Trimming the tree

Saturday we went up to Draper and borrowed some decorations from Jon's parents. Karen had told us they weren't decorating this year because the back half of the house is currently torn up and we could borrow some stuff if we wanted. I didn't really think we needed much for our house, but we did need stuff for our tree. We ended up coming home with a bunch of giant pine cones, rusty jingle bells, an assortment of rusty metal stars, and some white berry things. Jon and I decided we would do the tree in rust and red with accents of white from the berries. I wanted some red berries, so we decided that we should just buy some at one of the many craft stores around. Unfortunately I was very particular about the red berries I wanted. I wanted them to be the same style as the white berries we had borrowed from the Wares. We stopped by the Joann's and Michael's up in Draper, but neither of them had what we were looking for. We decided we would stop by a few places a little closer to home that might have them. We tried Hobby Lobby, Taipan, and Roberts and didn't find what I was looking for. We decided we would stop by Kmart to get some red balls, so we could still have some red on the tree and looked for berries there too with no luck. We got our red glass balls and decided we might as well try the Quilted Bear by the Kmart as one last attempt at finding the red berries. After wandering around a bit I spotted a little area that looked promising. It had wreaths with the right type of berries, but nothing like the picks with the berries we had got from Karen. Jonathan noticed one long garland of the berries in what seemed to be a little deeper red than I was originally thinking, but they matched pretty good with the glass balls. I decided that I could just cut the garland up into pieces and that would work. After driving all over and going to what felt like a million places we finally found what we were after.

Sunday after church we decorated the tree. It was fun. Stringing the rusty bells on the wire and wrapping that around the tree was kind of a pain and my hands got super dirty, but I think our tree ended up looking really neat. We set up our camera (a Christmas present to ourselves that we opened early) to take a picture every 2 minutes as we were decorating. The battery died not long after we started, so I strung most of the bells while the battery was charging. Jon put the pictures together into a little video. For some reason I can't figure out how to put the video in the middle of the post, so it is down at the bottom.

After the tree was done I had fun playing with the camera and taking the close-up pictures of the tree.

Here is my self portrait :)

The tree turned out good and Jon takes every chance he gets to turn on the lights so we can enjoys its full grandeur.

Birthing a Christmas tree, Megan's party, and the washer and dryer

Labor and Delivery

The first weekend in November Jonathan and Phil went and got permits to cut down a Christmas tree for this year. We had never chopped our own tree, but Jennifer and Phil did it last year and had a great time, so we decided to give it a shot. It didn't work out for us to go with the Willsons to cut down our tree so Jon and I went this last Saturday the 4th. We ended up leaving Provo around 3 and then stopped by my parents house to grab some rope and some things we thought might be nice to have for hauling a tree. We were under the impression that getting the tree wouldn't be too difficult. Unfortunately we were mistaken. We drove our Neon up to the woods outside of Heber to the area it showed on our little map from the forest service of where to cut our tree. A couple miles short of where we could cut our tree the road was no longer plowed and the paved road was covered in slushy wet slippery snow. We tried to go up a few times but couldn't make it up the little hills, so we slipped and slid back down to where the road was plowed and parked our car. We were not giving up this easy, so we started to walk up the snowy street.

We hiked up the snow covered street for an hour and a half. I thought I was going to die. As we were walking up every so often there would be a no trespassing sign or a sign that said private property, so we thought if we could just go far enough up until we hadn't seen one of these signs for a while it would probably be far enough up that we could chop our tree. Hiking through melty slippery snow up hill is not the funnest thing to do while pregnant. On the way up I was getting pretty discouraged because we kept seeing the private property signs, and I just wanted to cry every time I saw one. I kept myself from crying because I knew that Jon would make us turn around and go back if I did. I didn't want to give up and have to hike back down without a tree. We were already there and there wasn't going to be a better time for us to go later. Because we didn't plan on hiking for an hour and a half it started to get dark as we were trekking up. It was getting kind of dark by the time we saw some footprints leading off the road into the woods and we realized it had been a little bit since we had seen a private property sign, so we decided to go for it. We hiked off the road and tromped around in the snow looking for the right type of tree. We didn't find any thing and then we noticed that the trail that the previous travelers had taken went over a little creek and in the creek there was a little chunk of a pine tree, and it was the right kind of tree!

Jon leapt over the creek to see if he could find a tree for us. I stayed on the other side of the creek and waited because I did not want to attempt a flying leap across a creek while pregnant for fear of losing my balance and ending up all wet. While I was waiting I had to pee, so I did. This is the first time I can think of that I have ever peed in the snow. It kind of reminded me of when we had a dog and how he must have felt in the winter. I took a picture of the snow after I had relieved myself, but I decided reading about it would be bad enough for some people that they probably wouldn't want to see a picture so I didn't include that one.

Besides relieving my pregnant bladder I also took some long exposure pictures, so we could kind of see where we chopped the tree from. The picture above is probably a 4 second exposure- it was pretty dark by this time and I couldn't see where Jon was but he was in the trees that are right in middle of the picture. We couldn't see each other but we could hear each other, so I told Jon about peeing and taking pictures and he gave me updates on how the search was going and then when he found a tree he gave me updates on how the cutting was coming.

He got the tree cut and drug it back to the creek where I was waiting. I helped carry the tree out of the woods and we started back down the road carrying the tree between us. Jon tried to get me to let him drag it but I didn't want the tree to get all mangled by us dragging it down the snow covered road. After all we worked hard for this tree and I wanted it looking as pristine as possible. Sadly my determination was cut short because I started having a pain in my right side a little above my hip inside my guts. The pain went away after I stopped helping with the tree and Jon drug the tree the rest of the way down. The hike down was a cinch and went super quick even though it was really dark. We got back to our car and started the task of affixing the tree to it.

