Playing with Friends, All Week Long!

I really should be writing more often. Everyday Brooke does something funny or cute, and if I don't write them down pretty soon after they happen, I forget them!

This has been a busy week for us, it seems. Let's see:

Monday was a pretty cool day, for it being August. Brooke and I took a walk in the morning and then met up with some people from the ward at Circle J Ranch Park when we were done. I'm glad that it's been cooler in the mornings lately. It means that I can open the windows and let fresh air in to cool the house before it starts getting hot. And, it also means that Brooke and I can take walks for my workouts again and go to the park. She loves the park, and I love to take her so she can be outside, run around and tire herself out for a nap. :)

After nap that day, we played up in the loft, like usual. Brooke was putting all of her animals (and Dolly, of course) down for naps in her crib. She took them one by one and shoved them through the slats in her crib. When I took her to bed that night, I had to pull half a dozen animals (and Dolly, of course) out of her crib. It was so funny!

That evening, we went to the Butler's house for dinner. They had invited us and the Halls (Daniel used to be Assistant Mission Leader under Brother Hall until recently; now he teaches the 11 year olds in Primary) for dinner. It was nice to visit with them, and the Butlers had a bunch of toys that Brooke found thrilling. She pulled out a broom and started "sweeping" their kitchen floor. I found it adorable.

Tuesday was piano lesson day, which meant that Brooke got to go play with Blake and Brooklyn in the afternoon. Also, that night was a Relief Society temple trip; so Denae Garrison, Nicole Faucete, and I left our kids at the Faucette's house with a babysitter so that we could all go. The boys were staying late at the office for some Fantasy Football kickoff thing (not exactly sure). Daniel said that Brooke was having so much fun when he went to pick her up and take her home. I'm sure she loved being with so many kids and playing with them.

I rode down to the temple with a few other women. It was so nice going to the temple with people that I know. And it's been a while since I have been to the temple. While in the temple, towards the end of the session, I felt an overwhelming appreciation for the Savior. I was just thinking about His life and how everything that He did was for other people. He didn't do anything for Himself. The Atonement was the supremest act of unselfishness, and there is no way I can repay Him for what He did for me! Like King Benjamin said, whenever I do what the Lord asks me to do, to show my love and appreciation, He immediately blesses me for being obedient, and I am again in His debt. It was a very humbling thought process I had in the temple.

I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, my first with a real doctor (Inna was a nurse practitioner; I really liked her a lot, but she obviously can't deliver my baby, so I am starting to see the doctors). I dropped Brooke off at the Garrison's to play while I went. I waited for an hour, saw the doc for all of 5 minutes, and then left. I truly hate going to see doctors. When I saw Inna, I got called in almost immediately after I got there, and then she came in only a few minutes after I was left alone in the room. My appointments took less than a half hour, usually. What is it about seeing actual doctors that you have to sit and wait and wait and wait, and then they finally come in and see you for a few minutes? From the time I got there, to the time I left, it was almost an hour and a half! It's so irritating, and I get all frazzled about it. I also felt bad, because I said I wouldn't be that long, and I knew Denae had plans with her boys.

Anyway ... Brooke and I ran a couple of errands before picking up Daniel. We fed her, put her to bed, Daniel went upstairs to work some more (fall busy season has started...), and I went downstairs to make dinner and clean up the house a bit. We had the LaRue's, our neighbors, over for dinner. They brought their little baby twins (so cute!), and we ate homemade pizza and talked all night. It was fun!

Lucy came over to play on Thursday morning so that her mom could work on their house without distraction. Allison's mom came from Canada to help her again, now that school is back in session. They still have a lot of work on their house. The little girls love to play with each other, though! They were being so cute and funny, chasing each other around the house and screaming. During lunch, they had a fit of giggles for, like, 5 minutes, just looking at each other and laughing. I think they were making silly noises with their lips. It was so funny!

That night, I met up with some girls in the ward to celebrate Denae's birthday for a bit, and then rushed off to a presidency meeting. I was in kind of a funky mood that night. I had fun with the girls, but then we talked during our meeting about some of the things the sisters in our RS are struggling with, and I just got so sad. I felt overcome with sadness about the kinds of lives that some people live, and it's not always hard because of their choices, but because of someone else's bad choices or even unforeseen circumstances. I went home, and prayed and cried. I am so blessed in my life, and I wish there was more I could do for some of the people I know, who have it hard.

