There are 3 little square windows high up on the left side. Through that arch is the kitchen/dining. The dining table is on the left now.------>


<----This is the living room and yes, that is a 10-foot high brick wall in the back. There's train tracks behind us. They don't have much traffic. That is where our TV sits now.












This is my awesome kitchen. I pretty much love it. Tons of counter space, and I love the color of the cabinets. --------------------------->


Anyway. You get the gist. Like I said, I'll take more of what it looks like with all our stuff in it now. We got blinds too this week, so that's also very nice. Shortly we'll be seeding the backyard. Paul tilled it yesterday, so hopefully in not-too-long we'll have grass in the backyard too!

Don't forget to vote on my poll if you haven't yet. I'm 5 weeks away from my due date and SO ready to go.