This is for all of you who want to see what I look like with a pregnant belly. I know I haven't been into the whole showing it off with pictures. But hey, here's one for you. This is me at 37 weeks.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The Beautiful City!
In the movie "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" the saints are draining the swamp and Joseph Smith cheerfully declares, "Nauvoo is the Hebrew word for beautiful." Some 150 years later we can confirm that his prophecy has come true.
Jessie and I visited the Nauvoo Temple to do one last session before the baby is born. We were blown away by the beauty of the craftsmanship that went into the restoration of the temple. More importantly there was a very sacred atmosphere throughout the temple grounds. It helped us to appreciate the beauty of the restored gospel and the sacrifices the early saints made so that we could enjoy such truths today.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Race for the Cure
About a week ago a race for breast cancer was held in Moline. As a part of that race, John Deere interns had a chance to paint a sign on the street at the starting line. Ryan jumped on this volunteer opportunity and we both signed up to help.
It was a great experience and a wonderful way to spend a Friday night. Because there was a lot of painting I became the official photographer so I could stay away from the fumes. Even though I wasn't allowed to help with the painting, I did help draw the ribbon for the "I".
It was a great experience and a wonderful way to spend a Friday night. Because there was a lot of painting I became the official photographer so I could stay away from the fumes. Even though I wasn't allowed to help with the painting, I did help draw the ribbon for the "I".
Ryan had a great time painting and got paint all over the place, including my shirt.
The final project.
At the end of it all, we even got a picture in the loader of a John Deere tracker. Yup, a real John Deere tracker.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
I GOT A JOB!!!
This past Monday I received a phone call from the principal at Sunrise Elementary in Sandy, Utah. He offered me a fifth grade position teaching the ALPS (Accelerated Learning Program for Students) class.
I am thrilled about this position. First off, it is the same grade I taught last year, so I already have a pretty good start on the curriculum and have a lot of materials. Second, it will give me a chance to get my Gifted and Talented Endorsement, which I wanted to get anyway. Most importantly though...it's a JOB! I was starting to get nervous about finding a teaching position come fall and I am relieved to have a job.
The school year will begin Aug. 26 but I will start working in my classroom as soon as I get back to Utah.
I am thrilled about this position. First off, it is the same grade I taught last year, so I already have a pretty good start on the curriculum and have a lot of materials. Second, it will give me a chance to get my Gifted and Talented Endorsement, which I wanted to get anyway. Most importantly though...it's a JOB! I was starting to get nervous about finding a teaching position come fall and I am relieved to have a job.
The school year will begin Aug. 26 but I will start working in my classroom as soon as I get back to Utah.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Pure Awesomeness
The remainder of our 4th of July weekend passed with no trouble and was completely painless. We began the 4th with a free pancake breakfast put on by the campsite staff where we were staying. We met a wonderful couple and we enjoyed talking with them. We discovered that the husband was the senior chaplain for the State penitentiary and share some very interesting stories.
Shortly after a filling, FREE breakfast we packed up the car and headed to the USS North Carolina, a US Battleship turned into a war memorial. I had heard cool things about the Battleship but did not comprehend how awe inspiring it would be. It was MASSIVE!!! It took us around 3 hours to see everything in the ship. We learned all about how the sailors lived on this Battleship during WWII as well as how the ship would run during battle. Ryan was able to try his hand at a 22mm anti-aircraft gun, unloaded of course. (He freely admits he would have been unable to hit anything from that post. However, awesome was the only word he was able to say for a couple of minutes afterwards.) We learned how it took a minimum of four people to run the gun and about each job that was required. We were able to go inside one of the big 16 inch cannons. They explained that each bullet, though only 5 feet tall, would weigh more than a large car and could be shot over several miles. I am so glad that I never have to actually work in one of those guns. When we were in the gun, there were only half of the people in the gun that it took to run it, with air conditioning, yet it is stifling hot. I cannot even imagine what the men that actually ran the gun had to go through.
We learned how much effort it took just to run the ship for the sailors. Not only were there cooks, but there was an entire kitchen for just the bakery, a barber shop, a shoe shop, a post office, an ice cream stand, an infirmary, a print shop, and everything else a regular small town would need. One of my favorite parts was the barber shop. I always assumed that the barber shop would only be open for part of a day or only on certain days, however, it was open for 12 hours a day every day and was jam packed every day. I realized that this would have to be simply to serve the 2-3,000 men on the ship at a time. (Of course, capitalism lives on even during a war, and many men mentioned in their diaries that haircuts were better the larger their illegal tips were.)
The Battleship certainly was an eye-opening experience. Ryan put it nicely when he said that the it was "pure awesomeness."
