Christmas Every Day

Although I was on the verge of walking into the hospital and checking myself in; I was encouraged not to do so. Apparently you have to actually be in labor before you can check yourself in. Isn't that their job? I grew the baby; don't they have something in that room that can get things moving?

All my thinking, and walking, and eating paid off in nothing but a good night’s rest. No baby. Such is my luck I suppose. But on the upside - now every morning feels like Christmas morning. Maybe today? Today just might be the day something starts up, or tonight will be the night I can't sleep. But alas, we still wait.

So much for my Think System, and my Prego Pizza, shampooing my carpets which included moving the furniture from each room in my house, and my 60 minutes of curb walking which left my calves almost to sore to move off the couch. Guess we're at the last resort - let him come when he's ready. We're aiming for before the 10th. :)

Prof. Harold Hill + Skipolini's

Well friends, here we are - on the eve of Labor Day. I must admit that I've been a little hesitant to focus all of my efforts on Prof. Harold Hill's Think System - so I've rallied up a few other friends to get this labor into action.  Enter Skip. We went for the "Legendary Labor Inducing Prego Pizza" at Skipolini's Pizza today. We've heard both stories of it working and not - so I'm hoping on one of the former.

We are beyond set and ready to go. Let's just throw out a scale example: say doctor's put women on on a scale of 1 to ... 10 for example; and you have to be to 10 in order to be "ready".  I'm at a 1 as of yesterday - so although my Think System is taking off to a rocky slow start; I am not giving up hope yet. With a little help from Skip's - this is bound to be it.

And just for kicks - a snipit of our darling nursery that is just waiting for a little boy. Don't know how we got into the elephant theme but it just sort of went that direction and we embrased it.

And so my blog reading audience - Think with me will you. Because, honestly, Professor Hill couldn't possibly be a con artist right? The boys? 76 Trombones? The uniforms. It's happening - and its happening in the next 30 hours.

You can quote me on that. And blogger won't check my spelling so I apologize if you're questioning my educational background.

School's out Forever

Do you know that song? By Alice Cooper? Yeah, me neither. But I do know that one line - School's out forever! And yes friends, I can finally say it is finally out forever for me. (Well, for the unforeseeable future anyway.) With my new job starting just a mere weeks from now, I am leaving the school district! Being an educator by trade, school never really has been over completely; always getting ready for summer school or the next school year. Usually with only a week or 2 off as "summer break" in between. I'm not complaining, that was the huge perk of teaching. But now with baby on the way, I'm walking away from school forever. And it is weird but cool at the same time. (prepare for walk down memory lane)

* starting out at Springville Jr. - had no idea how to be a teacher and yet for some unknown reason they gave me 100+ students in 6 classes to teach American history and geography to everyday. I am pretty sure it is safe to say those kids learned nothing their 8th grade history year. My bad.

* I had a Remarkable experience at La Sierra. Taught several subjects there but the foundation of my job was in World History. A side portion of the Freshmen Seminar subjects Study Skills and Strengths, and 2 glorious years of yearbook. Loved Loved Loved working there.

* Room 3008-the portable by the pool. Which made the months of Aug-Oct and Apr-June really amazing when the polo/swimming kids would congregate outside my window waiting to get into the pool for 6th period practice. In their swim gear. And that's it. Cuz boys in speedos and girls in suits is not distracting at all!

* Principal Robert Cunard and VP Craig Schiflett. Remarkable leaders, supportive mentors, and just great men.

* Class of 2010 Advisor. Wow did I complain about that job clear up until the stipend showed up in my paycheck in June. every year! And those poor kids. We never won anything. The homecoming parade float was pathetic every year. Because I made the kids do it. I can't blame myself entirely as we had no parent support (which the other classes did) and we just sort of put a bunch of cardboard on the float and counted it as done. Sorry kids.

* Kenny P., Sean C., Jenny C., - all time favorite students. Great kids all around. Still rooting for them in their lives that they make good choices and become good people. I had them every year of the HS life. Crazy right? Freshmen Seminar, Sophomore World History, Junior/Senior TA and/or Yearbook. We had too much fun.

* Speaking of Yearbook. My life calling. Started my passion in digital scrapbooking. We had so much darn fun in that class it should have been a crime. The Real Game of Life, Sims, food runs, class parties. It was a grand ol' wild time and I loved it.

* Room 101A. Nobody could find it which was nice overall but a headache the first day of school. Perfect location, close to parking, and RIGHT next to the copy room and teacher restroom. Bonus.