Brooke and I went on another long walk and to the park on Friday morning. It wasn't as cool as on Monday, but that's okay. I've been watching the weather. On cool days, we can go to the park, and on hot days, we go to the pool. :) I think we've passed the worst of summer, so now it's possible to do both. That afternoon, we did the pool, too, though. I had invited some girls to come swim with us. Emilee Map and Daisy were the only ones who came; but we had lots of fun with them! Daisy is such a cute little girl, and I think Brooke likes to play with her too. I loved how this week, for various reasons, Brooke had someone else to play with everyday. I hope we can have more weeks like this!

Brooke has been eating more veggies lately, of her own free will and volition! I've been trying to have a wider variety of things for her to eat for each meal, and I think that helps for some reason. So, for her lunch, I could do some tofu, green beans, rice, soy yogurt, and tomatoes, and she'll clean her plate up pretty well, without too much prompting from me. Even the veggies! I'm sure not everyday will be like that, but this week, at least the last part of this week, has been pretty good! I'm proud of her!

She's also been really into her blocks the past few days. When we play upstairs, she likes to use the old linking blocks that Mom gave her and build things. She did an airplane, a train and a crane. None of them really looked like what she was building, of course. But I'm glad she's being creative and using her imagination. And she's getting pretty good at putting those blocks together.

I am 33 weeks along now, and feeling quite big. I'm not swollen yet, though, which is a good thing. I think once I got swollen last time, when I was preg with Brooke, that was the point at which I wanted to be done. It's pretty uncomfortable being swollen everywhere! I worked out a bit more this week, trying to recover from our trip to Medford. I'm getting more excited and more anxious, the further along I get. There are still several projects I want to complete before she comes. And I still need to wash clothes and blankets and things. But I'm getting really excited to meet our new little girl! I'm a little sick, just with a cold. I started feeling it coming on on Friday, and I'm currently missing church so that I don't infect people.

Yesterday Daniel worked most of the day, so it was just me and Brooke. We all went to a baptism as a family. Salvador, our new friend, got baptized. He's come to our house a few times, for lessons and dinners. Daniel performed his baptism, and I played the piano. Brooke was none too thrilled to be there, and about halfway through, she started asking to go home. But it was nice.

Brooke and I played in the afternoon, after nap (I worked on sewing my plaid shirt while she slept ... getting close!), and made banana muffins. Delish! She took a LONG bath yesterday afternoon, before dinner and bed. She was in there for almost an hour, but she was having so much fun. She played with her toys and swam around in the water and splashed.

I watched movies while I cleaned up the kitchen and made Veg Jambalaya for dinner. And while I waited for it to finish cooking, I put my feet up and watched movies some more. I'm afraid of getting all swollen, so I'm trying to be a bit more careful, now that I'm so far along.

Having fun with Lucy

She loves wearing Mamma's shoes

Brooke found Dadda's goggles yesterday :)

Looking so pretty in her Sunday dress! <3

"Mommy, Dinosaur!"

Yesterday, as a little post-birthday activity, we took Brooke to the LA Zoo. We had been meaning to go to the zoo for some time, but it's been hot, we've been taking shorts vacations this summer, etc. I thought it might be a nice thing to do together as a sort of celebration of Brooke's birthday.

We got up and ready quite leisurely yesterday morning and left around 10:30. The Zoo opens at 10am, so I felt we weren't very behind schedule. :) And it didn't take long to get there. We bought a year zoo membership for our family, with plans for Brooke, Baby and I (at least) to go back over the next year. I think it will be a fun thing for us to do during busy season, to break up the days a little.

It was a pretty nice day to go to the zoo. It was hot (obviously, it is still August in LA); but not unbearably so. We saw a lot of animals. Not as many as we were hoping; there were a lot of animals hiding or napping, or in weird spots, making it hard to see them. But I think we saw all the important ones, or at least, the ones I like to see: elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas, giraffes, zebras, lions (they were napping, so kind of boring), monkeys, and lots of cool different birds. Brooke really thought something of those flamingos, and also the seals. The seals were right at the entrance of the zoo, after walking in. And we stopped to watch. They were swimming in circles in their tank, and kept swimming right up to the glass. It was fun to watch, and Brooke kept talking about it for a while after we saw them. We did get to see a bear and a tiger, but they were both sleeping, and way in the back of their enclosure, so it was hard to see them. Daniel and I both thought it was weird and kind of sad that both of those animals, and some others, were the only ones in the enclosures. We kind of thought they needed to have some buddies. Poor things!

