Well, I am at the end of day three of being all alone as Brandon flies down the slopes in Salt Lake City.  I did not sleep very well at all last night, so in an effort to knock myself out tonight, I went to the gym after work with my friend Amanda.  I was really looking forward to some leftover pizza, a hot shower, Sleepytime tea, and bed when I got home. 

As a background to the melodrama that follows, the good people at Laclede Gas have been doing maintenance on the street mains for the past week and up until today, nothing more unpleasant had occurred than piles of gravel lining the streets, orange spray paint in our grass, and a big hole by the side of our house where the gas lines go in.  (Maybe that's where they go in?  I can't be sure). 

Today, when I wanted nothing more than to relax, I get home to a notice on the door saying that they turned off the gas because of the street mains work and that someone had to actually come to our house to turn it back on.  Great.  I call the emergency gas line and they tell me they can have someone to come out as long as I would be there to let them in.  I asked if they would be coming tonight and the lady told me they indeed would be.  Apparently, it is necessary to check the safety of the state of things inside before they would turn it back on.  I was not thrilled about the idea of some strange man coming to my house at night when Brandon is out of town, but I weighed that against no heat, hot water, or stove use until he comes home and decided I could not live without these things. 

The guy arrived pretty promptly and checked the stove and furnace in the basement to make sure everything was working properly while I followed him, obviously checking to make sure he was doing things correctly.  Turns out there were a bunch of little leaks in the basement and one behind the stove.  Normally, Laclede charges to repair these, but because they happened to be doing work on the street mains and had to come to our home anyway, we got the repairs for free.  Nice.  Also, very nice to know we were a gas explosion waiting to happen.  God is looking out for us: I came home thinking only of the inconvenience of a cold house, but am at the end very pleased to have not only working heat, but safe working heat.

As soon as Laclede left, I prepared my cup of Sleepytime and will be sipping on that while I wait for the hot water heater to kick in.  Life is good.  Now, if only Brandon would hurry home.

So, I have been a little absent. . . busy to say the least, but I thought I better catch up my public.

September:

Brandon and I drove to Virginia for the annual backpacking trip - for this part, we were back up to the Shenandoah Valley and it was really incredible.  My favorite night, we were up on Big Stony Man and it was so clear, we felt like we could see every star in the sky.  The next morning, we sat atop the cliff and watched the fog roll in and cover the entire valley below us.  We really had a great time this year and managed to see a bit of wild life.  Next year's family trip will probably be a little different following the news we got at the end of September (which is already out in the open) that we are expecting our first little one.  Brandon's sister is four months ahead of us in her pregnancy, so there will be two babies very close in age next year.

October:

With me celebrating birthday number 27 during this month and Brandon celebrating birthday number 25 during November, we decided to go away by ourselves.  Once again, we headed west to Branson, Missouri to our favorite cabin on Table Rock Lake.  We really enjoyed spending time away with one another and doing absolutely nothing exciting for once.  Some highlights included fishing and reading on the shores of the lake; eating at a Japanese steakhouse where we happened  to be the ONLY patrons and the chef insisted on performing his spatula tricks for us, but he kept dropping the spatulas; napping in front of the fire; soaking in the hot tub (well, half of me anyway!); and just generally relaxing.  It was a shame we had to go back. . . we hope to go again before the baby comes.

November:

Concordia surprised every single employee with a gift card to a grocery store as a Thanksgiving present - what a blessing that was!  It really is a great company to work for.  We hosted some Thanksgiving with TWO other couples this year.  This seemed a big enough crowd to make a small turkey this year and I was so pleased with how it turned out.  After dinner, some other friends joined the party for the "after-party" including dessert and lots of American Idol performances.  A pretty good Thanksgiving, if I do say so myself!  The rest of the weekend, I spent in Chicago spending time with my mom and Grandparents.  I managed to do a little shopping too at the outlets in the 'burbs.
 
December:

December was so busy, it is hard to remember it except to look at my calendar and realize how much we   crammed into a month. A couple of friends got married this past weekend and post college people, such as ourselves, have been going to Shonda's house on Sunday nights after church for over ten years.  Well, the Sunday night crowd decided to give back to Shonda and Charles by giving them a low key shower with soup and monogrammed cupcakes.  I am quite jealous of the beautiful fire pit we gave them!  The following weekend was Brandon's work party at the Renaissance Grand and unfortunately our table did not win trivia this year, but we did manage to have a great time with the biggest table at the party!  The weekend before Christmas, Diana, who hosts my bilingual Bible study, had us and many others over to celebrate Las Posadas, which is basically lots of food and time spent praying and reading the nativity story in Spanish.  I really enjoyed bringing Brandon to meet all the ladies from the study and exposing him to a bit of Hispanic culture.  Amazingly, we were able to head to Maryland again this year for Christmas for ten days.  The ride there was a little rough since it was really icy - we passed over one hundred cars in the ditch and plenty of trucks jack-knifed on the highway.  I did love spending day after day with our families and Brandon's family surprised me with a baby shower that I thought was only supposed to be for Siobhan, but turned out to be for both of us!  We had fun trying to fit everything into the car to go back to Missouri!
 
Present Day:
 
As we are now halfway through the pregnancy, I have cutback on most of the extracurricular activities and am enjoying not being busy every single night of the week.  Brandon will be finishing up seminary in May and most likely we will be here in STL one more year.  An exciting thing happened last Sunday: I began to feel the baby move!  That event balanced the not so great one: the refrigerator broke and we had to buy a new one - not the best time for that one.  It was, however, the greatest week as it was cold enough outside to keep the food on the back deck.  Now if Brandon could finally catch the baby in the act - it seems to hide whenever he tries to feel the karate kicks.  I think we are in the honeymoon period of the pre  gnancy as I am feeling pretty good and not very uncomfortable yet.  I never did get sick during the first trimester, but there were plenty of times when I had no idea what to eat that wouldn't turn my stomach.

Phew.  I think I am finally caught up - hopefully it won't be five months before I manage to write again.