It wasn't too difficult and I think we did a pretty good job. As we were getting the tree tied down some people in a truck that was parked in the same place that we were asked if we had seen some people on snow mobiles. We had seen these seasoned Christmas tree choppers coming down with their first few trees on tarps behind their snow mobiles as we were walking up and then they had passed us going up again as we were still making our original trek up the mountain, but we hadn't seen of heard then as we were coming back down. We told the people that we had seen then and about when it was (I didn't mention that I had wished they would have picked us up and given us a ride or something so we didn't have to keep walking). Right as we were taking the pictures of the tree on the car and were ready to go some of the snow mobile people made it down and we overheard them talking about having some problem (in my mind I thought maybe if you had given the pregnant girl a ride on the way up you wouldn't have had any problems). It was good to know that they made it back before we left because I would have worried about them.

The drive home was a little scary because it was raining and visibility wasn't great, but we made it back to our place safely and unloaded the tree. We had to cut a bit off the bottom of the tree because it was too tall, but we got it in the house and in the stand with some water.

I determined that getting this tree was kind of like having a baby. The process of getting the tree was a pain and a lot of hard work, I imaging birthing a child will be more of a pain and more difficult than hiking up a snow covered mountain for an hour and a half but the idea of laboring to get something is similar. The next day at church the bishop mentioned to me that Jon had told him about our tree obtaining experience and he said our tree better be the most beautiful great smelling tree in the world. I told him that it was like having an ugly baby: you might not realize that your baby is ugly, and even if you do, you still love that baby because it is yours and this is how I felt about our tree. The last reason why I think this tree is like having a child is because now that I have done all the work of obtaining it and I have it in my house and it has lights on it and I'm enjoying it; I am already forgetting how uncomfortable and miserable it was to get it here and thinking that I would be ok doing it again next year. We'll see what we end up doing about a tree next year, but now that the laboring is over I am enjoying my tree and am excited to finish decorating it.

Megan's Christmas Party

With pine needles still covering the floor in the living room we left our place after the tree adventure for Megan Rogers Christmas party. On the facebook invite she had said to wear an ugly sweater or cheesy Christmas attire. I didn't have a sweater, so I decided to wear my lovely hand crafted Christmas tree skirt as a cape. It was fabulous. I looked both ridiculous and festive, which I think was the goal.

We met my brother Michael and cousin Teri at Megan's and took some excellent photos with the cheesy photo backdrop that Megan and her roommates had prepared.

We had a lot of fun at the party with Christmas Karaoke, Pin the nose on Rudolph, Pass the parcel, and a greeting card competition. When we got there Teri told me about the greeting card competition and she was already formulating a card that would be sure to win the approval of whoever the college-student-age judges would be. Her completed card had a limmerick on the front that said something like "You are my favorite Ho Ho Ho! So meet me under the mistletoe. We'll make it so merry, it might get scary. But you will be asking for mo' " then on the inside it said "here's to hoping we make the naughty list this year." (Teri if I butchered that you should leave a comment with what the exact wording was). Needless to say at the end of the party when the time came for everyone to decide a winner for best card, Teri's card won hands down.

I think that of all the people at the party only the five of us (Megan, Mike, Teri, Jon and I) grasped the true meaning of Christmas Karaoke. Jon put it well when he told me that Karaoke is not about singing a cute song and looking cute and sounding good (which is what most people were trying to do) it is about making a fool of yourself and having a good time while doing it. This is exactly what we did. There were a few karaoke moments that stand out in my mind as our best the first being when we did an a capella rendition of little drummer boy with Teri and I doing our best young boy sounding vocals, Jon being our metronome of pums, Michael adding flourishes of rum pa pum pums, and Megan finishing off the vocal-percussion section with the clash of cymbals at appropriate times. It was pretty amazing. The other great times were Megan and Jon singing an amazingly slow version of "Do you hear what I hear" and then Mike and I singing "Good King Wenceslas" with Mike singing the parts of the narrator and king and me singing the page and joining in for added emphasis on the last part of the last verse. The other Karaoke gem that we performed was "The friendly beasts." We sang in our best animal voices and even though I was trying not to laugh while I was singing the part of the sheep with the curly horn I couldn't help it because Teri told me I sounded like a sheep that had been possessed. So classic.

Pin the nose on Rudolph was fun, but nothing too memorable to note for anyone that I knew. Jon won the lovely apron that he is wearing in the picture of all of us in the pass the parcel game and Mike got a Santa sippy cup from the same game. We all had a fun time and I think that the party was a success for Megan and her roommates because a bunch of people came and had fun.

Washer and Dryer



A few weeks ago my grandpa Snow mentioned in an email that they were having some problems getting the people from Sears to deliver their new washer and dryer. Jon and I had been looking on KSL.com for a washer and dryer because we thought this would be a really good thing to have when we have our baby in a few months. I took the opportunity to respond to the email and inquired about the old washer and dryer because this was the first thing I had heard about them getting new ones. I thought that if there was nothing wrong with them, they still worked fine, and my grandparents were just getting rid of them we would like to have them. The email I got back from my grandpa was a little discouraging. Some of the things that he said that worried me were-
1. " We had a leak in the washer last week"
2. "I imagine the heating element will need to be replaced sometime soon"
3. "If you want them we'd like you to pick them up later this week"

Leaky washer, broken heating element, and having to find time over Thanksgiving weekend to drive to St George and pick them up when Jon and I both had to work the Friday after Thanksgiving didn't sound like that great of a deal. I responded to that email with an "if they are broken I don't think it would be worth it" tone and to let Sears take them. I got an email from my aunt who was there in St George with my grandparents saying that grandma thought the washer and dryer were fine and they worked great and they think the leak was just because they overfilled it and they would be happy to leave them on the back porch until we could come and get them. I still had my doubts, but after my aunt and my grandmas assurances we said we would like to have them.

