FINALLY

After 2 1/2 years, I am happy, pleased, relieved, excited, elated, ecstatic, joyous, and thrilled to announce that

I AM PREGNANT!

Thanks to the miracle of IVF. You'll get all the details later. I'm due June 15, 2010!

Fun Times

I warned everyone that I was horrible at blogging. For our 4th anniversary this year, we decided to go to Lagoon (an amusement park). I had never been so it was fun to go, but it was definitely small compared to some amusement parks. It was so hot that I developed heat stroke by about 5 pm, so Greg went on one ride by himself. He loved it, though I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have. Here are a couple pictures:

The ride Greg went on without me. It rotated in nearly every direction and the seats rotated as well.

This is a view from the 100-year-old Ferris Wheel. The ride in the picture is another ride we went on. It is a few stories high and one of those rides where it drops suddenly from the top, but this ride can also go up really fast from the bottom. It was fun.

The Adventures of Rajah

Okay, since I don't have kids, I have to do a cat post. Feel free to completely ignore. So Rajah is no longer afraid of us. At all. In fact, he likes to attack us. Luckily, training with a water spray bottle works brilliantly on him. He no longer attacks with claws (and I clipped his toenails), but he hasn't quite learned not to bite. He's becoming much gentler, but it takes time. He is VERY active and he does NOT like to be alone. At first, we were afraid of him destroying the condo, so we barricaded him in the hallway, with the only access to his litter box, food, and the impromptu house Greg made. It looked like this:

He couldn't quite jump the laundry baskets :) Now, the only place he isn't allowed is our bedroom. He meows when we go to bed at night and if we don't get up early enough in the morning. We figured out he sleeps longer if we keep the curtains shut in the bedrooms he has access to. As soon as we step out the door, he attacks your legs (no claws so it's really rather funny) the whole way you walk down the hallway. As soon as we come home, he meows if we don't play with him soon enough. We have a Cat Tips book from the vet and they claim 10-15 minutes a day is enough time to play with your kitten. Ha! The book also has pictures of different behaviors which indicate different personalities. Well, according to the book, we have an overdependent, overattentive cat. Great.

He loves playing peek-a-boo. Seriously. You hide behind one side of the couch, and he'll go to the other, then when you go one way, he'll either jump out and attack, or he'll sneak around behind the other way and attack from behind! Then after he attacks (which is really more jumping towards you once), he goes back to the other side to do it again. I've never seen a kitten do stuff like that. He's also discovered he likes human food more than cat food. Go figure. This could have happened from me slipping him a piece (it was tiny) of ham one day. Then Greg gave him a sour cream and onion potato chip. He loved both. He also likes cheese (he got some that had fallen on the floor). He tries to get the ice cream, but then he doesn't eat it. We really don't feed him off our plates or anything, we know what he likes based off what he tries to get when we make something. He also has this crazy sideways attack. I've tried video taping it, but I can't get it well. He jumps sideways until he gets to whatever he's attacking. He also recently discovered the refrigerator:

He wouldn't come out once so we shut the door until we heard him meowing and something in the shelf fell over (it was one minute). He hasn't tried since :) All in all, I'm in love with him and Greg is warming up. He certainly makes life more interesting!

Cat House Upgrade!!!!

Remember the impromptu cat house Greg made when we first got Rajah?

Well, we started looking for an actual cat tree/house so we could train him to scratch something other than the furniture (side note: he's indoors all day and I feel bad for him, and the training is working). If you've ever looked for cat trees, you'll find they range anywhere from $100 to $250. Um, he's a cat. I'm not spending that much money on a toy he might not even like! I can barely stand to spend that much on his vaccinations. So, Greg decided to make him one. This should have been posted a while ago, considering it was done a few weeks ago, but it's been a crazy couple weeks. Greg really brought out his engineering side and came up with several different designs, and we eventually settled on one. This is it in progress:

In case you didn't see it, he has a stuffed baseball to play with which he LOVES.