* Round out my teaching days with some long term jobs and then my "roving" gig here. Oh blessed school. There are so many lost kids who just have no direction. I will most certainly miss the ladies that I worked with in the house offices. And my cakewalk job that paid me for reading a book and an occasional class babysitting. But I will not miss the lack of dress standards or language that flood every public campus in the nation. Both of which motivate me to try and build up the shield for my kids when their turn comes.

I have loved my life as a teacher. I count myself blessed that I could work in a job that I love so early in my life. I know that so many adults do not ever find themselves feeling content in their line of work so I was blessed to be happy after I survived the 1st year. I will miss the students, the stories, and the good memories! But I am really more excited about my new job and know that there too will I excel!

Happy Summer.

My Husband, the Pilot

Not to start this post off about me, but, I will.  I totally ROCKED at the birthday thing this year. Most years I struggle with what to gift and do to make Mark's day special. But thanks to Pinterest and a little help from a friend, I Nailed the spouse thing solid.

That morning I was sure to decorate the kitchen table appropriatly for Mark's birthday celebration. We did it on Monday because we both had work off being Memorial day and my mom was still in town so it worked out great to get to enjoy the decor all day. I had the most darling banner that I made complete with 8 photos charting his life. It was really cute but did not photograph well so use your imagination.

 And THANK YOU to Pinterest for the absolutely darling Mickey cookies. If you know Mark, he loves all things Disney so the cookies were totally appropriate for the non-Mickey themed party. And totally delicious!

 I was so excited to give him his gift this year, because I knew he would never even have dreamed what I had put together for him. Perfect face I was hoping for! What did I get him?

 A private flying lesson with a friend we know from church. Three cheers for Super Wife - and a Happy Birthday to Mark too since that really is the person we are celebrating.

 Our friend Matt was kind enough to join Mark on flying day - being my current state of things, I wasn't really invited. Doug gave them the complete tutorial of the aircraft and how all things were going to work once in the air.

 I went mostly just to see what it was all like, and so dutifully stood in on a photo.

And then they were off. Mark said after about 5 minutes in the air, Doug turned the controls over to him and he flew the rest of the 90 minutes! He took them all over the bay area - with the highlight being over San Francisco. I'll spare you all the pictures because apparently Blogspot is not interested in more than 9 pictures for said post so - there you go.

 The Golden Gate Bridge. On a beautiful day.

{Insert photo here of Half Moon Bay, Mt. Diablo, Bay Area Metropolitan centers, Old Military bunker space, Delta...darn you blogger}

Casa de Morrell. Present Day.

 We'd like to say that by the end Mark was more comfortable in control, but he says that when Doug finally took the control back to land, Mark's fingers were painfully stiff from gripping the yoke. {Insert picture here of Mark's pained hand face photo - shake fist at blogspot}

 A once in a lifetime experience for a once in a lifetime guy! I could continue this post with 31 things I love about him, or 31 memorable moments, or 31 inappropriate topics, but suffice it to say that I love my man 31 times over. Happy Birthday Mark.

Fairly Fun

Alright already, enough about Damon Bradley. We have indeed been up to other things as well. :) First, we took a bit of a risk and ventured to the other side of the tracks to attend the County Fair. A rather spontaneous trip, but with my cousin Eric and Michele visiting, we couldn't just do lunch and have them leave, so we ventured over. (As a side note, we are super bummed that just as we start to become friends again, and really get to know our long lost cousin, he moves Michele to Denver and we'll never see them again. Huge bummer.)

So off to the fair we went. And we really did have a fun time. Mark was nostalgic in the Agriculture museum when we hit the old tractor that his grandpa use to have. Many a childhood pictures are with him on a tractor just like this one, so that was a very welcomed trip down memory lane.

 We then stopped by the Bee exhibit where they were handing out samples of local honey. Another interesting experience. Bees from one area made honey that tasted totally different from the next county over. It was interesting to taste the bits of lavender or eucalyptus in the honey. A great stop until the gentleman began talking about a lady who rubbed honey based cream on her boobs and then nursed her baby and her baby got really sick.  That's where we draw the line, when strange gentleman begin to give the pregnant lady boob advise.

 So we hustled through the art and home decor exhibits, taking specific notice of the "unique" photographs and vegetable sculptures. Our favorite was the quilt sewed with the picture of a zebra on it. Mark observes "if you were to make a quilt of a zebra, which end of the zebra would you choose to highlight?" Sure enough, the quilt had only the back end of the zebra. I give the artist credit, faces can be hard. Legs and a butt with a tail prove less difficult.

Our big hit was the livestock, which we always of course love. Not sure how they choose to judge each of the animals, but it was fun to compare the blue ribbon winner with the lowly 3rd place. Mark became quite the animal whisperer as we found that most of the animals responded to his movements and allowed him to pet them. The rest of us were not so lucky so we just looked on.

