Christmas season

I love this time of year. I am especially excited because we actually get to travel to Utah this year to spend time with family over the holidays. Thank goodness. My work didn't make it easy. In years past, my work has blocked out the dates from December 15 until sometime early in January and said that no one could request time of during those dates. Thus we have spent the last 2 Christmases here in Philly. Don't get me wrong. It hasn't been horrible. The first year, we went to New York just a couple days before Christmas, made up our own walking tour of the different department stores so we could check out their holiday windows and indoor decor, and we saw Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. It was so much fun. We stayed in a really ghetto hostel for the night and came home on Christmas Eve. We were able to do some skyping with family on Christmas. Last year, Zack's family came to us, and we really had a great time hosting them and enjoying family time on our own turf. But this year, when I found out they weren't blacking out the dates around the holidays, I just knew I had to try for some time off.

I went to the staffing lady who would be handling the holiday scheduling several months ago and discussed this with her. I asked her what restrictions there would be (basically none), when I would know if I had been granted the time off, etc. Then I went for it. I put in a request. I put it in nice and early and hunkered down for the long wait until November 11, the date that she said I would know if I got the time off or not. After a while, it became abundantly clear that the prices of plane tickets were just going to go up and up so we took a gamble and went ahead and bought our tickets for the time I had requested off.

November 11th, I stopped into the staffing office to hear about my schedule and was told that they didn't know yet and that they needed more time. Imagine that.

Finally, 3 weeks later, the finalized schedule was posted. I had requested several days off in a row, and they had granted me the first part of my request, but scheduled me to work for the 3 days at the tail end of my planned trip.

As you can imagine, I was pretty livid. I had specifically discussed with staffing my need to know in advance if I wasn't going to get the vacation time since it takes more than just a couple of weeks to arrange for cross-country plane tickets, especially around the holidays. They had promised me a certain date and then just pushed it back and pushed it back until it was a mere 3 weeks until I was supposed to travel, and then they didn't grant me the time. It wasn't so much about not getting the entire time I had requested. That would've been okay if they had just informed me sooner. I marched my behind down to the staffing office and made my case, but they basically just told me that there was nothing they could do. They didn't care about the promises they had made and broken and the inconvenience they had caused me. After cooling down for a day or 2 though, I worked out a trade with one of my coworkers for one of the days, got a pool nurse to cover for me the 2nd of the 3 days, and was able to switch one of my days off for the 3rd day. It took some real work and several days to figure all that out, but I got it done and now I get to take my vacation free and clear. And I don't have to pay $500+ to change my plane ticket. Phew. So in 9 days, we're headed off the Utah to spend some of this delightful holiday season with our families.

Well hello Wednesday. Oft considered by yours truly to be the worst day of the week, this particular Wednesday has proven to be one of the best [Wednes]days in quite some time. Not only did I not vomit at all today (vomiting has been an increasing common occurrence lately), but I'm pretty sure I did not even feel like vomiting once today. I haven't had a day like that months. Not only did I manage to make it through my entire breakfast... I also made it through my work shift in relatively good form, went to the doctor, went out to dinner with my man and ate an entire meal (which included a good dose of red meat, since apparently I'm anemic), went to the drug store to buy some good ol' pregnant lady junk food (no iron there folks), and ran the dishwasher (okay so it was already 3/4 full when I got to it). How's that for a terrible, overly long sentence? Setting the crappiness of the sentence aside though, all of that made for a day in which it was pretty awesome to feel like a semi-normal person again. I'm not holding my breath for another one of those days tomorrow. But I am hoping that maybe, just maybe, I won't be sick my entire pregnancy, and some of that 2nd trimester excellence I've been hearing about will make its way to me in the near future. Please.

A pregnancy rundown

I saw this on a friend's blog (thanks Tricia) so I thought I'd steal it to give anyone who wants to know the rundown on my pregnancy.

Q. When are you due?

A. My original due date was May 22, but our ultrasounds revealed that we are actually a week ahead so it's now May 15th, 2012.

Q. Was this planned?

A. Yes yes yes. In fact, we have been trying to get pregnant for quite a while. We never thought it would take this long and were really starting to worry that it wasn't ever going to happen for us. We lost a pregnancy earlier this year, and are very pleased that everything seems to be going well so far in this pregnancy.

