New Adventures

Like I said in the last post, we found a new place!! We are very excited about it. Robert's cousin and his wife were selling their contract and it was exactly what we were looking for! I stole the pictures of it off their blog (Thanks, by the way :)

We'll be moving the 1st of May, or should I say, Robert will be moving and my 37 and a half week self will be watching and giving instructions :) We have a lot to do between now and then, but my sister Christi and her husband Ryan were here this past weekend and helped us get a head start on our kitchen, and I already, during my nesting phase, have gone through most of the apartment and cleaned out and organized everything. We also have plenty of friends that are willing to help, so I'm not stressing too much about it... yet :)

This does mean we are leaving our ward :'( I've loved our ward!! We've made so many friends and memories. But we feel it is what we need to do. We haven't decided whether we will still do the family ward or if we'll go to the BYU married ward. We think we're going to go to both and then decide. This past Sunday was a great last Fast Sunday in our ward. Testimony meeting was AMAZING!! And the cherry on top was that toothbrush boy returned! He bore a very memorable testimony our first Sunday in the ward after we got married, and I thought it was quite fitting that he would get up our last fast Sunday in the ward and say the following:

"I think it's great that God loves us. It doesn't matter what we do, He will ALWAYS love us. Even if we blew up the whole city. It would make Him sad, but He would still love us. And that's all I gotta say." And he sat down :) Classic.

Anyway, we have a lot of adventures coming in the near future - Robert's graduation, moving, baby, new ward etc etc etc - and I anxiously await all of them!

And remember, God ALWAYS loves us!!

Toxemia

Well, Friday we had a doctor's appointment. Turns out in the past month I put on 13 pounds which is twice as much as I'm supposed too. So they had me do a urine sample, which no matter how many times I do those I will always feel awkward peeing in a cup, and there was a small trace of protein in my urine. This means that I have a little bit of toxemia. My blood pressure was still fine, so the doctor said that for now all I have to do is cut as much sodium out of my diet as possible, drink a TON of water, and start coming in every week so they can monitor it closely. When he said that I should cut out the salt, I looked at Robert and we both laughed. Salt and vinegar chips have been my favorite thing lately. In fact, the day before the appointment I ate half of a big bag of them in one sitting :) So, just cutting those out might do the trick. But I am being very careful and checking the sodium content of everything that I eat. Also, the first thing that Robert did when we got home was this...

The doctor said to just leave the salt shaker in the cupboard. In true Robert fashion, he took it to the next level and put all of our salt on top of the cupboards and forbade me from getting on a stool and getting them down. He is so silly. Anyway, I am missing all of my salty foods, but I only have a few more weeks to go, and I'll do whatever is best for Lydia and me!

Baby Shower

We had my baby shower in Mesa, AZ this past weekend and it was so much fun. My sisters and mom did such an amazing job with the food and decorations and everything. They are AWESOME!! My favorite part was just being able to see so many people I haven't seen in a long time. I love my friends and family!! Here are some pictures from the glorious event that I yoinked from my sister's blog. Thanks Tiff!! ;)

This is my adorable niece, Alena. I hope Lydia is blessed to have as much beautiful hair as she does :)

FOOD!! It was all amazing. My sister-in-law, Becky, even made sure that I had my very own chocolate milk.

This is the hand quilted blanket my Grandma Hall made. She has made one for every grandchild and great grandchild. That's quite the accomplishment seeing as how she has 26 (I think??) grandchildren and Lydia will be her 62nd great grandchild. My grandma is amazing!! I still have my blanket. It looks just like Lydia's, but it's red.

This is my little sister (green shirt) and 3 of my nieces. I can't believe how old they are all getting!

PRESENTS!!!

P.S. Everyone is FIRED for not telling me how retarded the part of my hair was looking the whole time!

This is a cradle that Robert's brother, Terrel, and his wife Jenn made for us. It's beautiful!