My parents went down to St George for a quick weekend trip last weekend to get the washer and dryer and help grandma and grandpa install their new TV. It was very nice of them to do that for us and grandma and grandpa appreciated my dad installing the wall mount for the TV and getting that all up and running. They dropped the washer and dryer off at our place on Sunday night and it just happened that Jon's parents were down here (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the wooden shoe of goodies we got delivered to us that night ;) ) so Kent helped Jonathan and my dad to bring in the washer and dryer. We got the washer all hooked up and started a load of wash, but we couldn't test out the dryer because our plug in the wall and our plug on the cord didn't match.

We knew we would have to get some sort of converter or something for the dryer and Jon figured out that we could change the cord rather than re-wiring the plug. We went to the Home Depot and got the cord with the right plug and Jon double checked with Marion (the old-white-haired-bearded-electrical expert at Home Depot) that this was what we needed and how he needed to switch from the old one to the new one. We went home and Jon with his electrical man skills took off the old plug and hooked up the new cord to the right leads and bolts and stuff on the dryer. We plugged it in and it works! It didn't even blow up or cause the power to go out on the whole block or anything. It has been really nice having a washer and dryer in our house I have done two loads of laundry already and there have been no leaks or problems with the washer or dryer. I think they are going to work great for us and I am grateful that my grandparents let us have them and that my parents helped get them from St George for us.

This weekend was busy but I learned a few things, like that I don't think this baby is going anywhere for a while because getting our tree could have easily put me into labor, Jon has some serious man skills, and having a washer and dryer is great. This post was pretty epic, but so was the weekend.

Halloween fun

This year we did more the week before Halloween to celebrate than we did closer to the actually holiday. On Monday the 18th Jonathan and I went over to my cousin Ashley Webb's and we had a little party. We carved pumpkins and ate delicious treats with Ashley and Karl Webb, Teri and Michael Draper, and a couple that are friends of the Webbs. It was a lot of fun.


On Wednesday the 20th we hosted a murder mystery dinner at our house. It was really fun to have everyone over all dressed up and acting like fools.





Jonathan and I were a Casper White, nerdy-supernatural scientist, and Lucy N. D'Skyes, a snoody socialite.





My sister Carrie was a Pam Pyre, a disco dancer, and my cousin Vincent was John Wolfman, a DJ.





My brother Michael and his girlfriend Makenna were Frank N Stein, the "play-boy" wine steward, and Ivana Hunt, the safari tour guide.





My cousin Ashley and her husband Karl Webb were a zombie bar-maid and Mumford "Mummy" Clumsie, the clumsy security guard.





My cousin Teri and her husband Michael Draper were a stock broker and Freddy a fire man.





My friend Megan was Elvira Ebony, a goth movie star, and her friend Randy, was Jaques Ripperier, a plastic surgeon.





Sadly the solution was dissappointingly simple, but I think everyone had fun dressing up and being crazy.





On Friday the 22nd we went to our ward Halloween party. We dressed up as batman and robin and were robbed of the award for best costume. Jon is convinced that the couple announcing the winners said the wrong name. We had fun even though we didn't win best costumes. At the party we also had a little tunk or treat thing and I was fool enough to stick my hand into a mysterious bag. Inside the mysterious bag were 2 live snakes. I felt them and actually wrapped my hand around one and squeezed. It kind of freaked me out a bit. I wouldn't have minded touching a snake if I knew I was going to be touching it, but it was completely unexpected so I kinda freaked out. The guy whose snake it was thought that was pretty funny. I'm just glad the snake didn't have a problem with some random hand coming and squeezing it. Blech.





Other than that we didn't do much for Halloween. On Friday the 29th we were supposed to have a party with some members of the ward, but the wife of the couple was sick so that got cancelled. Saturday the 30th we went over to my parents house and played games and ate some treats. We got to see Alexis and Lilly in their Halloween costumes, and that was fun because they were super cute.

Absent mindedness IS a symptom of pregnancy

I have done some pretty stupid things since being pregnant and I am going to blame them on the fact that I am pregnant. I will give some examples of my absent mindedness.



The other morning as I was getting dressed I couldn't find the bra that I was sure I had pulled out to wear, so I grabbed another one. I realized as I was putting on this bra that I was already wearing the bra that I could not find before. Wow. I felt really smart trying to put on 2 bras.



Jon and I went to the hospital to visit my cousin Ashley who had just had a baby. As we were visiting I asked her if her mom was here already. She then reminded me that her mom was there when I came in and I had even given her a hug when she left. I then remembered that, but when I asked I didn't even realize I had seen her.

I'm sure there are other things that I have done like these, but I have already forgotten them.

Tie Dye

Sadly we didn't take any picture while we were doing the actual tie dying, but we were all covered in dye and were very focused on the task at hand. I made a pair of thermals and 5 newborn sized onesies. The onesies were super fun because I got to do something different on each one of them and I think they turned out really good. This was a much better tie dye adventure than the last one because the colors stayed more vibrant even after we washed them.

Photoshop Artwork

DISNEYLAND! and random pregnancy thoughts

We took our trip to Disneyland this week with the Ware family. It has been a little less than a year in the making, and it was very fun.

