Flying on an airplane

This was shown to my by my old boss and quickly became on of my favorite comedy skits and since I am currently still awake waking on Continental to bring me my delayed bag at 2 am I thought I'd share.

First, we had a fabulous time in London! Danny's parents were incredibly generous and showed us around the city in a way that we would have never been able to do ourselves. However, since it is 2am and I have had about 2 hours worth of sleep in the last 26 hours I am going to post about our crazy return trip and the day that wouldn't end! I'll post pictures of London later I promise.

"Today" (The quotes are because days aren't supposed to last over 26 hours but since I haven't slept yet I'm counting it all together) started with all of us waking up at 5am UK time to head to the airport. Once we arrived there we were informed that there would be increased levels of security and we were only allowed 1 carry-on (not 1 carry-on and 1 personal like normal). Well that wasn't too much of a problem for us because we got to check one bag a piece and that left us with my purse and Danny's backpack. Also, we had window and middle seats which was unfortunate because my doctors told me to get up every two hours and walk around. So after a really long ticket line and security lines we made it to our gate.

At the gate we found out that every person getting on the flight would be frisked and all carry-on would be completely emptied and searched through. Not exactly fun, but not the end of the world. We were also informed that there would be no on-board entertainment aka movie on the flight do to the added security measures. A 10 hour flight with no movies :(

It took us over 3 hr. to board the plane causing us to leave London 2 hrs. late. Once we were in the air we discovered that we would have no power at our seats at all so no plugs, lights, flight attendant buttons, nothing. The seats in first class couldn't even recline without the flight attendant opening them up and moving them manually.

The good news is that about 5 hours into our flight TSA decided that me watching a movie was not a threat to national security and allowed the flight attendants to turn everything on so we were able to watch a movie during the second half of the flight. The sad news though is that for the last 60 min. we had to remove everything from our laps pillows, blankets, books, everything and we were not allowed to touch any of our carry-on luggage. Oh and we couldn't get out of our seats. It was crazy I mean kids had to put away their toys and stuffed animals and just sit there for an hour. I felt like we were the "bad class" that was being disciplined by the teacher.

Anyways we arrived in Houston at 3:37pm Texas time the only problem was that we were suppose to land in Austin at 3:20pm. Needless to say, we missed our connection :( We tried to call our ride home as soon as we could but they were already at the airport. We felt really bad asking them to turn around and come back for us a couple hours later. Fortunately, we were able to get seats on the next flight that left in an hour and a half. The only down side was I had a middle seat in the very back of the plane and Danny had a middle seat in the front of the plane.

This flight took off 20 min. late but the best part was the guy that was sitting next to me in the window seat was like 7 feet tall and 300 lbs. No kidding my head went to his shoulders when we were sitting down. He was so big that he couldn't fit between the armrests and ended up sitting 1/3 of the way on my seat as well as his own.

We finally made it to Austin and waited for our bags to arrive. One came then we waited, and waited but our second bag hadn't made the flight. We were told it was on the next flight that arrived at 8pm and that they would deliver it to our house tonight. That sounded great so we took our one bag and headed home. We were really tired when we got home, but we had to wait for our bag so we took a walk ate some food and waited. Around 10pm I sent Danny to bed because he has to work tomorrow and I stayed up and waited. I figured that since the flight had landed at 8 our bag should arrive at any time. nope. At midnight I was so tired I was starting to feel sick so I decided that I would go to sleep and just wake up when they called. Well they called at 1:30am asking if they could bring it by! So I got dressed again and now at 2:15pm I am once again waiting realizing that I have no idea where he was at 1:30 or how long I will be up waiting. The only problem now is that it's 8:15am in the UK and so I am actually starting to feel like I should be awake. Jetlag! *Sigh* will this day ever end? :(

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A Crib for Baby!

We inherited the crib I slept in as a baby. This crib is amazing it lasted through me and my 2 sisters then 4 of my cousins! When we picked it up from my Aunt & Uncle's it was in amazing shape for being 25 years old, but I wanted to make it new again/ special for our kids. haha That's when I convinced Danny that we should sand it down and restain it.

