Oh Julia!

This year I have worked really hard not to forget one thing. . . because she would let me know if I did!  It is Julia's birthday tomorrow, but it is already tomorrow there, so I didn't want to miss the real thing for her!
A little bit about this girl, Julia. . .
 . . . We met in August 2005 as she flew to America to experience life with good 'ol Americans as part of a foreign exchange program.
. . . Julia was dunked into our silly home and I took her everywhere with me.
 . . . When I introduced her to friends and family, everyone always wondered where she was from and who she was.  She would try so hard to sound like a fluent American as she would reply, "My name is Chulia and I am from Chermany."  After some confused looks I would 'save the day' and ease the awkwardness and clarify, "Her name is Julia and she has come all the way from Germany to be with us for the school year."  For some reason, this was understood :)
 . . . We had all sorts of adventures together while she was living with my family!  My dad was one adventure, Nana was another, my mom worried about being a good host, and I showed her the American way of life.
. . . She gained about 20 pounds or so while she was with us.  We didn't quite feed her veggies each night like she was used to and our desserts pay no attention to the sugar and whip cream :)
 . . . She spoke amazing English but wanted to get rid of her "British English" accent and also have perfect grammar.  So I felt that I had the freedom to tease her about the cute ways she said things.  My favorite was when she had a hole in her sock and was worried about it as she said, "My sock is having a hole!"  Germans don't cross their fingers for good luck, they "press their thumbs for you" as Julia would say to wish me luck.  I loved the little phrases she would say!
 . . . American high schools were so new to her (Language classes where we don't really learn the language, cheerleaders, homecoming and prom dances, football teams, graduation caps and gowns, and school sports  . . . these were things that she had only seen in the movies as they didn't exist in her schools!)
. . . We went on a senior trip where my dad and Uncle Tom drove us to Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the Redwood forest!  I think she took a couple thousand pictures!  She probably had the most pictures of the Hollywood sign that we only saw from the highway, as she had my dad turn around about 6 times so she could get a good shot :)
. . . I have kept her awake so many times just chatting away about anything and everything. . . she was a good sport!
Julia became such a close friend for me and for my family!  We were so lucky to have picked out the best exchange student!  She came back to visit our family a little over a year ago and we were able to laugh and joke and stay up all night chatting just like we used to!  We were able to go to the Oregon coast to celebrate the 4th of July and David and I took her to see Yellowstone.  She loved seeing the many sights of America and was able to see Washington D.C. and New York City too.

I was able to go visit her and her family for a few weeks.  This was about three years ago.  She showed me all sorts of German attractions and I loved spending time with their family.  They took me all over the place, and I loved all the places we went!  They were very respectful anytime we were sleeping.  They would postpone any chores at home that might possibly wake someone up. One time Peter, her dad, waited until noon before Julia and I woke up so he could make some repairs on the complete opposite side of the house! I can say that Julia didn't get that kind of special treatment at my house . . . sorry!

This is us in Germany when we visited the Neuschwanstein Castle.

Peter took us to Rothenburg to see the town!

We all visited the Schwartzwald (Black Forest) and visited a glass blowing place there.

This is what Julia usually wars when I'm not around. . . no this is the traditional clothing of people from the Black Forest area. :)

As we would ride the train all over Germany, one time there was a friendly bachelor party that joined us and I got to be the center of their attention since I was the American.  I don't know if I ever told Mom and Dad about the woozy friends that serenaded us and were excited for us to be such a part of their party!  Luckily it only lasted for the end of the train ride!

This is Julia's village where she lives.  There are tons of lush green fields that surround all the villages there. . . I thought it was beautiful!  Julia was so used to all the green of Germany, that she was thrilled and fascinated with the weeds and sagebrush that she saw in Kennewick.

We went camping for a couple days in Idaho.

Julia liked that we brought some floaties for her so she wouldn't have to ruin her beautiful hair!  Cute!

Playing a fun game at a family reunion in Oregon.