At about 5 a.m. Sunday morning I was woken up by my phone ringing and hearing Melinda tell me they were here to pick us up. I jumped up, threw on my clothes, gathered all my stuff, woke up Jon, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, grabbed us some breakfast and we were out the door in about 15-20 minutes. We weren't planning on leaving like this, but the alarm that Jon set ended up being too quiet to rouse us from our slumber. After leaving we realized that we had forgotten a few things like our free Disneyland passes and the battery and plug for the mini dvd player. Luckily Jon had saved the pdf of the passes to his computer, so we didn't have to drive back an hour to get them and one of the other dvd players had a cord that worked for the one we brought. We made it to St. George and met Jennifer and Phil at their hotel for breakfast. The breakfast was delicious pancakes and bacon etc. After breakfast we got back in the car and drove to Anaheim to our hotel that was within walking distance of the parks. The drive was pretty uneventful except for the fact that we had 8 of us all packed into a Honda pilot. Mike drove the whole way down and Melinda, Jon, Kent, Karen, and I shuffled seats a little bit around Cole and Dallin's car-seats. It was full, but I think we all managed to still like each other by the time we made it to California. I guess I can't speak for anyone but myself with my last statement, but there were no major fights to report. To pass the time I read, tried to sleep, and knitted. Karen had made little goodie-bags for the four boys with toys and stuff to open every hour or so and this kept them entertained and happy. I shouldn't forget to mention that the toys and stuff in their bags were all Disney themed and where ever possible the gifts coincided with a specific Disney character for each boy. It was amazing all the work and planning that went into these. That was pretty much the first day. That night we did walk over to the parks and downtown Disney area, so that we could see what the walk would be like. There were also fireworks that I think everyone except me watched from the roof of our hotel that night. I was exhausted from getting up early and not being able to sleep in the car, so I went to bed at like 9.

Monday morning we got up and packed up the kids and walked to the parks. We bought our tickets and then headed into Disneyland. We started out in fantasyland and went on the Peter Pan ride, carousel, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, and probably some other rides that I can't remember.




Fantasyland was great because I was able to go on all the rides that the kids wanted to go on. We then went to toon town and saw a bunch of characters and got pictured and autographs. We also had lunch there. Food is ridiculously expensive in places like Disneyland but Kent was paying for the food, so we actually bought food in the park. It was crazy because I was raised in a family of cheap-os (and am proud to be one myself) so eating in the park was a rare and exciting thing. I just had to try not to think of how expensive things were and just enjoy them. Up until after lunch I had been so good about not going on any rides that would potentially rip my placenta off the wall of my uterus, but after lunch I had a moment of weakness. I went on splash mountain. This was probably really stupid, and I was kind of freaking out as we were going up the hill for the last big drop. Luckily baby, placenta, and uterus all seem to be fine. After that I was pretty wet and more cautious because I realized I would be very distraught if I unintentionally killed my unborn child.


We went around a few other places in the park and went on some rides then we went over to California Adventure to pick up our dinners and tickets for World of Color. My dinner was pretty good, it was a vegetarian wrap thing and had some pasta salad type stuff and slightly lemon flavored strings of veggies that were probably some type of squash. After eating we waited in a clump of people to go stake our claim on a spot for World of Color. World of Color was a water show with lights and music and even Disney animations projected onto walls of water all shooting up out of the little lake thing by the ferris wheel and California Screamin' roller coaster. This was really cool. Before the little show started Jon was joking that it probably wouldn't be as good as the "dancing waters" we saw in Taiwan, but it was dancing waters times 5,000. Even though we weren't in the "wet zone" we still got pretty wet. After the show was over we made our way out of the park and walked back to the hotel. I was quite worn out and not up for the walmart trip to get food and stuff so I went to sleep. Sadly I was woken up at about midnight by my body feeling yucky. I spent the next hour getting whatever my body didn't like out of my system via both ends. After that I felt a bit better and went back to bed.

Tuesday was the day without children in the park.

Kent and Karen entertained the boys for the day while Mike, Melinda, Jennifer, Phil, Jon, and I went to the parks.

We started off over in California Adventure and went on Soarin' over California and grizzly rapids. We went on the rapids twice because we were already wet and figured it wouldn't hurt to get a bit wetter and there was like no line.


Melinda and I got soaked and everyone else got pretty wet too. After that where and when we did everything I can't remember exactly. I know I waited as everyone went on California Screamin' and the Tower of Terror and we went on the ferris wheel with the swinging gondolas. Then I think we went over to Disneyland. I think everyone felt bad that I couldn't go on all the rides, but it really wasn't that bad.

We went on Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted mansion. I also went on the jungle cruise while everyone else went on Indiana Jones. We saw the Captain EO tribute, a 3D movie that originally played at Disneyland from like 1986 to 1997 with Michael Jackson in it. It was very cheesy and kind of gave me a headache with the 3D and bouncing chairs. While in tomorrow land I went on the Buzz Lightyear ride with Jon while everyone else went on space mountain and then went on the Submarine with Phil while everyone did space mountain again. We ate peanut butter and jam sandwiches that we made that morning and had snacks and free tortillas from California Adventure to hold us over so we didn't have to buy the expensive food. We did buy a few things like some dole whip floats and Phil got a cream cheese filled pretzel that he shared with us. I don't think my jeans ever completely dried from the rapids that morning, but I did my best to dry all our stuff by spreading it over the fences and such when I wasn't going on rides.


By the time the day was over we had been from California Adventure to Disneyland and back to California adventure again. We walked a lot and my feet were tired and I was wishing that someone had brought me a stroller so I could sleep while someone pushed by home like the little boys did the previous night. It was a fun and tiring day.

