Bonus!

We were sad to leave our garden in Logan but were happy to move in and
have grapes growing all over our backyard.

This picture is taken from the underside of some of our grape vines.
Can you see the bunches of grapes everywhere?


Here are some of the grapes I froze.
I really enjoy frozen grapes and fruit- especially when I'm pregnant.


Here are 3 LARGE bowls full of grapes that we picked on Saturday.
We have picked AT LEAST 4-5 times as much as this and have another few
bowl fulls still hanging on the vine. We were also blessed to get those two boxes of
apples for FREE! There is a house/business nearby that we pass on our
way to church. We were always sad to see the spoiled apples all over the ground,
so Than went to ask if we could pick some. They had gotten what they wanted and
said we could take all we want. We might go back for more.


The Orem Library is a 2-3 minute bike ride from our house. I have still
been busy with projects and haven't gotten back into reading much yet,
but I have listened to the several books on tape in the last few weeks.
I listened to "The Work and the Glory" 1 and 2, "The Old Man and the Sea"
and have almost finished "The Scarlet Letter."

Nathaniel and I like to get General Conference on DVD and listen to one talk
each morning as we get ready and eat breakfast. We often end up listening to all the
talks 3x (which is great) and still have time before we get the next set. So we'll go back
and listen to some of our older ones. Now with the library so close we can check
them out from a large variety while we wait for the next conference. I got the
April 1984 session on tapes the other day just for fun -
we were both born in 1984. I love it!


I have had those ugly-ish pink slippers for ten years or so. I hope I have
sufficiently used them up, wore them out and made them do. They are now VERY
dirty black and quite sticky on the bottoms, thus they leave marks on the
kitchen floor. So I decided to start looking for new slippers and got
the very warm and comfy slippers for $1.06, a savings of over $21.00! Hooray!


Last but not least, we went to Olive Garden for my birthday. We don't eat out very much-
especially at more expensive restaurants- so I don't know if this is common or not,
but we were SOOO impressed with our service there nonetheless. Our waitress was
happy and patient and brought me a sample of a dish I was considering. She checked
up on us and made sure things were great. When we asked for to-go boxes
she asked if we would like an order of breadsticks and another re-fill of my
raspberry lemonade to-go (we splurged and bought a drink). We left with about
2 more meals worth of food in a handy Olive Garden bag.

Some pictures...

I finally got the camera out...

Here are some pictures of our new place before we moved in.
Some of them aren't the best - I was in a hurry.

Front room (taken from front door)


Front room (taken from dining room)


Kitchen without our black fridge (taken from dining room)


Dining Room (taken from kitchen)


1 of 2 small upstairs bedrooms. Sorry for the terrible picture.
I really should have taken a picture of the closets - we have closets!


Master Bedroom - sooo much bigger than our last one! And it has a closet too!


I guess I didn't take pictures of the bath and laundry rooms...

Help, we need HEPA

Does anyone have a vacuum with a HEPA filter that we can borrow?

Pizza and Midwives

I have dreams ALL the time now. Sometimes I'm sure it must be one after the other all
through the night. My dreams have mostly been random but funny - at least the ones
I remember. Lately, however, they have just been bizzare. A few weeks ago I kept
dreaming about pizza. I want pizza all the time! In one dream I was just about to start
eating my piece when Than woke me up for breakfast. I don't hold it against him though.
In another dream I was at my in-laws and had to leave to go somewhere when my sister-in-law
invited me to stay for lunch. I told her I really needed to get going. She said, "We're just
having Totino's Party Pizzas." As soon as she said that I thought, "Oh, I LOVE Totino's Party Pizzas!"
In my dream, I was really torn. I don't remember what I ended up doing, but I got a kick out of that.



I've been asked some questions about the group of midwives I am seeing, and I thought I
might clarify a little. Their clinic is right next to the hospital and they deliver in the
hospital. They do everything an OB/GYN does at appointments and during delivery (epidural, etc.)
except they actually stay with you during delivery - the whole time. The only thing they don't
do is surgery/c-section or if there is some sort of major problem. If that is the case, the doctor
(an OB/GYN that they work with) will take over. They support whatever way you want to give
birth; but I'm not sure what I want to do yet. They have great bedside manner. I see any one of
the group for my appointments and will hopefully get to know and like all of them because whoever
is on call when I go into labor will deliver. That could be the downside, but I've heard so many
people love midwives. So it isn't what most people think about when you say "midwife." They are
nurses with a masters in midwifery. My sister-in-law said her midwife even gave her a
massage during the labor.

Still no pictures... tidbits

Even though I don't have a job I have been quite busy. Therefore, I haven't gotten
the internet set up for our new place and don't have pictures with me to post...
Plus it keeps me from wasting my life away online.