We brought a simple little picnic lunch and stopped at a little playground park area to have our lunch. I had put Brooke and myself in little dresses, because I knew it would be hot and dresses are cooler. But Brooke's dress was pink and orange and green and yellow plaid, very bright. And the bees loved her! Poor little thing! While we were eating lunch, a bee came up to her and started buzzing around her, sniffing her, and such. It landed on her nose and started crawling around her face! We kept telling her not to touch it and to let the bees do their own thing; but how does a 2 year old understand that? Especially when she can touch most anything else? She was so cute!

We stayed at the zoo for a few hours, and then Brooke was pretty well done, and my feet were pretty tired. Daniel went out to get the car and cool it off for us while Brooke and I took one last look at the seals. And we drove home.

Just having a fishy cracker break!

On the way, we stopped at Lowe's to get a ceiling fan. One of Daniel's projects for Brooke's room that he really wants to get done is to put a ceiling fan/light in that bedroom. Not one of the 2 kids rooms has any light fixtures in it, which drives us nuts. We have a lamp that hooks up to a light switch in Baby's room (where Brooke is now), but we need something for Brooke's room for when we move her in there. It's funny how both Daniel and I have different projects we want to do for Brooke's room; mine are more frilly and on the decorating side of things; Daniel's are more about the function of the room. Good thing we balance each other out so well!

After getting Brooke cleaned up, feeding her, and putting her to bed, Daniel and I had the Palao Moreno's over for dinner. They brought ALL the food. I made a salad to contribute, and we didn't need it. And we had leftover cake for dessert, but they'd even brought dessert! He made Paella, and OH MYLANTA it was so good! He's from Spain, so he really knows how it's done. She made a delicious Greek salad, and they brought a fruit salad for dessert, perfect for my fruit-loving husband. We played a game with them, one they taught us but is really similar to 7's, and then they went home. And we vegged out and watch "Mighty Ducks" on Netflix.

Church was a bit busy for me today. I played the organ for Sacrament meeting, and was completely off my game. I think I need a little lesson in being humble. I completely butchered the opening hymn, and played way too loud, so all of my flaws were noticeable. The rest of it was a better, but not by much.

I usually go sit with my family during talks, which I did at first. We had Salvador and his son, Antonio, who are investigating the church and have been to our house a couple of times, sit next to us in Sacrament meeting. I had lots of people to crawl over to take a seat. So, after the intermediate hymn, I decided to stay on the stand. Brooke was clearly expecting me to come sit with them again, because once I took a seat on the stand, she looked up and started saying, "Mommy! Mommy!" I smiled and waved at her, but she kept calling, despite Daniel's efforts to quiet her. Then, she picked up her toy dinosaur, and shouted, "Mommy, Dinosaur!" Like, "Look, my dinosaur! Cool, huh?" It was so funny and cute! All the people around them turned to look and laughed. She just warms my heart, that little girl. I'm just tickled that I get to be her Mamma.

During 2nd hour of church, I was running around trying to get some things done, making announcements in primary, etc. I caught the last <10 minutes of Sunday School. And then we were off to Relief Society, making more announcements, etc. I actually did get the listen to that lesson, though, which was on the Savior and who He is.

I visited Siv after church. I love and hate going to visit her. She's an older Swedish sister in our ward, who still has a houseful: her husband, 2 sons (both grown up), a son's girlfriend, and 3 grandsons, that I know of; she may have more that come and go. I think she's wonderful, and I really like her and visiting with her. But her family situation is really difficult for me to watch. She isn't treated very well at all, and I have a hard time feeling charitable towards the people who live with her. And I usually leave feeling quite sad, because I want to help her, but I really don't know how. At the moment, all I feel I can do is be her friend, visit with her and try to invite her to do things out of the house whenever possible.