Wednesday we all went to the park again. We started with California Adventure and this time I got to do the kiddie rides with the little boys in Bug's land, which was actually really fun. I think one of my favorite parts of that day was going on the caterpillar ride with Lincoln because he LOVED that ride. He would point out all of the different foods that we were going by and he thought the part where Heimlich burped at the end was so funny. We spent the rest of the day back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure hitting the highlights from the previous days and seeing the Pixar play parade, which was cute and fun. When the park closed at 8 I was again tired and my feet hurt from walking around all day, but I managed to make it back to the hotel. When we got back to the hotel our room smelled like nasty burning yucky something, so we opened the windows and tried to air the place out. We never figured out exactly what it was but the smell was outside our room in the hall and could be smelled downstairs in the other room but not as strong. It was yucky, but we survived and managed to sleep despite the stench.

This morning we woke up bright and early and packed up our stuff and headed out around 5:30, so we wouldn't get stuck in any awful California traffic. I didn't notice any bad traffic, but I was actually able to sleep this time so I could have missed it because of that. Again the boys had their goodie bags loaded up with new surprises to open to keep them occupied. This worked for most of the way, I think Dallin thought he wasn't getting enough attention so he kept calling mom every few minutes until Melinda looked back or until we figured out what he wanted from us. Again the ride back was pretty uneventful- no big fights to speak of or any car trouble. I finished one hat that I had started on the way down and I started another. We made it to our place around 6 which was great because I was able to unpack a little, lounge about, check my email, and write this blog post. It was a good trip and I had a lot of fun.

Random pregnancy thoughts:
- I realized while in Disneyland how often I need/feel the need to pee. I noticed mostly on Tuesday because on Monday and Wednesday we at least had children that were randomly needing to pee all the time.
- I would really not like to get hemorrhoids. Pregnancy kinda messes with your normal body stuff, and I only went poop once on the trip and that was when I was up in the middle of the night feeling sick.
- Sometimes I still think I don't look pregnant, but then I see a picture, walk by a mirror, or look down and realize that I definitely do.
- I'm really glad I feel good right now. I'm glad I am not feeling sick all the time and I'm glad that my girth has not yet gotten to the point where I feel like I can't do normal things.
- I realized that a lot of my selfish wants will probably have to take a backseat most of the time because I will have a child that relies on me for practically everything. I noticed this when I was all freaked out because I went on splash mountain and its going to be worse when the baby is on the outside and can cry and stuff.
- Sometimes I feel like a fat old man when I scratch my stomach. I don't know why, but I get this image of some old guy with a pot belly scratching his gut when I scratch my belly. Random- I know.

- I don't think my bellybutton has ever been so clean. I still have an innie, but it is less of a cave than it was so it is nice a squeaky clean now.

- I sometimes imagine the baby breakdancing when I feel weird movements inside that aren't the normal poke here or jab there.

Laboring

Over the long weekend I was feeling very domestic. On Saturday I did a bit of cleaning in the morning and then went to my parents house to do laundry. While I was at my parents we went over to a neighbors house and picked a bucket full of plums and then I made two batches of zucchini bread. After I was done with the bread I went to a movie and Color Me Mine with my friend Rachel for her birthday. The movie wasn't up to much. It was called "Eat, Pray, Love" and I didn't really like it. Color Me Mine was fun; it is a place that you paint a ceramic something and then they fire it for you. I painted some salt and pepper shakers and I'm very curious to see how they look once they are fired. I hope they look as good as I expect them to. On Monday I made jam using the plums that I picked on Saturday. I learned a few things about making jam, because this was the first time I have ever attempted this on my own.

1) I learned that cutting plums is a pain. I had to cut the fruit off from around the pits and this was the longest part of the jamming process.

2) I also learned that it is easier to cut plums that are not as ripe. If they are really ripe they just mush in your hands and get juice all over the counter and the floor. Luckily I didn't have to peel the plums or that probably would have taken even longer.

3) Another thing was to measure and prepare everything I could before I started cooking stuff. Once you add the pectin you need to keep stirring the jam, so I was really glad I had measured out the rest of the sugar into a bowl and had my jars and lids set out and ready.

I can't decide if I would want to do plum jam again. If I get more free fruit I probably will, but I might enlist the help of someone to do some of the cutting because that part was just tedious.

I have been waiting to publish this post until I uploaded some pictures, but who knows when that will be. I will just publish it now and maybe add pictures later.

Oh my gosh!

I totally just felt the baby move. There have been a few times that I have thought maybe I felt something moving around in my guts, but I wasn't really sure if it was a baby. This was definitly not normal. I got poked from the inside by something. I was so excited I nearly cried- I can blame the nearly crying part on the fact that my hormones are way out of whack (for example: I now avoid driving on the freeway because I get really angry. I have pregnancy road rage).

Snow Family Reunion 2010

Thursday to Sunday the 12th-15th the Snow family converged on the small town of St Anthony Idaho. It was pretty fun. I think I can best sum up the trip with a top 10 list and a few pictures.

Snow Family Reunion Top 10

10. Relaxing and reading Fablehaven. (Reading at the sand dunes was difficult because the wind was blowing and kids were throwing sand)

9. Watching Michael flail through the air at the sand dunes.

8. Eating delicious food (I gained like a pound and a half)

7. Seeing Shooting stars

6. Playing on the giant squishy blocks with Jon, Michael, and Carrie.

5. Taking a canoe trip with Jon and a mouse.

4. Favorite Scripture Devotional

3. The Talent show. The whole thing was just classic.

2. Floating down the snake river with the scouting party. Bottoms up!

1. Hanging out with the family and seeing people I don't see very often.

Here is a video clip of the Westover contribution to the talent show (can you tell which one is me and which is Jon?)

