pictures!

Here are some pictures from the past 6 weeks, since I don't have time to sit and actually write anything right now. They aren't in any particular order or anything, so don't think that Rachel is shrinking or anything. ;)

update 2: the first 2 weeks

**Note: if you haven't checked the blog for a while (meaning any time from 6 weeks ago to 6 minutes ago) read the blog before this first, as this is a continuing update.**

So, Rachel and I came home from the hospital on my dad's birthday (I won't say he turned 49 this year), January 20th. Thankfully Rachel was our second kid and not the first, so we had basically everything for her already (bed, car seat, stroller, clothes, blankets, etc) or we would have been in trouble since she came exactly 3 weeks early. But, at 6 lb. 4 oz, I don't think I would have been very happy if she decided to wait a few more weeks; pushing out an 8 or 9 lb baby is not my idea of fun.

Rachel is a lot like Karen was at that age. She was jaundiced (but not enough for a bili blanket, thankfully) and so yellow from head to toe for 2-3 weeks. She sleeps almost all the time, and it takes a lot to wake her for feedings. She even sleeps pretty good at night, giving us 2-4 hour chunks of sleeping time between feedings. Also like Karen, Rachel loves bath time but hates lotion afterwards. Unlike Karen though, Rachel will scream her little head off if she doesn't like something; Karen would just wimper a bit and I'd take care of her, but I'm a bit more busy now so I guess Rachel has to be more vocal. Also unlike Karen, Rachel is already a pro at holding her head up and looking around (although she doesn't like to do it while on her tummy on the floor).

My mom totally saved us, being here the first week we were home. Rachel wasn't nursing very well, and since she was so hungry she was even harder to wake up. Karen was excited to have a baby around, (but didn't realize that she'd be a permanent addition) but wanted lots of mommy time (or Grandma sometimes). Rachel would sleep most of the time, but that doesn't mean that she was quiet. This little girl is the loudest sleeper for her size of anyone I've ever heard. She sometimes snores, but mostly squeeks and grunts constantly if she's not really deep asleep. After the first part of the first night I kicked my baby out of my room; she was so loud I couldn't sleep at all. So she slept with/by Grandma the whole time she was here. Every time Rachel would start squeeking too loud my mom would pat her tummy and she'd get quiet again. I think she wasn't too bad after the first night, but I'm not sure. I think we let my mom do a lot because we all knew she was going home in a few days and would be able to catch up on sleep a lot quicker than me and Joe. I feel kinda bad about it now though... but only a little. I was so sleep deprived from the hospital that I couldn't stay awake. Grandma Howes stayed with us for about a week-she left early on Saturday morning (26th).

The next week is a total blur. Karen was starting to realize that Rachel wasn't leaving and started to take it out on me. Rachel finally started eating (after we started using a nipple shield; that's another way she's like Karen; neither of them would nurse from me without a shield), and wanted to eat every 2 hours or so. Joe was really busy with work/school and church as always, and really behind from the last 2 weeks of craziness to boot, so he couldn't be around much even though he did his best. That week my friends from church really saved us. Kitara and Doren came over a lot to help by playing with Karen or holding Rachel. Kitara is still one of Karen's favorite people-she calls her on the toy cell phone about 10x/day.

We are now updated through Feb. 2 or so. Karen woke up from her nap so I have to stop; hopefully I can continue soon (like tonight or tomorrow) and maybe even put up some pictures.

Update anyone?

Well, I know it's been 'forever' since I posted something... and all I can say is sorry, I've been a bit busy. I know I'm way behind on the times, but I want to start this Rachel story from the beginning... which might take a while, sorry. Also, please excuse any really dumb typing errors-I'm a bit sleep deprived at the moment.

This story actually begins on the 8th of January (or maybe the 27th of December...but that's too far back). I went to my Dr. appointment, and my blood pressure was really high-as in 150's over 60's. My doctor wanted to put me in the hospital to monitor my condition, but I begged her to let me go home; she said ok if I go on bedrest. So I went home and called my visiting teacher and my mom. I figured it wasn't going to be a month until Rachel came, but I had to plan on 4 weeks or so of bedrest. The ward was great; they took Karen every afternoon as soon as naptime was over; they brought meals, books, movies, etc. I went back to the doctor on Thursday the 10th, and my bp was even higher. The doctor wanted to send me to the hospital, but once again I made her let me go home since my baby shower was on Saturday. She said if I had any problems at all to go to the hospital, and that I would probably have my baby before the end of the next week. My mom bought a plane ticket for Sunday.

The shower was great on the 12th, and I got a REALLY nice double stroller along with some really cute clothes (when Karen was first born she wore mostly onesies since it was summer time-that doesn't work well in the middle of winter, even in NC). I felt yucky that night, but didn't do anything about it since I just figured I'd done too much that day. Sunday morning I still felt yucky and had a headache to boot, so we dropped Karen off at church and went to the hospital. We got there at 11am and they didn't decide to admit me until 3pm; I just sat there with the baby monitors on constantly and having my bp taken every 15 minutes. It was crazy; I was really hungry so they gave me jello and crackers (yum...), which made my bp spike near 190; as I got hungrier again my bp went down... until I ate something else.

So I was in the hospital from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday (15th) in the afternoon. My mom came in on Sunday night; Joe and Karen picked her up at the airport, where Karen barfed all over the first time she saw her. That's pretty much how mom's visit was. For 2 weeks I was in and out of the hospital twice, Karen had the nasty flu bug, then Joe had it, I had a baby, and Karen didn't want anything to do with Grandma until the last 2 days.

Thursday the 17th I went to my dr appointment, and she said they would induce me on Friday morning, but when she called the hospital to make sure they had room she said we would come in on Thursday evening instead. We got to the hospital around 7 pm, were admitted, filled out a bunch of paperwork, and the nurse took some blood and got my IV going (after she burst a blood vessel in my arm that left a welt for almost 2 weeks). Since I was only dialated to about a 2, they gave me a Cervadil, which they put up next to the cervix to help it efface quickly so you don't have to be on pitocin for as long. The doctor said I'd have some cramping and maybe in the night my contractions would start on their own and I wouldn't have to have pitocin at all. They put the drugs in around 9:30; within 2 hours I was having contractions every 3 minutes if I lay on my back, every 8-10 minutes if I lay on my side. However, the contraction monitor didn't pick them up very well so they just gave me some narcotics to help me sleep... the first time I got them was around 11-ish, and it worked for about 2 hours (but they could only give it to me every 3 hours); the second time it worked okay for about an hour and a half, and the third it took off the edge for about half an hour...of course I was supposed to be 'sleeping' during this time.

From what I remember (which is kinda fuzzy since they gave me the other drugs first) I got my epidural around 6 or so. It worked good for about an hour then started to wear off. Sometime around or just after 8 the anisthesiologist convinced me to have another epidural since I was only about a 5. Soon after that my doctor came and broke my water, which had some blood in it... a few minutes later I was at a 7. A few minutes after that I was saying that I needed to push, they checked me again and I was all the way dilated; the nurses and everyone got everything ready really fast and after maybe 10 minutes of pushing Rachel was born at 9 am on the nose. She was completely wrapped up in her cord and the placenta was about 20% abrupt (premature separation from the uterus). However, Rachel was fine and after a much more easy and painless delivery than Karen I realized that while giving birth is not fun, it's not nearly as bad as my previous experience would indicate (30 hours labor, 3 hours pushing, pain relief didn't work...). The worst parts about the hospital stay was the bp meds they gave me (so no solid foods for 24 hours) and not sleeping at night-almost every hour someone was in my room, either for a feeding or bp check, or taking blood... it was crazy.

