Heat Wave

This morning when I got out of bed at 6:00 a.m. it was 40 degrees here- in Iowa! It is just downright warm out there. I’ve heard varying reports regarding the high for today but they are between 47 and 50. Somebody get me my shorts! We’ve been building up to this for a few days so I have been enjoying the warmer weather for a while now but this is just about the end of it. Tomorrow it’s supposed to cool down (18 degrees is the high and -1 is the low) and probably even snow. It is fun while it lasts though and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.

It was a good weekend for us- some fun stuff and some rest time too. Friday night we rented 3:10 to Yuma and we both thought it was a very good movie. We both really like westerns so that’s no surprise. Saturday morning we made it to the gym but ended up going to a different gym because the first one that’s closest to our house was crazy-busy. We were having none of that so we drove to another one which was much less crowded. Then we tried to go to Panera’s to get a little breakfast but that was also crazy-busy so we went home and Rob made crepes. It was his first attempt at them and they were pretty good. Later in the day while I cleaned up the house, Rob went and did the grocery shopping. We were both tired after that so we just watched tv and ordered a pizza. Since I’ve been pregnant, I can’t get enough pizza- Rob has to keep an eye on me because I’ve been known to eat half of a large pepperoni. I probably could have kept going too but he stopped me. It’s just soooo good! Last night we went to see Martina McBride in concert and it was…. Well, Rob made me promise that he could blog about it so I’ll let him tell it in the next post.

Oh Baby

So hopefully most of you already know about this, but Rob and I are expecting a baby at the end of June! My due date is June 26th and we are both sooo excited. We found out pretty early but kept it a secret until Christmas (I was about 13 weeks along at that point) when we told our family and then have been telling everyone else after that. Everything is going great and I feel really good right now. I had no energy the first trimester which was not fun. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything. I just wanted to sit and be quiet. I wasn't sick hardly at all so yay for that! I didn't feel much like eating but I didn't feel sick either. After the first trimester, my energy levels and stomach returned to normal and everything is going along great now. We have an appointment for next Thursday to find out the sex of the baby and it is killing me to wait! I don't know how people can spend their whole pregnancy not knowing. I can see how it would be cool, I just can't see how they actually do it. We haven't bought much yet since we are waiting to see if we should be buying girl or boy things. We talk about names some but I think it will be a while, maybe even until after the baby is born, before we make a decision on that. I am sure there will be plenty of crazy stories over the next few months but for now, things are still pretty normal. I'm not showing yet but I'll put up some pictures throughout the pregnancy of the expanding belly. There have been no wacky cravings yet but if I have them, I'll be sure to share.

It continues to be very cold here- The Weather Channel says it is 0 degrees right now and -13 with the wind chill. Brrr. The good news is that tomorrow is our last cold day and then we'll be warming up for the next 10 days. That will last us until it is time to go to California next Friday where we can definitely warm up. We're back in Iowa for a week after a 5-day visit and then we take off to Florida where it will be nice and warm. By the time we get back from that trip, things will be starting to warm up here and most of the snow should be done with. It feels good to finally see the (sun)light at the end of the tunnel.

Snow White and the Seven Below

Okay, so it was actually 11.5 below but who's keeping track? Man is it cold here- and really snowy. It started snowing sometime Sunday night or really early Monday morning and kept up until sometime in the night last night- so at least for 24 hours. Thankfully it was during a holiday weekend so we just hung out at the house all weekend and limited our trips out. During the last week or 10 days we had some of our first below zero weather here and it is not pleasant, especially when you add in the wind chill on top of that. Every Saturday morning we either go to the gym or go out to breakfast but the last two Saturdays have been so cold (-11 one morning and not much better for the other) that we just stayed in and made our own breakfast. I drove to work all last week but today I decided to play it safe and take the bus. They both have their downsides- I’m either freezing cold walking to and from bus stops or I’m risking crashing the car. It’s free to warm up while an accident could be rather pricey so I’m better off taking the bus, I think. Thursday and on are looking better but today and tomorrow are still pretty yucky.

We did make it out to the grocery store on Saturday to pick up enough goods to get us through the weekend. After going to the grocery store, we decided to go by Hollywood Video and rent a movie. We had a quick moment where we started to talk about “Well, what will we do with the groceries while we go in the movie store?” That’s a valid concern back in California- you wouldn’t want to do that there. Then I pointed out that the groceries would probably warm up once moved from the car into the refrigerator so it would probably be fine to leave them in the car while we picked a movie. We ended up getting Rush Hour 3. We had both seen the first two many times and I felt like I needed to see this one too. I laughed quite a bit and there were a lot of good action scenes in it but the story was, not surprisingly, weak. Still, I was not expecting the movie to end because it seemed like nothing was being done to advance the plot and then all of a sudden it was like “They did it!” and the movie was done. We were entertained for a while though so I have no complaints.

