Mothers Day

To all you mothers out there, but especially to my mother and to my mother-in-law,

Rochelle & Anne-we love you both and really appreciate all you do for us and have always done for us! We are blessed and grateful to have both grown up with such great moms raising us!

Love, Wes & Beckee

Last Chance...

OK, Baby will be here on Tuesday, and in case anyone is taking bets or gambling on the baby's name, this is your last chance to guess. Though I am not revealing anything, I think Wes and I are pretty sure of the name...good luck with your guesses... :)

Of due dates...

OK-you may have noticed that I have like 3 different baby counters on this blog with all different countdowns and due dates...let me explain...According to my last menstrual cycle (August 17th) the due date would be May 23. However, my doctors office put it down as May 25th (we learned this week that some of the wheels the offices use are 2 days off-evidently my doctor's office has one of those wheels). In the first 2 early ultrasounds that were done (and that are supposed to be the most accurate) the due dates were May 23rd and May 17th. The one that said May 23 was done by a tech in the hospital about a week and a half before the one that said May 17th. That one was done in the doctor's office by an OB that did a fellowship in ultrasound. So, obviously there was some discussion as to whether the due date should be changed to the 17th or not. I have, since then been going with the 17th due date-it seems to me to be the most accurate based on all the information through the whole pregnancy. But, officially they have not changed the date from the 25th. In this later part of this pregnancy this has caused some hassle because there has been some question as to how far along I am. But, regardless of all that crap, I am being induced on Tuesday, May 13th (yes in two days)...Yeah!

My Brilliant Kids and their leaning tower

Yesterday Wes took my aunt Kris and our older 2 kids to Nine Mile Falls to get out of the house and stuff. Evidently, while there they came across the scene you see above in the pictures. Ender saw the leaning tree in the pics and said "Look guys! The leaning tower of Pisa!" And Solace said, "No Ender. That's the leaning tower of TREEZA."

Heard at our home this morning

Mom: Solace, why are you going crazy?
Solace: Because I like the experience of crazy.

Thoughts from a former dater...Freshman year of college examined...

So, as mentioned in the last blog I just posted, my friend Laura wrote about her embarrassing moments this week. One of her embarrassing moments was about a blind date, and it got me thinking of the blunders of my dating life. There were a number of funny dating stories that came to mind. I just thought I would share a few for those of you that might be interested (this might be one of those long blogs...)



First I would like to just start out by explaining that my dating philosophy was simple: Date a LOT! And I shamelessly flirted and schemed to get asked out a lot. Most of my dating life, from when I turned 16 until I married Wes was spent dating a LOT-at least 2 dates a week I would say-no joke. SO, this basically just means that I have a plethora of dating stories to pull from. Those of you that are reading this that were in my Young Women's group on Omaha are already aware of the extensive pool of dating stories I have as you heard about a different one each and every dating lesson...That being said, enjoy some of my favorite dating blunders & funny stories. And those of you that I dated, or that double dated with me, or that know any other stories, feel free to mention them in comment form (I know this is opening a can of worms for Heidi, Andrea, Kirsten, and probably many others, but oh well).



Blunder 1: Not recognizing excellence?!



As a freshman in college, I was clueless sometimes. I was a small fish in a big pond. Nonetheless, my crazy tactics seemed to get me attention. I was taking a lot of generals that year and had huge classes with people from lots of different majors! In one history class, I sat down one day and this huge tall guy sat right next to me (no one sits right next to someone they don't know in a huge lecture hall). I kinda looked at him funny, and moved over a seat. He followed me and said in a thickly accented voice, "Hi!" Again I looked at him funny and said in my most annoyed voice "Um...hi." and moved over again. Again he moved over and said, "I play basketball." I looked at him and said, "That is a sad line! Does that seriously work?" Then I stood up and walked to the next row. He again followed and said "Really I play basketball! It's not a line. DO you like basketball?" At this point I was dumbfounded at this guys persistence in trying to use this retarded, obvious line on me and I kinds lit into him about how bad that line was and how he was going to have to try it on dumber girls to get it to work, then I told him I was going to be moving and that he should not follow me. He looked shocked and dumbfounded as I left. The next time we had class the teacher had the guy come up so he could congratulate him on the great job he had done over the weekend in helping the Utes win the big game. Turns out the guy was Hanno Möttölä ( a huge star that year, google him if you wonder who he is!). This is particularly mortifying if you know what a HUGE Utes fan I am , and if you know that I actually attended and was a fan of the basketball team. Whoops...



