In My Life

Four Months

2012-01-23T22:51:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty stoked that I'm actually doing this on the 23rd. So, our little one is four months old today. She's all grown up and wearing boots!

It's hard to believe how fast she's growing and it's fun to see her getting a little more mobile and interested in the world around her. As you can see, she's quite the little chunk. I have to be careful to clean in between her little rolls. The double chin is particularly tricky because she gets spit up in there and then it's all I can do to get her to look up so I can clean it up. But, look how cute she is!

We decided to try giving her a bottle. She's going to have to take one eventually, so we figured it would be a good idea to get her used to it. We give her one every once in a while and she does okay. She sometimes has trouble getting started, but eventually she drinks it all. And we're still figuring out which bottles she likes better. So far the Phillips Avent is not a favorite.

As I mentioned, she's getting more mobile. She rolled over for the first time the day after Christmas. She went back to front and then she did it a few more times that week and decided that was enough. She hasn't done it since. She rolled over from her front to her back shortly after that, but only did it once and has given up rolling over for the time being. She is excellent at spinning in circles, though. I put her down to play and after several minutes of rocking back and forth and rolling onto her side and back again, her head is at the opposite end from where it started. This is how I find her in the mornings most of the time now.

She's also gotten really good at grabbing things, especially her feet. If there are no toys within her reach, she immediately goes for the feet. As you can see, it's pretty adorable.

Everything she grabs, she immediately tries to put in her mouth. Sometimes she misses and it makes me laugh.

You'll notice she's not really smiling in most of these pictures and in the ones where she is, she's not looking at the camera. I've decided she has a healthy dislike of the camera. She can be all smiles and as soon as you point the camera at her, the smile disappears. In fact, sometimes she even cries a little. We'll have to see if we can get her a little more used to it.

And here she is doing some tummy time with Scout's supervision. Scout is always in the vicinity of baby because she's learned about spit up and has developed a taste for it. Stella is most definitely a spitter, so Scout suffers no lack of little snacks throughout the day. Yes, we realize it's disgusting that the dog laps up Stella's spit up. But, it's super handy when she spits up and I can't immediately grab something to clean it up with. I just yell for Scout. And most of the time, I don't even have to yell for her. She's learned what it sounds like when Stella spits up and she just comes running to help. In fact, when I'm feeding Stella, Scout just sits expectantly at my feet because 99% of the time, Stella's going to spit up all over immediately after while I burp her and since she spits up so much, half of it will shoot right off the burp rag and onto the floor because the burp rag can't absorb that much spit up that quickly. Did I mention Stella has a spit up problem?

And that's our little four month old. She's pretty awesome. I love waking up to her chattering in the morning. She doesn't cry when she wakes up. She just chatters away. It gradually gets louder the longer she's awake - almost as if she's yelling to me that she's awake and ready to play. And when I finally drag myself out of bed to go get her, she sees me, she stops wiggling and chattering for a second and gives me the biggest grin. It makes all the spit up and dirty diapers worth it. We love our little Stella!

A Project

2012-01-22T16:31:00.000-08:00

Mr. Frisby and I have started a project. This is a MAJOR project. Bigger than our ceiling project. We have begun a complete bathroom remodel of our master bathroom. This is a project that I have been excited to tackle for awhile because the state of our bathroom when we moved in was, shall was say, pathetic. Or maybe gross. Dated. Any number of adjectives along those lines would work. It was in dire need of an update. Well, an update is finally happening. And this update has become even more exciting with the news of the massive tax return we will be getting (having a baby and paying a mortgage are great when it comes time to do taxes) that will allow us to do a little more than we had originally planned. Now, don't get too excited. When I call it a master bathroom, you must keep in mind that there's nothing "master" about it except the fact that it is off the master bedroom. It's tiny. Perhaps 5'x8'. There's only so much you can do with that small of a space. I would love to move some walls and make it bigger, but there's really nowhere to go, so the size of it will remain the same. However, everything else that can be changed will be changed and we're super excited about it. New sheetrock. A new tile shower. A new toilet. A new vanity. New lighting. A vent fan. A tile floor. Pretty much, it's going to kick butt. I'll save the pictures for a before and after when it's complete. We gutted it yesterday, so it's all ready to go. Our plan is to get sheetrock and backerboard up this week along with the ceiling lights and vent fan. Next weekend we'll put in the new shower pan and get the floor ready for tiling (assuming they come in on time). And the following week, Mr. Frisby is taking two days off work to give himself a long weekend to try to get the tiling and installations done. It will probably be a stretch because we have a lot of tiling planned, but we'll see how it goes. I plan to film the process so I can make a sweet video of the project. Updates to follow...

A Holiday Post

2012-01-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

I thought I was doing pretty good at keeping up with blog posts with my monthly Stella updates plus a couple others here and there. Then I had a few minutes the other day to actually sit down and check up on other people's blogs. Turns out I'm a little subpar on my blogging. I saw everyone else's Christmas posts and realized I hadn't done one. I saw everyone else's New Year's posts and realized I hadn't done one. I saw all the fun things everyone has been doing for the holidays and realized that, not only did I not post anything, but we just really didn't do anything. Indeed, it was a pretty low key holiday season for us. Stella isn't old enough to understand anything of what was going on and not even really aware enough to be kept interested by festive lights and decorations. And, she won't remember even a second of this holiday season. So, it seemed a little pointless to bundle her up and head out on fun holiday adventures when we didn't even want to do it ourselves. (And when I say ourselves, I really mean me. Perhaps Mr. Frisby wanted to go out and do fun, festive things for the holiday season, but he was too busy with bishopric duties, so he was never available. So, that pretty much just left me and I was more interested in relaxing this year. Judge me if you want, but I thoroughly enjoyed a low-stress holiday season).

That said, this Christmas season was immensely more enjoyable with Stella around. Funny, since she didn't have a clue what was going on, but it was still much more fun. Even if she won't remember her first Christmas, I will, so although we didn't go out on fun holiday adventures, I thoroughly enjoyed shopping for her and making her as festive as I could. So, without further ado, here is how The Frisbys celebrated this holiday season.

It started the day after Thanksgiving when we headed up to the Santa Cruz mountains to cut down our Christmas Tree. We didn't take many photos because Mr. Frisby had his hands full with a saw and a Christmas Tree and I had my hands full with a baby and a dog. But we snapped a couple photos and had a good time.

I think my sister may have taken a photo with all of us in it. Maybe I'll get that from her someday. But, for now, this is what I got. Cutting down our Christmas Tree is a tradition that I've grown up with and it's really fun to be able to continue doing it with Stella. And, just like last year, Scout was in dog heaven running around the tree farm.

Next was our ward Christmas party at which Stella got to meet Santa.

She charmed everyone at the party with her cute reindeer socks, rock star hair and pleasant, happy demeanor.

On Christmas Eve, Stella played Baby Jesus in the Nativity. Aside from spitting up in the middle of the performance, I think she did pretty well. No crying and she even tamed down her hair so it wasn't sticking up in the back. I didn't get any pictures since I was playing Mary myself, but I think maybe someone in my family did, so we'll at least have some photo documentation.

Christmas morning was pretty exciting. Mr. Frisby had no church meetings, so we got to sleep in until Stella woke up. Then it was time to see what Santa brought.

Maybe she remembered a little from last year, but Scout caught on very quickly to what was happening. But, like a good dog, she didn't touch any of her presents until we told her it was okay.

We helped Stella open all her presents, then we opened ours, and then it was off to church where everyone oohed and aahed over her general adorableness.

After church, we attempted a little photo shoot with the timer on our camera before we changed out of our church clothes. Stella was hungry, so it didn't go well.

After that, it was off to my parents' house where we opened more presents and enjoyed a delectable Christmas dinner.

It was a lovely Christmas. Stella loved all of her Christmas presents. Here she is with one of her (and our) favorites:

And after Christmas, my sister and her husband came to town so we had lots more fun with them, though no photo documentation of any of it.

Okay, on to New Year's. We enjoyed a small New Year's Eve celebration with family and some family friends. We ate, we played games, we counted down to midnight, and we drank Martinelli's. Well, Stella didn't. This is how she rang in the new year:

And, admittedly, that's how I wanted to ring in the new year. As a true mother, I thought about the planned festivities for Saturday night and I thought, "do I really have to stay up until midnight?" But we had a good time. And, on New Year's Day, we went to church where Stella again charmed the masses. I must say she is adorable.

And that is how we Frisbys celebrated the holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Three Months

2011-12-26T00:47:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas blogosphere! Once again, I'm a little late. Stella was three months old on Friday. Can you believe she just keeps growing? She's been into her 3-6 month clothes for a few weeks now. I was excited to make the change because she has some really cute outfits. But, when she started wearing the bigger clothes, I was also a little sad to realize she would never wear those smaller clothes again. It's not like me leaving my regular clothes behind for a few months when I moved on to maternity clothes during my pregnancy. I knew I would be back in those clothes eventually (and it feels so great!). No. She will NEVER wear those clothes again. It's a little sad. But, life goes on and she keeps growing. In fact, she's growing very well and getting quite chunky as you can see in these pictures. Her doctor was very impressed with her weight gain at her last check up.

Here she is with her Aunt Tammy just after Thanksgiving. Those cheeks are very kissable (Stella's, I mean).

And tolerating tummy time. This has actually been getting a little more fun over the last month. Not really for her, but for me. I get to see her getting stronger and starting to push up on her little arms and it's fun to see her grow. She likes it about the same as she always has. For only a few minutes at a time.

Since we didn't get many pictures of Stella on her blessing day due to inclement weather outside and horrible lighting inside, I did a little photo shoot of her in her blessing dress a couple weeks later. Here she is showing off her left hook.

I got out of the shower a few days ago and saw this. Little Stella asleep in her bouncy seat with her bow slipped down over her eyes. It made me laugh. I don't know at what point the bow slipped down - before or after she fell asleep, but she didn't complain so I like to think it was after.

And that says a lot about Stella. She doesn't complain in general. She's a pretty easy-going, mellow baby and she's great. This last month she's started to pay more attention to her toys and swats at them and reaches for them all the time now. She can hold them in her hand if we put them in it, but she doesn't really realize she's holding it. She recognizes us and our voices. In fact, the first Sunday in December, we got to church and sat down just as the meeting was starting. Stella was drowsy and her eyes were droopy, but she wasn't asleep yet. She was starting to doze off in her car seat when Mr. Frisby got up to start the meeting as it was his turn to conduct. As soon as she heard her daddy's voice through the microphone, she perked up and listened for a few minutes. It was pretty cute. She's also started laughing this month, though she's very stingy with them. She's given me a couple little laughs here and there and she giggled quite a bit at her Aunt Gaylene, but that's about it. She does have a favorite toy, though. It's a little yellow lion that squeaks when you squeeze it. Without fail, she smiles at that little lion whenever you give it a squeeze. It's adorable. She also rolls onto her side all the time now when I lay her down on her back to play. And, she's also discovered how much fun it is to watch Scout playing. She just sits there smiling while she watches the dog running around playing with her toys. Again - it's adorable. We just love watching this little girl grow and learn. She's the best!

And, although, it's a couple days after her three month mark, here's a picture of our little cutie all ready for church on Chrismas Day!

I Was Not Cut Out To Be A Pioneer

2011-12-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

I know I said in my last post that the next one would be about Stella, but I had a very interesting morning and thought I might share what happened. It involves chasing a bird around my house. Here's how it all went down.

I went outside to put a letter in the mailbox. I left the door open so Scout could watch me (she likes to know where I'm going). I told her to stay at the door which she's very good about doing. As I got to the mailbox, I heard her come running out. So, I looked over just in time to see her scare a little bird out of a bush and then to see that little bird make a beeline for the open door. "Oh crap," I thought. "That bird did NOT just fly into my house!" (As a little bit of background, I do not like birds). I headed back to the house and told Scout to go back inside, which she did. Fortunately, she hadn't seen where the bird went and was oblivious to the fact that her desired prey was now trapped inside the house. I cautiously went inside the house, looking up at all the ceilings and light fixtures as I made my way to each room. I shut all the closet doors and then the bedroom and bathroom doors as I made my way through the house looking for the bird. I wasn't entirely sure it had actually gone in the house, so after several minutes I began to relax thinking it didn't make it in. I went in to change the baby's diaper and in the middle of the diaper change, I heard a small ruckus involving Scout out in the kitchen. I finished the diaper change and headed out to see what was going on. Scout was by the big window in the kitchen jumping up and down and looking outside. She was clearly excited about something. I got close to the sliding glass door that goes into the backyard and saw lots of feathers on the ground. Obviously the bird was inside. I figured that the bird must have tried to go out the sliding glass door and Scout saw it. She tried to catch it which sent the bird to the other window. I knew it couldn't have gotten out, but Scout didn't. She thought it had escaped and was anxious to get outside to look for it. I let her out and began searching for the bird.

Meanwhile, I sent a text to Mr. Frisby to let him know what was going on. I soon spotted the bird hiding out between some shopping bags that are between the wall and the kitchen cart in our kitchen. I asked Mr. Frisby what he thought I should do. He said I should try to catch it (yeah, right!). Then he suggested I just open the sliding glass door and shoo it out. Fortunately, the baby was happy playing in her room with all of this going on. I brought Scout inside and shut her in our bedroom because I knew things would not end well for the bird if she was around. I then approached the little bird and with a pole (because I was not about to get close enough for it to peck my eyes out) I started poking the bags to get the bird to move. It hopped down to the floor and starting hopping around. I started prodding it a little with the pole, trying to move it toward the door. Stupid bird wasn't having any of it. It kept hopping in the opposite direction. Then it started to make use of its wings - big problem. It flew over close to the front door. So, I opened the front door and again tried to prod it over. No dice. Stupid bird then headed down the dark hallway (good thing I had shut all the doors). I got a bag and tried to coax the bird into it. Didn't work. That's when the bird really remembered it could fly and it flew right up to perch on our Christmas Tree. Of course, at that point, I decided I needed some photographic documentation of this little guy.

Yep. There he is. Looking quite festive, don't you think? I was sort of at a loss for what to do at that point. Then the bird made it easy for me. He flew to the back of the tree and went into hiding somewhere inside. I couldn't find him. I looked and looked and looked, but that little fella was hidden well. After a little while, I gave up. I had things to do. I informed Mr. Frisby that he would need to take care of the situation when he got home. I let Scout out and told her there was a bird she needed to find. She didn't really get it. She could tell something was up, though, and stayed pretty alert. A little while later, I was in the kitchen and Scout was laying on the couch. All of a sudden, she jumped down and ran over to the tree. The bird must have moved. It was pretty awesome to watch. Scout was army crawling around under the tree, by the tree stand, around the gifts. She was on the hunt! Fortunately, the baby had fallen asleep at this point, so I didn't have to worry about her for the moment.

Right about that time, the doorbell rang. Of course, Scout ran over to see who it was, forgetting about the little bird. I answered the door to a salesman from a company that does home repairs. He was quite chatty and actually had some relevant information. While Scout and I were occupied at the door, I guess the bird decided it was an ideal time to make a run for it. Problem is there was nowhere for it to run. I heard the little bells on the tree garlands ring and I knew the bird was on the move. Seconds later, I heard a thud and I knew it had flown into the sliding glass door. At this point, Scout was getting bored with the salesman, but I didn't want to unleash her on the bird. I glanced back at the back door and saw the little bird lying on the ground with its feet sticking up in the air. It didn't seem to be moving. I kept a hold of Scout and waited for the salesman to finish. Finally he left. I took Scout back to our bedroom, put her inside and shut the door. I cautiously approached the bird and I could see its chest still moving. I figured maybe it was just stunned, so I grabbed a bag, prodded the bird inside with the pole, went out onto the back patio and slid the bird out of the bag. It just laid on the concrete with its little feet twitching. I let Scout out of our room and called Mr. Frisby. He didn't answer. So, Scout and I just watched the bird twitching away outside. I couldn't tell if it was coming to or dying. Scout didn't care. She just wanted at that bird and was really upset that I wouldn't let her outside.

A few minutes later, Mr. Frisby called back and I explained to him what had happened. I told him I didn't know if the bird was coming to or dying. He said I should give it a few minutes and see how it was doing. "It's been a few minutes," I said. "It's probably been 20 or 30 minutes." He said the bird probably broke its neck when it hit the door and it wasn't going to survive. He then suggested I put it out of its misery. "You're joking," I thought. But, I knew he wasn't. And I knew he was right. So, I asked what I should do. He said, "here's what you need to do - you're not going to like it." I said, "I'm not smashing it." All the while, I have ideas going through my head of how to kill a bird and I'm trying to figure out which method I would actually be able to carry out. He said, "just put it in a bag and then drop one of the heavy logs on it." (We're taking out a tree in our backyard and have a number of logs suitable for killing a little bird). I thought about this suggestion. My stomach was doing some impressive flips at this point. But, I couldn't think of anything better. So, I said, "okay. I'll see what I can do." I then hung up with Mr. Frisby and headed outside with a bag. At this point, the bird was clearly not going to recover, so I knew that it really would be better to kill it and end its suffering. But, I was not excited about what was ahead. I pushed the bird into the bag with the pole and flattened the bag as much as I could. I went over to the pile of logs and got the smallest one I could find. I went back over to the bag, held the log over it, shut my eyes, and dropped the log. I looked at the bag. It was still moving. "Oh crap," I thought. "I have to do it again!" Stupid curved log! It was curved enough that the middle part didn't hit the ground when I dropped it and, therefore, didn't smash the bird. I examined the log and found a knot that stuck out more. At this point I just wanted the whole thing to be over, so I quickly held the log over the bag with the knot directly over where the bird was and dropped it. When I picked the log back up, I knew it was over. I quickly put the log back, grabbed the bag, chucked it in the garbage and went back inside. And, as I headed in, I thought, "I could never have been a pioneer! There's a reason I was born in this day and age."

The Finished Nursery

2011-12-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

This post is nearly a month overdue. But, I have seldom been on time since having a baby, so why start now? The finishing touches on the nursery are done and I thought it would be fun to share. First, the bumper pads. My mom got them done before the baby arrived, but I just haven't gotten around to posting pictures. I think they turned out pretty sweet.

The inside of the bumper pad

The outside with the velcro flowers to attach them together

My mom did a great job, as she always does. Next is what I put on the wall above the crib. After much contemplation, I decided that I wanted to do something with the lyrics to my favorite primary song, "My Heavenly Father Loves Me". So, I contacted my sister-in-law, Hilary, who is a graphic designer. I told her my thoughts and asked her to design some artwork and then gave her creative control of the project. This was the result.