Well the thing I didn't think about is A) Cribs have a lot of spindles, bars, details, ect. and B) if something has held up through 25 years and 7 kids it's pretty tough and not going to be easy to get off. So after about 4 months, 1 electric sander (that retired itself before we were finished), and 6 packages of sandpaper we finally finished. The funniest part of this whole process is that we had to chose a darker stain to cover up some of the places were the original stain soaked it too much and didn't quite stain it right so the crib is very close to it's original color. Oh well, there's a lot of love in this thing now and it's officially ours. :)

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween costumes all started after a visit to Danny's grandma Rich in August. She has a reputation for always winning costume contests. So after a weekend with her we were committed to not being lame like last year and to dress up for Halloween.

It was late September early October when we found out that our friends were having a Halloween party. Now that we had a place to wear our costumes we had to come up with an idea. My first idea was to be indians made completely out of paper bags from the grocery store. (I had an art teacher at the Y that did it and well you can't get much cheaper) However, Danny couldn't wrap his head around the idea so we kept thinking.
Then one night Danny blurted out of no where how about a toaster! A toaster? Where the heck did he get an idea like that? He said ya know I could be a toaster and you could be a piece of toast. In my head I was thinking a piece of toast? How lame is dressing up as a piece of toast? As you can tell I was not really supportive of the idea. Then, he said ya know like the brave little toaster. Ah hah! That was it the brave little toaster and then I could be blanky. That sounded like a nice soft, comfortable costume.
So with a little less than a month we set off to make our costumes. btw I googled it trying to get ideas and no you cannot buy a brave little toast or a blanky costume. I guess that means we were original.
I was tempted to use a "snuggy" for my costume but that would only cover the front and the color would have been hard to find. Then, I remembered these horrible pajamas my little sister had growing up. We called them penguin pajamas because that was her favorite animal and the legs were connected so you kind of had to waddle to walk. They were horrid but she loved them. (sorry crys) Anyways my mom found the pattern for them during that time so she could make another pair when the original pair wore out thankfully she never did and still had the pattern and sent it to me. Just to be on the safe side with my growing belly I made the large well it turned out GIGANTIC but I was a blanket so it kind of worked. Then, I painted my face on foam board and I was all done in two days.
Danny's toaster however took forever and we were actually attaching the straps 20 min. before the party started. Here's some pics of his costumes being constructed.

Well anyways we hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween!

Sadie, Sadie, Sadie

I just noticed that we have never really mentioned Sadie on this blog and while Danny's family knows who she is, mine doesn't so here is the newest addition to our family.



She was Danny's family dog, but when his parents moved to London she came to live with us. She a miniature Dachshund and is about 3 years old.

Her favorite activities include:

Looking out the window. In fact if the blinds have not been opened for the day she will come let me know.

Playing with toys that squeak. Yes, Crys that is the pig you sent us.

Oddly enough, licking us.

Sleeping/ Yawning & Stretching

Happy Halloween!

I found this cool free blog layout site from Danny's cousin's blog. Since I was in the process of decorating my house for Halloween I figured I might as well decorate our blog as well so ... Happy Halloween! :)

Ultrasound

ok so i've been trying all morning to figure out how to put the video of our ultrasound online so that everyone could see it but it is in a standard dvd player format and I can't figure out what format that is exactly or how to change it so that I can put it online :( So you will just have to image you watched it unless someone who knows more than me can walk me through it. *Sigh* I'm sure if I had premier it could do it in a snap for me. Adobe solves all my problems.


Now for the story on the ultrasound. My appointment was at 7:30am so that Danny could come with me before he headed off to work (my doctor and the hospital is conveniently across the street). So we got up ate breakfast, including chocolate milk in hopes to wake up the baby btw it didn't work, and got in the cars ready to go at about 7:00am. That's when Danny drew my attention to my gas gauge. We were totally empty! The plan was to fill up that weekend but the taillight had also burned out so we drove the truck everywhere until we got a chance to fix it Sunday night. We quickly stopped and filled up with gas and waited through extra traffic for no apparent reason and got to the appointment about 14 min. late. I really hate being late, but at least we made the 15 min. cut off.

We waited for a little bit longer than went back for the ultrasound. My doctor's office has a ultrasound lady (I'm not really sure what their called) come in twice a week so she was really good at it, her computer short-cut skills were amazing! Anyways, our little boy was curled up in a ball with his hands in his face the whole time. It looked like he was praying/ sucking his fingers. Actually, for a while the doctor actually thought he was sucking on his fingers but he either stopped or was just really close because once we look at a different angle he stopped.

