Daka, Daka, Daka

 This is the view of Fremont Lake from the cabin balcony. The cabin was started in 1958 and completed in 1965, and is about 10 miles north of Pinedale, Wyoming at 7500 feet. 

 This is a picture of the Windy Range Mountains, and was taken on a little looking point on our way to Elkhart Park where we did a little hiking. Absolutely gorgeous view. 

 This is the little creek we found on our hike in Elkhart Park. It wasn't hidden or anything, but it was just a nice little babbling companion along the trail. The water is amazingly clear and it was quite cold. I love that streams like this still exist, and it makes me want to do everything possible to preserve them so we can take our children to experience them too. 

 Capitan Marshall at the helm! We took the boat out on Fremont Lake, which is pretty big. I even got to steer for a little bit! 

 We stayed at the Dawson family cabin, which was built by Marshall's great-grandfather Elias Dawson and his family. One of the coolest features of the living room is the giant map of the western United States above the fireplace. To the left is a giant buffalo head; to the right is an elk head. 

My little buddy Clark wanted a picture of him and Cabin Moose. :)

We flew to Salt Lake City from Austin, and spent the night with Marshall's cousin Jacob's family in Clearfield, which is about 30 minutes north of the airport. Jake's wife Shelley is a stay-at-home-mom with their three children: Ava, Jackson, and Ethan. Another baby girl is due in November. Jake is a nurse in the oncology department of a nearby hospital. Jacob was one of Marshall's groomsmen in our wedding too. They have a trampoline in the back yard, and Ava and I jumped on it together. :) 

Monday we drove to Newton, Utah, which was 75 minutes from Clearfield. We visited with Bermuda, Marshall's grandmother, and the Anderson clan--Doug, DeeDee, Heather, Annie, and Bonnie. Heather lives in a nearby town and came over for dinner that night. Annie is going to college less than 2 hours away starting this fall. Bonnie is going to be sophomore in high school (I think). Bermuda loves to quilt, and showed me a box of quilts that are reserved just for family. Between quilts and baby afghan blankets, I think we took home nearly a dozen! It was so generous of her to give us so many. :D 

Tuesday we left for the cabin in Wyoming, and it was a 5 hour drive. We got to go through Idaho!

After being up in this area, we both looked at each other and truly committed ourselves to doing everything possible for us to move up this way immediately after Marshall graduates. We loved the weather and the beautiful countryside. Yes, yes, we want to move to Idaho!

Wednesday was Independence Day, and we went for a hike in Elkhart Park, found the boat dock, and watched the fire works in town. Oh yeah, our little rental car Fido, a Fiat 500, got stuck in the dirt. It took 5 locals and a truck to pull us out. Oi! All during our trips back on the dirt roads going up to the cabin, we would see these little chipmunk/prairie gopher guys scamper across the road. I told Marshall they reminded me of the creatures we call Dak Rats back in North Dakota. So, every time we saw one scurry across our path, we would call out, "Daka, daka, daka" at it. It was quite fun. 

Thursday we went out on the boat and kept on relaxing. Friday morning we packed up and headed back to Newton. Saturday around lunch time we left to go to the airport. The flight from SLC to Denver went well, but we had a rain delay in Denver, so we didn't get home to Austin until midnight, then back to our house until 1pm. Our neighbor Beverly watched our cats for us, and they were happy to check out all our luggage. 

We had a fabulous trip and are so enthused about moving to Idaho in 2 years!

*Baby R*

Everybody's wish came true! Marshall and I are going to be parents. Baby R is due the first week of January 2013! After a heartfelt talk in late February, we decided to try for a baby in March, but April ended up being our lucky month. We found out on April 24th, the three year anniversary of my college graduation and our engagement. It was quite a special day.

I told my boss at 6 weeks, which is very early, but I started having morning sickness and feeling emotional. I wanted her to know so she wouldn't be alarmed if all of a sudden I was calling out sick or coworkers came to her with concerns about my behavior. Thankfully I only came in to work late twice and only 30-60 minutes. We told the rest of the family around week 11.