And the finished product:

I think he likes it :)

The toy he's playing with is another one we bought. It's a crab (a homage to Maryland) and he loves it, too, since he can carry it in his mouth. As you can see, he's slowly tearing it apart. It has 5% catnip in it; whoever says that kittens under 6 months old don't respond to catnip needs to meet Rajah.

Greg was very motivated to do this considering he got a jigsaw and staple gun out of the deal. Not counting those purchases (since they are long-term investments), the whole thing cost us under $40. I think we're in the wrong business!

Independence Day!

Yes, I'm aware the fourth of July was almost three weeks ago. But this year was the last year that Sugar House Park did fireworks, and I took some really cool pictures. I'd never been to Sugar House Park, but Cori (sister-in-law) grew up going there, so we went early to get seats, then were joined by Greg's brother, Jeff (Cori's husband), and his sister, Kimberly and her boyfriend, Josh. It was really fun and we got a nice spot in the shade so it wasn't even too hot.

Left to right: Josh, Kimberly, Cori, Me

The Finale

Our 4th Anniversary

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary! We are really celebrating on Friday but we went out to dinner tonight. It's funny to think that I've been married the majority of my adult life :) While 4 years doesn't feel like a particularly long time, it's still worth saying that I love Greg more each day and am so happy I married him!

Adjusting...

Please note the below post has been edited for accuracy. Our kitten is much friendlier and VERY active. After a few days, we could walk right up to it and hold it....and I noticed something. Look for the edits in the below post, can you figure out what I noticed?

Another Surprise

No, I'm not pregnant. But remember how I said, just a few days ago, that I wondered what other strange things June had in store for me? Well, Friday after work I came home and started talking to Greg. After a while, I went into our bedroom for a minute and when I came out, Greg asked me to open the extra bedroom door because "it was too dark in the hallway." I thought he was acting very strange but opened the door to placate him. As I started to walk away, something caught my eye. I went into the bedroom and there was a styrofoam box with a door cut out and a blanket, a food and water dish (with food and water in the dishes), and a cardboard box I hadn't seen before, with a bag of food inside it. I looked at Greg and he just smiled at me. I looked at the food closer and realized it looked like cat food. I asked him if it was and he said yes. At this point I became quite confused because 1) I couldn't understand why these things were in my back room when there was no cat in sight, 2) Greg does NOT like cats. At all. In fact, I was pretty sure the only thing that would ever get him to agree to getting a cat would be our kids begging for most of their childhood. So I asked him what was going on and he said "It looks like it's a game of hide and seek." Huh? So I carefully lift up the blanket in the styrofoam box, nothing there. I look behind one curtain and don't see anything, so I lift it up and out jumps this:

Yep, he got me a kitten!! Our friend, Stephanie, has a brother whose cat had kittens and asked if we wanted one. I wanted one but Greg said no, as expected. But here he is. I stood there in shock for a minute and then tried to hold him. Except he was TERRIFIED of anyone, anything, any noise, any movement. He just crouched in the corner and was shaking. He finally hid behind the toilet and we put a towel back there and let him stay there until he was ready to come out. I named him Rajah (RAW-juh). Like the tiger in Aladdin. Greg spent all day with him on Saturday because I was visiting a friend, and he got him to come out and play a little. Today, he was even more friendly. He played and wants to be pet but still hides occassionally. Greg built this for him:

He likes it, but has trouble climbing the styrofoam.

Two other pictures of him playing.

Isn't he cute? Greg and I are working on training him not to chew any cords, scratch the furniture, or be so scared of loud noises. I feel bad leaving him alone in our condo all day (barricaded, of course) but I don't trust him over the whole condo yet and he's way too little to be outside all day. Now, the only problem is that Greg might be allergic to him. I really hope it's a cold and not allergies!!

Wow!

This has been a weird, random, but cool month, and it's not even over yet.

First, in case you weren't aware, Utah is a desert. This means that we are constantly trying to conserve water and that the Spring and Summer seasons are usually blistering hot. Except this season. It has rained nearly every day for the entire month of June. As of June 9, we were 110% over the average rainfall amount for June. Greg and I turned off our heat around the end of March/early April. We still haven't turned the air conditioning on. The cool part is we've had some cool lightening storms and everything is really green, which makes me think of Maryland. The thunder and lightening aren't as cool as Maryland, though.