Brooke's Birthday

It was Brooke's 2nd Birthday today!!! And we had a fun day, for the most part. :)

When Brooke woke up, we dressed her (in a cute little birthday shirt) and got her ready, we had breakfast and opened a couple of her presents. Last night, we went to Target and got her a box of Duplos, a little plastic toy horse, and a book about trucks. She liked the horse, but seemed pretty thrilled about the blocks. All the time that we were away from home today, she asked to go home so she could play with her new blocks. It was pretty cute.

We took Daniel to work, and then she had a doctor's appointment, her 2 year check-up. She did SO well at the appointment. At her 18 month check-up, she cried almost the whole time. She hated being poked and prodded, getting shots, of course. But this time, she didn't cry at all, even when she got her one shot! I was so proud. She looked like she was just on the verge of tears once or twice during the appointment; but she never started crying, and she took the poking and prodding in stride. She was such a good girl!

Her 2 year stats are:
    
       Height -- 32 inches  (15%)
       Weight -- 24.8 lbs  (25%)
       Head circumference -- 47 cm

We had passed the duck pond on the way to the doctors, so I promised that we would go look at the ducks when we were done with her appointment. We stayed and watched the ducks and turtles for a while, and then went to Barnes and Noble. She got a coupon for a free cupcake or cookie for her birthday. She's part of the Kids' Club. :) She chose a chocolate cupcake, but couldn't finish the whole thing. Then, it was about time for us to have lunch, so we stopped at Baja Fresh for me and Chick Fil'A for Brooke, and took it home. We had lunch and then played with her blocks for about 15 minutes before bed.

While she was taking a nap, I cleaned up the kitchen and then messed it up again making a cake for her. When we talked last week about when she wanted to eat for dinner and what kind of cake she wanted, I gave a few options, and she fixated on a banana blueberry cake. Chloe has a recipe for a banana blueberry cake with lemon frosting. So I made her that one. And it was delicious! Chloe is my favorite! (Chloe Coscarelli, vegan chef) I also watched tv while I waited for the layers to bake, etc.

Brooke didn't take a great nap. She woke up every 30 or 40 minutes, and slept for less than an hour and a half, which isn't normal or good. It must've been too exciting a day for her to handle. :) We played for a little while, and then went to the Garrison's house. Denae had invited us over to play for a little bit. Brooke has so much fun with their boys, so I thought it was a perfect little activity for her birthday. We stayed for about an hour or so, and then we went to pick up Daniel a little early from work, to do a little more celebrating.

We came home, made some dinner and finished the cake, and had dinner. Brooke's request was hotdogs and french fries. I added in fresh corn and honeydew melon for a little health. She was more interested in the honeydew than anything else, funnily enough. She is kind of in a "fruit-only" phase right now. She's been turning down food that she normally loves, and will gobble up fruit of almost any kind. Anyway, sang to her and had cake, she opened her last present (the book), and then, after reading the new book for a while, we watched 20 minutes of "Finding Nemo". We didn't let Brooke watch tv at home at all (that's not to say that she didn't see tv EVERYWHERE ELSE) for the first 2 years of her life, so today was kind of a big day in that she got to watch something with us. She only lasted for about 15 minutes of the movie, and she talked for almost the entire time. But we had fun with it!

It was a fun day! She loved the birthday song. I sang it several times all day. I was more excited in anticipating her birthday than she was; but I think she had a pretty good day. It was fun to be able to spoil her a little bit. With this baby (and hopefully more babies) coming, we'll have more kids to think about, so we won't be able to do as much for birthdays, probably. I'm glad that I could do one year for her, where it was all about her, and I don't have to think about my other kids. (I mean we did have last year, but she understood more of what was going on this year, being older and whatnot).

A new outfit from Gramma F. She wore this a couple of days ago and looked real cute. :)

Eating her free cupcake at Barnes and Noble

Wearing her birthday shirt and holding her new toy horse

Grapevine Airplanes

This week has been fairly low-key. Brooke and I went to the pool on Monday afternoon. She actually requested going to the pool that day, which I thought was interesting. I think I'm usually the one to suggest it, as I'm usually the one who feels a little bored sometimes and would like to fill more of the afternoons.

