Bumpersticker of the Day

Ginger Rogers Did Everything Fred Astaire Did

Only Backwards & In High Heals

Bumpersticker of the Day

CIGAR SMOKERS

Appreciate a Good Butt

Day 17 - December 26, 2006

We got off the train at 8:00 am at Mysore in Karnataka, which is the state west of Tamil Nadu (Chennai/Madras is in Tamil Nadu). We had breakfast at a less than clean hotel. The bathrooms left a lot to be desired. We also switched drivers because our first driver had a family death. We headed to our safari place, only to find-after 1.5 hours of driving-they had taken us to the wrong place, in the wrong direction and it was going to be another 4 hour drive to our resort. We got there at about 5 pm.

In India distance has no bearing on the time it takes to get somewhere it has everything to do with the condition of the roads. Even though it was only about 70 km (50 mi), the roads are filled with pot holes, if you can even call it a road. In the US it would be considered 1 lane and probably closed down and deemed unsafe. The horn is a communication tool and most trucks say “sound horn” on the back. The smaller car yields to the larger one. You can not usually travel more than 40 kph (25 mph).

We unloaded and had a very late lunch at “The Jungle Hut.” It looked a little like a shack, but the rooms were clean. We had 4 rooms, which made up one house. The walls were paper thin, especially the bathrooms.
People would put grain in the road that you would drive over, to get rid of the chaff.

Also seen along the way: a herd of goats. And they are pretty much immune to horn honking, so you just have to wait. :)

A true pack-mule. :)

Day 16 - December 25, 2006

We woke up around 8:00 am and exchanged stockings. Micah got my name and gave me Son Pupity (indian dessert)which was amazing, a #5 coffee maker (the largest size), and a Christmas ornament. Ryan got Drew and gave him a book and a few other things.

We had Vermicilli Oopma for breakfast, then the “all American” mac and cheese for lunch and then made butterscotch cookies and rice crispy treats. It was nice but it didn’t feel much like Christmas.

At 4:00 pm we all went to the beach. It was a beautiful day and thousands of people there celebrating their day off. I love to watch the children, they always have bangles and ankle bracelets and they love the water.

It was odd to be in a country that doesn’t really celebrate Christmas. Many have the day off, but there are no festivities etc. not to mention it is 85 degrees. Occasionally you may see a nativity set, but only because it was “another god,” and people find it interesting. The hotels are usually somewhat decorated. In one way it makes you focus on the real meaning of Christmas, in another you almost forget the day completely and treat it like any other day.

Patti made Vuta Cormba for dinner, which was amazing. We then all showered and headed to the train station.

The train station is very chaotic. The train is one of the main ways to travel. In the night train, they really pack them in. In each cubicle there are 8 bunks, on the left there are 3 bunks and on the right there are 3 bunks and across the aisle there are 2 bunks. It is 600 Rupees for a triple bunk and 900 for a double. ($13 and $20). Andrew and I had middle bunks across from each other with Micah and Sarah above us. You have to sleep on your purse etc. to prevent theft. I woke up every time the train stopped, but it wasn’t horrible.

The toilets are interesting; you can see the tracks through the hole. One of the best things you can pack is toilet paper and wet wipes. There is no toilet paper and not always sinks, let alone soap, and you are lucky to find a western toilet.

Micah and Dad on Christmas morning.

Buzz, with his "stocking."

Scary. Even though it annoyed and scratched him Micah refused to shave the whole time we were there... just because he didn't have to. (He is in the Army).

And the not so scary. :)
A little girl on the beach, isn't she beautiful?? Look at those ankle bracelets!! If the Lord ever gives me a girl, I am going to get some of those for her!
I am not sure if Mom & Nate are whiter than the rest of us, but for some reason the children always flock to them, wanting the shake hands and stare. They left the rest of us (including Sarah, Drew & Mers who are all quite "white") alone for the most part. Nate just must have those magnetic looks.

And the night train. :)

Day 15 - December 24, 2006

We spent another wonderful day at home, playing Boggle and Phase 10. Around 3:00 we headed to Spenser Plaza, a mall in Madras. Even though it is a mall, you can still haggle over everything. We bought gifts and some remaining things for stockings.