Blunder 2: Yet another Freshman moment...



SO, after the Hanno Möttölä incident, I took a LOT of harassment from my dad (if you know my dad, you can imagine...). Later in the basketball season, the Utes made it to the Final Four, and I got ticket to the games. My dad and I went to San Antonio to watch out Utes play, and had a blast. We were total nerd super fans and even went to the team hotel and hung out and went to the parties with the team and all that crazy fan stuff. We immersed ourselves in Utah Final Four madness and loved every minute. Fast forward about a week to me being back on campus. I was walking from a theatre class to my car. As I walked past the bookstore, I noticed this guy come out and he looked at me and I noticed he started following me in the parking lot. This freaked me out a bit as I was sure this was not someone I knew. About halfway across the parking lot, this guy kinda catches up with me and was like"Hey-didn't I see you in San Antonio?" I said snottily, "Um...no, I don't think so." He said, "I was sure I saw you there. Weren't you in San Antonio?" I said basically blew him off at that point. Then a friend of mine caught up with me and said "Wow, I had no idea you were friends with Andre Miller! That is awesome!" Yeah, Turns out that guy was, in fact, Andre Miller (THE superstar of the basketball team that year). Google him-he's still pretty famous...

Blunder 3: Missing the REAL Excellence

This is a true story! I have decided my life, in particular the story of me and Wes is a big romantic comedy of errors. It is one of those ones where the boy and girl keep almost meeting over and over until the end when they FINALLY bump into each other and eventually things work out ant they live happily ever after. Just a few near misses from our lives...

Miss one...Wes and I both lived in the University of Utah Village as small children, though we never crossed paths somehow. In my movie visions, I see us as toddlers, barely missing each other on the playground, I see his mom calling him in for lunch right as I walk out my door to play and things like that-I see me going to the same church house, but I am leaving as he is arriving...things like that.

Miss two...and this is the big one, Wes and I were in the SAME institute choir freshman year of college and never knew it. (Does anyone else notice that this blog makes me look like freshman year was a total bomb for dating?! No offense to Tim, Kevin, or anyone else I might have dated that year...) We went to practice at noon everyday together, hung out at the institute and performed together and NEVER noticed one another. I seriously did not believe Wes when he told me he was in choir with me, I thought i knew everyone. So, I pulled out my choir contact book, and sure enough, there he was...And another crazy part of that story was that at the end of the year, people did "last will and testaments" to leave to each other-usually funny little inside jokes and stuff. No joke, Wes and I are mentioned in the same sentence, our names right next to each other for dying our hair goofy colors that year...Evidently we had all the same friends and everything...NUTS!!

Miss three...meeting and not realizing the cosmic connection...OK, well, maybe we did notice the attraction, but it took us both a few months and a relationship each between meeting officially and our first date. I guess we just were distracted by other people momentarily, but thank goodness we fixed that!!

SO, this blog took a total turn, and ended up not getting in as many of my blunder of dating as I expected. It also only covers a small portion of my Freshman year and ignores all my other years of dating completely. It is also too long, so that being said, I will have to save this dating storied for a later segment. Feel free to comment and if there are anymore particular stories you feel should be aired on my blog in my next dating segment, feel free to comment and let me know...seriously, I could write a book about my dating life-it was fun, and crazy, and insane...

Embarrassment...

OK, so my friend Laura posted a tag about her most embarrassing moment and after you read it, you are supposed to comment on it then you are it (meaning you have to post your most embarrassing moment too)! This was a very interesting thought to me. I have, in fact been avoiding reading the whole post until this morning as I have been reflecting on what I might write as my most embarrassing moment...I have all these stories I tell about slightly embarrassing moments in my life when people ask, but let's be honest, the REALLY embarrassing stories are not ones I like to repeat-even years later...

That being said, this is probably my actual most embarrassing story that I rarely tell...I don't know why it embarrassed me so much, but it did, and I can still feel my cheeks filling with blood and getting red as I begin to type this...silly!!

OK-when I was a teenager, I got a ticket for an accident I had. In order to get it off my record and avoid a huge jump in my insurance (which my parents paid at the time), my dad used his great skills as a lawyer to make a deal. SO, instead of the ticket on my record, I did as many deal-making Americans before me had done, and I went to traffic school. This consisted of all day on a Saturday in a room in the courthouse with guards & security everywhere, and with other bored, uninterested law-breakers and a very boring teacher. It was like a day of prison...