She did an amazing job and it looks great. I was super excited with how it turned out. You should probably click on the picture to make it bigger so you can really see what it looks like.

So, now the nursery is done. And I love it. And next I will post about Stella because she is the best!

My Two-Month Old Has Roots

2011-12-05T22:35:00.001-08:00

Check it out. Look closely at the part of her hair that I'm pulling back. There's a distinct line in Stella's hair. The top is the red she's had since birth. The bottom is the blonde/strawberry blonde that's coming in.

Enjoy it now folks. I don't think this baby's red hair is gonna last!

Two Months

2011-11-24T19:11:00.001-08:00

So, I'm a day late. Stella was two months old yesterday. Things have been a little busy getting ready for Thanksgiving. Anyway, on to life with a two month old.

Cute, isn't she? Yes, she is. I can say this with some authority based on the amount of comments I get from perfect strangers when we're out and about. She gets looks and comments from people everywhere we go about how cute she is and how awesome her hair is. This helps me to know that I'm not just biased. Am I bragging? Yes. Yes I am.

Here she is with Grandma and Scout on Halloween. She was a pink kitty. Scout was a banana split.

And bath time. She likes her baths as long as the water is warm enough. If it's not warm enough, she cries. If the temp is right, she loves it. We were finally able to photographically document her smile as well. She's been smiling for weeks, but never when we had the camera out. Finally she gave us a good smile for the camera.

We blessed Stella last Sunday. She was a champ. Awake and alert and not a peep from her during the whole blessing. And, of course, there was an audible "aww" from the congregation when Jared held her up afterward.

This little girl keeps us smiling, even on her bad days. Fortunately for us, those bad days are few and far between. I've hesitated to talk about what a good baby she is because people get mad when I do. They ask how long she sleeps and if she cries a lot and then they get mad when I say she usually goes 5-7 hours at night, wakes up to eat, then goes back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. And, no she doesn't cry very much. Only if she's hungry or needs a diaper change. Yes, she's been a great baby and yes, I realize how lucky we are. It's been fun to watch her become more and more aware of her world and the things around her over the last month. She's often content to just lay on a blanket on her back and look around at everything. She's becoming more interested in her toys. She can't hold them or play with them yet, but she looks at them and follows them with her eyes if I move them back and forth. She's found her hands, too. She often puts her fist in her mouth if she doesn't have a paci and she's started to just look at her hands and fingers every now and then. She also continues to grow and she's filling out. She's over 12 pounds now and she'll soon be moving on to her 3-6 month clothes. She is adorable and we love her to pieces. Happy Thanksgiving from our two month old Cutie Pie!

One Month

2011-10-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Camera+. Don't know what Camera+ is? It's an awesome app for the iPhone. Don't have Camera+? Get it.

Stella is one month old today. I've been thinking about how different things are for us with her around. It's amazing how drastically life can change in a matter of moments. One moment, I was doing my thing with a baby in my belly. Still living life essentially as I had been used to. Jumping in the car and going places when I needed/wanted to. Listening to whatever music I wanted to. Eating when I was hungry. Sleeping in. Keeping the house relatively clean. Walking the dog every day and exercising regularly when it was convenient for me. Going to bed at night when I felt like it. Doing only a few loads of laundry every couple of weeks. Watching a TV show uninterrupted. Life was pretty good. In seconds, all of that was over.

Our lives pretty much did a 180 in the blink of an eye. All of a sudden, little Stella was here. And, all of a sudden, our lives completely revolved around this little one. Instead of toting Stella around in my belly, I get to tote her around in her car seat. Or in my arms. And she's heavy. Now I jump in the car and go places only after Stella is fed and happy and only when I really need something. One of my favorite songs these days is the groo-vay version of London Bridges Falling Down that plays on her swing. It gets me be-bopping my head every time it comes on. I eat when I have my arms free now. I sleep when Stella sleeps. The house has burp rags, receiving blankets, and other baby paraphernalia strewn about. I walk the dog (and Stella) only when the baby is happy and ready to go and I'm not too tired. And exercising regularly? Well, I'll get there. I go to bed as soon as Stella is down for the night. Be it 9 pm or 1 am. I do at least a couple loads of laundry a week - more if she's been particularly explosive with her bowel movements or spit ups. And as for watching a TV show uninterrupted - well, thank goodness for Hulu and DVRs.

But, life is still good. Even though it's gotten a little (or a lot) crazy and my life now revolves around a tiny person that can't walk or talk or do anything for herself, life is wonderful when I get to watch this little gal grow and develop and start seeing and understanding the world. She smiles now. It's legit, too. Not just gas or unconscious muscle movements. She doesn't do it often, but every once in a while she just stops and looks at me and gets an unmistakable smile on her face. And it melts my heart every time. She's the perfect little subject for me to practice my weak photography skills on. I can never take too many pictures of the cutest little baby ever!

What a month it has been. The days sometimes seem long, but this month has gone by at an astounding pace. I feel like we just barely left the hospital with her. But, time marches on and our little girl is growing and changing so fast. I find myself already missing the first few days with her at home and the magical newborn stupor we were in. But, I'm also very excited for the months ahead and the exciting times it will be to watch her grow and develop.

All grown up and ready for church!

Happy one month, little Stella. We love you!

Growing Stella

2011-10-11T16:03:00.001-07:00

Stella had her two week check up yesterday. She is definitely growing. She's up to 9 lbs now and has added a half inch to her height. I'm trying to squeeze her into her newborn size clothes for a couple more days so she'll actually be able to wear all the ones she has. But, very soon we'll be moving on to the 0-3 month size. And, that's okay because I was looking in her drawers today and she's got some really cute clothes ready and waiting!

Stella At Home

2011-10-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

Baby Stella is two weeks old now and we're all adjusting to life with a newborn. Poor Scout has really had it rough. Her whole life has been flipped upside down. But, she's taking it like a champ, slowly adjusting, and she loves little Stella. Mr. Frisby and I are also adjusting. Things have been crazy, especially with the lack of sleep, but we're loving our little girl. And, of course, Stella has been adjusting to life outside my belly. She's also taking it like a champ and has even had a few 5 hour stretches between feedings that allow me a solid 4 hour block of sleep. She's also had some 2 hour stretches between feedings that allow me pretty much no sleep. But all in all, she eats well, she sleeps well, she poops exceptionally well, and she makes us smile all the time. I am slightly afraid for Mr. Frisby to go back to work on Monday, but I think everything will be fine. I still think it's just a little crazy that I actually have a daughter and that that tiny little creature was inside me just a couple weeks ago. Hooray for babies! And, now I will shamefully use my blog to photo-brag about said awesome daughter of mine.

Sleeping peacefully after we got home from the hospital.

Daddy loves her!

After a bath

Look at all of her luxurious red hair! We'll see how long it lasts.

Scout supervising a diaper change.

We love our little Stella!

Stella in the Hospital

2011-10-04T22:09:00.000-07:00

Another long post. Skim read if you want. But, again, I wanted to document the experience.

Usually when babies are born, the pushing process squeezes their lungs and gets out any fluids or mucus that's there from their time in the womb. Because our little Baby (still not Stella yet) came all in one push, this didn't happen. As a result, they had to suction out her lungs and really get her crying in the delivery room to try to clear them. After they had worked with her for a few minutes and bathed and diapered her, she seemed to be doing better. So, after everything was taken care of in the delivery room, we made it to our postpartum room around 12:30 am Saturday morning. Mr. Frisby and I talked a little about which name we would choose for her, but decided to sleep on it and decide for sure in the morning. We spent that first night with Baby in our room, doing our best to help her get a good night's sleep and rest up ourselves. Sometime around 5 am, the nurse came to get Baby for her newborn hearing screening. She came back around 6 am without Baby and with the Pediatrician. The doctor informed us that Baby was still having some trouble breathing and that her stomach was very distended. She said she didn't think it was anything serious and that it was probably just stuff Baby had swallowed/inhaled during delivery, but they wanted to keep her in the nursery where they could do an x-ray and monitor her to be sure it wasn't anything else. They said we could go to see her in the nursery whenever we wanted and they would update us after they did some more tests.

We took all of this information in and tried to settle back in for a little more sleep as it was still very early. However, with Baby gone, this was very difficult for me to do. A little after 8 am, another pediatrician came to give us an update. The x-ray had shown a couple of cloudy spots in her lungs, but this is often normal in newborns, so they would just need to repeat the x-ray the next day to see if the spots cleared. They had also gotten a lot of stuff out of her little tummy and it was looking much better. However, they wanted to wait 12 hours before trying to feed her anything. She also said they would be starting her on antibiotics as a precaution a little later and she would need to be on them for at least 24 hours, so the earliest she could go home would be Monday. I was supposed to be released Sunday morning. This was a disappointment to us, but we thought Monday, it's just one day, it will be fine. And, all in all, it was good news. We then discussed our two names again and decided to go with Stella. After that we decided to head to the nursery to see our little one. After a long walk to the nursery (because I had to take it very slow), we walked in and saw our poor little Stella all hooked up to the monitors. So sad!

We couldn't hold her what with all the wires attached to her and they didn't want me to try feeding her yet, so Saturday consisted of several trips to the nursery to just see her. Saturday night they decided I could try feeding her. She did well, so then we got to go to the nursery every few hours through the night to feed her. The next morning, the pediatrician on duty briefly informed us that they had x-rayed Stella again and the spots had cleared up so everything looked good. That was all she said. The midwife on duty checked me and said that, although I was doing well, she would see if she could come up with a reason to keep me another day since Stella wouldn't be able to go home that day.

The midwife came back and informed me that, although I wasn't showing any symptoms, I was pretty anemic and for that reason, they would keep me until Monday morning so we could stay with little Stella. We were very excited about that and the rest of the day was spent with trips to the nursery every few hours to feed the wee one. One of the benefits of feeding her was that I got to hold her. Poor Mr. Frisby couldn't. Her feedings were off and on. Sometimes she ate well and sometimes she didn't. After good feedings, they would turn down her IV, slowly weaning her off it. I was convinced that she wasn't always eating well because of the IV. I found it very frustrating, because I thought if they just took her off the IV, she would eat better because she would then need the nourishment. During one of the feedings either late Sunday night or early Monday morning, one of the nurses decided to give us an update. And, that's when things went downhill. She was a different nurse that we hadn't worked with before and I don't think she was looking at the most up-to-date info. She told us that Stella's x-ray looked questionable and they would have to repeat it and that it was going to take a little while to wean her off the IV, so she wouldn't be able to go home until at least Tuesday. We informed her that they had done another x-ray which the pediatrician told us was normal. She checked the computer again and then saw the other x-ray. She then told us the weaning schedule for the IV. Stella needed to have two good feedings before they would turn it down. And they had to turn it down several more times before taking her off it. We took all of this information in and left the nursery disappointed since that particular feeding hadn't gone well.

As we walked back to our room, I voiced my frustrations to Mr. Frisby. He agreed. We couldn't understand why Stella was still on antibiotics and an IV when she was supposedly doing well and they hadn't even found anything wrong with her. We also didn't like that we were getting different info from different nurses and yet the pediatricians weren't giving us any info. When we got back to our room, Mr. Frisby went down the hall to use the restroom and my nurse came in to give me my medication and take my vitals. She casually asked how the baby was doing. I was already very frustrated with the situation and with postpartum blues setting in fast, it was all I could do to keep it together. I responded that I didn't really know how the baby was doing because everyone was giving us different information but nobody could say what was wrong with her and yet, they kept pushing back her release date. I don't think my nurse expected to open such a can of worms with her simple question, but as I was on the verge of tears, she could tell I was frustrated. She made a quick call to the nursery to find out what was going on, but the problem was that she spoke with the nurse who had updated us just a few minutes before. So, no new information. Mr. Frisby came back sometime in that time and as the nurse left, I completely broke down. She must have heard my sobs as she left the room and informed the nursery staff of my frustrations because when we went back in the morning to feed Stella, it was a complete change. The nurses were all very nice and helpful (they really had been the whole time, they were just more so that morning) and the pediatrician who was very short with us about the x-ray the previous morning was very nice and informed us that Stella was doing well and they would be taking her off the IV and antibiotics that morning since she didn't really see a need for her to be on them. We were thrilled! Maybe she would be able to go home that morning after all. She then informed us that Stella was looking a little yellow, so she needed to check for Jaundice. If she did have Jaundice, she would have to stay the night under the lights and go home the next morning. If not, we could take her home that day. As I had also noticed Stella's yellowness and worried about Jaundice in the back of my mind, I had a sinking feeling that we would be going home without her that day.

When we got back to our room, the midwife checked me and asked what was going on with the baby. We told her what the pediatrician said and that we had to wait for her blood test to find out if she would be staying or not. The midwife said that they wouldn't be able to keep me past 6 pm that evening, so if Stella was able to go home, we could leave with her that day. Otherwise, we would be discharged at 6 pm and would have to leave without the baby while she stayed for her little tanning session. Later that morning, we got a little surprise. They had taken Stella off the monitors, IV, and antibiotics, so we were allowed to bring her to our room for her feedings. It was so exciting to have our little baby with us again and not all attached to machines. My sister just happened to be visiting us when we got to bring her to our room, so we had her help us take some photos. Unfortunately, the family photos didn't turn out. We had the wrong lens on the camera for it and Mr. Frisby blinked, but we got some other good photos.

After our little photo shoot, the lab came to draw her blood. We got the results a little while later. Stella had Jaundice. I balled again when I knew we would have to leave her for the night. We enjoyed our last little bit of time with her, did one more feeding right around 6 pm (incidentally, Stella started eating much better as soon as she was off the IV - just as I thought), and then we were discharged. I balled again as we drove away from the hospital. Mr. Frisby did his best to console me, but it was a very difficult thing leaving without her. They told us before we left that they would do another blood test in the morning and as long as her bilirubin numbers went down, she could go home as soon as she was checked out by the pediatrician.

We tried to get a good night's rest that night since it would likely be our last. But, that was easier said than done. The next morning, we called the nursery. They said her bilirubin count was down and she looked really good. She would be able to go home, but she had to be checked out by the pediatrician first. They said the pediatrician should be done checking in the next half hour, so we could call back then. When we called back, the pediatrician had been called into a delivery and hadn't finished checking Stella out yet. So, we had to wait yet a little longer. When we called back a little while later, they said Stella had been examined and she was all ready to be discharged. We headed to the hospital, super excited to finally bring our little one home. When we got there, all of the nurses were so excited for us. They got all the paperwork ready and got everything taken care of and then they told me I could dress Stella to go home. All of a sudden, I was very nervous. I think it took awhile, but I finally got her in her little outfit and we were ready to go.

I was all smiles as we made our way to the car. And, as was the case throughout our hospital stay, everyone on the way commented on all of Stella's beautiful hair. We got to the car, strapped her into her car seat, and finally headed home!

The Arrival of Miss Stella

2011-10-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

Miss Stella is now a week old. It's taken me a while to get to this post with everything that has been going on. But, it's time to document her arrival. So, let's get started. This is going to be a long post; you can skim read if you want. But, I wanted to get the experience down in writing so I can remember it.

I started having some contractions on Wednesday night just after I went to bed. They were stronger than any I had had, but not bad. Still, I couldn't sleep through them, so it made for a long night and I thought I must be going into labor. In the early morning hours, the contractions stopped. False alarm. I went about my day Thursday and that evening around 6 or 7, the contractions started again. Stronger than before, but a little irregular. Around 8 pm, I decided I should start timing them. I thought it might be a repeat of Wednesday, but after several hours, the contractions were still there, as strong as ever and getting stronger and closer together. Sleep was impossible, so I tried to keep myself distracted listening to music, trying to relax, etc. Around 4 am on Friday morning, I woke Mr. Frisby up and told him he needed to get up. I knew it wasn't time to go to the hospital yet, but misery loves company. Around 5, when my contractions were about 8 minutes apart, we called Labor & Delivery. The nurse told me to drink lots of water and take a warm shower to see if it would stop the contractions. She said not to worry about coming in until my contractions were about 4 minutes apart. I drank the water and took the shower. The contractions didn't stop, though it did seem to help me relax. I continued laboring for another few hours with the contractions getting closer. I was getting very anxious for that 4 minute mark as my contractions were lasting 1.5 to 2 minutes each and they didn't completely relax in between. We called L&D again around 8 am when my contractions were about 5 minutes apart. I was getting very anxious - I wanted my epidural. But, they again told us to wait until my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart for about an hour. Around 10:30, I decided to take another shower to try to relax. It didn't do much this time around. At last, around 11 am, my contractions had been about 4 minutes apart for an hour. We called L&D and they told us to go ahead and come in. We grabbed our bags and loaded Scout and her things in the car. After a quick stop at the neighbors' to drop Scout off, we were headed to the hospital. At this point, I totally had the shakes and the only thing on my mind was the epidural. Also, I was very scared that we would arrive at the hospital, I would only be dilated to a 3 or something like that, and they would send me home.

We arrived at the hospital, got checked in, and got settled in the L&D room by about 12:30. I told Mr. Frisby to go tell the nurses I was ready for an epidural. My nurse came in and said, "so you're ready for an epidural?" and started hooking me up to all the monitors, IV, etc. I said, "yes, please." She went through all of the questions they have to ask you at the beginning. One of them was, "what is your biggest concern/need?" She asked me that question and looked over at me. I looked at her and said, "uhhh." To which she responded, "just the epidural?" "Yep". She informed me that they were waiting for the lab to come draw my blood. As soon as they got the results, they would do the epidural. She then checked me to see my progress and determine if I would be sticking around. The moment of truth. Please, don't let it be a 3. Please, don't let it be a 3. She checked me and said, "well, you're dilated to about a 6. I think we'll keep you." Thank everything!

After what seemed like forever, but was really only an hour, the lab came to draw my blood. As the lady finished, I asked how long it would take to get the results. I was nervous for her answer. I really wanted that epidural. When she responded, "about an hour" with no amount of sympathy in her voice, I felt like all was lost. But, with all the chaos of being in the hospital getting ready to have a baby and the constant interruption of nurses, midwives, and doctors, the hour went by in a bit of a blur and at last the anesthesiologist came walking through the door. I've never been more happy to see a health care provider in my life! I quickly nodded in consent as he went through all the necessary info, side effects, risks, etc. and finally he got to work. Sweet relief! For the first time in almost 24 hours, I was pain-free. The midwife said I should nap after I got the epidural so I would have energy to push later on since I hadn't slept the night before. Easier said than done when I'm hooked up to a blood pressure monitor that goes off every 15 minutes, making my arm feel like it's about to fall off. I did the best I could and dozed on an off for the next couple of hours. Mr. Frisby passed the time by having fun with the camera.