Nate, Drew, and I decided to go home and dad found an auto, however he said that on the way there he would take us to a shop where we needed to spend 10 minutes and then he would get a free t shirt. Well we went in and walked around the tiny furniture store for as long as we could and then left. The driver came back angry because we had only spent 6 minutes and the owner wouldn’t give him a shirt, so then he took us to a rug shop. There we spent another 10 + minutes pretending we wanted an ugly rug. When we came out he looked angry and didn’t have a Christmas shirt, but he finally took us home.

Andrew had Micah for stockings, and I had Buzz, so we had no problem filling the stockings with biscuits, incense, tea, drums, sketch books, tea cups, stainless steel cups engraved, and a few other things.

Ryan, Mers, Micah, and Sarah had left their bags in the back of a rickshaw, so they had to re-buy everything.

I bought ice cream for everyone from a passing cart/shop; he always comes down the street ringing a bell. I bought 12, 10 of us and Meena, Patti’s servant and her son Murugan who is about 4, all that for $5 US.
Here are Ryan & Mers in the auto once they FINALLY got home. :)

Day 14 - December 23, 2006

Everyone spent the day sleeping late and recovering from the “Delhi Belly.” I didn’t get up until 10:30am.

Dad, Drew, Nate, Sarah, and I took 2 autos to Pandi Bazaar. We shopped for gifts and presents for our Christmas stockings (read: tube socks we are only allowed to fill with things we bought in India). I have Buzz, so I had a cup and saucer engraved with “Buzz Meister,” on it.

Who would have thought Madras would feel like home. It was so nice to come back to clean sheets, clean bathrooms, and food that you know is cooked well.

Andrew finished off the 6th Harry Potter book and has started Ivanhoe, book #8 for the trip.

Day 13 - December 22, 2006

We left the hotel at 8:30am, drove all day and got to the Delhi airport at 3:00pm. Waited until 8pm to board and didn’t get home until 2 am. Needless to say, it was a very long day.

Indians don’t understand the concept of standing in lines. They constantly butt in front of you and on airplanes they don’t let the people in front of them off first. I was almost run over. I finally jumped in front of a guy who didn’t seem happy, but I had waited for 15 plus people and no one let me in, even though they were behind me. It is the same in the bathroom line, in the grocery store, or going through a door. Rude is different in every culture I guess.

Darkness

Well, as Drew was walking to the alarm clock this morning at 5:30 he saw a big flash outside and everything went dark.

Although, I was extremely happy and warm in bed, the idea of getting up 3 hours later and still not having any power (meaning no hot water or heat) was enough to get me out of bed. I took a wonderfully hot shower by the glow of cell phone light. I then ate cereal by candle light, now here I am at 7:05am, fuzzy hair and all, at work blogging about it.

I know this might be regular hours for some of you people, like my husband, but for me, I wouldn't be getting OUT OF BED for another 30 minutes to an hour if this were a normal day. So, just because of the power outage, you will probably be getting a few posts before I start work in an hour (again, 90 minutes before I normally do :).

Good Morning World!! I had forgotten what it was like to get up in the dark. (Other than trips to the bathroom).

L

Day 12 - December 21, 2006

We toured Jaipur in the morning. We saw a real sundial, accurate to two seconds, and a beautiful palace, the Amber Red Fort. The shopping here is very cheap. I am hoping to do a little more before we leave.

We bought 2 pineapples on the street and the hotel cut them up for us, and brought them to our room on a platter. The best 2 dollars I ever spent!

We are still feeling sick, especially Andrew. He has slept most of the afternoon. Posted on the blog for the 1st time in India – 1st hotel with internet access!

Jaipur is in Rajistan, a northern state the clothing and trinkets are more colorful and “gaudy.” The clothes have lots of mirrors and gold thread. Also, in the north they were saris over the right shoulder and the nose ring on the left, as opposed to southern India where it is the opposite.

The Amber Fort was beautiful. It has a wall surrounding it that is second only to the Great Wall of China, however it is in need of great repair. It is only in the last few years that they have started repairing the fort. Once that is done they plan to move on to the wall.

We rode elephants to the top of the fort. There were vendors all along the way who would throw things up to you, and tell you to just throw money back down. I wanted the item but I kept throwing it back down until we could finally agree on a price. :)

The inside of the fort was beautiful.

They brought whole new meaning to the term manual labor. This woman would come down and fill her bowl with water and carry it up 2-3 levels of the fort to be used for repairing the walls.

They would use the water and mix it with mud and there were hundreds of women who would sit and beat it until it was solid. They would use anything to beat it, sticks, mallets, hands.

