Before Thanksgiving...

Before Thanksgiving this year I made a decision, which I asked Joe to support me in. I decided I didn't want to gain weight this holiday season (which is the same decision I make every year I think) so I have less weight to try and lose with my New Year's resolution. However, just after I made this decision Joe seemed determined to make me break it. He took me to Walmart and bought a bag of M&M's and a sewing machine (early Christmas present!) so he obviously doesn't want me to be active ;) So I'll just sit around and eat chocolate and sew something as I get bigger and wider. However, I am very excited about my sewing machine! It will be fun to actually be able to do the projects that I keep thinking of. Now I can't say "Oh yeah, that would be fun...if I had a sewing machine" so hopefully I'll be a little more motivated to do a bit of crafty things. Maybe that will be another New Year's resolution...

Otherwise, things are going well. We leave for Indiana on Tuesday morning after Joe gets out of class. We're not sure if we'll come back on Saturday or Sunday because the BYU-Utah game is Saturday and there may be some small chance that we could see it in Indiana. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Everyone be sure to travel safely for the holiday, and beware the sleepy turkey syndrome while driving! ;) Once this holiday is over we'll get our Christmas-time travel plans figured out more clearly. Happy Turkey Day!!!

This week

This week has been pretty slow. However, we have gotten more information on our travel plans. We'll be staying in Midvale with my grandparents unless something crazy happens, but thanks everyone for the invites! We may have to take you up on them sometime, but probably not on this trip. We also know that we'll be flying to Portland on the morning of Friday the 22nd. We would love to get together in the day on the 20th or 21st, whichever is better for everyone who has work and other things at that time.

Also this week we came to the realization that we really just need to buy a new computer. The one we have is dying one part at a time, and at this point it would be cheaper to buy a notebook computer than replace the remaining parts. So, we're going to go looking tonight and hopefully in the next week or so we'll have a computer that I can use for pictures again. As a result of the computer issues, we have no Karen pics this week since the computer doesn't want to turn on.

The last points of interest for the week are...1. I had my first Achievement Night with the girls in the ward. It was fun except that I had to take care of Karen at the same time since Joe was at scouts too. 2. Cameron and Sarah, some people that Joe goes to school with, came to dinner last night. It was nice but a little different since they aren't members of our church and so we had less in common and fewer things to talk about that weren't school-related. It was still good to have people over though.

TTFN!

Holiday Plans...

Sorry about the post last week. It was having issues when I originally wrote it, and I told Joe to post it later but he never did...So it's up now, and here's more for this week...

The last week has been crazy at our house trying figure out our holiday travel plans. Originally we were staying home for Thanksgiving and going to Oregon for Christmas, but it has since become much more complicated. Joe's brother Danny started dating a girl at the beginning of the semester and got engaged on Sunday. So, we're going to Indiana for thanksgiving and to Utah for the wedding in December. Yes, that's right, December! We bought plane tickets and everything. So, now we're flying into SLC on the 19th of December for a wedding on the 20th. From there we will rent a car and drive to Portland before Christmas along with Calista, my sister at BYU. That's as far as our plans have gone, so we don't know where we're staying, how long exactly we'll be in Utah, or any of that precise information, but we're coming and we want to introduce Karen to everyone! I don't know how many people will be around or busy with family or any of that, but we'd love to see everyone out there while we're there.

Otherwise, this week has been good. Halloween was all right. I made donuts like my mom always does, and we had some people over to help us eat them. However, I made way too many and we had tons left over, and most of them are now in the trash. They tasted good, but were way too greasy to eat all day every day. Karen was cute in her Halloween costume at the Trunk-or-Treat and we have pictures today! Also this week Karen grew out of her little-baby car seat that clicks into the base in the car. She loves the new car seat that she gets to ride in (thanks to Grandma Allen!) but it makes it somewhat difficult for me and Joe. For example, we went grocery shopping at Walmart, and she didn't have her car seat to ride in, but she's too small to sit up in the cart. So we had to bring the front-carrying thinger and Joe carried her all around the store. She thought it was great but Joe was really tired by the end of it all. Well, that's all for now, hope everyone's enjoying the first week in November! Remember to vote on Tuesday!

