Time Out for Women

Last weekend was a much-enjoyed break and chance to hang out with my family. I flew solo to Portland to go to "Time Out for Women" - it's basically a traveling conference Deseret Book does like the women's conference they do at BYU, but just for a weekend. I stayed at my sister Jessica's house, and my parents came up from Ashland, my sister-in-law Stacey and niece Kallie from San Jose, and my aunt Karen from Washington. We spent plenty of time shopping (for me it was mostly for maternity clothes - I was much more successful this time), playing with the kids, relaxing, and enjoying the speakers at the conference.

Playing with Kallie

I think one of my favorite messages (or at least one that I remember the best) was from Mary Ellen Edmunds. She talked about becoming a peacemaker, and about how often our natural reaction is not the peacemaker reaction, but how we can be better peacemakers by controlling our reactions to what happens to us. She gave hilarious examples - the one I liked best was her example of what her natural reaction was when someone cuts her off or something on the freeway - she wishes she had a little button in her car that would send spikes into their tires, then pull them back so it doesn't leave any evidence. Anyway, for the most part it was an entertaining and motivating conference.

With our matching "Time Out for Women" Bags

I was even spoiled with my mom's homemade lasagna on my birthday on Saturday, and marionberry pie courtesy of my sister Jessica. Yum! Thanks for a great weekend!

Landon giving me my 28 bday kisses

That was on top of the great dinner and dessert we had with Nate's family last week. Nate originally thought he was off the hook for my birthday since I would be in Portland for it, but fortunately I was able to convince him otherwise and he gave me a gift before I left, and surprised me with another one when I got back. He seemed to feel the need to be creative with his "wrapping" since we were out of wrapping paper. He gave me a jewelry set before I left, and disguised it by wrapping it in Morris fashion inside several layers of boxes, with miscellaneous items in each box (i.e. some of my shoes in the biggest one, some of the baby clothes we have in the next one, etc.).

And...the wrapping job when I came home (I was a little disappointed when I took off the "wrapping paper" and saw the centerpiece pitcher that's always on the table - I thought maybe he hadn't actually gotten me anything):



Thanks for the presents Nate, and for letting me leave you for the weekend!

Shaq Attack

A couple of weeks ago, a guy who works for the marketing / advertising agency that Nate's work uses said they had tickets to the Jazz game, so Nate and I went with him and his wife. It was fun to meet them - and for Nate to get to know him better outside of work. It was interesting for me to be the "client" - usually at work it's the opposite for me.

The Jazz played against the Phoenix Suns, so we got to see Shaq (and Steve Nash, but to be honest, I didn't know who he was until Nate told me). I had kind of known this before, but Shaq is huge! We just had Nate's blackberry with us, so the pictures aren't great, but here are our shots.

The jazz lost, but one of the highlights of the game (at least for me) was when we saw Nate's friend, who lives in Boston, walk in partway through the game and sit down in the section next to us. He got a really confused look on his face when Nate sent him a text message that just said "Go Jazz", so Nate decided to have a little more fun and took a picture of his friend with his phone, and sent it to him. It was pretty funny to watch his reaction when he got the email with the picture of himself - he looked confused for a minute, then smiled and started looking around trying to find us.

The Results Are In...It's a ....

Boy!! You're all wrong! (except the 5 of you who voted for a boy). The radiologist didn't seem to have much doubt. We are very excited about the little guy, and happy to know it's a boy so we can start planning! Everything else on the ultrasound looked good too - she showed us the spine, the heart, the kidneys, the stomach, the femur, the two halves of the brain, and a bunch of other stuff I probably didn't catch :) Everything looked normal - and actually a little bigger than normal. Based on how big the baby is, my due date would be a little more than 2 weeks earlier than my current due date. We'll see what the doctor says at my next appointment, and if he moves the due date. If not, I just have a big baby, which wouldn't be totally surprising considering my family's history! Any name suggestions? We have some we like, but none really jumping out at us yet.

And for anyone who wants one, here's a little update on my belly. This was just over a week ago. FYI, I don't wear the same clothes all the time - I just try and wear the same ones for the pictures so it's easier to see the changes.

Visit from the Malans & General Conference

Last week, my brother-in-law Shane came to Utah to do some recruiting for his company at BYU, and instead of flying out, he drove and brought the whole family. They stayed with Shane's family for a lot of the week they were here, but we were lucky enough to have them stay with us for a couple of days. I played hooky from work (since it is hard to find chances to use my vacation days and they are accumulating) on Wednesday and Thursday, which was great. Jessica and I (and Landon and Davis) went down to BYU campus on Wednesday, then on Thursday we drove up Provo Canyon and met a couple of our friends and their kids. The canyon was beautiful with all the leaves changing! It was fun to catch up and see how much their kids have grown.

We spent most of the weekend watching / listening to General Conference. We watched both Saturday sessions at home, then Nate went to the Priesthood Session with his dad and brothers, while I went up to Ogden and hung out with Jessica. We went shopping while Shane's mom watched her kids. It was so fun to spend a few days with them! Portland is too far away - I wish we lived closer to each other.

On Sunday, we were able to go up to the Conference Center for the Sunday afternoon session. We got up there pretty early, so we had the chance to walk around temple square for a while before the session started. Considering the view out our back window when we woke up that morning (see pic at left), we thought it would be cold and rainy, but it was actually great weather outside. General conference was great, as always - it's always especially meaningful to be there in person with the prophet and the apostles.

Stay tuned for the results of the ultrasound today!