Looking for something new?

Ok, so I just found out about this cool website: tastekid.com. Put in something you like, be it music, book, movie, or even author and TasteKid will find other things that are similar to what you entered. Now that may seem like, "Hm, OK, well that's all right." But wait! There's more! Not only will it suggest other items, but if you hover over the question mark by the suggestions, it will give you a trailer for movies, and music, and sometimes even an explanation of what the movie is about. A very cool thing. Give it a try. Thinking of my parents, I put in Clive Cussler and got other authors that I know they love, such as John Grisham. There are some things they need to work out: like if you want to read an explanation about something, you'll only get to read it if you have scrolled far enough up or down, depending. You'll see what I mean. And it would be helpful if they put in links to Wikipedia about the books they suggest, but it's all coming along and getting better. Until then, you'll have to look up the books yourself. But, if you're looking for something new, hop on over to TasteKid and give it a try.

Musings on an Election

I suppose it's only fair with the upcoming election that our blog should contribute to the time period we're living in. Early voting ends tomorrow here, as I'm sure is the case in many other places, but early voting is one of the best ideas ever. I went today and I stood in line, voted, and walked out all in twelve minutes. Twelve minutes! That's a dream compared to how it will be this coming Tuesday. If you can possibly take advantage of this, please do. Also, keep your "I Voted" sticker, and bring it with you on November 4th to Ben and Jerry's (if you have one near you) between 5 and 8 and you'll get free ice cream. Definitely a good deal.

But here's the bad deal. As I walked out of the voting station, feeling pleased at how fast it was, I decided to grab the local paper. Alas, my eyes fell upon a sad tale of certain students at Texas A&M. The story even made it to CNN. Sad day. Surely it's great that they wanted to exercise civil liberties and discuss the economy, but really, throwing eggs at pictures of Obama's face? Come on now. It's been interesting to see in this election how some people are just downright terrified and afraid at what will happen as a result of this election. Whatever happens, and whoever wins, we still have reason to be optimistic and live life like normal. The sun hasn't set on America yet, nor has God turned his face away from us. With that said, good luck to everyone voting this year. May we all have clarity and good judgment.

Which leads me to my parting thought: How do you judge a judge? In the local races here it has been difficult to find what the heck these candidates are running on and what they're all about. So, if anyone has any good thoughts on how to pick a good judge, that would greatly benefit Brian and I next time. Thanks, and enjoy your ice cream!

This is the Final Countdown!

So, we've decided that it would be fun to have people guess when Abby will appear. If you'd like to participate you are welcome to do so. This is a really happy time for us. We're both way too excited. This may mean that we have to wait longer to see her because we are so excited, but hey, we'll still meet her and be able to love her. And that will be fun. I hope that stays with me when I'm waking up every two hours. :-)

Birthing Class & Other News

Birthing classes are kind of fun and weird. We found out about all sorts of things that were of course good for us to know, but I think we mostly just laughed at the things going on. Hopefully I can keep my head in that mindset when I'm actually going through it. :-) I think what Brian got out of class is that birth videos seem to show random nudity, not relating at all to what the voice is saying. Granted the women are in labor and not really all that concerned, but come on editors. I think my favorite part of the class was during the breathing exercises. All the dads were supposed to hold up so many fingers for how many times we were supposed to breath in, and then once we did that number, we'd breath out. Well Brian held up three fingers, and only breathed in twice, while I breathed in three. We laughed so hard. I imagine we were pretty loud, but it was so funny.

My other favorite part: We were about to start a different breathing exercise when Brian's eyes suddenly get really wide and he starts shaking his head. I just stared at him and asked if he was OK, but he got up and left. The woman doing the class just looked at me and said, "No baby for you." No kidding. We did the exercise, and when he came back I asked him what happened. He said when he was taking in the deep breath a fly went straight up his nose, and pretty far up there, and it was still kicking around!

I'll be full term tomorrow! Abby's still hanging in there; she hasn't dropped down yet, so I guess I still have more time. On Thursday I had an appointment and I was dilated 1 cm! That's one less I have to worry about when it's go time. I have another appointment this Friday so we'll see how it goes. Contractions are still coming, but they're the normal painless ones I've felt for a few months now. Still, Brian and I keep hoping she'll come soon and are really excited!

