Figures...

So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Giuliani endorsed McCain. Neither are what I would call, conservative. If McCain wins the nomination it would be hard to vote in November. I don't know what would be the lesser of two evils....McCain as president or a democrat in office. I guess McCain would probably be better than Clinton....and at least Obama says he is liberal instead of just voting that way.

Grr

Poop on Florida if McCain wins. Poop on Giuliani if he endorses McCain. What are they thinking?!

Happenings

So this last Saturday Brian and I went to a Host A Murder Mystery dinner with some of my friends from work. It was called Powar and Greede. We were all in the entertainment industry, actors, actresses, producers, screen writers. Someone shot Powar, the head of the Film Studio. Greede was a young actress who was killed a year earlier. We had to figure out which one of us shot Powar and then we found out who killed Malissa Greede.
My character was a skanky lady. She slept with Powar and then another actor name Stu (played by my friend Scott). I fired the first shot at Powar "accidentally" but I didn't kill him. I didn't kill Malissa although it said I would have if I had gotten the chance. Brian was Savoy, a superb hunter. He shot both Malissa and Power although he did not kill them. The murderer was my friend Cheri, or "Tat" as she was called. She poisoned them. It was really fun to do. We had it at my friend Brynn's house and we had a baked potato bar and ice cream. I would love to do it again. I didn't take too many pictures because I forgot about my camera for most of the night. Here are some I got though.

This is my friend Scott. He is the OR supervisor at work. He also does projects for Dr. Rosenthal. He is way funny. He is actually at a med school interview in Phoenix right now. Good luck to him! He brought Kristy, a girl from his ward. She is in Brian's business class and they are in the same group. She was a cute girl.

I never like any picture of me. I think my nose is getting bigger. Is that a common pregnancy symptom? Yuck yuck.

The shirt and the coat we got at Deseret Industries, which is like a Salvation Army. Brian really like the coat.


Once again, very unflattering. I think I need to have good postures in pictures to look decent. My friend Cheri is awesome though. She is hilarious.


Brian enjoyed the ice cream. The guy in the background is Cheri's husband Chris.


It was a lot of fun.

Another thing that happened this week is President Gordon B. Hinckley died at age 97. He was the Prophet of our Church. He was ordained as Prophet on my 8th birthday, the same day I was baptized. He was an AMAZING man. I hope I can be even 1/4 as good as he was. He is really the only Prophet that I remember. I thought I would be devastated when he died. I am going to miss seeing and hearing him but when I heard he died I wasn't really sad. I was more thankful for him and his teaching and I was glad that he was reunited with his precious wife. They were married for 67 year. 67 years. Can you imagine?? They were the most awesome couple.
President Hinckley did so much for our church. He was incredibly active, he visited many countries. Temple construction doubled during his presidency. I count myself so lucky that I lived when he did.



Amazing. I know I have so much to work on in my life but every day we have the potential to be better. I love our Church and the Gospel. It is true.

Tired....

I am so glad it is Friday. It seems like Friday comes just when I know I CAN NOT get up one more day for work. Just knowing I can sleep in tomorrow is heavenly. I know that I wont be able to much longer but instead of practicing NOT sleeping in, I'm going to get in as much as I can until baby comes. :) I cant sleep in much anyway, at least, not like I could when I was living in the BC with my roommates. I could sleep in until noon some days...now I cant sleep till 9. I always have to get up to go to the bathroom. At least 9 is better than 6:30.
Today was the first day I have gotten a lot of comments about how big I am getting. She is growing! I even got a "wow" from a guy at work. I take comfort in the fact that I haven't gained anywhere other than my stomach. If I have my hoodie on you cant even tell. My friend Cheri and I went out to Lon's Cookin Shack the other day for lunch. A bunch of high school guys were there and one of them kept asking me what my name was. I kept ignoring him and finally he stopped. I really wanted to turn to him and be like...I am married and pregnant. You really don't want my name. But I guess it was nice that he couldn't tell. (I had my hands in my hoodie, I was wearing my ring).
Anyway, tomorrow we are doing a mystery dinner with some people from work. It is going to be so fun! We have to go to DI an try to find some clothes because none of my formal dresses fit anymore. (I am an newly famous actress...Brian is an actor who gained fame in the movie "The Scarlet Pimp, Arnold...ha) I am definitely taking my camera so I can have SOMETHING interesting to put up here!
On two random notes, I am so excited for Bryan to go to Ghana! It was so cool that he is going to Africa...especially because that is where he wanted to go. It is kind of sad that he wont see his niece until she is almost two! Who knows...I could be pregnant again by then.
Second, Happy Birthday Grandma McGrath! I hope you had a great day today :-) I love you!