I wasn't afraid of being sick because I knew it was a healthy, expected part of pregnancy, but I did want to understand what my body needed to help me not feel so icky. I learned that if I woke up in the middle of the night, but couldn't fall back asleep within 15 minutes, I needed to eat something or I would throw up. It was small understandings like this that helped make my morning sickness very mild. For about 2 weeks straight I would come home from work every day and take a nap. It was at almost 13 weeks when I started feeling better with my energy. Now I am 16 weeks, and I feel back to normal. :D

We are using a birthing center instead of a hospital for a few reasons. First, financially it is about 25% of a hospital birth. When we decided to try to get pregnant, my health insurance would not cover maternity care, and I didn't want to pay $12,000+ for a natural delivery at a hospital. Second, I was really interested and curious to learn about pregnancy and labor through a holistic approach. Third, the birthing rooms at the center are amazing! I want to use the Art room (below) if it is available when my time comes. The walls are the same color as our front living room, hehehe.

What will happen when I go into labor? I'm sure yet at what point I need to have Marshall drive me to the center. We'll check in, and I pick which room I want to use. I can move around the entire room and give birth anywhere I want to. I'm leaning towards doing a water birth in the big tub at this point. The midwives have some herbal remedies to help take the edge off pain, but there will be no actual medications. After delivery, a nurse will come in and teach Marshall and I how to do Baby Care 101. We'll get to rest and be discharged 8-12 hours after delivery.

What if something goes wrong? If something goes wrong during labor such as I stall out or more severe complications arise, the midwife, Marshall and I will go to a nearby hospital that the center has a close relationship with. The midwife will be with us in the room, but I'm not sure if she will be able to deliver the baby. In the very least, she will be more like a doula or birthing coach. We will still have to pay for the hospital bill, but the good news is that I have health insurance through my work that dramatically reduces the cost to us. I'm not sure how the discharge from the hospital would work, but probably not as quick as the birthing center.

At three days old, we'll get an at-home visit from a nurse/lactation consultant who will make sure baby is feeding probably, answer any questions, check on baby's health, etc. At 6 weeks, we'll go back into the birthing center for a general check-up. They will provide us with a list of pediatricians that their other parents have recommended over time, and then that's the last link to the birthing center.

Leading up to delivery though, the center offers birthing classes during month 7 of one's pregnancy as well as prenatal yoga in the evenings. I'll start doing the yoga in September probably.

I have a routine appointment with a midwife on July 26th. There won't be an ultrasound, probably just more questions, checking blood pressure, and listening to the baby's heartbeat. Then I will get to schedule the 20 week ultrasound! I want to get it on Tuesday, August 21st because Marshall and I already have an 8am dentist appointment together (so I'll be taking off some time from work anyways). If the ultrasound can be that day, I'll request the whole day off and we'll go to lunch and spend the day together. I can't wait to see Marshall's reaction to watching and hearing Baby R. We definitely want to find out the gender, and aren't buying anything until after this ultrasound. Please oh please, Baby R, show us the goods!!

So far I haven't felt any movement, but that's normally the exciting element of week 18. I do have a bump, but my clothes still hide it pretty well. I can't lie on my stomach anymore. I've been sleeping really well lately, which is a vast improvement from the first trimester. I'm itching to go to garage sales and find good deals on baby things, but instead, I'm using the next four weeks to research and brainstorm what really needs to be on our registry.

Let me know if you have any questions about Baby R and I'll be happy to answer them!!

Holding Down the Fort

May has been a very fortunate month in our household. It started off with Marshall only having 2 final exams for his four classes and being finished on May 4th. Sarah watched the Kentucky Derby on May 5th, and Marshall began working on his car (Natasha), which has been out of commission since December. He also logged quite a few computer programming hours for his part-time job. His big task was creating a mobile app for the truck drivers to use instead of their current paperwork method.

