Whirlwind of Weeks

My family was in town last week. They were here Tuesday through Saturday and left Sunday morning. We had a great time together, although the week just seemed to fly by. In looking at my calendar it is really difficult for me to believe that it is almost December. I am sure that this week will go by in the the same whirlwind spirit as last week. We are headed to Thermopolis on Wednesday to do Thanksgiving with Jon's side of the family. The whole clan will be there and I am sure there will be lots of eating and card games. I've got lots to do in the next two days before we leave, including pie baking, a doctor's appointment, packing, laundry from last week, and even a little grocery shopping. So, I am sure time will continue to fly by. The reality of this holiday season is soaking in and I am just ecstatic about it this year. So many fun things to do, so little time!

Early Thanksgiving Celebrations

Jon fried up a turkey for our Thanksgiving Dinner. It was stinking cold that night too, but he just added the layers and kept cooking!

He is preparing the oil. It was also dark, but he is always prepared!

Good picture proving that something is growing inside of me!

"Sightseeing" with my mom, sister, and her boyfriend Nick. We took lots of time out for pictures.

Snowy pine tree. Mom LOVES the snow and the pine trees, so she was having a pretty good time!

Jon and me posing in front of a tree.

Big, strong Jon holding up that big boulder all by himself!!! Whew, big muscles!

Mom and Jon having a snowball fight. Believe it or not, Mom started it!

Boys being boys. Jon and Nick climbed on everything!

Best Doctors Appointment Ever!

Boy that title sure makes it sound like I am going to tell you something exciting! Calm down, because my expectations are much lower than they used to be regarding doctors in Laramie and what I am about to tell you would seem totally normal to most of you. But it is a big deal to me!

I think that I have already mentioned that I am not crazy about my doctor. Her "bedside manor" is poor at best. Really there is just no customer service, what-so-ever. I decided that perhaps it is more of a personality conflict. I am a very anal person and have lots of questions. I also went into this whole monthly prego doctor visits thing with a false hope that I would actually enjoy the visits. Clearly I had false expectations! My doctor on the other hand, while she seems to be a people person, does not seem to really have any concept of the fact that she is just kind of rude. So, we conflict. She also probably knows everything there is to know about being pregnant and seems to find it incredibly irritating that I do not.

So today's visit began with excitement for both Jon and me at the fact that this would be my last time to see her. My next appointment will be an ultra sound (a tech does that so she won't be there) and then I see the new doctor. Now, I realize that I cannot totally assume that the new doctor in town will be any better or nicer, but I have high hopes. So we just got started on a good note today.

Then the doctor came in. I was fully prepared to have one last un-enjoyable experience, when much to my surprise Ester (the dr) wasn't alone. She had a student with her. He was a very nice young man and much to my surprise again, he asked how I was feeling and how things were going. I was shocked! He and my doctor both asked if I had felt any movement or anything. I replied that I had not. Then my doctor took over and began explaining that the placement could be weird and it's possible that I would feel it for a few more weeks, but that I shouldn't be worried. I am not over-exaggerating when I say that this is the most explanation that she has given me on any one subject since I have seen her!

The student again asked if I was feeling okay or if I had any questions! What?!? Questions?!? Am I allowed to ask questions??? At my last appointment, the doctor had her hand on the door after spending less than five minutes with me, when I mentioned that I did have just a few questions. She then sighed and asked what my questions were, as though to imply that I should not have any questions because I SHOULD know all about this by now. Throughout the appointment the student continued to ask Jon and me questions and was very friendly.

Ester was even friendly. She even explained what she was listening to when she heard the heartbeat and that she could even hear the baby moving around in there! Now I assume that these explanations were more for the benefit of the student than for Jon and me, but I didn't really care. We actually got some helpful information. We then had another opportunity for questions at the end and then they were gone. I think they spent at least 15 minutes with us, which is a significant improvement to the 5 minutes last time. It was great!