Second, my old roommate, Nicole, and I have been talking about throwing darts at paint-filled balloons for a long time. If you've seen Princess Diaries, you know what we were aspiring to. Nicole is an artist, so she led the adventure. She recruited her current roommate, Shelly, to help since the resulting artwork would go in their apartment. Now the tricky part was filling the balloons. A quick internet search will yield you few results, but the ones that do come up make a firm point about the pressure you need to fill the balloons. We didn't want to take the time to make a pressure vessel, so we improvised. We ended up blowing up the balloon, letting the air out, carefully pouring the paint into the balloon, then blowing the balloon up again. This was a very interesting process. Especially since occassionally, the balloon wasn't held tight enough and sprayed paint in your face. Luckily it was non-toxic paint! Then, we pinned the balloons to a canvas over the wooden fence. But, remember, it's rained almost every day in June. The pressure changes as the storm came in that night caused some of the balloons to pop before we could throw darts, but we still got to throw quite a few darts and had a ton of fun. Now, while this is weird, it wasn't as weird as realizing that Shelly went to school with and now works with Tom, a friend in our ward. So my old roommate is now roommates with my friend's friend. Here are some pictures of our night:

Now, here's the most random thing that's happened. A little background info, first. When I was 11, there were two girls at church I was close with. One of the girls, Molly, moved very quickly and I never spoke to her again. I tracked down her address when I got married, and I knew she'd had a baby. The other girl moved a few years later, and she found me on Facebook a few months ago. At church on Sunday, a friend brought another little girl with her to church with her kids. Someone asked who this little girl was, and she started explaining that it was her ex-husband's step-daughter (she and her ex-husband are both remarried). I heard her say the name Molly and another name, the name I happened to know was the name of Molly's baby. I started asking questions and lo and behold, it was the same girl. My childhood friend is now married to my friend's ex-husband! Luckily they are all good friends, but how strange is that?? I called her after church and ended up going over there for dinner. It was so great to see that after 11 years, she is happily married with a family of her own. I don't want to put any details out there on the internet, but if anyone in my family or from Severna Park is wondering what happened to the Browns, email me.

I wonder what other strange things the month of June has in store for me!

My legs are throbbing

Now that it is getting warmer, I thought it would be a good idea to pull the bike out and go for a "short" ride. I have not been on any serious bike rides this year so I should have just gone on a shorter ride to ease my way into it. Well, that was at least the initial plan, until I started riding. As I was riding, it seemed as if the Kennecott Copper mine was just so close. I thought it would be a good idea to go to the mine entrance. We do have to remember the road is like a roller coaster to get there and a nice hill at the end right before the mine. Of course, I was not giving up even though my legs felt like jelly. It took all I had to make it home. I was so weak I could not make it up some of the hills on the way back. I was out riding for a total of 3 and a half hours. I got home and google-mapped the distance. It ended up being a total of 28.4 miles. I don't think I will be doing that ride again any time soon. I am now feeling the consequences of my actions with throbbing muscles and a bright red sunburn.
Also, Kay's 23rd birthday was this past Tuesday, May 5. Happy Birthday, Kay!!!

What? They're Alive?

Yes, we're alive. And apparently horrible bloggers. They were a myriad of things I meant to blog about over the past almost-two months, but it just didn't get done. It's finally getting warmer here in SLC after a few spring snow storms. So I'll try to give you a nice synopsis of the past two months. We went down to see my sister, Erin, in early March. Her son, Max, is absolutely adorable as you can see from the pictures on her blog. We relaxed, rode horses, went to a slot canyon, and went to Zion's National Park. I'd been when I was little but didn't remember any of it. Greg had never been, so it was fun. Poor Erin was sick since she's pregnant (she announced it on her blog so I can say that, right?), so she didn't hike with us. I was impressed I got to the Upper Emerald Pool with being out of shape and my asthma. It was worth it, though. Even with all the trees still dead-looking from winter, it was very pretty. This is us standing below the waterfall at the Upper Emerald Pool:

Me in the slot canyon. I discovered I was not tall enough nor flexible enough to get out at the end. You have to lift your leg up onto a ledge about 3 feet off the ground you're standing on. I had to first put my other foot against the flat wall, then pull myself up with my hands.