The biggest news of all came around the middle of the month when Marshall was in contact with Denison Industries (Denison, Texas), and they negotiated terms of his summer internship. He will be employed May 29th through August 17th. The company is taking care of a fully furnished one bedroom apartment for him (that by the way it sounds is decorated nicer than our house), plus a generous weekly salary. Marshall is on the Engineering team, which consists of the Engineering Manager, one experienced engineer, a newbie, plus now Marshall. There were two other team members recently, but one retired and one was let go. Based off my own experience at the company that I work for, it sucks having a short-staffed engineering team. Marshall seems to be getting along fantastically well with everyone, even charmed the HR ladies his first day. He foresees a very possible job opportunity with Denison after he graduates in just under 2 years.

So with Marshall away, it's just me and the three cats. We're holding down the fort alright. I bought the cats new toy mice, which they seem to like better than their current collection (hurray). They miss Marshall though. Misti, who is very much a daddy's girl, actually seeks me out at times to let me pet her; that never happens.

I'm still working, and trying to have some fun during the week. This past Wednesday I went to Pluckers Wing Bar with some girlfriends and we played trivia. I had their lemon pepper wings and macaroni & cheese--absolutely delicious! We may go again next week too. This weekend I feel like browsing through stores, so I think I will go to the mall. I haven't been to a mall since Black Friday, plus I can get some exercise walking around in the air conditioning. I'm also going to meet up with my friend Candice this weekend to talk about her baby shower since she found out she's having a girl since the last time we hung out. Eek! I'm so excited. My other goal for the weekend is to retire all of our Christmas decorations including the tree and box them up. Yes, I've had Christmas in my house for six months. With Natasha's front end taken part and stuck in the garage, we couldn't pull down the ladder to the attic where all the storage boxes were. Before Marshall left he brought everything down for me. This weekend it will all get boxed up, then when he comes home next weekend, he can haul it up there. I'm not even sure if we're going to put it back up this year. Oi!

Marshall did such a great job putting Natasha back together again. The engine started on the first try; it was beautiful and horrible at the same time. Something sounded like metal popcorn (ut-oh), and he found out he needed a new water pump. Since he had to leave no later than May 28th, and Natasha wasn't fixed, we rented him a car and made plans for me to have her towed to a local specialty shop for German cars called Austin Veedub, which was Marshall's home-away-from-home in May since he was there every other day picking up replacement parts. I got Natasha over there on Wednesday, and haven't heard back from them about proceeding further and a cost estimate, so I'll call on Monday and see if there's going to be a snowball's chance in hell that they can have it ready for pick up next Saturday morning.

June promises to be an exciting month. Marshall will be home late on Friday the 8th, and we're going to lunch with his parents and some of the Lesnick family who will be in town on Saturday. Mars will drive back to Denison on Sunday the 10th. On Friday the 15th, my best friend Heather in NC flies out to spend the weekend with me. I'm so excited!!! The following weekend (23-24) is free yet, and then we get ready to leave for our Utah/Wyoming trip on July 1st!!

Knowing You're in the Right Spot

I know that Marshall and I are on the right path in our lives right now. Here's why.

On Monday night (4/30) we were invited to the Foundry Educational Foundation's (FEF) spring meeting banquet. During the day they took a tour of Texas State University where Marshall is a student in their industrial technology program and has experience with the foundry course offered there. He and some other students and faculty gave the FEF a tour earlier in the day, then there was the banquet in the evening at the Embassy Suites.

Marshall introduces me to his professors, then we are told that dinner is about to begin and to sit at the tables, which hold 8 people each. We're towards the back of the room, and we sit at the table in the back right corner. On my right is a man from NY who is on the FEF, and Marshall is on my left. On his left was a guy named Ed from Spokane Industries in Washington state. Mr. Clay, the man awarding Marshall the FEF internship scholarship was also at his table with his wife, who surprisingly has family in my hometown. Another colorful and amazing character was Bob Smillee (Smiley), who we chatted with for nearly 30 minutes after the conference ended (another story).

After the President of the FEF does his introductions and speech, we eat our dinner salads. During that time one of Marshall's professors comes to him and asks if he's met the representative from Denison Industries, the company that we're hoping Marshall will get to work for this summer. Apparently it was the gentleman sitting right behind Marshall, who at the time of the conversation was out of his seat. Moments later he returns, and according to Marshall, Marty tells him, "So, I hear you're coming to work with us this summer." Marshall: "We haven't heard a response back from Denison, but I definitely want to." "Here's my contact information, and we'll work it all out." !!!!!  Marshall has the contact information for someone at Denison and can ask questions about details for his internship!!!! Oh, this made me so happy!