And that about sums it up. It was a great day filled with smiles and pink :)

To the FUTURE... Keep Moving Forward

Well, like I said, we've made decisions on what we are doing for the next few years. Any of you avid readers of this blog may remember the post I did a couple months ago talking about how lost we were amidst all of the possibilities that were set before us. A couple Saturdays ago after the research conference, Robert let me know that for the past few months he has been thinking that he knows where he wants to be is in Mesa, but what he wants to do is get a PhD in statistics, and in order to get into a good PhD program (Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, Duke, UCLA) he would need to do his Masters somewhere that had a more distinguished statistics program than ASU, such as BYU. The more we talked about it the more right it felt to stay here at BYU to the point that by that Monday morning we were basically decided. Then that day we got the acceptance letter for BYU that said they will pay for Robert's full tuition plus a $10,000 stipend, and that night Robert was emailed his acceptance letter from ASU that basically just said that he was accepted and he would have to pay non-resident tuition ($15,000 a year). Of course, money isn't the only reason we're staying. I could go on and on about all the pros, but getting both of those acceptance letters the same day, and on the day that we had already basically decided, definitely was a sign to us that this is what Heavenly Father wanted us to do. I think I'm going to go ahead and list some of the pros, so here I go:

• - Robert is already on good terms with the Stats department at BYU
• - Now that I've lived in Utah long enough to be considered a Utah resident, we can afford for me to finish my Associate's Degree here.
• - We don't have to worry about switching health insurances right after Lydia is born.
• - One of Robert's professors, Dr. Tolley, has claimed Robert as his research assistant for the next 2 years, and told him that he has been praying for a grad student with Robert's skills and work ethic for years. The research Robert would be doing for him has to do with the actuarial field so, unlike what would have happened going to ASU, we won't be completely closing the door on Robert being an actuary.
• - Dr. Tolley also has asked Robert to do some computer programming work for him that will pay $25 an hour, earning an extra $150-$1000 a month.
• - The research that Robert will be doing for Dr. Tolley might be able to be applied to his PhD dissertation which could take a year or so off of how long it will be before we're done.
• - We might be able to stay in this ward that we love for a little bit longer.
• - If we start this now, we'll still be back in Arizona in time for Lydia to start 1st grade, or possible before she even starts kindergarten.
• - In my opinion, Robert will be 100 times happier in BYU's atmosphere than he would have ever been at ASU.
  

So now the plan is 2 more years here, 3 to 4 years somewhere else for the PhD, and then back to Mesa. Oh the adventures that are in store for us! The statistics professors at BYU could not be more ecstatic that Robert is staying, and just keep giving him opportunity after opportunity. We have felt Heavenly Father's hand in this and are already seeing what a blessing it will be for our family.

This does mean we won't be back in Mesa for good for another 5-6 years, which is sad, but I try not to dwell on it too much. We will be able to visit more often than we have. At least we aren't too far away, and can visit often.

So, that's our plan. Next step, find a bigger apartment that, best case scenario, is still in the same ward we are in and within our budget. Keep your fingers crossed that we can! I'm happy where things are at and I am excited to see where our journey goes from here.

Recent Happenings

Well, I haven’t posted in a while so I thought I would post a couple of random recent events.

Nickel City Date Night

A couple of date nights ago, Robert and I went to Nickel City. It’s basically (especially now that it’s been remodeled) Peter Piper Pizza, but the tokens only cost a nickel instead of a quarter. When we first arrived I scanned the prize wall for what would be our goal for the evening and spotted it immediately – Neon Fedoras! Right away I decided that we each HAD to have one. They were 200 tickets a piece, so we had our work cut out for us. Through much blood, sweat, and tears, we triumphed at last!

Robert scored a ton of tickets on the Baseball Jackpot Game.

I was a master at the Spinning Sonic the Hedgehog Game.

And here we are sporting our beautiful prizes. We even had some tickets left over to get some candy :) If you can’t tell, Robert felt very awkward when I made him take this picture with me while a huge group of people that was eating pizza was staring at us. But I was so excited about our winnings that I couldn’t resist. What a good sport!