Provo River Half Marathon-I'm probably a little crazy

This morning we got up bright and early so I could be on a bus at 5 am to take me approximately 12 miles up Provo canyon. The fact that I was I even would sign up for something that would require me to get up at such an insanely early hour was my first indication that I might be crazy. I decided that I wasn't planning on running it very fast or being competitive in this race at all because I'm 3 and a half months pregnant (surprise! if you didn't already know) and the desire to sleep has trumped any desires that might have been inside me to train for a race that I signed up for before the option of being pregnant even crossed my mind. Lets review- super early in the morning + pregnant + lack of training + 13.1 miles = Crazy.

While I was at the top waiting for the sun to come up and for the race to start I started talking to a girl that was standing by herself. We had a nice chat- she lives in provo and is a nurse at Timpanogos hospital and this was her first half marathon too. After a while a girl form my previous ward Holly Theodore walked by on her way to the toilets and said hi. She ended up coming back and talking with us while we all waited. I ended up waiting at the top in the cold dark canyon for about 2 hours until the race started and the sun came up more. The race started a little after 7 and I started out the first three miles right next to Holly. It was nice to have someone to run with that I knew for a bit. At about three miles she picked up the pace (or I slowed down... but I think she sped up) and I wasn't quite feeling like keeping up; I tried for a bit and then caught up with the other girl I had been talking to before the race started. I ran with her until about mile 4 where we parted ways so I could take a potty stop at Vivian park. I took a quick stop and grabbed some water then was back on my way. I was doing pretty good to keep up about a 10 minute mile pace as I plodded down the trail by the provo river.

I told Jon he should come and cheer me on at about Bridal Veil Falls because it seemed like it would be easily accessible and around the middle of the race. I got to mile 6 which was pretty close to the falls and this is where I started to realize I probably will need to walk. I tried to keep running because I knew I would probably see Jon in the parking lot of something, so I ran and saw Jon handing out water with the Eatough (not quite sure how to spell that) family. Jon told me afterward that he had recognized them from my dad's 50th birthday party. I thought it was kinda cute that Jon was passing out water to the runners with my parents friends and their family. The next part of the course turned back toward the falls on a road that leads to some campsites and stuff. I walked a lot on this part out past the falls and then back on the same road. At this point I still was running quite a bit though.

The course then went through Nunn's park and rejoined the trail that follows the river down the canyon. I stopped here for my second potty stop. Walking down the stair out of the potty nearly killed me. My joints were just aching from ponding along the mostly down hill trail. I ran for a bit but I reminded myself that I didn't want to kill myself or my unborn child so from about mile 9 to 12 I pretty much walked the whole way. I would run up any uphill parts of the trail (which weren't many) and then if I felt like running (which wasn't very often at this point). While I was walking this part I kind of just wanted to stop and lay down and take a nap, but I figured I probably wouldn't get up for a few hours if I did that and Jon would be very worried.

At about mile 12 I decided I would try to run a bit more. At around this time, maybe a little earlier, I was starting to feel very hungry and was looking forward to the promised fruit and pancakes at the end of the race. I had got water at all of the water stations along the way, there were probably 5 or 6, so I was well hydrated but the bagel I had eaten on the bus ride up was no longer sustaining me. I jogged and walked the last mile and finished the race with a time of 2 hours and 55 minutes (the stop watch I had been timing with said 2:51:58, but the big one at the end said 2:55 so it was somewhere in that range). I was happy to be finished and see my hubby waiting there for me. I grabbed a huge slice of watermelon and had Jon grab me some pancakes. The pancakes were kinda flat but they tasted amazing. I had Jon feeding me bites of pancake between bites of delicious watermelon. After I finished my watermelon and pancakes I grabbed another large piece of watermelon and got super sticky with juice as I ate it while we walked to the car.

We stopped at Borders and Jon got a free "glitter ball" (bouncy ball with glitter in it) that he found a coupon for online. He picked one with purple and silver flower shaped glitter pieces for me. He then dropped me off at home and I limped across the lawn and up the stairs to the bathroom to shower. Jon had gone to buy a bag of ice because I wanted some to ice my aching joints. I showered then took a nap.

I'm still pretty tired and my joints hurt, but I think overall me and baby are ok. I don't have any other races planned for the up coming months, but right now I am perfectly fine with that. I would probably consider doing a shorter race in the near future, but I don't want to think about that right now.

Motivation

So, I think I'm feeling motivated... well I thought I was feeling motivated to do something before I sat down in my cold-haven (aka the bedroom, the only room in the house with air conditioning). I haven't been feeling super great for the past little bit so a lot of the things that I would normally do haven't really gotten done. Mainly: the dishes. I decided I would force myself to do the dishes last night and I did. Part of the reason I felt inclined to force myself into this task was the fact that we were out of bowls and every utensil except knives and small forks. I felt like an archeologist digging through the sedimentary layers finding the more ancient fossils and artifacts the deeper I went. I have gone back to being mad at my dishwasher because it has been leaving this white powdery layer of something all over everything, so I washed all the dishes I found in my archeological dig by hand. After I finished the dishes I even scrubbed down the sink a bit. It was crazy. Tonight as our pasta was cooking I emptied the dishwasher (currently being used as an extremely large drying rack). And... it doesn't stop there. After visiting one of the sisters I visit teach and having my presidency meeting I washed all the dishes from today and put them in the dishwasher to dry. Wow. I'm pretty proud of myself for my accomplishments and I was contemplating expanding my circle of cleaning beyond the dishes, but I'm currently enjoying not being in the inferno that is the rest of the house. Maybe I'll try to clean up our bedroom a little; this way I can enjoy the cold and feel productive. Brilliant.