There were crazy rules of the day to be sure you satisfied all of the required hours, nay minutes of traffic school-one such rule was that you couldn't leave the room for any reason except at designated breaks. This is never a good thing for me as I have had bladder problems since I was a small child. Needless to say, minutes into our morning, I had to pee like crazy, and could not leave the room until our first designated break hours later. I sat there as I should holding it for hours, and as the break was coming up, I was on the brink of a serious problem, so seconds before the teacher officially let the class go, I bolted for the door, convinced the guard to let me out just a second early, and bolted for the bathroom. I rushed into the bathroom and into the stall, and happily made it! Yeah!!!

I was so happy about the whole thing I literally let out a loud audible sign of relief in the stall (I may even have mumbled a "Nice..." under my breath). Then I opened the door of the stall to a FULL room of men standing with their backs to me (thank goodness) at urinals, all of them were of course looking over their shoulders at me with shock and laughter. It was mortifying, and I wished I had been graceful or funny and said something like "sorry, the ladies room had a line" but instead, I turned bright red, ran into my prison and hid in the back of the room. First thing back in class the teacher called me up to demonstrate something and no joke every man in the room started to laugh hysterically...

So, there you go. My embarrassing moment! Now that you read it, feel free to comment and them you can consider yourself tagged to post your most embarrassing moment as well!

Interesting...

So, I just took this quiz that I stole off Heidi's blog, and found that evidently I am Pocahantas...Interesting since she might be my least favorite of them all, and I don't really see the similarities, but oh well...at least the written part of their analysis as to why I match Pocahantas is pretty good...

You Are Pocahantas!

Free-spirited and wise. You have a strong passionate spirit that touches and changes all who know you. The wisdom and common sense that you have is really what guides you through life. Even so, you also have a very playful side that loves adventure and excitement.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Especially for Kris (Hope you like pictures!!)

For his birthday, Ender got a kids digital camera. He and his siblings have had a hay day with it!! They have literally taken hundreds of pictures. Some are of stuff around our house-25 are of the carpet, but here are some of their favorites:

XiaXia visiting. Spence & XiaXia
Solace chilling
Army's funny face.
Ender in one of his birthday outfits!
Army in his beloved new "Jorj" outfit.
Solace laughing at mom's big ol' belly...
Army is angry-what's with the bottle top?! Seriously!!!
Dad showing off Solace's design for her egg dropping experiment.

This is the egg in the inner part of the protection.

Solace and her tower.
Ender's favorite (artistic) self portrait.
Army again-he is a favorite picture subject.
Grandma (see we have had a lot of visitors!!)

Aunt Angie with hard boiled egg for breakfast.

Army happy at breakfast (let's face it-he's happy at all meals).
Ender fakes grumpiness...
Solace eats breakfast.
Ender's homework assignment (all the things around his face represent his favorite things).

Angie

Angie, Army & Solace
Angie and Solace
Mom is silly!
Mom's BIG belly.

Ender's talk (non-video format)

Here is Ender's talk from Church. He gave it in Primary on the 20th. My mom helped him as I was stuck at home and Wes was stuck at work. He showed the pictures and read the words (with XiaXia's help). I will put the words above each pictures...(Oh-his talk was supposed to be along the theme "I will Follow the Prophet", and he wanted to talk about his Aunt Cathy, so this is what we came up with.):

In general conference this month, we sustained a new Prophet, President Thomas Spencer Monson. I know he is a true prophet and that we should listen to his words.

In the last Conference President Monson told a story about a boy he knew that had died and what he had told the boys mother. Then he bore his testimony and said:"I expressed to Mrs. Patton my personal testimony as a special witness, telling her that God our Father was mindful of her—that through sincere prayer she could communicate with Him; that He too had a Son who died, and one day we would see Him face-to-face."This is my great aunt Cathy.


My Aunt Cathy died a couple of weeks ago. We were very sad.
I remembered what President Monson had said and I know we will get to see Cathy again
I know we have a living prophet and that we should listen to his words. I am grateful for him.

One more thing to do before I die

Wes and I will be buying an island sometime before we die...likely in the Philippines. I will post a link to some like the ones we are looking into very soon...