Good Samaritan

This was our last full week of class.  Sooo close to being done!  Hooray!

I am going to take this blog opportunity to toot Ryan's horn a little (I'm his wife, so I can do that).  On Thursday, when we were driving home after work/school, we saw a car stopped in the lane opposite us with its hazard lights blinking.  Ryan decided to flip a U-turn at the light to go ask the driver if she needed help.  We pulled up behind her, and Ryan got out to talk to her.  They decided the car wasn't really going anywhere on its own.  The woman (and her young son, probably less than a year old) only needed to go across the street- they were so close to their destination!  Ryan tried to push their car over the median into the parking lot, but after many attempts had to concede defeat (he almost had it, though).  I wasn't allowed to help, what with the whole pregnancy thing going on.  Right as Ryan was about to give up and think of a new plan, a woman in an Army uniform came running across the street to help push.  As they started to push, a guy in a little red car pulled up onto the median, jumped out, and joined them at the back bumper.  They showed up just in time for the break in traffic, and were able to push the car over the median, across the street, and into the parking lot of the building where the woman had an appointment.  Hooray!  My husband is a hero :0)

Yesterday we had a visit from our friends Al, Lucy, and Sam.  They were in Utah for Ben and Joe's graduation, before they move away (sad for us).  It is always awesome to visit with friends.  After they left I spent an hour trying to download an Apple ][e emulator so I could play Oregon Trail on Ryan's computer.  I tried two emulators, couldn't get the right ROMs for one, then couldn't find the right version of the game for the other.  Another Google search turned up a site where I could play online without downloading anything!  All that clever work for nothing... and then I drowned crossing the Snake River when I finally got to play.  Sheesh.

The power was supposed to be off at Student Apartments from 9am-2pm today.  About 30 minutes ago it went out for about 2 minutes, but now it is back.  I don't know if it will happen again.  Ryan took his Praxis exam this morning.  We won't find out if he passed for another 4 weeks, so keep those fingers crossed.

Only 7 more weeks of pregnancy to go.  I am starting to get a little nervous.  It will be nice to go back to my normal size, because this belly is heavy.  Though I will miss being able to do this:

Ha ha ha.  I don't dare leave cups on my belly for long, because the baby likes to roll around when I sit down.  I had trouble getting back to sleep this morning after dropping Ryan off because he was so darn wiggly! (the baby, not Ryan)

Here is the latest belly picture.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

As we were at home for the Easter holiday, I decided to actually cook a special dinner.  Elisa joined us for ham, funeral potatoes (with cornflakes on top, yum yum), asparagus, and pears.  We ate on our fancy china (last time we used it was for our 1-month anniversary).We had a great time hanging out all evening.  Elisa and I taught Ryan how to play Yahtzee.  Easter is my favorite holiday.

Yesterday we joined our apartment court for a barbeque.  Grilling is great, and I think we're going to have to take advantage of the fact that we can rent grills from the Maintenance office.  Yum yum.  We really enjoyed hanging out with everyone.  Brandon and Nate did a great job of running the grill, with plenty of help from Taneill and Nancy, of course!  Today we went geocaching.  We didn't find the cache, but the walk was great!  It was about a mile and a half round trip, which is great exercise for me.

I am 32 weeks pregnant, and the baby will be here in 55 days!  Wow!  I think the little guy is getting cramped in there, as he elbows me a lot when he's rolling around (at least, I think those pointy things are elbows).  School is out in a matter of weeks, and things are looking good for us.  

Taco Soup

I am making taco soup for dinner.  It is going to be delicious.  Yum yum. 

Last night we went to the season opener for the Salt Lake Bees, our minor league baseball team.  The Institute's married student association got free tickets, so we took advantage of that.  The Bees beat the Reno Aces, a good start to the season.  The back of our ticket had a coupon for Sonic, so we went there for a treat after the game.  Ryan ordered a junior hamburger.  Here is a picture of it.

Sonic has clearly found an answer to these troubled economic times: Save money on burgers by cutting them in half before serving them!!  We couldn't believe it.  In fact, we ordered a second junior hamburger just to see if it would also be half a hamburger patty.  It sure was.  I wonder if it was the other half to the other one Ryan ordered.

My friends threw a baby shower for me today.  It was so nice.  My classmates and some of my transplanted Colorado friends showed up, and totally spoiled our little guy.  I know I've said it a million times, but baby clothes are freaking cute!  We washed all of them when I got home, and now I have all this baby laundry hanging up to dry in our kitchen.  Very cute.  Our friend Nicole brought her 6-month old over to meet us today.  He is the cheeriest baby I've ever met, all smiles and giggles.  I hope our baby is as good natured as Treydon!  I picked out some pictures from the baby shower to share.

We played "Pin the Baby on the Mommy" (thankfully with tape, not pins...).  Elisa started handing out all the cutouts of the baby faces, and with trepidation I asked "Um, where is the mommy cutout?"  Oh, there was no mommy cutout.  I got pinned with babies!  Lindsey is the one who decided to stick the baby on my eye, just to mix things up.  

On Friday I hit 31 weeks.  There are only 62 days left until the baby arrives.  I can't believe it.  The time is flying by now.  Here is this week's picture.

General Conference Weekend!

