Last week Dave and I hopped in the car and drove down to San Diego for a glorious week of vacation. We have put in a lot of time and effort into school/work for the past two months and really enjoyed taking some time off to have fun and see family.
On our first day in California we went to Sea World. I hadn't been to Sea World in 15 years and was surprised by how much fun it was - the park is a great blend of rides, shows, and fun animals.
My parade float pose on the log flume ride
The Shamu Show
The river raft ride - I've been on several versions of this ride, but never one this wet. Every single person was completely soaked by the end, including the iPhone that tried to hide inside a shirt
Dave's penguin walk after the raft ride - we were all a bit soggy for the rest of the day
And while part of the family was doing this....
... my mom and I jostled with the little kids on the wall for a a chance to pet a dolphin.
You'd think after four years of looking forward to this day I would have come up with a creative way to share our big news, but I didn't; so I'll just skip right to it and say that Dave and I are excited to announce that Baby Howe is finally on the way! Hooray!
We are scheduled to find out the gender at the beginning of November, and are due around March 22, 2013. So far everything is going great! I am relieved to be feeling a bit more energetic now that I'm in the second trimester, although I did take a 2 hour nap on the couch tonight, and most of the nausea has passed. Luckily the emergency sickness bag I stashed in the car has only been needed once so far. Phew!
We are both thankful for all the thoughts and prayers from family and friends over the past four years. We are looking forward our future as a family of three, and will be sure to keep you all updated during this exciting time in our lives!
I am currently 17 weeks along and Baby Howe is about the size of an avocado, which feels both huge and tiny to me at the same time. We both have a lot of growing to do...
On Sunday my little brother turned 20! He is currently serving a mission in Brazil, but we had a family party in his honor. Our little apartment is not used to hosting so many people, and Nat and Brodie ended up eating on the couch. It was so fun to see everyone and a great excuse to get together and eat some cake!
Our new apartment complex is located across the street from a golf course. We brought our clubs with us from Washington and always say "sometime we should go golfing", and on Saturday evening we finally did! We had so much fun and hope to go again before it starts to get too cold.
We are definitely amateurs, but getting better. Dave is working on learning how to use a driver and hit straight (he only had to yell "fore" once when we went). I am trying to be more consistent with my swing - about half my shots are great, and the other half go 10 feet. I think we are both slowly improving, and hopefully with practice, we won't embarrass ourselves if we ever go golfing with people that actually know what they're doing.
I looked back, and I am wearing BYU gear in three of the last four posts. I guess you can tell which team I support!
When Dave got accepted to the University of Utah, we always thought that with time we might become Utah fans, but now I don't think that will ever happen. All our love is for BYU, although it was tough to love them after the Boise State game. Ugh. My heart hurt for a few days after that.
On Friday we got tickets to the game against Hawaii (thanks grandma!) It was a beautiful night and BYU played great. It was nice to finally see us score a touchdown, or two, or seven :)
Almost as entertaining as the game, however, was the woman in front of us. She had a churro and would first lick every groove, then suck on the churro like a popsicle, then bite off the end, and then lick the paper. It was very thorough, methodical, and strange...
Last week I had one of those days at work.... the kind where when I get home it takes me several minutse to tell Dave everything that happened because so many things had happened (most of them bad). It started off like any other day, but by the time I went home I had dealt with kids that:
Were sick with the stomach flu (my personal favorite)
Were sick with strep throat
Were sick with pink eye
Needed a change of clothes because they fell at recess and soaked every piece of clothing they were wearing
Needed a change of clothes because they dumped lasagna in their lap at lunch
Needed a change of clothes because their pants ripped not in the back, and not in the legs, but in the front, you know where (the poor boy was so embarrased to tell me this)
Needed a change of clothes because they didn't make it to the bathroom in time (the poor girl was not at all embarrased to tell me this)
Needed a change of clothes because they got a massive bloody nose at recess
Did not want to go to class and tried to camp out in the office because they were "injured"
Were sad because of a lost butterfly hair clip with pink sparkles
Got checked out early for one of the illnesses listed above, but mom did not tell dad, and dad flew off the handle because he could not find his daughter after school and thought we had lost her
You get the idea...
And then while I was out handling one of the problems, one of our student's left this sweet note at my desk:
It reminded me that I am lucky to work at such an amazing school, and that I do love my job, and the kids, and most of the parents (there are some people in this world that still need to learn how to be a grown up).
It's been awhile since the last update (oops), and it's not because we haven't been up to anything. We've actually done a lot of fun stuff over the past two weeks, but all our spare time has been spent watching seasons 1 & 2 of Downton Abbey. Who knew life in World War I era England could be engrossing?? Oh the drama. Dave and I are now eagerly waiting for January and the start of season 3.
Now that I am playing blogging catch-up, there should be a post everyday for the next seven days! First up is orienteering at Brighton a couple weekends ago. We've been orienteering several times now - it's a geeky hobby of ours :) This time was different, however, because it was at a ski resort instead of a park, which added a lot more elevation, rocks, trees, brush, and leg scratches. It was pretty much like speed hiking without a trail, and by the time we finished I was seriously regretting not wearing long socks.
We completed the course in about 50 minutes, which was 4th place for the day - not too bad!!
So I started this post last weekend, and then never actually posted... I'd blame it on being busy, but we really haven't been up to much this past week other than watching past seasons of Amazing Race that we got from the library. We really love that show :) Anyway, on to the post:
Last weekend we went to Antelope Island with my sister Amy and her family, and my sister Natalie and Brodie. There wasn't anything super awesome about Antelope Island, but we filled the day with lots of little fun things and had a great time! There were dark clouds and thunder in the distance almost the whole time we were there, but the rain held off until right as we were packing to go home.
Buffalo Roaming (there are herds on the island)
Buffalo on a Burger (sad to think this buffalo used to be roaming, but Dave said it was delicious)
There was a little festival going on while we were there and we each chipped in a few bucks to have my sister Natalie ride the mechanical bull. She did great! The teenage boy that went after her only stayed on for about 10 seconds. Go Nat!
Wading in the Great Salt Lake (5x saltier than the ocean) - they say you can float really good in the Salt Lake, but none of us felt like lying down in this water
With our niece Anne. Dave was her person of choice for wading and throwing rocks in the water - he stayed out with her for a long time. I went back to shore and played frisbee and bocce ball with the others on the beach.
Dave is officially a Ute! He started his business PhD program at the University of Utah this week and so far everything is going great. For the first year of his program he will be doing coursework, assisting a couple different professors with research projects, and T.A.-ing a class. He was also excited to find out that all first year PhD students will be receiving iPads from the university!
Dave has been taking trax to campus from a park-n-ride near our house, which has worked out really well so far. This Saturday I went down to campus with him to deliver a mini fridge and a microwave to his office that he shares with one other student. We walked around campus a bit and he showed me where some of his classes are. I have to say that after BYU, everything was a little red for my taste...
Last weekend our niece Anne came to stay with us for two nights while my sister moved back into her Provo apartment after being gone for the summer. Anne is always thrilled to see Dave, and it's not hard to see why - he just makes everything fun. One of the highlights of her stay was a trip down to the "tiny pool" at our complex for a little swimming.
Swimming round and round
Playing "Save Dave" - she would repeatedly push his head under the water and then pull him up for a breath by his hair
Still smiling even after accidentally going all the way under
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