After the amazing tour of the Battleship Ryan and I drove back to Cary where we listened to the North Carolina Symphony in an open amphitheater while eating dinner, a left over tin foil dinner I accidentally squashed in Ryan's sweatshirt. Following the free concert there were amazing fireworks over a lake. We were within 100 yards from where the fireworks were being set off so it was extremely loud and very bright. Again I think Ryan puts it nicely when he said "it was sensory overload." Even though we were temporarily deaf it was worth every minute and we had a blast, but we did feel bad for the ducks that took off like a shot after the first test firework. I have never seen birds move so fast. I would have to say that this was one of my favorite 4th of July celebrations.
Shortly after a filling, FREE breakfast we packed up the car and headed to the USS North Carolina, a US Battleship turned into a war memorial. I had heard cool things about the Battleship but did not comprehend how awe inspiring it would be. It was MASSIVE!!! It took us around 3 hours to see everything in the ship. We learned all about how the sailors lived on this Battleship during WWII as well as how the ship would run during battle. Ryan was able to try his hand at a 22mm anti-aircraft gun, unloaded of course. (He freely admits he would have been unable to hit anything from that post. However, awesome was the only word he was able to say for a couple of minutes afterwards.) We learned how it took a minimum of four people to run the gun and about each job that was required. We were able to go inside one of the big 16 inch cannons. They explained that each bullet, though only 5 feet tall, would weigh more than a large car and could be shot over several miles. I am so glad that I never have to actually work in one of those guns. When we were in the gun, there were only half of the people in the gun that it took to run it, with air conditioning, yet it is stifling hot. I cannot even imagine what the men that actually ran the gun had to go through.
We learned how much effort it took just to run the ship for the sailors. Not only were there cooks, but there was an entire kitchen for just the bakery, a barber shop, a shoe shop, a post office, an ice cream stand, an infirmary, a print shop, and everything else a regular small town would need. One of my favorite parts was the barber shop. I always assumed that the barber shop would only be open for part of a day or only on certain days, however, it was open for 12 hours a day every day and was jam packed every day. I realized that this would have to be simply to serve the 2-3,000 men on the ship at a time. (Of course, capitalism lives on even during a war, and many men mentioned in their diaries that haircuts were better the larger their illegal tips were.)
The Battleship certainly was an eye-opening experience. Ryan put it nicely when he said that the it was "pure awesomeness."
After the amazing tour of the Battleship Ryan and I drove back to Cary where we listened to the North Carolina Symphony in an open amphitheater while eating dinner, a left over tin foil dinner I accidentally squashed in Ryan's sweatshirt. Following the free concert there were amazing fireworks over a lake. We were within 100 yards from where the fireworks were being set off so it was extremely loud and very bright. Again I think Ryan puts it nicely when he said "it was sensory overload." Even though we were temporarily deaf it was worth every minute and we had a blast, but we did feel bad for the ducks that took off like a shot after the first test firework. I have never seen birds move so fast. I would have to say that this was one of my favorite 4th of July celebrations.
4th of July Campout
Ryan and I had a wonderful celebration of our country's independence. We decided to go camping in Wilmington, NC for the holiday and spend some time on Wilmington beach. I was thrilled for the weekend. After spending an entire summer with Jennette and her family two summers ago, and helping prepare for beach and camping trips several times, I thought I would have a very easy time preparing for our trip. I made tin foil dinners, bought supplies for s'mores, reserved a campsite and packed the car. We were ready.
We drove to our campsite on Friday and set up camp. We even had two camping chairs that we could put by the campfire pit. We asked around to find out which was the favorite beach out of the several within a 20 minute drive of where our site was, and settled on Wrightsville beach. After we had parked and were halfway to the beach, I realized that not only had we forgotten our chairs at the campsite but we also forgot the umbrella we were going to use and half of the food we were going to take onto the beach. Uff da!
The beach was wonderful. Sure we didn't get to sit and watch the waves in our brand new chairs that we were so excited about, but we could sit on our towels and watch. We read, we dug for sand crabs (with no success), we walked along the beach, swam out to sea to get a close up look at pelicans diving for fish (very cool), and even went body surfing.