Rain!

Well, today is a rainy day. It's nice but sad because our Trunk-or-Treat will have to be in the church tonight instead of outside. Other than that the weather has been really nice. We actually have gotten down into the 30's at night a few times-setting records for the 'cold' temperature. The leaves are finally starting to turn colors; I began to think it wasn't going to happen! But it is, of course.

This week has been crazy because Karen and I have hardly seen Joe. Tuesday he was at Cub Scouts, Wednesday was Home Teaching, Thursday and Friday he's been at a conferene for School (in the city, but gone all evening). And now tonight's Trunk-or-Treat, which should be fun. We'll take pics of Karen in her cute outfit and put them up next Friday.

As nothing is 'official' about our trip to Utah in December, you didn't hear any of this from me. However, we are tentatively planning on flying into SLC on the 19th or so and being around for a couple of days before going on to Portland. When it's official and plane tickets are purchased, I'll say more... but it will be nice to see the mountains again if it all works out, not to mention all the friends and family! None of y'all out there have even met Karen yet!

Hope everyone has a good Halloween weekend and all that!

Update

This week has been fast but slow...I've been 'reading' a book on CD this week that's way long (as in 20 CD's) and it has taken forever, but I have to finish it so I can take it back to the library. However, the book is pretty good and as a result I have been not-so-good at multitasking. So, I have spent a lot of time sitting by the computer with Karen listening to the book. While the book is good I haven't gotten much else done this week, so it's felt crazy even though it really hasn't been. Also this week we've been working on our travel plans for the holidays. Originally we were going to be spending Thanksgiving here in Charlotte, but now we're going to Indiana with Joe's family because we want to meet Kathleen, Danny's girlfriend (and maybe more?). So in addition to the Thanksgiving trip we may also be stopping in Utah thanks to said cute Kathleen person, as well as going to Portland around Christmas time. We'll see how all of that works out; nothing in December is final yet.

Midterms continue at UNCC, and Joe is doing well but going nuts. The midterms are all stretched out over 2-3 weeks, which is nuts but any closer together and I think the students might all die. Several of them have pulled all-nighters multiple times this week. Also going on this weekend: we're having a family over to make Halloween cookies on Saturday. It's the Larson family that we spent Conference Sunday with; their two little girls are so cute! That should be really fun. Next Friday is Trunk-or-Treat and Karen is going as a flower. Her costume is way cute, I'll be sure to put pictures up in the next couple of weeks. That's about all for this week. Hope all is going well in the fall for ya'll!

This picture is for Danny. It's Karen's first time eating Sweet Potatoes. She thought they were okay. This is Joe's favorite one of Karen's bibs!

Update

This week has been slow and crazy at the same time. I think that's mostly because I've been listening to a book on CD that was forever long, and pretty much just vegging out while I was listening. Maybe I've just lost some of my multitasking abilities or something. Anyway, some developments have occured in our holiday plans. We were going to be staying here for Thanksgiving, but instead we're going to Indiana to be with Joe's family and meet Kathleen, Danny's girlfriend (and maybe more than that). Also, because of said cute-girl Kathleen, we may be making an unexpected stop in Utah sometime in December either before or after Christmas, instead of just going to Portland with my fam. None of that is close to being final yet, but I would love to come "home" for a day or two in any case.

Other than that, we're continuing the whole midterm thing-Joe has one more test and a 25 pg. paper still to finish. It's not fun how they drag it out, but I don't know if he could handle it if it was scrunched together any more. Let's see... oh yes. Tomorrow we're having a family in the ward come over and make Halloween cookies with us. It's the Larsen's that we spent Conference Sunday with, and their two little girls are adorable. It should be fun. Next Friday is Trunk-or-Treat, and we got a cute costume for Karen-she's going to be a flower. It's way cute and I'll be sure to put pics up next week or the week after. Other than that, things are just going. Hope everyone's having a good fall time!
Just for Danny, here's a picture of Karen eating Sweet Potatoes for the first time about a week and a half ago. I was supposed to put it up last week but I forgot. The bib she's wearing is Joe's favorite, of course!