Okay, that's enough for one posting. I'll write some more, but put it in another post in case someone else is like me and can't spend an hour just reading blogs anymore. :)

Rachel Kay Allen

Well, this is Joe...and Joy told me that I had to blog tonight and get the pictures up fast!! That's right, Rachel Kay Allen was born today at 9am. She weighed in at 6 lbs 4 oz and is 18 inches long. She's about a pound smaller than Karen was because she was born at 37 weeks instead of 39 weeks and 5 days. For those who didn't know, Joy was dealing with pregnancy induced hypertension. Something she had with Karen, but was never taken seriously. Our doctor this time was more interested in monitoring this problem and for that reason alone the delivery was much more bearable for Joy. In fact, they didn't have to induce in the traditional sense. They did a procedure to help ephase (sp?) Rachel and then Joy went into natural contractions at about a minute apart. When the doctor broke her water, literally 15 minutes later Rachel was born.

Anyway, that's some of the particulars...but we're so excited to have this new addition to our family. It was funny when a friend of ours (Kitara) brought Karen to the hospital to meet Rachel. I hadn't realized just how big Karen is until she held Rachel (see pic). She's grown so much and is so smart. She's going to out-smart us for sure and be a handful when she gets a bit older.

Also, Joy's Mom flew in from Portland to be here for the delivery and to help with the transition home. She came just in time too...but not just for the pregnancy. Karen's had a nasty bit of the stomach flu and we've been cleaning up after her all week. In fact, Karen's first experience with Grandma was seeing her clean the vomit off her car-seat. I think that helps explain why Karen is just now beginning to take to her. Frankly, I don't know how we would've made it through this week without her and the help from our wonderful ward. Not to mention the prayers and faith of our family and friends. Thank you all for all the love and support. We wish you all could be here to share in this moment. Its not everyday your family grows by 25%!!

Well, Joy is much more witty and enjoyable to read, so I'll stop before I attempt the impossible... Enjoy the pics below!!

Happy Holidays!!!

Now, don't get all upset because I didn't start with 'Merry Christmas'. I realize that the main event for December is and should be Christmas. However, since I (and almost everyone else that I know) have celebrated at least 2 major holidays since I last posted I thought it best to start with a happy holiday.





As you can see, it's been quite a while. Almost every day the past few weeks I've thought 'gee, I really should blog today...' but that inevitably fell by the wayside, along with things like cleaning, excercising, and other normal non-holiday activities. Instead I found myself shopping for and wrapping presents, cooking holiday meals, making treats and/or snacks, visiting with friends in the area, or sleeping. It didn't help that Joe's been out of school since the 13th of December and been doing quite a bit of 'work from home' that starts out as school-related things and turns into surfing the internet or playing games... But enough excuses.





Christmas here was really good. It was strange to be 'home for the holidays' without actually going to either of our parents' places, but it was a lot of fun too. We got to kind of do our own traditions (which strangely ended up being most of both of our traditions; we may need to cut back next time...) and we didn't have anywhere that we just had to be for this family or that. We had Haitian food for dinner on Christmas Eve, which was yummy, accompanied by 'Compa Noel' Joe's Haitian Christmas music, which is fun...even though I don't understand most of the words. We read the story from Luke 2, had Wassail (yum) and opened one present from under the tree. Karen's first gift was a teddy bear (thanks uncle Mike), Joe got a BYU t-shirt (Calista) and I got the movie "Young Frankenstien", (Stacia) (which we ended up taking back to Walmart-shhh!). Since we didn't have that many things under our tree, we decided that Santa was going to bring wrapped gifts for Karen (and us) to open and it was really easy to put them out on Christmas Eve, since we'd finished the wrapping a couple days in advance.





The only unwrapped present on Christmas morning was Karen's "Bounce-n-go Inch Worm" It's really cute and green with a yellow saddle. The only problem is that her legs are a bit short so she scoots around on her tippy toes for right now. She got lots of other presents including some wooden puzzles, Mr. Potato Head (the original), and a 'doodle pro', but the worm is her favorite of all. Joe and I got mostly movies; we realized that for Christmas we got more than half of the year's top 10 moives (including Bourne, Rattatouille (?), Shrek, Harry Potter, and another one I can't remember right now).

For dinner on Christmas I (okay we, Joe did at least half of it) made ham, turkey (just a bit that had been frozen since Thanksgiving), potatoes, gravy, homemade mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, stuffing, rolls, pies, veggies and dip, and probably something else that I can't remember right now. We've been eating on all of this food for a week or more now. Even though I just made a little bit of everything it all together took over our fridge. We really couldn't find any room for anything else after the dinner was all put away.

The days between Christmas and New Year's are all a blur. They usually are, but this time it's because we spent most of that time sick. Karen has been bringing home a new cold every week since she started nursery a month ago (except this week!) and the one from the 23rd was especially nasty. It was so bad the couple days after Christmas that I had to break my usual no-drugs-when-pregnant rule and take some decongestants. That didn't work so well since I had to go to my regular doctor appointment on the 27th and my blood pressure was through the roof (up 30 points in 2 weeks...but that's a different story), but by Sunday we were all feeling pretty much better.

For New Year's eve we had lots of treats-mostly left over from Christmas (at least the sweet parts) since we had tons and being sick we didn't feel much like eating anything. We got some salty things to go with our leftover chocolate (crackers, chips, etc). Our friends Doren and Steve Cook came over and watched Harry Potter 5 and Transformers with us, and Justin and Kitara Beasley came in just after midnight (their plane was supposed to get in at 10 pm from Oregon, but it was an hour and a half late). My usual family tradition of doing a puzzle for New Year's was somewhat thwarted by the fact that the puzzle I got this year was from the dollar store. Not only was the picture on the front of the box not a good representation of the puzzle itself, but putting all the edge pieces together (at least the ones that looked like they actually went with the puzzle) did not make any square or rectangle; it was kind of a rhombus shape: having 4 sides but of different lengths and angles not quite 90 degrees... needless to say, the $1 puzzle is now in the dumpster. We got another puzzle yesterday at the mall (American Revolution, 1000 pieces) but it's too big to fit on the piano bench. Once we get all the leftover treats off the table (either in our bellies or in the trash) we'll try doing it on the table.

That's basically how our holiday season has played out. Now the real countdown has begun: baby Rachel is coming in 38 days, give or take, and that's what we'll be working on for the next month or so. I hope to put up a bunch of Christmas pictures soon; for now here is Karen riding her worm outside for the first time. Note the light jacket and capri's; it was 60 degrees on Christmas!

Pictures!

Here are some pictures from the last month or so. Most of them are, of course, Karen doing cute/funny things. Of The second one is our day-after-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. We were invited to dinner with some friends in the ward but we wanted to try doing our own dinner too so we did it the next day, and even though I only made a tiny bit of everything there was still SOOO much food! It was great though. TTFN!

