It's hard to believe that Karen is already three months old! She is so big and is learning so many things every day that it's crazy. She is on the verge of rolling over and also being able to sit up, which is fun but also nerve racking. On occasion she tries to roll off my lap while I'm trying to feed her. Joe and I will have to be more careful now about where we put her down (like not on the edge of the bed, etc.).

We have also discovered that Karen is a great 'in' when you're trying to get to know people. Everyone is much more willing to talk to you if you're holding a cute and oh-so-cuddly contented baby. I took her to Joe's office on campus on Friday afternoon, and she totally stole the show. The same basic thing happened at his beginning-of-year party at a professor's house Saturday. Half the crowd gathered around the beer and wine, while most of the other half crowded around Karen.

The only place where Karen doesn't get us VIP attention seems to be at church. Not that she isn't her normal cute self, but because there are so many others like her that she has a much harder time standing out. Today in Sunday School they passed around a list of primary children by class, and on the 'pre-Nursery' list there are currently 11 kids, with three more women expecting babies within the month. (there are also almost 25 kids currently in Nursery). In fact, there are so many kids in the ward that a change was made today. The Primary will now meet in the chapel, partly because there are so many primary age kids and also because the Nursery will be meeting in the primary room. They have outgrown the two classrooms that they have been using. This is pretty much good news for us. As Karen gets older and is able to actually play, there will be plenty of other kids in the ward for her to play with.

To wrap up this Karen entry, here are a couple of pictures that show how much she's changed in the past 3 months. . . or at least I was. After an hour of trying to get the pictures to upload, I am publishing this one with no pictures. Hopefully it will be working better next time. Sorry everyone!

p.s. We got new cell phones (cingular) and our old number (which is still new really) will be disconnected on Wednesday. If you need the new number email either Joe or me.

the apartment

Okay, so here are some pics and such from our apartment. It's a nice (compared to what we were living in in Provo, not necessarily for this area) and big (950 sq. ft.). As you will see, the walls are really white (they're all primed) and we're allowed to paint-if we can afford to. Some time we will paint, but I'm not sure when. Other than the exceeding whiteness, the most annoying things are the sinks in the bathrooms; they happen to be plastic, and sometime in the past have been melted by curling irons.

Enough with the bad stuff, here are some great things. We have a walk-in closet in our bedroom, as well as a master bath (though it's really small). Karen's room is almost as big as ours, and feels really empty right now-even though it will fill up soon enough. The kitchen has tons of cabinet space as well as a pantry (narrow but very deep). We also have a washer and dryer, donated by a guy in our ward who is a general contractor; they should last a long time since they're Maytag and only about 2 years old. The living room is great. We have our fish by the window, then our new futon, then the 'book nook' as Joe calls it with all our books and the banana chairs. The front bathroom is great. We only had 'things' for one bathroom, so we bought all new stuff for it-froggies! Shower curtain, rug, toothbrush holder (currently empty) and soap are all frogs, which is fun. If you go out the back door of our apartment and take about 10 steps you will run into the pool. They are also planning to add a hot tub sometime in the near future, which will be cool (or hot).

That's the explanation; here are the pictures so you can see for yourself; sorry if they're not the best. ;)

The Little Vacation

Hey all! Hope everything is going well wherever you are. This week was very hecktic; we registered the car and got NC license plates, then got NC driver's licenses as well. Of course, we had to take the test and all that in order to get them, but it wasn't really that bad. There were a lot less rules and more 'common sense' things, it seemed like. I guess they have a problem with people driving on the wrong side of the road here; maybe it's because there are bars everywhere, but don't ask me.

Anyway, after we did all that the beginning of the week we decided to take a mini vacation. Since I had never been to the beach, we went to Wilmington, NC and Cape Fear and went to the ocean. It was about a 4 hour drive each way, and we only stayed at the beach for about 2 hours. So it was going to seem like a bit of a waste, but then we went to the Cape Fear Fort Fisher Aquarium. It was way cool to me since I'd never been to one before, but Joe said it was just 'okay'. I saw sharks and aligatiors for the first time in my life, along with some cool and really big fish. So it ended up that we spent 4 hours near the ocean and 8 hours driving, but it was still really fun. It was good that we only spent 2 hours at the beach because even though we tried to cover Karen up, she still got a sunburn on her face (that was gone the next day).

That's it for now, I'll try to get some apartment pics up in the next couple of days. Here are some pics from our trip-I hope they work; the last pics I tried to put up didn't work out so well. The first one is Karen sleeping on the beach; then us going into the aquarium.

Well, we finally made it. We packed up Tuesday and drove all day Wednesday (last Week), and since then it's been just crazy around here. However, we finally have all of our stuff unpacked and put away. We also bought a crib for Karen, some bookshelves, and a futon for our living room; all in the past 3 days! Now that we're poor again, our house looks pretty nice. Everything is going well for us here, except it is WAY too hot-the heat index (temp and humidity together) puts us between 105 and 110 today for the third day in a row. It's just too wet for a Utah girl like me; the heat itself would be fine, but the wetness really gets to me. I think the only thing we would change right now besides the heat would be to have some people we know around-we miss all our friends and family, especially since we don't know anyone here yet. I guess in a few weeks/months that will change, but for now our social life is really boring. Karen especially misses life with Grandma and Grandpa Allen; when she gets tired of mom and dad, there's no one else to hold her now ;(

Anyway, school will start in a couple weeks, and hopefully before then we'll take a day or two and go to the beach. I'm excited for that because I've never been to the ocean-either Atlantic or Pacific. I never thought I'd get to the Atlantic first, but I'm really excited. Hope everyones having fun and keeping cool these last few weeks of summer!!!