See, you guys!

See? I wasn't joking. Bring on the stretchy pants. It took me a while to convince myself that I needed to have pictures of pregnant me and that I probably should post some of myself at some point. I'm just not cute right now. Most days I'm okay with it, but I still know that I'm not cute. Some women are cute pregnant women. They're all petite with just a little basketball tummy. I'm more everything is puffy from my shoulders to my knees type of pregnant person. It's not the most flattering. I know that in the future I'll be glad I documented my prego days...so here you go. Me at 24 weeks. Ta da!

Matt Nathanson Concert

Last Saturday Glenn and I attended a Matt Nathanson concert downtown on 6th street. It was a blast. Jessie Baylin opened for him. She was absolutely wasted at the beginning of her set and just got worse and worse as the performance went on. By the end of her set she was totally glazed over and just staring into the audience. She has a cool sound and when she just stood there and sang I liked her music. But then there she danced. I don't understand how a singer can truly have no sense of rhythm. I asked Glenn if he understood and he said, "I think rhythm goes when you're drunk and stoned at the same time." Good point. It was awesome. Every time there was a little instrumental break and she started flailing around on the stage everyone in the audience kind of looked around at each other like, "should we laugh?" Then there were the few times that she decided to talk in between songs and it just came out a whole bunch of jumbled phrases that never quite formed a cohesive thought so she just kept trying to explain herself until she eventually gave up. All in all, a very enjoyable performance...for all the wrong reasons.

Matt, however, was just awesome. I love his music. I always leave his concerts with a renewed conviction to learn to play the guitar. Then I don't. I've seen him twice in Utah and I learned that he definitely tones down the language for the Utah crowds...but I suppose I didn't expect to go to a rock concert in Austin and not hear any cursing. He's a great performer and we had a really fun time. Glenn was in charge of the camera for the night and was apparently a bit shy of taking pictures so this is what we got.
We waited around afterwards and met Matt in his tour bus for a sec to say hello. Matt stayed with his family for a couple of years while he attended Proctor Academy, the private school in Glenn's home town. He's really good friends with Glenn's older brothers so we always get to say hi after we go to his concerts. It was very cool. Glenn and I were too embarrassed to ask to get a picture with him.

We got out at around 1:30 and walked down 6th street to get to our car. It was insane. The street was entirely closed off and just crowded with mobs of the most odd people you would ever see. Some who looked like they just rolled out of the dumpster and some who were dressed up like they were going to the prom. It was so interesting to watch the diverse people who all came out to wander the street and drink the night away. We Mormons are missing so much!

Abusive parent.

One of my co-workers gave me this dog shirt because her dog is too fat for it and it's brand new. People are funny about their dogs here. Everyone has dogs and they treat them like their babies. I don't really care for dog clothes. I didn't really want a dog shirt, but she was so excited to give it to someone with a dog that would fit it that I kind of couldn't say no. So...I put it on poor Rosie when I got home and Glenn and I laughed at her for a long time. She actually didn't seem to mind much. She just kind of walked around with this confused face like "Hey, what's this?" So here are some pictures of my evening as an abusive dog parent. I think she looks pretty ridiculous.
I don't think Rosie likes the flash.In other news, it was chilly last night. Not cold mind you, but chilly. It was probably 45 degrees or so. We went out to dinner and after we came out of the restaurant it was chilly! Very exciting. It just isn't fall without a little chill in the air and if I have to wait until nine at night to get it then so be it. I am told, however, that yesterday was unseasonably cold for this time of year and while we may have occasional cold spells it is unlikely to actually cool down until Decemberish. Excellent. My family has had frost and snow already back home. How is this fall?