 And to prove that even pigs find love-our token snugly piggies. Ah for cute.

Its been so fun to be around Eric and Michele while they've been close. And only wish circumstances allowed them to stay in the area, but wish them the best of luck and love, and a "boring" life in their new home.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Not being much of a science fan, I was happy when I happened to sub in the astronomy class on Friday before the Solar Eclipse. So-on Sunday the 24th, I drug my coorporative husband out to the front yard, set up some folding chairs, put the ottor pops in the cooler with some beverages, and we waited for the big event to happen. I was a little surprised to be notified that you can't look directly at the sun to see the eclipse, but was surprised to see the difference as the moon covered the sun more and more. My first solar eclipse of the heart was before the eclipse had really started. 

 And here we are at almost full eclipse of the heart. See how much more fuzzy my shadow is!

 Luckily Mark remembered the last solar eclipse and seeing it through the tiny hole in a piece of paper. It made for an interesting view as we watched the circle get smaller and smaller.

 And we did expose the camera to some serious solar light as we tried to capture a smidgen of the eclipse. Fail. But the sun pictures did turn out pretty cool. To the left of the sun you can sort of see a small piece of the eclipse reflection. Sort of.

Looking directly at it with your bare eyes is not recommended. Nor successful.

So now we can say that we saw the eclipse and have at least practiced so when the next one happens, we'll have all the tools necessary to be knowledgeable parents.

Morrelly Belly

Since I've known Mark, there has always been a joke about the infamous "Morrelly Belly". Something that all Morrell's struggle with, that shows up when it is least wanted, and doesn't go much of anywhere but out. I was under the impression that this was not something that I would catch, being that I had more Wright in me than Morrell. 

Our favorite picture of Mark's Morrelly Belly.

Well, I was wrong. Now I have quite a bit of Morrell in me and it is sticking right out!

So here we are, at just about 36 weeks. Moving right into the last month and feeling pretty good about it. As Mark says so perfectly, we feel that on a scale of 1-10 we are about an 8 in our feeling prepared to be parents. Which puts us at about a 3 in reality right?

All in all we are just feeling really great. The baby is in the right position, he has made a comfy ottoman out of my ribs which he is thinking was pretty resourceful of him; as he uses it often. My energy levels leave something more to be desired-making me not so great company after about an hour. Our nursery is done and I must stay it is ADORABLE. One bonus to having a baby this "late" in life is that we have the resources for a darling nursery where many of my friends have told me they didn't. So that's been fun. I may or may not have already started the Baby's first scrapbook. I'm that addicted. And have created unrealistic dreams of mommy school, schedules, get in shape plans, and the future of my perfectly behaved little boy. I may be preparing myself for an eye opening experience come his arrival, but for now, just let me live in my dream world.

I am currently invoking the Think System (from the film The Music Man) to have this baby on June 29th. I figure if those boys can play the song "76 Trombones" on the Think System, I can have a baby. So-any additional Think System support is greatly appreciated. Not that I am unhappy being pregnant or things are too hard or anything, I am just so excited to have him in my arms and not on my bladder.

Here's to 4 more weeks!

Damon Bradley?

I am sure this is totally far fetched for 99% of the world out there - but I can't watch The Next Food Network Star without having this image in my head:

Once upon a time, many moons ago, there was a movie entitled Only You. The character flies to Italy in search of her soul mate Damon Bradley. She meets this impostor Damon (watch the movie to get it).

I think Ippy, the Food Network Star hopeful, is the impostor Damon's long lost brother. I can't watch the show without my thoughts going back to Only You. The only other person who I know has seen this movie is my tried and true movie friend Lauren.  Do you see it Lauren? :) Does anybody else share in my nostalgia?

My favorite story

This story was shared with me by my brother in law shortly after my father's passing, 3 years ago. I still can't read it without getting weepy. Mostly because I can see my dad in the story. Oh how I miss him.

"During your ceremony I noticed that the sealer was standing between your dad and you (Kaylinn).  Not wanting to disrupt the ceremony I watched as your dad tried to get a glimpse of you.  I then noticed that he seemed to be staring at me.  I wasn't sure why he was looking at me (since I clearly am not an attractive person). Then it clicked that he was looking beyond me and into the mirror to see the reflection of his daughter.  Upon realizing this, I ducked down so he could have a clear view of you during the ceremony.  To my surprise (as he seemed so removed to me), when the ceremony was over and I sat up, he turned to me and said "bless you Joe".  Now, for me, the day was already emotional enough (as I am sure it was for the both of you), but to have been able to offer what little I could and to have your dad acknowledge it (and remember my name???), that was special to me.  He must have been an incredible man in the peak of his life.  I wish I could have known him earlier in this life, but look forward to meeting him in the next. "

That's my dad. Always good with names. Always with a quick wit and a way to get the group laughing. Always. Always a good man.