We took jeeps down from the fort. It took two jeeps to get us down. These are people hanging off trying to sell us stuff.

I can't remember the name of this building, but it is in Jaipur and is only about 20 feet deep and has no foundation. It has open windows on the front and the back so that the wind doesn't knock it over. Women (who were not to be seen) would go in there so they could watch what was going on in the street below.

The colors of Rajistan!

More colors.

Are there words for such a picture??

This was a little boy we met on the street, pictured with Sarah. My mom gave him a banana, you can see a little bit of it on his cheek. :) My brother Micah wasn't feeling well and "lost it" on the side of the street and the little boy said the only English words he knew... GOOD JOB!! OH!! GOOD JOB!! He said it over and over again.

Day 11 - December 20, 2006

Journal Entry:

We woke up early and left for the Taj Mahal at 6am. There are no motorized vehicles allowed in a 2km radius, so we took a battery-powered rickshaw to the Taj. Once inside we waited for the sun to rise. It is a beautiful structure and pictures doesn’t do it justice, made of all white marble. Everything is symmetrical – except the King’s tomb. It was put there, off center, but the same son who arrested him and put his father in prison.

Ryan proposed to Meredith and she said yes. They were twitterpated all day. We had breakfast at the hotel and went shopping. Mom bought a sitar, and I bought bedding and a Star of India jewel.

Then we headed to Jaipur. What was supposed to be a 4 hour drive turned into 8. A robber has stolen a bunch of money and the police had shut down the road trying to stop him. We sat in the car for 2 hours waiting. A group of young boys begged, asking for pens.

India is a world where hard work is expected and school and learning are privileges. If you have a pen and paper and know how to use them, you are worlds ahead of the others. There were camels on the road and more bike riskshaws then in Chennai. In the country, they were growing mostly mustard and wheat. You could see women carrying sticks, mustard leaves, bricks, water etc. on their heads. They were clearing the way to make our two-lane road a 4-lane, so boys everywhere had created cricket fields. We never saw more than huts and rubble used for homes. Cows, water buffalo and camels were everywhere.

We stopped after 6 hours for dinner and a bathroom break. The food was not good and we were the only ones there and we all (at least half) got sick from the food. The final 2 hours of driving was in the dark. Not fun for India driving. Thankfully I slept through most of it.

Our hotel is very nice, definitely worth the money. There is something very wonderful about sleeping in a clean bed and having unlimited not water and water pressure. You can do almost anything if you can come home to this. :)

The Taj Mahal at sunrise. There is a mosque on the east side of the Taj, so they built an identical one on the other side just to keep it even. The pillars are all tipped slightly out so that if there were an earth quake they would fall away from the structure. The perfectly manicured lawns were incredible.

Gotta love the not-quite-right signs. :)

And idea of size, this is my dad in one of the many arches.

After many many sales pitches at different shops this is the chess set that Andrew finally settled on. Still white marble but no carved flowers or anything girly like that. :)
A new way to haul cardboard boxes. :)
Boys playing cricket on the flattened, but unpaved new road. :) We probably saw this 5 times on our trip in different villages.

Three guards at the Taj Mahal.
Some of the boys who were begging us for pens while we were stopped. Yes, that is a little boy at the back with a bonnet on.

Day 10 - December 19th, 2006

I realized a few days ago that I never finished my India Trip Posts! I am sure you are all dying to see the other pictures. :-P Hopefully you can enjoy them. I thought I had better finish the posts before it has been an entire year. :-P You can see the previous 9 days here.
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Journal Entry:

Woke up early, and checked out, drove 4 hours SE to Agra. Checked into the Park Plaza, a much nicer hotel. Lunch at North Indian restaurant – had Thali, meaning “sample plate.” Went to Agra Red Fort, built in Moguls time. It was huge with room for all harem ladies. No men, other than the king were allowed inside. You could see the Taj Mahal from the top. It was a prison for the king who built the Taj, his son took him prisoner.