Robert’s Spring Research Conference

Some of you may not know, but Robert has spent the past year doing research for the IMPACT (Interdisciplinary Mentoring Program in Analysis, Computation, and Theory) program at BYU which is funded by the National Science Foundation. His focus (which was assigned to him) is Gaussian Markov Random Fields for Climate Model Assessment. Do you know what that is?... Me neither. The way I understand it is that basically there are these different models that climatologists use to test different things about the weather and Robert's job is to find out why/what makes these models, which test the same thing but produce different results, different, and what adjustments can be made to make them the same. He presented his research at BYU's Spring Research Conference this past Saturday. I went and although I didn't understand a single thing he said (or that any of the other presenters said for that matter) I thought he looked really cute while he said it and that he did a great job. I am constantly amazed at how brilliant my husband is. Here are a couple of slides from his presentation so you all can witness his amazingness.

When this "Quest For That Which is Real" slide was put up my first thought was that I was amazed that everyone else in the room knew exactly what it meant. BUT it turns out that since Robert is rare breed of statistics major that also has a strong mathematics background, he was basically THE ONLY person in the whole room that knew what this slide meant. Typical genius Robert.

Primary

I taught a lesson in Primary this week about being a missionary. The only boy that was there didn't want to dress up, and since Robert already looked like a missionary, I was elected. It's a bit out of focus, but you get the idea :)

Robert's Awesomeness!!

Robert is my hero. He really has gone above and beyond lately, even more so than he usually does. With how crazy his work load has been with school, work, tutoring, and getting his presentation ready, he still has managed to do all the ridiculous things pregnant women make their husbands do. For example, the other day I had a craving for green grapes, chocolate milk, and Poore Brothers' brand salt and vinegar chips. Robert went to 7 DIFFERENT STORES trying to find Poore Brothers' brand chips before he called me saying that he failed and wanted to know if a different brand would be okay. We found out later that Poore Brothers doesn't even distribute in Utah. And that's just one of the THOUSANDS of things that he has done. I am so lucky. I LOVE HIM!!

And that's it for now. We are going to Mesa, AZ this weekend to visit our families one last time before the baby comes and to have a baby shower. I can't wait!!!

P.S. We have made some decisions about where we will be the next few years. It's different than I had planned, but we know it's right. And the more we think about it, the more right it becomes. I'll post details on that later.

Toodles!!

30 Weeks!!

I can't believe I have only about 2 months to go!! We are officially in the 30s and I could have her before we get to the 40s!! So exciting! I'm actually hoping to have her anytime after April 23rd (just over 36 weeks) which is Robert's graduation. That way I could maybe make it down to Mesa, AZ for my sister's high school graduation at the end of May, but I guess whatever happens happens :)

The doctor says everything looks just great. I passed my glucose screening with flying colors. Lydia's heart sounds great and she was moving around like crazy when the doctor was trying to listen to it (as always). This is normally the point where I would start going in every 2 weeks, but the doctor said everything looks so great that we can still wait 4 weeks. Three cheers for healthy babies!! Now... if I could just do something about this weight I am starting to gain more and more rapidly??? Maybe it has something to do with the chocolate chip cookies, homemade ice cream, cheesecake, apple cinnamon pull aparts, and fudgesicles that are in my kitchen... NAH!!! That can't be it ;)

Our Goings On...

First, do ya'll remember these?

This is Sssaved the Dragon and the vase we painted for our anniversary. I promised you an after picture and here it is...

We are both very pleased with how they turned out. I no longer think the vase looks like a cow with the chicken pox. :)

Second, I have finally done it!! With the help of my wonderful husband and my cousin's blog, Miranda's Recipes, I successfully baked a chocolate chip cookie recipe from scratch that not only looked beautiful, but tasted wonderful. Before I continue, let me just say how amazing my cousin's cooking blog is. Every recipe I have made from the blog has been AMAZING!! Back to the cookies. Here's some pictures from our adventure.

What would baking cookies be without eating a little of the dough along the way? :)

The completed cookies. They made me so happy!

The judges all agree...

And we stuff! Robert says nothing says "I'm pregnant and can do what I want!" more than this picture :)

Horrah for cookies!!