After checking me again and seeing that I was dilated to a 9, the midwife thought I might be ready to start pushing around 5 pm or so. We told my mom to come around that time. She came a little after 5, but I wasn't ready to start pushing then, so it worked out. For the next few hours, we just waited for me to dilate to a 10. Unfortunately my contractions had slowed a little. Just after 8 pm, it was go time. By this time, the nurses and midwives had switched shifts, so I was working with new faces. My new nurse came in and gave me some info about pushing. She said the average birth has about an hour of pushing. She also explained that whenever I had a contraction, I needed to push with it as if I were having a bowel movement. Noted. The midwife came in to check on things and said we should turn down my epidural so I could feel the contraction and push with it. My epidural level was a 10. She told them to reduce it to a 7. I thought, "can't we try a 9 or an 8 and see how that goes?" But, 7 it was. I could definitely feel the contractions then, so away we went. Since my contractions had slowed, they started me on Pitocin to get things going a little faster. It did pick things up, but it still turned out to be a long and laborious process. At 9:30 pm, I was still pushing. I was totally exhausted by this point, but her head was visible with each push. They asked if I wanted a mirror so I could see. I was hesitant, but I said sure. They brought the mirror. I watched for a second and decided I didn't want to watch anymore. So, they took the mirror away. The nurse said, "let's see if we can get her out by 10 pm." I looked at the clock and I really didn't think I had it in me to keep going. I was completely beat and I was in pain. Fortunately, at that point, things picked up and got pretty intense as Baby was all of a sudden moving. There was no more time to think I was done. Because all of a sudden I had to PUSH! I knew we were close when the midwife came back in and started putting on all her blood/mess shields, got out the instrument tray, and broke down the bed (I delivered at Kaiser San Jose where most of the babies are delivered by Certified Nurse Midwives). It made me excited that it would all be over soon. After about 20 minutes and several pushes later, she was crowning. And, with one more big push, she came out all at once. Baby was finally here (she wasn't Stella yet). They immediately put her on my belly and it was love at first sight. Mr. Frisby cut the cord, I delivered the placenta with one more push and at 9:52 pm it was done.

The whole experience was very intense and somewhat of a blur, but I will never forget the feeling I had when I saw her for the first time. Even covered in gunk and with a pretty wicked conehead, she was beautiful. I won't go into any more detail about the whole thing because the rest of the details are pretty gruesome. But, I will say that I think I was completely unprepared for the pushing part. I had assumed that it wouldn't be very hard and that it would be pain-free because of the epidural. Wrong on both accounts. However, despite the difficulty and the pain, this little babe was totally worth it. She's the best! And to prove it, here are a few pics of her first couple of hours in the world:

By the time she was examined, weighed, bathed, and diapered, her conehead was gone and she was ready for a name. That will have to come later, though. The story of her arrival is enough for one post. Next up, little Stella's time in the hospital.

Stella Rae Frisby

2011-09-24T11:23:00.001-07:00

Baby has arrived! I'll have to post about the whole process later when I'm feeling more up to it, but I thought a photo was in order. She was 8 lbs, 4 ozs, 21 inches long, and she's got lots of strawberry blond hair. She's a cutie and already seems to have a mind of her own.

An Update

2011-09-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

As we have recently been inundated with phone calls, texts, and emails asking about Baby, and we had an appointment with our doctor this morning, I've decided it's time for an update.

First of all, everyone always asks me how I'm feeling. Well, I'm two days overdue, we're having a week-long heatwave, and Baby is as big and active as ever. I think that should be all the info you need to deduce how I'm feeling.

Second, everyone wants to know when Baby is coming. Well, so do we! Our ideal day of last Thursday came and went without incident. My due date of Monday came and went without incident. My sister-in-law's predicted day of yesterday came and went without incident. So, what exactly is going on? Well, here's what we learned at the doctor today. When the doctor checked me two weeks ago, I was dilated to 1.5 cm and 50% effaced. In addition, the baby is sitting very low. At that time, the doctor said this was a great place to be in for 38 weeks. Well, two weeks later, it appears nothing has changed. I'm not sure if it's still a great place to be in for 40 weeks. The doctor didn't say, but I'm thinking that since I'd rather the baby had come by now, it's not. Essentially, as pretty much everyone knows, labor can start at any time. So, although nothing's changed in two weeks, I could theoretically go into labor today and have the baby tonight or tomorrow. Or Baby could just continue happily lazing away the days in my belly with her foot in my ribs as she has been. And, that's about all we know about when baby is coming. She's got her own agenda and seems to have no regard for what would work best for us. Surprise, surprise.

Now, on to what we discussed with the doctor. Induction. The doctor said we should come up with a contingency plan in case Baby is too comfortable in my belly. She said they usually start thinking about induction when you're at least a week overdue - this coming Monday in our case. But, if I wanted to wait a little more to see if Baby will come on her own, we can go up to two weeks over. I told her that I would rather not follow my sisters' leads of going two weeks over and having 9 or 10 lb babies, so the sooner the better. She said she could try to get me into a 9pm spot on Monday night or the next available time was 7:30 am Wednesday morning. She told me she preferred the Monday spot for selfish reasons - she's on duty Tuesday morning, so she would probably be able to deliver the baby. That sounded good to me, so she got me the Monday evening spot. Great! If Baby doesn't come before then, we'll get things going Monday for sure.

So, what if Baby decides it's time to make her appearance and things start moving along before then? Well, now comes the tricky part. There is a one-day nurses' strike happening tomorrow at Kaiser. Which means that, although there will be nurses working, they will be short-staffed. Should I go into labor tonight, they may have to send me to a different hospital so they don't get overloaded. While we thought tonight might be a good night because, once again, my doctor is on duty, it's not so ideal if they have to send me to a different hospital. Now what? I would prefer not to have to be induced, but Monday evening is sounding like an ideal time. So, maybe Baby will finally listen to us and get things going on her own on Monday night. Or maybe Baby will do her own thing and come when she wants. Your guess is as good as mine. In the meantime, since the weather is less than comfortable and I'm feeling very ginormous, I think it's time for a swim!

A Room For Baby

2011-09-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Finally, I have taken some photos of the nursery. It's nearly done. My mom is still finishing up the bumper pads for the crib, but she's almost done. I figured that I don't need to worry about pictures of them now, though, because soon I'll be posting cute pictures of our baby sleeping in her crib, so the bumper pads will be shown in those pictures in all their glory. I also still have the blank wall above the crib, but that will probably remain blank until after the baby comes, so for now, it is what it is. Anyway, without further ado, I present the nursery:

Here it is, looking in from the door.

Here's the feeding corner

Here's the crib corner

Here's baby La-A (pronounced Ladasha). This little guy was created by my nieces to go on top of a present at my baby shower. They insisted that I place this little baby in the crib until the real baby arrives. So, here she is, keeping the crib warm.

Here's the bookshelf/lamp/toy corner

Here's the diaper changing corner

And here's a close-up of what's hanging on the wall. The white dress is one that my mom wore as a baby and I love having it hanging in the room.

And that's the nursery. I took some pictures with the lights on and some with them off, but I think you can get a good idea of the colors we used and how it looks. I'm very happy with how it turned out and I'm so excited for Baby's room to no longer be empty!

Living It Up

2011-09-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

This baby is due in a week. But, we're planning on her coming this Thursday. Thursday would be an ideal day for a few reasons. First, it's my niece's birthday and she really wants us to have the baby on her birthday. Second, my doctor is actually on duty that night, so as long as I have the baby after 6pm, my doctor could deliver it. And, finally, Thursday is only a few days away. So, that's what we're shooting for. In the mean time, I've decided that with the impending birth of our child and our subsequent loss of freedom and care-free living, I should live it up while I can. So what have I been doing? Well, Saturday morning we took a trip to the movies. We finally saw the new Harry Potter. It was a great way to spend Saturday morning and did you know that morning movies are, like, half the price of regular time movies? Totally lived it up that day. Also, I got a pedicure. And by pedicure, I mean my niece came over and painted my toes. Lap of luxury, I tell you. And, today I went for a little swim. Not for a workout and not to battle algae. I just got in the pool to paddle around for awhile. It felt fantastic. Okay, so maybe my 9-month pregnant self is not up for living it up like I used to. Still, I think I made some good efforts. And, I've still got a few more days...

Two Weeks

2011-09-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Or less, we hope. Well, I don't know if Mr. Frisby hopes that, but I do. I'm done being pregnant. I'm done peeing all the time, I'm done waking up every time I need to move at night, I'm done having my insides poked, prodded, and kicked, I'm done with heartburn, and I'm done waiting. So, I hope Baby comes early. We're pretty much ready, I hope. The nursery is just about done. I was going to go take some pictures of it so I could post them and then I remembered that Mr. Frisby decided to paint the shelf in the closet, so all of the closet contents are all over the floor. And that is not conducive to taking good pictures of the nursery. So, it will have to wait until he's done. I still have a blank wall above the crib. I'm kind of thinking I'll do something with Baby's name, but that means it will stay blank until she's born since we're waiting until we meet her to decide for sure. Our hospital bags are packed. We don't have the carseat in the car currently, but we did put it in a couple weeks ago to make sure we knew how. So, we should be able to put it in in just a few minutes. I've even downloaded a contraction timer app on my iPhone. Thanks to the Cutlers for that suggestion. I didn't even know they existed, but was not at all surprised to find out that they did.

As you can see, our lives have been consumed with preparing for Baby. It has been fun, though, and just adds to the anticipation and excitement of meeting our little girl (and, since our doctor did a quick ultrasound a couple weeks ago to check up on the little one and confirmed her girl status, we are quite confident in saying that). Aside from the baby prep, we have had other things to keep us busy. My sister and her kids came to visit for a week. It was fun seeing them and joining them for the various activities they had planned while they were here. Again, there was lots of pool time, a trip to the beach, a trip down to Big Sur, and a day in San Francisco. They also went to the Pinnacles, but since I'm not really into hiking these days, I didn't join them for that.

Here are a few pics of our day in Big Sur:

And, of course there is always yard work to keep Mr. Frisby busy and relaxing in the pool to keep me busy :) And, that's how we've been preparing for Baby!

Catch Up

2011-08-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a month since I blogged. It's not that I haven't had things to blog about. It's just that most of them aren't very exciting things. So, I've been putting it off. But, I guess enough is enough and it's time to let you know what's been going on. First off, my brother and his family came to visit. This was actually one of the exciting things that's happened. They got here the day before we came back from our vacation, so we continued the busy summer adventures as soon as we got home. We kept very busy with them here.

We went to the zoo.

We went to Point Lobos where we saw lots of wildlife and the boys threw rocks.

We also spent lots of time in the pool. Please note: this is not the best photo of our pool time, but it's one of the very few photos with me in it, so I thought I should probably include it.

We also had other fun activities that I did not get pictures of, like going to the Exploratorium, going to the beach, going to the Jelly Belly outlet, etc, etc. It was great to have them here visiting.

After they left, it was back to business. We've been busy getting ready for this baby to come. Some of these preparations have been fun. Like buying really cute clothes. And getting the nursery all ready. And having a baby shower.

Other preparations have not been so fun. Like spending an hour and a half just figuring out how the carseat works and how to install it in the car. Or figuring out what to do with all the stuff that we used to have in the nursery before we turned it into a nursery.

And, as if that weren't enough to keep us busy for the last month or so, we've been battling an algae problem in our pool.

The algae came while we were on vacation. And, as we soon learned, this was not your normal algae that is taken care of by adding copious amounts of algicide and pool shock. This was black algae, which may as well be called the black plague. It's pretty evil stuff and very tenacious. Instead of going away with all the chemicals we were adding, it just continued to spread. To the point that I didn't even want to get in the pool (would you want to get in a pool like the one in the picture?) Fortunately, though, we've been battling it like crazy and, at this point, we've got it on the ropes. And, our pool doesn't look like the above picture anymore. So, I've been swimming again and getting a pretty wicked tan.

Mr. Frisby has been busy removing ugly juniper trees from our front yard and installing more shelves in the closets. And, of course, we've had doctor appointments, various baby prep classes at the hospital, including a tour of the Labor & Delivery department, and we've been trying to finish up other projects before the baby arrives. So, it's really been a whirlwind of activity. The good news is that the nursery is almost done. I just have to put the bumper pads in the crib when my mom finishes those and I have a wall above the crib that is currently empty because I can't figure out what to do with it. Anyone have any good nursery decorating ideas for a blank wall? Once I get the nursery all done, I will post some pictures.

And that has been our last several weeks in a nutshell.

Sewing

2011-07-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

Much to my mom's delight, I've been sewing. Appropriately, my first project on my "new" machine was, indeed, hemming pants. But, I've since moved on to more fun and exciting things. Like curtains for the nursery. I'm super excited about how they turned out and I smile every time I walk by the nursery and see them.

I learned to do a blind hem. I imagine this will be quite useful in the future, but it's a little tricky and quite nerve-wracking. Fortunately, it turned out okay.

Scout supervised the process, lending her extensive expertise when needed

Sewing on the buttons. This was the last step and I was really excited to get them on, put the curtains up, and be done with it.

The finished product. Really, I think it turned out super cute, if I do say so myself. And look, you can get an idea of the wall color.

And a close-up so you can admire the adorableness.

Pregnancy Workouts

2011-07-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

I had a few requests to share my pregnancy workout plan, so I will oblige for those of you who may be interested. First, a little background. I don't like working out. It's not fun for me, I don't get this awesome energy boost afterwards, there's usually some level of pain involved, I'm not trying to become Super Woman, etc, etc. I workout because I know it's good for me. Period. So, I like to get the best possible workout in the lease amount of time. That's just the philosophy behind my exercises. So, here's what I've been doing:

Monday - Strength day: 2 sets of 8 reps each of body-weight chest press (essentially, a push up), rows, and single-leg squats
Tuesday - Cardio workout - Run or swim for maybe 20 minutes
Wednesday - Core day: Stir the pot, quad leg extension, and side planks. The sets and reps vary depending on where I am in my progression
Thursday - Cardio workout - same as Tuesday
Friday - Strength day: repeat Monday's workout
Saturday - Cardio workout, Core day - repeat Wednesday's core workout
Sunday - Rest. It is the Sabbath after all.

And that's it. Usually, I don't spend more than 20 minutes per day working out. Except Saturdays since I do cardio and core. It's pretty much just scaled back a little from what I used to do before I was pregnant. The cardio has been getting tricky. I've been doing some running or swimming, but it's getting to the point that running is becoming a ridiculous endeavor. And, swimming is fine, but I'm a terrible swimmer and it requires taking the cover off the pool by myself. Sometimes, I'm just too lazy for it. I have a spin bike on order that should arrive next week and I'm hoping that will be the answer to my cardio workout troubles. I used to do interval workouts for my cardio, but I was losing weight with those and that's not encouraged during pregnancy so for now I just do steady-state cardio and I'll save the interval workouts for losing the pregnancy weight after the baby comes.

Primarily, I'm hoping this will achieve the desired results of making the labor, delivery, and recovery a little easier. Fingers crossed!

An Uninvited Guest

2011-07-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

Mr. Frisby and I are pretty open when it comes to letting people use our pool. It cost a pretty penny and it continues to cost both time and money to maintain it. So, we like it to be well-used and worth the efforts. Usually if people want to use the pool, we don't hesitate to say yes. But, a few nights ago I went outside to find an uninvited and unwelcome guest swimming around in our pool.

I don't know how this guy got in, but obviously, he needed to be shown the door right away. Mr. Frisby and I were actually both impressed that I didn't scream or otherwise make a big deal (not that I'm terribly afraid of frogs or anything, but seeing one swimming around unexpected in the pool gave me quite a start). I calmly called for Mr. Frisby to come outside. When he came, I informed him there was a frog in the pool and he needed to take care of it (there is an unspoken agreement that when it comes to creatures in the pool, I will not be handling them). I was then impressed as Mr. Frisby walked over to where the frog was swimming near the edge and with one lightning fast grab, snatched him out of the pool. (That's Mr. Frisby's hand holding him in the picture). He then showed him the gate and released him into the front yard where I imagine he was soon hunted down by some neighborhood cat.

As you can see from the picture, the frog was actually quite large. Both Mr. Frisby and I wonder if it was somebody's pet. However, I'm not about to store someone's lost frog in my house and I'm not about to let it cruise around my pool. Sorry Frogger. You were uninvited and unwelcome. Time to go!

Vacay!

2011-07-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

Long time, no blog. Mr. Frisby and I have been out of town on vacation. We thought it would be a good idea to head out to Idaho and Utah to visit with family before the baby comes and things get crazy. Though the baby didn't come, things still got crazy. We figured out the stats on our way home:

Two birds killed by Ox
One unexpected funeral
Two lousy colds caught
One speeding ticket acquired
2,500 plus miles driven
38 plus hours in the car

All in about a week and a half. While heading into Nevada on day 1 of our vacation, I realized that we had forgotten the camera. So, we don't even have any documentation of our adventures except for a couple cell phone pics. In spite of the craziness, however, we had a good time and it was wonderful to spend time with family. Scout had a good time meeting new people and new dogs and ran herself totally ragged. She's literally been sleeping all day.

So, what did we do on our vacation? Let's see. We started out in Rexburg, ID with Mr. Frisby's family. We went four-wheeling and searched for treasures with a metal detector. Nobody hurt on the four wheelers and no treasures found with the metal detectors. We also went shooting. This was my one request while in Idaho and we had a great time. This was also one of the few activities documented with our cell phone cameras.

We determined that Baby likes the .357 Magnum best.

We also visited with Mr. Frisby's grandparents. This turned out to be a very worthwhile activity as Mr. Frisby's grandfather passed away just before we were getting ready to leave Rexburg and head to Utah to visit with my family. We continued with our plans to head to Utah and we headed down a day early since we would be returning to Rexburg for the funeral a few days later. While in Utah, I did some shopping with my sisters and we also went to a park in Provo Canyon for a little picnic and fun times. Then it was back up to Rexburg for the funeral. At the funeral, I got to meet some of Mr. Frisby's extended family that I had only heard about before. After the funeral, it was back to Utah for more time with my family.

Somewhere along the way near the tail end of the trip, Mr. Frisby got a cold. Then he gave it to me. Let's just say the drive home was miserable. And, that was pretty much our vacation. We're still recovering.

And, for the record, the speeding ticket was acquired by Mr. Frisby. I wasn't even in the car. And, we each had the "privilege" of being the driver when a bird was killed. But, truly, the birds were at fault. They literally flew into the car. Kind of stupid if you ask me. But, I don't credit birds with a lot of intelligence, so there you go. Frisby Family Vacay 2011!

Happy Birthday To Me!

2011-06-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

It was touch and go for a little while, but my birthday wish came true!

