Blood Pressure, Moab, and Almost There!

So, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday. I went in fully expecting it to be the same as all the others. And it was, for the most part.

Aside from the part where my doctor told me I can't go to work anymore.

Or clean.

Or go on "shopping sprees" (because I do that SO often).

Apparently, my blood pressure was a little higher than my doctor was comfortable with. So I was banned from working. At first, I was pretty frustrated because we'd been planning on my working for a couple more weeks, if possible. Nate, kindly reminded me as I sobbed (dang pregnancy hormones) that I don't have to go to work anymore! Well DUH Alisa - you're thrilled about that. But I also don't LOVE the idea of sitting around the house, waiting for the baby to come. I'm going to have to get myself some projects to work on while I wait for her arrival!

I went in for a stress test today as well, just to make sure she's okay. The nurse didn't give me the results, but said she would fax them to my doctor. It seemed like everything was okay though, so I'm not too worried.

So here I am, sitting at home (when I would normally still be at work) eating a bowl of ice cream, FINALLY updating my blog!

Last weekend, as kind of a last Hurrah before Frakeserella (my sister's nickname for the little munchkin) comes, we took a little trip down to Moab.

Now, before you start thinking I'm a bad mommy, I DID have my doctor's permission and I felt great, so we weren't worried.

It was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable Moab trips ever for both good and bad. For example:

BAD: We left Friday afternoon and got there around 4:30 or 5. We drove around for almost THREE hours trying to find a camping site. The place was PACKED! Moab is getting much more busy than it ever used to be, even 3 years ago when I first started going. It's depressing.

GOOD(ish): We started talking about just driving back to Provo, but decided to try one more place. We stopped at one of those campsites where the camping spaces are about 5 feet from the people next to you:
We remained optimistic, saying maybe we'd be able to find something less close to others the next day and at least we got to stay in Moab and build a fire and still be camping.

VERY BAD: This tent was right across from us. Since this is a public blog and I'd like to keep it G rated, let's just say Nate, Damien and I got woken up and ended up getting about 2 hours less sleep than we would have liked, because of the couple in there. That's all I'm gonna say. Very bad.

GOOD: I'm pregnant. Of course I would include food as part of the good list. We had some awesome strawberries and yummy muffins (as well as lots of other good food).

GOOD: We had a great time hiking around Saturday morning! We went on some pretty easy hikes for my sake (all less than 1/2 mile). The only time I was uncomfortable was when I had use the bathroom or the little munchkin decided to sit on my bladder (okay, those were pretty often, but I still had fun!).

Gross, I know. But Nate insisted I be in SOME pictures, even though I'm NOT a fan of how I look. Oh well.
That's Delicate Arch in the background. Usually we hike right to the arch, but that's a LONG hike with a lot of steepness. So we opted for just the short hike with a distant view. By the way (you can probably tell from this picture), I way more than Nate. He tried to keep up with me, but failed miserably (which is probably good, since I'll loose a lot [most] of the weight within a couple of days after baby's here).
Don't tell Natalya he did this, but that cliff goes down about 100-200 more feet. Yikes! (this is at Gemeni Bridges, by the way)
Um...I think we took more pictures of this animal than anything else combined. I'll only show you one picture though. We're weird.
This is Canyonlands - I had never gone here before, even after all the times we've gone to Moab, so that was kind of fun to see. Someday, we're going to hike to Angel Arch, which is in Canyonlands (it's like a 10 mile hike or something).
Just look at the background or the handsome guy in the blue sweatshirt...those are the good parts of the picture.

GOOD: We found a new campsite for Saturday night!

BAD: It was kind of windy...and knocked our tent over (even with ALL of our stuff in it!) while we were out to dinner.


GOOD: We still got to build an awesome fire and roast S'mores!
GOOD: Sunday we did a few more short hikes, like Balance Rock (where the boys got a little snap happy). We also went to Sand Dune Arch (way fun arch for kids/husbands :D)
BAD (or FUNNY): ALL hygiene goes out the window for these two when we're camping. These pictures don't even do their hair the justice (or injustice) it deserves.
BAD:

I look like I have elephantiasis or something...

And finally...

GOOD: Little girl is due in TWO WEEKS! YAY!

So I have a belly picture I might post. And I might take some pictures of our sweet crib and recliner - both of which we got KILLER deals on (now if we can just find a dresser for a similarly amazing deal...).

But I don't have the pictures now and I feel the need to post...something...I just need to babble I guess. It'll be pretty random, so good luck with this!

