Nesting

In the past week we've given away my home organ and sold my car, Sam. Not to mention a trip to DI, giving away a file cabinet, sorting duplicate books out of our bookcases, cleaning out our sock and underwear drawers, organizing my cross-stitch floss, clearing off my night stand, trimming my plants......this nesting instinct has hit hard! I find myself constantly looking around and into cupboards and drawers for the next project. If this is a symptom of pregnancy, well I'm not complaining! It feels great.

As far as the Easter Sunday survey, after 31 Easters, I still have not taken the time to learn how to calculate when Easter Sunday will be. If you know, please tell me! It'd be more fun to find it out from you than to look it up!

How do you spell BYU?

We got to spend a lot of time with our nephews this week who were visiting from Phoenix. We took them to a BYU basketball game, and my 4 year-old nephew, Josh, said, "Julie! I know how to spell BYU! B.....uh....U...uh..wait,no...um...B.....hmmmm...Y........U! BYU! I did it!" Was so cute.

Today I substituted for our organist in sacrament meeting and our primary pianist in primary. I absolutely love playing the organ. It was fun to have a change of pace, though I missed sitting by Walt and being with my Young Women.

Walt and I went to our Stake's Valentine Dance last night, which was surprisingly well-attended. I felt like a wimp when my legs started aching after only an hour and a half, and my pregnancy heartburn (almost a daily occurrence now) was getting the best of me. Walt and I have never been dancing really, so it was fun to have a novel activity and to be close to him all night. I tried my hand at a homemade chocolate mousse recipe, which turned out really well, so we ate that up with fresh raspberries before going to bed. Oh contentness!

It's A.........

BOY!!!!!! Woohoo!! And boy are we excited. :) Everything looked normal, and he was a little squirmy, which was comforting since I haven't noticed movement yet. That gives us the green light to redecorate the baby room. Right now it has the cutest border of flowers and butterflies that the previous owners painted. I'm sure boys like flowers and butterflies too, but you know. Thanks for all your guesses on our poll. It was so fun to see what everyone thought.

Cold Hands and a Warm Heart

I can't remember where this comes from, but we joke about it all the time. "I may have cold hands, but I have a warm heart." Hee hee. Actually, I just have a cold. I just went to sacrament meeting Sunday, sat around and napped yesterday at home, intended to go to work late today until I lost my cookies mid-morning. But I think I've got the worst of it behind me, and tomorrow I should be back to my normal schedule. Sure makes you grateful for the times you feel normal. Normal feels sooo good. At least Walt and I could be sick together. That was kind of fun, actually.

This morning I called 911 to report a suspicious character wandering the neighborhood. I was making toast at the kitchen window, and he was walking through the street for several minutes looking at people's houses in a strange sort of way; then he went in my neighbor's backyard and walked around. I didn't recognize him, so I called the police, and they came and investigated. Sick pregnant woman making toast stops would-be thief in his tracks! I can see it now! He wasn't to be found by the time they got here, and he may have been totally harmless and innocent, but better safe than sorry!

We have our gender ultrasound in 2 weeks, so we'd love to get everyone's guess as to whether we're having a boy or a girl. It doesn't matter at all to us, but it's fun to speculate.

This was one of those crazy weeks when it seemed there was hardly time to eat or breathe. But I'm sure breathing a sigh of relief now that it's over and the next week promises to be more manageable.

Geography Bee

In a moment of weakness last year I signed up to chair the School Geography Bee. Not sure how that fits into my duties as a School Psychologist, but hey. The bummer was that no one signed up to help me, so I was pretty much on my own. And the other bummer was that we had a mom whose kids didn't make it past the preliminary rounds of the Bee in December, which she had been banking on, and apparently that was my fault. As a result of our meeting with this parent, the principal suggested I invite all 4-6 grades and the parents of the finalists to the School Bee. So as the Bee crept closer, I had visions of angry parents chasing me off the stage and rotten tomatoes and things. The Bee was held this past Friday at 9:30 in the morning with the 8 finalists from our school. And despite all my worries it came off wonderfully! Not a single parent said anything to me during or afterward, so I assume they are satisfied, although they may have just needed more time to plot my demise. The principal was thrilled with it all (which is what really matters, right?), and it actually was a lot of fun. A bit of a shocker that some of our school finalists thought Myrtle Beach is in South Dakota and that Generals Lee and Grant had a Civil War to-do at Appomatox Courthouse in the state of California. We obviously have our work cut out for us to get our students up to speed in the geographic realm of study.

Guten Rutsch!

Happy New Year! Our trip to Illinois was wonderful! We got to spend lots of time with Walt's dad, sisters, and his brother's family. Highlights included Christmas dinner, bowling, baby blessing of our newest nephew, ice skating, lots of hanging out and talking/playing games/eating/etc. We felt very blessed on our way there that things cleared up and our plane was able to land without problems (albeit 2 1/2 hours late), and the roads driving to Dad Johnson's home were clear. 100 flights to Chicago were canceled the morning we flew there, but ours wasn't! Yea!

Our trip back was eventful. We left in the morning to drive to Chicago and spend the day at the Field Museum before our evening flights. We had several interesting hours there, then went to a pizza place for dinner. Part way through dinner we realized that time was getting tight to drop Walt's sisters off for their flight. We finished quick, got in the car, and realized we hadn't factored in any extra time for rush hour traffic. By the time we got them there, it was 30 minutes before their flight. Their luggage got checked in, but they didn't make it to the plane in time. They were put on stand-by for a flight the next morning. Meanwhile, we rushed to fill our rental car with gas, return it, and get a shuttle to the airport before our flight. We got to the check-in desk about 22 minutes before our flight. Too late! They wouldn't check us in. We were put on stand-by for a flight the next morning as well. So the four of us found each other in the airport, got a hotel, and spent the night in Chicago. Everyone had really good attitudes about it, and it was actually really fun. We all got on our flights the next morning and made it home. We also learned that security will not allow you to carry orbital sanders onto the plane. So in case any of you were wondering...