My Innie Is Becoming An Outtie and Other Pregnancy Related Things

2011-06-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

Things are moving along with this pregnancy and, as we approach the third trimester, life has been revolving more and more around little Baby Frisby.

Indeed, my innie bellybutton is gradually becoming an outtie. It's kind of grossing me out. I know it's normal, but still. I liked my bellybutton as an innie.

Sometimes I look in my closet at all of the clothes I used to wear and I long to be able to wear them again. Primarily, they give me a lot more variety. But, also maternity clothes just suck sometimes.

We've begun converting our "office" to a "nursery". It all started with finishing the armoire (and frankly, that's what lit the fire under my butt to actually finish the armoire). Once I finished the armoire, the great furniture shuffle could occur. The nursery is now emptied out and we just finished painting it. It's a nice light, pastel green. A gender-neutral color. That way, if we have a boy down the road, I won't have to paint again. I don't mind switching out curtains, bumper pads, etc. But, I don't want to paint again. I would post a picture, but I'm just too lazy to go take one. Use your imagination. Or just wait until we actually get some furniture in there and then I really will take a picture.

I've never been so concerned about what I'm eating in my life. Being pregnant seems to have made me a nutrition freak. All of a sudden, I'm concerned with things like Iron content of foods, pairing Vitamin C intake with Iron intake (because it helps your body absorb the Iron better), getting Calcium fortified OJ, and drinking copious amounts of water. I had a proud moment the other day. I decided I needed a snack. On my way to the chocolate chip cookies and in a rare moment of impressive self control, I decided I should eat something healthy so I got some strawberries instead.

And on the subject of eating, I'm really working on the concept of eating 6 (or 8 or 10) small "meals" per day as opposed to 3 regular ones. It's a very difficult concept for me. Actually, I'm fine with the concept. It's the practice of it that's hard. I don't know why, but I have a hard time sitting down to a meal and not eating as much as I normally would. I'm slowly getting better at it, though, because when I do successfully eat the small meals, I'm a lot more comfortable.

And, still on the subject of eating, I've made a new friend. It's name is heartburn. I could count on two fingers the number of times in my life I had heartburn up until a couple weeks ago. Consider that record annihilated. My friendship with heartburn has led to another new friendship in my life. It's with milk. Actually, milk and I have been fast friends ever since I was born. But, now we're friends at 2 o'clock in the morning as well.

Okay, off the subject of eating, I've started my own pregnancy workout plan. I've been working out here and there since I found out I was pregnant, but I haven't been super consistent. Some weeks were better than others. But, I wasn't a total slacker. Anyway, in the last couple of weeks (probably as the prospect of labor draws near), I've decided I need to do better. Being in good shape makes labor easier (or so they say) and I'm hoping it will make it easier to lose the weight after delivery. So, I decided that I need to be a little more regular with my cardio and strength training and I also decided it's time to start working in some core strength stuff. I started looking at pregnancy workout dvds online and reading all the reviews to see which one was the best. Then I thought, "you're an idiot. You work as a strength and conditioning coach. You don't need someone else to train you. You can come up with your own workout." So, I did. I came up with my workout plan and I started it this week. And, I think that since I actually have it all planned out, I'm going to stick to it.

We're planning a trip to Utah and Idaho in a couple weeks. It will be fun to see family and have a little vacation. But, we also need to pick up a bunch of baby equipment from my sister.

And, that is how life is revolving around Baby Frisby. We're excited to meet her!

A Birthday Wish

2011-06-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

My birthday is coming. I have one simple wish. I just want some decent weather so I can use my pool.

San Diego

2011-05-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, Mr. Frisby and I went down to SD last weekend. It was a good little trip and we had lots of fun. Here's a rundown of our adventures. We drove down on Thursday. It took most of the day and included a number of pee stops because I do a lot of that these days. Awesome. We stayed with my good friend Amy who, conveniently, lives about 10 or 15 minutes away from everything there is to do in SD. On Friday, we started the day off by going to the San Diego Temple. It was lovely. The sister missionaries there were very nice and looked like they needed something to do, so we asked them to take a picture for us.

After taking our picture, the sisters suggested we visit the Mormon Battalion Visitors' Center. We told them that was already our plan, so they were kind enough to give us directions. The Visitors' Center was cool. We had a tour, Mr. Frisby panned for gold, and we got to take this sweet souvenir photo:

And the best part was that it was all free. Mormons are awesome! After we finished at the Visitors' Center, we walked down to Old Town San Diego to check it out. No pictures as neither of us was in a very photographic mood, but it was pretty cool. After we finished in Old Town, we picked Amy up and met up with the Fosters for dinner on Coronado Island. It was good times. It was fun to see the Fosters and meet their son and we had a good time checking out the Hotel Del Coronado. Here we are outside the Hotel:

Saturday, we spent the day at the zoo. The San Diego zoo is huge and awesome. But it was a lot of walking. We saw the awesome meerkats, among other things. And Amy coerced me into climbing into this little photo set-up to take a picture with this mean-looking seal. Incidentally, we saw no live seals during our whole day at the zoo. But, it was good times.

After our trip to the zoo, we were pretty beat down from all of the walking in the hot sunshine. Plus, Mr. Frisby and I had to get up very early the next day for his graduation ceremony. So, that night we just grabbed some dinner, followed it up with Yogurtland, and then relaxed at Amy's house. Sunday, of course, was graduation day which I talked about in my last post. After the graduation ceremony and a reception at one of his professors' houses, we hit the road to come home. Again, it was a long drive with many pee stops. But, we made it back safe and sound, had a lovely little trip, and were greeted by a very happy and excited puppy when we got back. Good times!

A Shout Out

2011-05-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

I don't usually do posts about other people on my blog, but I'm going to take some liberties today and talk about Mr. Frisby. This last weekend, Mr. Frisby and I drove down to San Diego. More on our trip adventures later. The purpose of our excursion was to attend Mr. Frisby's graduation from San Diego State. For the last 2.5 years or so, Mr. Frisby has been working on his Master's degree. He's been enrolled in San Diego State's Distance Learning Educational Technology program (I hope I got that right). I know from experience that Master's Degrees are a LOT of work. And it's not everyday you get hooded. So, we thought it would be good to go down to SD for his graduation ceremony.

Aside from having to be there at 7 am on Sunday morning, the ceremony went well. SDSU does their commencement ceremonies by college as opposed to the entire university, so they actually read everyone's names and had them go on stage to get their degrees. All of the Master's candidates were hooded on stage as well. I wanted to get good pictures, but the ceremony was held in the Arena and the lighting was atrocious for any decent photography, at least from my vantage point.

That blurry mass is Mr. Frisby being hooded. As they were trying to move quickly, they had quite the system down for hooding them. It reminded me a bit of the scene in A Christmas Story when the kids go to sit on Santa's lap and the system they had for moving the kids through quickly.

Surprisingly, I was able to get a decent shot of Mr. Frisby walking out during the recessional.

After the ceremony, we met back up and took a few pictures on campus. Here's Master Frisby:

with his pregnant wife:

Anyway, I just have to say how proud I am of Mr. Frisby. He's worked very hard and given up a lot of time and energy and ended up being one of the top students in his program. Congratulations, Mr. Frisby!

The Great Armoire Project

2011-05-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago, I mentioned a project that wasn't coming along very quickly. After many months, I have finally finished and I now give you The Great Armoire Project. Really, it's just some before and after pictures. I had a hard enough time motivating myself to get it done. I wasn't about to take detailed pictures of the process.

It all started back in December with this old armoire that we acquired from some friends who never wanted to have to move the beast again:

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any pictures until I had removed the old hardware and started priming. But, I think you get the idea. A decent piece of furniture, but not really my style in its current state.

Fast forward several months, several coats of paint, some distressing, and some new knobs from Anthropologie and here's our new again armoire:

As this was my first attempt at refinishing furniture, I had no idea what I was doing. But, there are some very good instructions/tutorials online and I took full advantage of them. And I'm super pleased with how it turned out. It looks great in our Master Bedroom with our Crate and Barrel bed. I totally think I am justified in tooting my own horn on this one. Toot, Toot!

Bring On Summer!

2011-04-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Last year, we got to use our pool a few times before the weather started to get too cold. It was nice. But, let's be honest, our pool was cold. It's not heated and it has no cover. Combine that with the uncharacteristic cool summer temperatures we had last year, and it was what some might call frigid (and by some, I mean me). Eventually, we would like to put in solar heating for the pool. But, that costs money. And we don't have a lot of that right now, so it's a big eventually. We needed a temporary solution so that I actually spend more time IN the pool than getting up the nerve to get in:

Our huge solar blanket (see, it sounds warm already, doesn't it?) arrived yesterday. It's currently spread out over the pool soaking up and trapping the sun's rays. It just needs to be trimmed to size and it will be ready to go. I'm pretty excited because I think this is going to make our pool much more swimmable. And I have a feeling I will want to do a lot of swimming this summer. In fact, this weekend is supposed to be so nice that I'm hoping to start using the pool next week. I'm so ready for summer! Who wants to join me?

Ultrasound

2011-04-21T11:24:00.001-07:00

Today, we had our ultrasound. Got to see our little baby in all its glory. Bluebeard says hello, by the way.

Ultrasounds really are amazing. I mean, they checked out EVERYTHING. We saw the bladder, including bloodflow to the bladder. We saw the stomach and the fact that it looks like it's full of amniotic fluid as it should be. We saw the eye sockets and could tell that there are actually eyeballs in them. We saw the diaphragm. We saw the kidneys (actually, I couldn't really tell they were kidneys, but I have no problem taking the ultrasound tech's word for it). We saw both hands and arms and both legs and feet. Even got a shot of the baby's first footprint.

We saw lots of shots of the brain and could see all the parts that are supposed to be there. We saw all four chambers of the heart and the fact that it was beating as it should be. We saw the aortic arch. We saw the face with lips and nose. We saw the spine and ribs. I mean, it was crazy. The ultrasound tech sent us home with 17 pictures (I'm only posting four because most are pictures only a mother and father would care about)! It's really cool how much they can see. And, it was fascinating to me because I've learned about all of these things and seen them in anatomy books, but then I get to see them all in our growing baby. It was pretty cool. And, everything appears to be normal. And, after this little photo shoot, Bluebeard rolled over and went to sleep. Hooray for ultrasounds!

Oh, yeah. There was one more thing they could see. Baby's gender. Looks like we'll have to ditch the nickname, Bluebeard. It's not very lady-like.

Adulthood

2011-04-06T22:11:00.000-07:00

I've done it. I've become a real, boring adult. How do I know this? Because one of my favorite things to get in the mail is the Costco coupon booklet.

Pathetic.

On Buying a New Car

2011-04-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

With a baby on the way, Mr. Frisby and I have begun preparations for the expansion of our family. One of the first things on our list was getting a new car. We needed one in which we could tote little Bluebeard around without feeling like Inspector Gadget, pulling out all these tricks just to get the little tike into the back seat of our very un-family friendly two-door cars. Enter Ox.

We came home with this bad boy on Friday night. We have been looking, researching, and test driving different cars for weeks. We went out on Friday night with the intention of doing some more test drives and getting more information, not actually buying a new vehicle. However, after test driving several more cars, we went back to the Mazda dealer and after talking numbers and striking what we felt was a good deal, we bought the car. And I named it Ox. There are a number of things I'm excited about. It has leather seats, built-in bluetooth, seat warmers, and automatic climate control with separate rear passenger controls. It also has a good amount of power. Overall, we're pretty excited about our purchase. The downside was that poor Mr. Frisby had to say goodbye to his Mustang. Of course, I don't really see it as a downside. I mean, come on, he inherits Maggie MINI. That's a pretty decent trade, if you ask me.

Anyway, the whole car-buying process made me think back to my purchase of Maggie, my 2007 MINI Cooper S. These two purchasing experiences were like night and day. I bought Maggie brand new. I basically built her online and knew EXACTLY what I wanted. I went to the dealer and ordered my car. And I knew exactly what I would be paying because with MINIs, there's no negotiating. They don't need to. You pay MSRP plus any dealer mark-up (I went to East Bay MINI which doesn't have a mark-up). Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. The hardest part was waiting the nine or ten weeks for Maggie to arrive from England. I tracked her progress incessantly. See, on the MINI website, you can track your car and see where it is on the assembly line and in the delivery process. Then, I found out which shipping company would be handling her transport, which ship she would be on and then I tracked the progress of the ship. I could even watch her ship going through the Panama Canal via the Canal's webcams. And when Maggie arrived in America, I could see it on the website. And I knew Maggie had arrived at the dealership before they even called to tell me. I waited for her with much anticipation and excitement.

Now, take Ox. So far, Ox has been great. But, let's be honest. Who gets excited for trading in their dream car for a family wagon? We weren't really picky and didn't have any really specific criteria. There were just a few things we needed to have and we could get those in any of the models we had researched. We liked a number of the cars we looked at. This gave us good negotiating power. Because if you're not buying a MINI, get ready to negotiate. It was kind of a spontaneous purchase. Not an impulse buy, but we bought before we were planning to anyway. We saw a car we liked, in a color we liked, with the options we liked. So we negotiated. Hardcore. And it took a little while. And, in the end, we walked onto the lot not planning to buy a car and then left with one. No waiting. No tracking. No anticipation. But, exhausting.

Night and day.

I hope all of our preparations for little Bluebeard are not this crazy.

Three

2011-03-21T11:58:00.001-07:00

THREE years ago today, Mr. Frisby and I went pro.

It's been a good THREE years and a lot has happened. In honor of our third anniversary, I thought it would be fun to talk about all the things that we've done in THREES (except the obvious annual events). But, then I started thinking about it and there's not much to talk about. We've lived in THREE different cities, I've worked at THREE different places and Mr. Frisby has had THREE different laptops. And that's about it. Boring. So, I'm not going to do that. I'll just say hooray for THREE. Even though we didn't do a lot of things in THREES over the last THREE years, we figure that THREE is a pretty good number for the Frisbys anyway.

Frisby number THREE is due September 19th which happens to be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Mr. Frisby thinks that's pretty awesome and we're currently referring to number THREE as Bluebeard. And for the record, this is not our third child. Frisbys one and two would be Mr. Frisby and myself.

A New Acquisition

2011-03-16T15:37:00.001-07:00

I acquired something new this weekend. New being relative, of course:

It's my mom's old sewing machine. It's older than me. It was the top of the line when it was new back in 1974 or 75. As you can see, it's got a little wear and tear. But, my mom tells me that it's still a great machine and makes a beautiful stitch. I'm not a good enough seamstress to know a beautiful stitch from a crappy one, so I'll take her word for it. Still, I'm excited to have a sewing machine. Not that I have any ambitious plans for it. I mean, all the fancy stitches that my mom carefully showed me how to do on the machine will probably never materialize. But, the fact that I have a machine means that I won't have to go to my mom's to use her machine every time I need to hem some pants (because, as I mentioned on my blog before, it's impossible to find pants the right length for an AVERAGE height person!) or work on a project I came up with because I didn't like what I saw in a store or I didn't like the price I saw in a store.

I don't plan to go sewing crazy all of a sudden, but a sewing machine is a handy thing to have, so I think this was a good acquisition.

Update

2011-03-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged for awhile. I don't really have much to blog about right now, but I guess it's time for an update. I guess the biggest news for me is that it's March. This makes me happy inside. February, though the shortest month of the year, always feels like the longest to me. I'm just done with winter and the cold weather and the rain. I get very excited to flip the calendar page on March 1st. March lifts my spirits because, with it, comes Spring, March Madness, and Mr. Frisby and I's anniversary. So, hooray for March.

Other than that, there's really not much going on. We haven't really had any fun adventures lately. I'm in the middle of a project that is taking longer than I hoped. Not because it's difficult or complicated, but just because I don't feel like working on it. Mr. Frisby is busy with school. And that's it. A boring update, but an update nonetheless. We do have things on the horizon, though, so hopefully we'll have some more exciting posts in the near future.

Scout's House

2011-02-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

This has been our most recent project for the last few weeks. Mr. Frisby did most of the work. I did the painting. And we think it turned out pretty awesome. Now we'll just have to see if Scout likes it.

Happy Spring!

2011-02-13T15:10:00.001-08:00

Oh wait. It's only February. Man, I love California! (And, yes, those are my tulip bulbs I planted in our front yard back in November)

Horror Movies

2011-02-02T11:23:00.001-08:00

I purposely don't watch horror movies because I know for a fact they will give me nightmares. I inadvertently watched a horror movie in college and it has stayed with me ever since. Here's the story. Oh, first a little background. I have what some might call an irrational fear of snakes. If you come near me with a snake, I will fight you. If you come near me with a picture of a snake, I will still fight you. I hate the fact that there are snakes in every single one of the Harry Potter movies. To illustrate my problem with snakes, here's a story: Shortly after we moved, I was out walking Scout and exploring the surrounding neighborhood. I stumbled upon a little trail that went near some ponds. I went closer to investigate, thinking it might be a cool place to walk Scout. Upon nearing the trail, I heard a little rustling and looked down to see a small, tan snake slithering away. It was very small and probably harmless, but Scout and I were out of there so fast and I have not gone near it since.

Now that that background info is out of the way, on to my story about the inadvertent horror movie watching. When I went away to BYU, I was excited, for the first time in my life, to have cable. I didn't actually watch a lot of TV, but I did take a strong liking to Animal Planet. I was watching Animal Planet one day and they were showing an incident where this guy had a pet Boa Constrictor and it escaped. And it escaped hungry. Cut to this little old lady who lives by herself and has a small, white dog to keep her company. She loves the said dog because it is her little constant companion. Remember the Boa Constrictor that escaped? So, the little white dog hears something in the garage and peeks its little white head through the doggy door to see what's going on. Hungry Boa Constrictor is in the garage, sees the little white head poke through and strikes. Yep, it was a horror movie alright. That snake pulled the little white dog through the door, coiled around it, killed it, then ate it. And this poor old lady watched the whole thing through the window in the garage door but could do nothing to stop the snake and save her beloved little white dog. Horror Movie! And, I have never forgotten it. Though it was all a re-enactment, the images are burned into my mind. Especially the last one of the boa constrictor with a huge lump in its body.