Hand in Hand

One of our wedding presents was a great little book of a bunch of fun family home evening ideas for newlywed couples. This past Monday we did one that was entitled "Hand in Hand." Starting when we ate dinner we had to hold hands and not let go all evening. So we ate dinner, cleaned up dinner, gathered and started a load of laundry, went to Smith's to use some of my anniversary present quarters on a claw toy machine, and went to Sam's Club to buy home evening treat. Getting in and out of the car while holding hands was definitely an adventure. It was a fun night.

As far as how I fared at the claw machine - in my 1st 3 tries, I won 2 toys. I told you! I got SKILLS!!! I almost got 2 for 1 on the 3rd try which would have been extra awesome, but it didn't quite make it. You can even see the bear hanging halfway into the hole inside the machine just taunting me. Do not worry. I'll get him another day. Also note that Robert was still holding my hand this whole time, including while we took this picture which is why I'm kind of awkwardly positioned :)

If you ask me really nice, maybe I'll impart some of my claw machine skills to you... maybe... if you are worthy ;)

Celebration of Us!!

Okay, so our anniversary celebration started last Saturday. I slept in while Robert went to run some errands that I'll talk about later. After I woke up, we got ready to go do a session at the Mount Timpanogas Temple. It's a BEAUTIFUL temple!!

Other than going to the temple, I had no idea what the rest of the day had in store for us. Robert planned it all. After the temple, Robert gave me $20 in quarters. Some of you may not know this, but I am a MASTER at winning toys out of the claw toy machines. Robert had never been able to witness this talent yet, because whenever we'd see a machine we wouldn't have quarters with us. Now I have enough to hold me over for a while ;) We went to University Mall because I thought there might be some toy machines there, but there weren't. So we went on to our next activity. We went to Color Me Mine which is exactly like Arizona's As You Wish. You get to pick out different pottery things and then paint them.

This is the vase and the dragon that we did. We did the dragon first and it took longer than we had planned. So I changed/simplified the design I had thought of for the vase. It was going to be a cool modern looking curvy striped design with hearts, but instead of doing 8 stripes we just divided it into quarters, and we did spots instead of hearts. The end result, I think, looks like a cow with chicken pox. The dragon's name is Sssav-ed. There's a story behind that, but I'll tell it later. We haven't gone to pick them up after they've been fired, but I'll definitely post an "After" picture when we do.

Next, we went to dinner at Olive Garden. I got a pizza :) I felt silly going to a nice restaurant like Olive Garden and ordering a pizza, but I'm pregnant, so I'm allowed! :) It was super good!

Then we went to see "Leap Year." We both really liked it. Very cute. Then we went home. On the way home Robert commented on how nice it still is to know that at the end of a date, he doesn't have to drop me off any where any more. We get to go home together :) It's a great feeling.

Sunday, the day of our anniversary was overall just a really relaxing day. We went to church, then when we got home we worked on building straw towers. There are a couple stories behind this. First story - why straw towers. In 6th grade, I did this as part of a class project. I told Robert about it while we were dating, and we've always said we should do it sometime for fun. As our anniversary got closer we thought why not do it on our anniversary :) Second story - purchasing the straws. I mentioned earlier that Saturday morning Robert ran some errands. Well most of those errands consisted of going to 8 different stores looking for straws he could purchase in bulk that didn't have the flexible bending neck. They are surprisingly hard to find, but I had told him in the past that I knew that you could get them at Sam's Club. So finally he went to Sam's and said "If you have what I want I'll get a membership." They did, so he got a membership which he gave to me as another anniversary present, and now we have 3000 straws that we can use until our hearts are content.

This is as far as we got on the towers. Eventually the plan is for them to be a swing set type of thing that will be strong enough to hold 2 stuffed animals that we have. I know... we're random and proud of it!! And yes that is the big box of straws behind it. If anyone ever needs any straws, just let us know. ;)

For dinner we had PB and J sandwiches and Doritos by candlelight. It's the same dinner we had on the first night of our honeymoon.

