The Holidays

Ok, so time for the holiday recap. For Thanksgiving we went to Colorado to my Grandma Peggy's house. My brother David came with us and my dad flew out from Hong Kong because one of his best friends unexpectedly passed away a few days before Thanksgiving. So we went to the funeral down in Price, then continued on our way to Colorado. It was a nice weekend. We relaxed and played games and ate a lot. A friend of my grandma's friend taught us all how to play Texas Hold'Em. It's kinda fun to know all the rules and to actually understand the game more or less. I realized after we got back that we didn't take any pictures! Pretty lame, I know.

For Christmas, we spent the holiday with Sterling's family. They have this awesome tradition where they do fondue every Christmas Eve. We get cheese and crackers and veggies, and marinade beef in yummy sauces and then cook it in the hot oil in the fondue pot. By far one of my favorite traditions. I'm dead set on getting our own fondue pot when we finally move out of Utah. Sterling's brother, Preston, his wife Alisha, and their little girl Beca were all there as well. It was a lot of fun. Once again I forgot to bring my camera.

The only pictures I did manage to get were a few of Cami opening presents at our house Christmas morning. This is the only one that wasn't too blurry. Like most little children, she enjoyed the wrapping paper far more than the actual presents.

For New Years, brace yourself for this, we went to bed at nine. Yeah, that's right, we're really boring. But really, Sterling had to work at 6 the next morning, and I'm just always tired since I'm pregnant, so we just decided to go to bed. Our neighbors woke us up at midnight though. They were out on the lawn yelling for a good twenty minutes. At least someone knows how to ring in the new year right, it's just not us.

So, as far as jobs go, I kinda left it hanging there. So, to go backwards, he didn't get the Fountain Green job, but did get offered the animal control officer position at Saratoga Springs. We took it, but once he started working there, we found out it wasn't what they'd told us it would be. He would have had to be on call every single weekend and he was required to work after hours (staying after for police meetings and such, even though he's not a police officer) and he wouldn't get paid overtime for it either. It just wasn't good. So, he quit that job and we looked into Marines again. That's what I meant when I said it's coming full circle. Sadly, that's not going to work out. They don't have any other pilot spots open until October and we certainly don't want to wait that long. So, he's recently taken the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) and is busy applying to BYU's Master's program. He's talked to a professor at BYU who will likely take him on (assuming he's accepted to BYU) and will be able to start in mid-March with any luck. He'll be studying sage grouse (a type of bird) out in Vernal. Then he'll eventually start classes in September and we'll go from there.

Right now, however, he's working as a supervisor of the housekeeping department up at Sundance. It's just a temporary thing until we hear from BYU, which should hopefully be the second week of February. For now though he's supervising a crew of ten hispanic women, few of whom speak English. His spanish language capabilities are really coming in handy right now. We're just happy that he has a job, however temporary it may be. The other day he was talking with one of the guys on his shift, Julio, and found out that he has a wife who works there as well who's name is Erika and they have an 18 mo. old daughter named Camille. Talk about coincidences....

As for me, BYU's new EMT certification class started up again. I was able to be a TA for it last year and get to do it again this year. It's always been fun for me to help teach this class. It's nice to have something to do to keep me busy, plus I get to earn a little money on the side.

Cami is finally going to nursey by herself! It's so nice to have to worry about her anymore. The only difficulty is that our church just moved to 11:00 which is when her nap time is, so by the end of nursey she's really tired and fussy. Last week she sat and cried for about ten minutes. Hopefully that won't become a habit though.

Because it's been awhile since I posted pictures, I'm just going to stick a whole bunch on here of Cami. I still haven't gotten any of me and my belly. Just keep forgetting, plus there's never anyone around to hold the camera for me since Sterling is working all the time. But here's some pictures.

This is at Cami's cousin Beca's birthday party. She had fun playing with the boxes.


This is Cami and Noah. His mom and I were due on the same day. Noah ended up being born 19 hours earlier than Cami. We joke that they're betrothed, but then I found out that Noah has been betrothed to several girls in his ward as well.



Cami playing in the leaves back in October. She didn't really seem to know what to think at first, but she had fun. While I was raking, Cami came over and started scooping the leaves up with her hands trying to help me. It was really cute.





Cami and Sterling just playing on the couch. This is what happens if you leave the two of them alone together too long.



One day I was really bored, so I decided to make a countdown for my pregnancy. It was probably one of the most depressing things ever because the chain just kept going on and on and on! Each of the colored ones represents a Sunday. We hung it on our bedroom ceiling fan like some bizarre chandelier. It's been very satisfying to tear a ring off each evening. As of now it no longer overlaps.

I have to say it's amazing how fast the second pregnancy goes. I can't believe I've only got 8 weeks left. I was talking to my sister about that the other day and she said she found the same thing. I guess it's partly because you're not obsessing over being pregnant like you do with your first. Also, you've already got one child to keep you occupied so you don't have much time to dwell on your growing belly.