Welcome to December!

Do you ever get so busy doing 'stuff' that random things-like blogging-just seem to fall through the cracks? Well, that pretty well describes the last few weeks here. We've been running here and there and doing this and that and I don't even know where all the time has gone. So, I'll try and get the highlights, and that will have to do for now.

Joe's been busy doing all kinds of YM related things. In the past week or so they've logged about 6 hours of presidency meeting (or more) and then there's all the other stuff he has to do to get ready for these meetings... He's also getting close to the end of the semester, as classes end on Wednesday and finals finish on the 12th. This means he has lots and lots of homework to do, as well as papers to grade and other research projects to work on. For example he spent hours the week of Thanksgiving writing a grant with a couple other people, only to find out a few days later that they wouldn't even be able to apply for it since only one application/university would be considered and a guy in the engineering dpt. got it instead. I guess it's what you'd call 'a good experience' but still...

Karen started nursery last week and has done smashingly well. I stayed with her for the first hour her first week because they needed another adult in the room, and she had a great time. All week she's been talking about going to church and playing with her friends. Also in the past couple of weeks we've said bye-bye to the bottle. While she was never really addicted to her bottle, she really enjoyed getting her milk that way and no other way. It's been a bit of an adventure trying to get her to take it from a cup, but in all she's doing really well with that. A few weeks/months ago I blogged about how you know it's time to do certain things...well Karen has decided independant of what I want that she wants to use the potty. So, we're trying to start potty training, even though it's really quite early. We started Tuesday afternoon and while she's not yet a pro, or really even to the pull-up stage yet she is improving. Today was the first time I had to change a poopy diaper all week, for instance. She loves going potty like mom and dad, and eventually I think she'll get it down, if we take it slowly.

As for me, with these two busy bodies in the house I don't have much time for anything else. Now that the ward has gotten a little more organized and such we've started having RS activities like playgroup and book club, so I can get out of the routine a little bit. I'm also playing the piano for choir currently, although my abilities are diminishing the closer I get to delivery. Hopefully I'll still be able to do something when we get to the Christmas program, but who knows, maybe my toe coordination will increase as my finger coordination decreases and I'll play that way... although can you really imagine me playing the piano in front of the congregation with my toes while only 6 weeks from delivery? That would be a Christmas program for the history books, I'm sure.

Well, as that last thought indicates, It's time for me to be asleep. So I think I'll end by saying that I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and are gearing up for a great Christmas and New Year celebrations. I was going to put some cute pictures of Karen up, but I think it'll have to wait since I can already hear Joe snoring in bed behind me. Hopefully I can do that tomorrow...but that's what I said last time.

Balance

Life is all about balance, that is what I'm learning now. You can have too much or too little of everything. Take chocolate for example. All my life I have been a chocoholic, and I feel good about that. It means that I have at least some chocolate every day... otherwise I'm grumpy and grouchy. However it can be taken to the extreme. Like last night when I ate half a king-size Mr. Goodbar while watching "Chuck" on TV (Joe ate the other half at the same time). Because I wasn't paying that much attention to how much I ate, I obviously got carried away a little bit and had to pay for it during the night. First, Rachel got a big sugar high and was doing flips and dances until almost midnight which made sleeping difficult. Then, I woke up a couple hours later incredibly thirsty, and with all that sugar inside it was hard to get back to sleep. Then this morning I had my glucose test at the doctor. This is even more sugar (I think) than my half candy bar, and the cute parasite I call Rachel went totally nuts. The doctor could hardly get the heartbeat on the dopplar she was kicking so much. Between these two events, I need to refrain from the sugar/chocolate for a while (at least a few hours I guess) to get myself back into some kind of balance so Rachel doesn't kick her way out tonight!

Someone in our family who is literally working on balance right now is Karen. She is so cute and fun at this stage, but she is growing again and it's totally thrown off her balance. She has bruises all over her head from running into things. I think it's because a few days ago she wasn't tall enough to hit them with her head and her legs were shorter and so were her steps. As those cute chubby legs get longer and thinner it takes fewer steps to get to the same place, and she hasn't quite figured that out yet. As a note to illustrate how much she's grown recently... Her Halloween costume went all the way to the floor and she kept tripping on it while trunk-or-treating, but now there's a 1/4 to 1/2 inch gap between the costume and the floor!

Joe is working on balance in another way. As I mentioned in my last update, our ward got split just over a week ago. Almost all of the leadership was taken to the new ward and the bishopric has been spending hours in meetings and interviews trying to get everything put back together. As part of that, Joe now has another thing to balance besides just home and school/work. He got called to be the Young Men's President. If you're laughing in shock and/or disbelief right now I don't blame you. Neither of us saw this coming really... until we look back really hard and say 'oh, so that's why that happened'. So he's busier than ever and I'm going nuts trying to figure out if/when I'm ever going to see 'daddy' again! So much for the 'easier semester' we were expecting to start in January.

As a last note, kind of in conjunction with Joe's new calling we bought a minivan on Saturday. It's a 2001 Honda Odyssey, white with gray interior. It's definitely not the 'coolest' van out there but it's really nice that I won't have to drive Joe to school anymore! And it's so much easier to get Karen in and out. Hopefully it will be a good car for us and will last until it's paid off and we can afford to trade it for a nicer, newer 'cooler' van. For now it will work to haul young men on service projects and temple trips. I think that's about it for now; I'll try to post some pics later on this week, since I figured out how to get them on the computer now.

End of an Era

I think Joe and I really are cursed. Since we've been married (about 4 1/2 years) we've moved a total of about 7 times. That means 7 different neighborhoods and wards, and lots of time trying to make new friends and so on. Well, when we moved out to North Carolina we figured we'd be set; we were going to be in relatively the same place for at least 4 years, and the size of wards outside of Utah are such that we could even move a couple different times and still be in the same ward. Then, here we are, in the same apartment for nearly a year and a half, enjoying our callings and finally getting to know almost everyone in the ward, and they announced the week after stake conference that they are creating a new ward from ours and the others surrounding us... but mostly from ours. Just when we thought we were safe, everything gets shaken up. I guess it really is true that the only constant thing in life is change, but really....

Okay, before I go any farther I should probably talk about our Halloween, since I have so far failed to do so. Traditionally my family makes homemade chili and donuts for Halloween, but this year we had ward trunk or treat to go to that evening instead. Of course everyone was there because it was in the middle of the time between the announcement of the split and it actually happening. It was fun, except for the part where they have a 'dinner' that is supposed to be a fundraiser for the cub scouts: $1.50 for one hot dog and fries or $2.50 for two hot dogs and fries...oh goody!!! However it was great to see everyone 'one last time' (it's just kinda funny that we're all acting like we're never going to see each other ever again, even though we're all still in the same stake and we shop at the same stores and everything). Karen was dressed up really cute in the yellow dress and purple cape that I made her. We still aren't sure exactly what she 'was', since the whole 'princess' idea went out the window when Karen chose the bright yellow cotton fabric instead of the more silky pink or blue princess-like fabrics, but she was cute. Our old camera kinda died a week or two ago (that's why there haven't been many pics lately) but we took a couple pictures of her in costume right when I finished making it, so here they are.