Here we are enjoying some of the scenery in Yellowstone:)

I am able to talk with her on Skype now and she is still as studious and funny as ever!  I am hoping to take David out to Germany someday and show him around the place.  It looks like the baby might be joining us for that trip!

It has been so fun to know Julia and to have fun with her.  I know she enjoys my teasing.  She is one of the most studious and smartest people I know.  She is so self-motivated and holds herself to a high standard!  My teasing only motivates her :)

Happy Birthday Julia!  I hope you enjoy your vacation even though you will probably study the whole time!!  You are getting so old now :)  I love all of our fun memories!

Today was the day!

I was finally able to get in to see a doctor!  We found out that I am 12 weeks pregnant and  my due date is August 22!!!!  We were really excited to get this all straightened out.  Since Christmas we have been trying to figure out how to get someone to tell us that all these "great" changes to my body were for the better!  The insurance was such a hassle, and I think it has all been cleared up!  Student teaching hasn't helped me schedule anything either, but FINALLY!!!  We have been soooooooo anxious to find out and we are so relieved that it is mostly settled.  . . . I say mostly because I have been thinking A LOT about the idea that I could possibly have more than one little one in there . . . yikes!!!  I have another appointment in a week that should clarify that and give us more specifics, so until then, I will not be completely settled!

We are really excited for the future addition to our family!  This whole things is quite the adventure!  I have been enjoying plenty of guides to a healthy pregnancy and I think I am looking forward to the second half of this!  I have been VERY lucky not to really have any morning sickness.  I have had plenty of the other symptoms which I could go on about.  So if you really wanted to know, then feel free to ask :)

I am still a little shocked as this is all sinking in and becoming real!  I had a million questions running through my head and had no idea about any of them I was so excited to hear the due date.  A lot of my questions were answered and the rest were just not as important as the exciting news I guess!
 This picture is for those of you who are wondering. . . Dad especially.  I am not really showing at all, just a little pudgy around the belly:)  I still wear all my normal clothes so Dad there is not a need for Spandex onsies, and there never will be either, sorry :)    I know you were hopeful, but it's not going to happen.  I am excited for when I really do look like I am pregnant and not just gaining weight.  First grade isn't that bad on the body, but I am sure the other teachers, and maybe the kids, are starting to wonder if this is the right profession for me! I think I will have to tell them soon!
I am really excited to be a mom and can't wait to have a little one running circles around me!  David is working hard to provide for our little family so that I will be able to be home with the baby when it comes.  He will be an amazing dad.  He has been taking good care of me to make sure that I am staying healthy and not doing anything to hurt the baby.  He is excited to teach the new baby all sorts of things about ping pong and accounting.  He will be the cutest dad and he is already a proud parent of the baby-to-be!  I am one lucky girl to have married him!  I still have the biggest crush on that boy and he never forgets to kiss me goodnight :)

Our New Look

David got some new glasses a couple weeks ago.  He doesn't wear them all the time, but it helps him especially when he drives at night. He also got a new haircut, so he is lookin' sharp ;)

He has his new look, so I thought I needed to compensate with a pair of these!

These are my sassy new shoes!  Not quite the greatest shoes for teaching in all day, but they sure are fun to wear!
Be sure to check in tomorrow as we will probably have an exciting update!!! (Even more exciting than new glasses, new haircut, AND sassy new shoes!)

What a New Year!

Yikes. . . since Christmas break has been over, I feel like I have been constantly on the go!  No time to relax!  I guess I did too much of that while I was home for the break :)

So, here's what we have been up to lately. . . .

We got out a couple of times and played some basketball.  We had fun and played on the smaller court for Dad so he didn't get too tired!  No we just played 3 v 3 so it was perfect.  Dad can definitely still keep up with us!   

Luke was lucky enough to get some lessons from all of us!  He sometimes forgets to find the basket before he shoots :)  We were all giving him tips and tricks and I am pretty sure we did a really good job confusing him!

David pulled out his rhino moves once again.  Look at that eyebrow!  He was ready to play!