Our main task this weekend was some major furniture rearrangement in the house. When we moved in, we decided to make one of the bedrooms a “media room”- it had the computer, tv and stereo equipment in it. I was starting to get irritated with the arrangement because it was rather crowded and we spent nearly all our waking hours in that room. We recently hooked up the Playstation and Nintendo which made it even worse because I couldn’t get past Rob when he was playing games- I either wanted to get to the computer and couldn’t or I was trapped at it. And finally, we have a very nice, big living room that was getting very little use. I finally convinced Rob that the tv and stereo equipment needed to go out in the living room and the media room needed to just be the office with the computer. Since we had so much time at home this weekend, we moved all the stuff around and got it how I wanted it. Although he had been resistant at first, he admitted that it was much nicer the way it is now. It is so nice to be out in the world again and have some room to move around instead of being stuck in a little tiny room!

The living room now:



The office- we actually have room to work on the computer and it's not jammed in a closet anymore!

Rob, The Guitar Hero

Nanette and Brent gave us a pretty awesome Christmas present- Guitar Hero II, with the red Gibson SG guitar. It got here last week and Rob has pretty much been playing it ever since.




I'm enjoying it too but he likes to play it every day! He's already at the medium level and I'm barely out of the training sessions. I think we'll be needing to get Guitar Hero III soon because he'll have this one conquered. I'll just keep plugging along :o)

This weekend was a pretty uneventful one. It seemed like we were out and about and doing quite a bit of shopping last weekend but this weekend was a lot slower. I went out and bought groceries yesterday so I could make pork chops and rice for dinner last night. Rob was helping a friend fix his car and his wife's car while I was out running around. We did go out to a delicious breakfast Saturday morning which was nice. I love to take the paper and read it at breakfast and do my Jumble. This morning I woke up with a headache so I took some tylenol and laid around until it went away. After that, I cleaned up the kitchen, bathrooms, floors- pretty much everything. Yay :o( The floors were grossing me out and they needed a super-duper cleaning which they got. Rob went out and bought me a Swiffer WetJet that I had been wanting. I absolutely hate to mop and thought this would make it easier. It does and it doesn't. It worked really well on the vinyl flooring in the bathroom but it wasn't so great on the tile in the kitchen and entry. It just doesn't get the grout areas very well. I also thought it was hard to see where the mop spray solution stuff was going and how much was coming out. On the plus side, the mop solution smells wonderful. I'm sure I'll keep using it but it wasn't quite the easy-breezy mopping experience I was expecting.

Old Man Winter

Rob Update:

We are on our third month of winter right now. It is not bad, just different. Truthfully, I would not mind a little "3 day weekend" of Spring. Or some summer humidity. To come home from work, mow the yard, watch some fireflies in the backyard, and wait for the evening thunderstorm. Man, that is good stuff.

But winter brings good with it also. Wrapping up in blankets on the couch with your wife, wearing beanies, and watching the snow fall.

I never thought I would be the one to say this, but I like going to ISU Women's Basketball games. We were initially introduced to this phenomenon by our retired neighbor John. He is an avid fan. Goes to every practice (yes...practice), every game, and all of the players know him by name. He was raving about the Women's team last summer and I just nodded and smiled. Well, one one of my coworkers gave us tickets for a game and the rest is history. We have been to three games now so far this season and it is a blast. The price is right, and they are good. I will admit, that it is a different game. More of the fundamentals. It is a different group of fans also. I talked about this with my friends at work the other day. When you go to a men's basketball game, if a scuffle or a fight breaks out, the crowd really wants the home team guy to kick some butt. But at a women's game, if one of the ISU players is involved in an on-court altercation, the crowd takes a more protective role. Like a parent protects a child.

Until next time, stay cool!

The Caucus Report

It’s been a few days now since we had the Iowa caucus and I have been trying to get Rob to blog about it since he actually went. I was very interested in going but I had a problem with one part of the process. When it comes to voter registration and party affiliation, I have always been a “decline to state” because I don’t want to pick any party. In California, this was ideal because at the primaries, they allow you to pick whichever ballot you want. Here in Iowa, you have to be a registered Democrat or Republican to participate in the caucus. I mostly lean towards being a Democrat but I don’t feel comfortable with calling myself one. I was thinking that was how I would register though so we could see how each party’s process works in the caucus because they are very different. But when it came down to it, I just couldn’t bring myself to register as either so I stayed home. Rob still promises to give the insider view soon but because I’ve been asked so many times how it works, I thought I’d share some of that info.

Republicans: Everyone has to be at their assigned caucus location and be signed in by 7:00 pm. Then they sit down in a room and write their vote on a piece of paper. The votes are tallied and that’s about it. Rob will give a better idea what happened here since this is the one he participated in.

Democrats: Everyone has to be at their assigned caucus location and be signed in by 6:30 pm. They all go into a big room where there are signs for each candidate and you stand by the sign of the candidate that you want to vote for. If your candidate has less than 15% of the people in the room, then they are not considered viable. These people then have to pick a different candidate and that is where things must get very interesting. The other people in the room go around and try to recruit these people to join them to get more votes for their candidate. Once everyone is settled on a viable candidate, then they count the votes.

It is a pretty confusing process- I asked several native Iowans how it worked and most of them could not tell me. I tried to find stuff on the internet but the websites I found really did not explain it very well. Finally, on caucus day, CNN had a great write-up of the process but that wasn’t until caucus day! It has all been very interesting though and I am glad that I will be able to be a part of it in the future and the Rob already has been a part of it. The best thing about it being over is watching regular commercials again- we have been bombarded with political advertisements since last summer and I am so glad to get a break from that!