We love our new place and still have a lot of things to finish. Nathaniel is making a
sort of end table with his dad and maybe some other shelves for our food storage.
I have done some sewing and still want to make curtains for our bedroom, re-cover
our kitchen chairs, etc. Not to mention anything for the baby's room. We need to
re-paint some of our furniture and finish decorating. It has been fun.

I've also been able to help at my parents' house several days. My grandpa just moved
in with them so I painted my old bedroom for him and helped with some other things
before and after he moved in. So I guess I've kind of been working.

Nathaniel rides his bike a lot (everyday to work and then some) and I have a little
here and there. We are quite close to most everything we need. We got Orem Fitness
Center passes and have been using them 3-4x/week. Nathaniel is the new Scout
Committee Chairman and I am the Nursery Music Leader for the 3 classes of nursery
kids. It is possible that I'll have more nursery kids than he does scouts - we'll have to see.

I am 24 weeks, still hardly showing and am measuring two weeks behind. I had my first appointment
since we moved with the group of midwives I am seeing. They aren't (or maybe I should say,
"she isn't," I've just seen one so far) too concerned yet, but I better get growing. I should
probably get Than to take me out for ice cream a few times a week so I can gain some
weight, right?. :) There haven't been any signs of problems and I feel and even see
our baby kick/move regularly, so we hope for the best.

I feel sooo much better than I did the first few months. It is sooo nice! Since I am not
super big yet, I am still enjoying a few perks. I can bend and move easily for the
most part still. I have enough energy to keep pretty busy during the day;
well, except for my nap. I haven't had to buy hardly any new clothes so far. It helps that
I had some clothes that were a little too big that I've been saving. I did get some
cheap maternity jeans because I can't comfortably squeeze into my old ones very well anymore,
but they are still too big and I have to pull them up all the time.

Moving Day

I am excited to stop living out of boxes, unpack and get things arranged at our new place.
In the mean time, Nathaniel's parents have been so kind to let us stay here for a
few weeks. We closed on Wednesday and move in today! Thanks to my
sister-in-law/Realtor we were able to look at about twenty places almost as soon as
we found out we were moving to Orem. She has been very helpful and on top of things,
and I would highly recommend her! I think it has been one month to the day since we
went to look for houses, so everything has been very fast. Also, thanks to our mortgage broker,
we were able to get our loan super fast and move forward with the whole process.
I took some pictures but our camera cord to download them is packed somewhere
so you'll have to keep waiting and enjoy these for now...
Come visit and see for yourself instead!

We now have one of these, thanks Farfar (grandpa)!


And we have these growing ALL over our tiny backyard.

Baby update: I've been able to feel (and tell that I'm feeling) our little
girl move around. It is fun. I've been leaning more towards a Norwegian
name since she was with me (and making me sick) while we were in
Norway. You can see my preggo belly, but I thought it would have been
bigger by now. That's okay with me, though, as long as she is growing.
She's right on track.

Updates: Crazy but Good

We successfully and officially moved out of our beloved apartment of 3 years
on September 5th. Thanks SO MUCH to everyone that has helped us out before,
during and after the move. Most of our stuff is still boxed up and stacked in piles in
both of our parents' garages. Thankfully we haven't had to do too much digging to find
things we've needed. We are living with Than's parents for a few weeks until we close
on September 23rd and move into our new home on the 25th/26th.

Nathaniel started work on September 8th and has had a lot of meetings and trainings so far.
We were happily surprised to find out he gets off work at 4:00 instead of 5:00. He has
been able to ride his bike there every day and plans to do so through the winter -
except when the roads are REALLY bad or his wife is too concerned.

I decided to continue working after we moved. Yesterday was my last day.
My paraprofessionals (a.k.a. aides) threw me a little party which was actually a sort of baby shower.
It was so sweet of them to do that! I was able to stay with friends while I was back in Logan
to work these past two weeks. I was also able to visit with friends and shop at the
USU Bookstore, which was wonderful! I don't know why I love it so much... well, I do.

On Monday I had my ultrasound at 19 weeks and found out that we are having a
little girl! Unfortunately Nathaniel wasn't able to be there. My appointment was in Logan
and he was at his 5th day of work in Orem. Everything looks good and we hope it stays
that way! I bought the cutest little Aggie outfit that I've had my eye on since before
we even found out we were expecting. I just wish I could have gotten more
Baby Aggie gear! A few months ago I got Nathaniel to agree to let me buy stuff
from the bookstore before we moved. We decided on a budget and I used all but $.90!

So this is an odd picture, but there are "no little boy parts." All I can figure is that
it is from an angle similar to you looking down at your lap. Unfortunately thepicture of her almost sucking her thumb wasn't included on the CD. Maybe I'll scan it in later.