Greg riding the horse we both rode. I went on a longer ride with Erin and her friend. For those who know anything about horses, this one is 17 hands tall. I had to stand on a bale of hay to reach the stirrups and get on!

We were sad to come home, and especially to go back to work. I've been part of building a new customer relations database for my department and training other employees to use it. I'm basically not allowed to take any more vacation time until September. But that means I have a job, so I'm not about to complain.

Another funny picture requires some explaining. I started working out after work. Usually I'll use the gym in my buiding's basement, but sometimes I'll come home and use the Wii Fit. It's not exactly an aerobic workout, but it's fun and the strength training and yoga are actually rather beneficial. The Wii Fit speaks and gives directions as though it was an actual person and can be slightly disturbing at times. Then, there are the days when it asks you about the others whose profile has been registered but have not used it recently. For example, it asks me to rate Greg's posture:

Then, when I said it looked the same, it said "Oh...change is more exciting, don't you think?" Followed by:

Why, thank you, Wii Fit, for that helpful marriage advice. Lest you think I really have been ignoring Greg, his 27th birthday was April 21 (Tuesday) and we had friends over and a strawberry genoise cake with whip cream frosting, which I was very impressed with myself for making from scratch. Our birthdays are exactly two weeks apart, so we get to repeat the celebrations in 10 days.

Happy Birthday, my love!!!!!!!

I Love Craigslist

My brother-in-law, Jeff, got a Wii for Christmas. We've spent many hours playing with them, and every once in a while Greg would say "I think I want a Wii." However, this statement was usually followed by "But they're so expensive," or "But we'll get sick of it like the XBOX." In my family, it's tradition to buy the latest video game system as a wedding present. Yes, that's right, as a wedding present. Therefore, my family gave us an XBOX when we got married. As poor newlyweds, we spent many, many hours playing the XBOX because we simply couldn't afford to do anything else. But that time has passed and the XBOX has sat in our living room unplayed in months. Possibly a full year. The fact that we never owned more than 4 games contributed to us getting sick of it. For what it's worth, I do like the Wii and I think it is more interactive than the XBOX, so you don't get bored as quickly. As Greg's comments always ended with the decision not to get a Wii, we continued to to play with Jeff and Cori's Wii. Until today. Today Greg again brought up that he thought we should get a Wii. But after the discussion again ended with not getting one due to price, etc., I got on Craigslist. Just 15 minutes before I got on, a woman had posted that they were selling their Wii. It included the console, all cords and sensor bar, two remotes, two nun chucks, a charging station, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, and the Wii Fit board for $375. Which is about $50 cheaper than buying it normally. I called to verify it, and discovered that they had only played it 3 times because they had a PS3 too and liked it better. So after Greg debated for an hour, I went to pick it up. My real vice with the Wii is MarioKart. We have a $20 gift certificate to Best Buy, so we are waiting until they have it in stock to buy it there and save a little money. In the meantime, I am going to get better at tennis so I can beat Jeff and Cori!

Fracture or Sprain?

So, Saturday night we had pizza for dinner and Greg decided to get a Redbox movie while he was picking up the pizza. For those of you not aware of Redbox, it is awesome to be able to get a movie for $1, especially when we only want to watch it once.

Anyway, after the movie, Greg grabbed my leg and wouldn't let me go (he does this frequently). I needed to go hem a shirt I wanted to wear the next day, so when he let me go for a second I jumped up and started running down the hallway. For those who haven't been to our house, when you go down the hallway the bathroom is the first door there is. Greg of course started chasing me down the hallway so I ran in the bathroom (without turning the light on) and started to slam the door shut. However, instead of slamming the door in his face as planned, I slammed the door into my right pinky toe and either broke or badly sprained it. It hurt so much I couldn't touch it for about 5 minutes and I was holding my breath, which led me to get dizzy and I felt my blood pressure drop. I'm sure Jason or Bryce could explain all the medical reasoning of why I reacted to pain by holding my breath if you're interested.