Missing you here dad as we pass yet another year. Give copious hugs to your little grandson before he gets here so that when I hold him that first time, I'll know that you held him just moments before.

Reno Roadtrip

For mom's birthday this year, she and I took a weekend trip up to Reno mostly attend the Reno Jazz Festival.  On the way up, we stopped at both the Sacramento Temple and the Reno temple. Beautiful! The weather was absolutely lovely and our visits at both temples was perfect.

Sacramento was particularly lovely being that it reminded me so much of the Redlands, CA temple which I attended frequently in my Southern California days. And the stonework and architectural design was really beautiful. 

 A fun side note about the Reno, NV temple, my Great Uncle Mose was over the construction of this temple and 2 others (Medford,OR and Fresno, CA). So it was neat to be able to attend and have a little family connection there. I really love the feelings that I get when I am in the temple and the strength and joy that comes home with me after our visit. (Click here for more information on LDS temples)

 We made it to our hotel in Reno late that night and were able to relax before our long day in the Jazz world.  The festival is held at the University of Nevada, Reno which as a side note was an absolutely beautiful campus. Mom and I compared it to that of Brigham Young University in Provo and found that it was of comparable size and beauty. Granted, I am biased to the cougars, but this was a really nice place.  The festival highlighted groups from collages and high schools all over the western states. I must admit my favorite was a vocal group from Mt. Hood Community Collage in Oregon. They sang a gospel number that I just didn't want to end. Incredible.

You may wonder why there are no pictures of me or mom in them, and I don't really have a reason, but you know how trips like this can go, you enjoy the entire day and then realize that your camera was in your purse the whole time and you didn't take it out once! My bad.

A delightful getaway. And very fun to spend it with my mom.

Electronic Soda?

Have y'all seen the new soda machines? This is insane! Not to admit our slightly overzealous habit of eating out, but on a visit to Wingstop the other night, we were quite enamored with the new gadget Coca-Cola has created.

It's touch screen. And you select the type of soda you want, and a second screen comes up with a variety of that kind of soda.  So Fanta had 3 or 4 different flavors, and the Sprite you choose diet or regular, and Coke had the with lime, and cherry, and diet, and zero...it was wild. They say it can carry over 200 flavors of Soda in one machine. This makes dining out a whole new experience!

What will they come up with next?

Hello Ladies

Sarah, Tabitha, Me, and Michele

A few weekends ago, I was able to get together with some of my High School chums from days gone by.  It was such a throwback to be sitting in the park there talking about our lives gone by. Especially since two of them had 3 and 4 kids, and Sarah and I are just starting out. Such a fun group of girls.  It makes me laugh to remember how we thought we knew everything then, running around with the Miller boys and the Jackman's and Danny and Brandon. What fun memories.

Something's changed.

Things were moving in a perfectly quiet and small direction until about 2 weeks ago. And now my little boy doesn't fit so neatly like he use to. Consequently, my wardrobe has been minimized to 6 shirts, 2 skirts, 1 dress, and 1 pair of jeans. Nice. My love of sugar is back full force, as is my love of Mexican food.  I am lucky to still not suffer from heartburn but sleep will never be the same for me. I really am in dire need of a hair appointment, a personal chef, and a maid would be nice. Doctors still can't settle on a specific due date, alternating from one week to the next, and then back again.

In other news-You'd think I'd misplaced my camera with how much I have documented in the last month.  When I said I was going to try to double my blog entries back in January, what I guess I meant was I was going to cut them in half. I did finish my 2011 Photobook/album and it is Amazing. And I try to show it off to everyone that I meet. Which is a little awkward for them. I also finished crocheting an afghan for the baby's blessing day and I must admit - it too is absolutely amazing. I should have that photographed and documented and blogged. Note to self. Mark is finding more and more success in his new financial planning gig. He is merging out of half of our pool business by the end of the month. And he is not loving that the weather jumped into the 90s almost overnight. He is still in Young Men's, I as Gospel Doctrine teacher. We are still the youngest in our ward - bringing the first new baby in 5 years to the congregation. That makes us sort of well received. And I recently finished my "season" wall which is my new obsession and brings happiness and color all on one shelf into my home.

Hopefully my next blog will be more interesting as this is getting really bad. Luckily, I am no alone in the "abandonment of the blog" syndrome.