We finished off the night by watching another present Robert gave me.

What can I say? We like High School Musical :)

Anyway, the weekend was wonderful. It was relaxed and a lot of time with each other. I couldn't ask for more. I love Robert!!! And I look forward to the many, many, many, MANY more anniversaries together.

P.S. Robert isn't the only one who bought presents. I'm not a complete slacker. I got us each a softball glove, but I gave them to him/us on Monday the 15th so that we could take them out and play with them since Robert didn't have school that day :)

ONE YEAR!!!

For your viewing pleasure, a summary of our first year together for all to enjoy.

An update on our anniversary celebration adventures will be posted shortly :)

Valentine's Day Celebrations

Well last year for Valentine's Day, Robert and I spent the whole night going to 10 different Wal-Marts to find all of the neck ties we needed for the men in our wedding party. Needless to say, we stepped it up a little this year ;)

We started out with dinner Saturday night at Chuck-A-Rama. Not the most fancy place, I know, but it's one of my favorites.

Then Sunday morning the first thing Robert did was give me some red tulips.

Then when I walked out into the family room I was greeted by this...

While Robert was in the bathroom getting ready for church, I set this up for him.

Yep, I got him socks, a nose hair trimmer, and super hero valentines. Am I romantic or what?? Then when we got back from church Robert gave me these...

And these...

Then as I was taking a Sunday afternoon nap with my new teddy bear...

...Robert prepared all of this!

Chicken Mexicana and rice with salad. He bought the tablecloth and the candles and everything. He is AMAZING!!! He wanted to make sure that I got all the typical presents that girls are supposed to get from their men on Valentine's Day. He even made up this cute secret Valentine's Day checklist that I wasn't allowed to see, and every time he did something on the list he would check it off. It was a great day!! My husband is wonderful. I LOVE him SOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!

I can't wait for our anniversary this Sunday when we can have another fun filled day of making each other feel special :)

Valentine's Day Cookies

After that rather lengthy post I did yesterday I think it's time for a random fun moment post. For family home evening on Monday, Robert and I made Valentine's Day cookies.

We carefully rolled out the sugar cookie dough and cut out the heart shapes. I was slightly worried that we had rolled out the dough too thin. But we ended up having a completely different problem.

Turns out that the store brand cookie dough that we got doesn't like to fluff up at all like normal sugar cookie dough. It just expands. But don't worry. I being the brilliant, resourceful person that I am thought of a way to turn these lemons into lemonade, or I guess, in this case, blobs into hearts.

For anyone who has ever wondered, sometimes you can use cookie cutters, before AND after you bake the cookies.

Here are the finished cookies. There are still a couple blobs that we had frosted before I thought to cut the cookies again, but hey, a heart cookie by any other shape tastes just as sweet ;) We took some really fun video footage of the whole adventure, but I can't get it to load right onto the laptop, so public viewing of those will have to happen another day.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

My name is Heidi...

and I am a homebody.

I feel bad that I don't update more, but there really just isn't a whole lot of new and exciting things going on in our lives. Am I complaining? Not at all! We're happy. I'm content. I enjoy being home all day almost every day. Do I sometimes wish I was still working? Yes, but only so we wouldn't have to rely so much on student loan money, but we're getting by. And I went to go pick up my W2 from my old job the other day, and turns out that they've had to downsize, so even if I hadn't quit I would have been laid off anyway. Things just work out the way they're supposed to.

Anyway, I like being home. I read, I clean, I cook, I surf the web, I prepare my Primary lessons, I practice piano, and I'm getting a ton of unfinished projects done. I also look online at different baby things and get more and more excited for Lydia to come. While I am doing this I have long conversations with Lydia :) I figure I might as well set some things straight with her before she's even born. For example, she is never going to grow up. She's going to be my little sweet baby forever and ever :) And that's my life right now. Simple and happy.

