7 Random Things About Me

I've been tagged by fellow blogger Kecia to write about 7 random things about me.
Here it goes:

1. Even though I am right-handed, I've always brushed my teeth with my left-hand. I've tried to use my right-hand but it's not as smooth.

2. I have scoliosis, but it was never severe enough to have a brace. Dr. thought playing sports throughout high school probably helped it not get so bad. To go along with that, my left leg is about 3/4 inch shorter than my right leg, so that throws my hips off. With being pregnant, I thought my back would really be killing me on top of normal pregnancy back pain. So far it's not been terrible, just different types of pain through different stages.

3. I had my tonsils taken out when I was 4 or 5. I remember being taken into a room with my doll and the nurse put the gas mask on my doll like she would do with me. Since that was the last thing I remembered, I always thought they had just sucked my tonsils right out. I don't think I learned the truth until middle school.

4. My college career was spent at four different schools and I was only in for 4 1/2 years. It took me a little while to figure out what I really wanted to do. I quickly found out marine biology wasn't for me when I wasn't doing well in the basic bio classes only to learn I'd have to take bio chem and other higher level biology. So I ended up doing Outdoor Leadership Ministries which has provided me with many amazing experiences and adventures.

5. I cannot stand eating beans of any type except green beans. It's a texture thing that also keeps me from eating oatmeal. My husband keeps thinking he can get me to like oatmeal and beans. I have tried and eaten them, and not enjoyed it at all!! I also eat my cereal dry with milk in a glass! This will be interesting to see which way our kids will go, my way or the highw...Mike's way.

6. I refuse to call any kind of carbonated beverage "pop" as the midwesterners do up here. I will still call it coke or Dr. Pepper. Our kids will grow up being bi-lingual, midwestern and Texan!

7. I taught water sports for four summers at camp during college. I never really picked up water skiing even though I could teach others how to. I just stuck with wakeboarding.

Now I'm supposed to tag 7 other bloggers to do a 7 random things about them. But I will just tag anyone who reads this and wants to play. Have fun!!

Could it be?

Is spring really coming??? Today our high was at least 42 which is the highest it's been since November!! Yea!!!!! I even opened our sliding glass door for a little bit while the sun was shining in. I don't think I've ever been more ready for spring!
I was worried about not having enough warm weather maternity clothes, HA! I'll be lucky if I can wear my chacos before baby comes. I may have to pull out the sock and chaco combo after all the snow and slush have gone.

This week starts month 8! Most people don't believe me, but we'll see if I'm on target as far as weight and such is concerned. Tomorrow is my last four week visit, from here it's 2 two week visits and then down to every week. We can't believe it's come this fast and probably should really work on the whole name thing!!!

Parenting 101

This weekend we participated in an informal parenting exercise: we babysat some friend's kids Friday to Monday. Matigan is 3 and Wyatt is 2. We've watched them for an evening before, but never this long. Also, they've never been away from their parents for more than a day. We stayed at their place since our one bedroom apartment is hardly the place to keep two toddlers entertained for a whole weekend!!
Overall it went well. They were both a little under the weather, which curbed their energy level some but also curbed their desire to eat. I was able to reminisce of when I was little and was left seated at the kitchen table, not wanting to eat my food while mom was cleaning up.

Our main activity for the weekend was to go to the "Surprise World," otherwise known as the Como Park Conservatory. In the Surpise World, it's sunny, warm, humid and full of all sorts of plants and flowers that smell really, really good! Oh, and the occasional frog, snake, bird, fish and local variety of toddlers. This day the conservatory was doing an exhibit with frogs for leap year, so I'm sure there were more toddlers around than usual. Another great thing about the Surprise World is that it's FREE, but donations are accepted! There's also a zoo attached that we'll have to check out once all the white stuff outside is replaced with green stuff.


This place does wonders for the winter blues, which I never experienced before now. The room in the first and last picture is the sunken flower room where every few months they change the flowers around. Right now it's winter flowers like amaryllis, lillies and cyclamen. Then for Easter they'll do a big lilly show I'm told. This room smells amazing!! What I want to know is what do they do with these flowers when they change the room out, I'd be happy to take a few!