Huge Baby!

Well, since Joe was on Fall Break on Monday and Tuesday we decided to go shopping. Monday we went to the mall and looked at lots of things that we didn't buy-we seem to do that a lot. On Tuesday we went to Target and bought a new bathroom scale, since ours died in the move. Not that I really wanted to know how much I weigh, you understand. It's just that Karen hasn't been weighed since just after the 4th of July, and we really wanted to know how much she weighs. Well, it turns out that the kid weighs 17 1/2 lbs., which is really a lot for someone only 4 1/2 months old. As you can see from the pictures we took this week, she's not really fat or anything though. She's also 25 3/4 in. long. Since birth Karen has gained about 10 pounds and gotten almost 6 inches longer. She is a big cutie, and no mistake!

The rest of the week was fairly boring. There's a NASCAR race this weekend (actually one tonight and one tomorrow) and a big Country concert on Sunday, so we're trying to keep a low profile with the tons of extra people in town. Joe is doing midterm stuff and is really busy with school in general, of course. He also got called to be in the Cub Scouts (webelos), which will keep him even more busy. I finally got a Visiting Teaching list this week, so I can do that now too!

Thanks to all who check out our blog, and especially Nancy who always comments!

Karen Plays

This last week Karen has started really playing with things; anything from toys to diapers to hair, or anything she can get her hands on. It can be cute but also a pain since her 'playing' is really just putting anything within reach into her mouth. Her food this week is peaches, which she seems to like less than the peas and the pears which she had before. She always makes a face like "whoa, what's going on here?" but then eats lots of them anyway.

Conference last week was really good; we watched/heard the sessions in different places each time. Sat. Morning we went to a church, where it was basically us and the missionaries (like 10 of them). Sat. afternoon we went to Seth and Kirsten Higginson's (and baby Autumn). Sun. morning we went to Gary and Mindy Larson (and Maggie and Sophie), after which we went for a nice walk and I got really bad blisters on my feet because I was wearing bad sandals. Sun. afternoon we didn't get to see because Karen was tired of being away from home, so we just went home and sat around. It turned out to be a good thing though because she pooped all over the place just at the time the session was getting over, so it was good to be at home for that.

Other than that... this weekend is Fall Break, which is nice. After BYU we're not used to having any breaks during the semester. This is only Monday and Tuesday, but it'll be nice to have a couple days where we can catch up on sleep a bit and Karen can have some extra Daddy time.

Last thing of note: we get to be back in our 'normal' building for church starting Sunday. It's supposedly the regular building for our ward, but we've never been inside it. So, if any of you are planning to call us ever, we will now be in church from 11-2 Eastern Standard Time. To end, here are some cute Karen pics.

Very Boring...

To sum up the most of the last week, I will quote a portion of a poem that I learned in 4th grade at Bonneville Elementary School...

Today is very boring,
It's a very boring day,
There's nothing much to look at,
There's nothing much to say.

There's a peacock on my sneakers
There's a penguin on my head
There's a doormouse on my doorstep
I'm going back to bed...

And so on. Most of this week was very boring except a few points. First, I went for a walk/hike on Tuesday with Doren, a friend from church, at Reedy Creek park and Nature Preserve. It was nice to be outside (except the large amounts of pollen in the air) and the park was really nice (at least the 1 mile trail we took). Wednesday and Thursday nights Joe went Home Teaching with Steve (Doren's husband) while Karen and I sat at home without him ;( However, we're planning to picnic with Doren and Steve as well as a couple other families in the ward during the breaks at Conference on Saturday and Sunday and party with the girls during Priesthood session. Karen's new food for the week is peas, and she really seems to like them-though not as much as she likes the pears from last week. Here are a couple pictures of Karen that I was going to add last week but forgot.

Two Weeks

Well, the past two weeks have been fairly uneventful. The only really exciting things that have happened are...

1. Karen has started solid food and loves her pears while enduring her rice cereal. The only bad part about the food is that she had a slight allergic reaction to the formula we were mixing the cereal with. Not good, but hopefully it's not a really bad thing...only time will tell.