She look at everything his hands, feet, head, heart, spine, ect. and said that everything looked great. He even allowed us a peek at his sex, how kind of him. Now we just need to come up with a boy name because I don't think we can name him Jocelyn and that's the only name we've agreed on so far.


On a side note, I discovered why I haven't felt him move as much as I think I would have by now. The placenta is placed anterior meaning it is between the baby and my belly. This doesn't mean much just that in order to feel him kick he has to kick hard enough that I feel it through the placenta. I'm not crazy or insanely out of touch with my body :)

Also, he is currently sitting breech with doesn't mean much because I'm sure he'll change positions a lot before we come to delivery day. Plus, I honestly don't blame him. I wouldn't want to hang out upside down for 9 months, as long as he figures it out before he decides to be born he can do whatever he wants right now.

It's a BOY!!!

Today we had our first ultrasound and found out that we're having a boy!

Our Apartment!!!

Here are pictures of our new apartment!!!

Here's the layout of our apartment. The number correlate to the numbers on the pictures. Why yes I do have photoshop now and yes I do like playing with it. :)

Our kitchen including full size oven and the biggest microwave I've ever seen.

Full size washer and dryer
No more lugging laundry up the stairs

I love our bookshelves!

Main room
Sadie's asleep on the couch that girl sleeps all day!

Okay so this room is still a mess so I'll post pictures once we get the nursery set up

Guest Bathroom

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom w/ Garden tub

Walk-in closet!

My welcoming commitee!

Meet my little friend! I was anticipating a little bit of a learning curve when we moved to Austin beings as I have never lived further south than Denver my whole life but I was not expecting it to come so soon. As I was unpacking I thought I saw a little plastic toy lizard in one of the boxes. I thought this was odd because I don't remember packing a lizard. I reached down to pick it up and it MOVED!!! Yup I had a gecko in my house. The only place I've seen these things are in the pet store. Anyways, I took him out to the balcony and set him free.

Things I learned from driving a Uhaul!

I know the sticker on the side of the Uhaul trailer said it could only go 55 mph but really that was more like a guideline right?....

jk this is not a picture of our Uhaul. We were fortunate enough to be blessed with a fairly uneventful though very long drive from Provo, UT to Austin, TX.

At first I wanted nothing to do with driving a Uhaul. I looked at companies where you packed the truck and they drove, those little moving pods, and the entire gammet of none self-drive moving options. However, due to our time contraints and our insistance on fruggleness the Uhaul appeared in our Wymount parking space. I was actually surprised at what a good experience it turned out to be and how much I learned over the course of our 24 hour drive. Here's my list of things I learned while driving a Uhaul:

1. It is a REALLY good thing Danny has had experience backing up boats because when he was backing up the uhaul/ car trailer all I could do was stand behind him and yell before he hit anything. Growing up we had a camping trailer and always went on long camping trips. I remember many times pulling into a campground late at night and my mom directing my dad how to back up ya know "a little bit right, now 6 in left, straigh back, ect." that was not what happened. Danny was completely on his own until "stop, stop, your going to hit that car!" nice huh?
   
2. When my kids start learning how to drive I am going to go out and buy a manual car and an old beat-up suburban. These were my options when I was learning how to drive (well the suburban was actually pretty new, but I'm not quite sure why my parents trusted us to drive it so old beat up it is). I've learned that by knowing how to drive these two cars I can drive almost anything. Case and point Danny's corolla, a ford truck, and a Uhaul truck. I was really surprised by how much the Uhaul felt like my days behind the wheel of the suburban.
3. Canyons + Construction + Uhaul = very poor gas mileage!!!! We went through about 3/4 of a tank just driving from Provo to Price fortunately for us our gas mileage improved immensely after that.
4. Don't drive through puddles! ok this one didn't happen to us but this is in memory of the poor truck in Montecello, Utah that drove through a puddle trying to get out of a gas station and found out that it was actually a very large hole. When we drove past his back wheels were stuck in the whole and his truck bed was sitting on the asphault in the pouring rain.
   
5. I'm really glad we did not move to west Texas! I think if you've ever driven thorugh west Texas you do not need anymore information.

That's about it now were safe and sound in Austin!

