Wait...let me catch up!!!

Hey, it's me! Yep, I know! I just like to keep you in suspense for when I'll post again! I really suck at blogging! Anyhow, let me give you the "Cliff's Notes" since the last post in March! Clint and I bought a house trailer in late April and hauled it up here to Star Valley from Logan, Utah. It is a sweet little 1967, 70x14 ft. beauty. It's comfy and best of all - cheap! With school loans coming due in October, a business loan and a building payment to make, it's nice to not worry about a house payment as well! Best part is, the way I see it, we can only move up from here...(unless we have to move into our "little loafer" which is a not so roomy 10x6!).

Anyhow, Clint was convinced that I would go over my due date, which was May 15th, so he spent most of the weeks leading up to the birth of our son working up in Wyoming getting the trailer ready, while I stayed in Utah with my big belly! I convinced him that he should come down to Utah a few days before my due date so that we could get all the last minute stuff done! Clint came home late in the evening on May 9th, it was approximately 8:00pm. We went to bed around eleven and I woke up with cramps and had to pee really bad around 1:00 am. My night consisted of getting up about every half hour with cramps, so I'd see them through and go back to sleep. At 5:00 am, I woke up to what I assumed was either my water breaking, or I was peeing my pants! At 6:00 am I woke up Clint and informed him that my water had definitely broken and that I was going to call the Hospital. We arrived at the hospital at around 8:00 am, the nurse checked me and said that since my water had broken the doctors required me to be on pitocin, to which we said no, but she insisted that it was policy and we didn't have a choice. Not knowing better, we accepted this and they put me on pitocin around 9:30. I made it to about 1:30 that afternoon and dilated to about a 6, on the pitocin without an epidural. My breathing and leg rubbing was no longer paying off and the nurse said my window of opportunity for an epidural was closing, I bit and gave in for the drugs!

After pushing for a little over 2 hours, our beautiful little boy arrived, weighing in at 8 lbs 13 oz and 21" long. To be honest, nursing was hell for about 5-6 weeks, but the good news is, nipples do grow back, and nursing is now that "wonderful time of bonding" like all the books said it would be! This is turning more into a novel, but I'll sum up the rest...

We moved everything up to star valley when Tommy was about 7-8 weeks old. We have been getting ready to open up our office since then and we had our first new patients on thursday! If life is as crazy for you as it is for me right now, you have read as much as you have time for. I'll try to start posting weekly, "try" being the key word!!! Lots of love and thanks for taking interest in me and my life!

Long Overdue Update!!!

So, I realize that procrastination and lack of motivation have proved to be my weakness in terms of blogging! So, for those of you who are wondering, here's what I've been up to since my last post in November - (oops!)

Clint and I went on a cruise to Mexico, including Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. We had a great time! I did really well, being 4-ish months pregnant, and got over the boat rocking after the first night (and some dramamine!) Clint had a great time, his only frustration was with the annoying people who stop you and try to get you to buy stuff at the ports!

Christmas was great! We were able to spend time with our families, without worrying about trying to squeeze everything in before going back to Iowa! We found out in late December that we are expecting a little boy! We have yet to pick out a name, we are trying hard to settle on one though! Clint has been interning with Dr. Stockwell in SLC, and has really enjoyed his time there!

I celebrated my birthday in February - wow - 23 years old....er something like that! Three days after my birthday we set out for Iowa for Clint's graduation. We had to take a 10 hour detour up to Montana to look at some Chiropractic equipment, which we ended up buying for a swinging deal! All in all, our trip out there was about 2400 miles and our trip back was roughly 1300! That's a lot of miles for a 7-ish month pregnant lady!!! Despite everyone telling me it was going to be the worst, it actually wasn't too bad. We stopped about every 120 or so miles and I put on my coat and would circle the outside of the gas station, or walk down the road for 5-10 minutes to keep my circulation going!

Dr. Clint R Erickson graduated on February 27th!!! I'm so proud of him! He is so awesome! He graduated Cum Laude and received several awards! He received the Virgil Strang Philosophy Award which is given to one student in the graduating class who has been nominated by their peers and then selected through a faculty committee, who shows a deep and thorough understanding of the Chiropractic philosophy! We were both so happy and had been anticipating this day for the last 3 1/2 years!

We are so excited to be moving forward and can't wait to get our non-student life going! We are both harboring a little bit of sadness though, since moving forward means you're leaving something behind! We are going to miss our friends that we have made in Davenport as well as our ward family and our little house! Despite my complaints about Iowa, I wouldn't have changed a thing (well, except for my old boss, who is the devil)!