Notice the extra blurriness and the more-grainy quality? It's our wonderful camera. In addition the flash no longer works (well, it works sometimes, but you can't really control when it will or won't go off), and if you take a picture next to the window, the window shows up bright purple. Exciting, huh? Anyway, we got a new camera on Saturday, which is nicer and way smaller than our old camera, but I haven't taken the time to figure out how to put the pictures on the computer yet-that's a job for this week sometime.

Anyway, back to the story. As mentioned by several other people with small kids, trick-or-treating at this age is really great. Everyone thinks the kid is so cute whether it's true or not, and I get to eat most of the candy. As for our chili and donut tradition, we did it on Friday night instead. We had a few friends over and watched Spiderman 3, which is kind of Halloween-ish. It was fun to have people over, and Karen was such a show off!

So, Sunday was the long-awaited day of 'the split' (you know, that might make a good mormon movie... sorry, back to the story). Since it involved 3 wards and not just one, we had all of regular church and then a half-hour break and then the 'split meeting' for another hour or so. It was a very long day and Karen was definitely not happy about being kept out so long. As for the outcome of the meeting... about half of the active members of the ward are now not in our ward. This includes our former bishop, RS pres, YW counselors, YM presidency (entirely) Primary presidency (except maybe one...) and the list continues. It's going to be really interesting next Sunday when the only leadership that will be in place is the bishopric (our new bishop was called last Sunday, but I don't know him much since he's on the High Council) and the Sunday School presidency (only one of the counselors has 'left' us). Joe has already been asked to fill in as the ward chorister on Sunday, and I'm going to start playing for the choir, at least for this month... If I swell up like a balloon at the end of this pregnancy like I did with Karen it won't be long before I am physically unable to play the piano!

Last note for this already too-long blog. I officially start my third trimester this week. It seems like February is never going to come, but with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all between now and then I'm sure it will go by really fast. And at least this year I have a license to eat whatever I want and gaining weight will happen whether I deprive myself or not... so why not have a good time! ;D That is assuming my glucose test next week goes well... otherwise the holidays will be just about unbearable. So listen to this, baby Rachel: be good to mommy and let her eat chocolate or else!!!

update

It seems like a good time to write a blog never comes these days. I'll explain more about why in a bit, but here's some of what's been going on the last week or so.

Last Monday, Joe defended his thesis. Yes, it is a bit early in the school year for doing something like that, but I told him (and he agreed) it really ought to be done before the baby comes in February. So he badgered his professor into moving along with the project all summer and into the fall, and a week and a day ago he passed his defence! Now all he has left for his master's degree is the classwork from this semester and next. Of course we found out that he only has two real classes next semester-6 of his 13 credit hours will be research/thesis work, which will give him some time to get going on his dissertation stuff as well as help out with baby Rachel some.

Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I went visiting teaching. I have another new companion, and this one actually returns phone calls. So far we get along well together, but I figured we would when I first called her cell phone and realized it had an 801 area code. There are just so many nice people in that area code ;) (okay, so there are plenty of wierd people too...but let's not focus on that). Anyway, I find that the longer I'm a stay-at-home mom, the more I enjoy going visiting teaching, and having my visiting teachers come as well (which they did yesterday; I also have one new visiting teacher just in from Idaho Falls... but I'm not sure what area code that is). Karen also enjoyed our visits, since all but one of our sisters to visit has little kids, and the exception has a cute little pug dog. However, Karen seems to have shared with the kids a little too much and by Tuesday night had a bit of a sniffle...

This weekend was really awesome. We had stake conference, which is usually just a nice break from the regular church meetings. However, we got a new stake presidency, which was a big deal to most of the people who have lived in the area a long time. To make the change, church headquarters sent out the 'big guns' (in the best sense of the term), and Elder Bednar was the presiding authority at the conference. It was really cool to hear him speak both Saturday night and Sunday morning. He was definitely more personable in person than as the talking head from General Conference. One note of interest about Elder Bednar is that he is a doctor of Organizational Science-the same thing that Joe's studying. It was really wierd to hear him talk a little bit about that, since it's the same kind of things I hear from Joe almost every day when he comes home from school. Hopefully Joe becomes a successful professor like Elder Bednar, but I don't expect or want him to be a university president or an apostle, so I hope the similarities don't go too far... Anyway, back to stake conference: Joe and I both sang in the choir, which meant we had to be up on the stand the whole time...with a 1-year-old we didn't know how it was going to work-until our friends volunteerd to take her during the meeting. We got there really early and saved a bench seat for them, and then watched Karen play and eat apple slices and cheese for the two hour meeting. She was really good, and it was nice to be able to listen to the meeting and not worry about Karen being too loud or obnoxious.

Also for this past week I've been transcribing some interviews that Joe had to do for his qualitative methods class. I think he's really supposed to be doing it himself, but with his thesis work and getting ready to go to Michigan for a conference he hasn't had the time and it needs to be done soon. Hence I've spent most of my computer time typing, and it hasn't been nearly as enjoyable as writing a post for my blog, but sometimes that happens.

Last note for the week. Karen's cold that she caught from someone last Tuesday has been getting steadily worse. I was going to take her to the doctor yesterday, but she seemed so much better yesterday morning that I didn't. Well, I should have because all she did yesterday afternoon was lay on the floor and watch PBS-not her normal active self. And this morning before we went to the doctor she could hardly walk because the fluid in her ears is messing with her balance. So, note to self: if Karen gets a bad cold again, take her to the doctor before she can't stand up by herself. I'm sure after a couple of days the antibiotics will have helped enough that she'll walk just fine again, but I feel like a lousy mom right now... At least I figured out the answer to one of the questions: when do you take a sick kid to the doctor? before they're too disoriented to walk.

What is it?

It seems like every time you announce that you have something new, or are going to be getting something new, every person you tell wants to know all about it. You mention in passing "we're thinking about getting a new car-maybe a minivan" and all of a sudden there are swarms of people around you, asking what kind, when is it coming, what color do you want, will you get the cool roll-down back windows...and on and on. Then if you go to a dealership to actually test-drive or try to buy any kind of said minivan, the sales person automatically assumes that you 'need' the most expensive one on the lot and won't show you anything else. (and then when you say you won't buy said expensive vehicle, they get extremely angry.) If you can't tell, we did have an experience like this a couple weeks ago at a Honda dealership. While we liked the all-leather, rolling windows, and all the other neat features, we didn't want the 7-year loan they were trying to force on us, or the $400/month car payment ("I'm sure there's enough wiggle-room in your budget for this kind of payment") for a 2-yr-old Odyssey that didn't actually drive that well. The sales guy started yelling at us when we said no politely. So we said it again, a little less politely. He got so mad that he kinda stormed off and his boss came and tried to get us to buy it. We were getting angry and Karen was a pill, but we tried to be polite as the next guy started yelling at us to buy the dang van. We still haven't picked up a second vehicle...but when we do it won't be from that place.