Birthdays

The Circle of Life

Last week I turned off the lights and locked the door of my classroom for the very last time. It was funny as I packed up all of my things I was struck with this philosophical feeling, perspective I guess. It was almost this time last year that I showed up with Crys's car filled with stuff. I was so eager to fill my classroom with all of the things I had been working so hard on. Then, there was the day I got my nametag next to my door "Mrs. Rich" That's right I was Mrs. Rich and this was my classroom!
As I was packing I was surprised by how much had changed now I couldn't wait to move all of my things out. Then, It hit me I wasn't coming back. I have no job for next year, no new classroom to decorate. All of my teaching stuff will live in boxes waiting for "someday". Someday when I get up the courage to try teaching again. When I am once again filled with a million ideas, hopes, and dreams.
I am going to lunch with the new interns tomorrow. It is suppose to be a nice chat, pass on wisdom kind of lunch. What I really want to say is run! I'm sure the internship can be wonderful given the right situation, but it was quite the roller coaster ride. Perhaps, I really do stink as a teacher and a person and all of their "concerns" were valid. I however, think they forgot to notice one thing about my "teaching style" how much I cared for and loved my students. Maybe it is because I don't have my own kids, but for 6 hours a day I felt like I had 24 kids.
No, I suppose I did not move everything out of my classroom. The books are gone. The decorations gone. The students gone. The computer files... still there (oops). A year's worth of sweat, tears, hopes, and dreams from a teacher's first year teaching... still there. I will probably never step foot in Mt. Loafer again, but a part of me will always be there just as a part of my students will always be with me.
This year my students taught me that the important things are not math, science, and especially not literacy! *Gasp!* (it's ok they already gave me my degree) The most important thing my class and I learned was not on the end of the year criterion reference test. I learned that the most important thing is to be a good person and to put all your trust in the Lord. Then, everything else will fall into place as it should. That doesn't mean you will not be criticized for your methods, but in the end it will all come together for your good.

Food Blog!

I've decided to start a food blog! This is so that I quit posting pictures of our meals on this blog come see it! Something to Savor

Look at me I'm a graduate!

After 4 quick years of college I have now joined the ranks as a college grad.

Procession at the Smith Field House

Mom & Dad with the classic BYU sign


The classic BYU sign


Photo Opportunity with Grandma & Grandpa Ferrell



I was reminising today about some of my experiences over the past 4 years. It feels like thy keep letting freshman in younger and younger. They also seem to be less and less mature. It was then that I discovered that deep down I am still my freshman self. To an outsider it may seem that I have learned and grown so much, but really it's just the same ol' me just with a new fancy piece of paper.

Oh yeah, I might know a few more facts as well :)

Conference Sunday

McDonalds Has Got Nothing On Us!


Every conference Sunday since I was a kid was "Big Breakfast" Sunday. It didn't matter what we had but it always took the majority of the first session to make. This year we continued the tradition, but haha! we were actually eating it by the first talk. I feel particularly proud of this fact. So here's our breakfast egg, bacon, and cheese biscuits and hashbrowns.


I made the biscuits using this amazing recipe from a blog I randomly found http://pinchmysalt.com/2007/09/18/how-to-make-the-best-buttermilk-biscuits-from-scratch/ but they have since become my new favorite thing because they are amazing!!!
Now all me and Danny need to do is decide what to but on top of the hashbrowns. Danny likes ketchup while I prefer maple syrup.

Then, for dinner we had Beef Stew with Cibatta bread.


I threw in a can of diced tomatoes
2/3 of a can beef broth (would have been a whole can but this was left over from some other recipe)
1 lb. beef stew meat tossed in four and pan fried till outside is brown
1 onion diced
2-3 cloves of garlic
a swig of Worcestershire sauce
3 beef bollin cubes
2 c. water
About 8 small potatoes cut into bit-sized pieces.

Then let it sit in the crock pot all day on low (about 10 hours, but if you don't have that much time like me today 1-2 hrs. high 4-6 hrs. low)

For the cibatta bread I cut them in half then rubbed the insides with a garlic glove, drizzled them with olive oil, and toasted them lightly. They made a great addition to the stew.
Also during the conference break I decided to make something fun for my visiting teachies for Easter. I didn't want to bring anything foodish because I always bring food and it is a little cliche. So this is what I came up with. Tiff had an egg like this when we were kids, but it got broken. She was crushed so my mom helped her make a new one. I remember being so amazed when she blew the egg out! Anyways it turned out to be the perfect idea as they were so much fun to make.