Cheers

Memory Lane - Provo, UT

-- I lived in the Campus Lane apartments with some pretty fun girls. For the ward "lip sync" night they wanted to do their Where is the Love number by Black Eyed Peas. Of course they wanted back up dancers. Which is where we come in. Lisa, me and Kaylynn were to create a number to do behind them during the "rap" part of the song, and then we all had a dance during the chorus. So - we did what any truly talented choreographers would do; the head bob. 8 to the front, 8 to the side, 8 to the other side. Repeat. Mix in a hand snap rotation after 2 bob rotations. And we may have accidentally stole the show as the audience thought our dance was far more entertaining than the soloists in front of us. It was really funny.

-- One summer a friend invited myself and 11 other people to accompany him to St. George as he was participating in the Marathon there. Somehow this weekend trip was dubbed "the platonic weekend". He procured his grandparents RV and we all piled in and took a unforgettable trip that was seriously out of control. So fun.

-- I was obsessed with Rascal Flatts. When it comes to music I am WAY behind the curve so the fact that I knew some songs on the country radio was sort of a big deal for me. Part 2 of this story is my job. One of the 2 jobs I held while in school was that of the Cold Food Vending Machine stocker. It was RAD. And I had the absolute best vending partners of all time. One year - my partner was Dallas. He too liked country. And we had a rule that when a rascal flatts song came on the radio, we could not leave the truck to work until the song had finished. It was fabulous. I smile thinking of it.

-- And while we're on the subject of vending. My other partner was Cami. And we had too much fun too. We tried to learn the words to O Canada for our boss and sang it over the radio one day. She had too much money on her food card so she got me Jamba Juice all the time. We, by far, were the most efficient vending stockers you had ever seen; whipping out a machine in 7 minutes flat. (ok, so I made that number up but we were seriously rock stars). We would call in the radio stations during the "winning song" of the morning to try to win. In fact, we would sit in front of the Smith building for far too many minutes trying to get through each morning. Fail.

-- My last vending memory, (I'm telling you, it was a killer fun job). One summer I was assigned the FHP route. yes, the feminine hygiene product route. Cami went home for that summer so I got another route partner. It was a slow route until we were assigned the MTC. And a part of me felt like I was entering the forbidden forest. And it was fabulous. And I had a friend who was in the MTC and we tried to find her room. Fail. But such a fun memory.

-- My first winter semester there, I was graciously invited to go on a road trip to the grand canyon by the girl who would become my best girlfriend. We stayed in a cabin close to the canyon and although I don't remember the vast majority of the trip, I do remember Chelsea trying to keep Badger awake on the car ride down with her very random break-the-silence question starting with "so Badger...". And when Lauren and I would recap our days events usually ending with a little chant - Zim-Zim-Zimmer; Who's gonna get Ben Zimmer.

-- The second job I had while in school was the BYU Bookstore Custodial job. 4 AM baby. Another sweet deal. While many 4am-ers would say they did not enjoy their job - I totally did. It was a piece of cake. Vacuum the carpets one day, sweep the floor the next. I always wanted to be assigned the garbage route but there was only 1 guy who got to do that everyday. Guess he was somebody special. And again, the team was awesome. We had the best time. So fun.

Weekends

Life is happily moving right along here in our corner of the world. Although most of our daily life is fairly mundane and ritual - there have been a few noteworthy events that I can post just to keep my blog from looking neglected.

Several weeks ago I took a trip up to visit my dear friend and her family in Portland. We certainly enjoyed catching up on each others lives and of course reverting back to our College habits of eating too much, talking for hours, and watching movies. My favorite part of the trip was our visit to the Portland Temple. Simply beautiful and very rewarding. And to top it off, I also ran into another old collage neighbor whom I haven't talked to since we moved out 7 years ago. Kaylynn Boggs - the only girl with my name. :)

A simply delightful trip visiting a simply delightful friend always leaves us planning for another get together soon.

Another fun thing Mark and I did several weekends ago was to visit the Palace of Fine Arts and attend the A Capella Regional competition there. It was just a lovely evening and the Palace didn't dissappoint with a little romance and "mood setting".

We found a park bench overlooking the pond and dome and ate a little picnic lunch. Then it started to rain, and Mark didn't have a jacket, and we were freezing. But we stuck it out anyway because this is what I had planned dang it, and we were going to experience it rain or not! And so we did.

The singing contest was delightful, even if we were the youngest ones in attendance by about 2 generations. But alas, you attend what you like - and clearly we are a little behind our time.

Most of our weekends are just cleaning the house and catching up on bills and whatnot. You know, the usual stuff. So it is always wonderful to have a little something else to fill our scrapbook pages.