Blegh.

Today I told Levi that I was a little concerned because I hadn't felt morning sick for a couple of days. I had felt icky, but not exactly morning sick. Not thirty minutes after I told him this, I had to run full steam to the bathroom, where I unleashed the pent-up morning sickness fury. It was violent and Levi was in the other room cheering me on, "Yeah, this is good! Let it all out, baby!"
I yelled at him, "Just. Stop. Talking."
He did as he was told and I felt much, much better. So I guess this kid is alive and kicking and working me and my breakfast over big time.
Speaking of food, I've already gained back three pounds of the weight I lost so I'm pretty bummed about that, but it's all for a good cause. So far everything sounds tasty, except fish, which I had initially been craving. Cheetos have been my main craving, but that's not all that different from any other day :) I'm trying to make good choices with my food, but since I work full time, it's hard to grill chicken or buy fresh produce all the time. This is going to have to become a priority or I won't be able to fit in the house by the time I hit the second trimester.
We're getting super excited for my mom's move to Boise. Unfortunately, she was temporarily derailed for a while with extreme back pain, but my sister Laurie, my brother Scott and my aunt Bonnie stepped up and really helped her take control of the pain. She's had one injection and goes back for a second this week. We're hoping it not only takes this current pain away, but will prevent this type of pain in the future. She deserves to feel comfortable and I hope she'll be feeling alright when we make the drive to Boise.
Today is my day off and I haven't done much of anything except watch tv with Levi and drift in and out of sleep. I'm so tired all the time and the soothing narration on the Food Network hasn't helped me stay awake. Speaking of Food Network, has anyone watched the show "The Great Food Truck Race"? I just watched my first episode of it and I think it's great. It has seven or eight food truck vendors compete against each other on a road trip across the nation. I think it's be so fun to own a food truck. One group makes crepes out of theirs, another makes grilled meat sandwiches, etc. I think I'd like to do a traveling donut shop. Levi and I have been fantasizing for years about opening our own donut shop (especially in Boise, where there is a shocking shortage of them!) and a donut truck could be the solution! Location is tricky in Boise so it'd be nice to create a mobile shop that could park anywhere (downtown during the BSU games, business parks in the mornings, near the college on weekends, etc.) Anyone want to invest in our truck? Ha ha!
Well, thanks again for all the kind words and the support. It's been such an overwhelming thing to feel so loved. I love you all!

Bittersweet Day

27 years ago today, my dad passed away. Today, at 9:00am we saw our baby's heartbeat for the first time. I can't help but think that the two are connected. I have felt such tremendous love through our fertility process and now I actually feel like there's an unseen hand (attached to big muscly arms that gave great hugs) that is helping us as well.
Levi is 100% sure that we're going to name our baby Gordon if it's a boy. I'm still on the fence about that one....I'm not sure we'll cool enough to pull that name off yet :) We are absolutely ecstatic for this child, and I know I must really be pregnant because I've already thought, "Wait! Are we sure we're actually ready to have a child??" As if these last two and a half years of trying to get pregnant didn't happen. LOL!
Thank you to everyone who has helped us through this process, whether it was an encouraging email, a hug or even a donation towards our fertility process. You are all so amazing and this child will most definitely know how much everyone cared.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

"Our lives are in danger, you beatnik!"

I couldn't think of what to name this post and my brother Scott and I have been quoting the movie "Clue" a lot. So there you go.