Tuesday was a beautiful, cool day. I took Brooke for a long walk in the morning, after Daniel went to work, and then to the park on the way home. It was really great to spend so much time outside. I feel like we've been cooped up in the house a ton lately, which I suppose is true, since it's been so hot and I don't feel like venturing out much (I've been feeling so hot lately, and sweat a lot). She loved going to the park and playing with another little girl for a bit. That afternoon, she, of course, went to the Faucette's to play while I taught Kelsey.

Wednesday is our shopping day. So, most of the morning was taken up shopping. I let Brooke walk pretty much the whole time we were at Wal-mart, which meant the trip took about twice as long as it needed to. I kept having to call her back or go pull her away from something that interested her. She was pretty good to come when I asked her to, though. I worked on getting some stuff for 72 hour kits that day, so they are closer to being completed. I put the new stuff into them when we got home and Brooke was napping.

Yesterday Brooke and I didn't do much. We played with toys a lot, we caught up on our chores, I worked on a sewing project during her nap, and we had a good day just being at home. Stacy Hansen, my visiting teacher, came to visit us, which is always nice. And we went with Emily McKeon (my visiting teaching companion) to visit Caitlin Baker in the afternoon.

Last night, Daniel and I went on a hot date. We went to do the tour of the hospital, for when the baby comes. It made me very excited about having our baby. I have a feeling (mostly a great hope, actually) that this labor and delivery will go much better than the last one. Fingers crossed! I just can't wait to meet this little person and get to know her and love her. And I can't wait to see how Brooke will handle a little sister. I'm sure after the initial adjustment, she'll be a great big sister.

After the tour, we went to this new restaurant, Pizza Rev. It's a "create-your-own-pizza" kind of place. It was really fun! You choose the sauce, type of cheese and meat, and then whatever toppings you want. And they had a lot of great toppings. I really enjoyed it.

Target was just a few stores down from the Pizza place, so we went to get Brooke's birthday presents, and then we went home.

A few cute things from the beautiful child:

• The other day, Brooke was having grapes with her lunch. She gobbled up the grapes before anything else on her plate, and was just left with the vine, which she just put on the table while she kept eating her lunch. After a little while, she looked at that grapevine, said, "Airplane!", and proceeded to pick it up and zoom it on the table and through the air making airplane noises. It was so funny and cute!
• This morning, Brooke woke up towards the tail end of my scripture study, and she woke up singing. She was just lying in her crib and singing to herself for a few minutes. I wish I had a recording of it, because it was so cute!

It's been a good week! I feel like I've gotten a lot done!

Since the Trip

This week has been spent in recovery since Monday. Plus a few other things. The trip home was harder on me than I expected. I've been unusually tired this week, and my body has been all out of sorts.

Tuesday I had a dentist appointment. It went well, although my mouth was quite a bit more sore than usual. And I'm pretty sure I bled a lot. Diane says that it's because I'm pregnant. Pregnancy does weird things to bodies. :) I also taught Kelsey a piano lesson that afternoon and had a presidency meeting that night.

Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment. Baby's fine. I'm healthy, Baby's healthy. I wish we had a name for her. Then I could stop calling her "Baby". Brooke and I had some shopping to do that day, in the morning before my appointment, and then we hung out at home for the afternoon.

The other stuff I did last week: clean up and unpack, laundry, clean the bathrooms, try to get us back into a routine. I also started working on my projects again. I painted Brooke's little play table, a light pink. It turned out pretty cute. I also bought fabric and started working on a baby blanket for this baby, kind of like the one I made for Brooke that she loves so much. It's almost done! Friday, I made a little purse for Brooke out of scrap material I had. When we got home from our trip, Brooke had one of my purses and she was loving putting toys and books in it and carrying it around. But it was kind of big for her to carry around, and with all that stuff in it, it was pretty heavy. So I decided to make her her own, a smaller one that she could carry around. I think she really likes it. :)

Brooke's new stroller, her favorite new toy

Daniel went with some of his work buddies to go paintballing on Saturday. Brooke and I had Denae Garrison and her boys over to swim while they were gone. We had fun! The rest of that day, I worked on cleaning out Brooke's new room and trying to figure out how we're going to decorate it. I also pulled out some of our baby stuff, so I can start working on getting it cleaned up and ready for Baby. Daniel took Brooke on some errands. They went to get the car washed at one of those drive thru washes. He said that Brooke liked it, but was kind of scared of it too. She's a funny one. :)

 Last night, after church and everything, we had 2 sets of missionaries and an investigator, Salvador, over for dinner. Our ward is now responsible for feeding one set of missionaries from the Spanish branch, as there aren't enough people in the branch to feed 3 sets. So, we had a Spanish set of Sisters and our Sisters. It felt like quite the party. I made them taco soup (delish, vegan, and easy to make in bulk to feed lots of people ... and it's a good thing, they ate a lot of it; they loved it!), and an apple crisp for dessert, which I thought was really good.