Now, remember how I don't watch horror movies because I know they will give me nightmares? So, the other night I had a nightmare. I dreamed that this huge python came into the house looking for Scout. For some unexplainable reason, we had a big tiger in the house. The python made quick work of the tiger in order to get to Scout (and that's no small feat. I was rooting for the tiger, obviously. Later, when explaining my nightmare to Mr. Frisby, he said he would rather the snake kill the tiger because he would be able to run away from the snake and it would be less dangerous than the tiger. I told him that a snake powerful enough to kill a tiger like it was a stuffed animal would be much scarier and much more dangerous than a tiger, so he should probably root for the tiger). So, the rest of my dream (which fortunately wasn't very long because I was awakened when Mr. Frisby got up to get ready for work) I was trying to figure out what I was going to use to kill this snake so it wouldn't get to Scout. It was horrible! And, even after I woke up, I was still going over scenarios in my mind about how I might be able to kill this snake. And that is why I don't watch horror movies.

A Pleasant Surprise

2011-01-25T15:50:00.000-08:00

Mr. Frisby did well, no?

Christmas in San Francisco

2011-01-15T12:37:00.000-08:00

It's an atrocious song, but San Francisco really is a great place to visit during the holidays (yes, I know the holidays are well over, but life has been a little hectic, okay). My sister and her family, visiting from Washington, wanted to spend a day up in San Francisco while they were here. Having worked in the city and being pretty familiar with what it has to offer, I was asked to come up with some ideas of what we could do there. I tend to gravitate toward activities and places that attract less of a crowd, especially during a busy time like Christmas, so here's what we did:

First stop was Baker Beach. It's a nice little beach with a great view of the bridge and is usually not very crowded. Also, it's one of the locations where Mr. Frisby and I took engagement photos.

Next we checked out the Wave Organ in the Marina. Unfortunately the tides were not ideal for the best Wave Organ sounds, but we had fun checking it out anyway. And, it's another good spot for pictures. Though it's a little blurry, I like the one I snuck of my parents walking along.

After that, we checked out the Palace of Fine Arts. It's a busier spot, but is near the Wave Organ, so it was a convenient stop. Unfortunately, it's being renovated, so it can only be checked out from afar. This may have been Scout's favorite stop since she found her arch nemesis, a very saucy bird, which she barked at non-stop.

Next up was a brief stop at Pier 39. Not my favorite stop on any day, but it's especially worse when the crowds are horrid during busy times like Christmas. My family wanted soup in bread bowls. I had a hankering for some tasty pizza. Since the busy crowds were making Scout very nervous, we left the family at Boudin's and headed to Golden Boy in North Beach for the best pizza ever. After we ate, we met up with the fam again at Union Square to check out the lights and do a little bit of shopping. Neither Mr. Frisby nor I were in a mood to document the rest of the day photographically, so we left the camera in the car (along with Scout who was totally pooped and could hardly be roused from her napping) and instead showed my sister how to take good night time shots with her camera. I wasn't in a total shopping mood, but I did find a beautiful pair of shoes on clearance at DSW and a nice little scarf at H&M, so it was definitely a successful stop. And that was our day in San Francisco. Good times as usual.

Scout's Dirty Little Secret

2011-01-09T14:48:00.000-08:00

We are convinced that in Scout's previous life, she must have been Squints from the Sandlot. You know Squints. He was the one with the thing for Wendy Peffercorn. Lotioning, Lotioning!

So what, you might ask, would bring us to this conclusion? Well, while Scout doesn't really have a thing for women, this little puppy has an extreme infatuation with lotion.

We can't figure out what it is, but when we put on lotion, she goes crazy. She immediately runs over and starts licking the lotioned skin incessantly. It doesn't matter what kind of lotion, it doesn't matter what it smells like, it doesn't matter where we put it. If we get out the lotion, Scout is all over it. This morning was a perfect example. After my shower, I was putting lotion on my legs. I try to be quiet with the lotion jar so she won't hear me, but I think she can smell it from over a mile away. As soon as I started lotioning, Scout came busting through the door and started licking my legs. Then, it's a race to put pants on so she doesn't lick all the lotion off. Then, as we were getting ready to leave for church, Mr. Frisby got out some hand lotion to put on his hands. Scout was fast asleep, but as soon as she smelled it, she was at Mr. Frisby's side, jumping up trying to reach his hands so she could lick them. We can't figure out what it is she likes about it, but we're worried it's become an addiction. Anyone know of any puppy rehab centers?

Catch Up

2010-12-28T22:50:00.001-08:00

It's been a little while since I've posted. A nasty cold, food poisoning and Christmas, all in quick succession, can really put you behind. So, now that that's all over, it's time to catch up a little.

So, what have we been up to?

Yard work. Two large Mulberry trees plus a significant winter storm left our front yard looking like this:

One of the culprits, looking innocently empty after dropping all its leaves:

The clean up has been somewhat complicated because we fill up the yard waste bin without making a dent in the carpet of leaves covering our front lawn. We bought two extra garbage cans and filled those up with leaves and still it looked like we hadn't done anything. We ended up just leaving the yard like that until the next garbage day when they emptied our bins and we refilled them. By then, the leaves had dried out quite a bit and were much more compactable. We now have just a small pile of leaves waiting for the next garbage day.

Getting our new bed. In my last post, I talked about our awesome new mattress. Well, we finally got an awesome new bed to put it on:

This isn't actually a picture of our bed. I'm too lazy right now to go take a picture of our bed. But, this is the picture of it in the Crate & Barrel catalog. So, imagine that bed in our room with our bed linens. Lovely, isn't it? Someday I'll take a picture of it and post it. This bed I've had my eye on for awhile. When I saw it, I fell in love with it and I wanted it. So, I started requesting Crate & Barrel gift cards as gifts to put towards the bed. We were fortunate to be gifted a little early this year for Christmas from my mom and my sister, so we got the bed and got it set up and were able to wake up in it on Christmas morning. And when I woke up and looked at it, I said "Merry Christmas to me!" Needless to say, I love it.

Christmas.

I was pretty fortunate this year. I was on top of my Christmas preparations and had most everything done before I got all sick and gross. However, after I came out of my head cold haze and then my food poisoning grossness episode, there were a few last minute things to be done. It kept me busy enough that no baking happened this year. I feel a little like I should be disappointed by this, but in actuality, I couldn't care less. I finished my last minute things and then enjoyed the holiday spirit.

Christmas was lovely this year. I had family in town, so that was fun. We woke up and opened our own presents at our house and then headed up to my parents' for the Christmas festivities. Here's our Christmas tree on Christmas morning:

Scout quickly found her stocking because there were treats and a squirrel coming out the top:

We opened presents at my parents' and my sisters and I compared our matching cupcake potholders that my mom had made for us:

Then we sat down to our Christmas breakfast. It was a combination of traditions. We had our normal Christmas sausage bread (think garlic, sausage, and cheese stuffed into bread. Mmmmmm!) and we also had Strawberry Crepes which is my visiting sister's family's Christmas breakfast tradition. It was divine:

The rest of Christmas was fabulous, but we, apparently, took no more pictures of it. We had more rounds of present-opening as more family arrived and then we enjoyed a yummy Christmas dinner.

And, that's what we've been up to. We've also been having fun since Christmas, but that is for another post.

To The Cloud

2010-12-16T21:09:00.001-08:00

Nope. Not talking about this cloud:

Please. As I type this on my beautiful MacBook otherwise known as Bonecrusher. Windows. Pshsh.

I'm talking about THIS cloud:

Two nights on this bad boy and I'm already in love. Some time ago, I posted about my love and need for a pillow-top mattress here. Since then, I have eagerly awaited the day when I would be back on a pillow-top. That day came on Tuesday. We went to Sleep Train on Monday because we wanted our ticket to a better night's sleep. We tried out the various Tempur-Pedic mattresses (having already decided we wanted a Tempur-Pedic based on recommendations from others and also trying them out at a home show) and settled on the TEMPUR-Cloud. I don't know if it's truly a pillow-top, but it's Tempur-Pedic material with a soft, luxurious top layer. To me, that says pillow-top. So, we gave them our money and this bad boy was delivered on Tuesday:

I was pretty much giddy with excitement. I don't know if I've ever enjoyed making a bed so much. And laying down on this thing of beauty has been heavenly. Now we just need a new bed to put it on. That is on its way, though, and when it comes, I will post about that, too.

Ceiling Project #3

2010-12-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, we finished ceiling project #3. I didn't take pictures of the process because it was the same process as that we used for ceiling project #1. This ceiling project entailed putting up tongue and groove wood planking on the master bedroom ceiling. The only difference between that and the wood planking in the living room is that we painted the wood white. Actually, I did one coat of primer and one coat of paint, so it's thin enough that you can see some of the knots in the wood. Basically, a heavy whitewash. And I'm pleased as punch at how it turned out.

As with the living room ceiling, we owe big thank yous to everyone who helped out. The help was huge because we were able to finish it all in one day - moulding and everything. That was partly because we knew what we were doing this time around and partly because our materials were far superior to the first time around. The wood we got was better quality and, therefore, far more cooperative when it came to going into place. Lesson learned: materials make a difference. Anyway, we're very excited because now all of our major projects are totally done. Now it's just little things like putting up a shelf here and reattaching a smoke detector there. Of course, that's only temporary because I have visions of a master bedroom with a beautiful whitewashed wood ceiling, very dark wood floors, a new wall color - perhaps a blue-grey - and maybe even some wainscoting. And with the ceiling done, we're on our way!

The Annual Trek

2010-12-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

On Friday morning after Thanksgiving, we headed up to the Santa Cruz mountains to cut down our Christmas Tree. We've been going to the same tree farm every year since I can remember and it's a great tradition for us. My sister insisted we go first thing on Friday so the good trees wouldn't be gone. We all met up at the tree farm and began the process of getting the perfect tree. It's a simple process really:

First, find groundhog holes and dig for the little beasts (okay, this was really only a step for Scout).

Scout was in absolute heaven and beyond excited to be going after small, furry, live animals. I don't think she could've had a better day and she would probably say it was worth it in spite of me having to pick burrs out of her fur the whole way home.

Next, find the perfect tree. This is probably the most important step. We Jespersens always go for the White Fir.

I know that we're blocking the view of the tree in this picture, but it's perfect, don't worry. Sometimes this step in the process is very quick. Other times it's a painful and arduous task. This year, it was kind of in between. It took a little searching, but none of this hiking all over the mountainside business that has happened in years past.

Third, cut down said perfect tree.

My nephews, George and Max, helped Mr. Frisby cut down the tree. Cutting down a Christmas tree was a new experience for them. Their family goes for the artificial variety each year.

Then, carry the perfect Christmas tree to the car.

Max "helped" Mr. Frisby with this task.

And, finally, load up your perfect Christmas tree to take it home.

This step is what has caused my dad for the last several years to try to persuade my mom to go artificial.

Some may think it's more practical, convenient, and a lot less work to have an artificial tree. But, this is one of my most beloved Christmas traditions and I wouldn't do it any other way.

Thanksgiving

2010-12-04T09:50:00.000-08:00

It seems everyone else has already blogged about Thanksgiving and moved on to Christmas preparations. I guess I'm a little behind. I blame it on spending all of my spare time painting wood in preparation for ceiling project #3. But, right now the furnace man is here to fix our Furnace/AC problem, so I figure what better way to bide the time until he leaves.

We had a busy Thanksgiving week. Mr. Frisby had quite a bit of homework to catch up on and my sister came into town with her family, so there was always something going on. On Monday, we decided to leave the kids at home and head to Napa Valley for the day. With six kids, my sister is fortunate to have two kids of babysitting age, so it's easy for her to leave the kids and take off for a day. So, away we went. It was very pretty and we had a good time checking out wine country. We also had some very good eats. Being in wine country, I naturally wanted to sample the local product. However, since I don't drink alcohol, I opted for a very expensive glass of grape juice. And it was probably the best and most expensive grape juice I've ever had. We didn't take a lot of pics of the day, but here are a few:

The next couple of days were spent doing various activities with the fam. Wednesday included a mini trip to the outlets in Gilroy where I found some screamin' good deals and didn't have to deal with crazy shoppers. Why wake up at 3am on Black Friday to deal with pushy shoppers for good deals when I can go to the stores at my leisure on Wednesday and deal with almost no shoppers and still get good deals? On Wednesday night, I got started on the Turkey.

With family in town, we had a big group for Thanksgiving dinner. I believe the number was over 20. We decided to do dinner at my sister's house and she figured one turkey wouldn't be enough. Since we live pretty close to her, she asked me to make the second turkey. I have never done a turkey before, but I told her that if she told me how to do it, I would be fine with it. She has a recipe for a brine for the turkey, so that's what we did. We would put it in the brine the night before and then pull it out and put it in the oven on Thanksgiving morning. I didn't think much of it until I actually had to pull out the turkey and start working on it. I think the most disturbing part for me was reaching into the turkey to pull out the neck. Still makes me shudder. Then, I got a little grossed out when I had to reach in and stuff it with oranges (part of the recipe) and subsequently reach in and pull them out before putting it in the oven. I survived, though, and the turkey was fabulous. I was really quite proud. Pics of the process:

Thanksgiving morning was pretty leisurely. We watched the parade and then when I got started on the Turkey, the dog show came on. Scout relaxed on the couch to watch. She was rooting for all of the Schnauzers and was a little disappointed when they didn't win.

When the turkey was done, we headed to my sister's for the Thanksgiving festivities. We had a great time.

Unfortunately, not everyone got to eat Thanksgiving dinner, though Scout placed herself in the right location for falling scraps.

After my hard work making the turkey and then eating it, I needed a little nap.

And that was our Thanksgiving. The furnace man is gone now and I have a busy day, so the conclusion of our Thanksgiving week will have to wait.

The House

2010-11-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

We've had a busy November. I'm really quite appalled that it will be over this week. It seems like it just got here. Of course, I don't mind - I'm really excited for the Christmas holiday season. It just amazes me how fast it went. So, what have we been doing? Well, our Thanksgiving week deserves a post all its own that will come in due time, so in other news, our house has been keeping us very busy. We've been working on another project. Our second ceiling project, to be more specific. With the living room ceiling done, it was time to move on to the entry/hall/spare bedroom ceilings. I lump all of these ceilings into the same project because we were doing the same thing on all of them, so it was one big project. Fortunately, we decided to have someone else come do this project for us. Here's the low down:

I forgot to take pictures before the project got underway, so you may have to use your visualization skills a little bit. Here is our entryway and hall ceiling just as the project was getting started. We decided after scraping off the popcorn that we would just texture it to match the kitchen ceiling. The spare bedroom essentially looks the same, I just didn't take pictures. Now just picture the ceiling without the recessed light can on the left side of the picture and that's pretty much how our ceiling has looked since we moved in.

Not too bad. Really, it just needs some texture. But, here's where things got fun. This is the gaping hole in our hall ceiling. The gaping hole served two purposes. One, it was the access to our attic. Two, it housed a large, ugly fluorescent light. Yes, you read that right. Our attic access was through the light fixture. Not ideal and ugly to boot. It had to go (again, please visualize the ceiling without the recessed light can on the bottom of the photo and picture an ugly fluorescent beast in the gaping hole in our ceiling. I really should have taken pictures).

So, how would we fix the nastiness? Here's what we came up with:
1. Rip out the ugly fluorescent beast
2. Replace with three recessed lights to illuminate the hallway
3. Install a ladder in the attic access
4. Cover the gaping hole with a door
5. Texture the ceiling
6. Paint

And, in addition, we decided to add a ceiling light in the spare bedroom to augment the severely inadequate existing wall sconce. So, that was our plan. And what a relief that someone else was going to come do the work for us. The only parts of the project we had to do ourselves were to paint and to construct and install the attic door. All in all, it went well. We just ended up with a bit of a time crunch when my brother asked if he could stay with us, therefore necessitating the use of our spare bedroom right around the time the project would be completed. Here's the project in pictures:

Out with the fluorescent beast, in with the recessed lights

Fast forward through all of the other work because we didn't have to do it, and here's the painting. The little "hood/mask" I'm wearing was Home Depot's only option for a head covering while painting. Really? You're supposed to be a home improvement warehouse and that's all you got? Oh well. I didn't get any paint in my hair and that was the point.

Ta da! The finished product

We even got it mostly done before my brother arrived. The only thing that wasn't done was the attic door and he arrived just in time to help Mr. Frisby construct it. It turned out to be a little tricky, so we were grateful for his help. And, it turned out great. Now, we have a proper attic access with the gaping hole covered by something other than a gross fluorescent light

Of course, the house business didn't just include ceiling project #2. In the midst of all of that fun, we had to replace our furnace. It seems our AC would come on whenever the furnace came on. We had it looked at and something on the furnace wasn't working, which apparently was causing a short somewhere that would turn the AC on. Because the furnace was the original furnace (from 1978), we decided to fork over lots of money for a newer, more efficient model rather than fork over lots of money to have the old one repaired. Imagine our frustration when, after getting the new furnace installed and turned on, the AC still came on with it. The furnace man is coming back to figure out the problem at no extra cost to us, but it's still frustrating. Our only consolation is that with the new furnace, our heating bill should be significantly lower. Of course, since we've only had one heating bill since we moved in, we won't know how much we're saving and will just have to trust that it's a lot.

And, that's all the fun we've been having with our "new" house that constantly likes to remind us of how old it actually is. But, next up is Thanksgiving week and that really was good times - mostly.

Dreams

2010-11-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

I LOVE Disneyland. And, when it comes to Disneyland, I have two dreams that I must fulfill before I die.

1. Visit Disneyland at Christmas time.

The Halloween decorations are pretty awesome, so I can't even imagine how spectacular Disneyland would be at Christmas. In my Disney Christmas dream, I will go in the middle of December when kids are still in school, so the crowds aren't bad, but the park is all decked out in full Christmas glory. The other day I saw an ad for Disneyland, promoting the Disney Christmas time fun. For a split second, I thought about finding flights and getting tickets. Then I remembered that we just bought a house and property taxes are due and we just had to have the termite guy come and we just had to replace the furnace (that I have yet to post about). So, this will not be the year for Disneyland Christmas. But, it will happen some day.

2. Go to Disneyland and stay in the Disneyland Hotel.

This could happen in conjunction with dream number one. Or they could be separate visits. Either way, it's gonna happen. The thought of leaving the hotel, getting on the monorail, and being in the park in a matter of minutes is SOO appealing. The Disneyland Hotel is expensive, though, so because of the reasons stated above, this dream will also not be fulfilled in the near future. But, these have been dreams of mine for quite some time now, so I can handle waiting a little longer. And when these dreams are fulfilled, I expect it to be glorious!