It was also the first time that I didn't leave my appointment wanting to cry or being really pissed off. I was actually happy and felt as though the appointment went as it should. Everyone was so nice and helpful, for the very first time. We even had to talk to the billing people (who are not very nice at all) and asked for an itemized bill for the payments we are making each month. They were happy to give it to us and said that we could get one any time! Amazing! So I would definitely have to say that this was my best appointment so far...I only hope that they will continue to get better as time goes on, and as I begin to see my new doctor!

Weekend of Nesting...Men can do it too, right?

Jon and I, as you are well aware, are kind of cheap. Okay, we actually probably fall into the really cheap category. Not with everything...I mean we like nice things, we just try to be really practical. We have been shopping/looking for baby furniture. I was honestly amazed at how expensive some of the stuff can be! I guess it is furniture, but to me it's not exactly going to be around for that long...I mean we aren't planning to have 12 kids or anything. Maybe in that case I could justify spending so much on it, but for two kids...no way! So we have been using our "Baby Bargains" book and searching the Internet. We started with IKEA (it actually received a pretty high rating), but then decided that we probably wouldn't save much if we had to drive to Salt Lake (about 5 hours), stay the night in a hotel, and eat out the whole time. So we nixed that. Next we found some nice things at JC Penney's. Now we aren't talking just a crib. We have nothing for the baby. We don't even have a dresser...we have a twin size bed (which I suppose the kid could sleep in...what's the trouble with that?) and a desk. The room that we are transforming used to be our "office." So anyway, one item, like a crib wouldn't be so bad if we didn't need a dresser, changing table (which we have also nixed), and who knows what else! I mean we are talking between $500-$600, which I have learned is really on the cheap end! But I am digressing. Anyway, so we found some stuff that we really liked at Penney's but quickly realized that the prices we were looking at were the "sale" prices. So when we looked at the set that we found the next week, each piece had gone up by about one hundred bucks! Give me a break! So we had pretty much given up on that for a while out of frustration. Well, Jon and I were walking through K-mart...yes, apparently not all of the K-marts went out of business. I found that out when we moved to Wyoming, where there seems to be one in every town. Anyway, so we are walking through K-mart desperate to find something I needed for some Christmas gifts (and to no avail), having already exhausted the other options in town (Wal-mart), when we walked past the furniture section. Who knew that K-mart even had a furniture section? I didn't, but apparently they do now because of the Sears affiliation. So this little pine colored dresser catches our eye. It was originally priced at $60, but was now on sale for $30. 30 dollars?!?!? You have got to be kidding me!! So we checked it out...decided that while it wasn't by any means the most beautiful piece of furniture we had ever seen, it would probably work for a baby's room. We decided that we should just get two of them because it was kind of small, but two should give us more than enough room. I had been planning, thanks to some friendly advise from friends, to use the top of the dresser as a "changing" table. Apparently you can just get a pad to attach to the top of it. As I began thinking about it and our purchases became more realistic (they had to search the back for the second one), I began to think that this was a brilliant idea. I mean really, why would I want to purchase a nicer piece of furniture and pay more for it to be peed on, pooped on, pucked on, and have any other number of bodily functions that babies produce (some that I am probably not even aware of) done to it? I am thinking I won't feel nearly as frustrated when these things occur, because it was 30 bucks and who really cares if it gets ruined in a couple of years. I will gladly throw it out when the time comes. However, if I had spent more money on it, I would be much more hesitant and probably more grumpy about it too! So I am officially Mrs. Cheap-o Depot, and proud of it. I am happy with our purchases and somehow feel like we robbed K-mart on our way out simply due to the fact that they were so cheap.

