The 4-Square Incident of '07

There have been some notable birthdays over the years for both Heb and I. There have been many a white elephant gift exchange (and Heber's acquisition of 1 awesome pink sweatshirt), homemade pizza and the home school reference (thank you Austin), and of course, the campfire up Logan Canyon, just to name a few. The most notorious is, what we lovingly call, the 4-square incident of '07.

It was 2007 and we had planned a lovely birthday party for Heber. We still lived in our little old house then and invited some folks for cake and of course 4-square. Yes, we play 4-square. Let me tell you, it is no longer just for 2nd graders. Since we didn't have anywhere to set up the game, we made our way over to a local elementary school. Keep in mind that it is almost 9:00 at night. We start playing and...well, some kids come and join the party.

One thing I have to point out is that four-square with adults is fun, 4-square just with kids is fun but 4-square with a mixture of kids and adults is NO fun. Especially when it was not planned to be that way. The kids, who happened to have parents that worked at the same company as Heb, thought it was perfectly appropriate for them to stay playing, even though, this was obviously an adult game. at the elementary school.

Anyway, long story short, they played, wouldn't move squares, were sticky and generally made it a not fun experience for all of us. Why do I bring up this story from so many years ago? Well, when I was planning Heber's birthday party this year, I was very aware that this would be our last birthday without any children. From here on out, it's kid party city for us. I wanted to do one last hurrah.

So, I invited people and said you can come but please don't bring your kids. Am I a jerk? Very possibly. But when you remember the 4-square incident of '07, it brings it slightly into perspective.

We played games, we ate homemade corndogs, we collected awesome prizes, and you know what, we had the best time. Perhaps even, the best time since we've been here. We celebrated Heb's day with his favorite chocolate cake and laughed the night away.



Happy birthday to my favorite guy in the world. I'm so glad to share the years with you.

As a side, where are all the pictures of me from that evening? We apparently didn't take any. Hmm.. I'll have to work on that.

A Long Awaited Update on the Baby

I went to the doctor again today. I've been doing that a lot lately. As a side note, what is the deal with doctors out here? When did they become too important to take the time to answer my questions. I'm paying for your time, right? But I digress.

We had another ultrasound today. It's been a blessing (in a way) to be able to see our baby every month during the last half of the pregnancy. It's exciting to see how he grows every time. And, I am happy to report that things are looking more and more normal with the baby's kidneys, which is great!

He is quite the character when it comes to having the ultrasound done. The techs complain that he won't do what they want him to do. He always has his hands over his face or puts a foot right up into whatever they're looking at. Not just today, every time. It's like he knows and doesn't want to have his picture taken. He has been moving around. A lot. He's a wild boy already.

We didn't write much about it on the blog before, but we have been a bit worried about him and have been seeing a specialist to monitor his progress. There was a time when some pretty scary terminology was thrown around by doctors but we are so happy that he is growing healthy and well.

Our Humble Abode

This is a post I have been meaning to write FOREVER. I've had all the pictures and such for months but just didn't get it up on the blog. It's been several months since we moved and I have yet to post any pictures of the new place. Our families have been bugging us to see what the place is like, so here are a few pictures.

The living room. Thank goodness Heb's company was closing down an apartment here and donated some couches. They fit in great and made it so we didn't have to buy too much furniture.


The Dining Room with Heber's beautiful table that we finally have a space large enough to use it. I'm still experimenting with the lanterns, the chandeleir was not centered over the table and it's a pretty boring space, so I was trying to make it a bit more exciting.

The random area off of the kitchen.

The kitchen. Pretty nice!

Our bedroom upstairs.

See, I'm finally getting pictures on the walls.

There are two more rooms upstairs (I know! We are living in such luxury). One is our office that we share. It is in a constant state of messiness - how can an office be clean and organized all the time? I just don't think that way. And the second room is the baby's new room....a work in progress that will be revealed in due time.

Our stairs...that is one thing this house has a ton of is stairs both inside and out.

We also have the basement area that is serving as storage/we have no idea what to do with this area kind of space.

So there's the new place. Pretty nice. This was totally not what I was expecting when we came house hunting in the area. I expected something quite small. We did have to make some location sacrifices - like a further distance from the city but it's such a nice place.

And now you can see, we really do have space for you to come and visit....

Annapolis

For Labor Day, Heb and I made our way up north to Annapolis. This little place was so picturesque.

We saw the most beautiful post office I have ever seen - below.

And enjoyed wandering the winding streets.


Annapolis is one of those rare places that there are several reasons to visit. It has great harbor/water views (I've become a quite a fan of water lately), a historic downtown with neat old buildings, great seafood because you're right on the water (which is really saying something because I don't actually like seafood but will tolerate it at it's freshest) and it houses the pretty impressive Naval Academy. Any one of these things would be reason enough to trek up that way.



We took a tour of the Naval Academy. We had it on good authority that it was worth seeing and we weren't disappointed. They have a great museum of Naval history too. It makes me feel completely patriotic visiting a place like that. Now, if only I could get my feet to not swell up, it would be even more enjoyable.


This is a picture of the building where all 4,400 students live. Yes, all of them in one building. They feed them all at exactly the same time. Now that is military precision for you and each student is mandated to spend at least 2 hours a day working out.

All in all, it was worth the trip.