Vegetable Supreme

2010-11-11T15:04:00.000-08:00

My last post sparked the question, "What is Vegetable Supreme?" Let me enlighten those not familiar with this lovely seasoning blend from McCormick (BTW, Lenessa, I'm surprised you don't know what it is. Your husband knows of Vegetable Supreme and declared his love for it). This, my lovely readers, is Vegetable Supreme:

A tasty seasoning blend for virtually any kind of vegetable. I grew up with the taste of Vegetable Supreme and, shamefully, I probably don't use it as much as it deserves to be used. It is tasty and so easy to just sprinkle on veggies. If you see it in the store, snatch it up and start sprinkling. Unfortunately, I searched the McCormick website high and low for information on this beloved vegetable seasoning. I found nothing. This leads me to believe that McCormick has discontinued the product and replaced it with this imposter seasoning blend:

I checked the ingredient lists. They aren't the same. I've never had this particular seasoning blend, so I can't vouch for it's flavor and I can't say how tasty it will make Brussels Sprouts. But, if indeed Vegetable Supreme is gone, this may be the only option. Fortunately, my bottle of Vegetable Supreme is fairly new and I still have a lot left. But, when the bottle is empty, I can only hope this "Perfect Pinch Vegetable Seasoning" proves a worthy successor.

Won't You Be My Neighbor and How I Make Brussels Sprouts

2010-11-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

Mr. Frisby and I are liking Morgan Hill. It's a nice place to live. The people are very friendly, the commute isn't too bad, and our new ward is great. Lately, while out walking Scout, I've noticed several houses for sale along our walking route. So, who wants to move to Morgan Hill and be our neighbors? It would be great fun. And, we live in a neighborhood that has lots of houses like ours and also houses that are much bigger and nicer than ours. So, there's something for everyone. Who's in?

Okay, some people want to know how I make Brussels Sprouts in an edible manner. First, let me give credit where credit is due. I learned to make Brussels Sprouts from my sister. I would never have come up with this on my own. Okay, here's what you do. Rinse the Brussels Sprouts and then slice off the very end of the stem. Boil them for 8-10 minutes until tender. Take them out of the water and quarter them lengthwise as soon as they are cool enough to touch. Saute them in Olive Oil. When the Brussels Sprouts start to brown, add some pine nuts. Saute for a couple more minutes, then remove from heat and toss with Vegetable Supreme and Parmesan Cheese if you want. They're delicious!

Scout's New Friend

2010-11-05T09:49:00.001-07:00

Meet Myrtle:

Myrtle is the Box Turtle that lives in my parents' backyard. Myrtle was originally acquired as a pet for my sister, but she has had free roaming privileges in the backyard since the day she arrived at our house. When my sister got older and went away to school and then later got married, it was determined that it would be best for Myrtle to stay in the warm California climate. So, Myrtle has remained, free-roaming, for years. She is elusive, though, and only comes out from hiding on rare occasions. One of those occasions was the other day while Scout was out exploring. The encounter was pretty funny.

I heard Scout start barking like crazy in the backyard at my parents' house, so I went out to investigate. This is what I saw:

Scout is super curious and really wanted to check Myrtle out. But, she wasn't sure what to make of Myrtle, so she was pretty cautious as well. She was a little more bold once I got out there and started sniffing Myrtle like crazy. Myrtle, of course, stayed safely tucked in her shell. I tried to explain to Scout that Myrtle is okay and she should just leave her alone. She didn't seem to care. She sat there sniffing and barking for a few more minutes, but finally lost interest when Myrtle wouldn't come back out of her shell. Smart turtle. Hopefully Scout will realize that Myrtle is a friend and not an enemy. She does eat the snails after all, so we like having her around.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

2010-11-03T13:07:00.001-07:00

One of the things I noticed when Mr. Frisby and I looked at our house for the first time was that it has a perfect, built-in spot for a vegetable garden:

This is one side of the house and the area is totally gated off. It's perfect. Unfortunately, in the time it took us to decide we wanted the house, put an offer on it, negotiate, close and move in, the spring/summer planting season was over. As it turns out, we've been busy getting settled in and working on things around the house, so planting things has taken a backseat anyway. But, I have big dreams for next spring. And, in the meantime, I have managed to plant a few things for a winter garden.

Brussels Sprouts:

These plants I bought at the nursery and I'm pretty excited for homegrown Brussels Sprouts. I know Brussels Sprouts are not a popular or well-liked vegetable, but here in the Frisby home, we eat them often and we love them! It's all about how you make them.

Redleaf Lettuce:

These I planted from seeds and they're just sprouting. I've never grown lettuce before (of course, I've never grown a lot of things), so it will be interesting to see how they turn out. It could be fun to be eating salad with homegrown lettuce. Or it could be totally not worth it. We'll see what the verdict is when these babies are full grown.

Raspberries:

Okay, I know that Raspberries are neither a winter-bearing plant nor a vegetable. So, technically, this is not part of my winter vegetable garden. But, the plant was on sale at the nursery and I LOVE raspberries, so I'm excited to pick these bad boys and enjoy them next spring/summer along with the other things I will be planting then.

So, it's a small winter vegetable garden, but at least it's something. And, I'm busy getting some flowers in the ground, too. One of the benefits of house-sitting for my parents was that Mr. Frisby and I quickly became familiar with the yard work that comes with owning a home. I have lots of plans and lots of things to plant. But, I will save that post for another time (like, when I actually have time to do the planting). For now, I'll be rooting for my Brussels Sprouts and Lettuce. Go Vegetables!

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T13:08:00.001-07:00

Halloween greetings from our fierce lion and her brave lion tamer!

The Great Ceiling Project

2010-10-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

The ceiling is done! Actually, let me clarify. The ceiling is not quite done. We have some nail holes to fill with putty, a little caulking, and then some touch up painting. That should be done in the next couple of days, though, and that work is not visible in the following photos, so for the purposes of this blog, we will consider the ceiling done. Here's how it all went down:

Actually, before I get into the run-down, I must say a HUGE thank you to all of our vertically gifted friends who took the time to help us. As we quickly found out, this was not a one-person job, nor was it a short-person job. It took at least two tall men to get it done. So, thank you, thank you, thank you to Aaron, Andrew, and David.

Last Saturday was our planned installation day. We planned, perhaps a little optimistically, to finish it all in one day (except the moulding). That didn't quite happen, although lots of progress was made. I, of course, had to work. So, I was there to help and see the project get underway in the morning and I saw about two hours of work happen before I had to leave. The beginning was fairly easy. Especially given the fact that Aaron didn't need a ladder.

When I left for work, the ceiling was looking about like this and I started to have concerns about it not getting finished that day:

When Aaron had to leave a couple hours later, they had only gotten about a quarter of the way done. We realized that they must have used all of the difficult boards that morning because when Andrew stepped in after Aaron left, the boards went in great and they started cruising through. Apparently Mr. Frisby had some time to get a little creative as well:

In spite of the pace picking up with the easier boards, they weren't quite able to finish before Andrew had to leave and when I returned home that night after work, they had done about three quarters of the ceiling. When I walked into the house, I loved how it looked and was pretty impressed. But, since we had to empty out our living room to work on it, we immediately started making plans for getting it all done. So, we arranged with David to come help us finish it up on Tuesday. He came and after only a couple of hours, they were nearly done. And then we ran into another little problem. We were ONE board short. Just one. At that point, we decided we would get the moulding and get it all ready so we could put in the last board and a half and the moulding all at the same time and be done with it. Scout was very helpful in trying to clean up the sawdust:

Over the next couple of days, we got the final board ready, got the moulding, painted it and made arrangements with David to come back and help finish. They got to work Friday evening and had the last boards up on the ceiling very quickly. It looked fantastic, I thought.

Next it was time for the moulding and that's when things got tricky. Moulding is not the easiest project in the world. Especially for DIYers with minimal experience. I got more and more worried the more Mr. Frisby and David discussed angles and bevels and miters and how they were going to do this corner and that corner and how they needed to set up the saw for each cut. I got really worried when they decided it was time to consult the internet for some instruction. The great moulding debate:

The discussion and figuring out how to cut the moulding probably took three times as long as the actual cutting and installing. Once they figured out the angles and how to set up the saw for each one, the installation went very quickly.

After several hours of hard thinking, they finished. And, all of their figuring and measuring and making test cuts and double-checking numbers paid off because the moulding matched up great and the ceiling looked fantastic!

I'm very happy with how it all turned out and as soon as we finish caulking and doing the touch ups with the paint, we'll be able to put our living room back together. And, now that Mr. Frisby has done one room, the master bedroom ceiling should be a cinch!

Subterranean Termite Blues

2010-10-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, Mr. Frisby got a bonus. We were thrilled, immediately thinking of all the things we could get for our new house with the bonus money. Then, a couple of days ago, I was out in the backyard and saw a scene much like this:

They were crawling out of a piece of wood near the patio - swarms of them! My first thought was termites. But, they looked a little like ants and I, having never seen a termite before, chose to think positively and assume they were ants. So, I called Mr. Frisby to see what we had that I could spray them with to kill them. He suggested Round-Up. I wanted something closer to where I was, so I chose CLR. You know, the kitchen/bathroom cleaner. It killed them immediately and then our patio was littered with carcasses. When Mr. Frisby got home, he looked at them and decided they were not ants. So, we googled termites and found the above picture. And, that was exactly what was now all over our patio.

The Terminix man came yesterday to do the free inspection. He looked at our patio battlefield and confirmed our fears. He then went under the house and found evidence there as well. Fortunately, these termites are the subterranean variety so we don't have to have our house tented. But, the extermination process is still pricey. Can you guess where Mr. Frisby's bonus is going?

A Sneak Peek

2010-10-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Saturday was ceiling installation day. Unfortunately, we didn't quite get it finished. We made a lot of progress, though, and we're hoping to get it finished tonight. Here's a sneak peek of how it was looking earlier in the day. Complete story and more pics to follow when we get it done.

Two Stories

2010-10-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a little crazy here at the Frisby home. Story #1:

Scout got spayed on Wednesday. Poor dog. When I brought her home that evening, she just moped around for awhile. Towards the end of the night, she was perking up a little and even went over to sniff at her toys. Yesterday she was doing very well and was almost back to her crazy, energetic self. But, she had a bad case of the runs. I mean, really bad. So, she was doing okay in the morning with potty breaks here and there and then I had to go to work. Usually we put her outside while we're gone, but her post surgery instructions said she should be kept in a kennel or very small room for the first day or so to limit activity. So, I decided to leave her in her kennel for the 4 or 5 hours I would be at work. She went to the bathroom before I left and then I put her in her kennel with some water and a few treats. I knew she could typically hold it for that long, but in the back of my mind I knew the diarrhea could pose a problem. I figured if she had an accident in her kennel we would just clean it out. I left for work and hoped for the best.

I arrived home just minutes after Mr. Frisby. When I walked in, it smelled a little funny. Then I saw Mr. Frisby outside with Scout with a not very pleasant look on his face and I figured it wasn't good. He came inside to get some paper towels. When he saw me, he said, "Scout went poo in her kennel. Now I'm just cleaning dried poo out of her butt fur. When I walked in and it smelled like a nursing home, I knew we were in trouble." Mr. Frisby is a smart man. I went outside to hold Scout while he cleaned off her butt. Obviously a bath would've been the easiest and quickest solution, but we can't get her incision site wet. So, we just used wet paper towels to wipe her all off. That done, I retrieved her contaminated kennel and brought it outside for a thorough cleaning. Mr. Frisby took her bedding into the bathroom to rinse it out before throwing it in the washer. When I looked in the kennel, I saw Scout's puddle of poo (puddle, not pile) in the back corner of the kennel with one of her toys right on top. Ugh. I got the toy out and soaked it in disinfectant and then proceeded to clean out her kennel. With everything cleaned up, we went inside and opened up all the windows to air the house out. I told my sister that Scout had had the equivalent of a blowout (since she's been cleaning up her fair share of those lately) and that we had spent the last half hour cleaning everything up. After that, we all settled down for a relaxing evening.

Story #2:

We decided it best not to chance Scout having an accident in the middle of the night, so I got up at 2:30 am and took her out to the bathroom. After she went and was back in her kennel I got back in bed and went back to sleep. I was awakened at 4:14 am by the sound of gushing water. Not what you want to hear in your new house in the middle of the night. I knew the sprinklers were on, but this was not the sound of a fine spray of water over the lawn. I got out of bed and walked through the house. The gushing was definitely outside, so I opened the front door to have a look and, lo and behold, there was Old Faithful in our front yard. I quickly thought, "this is bad. I don't know how to turn this off." So, I went back to the bedroom to get Mr. Frisby. Tapping him on the shoulder, I said, "do you know how to turn the sprinklers off?" He said, "yeah, I think it's in the garage." So, I said, "well, can you come do it?" "Ugh" was his reply as he got out of bed. As we headed down the hall, I explained to him the problem. He turned off the sprinklers and then we opened the front door. Even in the dark, we could see that everything was wet. Another project to add to our list. We headed back to bed.

As I lay there trying to fall asleep, I thought about the geyser in our front yard and a lot of things started making sense. Like, no wonder everything on the porch is wet after the sprinklers go on. And no wonder the office window (and only the office window) is completely covered in water spots. As I thought about the water spots on the office window, I remembered that we had left that window open to air out the nursing home smell after Scout's accident. I also remembered that our computers and other technological paraphernalia were sitting directly below that window. And if that window is normally covered in water and it was now open...well, I was a little afraid to survey the damage, but I got out of bed and headed into the office. Without turning on the light, I touched my computer and felt some drops. So, I grabbed the paper towels out of the kitchen and went back into the office to clean up. When I turned on the light, I saw how much work was ahead of me. Fortunately the blinds were down (though not turned vertically), so they shielded the water pretty well. It only took me a few minutes to wipe the water off my computer and the desk (with no harm done to the computer). But, the blinds were soaked and there were puddles of water on the window sill. I went to work wiping everything off and half an hour later I got back in bed. I'm not sure Mr. Frisby even noticed I was gone. At this point, I was pretty awake, so since I couldn't go back to sleep, I pulled out my iPhone and played Angry Birds for awhile until I got sleepy. I finally went back to sleep, but it was painfully short amount of time before the alarm went off.

We've had no shortage of excitement, we added another project to our list, the blinds are clean, and Scout's kennel is super clean. I guess it's been a productive 24 hours.

Step Two

2010-10-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

Step two of our ceiling project was adding the polyurethane coat to the wood. I have to admit, after we finished staining the wood, I began having second thoughts about the whole plan. I mean, I liked the color, but I just wasn't thrilled about how the wood looked. And if I didn't like how the wood looked sitting on some sawhorses in my garage, I didn't think things would change when it was on the ceiling. Enter the polyurethane.

The polyurethane soothed my troubled heart and made everything all better. Amazing what a can of toxic, highly aromatic chemicals can do. With a nice sheen on it, the wood is looking great and I'm pretty excited to see how it looks on the ceiling. I hope I'm still excited about it after it goes up. Installation day is this Saturday (anyone want to help?) so we'll see how it all turns out.

A Day Off

2010-10-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Mr. Frisby and I love our new house and we love being able to do with it what we want. But, since moving in, every spare moment has been spent working on all different projects. And we've been busy with work, school, etc as well. We decided we needed a break from everything so we could get away and have some fun. So, Mr. Frisby took Friday off work and we made some plans. Originally, we had planned to head down to Carmel, but things changed a little and we headed to Half Moon Bay instead. We decided it was high time Scout be introduced to the beach and there are some good eats in HMB, so away we went (not that we couldn't have gotten that in Carmel - the Cheese Shop there is amazing - but we decided to head north instead of south). The weather ended up being absolutely amazing despite a prediction of some chilly temperatures and we had a fabulous day away from our everyday lives. We started the day off at the beach. Specifically, Montara Beach. Just north of HMB, it's one of my favorite little beaches in the vicinity. It was still a little early, so the morning chill hadn't quite worn off yet and the water was really too cold to play in as it often is around these parts. But, Scout loved the beach anyway. We didn't know how she would do in the sand, but she had no qualms about it and was running around like a champ. She got a little too close to the water at one point and got her little paws wet. I think it was cold enough that she decided that wasn't happening again. But, she was brave enough to follow me down near the water and then she would turn and run as the waves came up on the beach.

Mr. Frisby was a great photographer, but as such, he didn't get in any of the pics. Oh well. He was there, I promise. After playing on the beach for awhile we headed to downtown HMB to poke around the shops on Main Street. Scout made friends with everyone she saw and we enjoyed a mid-morning snack of Mitchell's Pumpkin Ice Cream (I won't go on about Mitchell's Ice Cream of San Francisco. It deserves its own post. But, if you haven't had it, do yourself a favor and get on that). We poked around a bit more and then decided to go to Garden Deli & Cafe for lunch.

We discovered their amazing sandwiches on a previous trip to HMB. Deliciousness on homemade bread. I went with the Hot Pastrami on French Bread and Mr. Frisby went for the Hot Pastrami on Wheat. I should've taken a picture, but I was too busy stuffing my face. Plus, my hands had mayo and pastrami juice on them. Mmmm. So tasty! We opted to get the sandwiches to go and then take them to the beach to eat. What better way to pound a sandwich than sitting on the beach watching the surfers and watching Scout make friends with all the people that passed by. After lunch we made our way back to the car and then, being a little tired from our adventures, we headed back south. We had a fabulous day and it was a much needed break for both of us!

Yummy!

2010-10-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

This is how we started off General Conference weekend:

Pumpkin pancakes with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Mmmmm!

The Ceiling Project

2010-10-01T21:11:00.001-07:00

Before I get started on our progress with our ceiling, I did complete a little project in the kitchen. I put up a valance over the ginormous kitchen window. I made it myself and I think it looks pretty good. Take a peek:

Now I just need to get a small shelf put up above the window and then it will be all done.

Okay, on to the ceiling. Based on the start we've had to this project, I have a feeling that I'll really regret it if I don't document the project from start to finish. Although we're not done with the ceiling yet, it's had a lively start. A couple weeks ago, Mr. Frisby headed off to Lowe's to get the wood and stain for our ceiling project (a quick recap for those not aware of what we're doing: after scraping the popcorn ceiling before we moved in, our plan is to put up tongue and groove paneling on the vaulted ceiling in the living room. After much debate on the color of the wood, we decided to stain it a nice cherry color). I was not home when he went and I couldn't go with him, so our color decision was made with me looking at a Minwax brochure and directing him via the telephone. He got all the wood and then we agreed on what looked like a nice cherry color in the brochure. It was called "Cherry Blossom".

We set up shop in the garage and began prepping all the wood for the stain.