Maggie is getting so big.  Mom and Dad are easy on her and let her hang out inside all the time. Dad is worried that all the manly dogs are going to sneak into our backyard and get her pregnant so she had to be “supervised” a lot.  We gave dad a hard time about it, but he was really nervous for Maggie.  She is such a good dog though and she loves to come cuddle up with you.  She’s funny and knows exactly where the tile ends and the carpet begins and will wait at the edge for you to come pet her.  She's a cuddly cutie!  

Abby is cute too!

Nick and Christine were able to spend some time with both sides of the family. . . too bad we have to share!

Brooks and John got caught kissin’ again.

We all gathered as Dad read the Christmas story.  He teared up again and was cute as he always is.

John got matching Snuggies for him and his dog Gus!  He was a little excited!

Mom's birthday was great for her!  We went out to IHOP and then took a little trip to Lowe's.  She picked out the paint she wanted so we could paint the basement and put up some pegboard so she can hang her tools.  Brooks and John got the pool table, so her room is open for her now!  She is so excited.

Dad made her a steak dinner and we got to have some too!  We finished off her special day with cake and ice cream.  She was wearing her painting clothe so that’s why she wasn’t all dressed up for pictures!  We didn’t see Mom for the next few days as she was putting together her craft room just how she wanted it.  We only got to see her when we would bring some food down to her because she was probably having too much fun down there to even think about taking a break to eat!  

It snowed for a couple days so I got a crew together and we all went tubing!  It was a lot of fun! 

Abby brought two neighbor boys that she babysits.  They loved it and lasted a long time.  I was surprised that they were able to climb that hill so many times. We all enjoyed some hot cocoa with marshmallows when we got home too!  mmmmm. . . perfect!

I was able to catch up with a best friend of mine that I grew up with.  It was great to see Brooke and play like a kid again!  We are still goofy as ever!

Happy New Year!  This is how our great party went!  We sort of missed the celebration at midnight.  We were all scrambling to throw a party together for Luke and his friends after the dance that they were planning on going to was cancelled.  Mom worked hard to make her goodies!  They came and ate lots of food and played a lot of games.  Well they started a lot of games and once someone had a new idea of another game, they would switch.  I don’t know if they finished any of the games they started.  He said it was fun, so oh well!

We came back to Boise on the 2^nd and came back to all of our boxes and stuff all piled up for us to sort through.  We have been cruising ever since.  David has had a handful of clients already that he is doing taxes for.  He also just got a job at Wells Fargo that starts up February.  He might be really really busy come February as that is when he expects the majority of people coming in to get their taxes done.  He will be working full time as well, so he will do taxes in the evenings and weekends.  We aren’t quite sure how this will all work out, but we think we are excited about it.

I started my student teaching.  I am in a 1^st grade class in Caldwell which is about 30 minute commute each way.  Luckily I am going the opposite way of most traffic.  It gets foggy in the mornings, but it has stayed very nice weather wise. 

The weather has been great compared to Rexburg!  It snowed once and melted by noon.  The kids were told to stay inside for recess one day because it was raining.  I had to laugh about that one. . . 45 degrees and raining!  In Rexburg, it has to be below 0 degrees!  It is hard to believe that Rexburg and Boise are in the same state sometimes.

My class is adorable.  Everything from the self-performed haircuts, tears over not getting their good-behavior sticker at the end of the day, and plenty of sneezing, coughing and nose picking.  Let’s just say that we stop and wash hands or use hand-sanitizer about 10 times a day. . . my teacher and I also participate in the routine.  I hope I don’t get sick with all the disinfecting I have been doing!

I was on my way home one day and decided to get my hair cut. Sorry Dad, I had to wait until I left so you wouldn’t make us leave early or something! I came home to surprise David with my new haircut, and he had a bouquet of roses for me!  We were both delightfully surprised and had a good laugh about it!  The roses were beautiful and he liked my striking new cut!