Brooke loves to help mamma make dinner. I wonder why ...

Trip to Medford

Last week, we took a trip to Medford to be with my whole family. It was a little mini reunion; everyone was there, and it was really fun!

We started our trip on Wednesday, August 6th. Daniel and I got everything packed the night before, and got up early, so that we could be all ready to go when Brooke woke up. Which worked pretty well. We left a little after 8:30am. It wasn't a bad trip at all, Brooke handled it well, and she didn't even have a nap. We expected her to crash at some point, but she never did. So, we did have a few rough periods. And the last 2 hours from Redding to Medford were almost painful. For me, more than Brooke or Daniel. I was just ready to be done driving.

Poor Brooke was so exhausted. But when we got there, everyone was so excited to see her, and there were so many people, I think she was a little overwhelmed with everything. We tried to get her to bed as soon as possible after getting there, but it wasn't until almost 9pm when she finally went down.

That night, we talked and played games with everyone. I loved seeing everyone! Especially my new little nephew, Owen. It was so fun seeing Diane as a proud little mamma! He's so cute, and SO chunky. Dad calls him a brick, and I think that is an apt description. :)

The next day, Julie, Brian, Danielle, Diane, Daniel and I left the kids with Gramma and went to see "America", an interesting documentary about history and the current state of our country. Mom really wanted all of her children to see the movie, so she paid for us to go see it.

That night we played more games together after the kids went to bed. We stayed up way too late, of course. But had lots of fun!

Friday was a pretty crazy day. Daniel took a bunch of the family to go on a hike. Diane, Julie, Mom and I stayed home with the 3 babies, and just hung out. When everyone got back, Danielle, Mary and I went shopping for last minute things for family pictures and also for dinner. We went to Lithia Park that night to do family pictures. It was pretty crazy, and took a couple of hours.

I was pretty exhausted after that day's activities. I think most of us were. So we just hung out and watched a movie that night.

Poor Diane was a slave to Owen's sleeping, of course. She was always kind of in and out of activities with the family, trying to get Owen to sleep, and then joining us when he was asleep and in his crib. It really took me back, and made me a little nervous about that happening to us in a few months. :)

Saturday, in the afternoon, after naps for the babies, we all went rafting down the Rogue River. It was quite fun, but a little too long for me. And Diane. With me being pregnant, I had a hard time moving around and taking care of Brookie. And Diane had been working all day and was missing her baby/ needing to nurse. Plus, it was getting quite cold by the end, and we were all having a harder time dealing with the cold water. But we still had fun. Brooke took about half of the time getting used to it. She really wasn't liking it that much at the beginning. Every time we went over the little rapids, she got scared and started crying a bit. It took us a while to convince her that it was fun. But she got there. She started squealing like the rest of us when we went over rapids, and laughing and talking about the bubbles in the water. By the end, she was having fun.

Once we were done, Dad took us to a little burger shack for milkshakes and fries. And we were all starving, so it was delicious!

We just hung out and watched a movie at home again. Rafting had worn us all out. It was nice to just relax together.

Sunday was Owen's blessing day. It was a wonderful blessing. Danielle and I took notes and wrote down the blessing for them. We had our mothers do that for us when Brooke was blessed, and I love that we have Brooke's blessing written down for her. So we wanted to do that for Owen. After church, we had Navajo Tacos for dinner, which were so delicious. (Although, I have to say that I thought the chili didn't taste as good as I remembered it. Mom's recipe was always the best. But, I'm not used to meat anymore. I kind of prefer my meatless chilis to mom's recipe these days. Interesting.) Scott also got ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood that night, at home. It was great to be there. When all the men had left, the family just stayed in the living room, talking all night.