Q. How did you find out?
A. I have been tracking my ovulation and cycles faithfully and taking pregnancy tests each month in hopes of getting a positive result. It was a Sunday morning when I took the test and it was positive! I had to go to work so I just left it in the bathroom for the hubs to see. I don't think he was too fond of the fact that I didn't wake him up to show him the positive test. I wasn't happy like I thought I would be though. I was just terrified that we would lose the pregnancy again. I waited a couple of days and then (on my birthday) took a couple more tests, which both came out positive. At that point, I let myself get cautiously excited.

Q. Are you sick?

A. Oh yes. I find the term morning sickness to be woefully inadequate to describe what I have been feeling. I am nauseous pretty much all day every day. Sometimes it's worse than others. If you want the nitty gritty details, I rarely actually vomit (although it certainly has happened). Still, I basically feel like trash all the time and so I go to work because I have absolutely no choice, and then I do nothing except be sick. Thankfully, my wonderful husband has picked up most of the slack around the house.

Q. Does your family know?

A. We told our families a couple of weeks ago while we were visiting Utah. We told my family while we were all out to breakfast together. Zack's family was a little harder because Megan's wedding was imminent so everyone was so busy and never in the same place all at once. We told Amy first and were finally able to tell the others one night.

Q. Do you have names?

A. We have a long time to think about it. I hate all girl names, so we'll have to figure out what to do about that if it's a girl. We have a couple of boy names in mind, but nothing set in stone.

Q. Are you going to find out what it is?

A. Definitely. I can't imagine not finding out. I am such a planner. It would be torture for me to not be able to prepare as much in advance as I can.

Q. Where will you deliver?

A. The University of Pennsylvania Hospital, which is very nearby our house. We will probably just ride the bus down there when the time comes.

Q. Have you gained weight?

A. No. No noticeable changes in that department yet. But don't worry. I will. Probably a lot too. My cravings are all for junk food and I seriously can't even look at a vegetable without wanting to upchuck everywhere.

Q. Boy or Girl?

A. We want a healthy, human baby. Other than that, I don't think we're too picky. I have been randomly speculating that it's a girl for no apparent reason... maybe just because I think I'd have a funner time dressing a girl baby than a boy baby. But if that's the case, we might have some trouble in the naming department. So maybe I hope it's a boy just so we don't have to deal with all that.

Q. Are you scared?

A. Not really. I am scared of miscarrying, but other than that, all the scary stuff still seems a long way off. I will probably get more afraid as my due date gets closer.

Q. Any other feelings?

A. We are excited. We feel inadequate to be parents but are hoping to figure some things out along the way. We are grateful for all the love and support we have received thus far from our family and friends.

Coming Spring 2012

A baby shower

A few weeks back, we went to Utah for Zack's sister's wedding, which was really nice. While we were there, I was able to throw my sister a baby shower. People actually came, which is rare for events that I plan, and I think the whole thing turned out to be a success.

Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the adorable mom-to-be, but I did take some photos of the shower decor.

My sister is nuts about rubber duckies. She has been for a long time. She had one on top of her wedding cake and her 1st dance at her wedding was to the song. That made choosing a baby shower theme easy, so I went with rubber ducks/bath time. It seems that this theme lends itself more easily to a boy baby since the color blue naturally goes with the theme, but I had no trouble stirring in some pink to add a girly flair.

We put the drinks (pink and yellow lemonades) in a baby bathtub.

Bath stuff

Duckies

The full spread (plus my sister's husband Zach)

Diaper cake

Check out these adorable cupcakes that Tosca (my sister-in-law) made.

I think it turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. Congrats to Michelle and Zach. We are very excited for our little niece to make her debut next month.

I've neglected my blog and left a depressing post at the top for far too long.

We haven't been up to much. Mostly just the same ol' things. The other night, we had the chance to go see Rock of Ages, a musical that is part of the Broadway series playing here in Philly. My lovely husband and in-laws gave me season tickets for my birthday, which is amazing. We were so excited to use our first set of tickets.