The point is, I don't really think I broke it since I have a mostly full range of motion pain-free. It hurts at the joint to my foot and really hurts on the inner side of my toe, so I think I just sprained it. I've been taping it the last few days since it hurts if I don't. I even took a picture to post, but my feet just aren't attractive enough to post on the blog. The best part was seeing people's faces when I told them I sprained it while running away from my husband :)

Iron Chef Greenland: Battle Cranberries

As I've mentioned, Jeff is Greg's brother and Cori is Jeff's wife. Jeff and Greg are practically twins. Luckily, Cori and I are as well. There are times when Cori and I will finish each other's sentences or get on email to send each other the same internet link. Jeff and Greg thinks it's creepy since we're not related, but Jeff and Greg are so alike that it's no surprise they picked women who are similar.

Anyway, Jeff and Cori were watching Iron Chef once when Jeff told her he is a better baker than she is. Cori adamantly agreed, of course, and Iron Chef Greenland emerged.

Cori asked me to be her sous chef and Jeff has Greg to be his sous chef. Jessica and John and Kim were judges and Jessica and John chose the secret ingredient: cranberries. Now, let me explain that I don't actually like cranberries. This all took place the Saturday after Christmas when Cori and Jeff had been snowed in at our place. Jessica called us at 11 a.m. with the secret ingredient and the boys and Kim took off to Dad's kitchen. Cori and I stayed here and cooked until 2:30, at which point the boys called to request a time extension. We were supposed to be at Jessica's house at 3. Cori and I granted their time extension since we needed it, too. We made a chocolate cake and had to first put it in the snow to cool and then the entire middle of the cake fell out of it! That's what we get for hurrying. Then the pie shell for our tart fell apart and I had to piece it back together. Even though our concoctions clearly tasted better, somehow the boys won by two points. There, Jeff, you are the better baker. Even though the pudding thing the boys made barely required baking...their pie was rather well done.

Cori and I made the chocolate cake on the far left. It was chocolate cake with chocolate-cranberry mousse in the middle (to cover our fallen cake) with chocolate buttercream icing, then with white chocolate, cranberry, and macadamia nut crumble on the sides (Thanks LaDonna!). We also made the apple-cranberry tart on the far right. Greg and Jeff made the cranberry custard pie in front and the cranberry pudding and brownie layered dessert in back.

Greg and I are thinking about doing a Throwdown now. If you've ever seen Throwdown with Bobby Flay, then you know that Bobby Flay finds the person who makes one specific dish the BEST in the country. It could be chicken and gravy, red velvet cake, cheesecake, gingerbread houses, cupcakes, waffles, etc. Then he comes up with a recipe of his own for the dish and surprises the person with a throwdown. Judges do a blind taste test and choose whose is flat-out better. Greg and I are still trying to think of what dish to do, any suggestions? It could be something neither of us have ever made or both of us are great at making. Just has to be fun.

Christmas and New Year's: Welcome, 2009!!

Despite the snow, we had a great holiday season. On the 13th of December, we had a Ward breakfast amid a snowstorm (which I neglected to mention in my last post even though it, too, dumped aout 4 inches). It was rather comical since the High Priests were in charge of cooking and they were planning to do it outside. Leave it to the men to not plan on cooking in the snow in December! Greg helped make pancakes and I slept in and got there about 10 minutes late.

That evening we had the Foster (Greg's mom's family) family party and had a white elephant gift exchange. We got a really nice hot cocoa maker and a box of hot cocoa.

Then December 15, I had my work party during our lunch hour and had another white elephant gift exchange where I got two pretty candles.

On December 20, we had the Greenland family party and, you guessed it, another white elephant gift exchange. This time we got a mini shopping cart (yes, you read that correctly) and dish towels. The mini shopping cart is apparently supposed to be used for picnics. I am so sick of white elephant gift exchanges! The cool part is I didn't buy a single white elephant gift, even though we were supposed to for one of them.