Skype

David's new laptop has a webcam, so we can chat with skype now!!! That's what I like best about him getting the new laptop! We talked to Mom, Dad, Abby, and Luke and worked at getting our sound to work out. We had some issues with it, but we figured it out!

our skype name is the same as our blog:
lorryanddavid

If you can't tell, I am way excited about this webcam, and can't wait to talk to friends and family!

Give us a call!

Turkey Break

This was a great week off of school. I am actually excited to get back to school tomorrow! I only have 3 weeks left until graduation!! Yahoo!! I am sure I won't be so excited during finals/packing week. But for now. . . I am definitely excited!

We celebrated Nick's birthday and Christine threw him a little party! It was fun, but as you can see in this picture, Will wasn't quite into the whole party idea.

He was asleep the entire party, except when a balloon popped and he woke up and laughed a little bit and went back to sleep! He's quite the partyer!!!

Emelia gave Nick his birthday kisses. . .she got up to 16 or so and was too tired to finish! She loves her Uncle Nick!I missed Chad's bowling birthday party as we showed up too early and then drove around to find the party and probably just missed everyone :( I am sure Will would have beat me anyways so I saved myself from the embarrassment I guess.

David and I took a day trip to Boise to look for an apartment, and we were successful! We found a cute little one bedroom apartment for a really good price. We will move out of Rexburg on the 21st and into our apartment in Boise later that day. We are so lucky, and we got a great Christmas present from them . . . we don't have to pay rent until February 1st!! Sweet deal! It is such a relief to have that taken care of and to have found such a good one!

My friend Kelly and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner this year. She did the turkey with her husband Derek and was a little grossed out by the prep work, but it turned out really good! I made some food for the meal, and I made a banana cream pie that was a hit! All the food was perfect, and we had plenty for leftovers the next day. We stuffed ourselves and the lounged around. We played games and looked through the ads for the Black Friday sales. We all saw some stuff that looked worth waking up early for, so 4 a.m the next morning we were out the door! As we drove by Wal-mart, the parking lot was packed and David got really nervous. Who would have thought it would be packed already! I dropped him off at Best Buy where he stood in line til the doors opened. He was wanting a laptop that was on a really good sale, but didn't get it. He sent me to Wal-mart to see if I could get a different one, but they were all gone. David was browsing around, and found a voucher for a different laptop that was also a way good deal. . . so he stood in line for three hours and finally got it! He had a blast chattin' it up with the other determined computer buyers and they all talked about how crazy they were for getting up early or spending the night outside in line.


I had fun weaving through the crowds at Wal-mart, but I didn't get anything this year. Kelly wasn't sure if she wanted to wait in line at Target to get in. There was a line about a block or so around the store, and it was pretty cold out. As I drove up, she saw someone passing out some free bag, and that convinced her! She jumped out of the car for that free bag and probably ran to get in line before the other crazy shoppers! She got all of her stuff in like 30 minutes and was out of there! She saw people frantically grabbing things, and started grabbing what she could but only ended up buying one thing she didn't plan on getting.


It is so funny to me that all day I felt the need to buy something. It was just part of the energy of the day that gives shoppers the impulsive buying power. Luckily I talked myself out of it every time, but I definitely was tempted to by too many things that I had no reason to need to buy them.


It was a great break, and I didn't get nearly as far ahead in my classes as I had hoped, but I enjoyed it. I missed some good times with my family, but luckily I have some family that is close by! I find out what school and what grade I do my student teaching in. . . .I hope it is close by, and in Kindergarten, but I just have to wait and see!!!!

Sleep Over!!!

We got to have a ton of fun playing and relaxing watching movies with Chad's kids last weekend. We started off the Thanksgiving break with my dad coming to town to go hunting with Nick and Chad. Amber was out of town and so David and I got to watch Will, Eddie, and Emelia over night. It was a success too. David wasn't feeling too good, so I just took over and made dinner. The kids wanted Mac 'n Cheese which was great. Simple enough! Then as I drained the noodles, I realized there was no milk! So I just put a little extra butter and left some water in there, and the kids had no idea. David noticed, but oh well :)

Then I had Will go take a shower while Eddie and Emmie finished dinner. Then the girls went and took a bath. While they were taking a bath, they asked when I had to go home. I told them that I was going to stay with them, and then Will said, "Let's sleep at your house!"