Dominion

Have you heard of it? Have you played it? Join in on the sensation that is sweeping the globe and play Dominion today!



So Andrea's cousin Teri and her husband (Mike) Draper have this game and have invited us over a couple of times to play it. I thought it was fun and all but I didn't quite catch the dream... until this week. I was chillin' at a 5th of July party at Andrea's G-parents and we were all sitting around so I said to Draper, "Hey Dummy, you up for a game of Dominion?" and he said, "yeah" so we played, and then we played again, and again and again.

The next day Andrea had a girls night with her friend April so me, Draper, and Jon Davis had a dude gathering and we taught Jon D how to play. When I got home that night I thought, 'I gotta get me some of this action!' so I put dominion on my Amazon wishlist and then started googling frantically for an online version. Fortunately I'm an awesome googler (or G-man) and I came across this gem of peculiar beauty: Brett Spiel Welt don't let the german scare you because there's a lot of english and the game itself is in english.

So basically I've been playing a lot these last few days. I've made some friends (okay, only one tbm22... he's german) and have taught my sister Jennifer and my brother-in-law Mikey how to play and discovered that my crony Kyle Wayne knows how to play and so does my homedawg Alex (he served in Germany)

Let me know if you want to play and we totally will!

a.m.a.z.i.n.g.

Who wants to watch it at midnight with Andrea and me?

The watermelon is dead and other thoughts of a frazzled me

Today I came home to find Jon watering the garden, and he had some sad news: the watermelon plant is pretty much dead. I looked at it and it is kind of a shriveled little yellow dry crusty thing, so I don't think there is any way we can revive it. Luckily most of the other plants are doing ok.

This has been a crazy day. I get a text from Jon this morning telling me that the previous bishop of our ward called him and wanted him to let me know that a girl in the ward (who is 2 weeks from her due date) was in a car accident earlier today. I called both her and her husband and left messages, but didn't hear anything until later this afternoon when the woman who is our representative from the stake relief society called me. She had talked to the girls husband and found out that they were monitoring her and her baby at the hospital, and they thought they would both be alright and they would probably be able to come home tonight. I have been worrying about them all day, and I hope everything is still ok. I called one of the girls on the compassionate service committee and she said she will help with meals and to find babysitting for this family's 2 year old girl if they need it. I wish I knew what was going on, so I can help more. I just pray that everything will be ok for them.

"I'm a worrier I guess. That's why my friends call me whiskers"

Extreme front room makeover and life in general

When we got home from Taiwan I was very excited to be home, but I was surprised to find that our apartment was not quite the same as we had left it. While we were gone Karen Ware had re-decorated our living room. It is super cute and it is very nice to have a room where things match and it is all decorated and stuff.

This is the table Jonathan made in his wood working class at BYU. He worked really hard on it and did a really good job. The three cactus on top of the table are our practice children. So far they have been thriving and survived being transplanted from their original pots into these slightly bigger pots. Despite my best parenting efforts the one on the right still refuses to grow straight. I haven't given up on it yet.
This hardly recognizable piece of furniture is the shoe cabinet that I got from someone that my mom works with. Karen repainted and put new handles on it and it looks so much better. The "e" on top of shoe cabinet doesn't really stand for anything, but that doesn't matter because I like it anyway. It came from a Deseret Book store sign from a store that moved or something. From the makeover we also inherited a new child: the little ivy plant in the mug. This child is much more needy than the cactus. I will often find it looking sad and wilty and realize it has been a while since I watered it. After I water it it usually perks back up pretty quick.
This is the new couch we picked out with Jon's parents before we left for Taiwan. Oh, that reminds me that Jon was in on this whole redecorating thing from the get go. I guess he helped pick out some of the pillows and okayed teal as the accent color. I think the teal looks good with all the browns and blacks.
Opposite the couch are the bookshelves and the tv. I love the bookshelves because all of our non-cute crap (dvds, games, books, magazines, etc) is hiding in sleek black boxes with little teal labels saying what is inside them.
Here is the view of the whole wall with the bookshelves and tv. I like all the cool stuff that is on the shelves like the picture frame full of little silver ball-bearings. I also love all of the old cream with teal trim suitcases that are in the room. Lets just sum up by saying I love the way the living room looks and it is nice to have a room in your house that you absolutely love.

So here is me looking happy next to my cute new bookshelf, but there might be a little fear in my eyes in this picture because we took this the morning I was being sustained as Relief Society president. This was crazy. The Sunday I got back from Taiwan the Bishop gave me the calling, by the next sunday I gave him my counselors, and the next Sunday I was sustained, set apart, and taught the Relief Society lesson. Today was my third week as Relief Society president and I still feel like I have no idea what is going on and no body tells me anything that is going on in the ward. I found out that a girl in the ward had her baby earlier this week when the Bishop announced it in Sacrament meeting and looked at me for confirmation that the baby was a girl. I knew the girl was really pregnant and looked ready to have that baby at any moment, but it was news to me that she already had it. Hopefully once I have figured out more how to do my calling people will feel like they can tell me what is going on.

Another thing that we have done since being home is we planted a few more things in our garden.

The two little plants in this picture are the melons we planted. the one on the right is a watermelon and the one on the left is a crenshaw. I have never had too much success with melons in my parents garden, but we're trying it out.
This is our cucumber plant. We picked one that looked pretty lively and thick, so hopefully it will do well because i love cucumbers.
These three are tomatoes. The first one is an early girl, the second is a better boy (or a big boy I can't remember now), and the last one is a yellow pear tomato plant. It will be interesting to see what grows in our garden because the soil is really rocky and I don't know how good it is.