It's been a, um, interesting week :)
I'll post more about that after 11:00am on Friday *wink wink*
Mostly this week has been dominated by what I call, "The Dining Room Table Drama." I fell in love with a mid-century modern dining set at an antique store and did something totally out of my nature: impulsively bought it, without taking ANY time to think it through. Anyone who knows me knows that for the past five years I haven't had an impulsive shopping bone in my body. All pleasure I got out of shopping has long since died. Or so I thought. I bought this dang dining room set on a whim, sold our fantastic butcher block table and four ikea chairs on Craigslist for next to nothing (by the way, if you want to know if you priced something too low, the answer is apparent when you receive sixty phone calls in less than eight hours.) Anyways, with our old table and chairs gone and the new table in, it turns out that I don't like the dining set. In fact, I HATE the dining set. The word "hate" doesn't actually begin to cover it. Much like an incident involving my sister Laurie and some red brick, I am physically ill when I see this inanimate object. (Again, this physical nausea is related to the news that I'll be more inclined to talk about after Friday, but is still very real whenever I see the table.)
This week did have some fun points too. A couple of days ago, we celebrated my belated birthday with my in-laws. Avery and I have birthdays two days apart, but with the wedding and everything else going on, we didn't get to celebrate with the Gates clan. We had some amazing BBQ at Brad's house and then we watched the DVD with the wedding photos on it with Chris and Avery. It was a great night.
Work has been interesting. As some of you have probably heard, B&N is in the midst of a buy-out and it's been a little bit weird. I'm confident that we'll be alright, especially since we're the only B&N in western Idaho, but it's still scary. I'm just trying to think positive and hope that the best will work out. It just has to.
My mom has had a bad week and any prayers that anyone could say for her would be very appreciated. Her back, which has always had issues, has been especially bad this week, reaching it's worst point yesterday when Laurie had to take her to the emergency care because she couldn't even walk. She's taking lots of meds to help with the pain today, and she's hoping to get into a doctor tomorrow to get a shot that will block the pain to the nerve in her back. I really hope and pray she can be seen as soon as possible and move on past this pain. She deserves better and I hate hearing her down like this. Again, if anyone reading this can just keep her in their thoughts it would be very appreciated.
Well, I better go. I have completely neglected doing any sort of laundry this week and it has finally caught up to me. I almost reached the "Wearing-swimsuit-bottoms-as-underwear" point, but I found an old pair under a pile of socks in my drawer. Success! I'll probably wait until Friday to update again. Until then I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Avery's Wedding

Last Monday, (8/9/10) Levi's little sister Avery married her long-time boyfriend Chris in a gorgeous ceremony at the Idaho Botanical Garden. It was one of the most fun weddings I've ever been too, everything from the ceremony itself, the dancing, the previous day's BBQ rehearsal dinner at Chris & Avery's house, the weather, etc. Just a great day!

Social Distortion

Last night, Levi and I saw Social Distortion play and it was as good of a show as I've ever seen them play. Seriously, those guys only get better with age. Mike Ness looks so good, there must be a portrait aging away in some attic in southern California, because that man does not look any different than he did ten years ago. Any band who can cover Johnny Cash, Rolling Stones, Kitty Wells, and so many others, as well as write some of the best original rockabilly/punk is just fine in my book.
Everything was great, except for the part when Levi and I were just enjoying the show and two drunk girls started fighting in front of us and threw beer all over us. That was fun, let me tell you.
They played all of my favorite songs (actually, they could have picked any of their songs and they would have been my favorite.) I especially liked them playing "Making Believe" and "Reach for the Sky".
If you have a chance to check them out, I highly recommend it. I hope to take Ryan one of these years (and we'll make sure we're not next to the drunk, fighting chicks!) No cameras were allowed, otherwise I could have got some great pictures we were so close to the stage.

Here are two of their best songs:




Oh yeah, here's an acoustic version of Bad Luck that's on a DVD that we have. I love it!

Update coming....once my camera wakes back up.

My sister-in-law Avery's wedding was PERFECT. It was such a great day and I'm so bummed that my camera's battery died before I could get all the pics uploaded. I'll hopefully have them up by tomorrow.
It was a magnificent day and Avery and Chris are going to have a wonderful life together. I love them both to bits and pieces.

The Horrifying Incident of the Bird in the Night-Time.