1. Can I just say I'm really glad I married who I did? There are definitely some things we have different tastes in (e.g. Taco Bell would be his FIRST fast food choice and almost never mine. Vice versa for Panda Express). But, for the most part, we agree. An good, recent example is music. We just bought some CDs on Amazon:

The Eagles
Simon and Garfunkel
Kenny Loggins

And so on.

Maybe we're not "weird" and there are lots of other people in our generation that like this kind of music, but I think it's kind of funny that of ALL the CDs we could buy, we chose THOSE ones. Also, I've been listening to Phil Collins all morning. I love that man. His "...Hits" CD is next on my list of CDs to buy.

It reminded me of this one time 6 of my friends my freshman year of college were in the car with AJ and me. A Lionel Richie song came on and AJ and I started singing along. Everyone in the car looked at us like we were crazy - none of them knew the words, let alone who SANG the song.

I'd like to thank my mother for listening to the radio our entire childhood and exposing us to the good stuff.

2. I know I talk about this a lot, but I seriously think I have the coolest dreams.

Last night, I dreamed I went into labor at the White House.
And Obama wasn't the president.
And I was trying to hide the fact that I was in labor from the janitorial staff that was nearby.
I have no idea where Nate was, though I know he was around somewhere.

I also dreamed that one of the managers at work had to send out these specific memos every day and this particular day, she sent the wrong one: instead of sending a memo that J.Lo and Marc Anthony were getting married, she sent one that J.Lo and Ben Affleck were getting married (and then halfway through the dream, J.Lo changed to Jennifer Aniston). And my boss was really mad that the wrong one got sent out.

But I thought it was funny.

So funny, in fact, that I started laughing. Apparently, I was actually laughing because it woke up Nate. He asked why I was laughing and I was able to give a coherent answer. That NEVER happens.

3. Speaking of sleep, I took an hour nap yesterday afternoon and then drank about 4 cups of Dr. Pepper at about 7:00 PM.

Never again.

I tried going to bed around 11:30 and didn't end up falling asleep until about 2:00. I have a friend and a couple of sisters-in-law who have mentioned not being able to sleep late in pregnancy, but I've never had a hard time, so I'm attributing this to the caffeine (which, by the way, seemed to have no affect on the baby, except maybe making her more calm).

It wasn't all bad though. I got some laundry done and read a good chunk of Mere Christianity, which I've been trying to read for several weeks (AMAZING book, by the way. The whole world needs to read this book. For realz.). And, as I lay in bed, I had some great ideas of crafty improvements to make to my house/things to get ready for the baby. I'm not even completely exhausted today, so maybe it ended up being a good thing.

4. I'll update more on baby stuff when I post pictures.

Mo-ron [mawr-on, mohr-]
–noun

1.	a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment.

I had some pictures on my camera card that I wanted to post and for a week I haven't been able to figure out why my computer can't read the card. I finally involved my non-moronic husband, who simply put the card into the correct slot. Doh!

First picture needs some explaining if you aren't aware of my ultimate bad habit. I have bitten my fingernails since I was 7 years old and finally, now that I'm pregnant and my nails grow at lightning speed, I've managed to quit!
I really hate my hands, but I love even more that those are MY nails!

Also, last Saturday I did this*:
And she came with me:

(there was a little too much water retention in the face, so you just get to see her in all her glory)

Also, this guy is home:
And he brought me 2 dozen roses!

For those of you who don't know (and most of you probably don't because I made it a point not to mention it on the blog) Nate was living in Denver from January to mid-March doing an internship with Ernst and Young (an accounting firm he will be working for when he graduates). I couldn't go because I needed to work to keep my insurance and he worked so many hours I wouldn't have seen him much anyway. It was definitely NOT my favorite 2 1/2 months (especially being pregnant through it all), but I flew out there several times and we just made it through!

On that note we were excited to find out at the end of his internship that they are offering him a job for after he graduates next April! We are very excited to be moving to Denver after graduation and to have that plan in place.

P.S. Nate will be working as an auditor, not a tax accountant (also NOT an IRS auditor either) so you can skip the jokes about Nate doing your taxes. :) If you don't know the difference, you can ask - lots of people don't know. Don't feel bad. You're not a moron.

That makes one of us.

*EDITOR'S NOTE: I didn't actually RUN the Rex Lee Run. I walked it. I'm not superwoman. :)

Who will she look like?


Alisa?

Nate?

Personally, I'm hoping for Nate. Can you imagine what an ADORABLE little girl she would be to have his BIG BLUE eyes, long eyelashes and killer fashion sense? Plus, she already LOVES peanut butter and he's eating peanut butter cookies, so I think it's a sign...

