Halloween happenings

We've been able to do some fun and festive Halloween activities in the last couple of days, and I thought I would share the magic through narrated pictures from Daniel's phone (which has much better resolution than mine).

This weekend we went to Scott and Kieli's apartment in SLC for a chocolate fondue party, pumpkin carving and The Game of Things. First of all, I must say that I love fondue. I think everyone gets a fondue pot for their wedding. At least we did. And so did our friends next-door (which is why we [our friends and us] decided to have our own fondue party a while back and oOoOh was it goooood). This fondue party was also awesome. Everything you could imagine dipping chocolate in (and more) was there. 

Then we carved pumpkins. Daniel and I drew our inspiration for our pumpkin from his little brother, Seth. You see, Seth has cowlicks on his eyebrows (as seen below on pumpkin model). Seth also does a facial expression he refers to as "the lip." Seth is 14 and quite the character. I will say that every family member who has seen our pumpkin has been able to tell (without a hint) that it was a rendering of Seth ... so I'd say we done did a good jarb. 

 

(A picture of Seth doing "the lip")

 Daniel and I also went to Cornbelly's on Monday for our FHE/Date Night activity. It was so fun! We were pretty horrible at the corn maze. We passed the same markers like, three times. Dan wanted to give up, but I could never live with myself if I didn't officially complete my first-ever corn maze -- so we persevered. 

While it was still light in the maze ... That didn't last long.

Who doesn't love a corn field photo-op?

P.S. do you have any idea how difficult it is to get us both in the same picture when we have a +foot height difference? 

The pig races! 

Please ignore my super scary face in this picture ... only note the sign saying "VICTORY BRIDGE." Yes, we managed to finish the corn maze and we didn't even cheat! We almost went back out the way we came, but I carved my own path (I mean, stayed within the predetermined paths) and got us to the Victory Bridge! I'm such a great navigator. 

Daniel had to be incarcerated because he wanted to give up. Sissy.

  The pumpkin tower! Notable figures included: Gordon B. Hinckley, David Archuleta, TWO BYU pumpkins and Homer Simpson.

As you can see, it was pretty awesome. We also went through a haunted corn maze, "Cornophobia," and went on a hayride. Amazing evening full of fun! 

One final thing to note: today I had another interesting bus experience. I was taking route 833 home from campus and the bus driver provided a narration for the entire ride home. I kid you not -- he literally narrated every second of the drive with comments such as, "The Provo Missionary Training Center, complete with construction ... I don't know why there is such traffic on a Tuesday, you would think it's a Monday! Which doesn't make sense because the Provo Temple is closed on Mondays ... Oh, so you're going to speed up now, eh? Hello, it's called driving 101! ... That's right, you're going to back it up, now back it up! ... We are now approaching University Parkway, where you can see the stadium!" 

And so on ... I think you can probably tell he was a little crazy, but oh-so entertaining. So I had the privilege of listening to his ranting narrations the entire drive home. Jealous?

Fairly useless bus business

WARNING: this is a post all about my experiences riding UTA throughout Provo on Friday. Common side-effects of reading this post are (1) feeling as if you just wasted 4 minutes of your life, (2) wondering "what was the point of that?" and (3) a desire to drink grape juice. 

Today started off like any other day.

Alarm: 6:40 a.m.
Shower: 6:42 a.m.
Breakfast: 7:05 a.m.
Bus stop: 7:32 a.m.

As you can see, that's all pretty normal. Uneventful. Whatever you want to call it. I'm not saying things got crazy or interesting from there, but ... well, I'm kind of saying that, I guess.

When I walked into the little boothy-bus stop-thingy, I found this:

In case you can't tell from my grainy, 1.3 megapixel cell phone camera and the pale morning light, that is an acorn with "WRITE ME" written on top. The rest of the acorn displayed this:

Elder Colton D Henrie
MTC Mailbox #185
DAR-ASU 1116
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793
10/21/10

Granted, I probably shouldn't be posting this poor young elder's contact information for the world to see, but hey ... he wrote it on an acorn and left it at the bus stop, so why not?

Anyway, if you're wondering whether I took the acorn: I didn't. I left it there so that maybe a nice, single (not pregnant) young lady might find it some cold and dreary morning and subsequently realize that Elder Henrie is her true love ... or so that some really old guy with a good sense of humor would pick it up and start writing him creepy letters. That would be much less sappy and much more funny.