When it was time to stain, I opened up the can of "Cherry Blossom". Upon seeing a very bright purple color staring back at me, I called Mr. Frisby in. "Does this look right?", I asked. "Wow", was his response. After commenting on the brightness of the purple color, Mr. Frisby said he didn't know what it was supposed to look like because he'd never stained before. I was in the same boat, so it's pretty much the blind leading the blind over here. We decided to try the stain on one board and see how it turned out. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't at all what we had in mind. Behold, the Cherry Blossom:

My sister's comment upon seeing the Cherry Blossom in all its glory pretty much summed up my feelings: "You can't put that up in your house." Agreed. Cherry Blossom is out. And, it looked nothing like it did in the brochure. The next day I headed to Home Depot. I looked at the wood samples they had for all of the Minwax colors. When I saw the Cherry Blossom wood piece, it was indeed the bright pink color we had sitting in our garage. Blasted brochures! Why can't they make them more accurate?

Scout didn't like the Cherry Blossom either.

After looking at the samples, I decided on a new color called "Rosewood". This hue was a more natural hue - one that might actually occur in nature. So, I picked up a couple quarts and headed home to see what we could do. The new color was a huge improvement. In fact, both Mr. Frisby and I decided it was a nice color and it should look good in our living room.

So, now that we're back on track with the wood color, we have a garage full of wood to stain and then coat with polyurethane. And, then we'll finally get to see if all of this hard work will be worth it. Hopefully there will be no more surprises.

Out of the Loop

2010-09-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Apparently life has been a little crazy and I am totally out of the loop. How do I know this? Because usually, after a summer of reruns and general lameness on TV, I'm counting down the days until the premiers of all of my favorite shows. This year, though, I completely missed the premier of Survivor last Wednesday! How could that happen? I didn't even know until last night when I asked Mr. Frisby to look on the internet and find out when the premier was. All is not completely lost, though. I am well aware of the fact that The Office and 30 Rock premiers are tomorrow night and I'm super excited. Onward and upward!

Gum

2010-09-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

Remember how annoying it is when some idiot spits their gum out and you step in it? It's even more annoying when your dog steps in it.

Scout's Latest Hobby

2010-09-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

Scout is now our resident bug-catcher. She's keen on attacking anything smaller than her that moves (or hops) across the floor. This includes brooms, swiffers, the vacuum, leaves and, much to our delight, bugs (maybe someday I'll try to post the video we took of her going after the swiffer - it's pretty awesome). Last night, a poor little green grasshopper made the mistake of trying to hitch a ride on my shoe when I was minding my own business in our garage. I wasn't expecting the grasshopper, so when I saw it, I was quite startled. Scout noticed me jump when I saw it and came over to investigate. When I pointed out the grasshopper to her, it was game on. The grasshopper was pretty evasive, but Scout was tenacious. She followed that thing all over the garage until she got it. And, Scout also makes a great bug-catcher because not only will she catch the bugs, but then she eats them, leaving no mess to be cleaned up. It's a pretty good deal for everyone involved. Mr. Frisby no longer has to come take care of the bugs that come along and Scout gets the mental stimulation of a good chase. After the grasshopper incident last night, Scout later took care of a spider (she actually couldn't see it at first because it was the same color as the carpet, but in her efforts to find it, she stepped right on it. And then, when she did find its carcass, she ate it). Mr. Frisby said she took care of a grasshopper last weekend as well and when a cricket tried to barge into our house a couple weeks ago, Scout was right on it. This is a hobby that I am behind 100%! If only she could jump high enough to catch the flies. Believe me, she wishes she could.

Updates

2010-09-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

I don't have a lot to say, but I guess I'm about due for a new post. So, here's an update on what's been going on. My ear is healing nicely. I'm now band-aid free and the scab even came off. We still don't have our ceiling done, but hopefully it won't be too much longer. I think we have pretty much decided to go with the cherry color stain on the wood. Thanks for all the blogpinions. When we get the ceiling done and I post pictures, you can all give me your blogpinions on whether or not it looks good. Life has been a little crazy. Mr. Frisby has started another semester, so working on projects around the house has taken a backseat to homework. Which may not necessarily be a bad thing. If we can't do projects around the house, we don't spend money on project supplies. And that gives us a chance to start saving again. Oh wait, we just spend our money on other things. Like taking this little monkey to the vet:

Speaking of Scout, we've had her for just over a month now, so I guess she deserves an update as well. She is almost 4 months old and is currently growing - so fast I can almost see it happening. She's ginormous (please note, ginormous is relative. She was super tiny to begin with, so while she's actually very small, she's ginormous compared to when we first got her)! She's gotten over her bronchitis and ear infection nicely and is feeling much better, but now has Giardia, so we're giving her some medication for that. Hopefully she'll be all healthy after she kicks this parasite. She has another round of vaccines coming up and then we get to set up her spaying appointment, so she's in for an exciting month. She's had lots of adventures recently, but I didn't take any pictures of them. She had a playdate with some other friendly dogs. We're working on getting her all socialized so she'll be nice to everyone. She did pretty well and seemed to enjoy playing with Logan, Moxie, and Marceau (thanks a ton, Mostess and Cashby!). We're also trying to teach her how to get out of the swimming pool. She has absolutely no desire to get in the water, but we figure she needs to know how to get out in case she were ever to fall in. So, we decided to put her in the pool and teach her to swim over to the steps so she could get out. She hated it, but she did pretty well. She started swimming immediately, but she got tired fast since she's so small. It'll take some more work before we'll feel like she could get out on her own, but she made some good efforts. And she looked so tiny all dripping wet! I really should've taken a picture. Maybe next time.

So, that's what's been going on with us. We don't really have anything super fun planned for the near (or distant) future, so I hope you're all looking forward to house updates!

Labor Day, Projects, and a Call for Blogpinions

2010-09-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Labor Day and, apparently the end of the summer that never really seemed like summer. Today was freezing! I had to bundle up when I took Scout out for a walk. Anyway, yesterday was a lovely, relaxing day. What did we do?

Lots of swimming in our new pool:

Playing in the water:

Tried to fix the pool sweeper:

Scout even did her favorite activity. She LOVES babies and loves to chase them:

Of course, we topped it all off with a BBQ. Hamburgers are so appropriate on Labor Day.

Okay, so on to the projects. My kitchen cabinets are finished and I have photos.

Here's what the cabinets looked like before (this is actually the cabinets in the hallway, but they had they same finish. Ugly, brown varnish):

And, after:

I painted the bases white and the doors and drawers orange. I'm pretty happy with them. Of course, we eventually plan to redo the kitchen and get all new cabinetry (you know, when we have some money again). But, for now, it's a fun, happy kitchen. And, way better than before. The next project we'll be working on is our ceiling. With the popcorn ceiling gone, we have decided to put up tongue and groove wood paneling on the vaulted ceilings. The other ceilings we'll just texture to match the non-popcorned ceilings in the kitchen and office. Here's the living room ceiling in its current state:

And, here's another view with the floor so you can see how dark the floor is (and the added bonus is that you can see Scout sleeping in her little bed):

This is all important because now I need your blogpinions. We're putting up the tongue and groove, but first we have to decide what color to stain it. Mr. Frisby votes for a lighter stain. I'm thinking more of a darker stain. We've talked about doing a whitewash which could look good, but I don't want it to look too country and I'm worried that it might with a whitewash. I'm also worried that a lighter stain will make it look like a mountain lodge. So, we've tentatively decided on doing a cherry color stain. Of course, whatever we do has to look okay with the floor. So, blog readers, what should we do? Would a whitewash make it look too country? Would a cherry stain look okay with our floor? Will our living room end up feeling like a ski lodge? Opinions, please!

A Trade

2010-09-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

I am usually accustomed to paying for any services rendered to me. On occasion, however, I have had the opportunity to make a little trade instead of paying cash. A good friend of mine cuts my hair and usually I pay her. We have done a trade before, though, which worked out well. When I went to get my hair cut by her this morning, I was not expecting to make a trade. But, a trade was made. See, she cut my hair and I gave her a small piece of my ear. It's a good thing she gave me an awesome haircut, because it was one of my more awesome chunks of ear that I gave her. Anyway, no injury post would be complete without pictures, so if you're squeamish, you better stop here.

And, please note that these photos do not do it justice. Basically all you can see is that there's a red spot on my ear (the red spot being fresh blood - yep it was still bleeding 8 hours later). What it doesn't show was the little piece of my ear that my friend found on her scissors. Or the constant blood flow for over half an hour while she finished the cut. Or the band-aid that was completely soaked by the end of the haircut. Or the light-headedness and near fainting by both my haircutting friend and myself. Or the new shape of my ear sans small chunk. Or the second round of light-headedness that came when I changed the band-aid later (which is the reason the pictures aren't so great. Someone who feels like fainting doesn't make a good photography subject).

And, no, I'm not writing this post to make my friend feel bad. She already feels bad. She told me that (though, she will probably read this post and subsequently feel worse). It was actually her suggestion that I blog about it. It was an accident and I'm not angry. And, she brought me Kit Kats and didn't charge me for my haircut. It's all good. But, every good story deserves a blog post, right? So, I got my hair cut today and I lost a little piece of ear in the process. I hope this blog post does the story justice. Here are the pics. Next time you see me, just look for my scar. It'll be on my right ear in the back.

What Have We Been Up To?

2010-08-31T14:54:00.000-07:00

First of all, can you hear the angels singing Hallelujah on account of our finally getting the internet? We are back on the line and it's glorious! So, we've been busy for the last few weeks and our lives have changed quite a bit. Let me catch you up. Back at the beginning of August, we headed down to Southern California. I went for a conference - nothing exciting there. But, after the conference, Mr. Frisby drove down and we met up with some of my family to hang out for a few days in Newport Beach. We went to the mission in San Juan Capistrano and it was lovely.

After a relaxing few days in Newport, we picked up Scout and were immediately in love. We headed home with our new puppy and the relaxation came to an abrupt halt. We closed on our house the day we drove back from So Cal, so we stopped on the way home to pick up our keys. Then, we began working on the house to get it ready for our move a few days later. The next few weeks were filled with various activities:

Scraping off a popcorn ceiling. Our next project will be putting something else on the ceiling that is not popcorn-like in any way, shape or form:

Shocking, cleaning, and loading up our new pool with chemicals to make it swim ready. Scout likes to help:

Potty training this little puppy and then nursing her back to health after she came down with Bronchitis and an Ear Infection:

Sanding and painting our kitchen cabinets. Then repainting them when I didn't like my first color choices. This is their mostly finished state. I just have to finish a few more cabinet doors.

Unpacking, cleaning, organizing, settling, and otherwise trying to make our new house a home:

We have been super busy and it's been lots of work. But, we are loving being homeowners. One of my favorite things about the new house is not having to share these bad boys with anyone:

I'll post more pictures when we get all unpacked and settled in. Of course, you're always welcome to come for a visit to see it in person!

Update

2010-08-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

No, this is not an update. Merely a warning that an update is coming. We're finally supposed to get the internet in our house on Sunday afternoon. If that actually happens, then an update will as well.

Meet Scout

2010-08-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

The cutest dog ever!

Peace Out

2010-08-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm off to Southern California. I'm mixing business with pleasure. I will be in Long Beach for a conference for two days and then I'll be in Newport Beach with family for a few days. This is a big weekend. If all goes as planned, I will come home next Tuesday the proud owner of a house and a dog. The preparations are well underway for all of the big changes. Monday night, we went to PetSmart for FHE. We stocked up on all of the necessary items for bringing home a puppy. The packing has been going on for a few weeks now and our apartment currently resembles a storage unit piled high with boxes. We are very excited for all of the changes. But, all the big changes may necessitate a break from the blog. When we return from So Cal, we will no longer have internet in our apartment. And we don't know when it will be up and running in our new place. Maybe I'll be able to update at my parents' house, but don't hold your breath. I promise, though, that when we have things under control again, there will be a spectacular post complete with pictures of everything. So, for the next little while I will leave you with an awesome picture that will hopefully keep you coming back again and again even when there's nothing new to read.

The Jespersen Family circa 1980

Good Things to Come

2010-08-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

A word of comfort from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:

Moving

2010-07-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

There are many unpleasant things about moving. Like packing. And unpacking. And cleaning. And leaving the people and places you know. But, there are many reasons that make us very excited to move. Here is an incomplete list of all the reasons why moving day can't come soon enough for the Frisbys.

1. I'm sick of carrying armloads of groceries into our building, up the stairs, and down the hall to our apartment. It will be much better to carry them from the garage to the kitchen in our new house.
2. I'm tired of doing laundry in the community laundry room. I get irritated when I carry my laundry all the way down to the laundry room only to find that all 5 washing machines have been taken by one lady who has just barely started all of the machines. And I really hate it when I walk into the laundry room and the machines are done, but still full because whoever is responsible for those clothes isn't watching the time. And then, when I come back an hour later, nothing has changed - including the fact that I still have laundry that needs to be done. And I really hate it when I open a washer to put my stuff in and I can see what came off the clothes in the previous load. And I really hate having to pay for every washer load and for every 10 minutes of drying time. I am so excited to have my very own washer and dryer just steps away in the garage. Can you tell this is a very big incentive for me to move?
3. Maggie is really excited to finally be living in a garage instead of always being parked in the sun.
4. Secondhand smoke sent our way by our courteous downstairs neighbors. No good.
5. Loud middle of the night conversations or parties by any of our wall sharing neighbors and some of our non-wall sharing neighbors for that matter.
6. I like having a pool, but not one that complete strangers also swim in. And I don't like how those complete strangers yell and splash and make lots of noise that is easily bounced off the surrounding walls and amplified until it feels like they're yelling and splashing and making noise in our living room.
7. The extremely heavy footsteps of our upstairs neighbor.
8. The ability to play Rock Band and Dance, Dance Revolution without the fear of disturbing our neighbors (because unlike a lot of people that apparently live in our building, we are actually concerned with not disturbing others).
9. And, last but not least, we are ready for a dog!

Hooray for moving day!

Good News, I Bought a Dog Today!

2010-07-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

So, let's make one thing clear. I wanted to buy a house primarily because I wanted to get a dog (and, yes, I'm aware that you can find rentals that allow pets, but they're harder to find, usually more expensive, and things get complicated if you have to move to another rental. So, we opted to wait until we had a permanent home). So, now that things are moving along for our house, we bought a dog! And, here she is:

Isn't she cute? I know it's not the best picture, but that's the only pic I have right now. It's a little Toy Schnauzer puppy and we're very excited. We don't actually have her yet. She's in Southern California, so we'll be picking her up when we're down there next weekend. At first we were maybe going to get one of my uncle's Boston Terrier puppies in a few months. But, due to Mr. Frisby's pet allergy problem, we decided it would be best to go with a dog that doesn't shed and that we knew wouldn't bother his allergies. Now I'm reading all about how to housebreak and train a puppy. And she will need to be well-socialized, so if anyone wants to meet her and play with her, just let me know. And, we're trying to pick a name for her. We've come up with some pretty good ones, but if you have any name suggestions, we will take them into consideration.

And, speaking of large purchases in connection with buying a house, we also bought a refrigerator this week. And we'll soon be buying a washer and dryer. This buying a house is expensive business!

The Apostrophe

2010-07-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

Life is crazy! Buying real estate is a long and complex process. But, more on that later. For now, I have a pet peeve that I must get off my chest. And, this post may offend some people who are guilty of this pet peeve. Let me apologize in advance. My intent is not to offend. But, really this is driving me crazy!

I have noticed lately, that the beloved apostrophe is being used all over the place incorrectly. And, I say that the apostrophe is beloved because people seem to be throwing it about willy nilly with no concern for its proper use, so it must be because they love the apostrophe so much. But, the apostrophe has a definite purpose. It can't be thrown around and put in wherever you want to see it. For my sanity (because I'm a grammar freak), let's have a little grammar lesson about the apostrophe.

All of sudden, people are using the apostrophe to pluralize nouns, usually proper nouns. This is not what the apostrophe is for. That's what an "s" is for. For example, we are The Frisbys. Not The Frisby's. My jaw practically hit the floor when I saw this improper use of the apostrophe in some of our real estate documents. The "seller's" (should be sellers, no apostrophe) were disclosing some information to us. When I see someone pluralize their last name to say who they are and they throw an apostrophe in there, it makes me want to rip my eyeballs out of my head. We are The Smiths, not Smith's. Bakers, not Baker's. Thomases, not Thomas's. Get it? Now, if you want to say that this is the Bakers' house, then you can put the apostrophe in because you're showing possession. And because the Bakers are plural, the apostrophe goes after the "s". Right? And just to back myself up, here's the official word from Grammarbook.com:
"Do not use an apostrophe for the plural of a name."

So, the moral of the story is that the apostrophe is used to show possession and for contractions. And maybe a few variations of those basic purposes. It is absolutely, positively NOT used to make something plural. Yay for grammar! Now please, use your apostrophes responsibly. My sanity will thank you.

*Since posting this, I realize that some people have last names that may be a little more difficult to pluralize. Here's a link that should clear it all up. If you have a last name that you're not sure about, check this out.

The End of our Search

2010-07-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

So, Mr. Frisby and I found a house. And we're now in contract to buy said house. Barring any crazy problems that come out during inspections, we will be moving into said house next month. I don't have many pictures right now. I'm sure I'll have lots when we move. But, here's the living room with all of the lovely staging furniture:

Getting this house has been quite the process. Finding it was easy and didn't take long. Negotiating a fair price and getting into contract was the difficult part. We're excited, though, and we think this will be a fabulous home. And we expect to be fairly popular with a backyard like this:

Anyone want to come for a swim?

Happy 5th of July!

2010-07-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

In honor of Independence Day, Mr. Frisby had the 5th off work. We've had a stressful few months, so we decided to head out for a day trip to get away and have some fun. Our destination was Point Reyes. We picked a hike that we thought would be fun and, since the trailhead was near the Point Reyes Lighthouse, we decided to check out the lighthouse since we were in the vicinity. It was a beautiful day, but as we got close to the coast in Point Reyes National Seashore, you wouldn't know it. It was very foggy and freezing and we could see why a lighthouse was necessary there. We obviously weren't dressed very appropriately. Thank goodness we brought jackets. We still had a great time, though, and it was a fun little day trip.

Mr. Frisby and I at the Point Reyes Lighthouse

That's me on our hike. In the background is Drake's Bay with the Lifeboat House. That's where the earliest version of the Coast Guard would launch the lifeboats for rescue when there were shipwrecks at the point.

Mr. Frisby at the end of our hike, right on the coast.

A friendly deer along the trail

House Hunting

2010-07-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Recently, Mr. Frisby and I started looking for a house. It is exciting and scary all at the same time. And it has completely changed my life. For example, I can't drive down the street now without scrutinizing each and every house as it whizzes by, wondering what the asking price would be. I notice things like mildly peeling/faded paint or what kind of shingles adorn the roof. I check out landscaping and change it all in my head. And I check out neighborhoods and proximities to schools. And, no, this is not on houses that we are actually looking at. This is on ALL houses. In addition, I'm now addicted to HGTV. I think, before we started house-hunting, that I could have counted on one hand the number of times I had turned on HGTV. Now, it's all I think about (of course, that could possibly be because it's rerun season).

