Eastern Idaho State Fair

So, Brian and I went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair in Pocatello yesterday. I was put off by the high price to park and get in (spent $14 before we had even seen anything). But it was very fun! I enjoyed the free petting zoo, the science center, the art exhibits, the food and just the atmosphere. Brian and I were only there about 2 1/2 hours and I wish we could have stayed longer but I was a little tired of walking around. If we could ride carnival rides that would have been way fun but although I need the baby to turn out of the posterior position, I don't think my doctor would have been happy to know I got on a ride let alone if anyone would let me on being so obviously pregnant. Of course Brian found the hut where they had XBox games hooked up and we had to play a few songs of RockBand. But overall, it was really fun. And I think I may have escaped being sun burnt.

Another Tag

Kristin tagged me so here it is!

1. Where is your cell phone? probably in my purse, I don't know...
2. Your significant other? Brian- I thought this question was asking where is your significant other...
3. Your hair? Messy at the moment- wavy because it is permed but tangled because I don't take the time to style it.
4. Your favorite thing? Right now it is sleep!
5. Your dream last night? Sorting through baby clothes and fighting anyone who tried to grab what I wanted.
6. Your favorite drink? Water and then Sprite!
7. Your dream/goal? To learn all I can
8. The room you're in? Office- soon to be baby's room!
9. Your hobby? Drawing, scrapbooking and playing games
10. Your fear? Spiders and SIDS
11. Where do you want to be in 6 years? at least 3 kids and maybe done with my Master's
12. Where were you last night? At the Wanstrom's
13. What you're not? quiet
14. Muffins? Blueberry definitely
15. One of your wish list items? New kitchen table
16. Where you grew up? Shreveport, LA
17. The last thing you did? Ate breakfast
18. What are you wearing? oops, should have got dressed before writing this....
19. Your TV? mainly for video games and movies as we have no cable
20. Your pets? Tony the tortoise who is 8 years old.
21. Your computer? Dell
22. Your life? Quaint, peaceful and happy
23. Your mood? Still sleepy
24. Missing someone? No, not really
25. Your car? Toyota Corolla
26. Something you're not wearing? there's a lot, a shirt?
27. Favorite store? JCPenny
28. Your summer? hot as in I was dying
29. Your favorite color? Cerulean blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? This morning
31. Last time you cried? 2 days ago, watching Lady in the Water- sad I know.

3rd Anniversary

So, Brian and I celebrated our 3-year anniversary on August 20th. Since it was in the middle of the week, we waited until Friday night to really celebrate. We first ate out at Olive Garden in Idaho Falls and then we stayed at the Black Swan Inn in Pocatello. We stayed in the Egyptian suite. It was really nice! As you can see there was a jacuzzi bath tub, a gorgeous shower, amazing
statues and there was a big screen TV that you could watch from the lofted bed on the second story. Brian and I really enjoyed it because we haven't been in such a nice hotel room since our Honeymoon. We also stopped by a friend's, the Holts, in Chubbuck on our way back. We hadn't seen them in 4 months so that was a good visit!

I can honestly say I love Brian so much more today than I did when we were married! It has been a terrific 3 years!

A Tag

So I got tagged from Kristin to talk about myself a bit.

4 Jobs I have had:
1. Teacher for Fremont School District at the Five County Detention Center for Juveniles
2. Part-time Math teacher at BYU-Idaho (for one crazy semester)
3. Title 1 Aide for South Fremont High School
4. Team Out-bound Sales at Artco selling Christmas cards.... in the middle of the summer!

4 Movies I have watched more than once:
1. All the Pixar movies lately, Finding Nemo, Incredibles, etc.
2. V for Vendetta
3. Star Wars
4. Spider-Man

4 Places I have lived:
1. Arizona
2. Rexburg
3. Louisiana
4. Nevada

4 TV shows I watch:
1. Lost
2. Deal or No Deal
3. Are you smarter than a 5h grader?
4. What not to wear ( All of these shows I watched when I had cable)

4 Places I have been:
1. Disney Land!
2. Berlin, Germany - I was born there
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Birmingham, AL

4 People who text me regularly:
1. Brian (my husband)
2. Verizon Wireless (hahaha)
3. nobody
4. nobody but that's okay, I don;t have a text-messaging plan so it would cost me too much.

4 of my favorite foods:
1. Shrimp
2. Chocolate
3. Cheese
4. Bread

4 Places I would like to visit:
1. China
2. Ireland
3. Japan
4. Disney World

4 Things I am looking forward to in the coming year:
1. My new baby!
2. Brian getting a real job with great pay! (Our definition of great will probably change)
3. Seeing if our business will pick up
4. The holidays

4 Friends I am tagging:
1. Ashley
2. Christina
3. Amy
4. Kymry

Promoting the Business

So, Brian and I made arrangements with Broulim's to set up our "shop" outside their doors and see if we could sell some of our games. All we got to show for it so far are some sunburns. But we did talk to several people that seemed interested and we were able to pass out a lot of our business cards so maybe this was mainly good advertisement. We shall see.