But what about our future life? What's in store for us after Robert graduates in April and Lydia is born in May? I wish we knew. We go back and forth from having a set Plan A and Plan B to having 50 different possibilities come up. Right now we are in the midst of a 50 different possibility moment. When we are in Plan A/Plan B mode that means that Plan A: Robert gets an actuarial job in AZ and we move there once the Lydia is ready to be moved. Or Plan B: Robert goes to graduate school at ASU and we still move to AZ once Lydia is ready to be moved. The problem with Plan B is that if Robert goes to graduate school without getting an actuarial position first, chances are slim to none that he'll ever be able to get an actuarial position because when actuarial firms are hiring, whether it be for an internship or a job, they will look at people coming straight out of college first. Also, an actuarial position would pay a good amount more in the long run than any of the fields Robert would go to graduate school for. Which brings us to our 50 possibilities. (Some of those possibilities have to do with different graduate programs Robert could do at ASU, but I won't go into that in detail.) Lately, several different actuarial firms have come to BYU to do different presentations that are hiring on interns for the summer. NONE of them are internships for in Arizona. But they are everywhere else - Chicago, New York, Seattle, Columbus Ohio, Atlanta Georgia, Los Angeles, Michigan, Baltimore, New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, and on and on and on. It would be for a 10 week paid internship, and they would also pay for some living expenses. We've decided at this point to apply to all of them and see what offers we get and then decide from there. But what if we are offered a position in Seattle, Texas, and Chicago. Neither of us really have any family or friends in any of those places or have any other reason to prefer one over the other. How would we decide? It might come down to saying a prayer and then throwing darts at each location on a dart board. But let's say we chose Seattle. With Robert passing as many actuary exams as he has, doing the different research programs, and learning the different computer languages that he has, there is a very real possibility that Robert will be one of the leading candidates to be offered a permanent position. Our ultimate goal, wish, desire, or whatever you want to call it is to end up in Mesa, AZ with all of our family. These companies that are hiring on interns all have offices in Arizona, they just aren't hiring there right now. So let's say that we are in Seattle and at the end of the internship they offer Robert a permanent position. We would maybe want to take the offer so that Robert could get his foot in the door in the actuarial field and keep an eye out for openings in Arizona (best case scenario) with that company so he could just transfer and stay with the same company or an opening with another company in Arizona. But it could be anywhere from 1 year to 5 years or more that we could be waiting to get a position in Arizona. Would it be worth living away from our true home that long, or would we want to turn down the offer and then Robert would continue with his plan to go to grad school at ASU this fall. So if we think in terms of our hope and dream of living in Arizona, it's a decision of do we want to move to Arizona in 4 months (don't take an internship), 6 months (take an internship), or 1-5+ years. Both mine and Robert's first impulse when we look at it that way is that we miss our family. We hate being away from them. We think about our little baby that will be here soon and we want Lydia to be friends with and grow up surrounded by her cousins, aunts/uncles, grandparents. So the sooner we are in Arizona the better. If we look at it in terms of income, as an entry level actuary Robert would start out at at least $50,000-$60,000 a year. That would increase significantly after one year and in 10 years he would be making approximately $100-150,000 a year (could be up to $300,000). With the other fields (Geographical Information Systems is the leading candidate right now) that Robert would go into after graduate school (which grad school also means more student loans for tuition and what not) on average he would start at $40,000 a year and in 10 years be making somewhere between $60-80,000 a year. Being from a big family that money was/is a near constant worry, from this viewpoint the decision is a no brainer. However that can also be interpreted as me saying that the money takes priority over our family, BUT at the same time we also need to be thinking what is best in the long run for OUR little family (Robert, Lydia, and me), BUT we don't need to be making $150,000 a year to be happy. We could be the happiest family in the history of the world and only be making $50,000, or even $30,000 a year.

Anyway, that is our predicament. I could go on for much longer, but I think I rambled enough already. For those of you who managed to read through this whole thing without falling asleep, you deserve a pat on the back. Any input is welcome, but I mainly wrote this all out just to get it all out of my head :) I know everything will work out the way it is supposed to. We are constantly praying about it, and we know when it comes down to final decision time, He will guide us to what we need to do. But right now we just feel like we are treading water, and our arms are getting really tired from doing so.