Halloween, Talks, Callings, etc

Bill and I are on the activities committee in our ward and we had a ward trunk-or-treat last night.   It was pouring when it was supposed to happen, so we set up all the people in classrooms around the church.  I kind of killed the decorate your trunk part, but all the kids still had a great time.  There were games and food in the gym and the kids kept doing circuits through the rooms around the perimeter accumulating mass amounts of candy.  Fun times.  We had wanted to come up with some great idea for a couple costume that would incorporate my pregnant belly, but everything we thought of took more time, effort and particularly money than we cared to put into it.  Tori saved the day though.  She told me about her costume last year and said I was welcome to copy it.  So we didn't have a couple costume, but we still looked pretty good.  Bill went as a cowboy and I went as a magic 8 ball.  I even had pieces of paper in the pocket I made between the 8 and my shirt with all the responses on it, so people could come up and ask me questions.  It was fun.  I've historically not had very good Halloween costumes, and this one turned out to be a hit, so way to go Tori for saving the day. :) 

Bill and I gave talks in church today.  They went really well.  I probably shouldn't admit it, but I really like to talk in church.  I like giving lessons too.  I like to teach in general.  This semester I am teaching the lab for the class I TA for and I love it!  I get pretty good feedback from the students on my teaching abilities, so that makes me feel good too.  Way back in the day I decided not to go into teaching because I don't care too much for the lesson planning process.  I've come to find out over the years that most teachers don't like that part.  Funny how that works. :)  Who knows, maybe sometime in the future I'll be able to get to teaching.  Bill is also interested in teaching at some point in his career, so maybe we'll end up at a university together or something like that.  How cool would that be?  PhD anyone? lol, not anytime soon.  And I don't even know in what subject, to be perfectly honest.  But the thought does cross my mind when I think about how much I enjoy teaching.  I need to find an area I would love to research in too and then I would be set. 

I got a new calling today to be the ward music chairperson.  I'm pretty excited about it.  I'll still be on the activities committee, but do this also.  I always love music callings and this is one I've never had, so it should be great.  It's probably better with the little guy on the way because there's already a couple ward organists, a choir director, and a ward chorister, so my part won't involve doing one of those things every week.  Maybe I'll put together a music fireside or something like that though.  That would be so fun.

And for the standard prego picture, here's what I'm looking like these days at 28 weeks. People keep asking me when I'm due.  Either I look farther along than I am, or just so pregnant they're not afraid to ask anymore. :)  lol

Third Trimester

I'm 27 weeks tomorrow and so happy to be in my third trimester.  13 or so weeks left and I can't wait!  Bill laughed at me last night because just last week I said I was totally content being pregnant and was enjoying it.  That might have been before the 3 nights of interrupted sleep due to waking up with an ache in my side every couple hours all night long.  I've slept pretty well up to this point, but apparently I'm getting big enough now that sleep is getting harder.  Ah well.  I still do enjoy being pregnant, but I'm getting more and more excited to have my little guy here and get rid of the stomach.  Here's some of my more recent pictures for all of you who want to see how pregnancy is treating me.

This is me and most of my MPA friends at ICMA this weekend in San Jose.  It was a great conference, though I am very happy to be back home now.

We took this picture for Bill's cute aunt's birthday who gave us this adorable outfit among others.  It still seems a bit big though.  :) 

22 weeks

24 weeks

 26 weeks

 And yes, I have been the same size for like 5 weeks.  It's pretty sweet.  I'd be okay with staying the same size for awhile longer.  My back doesn't hurt this way.  It's fantastic.

Thank Goodness for Volleyball

I've noticed lately that I have a really fantastic memory of some things I learned as a teenager or right at the beginning of college, but have completely forgotten some of the intermediate things I've learned between now and then.  Like programming.  I took a couple programming classes in high school and several my first two years of college.  I haven't programmed since 2003.  This semester I'm taking an Excel Visual Basic class.  I don't remember the specific programming languages I used before, but I totally remember all the logic and the basis for programming and all that good stuff.  It's making this class both doable and really enjoyable whereas some of my friends in my program just dropped it because they didn't have a clue about programming. 

Today I was grateful for all the years I spent in middle and high school playing volleyball.  I may not have reached the goal I set at 14 to play in college at BYU, but learning to roll without hurting myself all those years ago really helped this morning in tennis class.  I was rallying back and forth with a classmate and came up to the net as part of it.  He hit a ball way to my backhand side and I twisted and lunged to get it.  I haven't really noticed a difference in my equilibrium for the most part, but I totally overbalanced and ate it on this shot.  As I was falling my thought was how to do this without smashing my stomach.  I chucked my racquet, hit my hands first, but then tucked my right shoulder and rolled over it and back up to my feet with about as small of an impact as I think possible in the circumstances.  It was awesome.  And by that I mean it was awesome that I didn't smash my stomach and hurt myself and the baby.  Like I said, thank goodness for things I learned so many years ago.