Mysteries of Man

I've been pondering this last week how it is that guys who are really into sports (or hunting, or computers, or whatever hobby it may be) can take in so many sporting events and never get bored of sports. Now my husband is not nearly as bad as many husbands I have met and heard about. He got tickets to one of the most important college football games this year and he sold them because he knew he could make a lot of money from the tickets. He missed a football game to go to a ward activity with me because I really needed to meet people in the ward. He's just really sad on those days. The man loves sports. He can watch sports center every morning (and more than just mornings on days he has off of school), he can go to sports games twice a week every week and he still looks up scores online for other games he didn't hear about or watch when he gets home at night. Nearly every conversation he has with his buddies has something to do with sports somewhere in there. He also finds guys in stores or wherever we go who are wearing some team's shirt or hat and strikes up a conversation about how that team is doing. I understand that boys like sports...I guess I just can't think of anything in my life that I can relate to that level of dedication or dare I say obsession.
I like to shop. I like to watch the news and certain TV shows. I like music and theatre and films. I love swimming. I have a lot of interests that I could fill my time with every day. I just don't think there is anything I like to do that I could do every day and not get bored of it after a couple of weeks. I go shopping for Christmas and can spend all day at malls and shopping centers and outlets and then after that day I really don't want to go at it again for a while. I enjoy certain TV shows but I have never arranged my schedule so that I don't miss one particular show week after week. I love watching plays and movies, but I don't have to go every week. I don't get really sad if a certain play is in town and I miss it. And I don't have to talk to my friends about what shows are on broadway or the west end every season.
Do you guys have a sports equivalent. Something that you really think about and talk about every day? Glenn has always loved sports. He's not a totally changed man or anything. However, the amount of time and attention paid to sports has undeniably gone up since we moved here. I think it may have something to do with the following few variables: a lot of friends here who are sports lovers and with whom he can discuss sports quite often, being on a fantasy football league which he hasn't done in the past, and attending and therefore having some personal stake in a university who currently has the number 1 football team in the nation. I have suspicions that the academic credentials of the University of Texas and their geology department may not have been the only reason this university was so appealing to Glenn. Hmmm.
Just something I've been pondering lately. Yet another mystery of man.

Day trip!

This past weekend Glenn and I took a quick trip to San Antonio. It was so much fun. I really enjoy my time with Glenn now because I don't get to see him much. Having him to myself for a whole day was just a party!

We started out the day at the San Antonio Temple. It was very pretty. There were gorgeous stained glass windows everywhere.

I enjoy going to the temple and going to chuch for that matter, so much more here than I did at home. It's refreshing. It's a much needed break.

Next we went downtown to see the Alamo. It was smaller than I imagined. It's always cool to be in the actual place where historic events occurred. So many people were killed there defending the Alamo. They saw the Alamo as a symbol of Texas and of our country. They fought Santa Anna's army for 13 days and everyone in the Alamo was killed because no one came to help them fight. After that, the rallying cry for the rest of the war became "Remember the Alamo" because of the absolute devestation of the battle. It was neat to hear the stories and also to learn about some of the real people who fought there like Davey Crockett. Glenn and I spent the rest of the afternoon singing the Davey Crockett song from the old Disney movie.

After that we wandered around downtown for a bit. We went down to the riverwalk when it got too hot. In downtown San Antonio they have this pretty riverwalk that is below the street level. It's a winding river with sidewalks on both sides and there are some stores and restaurants and little boats taking people up and down. It's quite long. It winds around most of the city. It was very green, and very shady which was perfect.

I had heard about a fun Latin market downtown that we wanted to find so we hopped on a bus to market square. The market wasn't that special. The same things you'd find in any Latin market. We really went so Glenn could find some authentic Mexican food. He got some tacos at a little stand and the hot sauce that came with them packed quite a punch. I don't think I've ever heard Glenn admit that anything is hot. The man has taste buds of steel...or he's just burned them off and they no longer exist. He wouldn't let me kiss him for a while after he ate the tacos. He told me that if he thought this stuff was hot, I would cry if I came in contact with it.

We found a roasted corn stand selling roasted corn ears on a stick. It reminded us of Nacho Libre...so we took a picture.San Antonio was a pretty city. Many of the buildings are older and just charming. It looks just like I imagine old Southern cities looking. It's a much prettier city than Austin, at least downtown San Antonio is. The busses we rode in were these cute little trolleys. It was so fun!

On the way home we stopped in San Marcos at the outlet malls because I wanted to check out a couple of stores I had heard about. They have a pottery barn outlet and a williams-sonoma outlet. I was hoping to find some cute baby stuff at pottery barn but it was pretty picked over. I could not believe the size of this outlet mall. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. Glenn agreed! He described it as, "two miles of shopping hell." I suppose if I go back I'll be going by myself. They had miles and miles of shops. All the standard outlet mall stores and then tons of more upscale stores as well. There is no possible way you would be able to get to everything if you walked all day. It seriously blew my mind. We'll see if I can get Glenn to go back with me for some Christmas shopping sometime. Maybe if I'm really really nice.

First Time for Everything

I went downtown to meet Glenn at a restaurant late Friday night after I got off of work. A representative from an oil company was in town and had invited a few grad students out for dinner and drinks. Glenn and I enjoyed the free food and everyone else really enjoyed the free drinks! On our way out I went to use the bathroom and discovered that someone who had a few too many drinks had vomited all over the floor. It wasn't pretty. My pregnant nose and I decided that I could hold it until I got home. Oh the things I've been missing living in Utah all of my life! Beer vomit smells so nice.

Tagged!