Last summer when we were on the Outer Banks with my family, Ryan tried several times to boogie board with little success. He is quite dense and simply could not catch many waves. We were ecstatic when he was able to catch almost every wave simply by swimming this summer. The waves were incredibly powerful and could carry Ryan, even with no boogie board, several yards. We were having a wonderful time! As the afternoon wore on the waves became stronger and stronger. I was completely knocked over and pulled under several times by the waves. The last wave we caught was the most powerful I have ever felt. I was walking in when an unexpected wave capped. It was almost as tall as I am. It picked me up, carried me several feet and knocked me completely down, and tumbled me around several times. I hit my hand pretty hard against the shells on the sand floor and got slightly cut. Of course I was upset, my hand hurt, and I had to go back into the ocean to wash off...again. I was not happy. Ryan, on the other hand, had been expecting the wave and swam with the wave. Even though he had been expecting a strong wave, he had not anticipated how strong it would be. He was caught in an undercurrent that pushed him farther onto the beach than any wave had pushed him thus far in the day. The undercurrent dragged him across the shells on the bottom of the shoreline and cut up his chest in several places.
As I was freaking out and trying to get my bearing so I could go wash off in the ocean...again, Ryan was making sure I was okay and thinking nothing of himself. I was in the process of complaining about my small cuts on my knees, shoulder and hand when I saw his chest. The entire upper part of his right chest was red and bleeding. Of course seeing his chest pulled me back to earth and realized how wimpy I was being. Needless to say that was our last wave and left as soon as we could gather our things. I do have to say that Ryan's wounds looked a lot worse than they actually were. It turned out to be several small scrapes and healed rather quickly. It does make for a fun story though. Even though we left with a rather bitter taste of the beach in our mouths we are looking forward to spending another day a the beach within the last two weekend of our stay in North Carolina. I am confident that we will remember to bring our chairs and we will be better prepared for the waves to come.
We drove to our campsite on Friday and set up camp. We even had two camping chairs that we could put by the campfire pit. We asked around to find out which was the favorite beach out of the several within a 20 minute drive of where our site was, and settled on Wrightsville beach. After we had parked and were halfway to the beach, I realized that not only had we forgotten our chairs at the campsite but we also forgot the umbrella we were going to use and half of the food we were going to take onto the beach. Uff da!
The beach was wonderful. Sure we didn't get to sit and watch the waves in our brand new chairs that we were so excited about, but we could sit on our towels and watch. We read, we dug for sand crabs (with no success), we walked along the beach, swam out to sea to get a close up look at pelicans diving for fish (very cool), and even went body surfing.
Last summer when we were on the Outer Banks with my family, Ryan tried several times to boogie board with little success. He is quite dense and simply could not catch many waves. We were ecstatic when he was able to catch almost every wave simply by swimming this summer. The waves were incredibly powerful and could carry Ryan, even with no boogie board, several yards. We were having a wonderful time! As the afternoon wore on the waves became stronger and stronger. I was completely knocked over and pulled under several times by the waves. The last wave we caught was the most powerful I have ever felt. I was walking in when an unexpected wave capped. It was almost as tall as I am. It picked me up, carried me several feet and knocked me completely down, and tumbled me around several times. I hit my hand pretty hard against the shells on the sand floor and got slightly cut. Of course I was upset, my hand hurt, and I had to go back into the ocean to wash off...again. I was not happy. Ryan, on the other hand, had been expecting the wave and swam with the wave. Even though he had been expecting a strong wave, he had not anticipated how strong it would be. He was caught in an undercurrent that pushed him farther onto the beach than any wave had pushed him thus far in the day. The undercurrent dragged him across the shells on the bottom of the shoreline and cut up his chest in several places.
As I was freaking out and trying to get my bearing so I could go wash off in the ocean...again, Ryan was making sure I was okay and thinking nothing of himself. I was in the process of complaining about my small cuts on my knees, shoulder and hand when I saw his chest. The entire upper part of his right chest was red and bleeding. Of course seeing his chest pulled me back to earth and realized how wimpy I was being. Needless to say that was our last wave and left as soon as we could gather our things. I do have to say that Ryan's wounds looked a lot worse than they actually were. It turned out to be several small scrapes and healed rather quickly. It does make for a fun story though. Even though we left with a rather bitter taste of the beach in our mouths we are looking forward to spending another day a the beach within the last two weekend of our stay in North Carolina. I am confident that we will remember to bring our chairs and we will be better prepared for the waves to come.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Zoo and Miracles
A couple of weeks ago Ryan and I went to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, about an hour away from where we live. The tickets were given to us by John Deere and we love FREE!
We had a wonderful day! The drive was beautiful and the weather was perfect. The zoo is several miles outside of the actual city, so there was plenty of wildlife, other than the zoo animals. Because the Hogle Zoo in Utah is the only other zoo we have been too this is our comparison. It was a lot bigger. There was so much space. The NC Zoo has two main sections, North America and Africa. We had to take a shuttle to get to from North America to Africa. There was so much more space for the animals. We both really liked how all of the African plane animals we all in the same area. It was wide and really felt like we were on an African safari. Even though the elephants were listed in this one specific area on the map it did not mean that they would be there. They could have been on the opposite side of the plane with the antelope. Ryan and I never felt like the animals were cooped up and constrained as they are in the Hogle Zoo. The giraffes and zebras had plenty of space. The lions even had their own habitat rather than a spacious cage.