We went to a white marble shop and bought Taj Mahal coasters. Also went to a rug making shop and bought a small 3x5 rug. A beautiful green & tan Indian rug. Each string is individually tied and 1 can only tie 2 ½ cm per day, so each rug takes 3-6 months. We had a great tour guide, Arunkamar. He spoke pretty decent English. Later, Micah, Drew, Mom & I went with Arunkamar to a local mall. Apparently his English wasn’t that great because we wanted to take us some place with little shops… but he took up to a local shopping mall. It was a lot like the average American mall, nothing too special. Oh well, we had fun anyway.
Normal Traffic in India. This is a 2-way street.
Again, one of the "themes" I tried to focus on while over there was transportation. It was fascinating to me. This Auto Rickshaw typically holds 2-3 plus the driver. I think we counted somewhere between 9 & 13 on this one, plus all of the luggage.
These women passed in front of our van. All the patties are cow dung. They gather it, and stick it to a wall to dry into those patties. Then it is burned to keep warm.
No prizes on why is it called the RED fort. :) It was an amazing structure. Absolutely gorgeous.
You had to watch your purse. There were tons of little kids, they usually worked in pairs. One would give you a look like this while the other one went through your bag.

This was part of the "prison" talked about in the journal entry. The king had 3 sons, the youngest killed his two older brothers and took his dad prisoner. His dad had built the Taj Mahal and was starting to build a 2nd Taj made of Black Marble and the son was afraid his dad would spend all the money. So he locked him up in this "prison" made of all white marble and he could see the Taj, that he had built for his wife, from most of the windows.


Here is a picture of a man making one of the rugs we bought. This man had done it for over 40 years and was an expert and making the Taj Mahal rugs. His hands moved so fast tying the knots and cutting them that you couldn't even tell what he was doing. But even he could only do about 3cm in a day.

And here is one of the gang at the Red Fort.

L-R: Nate, Buzz, Me, Drew, Dad, Micah, Sarah, Mom, Mers & Ryan. :)

A Realization

Last night, while Drew was taking his Accounting Final, I wrapped Christmas presents while watching Oklahoma.

Realization: I KNOW ALL THE WORDS TO EVERY SONG!

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I am home alone for the next two days (and by alone I mean that Drew is out of town, Jonathon & Ivy are still around). I think I may watch The King & I, or The Sound of Music... or both! I am on a Rodgers & Hammerstein kick. :)

Not Quite Right

My dog will not eat oranges or limes, but she will eat my prenatal vitamins.

Go Figure.

Something Wrong with this Picture

Last time I checked it was December 13th and I am wearing crocs (no socks), a short sleeve shirt and jeans. And I am warm!!! (And not just because I am pregnant).

Crazy, crazy weather!!

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And on a completely different note... I am thankful for corporate gifts. At work today I had ham, rolls and mustard for lunch, followed by pistachios and Harry & David popcorn... all courtesy of different subcontractors. :) YAY for food!!!

Bumpersticker of the Day

All seen on the same car:

Life is Witch and Then You Die

I March to the Beat of a Different Accordion

Bewitched

Creature of the Night

Gaining Another Sister!!

Congratulations to Drew's brother Jonathon who is now engaged to the lovely Becki!! Sometime in the near future this will bring my sister count up to THREE!! (This is still waayy behind the brother count at 7, but little by little I am getting there!)

Bumpersticker of the Day

IT IS HORRIFYING THAT WE HAVE TO

FIGHT OUR GOVERMENT

TO SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT

- ANSEL ADAMS

Bumpersticker of the Day

I TRIED

TO CONTAIN MYSELF

BUT I ESCAPED

A Date with Mr. Martinelli

I love a good glass of red wine every now and then... but being pregnant sort of puts a cramp on that... so I have splurged a few times on "fun" things to drink. And yesterday I had 2 whole glasses of Martinelli's sparkling cider in a red wine glass :) ... yumm... I also managed to get all of my Christmas cards addresses and in the mail and get all the laundry done, menu planned, grocerys bought and kitchen clean... maybe this stuff makes me super productive!! So if you are just having a blah day... try some Martinelli's... you never know what might happen. :)

Bumpersticker of the Day

STOP BEING PESSIMISTIC

It Wouldn't Have Happened Anyway

It is only 10:15am

And already we have had 3 visitors in our office:

1. A sketchy looking man saying that he couldn't make his delivery and had a truck full of Thomasville Furniture to sell. Did we want any?

2. A woman looking for a reference on an old employee who no longer works for us for good reason.

3. A mute man, who came in signaling for paper and "asked" (via writing) if we had any apartments to rent.

Can't wait to see what the rest of the day holds!!

Bumpersticker of the Day

MY SOUL WAS REMOVED

TO MAKE ROOM FOR ALL THIS SARCASM

Feeling Christmasy

I love Christmas. Growing up my mom would start baking the day after Thanksgiving, and have tins and tins of Christmas cookies to keep us all sugared up for the entire month of December.