Side note, things that Denison and Marshall will have to negotiate are:  terms of employment, salary, living accommodations, working hours, length of the internship, and also getting the first week of July off for us to go on vacation.

If meeting someone from Denison wasn't enough, Ed, the gentleman on Marshall's left, works at a foundry in Spokane, Washington, which is only 20 miles from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I want to move to CDA so much, and now we have a contact at a foundry that Marshall *could possibly work for!!! Needless to say I was one excited wife as we were driving home. Not only are the odds in Marshall's favor for having a spectacular internship at Denison for the entire summer, but we could move to CDA and Marshall be employed in his field. *dreamy sigh

April Agenda

The spring semester is almost over. Marshall has three weeks of classes then finals before he's free from the bus and homework until late August!

On the 20th we have an award ceremony to attend on campus. Marshall is being awarded the Engineering Department's Leadership & Service Award, and the event is open to friends and family. His parents are coming up from Houston, and I'm taking the (much needed) day off from work. We are all very proud of him, and realize just how far he's come from this time last year.

On the 24th we will celebrate our three year engagement anniversary and same milestone of me graduating from UNF.

The first half of the month has been very busy with our trip to Lufkin and in-laws coming to Austin for Easter weekend. I also had some social events this week, which made time go by very quickly.

All in all, life is good. :)

Could It Be?

Could it really be happening?! Our summer plans are S...L...O...W...L...Y becoming more clear.

Marshall interviewed for an internship scholarship through the American Foundry Society on the 13th, and found out later that day he will be one of the recipients--hurray! The three-person panel that interviewed him are responsible for matching potential interns, such as Marshall, to foundries that are asking for them. The AFS group has three foundries to work with--two iron facilities in Dallas and one aluminum in Denison, Texas. They are going to make a strong recommendation to Denison to pick up Marshall. All emotion aside, he will be a great fit for this company and they have a fantastic reputation--Marshall is thrilled. Nothing is set in stone, but we hope the negotiation of his summer internship will begin soon. Traditionally the interns are on-site for 3-5 weeks. Marshall is available for 8-10, so the panel is going to see if Denison can work with this extension. The drawback is that Denison is further away than the Dallas foundries. If he's gone for only 4-5 weeks, we may meet up once in Dallas for a weekend, then I will see him when he's all through and back in Austin. If he will be there all summer, I'm hoping he can negotiate the first week of July off so we can take our vacation to Utah/Wyoming. We've been through a six month deployment and my 5 weeks in Peru before, so we'll be fine; it just won't be pleasant.

Lufkin, Texas is not for us

Marshall and I drove to Lufkin, Texas yesterday (I'm blogging from our hotel room while he sleeps) to check out the town and get away from Austin and our normal routine. We also wanted to take our first extended road trip in my new car, Donny, but find a drive where we could see lots of wildflowers along the road because this time of year is gorgeous.

I got a great deal on the nicest hotel here, a Courtyard Marriott, through Priceline.com. We left the house around 10:30 and made it to Crockett, Texas at 2pm. We had lunch at the Moosehead Cafe. Marshall had the patty melt with homemade onion rings, which were delicious, and pickled green tomatoes. I had a cheeseburger with fries. The burger had excellent flavor but the fries not so much. We drove through the Davey Crockett National Forest and then came upon a town called Diboll. This was the first town where buildings were spread out from each other and had some level of civilization about it. They had a gated community with a golf course. Could we still be in the heart of podunk Texas?

Diboll is a suburb of Lufkin, a town of 35,000, which is the size of my home town. The newer parts of Lufkin such as along the main highway seemed nice and I thought, "ok, this doesn't look as bad as the nearby towns." We found our hotel (we bought a new GPS Thursday night), and unloaded in our room. I browsed through a "Welcome to Lufkin" magazine, which did a great job promoting the city. Marshall and I wanted to get a massage. Ooops, they are all closed by 5pm. We also learned that everything closes on Sunday as well. Bummer. "How about go-karts? Do they have go-karts here at all?" I asked. Google showed us King Tut Park on the east side of town that had go-karts and put-put golf. We plugged in the address and headed that way.