Another time people ask 'what is it?' is when you're carrying a shopping bag. It might have dirty dishtowels in it, but people still have to ask. Our friend and Home Teacher Justin went to BYU on a recruiting trip for work a couple weeks ago. He bought us a couple of 'fully invested' shirts, so we can fit in with the home crowd even though we're 2000 miles from 'home'. Well, he gave them to me in a BYU Bookstore bag in the middle of church, which was just fine with me. I pulled one out to look at it up close (which is different from staring at it on a computer screen, let me tell you), and right after I put it away several BYU alumni saw the bag and came running (okay, not quite) to ask, what's in the bag.

The last and sometimes most annoying time that you are always being asked 'what is it?' is when you announce a pregnancy. As soon as someone knows you're expecting, the first words out of their mouth are "what is it?" For those of us who have uncooperative children from conception onward, it can be a difficult question to answer. You may have two or three ultrasounds before you can actually tell what gender the child is. For my first 20 weeks this time, and nearly 35 weeks with Karen, the answer to 'what is it' was 'a child'. Not knowing the gender of your child-to-be can be really annoying, especially the farther along you get, and most people don't consider that if you knew the gender you would tell it when you tell them you're expecting. However, I don't have to answer 'a child' to this question anymore (at least in this pregnancy). Yesterday at the doctor we got the results from our ultrasound, which also stated the gender was still unknown. So, the nice doctor asked if we would like to wait a couple minutes and see if we could tell the gender. Of course we did, and it took all of about 10 seconds with the machine to be able to tell... that this baby is definitely a girl. She's a lot bigger than she was at the last ultrasound, too. So, now when people ask 'what is it', I can say 'it's Rachel Kay Allen' instead of just 'a child'. Yes, we already decided on the name over a month ago. Sorry to all the other Rachels out there, but my baby Rachel is the cutest one ever-and she's not even born yet.

How do you know?

That's a question I find myself asking a lot lately. How do you know what you're supposed to feed your kid? How do you know when to feed them? How do you know how much to feed them? How do you know when bedtime is? How do you know when you should potty train? How do you know when you should punish or not? How do you know when you should change from a crib to a bed? How do you know when they're ready to play at the park? How do you know which diapers are better? How do you know when all the sales are so you can get cheap clothes? How do you know if the kid is ready for nursery? The list of questions sometimes seems endless. And the answer seems to be nearly the same for every question, and it comes in two parts. You either get a) 'Every child is different, so you never really know,' b) 'She'll tell you when she's ready', or c) 'All you can do is try different things until you figure it out.' So, this last week or so we've been trying different things with Karen to see if we can figure out if what we're doing is the best or if there is a 'better' way. Here are a few examples:

We have lots of books in our apartment, 3 bookcases full, and one about halfway there (mostly with Karen's books on it). Karen knows that pulling mom and dad's books off the shelf is bad, but it usually gets her some attention. So, whenever I get busy with something (playing the piano, doing the dishes, taking a shower...) she would pull the books off the shelf so I would notice her. Redirecting her attention had worked, but it wasn't cutting it any more. So I decided that every time she pulled a book off the shelf she would have time out in her crib, since there is nothing to play with in there. I started this on Thursday last week, and it was a horrible day. Karen was in time out at least 6 or 7 times (for about 2 minutes each time). I didn't think I could keep doing this, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it for a couple more days. Friday we only did time out 4 times, and she has not been in time out at all since Sunday morning. It's been nice not to have to pick up books all day long. I guess in that case it was okay to punish, and be really consistent about it.

Another thing we've been working on is changing to a 'big' (twin size) bed from the crib. We only have the top bunk of our bunk beds set up, with rails to keep her from falling but a space where she can get out. At first I only put her there when she was already asleep (usually around lunch/nap time when we were somewhere in the car for too long). One afternoon I put her down and she just got out of bed and tried to sneak to her toys...So she went in her crib. Last night we put her down for the night fully concious in the big bed. She went to sleep! It was amazing! However we went to check on her before we went to bed and she was sitting up, aware that this was not her normal bed. So, we put her back in the crib...but I still see it as a triumph. She lasted almost 4 hours. Maybe by the time we have this next kid she'll be able to go the whole night!?

As a last example, we've been getting ready to go into nursery. Karen is now a very large 16 months old, but has recently been dealing with a bit of separation anxiety. She wants to play with the other little kids, but she wants mommy to be right there the whole time. I've tried leaving her in different nursery classes (like for Enrichment night, etc.) but it hasn't worked out... until this morning. Tuesday mornings I have my 'Let's talk about it' class at the church, where moms come and talk about stuff; anything from laundry and shoe issues to who wears the pants in the family and is that how it should be. Today, for the first time ever Karen went into the nursery and started playing with the toys. I told the lady watching the kids that I'd take her if she had any problems because she's not used to it. But she was just fine. After an hour and a half she came walking down the hall holding hands with the other kids, having a grand old time and didn't even notice me until I called her name. It was a great feeling.

Well, it seems like I've figured out the answers to a couple of questions, at least for now. If you want, I can give you the answers. They're at the end of the first paragraph. If I ever find any better answers, I'll let you know. Here are some other 'firsts' that Karen's had the last month or so.

Karen's first time at the playground; she's much more self-sufficient there now; we just have to make sure she doesn't slide head-first.

the first day as a superhero; Super Karen is wearing the oh-so-stylin dish towel, and reading the Book of Mormon. I'm making her a cape as part of a Halloween costume...

Karen's first time putting olives on all her fingers; when I started taking the picture they were all on, but they didn't last.

The rest of the story

Well, since the last time I wrote, things have been really crazy. I had talked to Jamie just before writing that blog and she seemed happy and confident that John would pull through. However, he took a serious turn for the worse that afternoon and died about 6:30 that evening. I think I was one of the first people to hear about it, and it was a big shock. Imagine us sitting down to dinner and praying for John's recovery, only to get a call five minutes later that he had died. I think I've cried more in the past couple of days than I have in a long time. Maybe that means my cry-quota has been filled and I won't have to do it anymore for a while, but with the funeral tomorrow I doubt that will happen. I'll be in the kitchen helping with the dinner tomorrow, which means I'll be around the funeral-stuff from around 10 am till after we clean up the dinner, whenever that is.

On a much lighter but still frustrating note, I was going to write about the other things that have been happening the last week or so. Last Friday was a rainy day; it rained outside, and it also rained inside. You might ask yourself how it could possibly rain in our apartment when we live on the first floor? The answer is that the connection between the water pipe and the hot water heater on the second floor burst at about 9:30 in the morning. All the water from the tank and more water from the pipe came down into our apartment, specifically Karen's room (closet actually) and the front bathroom, with some spillage in the 'hallway' between the kitchen and living room. Water came through the heater-vents, the bathroom exhaust fan, and the walls. Luckily it was during the office hours and the maintenance guys got here quick to help me move our stuff out of the way. Most of the stuff in the closet was in plastic tubs-the stuff that we don't have room for in our apartment, Karen's too-small clothes, and stuff like that. Most of the furniture had no problems or only slight water damage on the bottom where the water tried to get at it. They had a carpet guy come in and take out the soaking-wet pad under the carpet and bring in a giant fan to dry out the floor/carpet.

Saturday we worked on getting the carpets dry and monitoring the water spots that appeared in the ceiling.

