The Latest

When I first started this blog, I said I wouldn't post more than once a week. However, I'm having trouble finding a reason to post even that often at this point. Things are pretty mellow around here. Partially, I'm afraid of boring people with pregnancy/baby updates, but that seems to be the thing that changes the most in our lives so it will probably come up in this blog. (Note: This is your warning for those of you who are bored stiff by that idea.)

There are other things happening, too, though. About a month ago, Patrick was called as an advisor to the Teacher's Quorum at church (that's the 14-15-year-old boys). We love that we are both working with the teenagers now. We both teach classes on Sunday (Patrick does twice a month and I do every other month--July is my month off) and we also attend Wednesday night activities.

For Wednesday night activities, one week the boys had a cook out and played golf. Another week, they played disc golf at a park with a disc golf course. One of the other leaders brought a disc golf set, which Patrick thought was fantastic, so he used some of his birthday money to get himself a set. He's already put it to good use. When they first arrived, we went out and made up our own "course" at the closest park. A few days later, the two of us along with Aunt Mickie and Aunt Pattie went to the park with the actual disc golf course and he got to use his fancy frisbees again. And then another week for the boys' activity, they went boating on the lake. Patrick tried wakeboarding and was very frustrated that he couldn't get up. He thinks he knows what he did wrong, so if anybody has a boat and a wakeboard and wants to take him back out to try again, you may be amazed at his abilities. Even without being able to get up, he felt as though he got plenty of exercise because he was pretty sore the next few days.

As far as teaching, there isn't an exact order to the lessons they have to teach in the Teacher's Quorum, so one week when Patrick was going to have to teach, he asked me several times for ideas. Then, that Sunday morning he pulled me from the chair I was sitting on and said, "C'mon. We're going hunting." We went out into the yard and collected about a dozen rocks from Pattie's rock garden. Then, we went inside and Patrick borrowed paint from Pattie and began painting "PRAY" on the rocks. I sat and watched him and asked jokingly after a while, "So, you decided to teach a lesson on prayer?" Patrick smiled back and said, "Nope." The funny part was that he wasn't joking. "I'm teaching about quorum unity," he explained. "I want this to remind them to pray for each other." Of course that made sense, but his initial response seemed pretty ridiculous with all these rocks piled around him that said "PRAY" in big capital letters.

As for the promised pregnancy update, things are going well. The baby seems as though he's already outgrowing my stomach and we still have two months, so I'm not sure what that means for the next sixty days. Well, I have a guess that it means I'm going to be stretched an unfathomable amount, but it is sort of difficult to comprehend. Also, on Saturday, my friend Michelle threw me a baby shower. I'm not the best at being the center of attention, but I did have a good time. Michelle planned it really well and it's always wonderful to see family (Pattie, Mickie, Janet, and Julie) and it was wonderful to see friends that I rarely get to see. The only big thing we really need to get before the baby comes now is the mattress and then we'll be able to handle him, even if we don't have all the extra things we'll discover are useful and go out and buy after he's here. So we're nearly set. I'm pushing for us going to get it soon, though Patrick doesn't feel much need to hurry. (If he were in my stomach (or my stomach were in him rather) he might feel differently.) We're planning to install the car seat when we return from the family reunion later in July. That is also when we begin the prenatal classes. There is an awful lot we don't know-- and I even mean the really, really basic birth/baby things--so I'm excited to be taking the class. We are guaranteed to learn a ton!