While Jon was just as ecstatic as I was about the price, he was probably happier about the purchases than I was. This is because he LOVES to put things together. I called him one time before we were dating and asked him to put a desk together for me. I am pretty sure that he was over 20 minutes later. The guy is crazy about this stuff! So anyway, not only had we purchased two dressers for a very low price, but we also purchased an evening of entertainment for my handy man husband. Here is a pre-construction photo (as you can tell he was very enthusiastic about getting his photo taken). As it turns out, this became more than one evening's worth of entertainment. After completing the construction of one of the dressers three hours later, he decided to call it quits for now. I am sure that he will get excited about it again in a couple of weeks and finish the other one. I was told that I would have to wait for a "post-construction photo" until the other one is completed. I know that you will wait anxiously for this photo, although I cannot guarantee when it will arrive. So, apparently men can nest too. He tried to blame it on me saying that he was nesting for me, but I wouldn't allow that! I just expected these little jewels to go in the garage until much later. I didn't care if they were put together that day...it was totally him. So while he won't admit it, Jon has experienced the first of many, I am sure, "nesting sessions" and I do believe he even enjoyed it!

The Past Few Weeks

I have taken a few random photos here and there the last few weeks, so I thought I would share them.
This is a tree in our "backyard." Since we live in an apartment it's not technically the back, but it's what you see when you are out on our deck. This was about a month ago, actually, and all of the leaves are long gone. But I am posting it because I just love it and reminds me of my favorite time of year, Fall!!

We hung out with our friends Ryan and Sara on Halloween. They just moved into their house about six months ago, and were excited to pass out candy to trick-or-treaters, so we joined them. It was a bit disappointing because it appears that people in Laramie just don't walk the neighborhoods much. Perhaps because it's too cold most of the time and usually snowing. So we played some games instead and made Halloween cookies. Check out our works of art...

This is Ryan and Sara. It was late by the time we started decorating the cookies and we ended up having so much fun. I haven't laughed that hard with people (other than Jon...he makes me laugh a lot) in a really long time. It was great.

One friend asked me the other day about how MD was doing. Jon and I are his "American aunt and uncle" so we have really enjoyed him being back here. I was having a rough day on Thursday and when I saw him I just could be upset anymore. I mean really who could be upset when your "nephew," who is smiling at you with a big toothless grin, curly black hair, and big brown eyes and wants to play with you?!? He's just adorable! He is walking about five steps now, but gets around pretty well even still. He's a mean crawler and has learned to climb things as well. We get a kick out of him every time we see him...notice also that he's sporting some cool corduroy pants...Jon was jealous.

We're Officially Becoming Coloradans-BUT not for almost a year, so no worries.

It's official! Jon interviewed with Stockman, Kast, Ryan, & Co. last week when we were in the Springs, and he was offered the job on Monday. They gave him until the end of the week to respond and he let them know today that he was going to accept the position. So, WE ARE MOVING TO COLORADO SPRINGS--but not until next August!

Jon is really excited about the company. They were some of the nicest people that he interviewed with, so that's a plus. Also, most of the partners have worked for one the "Big Four" accounting firms. They are the big, momma, johommas that make good money (about 5 thousand more starting out) but work insane hours (like 60-70+ hours/week during the busy season which can last up to 6 months)and burn out really fast as a result. So the nice thing about the fact that all the partners have done this kind of work, is that they really appreciate overtime and try to compensate their employees for it. Jon will get paid for every hour about 40 that he works. This is VERY uncommon in the accounting world.

Also, he won't have much of a commute to work. The company is in downtown, but that will not be nearly as intense as Denver. Maybe 20 minutes, maybe 30 on a really busy day at the most, which is a big plus, considering Denver's commute is about an hour. The cost of living is much lower there too and there's plenty of opportunity for me to get a job, go back to school, etc.

So we are super excited about it and look forward to getting more "settled." It's just another bit of fun to add to this already exciting time in our lives!

Pictures

Garden of the Gods.
More of the Garden, which is about 15 minutes from the middle of town.

The trees were still changing there.

View of Pikes Peak, although not the best picture.

Jon and I asked Justin to take a picture of us. This is what we got.

Jon's always climbing on something!

Boys!

The girls and I posing by the rock. The girls had been watching a couple of guys climb the side of one of the rocks for at leas 30 minutes by the time I got there.

The boys trying to look tough.