And, don't even get me started on the houses we do look at. Thank goodness Mr. Frisby is there to think about the practical stuff. All I can think about when we go in a house is, "do I like the layout", "does it have a decent kitchen", and "how easy will it be to make it look awesome". And, Mr. Frisby is there behind me thinking about things like, "are the eaves in good condition", "how old is this house", "how big is the lot", and "does it have working AC". House-hunting is good times. And when we find our awesome house, you can all come and see it!

Our Great Adventure, Part 4

2010-07-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

After spending a much more restful night in the mouse-free plex, we were ready to go on Saturday. I helped with breakfast by making the bacon and sausage. I had to get a little creative since we didn't have aprons.

After breakfast, we headed out for our last adventures. We started by checking out Upper and Lower Mesa Falls at the suggestion of Mr. Frisby. These Falls weren't in Yellowstone, but were near our resort. It was a popular activity and we had a good time checking out the beautiful falls. We even took advantage of the opportunity and took a "sisters" picture.

After checking out the falls, we headed to Warm River (so named because it doesn't freeze over in the winter) where they have an area where you can feed the fish in the river. The kids loved this activity.

After feeding the fish, we ate lunch by the river and then decided to head back to the resort just to hang out for the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was great to spend so much time together and we finished off the evening with a rousing game of Pit.

It got so intense that my sister-in-law had to take a breather in the middle of the game at one point.

And that was pretty much it. Mr. Frisby, myself, and my sister headed out early the next morning to drive home. We made a 3 hour stop in Elko, Nevada to attend church and then it was on to the Bay Area. It was a great time and we loved spending so much time with family. We look forward to our next reunion in 3 years!

Our Great Adventure, Part 3

2010-07-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

So many pics to post, so little time. Mr. Frisby and I have been busy. House-hunting is now consuming our lives, but more on that later. I've got to finish posting about our vacation, so on with part 3.

When we returned from Yellowstone, I decided to grab my stuff and take a shower in my parents' much nicer plex. When I returned to the condo from my shower, I was informed that they had all seen the mouse because it brazenly ran out from hiding to try to snatch the granola bar while all the lights were on, the tv was on, and everyone was running about getting ready for bed. A plan was quickly hatched by Mr. Frisby and my brother-in-law to try to catch it. The plan was to set up the granola bar in a plastic grocery bag with a rope strung through the handles. They then looped the rope around one of the rafters. So, the plan was when the mouse went in the bag and started eating the granola bar, they would pull the rope which would lift up the bag quickly, trapping the mouse inside. Here are pictures of the set-up:

The trap

Mr. Frisby and my brother-in-law looking down at the set-up

Mr. Frisby ready to spring the trap

Here's where the plan gets good. After catching the mouse in the bag, Mr. Frisby's plan was to grab the bag and smash it against the wall to stun the mouse. And here, we ran into some debate about what to do with the mouse next. After several ideas were tossed out, my niece (who is 27) said the most humane way to kill the mouse would be to snap its neck. This she volunteered to do after Mr. Frisby smashed it into the wall to stun it. I really was excited to see all of this go down and to see if it would all go down as planned. With the trap set up and the plan ready, we all went to bed. Mr. Frisby and my brother-in-law stayed up for awhile waiting for the mouse. When it didn't come, they also went to bed, ready to jump at the first sound. And then what happened? Mr. Frisby fell asleep. Fast asleep. When the mouse came and started eating the granola bar, he didn't hear it. There was nobody to spring the trap and the mouse went free again. I was disappointed as I really wanted to see if the plan would have worked. Oh well. It was not to be. After more complaining to the office, they finally came up with a plex they could move us to for that night. So, we cleared out the condo and headed to Yellowstone for the day.

The big plan in Yellowstone was to see Old Faithful. But, we definitely made some stops along the way. We drove the Firehole Canyon Drive along the Firehole River. It was beautiful!

Next we stopped at Grand Prismatic Spring. Unfortunately it was difficult to see because there was so much steam. I decided the best view would be an aerial one, but that certainly wasn't happening. So, on we went.

Old Faithful was next. We were lucky enough to get there only about 10 minutes before it went off, so we didn't have to wait long. We all gathered to eat lunch and watch the geyser and it did not disappoint!

After watching Old Faithful, we poked around a bit in the Old Faithful Inn and checked out some gift shops and then headed back to the resort to hang out together as a family. On our way out of the park, we stopped to check out a huge herd of Bison that had some very cute little babies.

When we got back to the resort, we moved into our plex and admired the beautiful towel art they left us:

That night, we ate dinner and played all manner of games together. We had lots of fun hanging out and enjoyed spending time together since some of our company would be heading home the next day.

Next up will be our final day of adventures.

Our Great Adventure, Part 2

2010-07-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

I had intended to split our great adventure into two parts. But, I was looking through our pictures and realized that we had far too many adventures for just two posts. So, I will have to further split our adventures into other posts. So, this part will cover our adventures on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, we drove to Island Park, Idaho to Jared's Wild Rose Ranch (not affiliated with Mr. Frisby in any way) where we had reservations for my whole family for the reunion. We were only an hour or so from Yellowstone Park there, so the plan was to stay at the resort and then head into Yellowstone to see the sights each day. Different parts of the family had different accommodations based on the number of people in the family, etc., etc. Shortly after arriving, we saw that some of our accommodations were seriously lacking in the livability factor. We swapped out two A-Frames we had reserved for one much more luxurious "plex" (don't ask what that means - that's just what they called them). Since the "plex" didn't fit quite everyone who was supposed to be in the A-Frames, Mr. Frisby and I opted to stay with my sister and her family in the condo they had reserved. The condo, we learned, was a step up from the A-Frames, but didn't have the luxury level of the "plex". As we moved our stuff in and started looking around, we noticed so mouse droppings here and there, but it was too late too change anything, so we determined we would talk to the office in the morning to request a thorough cleaning. After getting settled and catching up with the family we all went to bed excited about spending the day together in Yellowstone the next day.

In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a rustling sound. I listened for awhile and determined that a mouse was getting into our food. So, I grabbed a flashlight and went downstairs to investigate. I went down, looked through all of the food and everything seemed okay, so I went back to bed. A few minutes later, I heard the rustling again. It was the distinct rustling of a plastic grocery bag. This time, I grabbed my flashlight, but didn't turn it on and instead just followed the sound. As I got to the stairs, I could tell the mouse was in a bag on the table directly below me. So, I pointed my flashlight at the bag and turned it on fully expecting to see a mouse scurrying away. Instead I saw nothing. But, as I kept watching, I saw a small little lump moving around in the bag. And then, he popped his head out and looked right at me. A small, brown mouse, munching on one of my granola bars. He would've been cute if he was someone's pet. But, he was not a pet and he was eating my food, so I determined something had to be done. I didn't really know what because I'm not well versed in catching mice. So, I just watched for awhile hoping some great idea would come to me. It didn't. My heart just kept beating faster and faster as I watched the mouse scrambling around in the food bag and jumping back and forth from the stairs to the table. Finally, I decided that Mr. Frisby needed to save the day. So, I ran and woke him up and told him there was a mouse. He came and I showed him the mouse and we sat there for a little while wondering what to do. Then, I said maybe we could catch him in the plastic bag (because he was already in it). I thought maybe we could just grab the handles really fast and then take it outside. So, Mr. Frisby gallantly agreed to try. But, because of the food in the bag, he couldn't grab both handles and close it fast enough, so the mouse jumped out when Mr. Frisby was lifting up the bag and he ran off. So, Mr. Frisby and I went back to bed, but several minutes later, we heard the mouse again. This time we came up with a plan. We would get one of the coolers, grab both handles of the bag really fast and throw it in the cooler and shut the lid. So, we went to see the mouse but this time he ran off fast when he saw us. So, we got the cooler and got it all set up and went back to bed. Unfortunately, though, the mouse didn't come back that night. That was adventure number one. And it's not over.

The next morning, after complaining to the office about the mouse and making demands for a thorough cleaning and mouse traps to be put out, we headed off to Yellowstone. We had lots of great adventures in the Park. And we documented them all with photos:

We saw a Bison moseying down the road. This, I thought, was totally awesome. Hello Bison! That's what I yelled to it as it walked by our car.

We stopped at the Artist's Paint Pots where the kids had a great time watching the yucky mud boil.

We saw Elk grazing near the side of the road. Or maybe they were Mule Deer. We had a hard time differentiating.

We hiked around Norris Geyser Basin. We saw no geysers go off.

But, we did smell them.

We finished our hike around Norris Geyser Basin

Then we saw another Bison who had stopped for a bite to eat on the side of the road.

We also saw more Deer Species (these ones we're pretty sure are Mule Deer).

And then we checked out Mammoth Hot Springs

And, apparently missed the Black Bears that were just down the road past the Hot Springs that my sister and her family did not miss because they did not stop at the Hot Springs.

After our stop at Mammoth, we headed to Tower Falls where my brother and his son contemplated the beauties of nature.

And then we headed to Artist's Point which overlooks the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

And enjoyed the beautiful Lower Yellowstone Falls.

After our many adventures in the park and our mouse adventures in the middle of the night, we were exhausted. So, we got some food in Canyon Village and headed back to the resort to prepare for more mouse-catching adventures that night.

Our Great Adventure, Part 1

2010-06-29T17:13:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, Mr. Frisby and I set out for a great adventure. I even made sure to bring my adventure shoes for the occasion.

Our great adventure took place in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and was in connection with the Jespersen Family Reunion 2010. The first half of our adventure took place primarily in Rexburg with Mr. Frisby's family. Since we were heading to Island Park, Idaho for my family reunion, we decided to go to Idaho a few days early to visit with Mr. Frisby's family. We arrived in Rexburg on Saturday night after a long, but uneventful, drive. Our Sunday adventures included going to church, eating dinner, and playing guitar hero with Mr. Frisby's brother and his wife. No pics of those adventures. Our Monday adventures included going to BYU-I to say hello to some of Mr. Frisby's old teachers and then spontaneously attending a class where Mr. Frisby was asked to speak last minute to some students. We also got my wedding ring cleaned and refinished and then, that night, Mr. Frisby's dad took us flying in his airplane. Lots of pics of that last adventure.

My father-in-law's four seat plane

Mr. Frisby climbing in the cockpit

Me sitting in the backseat of the plane

We flew all around Rexburg, checking out the buttes, the river, the town, the sand dunes, and the remnants of the old Teton Dam.

Up, up and away!

The Buttes outside Rexburg

Flying over Rexburg - A lovely view including the Tetons and the Rexburg Temple

The Snake River

On Tuesday, we decided to head out for an excursion to Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. My parents and sister were also in Rexburg staying with my uncle. So we all decided to go together. We first went to GTNP and headed to Jenny Lake so we could see Hidden Falls. At Jenny Lake, we ran into my brother and his family who had also decided to see GTNP before going to the reunion. It was a lovely pre-reunion reunion. After chatting with them for a little bit, we got on a boat to take us across Jenny Lake. When the boat dropped us off on the other side, it was a short half mile hike to Hidden Falls.

Jenny Lake

Gaylene, My Mom, My Dad, and me on the trail to Hidden Falls

While hiking up to Hidden Falls we ran into my sister and her family who had also decided to check out GTNP before heading to the reunion. After chatting with them briefly and making plans to meet up later in Jackson, we continued up the trail.

The Van Horns heading down the trail

Mr. Frisby and I at Hidden Falls

Hidden Falls was spectacular and definitely worth the hike. Since it wasn't a very long hike, we decided to continue on another half mile to Inspiration Point.

Mr. Frisby, My Mom, Gaylene, and My Dad at the very inspiring Inspiration Point

After returning to Jenny Lake, we decided to head to Jackson. On our way out of the park, we stopped for some photos of the Tetons. Then we continued on to check out Jackson.

Mr. Frisby and I and the Tetons

The Tetons

Mr. Frisby and I under the antler arch in Jackson

The Idaho side of the Tetons

Our Tuesday excursion was very fun. And Wednesday we went to the temple in the morning and then got ready to head to Island Park for the family reunion. Stay tuned for part 2 as the real adventures are about to begin.

I Should Have Been A Doctor

2010-06-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

Because of my schooling and work experience, I have a fair amount of medical training. To the point that I usually take more interest in any medical problems that my occur in my life than a regular person would. When a medical problem arises, I am impatient to know what's going on. I usually am too impatient to wait until I can get into a doctor and get a diagnosis. So, I turn to the internet and diagnose myself. Then, when I do get into the doctor, I already in my mind think I know what's going on. And, guess what? Of all of my recent medical problems accompanied by self-diagnoses, I have been correct. In fact, in one case, I was correct in my self-diagnosis while two initial doctors I saw were incorrect (fortunately, they made good referrals). So, why do I pay someone hundreds or even thousands of dollars to tell me what I already found out on the internet? Because, while I may be able to self-diagnose, I usually can't self-treat. But, all of this makes me wonder if I should've been a doctor. Or if there are more problems with our healthcare system than we would like to admit.

*Please don't let this post scare you. I am generally in good health and am not about to die.

Another Travelogue

2010-05-28T10:55:00.001-07:00

I think I can do this one in one post. Mr. Frisby and I just got back from a trip to Utah and Idaho. Mr. Frisby's sister got married, so that was the reason for the trip. We arrived in Utah on Wednesday night and stayed with my sister in Lehi. The wedding was the following day in Manti. We wanted to do a session before the sealing, so we got up bright and early to get to the temple in time. I took us about an hour and forty minutes to get there. I had never been to Manti, but have heard all about the temple and the pageant, so I was pretty curious about the town. It is definitely a beautiful temple as you can see in the following picture:

I figured that with a temple and the pageant and everything, Manti would be a decent sized town. No thriving metropolis, mind you, but I thought it would at least have some stoplights on its main drag. However, I quickly learned that Manti is tiny. Not one stoplight. Surprising. And yet, after seeing the countryside on the drive there, it's actually not that surprising.

Anyway, the wedding was lovely, the weather was lovely, the bride and groom were lovely. Weddings are great.

Mr. Frisby and I outside the temple after the ceremony

The happy couple

After the wedding ceremony, we went to the luncheon and then it was off to Rexburg to get ready for the reception there the following day. We got to Rexburg Thursday night and Friday was spent making all of the necessary preparations for the reception. The reception was great and I spent much of the time helping with the food and punch and eating chips and dip.

The wedding cake - Ginormous!

Me at the reception

Hilary "helping" with the punch

We left Rexburg on Saturday afternoon to head back to Utah since Mr. Frisby had a flight to catch on Sunday. We met up with some of my family that lives in Utah and spent the night with my sister in Lehi. We went to church on Sunday and got to see my niece play a piano solo in Sacrament Meeting. Then we headed to my brother's for a brief visit with them and then it was off to the airport so Mr. Frisby could catch his flight. I was staying a couple of extra days so I could spend more time with my family. While visiting my family in Utah, we got to meet my sister's little newborn who was just a few weeks old.

Isn't she cute?

I had to include this picture because I took it and I'm really proud of how it turned out.

I also got to meet this little guy. He's my brother's son and, while he is almost a year old, this was our first in person encounter.

Another cutie.

The only downside to the trip was the weather. Wait a second. Didn't I say the weather was lovely at the wedding? I did indeed. The weather was lovely at the wedding. And it was decent at the reception. But, it all went downhill from there. On Saturday, we left a spring snowstorm in Rexburg. Sunday in Utah was fairly sunny, but cold. On Monday, I woke up to this:

I don't care who this El Nino fellow is, but you should never wake up to a blanket of snow on May 24th in Utah (it did set a new record, by the way). Fortunately the snow melted by that afternoon and the weather started to get a little better by the following day. Just in time for me to leave. It was a quick, but fun trip. It was so fun to go to the wedding and to meet the new little niece and nephew. Now we just have time to get settled back into our regular schedule before heading off on yet another adventure next month. Stay tuned...

Let's Motor

2010-05-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

Since I have been blogging all about Spain, I haven't really been keeping up on what's been going on since then. Actually, not that much has happened. After Spain, I settled down for some much needed R&R (you know the vacation is crazy when you come home and need a vacation). I couldn't relax too much, though, because life goes on and there were things to be done. In particular, we had to get ready to head to Utah for the wedding of Mr. Frisby's sister. But, the Utah post will come later. For now, I will tell all about our road trip up north.

In preparation for the wedding, Mr. Frisby and I needed haircuts so as to look our best for the blessed occasion. This is tricky because my hair is done by a good friend of mine who lives about an hour north of Sacramento. I usually get it cut by her when she comes down for a haircutting weekend. However, our schedules did not coincide and my hair was getting out of control, so I came up with a solution. I was born and raised here in the great state of California and yet, I've never been to Sutter's Mill - the place where gold was discovered, starting the California Gold Rush. This, to me, is shameful (I'm not saying it's shameful for all Californians to not go to Sutter's Mill, but for me, given my great love for California and my love for history, it was a little ridiculous). Mr. Frisby has also never been to Sutter's Mill, though, as a California transplant, he has an excuse. So, I decided to remedy my neglect of my California roots and my out of control hair all in one shot. We decided to take a day trip up to Coloma, California where Sutter's Mill is located. It happens to be up northeast of Sacramento and therefore, in the vicinity of my haircutting friend.

The plan was set and we had a lovely day. It took us about 2.5 hours to get to Coloma, but we took Maggie and she loves a good road trip, so we had a fabulous drive. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining, and Maggie was hugging corners like nobody's business. Good times. When we got to Coloma, in Marshall Gold Discovery State Park, we parked and walked around checking out the little town, the gold discovery site, the sawmill, and other monuments and cemeteries they had there.

That's me by the sign going into the state park

That's Mr. Frisby with Coloma in the background

This is the replica sawmill that they built (because the original is no longer there) just upriver from the site of the original sawmill where gold was discovered.

That's Mr. Frisby with the replica sawmill in the background

That's me at the monument to James Marshall, the man who discovered gold.

We thought this pioneer cemetery on the edge of town was pretty cool. There was even a grave for one of the members of the Mormon Battalion.

It was pretty fun and we spent a good three hours checking everything out. After we finished in Coloma, we hit the road again. We went to Auburn where we got a quick bite to eat and then it was just over an hour's drive to my friend's house. We got our hairs all taken care of and had a good time visiting with our friends. Then it was about a 3 hour drive home. It was a very busy day with lots of driving, but we had a great time. If you're ever in the vicinity, I highly recommend checking out the Gold Discovery Site. Or getting your hair cut.