On our way home via I-80, we saw 100's of thousands (literally) of Canadian Snow Geese! Apparently they are migrating back north! It was pretty cool. Clint couldn't help walking over to scare them up out of the water - I guess despite everything, boys will be boys!

Ok, so here's a pregnant belly picture shortly before we left for Iowa. I was about 6 months along here! I don't take a lot of pictures of myself, but I know my mom has lots from our activities since November! I'll post some of those pics when she gets back in a couple weeks.

"Fat Pants" a gift from Heaven!!!

Ok, so I finally broke down and decided to buy some "more comfortable" jeans! I've been doing the elastic band thingy around the button of my pants to allow for that extra breathing room for my just barely larger tummy! I can still do up my jeans, but when I sit down it is pretty uncomfortable. So I went to the store Motherhood with my Mother and tried some maternity pants on.........Holy Camoly it was like slipping into a puffy white cloud that perfectly cradled my budding belly! Ok, so that last line was pretty lame, but at least you'll sort of get the mental picture I was trying to achieve! I love my "fat pants" in fact, I think that everyone at any time in their lives (including men) should be able to wear "fat pants"! So if any of you that are reading this are sick of the binding waistline that your current jeans are offering, I encourage you to go get some "fat pants"!

When I went into the dressing room at Motherhood it took me a second to figure out what the black strappy thing was that was hanging from one of the hooks on the wall...it was a fake belly pillow.....weird huh! I did try it on with one shirt, and took a picture and texted it to Clint - I won't write what he wrote back as it was not G rated, but needless to say, he was surprised!

On a side note, for those of you in Iowa....As I was walking through the University Mall in Orem I was approaching an Ultimate Fighting kiosk. I made eye contact with the guy working at the kiosk and I knew I knew him, but couldn't place him anywhere in my recent past! I walked up to him and he had a giant grin on his face, he put his hand out to shake mine and when we shook hands I said "ok, I know you and I know you very recently, but i'm drawing a blank" then the guy with black bracelets, an ultimate fighting t-shirt and a faux-mohawk replied "I served my mission in Iowa, I'm Elder Blake"! Well, no wonder I couldn't place him anywhere, last time I saw him he was wearing a black suit and tie with a missionary name badge! For those of you running through all the elders to remember which one he was, he served with the tall Canadian and was the one that did the bets about which elders team would win (team A - a hippo, great white shark, lion and a buffalo or Team B - elephant, tiger, rhino and a boa constricter, etc...) Anyway, he's been home for 3 months and is doing very well. FYI - Don't worry about the mo-hawk, it wasn't extreme, I'm sure he's still got his temple recommend!

IT"S ALIVE!!!

Ok, so by the "it", I'm referring to myself....a little Halloween humor, but anyway! So here's the skinny on the last month. We packed up all our "hud" (I like the word hud in lieu of stuff), packed it into a giant trailor, and drove for two and a half days in a westerly direction. We arrived in Utah, unpacked all our "hud" into my dad's barn/shed (my parents call it a barn, but there are no animals that live in it, so I call it a shed), and then a day later drove Clint to the airport so he could return to Iowa to finish up school and take boards. So I am here in Utah, living at my parents, and when Clint finishes up with his board exams in mid-november he will come back to join me in Utah. Clint is currently staying with our wonderful friends T.C. and Rikki. He is spending most of his time hunting and studying for boards.

Also, we have some exciting news to share. For those of you who don't know (which most of you don't, since we've only told our immediate family since we've got here) we are expecting our first baby in May. For those of you doing the math, yes, I was pregnant in Iowa and I knew it and I'm a brat and didn't tell any of you!!! I was officially 10 weeks on Saturday the 18th. My official due date is May 16. We are really excited to start our little family. I have been very lucky and with the exception of not being able to digest food in a timely manner, I have felt really good!

In regards to my other baby - Dory (of course, who else), she is doing very well. She really enjoys the carpet here at my moms house, since we didn't have a stitch of it in Iowa. Well, that's about all I've got for now, I'll be more diligent in posting since things have settled down.

O.C.P.D. (Obsessive Compulsive Packing Disorder)

WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!! Yeah........time to pack, but where to start? I sit surrounded by objects that need to be sorted and packed into boxes/bins. I realize that it is not as hard a task as I'm making it out to be, but I'm entirely stumped none the less!!!