I can't wait!

So, I realized that some of the movies I post about are sort of depressing. I don't really talk about the good, wholesome, everyone-should-watch-this kind of movies.

THIS is one of those movies. It has a GREAT message (which is summarized VERY well at the end, by a cute little kid - isn't that great? A movie with a moral that is actually stated, so people can't even question it). The acting is, for the most part, also great. I'm not a huge fan of Christina Ricci (Casper ruined her for me), but let's be honest...

HE makes the whole movie worth it.

Sigh...

Ahem, so back to the movie: The basic plot is of a girl who is born under a curse put on her family because of her great-great-great grandfather. She's born with the face of a pig (well, nose and ears) and the only way to break the curse is to be loved for the rest of her life by someone of her "own kind" meaning a blue blood, meaning a rich, upper class person in society.

It's interesting to see the different perspectives of people in the movie. Her mother devotes her life to finding the man to break this spell. But in the process, she basically treats Penelope as if she's not really herself, when the only thing that ISN'T herself is her nose. She's still "her" on the inside, but her mother has a hard time looking past the face. This is the case with the suitors who come calling - they see only a face they wouldn't want to kiss and don't even take the time to get to know the sweet person on the inside. Until this guy:
(okay, let's be honest, I just wanted to post another picture of him)

Even before he sees her face, he "sees" what a terrific person she is. But, because of complications that I won't share - I don't want to give the movie away - he doesn't break the curse.

Another interesting character is this little midget reporter guy, who has been trying to get a picture and a story on Penelope since she was a baby. At one point toward the end of the movie, he says something about how he's not even sure why he's chasing the story anymore - it's all about his wounded ego that he didn't get the story all those years ago. How often do we do that - hold onto something for no reason other than pride? Hmm. :)

Anyway, as I said, it's a great movie that I think even little kids would enjoy.

The Duchess
(don't read this if you haven't seen the movie and are still planning to see it. I talk a lot about the plot)

I watched this movie a couple of weeks ago and have thought about it a lot since then. That shows a good movie, if it's still got me thinking about/analyzing the plot weeks later!

This is based on the true story of the Duchess Georgiana of Devonshire. I haven't looked into how much of the story is actual truth, but it's on my list of things to look up. Whether it's all true or not, I really enjoyed the movie.

Now, as I said with The Other Boleyn Girl, this isn't a movie I would recommend letting young people watch. It has a bit of nudity (bare backside), and some of the elements of the movie are quite deep and dramatic (marital rape being one that was hard for me to swallow). So that's my preface.

Now about the actual story: it's the story of a very young girl who marries the Duke of Devonshire. From the beginning, he sees the marriage as an arrangement to produce an heir. She, however, saw the marriage as this man being in love with her and wanting to be with her above any other woman. She spends a good part of her life being unhappy because she's with a man who really doesn't love her in the way she needs/wants to be loved. He sleeps with other women often and she is forced to just accept it. He says at one point that the only two things he expects from her are an heir and loyalty (while he is not obligated to adhere to either of those things). The duchess then finds someone who does make her happy. She tries to get approval from her unfaithful husband to be unfaithful to him as well, after she has produced an heir. Of course it's not allowed, but she does anyway.

Now comes the part of the movie I loved.

She has run off to Bath to be with this other man that makes her happy (I don't love that part, but it leads into what I love). The Duke comes to Bath and tells her that she has to end things or he will destroy this other man's career and life and will never let her see her children again. The movie made it very clear that she loves her 3 daughters and son very much. At first, however, she wants to be with this man and refuses to give him up. She tells the Duke to leave and figures she'll just work things out. However, the Duke leaves some letters from her daughters that she reads. *Good part* She changes her mind for the sake of her children and returns to her husband.

There is a point earlier in the movie where Georgiana's friend Bess explains to G why she agreed to sleep with the Duke (great friend huh?). Bess said the Duke promised he would get her children back (they had been taken away from her by her husband). She said "A woman would sacrifice anything for her children." That's the point in the movie I quit liking Bess. Now, I'm only sort of a mother, so you might say I don't understand the amount of love possible for your children and what you'll do for them. I'm sorry, but there are limits and adultery is one of those limits.

In contrast, Georgiana gives up her "happiness" [read: affair] for her children. She makes the kind of sacrifice a person should make for her children. While she may not have had much of a choice in who she married, she was married and she returned to that man to make things work, for the sake of her children (please don't think that my saying this means I think people should always try to make things work in a marriage for the sake of the children, but I definitely think there should be more of an effort than people seem to make these days).