Sunday we got up and went to church. When we got home, we noticed that the ceiling in Karen's room was sagging more than it had been, right near the water spots. We called our home teacher to help us move all the stuff that was still in the room in case the ceiling fell or something. During the night it did start to drip-noisily.

Monday they said a guy was going to come and open a hole in the ceiling to make sure it was getting dry in there. It wasn't dripping as much as it had been, but the nasty wet smell when they opened it up said there was or had been quite a bit of water up there. It was also worrysome that he cut through the sheetrock like it was butter. Note: at this point we have Karen's crib, bunkbeds, and lots of other 'junk' just sitting around our living room, leaving us almost no room to 'live' in, since it was still wet feeling/smelling in Karen's room.

Tuesday they checked on the hole, made it a little bigger, and that was it. Wednesday they patched the hole. To do this took an interesting process, since the rest of the ceiling around the hole is sagging quite severely. First, they put in some shims (little wooden wedges usually used for things like getting doorframes or other construction works up just a bit if the floor isn't exactly level.) to bring the level of the ceiling there a little lower. Then they screwed the piece of sheetrock into the pile of shims. After that it still wasn't quite low enough, so they put a very thick layer of 'mud' on it to make it more or less level with the rest of the ceiling. They're going to have someone come next week to make it more invisible by putting the 'popcorn' looking stuff on it and then paint that little portion of ceiling.

Thursday they came back to inspect their very poor handywork. They said it was 'fixed' and we should move all the stuff back into the bedroom; the guy will put cloths or plastic down when he paints next week. One of the sets of sister missionaries also came over to help wash all the construction dust off the walls. It was helpful in that it would have taken me three or four times as long to do the work, but it was during nap time and Karen woke up early and was somewhat beastly all afternoon. After Joe got out of class at 7 pm, we started moving things back in. We'd called our home teacher to help us move it all back, and after going to an appointment with the Elders, the three of them came and helped put the bunk beds back together (actually we only put the top bunk back together; it has rails on it so Karen can sleep in it sooner than the bottom bunk because it has a place where she can get out, but it would be difficult for her to fall out of bed. By 9 pm we had most of the stuff back into the room, and Karen could finally go to bed. It was a long day, but I got my house back together.

So, in addition to everything that's been going on in the ward the past week or so, we had a domestic disaster as well. What I'm thankful for is that now it's mostly over and we can start getting back to normal, whatever that really means. We're all safe and healthy, if a bit exhausted from the past week, and we're looking forward to next week being much more calm (or at least no more crazy than this week was!!!) After we finally get around to putting all our flood pictures on the computer I'll put a couple up here so you can all see-that's one thing on the list for next week!!

Accidents happen...

I know it's been a while since I put anything up. Ever since last Tuesday it has been really crazy around here. Last Tuesday morning I went to the WIC office for my appointment; it was at 8:30 a.m., and I got there at 8. It took two hours, and I was rushing like a crazy person to get to the church for the class I'm in. (It's called 'let's talk about it' and "it" refers to anything that's going on for you...anyway I go and learn a few things and cry a bunch and it's really nice... back to the point.) After class I came home, and Karen took a nap then had lunch around 2 or 3... Then around 3 I got a call from a friend in the ward telling me that John Martinson, a friend of ours in the ward, had been in a most terrible car accident. This was no ordinary car accident; he had multiple breaks on all limbs, with lots of internal bleeding and other damage as well. This was a huge shock, since I, like most people my age, feel not invincible but pretty close to it. I visit teach John's wife Jamie (some of you may know them; they graduated from BYU the same time Joe and I did-April '06), who is pregnant with their first child. My first reaction (after calling Joe in shock) was to sit on the couch and cry for about 20 minutes (that's one of the worst things about being pregnant for me right now-I feel like a faucet that won't turn off). The rest of the day I didn't feel like doing anything, but I felt bad doing nothing.... and I can't remember exactly what we did, but I kept getting phone calls from people making sure that I knew what was going on, and every time someone called to tell me about it, I would cry some more (but thankfully not as much as the first time).

Wednesday was a 'normal' day. I don't remember doing anything really except debating in my mind whether I should call Jamie again that day or leave her alone because all the family was in town. I ended up not calling her, but we did get a link to a blog that they were updating a few times a day. It was a relief to know what was happening without having to be continually bugging them. Here's the link to the blog: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/john_martinson , I hope it works right.

Anyway, with this accident it was very scary until about Saturday, when he became more stable even though he's still on the ventilator and a bunch of other machines. The ward fast held for him on Sunday seemed very powerful, and for the first time in any pregnant/nursing state I wished I could fast. John is now working on slowly waking up and breathing some on his own. I believe he will eventually make a full recovery, but it will take a long time.

Sunday, a most unexpected thing happened though. A new RS presidency was called, and the new president asked me to be in charge of meals for the family, since the compassionate service leader is the sister-in-law of John and Jamie. It's kinda scary for me, since I don't like to just call people and ask if they would like to take food to someone... but it's worked out so far and will probably continue to. I just hope this isn't a preview of a new calling for me. I think it would drive me crazy.

This is just a small part of our oh-so-eventful week, and I'll put more info up soon. As this is the more disasterous news I thought I should get it out of the way first. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some more time to write stuff here.

Time...

Where does all the time go? I post something one day, and it seems like I come back the next day and see that it's been more than a week since I last wrote anything. It doesn't feel like much has happened, but I know that by the end of this I'll think to myself "whoa, I need to write more often so these aren't so long".

Well...most of last week was pretty standard: laundry, cooking, cleaning... and all those 'exciting' mom-things I get to do. However, the weekend was pretty good. Saturday afternoon we went to Justin and Kitara Beasley's apartment for our fantasy football draft (sponsored by the EQ). We got a good draft order, and ended up with our favorite Peyton Manning as well as quite a few others that will hopefully turn out well. After the draft was the BYU season opener against Arizona. Having missed almost the whole season last year it was great to get back in the spirit of the game. Once again I had to relearn a valuable lesson about BYU football: don't leave before the game is over. We left with about a minute and a half left in the 4th, only to miss just about the most exciting part of the half...oh well. It was almost 9pm and Karen needed a bath for church the next day.

Sunday we made Haitian food, probably for the last time before the baby comes in 5 months. However much I love the stuff, it's really bad for a pregnant-lady diet since it's almost all extremely salty, fried, and/or spicy. I think I'm still retaining water from eating it... Anyway we made tons of food and realized we couldn't eat it all before it goes bad. Luckily there's another former Haitian missionary in the ward, and he just happens to have a wife and 7 kids...so we took a bunch of the leftovers to them and visited a while, which was nice. Their family is nice, but I don't think I could handle having 7 or 8 kids; I really think I'd go crazy.

Monday was labor day-as my dad says, it's the day we're all supposed to do lots of labor. That goes against what the real reason for labor day is, which was to have a day off from your labor, but whatever works I guess. We bought a little charcoal grill at Walmart and had some friends over to BBQ-chicken, burgers, hot dogs, and brauts...we had lots of meat and other good things

Tuesday was a very hormonal pregnant lady day... one of those days where everything seems a lot worse than it really is. I ended up crying for hours for no real reason. I couldn't sleep that night...except when I had nightmares of Karen growing up to hate me or my parents getting divorced because they couldn't agree on whether to buy a new car or a new minivan...yeah it was a wierd day... Oh, and one of my family members was found dead-our suckerfish named Sharkbait; we had to flush him and buy a new smaller one (which cost $6!). Assuming he survives a week or so we'll have to find a name for the newest addition to our family.