Mattie and Wyatt did a great job themselves being away from Mom and Dad for the whole weekend. They only really got sad on Sunday night. Wyatt provided us with some nasty diaper changes for us parents-to-be! Mike did a good job on diaper duty, and once we had to tag team to get the job done. Looks like we just got in the diaper practice in the nick of time since the word on the street is that potty training is just around the corner!

So that was our fun Parenting 101 class that skipped a few years, so now we are furiously reading to know what happens before this age!

Happy Anniversary to Us!!

It's been THREE whole years (from yesterday)!!! WOW we're getting up there!
To celebrate we went to a popular fondue joint last night in downtown Minneapolis. It was fun! It was our first official fondue experience, where you actually cook your food in the hot liquid of choice. I actually got Mike to try lobster without a fight! He wasn't too impressed. They give you a sample of different meats with sauces so it looks like you end up eating a lot but not really. All the samples were small pieces. The meal ended with a chocolate peanut butter fondue that we dipped strawberries, bananas, pineapple, marshmallows, brownies, pound cake and cheesecake. That was by far the best. We'll have to go back just for dessert next time, of course, how many times do we all say that and never do!?
In that past we've gone to a bed and breakfast for the weekend. But since this time of year it's cold, make that beyond cold up here, and I'm out of commission on any winter sports, we are going to wait till it warms up. We'll make it a combo anniversary/last-getaway-before-baby-comes weekend. That is if it warms up here in April!!
To all my southern family and friends that would be a stable 40 degrees!!

Belated Valentine's on How We Met

Kecia wanted her friends to post about how they met their husbands, so here's our story:
Summer 2003 at Lone Tree Lakeshore camp on Elephant Butte Lake, NM
This was my second summer there and Mike's first. The camp directors, Eric and Nikki, knew me from the previous year and knew Mike from college, which is why he was coming to work at camp. I was one of the first staff there and was asking Nikki about the new staff coming in. She told me about them and then about Mike. While talking about Mike she threw in that she thought we would probably start dating this summer. She could picture us together and then told me about his long hair and beard. She also said that she can't say anything to him about it because he might not act on it on his end. So...I was stuck with this info not knowing what to do and a little nervous when we first met.
The first few conversations with others involved him putting his foot in his mouth twice. One comment was about these red neck/hick people on TV using this round thing on their dinner table to pass things around. I said yeah, a lazy susan, we had one of those, not realizing I'd just labeled my family as red neck/hick. But I think it embarrassed him more than me!! Fun stuff!!!
His first impression of me was a camp nerd (coming from a computer geek!) I just remember he was shy but a hard worker.
The good part was that I was his boss for part of the summer. Towards the end he'd follow me around trying to anticipate what I was about to do and do it for me. Sweet, but a little annoying since I liked to pull my own weight.
Our first date was eating Thai food and going to see Finding Nemo. Previously, he'd said he didn't like cartoon movies but quickly changed his mind after seeing my interest in the movie.
After summer ended we decided our relationship was worth trying over long distance. A year later I moved to Idaho, to actually live in a non-camp setting in the same town to make sure we could stand each other! Turns out we could!!
We will be married three years on Feb 27th!

Africa pictures

Instead of painstakingly adding each picture to a post, I got smart! With Mike's help, I added photo albums to the right so you can look at the rest of our trip's pictures. Have fun browsing!

Baby Update starting third trimester

I'm now at week 29 which is really hard to believe. I apologize for not posting more about my pregnancy but it has thankfully been uneventful. As you can see from the picture I am showing but still not as much as you probably expected. Since I'm tall I won't be really big till the end if even then, I'm told. But everything is going right on schedule and all test have turned out fine.
I've been putting off registering just because it is such a daunting task. The first time Mike and I walked into Babies R US we were extremely overwhelmed. But my goal is to get it done this week!!
Another reason the registering and baby buying has been put off is that we are in a one bedroom apartment. We really just don't have room to keep all the stuff and it helps us also to not go overboard on what we want verses what we think we'll really need!!
If any of you have items that were a must-have please let me know!!
Also if any of you have or are using cloth diapers, I'd love to hear what has and hasn't worked. I've decided to go that route but there are so many option available now, it's hard to know where to start.
A fun note: there are two other first time moms in our Sunday school class. One is due in March, then April and then me in May. SO I'm lucky to be last to learn from them as their babies come!!