Even further on that note, she gave up one of her children - a daughter born of that affair - which must have been very difficult. I can't imagine having to give away one of my children, but she understood that it was necessary for the baby's happiness as well as her family's.
Now, I have to say that I'm very grateful I live in a time with the freedoms and the technology we have. It was unfortunate for G that she lived in a time when she didn't really have the freedom to make the choices she wanted to. She was basically forced to marry the Duke and while at the time she was happy with the choice that had been made for her, at least nowadays she would have had the option to choose who she wanted. That way, when it came to problems in her marriage, it would have been HER mistake and she would have had to deal with those consequences (though she had to deal with them either way). Also, it annoys me that all the blame got placed on the women when they couldn't produce a son. I really wish they had known back then that it was mostly the man's fault. :)

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I typically see movies in the light I want to see them in, which may not be the way Hollywood intended them to be seen. I saw this movie as having a happy ending. She stayed with the man she married and he made more of an effort to make her happy. She raised her children and the other man got to be happy in his life as well. I'm glad it showed all of that as being the way it should have been, rather than making it seem like she ended up being miserable her whole life.

So I promised pictures of our fun weekend in Denver over Valentine's Day/President's Day Weekend. Thanks mom and dad, Mel and Suzie for making the trip! It was so good to spend some time with you!

I realized as I was going through the pictures that pretty much the only time we took pictures over the weekend was at the zoo. Saturday, the zoo was FREE! so we thought, why not? Denver has an awesome zoo and even though the plants were dead and most of the animals were inside, it was fun to see them (especially the monkeys!)

This was right after we got there - still looking chipper and...not exhausted. Let's be honest - that didn't last the whole time. It was a LOT of walking.
I LOVED this sign. Duh! :)

Monkey! There was one group of little tiny monkeys that had a little TINY baby monkey on the momma's back - I don't think any of us with cameras got a good picture of it, but it was SO cute! I told Nate I'm going to carry our little girl like that. :)

I don't see much of a difference between Mel and the Komodo Dragon - you? :)

If you know Nate, you know he's a HUGE fan of getting his picture taken (HA). The only way I could convince him to be in this picture was to tell him something about how he was as manly as this man lion...maybe that explains the face...he's MUCH more manly, after all.

See the exhaustion setting in? This is also a nice display of my tummy (as well as my water-retaining face - awesome).

Can you tell how much FUN we were having? We actually were having a good time, but the sun was a little bright and mom kinda caught us off guard. I'm really not angry or something...
And since mom was usually behind the camera and Nate & Dad are excellent at avoiding the camera, I had to throw in a couple of them, just to prove they were there!

Mom and Nate, looking at a map of Denver, so mom could orient herself with where we were in that big city (there's a little more to Denver than Bismarck :)

Here's one of the papa, outside the captial building in Downtown Denver. He loves getting his picture taken as much as Nate. :D

We went to Downtown Denver on Monday and shopped at the 16th Street Mall. The mall is all outside and you just walk along 16th Street into all the shops. It was a beautiful day (we saw a girl in daisy dukes and flip flops - in February!), so it was a good day to be walking outside. We went into The Children's Place to look at baby clothes and I found the CUTEST onesie that said "My Dad is a Superhero." but it was like $7, so I didn't buy it. :) But it's true!

Anyway, it was a fun weekend that made me even more excited to move to Denver next year! (pending everything working out for us to move there)...

We'll call this post "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"

The Good:

I feel the need to complain a little about pregnancy, but while I was thinking about complaining, I realized "I am so blessed to be pregnant and there are so many things I'm thankful for." So I figured if I'm going to post the "bad" I'd better post the good too! And first!

1. I am very lucky to be pregnant. I know of so many people who have tried for so long and any time I start to complain, I just remind myself that there are plenty of women who would give ANYTHING to "deal" with pregnancy.

2. I have had a VERY uneventful pregnancy. I didn't get awful sick - just a little queasy, I've had minimal amounts of pain (just the "normal" pain), and anything that HAS happened has been talked about in pregnancy books or my sisters knew, so it was easy to deal with.

3. I have an awesome husband who has been super supportive - letting me vent when I get emotional, laughing when I get irrational, and giving lots of feet and back rubs! Plus, it helps to see how excited he is for his little girl to come.

4. I'm surrounded by people who are always concerned about me. I know it kind of comes with pregnancy, but it's so nice to have that concern from so many. Even a lady in the airport told me not to lift my suitcase!