From the website:

In 1987 on the Sunset Strip, a small town girl met a big city rocker and in LA’s most famous rock club, they fell in love to the greatest songs of the 80s. It’s ROCK OF AGES, an arena-rock love story told through the mind-blowing, face-melting hits of JOURNEY, NIGHT RANGER, STYX, REO SPEEDWAGON, PAT BENATAR, TWISTED SISTER, POISON, ASIA, WHITESNAKE and many more.

The music was good, and it was fun and heartwarming. It wasn't my favorite musical or anything... lots of potty humor, swear words, and skimpy outfits. But we did have a good time and really enjoyed our night out. Our next set of tickets is for Billy Elliot. Very exciting!

The Lost Week

Last Sunday at work, my throat started feeling kinda scratchy. Never a good sign. I was gonna come down with a cold. I could tell. But all in all, I was feeling pretty good, and when they were looking for people to stay to fill in some holes in the afternoon shift, I agreed to work a double in exchange for Monday off. After 12 hours at work, I pretty much hit the wall with exhaustion. I am usually pretty pooped after a 16 hour shift but not like this and I still had 4 hours to go. Somehow I muddled through to the end and made it home.

Monday morning I had a hard time getting moving, but still texted a friend, hoping to do something fun later in the day. But it turned out to not just be a morning thing. I couldn't get moving pretty much all day, and eventually had to admit that I was just tired from my double shift and that I wouldn't be able to hang out with friends. In the evening, I told Zack we needed to stay in for the evening since I was so tired and we decided to put up Halloween decorations. That didn't take off very well either as I realized I didn't even have the energy to help with even the most basic things. By 9 or 10 on Monday night, it finally settled in that I wasn't just tired from my double shift. I was sick. So I got a blessing and hoped I could rest it out on Tuesday, my regular day off, and then be back at work on Wednesday. I probably slept 18 hours Tuesday, canceled a pre-arranged hang out with friends, and realized by early afternoon that I would not be going to work on Wednesday. I think I realized it was the flu on Wednesday, which was pretty similar to Tuesday. I had a temperature, cough/sore throat, stuffy and runny nose, chills, exhaustion, aches and pains, headaches, upset tummy, no appetite... you name it. And on and on it went. In the end, despite my resolve to absolutely go to work on Friday, I didn't make it. So here I am, an entire week later, still feeling it. I'm staring a morning at work in the face. I'm definitely going this time. I do feel better. Still not good but better. But it's weird how I kind of lost an entire week. It went by in a blur. A long, miserable blur. I barely ate anything. I didn't really see anyone, except my husband (who was amazing through all of this, by the way). Time just went on, as it is prone to do, and a whole week is gone. Weird.

An old lady

I mean me. I just celebrated my 26th birthday, and I'm feeling pretty darn old. My birthday was fun though. It just happened to fall on my regular day off. Oh yeah!

I didn't feel like doing anything too ambitious so we stuck with relaxing and low key. The night before, we got a light dinner and saw the movie Contagion, which we really liked. On my actual birthday, we went and checked out this little shopping center nearby that we'd never been to before. We went downtown for a while and snapped some pictures of various things and we went window shopping and enjoyed some touristy stuff. Finally, we drove out to the 'burbs and hit up the mall and a few other stores. Can you tell that I love shopping? In the evening, the Becks and Wadsworths came over for cake and games. The Becks even dressed baby Madeline up all in pink just for me. They are not big fans of pink but I sure am so that was sweet. On Friday, we went to dinner at the Melting Pot as a bit of a belated celebration. Yum yum. I guess getting older is alright if it means a celebration.

Here's some pictures

Betsy Ross House

Independence Hall under construction

The Liberty Bell

Oliver helping me blow out my candles

Anniversary

I have a little catching up to do.

For our anniversary, we decided to get away to Cape May, a darling little shore town on the southern tip of New Jersey. On our first evening there, we got to check out the fireworks in Wildwood while enjoying some funnel cake (yum).

We also rode the ferris wheel,

and Zack whomped me at a game of medieval themed glow in the dark mini golf. Good times.

The next day, we started our day with some shopping and a yummy lunch at a Cape May fish place.

After that, we went on a whale watching tour.