I've never been tagged before. It's kind of exciting. I have a hard time with definite favorites or least favorites so this is sort of what I came up with today. It may be different tomorrow:)

3 Favorite Last Purchases:

1. Cute vest and bowtie for little man's blessing.

2. Comfy stretchy pants for me.

3. Crib bedding for little man. It's just more fun to shop for him!
3 Fears:

1. Losing someone I love.

2. Little man born with something wrong.

3. Spiders and snakes. We're not friends.
3 Favorite Movies:

1. Notting Hill

2. The Philadelphia Story (many more good oldies and musicals)

3. Waiting for Guffman (edited of course)

3 Facts about me:

1. I have an issue with food texture. I like the taste of apples, I don't like the texture and biting into the skin. Same thing with beef and a lot of other meat. It's wierd. I know.

2. I wanted to be an astronaut or an E.R. doctor when I was younger.

3. I have never wanted to go sky diving. Not a need I have.
3 Thing I haven't done:

1. Learned to whistle or wink

2. The splits. Never been a very flexible girl.

3. Watched Saturday's Warrior.

3 Thing I can't Live without:

1. My family
2. Snuggling.

3. The Gospel

3 Things on today's list:

1. Go for a walk with Rosie.

2. Watch conference whilst snuggling with my sweetheart.

3. Make pizza dough for dinner tonight. We're having some couples over.

3 Favorite Dishes:

1. Yummy salads and breadsticks. I think I could eat at Olive Garden every day!

2. Yummy pizza or other starch stuffed dish. I'm a bread fiend.
3. Hot chocolate. I know it's not really a dish...but I love it.

3 Places I have lived:

1. Austin, TX

2. Orem, American Fork, Provo, UT

3. Alcala de Henares, Spain

3 Favorite T.V. Shows:

1. The Office

2. Lost (I'm just becoming an addict. Thank you netflix.)

3. Fun shows on TLC. I like to catch John and Kate plus 8.

3 Places I have traveled:

1. Disneyland

2. The UK

3. Hawaii

3 Favorite Desserts:

1. ICE CREAM! My favorite is vanilla with bits of cookies or candy in them. Yes, I am 5 years old.

2. My mom's Blemire Cake recipe

3. Eclair Cake
3 Things I would buy if money wasn't an issue:

1. New wardrobe!

2. Lots and lots of vacations.

3. Give money to charities.

3 Wishes:

1. To be a good mommy.

2. Serve a mission with my sweetheart.

3. To do service in other countries some day with our kiddies.

Half way!

This week was my 20th week of being preggers. It's hard to believe we're already half way done. It seems like yesterday we were thinking, "Hey, I think we should probably have a baby now," and now the babe is half way here. I feel like I should look more pregnant by now but I just look chubby. Customers at the store are still surprised when I tell them I'm pregnant. Many people come in who are due in February as well and most are much more round and cute and pregnant-looking than me. Our regular customers who come in once a week are probably thinking to themselves, "Wow, new girl is really packing on the pounds!" Yes folks, I am. But I'm growing a human so I have an excuse. Oh well. I'm sure I'll actually start to look pregnant and then I'll wish I didn't. That's how these things usually work. You always want what you don't have. Being pregnant is pretty nice this trimester. It's nice that for once in my life, I'm not loving what I see in the mirror but it doesn't make me sad or wish that I was different. I'm truly fine just the way I am right now. I'm chubby around the middle, my clothes don't fit great, but I know that I'm pregnant and my husband still thinks I'm cute so I really don't feel bad about it at all. It's pretty great!
This week Glenn was out of town all week on a Geology field trip. His entire class flew to Colorado and stayed in or camped around their professor's cabin. They were doing all sorts of mapping and cool things that I don't really understand even when I ask him to explain. Asking Glenn to explain his studies is sort of a fun process. I ask him to tell me what he does and he uses all of the technical geology terms. Then I ask him to define those terms for me, and finally I put together what he did in my simplified language. So it ends up something like this, "So you were drawing a square map of the different layers of rock in an area where a river left a bunch of sediment over thousands of years. Then you color-code it with colored pencils according to how old it is and what type of rock is it. Then you try to make connections from that colored map to other maps you've drawn of areas nearby. Right?" He looks at me like I'm a child. Sometimes I oversimplify it just to get that look. "So it's like a colorful rock sandwich that was made by water a really long time ago and you need to see if nearby sandwiches have the same things inside?" It's fun! So many big words I've never heard before. I know a lot of big words. Just not Geology ones.
He's back now. That makes me very happy! Everything's more fun with Glenn around.
So happy half way to us. I was able to see our little guy in another sonogram this week. He's still pretty cute...as cute as a little skeleton guy can be.