For me, Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving. Andrew and I have a tradition of cutting down a tree. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera, so I have no pictures to prove that we did it, but we took our friends Josh & Missy and Drew's brother Jonathon with us, and Ivy, and Josh's & Missy's two dogs tagged along too. They had quite a ball riding on the trailer behind the tractor and sniffing every possible tree. But there was no way we could handle a dog, a tree and a camera. :)

Thankfully Ivy has not been overly interested in the tree, however every once and a while we will turn around find her "checking" the size of the ornaments with her mouth. Thankfully none have been eaten. :)

This weekend we managed to take a Christmas picture (Thank you Jonathon for taking the picture and Becki for holding the cracker next to Jonathon's head so Ivy was looking in the right direction :) and even got it to Sam's for prints! We wrote our Christmas letter last week, printed it this weekend and I bought stamps this morning! All that remains now is addressing them all. I love sending them, and I LLLOOOOVVVEEE getting them. Whether it is a card, a picture, a letter or some combination of the above. We hand them up and get to look at them through the new year.

And finally, it is great to be pregnant this time of year! I can't eat very much in any one sitting, but I can justify trying all the yummy food!! I may even make a few cookies this weekend.

Bumpersticker of the Day

Draft SUV Drivers First

Another Birthday Girl

Well, our little girl turned ONE yesterday. I can't believe we have already had her a year. (Well, we didn't get her until January, so I guess it has only be 11 months). Here are a few pictures of Ivy. Life as a dog must be so care-free...

Here she is a few days after we got her. She was soo tiny! She still sits funny.


And this is Ivy's FAVORITE thing... a stick. Size does not matter, a twig will work, but the bigger the better. When we go on walks she will bring back a stick that is 5 or 6 feet long and then work on it for weeks until it is just wood chips on our back deck.

"Pleeeese may I have some of whatever it is you are eating???" Yogurt and peanut butter are favorites, but she will eat carrots, lettuce, cabbage, chilis... if you are eating it, she wants it.

I know this is a bad picture, but this is Ivy's pass-time. If she hears anything that buzzes she MUST catch. Her favorite are flys. She watches them, with her nose pressed to the window, catched them in her mouth, swirls them around and then runs to the rug and spits them out and watches them attempt to crawl away with her nose about 1/4" from them. Once they have given up completely... she eats them. :)
And here she is "helping" her favorite person in the world. When she sees Andrew's truck she runs to the window and whines until he finally comes in.

Bumpersticker of the Day

LOVING KINDNESS
Is My Religion

Birthday Post

Well, many people write lists of things they want to accomplish by a certain date (30 by 30 etc.). Since I have never created one of those lists I have decided to post for you, on this, my 25th birthday, a list of things that I have done, now that I am officially 1/4 century:

1. Read all the Jeanette Oke books before I was 14
2. Stayed up all night reading
3. Had a baby - OK, this won't happen for another 2 months, but I am counting it anyway
4. Visited India - 3 times
5. Gotten married (maybe I should have listed this before #3 :)
6. Been to a Nickel Creek Concert
7. Sung a solo in front of lots of people
8. Played the Piano for 11 years, completely forgot the music during a piano recital (I still shutter every time I hear the name Debussy)- haven't played since. :) (It has been 9 years)
9. Hung a door - crooked :)
10. Graduated from college at 19
11. Driven in downtown Washington D.C.
12. Have at least 10 good friends named Rachel
13. Prayed that I wouldn't marry someone names Jacob
14. Made more loaves of bread then I care to count
15. Slept on the floor in a sleeping bag for 4 years (from age 11-15)
16. Moved across the country at 17 - and never looked back
17. Worked an entire Utah Summer at a Dry Cleaners
18. Owned a dog
19. Kissed a boy - that's right - just one.
20. Lived in a 36' Travel Trailer with my 4 brothers and parents for 4 years (see #15)
21. Driven a standard transmission
22. Killed many a toad by putting them in a can with a fire cracker
23. Learned to love red wine (much to my husband's satisfaction)
24. Gained 2 sister-in-laws, and 3 brother-in-laws, for a total of 2 sisters and 7 brothers :)
25. Pieced (the right side) or my nose while in India

So there you go, in no particular order. I am feeling old, but it is a good old. I haven't conquered the world, but I have done a few things that I am proud of. However, now that I am 25, there are no great milestones to look forward to... I can vote, smoke, drink and now rent a car... I guess I am now officially an adult... scary.