It was 3 hours. Unfortunately, all the action was basically packed into the first 45 minutes. We saw lots of dolphins,

but then we headed out into the ocean for a long way, and saw absolutely no whales. Boooo. Stupid whales. After that, we headed back to Wildwood to ride some more rides (3 roller coasters and a sky ride), and I beat Zack in glow in the dark 3D pirate themed mini golf.

Okay, so he actually did better than me, but I nailed the last hole and won a free game and the guy standing there also said that it took a certain number of strokes off my score. It turned out to be just enough to win! By that time, the day was winding down, so we headed back to the hotel. I had gotten so sunburned despite my ridiculous huge pink hat and sunblock applications. I looked ridiculous because I had the sunglasses marks around my eyes, where it didn't get burned. Thankfully, it faded quite fast and I didn't look so dumb even as early as the next morning.

The next day was our actual anniversary. We had been planning to sit on the beach that day, but it was a little overcast, and we weren't sure the weather would hold, so we decided to hit up a small zoo nearby instead. We had a great time.

Lion (we heard this guy growling like crazy for a little bit, which was pretty great)

Zebras (see 'em clear back there?)

Bear

Turtles

Cheetahs

After the zoo, we stopped at one of those Texas themed chain restaurants and we ate delicious fattening foods and watched a show about people doing way stupid things on motorcycles, bikes, skateboards, etc. Hee hee. At home, we swapped anniversary gifts. I got Zack a video game and he got me some new cases for my cell phone. All in all, a nice celebration of our 4 wonderful years together.

A random post

We are thrilled to be enjoying the fun time of year when lots of new people move into the ward. This year, we are lucky enough to get several couples who are in about the same stage of life as we are. We are really enjoying making some new friends. Last weekend, we got 4 couples together and headed down to the beach for a day of fun. And fun it was. We are also pleased that another couple that will be in our ward has moved into our building. Woo hoo!

I cannot believe August is almost over. Where did the summer go?

I am absolutely not wishing summer away, but I am excited for some upcoming events, including my birthday, our trip to Utah for Megan's wedding, and, of course, Halloween.

Speaking of Halloween, lots of stores are already selling stuff for the holiday, which means it's that time of year when I need to stay home, lock my doors, hide my credit card.

It's interesting how life can be so good and so difficult all at the same time. Have you ever felt like that? Sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed by the number of things that are uncertain, imperfect, or seem to be just not working out. But all the while, I know I am blessed with an awesome husband, a great home, fabulous friends, a job and steady income when so many are struggling. It makes me feel guilty for ever feeling bad about the way things go in life.

Fruit snacks will always hold a special place in my heart, but I think they are on the way out of my diet. I think they are at least 20% responsible for the spare tire around my waist.

Anyone tried out the crackle nail polish that seems to be popping up everywhere nowadays? I'm intrigued... but not convinced that it actually works.

I just finished reading The Help. Now I can go see the movie with my man and see what I think. Date night this week? Check. I highly recommend the book, if you haven't read it. And if you live nearby, you can borrow my copy if you want.

Can you tell I'm home alone while my hubs enjoys a man's night out with one of his buddies?

This one also came off my cell phone but I thought it deserved its own post because I think it's my favorite Oliver picture of all time. It was pouring rain and pretty cold but it was free cone day at Ben and Jerry's so we went with the Becks for some free ice cream. This is Oliver's "I'm cold" face. Everything about it is just so great... the face, the hat, the ice cream all over, the napkins tucked into his jacket.... Love it!

From my cell phone

I just uploaded the pictures from my phone onto my computer. Here is a random sampling of some of the photos that were on there. They were taken over the past several months.

Here's me taking a picture of Oliver pretending to take a picture of me.

Not really current events, but I got a kick out of it anyway.

The Haunted Mansion at Disneyworld in Florida.

A game of bowling on our most recent trip to Utah. Wow, we suck. And Zack whomped us.

A book I want to read.

Fountain show in Atlantic City

The Toms that I want

The mayor at the park during our ward party.

Isn't he the cutest little kid you've ever seen?

This is Oliver on the morning that his little sister Madeline was born. He stayed the night at our house while mom and dad were at the hospital. He just looked so cute.