Yay!  I love General Conference.  Sorry to all of you freezing on Temple Square- but I bet you are loving it anyway!  The Reynolds Family began their morning by eating hash browns and toast.  We rarely eat anything but cereal for breakfast, so this was pretty special.  Ryan makes amazing hash browns.  Today he topped them off with Lawry's seasoned salt and pepperjack cheese.  I can tell you are all drooling.  We made our traditional Saturday morning session tent.  Sorry the picture is kind of blurry.  Ryan wants me to tell the story of the General Conference tent, so I will.  The idea comes from the Book of Mormon originally, but more specifically we got the idea from Tyler and Amber Conlin.  Ryan was visiting the Conlins one General Conference many years ago, and was impressed by the tent they had set up in their living room.  They told him that they got the idea from the story of King Benjamin's address.  The people came from all over the land to listen to King Benjamin.  Because they had to travel far and stay for a few days, they all had tents, which they set up facing the tower from which their king spoke.  So now we make tents and point them toward our prophet and leader, President Monson, like the people of King Benjamin!  Ryan told me about this when I joined the church back in 2004, and I used to make my own tent at the Institute in Fort Collins during the Saturday morning session.  Now that we are married, we make our tent together!  We're excited to have our baby join us in the tent for the October conference.  You can read the story of the people of King Benjamin in Mosiah 2:1-7 or by clicking here.  

It has been another good week for us.  I'd say the majority of our weeks are good.  Ryan went to the doctor on Monday and got some medicine.  He's feeling all better now.  We worked out together on Friday afternoon and went to a hockey game- the Alaska Aces played the Utah Grizzlies here in Salt Lake.  We cheered for the Aces, and it paid off because they won 3-0.  It was a lot of fun.  We've never been to a hockey game together.  Another fun activity this week was cleaning our noses with Biore strips.

Those things are always gross to look at.  

We had an appointment with our baby doctor on Wednesday.  Everything is still looking good.  I gained 3 pounds this month.  The baby is about 17 inches along and weighs just over 3 pounds.  He's so big!  I look like I am holding a pumpkin in this week's picture.

Research Blahs

I did practically no homework this week.  Bad, bad Kara.  I shudder to think of all the things I have to do in the last 6 weeks of the semester.  At present I am working on my research project, trying to get the official summary document ready for my committee to review it on Monday and start/finish the informed consent documents this week.  I may have already said this (multiple times), but no one should have to do research while being a full-time student.  It's ridiculous.

Ranting aside...

After all the nice weather we got over Spring Break, we got another mini-snowstorm.  It has been wicked cold this week.  Today seems pretty nice, but I haven't been outside yet to verify.  On Tuesday there was a gas leak on the lower campus.  We got out of class ten minutes early because all evening classes were canceled.  Ryan fought through the traffic to pick me up, and it took us an hour to get home.  We could have left the car at school and walked home faster than that!  It was very exciting, to say the least.  On Wednesday we went to the Field House to do some for-real exercise.  Ryan lifted weights while I walked very slowly on the elliptical trainer.  It is kind of funny how fast my heart rate can get with such little effort.  We babysat for the Baileys that night, always fun.  Ryan started to get sick Thursday night.  He is asleep on the hide-a-bed  now.  I'm glad he's sleeping, hopefully it knocks out his fever.  Later this afternoon we are going to eat tacos at the home of one of the women in Ryan's English class.  He says she doesn't speak much English, so I've been having conversations with myself in Spanish in my head to practice.  We're bringing Heidi along, so we should be fine.  And oh man, authentic tacos!  Mmm... yummy.  I've been looking forward to this all week.

The glucose drink for the gestational diabetes screen was not terrible, nor was the RhoGAM shot I received in my bottom.  We have our next appointment with the baby doctor on April 1st.  I am now at 29 weeks.  The book claims that the baby weighs about 3 pounds now and is only a few inches away from his length at birth.  Good thing, because the poor kid is probably pretty cramped in there.  He went on a kicking spree last night which Ryan and I both got to feel.  Enjoy it while it lasts, little one.  In a couple months, kicking anything but air is going to hurt your little feet.

A Good Week

I got to visit Cassi in Las Vegas this week.  She drove out there with two of her roommates for their Spring Break, and I tagged along for a couple days.  We got to see Criss Angel's show, and the fountains at the Bellaggio, a highlight for me!  Ryan got to live the bachelor life while I was gone, which he enjoyed.  

The weather here in Salt Lake has been gorgeous lately.  Last night we enjoyed it by playing catch outside our apartment.  Today our friend Terina and her Maori cultural group performed at the opening of a new Rumbi Island Grill.  We stopped by to watch and got free food!  It was really neat.  We went to the temple afterwards.  At home now, I am getting ready to make green Rice Krispies treats for a St. Patrick's Day party at Heidi and Elisa's.  Tomorrow we are planning on geocaching in a neighborhood across the street from us.

Here I am at 28 weeks.  Only 12 more to go!

Spring Break!

Finally, the day students across Salt Lake City have been waiting for... I can't even begin to express how relieved I felt catching the TRAX yesterday morning after class.  I did a lot of being lazy yesterday waiting for Ryan to get home.  Today we've been doing our "chores" during commercial breaks (Nacho Libre was on tv!) and our apartment is looking much more tidy.  I'm looking forward to my mini trip to Las Vegas to see Cassi in a few days.  

My parents picked up their car in Germany this week.  It sounds like they are having a great time trekking around Munich.  They have a good trip planned, including castle tours and a visit to Amsterdam.  You can see their pictures at their blog page.  

Only 13 more weeks of pregnancy to go.  That makes it sound like only a little time left!  I am still adjusting to the belly.  It feels like as soon as I get used to it, it gets bigger!  Here is this week's picture.

I know, my walrus print pj bottoms are awesome.  This week our baby has more taste buds than he ever will, according to the baby book.  Supposedly he can taste what I eat now, and might even react to it!  That sounds exciting.  No reaction to last night's potato soup, though.