It wasn't a half bad idea. . . mostly because they could sleep on the "big balloon" as Edison called our air mattress. We gathered up clothes for the next day, and Emmie brought Don't Break the Ice to play and we took off back to Rexburg.

They loved watching the air mattress blow up when we plugged it in, and then it was perfect for all of them to run and do somersaults onto!

We played games for a while, Edison drew pictures, and they did a few more somersaults and it was time for some ice cream and then bed. I thought that by putting on a movie, they would all fall asleep. Not quite :) Edison and Emilia had to make their beds first. This was going fine as there was plenty of room for all of them, but them Edison was standing up and backed up too far and fell off. She was stuck too. I wish I had pictures. She fell and was folded in half with her nose pretty much touching her knees. . . I helped her out and asked her if anything hurt. "My bum." Little kids are pretty flexible, but they don't have the advantage like some of us have with a little extra cush' on the tush :) A good hug helped of course, and I asked if she needed me to kiss it better. . . and she looked at me really cute and confused. . . .good thing she said no. I know she just took a bath, but it still is what it is :)

Lesson of the night: It's really really hard to frown when you got a smile on your face!

So the were watching Space Jam and I was thinking that they would probably be asleep by the end of it. . . not even close. . . I was almost there though! So I put in Little Rascals and I thought that they would definitely fall asleep to that one because they probably wouldn't get the jokes. Edison, Emilia and I were out, but Will was going strong and woke me up to watch another one. I made sure he was really comfortable and tucked in, and then put in one last movie which finally did the trick. They were all asleep!!!

I went to bed, but found myself waking up every time some one coughed or talked in their sleep. I think I was just worried, but they were all just fine.

The next day we had breakfast and they wanted to go to the park. It was pretty cold out, so we bundled up and went for it. I gave each of them a water balloon that I just filled with air. It was windy out so every time they accidentally let go of their little balloon, they would chase it for a few minutes. I was laughing so hard. They would reach down to grab it and the wind would just blow it out of reach. . . then they started to pounce on it, and the wind would just blow it out of reach again, and again, and again.... It was so funny to watch! After about 20 minutes of this, their hands were really cold and they wanted to go.

We went to pick up Amber at the air port and they were so excited to see their mom! Will wrote here a love note on the way there. We got there 15 minutes before her flight came, so we went for a walk around the airport. We all held hands so no one got lost and Edison taught us all how to "ice skate" (galloping). . . we were all "ice skating" as we walked around the airport holding hands! We all started laughing as Edison thought David and I looked funny doing it. Her laugh is so all over the place that it made all of us laugh.

Here's Will with his love note :)

The people started coming down the escalator form Amber's flight but we couldn't see Amber yet. Then I saw someone who I was pretty sure I knew. This is how it went:

Lorry: David is that one of the 12 coming down the escalator towards us?

David: The one in the suit?

Lorry: Ya. . .I think he is one of the 12. . . the one that is a heart surgeon. . . which one is he?

David: I know it's not Bednar, not Eyring, not Holland, not Oakes, not the new ones...

Lorry: I think it's Nelson! . . .no is it? Maybe it's Scott. . . no I don't remember but it's one of those two for sure.

So all of this happened so fast and then he met with his escort/ride and was out of there. I was talking to Nick later and he assured me that it was M. Russell Nelson. It was really exciting to see him. From the general authorities that I have seen, they always seem to look older in person as I can see the wrinkles up close and I always imagine them as some big, tall person, but they are mostly little old men. I feel so privileged to get to see them.

Then Amber came down the escalator and the kids were SOOOOO excited to see her. They wanted to run to her to give her a hug, but they couldn't go past the security doors so they just waited and were jumping with excitement until they were able to grab her. Too cute!

I loved watching the kids and playing with them. They love to laugh and play and they are way cute while they do it! I guess David and I better get our own to have so much fun with all the time :)