Brian's doing really well balancing all the things that he's doing. He finished a rough draft of a paper this week and will be submitting that pretty soon. He's also a great hubby, as always, and taking care of me. He's also keeping up with his classes. Even if he barely feels like he's hanging on, it seems to me he's been working like a champ. I'm excited for the Christmas break when he'll have about a month and a half "off." He'll have research, but at least no school. That will good bonding time for our little family. So, we're still waiting for the time bomb (me) to go off, and until then, it's just business as usual.

Update

So, it's been way too long since we posted, so here we go:

Brian rocks.
Abby's the size of a cantaloupe.
And we'll pass on my size.

Other than that, things are good. Baby is looking good, almost five pounds now, and I am 34 weeks along. In three more weeks I could conceivably have her! Ah! We're not quite ready for this yet, but we should be pretty soon. We still have to iron out that whole crib thing, but thanks to the lovely and wonderful people who threw me a shower a couple weeks ago, we're doing awesome! We'll have to put up some pictures of that some time... It was so fun, but weird when it's actually for you...

A Baby!!!

Nope! It's not ours. My co-worker had her baby yesterday! Even though her due date was not until Aug 29th. When I came in yesterday morning she was telling me about her contractions. Later on that day they started getting worse, and then by the time it was 12:30 they were about 3 minutes apart. She left work at 1 PM and by the time 3:15 rolled around she had her son. If only I knew it would be that fast for me... Congrats to them!

State Park Vacation

Brian and I decided one night that we were going to take one last vacation before our baby's born. So for our "babymoon" we decided that we'd head to a state park, and since it's the middle of the summer, we also thought it might be best to get a cabin with air conditioning so I didn't die. We weren't really sure what to expect. It's one of those cabins that a long time ago was built by the CCC, and you hope that it's been renovated, but maybe it hasn't.


Boy were we surprised! Check out our cool lodgings! It was so nice. We got tons of library books before we left (literally a stack about a foot high) and made out our dinner schedule. We ate so well. We brought our dutch oven and cooked a couple dinners and a breakfast in it, and we also grilled on the grill right outside our cabin. Man, it was sweet. Brian and I both could not believe how nice it was to just sit and do nothing - have absolutely no responsibilities. Wow. Now we won't have another like that for another 25 years or so yeah? Oh well, it was worth it, and it will be worth it in the future as well.

As you can see, the lake is not really your typical lake. It's a bayou that does eventually roll out into a lake. There are alligators there, but sadly we didn't see any. We took a canoe trip one morning (yes we went even though I was about five months pregnant) and it was so much fun through the bayou! We saw a few cool looking birds and then got out to the river. We went down that for a while, and I was dying for some shade or a steady wind with some oomph. We didn't get either. So, I finally realized that I'm pregnant, and that I did NOT have the energy I once did, and told Brian I was done. Swallowing my pride was hard, but not anything compared to what happened once we got back. Brian is an excellent steer-er by the way. He guided us right into the spot where we left on the first shot. It was awesome. Anyhow, we went up to the lady who rented us the canoe since we hadn't paid yet. She saw us coming and said, "You're back already? You weren't out there even 20 minutes." Pride gone. Vanished. Nicely enough, she didn't charge us a cent for our little adventure. Goodness....

The Beginning... Again...

Yeah so remember that other blog that we had? It died. But it did a good job. So now we're proud to announce the debut of homeiswherethehartmanis.blogspot.com! Hurrah! We think the last time the other blog was updated was in October last year. We had some great things happen, like Rick and Tracie coming to visit and going to San Antonio with them; doing our own Thanksgiving with my sister and her family; going to my parents for Christmas; getting a new car (used, but new to us); and... oh yeah, we're pregnant and WICKED excited! We'll expect a little girl coming to us about the 12th of November. So for now, we're both just cracking up at how big my stomach's getting.

We did a weird FHE this week that was my idea (hence it was weird). We engraved our personal property! Well, the stuff that we actually care about, which we found out, isn't that much. There's a nationwide program called Operation I.D. and local police stations will lend you an engraver to mark your personal stuff. They do this to help prevent and deter thieves. So, we have a video of this but the sound really is just awful, so because we like all you people and don't want to drive you away on your first visit here, we'll just throw in a picture.

Our little Hearne branch we're serving in is fun. Last week we had six people at the start of church, and then ten by the time we got through the opening song. Church ended early that day. But this week was good, although I'm in primary, and right now I only have one child who's 10. And I'm the only teacher right now, so I was a little worried about occupying 2 hours worth of time, but it worked out all right. Brian's still teaching the youth Sunday school class (3 of them), and still doing great. I could hear one of them laughing from the primary room, so things must've been going well. Until later!