I wonder if Elder Henrie realized the first person who stumbled upon his message-on-an-acorn would be a married pregnant woman. Probably not.

I actually had a couple more interesting bus experiences today. In fact, the most interesting experiences since the lady with the bird in a brown bag that she kept passing to people who had the audacity to strike up a conversation with her.

I was actually late for class because two gentlemen delayed my 1:40 p.m. bus. The first gets on the bus and is clearly struggling with his cash. I see him say something to the driver, who takes his money and puts it on a paper towel. The money is soaking wet. Seriously -- completely drenched. What's interesting is this young man doesn't appear to have anything else that's wet. No wallet, no wet clothes, nothing except for a suspicious looking gallon of Juicy Juice (grape flavored), and four dripping dollar bills.

But I don't even think the grape juice was the culprit, seeing as the dollar bills were not dyed purple. The bus driver dabbed the dollars with the paper towels and shoved them in the money-thingy. Problem solved.

Next bus stop: some surfer-looking dude with a long board hops on the bus, pops in a quarter, then pulls out his wallet and asks the bus driver if she has change for a $5. No, duh. Of course she doesn't have change for a $5. If bus drivers kept money on board, it would be like the olden days when bandits could make a fortune robbing trains. Only today, they'd rob buses instead.

I personally would not want to be on a bus (or train) as it was being robbed by some bandit, which is why I'm pretty sure I was born in the days of impenetrable metal money-thingy's that eat your cash [unless it's soaking wet] and don't give it back. Duh, dude.

So, all in all, my bus rides today were actually interesting. Most of the time it's just me and the bus driver, cruising around north and downtown provo. Not today.

P.S. if there are any single ladies reading this blog, I strongly encourage you to write Elder Henrie. I'm not even kidding. And please send me any responses so I can do a follow-up story! So awesome!

A day of great news!

So, after getting off to a rough start this weekend (meaning the dreaded 3 hour glucose tolerance test that I literally thought might kill me), things are really taking a great turn! We've had several blessings to count and be grateful for.

First, I passed the GTT, so no gestational diabetes for me! Hallelujah! I was really worried about it, especially since the test itself was so difficult for me. I nearly threw up and passed out and I just might consider redo-ing the first trimester before I EVER have to do that test again. Ugh. Here's how I will celebrate:

 

(Yes, that is Turtle Cheesecake and yes, we do have 2 slices in the fridge)

Second, we heard back from Baylor Medical School ... and Daniel is IN! Oh, it's so great to know that we're "in" somewhere -- not to mention Baylor is pretty much the top med school in Texas and this is the FIRST week they sent out acceptance letters to only 10 applicants. Dang, my hubby is amazing. =)

Also, Dan is starting a new job at the MTC as a Russian teacher, which we're pretty excited about. It's amazing how blessed we've been in everything really -- especially good work during tough economic times. Dan's always wanted to teach Russian, so this is a great opportunity for him before we graduate and ship off to Texas.

This weekend was also great because my mother-in-law was in town and we got to spend some time with her and Dan's siblings. Nicole [Dan's sister] had a bridal shower on Saturday. It was a lot of fun.

I've been spoiled since the GTT with great food as well. After the test, I was so starved and weak and feeling awful that Dan took me to Kneaders, where I scarfed down a large French-dipped sandwich and a bowl of tomato and basil soup. Yum. Then, Dan's mom took us to Olive Garden for dinner ... double yum. Nicole's bridal shower was also catered by Cafe Rio ... can you say, "triple yum"? I sure can.

i love food.

All in all, things are looking good ... minus the fact that I have a huge portion of a project due in my capstone this Thursday. Hmmm, I'm kinda wishing I had a wee bit more time to work on it than I do. That's the beauty of group work, I suppose. I don't know if this semester can go fast enough for me. Wait, on second thought, I'm pretty sure it is. 

My personal "fail blog"

Ugh. I failed a test. And not just any test ... the glucose tolerance test. LAME! Now I must go to the hospital on Friday for THREE HOURS and drink [a TON] of glucose and be pricked and poked and prodded to make sure I don't have gestational diabetes.

I'm never eating sugar again. Seriously. Even my grapes tasted sour after that glucose goop. And that was four hours later.