Wednesday I took Karen to get what are almost her last shots before starting school. This was the worst trip to the doctor that she's ever had. I think she remembers the last time she was there or something because she totally threw a fit whenever a nurse person or doctor came close to her. In the past three months Karen has grown another 3 inches longer (now 32 in. total) and gained another 2 pounds (24 lb. total). She's in the 75th percentile for both height and weight, and is now no longer required to dring whole milk but can take a full dose of baby tylenol. Her growth rate is supposed to be slowing down now, but it hasn't slowed much. At this rate she'll be 3 1/2 feet tall by the time she's two, and weigh almost enough to be out of a booster seat... I hope she slows down! Also last night at our Activity with my 8-12 yr. old girls (15 of them last night!) I taught them how to play 'do you love your neighbor?' and they thought it was the coolest thing in the whole world. Now they want a party night where they can play games like that the whole time... only I can't remember any more of them... any help? I could teach them 'signs' but I think they're a little young for that...

Anyway, things are going well here. Joe finished the last section of his 'thesis' project today. After a little more polishing it will be completely done!!!! Also tonight is the NFL season opener: Colts v. Saints, and about half of our fantasy team is playing (against each other!!). Maybe I should take some pictures to put on here...it's been a while....

Stubborness

These past few days have been all about stubbornness in one way or another. . .

First, Joe started school last Monday (I think I probably mentioned that at least a dozen times...sorry). He's been totally buried since the first day, and stubbornly refuses to give up or stop working for just about anything not church-related (just so you know, his fantasy football team counts as church related, since it's sponsored by the ward elder's quorum). Not that this is a bad thing necessarily, it's just that Karen and I haven't seen much of him the last couple of weeks. However since a couple of people have dropped out of his program in the last month the professors are going a bit easier right now trying to keep the rest of their students from looking for greener pastures.

Second, I think Karen may be starting her 'terrible two's' a little early. She does many of the cognitive things that 18-24 month old kids do, so maybe she's starting that a bit early. Whatever it is, my Karen now stubbornly insits on being allowed to walk just about everywhere we go. If she has to ride in the stroller she throws a bit of a fit trying to get out...which is generally unsuccessful but still annoying. She also makes a mess of everything she possibly can. Yesterday for example, I was doing something on the computer, and she came to the desk where I was sitting and proceeded to take out and hand me every single thing that was in the drawer-from a case of pencils on down to loose paper clips, a couple of marbles, and a broken rubber band. I was not allowed to put any of the junk down without her turning red in the face and screaming at me like I was killing her or something. This is just one of many examples that we have daily now...but she's still so cute it's hard to be angry with her for more than a couple seconds.

The next example of stubbornness comes from someone who isn't even born yet. This morning we had our ultrasound to see 'everything' about the baby and make sure it's not defective in any way... The only problem is that this requires some assistance from the baby itself. We went in this morning and got some of the important measurements done, saw the baby wave it's arms, but it wouldn't turn over or anything. So the lady told me to empty my bladder to see if that would help encourage the tyke to move more... I did, but it didn't help and afterwards it was even more difficult to see the kid. In the hopes of getting a 'better angle' on the subject the mean and evil lady used the transvaginal probe. (If you don't know what that is I'm not telling you, but it wasn't a fun experience.) This didn't help. We couldn't get the baby to move more than it's head and arms, it was sitting cross-legged in the breach position tapping its toes on my bladder. After half an hour of poking my poor tummy, the lady gave up and we have no idea what kind of child we're having because the silly stubborn kid wouldn't budge for anything. We didn't even get very good pictures, so I'm not too worried about not having a scanner to put them up here.

I guess the only person in this Allen family who isn't at all stubborn is me-and if you say otherwise I'll fight you ;)

ho hum...

You know, it feels like I haven't really done anything since we got back from vacation almost 2 weeks ago now. It seems like I do almost exactly the same thing every day, like a hamster in a cage or something. Then I realize, wait I have done some things. Here are a few of the things I remember doing:

Going to church (twice) and wishing Karen was old enough for nursery.

Having dinner with Doren and Steve and Justin and Kitara at least twice-once at Doren's playing games, once at Kitara's for HS Musical extravaganza. It's fun to get together with them, but we always leave early because Karen has to go to bed. (If we stay past 8pm she walks to the door, starts knocking, and saying 'bye bye').

Going to the International Dinner (a monthly activity put on by a different family each month, $12 per couple) this month was the fish fry, southern style. It was good, but I'm not much for the fish...

Last sunday night went to Joe's professor's house for beginning-of-school party. Had a good time, started a Karaoke fest, took potato salad that no one ate but me and Joe (their loss...)

Went to the doctor, regular checkup and bloodwork, with no passing out this time Hooray!!! Also did terrible test involving urine...test is for pre-eclampsia which I think I had with Karen and am starting to have again...I just hope I don't have to do bed rest again!

Lots of laundry and cleaning...before/between vacations I slacked on cleaning everything that didn't start to smell after a couple of days... Needless to say I've had a lot to catch up on the past week or two.

Well...when I put it that way I guess I have done quite a few things recently. However, in the glory of doing dishes and laundry the fun stuff seems to fade into the background. Maybe that's why people keep journals-to remind them of all the cool stuff they did 'back in the day', whether 'the day' was 10 years ago or just yesterday. That's my thought for the day...whatever it is, I hope it makes sense to someone!!!

*by the way, was that HS reunion like this week or something-not that I can/could have gone...?

Vacation part II: Washington DC

Okay, sorry it's taken me so long to get to writing this next part of our vacation...it was a long week involving a trip to the doctor (scheduled) as well as a test I hope none of you ever have to do when you're pregnant (it involves a very large urine sample...that's all I'll say). Just as a disclaimer for this part of our vacation, as to the number, etc. of things that we did... remember that I'm a grumpy pregnant lady with a 1 yr. old, and the days we were in the DC area it was over 100 degrees, without factoring in humidity.

So...where are we...Oh yes. I left off at the end of Monday....Okay. Tuesday morning we got up and checked out of our really nice downtown hotel. We drove through part of Philly to the bridge we were taking into New Jersey. It was a different way than we came, and I got another new state (I think that was one of the best things from this vacation- I got to see 4 'new' states and the district of Columbia). We stopped in NJ for gas and realized that Oregon isn't the only crazy place where you can't pump your own gas-NJ has the same silly rule. But we didn't complain since the price was still cheaper than we pay here in Charlotte. One interesting thing about driving on the east coast is how many states you can go through in a short amount of time. Out west it's hard to be in more than one or two states in a day (driving), but we were in 4 states in less than 2 hours that morning. (PA, NJ, DE, MD), and we added VA just a couple hours later.

We did stop in Maryland to see the DC temple. It was hot, so mostly we saw it from the visitor's center. Oh, one funny thing about going into a visitor's center not in Utah or at church history sites: you get accosted by sister missionaries the second you walk in the door, but as soon as they find out you're originally from Utah they don't even talk to you anymore. Interesting, really. The rest of Tuesday we didn't really do anything. I took a nap, so did Karen. Joe watched ESPN (so did I).