Bumpersticker of the Day*

GET MUSHED

Have A Mammogram

*Seen on the back of a pick-up truck driven by a Man in his 40's or 50's.

The Mundane Things

I have nothing interesting to write, but here are a few of the things we did this weekend:

• I have a cold, so I slept a lot.
• Went grocery shopping - got everything done so I don't have to venture out before thanksgiving! It was bad enough on Saturday morning.
• Went to a baby shower! At church a baby was born in Oct, there is 1 expected in Dec, 1 in Jan, mine in Feb, 2 in May, 1 in June and 1 in July. Babies, babies, babies! My mother-in-law wasn't able to attend, so she offered to purchase and wrap the gift, so I just brought a cute present and ate the food. :)
• Thought about raking the MASSIVE amount of leaves in our yard.
• Didn't do it.
• Had 10 people over for dinner Saturday night, and we all made a part of a french dinner. We had fried cheese with raspberry sauce (not official name :), beef bourguignonne, potatoes, beans, salad and crepes. My crepe (made to order :) had nutella, strawberries, bananas and powdered sugar... yum, yum.
• I have discovered I love mineral water. :)
• Watched Bride & Prejudice (the Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice) and Amazing Grace. The first just for fun and the second because it is an incredible, true story.
• Planned my part of Thanksgiving dinner. I am making corn, green beans, sweet potatoes, rolls, pumpkin pie & buttermilk pie.
• I am also having 6 people over for Thanksgiving breakfast... can't wait!!
• I had breakfast for all 3 meals yesterday. :)

Bumpersticker of the Day

PLEASE LORD:

I SWEAR Winning the Lottery

Will NOT Spoil Me!

Babies, Defects, Doctors & Food

I know, another pregnancy post, but other than sleep and vacuuming up dog hair there isn't much else to write about. Although, I can solve almost all the puzzles in my "Ultimate Sudoku" book. :)

Last night at childbirth class we found out that one of couples was having their baby, as we sat there. A month early. Praise the Lord that everyone is doing fine, and they have a beautiful baby girl, but it was a little bit of a wake-up call. :)

I am sitting at my desk, eating my post-breakfast, pre-real-lunch snack (an apple) and have decided to tell you about one of my defects. I am not sure if it is from my mom's side or my dad's but the distance between my top lip/teeth and my nose is FAR too short. I cannot eat an apple without getting my nose all wet and sticky. Hopefully Baby Boy gets Drew's perfectly proportioned lip to nose spacing.

And finally, I had another doctor's appointment today. My blood pressure was like it always is... a little high because I am at a doctor's office. I found out I passed my 3 hour glucose test!!! No gestational diabetes for me! (For those of you who don't know, they test you by making you drink this stuff that tastes like totally flat orange crush and then take your blood after 1 hour to see how your body handled it. Well, I didn't pass that one, so I had to go back in for the 3 hour, which means you fast, they take your blood, then you drink the nasty stuff which is twice as sweet as the last time, then you sit and wait and pace and do sudoku and then they take your blood at 1, 2 & 3 hours. Thankfully I got a good blood-drawer dude and he stuck me 4 times in the same arm and not even a mark!!) So, that has been my life of late. Long blood tests, childbirth class, work and doctor's appointments.

We have a wonderful Thanksgiving planned... THREE WHOLE DAYS of NO classes (accounting, stats, childbirth or otherwise), NO work, baking pies and rolls and sweet potatoes, eating lots, and we plan to cut down a Christmas tree AND see the Broadway version of My Fair Lady!!! Does life get much better??

What are your Thanksgiving plans?

Life in the Mountains

This is one of the many reasons we live where we do. This is my view when I turn the corner onto my street... mid November!! Does life get much better? You can see our mailbox on the right. We are the only house on our street, and we love it that way.

And it is hard to see, but here is a picture of our house, with the mums we just planted. We have mums in the hanging baskets and by the front door, and we even bought a few pumpkins. We spent most of last Sunday raking leaves, and the dog found poison ivy and poor Andrew is covered and has been itching for over a week. Thankfully the parts on his neck, arms and hands are almost gone, but it is appearing still on his legs, stomach and back. :(

This is our one last effort at trying to sell the house this fall. :) If it doesn't sell by January we are going to take it off for a while. We will probably re list it next Spring once we have settled into the rhythm of grad school/work/baby. My mom is also coming for a month and I would rather not have it on the market then... just one less thing to worry about.