I've never failed a test before ... unless you count BIO 100, but that 50 percent was definitely curved to an -A. So I don't think that counts. Could there be a curve for the glucose tolerance test? I would like that.

On the bright side, I'm [super] excited to go to the BYU Farmer's Market tomorrow! I've been meaning to go all month, but haven't been able to. I'm definitely going tomorrow though -- it's the last one of the year! If anybody cares to join me, I get out of class at 3:00.

I'm [pleasantly] surprised by the way this (my final) semester is going. I don't really feel like I've done anything. Well, I have an internship, and I do stuff there -- but that's like a job, not a class. I seriously don't feel overwhelmed by homework ... at all. The only class I have exams or even a final in is Russian 101 (which, btw, I don't even have to pass to graduate ... and that happens to be my sure-fire A. Go figure).

I guess that I'm just worried, because I [know] I have a serious case of senioritis, and it's like it's okay because I don't have anything to procrastinate. Or not do. Or slack off on. Really, I was kind of expecting more of a scholastically rigorous semester than this.

I'm sooooo not complaining, though. 

Although, one thing I have been slacking on is getting baby stuff. I can feel the motherly nesting sensations, but I just can't seem to get myself to rack up the baby bills yet. Maybe it's because Dan keeps calling our second bedroom "the baby storage room." The problem is, it's an accurate description. I have some serious storage to sort through before I can babify that room.

Any motivational words of wisdom?

This site has moved...

This site has moved to http://threelittlecondies.blogspot.com/

I changed my email and decided that if I ever wanted to keep up on my blog, I'd have to change that as well.

A real-live post {I'm so serious about this blogging thing}

Lately I've been having a difficult time with this whole pregnancy thing.

It's not that I'm not excited to have a baby -- because I am -- but it's more because I'm getting bigger and bigger (which is good, I know) and I can't do anything about it.

I know I'm supposed to gain weight, and I'm definitely in the healthy range, it's just so hard to try on clothes and realize ... oh, they don't fit. At all.

This Sunday was tragic. Seriously. I wasn't feeling too good, but I got up and began trying on clothes for church. Of course, I was trying everything in my closet that I thought [might] fit because I didn't want to wear one of the two dresses that I've worn to work and church for the last ... oh, I don't know ... forever. Of course, nothing worked. I felt like a whale. Well, more like a balloon. Or kangaroo. Or some sort of pregnant giant. 

Anyways, I finally found an outfit that worked. I went to my Relief Society meeting and came home for my usual before-church snack. Then it hit me. I was [sick]. Very sick. After all that work, I stayed home in bed all day and slept. How frustrating!

I don't want to sound like a whiner, or like I'm not grateful to be pregnant with the world's sure-to-be-cutest-baby-ever. It's just difficult to see your body change and know that it may never go back to its old self.  I look at all the [super] cute pregnant women in my ward and think ... oh, if only I looked like that.

Of course, while I was moping [sick] on the couch, I decided I should watch the RS General Broadcast (that I may or may not have missed due to a home BYU Football game [which was disappointing]). 

I received this loving chastisement from President Monson:

Not only are we inclined to judge the actions and words of others, but many of us judge appearances: clothing, hairstyles, size. The list could go on and on.

I have in mind the charity that impels us to be sympathetic, compassionate, and merciful, not only in times of sickness and affliction and distress but also in times of weakness or error on the part of others.

      UAdd a Note 

There is a serious need for the charity that gives attention to those who are unnoticed, hope to those who are discouraged, aid to those who are afflicted. True charity is love in action. The need for charity is everywhere.

I realized that comparing myself to others is quite the opposite of charity. Not only that, but while I lack self-confidence and appreciation for my individual worth, I am [incapable] of extending help and providing an example to others. 

So I'm working on my "body image." I'm learning to love my body now, after the baby and forever.  

A fresh attempt at blogging

So, I'm thinking ... I really need to be a better blogger. I have an excuse -- of course. You see, I switched my email account (since I FINALLY changed my name) and I get so much spam in my old email, that I just avoid it all together. Hence, I don't update/check/etc. my blog either.

I know, lame excuse. It's true though, I swear.

Well, I keep getting requests to update my blog, so I'm going to buckle down and do it {hopefully}. I suppose it would be a good idea to keep a record of baby, his development and future birth/life.

So this is me giving in to blogging pressures and creating a new blog account ... and I'll post something legit soon.