What...a...bust! You could totally blink and miss this place. The go-kart "track" was an un-mowed field about 30x50 yards big. The put-put golf set-up looked like planks of plywood with green felt on them. It was "roped" off by orange plastic tape. The front of the "park" was overgrown, and we could barely see from the road because the grass was so tall. I burst out laughing! Imagine if someone taking you to this place on your first date! Only in Lufkin! Marshall was speechless and flabbergasted. He started laughing too. Wow, that would have been super romantic. We decided to check out downtown Lufkin instead.

Downtown was even more depressing. It was a little after 5pm and everything was closed (on a Saturday night) except for the Standpipe Coffee Shop. We went in so Marshall could refuel with a cup of joe. We asked two nice young ladies who worked there of a nice hole-in-the-wall restaurant. They recommended Manhattan's Restaurant, which was up a block and to the left. It was the most expensive restaurant in town. We asked if there was a dress code, and they agreed there wasn't one. They tried pulling up a menu online, but didn't have any luck. They had been there before, and we asked what the price range was like. "I think I had chicken alfredo there once, and it was $8.50. Maybe." Marshall and I just looked at each other. Austin has spoiled us. Marshall was thinking expensive meant $35-45 an entree. When he told the ladies this, they waved their hands and said, "no way. Nobody in this town would pay that much." Again, Marshall and I looked at each other. After we left the Standpipe, we walked 90 seconds to Manhattan's and found their menu. It leaned more to the Italian palette. The steaks were $15-$30. Sure, we decided to give it a try later because we were still so full from lunch. Other than a bridal store and multiple antique shops on the main strip of downtown, there were boarded up buildings for rent and nobody walking around.

Next Marshall took me to where Lufkin Industries was. It's a massive facility, and I know Marshall could  learn a lot if he got an internship there this summer. We had to go through the surrounding residential neighborhood, and it was rather depressing. I would not buy a house here. No way! In my mind, it would be a complete waste of money. Marshall asked, "Do you want to look at other neighborhoods?" My response, "No, I just want to go back to the hotel." On our way back, I told him I could not live here.

Back at the hotel, I turned on the TV and came across Bridesmaids on HBO. Around 8pm we went to the car to head to the restaurant downtown, when I changed my mind. "How about we go to the Walmart over there, pick up a bottle of wine, have the bartender at the hotel open it for us, swipe some cups from somewhere and order pizza to our room instead?" Marshall was all over it! We opted not for wine but Shiner Wild Hare pale ale beer for him and green apple Smirnoff Ice for me. We ordered a supreme pizza from Papa Johns, which only took 20 minutes to get to the hotel (I was quite pleased). We finished the movie and then just had a good, fun time by ourselves being silly and joking around. My 2 drinks did me in and made me sleepy. I was asleep by 10:30. Definitely not a night owl.

While we were at Walmart, I was completely taken aback at how unhealthy and unfit the local people are. Then it dawned on me how much Austin has spoiled us because we live in such an active city. I'm alway seeing people walking or running with their dogs, roads being closed due to a race of some kind, people rowing or kayaking on the lake and gangs of bicyclists taking up an entire lane on the road. Austin is one of the top ten most fit cities, and until my visit to the Lufkin Walmart, I didn't realize how much I value what that status meant. Our next home has to have lots of outdoor activities and people taking advantage of them, that's for sure.

Marshall is still sleeping right now, but I'm getting hungry, so I'll probably wake him up so we can get breakfast. I have a nice April Fools joke planned. He knows I don't like coffee, won't even touch it. I'm guessing he'll order some with breakfast, and when it's cooled a bit I'll ask if I can try some. He'll willingly give me the cup, and I'll take a sip, ponder it for a split second then say, "Well, it's not as bad as I thought. Maybe I even like it a little bit." Of course he'll be excited and say, "Really?!" Then I will say, "nope, sorry. April Fools!" muahahhahahahah