Snow

It snowed today. Not a ton but I am seriously tired of that white stuff. I think it is fine before Christmas but after Christmas it should just stop. I wouldn't mind if it just was up in the mountains, but I wish there was an invisible barrier when it got to the valley. Yuck. I really hate driving in snow too. I am a paranoid maw-maw driver. It's not supposed to snow tomorrow but it's in the forecast from this Thursday until next Thursday at least. :-(

Yesterday was a pretty interesting day at work. Since it was Martin Luther King day Brian didn't have any school so he took me to work so that he could have the car. It was pretty normal until around 11. I was on the phone with an insurance company and I had been on hold for about 12 minutes when I finally got someone! She was just about to give me the information I needed when all of a sudden the lights sparked and went out. My friend Cheri and I work in a room in the middle of the office with no windows and when the lights when out the doors that were magnetically held open shut and it was pitch black! My office manager called the power company and since it was a holiday only 4 people were working. The power was off for three hours! I felt bad for one patient. Dr. Olenslager was in the middle of his procedure when the power went out and the poor guy was lying on his stomach in the OR with a needle sticking out of his back. Not a fun place to be. We did manage to see patients although we all wanted to just go home. I'm convinced it was Kings ghost telling us that we shouldn't have worked on his day. :)

I love countdowns and things to mark off. I have a count down going pretty much at all times, even if it isn't for anything too interesting. Right now I have a countdown for my next drs appointment. 19 more days. Then I will be 28 weeks and going to the doctor every two weeks. I have a chart telling me everything I need to do when I get home such as exercise, clean, read scriptures, and floss. I don't know why I like doing that so much. I guess I just like seeing progress.

Also, the other night I woke up around 3 because I heard something. I woke Brian up and this is what we found.


















Yup, they were out and made a nest of all the paper they could find in the apartment and also one of my shoes. Not too fun.

Anyway, I'm hungry so I am going to go make some Creme of Wheat. Yum, all that good iron, calcium and folic acid. :-)

Hair cut

I got my hair cut. They took off 9 inches... I love it. It looks and feels so much better!

By the way...Go Mitt Romney!! Bless the people of Michigan. :-)

Belly pictures

Brian wanted to take some belly pictures. He is funny, kept trying to get me to pose and stuff. And I thought not.
24 weeks today! 111 more days until my due date!



On Friday I went with my friend Meredith to her birthing class. The instructor was a doula and she asked the class who was planning on going natural and only one other girl raised her hand. When I tell people I plan on going natural they think I am crazy. I am pretty sure my body was made to have a baby and I am pretty sure millions of people have done it, also that it wont kill me, and I am pretty sure its better/healthier for everyone. Now, that being said, I have never given birth before. Who knows what can happen, but in my ideal birth I will have no medications or interventions. We shall see what happens in a few months!
I really want to hire a doula though. I think it would be different if I had someone around who was experienced and could come to the hospital with me. Brian is going to be awesome but he has never done this either. I'm also changing my doctors and going with a midwife. I think I will be happier with a midwife.

This is the end of Brian's first week of school. I think he is enjoying most of the classes this semester. He is taking a couple of interesting religion classes, Judaism and the Gospel, and LDS in Wartime. I think his least favorite class is Political Science but he is taking it with two old roommates. That way he can go over to their apartment and "study". Study = play Wii. lol. He is also taking a Russian Pronunciation class. It will be an interesting semester for him. I think he will have a lot more homework than last semester. This is it though. One more semester and we will be grown-ups! :) Brian will get a job and we will be parents!