Bumpersticker of the Day

Cleverly Disguised

as a

Responsible Adult

Nearing the End

Yesterday officially marked the beginning of the 3rd Trimester. For those versed in pregnancy lingo, that is 28 weeks. Only 12ish more to go! For everyone else, that means LESS than 3 months until Baby Boy arrives. SCARY.

In a way it feels like I have been pregnant forever; I can't remember a time when I have not gotten up at LEAST 3 times to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. In other ways, I can't believe I am already here, the 3rd trimester, I thought it would never come. Lord willing the next 3 months will go quickly, I am hoping the holidays will distract me from the uncomfortableness. :)

L

My Baby

Well, I don't didn't have a digital version, but here is a picture of a picture. In case you can't see it, this is a picture of his profile. It greets us every morning. :) The picture is a little over a month old, he is now about 2 1/2 lbs and 15 inches long!

Bumpersticker of the Day

PEACE

Back by Popular Demand

Adventures in Gas Pumping

I don't know why the weird things happen to me, but I seem to stumble across odd things all the time. Maybe it is because I put off some vibe, maybe it is just because I live in Asheville... either way...

Yesterday I stopped at a gas station (not my normal one) to fill my cute little Honda up with gas. I put my credit card in, and removed it, as instructed. It then asked me to do it again. So I did. THEN, it told me that the cashier had my receipt... for what?? I hadn't done anything. Horrible visions of hundreds of dollars of gas on my card ran through my mind. I hit the cancel button about 15 times and then tried again.

This time, it ate my card. It went it ALL the way, I could barely feel the plastic on the outside. So I went in to the store, and the clerk acted like I was the idiot at she handed me a pair or tweezers that lived on the counter, and told me to pull it out, and MAKE SURE to return her tweezers she would need them for the next customer who did it.

Wouldn't you think they would fix it if it happened that often??

Thankfully I was able to get them out, and then returned the tweezers to the clerk. Just weird. (I also saw a UPS driver, which I could not even begin to venture a guess as to its gender, but I guess that isn't that uncommon. :)

Good Times

This past weekend we took one of our whirlwind trips to VA. We managed to pack in chinese in Alexandria with some friends in their new house, a baby shower (hosted by 4 wonderful friends), a big huge party, dinner out at a really cool restuarant, church and also some relax time, it was great. Here are a few pictures from our weekend. :)

Here is Angela, my college roommate, one of the lovely hostesses, who actually "hosted" us. :) Sorry for the foggyness, the camera was cold from bring in the car. :)

And Sarah, (our husband's were roommates) another hostess... queen of the games... we actually got her to play one of them. I think Jennifer spun her 15 times. She missed the baby's mouth by a long shot. :)

And Jennifer, my-across-the-hall-college-friend, hostess #3. A baby bib actually fit around her neck!! Granted it was a little tight. :) My favorite Jennifer line from this weekend was, "You guys know I can cook! I'm ordering Chinese!!" Said after we arrived a little early Friday night, and her husband had to be picked up from the metro stop. :)


And Kerri, a college suite-mate, our 4th and final hostess, who can diaper a baby in under 10 seconds with her eyes closed. :) I guess that is what happens when you have a 3 year old and an 18 month old. You can see her son Blake just over her shoulder impressed with her ability. :)

The shower was wonderful, we were giving a bunch of diapers, towels, blankets and other baby necessities and my favorite part was that everyone brought a baby/children's book to start Baby Z's library. It was great to see all the books that everyone brought, most are books that they grew up loving. I can't wait to read them to him!

And what shower would be complete without amazing food. Check out these cupcakes!! I ate a turtle AND a bumble bee. :)
And here is Claire, my pregnancy twin. :) We graduated from college together, got married 2 months apart, and 5 years later, we are both having boys due a week apart! It has been so much fun to go through this with her! Too bad she lives in VA!!

And here is a group of us at Clyde's in No. VA. It is an HUGE old barn/stable converted into a restuarant. There were about 7 different dining rooms, some with carriages having from the ceiling. The food was amazing, however we did get a bad server. But thanks to a few assertive women in the group, our dinners were discounted and we get $100 off next time we go. :)