Friends Over

So our friends Amy and Morgan Walker spent the night at our place on Friday night. It was the first time EVER that Brian and I have had friends stay the night so we were more than happy to accommodate them. We wish they could have stayed longer but they had to get back to Twin Falls the next day and we had our business to promote on Saturday.

Thanks for staying with us! We hope to see you again soon!

Brian's cellphone mishap

Well, I realized I forgot to tell this crazy story about Brian's cellphone.
I felt a timeline would work best here so you could follow along better.

Friday, July 25th- That evening, Brian realizes he cannot find his cellphone. He believes he left it at work.
Saturday, July 26th- Brian goes into his work and looks around his office. He still cannot find his cellphone.
Sunday, July 27th- Brian calls his voicemail using my cellphone and finds that he has 3 messages from the police department wanting to speak to him about text messages he sent. I check our cellphone account online and find that, sure enough, 10 text messages were sent and 9 received all on Saturday, July 26th. Someone had found Brian's phone and used it to send obscene messages to some girl in Pocatello. Brian reported his phone as stolen and had to activate an old phone of his mom's to use.
Crazy, true story!

Tuck's Media

Brian has wanted to start a books-games-movies store called Tuck's Media for a long time. Well, the business took its first step this past week. We purchased a business license (only $10 for 1/2 the year) and we made our first purchase of 20 board games we hope to sell and make a slight profit from. We hope to entice buyers by the fact that we can't charge tax, they won't have to pay shipping, and we are selling the games for a few dollars below retail price. We created a blog for our store: http://tucksmedia.blogspot.com and we hope to set up a table in front of Broulim's one of these weekends coming up and see how we do! It might not be the most opportune time with the break between the semesters and all but we still think we could be successful. Wish us luck!

iPod Nano proves resilient

So, Brian left our iPod in his jean pocket and did the laundry yesterday. The poor machine got washed! However, after several hours of being plugged in and drying out, the machine still works! It is amazing! I cannot believe it!

I told him this means he can't hold it against me anymore that I have washed his wallet about 5 times since we've been married.

Baby Shower Pictures

So, the baby shower went great! Everyone was so thoughtful and I got a lot of great gifts!

Here are some photos of me opening presents and the guests that were there.

I also asked my guests to help me make letters that will hang in the baby's room. This is how they turned out!

Thanks to everyone who came and especially to Christina and Cindy for hosting it! It went so well!

Baby Shower!

So, I will be having a baby shower on July 29th. Consider this an invitation to all those who I did not send one to because I know you are too far away to make it. I know you wish you could be there. I will put another post on after the shower to show pictures from it.

30 weeks and counting!

I don't like this picture very much but I thought I should post something that shows how big I am getting.

10 more weeks! I still feel relatively fine. It is very hot and we don't have air conditioning so I sleep with a light blanket on. My feet and hands are swelling a bit but it is really not unbearable. The baby is still moving around a lot and I think she becomes more active when Brian talks to her. He is trying to send subliminal messages but I know she will be on my side :) I only have 4 more weeks at work. I am excited to be done but nervous about what I am going to do with all my free time. I think I might go crazy. Any suggestions?

Winger's Benefactors

So, Brian and I went to Winger's to use his $5 off certificate for his birthday. His birthday is on July 14th. Anways, right as our waitress brings the bill, she says that she can't tell us who but someone has paid our bill. Brian and I look all around us and we don't see anyone we know. We wrote a thank you note and asked the waitress to give it to our nice friends. It was really cool. Brian and I couldn't stop smiling. It was such a nice thing.

4th of July

For the 4th of July, Brian and I went to Swan Valley and checked out the waterfalls and then this hiking trail at some camp grounds. Next to the hiking trail was this creek where we found fish with peculiar behavior. These trout are trying to jump back up this little waterfall and get back upstream. We sat and watched them for about 30 minutes and they were not giving up!

Brian shot some videos. You might here our commentaries.

I think this fish is going to have a headache.

Baby Dress

Well, I have been trying to find something to post because we have no news! So, I thought I would post how my grandmother is beginning to work on the baby blessing dress. We have picked out this pattern.

Of course, we are not using gold fabric and I think the collar is hideous and so I asked my grandmother to not make the collar but I think it will come out well. I like the ribbon on the sleeves and I really think that it is pretty. 3 months until she gets here! I am very anxious to start my 3rd trimester as I have heard it is the most uncomfortable 1/3 of the pregnancy. I would like to be quite fortunate as I have been with the other trimesters but that would be asking too much.