Brian and Danielle left that night, after Scott's ordination. So we said our good-bye's to them. Brian gave us all a little gift of some European chocolate he'd picked up on his dance team tour there. :) Delish!

Daniel and I went to bed WAY too late. But so did Brooke. She slept in the next morning until 9:00! Which means that we did, too. We didn't get out of Medford until 10:30. It was a long day. We didn't get home until 11:30 or so, at night. It was a fairly uneventful day. Brooke took about a 20 minute nap and went through some rough patches of grumpiness from lack of sleep. After stopping an hour from home for dinner at Chipotle, we got stuck in traffic going over the hills into the valley. It was pretty lame. But Brooke was so good, so cheerful, and maybe a little bit delirious. :) We made it, though; late, but safe.

Diane and baby Owen, being all patriotic on the 4th of July

At family pictures: all the cousins (minus Owen, I suppose). Brooke had so much fun with these boys!

Brooke, by the fountain at Lithia Park

Brooke, late at night (not sleeping), on the way home

Projects Galore

I clearly haven't written in a few weeks. I guess I figured not much different has really been going on, and I've been focused on getting other things done. The baby is coming soon! We have 2 months to go (give or take a few days...), and there are some things that I want to finish before she comes! I have been working on some art crafts for Brooke's room decor. And a temple drawing. And I've been trying to play the piano more.

I taught Relief Society yesterday. I spent a little bit of time every day preparing for it this last week. It was on the parables that Jesus taught, and it went pretty well, I think. I didn't get through many parables ... actually, I only did one; the parable of the Ten Virgins. I got a lot of comments from the sisters in class, which were really awesome, but it didn't give me much time for more.

Last night, we went to the Lamb's house for dinner. I brought a zucchini pie (actually called "mock apple pie"), but didn't tell them what was in it until they tried it. I thought it was pretty good, and nobody could tell it was zucchini; they all thought it was apple!

Daniel has been thinking about his career and making some changes lately. He wants to do what he did for his internship with Ernst and Young, transaction services, and he'd like to try for that sooner than later. He says that he wants to wait until after the next busy season to start really applying for jobs. But in the meantime, he's been meeting with members of our stake to ask them about their careers, about their experiences, and for any advice. Anyway, last night was partly for Daniel to talk to Brother Lamb, who studied accounting and worked for E&Y at the beginning of his career. I think he gave Daniel some good advice, though perhaps not exactly what he wanted to hear. When we got home, he started writing down notes and some of the things Bro Lamb had said, and he was getting all bummed thinking about how hard it might be for him to end up where he wants. 

Daniel, Brooke and I went to the beach on Saturday, to Ventura Beach. First, in the morning, Daniel went on an impressively long run, Brooke and I slept in and hung out. And then Daniel took Brooke to Lowe's to get a few things, and I did some yoga. We left after they got home, after we'd all eaten a little something. It was probably a little late for us to be going to the beach. But we had fun! We played in the water, chased seagulls, played with a beach ball, dug around in the sand, had snacks and buried Brooke in the sand. We stayed for a couple of hours, but I think we could've been there longer. I just wanted us to get home so Brooke could go to bed early, since she completely missed a nap. She still went to bed later than I would've liked.

Last week, we had fun rabbit-sitting the Leishman's bunny, Lola. They were out of town for a family reunion and asked us to take care of their bunny. She was so cute! I had a lot of fun taking care of her, even though we hit some rough patches. She is supposed to be house/potty trained. She has a litter box in her cage that she pees in, but she pooped around the house when we let her out of her cage. It wasn't too big a deal, since rabbit poop is so easy to clean up. It was just a little annoying. But the thing that really got me was that she is a chewer. And she chewed up the back of our couch before we realized what was going on. We made some adjustments (mostly just pushed the couch all the way to the wall, so she couldn't get back there), and we had to watch her more closely when we let her out of her cage so we could yell at her/put her in her cage if she started chewing. So it worked out okay (except that she ruined the watering system in the garden outside by chewing it up, and now Daniel has to replace it). Overall, Brooke and I had fun. Daniel didn't, so much. But I think I've come to the conclusion that he's not much of a pet person. He likes animals well enough. Just not when he has some responsibility to take care of them.