Greg and I went to see the lights on Temple Square Christmas Eve and then upheld my family's tradition of going to dinner. We went to Benihana and enjoyed meeting another family and the food. We even saw Santa at the parking garage, but noticed he took a break to finish delivering gifts.

For our wedding, my roommate, Nicole, let me pick the fabric and she made us adorable stockings. We hung them up on our living room wall, put a garland on top of our entertainment center, put a wreath on the door, a snow man nativity set (last year's white elephant gift) on the microwave stand, and Greg was very creative in decorating our balcony in white lights. Then we put our 3 ft. tall Christmas tree up and decorated it. When we put the presents around it, I insisted that they not cover the living room. Which resulted in covering half the Christmas tree:

See the pretty square red box in front? That was from Santa, and it's my new LG Dare phone:

Greg also bought me headphones, a 4 GB memory card, and the protective plastic covers for the touch screen. I tried to call my family members with my new phone after I activated it, but the calls kept cutting out due to the snow storm mentioned in my previous post. I also got a collected works of Edgar Allan Poe (1178 pages) which is amazing, and new shirts. Greg got two new suits, new shoes, two new ties, a new blanket (he likes to steal the covers), and a organizer for nails and screws and stuff. It freed up so much space in our cabinet we don't know what to do with it.

We both got new board games (Thanks Bryce and Cathi! Thanks Kim!), gift cards (Thanks Grandparents!!), towels and cookie sheets (Thanks Dad and Marilee!), and money to frame a bunch of pictures we have (Thanks Dad and Mom!).

Cori and Jeff got a Wii for Christmas and we played that Christmas night and the next day. Thanks to Mark, Bryce, and Erin for playing N64 MarioKart with me when I was younger. As a result of the hours of practice, I beat everyone on the Wii MarioKart. Jeff now has an unnatural rage against Yoshi :) And everyone enjoyed the sound effects I picked up from playing with Erin.

We spent New Year's Eve at John and Jessica's (Greg's sister and her husband) house. The kids were already in bed and we had so much fun having a fondue party and playing Wii and Last Word (a board game we got). I even beat Greg on the Wii boxing and Cori videotaped us, but that video has mysteriously disappeared. Greg promises he didn't delete it. We had so much fun we didn't realize it was 2009 until 12:02, so we hurried and opened a bottle of sparkling pomegrante-apple juice and toasted in the new year. Jeff and Cori spent the night again and we spent New Year's Day again playing Wii. This time, though, Jeff and Cori had been practicing and they and Greg all beat me at least once on MarioKart.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

There are times in Utah when I forget that I am not in the East Coast. If it's a humid (like 30% humidity) day and I go to a park by a river and I'm by some bigger trees, I almost feel home again. Almost. Most of the time, though, even after four years, I'm very aware that I live in a desert and parts of the culture are still very foreign to me. Then there are times when Utah likes to remind me of the...um....joys? of living in Utah. Like the Friday before Christmas, when I was sent home from work early because it was snowing so hard. When I arrived home, it looked like this at our condo:

Or the day of Christmas, when we were at my in-laws house and suddenly realized it was snowing. Cori and Jeff (Greg's brother and his wife who is practically my twin-at least in personality) were staying at our house that night so we all hurried and left so we could get home safely. Kim (Greg's sister) came along as well at the last minute and a normally 20 minute drive took us about 40 minutes. It continued to snow all night and all the next day. On the evening of the 26th, it looked like this:

This picture was taken from the bottom stair of my stairwell. Yep, still snowing. Can you see where the sidewalk is? Where it ends? Where you are supposed to drive? Nope, me neither. Then we got hit again last night, but I'm too cold to go take a picture. Each storm dropped 4-8 inches, which started to melt just in time for the next storm. This would never happen in Maryland! Don't get me wrong, I love the look of freshly fallen snow, but enough already!

On the upside, apparently the ton of fresh snow is increasing sales at the ski resorts which puts Utah in a good position to recover from our economic recession ahead of other states. And we won't be in a drought again.