I am forever traumatized.
A couple of nights ago, around 10:30pm, I hear Levi yelling downstairs at our cat Oliver, who was outside in the backyard at our sliding glass door. Then I hear him yell at our dog, "Eww Buster! No!" Oliver had brought a little bird home with him, which is gross enough, and then Buster had grabbed it and chomped down on the poor thing. Levi grabbed the bird and threw it over our fence, into our front yard and came inside to tell me about it.
I asked if if the bird was still alive or not and he said, "I'm sure it's dead. There's no way it lived through that." Well, I knew better than that and we went out in the front yard and found the poor thing still alive and totally immobile. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. The little guy was beyond traumatized and I burst into tears. I got a shoe box and filled it with paper towels and scooped the bird into it, until we could figure out what to do.
In Boise, there's a place where you can take birds who have been injured and they'll either euthanize them or treat them, if their injuries aren't life threatening. Of course, that place is not open at 10:30pm, so we called a 24 hour vet to find out what we should do. They said they would take care of the bird for us (euthanize it) but they're office was pretty far from our house and the bird was suffering. They asked if we felt comfortable, "humanely putting it down" ourselves. Levi's face went totally pale and he told them that he didn't have it in him to kill a bird.
At this point, I was a blubbering idiot and I knew that we had to take care of the bird ourselves because it was in a lot of pain and I didn't want it to suffer while we drove to the vet's office. (I know a lot of you are probably laughing right now, since anyone who knows my zoologist Grandpa Allen knows his various methods of quickly and painlessly putting animals down. The gene that allows a person to calmly put an animal down did NOT get passed to me!)
Needless to say, Levi and I solemnly discussed our options and the various methods we could do it. Sparing you the details, let's just say it all ended in the back alley behind our house, with me behind the wheel of my car, sobbing, as I drove quickly over a plastic bag.
It was a traumatizing night and one that I hope will NEVER be repeated. I couldn't even look kitty Oliver in the eyes for two days, I was that mad at him. Ah, the circle of life.

Redfish Lake and a busy, busy summer!

A week ago we went to Redfish Lake and had an amazing time. My mom came up to Boise on Thursday, we left early Friday morning and came back Sunday evening. It was absolutely perfect (with the exception of the random rain delay, which caused us to have to wait a couple of hours before we could go to the beach.) We ate like gluttons, got lots of sleep and took in plenty of sun (well, I did. Levi likes to hide under his little beach umbrella.)
After we came home, my mom and I went around town getting her ready for her move up here next month. She got a new account set up at a local credit union, found a storage unit and lots of other move-ready details. We can't wait to have her here! Now we just need to get rid of our couch and cushy chair to make room for her sectional couch, which is much, much better!
A couple of weeks ago, Levi's mom moved back to Boise from Texas with her new husband Leo. Maria is such a sweetheart and it's fun to think that she's just down the road from us again. With Zane's mom moving here from San Jose a couple of months ago, the trifecta of mother's moving to Boise will be complete!
The last couple of weeks have been filled with getting ready for Levi's sister Avery's wedding. She's marrying Chris, her boyfriend of over three years, and we're so excited for the big day. Levi is performing the ceremony (with a license that was done through email, thankyouverymuch!) It's going to be a great day and Avery will make a wonderful wife! We bought Levi some new dress clothes and I think he's going to look sharp. I made him buy a vest because I think vests are awesome on guys, especially Levi. The dress that I bought a few months ago for the wedding is way too big for me now (a good problem to have, I suppose) but I'm just going to have to make do. I shopped around the mall yesterday to see if there were any dresses on sale and I have never seen so many ugly things in my life! What happened to the style out there!? Heather took her kids school shopping yesterday and said the same thing. The styles these days are just not flattering on anyone, and I'm not sure why stores keep stocking their racks with ugliness. Oh well.
Well, I'll try to keep the blog posts updated. It's just been a crazy, busy summer and it will be nice to relax when it's all over (although, the thought of fall and winter in Boise make me want to cry. Can we say Seasonal Affective Disorder!?)







P.S. Yesterday we celebrated Wilson's birthday at Heather's house, because he will be at Redfish Lake on his actual birthday next week. We had Wilson's favorite dinner (DELICIOUS pasta w/ chicken and cream sauce) and watched him ecstatically open his presents. Happy Birthday Lil' Wil!


(If you want to make a little boy happy, get him a Leatherman!)


Levi liked Wilson's new toy! Levi got his Red Sox tattoo touched up yesterday, hence the shiny plastic on his arm.


Eliza got cute new school clothes and I absolutely love this sweater!