Quick Update

It seems we have a stubborn little girl on our hands here. Tomorrow is the official due date, and so far very little progress has been made towards delivery. I am still pregnant. We are getting impatient. Our doctor told me that there is a 90% chance I'll deliver sometime this weekend. But we made another appointment for Tuesday "just in case" I fall in that dreaded 10%. Ergh. I promise we'll let everyone know when something exciting happens.

The goose says "honk", and so does a Buick, so actually this kind of makes sense...

I went to the Kroger this morning to buy Aunt Jamima Butter-Light Syrup for our waffles (the Wal-Mart stopped stocking it, so now we shop at Wal-Mart for our groceries... and Kroger for our syrup), and I saw the following in the parking lot:
I apologize for the grainy photo (it was taken from my phone while I was on the scooter) (I was stopped - don't worry), but yes that is a goose nesting in the parking lot!!! I couldn't help but notice the similarities to my own home...
And of course I would be the valiant goose protecting his gander and unborn gosling from like SUV's and dudes on scooters taking pictures... 5 more weeks and I'll be a daddy! That beautiful gal nesting in the comfy-sac will be a mommy! And we'll have our own little... gosling? Okay this metaphor is getting weird. But seriously, we are having a little girl!!!

In other news, I was out with a friend today and we saw this car:
Notice the passenger blinker - now that's what we call midwestern ingenuity! Run over a deer and smash your blinker? No problem! Just bungy-strap an orange Nalgene bottle next to the head-light and you're as good as new.

Unrelated pic - on our trip to California a few weeks back I looked up and saw this guy in the airport:
I almost yelled for airport security, but then I realized he was just filling his water bottle. I don't know why they put the button so low, but needless to say, it gave me a chuckle and I thought I'd share.

Somewhat Recently...

The past several weekends have been filled with fun and adventure!

First, I quit my day job at Mailboxes, Etc. It was ...interesting while it lasted, but I finally got to the point where lifting boxes, packing things, and squeezing my way around the place got to be a bit too much. I must admit, though, the job gave me a better understanding of some of the people in this great country of ours. Little old ladies would come in and proclaim how they saw Obama on the TV and he promised to create thousands of jobs for the people (if only...). Others would come in wondering why they didn't get free shipping to return the item they bought from the ad on the TV; "But on the TV it said I could return it for free!" (said with quite the missing-a-few-teeth accent). I really hated it when the smokestacks would come in though. One of the favorite quotes from a customer is "Oh, do you have mailbox rentals here?" Um, did you see the neon sign on the front of the store? or the name of the store? or the wall of mailboxes right when you walk in? Oh, the joys of working with the public.

One of the may things I "got" to pack while I was there. Who wants to guess what it is?

One weekend we were able to head down to Springfield, IL (the state capital). It's not especially large, but we had fun touring Lincoln's home there and learning more about that great President.

Here we are in front of the Lincoln home. (yes, I'm still preggo and getting bigger)

The following weekend, we went to California to celebrate my brother's wedding. It was wonderful to be able to go out and spend time with my family and enjoy the amazing California weather! We had a slight mishap with the flights out to CA, but it worked out well because we were able to get our own private area with only two seats, fully reclining seats, leg/foot rests, and a curtain to block out the other passengers. This was a blessing for me, being about 32 weeks pregnant during the flight.

This is our little area (I promise, it was cool even though this picture doesn't do it justice).

Braden took one of the family cats Simba for a "walk" in the backyard at my parents' house. (Notice the beautiful blue sky and the fact that he is wearing shorts and a t-shirt at about 8am...it was gorgeous there!)

Outside of the Oakland Temple, waiting for the happy new couple to come out.

(I don't have a very good picture of them, but they were very cute and happy to be married.)
We are thrilled for you two, Terrill and Emily!

Alas, we couldn't stay in California forever. We decided to make the most of the fact that there was snow everywhere when we returned to Illinois by going to the movies on Thursday. The theater was almost empty. Going to a movie on a Thursday night, during a recession, definitely the way to go.
The ticket master at the theater gave Braden and I 3-D glasses for our movie.

Braden tested them out, just to make sure the movie wasn't actually 3-D. It wasn't. We don't know why we got the glasses, but Braden looks good, huh?

7 weeks to go! (This was two weeks ago)
Braden has been such a good sport during this whole pregnancy. He puts up with my 4-5 pillows taking over the bed at night; luckily he can sleep through just about anything (hopefully our little girl gets his sleeping abilities!). Then there are many nights that I just don't want to make dinner. He happily offers to make something come 7:30 when we still haven't eaten anything and he realizes that if he wants a dinner he's going to take the initiative. He doesn't complain that every trip we take also involves a trip to a baby store or two. He lets me buy and eat tons of fresh fruit (even if it mean he doesn't get more than two bites). He is putting up with the mess in our "baby room" - with the stacks of different sizes of baby clothes all over the bed and our awesome new stroller in the middle of the room and pregnancy books everywhere. Braden gives me wonderful back and foot rubs when I ache. He ties my shoes for me now because I suffocate a little when I try to reach them. He is absolutely the best husband ever. I can't believe that I am lucky enough to be able to call him mine. We have a couple of unkowns in our life right now (like where we are going to live in June...) but I know that we can do anything together. Braden is truly a rock and helps keep my worries in check. I love him so much and am so excited we get to be parents together! I love you, Dimples!