One thing we did not enjoy as much as the Hogle Zoo however was the variety of animals. We both felt that although Hogle Zoo is smaller in space and the animals did not have as much space, there was a greater variety and more animals to see.
However, the best part was the effort the NC Zoo went to create the actual habitat for the animals it housed. There were pine trees by the grizzly bear and tall grass for the elephants, antelope and rhinos. There were even termite mounds, though Ryan and I believe them to be models. In Ryan’s words “it looked the part.”
My favorite part of the trip was the aviary. When we walked inside, it felt has if we had been transported to a tropical island it was so hot and humid. The inside was filled with tropical plants and flowers I have never seen. It took us a good five minutes of walking around before we saw a single bird, but then there was plenty to be had. There were parrots, mice birds, scarlet ibises, and many more I don’t know the names of. We met an elderly couple while in there who worked for the Chicago Zoo in the aviary. They spent several minutes with us pointing out the birds that most viewers missed and told us several interesting facts. As we went through the zoo we found Ryan’s relatives, though they were sleeping out of sight at the time.
I wonder if they are more his relatives or mine because Ryan never sleeps and the gorillas always sleep.
A little further on Ryan believes we found my relatives.
We had a wonderful day! The drive was beautiful and the weather was perfect. The zoo is several miles outside of the actual city, so there was plenty of wildlife, other than the zoo animals. Because the Hogle Zoo in Utah is the only other zoo we have been too this is our comparison. It was a lot bigger. There was so much space. The NC Zoo has two main sections, North America and Africa. We had to take a shuttle to get to from North America to Africa. There was so much more space for the animals. We both really liked how all of the African plane animals we all in the same area. It was wide and really felt like we were on an African safari. Even though the elephants were listed in this one specific area on the map it did not mean that they would be there. They could have been on the opposite side of the plane with the antelope. Ryan and I never felt like the animals were cooped up and constrained as they are in the Hogle Zoo. The giraffes and zebras had plenty of space. The lions even had their own habitat rather than a spacious cage.
One thing we did not enjoy as much as the Hogle Zoo however was the variety of animals. We both felt that although Hogle Zoo is smaller in space and the animals did not have as much space, there was a greater variety and more animals to see.
However, the best part was the effort the NC Zoo went to create the actual habitat for the animals it housed. There were pine trees by the grizzly bear and tall grass for the elephants, antelope and rhinos. There were even termite mounds, though Ryan and I believe them to be models. In Ryan’s words “it looked the part.”
My favorite part of the trip was the aviary. When we walked inside, it felt has if we had been transported to a tropical island it was so hot and humid. The inside was filled with tropical plants and flowers I have never seen. It took us a good five minutes of walking around before we saw a single bird, but then there was plenty to be had. There were parrots, mice birds, scarlet ibises, and many more I don’t know the names of. We met an elderly couple while in there who worked for the Chicago Zoo in the aviary. They spent several minutes with us pointing out the birds that most viewers missed and told us several interesting facts. As we went through the zoo we found Ryan’s relatives, though they were sleeping out of sight at the time.
I wonder if they are more his relatives or mine because Ryan never sleeps and the gorillas always sleep.
A little further on Ryan believes we found my relatives.
As we reached the African plane animals though, tragedy struck. Our camera mysteriously stopped working. We didn’t drop it and no water got on it, but it seemed like the camera couldn’t take pictures. We could see all of the pictures we had taken earlier but every time we took a picture after the camera broke, looked black. The screen was black when we took the picture and the screen was black when we viewed the picture, but we could still physically take a picture. It was the weirdest thing. I was extremely sad about the camera breaking and tried everything I could to fix it.
This past Friday Ryan and I took the camera into a Best Buy to see if they had any suggestions or see what it would take to get fixed. They told us that it seemed like something in the shutter broke so the camera was not getting any light. If this was the case it would cost more to fix the camera than to buy a new one. I felt sick. Nothing had drastically happened to it and now we were going to have to buy a new one. I was not a happy camper.
Today as I was prepping to write this blog, I had Ryan go get the camera so I could download the pictures. I took one picture to show the black screen. When I took the picture the screen was black, but then miraculously the screen became light and the picture showed up for a brief second or two. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I flipped the switch to view and there it was, Ryan standing in our kitchen. So although our camera is not all the way healed or fixed, we can at least take and view pictures. Hooray!
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