Wednesday morning we got up bright and early, loaded the stroller, water cooler, food cooler, and diaper bag...and some other stuff...into our car, drove to the metro station (we stayed in Fairfax, out of DC a ways) and after some difficulty and nasty looks from commuters, got on the train to the national mall. By the time we got to the mall at 9:30 it was already at least 80 degrees. Since it was going to get way hotter as the day went on we decided to see as many of the monuments/memorials as we could before it got too hot to be outside anymore. So, here is a list of the things we saw in the morning (some pics at the bottom): Washington Monument (outside only-no strollers inside), WWII memorial, Lincoln memorial, Korea memorial, Vietnam memorial. I think that was all... After that we stopped at a shady bench to eat the lunch we brought, then headed for shade.

At this time (around noon) I was definitely starting to overheat, and I had already almost finished off our cooler full of water...being pregnant on this type of trip isn't very fun, just to let you know. Anyway, we started making our way from the area around the Vietnam memorial to the Smithsonian (yes, AC!!!), and I nearly passed out a couple of times. We wanted to go (well, I wanted to go..) to the museum of American history...but it was closed for rennovation! Yes, so if you want to see it go after next summer. We went to the natural history museum instead. It was really cool (in multiple senses of the word). They had a discovery room where we could let Karen touch lots of different things. She really liked holding skulls...what does that say about her future? There was also an exhibit on Korea that we really liked. Of course the dinosaurs were really cool too...yeah it was fun. The only bad part was that everyone else who had been outside in the morning was now packed into the same building we were (at least that's what it felt like; there was hardly room to move the stroller...). After natural history we went over to the air and space museum to see some things...and find Joe a McDonald's because the lunch wasn't enough for him. After this we went to the national Archives and saw the DofI, Constitution, bill of rights, etc. It was really cool and would have been great if Karen hadn't thrown a fit while we were trying to look at them. She just wanted to walk!! So, after that ordeal we decided to try out an art museum. The only art museum I've ever been to is the MOA at BYU, so I thought it would be interesting to see a 'real' art museum...however, we didn't watch the time well enough. Everything there closes at 5pm-silly government buildings!-so we couldn't do that. So, we thought we'd go to dinner somewhere...but we didn't know where to go. We were tired...so by 5:30 we were back on the metro heading for our hotel and the suburbs where we knew where to find food. We ended up at IHOP for dinner, and I don't think pancakes have ever tasted so good. We went back to the hotel, put Karen in bed, took showers, and I fell asleep watching ESPN (baseball is so boring on TV).

The next morning we got up and drove home. We were tired, we wanted to be home, and we didn't want to be in the heat anymore. So, yes I went to DC, but there was SOOOOOO much that we didn't get to see. We decided that next time we go there it will be either spring or fall (not so hot) and we don't want to take strollers. In the post-9/11 security world, it's no fun to have to take lots of different bags and strollers places because they have to be searched every time you go into a building or near a monument...just a note. In all it was a really fun trip (even if this post doesn't sound that way-it's almost my nap time) and I would love to do it again-in a few years. It was great to go and see lots of new things, and it was also great to come home at the end.

To Philly Cheesesteak...or not?

The answer to this question is one I'd never thought much about until about a week ago. Supposedly you have to go to Philadelphia to get a good one, and that never seemed very likely to happen to me. Then last week I went with Joe to his conference (Academy of Management), and it just happened to be in Philadelphia. The trip was good, it was fun to drive all the way up there past some big cities and all that. Before we left my brother Joseph said to be sure to get one of these famous sandwiches, and I said 'okay, sure, whatever'. Then last Monday we were at the Reading Terminal Market for lunch. (If you've seen National Treasure, it's the place where the chick and the nerdy guy hide from the bad guys. H0wever, it's about 12 blocks from Independence Hall, so I'm not sure they would have actually run there to hide; it was good in the movie though....anyway). It's this really cool place-kinda like a food court but like 10 times bigger with any type of food you can think of. When we went there for lunch, I looked around to see 'what was good', and ended up at the salad bar. Joe got the cheesesteak. Not that it looked bad to me so I got salad...I think there's some wierd part of my pregnant mind that craves salad. Almost every time we go out to eat now I want salad, instead of a yummy burger and fries, steak, or just about anything else.

Well, enough of that. The rest of the time in Philadelphia was good. We stayed in the Courtyard Marriot because that's where the conference was, not because we enjoy spending hundreds of $ on hotel rooms. It was right downtown across the street from the courthouse, which was closed for rennovations, and the Masonic temple which I couldn't go in because I'm a girl and therefore cannot be a Mason. The architecture outside was cool though...So, downtown...oh yeah, it was about 6 blocks from the historical 'mall' (I think that's a funny word for it, but that's not my business really...) with Independence Hall and the Ben Franklin home and such. So, while Joe went to the conference Karen and I went there and saw all the cool history things. One note to all of you who are thinking of traveling to this area soon: This is not a very stroller-friendly place. Karen was fiesty and I couldn't let her walk around by herself because she was trying to run away and find either daddy or home (depending on the minute). So, on the tour of the Hall she was in the stroller. I had the privelege (along with some kind French guy who didn't speak English) of carrying the kid in the stroller up the big staircase to the second floor and back down again. I don't suggest it for anyone. Other than that we had a pretty good time going to the museums and historical places. Karen got bored and fell asleep in the stroller (note picture of her sleeping in front of the Liberty bell).

This was just the first half of our vacation, I'll put the DC part up later because urgent things like food and naptime are calling to me now.

She Walks!!!!!

Well, it finally happened. It was the moment we'd been hoping for and dreading for the past 14 months. On Thursday evening Karen pulled herself up and started walking. It was great to see her finally doing it. She'd been terrible to me and Joe all week up to that point, making all kinds of huge messes and throwing lots of temper tantrums (which she doesn't usually do). She just seemed frustrated, but now she is back to her happy and mostly contented self, just better at getting into things than ever before. Karen is so happy to be walking that she almost refuses to crawl anymore. Yesterday at church she was walking and fell down (which she still does a lot). She wasn't close to any furniture, so she rolled onto her back and yelled at me until I came and set her back on her feet. She wouldn't crawl to a place where she could get up, she just wanted to walk.

Anyway...now she is definitely a toddler, if there was any doubt left in my mind. I've tried to stop saying 'baby Karen' in favor of the 'big-girl Karen', since she definitely isn't a baby and there will be a new baby in a few months. That's been quite a change of mindset for me, really. My baby isn't really a baby now...soon she goes to nursery, and before I know it she'll be driving or something. Ah, oh well. Here are Karen walking pics. For the event, we even took a little video on our dying camera (It doesn't look really great, but it's okay) but I'm not sure how to post it. When I figure it out I'll put it up.

As a last note...for those of you who are Harry Potter fans: How about that last book, eh? If you haven't made it that far yet (I know my brother Mike is still on his way through for the first time), it's definitely worth it to get to the end of the series. Without giving anything away, I'll just say that it ends the way I thought it should.