Fishes!

So I thought I would get on and post some pictures of our trip to the Aquarium. Brian is out at his old roommates apartment watching the Ohio State vs LSU game (geaux Tigers!) and I am at home...bored. Since I go to bed comparatively early I didn't want to go and have to make him come home to put me to bed. But still...its boring without my husband to keep me company.
Anyhoo, the Aquarium in Chattanooga is one of my favorite places. I don't really know why I like it so much but its amazing. When I was in 4th grade we had a activity called Ocean Quest where we would watch a movie on the Ocean and then we would write in our "logs" about it. We also got to go on Lake Erie and dissect a fish and throw a net over the side of a boat and see what we could catch. I wanted to be a Marine Biologist for a while there...until one time in Tennessee my grandparents and my parents watched The Perfect Storm and I hid behind a chair and watched it too. That squashed my desire to ever get on a boat. That, and I decided that I was probably scared of sharks. But I still love aquariums!

This was a really pretty stingray.


Here you could pet stingrays and sharks. This is my Grandpa looking at them.

My fat self and my lovely Grandma!

We bought that shirt in TN. It looks so good on him!


I thought this was a cool picture.


And this would be kinda scary to meet in the middle of the ocean.

They have these HUGE crabs and you can crawl under their tank and stand up in the middle of it. Brian is trying to pound his way out and the crab looks like he wants to eat him.

This is a tad bit more flattering than the first picture. But just a tad.

There is a main tank that is about 4 floors high and then you can walk under it. It's way cool.
The aquarium has two buildings. The Ocean side and the River side. This is all in the river side although I don't think you normally see Sea Dragons in the river.


I would not like to meet one of these snapping turtles...
And I really would not like to meet one of these ugly things.

Anyway, just some pictures. I cant wait to be able to take our kids there, although I realized that if you don't have kids you can get around pretty fast...oh well.

Christmas Vacation

Christmas was awesome! I really did not want to come back to snowy Provo....or work....but hey, only 119 more days till the baby is born. I think I can handle that.
We left on Sunday the 23rd after church to go to my aunt and uncles house. We woke up that morning to some escapees running around our apartment. I had left a bag of marsh mellows on the table and when we got out to the kitchen I noticed they were almost all gone. We didnt think they could eat the whole bag. Guess where we found them?

Brian left his pants on the ground that he was going to wear that day....

Surprise! They had moved them into Brian's pants and into our suitcase. They are seriously insane some times.
Randy, Brian's friend from the mission, took us up to Alpine. It was nice to be there and we had a lot of fun. I got some cute pictures of Brian with Caroline. She is so adorable. I think Brian is getting more and more excited for our baby.


We flew out really really early on the 24th. The airport wasn't too bad but I freak out at airports. I dont know why but I really dont like flying. I am very glad Brian was there to help me calm down although I'm sure he wished we weren't sitting by each other. :) He is awesome though. My aunt Samantha picked us up from the airport with my brother. I was really glad to be there. It was so fun seeing all my cousins and brothers. Ethan was adorable.
Christmas morning was fun. Here are some pictures we took.

Ethan missing his teeth.


Grandma and Rose.Christmas Morning.
The boys coming upstairs to see their Santa presents.



My dad and Grandpa were trying to open one of Ethans presents for him. It took them quite a while.
Ethan and his Chef outfit.Brian and I got a lot of great presents from everyone. We got a Clear play DVD player from my parents, blankets from Grandma McGrath, beautiful Christmas decorations from Grandma and Grandpa Leslie, clothes and money from Brian's parents, and a lot of great baby books from my Aunt Samantha. Thanks everyone!! We love you!
Since this post is getting so massive I think I will save the rest for later. I do want to say one thing that was very exciting....Brian got a 4.0 for the semester!!!! He is so smart! I am very proud of his hard work!