Sam is More Pregnant Than Me

I'm not sure how this happened. It's a mystery...

You know how pregnant women tend to lose their memory and forget details?
You know how pregnant women tend to gain weight and get a belly?

I haven't had any signs of losing my memory--in fact, I'm remembering much more than Sam (and that's unusual anytime).

I haven't had any weight-gain (yet) and don't have a belly (yet).

But Sam sure is experiencing these side effects.

He's gained 12 pounds since I've been pregnant.
I'm not quite sure who is really carrying the baby...

It's A...

Any Guesses?

Hint: Baby is giving you a nice clear view by mooning you right now...


The ultrasound showed our baby is healthy. It has all the proper parts and body functions, formed normally. Brain, spine, 10 toes, 10 fingers, and even a 4-chamber heart--it's definitely not a chicken baby (they have a 3-chamber heart, right?).

But it does look like a monkey baby, don't you think?

Pregnancy Update

I've had a few requests for more information on how the pregnancy is going thusfar, when baby is due, etc. Here are some highlights.

Baby is "due" June 4th. That puts me at 20 1/2 weeks today.

We had an ultrasound last Thursday...post to come very soon (if you've already heard, no spoiling the surprise for those who don't know yet).

I'd post a photo of my tummy, but there isn't anything to see yet. But don't you worry--I'm sure it won't be much longer before the baby decides to stretch out some more.

I've been feeling great. So great, in fact, that one of my brothers thinks I'm just making up this pregnancy thing (his wife is pregnant now with their 4th child). I haven't had any morning sickness from the get-go, which is a great blessing because of all the traveling I did in the first four months (see this post).

Not being sick also helped me keep it on the down-low--we didn't tell all of our family until Thanksgiving, and then our friends and extended family with our Christmas letter/card and with this past blog post. I still need to tell some people I work with...

So, that's about it for now. Coming soon: ultrasound photos, baby name-game, and tummy photos (when I get a tummy).

Puzzled

Sam and I spent a couple of evenings over the Christmas break working on a puzzle I got as a gift a long, long time ago.

Isn't it beautiful? (this is a zoomed-in photo of it)It's amazing how much the pinks look like oranges and the yellows like the light greens when you are putting this together. Sheesh.

A Christmas to Remember

How many of you can say you've spent a Christmas Eve, the whole Christmas Day, and Christmas Night in an airport? We sure can (in 2 airports!). Here's the story:

Sam and I flew with stand-by/buddy passes to NYC (JFK airport) via JetBlue Airlines. We debated prior to finalizing our plans whether or not to purchase full-price tickets home, but, we decided to gamble with the cheaper stand-by tickets and hope for the best. The flight numbers from last year showed that there were many open seats on the flights Christmas Eve and Christmas Night.

After all of our marvelous experiences in NYC (which I'm sure you've all drooled over, right?), we headed to the airport on Christmas Eve early-afternoon to check-in.

The check-in lady told us our luggage would be sent to SLC even if we didn't get on the flight. Oh. That was new to us. Oh well. I did have my toothbrush in my carry-on.

4 hours later, we were shafted, due to many other stand-byers and last-minute ticket-purchasers. We re-booked our stand-by tickets for the Christmas evening flight and were told that we shouldn't have a problem catching that flight home--there were enough seats for us with stand-by tickets.

After deliberating, we decided to just stay the night at the airport. The only thing waiting for us at our friend's apartment was a bed--we'd have to hope there was a place open to buy food Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and pay more for transportation to get there and back. So, we staked out the terminal and found a place to sleep for the evening. (Oh the consequences of frugality!)

The next day, we did some reading, some eating, some perusing of the terminal. We observed some little birdies who had decided to make the terminal their home, too. We watched one of the all-time best Christmas movies, A Christmas Story, which made it really seem like Christmas. Then, we checked in again.

Bad news: the flight was now full (what's up with all the last-minute ticket purchasers??), with 14+ stand-byers. Ugh. So, we decided to check out other options. My mom was vigorously searching kayak.com for cheapest flights out of JFK through other airlines, Sam was talking to his brother who works for JetBlue searching other options.

We learned that 2 hours before we checked in, we missed a flight that flew to Vegas and then onto SLC--it had 2 open seats. That news disappointed us. Too bad we weren't more proactive on ways to get home earlier.

Finally, we decided the best option was to catch the next flight to Denver using our buddy-passes. My mom ordered tickets for us online through Southwest from Denver to SLC. We arrived in Denver Christmas Night, around 11:45pm.

Again, we found a little isolated place to sleep, slept for about 5 1/2 hours, then woke up, checked in our flight, and flew home to SLC, making it back the morning after Christmas.
We learned that the next time we fly standby (yes, we're surprised, too, to even think we're thinking about a next time after this experience), we will do two things: 1) pack a change of clothing & socks in our carry-on no matter what, and 2) continuously be searching for the soonest flight out, instead of assuming that there are no such things as last-minute-ticket-purchasers.

PS for those of you wondering about our regret to not purchasing direct flights home, we actually ended up spending less buying the buddypasses AND the flights from Denver than we would have if we had purchased flights from JFK to SLC back in September. Not bad, eh?

PPS this didn't ruin our Christmas at all. We still had a great time together.

Tricky Old Man

Old Man Winter sure is tricky.

I walked outside today to find something I haven't seen for a few weeks--melted ice near my car. Could it be warm enough to actually be melting the ice?

Then I noticed water (melted snow and ice) on the roads. Strange...

And then I noticed how soft the snow was--not a crunchy hard ice-type snow.

And my face wasn't even cold.

Could it be the first signs of Spring?

Of course not.

It's just 26 degrees warmer than yesterday.

Funny how 37 degrees feels warm!

17 Below

Yesterday, I bundled up before walking the short 3 blocks to work. As I stepped outside, I thought, "hmm, not as cold as I expected it to be." Yet, as I walked, I felt the familiar trudging-up-Old-Main-Hill-in-Logan-frozen-feeling in my nostrils. Still, I arrived with not much more than a cold nose.

Upon arriving at work, I had an email from my mom asking if I had survived the cold that all of the Uintah Basin seems to be experiencing. I told her I was just fine--my toes weren't even cold.

Then I learned that the previous evening it was 17 below zero where we live, and 24 below about 30 minutes away. And when I walked to work that morning it was only 1 degree above zero. Burr!

Oddly today I feel much colder, but it is 11 degrees warmer than yesterday. Go figure.