2. Karen has started rolling over. Usually this happens only on my lap, but the other day she did it on the floor, which is good progress. She still hates being on her tummy, but it is still progress. She also holds her rattle or other small toy, but tends to hit herself in the head and get frustrated with it all. We also got her shots last week, which was not very fun. She was upset for a few days but then back to normal.

Other than that it has been life as normal around here. Not much is going on and we're just doing the school/home thing. We're looking forward to Conference in a couple weeks and wish we could watch more BYU football games!

The Visit

Last weekend was really great. We went to visit Jamie and Tom Stansfield in Buena Vista, Virginia. It was a fun day or two, for the most part. We left on Saturday morning, and arrived around noon. After lunch we called the fam in Utah at their big Labor Day get-together. Then we took our tour of Southern Virginia University, which took all of about 15 minutes. It's a really nice campus, but very small. Then we just visited, had pizza for dinner, watched a movie, played with babies, and all that fun stuff. Sunday morning Tom made great pancakes for breakfast and we sat around until church at 1:30. After Sacrament Meeting we thought it would be good to start on home so Joe could spend Monday on school stuff. So, we took off on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Not the most quick way to go, but it was fun to be up in the mountains again for a while. It was a nice trip, with quite a bit of relaxing and non-stress environments...it was fun to get away for a day or so.

The rest of the week was pretty boring. Cleaning, changing diapers, etc. It's been pretty boring, but that's life. Next week we go for Karen's next round of shots, which will not be fun. Here's a few of the pictures with Karen and Liberty, Jamie's baby who is about 6 weeks younger than Karen. For those of you who started school this week, hope it's going well.

Crazy Weather?!?

Well, this week has been pretty uneventful. Joe went to school/work every day and Karen and I stayed home just chillin'. Which, of course was not really exciting. So, to bring something other than bathroom and kitchen cleaning into this week, I'll talk about the wonderful exciting weather that wasn't.

So, there was this storm called Ernesto that was supposed to be going really close to here. It went by Haiti, over Cuba, across Florida, and then was supposed to hit right into the Carolinas. So while I was at home all week I watched the weather as the storm came closer. As late as Thursday morning they had it supposedly coming through less than 100 miles from here. However, as wonderful as their prediction models are it didn't hit land until it was due east of here, almost 250 miles. Instead of getting upwards of 10 inches of rain in a couple hours, we got 8-9 inches over 3 days, and the flooding they were predicting was nonexistent in our area. North and east of us there was quite a bit of flooding and such, but we missed out.

This weekend we're going up to Virginia to visit my cousin Jamie Stansfield and her family. She also has a baby girl, who happens to be about a month and a half younger than Karen. We're excited to go see some family and compare babies and all that. It should be a good weekend. Luckily we didn't get the big rain, because if we had it would have been more difficult to make this trip. So, while this week's post is really boring next week we should have some way cute pics of two cute babies (of course Karen will be cuter, but I'm not biased in this at all...).

Here are some of the pics I was going to put up last week but it didn't work. Hope ya like them.

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!!!

Weekend Trip

This weekend we took a trip for our last weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Allen. We went to Louisville, KY to the small temple there. It was the first time I'd ever been in a small temple, and it was really small! It was the same size as the stake center that was next to it. It was a good experience however. G&G Allen went to the first session while we played with Karen, then they watched her while Joe and I did a session. Then we took the 2 1/2 hour drive home and continued packing... it was a very long day. However, the packing is done now (except for the computer, and Joe's just waiting for me to finish this before he takes it apart). Next time I write something here, I will be living in the South-how wierd! I never thought I'd live in NC, but I'm excited. It'll be fun, I think. Anyway, enough for now. Here are a couple pictures from our trip!

It's almost moving time!

Hey all! I thought that since we're going to be moving so far away from everyone, I'd get this blog set up and write a bit about what's going on in our lives and post current pictures of us, our apartment, etc. on it so you can see what we're up to. Today I started the packing and we'll be leaving for Charlotte next Wednesday. I plan currently to update this every week, but we'll see how that actually works out later. Here's a picture of Karen's blessing day to start everything off. She's over 11 lbs. now by the way...she's getting huge!