Braden made an end-table for our living room in our kitchen for our anniversary. Isn't he awesome?!

Seized!

So, I just remembered: 1 year, 10 days, and about 6 hours ago or so Tiff and I got married. That amounts to three-hundred-seventy-five-and-one-quarter days of wedded bliss. Can you believe it? I hardly can, I know that about eight-hundred days ago I figured I'd probably live my life as a lonely, half-shaven, hermit with a Winchester and a rocking chair on his porch and suspenders to keep my pants up. My how things have changed! In the last year (somewhat out of order) we've gotten married, climbed Angel's Landing, celebrated my graduation and took a job with
Caterpillar, went to Alaska, smelled the breath of a hump-back whale, canoed to a glacier, eaten a spruce tip, saw a glacier cave in like you see on the Discovery Channel, only in person, drank a quail egg, lived in Springville, made peach cobbler, played with bull-mastiff puppies, moved to Illinois, slept at a rest stop, have seen more bald eagles in real life than I ever thought possible, bought a giant bean bag for furniture, had a futon but got rid of it when we realized that having only a futon and a giant bean-bag for furniture made us hippies, sat on our patio and watched the fireflies, got attacked by red-winged blackbirds, gone biking in the woods, went to St. Louis,
saw the Mississippi from the top of the Gateway Arch, drove through the flood plane and realized just how bad it was last spring, got lost in the country roads and corn-fields and felt like a mouse in a giant green maze, Tiff learned to make delicious lemon merengue pie on a whim

and taught me to cook, I introduced her to the Demo-Derby and Mud-Drag Racing (and realized it was good we went after we'd been married), went to Japan, snorkeled, drank fresh coconut, zip-lined through the jungle, realized how much family really means, ate the best beef ever, patted a water buffalo, learned to say thank you very politely in Japanese ("Domo aregato gozimas-ta"), wore a kimono, swam in the East China Sea, got threatened by a wild moray eel
while snorkeling, ate an eel later that night for revenge, Tiff blew chunks for the first time since eighth grade, I caught those chunks in my half-empty Nalgene bottle to avoid a scene on an unusually quiet bus-ride through Tokyo, touched a wild frog, lived through an ice storm, have awoken at night to the severe weather siren feeling lucky to have someone to hold on to, learned to make and live on a budget, trying to learn how to make a good picture (a good self portrait is
still tough, but what do you think of the rose?), gone on scooter rides, plugged up a vacuum, dismantled a vacuum, bought a new vacuum, figured out how insurance actually works, fed the coyotes outside of Nauvoo with the deer that committed suicide by our bumper, re-upholstered a couch, made hash browns that could easily be mistaken for roadkill, came out victorious in a
battle with mold, realized that just because windows are "energy efficient" doesn't mean that ice won't form inside your room, put together a puzzle of Tigger so mind-numbingly difficult that could only be accomplished because it was too cold outside to do anything else (seriously, the
only puzzle more difficult would be one that was entirely one shade of blue and a circle), I grew a beard, Tiff's growing a baby, roasted marshmallows on the patio over the hibachi, still haven't
killed our cactus (maybe we'll be able to handle this baby thing yet!), got a library card, made peach pancakes, learned that shopping at Wal-Mart is a
lot more bearable if you don't do it on Saturday afternoon, made our own taco-seasoning, saw a real live cardinal, built an end-table in the kitchen with a hand saw and a drill, and the list goes on.
It's been an awesome year, we truly are blessed and I think we can consider it seized. The next one should be even more fun 'cause there's gonna be three of us. Now I just gotta scrounge up two rocking chairs to make sure that first dream can still come to pass... I love you Feet!!!

Happy (Belated) Bithday!

February 11th, 1983 marked a glorious day in history. It was the day Braden Reed Balls was born! (This post is quite late, I know, but better late than never, right?) We were able to celebrate by going to another baby doctor appointment where we found out everything is growing normally. I surprised Braden by making cookies that he could bring to work. For dinner we followed the Balls' family tradition of having "birthday breakfast" (we would have actually had it for breakfast but I had to have the glucose test that day and Braden didn't want to eat by himself). We had eggs, sausage, and hash browns; the hash browns didn't turn out right though, so we just had eggs and sausage.

The birthday boy with his food and with some presents (VERY excited about Smash Brothers for Wii). I love you Braden and am so glad I got to celebrate your birthday with you (as your wife!) this year!!

Here are the latest ultrasound pictures. You can see her face in the first one and one of her kickers in the other.

Why didn't the opossum cross the road?

Because he got ran over.

That's Tiff's favorite new joke.  We'll spare you the sordid details and images, but one of the quirks of living in a city that is intertwined with they woods is the roadkill - it's everywhere.  It seems to go with the seasons as well.  During the summer and fall, it was all deer, during winter there was an inordinate number of raccoons, and now as spring is beginning to bud, the opossums are taking there turn.

Um...

You ever wonder how the sport of competitive weightlifting ever got started? I put money on two guys that walked up to a rock and said "I bet you can't lift that..." and now we have this guy. I wonder where he finds his t-shirts. They must be custom. And I bet they're expensive.