A sign that a family member put on a hamper at work. I took a picture of it for Zack so that we could complain about all the grammatical and punctuation errors together. The name of the family has been covered for privacy reasons.

Chow time!

An awesome hat. I need one.

Zack holding baby Madeline.

I got into this itty bitty little space by parallel parking. Zack didn't even have to do it for me!

What you'll find in my pockets (or around my neck) during a day at work.

Hard to believe it's been 4 whole years. Happy anniversary to my fabulous husband.

Pittsburgh (A long post)

Since I worked the 4th of July, my job owed me a paid holiday, and that happened to fall on this weekend. Since I had a 3 day weekend, we decided to head out to Pittsburgh. We were planning on going later this fall with Zack's parents, but Zack's sister got engaged so we will be in Utah at that time instead (so exciting! Congrats to Megan and Jeff). Since we don't get to go then, we thought we'd check it out now.

The way out was a little rough. We left around traffic time anyway, and there were a couple of accidents on the freeway. That led to the worst traffic we have ever experienced. We were basically just stopped on the freeway for a long time. It took us over 2 hours to go the first 14 miles of our 300 mile trip. Yuck! We finally made it there several hours later than planned, but safe.

On Friday, it was hot hot hot and very humid, but we braved the weather anyway. We started the day with a walking tour that we downloaded onto our ipods. That was a good way to do it because we could go at our own (slow) pace and stop frequently to walk around an air conditioned store or to get a slurpee. We did see some cool and fun stuff.

This is the courthouse. It used to be a jail.

I just thought this building looked cool.

Zack with a triceratops ketchup bottle. Random? I think so.

This was me in the plaza near the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company building. In front of me was a big ol' skyscraper that looked very similar to the glass building behind me in the picture. I think it was my favorite Pittsburgh skyscraper-- not really very cute, but unique, and interesting as basically a giant advertisement. A glass company should have a giant glass skyscraper as a headquarters.

Zack in the eyeball park.

On our tour, we stopped at 2 side by side churches. Both had lovely stained glass windows. Here's one from the first church we went in.

Here's the tower to that church.

And a view of the outside.

Church #2's interior.

Cool stained glass.

There is a small cemetery between the churches, and there is a Native American chief who died in the 1700s buried there. Pretty cool.

Although the walking tour ended up taking longer than we planned because of the heat and our pace, we really enjoyed it.

Next we decided to go on a boat tour. Pittsburgh is where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to make the Ohio river, which made for a great little boat tour. We went on one of these (except ours was the Duchess).

Here's Zack with PNC Park, home of the Pirates.

This is a memorial to Mr. Rogers. Someone figured out how to put a red sweater on the statue, which depicts Mr. Rogers changing his shoes.

A skyline view from the boat

The Duquesne incline, which takes you up Mt. Washington.

After we got off the boat, we decided to go up the Monongahela Incline. We picked that one because it was right near where we caught the boat. Unfortunately it was not working. Here I am right by it. I was exhausted at that point.

So we decided to take a much needed break for some food.

After we ate, we thought we'd be all refreshed and ready for more, but heat like that sure takes a lot out of you, and I realized that I was going to need to rest for a while, so we headed back to the hotel and got there just in time to miss a pouring rainstorm. Here's a view from our hotel window. It's kind of hard to capture rain in a picture.

After a little r&r, we headed off to PNC Park for a Pirates game.

It's a cool park, right on the water, with a cool view of the skyline.

The game was perfect. A storm moved in and delayed it for about a half hour, but it also cooled it down to about 74 degrees. Still muggy, but much more bearable than before. The Pirates lost to the Cardinals, but it was a good game and we really had a great time.

The next day, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and since it was a long drive home, we didn't do a whole ton. But we were able to go up the Duquesne Incline.

In the car on the way up the incline. Pretty much sums up my mood.

After that, we hit up a shopping district known as The Strip. And finally, we got a famous Primanti Brothers sandwich. Your meat of choice on Italian bread with tomatoes, coleslaw, and french fries (all on the sandwich). I skipped the coleslaw since I hate it, but the sandwich was very good. We wish we could've stayed longer and seen more. Maybe next time.