I could pack each room individually, but when the time comes to unpack, what if the room layouts are not the same! I could pack like objects in the same boxes, but then I have to go room to room, dragging my packing boxes along to make sure I get all of the like items together. Inevitably, there is going to be a "like" object found after aforementioned box has been filled and taped shut that is not going to be able to be packed with it's co-horts!!! Then I'll be faced with filling a box of random stragglers that are un-alike because they were not identified during "like" object packing!!!

To add madness to mahem, what then happens when I'm trying to find a "particular"object a month or so from now! Predictably I'll look in the box marked "particular objects" but when I don't find my trageted object I'll then have to sort through the other boxes to find the one marked "random stagglers" and hope to find the lost "particular" object in that box!!!

Anyhow, I think I'm going to start in the library - books are easy to pack............. Now should I pack them by author alphabetically, size, title, or maybe genre (church, biographies, fiction, chiropractic), but wait, what if I have a biography that is of a church leader, then do I pack it with church books or biographies, and what about my giant B.O.M. it's like 4 times the size of all the other church books, and what about my photo albums, do those count as books??? ARGHHH!!!!!!!

Twilight!!! Have you read it yet?

My husband has always told me "You should read more books," or if I tell him I'm bored, he'll say in somewhat of a condescending tone "Why don't you just read a book!" Now I realize he says this out of love because if it were up to him, we would not own a television, we'd have a gigantic library of books to select from instead.

When I went home to visit my family for a few days in June, my nieces all told me that I had to read this "Twilight" book. My sister-in-laws and friends had also asked me if I'd read it, but I simply brushed it aside like every other "great book" recommendation I've received over the years. My thought has always been, why read a book when I can watch the movie, etc...

Anyhow, at my current job I have a lot of free time and they said I could bring a book to read. Well after reading three very informative, yet very long books about immunizations, I decided I needed to give my brain a break. So I gave in and went to Walmart to pick up "Twilight". I picked it up on Saturday August 2nd, and didn't flip the cover open until Monday morning at work. Thus, the story begins......... I left work that day with a mission! I had to get the other three books in the series A.S.A.P., because I knew I couldnt finish one without having the next in line to pick up to continue the story. I told Clint that I was "strangely captivated" by the books, he then asked if that was something that I had heard on Oprah! So, despite working full time, attending Palmer's Homecoming events, preparing a lesson for relief society and an enrichment night activity, I finished the last pages of "Breaking Dawn" on August 13th.

I was so involved with Bella and her uncertain future with Edward, that I neglected some of my household chores. I hadn't done the dishes in a few days so Clint finally gave in and put a load in the dishwasher. I broke from my reading one night to eat dinner (which Clint had made since I was otherwise enagaged), after I finished eating I went to put my plate in the now empty sink, to which Clint made a grunting sound and pointed toward the dishwasher. He then stated matter of factly and with both hurt and scorn in his voice "I've done the dished twice!!!" I couldn't hold back the eruption of laughter that came out of my mouth when I declared "Holy Mighty - you're going to blow my record clean out of the water!"

Anyways, this was a longer post than it needed to be - to summarize my thoughts... I absolutely loved the series, I can't wait to see the movie (November 21st) and I hope they make the other books into movies as well. If you are currently reading - keep going - the best part of the entire series is the last few pages!!!

The Single Shoe Phenomenon

I find myself perpelxed by this "Single Shoe Phenomenon". Have you ever been driving down the street/highway and come across a single shoe lying in the road. I find this astounding! I don't understand why it's always a single shoe! Where is the other shoe? How can someone not know that they have lost one of their shoes? Further more, as you're driving down the road, especially a highway, what on earth would you be doing inside the car that would ultimately result in the loss of one of your shoes? I have posed this question to a few people, one proposed theory is that the former owner of the lost shoe put their shoes on the roof or tailgate and forgot about them. But if that was the case, you would think that more often than not you would come across both shoes instead of just one! Another theory is that it's a lot easier to dangle one leg out of the window than two legs! In my experience, I find most of the single shoes to be tennis/running shoes, which would likely be tied and not likely to fall off. I also wonder what the owner of the now "split pair" of shoes does. Does the owner try to retrace their steps to retrieve the lost "soul"? Does the owner continue to look for days/weeks/months? At what point do you give up and throw away the remaining shoe? Or do you donate the remaining shoe and hope it finds it way to a good new home on a one legged person? I guess the point I'm trying to make is that maybe people shouldn't treat their shoes with such reckless abandonement.