5. That little girl in there is a reason all her own. I say it all the time, but I LOVE feeling her move! I love knowing there's a little child of God in there that He's going to let me take care of! I love it.

The Bad:

1. This first "bad" thing is the reason I wanted to do this post in the first place: Heartburn. I have Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (kinda like Acid Reflux), so I've experienced heartburn before, but NOTHING like this. Last night, I was scared to lay down because I thought fiery acid was going to pour from my esophagus into my mouth. It hurts. And I'm buying Tums tonight.

2. Sciatic nerve = I can't feel my legs when I lay on my back. This has just started to affect me in the last few days, but I must say I'm not a fan. I really miss laying on my stomach, but dealt with it because I could still lay on my back. Now I ALWAYS have to lay on my side. That bugs.

3. I used to be able to lay down and fall asleep instantly. For about 3 weeks, I haven't been able to fall asleep for AT LEAST 20 minutes after I lay down. Luckily, most of the time I can sleep through the night without really waking up, but occasionally (like 2 nights ago) I'll wake up OVER and OVER. Preparing me for the years ahead I suppose....

4. I'm not a big fan of those occasional moments of panic: "I'm not ready for this!" "I need to go buy EVERYTHING I need for the baby!" "What if...?" Luckily, the rational part of my brain is still there enough to remind me that I'm just being...well...irrational! :)

The Ugly:

1. My pants don't fit anymore! I was really hoping I'd be one of those lucky women who got to wear her normal pants her whole pregnancy with just a belly band on to keep the top unbuttoned. Nope. Even my "loose" pants are getting snug now. At least I was able to wear my normal pants until I had just over 3 months left, right? Oh yeah, thinkin' positive now...

I was reading a post on CJane's Blog this morning and she talked about an article that came out, all about the Mormon blogging world. She talked about how many Mormon bloggers there are and why we all blog.

And it got me thinking.

I got started in the blogging world because a friend from North Dakota started a blog for all of us LDS North Dakotan friends to keep in touch. From there, we all kind of started our own blogs.

For the most part, I've only used my blog as a way to update family and friends on important events in our family and occasionally, my thoughts on certain issues - my Men/Women post and political opinions, for example. And I feel like I'm not blogging properly if I don't have a picture.

But lately, I've run into a couple of blogs that I've never seen a picture on and others that pictures are just the background to what is being written. I used to LOVE to write creatively and feel like I don't do it like I used to (maybe that one Dream post...)

So I'm going to start.

I'm sure I'll never read the level of wittiness or creativity CJane and Normal Mormon Husband have attained, but why not write what I'm thinking/feeling/etc/etc?

Now, this is a GOAL. Kind of like writing in my journal more often is a goal. Which means it just may not happen. And I have a feeling my perspective/priorities will change in about 77 days, which could throw this goal to the wind.

After all, "We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and in retrospection."

Right?

I used to harass my sisters for not posting pictures of their preggo bellies.

I will never do that again.

I promised, before I got pregnant (something I will never do again either - make a promise about what I will or won't do while pregnant) that I would be one of those people who posts pictures of her pregnancy, so friends and family who live far away could see the progression.

And I don't like to break promises, no matter how painful it is to me.

So there's my preface to my preggo picture, of which I am NOT a fan.
Oh - did I mention I took these myself?

The good news is, that little munchkin making me look like this, is AWESOME! I just can't get enough of her moving around and trying to figure out what body part is poking me at any given time.

Speaking of her, remind me never again to try to presume I know what my baby is before I get an ultrasound. I think I was SO convinced early on that I was having a boy, that my subconscious brain won't let go of the idea. Sure, before I knew what I was having I had a couple of dreams that I was having a boy.

You'd think that now that I KNOW it's a girl, I'd have dreams about a little girl.

Nope.

In the last 3 weeks, I've had 3 dreams that I was having a boy. THREE! Granted, in one of the dreams, the little boy turned into a girl midway through the dream (maybe my brain is finally processing the truth), but still...

So anyway, I have a whole buncha pictures from my fun weekend in Denver with Nate and my parents/little sisters, but they're all on Nate's computer to which I don't have access at the moment. As soon as I do, I promise I will post them. I know, you're just dying of anticipation. :)

100 DAYS TO GO!

I have been waiting for this very day for about 184 days (that's when I first made my little Lilypie countdown). See, for some reason 100 days doesn't sound too long. I'm sure in a couple of months when I can barely move, I'll regret saying that, but for now...

100 DAYS!