On another note, Brian will begin his job on July 21st. It makes $2 more an hour than his current part-time job which is not thrilling to me, but we are attempting to budget ourselves tightly these next couple of months and save a lot and see what we can find with housing in Idaho Falls. RentMaster has just purchased the property we currently rent and we hope to be able to squeeze out of the property easily.

I found out just this past week that almost a month ago, the company I had been working with to teach English lessons online to students in China closed down. Nobody told me! It had been extremely slow the last few months anyway. So, I am trying to find a way to teach English with another company. I have applied at one that pays almost twice as much as the one I used to work with! Man, it would have been great to have known about this place sooner! So, cross your fingers that they will have me!

Brian's Job

So, Brian has accepted a job with NorthWest Cosmetics Lab in Idaho Falls, ID. It will be a full-time job and though Brian is not quite sure about the other details (benefits, exact salary, exact job responsibilities, etc.), he is certain that the job will pertain to his major as our friend, Mark Sunderland, who graduated with the same major that Brian has, is the one who got Brian this job. Brian is very excited and I... I have mixed feelings.
For one, I am very glad that Brian will have a full-time job considering I will be ending my full-time job soon. Also, Brian has plenty of time for a full-time job once this school semester ends because he will only be taking 6 credits in the Fall and we are not getting any Pell grant :) But, I was hoping we would get out of Idaho and so getting this job tells me that there is a good chance we will be in Idaho next summer. But, Brian will be actively looking for employment all over the United States and so I am very hopeful this is just a transition time.
With the job being in Idaho and Brian taking only 2 courses this fall with only 1 of those actually on campus, I have begun to think about the possibility of moving to Idaho Falls. Yes, we did just move in April but it makes sense to be closer to the place you go to more often where for this full-time job would be Idaho Falls. Plus, after August 15th, I will no longer be travelling to St. Anthony. So, it makes sense. We'll keep you posted.
So, I just want to say congratulations to my Brian for finding a full-time job that will support his family! He should start the job in mid-July after the summer semester ends.

24 weeks

So here's my 24 weeks shot.

Brian felt the picture did not show how big I really am. Good.

Baby Girl!

The doctor says it's a baby girl!

This is my 19-week picture. I can't believe I am showing!

Baby Stuff

So, I know we may be crazy but we went ahead and bought a crib. It's what we spent our economic stimulus on (of course we still have some left over. We didn't spend THAT much on a crib.) It's really exciting having it up though, it makes the reality of the baby hit harder. We made a few scuffs into the finish as we assembled it and so that evening I had a horrible dream that we were moving and scuffed tons of finish off of it. It looked so bad, as if it was so old and just a piece of trash. Not that I treasure worldly things but I love that the crib is beautiful.

Brian and I have been bouncing around names and I am leaning towards Sydney. It's my second choice because Brian doesn't like my 1st choice which is Alexis or Lexee. But, I still really like it. I think it is growing on Brian.

With the baby coming I will be leaving my job in August. I am counting down the days! Not that my job is horrible, it just gets tiring having to make all of these decisions, trying to stay consistent and firm from student to student. It also can be hard work trying to stay one step ahead of the kids. Plus, I will miss the ego boost my job gives me. That's really why teachers teach. They like the feeling of control, the feeling of knowledge they know they contain and the expression of shock and awe when they can impress the kids with their knowledge. I know it sounds shallow but I have discovered that about myself. I do love to see the kids succeed at math still. I love to see them set higher goals for themselves and see them taking interest in post-secondary education even when they seem discouraged or think they will not be able to afford college once they leave our facility. I like expecting more from them than I know that teachers in regular public schools probably ever did. So don't get me wrong, I have several motives and although some of them may not be considered the best reasons, they're mine and they keep me happy.

Half-Mother's Day

Brian told me that I am only a "half-mother". I don't mind. I think everyday should be a Mother Appreciation Day and as I have got older I have become disillusioned by the "commercialism" of every holiday and wonder at the true purpose. Not that I didn't do something for my mother this year but that I don't mind all too much if I don't get something and I think I will only do flowers or gifts every now and then for my mom and just make sure to get a card.

Friday was my 20-week mark and so I called it the Hump Day of my pregnancy! I told all the students at my work about my pregnancy and they were all excited. I got a ton of questions about it and even one of the boys said he would like to see ultrasound pictures when I get them. I thought that was pretty nice. Apparently a few of the students said they "knew" and were working up the nerve to ask me. So, I've accepted that I am showing.

Well, Happy Mother's Day to all women with caring and nurturing hearts!