This weekend was Shop Hop, so I went to a bunch of quilt stores with the Ware women and started making a Christmas tree skirt from a pattern the Kent Ware helped me design (and by helped me design I mean that I told him kind of what I wanted and we sketched out a drawing and then he figured out the measurements and did all the hard stuff). I would have been able to do more on this but I was trying to make tags for the father's day gift that I was in charge of for the men in the ward. Jennifer brought her cricut and everyone helped me cut, tape and glue the little things together.
This was the finished product. All the men in the ward thought they were great. Jon told me after church that he saw a member of another ward with a can of Dad's root beer and he felt far superior because they only got a can and each brother in our ward got a bottle. I thought that was pretty funny (my root beer could beat up your root beer was one thing that came to mind). Life is feeling a bit crazy, but I'm figuring it out.

Day 12 (part 2), 13, and the trip home

I need to finish the posts about the trip to Taiwan before I forget or get too busy doing things here. The evening after the last time I wrote they had a lady come who was going to thread the hairs off our faces. I didn't really understand why, but they think it is very healthy and attractive to rip the peach fuzz off your face. This hurts way way bad. The first thing this lady did was pull our head hair away from our faces with a hair net/band thing. After that she covered our faces with this chalk stuff that smelled kind of weird that she said would help the hairs come out better. She then wrapped a long piece of string around her fingers and went to work.

The part that hurt the worst for me was around the edges of my face by my normal hairline. I don't know if this was because she was getting longer hairs that she didn't intend to yank out or if that is just a more sensitive area on me or what. I was trying to summon strength from within, go to happy places, and clenching every muscle I could think of to stop myself from jumping out of the stool I was sitting on. Luckily I made it to the end of my turn and she plucked out a few of my stray eyebrows for good measure.
After me it was Jon's turn. The process went down the same way; hairnet and chalk
Then hair ripping.
He was doing all that he could to summon strength etc., but I could tell this was hurting. I don't know how I looked when she was plucking me, but the winces and groans were probably similar. After he was done I knew he was not happy. He was a very good sport about it because Lloyd had wanted us to try this for some reason. I thought his hair looked funny when the lady pulled the hairnet thing off so I took a picture.
Jon wasn't too happy for the rest of the night after this because it hurt him way way bad. I don't really think that either of us will ever have our entire faces threaded again. I would consider it for doing my eyebrows or something but ripping of my invisible peach fuzz seems pointless. After this we pretty much just went to bed. I managed to get a picture of the other room that we stayed in for a few night when some of the family was there for the wedding. You can tell from the picture that it is quite a bit smaller than the other room.
The next day we packed up our stuff and went out for a little bit to grab a few things that we decided we wanted to bring back. After that we went back to Lloyd's made sure everything was packed and didn't weigh too much. We ate some food that Lloyd brought us. This was kind of scary. I ate a soggy sandwich thing with strange meats and vegetables in it that I couldn't tell what they were because it was all crammed in the hogie bun and covered in some sauce stuff. I ate most of one of those and then tried some soupy stuff. The soupy stuff had a clear brownish broth that was kind of sweet and it had chunks of something white and ice floating in it. I ate some and the white stuff made me think of mayo for some reason and that thought kind of made me lose my appetite because the idea of mayo in a gelatinous blob kind of grossed me out so I made Jon finish that for me. Lloyd and his girlfriend drove us to the airport and waited as we checked our luggage. They even took a picture of us with the tomato head man. I have no idea why his head was a tomato, but his shirt said I heart Taiwan and he had a laptop so we took a picture.
They didn't hang around at the airport for too long with us because Lloyd's girlfriend had class that night. We went through security and as we were walking to our gate I heard someone saying our names. A member from one of Jon's areas who works for the airport had found out our flight information and met us on the other side of the security check. I thought that was really cool that he would do that. He took us up this secret restaurant lounge place and told us we could eat whatever we wanted. I wasn't really hungry because I had forced myself to eat the most of the sandwich and Jon wasn't really hungry either. I still ate and apple and had some juice and Jon had some ice cream and soda. It was pretty cool to be in this little fancy pants place, but I felt bad that we had just eaten because this guy had probably paid for us to eat. We chatted with this guy for a while and when it was about half an hour before we could board the plane we headed over to the gate.

We waited for a little bit and then got on the plane. I stayed awake the whole flight and watched some random movies and episodes of TV shows. I also listened to music and crocheted a hat. It is a little too small for me so maybe I will give it to Alexis or something. They gave us dinner on the plane and the options were pork or fish. Jon went with the pork, so I went with the pork (both options didn't sound too great to me). The pork ended up being a very good choice. I didn't eat any of the meat but I stirred the meat around with the noodles and veggies it came with and ate the noodles and veggies and it was good. They also gave us breakfast toward the end of the flight. This time I got the omelet because I knew the porridge was a bad idea. The omelet wasn't anything amazing but it came with yogurt and fruit and it was edible. We landed in LAX earlier the same day we left from Taiwan. That was kind of exciting because we went across the dateline and just met the sun on the other side of the ocean.

We got off the plane and went trough customs and got out luggage x-rayed. This took forever. I was kind of worried that we might not make our next flight, but it as fine and we ended up getting to the gate of our next flight with like 45 minutes to spare. We got on the flight back to Salt Lake City and I listened to this guy and girl flirting pretty much the whole time. We made it to Utah and my mom picked us up from the airport and drove us to Jon's parents house where we picked up our car and drove home. We were tired, but we made it and I was able to sleep well because I didn't sleep on the plane, so i think I got over the jet lag... hopefully. We also had a surprise waiting for us when we got home but I will have to write about that later because this is already long enough and its late. It is nice to be home.